How Traditional Healing, Red Light Therapy, & Full-Body Stem Cells Can Radically Extend Your Healthspan (Even in Polluted, High-Stress Environments) With Sharad Baid

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extend your healthspan with Sharad Baid

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What I Discuss with Sharad Baid:

  • An introduction to biohacking, and how it can range from dietary modifications to advanced technological enhancements…02:42
  • The importance of  “healthspan”—living a life where vitality and quality are maintained as long as possible and advocating for practices that optimize long-term well-being and provide a fulfilling life experience…05:54
  • Practical advice on how to identify personal health goals to tailor a biohacking strategy that meets individual needs by focusing on specific objectives such as weight loss, muscle gain, or cognitive enhancement…08:05
  • How traditional Indian foods can be modified or enhanced to fit a biohacking lifestyle, ensuring that the nutritional richness of Indian cuisine supports optimal health outcomes…11:47
  • Some of the hidden disruptors in modern dieting, particularly focusing on the widespread use of processed seed oils and high sugar intake and actionable insights into reducing these dietary risks, particularly in cultures with entrenched dietary habits like India's…14:11
  • In regions with high pollution levels, like many urban areas in India, poor air quality can lead to systemic health issues— solutions such as HEPA air filters, plants, and lifestyle modifications can help mitigate the adverse effects of air pollution…16:22
  • Strategies for maintaining health and wellness while traveling—biohacks such as using EMF-blocking gear, portable red light therapy devices, and other convenient health tools that can make traveling less taxing on the body while ensuring that health goals are not compromised…28:41
  • Common nutrient deficiencies found in plant-based eaters and ways to balance dietary needs through ancestral preparation techniques and the strategic use of supplements…38:21
  • Lifestyles of celebrities who maintain seemingly perfect physiques with the use of intense training regimens, dietary restrictions, and supplemental aids such as Ozempic and GLP-1 medications…46:35
  • Extreme biohacking experiments I have undertaken. These include full-body stem cell injections, gene therapy, and advanced detoxification methods…48:08
  • Practices like earthing, which involves connecting physically with the earth's surface to regulate cellular health and reduce inflammation, demonstrate how high-impact biohacks can be both economical and effective for promoting long-term health…51:22

In today’s show, the script is flipped—I’m the one in the hot seat, answering questions instead of asking them. And the setting couldn’t be more powerful: India—a country where ancient wellness practices are part of everyday life, yet there's an undeniable hunger for innovation and cutting-edge health strategies.

This conversation, led by Sharad Baid, the Managing Director of Utkal Builders, a leading real estate company based in Bhubaneswar, India, explores the fascinating intersection between traditional healing and modern biohacking. You’ll discover what it really means to take control of your healthspan—not just adding years to your life but adding life to your years. We talk about everything from tweaking your diet for better brain function or muscle gain, to using red light therapy on the road, and even the radical experiments I’ve tried—like full-body stem cell injections and gene therapy.

You’ll learn how to tailor a biohacking approach based on your personal health goals, whether you're focused on fat loss, building strength, boosting cognitive clarity, or simply increasing energy. I’ll walk you through how to navigate the hidden dietary disruptors—like processed seed oils and refined sugars—that are especially prevalent in places with deep-rooted culinary traditions like India. You’ll also hear how I modify Indian cuisine to support optimal metabolic health, and how ancient food prep techniques can solve some of the most common nutrient deficiencies—especially for plant-based eaters.

Traveling through India, I faced the challenges of pollution, poor air quality, and unpredictable routines. You’ll get practical takeaways on how to stay resilient on the road with tools like EMF-blocking wearables, air filters, grounding techniques, and even biohacked sleep strategies.

You’ll also get an honest look behind the curtain at what many celebrities are really doing to maintain their physiques—everything from ultra-restrictive diets to GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic. And finally, we touch on powerful yet simple tools—like earthing, breathwork, and ancestral detox methods—that prove you don’t need to break the bank to optimize your biology.

