June 17, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/qa-457/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:33] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:49] Is alcohol going to kill you?

[00:14:34] Can ice-cream be healthy for diabetics?

[00:20:56] How to increase your strength?

[00:31:38] Podcast Sponsors

[00:35:46] Neurons communicate using light

[00:39:23] How accurate are wearables?

[00:46:45] Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules for Life

[00:55:23] “Can you recommend a NAD supplement that isn't intravenous?

[01:01:33] Any thoughts about developing a filtration system that incorporates hydrogen or brown gas (hydrogen + oxygen)? 

[01:06:53] Upcoming Event

[01:07:51] End of Podcast

Ben:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

The truth about whether alcohol is really bad for you, the surprising health benefits of ice cream, are wearables accurate, what is Brown's gas and much, much more.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Well, I've told you in the past about that red organic superfood powder I often smear on my meat when I'm cooking up meat and I want an amazing energetic meat rub. The same company that makes it, Organifi also does a green juice. I don't use it as a meat rub, I think it tastes nasty as a meat rub. I make pesto out of it though. I go out to my backyard, I gather dandelions and wild mint and all these wonderful green leaves. You could also buy green leaves like that at the grocery store, of course. And, I mix up walnuts and olive oil and lemon zest and a little salt and pepper and then I put two heaping scoops of this green juice in it and blend it up for a massive micronutrient-infused super healthy pesto. It's so good. Dipped in crackers or even smeared on chicken or steak or fish. Oh, my gosh.

Well, it wasn't designed this green juice for making pesto, but that's what I like about this kind of stuff, super versatile for a whole bunch of creative uses. Now, if you're on the go, you could have some on an airplane instead of an airplane meal for a whole host of nutrients. You could have it when you're traveling if you want to simulate eating like 10 salads without having to hunt down all the organic vegetables and doing the shopping and shopping and clean up to do it. If you want a green juice and you don't want to pay $18 for a tiny little bottle of green juice that probably has a bunch of sugar and fructose in it, anyways, you can get this stuff. It's moringa, ashwagandha, chlorella, spirulina, beets, turmeric, mint, wheatgrass, lemon, coconut water, 11 different superfoods that work together in a symphony of incredible energy-boosting and detoxifying benefits and you get this stuff at Organifi, Organifi with an i.com/Ben, Organifi.com/Ben gets you 20% off of your order. You got to check this out. So, it's the green juice that I was just telling you about. Organifi with an i.com/Ben.

You've heard of carbs, you've heard of fats, you've heard of proteins, but there's a fourth macronutrient I never learned about in college in my nutrition classes that is kind of this secret weapon now. As a matter of fact, it was created through a $6 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense and deep partnerships with some of the top researchers in nutritional science. It's used by Tour de France cyclists ultra elite endurance athletes and now, it's available for anybody. It's a highly efficient super fuel for the brain and the body. It's called Ketone IQ. Now, you've probably heard of ketones before, but what HVMN, the company that makes Ketone IQ has done is they've taken the part of ketones that is most bioavailable and efficacious. They've separated that from all the expensive fancy stuff, found out the dose that automatically gives you the energy that you want without the insulin spikes, the caffeine jitters, or the mid-afternoon energy crashes and you just take a dose and you feel a million bucks. And, the cool thing I like about it because I'm a total foodie and I can't stop thinking about food is it crushes my appetite and I can go for hours and hours and hours without eating even if I'm exercising.

So, if you want to try this stuff, you go to hvmn.com/BenG and use code BENG20 for 20% off of any purchase of Ketone IQ. That's an exclusive offer for my podcast listeners, hvmn.com/BenG and use code BENG20 for 20% off of any purchase. If you happen to be lucky enough to live in California, you can find HVMN Ketone IQ products within Equinox at any of the California Earth Bar locations as well as at Sprouts grocery store. So, hooray if you live in California. Ketone IQ, check it out, you have to try ketones, it'll change your life. 

What if I told you you could put on this little vibrating thing, and it could shift your focus, your mood, your sleep, your recovery near instantaneously, without taking any drugs or supplements? It exists. It was actually developed by a MAPS researcher who worked for a lot of plant medicines, as a way to shift the physiology, and he realized, “Hey, you can do this with vibration, too. Vibration on the wrist or vibration on the ankle.” So, you develop this thing, and sure enough. It's called the Apollo Neuro, and Apollo users experience 40% less stress and feelings of anxiety on average. They've done partnerships with Oura to check on deep sleep, 19, crazy, 19% more deep sleep on average, 11% increase in HRV, a marker of your nervous system resilience, up to 25% more focus and concentration. 

I have mine scheduled. So, in the morning, it starts vibrating, give me focus and concentration wakefulness. About 8:30 p.m., after dinner, I have it set, to start to lull me into a relaxed mode. And then about 9:30, it shifts into sleep mode. If I wake up in the wee hours, I can push it again, and it goes right back into sleep mode.

This thing is amazing. You can wear it on planes. Oh, my gosh, it's amazing on planes, just go to nap, go to sleep, just like that, lulls you off. There is something crazy about these haptic sensations. I wish more people could experience this, and you can. So, unlike wearables that just track your biometrics, leaving you to decide how to act on the data, the Apollo actively improves your health. And, the more you use it, the better you notice that it works because it trains your nervous system to get used to those vibrating cues.

So, you should check this thing out. I'm going to give you a discount on it, BG15, gives you 15% off. You go to Apollo Neuro, A-P-O-L-L-O-Neuro, N-E-U-R-O.com/BenGreenfield,  apolloneuro.com/BenGreenfield, use code BG15 for 15% off. That's significant. So, check it out, the Apollo. Super easy, super effective. You're going to love it.

Alright, folks. Here I am. Another solosode. If you listen to podcast 456, the one that came out before this one, if I've done my math correctly, then you know that I'm going to be doing a few more of these solo episodes mostly because I have no friends and I like to sit around in my basement talking to you. And also, I just have a lot that I sometimes want to say in between these interviews that I do with really smart people. I have a couple things I want to contribute myself. Hey, look at me, look at me.

So anyways, I figure for today's episode, let's just jump right in. Everything I talk about, by the way, you're going to find at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/457 and we're going to jump right into alcohol because there's a lot of hubbub around the internet right now on the damaging effects of alcohol in any dose whatsoever, not just heavy drinking on the weekend, but that nice glass of organic wine that you might have at the end of the day to relax and enjoy with friends. It's going to kill you. It's going to kill you. It's going to increase your risk of all-cause mortality, right or wrong?

So, what's the literature to date, to the date that I'm actually recording this in April 2023 actually say? Well, it is true that there's this J-shaped association with alcohol consumption and health outcomes. And, what that means is that at a low to moderate intake, alcohol is associated with a reduced risk of certain health outcomes. And, that might be because of the cardio-protective effects of alcohol like moderate drinkers have reduced risks for things like heart attacks and strokes. And, what that J curve also mean is that as the intake gets higher, the risk increases and usually around two to three drinks per day. A little bit higher end for men, a little bit lower end for women we see an increase in the risk of alcohol.

