A Little-Known Trick To GET RID Of Pesky Gut Issues, Are You Burning As Many Calories As You *Think*?, Hair Growth Hacks & More: Solosode #486

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: In this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, a little known tricks to get rid of pesky gut issues. Are you burning as many calories as you think? Hair growth hacks 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. Hey, welcome to today's show, recording yet again my solosode from the brand new office in where am I? I'm in Idaho. I'm in North Idaho. A tiny, tiny little, tiny little community.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:48]: I got no gas station, I got no grocery store, but I got an office and I got a lot of good stuff for you today. All the show notes, the juicy, juicy shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/486 and in these episodes I not only reply to your questions, which you can ask if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com and leave a question there or you can interact with my AI clone over there. If you just want to avoid listening to the podcast altogether because my voice annoys you and just chat with my drone. What do you call it? My drone, my clone, the other -one word. So you can do that over at bengreenfieldlife.com lower right hand corner. Got a little clone. There's also a place on there where you can click, click the click around, I forget where it is and click the part where you ask a question if that's precise enough directions for you. Hey, so I want to get into today just to jump straight to the chase, some news flashes for you because I'm constantly reading articles and books and finding interesting information and I thought this first one was kind of a doozy because I, like many people, have used these online metabolic rate calculators.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:59]: You know, the ones where you plug in often your weight, your height, your age, your sex and it will approximate how many calories that you are burning per day. Now there is an article that appears on the website Macro Factor, which is actually a great website for learning more about counting calories and metabolic rates. And they actually reported some pretty shocking information about these equations that are used to estimate basal metabolic rate or , how many calories you're burning at at rest, doing not much at all besides just surviving. Right? Because you can tack on to BMR activities of daily living, exercise, the thermic expenditure of food, et cetera. As a matter of fact, when I used to operate an exercise physiology and sports performance training center in Spokane, I would have people often come over to the office for what is called indirect calorimetry, in which you wear a mask, you breathe oxygen and, and exhale carbon dioxide, and based on oxygen consumed and carbon dioxide exhaled, you're able, using that measurement, to approximate the amount of calories that you're burning each day. There are some small at home equivalents of that when it comes to looking at, say, the amount of fat versus carbohydrate utilization that you have at rest. One is called the.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:22]: I have it over there in my drawer somewhere, the Lumen. It's a tiny little black device. You just take a big breath and breathe into it, and it lets you know your fat and carb utilization and can do a little bit of an approximation of your. What's called your respiratory quotient, right, the fat carb ratio. It doesn't tell you how many calories you're burning per day. But a lot of times these online calculators can be somewhat helpful for giving you a ballpark. But the thing is, these metabolic rates can widely vary, dramatically vary between individuals. So what are some things that you should know when you use one of these online equations to estimate your BMR? There is about a 68% chance that your actual BMR, the actual number of calories that you're burning at rest, is within 200 calories of the estimate provided, and a 95% chance that your actual BMR is within 400 calories of the estimate provided.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:18]: Now that's a pretty wide range, right? So if you have BMR reported by a BMR equation of 1500 calories per day, there's basically a 68% chance that your actual basal metabolic rate is somewhere between 1300 and 1700 calories per day, how many calories you would actually need to eat in order to survive each day to sustain metabolism, and a 95% chance that'd be between 1100 and 1900 calories per day. So technically, that variability means that if your neighbor Nancy takes an online metabolic rate calculation, she's the same height, weight, age, sex, and body composition and has the same lifestyle as you, and you do it too, then you could both have energy needs that differ by at least 800 calories per day. And this actually means some people actually do have fast metabolisms and some people have slow metabolisms. There are a variety of reasons that you might have a slow or a fast metabolism. Some of that can come down to thyroid. Some of it can come down to the type of nutrients that you're consuming, right? Fat versus carbohydrate versus protein. Protein, for example, is something that takes more calories to burn. But it's very interesting, this idea of fast versus slow metabolization or oxidation.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:46]: For example, there's one test called an HTMA, hair tissue mineral analysis. You may have heard, I launched a new website called the Life Network. It's an online healthy community membership website. And as a part of that website of what's called the LifePrint, we wanted a very affordable, convenient, friendly way for people to test some things in their body without forking over, you know, money for a $10,000 executive health analysis. So the HTMA, it's like a hundred dollar test. You just clip some hair on your head or your crotch or wherever you want to clip your hair. And it provides insights amongst many other things as to whether you're a slow or fast oxidizer by analyzing the balance of minerals and ratios in hair. So it evaluates minerals like your calcium to phosphorus ratio.