The Best Peptide & Supplement Stack For Hair Growth, Smart Drugs For An Aging Brain, “Aging Anxiety” & More! Solosode #499

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: In this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, the best peptide supplement stack for hair growth, smart drugs, aging, anxiety, and a whole lot more. All right, welcome to the show. Open up my beverage here. This is not a podcast sponsor. They should be lemonade, salt, element, element. Do you say element or element? I don't know. A sparkling electrolyte drink, 500 milligrams sodium, blah blah, blah, potassium, blah blah blah, magnesium. I just need something to wet my whistle.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:38]: This is a solo sode, a Q and a solo sod with a few news flashes thrown in. I've been doing these for years just as a chance to get some cool information out to you guys. Just stupid old me. None of those smart cookies that I usually interview while walking on the treadmill. The shownotes are going to [email protected] 499. I guess that puts us on the cusp of our 500th episode. Speaking of treadmill, a few of you have reached out recently and told me that you don't like it when I'm breathless on the treadmill. I.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:12]: I did say breathless, not breathless on the treadmill. Interviewing a podcast guest or just talking to you in general, I'm a little bit into movement. I think walking while you're working is something that I've talked about quite a bit as a health enhancing tip. However, I'm curious. I want to hear in the comments section, like, how many of you does it annoy the heck out of? How many of you are like, well, Ben's practicing what he preaches. How many of you couldn't care less and listen anyways? Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com499 Let me know your thoughts on the treadmill. That being said, let's jump into something truly important. We are going to start with listener Q and A.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:54]: You can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com and leave your questions. Ryan from Australia, should I use an Australian accent? I'll try. All right, Ryan, if you were to have a hair transplant, what peptide stack, a supplement stack would you take from your view? Australia is very sensitive here. Talking about these topics and getting advice is deep, difficult, mate. Lost all my Australian listeners. I'm sorry. Okay, so for those of you who didn't understand my accent at all, Ryan's asking about hair transplants and whether there is a peptide stack or a supplement stack that might help with that. Well, let's start here.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:37]: I interviewed my friend and world renowned cosmetic surgeon Cameron Chestnut in a widely popular podcast episode on All Things Hair loss, hair growth, hair discoloration, etcetera, etcetera. And he is one of the top hair restoration surgeons in the U.S. the key takeaway from that conversation, which I'll link to in the show notes, is that modern fue, which is called follicular unit extraction. Follicular unit extraction is the gold standard for a receding hairline that involves taking individual hair follicles from a donor area. I mean, could be anywhere, as long as it's a hair. It could be your fricking pubes, but that gets transplanted, leaving tiny dot scars rather than a long linear scar of what's called the old strip method. And the result can be pretty undetectable. With follicular unit extraction, it is only moving existing follicles from an area of your body, it can even be the back of your head, for example, to the thinning areas.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:43]: It does not stop the progressive loss of your native hair. Meaning that if you have a lifestyle that's full of, let's say, inflammation, poor blood flow to the scalp, poor genetics when it comes to your propensity for hair loss, use of testosterone enhancing therapies that result in a large amount of DHT building up in your body, all of that will continue to occur even if you get a hair transplantation, which means if you don't address the underlying cause of hair loss after a transplant, you'll continue losing the hair that wasn't transplant transplanted and eventually look pretty patchy again. And then the other thing to bear in mind is that I understand it can be expensive to get cosmetic surgery, which is what this is, and there might be other things that you may want to look into. Not that I would want to take any business away from my friend Dr. Chestnut, but let's face it, not everybody listening is going to go transfer their pubic hair to their head. So this is where things get interesting when we look into both basic and advanced things that you can do for hair health. As you can see, I have more hair than I know what to do with. It's all over the place.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:58]: I do a lot of the things that I'm about to describe to you. So let's start here. Many people, and I realize I'm starting with something that might seem almost just as fancy and expensive as a follicular transplant. It's not quite as expensive, but it is kind of up there as far as a more advanced protocol, and that would be stem cells and exosomes. There is one company called Dezawa. Dezawa makes MU cells and they have in the past several weeks, actually fresh, leading into this podcast, developed a aesthetic line, meaning they've taken mu cells, which are specialized regenerative cells that are well recognized for their inherent renewal capacity, and exosomes, which serve as extracellular messengers to support better cell communication. And what they've done is they have put those into an actual aesthetic product. Now, you still have to go through a doctor to get these cells and you can go through a doctor who can actually do a type of micro needling protocol like scalp aggravation.