Now, we also note that on this J curve, alcohol abstinence, meaning not drinking at all is associated with a greater risk particularly when it comes to cardiovascular risk than low to moderate alcohol consumption. Now, here's the thing, there are some limitations to these type of observational studies and I'm going to link in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457 to a fantastic article by Brady Homer that outlines some of these limitations. 

So, first of all, you can't imply causation, meaning drinking alcohol doesn't actually lead to better health but is correlated with better health when we're looking at alcohol in low to moderate amounts. And that might also be due to the fact that we're socially satisfied, we're relaxed at the end of the day or with people, people who engage in low to moderate alcohol consumption might be also hanging out with people in social situations. And, we know that that is also something that is associated with better health. Low to moderate alcohol drinkers might also be healthier when it comes to other alcohol-unrelated behaviors things like their dental hygiene and their socioeconomic status or income or their weight or their exercise routines. And so, their better health might not be because of the moderate drinking but because of some of these other factors.

Now, a lot of these studies also don't look at different age groups, the ages of recruitment, they don't necessarily separate out men and women. And so, to date, there's been a lot of issues when it comes to the studies, but there was a brand-new meta-analysis that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's pretty insightful. So, what they looked at was 4.8 million participants and they looked at over 107 studies, or actually not over, they looked at exactly 107 studies. Now, what they did was they controlled for all those confounding variables that I was just describing: socioeconomic status, exercise routine, income, weight, men versus women, age, et cetera. And, what they found was that compared to not drinking at all, low-volume drinking, occasional drinking, and moderate drinking were actually not associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality. Okay. What that means, in other words, is that the risk of you dying from anything is similar if you drink low to moderate amounts of alcohol to people who don't drink at all. So, when I say low to moderate, what I mean is about one drink per week up to three drinks per day. And then, once you exceed that all-cause mortality, absolutely increases, no surprises here, and the higher amounts the higher increased risk of all-cause mortality. Meaning that if you're drinking five drinks per day, you got a 35% increased risk of all-cause mortality. That's probably not a news flash for you.

Now, interestingly when they looked at people who recruited younger than 50 years old and followed up for at least 10 years until they were age 60 or older, all the drinking groups except for the very low amount of alcohol consumption actually showed higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to people who didn't drink at all. In addition to that, female drinkers had a higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to men. And, the women, when they compared women who were consuming two to five drinks per day to women who were lifetime abstainers, the women drinking two to five drinks per day had a 20 to 60% increase risk of all-cause mortality. And, for males, the all-cause mortality was elevated for groups who had three to five drinks per day. So, for males slightly higher in terms of the amount of alcohol that they could get away with.

So, what this study shows is, first of all, alcohol doesn't seem to have any type of lifespan-extending effect at least according to this study. So, we're talking about the cardio-protective effects of red wine or all these other mechanistic proposals for the health-promoting effects of alcohol, we can't put any research behind that at all and stand up on those claims. Drinkers are not healthier than non-drinkers, but at the same time, low to moderate amounts of alcohol does not make you any less healthy either, okay? Basically what this big, big study, the biggest one to date that I'm aware of shows is that if you're drinking in moderation, and I personally think even the parameters of these in the study are a little bit high, three to five drinks for men, two to five drinks per women on a near daily basis, even though that is not going to necessarily increase your risk for all-cause mortality painting with a broad brush here, it's also not going to make you live any shorter. And, when you look at cultures around the world like the blue zones who many of them use alcohol as a daily part of life and that seems sustainable, it seems enjoyable, there's a socially enriching effect, I don't think this is surprising. But basically, if you are someone who is avoiding alcohol because you think it's going to make you live longer to avoid alcohol, well, that's not necessarily true. And, at the same time, if you're drinking alcohol because you've heard it's healthy and it's going to help you to live longer, that's also not true.

So, the big takeaway message here is that you can, if you're a woman, probably drink up to two drinks per day, possibly a little bit more. For men, up to three drinks per day, possibly a little bit more, and not necessarily experience a risk of all-cause mortality.

Now, I still think we should proceed with caution. I suspect that something like a glass of organic wine and for men maybe two or a very, very clean version of alcohol like, I don't know, a little Mezcal or something like that on the rocks or maybe an old-fashioned without a lot of sugar in it. Well, that's probably going to be just fine. Like I mentioned, I personally will have anywhere from two to a maximum four maybe drinks per week. And, everything else for me in the evening is sparkling water with different essential oils and electrolytes or some of these ketone alcohol alternatives. And so, that's basically what's going on right now with alcohol.

Now, if you want to read the full article or the full paper, I'll link to it if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/457. But, I actually thought it was it was pretty interesting to kind of see what the actual latest research is showing.

So, related to that I figured while we're being all hedonistic and stuff, we might as well talk about ice cream because this is pretty interesting. So, there was a Harvard doctoral student who back in 2018 was looking at the link between dairy foods and chronic disease. He actually found a pretty unusual conclusion in one of these studies. In diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day seemed to be associated with a lower risk of heart problems. So, this is obviously surprising because it's kind of a mega bomb of dessert loaded with saturated fat and sugar and that should certainly raise some eyebrows. But, they actually, in this article that appeared in the New York Times originally that I'll link to in the shownotes, they present a few plausible biological explanations for why ice cream even in diabetics could potentially be something that is healthy for you.

So, we know that dairy foods pretty much across the board, low-fat dairy, high-fat dairy milk, cheese, they appear to help prevent overweight people from developing insulin-resistant syndrome, which is a precursor to diabetes. But, when we look at dairy-based desserts in this study that was done at Harvard, there was actually, specifically for ice cream, an effect over two and a half times the size of milk for reducing the odds of developing insulin resistance. And so, they started to dig into why this might actually be the case because, again, we know dairy intake for the most part unless you have lactose intolerance and you're going to go decommission a bathroom is pretty good for you, especially high intake of yogurt, for example, but why the heck would that be for ice cream? 

Well, first of all, there might be an effect here when it comes to modulation of your microbiome. There's a possibility that some of the probiotic-enhancing foods in ice cream combined with some of the prebiotic sugars in ice cream might be affecting the microbiome in such a way that it could potentially reduce your insulin resistance risk. There's also potential that the calcium, the magnesium, and the mineral bioavailability in ice cream might also allow it to be somehow a little bit better for the microbiome.

Now, there's also, of course, real-world evidence. There was a YouTuber who launched what Men's Health called diet that would make the American Dietetic Association shit bricks. That's literally what Men's Health said. So, this YouTuber was having 2,000 calories a day of ice cream plus 500 calories a day of protein supplements plus, speak of the devil, alcohol. He was literally pounding Iris whiskey milkshakes. And, after 100 days on the ice cream diet with nothing else just protein whiskey and alcohol, he lost 32 pounds kind of that Twinkie diet that I've heard about and you see this occasionally just basically having pure simplicity and eating the same thing over and over again can result if the calories are actually controlled for in weight loss. I'm not necessarily endorsing an ice cream-based diet, but actually is pretty interesting that this whole ice cream saga, how ice cream might actually modulate the microbiome and also your mineral intake to such an extent that it could decrease your risk for insulin resistance.