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:32]: Like a high ratio of calcium to phosphorus could indicate you're a slow oxidizer. Well, a low ratio, so more calcium than phosphorus could point to fast oxidation, looks at sodium to magnesium ratios. A low ratio is associated with slow oxidation. A low ratio or a low ratio is slow oxidation, a high ratio, so a lot of sodium relative to magnesium would be linked to fast oxidation. It looks at the potassium to sodium ratios, which reflects your adrenal activity, that also influences your oxidation rates. Now, people who are slow oxidizers tend to have sluggish adrenal and thyroid activity and as reflected by an HTMA, so that would lead to slower metabolic processes, whereas a fast oxidizer would tend to exhibit higher adrenal and thyroid activity and have a slightly faster metabolism. Furthermore, a slow oxidizer, and this can influence whether you do a low carb, high fat or a high carb, low fat diet. Slow oxidizers tend to not burn carbohydrates as efficiently.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:31]: They get blood sugar imbalances and low energy. They typically do better with a higher protein, higher fat diet to stabilize blood sugar and give sustained energy. And a fast oxidizer, on the other hand, burns carbs quickly. They might have energy dips if they're not frequently snacking or refueling. They often have slightly higher adrenal and thyroid activity. So a higher metabolism, a lot of times they need more calories, a moderate to high carbohydrate intake, and so that also influences or could influence the actual results of a Metabolic Rate Test, right? You could have two people, again, with similar height, weight, age, sex, and body composition. But one's a slow oxidizer, one's a fast oxidizer, and the fast oxidizer is probably going to err towards needing a, higher number of calories, whereas a slow oxidizer would need a lower number of calories. That's just one example amongst many other reasons why when you're doing an online metabolic rate calculator, you do need to paint with a pretty broad brush.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:32]: Again, like, you could be literally 500, 600, 700 calories off what it's telling you you're at. And let's say you're burning. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do easy math here. Okay? This would be really low, but just easy math, because I'm not good at doing math in my head. Let's say your BMR tells you you are burning a thousand calories a day at rest, right? And typically these calculators come with an activity factor, right? Let's say you're exercising five days a week, moderate, high intensity, for 45 minutes. So you would have an activity factor of 1.55. You plug that in and the number of calories you would need to sustain how many calories you're burning each day would be 1,550 calories.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:09]: But it could be as high as 1,550 calories plus another 800 calories, right? Meaning you would be severely under fueling potentially. Unless you take that BMR calculator result and actually experiment with a little bit. Pay attention to weight fluctuations. If you're using the number of calories that it advised you to use, pay attention potentially to looking at a more precise measurement of calorie burn. Meaning at some point getting one of these indirect calorimetry tests where you actually go to a health club or clinic or exercise physiology lab if you really want to measure it precisely right? This is like what bodybuilders do, because bodybuilders got to get it really, really dialed in for things like fat loss or muscle gain. So these calculators, what I'm getting at here, they're useful, but you do need to take the results with a grain of salt and possibly even a grain of extra carbohydrate or fat. I'll link to the full paper macrofactor app in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/486 but just something to think about. When comes to calorie burn, there was A recent review of meta analyses.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:22]: Right. So meta analyses being studies of studies. And they were looking at what improved issues related to irritable bowel syndrome. And irritable bowel syndrome, as you've probably heard of before, is essentially not feeling too great in the gut. You know, often associated with gas bloating, bouncing back and forth between constipation, diarrhea, not quite knowing what's up, getting brain fog after a meal, et cetera. So what they looked at was 58 different meta analysis that dug into what kind of nutritional interventions actually helped people with irritable bowel syndrome. Now what they looked at was taking probiotics, taking prebiotics, eating a low FODMAP diet. We'll get into that in a second.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:07]: Having more fiber or less fiber, because less fiber often helps when you have ibs. Using glutamine, that's often a highly recommended way to pretty simply reduce IBS issues. Take about 5 grams of glutamine powder. You can easily get on Amazon with each meal. And they also looked at a glutamine free diet. They looked at peppermint oil. Another thing that works really well. I mean, if I've like, if I'm getting on a plane and my guts feel a little bumpy, I will literally, I keep a bottle of peppermint oil in my fanny pack and I'll just rub a little bit on my stomach and rub it around a few times for about 30 seconds and honestly it feels really good.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:42]: Usually I'll put a few drops in my water as well. Peppermint's fantastic for gut. Problematic gut issues. Aloe vera, which also is great for constipation. Vitamin D. A lot of people don't know Vitamin D can, can help with a lot of gut issues. Curcumin, traditional Chinese medicine formula. I'm not even going to try to pronounce.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:01]: It's TongXie Yaofang. We'll go with that. TongXie Yaofang. And so they examined all of these to see what provided the strongest evidence for improving irritable bowel syndrome. Now, one was probiotics. That actually didn't surprise me too much. I think you need a well formulated probiotic. I think honestly the very, very best way to do it is to make your own yogurt.