Whether you’re just starting to explore the world of biohacking or you’re deep in the trenches, this episode offers a dynamic, India-inspired lens into what’s possible when tradition and innovation meet. Let’s dive in!

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Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast I work with a lot of celebrities. Most of them are devoting 3, 4 hours per day on their body and biohacking modalities and doing all the things that allow them to maintain that perfect physique along with typically hormones, steroids, peptides, so called gear, as well as for the fat loss piece, things like Ozempic and GLP-1s which basically make you not want to eat.

Sharad Baid [00:00:28]: Is Ozempic safe?

Ben Greenfield [00:00:31]: 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. I was recently on an intensive health and biohacking tour of India and sat down for a fantastic conversation at a health and beauty clinic in which the conversation went way beyond health and beauty, but it was with Sharad Baid we had such an incredible conversation that I wanted to share it with you here. So it's wide ranging. We get into longevity, biohacking and much more. And for all the show notes you can visit BenGreenfieldLife/sharad. That's S H A R A D. The name of my host on today's show. BenGreenfieldLife.com/Sharad. Enjoy today's show.

Sharad Baid [00:01:37]: Are there ways by which you can hack into your biology and improve your fitness, your mental capacity, your body strength and overall live a longer life? Are there ways by which you can reduce your biological age then your chronological age? The answer is yes. Today we have a world leader in biohacking field, someone who's an expert into health, longevity and biohacking. Ben Greenfield. Welcome to Orissa, Ben.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:09]: JJ Anath, JJ Anath. Hopefully I said that the right way.

Sharad Baid [00:02:15]: Yes, you did. Yes, you did.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:17]: So.

Sharad Baid [00:02:17]: So, Ben, millions of people have actually benefited from your show, and so many of them have learned various tools and techniques of biohacking and longevity.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:30]: So I'm glad somebody other than my mom is listening.

Sharad Baid [00:02:33]: So could you please tell me in your words, in simple way, what is biohacking and what is longevity? What you have been doing in the last several years in your field?

Ben Greenfield [00:02:42]: In the last several years in my field, I've kind of gone from focusing quite a bit on fitness and endurance sports and weightlifting and a lot of the things that I was a little bit misled when I was younger into thinking was always necessary for being healthy. And I've since progressed into a lot of things that go beyond that. We had a session last night here in town, where I talked about everything from invisible variables like, but air quality, light quality, electrical environment and water quality to your spiritual health and your relationships, your family, your community, to detoxification. And a big part of this basically is, I think, influenced for me by the fact that I work with a lot of people and I'll look at their lab results or their health complaints and they are exercising and they're eating a decent diet, even a perfect diet that's customized to them, but a decent diet. Yet there's a lot of things missing. I mean, everything from just their phones on WIFI and Bluetooth enabled in their pocket all day and same thing at night when they're sleeping and the WIFI router is blasting them because they put it in the bedroom and the air quality index in their home is poor and they're drinking out of plastic water bottles or, you know, the lighting and the circadian rhythm is not supported by the light in the environment. And once you start to tweak a lot of those things, as I've done for myself, and

Sharad Baid [00:04:20]: What's the objective? What's the goal?

Ben Greenfield [00:04:21]: 43. I feel fantastic.

Sharad Baid [00:04:22]: Yeah. You know.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:22]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:04:23]: Once you don't look 43 at all.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:24]: Well, thank you. Once you start to tweak a lot of those things, that's when you really see the dial start to move. As far as someone feeling the way they think they should feel from moving well and eating healthy. Don't get me wrong, those are foundational principles which are incredibly important to focus on, but there's a lot of other things that I've progressed over the years in developing. You asked me what biohacking is. It's a very loose term these days. It can mean everything from putting ghee in your coffee to getting NAD injections, to literally becoming a human cyborg with a neural implant. Originally, biohackers back in the 60's and the 70's were.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:04]: Were real human cyborgs. I mean, they called their body wetware. And they would install things in their body, like hardware, like a compass that would vibrate, implanted in the chest when you face true north, or special chlorophyll pigments injected into the eyeballs for night vision or magnetic implants in the fingers to be able to interact with screens. I don't necessarily think that's a very relatable definition of biohacking. I would simply say biohacking now is using smart tools and techniques and tactics to hack your biology. Not in love with that word, but it is the word people use to hack your biology in order to get better, faster or in a more efficient way than you might have been able to in a native state, if that makes sense.