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:09]: And then you can use these cells in combination with exosomes for, for halting hair regression. And based on the data that I've gone through on their website over the past couple of days, actually encouraging the growth or the generation of new follicles. So this is almost like a hair regeneration protocol. Problem is, it's not available worldwide. It is becoming available in the us. You can find many clinics in Europe who would do something like this. But if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of that, I'll link to it in the show. Notes.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:45]: It's a mouthful. Dazawa aesthetics. Dazawa aesthetics, which I believe is just dazawaesthetics.com they have a skin product, they have a scalp product. I have not tried this. Admittedly, I have had Muse cells and exosomes from Disawa infused via intravenous administration and injected into joints with great efficacy. But I, for obvious reasons, have not needed to do the hair thing yet. Dr. Cameron Chestnut did treat me with one of his protocols in the clinic, like some lasers and microneedling.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:21]: But even then we weren't doing the follicular transplant. So next comes a peptide that a lot of people are talking about that is probably one of the most well researched hair peptides in existence. It's called GHK Copper Peptide. GHK Copper Peptide, abbreviated GHK cu. It's a naturally occurring what's called tripeptide, present in human plasma. It was discovered in the 70s and it is widely used in skin and hair products. It works through three mechanisms. It stimulates what are called fibroblasts, which is the growth of new cells.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:54]: It promotes new blood vessel formation. So hair follicles receive necessary nutrients and then it inhibits something called TGF beta to prevent follicles from prematurely shrinking. It also supports what are called dermal papilla cells to stimulate hair growth. So when you look at GHKCU, it is, I think it's about 50 Daltons in size. So as a peptide, it's small enough to be absorbed transdermally. And again, widely used now in the cosmetic regenerative industry, if that's a word. Typically what you would do is you would aggravate the scalp. This would be using something like microneedling.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:32]: Dermarolling would be another option. And then you apply and rub in GHK copper peptide. It's not hard to get your hands on GHK Copper peptide. Just this week, the FDA announced that it was going to allow for more peptides to be able to be purchased legally. That would still be going through a doctor who's getting them from a compounding pharmacy. I also get them from a company where you just do a quick telehealth call and then can get your peptides. That company is called Pepsual. I'll link to them in the show notes.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:02]: And then there are other companies where you don't need a doctor at all for something like GHK Copper peptide. One is a guy interviewed some time ago, Dr. Patel. He developed a transdermal glutathione and then a few months ago developed a transdermal GHK copper peptide. His company is called Oro A U R O. And that would just be like an over the counter, really quality peptide that uses some of the same technology that he built into his transdermal glutathione to allow for better absorption. So that's one that you just rub in. There's another more fringe peptide that would be a little bit more difficult to find, but it is in some topical serums.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:43]: There's a company called PLU Laboratories, for example, where I found it. It's called acetyl tetrapeptide. Acetyl tetrapeptide. So this is what's called a biomimetic peptide that assists specifically with hair density. It works by strengthening some of the proteins that are around hair follicles. They're called extracellular matrix proteins. There have been trials on it. It has outperformed topical minoxidil.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:10]: And I think it is somewhat safer than minoxidil. Topical minoxidil, it's not a huge deal. You can get some scalp IR irritation, some dryness, some itching, sometimes even unwanted hair growth on nearby skin. Oral minoxidil, bigger issue, right? Tachycardia issues, which means a super fast heart rate, unwanted facial or body hair that's called hypertrichosis and water retention or bloating. So not a fan of oral minoxidil. Still not a fan of some of the side effects of topical minoxidil. Or it's not going to kill you. But this newer peptide, acetyl tetrapeptide with or without GHK copper peptide would be a really interesting one to look into along with from a transdermal standpoint, these new aesthetics exosomes and stem cells.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:57]: And I think they have a dropdown menu or contact button on their website where you can just find a doctor near you who has those particular cells. So everything I just described might sound like the billionaire stuff. So let's talk about some more affordable topical or perhaps more accessible topical solutions. There's one company that I'm aware of called Scandinavian Biolabs. Scandinavian Biolabs has a product called the Biopilixen Activation serum. They blended 12 different ingredients. So this is what you might call one of those like shotgun formulas. It's got niacinamide, it's got caffeine, which actually has some interesting hair health properties.