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:23]: I mean, in terms of the billion, billion count of probiotics you can get. And I realize you're not going to travel with yogurt, but if you're at home, there's this one yogurt recipe my wife and I make it's called Dr. William Davis's Gut Fix Yogurt. I've done a whole podcast about it. It's in my cookbook. We get a couple different probiotic strains, we mix them up with milk, we add a little inulin to feed the probiotics, we add a little bit of sugar. We use a 36 hour fermentation at 100 degrees in a yogurt maker. And when I spoke with Dr.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:53]: William Davis, he talked about how within four weeks of consuming a cup of that a day, he could eradicate small intestine bacterial overgrowth in his patients, which is a huge source of gas, bloating, et cetera. I'll link to that podcast in the show notes. So probiotics were one, but then a low FODMAP diet was the other. Low FODMAP diet. So fodmap, what's that? Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. It's a lot of words. Basically, these are poorly absorbed, highly fermentable carbohydrates that can contribute to gas and bloating and diarrhea due to their fermentability and the attraction of water to the intestinal tract. Now these are not fermented compounds.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:32]: This isn't like kimchi, sauerkraut, et cetera. These are fermentable compounds. So a few of big culprits would be like apples, onions, wheat. People will get a deleterious reaction to wheat. It's not because they're gluten intolerant or have celiac disease. In a lot of cases, it's simply because wheat can be very fermentable. So you get water that's sent to the bowel and that causes diarrhea. And then you get gas production in the large intestine, which leads to bloating, distension, flatulence, abdominal pain and constipation.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:02]: A lot of people don't realize that buildup of gas, actually you'd think gas is kind of gross. But you think logically, like a lot of gas in the large intestine would kind of for poop out, but it doesn't. It makes you more constipated. It kind of traps stuff in. So the, the fodmap diet, obviously the low fodmap diet, as the name implies, eliminates these foods that are high in FODMAPs. The one would be things that have a lot of polysaccharides and oligosaccharides. Legumes are a biggie. Onion, cabbage and chicory root would be others.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:33]: Lactose would be the disaccharide group. So basically you get rid of all dairy if you're doing a low fodmap diet. So you're switching to coconut yogurt instead of regular yogurt, et cetera, Fructose, apples, pears, artichokes, asparagus, honey, fruit juices. I used to mainline energy gels back when I'd race Ironman triathlon and have horrific gas after a bike ride. I personally react really, really poorly to high FODMAP foods. You give me a salad made with apples and onions and maybe a cream dairy based dressing with some honey and fructose on it and I'm going to be painting the back of the toilet seat the next morning. So then we've got mannitol and sorbitol. These are polyols, sugar, alcohols.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:14]: So if you've ever had one of those diet energy drinks that's sweetened with something that ends with ol in it and then you get bloating, that's often why. Like maltitol, sorbitol, et cetera, there's a whole bunch of them out there. But these are also found in apples, in pears, so called stone fruits. I don't do well with those. I don't eat them. At least I rarely eat them. If I'm at a restaurant, I'll occasionally have like the pear walnut goat cheese salad, but pretty few and far between, folks. Mushrooms, not like mushroom powder, but more like whole mushrooms can be an issue in a lot of people.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:43]: Cauliflower and cruciferous vegetables, and again, a lot of diet foods and beverages that are using sugar alcohols. You eliminate those in a low FODMAP diet. And there's often very, very good effects on all of the issues associated with irritable bowel. But it's very interesting because they did find that probiotics in a low FODMAP diet have the strongest evidence improving irritable bowel syndrome. But just after that paper came out, that was In August of 2024, another one appeared in September of 2024 in the journal of Nutrients. And I'll link to these papers in the show Notes. Now in this one, they actually compared a low fodmap diet to a diet that was less restrictive, namely a diet that eliminated sucrose and starch. Eliminated sucrose and starch.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:36]: So rather than eliminating every single fermentable food on the face of the planet, this one simply limited confectionaries, what we in the non science world call candy or sweets. Sweetened dairy products. Not all dairy products, just sweetened dairy products. Think like Dannon yogurt with all the rotten fruit in the bottom or your chocolate milk with high fructose corn syrup, things like that. They got rid of ultra processed foods, bread, pasta and rice. The diet was primarily meat, fish, fat, natural dairy products, eggs, nuts, seeds, berries, other fruits and vegetables low in starch and sucrose. When the participants in this study had foods high in starch, they added fat or protein to them, both of which can reduce the fermentability of starch. Right, so you have rice and you're adding maybe some butter and some, I don't know, having it with a can of sardines poured on top.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:31]: That sounds like the way I would eat. And then they also had patients. And this is huge in and of itself. Eat slowly and chew food thoroughly. And if they were going to have like the traditional bread and pasta dishes, they chose fiber rich versions over white versions. Well, it turns out that in people with irritable bowel syndrome, reducing starch and sucrose was just as effective as a low FODMAP diet for improving symptoms. And they had a six month follow up. This was a four week intervention.