Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: In this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, the dark truth about store bought wine, Costco hotdogs and extra virgin olive oil, metformin and GLP1 induced muscle loss and how to biohack, surgery, recovery and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist and nutritionist. And I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond. Today, I've got a lot of news flashes. I'm I don't think I'm doing any listener Q and A today. If you have questions, you can always go to the website. You can interact with my AI clone there at bengreenfieldlife.com or you can ask a question for the podcast. But today I just got a bunch of juicy crap for you.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:52]: BenGreenfieldLife.com/484 is where the show notes reside. I actually just want to jump right in this whole surgery thing. It's interesting. I have a client right now who's in hip surgery. He came to me, he had some pretty severe arthritic conditions in his hip. We did a lot, but ultimately he needs surgery. So he's in surgery. And we've been talking back and forth about ways to enhance your recovery from surgery, ways to bounce back faster because frankly the old school rest, ice, compression, elevation and you know, possum, ibuprofen is, well, it's old school.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:30]: So I want to go over some of the things that I would do if I ever, God forbid, had to get a surgery. Could happen someday. I'm a pretty active guy. I wouldn't be surprised. Or that you can do if you happen to go in for a hip replacement or a knee scope or a boob job or I don't know, I don't even know what the recovery time is for a boob job. Haven't looked into that. Glad I haven't had to. But anyways, surgery, recovery, what are of the things that I would do? I'm going to walk you through some of the dietary principles, some of the supplement principles and some of the so called biohacking principles that will assist with surgery recovery.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:11]: And no, I'm not necessarily saying put butter in your coffee to recover faster from surgery. I'm going to talk more about technologies like PEMF and HBOT and some of those weird alphabet letter soup acronyms. But let's start with the simple stuff. So first of all, let's start with processed sugar. Big deal, right? You probably already knew that. But I do recommend reducing the intake of processed foods, especially those high in sugar, because that may enhance surgery recovery via the pathway of mitigating inflammation and stabilizing blood glucose levels. We know that high sugar intake

Ben Greenfield [00:02:45]: not having a sweet potato with dinner, you guys. And not like throwing out the beet chips that you got from the healthy food section at the airport store because they're laced with fine amounts of cane sugar. Organic unicorn tear infused cane sugar for that matter. But I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about high sugar intake, okay? I'm talking about soda pops and cake and candy and that whole grain scone frosted with frosting at the coffee shop. High sugar diets can lead to low chronic grade inflammation that can impair the body's ability to heal wounds and recover from surgery trauma. Research has shown. I'm not just making this stuff up.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:21]: That hyperglycemia delays wound healing. Specifically, it does that by reducing leukocyte function and increasing oxidative stress. So if you want to reduce systemic inflammation and improve immune function, it would behoove you to eat only sugars that are more complex. Sweet potatoes, yams, beets, maybe some good healthy, fermented, soaked or sprouted oats, grains, et cetera. But I wouldn't focus too much on Twinkies. Speaking of Twinkies, I would also be careful with seed oils. Another hot topic now. Soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, very rich in omega 6 fatty acids.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:59]: It's interesting. Bodybuilders way back in the day, I think some of them still do that. We'll use arachidonic acid to increase inflammation post workout for better muscle growth. You don't want to reduce inflammation post workout. It's an interesting theory to just promote it hardcore, but you don't want to promote inflammation when you're trying to recover from surgery. An imbalance between omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids has also been associated with delayed wound healing and increased risk of complications post surgery. And you're gonna get a lot more omega 6 fatty acids if you're eating a lot of fried foods. I have no problem with you going to the whole food salad bar that features cold expeller pressed canola oil.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:37]: It's vegetable oils that have been heated multiple times, exposed to a lot of oxygen and heat and light. And excess omega 6 intake can also lead to the production of pro inflammatory eicosanoids. And that's an issue. So if you reduce seed oil consumption and consumption of fried foods, especially when you're recovering. I think it's just good for general lifestyle. A lot of these tips are you'll lower inflammation, you'll create a more favorable environment for healing. All right, so basic unsexy stuff out of the way. Just don't mainline sugar and seed oils if you're trying to recover well.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:04]: Bone broth. I would include a cup of bone broth with as many meals as possible. Bone broth is rich in collagen, amino acids like glycine and proline and minerals that are essential for tissue repair. Collagen is going to provide structural support to skin and connective tissue, which is crucial for wound healing. Glycine can support gut health and reduce inflammation and improve nutrient absorption. A lot of people didn't know that little glycine with a meal improves nutrient absorption. We're talking like around 4 to 6 grams. And studies have suggested that collagen supplementation can reduce recovery time after surgery by allowing for new tissue formation and reducing inflammation.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:42]: You can just, you don't have to, like, buy a whole chicken or two and get out a crock pot and, you know, hobble around the kitchen in your crutches making your own bone broth. You can quite literally just buy it from the grocery store. We, we buy the Kettle and Fire brand. There's other brands out there. Good organic bone broth. There's even bone broth powders now. A company called Ancient Nutrition makes a good one. But bone broth would be a good idea.