Now, I approached this the same way that I approach the alcohol study, meaning that if you're having a reasonably sized scoop of ice cream at the end of the day and it's not contributing to excess calorie intake, then it's probably not going to kill you. I mean, we even know this for things like high fructose corn syrup and fructose-sweetened foods, they really only seem to present a high risk for things like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or obesity or insulin resistance when they're consumed in the context of a diet in which calorie intake exceeds calorie burn. Meaning, if you're eating 2,000 calories a day of ice cream of alcohol, and of Twinkies, then it's actually not as bad for you as some of the orthorexic health population might have you to believe. Now, of course, as you probably also know, it is incredibly difficult to consume things like ice cream and alcohol and Twinkies and not exceed your total calorie allotment for the day, especially because many of these foods trigger what's called a incretin response, a digestive hormone response that makes you want to eat more foods.

And, I think long-term, you're going to wind up with a deficiency in micronutrients and minerals and some of the other things that you'd be getting from eating a more widely varied diet. I suspect that long-term, your microbiome might also take a hit. However, what I'm getting at here is I would love for my podcast listeners to be okay with having a glass of wine with dinner and maybe delving into some ice cream with dinner or after dinner, have a cup of ice cream with the kids, sprinkle some cacao nibs or bee pollen or coconut flakes on it if you're like me, maybe a little bit of stevia chocolate syrup if you're trying not to exceed your calorie intake, and maybe you've also had a glass of organic biodynamic red wine or maybe a low sugar old-fashioned with dinner. This stuff's not going to kill you. What it actually comes down to most importantly, even though I'm not a pure calories in, calories out proponent, I think that there are some other metabolism effects of foods that we need to take into account like the thermic effect of food, the bioavailability of nutrients, et cetera. But, at the end of the day, it's just looking more and more, at least to me, as though a little bit of Hedonism here and there as long as you're not exceeding your total calorie allotment for the day might not be that big of a deal after all. So, you heard it here first. Have your alcohol, have your ice cream enjoy it with people, enjoy it with your family, throw a little bit of Hedonism into the mix. It's not going to kill you, folks.

Alright. So, this next paper that I want to get into, speaking of calorie burn was excellent. I think it's one of the best articles that I've read when it comes to getting stronger. So, it appeared in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, it's called Maximizing Strength: The Stimuli and Mediators of Strength Gains and their Application to Training and Rehabilitation.

So basically, what this looked at was all of the different ways that people could get stronger. So, what they showed was that your strength gains can be stimulated via both non-traditional and traditional methods. Let's go over some of the more traditional methods, things that you should think about if you're just trying to get strong like a bull because for me, I follow a lot of these principles and I only weigh 170 pounds. There was a time in my life when I was 215 pounds and weightlifting at a very low body fat percentage when I was bodybuilding. Well now, pound for pound, I'm way stronger and I use a lot of these principles to maintain this long livid wiry power and strength that isn't necessarily associated with an increase in bulk and mass because muscle actually does take some amount of energy to carry and to cool. And, bodybuilders don't necessarily live longer in many cases they die early due to that added stress and due to cardiac hypertrophy in large athlete's heart. But, at the same time, strength is not necessarily synonymous with getting big and bulky and we know based on grip strength, overall strength, deadlift weight, et cetera, that there's some definite longevity-enhancing properties of strength as well.

So, a few things to think about when it comes to strength. First of all, maximal mental effort and my friend Ben Pakulski actually talks about this quite a bit, the mind-muscle connection. Meaning that a greater mental effort during strength training produces greater strength gains, specifically focusing on the muscle that you're attempting to recruit. And, there are even some people including a guy I'm going to interviewing soon on the show if the interview didn't already come out yet, Andrew Triana or Andy Triana of Super Brain who will incorporate things like visualization or meditation in between sets to increase neural drive for motor unit recruitment. And, there are of course some different biohacking modalities probably most notably there's a unit called the HALO. It's a trans direct cranial stimulation unit that enhances your motor neuron recruitment when you play it for 20 minutes before weight training. Or, you could use visualization or meditation or you could read a book like the inner game of golf or the inner game of tennis and learn about this idea of priming the muscles mentally. Motor imagery training is what it's called. That can increase strength.

Now, the next would be maximum neural activation of muscle. So, this would be an increase in the neuromuscular recruitment. Now, there was a recent study on electrical muscle stimulation and muscle strength gains, and this would be using something like the Katalyst full-body electrical muscle stimulation suit or some other method of using electrodes, either with your weights or using bodyweight training. And, that study that also appeared in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research showed significant strength gain across 10 different studies on electrical muscle stimulation when it was used to enhance strength. And, that probably is due to the maximal neural activation, an electrically evoked contraction. Imagine muscle contractions can do the same thing and, of course, no surprises here, training with increasingly heavier loads, meaning adding weight to the bar or the kettlebell or the dumbbells. Every time you go to the gym, all produces an increase in maximal mental effort under external load.

So, the first two strategies that are highlighted in this paper involve using the mind. The next is involving lifting and lowering movements, what's called concentric eccentric muscle actions. So essentially, focusing not just on the lifting portion of a lift but also on the resisting or the lengthening of the muscle during the lift has a significant increase in the force of the muscle contraction in Episode 456 in which I talked about super slow training. I talked about that gradual switch from fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fiber recruitment and the increase in motor unit recruitment when you're moving especially in the down phase or the eccentric phase of a workout in a little bit more slow fashion. But ideally, you are doing both, you're not just doing eccentric training like negatives, you're not just doing concentric training but you're incorporating both. I think that's kind of a pretty obvious takeaway, but it's also mentioned in this paper.

Next training through full range of motion. Now, painting with a pretty broad brush. If you're moving through a full range of motion, you're generally going to produce more strength. There are some joints that benefit even more from a full range motion. If you're training your glutes or you're training your hamstrings or your quads, for example, those are all muscle groups in which moving the muscle through the greatest range of motion possible can elicit both strength and hypertrophy gains. If it is, for example, the biceps or the triceps, then that doesn't appear to be as important. As a matter of fact, I have an article and I'll link to it in the shownotes in which I also talk about a newer range of motion study that has a table in it that shows you all of the muscles that do best moving through full range of motion. But, if you don't have time to look at that table and you're not quite as anal and type A when you go to the gym, just know that moving through full range of motion for the most part is a good idea.

And then, the last kind of big one that they talk about here is inducing muscular metabolic stress. What that means is the accumulation of metabolic byproducts including lactic acid in the muscle tissue during training creates a significant strength enhancement effect and blood flow restriction or KAATSU training using pneumatic cuffs or bands to allow more of those metabolites to stay localized to the muscle during training seems like the best way to cause this to happen, this idea of muscular metabolic stress. So, in summary, maximum mental effort using something like visualization, maximal neural activation using something like electrical muscle stimulation and/or meditation or visualization, going through the full range of motion and focusing on both the concentric and the eccentric muscle action, and then finally inducing as much muscular metabolic stress as possible all seem to be really good mediators for increasing strength gain.