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:06]: It's not like you're going to eat like this for the rest of your life. Sometimes it's just long enough to address some of the microbiome imbalances that might exist. I talk about that in my podcast with Joel Greene recently and it's kind of cool because you don't necessarily have to eliminate as many foods with this approach. And I'll keep that list in the show notes the list of things that you'd want to be careful with, as well as a list to the paper itself. But low starch, starch, low sucrose or starch and sucrose, limited diet. This is the first time I've seen something work as good or better than a low FODMAP diet for people with gut issues. So one to tuck away if you ever find yourself with constipation or diarrhea. And as much as everybody just loves me talking about gut issues and poop and the toilet, I've got one more for you.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:53]: So this was very interesting. I want to tell you a story. I had a period of time where I was having some very problematic gut issues. I had tried a variety of diets, practitioners, all the tricks in the book, colostrum, glutamine, probiotics, et cetera. And I felt as though there was something anatomical going on. It was associated with some low back pain, some hip tightness, some feelings of burning or inflammation in the front of my gut. I wound up going and seeing a chiropractic doc who someone recommended to me, and he adjusted my thoracic spine. And within like five minutes, the burning in the front of the stomach had gone away, my hips suddenly felt released and my bowels returned to normal.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:40]: So I tucked that away. And I've still kept up an occasional chiropractic visit. I'm not there like every week getting poked and prodded and snapped and popped, but I'm about once a month I'll go to a chiro. So anyways, I recently came across a paper that backs up the efficacy of what I experienced. So this paper is called Long Term Remission and Alleviation of Symptoms in Allergy and Crohn's Disease Patients Following Spinal Adjustment for Reduction of Vertebral Subluxations. That's a mouthful. So I'll explain. I'll explain it.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:15]: This paper presents a whole bunch of case reports. All right, so it's not a large double blinded, long term human clinical research study, but case reports of individuals with allergic reactions and Crohn's disease who experience long term remission or significant symptom improvement following chiropractic adjustments. So what these patients had was abdominal pain, bloating, bowel irregularities. The Crohn's patients who had these chiropractic adjustments had fewer flare ups and required less medications. The allergy sufferers reported diminished symptoms like nasal congestion and sneezing. And the question becomes, why would this be? Well, there's a few potential reasons for this. One would be nervous system regulation. There's a definite spine nervous system connection.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:59]: So misalignments in the spine, which are referred to in the chiropractic industry. Not to bastardize the term too much, but I'm going to keep this somewhat simple. They're often called vertebral subluxations, and those can impinge nerves and disrupt the function of the nervous system coming off the spine. And that controls every organ, including your gut. It may also influence the vagus nerve because spinal adjustments that help to properly restore nervous system function can also affect your HRV and the tone of your vagus nerve. And that can play a crucial role in regulating both digestion and gastric inflammation. As a matter of fact, there's an old book written by an OG in the fitness industry by Paul Chek, called Eat, Move and Be Healthy. And he has many instances in that book.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:41]: It's fantastic. I recently read it with my sons for the second time. First time I read it, I was a fledgling personal trainer. He came out with the 25 year anniversary version, shout out to Paul Chek. And he's big in that book about, hey, you have gut issues. Maybe you're doing too many sit ups, too many crunches, keeping your stomach sucked in, basically keeping your abs too tight, not training other abdominal and pelvic musculature support organs like your transversus abdominis, for example, or your obliques. And therefore you're creating imbalances in the spine that then affect gut function. I think he's onto something there in the same way that this paper is onto the link between the spine and gut function.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:17]: So in addition, these adjustments might reduce inflammation because if you reduce stress on the nervous system, you can potentially lower systemic inflammation by releasing the impingement on some of these nerves from the vertebra. Proper nervous system signaling can also help to regulate the immune response, possibly preventing immune system overactivation that you'd see in Crohn's and allergy issues. We know that the brain and the gut constantly communicate via the nervous system. So misalignments in the spine may interfere with that communication, also contributing to gastrointestinal issues. And then there's the stress reduction component, right? Chiropractic care can activate the parasympathetic nervous system. I've been adjusted many times. It felt like I was going to fall asleep right there on the table after the adjustment due to the relaxation. But that relaxation could also improve digestive function.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:04]: So this is a cascade of reasons why, if you're having a whole bunch of gut issues, and let's say you're doing a lot of things I just talked about, right? Like you're going low FODMAP or limiting starch and sucrose, maybe you're using probiotics, you know, glutamine, peppermint oil, aloe vera, all the things. Well, you may want to consider actually looking at the anatomy of your spine. And as much as the profession is often thrown under the bus, I think for, for right reason sometimes, because there are some practitioners just like allopathic medicine and chiropractic medicine that don't do a good job, there are many good practitioners out there who can, who really do know their way around the spine. And if you just won't go see a chiropractic for some reason, because I don't know, whatever your great aunt threw out her neck for three weeks after she saw one. An osteopathic. An osteopathically trained physician do would also be a good person to talk to about this issue and ask them, hey, could you look at my spine, maybe do some X rays, see if we have any type of impingement going on, see if there's any adjustments that might allow or might affect my gut function. So anyways, I thought the paper was really interesting. I'll link to the whole thing in the show notes if you want to take a deep dive into the science.