Sharad Baid [00:05:47]: Right. So what's the objective is? The objective is to live longer. Live 100 years.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:54]: I don't have a number. I don't think it's realistic when people say they're going to live 250 years or 160 or 200. You know, the longest living human, I think, on record, based on birth record data right now is around 117. I would be super pleased and proud if human science could advance to the point where we might be able to get that up to say, 125 or something like that. If you look at all the males in my family, most of them pass away between about 70 and 80 years old. And if that happens to be the case, and based on my own genetic programming, I'm close to that day. My goal is more to focus on being as healthy as possible, as close as possible to the day that I die. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:36]: To have that optimum combination of lifespan and health span. I also have that special trick up my sleeve that my own faith is that I'm a Christian, so I believe that my soul is immortal and I'll go on to live for eternity anyway. So I don't feel like when my body and brain finally pass past that, that's the end of Ben Greenfield.

Sharad Baid [00:07:00]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:00]: And so I'm. I'm not necessarily ruthlessly obsessed with extending lifespan at all costs.

Sharad Baid [00:07:06]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:07]: I'm a little bit more obsessed with extending health span so that me or anybody else who uses these tactics can live their best purpose. Right. Can be able to get out of bed when they're. When they're 60 or 70 or 80 and feel great and. And be able to keep working and being with their kids and influencing the world in a positive way. Yeah, that's the way I.

Sharad Baid [00:07:25]: Not many people are really aware of this new concept of biohacking. When do people start? How do they start? Is there a. Is there a. I mean, who is it actually meant for? Yeah, meant for everyone.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:39]: Or is it start by drinking a fantastic smoothie like this? I don't know what's in this thing, but this is great. What's the name of the clinic that we're at?

Sharad Baid [00:07:46]: It's called Ubeau.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:47]: Ubeau. Yeah, Ubeau. And I keep butchering the name of the city. What's the name of the city?

Sharad Baid [00:07:51]: Bhuvaneswar.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:52]: Bhuvaneswar. Yes. Okay. Ubeau and Bhuvaneswar. Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:07:55]: Is you'll be authentic. You'll be gold. Aurum is gold. So you'll be authentic. You'll be gold.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:59]: Yeah. Okay, I like that. So, so where do you get started?

Sharad Baid [00:08:03]: Yeah, where do people get started?

Ben Greenfield [00:08:05]: Yeah, I, I, I think it really depends on the person, Right. Because I'd love to give you some beautiful answer about, oh, start by getting a, whatever, a HEPA air filter and going outside barefoot and getting sunshine and, you know, adding some NAD and minerals and Creatine and Omega-3 Fatty Acids in your supplementation protocol. There's all sorts of places you can start. But I think what's more important is that you look at what someone's objective is, right? If somebody comes to me and their number one objective is that they got a DEXA scan or some kind of in body scan and they have a high amount of visceral fat, they want to lose weight and they want to improve aesthetics, that person is going to focus on everything from a diet adjusted to reduce inflammation to some sort of fasting protocol to typically some kind of occult thermogenesis to lifting weights. If someone comes to me and their goal is to put on muscle, right, Like I'll train some Hollywood celebrity or executive who literally just wants to pack on 10 pounds of muscle. That person would be doing greater amounts of protein intake and some kind of a sauna protocol because that produces heat shock proteins that help with muscle. They might be increasing their protein and their amino acid intake. They might be supplementing with collagen, Creatine.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:27]: Someone else, an executive who wants memory enhancement, right. So for them it might be some super fancy peptide protocol in which they're using things like peptides, these small secret memory amino acids, yeah. Semax and Selink and Cerebralysin and all these neural peptides along with natural products. He talks about memory. Ginkgo Biloba, Bacopa Monieri, these herbs that can help with memory. And I might have them playing brain games or doing a musical instrument or doing some form of memorization or doing things that grow the brain. I personally do all of these things, right. I focus on muscle gain, I focus on fat loss, I focus on hormone optimization, on