Now, they also talked about a few other strategies. They mentioned if you begin each set of resistance exercise in a minimally fatigued state that helps to maximize long-term strength gains. So, if you look at CrossFit or you've you look at a boot camp style workout or if you look at many of these workouts that are kind of doing cardio in between the strength sets, that's actually not very good for increasing strength. If you're in a metabolically fatigued state, that is going to especially over time diminish strength gain. So, if your goal is to just get as strong as possible, have at least a couple of dedicated sessions per week where you're not bouncing back and forth between cardio and strength or you're not training with say minimal recovery periods. As a matter of fact, longer rest intervals specifically rest intervals, two minutes or longer are best for increasing strength. That doesn't mean you're sitting there reading a magazine or dinking around in your phone, which is super annoying when people are doing that at the gym or watching TV in between your sets, instead means that you might be doing some foam rolling, maybe a little bit of extra core work or balance work or something that's still making your body better in between sets but you aren't actually working in between sets.

They also bring up recovery in between sessions for the so-called super compensation effect. That makes sense. Just don't train if you can't meet or exceed as a previous podcast guest of mine, Dan John has said. If you can't meet or exceed your previous training sessions performance and you're trying to increase strength, you probably shouldn't go to the gym that day and you should instead do a more recovery-based modality.

Now, a few of the things that they talk about is what's called Supra Maximal Training Intensity. This means that including things that allow the muscle to be loaded even more than what you would be able to produce yourself can be helpful. And, there are machines like the Tonal, the wall mounted exercise machine with pretty small footprint. I like that machine. Or, the X3 bands by Dr. John Jaquish or even the expensive but highly effective ARX machine. All of these are training modalities that basically introduce a lot more force into the muscle than you'd be able to generate yourself, especially through the eccentric or negative component. It's very similar to going to the gym with a spotter and having someone actually push the bar down or support you when you're lifting more supra maximally than you'd normally be able to lift on your own. That's incredible for increasing strength.

So, they've also looked at the use of things like neuromuscular electrical stimulation, whole body electromyostimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, some of these more hacky modalities. And, all of these actually seem to be pretty good for increasing the neural excitability and motor neuron recruitment that can increase strength. And so, these are not just silly as-seen-on-TV biohacks, these things can actually work as well. Same thing could be said for the BFR bands or the KAATSU bands. So, in a nutshell, if you want to increase your strength, then you should focus on things like meditation visualization, potentially some electrical muscle stimulation or other ways that you can increase motor neuron recruitment including things like TDCS like a HALO device that you can wear before workout, meditation visualization, the use of BFR bands when appropriate, long rest periods and figuring out ways to subject your muscles to a higher amount of force than you'd be able to do if it was just your little old self-training.

So, I think a lot of that stuff is common sense. And, if you want to dig into the paper to get the full science behind many of these methods, then I'll link to it in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457. But, I just thought it was a great reminder of the different ways that we can increase strength.

Alright, so if you've been listening to my show for a while, you've probably heard a multiple-time podcast guest of mine who I call the Doctor Strange of Medicine, his name is Dr. John Lieurance. John is a naturopath, he's a chiropractic neurologist and has a very unique approach to healing people through things like detoxification, antimicrobials, plant polyphenols, and super powerful antioxidants like glutathione or high-dose melatonin. And, he's not that into just popping pills. He's figured out that you can do activation of certain pathways by using eye drops and nasal sprays for things like meditation and breath work and vagal nerve function and suppositories like melatonin and glutathione for insane powerful sleep or detoxification pretty much just about every hole or delivery pathway in the body. 

John's figured out how to use for things like antioxidants, melatonin, glutathione, CBD, plant terpenes, probiotics, plant polyphenols, even has this stuff that you can use that you would use as like when you do morning oil pulling. You can actually swish it around in your mouth to clean out your mouth. I use his nasal spray for breath work. I use the oil-pulling stuff when I wake up and I want to clean out my mouth. It's called Boca Zen. I use his nasal spray for, again, any time that I want to activate consciousness and kind of check out for a little while and do so with a very, very quick and effective thing that doesn't stay in my system for hours. I use this melatonin when I travel for a high-dose melatonin source for beating jet lag. I use his glutathione for very simple detox. The dude's got some of the most amazing well-formulated products out there and you're going to get a discount on all of it.

You got a Mitozen, M-I-T-O-zen.com/Ben. And, if you use code BEN over there, you'll instantly get 5% off. So, it's mitozen.com/Ben and use code BEN for 5% off of anything from Mitozen.

So, I wrote a book last year that is my guide to dealing with personal struggles, spiritual growth, temptations and it's essentially a sequel to my original book, “Fit Soul” in which I talk about, as the name implies, getting a fit soul. But, this book called “Endure” is about tools, tactics, and habits for improving your spiritual stamina. It's kind of a fun side project for that book. I commissioned an artist to create 13 really cool amazing limited edition covers of super inspirational figures like a bald eagle, and David fighting Goliath, and a rock climber, and an archer, and stallions running through a wildfire, and somebody charging up a hill, and a ship on the raging ocean, really, really beautiful books. And then, I worked to get these books printed. I personally signed each one of them and so I've got 13 books literally in my office, all limited-edition versions of my book, “Endure.” And, what I'm doing is I'm opening up all 13 as an NFT. Meaning, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/EndureNFT. You can bid on any of the books. And, when you do, I send the book to your home, you also own the digital right and we're doing a VIP book signing party with me for the 13 people who each own one copy, only one copy will ever exist of this “Endure” book.

So, I'm super proud of the way these things turned out. They're really beautiful. They'd be great for a gift. They'd be great for a cool place on your bookshelf. You could get all 13 if you want to own the whole collection and beat everybody to the punch. That's up to you. But anyways, you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/EndureNFT to bid on a book to own it, get the signed version sent to you, own the digital version, and also have a private virtual book signing party with me. So, check it out, BenGreenfieldLife.com/EndureNFT.

Alright, folks, I know a lot of you wonder how my wife and I have been married for 21 years. The key habits that we integrate in our life and our family's life day in, day out in order to develop a healthy family, to build legacy, to build generational wealth, to have better sex, better connection, better dates. All the things that go into a thriving relationship. We've decided that we're going to teach all of that and we're going to do it a five-star Napa Valley getaway called the Couple's Collective. 

So, not only are Jessa and I are going to be there but as a part of this event, it's luxury food, it's a luxury location, you're also going to be a part of the entire team that operates an online platform, that gives you access to monthly master classes with relationship and health experts, accountability and mentorship with men's and women's groups, a health optimization plan for you and your lover and did I mention, all-inclusive, luxury, five-day emersive retreat. As a matter of fact, as a part of this collective, you get access to two of those a year. You even get an app that you get to download to your phone that has me and all the other featured experts in there helping to teach you, helping to guide you, helping to hold you accountable, and if you want to go to the boots-on-the-ground event with me and my wife in beautiful Napa Valley, here's how to apply. 