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:14]: But something to think about if you have pesky gut issues. All right, next, I've got some resources for you before we move on to a great question this week. One is a great website, very simple website, but it's called plasticlist.org, plasticlist.org so if you visit this website, it has a very impressive list of a whole bunch of different foods and the exact microplastic and plastic content of those foods. It's got some really good industry advice as well as far as some ways that you can avoid contamination and some ways that you can and look into even finding a lab to test certain things that you might consume on a regular basis, as well as a lot of reports on plastics in the industry. But basically they launched this website, I think it was about eight months ago, to test 100 everyday foods for the presence of plastic chemicals based on, of course, the increasing concern that plastics are endocrine disrupting chemicals. So they're looking at phthalates, they're looking at BPA. They formed a team of folks and called more than 100 labs to find one that could have good experience, quality standards and turnaround time to collect hundreds of samples. Then they had them tested, they validated the results and then they prepared them to share on this website.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:39]: They collected 775 samples of 312 different foods and sent them to the lab. So they tested for 18 different chemicals, also known as analytes. And they tested the foods that a lot of people eat, fast food, sodas, water, milk, yogurt produce, snack bars, as well as some actual brands like blue bottle coffee, salt and straw ice cream, Lacroix, tartine sourdough bread, the core power protein drinks. And then they listed all of the phthalates, bisphenols and phthalates substitutes found in those foods. Now here's what's scary. They detected plastic chemicals in 86% of the foods they tested. At least one of the 18 chemicals they tested for was found in every baby food, every prenatal supplement, human breast milk, yogurt, ice cream products, to name only a few categories. They also found plastic chemicals in all products tested from Starbucks, Gerber, Chobani, Strauss, Celsius, Blue Bottle, RX Bar, Coca Cola, Tartine and Ghirardelli Chocolate.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:41]: Now this one's kind of sad. And they also found plastic chemicals in practically all the upscale and healthy foods that they tested. Raw milk and beef straight from a farm, 22 different organic foods, 20 healthy grocery products from Whole Food Eggs. Aside from one product, the O Organics brand eggs, all of them contained plastic chemicals. Now fortunately, on the website they listed how much each of those things contained and the percentage limit that would be above or the percentage of the limit that it actually was. Like for example, Boba guys black tea pearls. 32,571.4% above the limit for BPA. Spam canned meat, 6,800% above the limit for BPA. Tap water that already had Aquatabs purification tablets added to it, 10,903% above the recommended allowed levels of BPA. Whole Foods wild caught salmon, 968.6% above the recommended levels of BPA.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:50]: Fiji water, 283.3% above the recommendations for DEHP, another plastic chemical. So then they list all of the different research that actually shows that this could be a problem. And they've got some really, really good materials on the website about how they build up and what's in baby food and what's in raw milk, milk way too much for me to get into here, all the way down to tap water from different cities, et cetera. So I don't think you're necessarily going to climb into a cave and not ever eat anything from a grocery store or a farm again. But you can do things that help with this. For example, I think one of the best things you can do is sweat. I think there's something to be said about the longevity enhancing results of a regular sauna practice. This partially being attributed to the detoxification effects of just sweating stuff out, sweating these plastics out.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:44]: You can breathe, you can move, you can metabolize, you can exercise, you can get fresh air. You can pay attention to the things that you can control, like your air quality, your household cleaning chemicals, your personal care products. You can visit EWG.org to find lots of clean varietals or even this website, plasticlist.org, you're going to have plastics that build up in you by living a modern industrial lifestyle no matter what. But in the same way that you would move lymph by sweating, by moving, by breathing, by exercising, the same could be said to a certain level from if we're talking about plastics. Now there are more modern I talked about this in the last podcast, so listen to podcast number 485 if you want to learn about some more advanced blood filtration protocols like plasmapheresis and blood filters that can actually pull some of this stuff straight out of your blood. But for the average person, it's just like sweat. Avoid the stuff that you can be careful, but we're going to get some plastic buildup no matter what. We're not getting chased by woolly mammoths or eaten by saber tooth tigers, but the trade off is we're eating food a lot of the times that we don't have control over.