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:37]: Vanill butyl ether, something called Capilia Longa, which is a turmeric derived stem cell extract from turmeric from curcumin or curcuma longa, which is what turmeric is called. And that's designed to treat hair loss by stimulating follicle regeneration and improving hair density. There have been some studies on it that show that it can slow the loss of hair. It may not stimulate a ton of new hair, but it would be one of those things that you could weave in along with some of these other tactics to slow the loss of hair. So bio labs, Scandinavian bio labs, they have a shampoo, they have a conditioner and they have this topical. I have used it again, not because I needed to, I just wanted to experiment with it and see what it was. Typically when I use something like this, I'll derma roll my scalp. There are also microneedling pens, I'll get to that momentarily that some people like better than derma rollers and then apply the serum.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:34]: And then you can also use their shampoo and conditioner which has some other biopilixone related ingredients in it. So would be kind of like three different products that you could get from Scandinavian Biolabs to use on a regular basis. They do ship to Australia. I did double check on this. They ship to the US I think they ship just worldwide and they have a pretty good money back guarantee on their stuff. So I've mentioned microneedling and derma rolling a couple of times with microneedling. When I interviewed Amitay Eshatel from Young Goose, he was talking about a Korean microneedling pen. I'll link to that in the show notes.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:16]: It seems that Korea has kind of like led the field of technology for the face and beauty in general for quite some time. They're obsessed with it. But the microneedling needles need to puncture the dermis where the hair follicle stem cell resides. And that's about 1.0 to 1.8 millimeters deep. So you would want a. A micro needling pen that is more than 1 millimeter deep. And that's one thing to look for. A lot of clinical pens will go like 1.5 millimeters plus that they'll use in like a cosmetic beauty clinic.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:52]: Then there are also derma stamps which also have adjustable depth settings. For example, there is one company called the doctor Pen. They make a derma stamp that's an adjustable device that has pretty good reviews for home use. For a roller. I get mine, the Derma Roller. I get mine from Ali Taura. A L I T U R A. That's a beauty company that also sells the clay mask that I use once per week just because I like to look like a freak of nature once a week with mud on my face.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:26]: And there's another one called the Koi Beauty Roller. K O I. You can get that one on Amazon, has good reviews on Amazon. It only goes about 0.5 millimeters, however, so I question whether it'd be deep enough for hair growth. You would go about once per week, again at around 1 millimeter. If you were going with less of a depth of penetration, like 0.5, you go two to three times per week. But you might not get quite as good results compared to going deeper. And then you would apply your serum like your GHK Copper peptide serum or Scandinavian Biolab serum.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:59]: After you microneedle. Some people warn you to not apply it for 24 hours so that you're not applying a serum into an open wound environment. I think that just depends on the aggressiveness of your microneedling or derma rol. I don't feel as though I'm too aggressive. My face isn't bleeding. It's just. It's a little red. And then I apply the product.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:20]: So. And then you have technologies. Technologies would be like low level laser laser therapy. There's one company called Lima. We have one of their lasers at our house. It takes a little bit of time. You got to hold it for like three minutes over an area. And then there are helmets like the Irestore helmet.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:42]: Mito red light makes a helmet. I believe that Higher dose might have a helmet. Now I actually wear a red light helmet, believe it or not, every morning when I'm working, it turns on for 12 minutes. I put on my head. Not sure since I do these other things, like what actually contributes the most to my very full head of hair beyond just genetics. But I think that you can say something for low level laser therapy like a combination of LED and laser therapy. And then when it comes to other supplements, I think the most important thing are collagen peptides or essential amino acids just to support the dermal matrix that anchors the follicles. If your hair loss is due to high levels of dht, again, the most important thing would be to back off excess testosterone.