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:07]: Of course you could just supplement with collagen. Right? That's not a bad idea. I don't put that in the whole food category, you know. But collagen is the primary structural protein in connective tissue, skin and bones. Research has also the collagen supplementation promotes wound healing and improves skin elasticity and supports joint recovery. You've got amino acids, again, similar to what you'd find in bone broth and a collagen powder. Collagen peptides like glycine and proline and hydroxyproline, all essential for tissue repair. And studies suggest that collagen can accelerate surgery recovery by improving the strength and integrity of all those newly formed baby tissues.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:45]: That's super simple to do. And you could even upgrade bone broth by putting extra collagen into bone broth. The bone broth police are not going to come down and arrest you for doing that. Collagen powders, a lot of good ones are out there. I'll, I'll toss one brand out there, like Ancient Nutrition has a good one. I'm working with a company now called 10X. They have a collagen powder.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:04]: It's a few different brands out there, collagen, but just mainlining collagen. I mean, I would be getting at least 40 grams of collagen a day if it were me. Next, what kind of diet do you follow overall? And obviously based on biochemical individuality, different diets are going to be right for different people. There's genetic factors, there's blood factors, there's gut factors, there's brain factors. But in general, if I were going to get surgery, I would follow something pretty close to what is called the Paleo AautoImmune Diet or also known as the AIP. That diet focuses on nutrient dense anti inflammatory foods while simultaneously eliminating potential allergies and irritants or intolerances or plant chemicals that might, in high doses, promote inflammation. So we're talking about being careful with soy, grains, dairy eating like a caveman, but a modern caveman, right? Tubers, meat, bone, broth. Dairy is kind of sort of okay if it's fermented and really organic and good natural dairy.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:01]: But in most cases, even that's something that's limited compared to protein and healthy vegetables and healthy fats. On a Paleo autoimmune diet, shout out to a former podcast guest of mine, Mickey Trescott, who has the Paleo Autoimmune diet book and cookbook. You can get them on Amazon. It's just a great diet for reducing inflammation, for improving autoimmune symptoms and providing essential nutrients for tissue repair and reducing the risk of post surgical complications. Super simple. It's one of the few elimination, mildly restrictive diets I know of that also doesn't taste like cardboard or as I've been known to say, the foul dung of Satan. So Paleo autoimmune diet, that'd be another one that would fall from a dietary standpoint. Now, let's jump into certain nutrients while we're on this nutrient category.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:47]: I mentioned collagen yes. Essential amino acids yes, absolutely. They stimulate muscle protein synthesis. They reduce muscle loss, even if you're sedentary. Very interesting studies on essential amino acids for that. They enhance overall recovery, again, particularly when mobility is restricted. So essential amino acids, a little different than branched chain amino acids.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:08]: They can be combined with collagen. I wouldn't combine your collagen and your essential amino acids in one powder. In water, it's just going to throw off the ratios. But you can take both at different times throughout the day. If gun to my head, I were to get surgery tomorrow I would be doing 40 grams of collagen a day. I would also be doing 20 grams of essential amino acids per day. I'm obviously biased here because I co own a supplements company that sells essential amino acids. Kion, I think it's a great company.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:37]: Great ratios, well researched, clean. So that's, that's the way I'd go. Around 20 grams a day of essential amino acids. Next one be something for reduction of inflammation and supportive joint recovery. I am going to hop right back up on my soapbox here and recommend a product called Flex to you. It's got tumorosaccharides, serrapeptides, proteolytic like enzymes, all of which can reduce inflammation and support joint recovery. Really good for breaking down scar tissue, reducing swelling. Good research on many of these compounds for post surgical pain, for improved mobility, for accelerated tissue healing.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:15]: I would not take them with food because they're going to work more to break down especially food with protein, the protein in the food than doing what they need to do in your body. But something like Kion Flex, the standard dosage is three. I'd personally double up if I had surgery. Three in the morning on an empty stomach, three in the evening on an empty stomach. You don't have to take furious notes. I'll put all this stuff atBenGreenfieldLife.com/484. What else in addition to collagen, essential amino acids and something like Kion Flex would I do from a supplement standpoint? Peptides. Yeah. Particularly BPC157 and KPV.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:51]: These are synthetic peptides that are known for their regenerative properties. BPC promotes tissue healing by stimulating antigenesis, reduces inflammation, it protects cells from oxidative damage. Research has shown it can accelerate wound healing, reduce pain, support musculoskeletal recovery. You can take it orally, but it's mostly going to act in the gut if you take it orally. So you'd have to get an injectable version. And these days I'd recommend talking to a doctor. Some websites out there still have some pretty clean versions of peptides. I like one called Limitless Life, another company called Peptide Sciences and similar to BPC157, KPV, that's a derivative of something called alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:30]: You don't need to know that. I'm just trying to sound smart. But it's got really good anti inflammatory and pain management properties and could aid in post surgical inflammation and tissue repair. I know there's a ton of different peptides out there. I just don't want to knock you over too much information. If I were to choose to, I'd use BPC157 and KPV. Vitamin C. Doctors have been giving it for years to patients post surgery, especially in military settings. Vitamin C is critical for collagen synthesis, immune function, wound healing.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:00]: Used for stuff like this goes all the way back to World War II. You can get it in IVs, obviously at higher doses. You can also just take it as a supplement. Interestingly, with collagen, it acts as a co factor in the production of collagen, which is essential for again repairing your skin, blood vessels, connective tissue. Vitamin C itself can accelerate wound healing and reduce infection risk, which is nice if you've been in a clinic or in a hospital. And deficiencies in vitamin C have been shown to delay recovery, which could make inadequate post surgery results result in inadequate post surgery results. So high vitamin C intake, it's tough to not get disaster pants. If you're taking more than about 2 grams of vitamin C, I would take 5 to 6 grams.