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:51]: And unless you're going to move to a pristine farm on a Himalayan mountaintop, you're going to run into some of this stuff. But I would say if you visit this website, you can at least eliminate from your, you know, regular staple diet some of the things that are the most problematic. And that would certainly be my recommendation. All right. Another interesting website. You know, anybody who's read my book Boundless Parenting knows that I have a little bit of a passion for parenting, for education, for the ways that we raise our children. As a matter of fact, my friend Tim Ferriss just had a great show with another friend of mine, Naval Ravikant, about this new book called the Sovereign Child. I ordered it.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:31]: I'm going to read it. It sounds like it contains a lot of information you're going to find in my book Boundless Parenting and even more. But because I'm so interested in this topic, I thought it was very interesting, this relatively short and sweet article I came across about screen time in kids and an experiment that someone ran on their child. Those are dangerous words, experiment on a child. But this person wrote a little post. I originally saw it on X by @Elissa on X, and she mentioned that early exposure to screens is of course a pervasive problem in modern parenting, with a lot of compound effects on the long tail of a child's life. And the standard stance is just no screen time before 2 years old. That's actually the standard stance.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:15]: The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Pediatric Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there is no stance or standard otherwise, as Melissa points out, on how to achieve this, other than to simply abstain. She was looking for a more proactive and anti fragile plan. So she dug into the research and after reading a lot of the research on screens and children, her basic understanding, and I would agree with this, was that there's neurological implications of screen time for a child under the age of 2 years old because their brain responds with alpha waves, those are associated with passive and disengaged states. And that sharply contrasts with beta waves, which are linked to active thinking and learning. Beta waves would come from a focused, concerted cognitive effort for problem solving or decision making. Her primary objective was to minimize any potential interference from screens. So she decided to run an experiment with what is called Slow TV.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:17]: So what she did was she took her child. I think it was a relative, I think six months old, I believe was the child, maybe earlier. And I'm trying to remember if she listed on the website. Let me see if she listed here. She doesn't list, oh, three months old. Three months old. And she says as soon as she started this, her kid was about three months old. It seemed to work very, very well.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:42]: She picked a minimally stimulating channel called Slow TV on YouTube. She links and I'll link to this article in the show notes. Basically, one has movement and no music. Like a train through the snowy Swiss Alps in winter. Eight and a half hours long. Sounds like the type of thing I'd watch to go to sleep. Another one has music and almost no movement. Some girl with 3ish hours, some kind of looping animation.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:04]: She subscribed to YouTube Premium, so there are no ads shown while playing these. And she left it on 24/7, 365 days for two years. That's a little extreme. Might be an EMF implication there, but she's essentially trying to make her child bored to death with screens. Like get a whole bunch of alpha wave activity with screens, no beta waves. And then at 18 months old, she took him to the eye doctor. So basically, when she took him to the eye doctor, the way they do the exam is they play the Pixar movie Cars and they say, look over there, keep looking over there while I'm looking at your eyes. And the eye doctor quite literally could not get the child to look at the screen at all.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:42]: The child was bored to death of screens and not interested in them at all. Melissa reports in the article. Now, at almost three years old, the child still thinks the iPhone is just a phone that calls people because they're not interested in the screen at all. Now she lists a couple of books that gets into why this works. One called Endangered Minds and one called Your Child's Growing Mind on the neurological implications of screen time. But it's fascinating. You basically this would be like trying to get someone to not want to go to the gym and basically creating a gym that has like a rusty set of dumbbells and a stability ball in the corner. The gym's not fun at all.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:16]: You're not going to go like this is the reverse of that. Make the screen not fun at all. And basically season your child into complete boredom with screens by playing them super boring content 24/7 until they just realize that screens are not interesting at all. I thought it was an interesting experiment. I don't recommend you go out and experiment neurologically with your children, but it's still just a fascinating idea. So anyways, I will link to Melissa's post. Her post on X actually received a lot of interesting and somewhat controversial comments around it, but something to think about. Maybe it worked for adults too.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:51]: Get one of those 77 inch OLED TV screens that don't harm your eyeballs. Plug it in via Ethernet so you're not getting a bunch of emf, and then just play it all the time until you condition your brain into thinking there's absolutely nothing interesting going on in that screen at all because it's got no ads and it's like a. Like a train going through the Alps over and over and over again. All right, so. Or just listen to this podcast over.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:14]: And over and over again.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:16]: So I've got a question now. Luke asked an interesting question. Luke says, what are your thoughts on Nutrafol? Okay. Neutrophil being linked to liver injury tree. So Nutrafol. What is Nutrafol? It is a somewhat popular supplement for hair growth. Right? It's a. It's an oral supplement for hair growth.