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:31]: If you're taking that as a supplement, like hormone replacement therapy. But saw palmetto at a range of about 300 or 400 milligrams per day can cause some 5 alpha reductase inhibition and that would help to lower DHT levels. So that could be something that you would think about also. So coming full circle, I'm just going to tell you what I do and maybe that'll, that'll help you generate a plan for yourself. I, I do the derma rolling and again, you can use a derma roller or a microneedling once a week. And after I dermaroll, I apply GHK copper peptide. I have the serum from Oro right now, A U, R, O. And then I wear the red light helmet almost every day.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:19]: I eat a diet that is high in nutrients, low in inflammation, and I also take about 20 grams of essential amino acids on a daily basis. So that's kind of my protocol. I just basically introduce light, I introduce atopical serum that may help with follicular health. I do a little bit of derma rolling and, and then I just pay attention to making sure I have the building blocks from a nutrient standpoint. So hopefully that helps point you in the right direction. Ryan, Australia has something called the TGA that can treat many of these peptides and supplements a little bit more restrictively than the US or Europe. So hopefully you don't run into too many issues. Ghk, copp, copper peptide topicals are usually fine as a cosmetic ingredient.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:03]: I know you can get minoxidil over there. You know, again, I'm not a huge fan of that Scandinavian biolabs, you should be able to get red light helmet. You should be able to get and yeah, that's it. Let's go to a question here. Let's see. There's a question from Kevin and Hypervant. I doubt that's Hypervent's real name, but that's the the person who wrote it. They're both asking about cognitive issues.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:26]: Kevin says, may I ask where a 63 year old with cognitive problems can start? And then Hypervant says, what nutrients or compounds do you still think are underrated for cognitive performance? Well, let's start here. Before getting into the underrated or lesser known things, let's acknowledge that there is a kind of like a short list of well established compounds that I'm not going to cover in depth because if you're not living under a rock, you already know about some of these things. For healthy cognition, I would say fish oil fits in that category. Caffeine, right? A good old cup of coffee. Most people are aware that nicotine can pack a punch these days, as can magnesium, especially in the form of magnesium, L threonate and B12. We're going to skip over those because most people already know about fish oil, caffeine, nicotine, magnesium, L threonate and B12. If you don't make a list, hit rewind, write those down. They can help with cognition and they're pretty good as base daily supplements.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:29]: Except with caffeine and nicotine, you need to moderate your usage. I wouldn't recommend using anything more than 10 milligrams of nicotine on a regular basis and stopping every now and again so you don't develop a huge tolerance to it. Caffeine I do anywhere in the range of 100-200mg a day and also stop multiple times per month or skip the cup of coffee multiple times per month. So I stay sensitized to it. And then we get to the stuff that you might be less familiar with. Creatine monohydrate kind of has one foot in the realm of. A lot of people know about it for memory and cognition some don't. But there are multiple human randomized control trials that show that creatine improves working memory processing speed and reduces mental fatigue, particularly under sleep deprivation or cognitive load.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:13]: You need a slightly higher dose anywhere in the range of eight plus grams. I right now am probably at about 10 grams of creatine on a regular day, closer to 15 to 20 on a sleep deprived or more cognitively demanding day. You don't need the super expensive fancy stuff, just plain Jane creatine monohydrate. I have the Kion brand at my house that's just Creapure from Germany, just plain white creatine monohydrate powder. And then I Also fancy the gummies also made with creapure that I get from a company called Xenos Z E N O S. Their blueberry flavor is amazing. So is the mango. Pretty good.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:51]: Creatine gummies. Another one is Bacopa Monieri. Bacopa Monieri, that's an ayurvedic herb that probably has the strongest human evidence base of any of the natural nootropics. So it has been shown to help with language, with learning, with memory. These are human studies. The catch is that it does require consistent use for 8 to 12 weeks minimum. You could kind of say the thing about creatine needs to build up in the system. You don't need to do a loading phase, but you don't really start to feel the effects in full for about two to four weeks.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:20]: With Bacopa Monieri it's about eight to 12 weeks before the effects really start to kick in. Even that magnesium L Threonate that I mentioned earlier, that one can be about eight weeks based on a conversation that I had that might have already been released when this podcast comes out with a magnesium L Threonate researcher. Anyways, Bacopa Moniere is what's called an acetylcholinesterase inhibitory. It keeps choline from breaking down quickly, which means that you could make a case for stacking it with a little bit of cytacholine or acetylcholine. But Bacopa Monieri, I would definitely give a head nod to that one. And then lithium is catching a lot of attention. When I interviewed Dr. Sandra Kaufman, she was proposing that people take, you know, 75 plus milligrams of lithium, which is a lot of lithium.