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:42]: Just spread it out throughout the day. If you can get a vitamin C IV, great. I mean those go up to like friggin 100 grams. There's a lot of vitamin C in those. Throw a brand out at you. A company, Jigsaw Health, they have something called Adrenal Cocktail. It's a blend of vitamin C and minerals. Little powder packet, you can put it in water, tastes pretty good, that'd be a good option.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:02]: So vitamin C definitely include that. Hydrogen. Now we're getting into the sexy stuff, molecular hydrogen or H2. That's a very potent antioxidant. It reduces oxidative stress and inflammation by. You could probably hear my dogs in the background. Probably UPS, sorry. Or my dogs really like me when I talk about hydrogen. It selectively neutralizes harmful free radicals.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:22]: And research has shown that hydrogen therapy can improve wound healing, reduce pain, protect tissues from oxidative damage. You can get it in a tablet form, right? And that'll reduce inflammatory markers, support cellular repair. Very beneficial in my opinion for post surgery recovery. You can take two or three tablets, drop them into water, they make bottles now. Hydrogen water bottles. Those produce a slightly lower ppm - parts per million - of hydrogen compared to using the tablets. But they're convenient. And either way I would be throwing hydrogen into the daily routine.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:51]: No reason that you can't mix that with vitamin C in the morning, for example. C60, carbon 60 and methylene blue, you know these, you don't hear talked about as much. And these are part of the so called mitochondrial triad, right. Where you combine C60 and methylene blue with red light therapy for really good mitochondrial health. I think it's a great idea. Not only do I think full body red light therapy is fantastic for supporting collagen and elastin production, for speeding up your healing time post surgery. It's been shown to enhance mitochondrial function, promote the synthesis of ATP, promote collagen synthesis again, throwing that in there with vitamin C with your collagen intake. And it penetrates pretty deeply into tissues, which can trigger regenerative processes and reduce oxidative stress.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:38]: While sweating in a sauna might not be a good idea with post surgical wounds. Red light panel, red light bed, great options. And then you take methylene blue and C60 30 to 60 minutes prior to the red light. Well, C60, like molecular hydrogen, is a very powerful antioxidant that can help to protect tissues from damage during surgical recovery and help with wound healing. Methylene blue helps to enhance your electron transport chain activity and reduce oxidative stress. So you could stack like in the morning, C60, methylene blue, and then you go into your red light therapy about 30 to 60 minutes later. The guy who runs the website, Mike Balkowski, and he came up with this idea, at least I've heard him coin the term mitochondrial triad. To take C60, take methylene blue and then 30 to 60 minutes later, use red light therapy.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:27]: Great not only for his general energy and mitochondrial health, but it's a strategy I would use for surgery recovery as well. Okay, so we got those supplements, right? You got essential amino acids, collagen, Kion Flex, BPC157 and KPV peptides if you can get them. High vitamin C intake, molecular hydrogen tablets, and C60 and methylene blue. Particularly those last two, C60 and methylene blue prior to red light therapy. In addition to red light therapy. What else would I throw in there in terms of technologies? Well, you've got earthing. Earthing or grounding is easy. It's free. You go outside barefoot or you use a grounding sheet or earthing sheet on your bed or your pillowcases or like I'm standing on one made by the company Ultimate Longevity in my office right now.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:11]: That reduces inflammation by allowing your body to absorb free electrons from the surface of the planet or the surface of a mat that neutralize or that will neutralize free radicals. There's one study published in the Journal of Inflammation Research showing that earthing could decrease recovery time and improve tissue repair post surgery by reducing oxidative stress and improving blood viscosity, which increases circulation. And again, that's not a hard one or a very expensive one to do compared to a couple of these other technologies that I'll give a head nod to. Next one would be pulsed electromagnetic field therapy or pemf. I sometimes call this grounding on steroids because you're really amplifying the signal with pemf. PEMF can enhance tissue repair by increasing ATP production in your cells. It improves circulation. It also stimulates collagen production.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:58]: That's the reason a lot of these things are used in the anti aging or longevity world too. Because collagen is such an important compound for maintaining longevity in muscle and skin and hair. My nails grow like weeds. I have so much collagen and amino acids in my diet. There was a study in Bio Electromagnetics that found that PEMF therapy significantly shortened recovery time in patients post surgery by reducing both inflammation and edema. Pemf, kind of like earthing and grounding, usually comes in the form of a mat that you can lay on or stretch on. They also, in the case of a surgery, for example, even have coils and pads that can be placed directly over joints. There's different brands out there I mentioned for earthing or grounding mats or devices.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:37]: One company I like is Ultimate Longevity. For pemf there would be Pulse Centers. They have a unit that has like coils and stuff to attach to your body. It's very expensive though. Dr. William Pollock has some great PEMF devices on his website, pawluk. 10x. They have the Purewave PEMF mat that's really good. They also do the red light bed and an oxygen device.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:00]: Their so called Superhuman Protocol. If you just wanted to get all three, it would drain your bank account, but you'd have a pretty cool setup at home. So those would be a few of the things that I would consider from a PEMF standpoint. And then last, last few things to consider here. When it comes to biohacks, Hyperbaric oxygen absolutely, absolutely enhances recovery. You can use a home soft shell version which is more affordable and convenient for post surgery recovery. Hospitals and clinics have big hard shell versions that go to really high pressures. It'll increase oxygen solubility in your blood.