So, go to ownitcoaching.com, O-W-N-I-T, ownitcoaching.com/couples-collective. When you go there, you'll be given a chance to take part in this amazing event specifically designed to be an intimate getaway for couples. You're going to learn from me, from my wife, a whole bunch of fantastic relationship experts in a luxury locale with amazing food, amazing side events and excursions and specifically, this is geared towards couple who run their own business. Entrepreneurial couples who want to develop greater ways make profit, build multiple streams of income but also have good work-life balance and connect with each other deeply, physically, mentally, spiritually in the process. So, pretty exclusive yet immersive event. Again, it's ownitcoaching.com/couples-collective, October 25th to 29th in Napa, California. 

The next thing that I wanted to bring up kind of taking a little turn of direction here was neurons. This was a fascinating article that appeared in the Neural Regeneration Research. And, what it looked into was the idea that neurons can actually communicate using light, what's called ultra-weak photon emission. So, neurons actually use biophotons of light to communicate with each other not just say electrical activity or the release of neurotransmitters across the synaptic cleft. The way that this works is that biophotons get absorbed by what are called chromophores within a cell. And, when the chromophores absorb these photons that are actually produced anywhere from the ultraviolet to the red to the near-infrared wave range, that's 200 to 950 nanometers, you see an increase in neural communication. In addition, neurons actually generate these same wavelengths of light to be able to communicate with each other. If you look at the brain, for example, it's the most energy-intensive organ of the body at rest. You can actually burn a significant amount of calories just by thinking and doing a high amount of cognitive work.

Well, the brain uses glucose, it uses ketones, it uses oxygen to fuel that energy production and all of your tissues generate heat when they're metabolically active and the blood that brings their nutrients spreads that heat throughout the body. And so, when we look at the brain particularly, we actually see a high amount of this biophoton emission in cells of the brain. And so, if they're using a way to actually visualize light production in the body, you see that neuron specifically in neural tissue such as the central nervous system seem to produce a high amount of these biophotons of light. So, there's a growing body of evidence that neuron's self-generate light, ultraviolet red near-infrared light and this light referred to as biophotons, helps the neurons to communicate with each other.

Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is I think it's interesting that as I've talked about in the past, humans can photosynthesize almost plants. When we're exposed to sunlight and we have the right type of nutrients in our body like the dark greens and blues of the plant kingdom, black things like shilajit, or blue things like methylene blue. And now, we know that neurons actually use light to communicate when people talk about us being a light being it's both literally and figuratively true. And, I think this is yet another reason that ample sunlight exposure or the use of red light therapy or ideally both is probably something that's going to be supportive not just for things like the skin health or shining it on the gonads for hormones or something like that, but actually for nervous system communication in general. 

I also think this lays out a pretty good case for things like that, that Vielight or Vielight device that I talked about, V-I-E-light with Dr. Lew Lim where we discuss all of the different ways that light can be beneficial for the body using something like intracranial or transcranial light exposure. And, this is like a headset that you can wear on your head to stimulate neural tissue with light. But, it's also interesting to think about the fact that neurons create light themselves. And, I'll link to that podcast with Dr. Lew Lim about how you can use light to stimulate neurons a little bit more effectively in the shownotes if you want to check it out.

Okay, I get asked a lot about the accuracy of wearables like the Apple, the Garmin, the Oura, the WHOOP, well they recently on a website revealed the results of a study that looked at the accuracy of wearable technology and smartwatches and wearables in general. So, I'll give you an overview of what they found and then we'll delve into a few of the specific products namely the Apple, the Oura Ring, the WHOOP, the Garmin, the Fitbit, and the Samsung when it comes to their accuracy. So, the highlights are as follows.

Wearable devices have as much of as 20% error when measuring heart rate and calorie expenditure and can be off by as much as 100%. Most of them overestimate total sleep time and underestimate wakefulness after sleep onset. On average, exercise intensity, the motion of your extremities during exercise, the wrist position, and any interference like sweat or dirt on the skin along with skin pigmentation have all been shown to decrease the accuracy of wearable devices and they actually tend to underestimate step count by 9%.

So, let's look at specifically how this is relevant to each of the different devices that you may or may not be using. Apple watches. I'm not a huge fan of those because I think it's like a giant radiating wristwatch, but Apple watches have been shown to underestimate your heart rate by an average of 1.3 beats per minute. Now, their accuracy improves interestingly as heart rate increases. The Apple Watch seems to miscalculate calorie expenditure by overestimating calorie expenditure by as much as 115%. It tends to have a 0.9 to 3.4% error when measuring your total step count.

Now, it does correctly identify 97% of the time if you're sleeping when moderating sleep and it correctly identifies if you wake up during sleep only 26% of the time. It underestimates your heart rate variability by 10 milliseconds, meaning that if you're tracking your heart rate variability and it's constantly low and using the Apple watch to do that, that might not actually be accurate.

So then, we have the Oura ring. The Oura ring accurately measures your resting heart rate. It's more accurate than the Apple when it comes to measuring your resting heart rate, only a 3% error. Now, it also has a 13% error when measuring caloric expenditure, okay, so it's not super accurate for caloric expansion but it's not bad as far as wearables go. It correctly identifies when you're sleeping 94% of the time. So, pretty close to the Apple and calculates total sleep time with 96% accuracy. That's why I actually like the Oura specifically for sleep. It seems to do a pretty good job identifying time spent in light, deep, wake, and REM sleep and correctly identifying when you wake up during sleep. But, like the Apple watch, it also seems to underestimate heart rate variability by about 10 milliseconds and it has about a 4.8% error when it comes to step count.

Then we have the WHOOP. The WHOOP, on average, heart rate measurements are 99.7% accurate and it's 99% accurate when measuring heart rate variability. So, it's one of the better ones especially when it comes to heart rate variability. It has a pretty high degree of accuracy when measuring sleep but slightly lower sleep parameters than something like the Oura ring. At the same time, their product does not count steps because they say that step count ignores intensity and other movements. So, we can't really comment but they do measure something called strain, which takes into account heart rate, physical activity, activities of daily living, et cetera. So, for heart rate measurements, the WHOOP seems pretty good. For sleep measurements, the Oura seems pretty good and the Apple is a little bit of both.

Now, the Garmin is another one that's commonly used. That underestimates heart rate variability by 22, so not accurate at all when it comes to heart rate variability, worse than the Oura, worse than the Apple. It has pretty good sleep monitoring, but its error for step count is way off, 23.5% error with your step count and up to a 42.9% error when measuring caloric expenditure, a little bit of an error for measuring heart rate but only about 1 to 2%. So, that's not too bad, but the Garmin, I don't think it performs as well as the Oura or the WHOOP based on what I've seen from this particular paper.

Now, the Fitbit, that underestimates heart rate by an average of 9.3 beats per minute during exercise. That's pretty significant. It's got a 14.8% error when measuring caloric expenditure and it miscalculates step counts by about 9.1 to 21.9% and overestimates total sleep time by 7 up to 67 minutes. And, combined with the fact that it doesn't really do sleep, at least to my knowledge and some of these other variables of things like the WHOOP or the Oura or the Apple are doing dictates that I don't think it's the best wearable out there might work for exercise, even for exercise. It's underestimating your heart rate by 9.3 beats per minute.