Ben Greenfield [00:10:10]: And this isn't, you know, I'm busy. I got a family, I got a farm, I got goats, I got chickens, I got three companies. I'm working 60 hours a week or more. I don't have the time to be doing this for six or seven or eight hours a day. So for much of me, these kind of things are just woven in throughout the day. Like if I have a bunch of journals and research articles to catch up on, I'll go into the sauna and do a sauna session simultaneous to that. Or if I want to do red light therapy, I've got red light panels in my office and I'm flipping those on for the first 20 minutes of work. If I'm preparing for an interview with a podcast guest, I'm literally downloading their audiobook or other interviews that folks have done with them and listening to that while I'm doing my morning.

Sharad Baid [00:10:52]: While you multitask? Basically, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:54]: So you're basically multitasking, not in the. Multitasking, of course, has a bad rep because of the cognitive task of switching repeatedly between tasks. That's different than what I would instead almost call multi stacking. Right. Just doing different modalities at once, none of which detract from, from the others.

Sharad Baid [00:11:12]: That's amazing. Wow. I'm 40 something and it's so fascinating to hear that you can do all this and biohack and you can have a larger health span and live a quality life. I also been doing certain things in biohacking. I've been doing intermittent fasting very regularly. I've been doing cryotherapy, full body cryotherapy, I have red light therapy, I take IV drips like NAD plus lymphatic massages, etc, etc. I've been doing that. But there are various ways of doing biohacking.

Sharad Baid [00:11:47]: So let's start with food. Now that you're in India, and as you know that we love our food. Food is a love language. We love to feed, we love to eat.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:56]: And I've caught on to that.

Sharad Baid [00:11:58]: And interestingly, you know, every time I.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:00]: Turn around, there's a chance to eat.

Sharad Baid [00:12:02]: Yes. And if you come to India, people will offer you mithai, which is basically a sweet Indian. Sweet.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:06]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:12:06]: Which is pretty much a lot of sugar.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:09]: So I know I had to lay over at the airport and there was.

Sharad Baid [00:12:12]: We offer mithai in every festival and we have. Festivals are all over.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:17]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:12:17]: So we basically as a country consume a lot of sugar.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:20]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:12:21]: What do you think? Where are we going wrong? Because as you know that India is also deemed as the diabetes capital of the world. So what would you suggest? Indians because they consume a lot of sugar.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:37]: Yeah. I don't think that it's any secret that sugar can contribute to insulin resistance and contribute to diabetes. Right. So I, I would probably be leaving a lot on the table to just say eat less sugar now. Now I eat sugar, but it's from natural sources. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, purple potatoes, my wife's addictive sourdough bread, sometimes a little bit of dark chocolate and yogurt and blueberries for desserts and parsnips, carrots and beets and yams. And the natural nutrient dense sugars that you find in a lot of healthy foods. When it comes to the isolated sugars, everything from the high fructose corn syrup to the added sugars and processed or processed foods, those are obviously a little bit more of an issue when it comes to.

Sharad Baid [00:13:26]: So why don't you bench for them?