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:33]: I totally said that word wrong. Solubility in your blood that enhances tissue oxygenation, especially in areas with compromised blood flow due to surgery. And research has shown that HBOT reduces swelling, accelerates wound healing, promotes the formation of new blood vessels via angiogenesis can reduce infection rates. Helps me just feel like I have fantastic brain health. I'm not getting brain surgery anytime soon. Just improves overall healing outcomes. And usually you'd want to do it for a decent period of time, 60, 90 minutes a day if you can. Hey, you're just going to be laying around anyways after surgery, so why not? Doesn't stack well with a lot of these protocols, but you could make a case for doing your hyperbaric.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:13]: And then because you're saturated with oxygen, then you go into the red light therapy. The red light therapy, all chemical on you kick nitric oxide synthase off one of the complexes in the mitochondria and allow for better oxygen uptake and ATP production. So that's a good stack. Anything with oxygen and red light. Cryotherapy or anything cold. Cold plunging cryotherapy, it'll reduce inflammation and pain, constricts blood vessels, reduces tissue swelling. Then you get subsequent vasodilatory tissue expanding and blood vessel expanding response upon rewarming. That helps to flush out metabolic waste products. Research has shown cold exposure reduces levels of pro inflammatory cytokines, enhances muscle recovery by reducing oxidative stress, provides natural pain relief and numbs nerve endings which can benefit post surgical recovery.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:58]: Again, you often have to be careful with water immersion after surgery. Sometimes a cryotherapy chamber is fine if you're in a cold area of the world, you can even just go outside in the cold weather for a little while, which is about the time this podcast comes out. Going to be a viable option in many areas of the world. So cold plunging or cryotherapy, when you're able to do it, when you're able to expose wounds to water or sweat, things like cold plunging, infrared sauna and modalities like that would definitely be beneficial. And then once you're ready to get back to training and I'll be doing this with my client, I'll primarily be using electrical muscle stimulation with them. Right. These are pads that you can place on different muscles that will allow for muscle maintenance or growth or blood flow without necessarily needing to use a specific joint. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:46]: So let's say somebody has a hip surgery, they could use electrical muscle stimulation on the non operated hip and on the upper body. Or if someone has a shoulder surgery, they could use it for their core, their legs, et cetera. There are full body suits. There's one called the Katalyst spells with K that I like. There are spot treatment devices, a portable one called the Power Dot, another one called the Compex that are surprisingly powerful. There are really powerful ones like the ARP Wave or the Neubie that also do a great job with electrical muscle stimulation, muscle maintenance, muscle growth, even if you're unable to lift heavier weights. So big head nod to ems, electrical muscle stimulation. And then secondarily blood flow restriction training. This is where you use a band or device placed around the upper arms or the upper part of the legs to restrict blood flow to an area or occlude blood flow.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:36]: And then you can do low intensity or body weight exercise. And it almost fools your muscles into thinking that they're subjected to a heavy load while not subjecting the joint to an actual heavy load. And studies have shown that BFR is very effective in maintaining muscle mass and accelerating recovery, particularly in patients, individuals or athletes who cannot perform high intensity exercise. It's also great as like a 1 pound travel solution to have your own gym in a hotel room. I travel frequently with cheapo blood flow restriction bands, an elastic band and door frame suspension, pull up strap. And I've got a workout in my hotel room that's perfect. Way better than the squeaky elliptical trainer and the rusty dumbbells at the hotel gym. So both electrical muscle stimulation and BFR training are modalities that should allow you to get back to physical function and working out more quickly after surgery without risking post surgical damage to a joint that's been operated on.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:36]: So just veggie through the fire hose there. But you know, on, on a typical day just just to go through a summary of this, right, you reduce your intake of processed foods, sugars and seed oils, have a cup of bone broth with each meal, and follow something like the Paleo autoimmune diet. Then you're taking some collagen, some essential amino acids, some peptides like BPC157 and KPV, and vitamin C, hydrogen, C60, methylene blue. From a biohacking standpoint, trying to get 20/30 minutes of full body red light therapy per day using red light panels or red light bed, you're using PeMF, around 20 minutes of PEMF a day, or 20 minutes of grounding or earthing a day or both, 45 to 90 minutes of hyperbaric oxygen each day once movement allows, based on wound healing or movement restrictions, electrical muscle stimulation, blood flow restriction, band training, infrared sauna and cryotherapy or cold plunging. And I think that if you were to do a lot of these things, I'm not a doctor, don't misconstrue this as medical advice, but those are some of the things that I would definitely look into. Also a fantastic book, shout out to Dr. Stephen Hussey, a former podcast guest of mine. He wrote a book called Pain Sense and he gets in into the piezoelectric potential of tissue and how things like water, sunlight and different, often lesser talked about modalities to reduce pain and allow for faster healing can really move the dial here as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:06]: So his book is called Pain Sense. I'm going to be interviewing him soon, but it'd be a good book to check out as well if you're recovering from surgery. So I know a lot of things to consider there. But those are my surgery biohacking recommendations. If you have your own to add or you want to kind of look through a list of some of the things that I just talked about, just go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/484. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/484. Now we're going to move on. There's a former podcast guest of mine. He's known on Instagram as the mass spectrometry guy or the Mass Spec Guy. His name is Ben Katz.