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:35]: It contains herbs, vitamins, minerals. It's marketed as safe and natural. But some recent concerns, I guess what's somewhat similar to, you know, concerns over wild caught salmon from Whole Foods having plastics in it, have arisen about its potential link to liver injury. So here's the thing. Neutrophil has botanical ingredients and these are called botanical ingredients. A lot of herbs, you know, a lot of times you'll see this with Ayurvedic herbs, Chinese traditional medicine, herbs, et cetera. It's got saw, palmetto, ashwagandha and curcumin in it, all of which have been associated with instances, somewhat rare instances, but instances nonetheless of herb induced liver injury. A lot of people think supplements are fine.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:16]: Medications are not. When it comes to your liver. A lot of herbs actually are not that great for your liver. This has happened in the nutrition industry before. Herbs that are tainted, herbs that require a lot of liver processing, herbs that based on your metabolism and your CYP genetics may just not be for you. So saw palmetto seems to increase liver enzyme activity leading to liver strain in sensitive individuals. Ashwagandha has also been linked to elevated liver enzymes and acute liver injuries. I'll often see this in and biohackers and health enthusiasts who I'll do phone consults with for their lab work and their blood work and they'll have really high liver enzymes they can't figure out because they don't drink alcohol and they do detoxes and they do a coffee enema and all these things. But they're just taking 80 supplements a day.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:00]: And a lot of times you get rid of the supplements and the liver enzymes go down and then you just have to reintroduce the supplements one by one to see what seems to be causing liver enzymes to increase. And a lot of times it is the supplements or the powders that contain herbs. Oh, and by the way, if this is an issue, one of the best things for lowering liver enzymes and it's also a great post alcohol drink is DHM. It's called dihydromyricetin. It's like a Chinese raisin extract that does a fantastic job lowering liver enzymes. Not a medical doctor, don't take this as medical advice. I'm just saying there's a bottle in my pantry and I have three anytime I have a glass of wine. DHM. LVLUP health makes it it.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:41]: A lot of companies make it, I think. Michaela Peterson, Jordan Peterson's daughter has an anti hangover product that has DHM in it. It's been around for years. I've known about it for like 10 years and use it if I'm drinking or if I'm concerned about my liver, have elevated liver enzymes. But it's becoming increasingly easier to find DHM. So the supplement industry as you know, is less tightly regulated than the pharmaceutical industry. There are potential interactions and side effects not fully studied. And Nutrafol has what's called a proprietary blend that makes even harder to pinpoint which ingredient or combination of ingredients could contribute to the liver issues.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:15]: And there's a lot of people who have reported experiencing elevated liver enzymes or acute liver injury after taking Nutrafol. And this is because a lot of Nutrafol's ingredients are indeed metabolized by the liver and overloading the liver with high concentrations of these substances, especially in people with pre existing liver fibrosis like hardening of the liver tissue, non alcoholic fatty liver disease or stress streaks of fat in the liver, people with elevated liver enzymes from alcohol consumption, et cetera that can lead to liver inflammation and damage, specifically by inducing oxidative stress in the liver that can overwhelm the liver's detoxification pathways. In the case of some things like Ashwagandha, there can be an autoimmune response that can harm liver cells. In some rare cases, saw palmetto that impacts androgen metabolism. That's why a lot of times it's used to lower a prostate specific antigen or PSA in people who are concerned about enlarged prostate and want to want an alternative remedy for that. But it can cause some stress on the liver. So using Nutrafol for hair growth might not be at the top of my totem pole when it comes to limiting hair loss. So what are some things that I think are safer and more effective? Well, there's a lot to be said now for red light hair growth helmets.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:33]: This one's called Restore. I wear that in the morning. It stays on for 12 minutes and it uses specific wavelengths of light that can target hair growth. You can google them or look them up or I'll put a link to them in the show notes but red light for the head can stimulate hair follicles and promote growth and they have been clinically shown to increase hair density and thickness over time. Dermarolling I do this once a week. I don't know if you guys noticed, but I have a really wild head of hair. These are the things I do. You roll a device with tiny needles over the scalp to stimulate blood flow and hair follicle regeneration and that can also enhance the absorption of anything you put on the hair afterwards.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:11]: For example, an example of a topical that you could put on the hair would be anything with caffeine in it. Aloe vera, rosemary oil, castor oil. That's an easy one to use. But a lot of these topicals to help with hair growth you can dermaroll beforehand to enhance the absorption of them. A lot of people didn't realize that any oil that has caffeine added to it can actually be great for the hair. You can literally derma roll your hair and you spent coffee grounds almost like a rub scrub that all over in your hair, leave it in for a little while, then go shower it off and a) see how pissed off your significant other gets that there's coffee grounds in the shower and b) recycle those coffee grounds in a good way. Massages, simple scalp massages. I even have one of those scalp massage devices in the shower.