Ben Greenfield [00:13:27]: But even those, you know, if you're exercising, you're metabolically active, right? Sugar is not that big of a deal, or as big of a deal as I think a lot of people will think that it is. I mean, technically, if you wanted to lose weight, I could give you 2000 calories of coca Cola a day. And if you're burning 2,100 calories a day in exercise and movement, you're still going to lose weight. It's not like the most nutrient dense diet. You're going to build up amino acid deficiencies and Fatty Acid deficiencies and vitamin mineral deficiencies over time, but that's not enough to cause weight loss. And I'm not endorsing that. Do not say that Ben Greenfield started the Coca Cola diet. But I think there are other things to think about.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:12]: Let's look at a couple of them. For example, if you and I looked into this last year when I was in India, if you look at the rise in sugar consumption and the rise in diabetes, they're not correlated. There hasn't been a steep rise in sugar intake. Okay. However, there has been a rise in the substitution of natural oils like ghee, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, et cetera, with seed oils that are more processed. When you consume a processed seed oil, this means an oil that has been heated once or heated multiple times, a high intake of fried foods. These oils that have a low smoke point, you tend to see an inflammatory response in the body, Right? So you're saying they're more. Absolutely.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:57]: These fats can comprise your cell membranes and be a part of your body for depending on the research, you look at three months and up to two years after you consume them. So you literally are. What you eat, ate more in the case of oil than in sugar, because sugar can have a pretty short transient time in the body. I could have a candy bar and go burn it off at the gym. So with the oils, when you create inflammation. You also induce a resistance of fat cells to mobilize Fatty Acids to be burnt as energy.

Sharad Baid [00:15:26]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:27]: So you also create a state of insulin resistance because you get more resistant to insulin in a state of inflammation, which is what these rancid processed seed oils can cause.

Sharad Baid [00:15:37]: That's very interesting because in India, I mean, vegetable oils and seed oils are very, very popular. It's ironical back.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:45]: I mean, we were eating a healthy meal last night and there was millet and quinoa and amaranth and all these lovely vegetables. They were cooking them in sunflower oil, which is one of the rancid seed oil. And it's not as though you can't. Hey, could you prepare this in ghee? This morning I had a dosa and I asked for them to prepare it in ghee. Yesterday I had a piece of chicken and I asked them to cook it in ghee or olive oil. Most of the time they have those fats and oils around. It's simply a matter of asking for them and then at home stocking your pantry with those same options. Let's look at another factor in addition to seed oils.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:20]: Air quality index.

Sharad Baid [00:16:22]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:22]: Right.

Sharad Baid [00:16:22]: So I want to talk to you about air quality since you've been in.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:25]: India for us right now. So how has it been?

Sharad Baid [00:16:28]: So it's the topic of.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:30]: It's definitely something that needs to be addressed, not only in India, but anywhere where there's a high population. I think in India it's a little bit worse because of vehicle emission standards and rapidly growing population and crowded streets. But when you look at what's going on when, let's say, even if you're staying in a nice hotel and it's 500 meters from a busy highway, you've got carbon monoxide, which binds to oxygen or binds to the cells that would normally carry oxygen. So you're using oxygen delivered in cells that's affecting cellular metabolism. You've got nitrogen dioxide, which is also toxic. You've got volatile organic compounds, which can build up in the body and reduce metabolism and cause the same type of inflammation that induces resistance to fat loss and insulin resistance. You've got. What do we say, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, volatile organic compounds, metals, and microplastics, both of which are now associated with insulin resistance, inflammation.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:29]: And so there's this cluster of factors. And of course, the more important question becomes, what do you do about it?

Sharad Baid [00:17:35]: Yeah, what do we do about it? We know if we can't leave the city, we have to save.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:38]: Exactly. What do we move if you still got to feed, you know, feed your family, right.

Sharad Baid [00:17:45]: And is there anything that government can do?

Ben Greenfield [00:17:47]: So the big obvious ones that I think some people are aware of but that we should, we should at least give a head nod to, right? One would be good. HEPA air filtration. Looking for a HEPA air filter that will actually filter PM 2.5. So particulate matter 2.5.