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:06]: Typically you'd have to get that prescribed as a pharmaceutical, but you can get low doses of lithium in many products. Like I believe Life Extension has it in there. Another company, Pure Encapsulations Qualia Mind, had it for a little while. I don't think they still have lithium in their product, but that's another one that seems to support with overall stability. It promotes BNF, Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor. It can inhibit a GSK3 beta which, which is a key enzyme in Alzheimer's pathology. I would recommend you listen to my podcast episode with Dr. Sandra Kaufman where we get into what the effects of the higher dosages are.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:47]: After that interview with her, I personally tried about 75 milligrams of lithium for a couple of months. I didn't notice much, but I don't have many complaints about my brain and the way it works or its stability anyways. And obviously the higher doses of lithium like the 300 migs plus are often used use for psychiatry based conditions. So. So those are a few of the ones that are widely known, lesser known, and then we get into some of the more underrated ones to specifically respond to the question here. So underrated one is spermidine. Spermidine is a natural what's called polyamine that's found in living organisms that produce, you guessed it, sperm. I have even had salmon sperm applied to my face at a beauty clinic one time just for bragging rights.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:36]: So spermidine works by cellular autophagy, the cellular cleanup process that removes damaged proteins and mitochondria from neurons. Spermidine supplementation may promote mitochondrial integrity and function in aging brains. And the human evidence is actually a little bit promising. Randomized controlled trials in adults, older adults like 60, up to 96 years old, using dosages of anywhere from about one to three and a half milligrams of spermidine showed some good improvements in cognitive performance after three months of supplementation. That's the thing is many of these studies on brain nutrients, they don't kick in right away. You see time likes of 8 weeks, 12 weeks plus when they actually begin to kick in in terms of inducing better cognitive performance. Higher dietary spermidine intake was significantly associated with better cognitive performance across a lot of cognitive tests in adults age 60 or higher. When I say dietary, you can get it from wheat germ, that's really high in spermidine.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:35]: You can get it from aged cheese, you can get it from mushrooms, you can get it from soy, you can get it from fermented foods, you can get it from sperm. I'll let your brain go where it wants to go with that one and you can buy it as a supplement. Typically the dose is about 1 to 3 milligrams per day. Lion's mane extract is another one that can promote the synthesis of something called nerve growth factor. It may have some neuroprotective, some anti inflammatory and some cognition improving effects. And especially in middle age and older adults, and we're talking like 50 to 80 years old who have mild cognitive impairment. It seems that lion's mane can again help with cognitive function kicking in at about 8 weeks and continuing up to 12 weeks and 16 weeks. I will admit that results are mixed with lion's maneuver across clinical trials.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:26]: I've seen other trials where it really didn't show much of an effect at all, or at least no lasting benefits. But usually if you Were going to go with what has been shown to be effective in some studies, about 1 gram of Lion's mane extract, or 3 grams if you're lucky enough to have lion's mane growing near you of a dried mushroom extract. And there are companies like four Sigmatic, for example, is one that I know of who makes these little handy travel lion's mane packets. So, so that would be another one to look into, cytokoline. I mentioned that earlier. I'm going to dive into a little bit more here. It's a precursor to phosphatidylcholine and also raises acetylcholine levels. I like to think of it as gasoline for the brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:06]: Any smart drug or nootropic or other strategy that you're using, including those I've already described, I think can be enhanced through the use of choline. And I think that cdp choline in particular is kind of underrated in terms of its effects, particularly at about 250 to 500 micrograms per day, has solid human evidence. It actually crosses the blood brain barrier efficiently when it's there. It combines with DHA to build new synaptic membranes. That's via a pathway called the Kennedy pathway. So if you're smart and if you're tracking, then you have realized that by combining with DHA you could make a case that if you're using something like say fish oil or eating a Mediterranean diet that's rich in DHA levels, that you could benefit even more from a brain standpoint by supplementing with something like cytokoline. Choline is also found in walnuts, it's found in fish, it's found in eggs. But the higher dose supplementation I am a fan of, if you want more gasoline for the brain, a lot of nootropic blends actually use some form of choline like qualia, like on its alpha brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:16]: I believe it's in the pure encapsulations brain products. I'm pretty sure it's in the designs for health product. Choline is pretty widely used and I think cytokoline is a good form of it. And then the last one that I'll mention is taurine, right? Drink your Red Bull. I'm kidding. You can just buy taurine as a supplement and particularly if you're not eating a lot of meat, if you're a plant based dieter, you're probably going to have lower levels of taurine. And there was a 2023 study that was published in Science magazine or Science, what they call a magazine Or a journal anyways. They found that taurine levels declined dramatically with age and both animals and humans.