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:57]: And I love my new shower because I'm taking longer showers now because I can listen to podcasts and audiobooks in the shower. It's got like a little shelf in it that stays dry and so I'll do this scalp massage thing. It's like a little thing with little rubber spikes coming out of it, massaging the scalp. Not quite as good as a derma roller, but it can improve blood circulation to hair follicles and that helps with nutrient delivery and can stimulate hair growth. Right? So on an average day you could derma roll, put in some product, go put the red light helmet on, eventually wash the product out and that'd be an example of how to really, really spark things from a non oral supplement standpoint. Some natural supplements and foods can help. Biotin, vitamin B7, also known as vitamin B7, biotin, that supports keratin production and that can strengthen hair you find in eggs and almonds and salmon, which unfortunately we now know can have microplastics in it. So go with a good source, shout out to Seatopia.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:46]: That's where I get my salmon. But biotin would be one. Collagen, right? Or essential amino acids. Those are needed for hair structure and help to support scalp health. I take 20 to 40 grams of Kion essential amino acids a day and I take about 20 extra grams of collagen each day. So I do a ton of collagen and essential amino acids since I started doing that. Look at those ugly boys. I gotta clip my nails about every week and a half or so. They grow like weeds.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:11]: But so does my hair, which is great. Pumpkin seed oil. That one, either oral or topical, has fatty acids and antioxidants in it that have been shown to promote hair growth, particularly in men with what's called androgenic alopecia. Genetically related hair loss. Omega 3 fatty acids, fish oil, chia seeds, walnuts. Those can reduce inflammation and support scalp and follicle health. And then a few other things that you would want to do is be careful with hair damaging chemicals like sulfates and parabens. You're going to find a lot of shampoos and conditioners that are just the standard ones that don't.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:47]: They don't say, maybe appear on that EWG.org website. So go with a clean shampoo and conditioner or anything else that you put in your hair. Poor sleep can affect cellular repair and that can impair hair growth. So get your sleep and if you're not getting enough sleep, throw in your nap or your non sleep deep rest yoga Nidra style session. Stress management can also help to reduce hair loss. Don't wear a hat all the time so you're not limiting oxygen or sunlight exposure to the hair. And those would be a few of the biggies, I think the biggest dial movers, honestly, and this is my protocol is dermaroll once a week, red light every day, some type of scalp treatment that is like a rub in. There's actually a shampoo and conditioner that works pretty well also.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:33]: There's also a shampoo and conditioner I've actually been pretty impressed with. I have some, it's called called BioPilixin. BioP ilixin. It's a hair activation shampoo conditioner and then serum. Right. So they have like a whole box that comes with a shampoo, comes with a conditioner and comes with the serum. And they have specific ingredients in that that are supposed to help with hair growth and strength and recovery. I bet you didn't know your hair can be strong, but you can get stronger hair by stimulating keratin production.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:06]: The ingredients in it are niacinamide, aloe vera, an amino acid complex, something called vanillylbutyl ether, which is a warming agent that creates like this warm, tingly sensation on the scalp for blood flow. Zinc pca, which regulates oil production without harming the skin. And then Capilia longa. That's a great name for hair loss. Capilia longa demonstrated in studies up to an 89% reduction in hair loss and 52% improvement in hair density. I didn't know about this stuff at all. They sent a few bottles to my house like seven weeks ago. I've still got some.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:38]: I went through the serum pretty quickly because I used it every single time I use the red light helmet and then they have the shampoo and the conditioner as well. I think by the nature of them having sent me some, it was free. By the way, that happens to me sometimes as a podcaster. They also sent me a discount code for my audience. I'll hunt it down and put it in the show notes the Scandinavian biolabs Bio Pilixin and shampoo conditioner and serum. So you could derma roll once a week, use their shampoo and conditioner, put their serum in after you rinse it out, go to the red light helmet and that'd be a pretty dang good routine. The other thing you gotta bear in mind is that if you're on testosterone replacement therapy and a lot of that's getting converted into dht, you're gonna have to choose between having elevated testosterone levels or just having less hair, because that's a common side effect of testosterone replacement therapy. And there's not a lot of great fixes for it, unfortunately, besides just really using the minimum effective dose of testosterone.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:31]: So anyways, that's all I've got for you today. I will link to everything that I've talked about in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/486 that's BenGreenfieldLife.com/486 one of the reasons that I got to get out of here is I've got a meeting with some folks in India. I'm headed to India for two weeks. If you're one of my Indian listeners, look for my India tour speaking to a bunch of entrepreneurs organization EO groups over there for a little Southeast Asia tour. So I drop off the face of the map from for a couple months there or a couple of months couple weeks in January 2025. That's where it'll be. Namaste. And Namaste to you.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:10]: BenGreenfieldLife.com/486 thanks for listening. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks and and content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:30]: 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 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.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:23]: And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.