Sharad Baid [00:18:01]: So keep it in air filters at.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:03]: The size of the particle that's going to be most well absorbed and cause the most systemic damage. PM of like 10. That's going to irritate the lungs a little bit, but it's not going to cause as much system wide issues. But you want a HEPA air filter that has really, really good carbon filtration that's going to get rid of PM2.5. In the US there's brands like Jaspr, Air Doctor, Origin is the one that they have at the hotel that I'm staying at here. That's also a good one.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:31]: Origin by the way is also the company that did research on genetically modifying plants to make them better air scrubbers. So if you look at the NASA clean air study, they actually end up with multiple plants like Peace Lily and English Ivy that you can plant around your house. They're not as powerful as a HEPA air filter. What plant did you say they're prettier. There's like eight or nine of them. A couple I said was English Ivy and Peace Lily. There's several others. I don't have them all memorized.

Sharad Baid [00:18:58]: Persons in the house. If we keep a plant, does that. No.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:03]: Still need HEPA air filtration particularly let's say you still live in a clean area. You create a lot of air pollution when you cook. I'm shocked because I measured in my kitchen the PM2.5 because the air filter I have called the Jaspr, it'll also measure the air quality. And in most kitchens the fan above the stove is too far above the stove to be able to catch a lot of the particulate matter that gets released when you clean. So my PM level goes from 4 up to above 500 when we're cooking in the kitchen. So now I have a standalone HEPA air filtration unit in the kitchen. So air filtration via both plants and HEPA air filters, that would be one. Another would be using a good mask when you are outdoors in areas where you need it.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:44]: You know, classic example would be the N95, which obviously got when I picked.

Sharad Baid [00:19:48]: You up from the airport.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:49]: I wear that, I wear that mask A lot. Yeah, I don't like feels hot and sweaty. And breathing into a mask, you're breathing in your own carbon dioxide. So you get a little bit light headed and it's not comfortable, but it does do a good job filtering.

Sharad Baid [00:20:05]: But talking about the carbon dioxide that you breathe in, is that good? Because when you have the mask on, you kind of breathe these air.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:12]: I feel the therapy behind carbon dioxide therapy. I actually have a carbon dioxide generating unit called a Carbohaler next to my desk in my office. And I do breathe pure carbon dioxide for about 5. Not pure carbon dioxide, I shouldn't say that. It's about 7% carbon dioxide for around 5 to 7 minutes during the. It seems to build up stress resilience, increase your heart rate variability, which is a measurement of your nervous system readiness. And it has some interesting effects on the lungs as well. However, constantly breathing carbon dioxide for more than like five to seven minutes, you're inducing a mild state of physiological stress and psychological stress.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:51]: If you're walking around with a mask the whole time because you're at a mild state of self suffocation, the carbon dioxide in a. So we've got HEPA air filtration and masking. And then there are certain things that you can do beyond that as far as what you consume. So pure, clean, filtered water. I hydrate a ton here. I've actually recorded a few podcasts here and I've literally had to go use the washroom during the podcast because I have to pee so much here. But I'm doing that on purpose. Like I'm saying, very well hydrated.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:18]: So being adamant about hydration from good, clean, pure sources. Right, Right. So plastic is of course the quickest travel.

Sharad Baid [00:21:26]: You get the water in the plastic bottle mostly. Is that not an issue?