And then, we have Samsung. Samsung isn't as inaccurate as a Fitbit, it underestimates heart rate by only about 7.1 beats per minute during exercise, a little bit lower error in the step count, and a little bit lower error in the energy or the caloric expenditure. It also underreports heart rate variability if you're using the Samsung for heart rate variability by 18.24 MS, which is pretty significant. So, I know it was a lot of numbers, what's the takeaway? 

If you're going simple, you don't want to break the bank and you need an inexpensive and affordable way to track your fitness, the Fitbit is going to rank a little bit higher than the Samsung. If you are looking for something that is going to do a good job measuring sleep, measuring exercise, measuring heart rate variability, et cetera, there's a wide degree of pros and cons between the Garmin, the WHOOP, the Oura, and the Apple. But, in an ideal scenario, if you didn't want to be weighed down with too much, it appears that doing something like using the WHOOP to measure a lot of your exercise parameters and your total daily strain and then using something like the Oura to measure things like sleep and heart rate variability would actually be a pretty good one-two combo if you're one of those crazy transhumanistic biohackers who likes to have a million devices on your body.

I personally am pretty comfortable with just using the Oura and the cheapo Timex watch that I wear, but I do know now based on this that I'm getting an underestimation of my heart rate variability by about 10. So, if it's saying my heart rate variability is low, it could be a little bit higher than what the Oura is actually telling me and it's not going to be that accurate for calorie expenditure, and also it doesn't do a great job telling someone if they are or are not waking up during sleep. But ultimately, for me, it's almost a toss-up between the Oura and the WHOOP. It just depends whether you want something on your wrist or whether you want something on your finger. And, if you want the most accurate data possible, you could actually do both, both the ring and the WHOOP.

I'll link to the full article in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457 if you want to check this out.

So, the last one that I wanted to mention was a really, really great article called “Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules for Life.” This appeared on a fantastic website called The Art of Manliness and there was an 1825 letter to his friend John Spear Smith that highlighted Jefferson's refined list of what he called his Decalogue of Canons for observing in practical life because over years, Thomas Jefferson took a list of 10 life rules and he shared these with his children, his grandchildren and his friends who were looking for guidance on parenting their kids. It's kind of interesting because I've actually been doing the same. I have a book coming out next year called “Precepts.” It's 100 different rules for life, so I'm overachieving by Thomas Jefferson 10x, but I'll probably still never be the president nor do I have a deep desire to be the president. But nonetheless, Thomas Jefferson has 10 and they're pretty good. I'll go over them with you. You can read the details in the article, but here you go.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. In other words, procrastination despite being difficult to overcome is something that's going to hold you back in life. So, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today or as the ancient Chinese proverb goes, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today.” Just get it done.

Number two, never trouble another for what you can do yourself. Thomas Jefferson was a big fan of a self-reliant spirit. And, while I am a fan of delegation, outsourcing, and having a little bit of a Tim Ferriss' “4-Hour Work Week” type of approach to business and life, if you can do something yourself, you should at least learn how to do it and then decide if it's something that you want to continue to do for yourself so that you can build your self-reliance. I don't know if I agree with full self-reliance. Sometimes, I think that can be tied to ego, but nonetheless, general self-reliance, I think, is a pretty good idea and you're going to survive in the zombie apocalypse also. So, there's a bonus.

Number three, never spend your money before you have it. Of course, not all debt is bad, it can make things like home ownership possible, for example. But, too much of the wrong sort can be enslaving. The more you reduce your debt, the more your peace of mind, security, and freedom to pursue opportunities is going to grow. And, there's too many people leaving paycheck to paycheck. So, I like Thomas Edison's idea there even though I'm a fan of smart debt, I'm not a Dave Ramsey “Cash is King” type of guy. I think putting your cash to work for you in a prudent way is a good idea, but ultimately, never spend your money before you have it.

Next, never buy what you do not want because it is cheap and this will be dear to you. Meaning, it will cost you dearly if you're buying what you do not want because it is cheap. Shopping bargains, shopping bargain websites, going shopping on Black Friday and just seeing what's on sale, Thomas Jefferson would not have been a fan of that because it builds up clutter items that are poor quality that need to be replaced or expensively fixed that robs you both money and time. It is something that often occurs from budget shopping for deals. Know what you want, know truly what you want. Find a good deal on it but don't just go shopping and see what's on sale. Anybody practicing Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day or Cyber Monday may want to think twice about that if they want to follow Thomas Jefferson's rules for life.

Next, number five. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. It says pride elevates your sense of superiority so that you arrive at the irrational belief that the world revolves around you. And, the antidote to pride is humility, the recognition that you aren't the center of the universe and that even if you've already achieved considerable success, you still have plenty of room for learning and growth. I would tend to agree on that. I mean, religious and spiritual thinkers from Saint Augustine to C.S. Lewis have all taught that pride is the root of many sins and many moral failures. Check out Ryan Holiday's book, “Ego is the Enemy” if you want to learn more about that.

Next, he says, I like this one, we never repent of having eaten too little. This is so true. Most of us have a common regret in overindulging rather than underindulging. As a matter of fact, the only time I really beat myself up for having eaten too little would be if I'm in the middle of a workout and going hypoglycemic or I wake up at 2:00 a.m. because I didn't have enough calories or carbohydrates with dinner. But ultimately, if you forward think when you are engaged in any hedonistic effort including alcohol ice cream, and Twinkies, you should think about moderation. The Japanese, I forget the word, it's [00:51:16] _____ something like that, push yourself away from the table when you're 80% full. But, Thomas Jefferson has a good observation there. I like that. We never repent of having eaten too little. Your appetite could be your ally rather than your enemy if it's properly harnessed as Plato argues.

Number seven, nothing is troublesome that you do willingly. Nothing is troublesome that you do willingly. Some people have a tendency to go through life acting like they're constantly put upon like I have to go to work, I have to volunteer, I have to call my parents. But, when they're putting that obligation amongst themselves, they act resentfully and with a high dose of annoyance. So instead, think in terms of getting to do something, carrying out what you do because you know that it's something that you're doing willingly of your own volition. And, if you find yourself living a life in which you're constantly engaged in troublesome activities that you aren't doing willingly or of your own volition but because the world has asked you to or the world expects you to, then you may want to step back and do a little bit of life reinvention so that you're living your day doing the things that even if they're hard work, you're willingly doing of your own volition.

So next, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened? Meaning worry. When we worry about things that won't necessarily happen but that are outside our control, we experience needless anxiety. So, of course, this ties into stoicism. Don't worry about the things that you cannot control. And, thankfully the reverse is also true, you can reduce life's pain by only worrying about the things that actually happen and not those that only may occur. Yes, plan for the future. Yes, create worst-case scenario outcomes just so you are prepared, but don't spend your life worrying about things that won't necessarily happen whether it's the next zombie apocalypse or world war or anything like that. Be prepared but don't spend your life in worry and anxiety about it.

Number nine. Take things always by their smooth handle. That's another stoic-inspired life rule. It comes from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius who thought that there would be an easier and a harder way to do just about anything. A lot of people do go through life in hard mode. They think if something isn't difficult, they aren't doing it correctly. And, when many good things are hard, the fact that something is hard doesn't necessarily make it good. There's a great book called “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown in which he asked the question and I've seen Tim Ferriss also ask this, what if this could be easy? And then, you outline the easiest way to tackle a problem.