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:52]: And supplementation in mice extended health span and restored markers of brain aging. It can regulate calcium signaling, it can reduce neuroinflammation, it can act on your GABA receptors to be kind of like a neuromodulator to keep excess inhibitory neurotransmitter activity from occurring. I would say not a ton of really really great human trials on it, but a lot of anecdotal evidence, especially in people who don't eat a lot of meat, that taurine seems to help quite a bit with brain function. It's about one to three grams per day. And then we get into the realm of biohacking technologies. One that's super popular now. I think Tim Ferriss has probably contributed to this and a lot of clinics are offering this now. It's called tdcs, Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:39]: That's a low intensity current that's delivered through scalp electrodes and it modulates what's called cortical excitability. This can significantly enhance memory access and has been shown to have beneficial effects on executive function in healthy young adults. There is a growing body of research in older adults also to enhance cognitive task performance. And the issue is that in many cases you gotta go to a clinic to get this done. However, there are some at home devices. One is sold as more of a performance enhancing agent, but I have one. I don't use it frequently just because it didn't really stick with me. Although I don't not use it because the evidence is there or is not there.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:25]: That's a triple negative. I don't not use it because the evidence is not there. It's mostly just because it's yet another headset that I need to put on. And I didn't feel personally subjectively like TDCS did a lot for me. But a lot of people are swearing by TDCS as a cognitive enhancing kind of like biohacking tool. Halo Sport makes a head worn TDCS device. There's another consumer accessible version called the Soterix S O T E R I X so Terex Medical I believe that the medical clinic nexthelp, the last I checked was rolling out tdcs. I think last time I was at awesome regenerative therapy I think they were introducing the unit.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:07]: So a lot of these clinics are kind of like like rolling out in clinic TDCS treatments and there are also at home devices and it's just basically modulating or controlling excitability in the brain. And then there's photobiomodulation. Now this is one that I do use. I have a device called the V light. I have podcasted with them two or three times now. That's transcranial near infrared light. It penetrates the skull and you can also use it through the nostril. And it has been shown in human studies, small studies, but studies nonetheless in humans to improve memory and reaction time and mood and what's called cytochrome C oxidase upregulation in your brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:45]: So the same type of mitochondrial pathways that get excited when you do a full body red light panel or red light bed, you can deliver directly to the head. And again, the Vielight. Vie Light is the device that I use for this. And there is a growing body of research on photobiomodulation for better mental function and cognition that you can easily find in PubMed. Some people like, well, can I just lay in a red light bed or can I just use a red light pen or can I use a red light helmet? You gotta be pretty close to the head and I think that the intranasal devices can enhance this even more. So check out the company Vielight V I E Light. I'll also link to the podcast that I did with them. And then the last one is Neurofeedback.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:26]: I have a Muse headband and it is, is monitoring my brain via lights and electrical measurements and then it is delivering audio cues and visual cues back to me. I mostly use it for napping, for meditation, for sleep. So that's, that's the Muse headband. Their new one is called the Muse Athena. That does a lot of those functions that I just described. You can also do clinical grade neurofeedback to downregulate or upregulate electrical activity in certain areas of the brain. One company called Peak brain, peak brain LA Dr. Andrew Hill, I've done multiple podcasts with him.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:04]: Guys like Dave Asprey have developed this four years of Zen protocol which is kind of like a really deep immersion into biofeedback to enhance focus. Memory could even decrease areas of the brain that have been triggered by say like ptsd, things like that. But neurofeedback and biofeedback is also becoming increasingly healthy, affordable and accessible through at home consumer devices like the Muse. For example, there are fancier, bigger headsets. I think Neuroptimal is one company that makes one. I believe it's called Somnus or something like that. They also have an at home head worn Device and I'll link to a few of those in the show notes. You can kind of see what they look like, but it's basically like brain wave or EEG guided training.