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:46]: Hopefully I didn't butcher his last name. Katz K A T Z. So mass spectrometry is where you measure, not to get too nerdy on you, it measures the mass to charge ratio of molecules in a sample and gives you the exact molecular weight of all the different things of something you test. When I interviewed Ben on my podcast, we were talking about everything from nicotine pouches to chocolate bar to CBD. And he'll analyze everything and find out whether or not it has in it what the label actually says that it's supposed to have in it. And also it has other things that you wouldn't expect. Like when I interviewed him, massive amounts of caffeine in most of the Hershey's chocolate bars. Who knew? We also found different flavoring agents that were technically banned in nicotine products.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:27]: And a lot of interesting information. Well, he's done some pretty intriguing tests on some other products. I wanted to bring a few of them to light for you. And you can of course go check out this guy on YouTube to watch some of his other videos. For example, I don't know about you. I used to go to Costco all the time, especially when I was a kid and coming out the door, I'd get the Costco hot dog. It was like the most calories at the lowest price. The best flavor I could get coming out of Costco.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:55]: So he tested Costco hot dogs with his mass spectrometry analyzer and the results are a little disappointing. I don't think I'll be getting the Costco hot dog on my way out of Costco anymore. My apologies to Costco. Maybe Costco you'll hear this podcast and you'll adjust your hot dog design mechanisms because it's not a great picture. First of all, they contain plasticizers like trischloroethyl phosphate, which is technically a flame retardant and viscosity regulator in plastics and polymers. That's a little concerning when it comes to food safety. Surprisingly, these hot dogs also contain caffeine at 6.6 parts per million, which is less than in an energy drink.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:34]: But it's a significant amount of caffeine in a hot dog you might be giving to, say, I don't know, a six year old. They also included canola meal, which is a byproduct of vegetable oil extraction from pressed cake leftovers. They had something called siapin in them, which is a molecule from oilseed crops like canola, also abundant in pressed cake leftovers after oil extraction. I don't know what this thing is with cake leftovers that apparently they might be using in a Costco hot dog, but considering the leftover seed oil, meal, plasticizers, and a hint of caffeine, it was a less than stellar review of the Costco hot dogs, I can tell you that. So then Ben went on and looked at Costco olive oil, Kirkland brand olive oil. My apologies again, Costco. I'm a Costco member, okay? These are just things I'm not going to be buying at Costco.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:25]: Not that I bought a lot of hot dogs at Costco in the first place, but Kirkland olive oil, a lot of people buy it. Well, it shows signs of potential adulteration with canola oil. 10 times higher linoleic acid levels compared to your standard California olive oil. Much lower polyphenol content than a standard California olive oil. Kirkland's very high linoleic acid levels suggest that they are possibly probably blending it with canola oil or other vegetable oils. It appears yellow and emulsified when he ran it through a centrifuge compared to the clear separation from the 100% California sustainably grown olive oil that he tested that you might also be able to buy at Costco. I think you can. They don't just have the Kirkland brand, but I wouldn't be buying it.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:11]: So when it comes to olive oil if you're shopping at Costco. Interestingly, not all is created equal. And I would skip the Kirkland brand. Throw one more at you. Yeah. He tested wine. This wasn't Costco wine. This was a wine that I used to buy all the time when I was in college and I couldn't afford good wine and I wanted to throw a party.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:27]: The Barefoot Wine, it was so cheap again for like 3.99, $4.99. 3.99, $4.99. So what did he find in this? Well, he found that it had some interesting compounds in it. Dehydro alpha ionone in this Barefoot Moscato deliciously sweet white wine. That's a synthetic flavor compound. That is basically something that could be used to create a purely artificial white wine. Basically putting chemicals in it to make it taste better. Concerning. Considering we already know that most wines in the US have very high amounts of pesticides and herbicides.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:03]: But that was one thing that was very interesting. A ton of synthetic flavors and additives as well as a yellow pigment suggested that they dyed it and then added a little extra glutathione to improve the stability and preserve the aroma and the color. So at least they thought of that. But that's interesting because it has a gold medal from the California State Fair right right there on the label. Gold. 95 points. I wouldn't necessarily get Barefoot Moscato wine. Concerns about its authenticity and potential suspicious additives and unusual metabolite levels compared to a natural wine.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:38]: So that's just a flavor of the type of stuff that Mr. Mass Spec is putting out. Mr. Ben Katz. So shout out to Ben for analyzing all this stuff. Bookmark or subscribe to his YouTube channel. I'm not affiliated with with him at all. I just think it's fascinating he's able to go in and as a third party independent analyzer who's not necessarily getting paid to do this besides probably ads on his social media or something, he's finding out some stuff that serves us well when it comes to making healthier food choices.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:04]: So definitely just don't get a Costco hot dog drenched in Kirkland olive oil and wash it down with a glass or two of Barefoot Moscato wine. Wouldn't be a good idea. Don't do that. You don't need to do that. That so. And check out my interview with him. I'll link to it in the show notes at bengreenfieldlife.com/484. Next up, Nnw study on creatine. They compared creatine which a lot of people take.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:30]: I take creatine every day, five grams of creatine. If I'm sleep deprived or need a mental pick me up 10 to 15 grams. Don't take 10 to 15 grams all at once. You'll paint the back of the toilet seat. You got to split it in the multiple servings throughout the day. But there's so many forms of creatine out there, and people say, oh, my creatine is so much better. I got the creatine meg or the creatine hydro or the creatine this or that. So this new study in the Journal of Physiology Research looked at supplementing with creatine monohydrate, right? Just like dirt cheap standard creatine monohydrate, easy to find, easy to get, or creatine hydrochloride.