Now, sometimes I think some, for example, the minimal exercise biohacking community who want to get by on one-minute hard effort per week tend to take this to its finest extent and actually try to make things too easy. Okay, things still need to produce outcomes and sometimes you do need hard work, blood, sweat, tears, chopping wood and carrying water, but you should also seek the easy outcome or the seek the easy process, the easiest road to the top of the mountain if it does exist. And, I would say the one exception of that would be in the realm of exercise and body/physical improvement, it's usually the harder path that actually pays off the most, assuming you're not overtraining.

And then, number 10. When angry, count to 10 before you speak. And, if you are very angry, count to 100. I love this. The deep breath before you speak, managing anger, the hot emotion with something as simple as counting. And, Jefferson was a wise guy, count to 10 when you're angry or 100 if you're very angry. That's a great tool to prevent your temper from getting the better of you. I'm not naturally a very angry guy, but I do make sure when I'm replying to an email that irks me or I'm about to jump into a difficult conversation, I breathe, I do breath work, I count, I go out in nature and take a quick walk or do something that ensures that I'm keeping my emotions at bay.

Now, the article “Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules For Life” that appeared on The Art of Manliness does go into a lot more details, but hopefully, that gives you a little bit of insight into Thomas Jefferson's 10 rules and ways that you can implement them. And, I'll link to the full article at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457.

Alright, I want to cover a few questions here. We have a question from Madison Jewel from Instagram. If you want to ask a question, by the way, you can do so at BenGreenfieldLife.com or any of my social media channels. You can find me typically under Ben Greenfield, Ben Greenfield Life or Ben Greenfield Fitness. Ask your questions, we look at them every week and I pick a few that I want to reply to on the podcast. So, I got two today. An NAD supplement that isn't intravenous.

Now, this is interesting. So, many of you are aware of NAD. As you age, NAD concentrations in your blood decrease and low NAD concentrations due to NAD's mitochondrial and cellular protective properties are associated indeed with cell aging. All your living cells need NAD to function. All 30 trillion cells in your body need NAD to function. And, a dip in NAD concentration can negatively affect cell function, DNA repair, and an acceleration of cell aging. 

Because of this, many people will supplement with, for example, oral, nicotinamide riboside or NR or oral NMN or oral NAD. And, that can certainly be a good strategy but then some people will really get their levels up by doing NAD IVs. And, this is interesting because NAD can help to control the production of a protein in the brain called PGC1 alpha, helps keep your brain cells protected against oxidative stress. It may lower the risk of heart disease, specifically age-related dysfunction in the arteries. It may lower cancer risk except in the case of breast cancer that's pre-existing in which case it seems to accelerate tumor growth. So, just something to think about there as far as a caveat. It could support muscle function as you age, meaning lower NAD levels can negatively impact muscle strength, muscle endurance, and overall function. It helps to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm, which is why if you're sleep-deprived, dosing with NAD either orally or with an IV or via this other method, I'll mention, can be fantastic for a day of sleep deprivation. For example, today, I'm using a lot of NAD and creatine because I'm going off three hours of sleep. Just is what it is, but I certainly will use things like NAD in a scenario like that.

However, what Madison is asking is, is there an NAD supplement out there that is not intravenous? Well, there is. And, if we are not talking about oral consumption, it would be patches. Okay. So, for example, up in my refrigerator, I have patches. There's a few different vendors. I get mine from a company called IonLayer. I'll link to it in the shownotes, but IonLayer or any of these transdermal patches deliver nicotine, adenine, dinucleotide, NAD plus through your skin. 

Now, they've actually looked into these and they've shown pretty good promise in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. One study that was published in the Journal of Nature in 2019 found that NAD patches increase NAD levels in humans by up to 50% and improved markers of cardiovascular health. There was another study in the journal Aging Cell in 2020 that found that NAD patches improve mitochondrial function in mice and increased lifespan. There was another clinical trial in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry that found the NAD patches reduced cravings and withdrawal symptoms in people with opioid use disorder.

So, my only beef with NAD patches is if you use them frequently on the same area of skin, they can result in some itching and some skin irritation. So, even though I use them, especially on sleep-deprived days and for long-haul plane flights, specifically for the cellular protective properties, I vary where I place them. Typically for me, it is the inner thigh or the outside of the buttocks, two relatively hairless areas where they seem to stick pretty well. So, I think that patches are a fantastic way to get your NAD. And, the way these patches work is they come with two different vials of solution, saline solution. You mix the NAD powder up in one solution and you put that on one side of the patch and then the regular saline solution goes on the other side of the patch. That then starts to push NAD into your system once applied to your skin via the process of electrophoresis.

Now, the other thing or rather technically is called iontophoresis. It's a medical technology. It delivers components to your body through the skin using voltage, a voltage gradient. So, it basically has a small electrical field on a small area of your skin. And, that electrical field like a battery is produced via the different salinities of the solution on both sides of the patch. The patches I use IonLayer also come with some handy tape to really keep it nailed down because you leave it on for 14 to 16 hours and it'll get anywhere from 500 to 1,000 milligrams of NAD into your system during the day that you wear it. And, I think six come in a pack. It's like this monthly subscription. I think that's a fantastic way to get NAD in.

There's another guy named Dr. John Liuerance who's been on the podcast before and his company Mitozen makes an NAD suppository, literally right up the bottom and this would be a way to get NAD into your system during a night of sleep. Some people find that NAD makes them excitable and don't like that solution. And then, if they try to do it daytime, will you try walking around clinching a suppository in your butt cheeks. It doesn't work out so well. But, if you are able to sleep with NAD in your system and I'll use these sometimes, and this is another option that I'll use for a long-haul plane flight if I don't have the patches around, I think a suppository or a patch is better than oral intake in terms of increasing bioavailability of NAD but not quite as expensive or as much of a hassle as an IV.

Now, all that being said, I do take oral NAD as well. Right now, I use a form called NAD3. It's a different compound of NAD. Seems to be very bioavailable and I get that from a supplement called BioStack. It's part of my morning age reversal stack. So, that's the skinny on how to get NAD into your system without necessarily getting an IV. It'd be the patch or the suppository. The patch is made by IonLayer. The suppository by Mitozen. I'll link to both in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457.

And then, Brian asks, what do you think about a filtration, a water filtration system that incorporates Brown gas? So, what is Brown gas? Well, I've been seeing a lot more talk about Brown gas in the supplement world or the health optimization world. It's also known as HHO gas. It's a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. You make it by electrolyzing water. So, they've used it in the past for welding, for cutting, for energy generation, but now it's something that seems to be taking off when it comes to its health applications.