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:53]: Now a lot of the things that I just mentioned would apply to the other question here that came from Kevin about what older adults would do. But it's important to understand that your brain can slow with age, but it's a little bit more nuanced than neurons just dying. So usually what you see with normal aging is a decline in tasks that require quick processing or transformation of large amounts of information, especially in a short period of time. Speed of processing, working memory, executive cognitive function, these can decline. Although cumulative knowledge or experiential skills like, I don't know, playing pickleball, those can be well maintained into advanced age. Hooray for pickleball. Hooray for old people playing pickleball. At the structural level, however, neurons can shrink, dendrites can become retracted.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:42]: These are the branching structures that receive electrical signals and myelin can deteriorate. That's the protective coating on axons. And that means neurons start to lose connection to other neurons across synapses. Neurogenesis can also decline with age. There can be a little bit of a net loss of brain matter and it's, it is an issue like every part of your body will naturally deteriorate a little bit with age. And although there's some neural deterioration with age, the brain does have the capacity to increase neural activity and develop neural scaffolding to regulate cognitive function. I just interviewed Dr. Tommy Wood who wrote a book called the Stimulated Mind where he really gets into this, this idea that by challenging the brain on a regular basis with unpredictability, with risk, with new scenarios, even things as simple as like going outside and walking on undulating terrain rather than strolling on a treadmill, you can do a of lot.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:35]: But I think the most common potentially reversible or addressable causes of cognitive decline at around like that, that 60 to 70 year old age range would be testosterone depletion, which can directly impair memory and processing speed and can, I think pretty easily be addressed through lifestyle practices and if it's appropriate, natural hormone replacement therapy with testosterone, low thyroid. So brain fog is a hallmark hypothyroid symptom and TSH can rise and T3 can drop a lot of times with age. Sleep apnea, probably the single most underdiagnosed cause of cognitive decline in middle age and older adults. You can get a sleep study or if you just want to fill around with it. You can wear a device that measures your oxygen consumption and your heart rate during the night. If you see multiple drops in oxygen and rises in heart rate could be a pretty good sign you have sleep apart apnea. High homocysteine. High homocysteine can be neurotoxic.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:32]: You can get a genetic test. You can see what kind of methylator you are. You can avoid folic acid and introduce compounds like methylfolate or a good vitamin B complex into your diet. There is some evidence that low vitamin D levels chronically can increase dementia risk in humans. So you can get your vitamin D within range and use like a vitamin D kitchen magnesium supplement to help with that blood sugar dysregulation. You know, frequent episodes of hypoglycemia can cause brain fog. And that would be a metabolic issue often addressed through diet and through exercise. And as you may have heard from stories of guys like Tony Robbins, for example, heavy metal burden, Mercury from fish, lead from old pipes.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:14]: It's worth getting some type of a metal test, whether it's via the hair, be the blood. There are ways that you can test metals. And I realize like, like we could do an entire podcast on everything that I've just mentioned. And then when you get into the non negotiables that I think have the most human evidence for helping old brains. I know I just insulted you by saying you have an old brain, but you do. You wrote the question. Exercise, specifically zone 2 cardio combined with resistance training, that would be the single most evidence backed intervention for neurogenesis for brain derived neurotrophic factor for hippocampus sample volume for slowing cognitive decline. Based on studies, I think if we extrapolate from young adults into old adults, you could say that high intensity interval training is probably just as good as zone 2 cardio and may save you a little bit of time.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:04]: Why not do all three, right? Like walk frequently, go on hikes every now and again, do some high intensity interval training and lift weights. Sleep architecture? Absolutely. Slow wave sleep is the time when your brain cleans out, when you have amyloid clearance via what's called your glymphatic system, the drainage system for your brain. And you should be prioritizing your sleep environment or your sleep temperature, the light in the room, the stress that you might experience in the bedroom, even the electrical or the potential EMF or electrical pollution in the bedroom. Address all of that. And then I mentioned DHA a couple of times. I think there is a reason that the Mediterranean diet is a diet associated with slowing cognitive decline. And I think that part of that is due to the Omega index and DHA intake.