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:07]: And then they compared that to. They compared it, the two forms of creatine. And then they had participants consume one group consume these supplements. They had a group of 40 people and perform resistance training for eight weeks. And then they measured them. After the resistance study, they found that creatine hydrochloride, despite based on my little bit of amateur shopping, costing anywhere from two to four times that of creatine monohydrate, resulted in absolutely no better benefit on strength, hypertrophy, hormone responses. Anything that they looked at compared to just plain old plain Jane creatine monohydrate, yet again, showing that often paying for the fancy stuff is not necessarily something that you need to do. And this got me thinking more about creatine because of some creatine gummies that got sent to my house.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:03]: And I'm hearing more and more people talking about creatine gummies now. So this is, this is kind of interesting. There's. There's a journal that I occasionally read called Nutra Ingredients. And they had a report in which they looked into creatine gummies. The supplement manufacturer called Now. They tested a bunch of creatine gummies, and they found that half of the creatine gummy brands out there failed to meet the dosage claims on the label. And furthermore, and this is a little bit concerning, creatine can break down into something called creatinine, okay, when it's dissolved in water.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:37]: So if the creatine remains dissolved for a long time in water, like you mix up a creatine monohydrate smoothie, you forget to drink it, you finish half of it, the rest the next day, it's not gonna have much creatine in it. It's gonna have relatively useless creatinine in it. Now, contrary to popular belief, and contrary to what I think I've been guilty of saying in the past, creatinine is not gonna harm your kidneys, but it is expensive pee. And then creatine will also break down if it's exposed to higher temperatures or a low pH environment. Considering the process of making a creatine gummy requires water, often acidic components like citric acid for flavor, there's great potential for degradation over time. And sure enough, this is what they found. Now evaluated a total of 12 creatine brand gummies on the market using high performance liquid chromatography, not mass spectrometry. But high performance liquid chromatography is another good way to test.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:33]: It's basically an analytical chemistry technique that separates compounds in a chemical mixture using pressure. Pretty gold standard way to look into something. And so even though a dosage of 5G was often on the label, 5,000 milligrams, 5 grams, which I recommend, tested samples claimed anywhere from 750 to 5,000 milligrams per serving, but a lot of them were way off of that. And instead it looked like a lot of the creatine was likely breaking down into creatinine, which is a reasonable proposition based on the idea that you need water and you got to dissolve the creatine to make a creatine gummy. Now, creatinine is biologically inactive, right? It's not going to really give you any strength or power benefits or anything like that. It is a normal byproduct of muscle metabolism. This is why if you go and lift weights and you get a blood test and you have elevated creatinine, the doctor might tell you your kidneys are in trouble. Could just mean you worked out the day before.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:33]: They don't cause kidney damage on their own. They could indicate kidney harm if you had really high levels and you hadn't worked out. But it still means that creatine gummies could be a total waste of your money. Now, I realize a lot of people out there are taking creatine gummies. For example shout out to Dan McCormick. He's got a company called Create. They make a creatine gummy. And he informed me that creatine can degrade in water, often takes days or weeks.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:59]: It doesn't instantly degrade into creatine. And I've never said that it will start to degrade though. But what he told me about, and I'll put this in a nutshell for you, is that if you reduce the amount of time that creatine sits in water, you cook at low temperatures, you use proper ingredients, you avoid a highly acidic environment, you can create a good creatine gummy. What I want to make sure you guys know is that if you're using creatine using a gummy, you do need to actually ask like ask the company for a certificate of analysis or go to this analysis that I will post in the show notes that show some of the brands that this Now foods actually tested for creatine because a lot of them just you're going to get expensive pee and waste your money. I guess they taste good, you're getting calories at least. But Create, shout out to Dan. It looks like Create's making a good product to create creatine forward gummy and that one would be okay. The ones that I have in my refrigerator right now that I've been messing around with are from Organifi.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:59]: Seems like they're doing a good job as well. Although I have admittedly not seen their laboratory certificate of analysis because they just showed up in my refrigerator two days ago. However, do your research when it comes to creatine and creatine gummies and also know that a fancy form of creatine like creatine hydrochloride is not necessarily going to give you any advantage over plain Jane creatine monohydrate, Although it may drain your bank account a little more quickly. What else? What else? Well, let's talk about muscle loss. Few concerns about muscle loss out there, particularly related to two very popular drugs. Let's start with the first one. Metformin. Metformin.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:38]: This was published in the Journal of Sarcopenia Muscle. Metformin induces muscle atrophy by transcriptional regulation of myostatin via HDAC6 and Foxo3a. But you don't necessarily need to know all that alphabet letter soup stuff. So the drug metformin is something a lot of people know about, right? One of the oldest and most widely used drugs for diabetes worldwide. Often the first line of therapy because its mechanism of action and its side effects are fairly well known. Up to 90% of type 2 diabetics take metformin. And the thing that happens when you take metformin is it inhibits what's called complex one of the electron transport chain that can result in the buildup of lactic acid. And it also allows for the activation of an enzyme called amp K, the same enzyme that's activated by endurance exercise or training in a fasted state or calorie restriction or a low carb diet. So the pro Amp K effects of a drug like metformin are why a lot of people are using it off label as a longevity agent, as a so called calorie restriction mimetic or an exercise mimetic.