So, I've learned a little bit about Brown's gas recently. And, what happens is typically some kind of a machine, what's called an electrolysis machine, splits water, just regular old H2O into hydrogen and oxygen. Usually that happens by putting two different electrodes into a solution that has a catalyst and then water and then running a direct current through the solution. Now, what happens when you do that is a great amount of hydrogen builds up in the water so you're getting a lot of the benefits of hydrogenated water, but it appears that Brown's gas seems to have some other beneficial effects in the body possibly because the hydrogen bioavailability or some other properties of it that seem to allow it to cause some pretty significant health effects in people. You may have heard about Dr. Gerald Pollack who did the study on water up at the University of Washington and produced what he calls exclusion zone water. Well, technically, that form of water and its gel-like state is very similar to the hydrogen-rich water that you get by using some type of electrolyzing tool to actually make Brown's gas.

So, the question is what kind of tools do you use for this? When I first started looking at Brown's gas even though I don't really have a Brown's gas filter or anything like that in my house right now, the biggest name that kept coming up was this guy named George Wiseman. He has a website called Aqua Cure. And, they create a bunch of Brown's gas generators that produce this HHO-rich water. And, there's another company that does a very similar machine. It's called Hydrogen4health, Hydrogen, the number 4, health. It's a competitor to Aqua Cure but they also make a Brown's gas producing solution.

Now, apparently some electrolyzers are more efficient than others at making the water, but these two are apparently the best that are out there on the market from the research that I've done. There is also a way that you can breathe Brown's gas and there's a company called Hue Light out of South Korea that makes incredibly high hydrogen flow. They use what's called a proton exchange membrane to generate hydrogen that is very, very similar to Brown's gas in terms of you actually breathing in that HHO-enriched gas. Now, I'm no expert on Brown's gas, but what I did look into was whether or not you could use this stuff to even treat a really large body of water like let's say a pool or an ice tub or something like that. So, you could literally just be bathing in this hydrogen-oxygen mixture for the health benefits. And, the two that appeared to come up are made by Eagle Research, eagle-research.com. They make what's called a water torch that literally can treat an entire body of water if you want to take Brown's gas and put in your pre-existing cold tub or swimming pool or something like that.

Now, as far as the how health effects of Brown's gas, it appears to be pretty similar to the type of health effects that you would get from the use of hydrogen. And, in many cases, you're actually inhaling this gas like the tools I've just described, sort of like a mask that you wear and you're inhaling it. This isn't necessarily drinkable like hydrogen water would be, but you're getting the same effects of drinking hydrogen water from drinking this Brown's gas. And, it appears to have an anti-inflammatory effect, a little bit of almost an anti-allergenic effect seem to modulate the immune system a little bit. It's really, really interesting. And, I don't know all the different mechanisms of action but based on the selective antioxidant capability of something like supplementing with hydrogen, it's something I'm looking into. And, I just thought I'd open the discussion on this podcast because it appears to be something that's increasingly common. I might get my hands on a Brown's gas generator at some point so that I can produce this so-called electrically expanded water and assess the results for myself. 

But, in the meantime, I'd be curious if any of my podcast listeners have experimented with this much. Not just use of hydrogen tablets or hydrogen water generating machine but an actual Brown's gas machine because it seems like it's something that could help with a variety of health issues. I mean, if you go to a molecular hydrogen institute, they have a lot of medical studies on the use of hydrogen. And, based on what I've seen as far as the mechanism of action, a lot of that stuff would cross directly over into concepts related to the use of Brown's gas.

So, that's basically what it does and what it's all about and I'll link to some of those resources I talked about in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/457. 

So, I actually am going to be going over to London here in a couple of weeks for the Health Optimisation Summit. If you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Calendar, you can see that and if you go to the other side events that I'll be doing over there in London. But, what I'll do is I'll put all the shownotes for you at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457. If you're listening to this show and you get a chance, please leave a review wherever you're listening in. Go to the website, ask your questions. I always have some fantastic links to resources. If an article is out of date or can't be found or has a paywall, I'll lot of times provide the archived link of it so you can read it pretty easily if you want to take a deeper dive in anything that I talked about. You can also ask your questions over there at BenGreenfieldLife.com/457 and I'll read them and try and provide you some direction based on your questions.

That all being said, yeah, leave the podcast a ranking. Ask your questions. Thanks for listening. I hope this has been insightful and informative for you. And, until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield, have an amazing week

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh entertaining, well-informed, and often outside-the-box approach to discovering the health, and happiness, and hope that we all crave. So, I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And, if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. It means a lot.

 

 

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Q: Madison Jewel from IG asks “Can you recommend a NAD supplement that isn’t intravenous? 55:15

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Upcoming Events:

• Health Optimisation Summit: June 17th – 18th, 2023
  

Join me at The Health Optimisation Summit in London! This is your chance to be part of a community of 2,500 like-minded people and learn from world-leading health speakers. You'll be able to fast-track your health journey, discover cutting-edge secrets and hacks, explore the latest tech and gadgets, and find the cleanest and healthiest supplements and nutrient-dense foods. Don't miss out on this incredible experience! Use code BENGREENFIELD for 10% off regular and VIP tickets. Learn more here.

• HUM2N Event: June 19th, 2023

Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to learn from the best in the field and take your biohacking journey to the next level. You’ll get the chance to be involved with a private network of biohackers, a live discussion with myself and Dr. E, a live Q&A, an experiential biohacking experience, tasty food, and a chance to win some mind-blowing prizes! Learn more here.

• Keep up on Ben's LIVE appearances by following bengreenfieldfitness.com/calendar!

Special Announcements…

Endure: Check out Ben's latest book. A sequel to the wildly popular book Fit Soul, Endure is written and inspired by the author Ben Greenfield’s personal temptations, struggles, and failures, and informed by what he’s studied and learned along the way, will serve as a key resource and guide for that very preparation.

Check out Ben on Instagram for epic posts and photos about his morning, day, and evening routines, recipes, and much more!

Follow Ben on Twitter for daily news flashes and the latest health, fitness, and anti-aging research.

Join Ben's Facebook page for conversations with listeners and even more useful information, posts, and support!

Also, you can now find Ben on Gettr.

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Episode sponsors:

Organifi Green Juice: Start your day with essential superfoods that help detox the body, lower cravings, reduce stress, and reset your morning with a juice. Organifi Green Juice contains a clinical dose of Ashwagandha and supports healthy cortisol levels, aiding in weight management. Go to organifi.com/Ben for 20% off your order.

HVMN: Visit hvmn.com/BenG and use code BENG20 for 20% off any purchase of Ketone-IQ️. 

Apollo: Apollo is a safe and non-invasive wearable that actively improves your sleep. Head over to apolloneuro.com/bengreenfield and use code BG15 for 15% off

Mitozen: Whether you are seeking enhancement with anti-aging, inflammation, or sleep, Mitozen’s focus on antioxidants, melatonin, glutathione, CBD, plant terpenes, probiotics and plant polyphenols will undoubtedly cause a ripple effect in your health journey. To try Mitozen's wide range of cutting-edge products head on over to mitozen.com/ben and use code BEN for 5% off.

Endure NFT: Develop the tools, tactics, and habits for improving your spiritual stamina with my book Endure, become one of the 13 owners of the digital copy's NFT version of the book, and come to a private dinner and book signing by going to bengreenfieldlife.com/endurenft.