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:49]: DHA is critical for membrane fluidity. And as you're aging, I think it's a good idea to consider supplementation with some type of fish oil that's rich in EPA and dha. Or to just eat low metal clean fish on a regular basis. Shout out to my favorite source for clean fish, Cetopia. I get a delivery from them about once a month and it's incredible. And then there are some of the supplements that I already talked about. I would say spermidine, lion's mane, cytocholine, low dose lithium. All of those would fit into the category of something to consider when it comes to supporting an aging brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:27]: Some of the other biohacking type of protocols, I think specifically probably the lowest hanging fruit and the most effective for me is the red light therapy for the head, a device like Vielight. And then you could look into tdcs and see if something like that could work for you. You okay? Well, the last thing, because I mentioned I've been talking about aging, I've been talking about the brain aging. And one thing to consider is that you don't want to worry about all this too much. Right? That's the other side of the coin. The reason I say this is I do want to highlight a study that was just published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Psychoneuroendocrinology. And it talks about this new phenomenon of, of aging related anxiety.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:12]: We've always had people who might look at themselves in the mirror or assess how much their knees hurt, for example, when they're riding a bicycle and get anxious that they seem to be looking old looking what they might consider to be subjectively ugly or not able to do the tasks or sports that they enjoyed when they were young, quite as pain free as they did when they were adults. That's normal. But now there seems to be a new, an increase in aging or I'm sorry, anxiety that's due to either you feeling as though this elaborate, you know, whatever Brian Johnson esque five hour morning routine that, you know, even I'm probably guilty of making you think like you need to do like all the red light and all the PMF and hyperbaric and cold therapy and sauna, like you get anxious that you can't squeeze that all in and you get anxiety due to fomo. You know, know, I personally feel like my own routine is somewhat minimalist. Right. I move for about an hour a day in terms of like formal exercise. And then a lot of times I'm running some other things on my body during the workday, right? Some red light during emails, some hyperbaric while I'm taking a quick afternoon nap, things like that. But the idea of more and more tools being available to us, more supplements being available to us, more just crap and clutter and confusion to dig through on a daily basis can contribute to anxiety and, and this study goes into how paradoxically, this contributes to biological aging through epigenetic changes.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:42]: Meaning in the study they took over 700 women in the US and they were asked about how much they worried about becoming less attractive with age, having more health issues or being too old to have children. And then they collect blood samples to measure aging using two kind of gold standard epigenetic clocks. One that captured the pace of biological aging, it's called the doomed in pace. And one that estimates cumulative biologic damage called the Grim age test. Here's the bottom line. Having greater anxiety about growing old. I sounded like AI right there. Here's the bottom line.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:15]: But it is the bottom line. Having greater anxiety about growing old was associated with accelerated epigenetic aging as measured by epigenetic clocks. And so creating a negative feedback loop. Those biological changes could potentially contribute to physical decline and increased vulnerability to aging related diseases. So worrying about aging basically could make you age faster. What is the answer? I think be proactive about your health. Be reasonable. Understand that focusing on love and relationships and family and connection and joy and adventure is just as important as any of these other, you know, lion's mane, red light helmet tactics.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:56]: And don't worry about it too much. You know, I used to tell, when I was a personal trainer at the gym, I used to tell my clients, look, when you walk into the gym, the person who's judging you most harshly is yourself. Most people don't care that you have cellulite or that you're only bench pressing 50 pounds, or that you look like crap and you're flailing like a muppet on the treadmill, most people don't care and don't notice. And you're your own harshest judge. And when you begin to judge yourself less harshly and you accept that, as I wrote about recently on my blog, and I'll link to this in the show, notes, that you can just become the best version of your broken self. That's when you can really derive a lot of joy from the process of being healthy, in this pursuit of being healthy, but at the same time not worry yourself into this again, paradoxical corner of becoming less healthy because you're worrying about health or you're worrying about aging. So I'm going to stop there. I'm going to hold my TED Talk there.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:50]: Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com $499 for the show notes. Leave your comments leave your questions. Let me know if you do or do not like the whole treadmill thing or anything else that you would like to know about or ask related to this podcast and beyond. BenGreenfieldLife.com499 thank you so much for tuning in today.