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:50]: And when you increase amp K activation, you also increase fatty acid oxidation, which is another reason a lot of people have type 2 diabetes are interested in it. The idea being that burning a lot of fat would help you to become more lean and help with the control of diabetes. But not only is there an increase in lactic acidosis, which is not necessarily a great thing to be having happen long term because of the acidotic state that the cell would be in. Technically cancer growth occurs, by the way, in case you didn't know this, in an acidotic environment or a lactate rich environment. But, but perhaps just as concerningly, lean muscle mass loss is a pretty significant effect of using metformin, kind of similar to what you've heard. And I'll talk about this in a second about GLP1 agonist, this study that I just cited, it basically indicates that increased fatty acid oxidation in the presence of metformin could lead to some amount of muscle wasting. So what this study that I just mentioned says is that metformin negatively affects the hypertrophic response to resistance training in healthy older individuals. That might be because it reduces inflammation so much.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:19]: It might be because people are getting that increase in Amp K and fatty acid oxidation. But all we know is that metformin compared to a placebo does not result in the same gains in lean body and muscle mass than people treated with metformin. There are results basically that support the negative effects of metformin on muscle hypertrophy. Now does this mean that metformin is completely bad to take, especially if you have type 2 diabetes? It depends, right? If the benefits and the blood sugar control that you get from metformin in addition to the fatty acid oxidation are long term offering you life saving potential, then maybe you could put up with a little bit of lactic acidosis and muscle loss. But considering there are other options out there, like berberine, dihydroberine, bitter melon extract, exercise, just throwing that out there as an option, calorie control, carbohydrate control, et cetera, and the fact that other studies have shown that metformin may have a deleterious impact in your ability to be able to build new mitochondria, make me think that I wouldn't use it as the first tool for something like metabolic management and type 2 diabetes. Again, I'm not a doctor, I don't want you to misconstrue this as medical advice. But I know again, a lot of people in my world, in the longevity world, they're using off label as a longevity agent.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:49]: The only thing I don't know, here's what I don't, I don't know you guys. I don't know if you start taking berberine or you know, nature's metformin, dihydro, berberine, whatever, that you will also get a bunch of lactic acidosis or that it will inhibit the complex one of the electron transport chain to the same effect. I would love to see a study on that. But I have not seen the same data on some of these natural alternatives to metformin on muscle wasting and an impact on mitochondria as I've seen with metformin. I I have an entire article called the dark side of Metformin. I'll link to it in the shownotes. If you want to read up more on the mechanism of action, I'll also link to the website of I don't know how to pronounce his name hidut this guy who writes some really good articles about metformin and he did a recent report on it as well. This was how I became aware of the potential limit in muscle gain and the actual muscle atrophy that metformin causes, specifically by activating Amp K and myostatin.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:45]: So if you want to maintain and build muscle, Metformin might not be the best thing for you to be on. Hey, quick interruption. The video might have disappeared for you and I'm actually going back and inserting this quick snip for you about Bear Brain and many of these other so called glucose disposal agents or things that might act similarly to metformin. After I recorded this podcast episode, I went back and dug into the current research and it does turn out that a lot of these compounds that people take, including berberine, dihydroberine, we already talked about, metformin may negatively impact muscle hypertrophy, potentially causing muscle atrophy in some situations in very high dosages. The mechanism of action behind that is a suppression of protein synthesis, potential stimulation of protein degradation in muscle tissue. And this is a lot of times in animal models with high dosages. But these glucose disposal agents, one of the things that they seem to do is increase the expression of something called atrogen 1, which is a protein associated with muscle breakdown. In addition to that things like berberine, you know, just like metformin, can influence muscle protein synthesis through the effects on the AMPK pathway, which I already described to you.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:05]: And it's the same pathway that you activate through calorie restriction, through fasting, through a lot of carbohydrate restriction, through excessive exercise. And in small dosages, that's okay. But if you're constantly going low sugar, sugar disposal agents, basically keeping blood sugar low or controlled at all costs, that might actually be an issue when it comes to building muscle. I mean, we know insulin, for example, is very anabolic. Your goal is not to suppress insulin all the time, but to have good surges of it when necessary for anabolism, same thing for cortisol, right? That's, that's why we exercise. You know, you look like you're going to get, you know, nuked by a tiger right after you've worked out. I think I just combined metaphors there.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:48]: But your muscles look like World War II. You look like you've been running from a lion or a tiger. And you know, if. I think I heard one person put it this way, if you know, you were sitting at your desk and all of the things that occur when you exercise, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased blood sugar, increased cortisol, increased breath rate, massive increase in body temperature were to occur, if you were sitting at your office, they'd take you to the hospital. But instead, brief surges of that with exercise seems to promote strength and longevity when not done in excess. So similarly, I don't think that we should be focusing myopically on controlling blood sugar with all these different supplements that we might take before a carbohydrate rich meal. If we're taking very high dosages. And man, when I look at the research, the dosages widely vary.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:38]: But my modus operandi that I plan on after digging into this and that I would recommend to you too is just take the minimum recommended dose of anything you're taking to control blood sugar prior to a meal. And if you're a diabetic, well, again, like I mentioned earlier, the beneficial effects of some of these things on blood sugar may give you a greater number of pros than the impact on muscle hypertrophy. But I'm still not as big a fan of metformin and I will use less or recommend that folks are careful with the amount of glucose disposal agents that they use. Eat enough protein, lift weights, blah, blah, blah, but just don't chase low blood sugar and low insulin myopically. There are times when surges are necessary. Right. Humans do well on feast fast growth recovery cycles. Finally, the last thing I should mention is that if there's positive effects on blood sugar control from supplements like this, that could indirectly support muscle growth by improving overall health, ability to hit the gym, energy levels, insulin sensitivity.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:48]: So we need to bear that in mind as well. I just want to make sure we have a, we have a balanced approach when it comes to some of these compounds. Similarly, it appears that now we know from a standard dose of a GLP 1 that a ton of muscle loss and even cardiac muscle loss occurs from standard dosing with GLP1s. And if you go listen to my interview with Tina Moore, you'll hear about how microdosing with GLP1 and I've tried that can help you to control appetite pretty significantly without a lot of the deleterious side effects including muscle loss that we're seeing with these GLP1 agonists. So there are a couple of papers. One called Semaglutide Reduces Cardiomyocyte Size and Cardiac Mass in Lean and Obese Mice. Another one called The Effects of Medically Induced Weight Loss on Skeletal Muscle.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:43]: And the long story short is that in some cases nearly half of the weight loss that people are getting from using a common GLP1 drug is from the loss of skeletal muscle mass. Now in addition to that, there's now headlines that these GLP1 agonists that are shrinking waistlines are also shrinking the human heart. Right? Not just these other muscles, but actual cardiac muscle tissue. So this was in rodent models. And granted, you know, in not all cases are mice, little humans. But the researchers in this study found that heart muscle decrease in both obese and lean mice. This was a systemic effect observed in mice that they then confirmed and cultured human heart cells. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:28]: So not only are you, are you losing muscle mass, but you're losing cardiac muscle mass. And this rate of muscle decline is significantly higher than what is typically observed with a normal calorie reduced diet or aging and could of course lead to a host of long term health issues. Right. As we've heard from Gabriel Lyon, the muscle centric medicine doctor, loss of muscle is not just loss of strength or loss of the ability to look good in your bikini or whatever, right? It's decreased immunity, is increased risk of infections, it's poor wound healing. Muscle stores important building blocks, amino acids that the body uses when you're sick, when you're stressed, when you're injured, to repair and to maintain strength. It also helps to play a huge role as a metabolic sink in managing blood sugar, which could help to prevent diabetes, maybe keep you from having to take metformin. Speak of the devil. Muscle even releases these special molecules that, you know, you probably hearing more and more about called myokines.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:19]: Myokines are signaling molecules that help other parts of the body to fight infections and to support your immune system. So preserving muscle is a pretty good idea. And I'm just seeing more and more people who look lean and gaunt and I'm not saying they are, but I suspect they are on GLP1 drugs like Ozempic and Mogovi and Mounjaro. And yeah, you could. They're like, you don't have to throw these drugs under the bus. You can use smaller amounts. I said in the past you can eat enough protein, but I took a standard dose for a while. You don't want to eat protein.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:52]: Screw that. You sit down to ribeye steak, you're not even interested in it at all. It's like something's broken in my brain. Why do I not want this beautiful ribeye steak or protein smoothie bowl that I would usually just mow down in no time flat because of these GLP1 drugs. So just telling someone, eat lean protein. Oh, and then go lift weights while you're nauseous and has have diarrhea. Right? That looks good on paper but doesn't work on the streets. Instead, I suggest smaller doses of these.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:20]: And there are other things that can mimic GLP1 or trigger GLP1. Akkermansia, another what's a company I interviewed Calocurb. They have a very bitter like molecule that can help with with appetite cravings and carb control. Exercise. Cold. There's some things that can help a little bit and I say cold. I realize some people get out of a cold plunge and want to just eat everything in sight. For me, it suppresses my appetite.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:44]: And that's purely anecdotal, not based on research, but anyways, the long story short is two very commonly used drugs, GLP1 agonist and metformin, appear to be bad news bears when it comes to muscle maintenance. And so I would be be very careful with these and potentially even use smaller dosages and go listen to my podcast with Tina Moore regarding GLP1 drugs and go read my article The Dark Side of Metformin. When it comes to more on metformin, I feel like I just scaremongered you. Fear mongered you. For the past hour, I mean, hopefully the surgery recovery stuff helps, but now everybody's gonna be like super nervous about Costco hot dogs and metformin and GLP1 drugs. Maybe you should be. Maybe you should be. I don't know.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:28]: I'm just putting the information out there, my friend. So BenGreenfieldLife.com/484 is where you can access the show notes, the surgery recovery notes, just everything I mentioned. I try and do a really good job with the shownotes. You can also go to BenGreenfieldLife.com leave a question for the podcast do me a favor, give me a rating or review wherever you listen to the Boundless Life Podcast, the new title again. And thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you, have a fantastic day. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks and content to become the most complete boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:12]: In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items. But the price is the same for you and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit. And I will only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:12]: So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.