Ben Greenfield [00:21:30]: Well, the problem with the plastic and a lot of people like, well, it hasn't been heated. I don't know if the plastic water bottles in the gym mini cooler back at my hotel also spent 10 hours in the hot backseat of a car before they put them in the gym. So you need like the really hard heat resistant plastic or I just travel with the glass or stainless steel water bottle. I fill that up at the airport from the drinking water station. It saves me whatever $7.99 on a Fiji or a Pellegrino. And that's what I do 99% of the time. Then at home I just have a water filtration unit. So drinking a lot of water, that's one.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:04]: There are certain antioxidants from foods that are most studied for reducing the effects of air pollution. One would be sulforaphanes. You get those from broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts. You can buy sulforaphane as a supplement. That's one that's very powerful. Another one would be anthocyanins. You find those in things like blueberries and purple cabbage, like the blues and purples of the plant kingdom. Powerful antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin E are pretty well known for pollution.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:34]: And by the way, I've tripled my antioxidant intake since I got to India just by traveling with some of these little antioxidant packets. Vitamin B flies under the radar. The research on vitamin B to reduce the effects of air pollution damage on DNA, on the immune system and on the lungs is not something a lot of people talk about. But you can get a good vitamin B complex multivitamin just about anywhere. And vitamin B has really good effects.

Sharad Baid [00:22:59]: It was all that you do to counter the air pollution that.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:03]: Yep, yep. And then glutathione. Glutathione is incredible. Few things to know about glutathione. You can take it as an oral supplement, right? I use it as a transdermal. I use a brand called Glutaryl, which is very well absorbed. So I use transdermal glutathione spray.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:19]: I'm doing eight sprays in the morning and eight sprays in the evening here. Normally at home I just do four sprays in the morning.

Sharad Baid [00:23:25]: What's that?

Ben Greenfield [00:23:25]: So I've got four times the amount of glutathione going into my body, which is an antioxidant that's also going research for its effects on mitigating air pollution damage. N-acetylcysteine supports your body's own glutathione production. It's also a supplement that you can get in India. That one has also been studied for air pollution.

Sharad Baid [00:23:44]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:44]: Cordyceps. A lot of, like Sherpas we'll use when guiding people up Everest because it helps with lung function. Well, no surprises there. It can also help to reduce the effects of air pollution or help your lungs to deal with that a little bit more. Cordyceps, mushroom extract, cordyceps, teas, et cetera. So we've got NAC, we've got glutathione, we've got cordyceps. And then beyond those kind of things, dietary or supplementation standpoint, I'm a huge fan of nebulizing. I bought a nebulizer when I got here, it cost $20.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:20]: I got a little bottle of hydrogen peroxide. You mix the hydrogen peroxide. Typically you'd use a saline solution. I don't travel with the saline solution. So I just get good, clean, pure water and put a few pinches of salt in it.

Sharad Baid [00:24:31]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:32]: You typically want about 0.15% solution. So I'm basically doing into the nebulizer. The canister for the nebulizer is about that big, so I'm filling it up mostly with water. And then I don't have a volume measurement in my hotel room, but I'm just splashing out with a little bit of 3% hydrogen peroxide. Easy to find at any pharmacy. A nebulizer and hydrogen peroxide might put you back like 25 USD. Now, what I do is when I'm checking my emails in the morning or in the evening, I pull on the mask and I'm simply doing deep breathing through the nebulizer with hydrogen peroxide while I'm working on my laptop. Now, at home, I have liquid glutathione.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:14]: And you can actually nebulize. And I'll do this when I get home. You can nebulize liquid glutathione, and that's an even more powerful antioxidant than hydrogen peroxide. So I use a brand called Glutastat. It's made by a company in Florida called Mitozen. So nebulizing is incredible for the air pollution piece as well. Wow. And then if we want to get deep into biohacking, we're at a beauty clinic right now.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:38]: Aesthetic exosomes have become very popular. I was talking with Dr. Sam earlier. They use Korean exosomes here for injectables in the face. You can also use exosomes because they're so concentrated in growth factors as injectables for joint issues. You can use them as an IV for longevity. The last big study, it was on rodent models, yet they showed a massive. It was like a 17% increase in lifespan just from IV exosome infusion.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:09]: But because they're so concentrated in growth factors, they can also heal tissue very quickly. So I have a source in Lithuania for exosomes because I don't know if I can say this on the podcast, I might get in trouble. I don't know if it's legal, but I'm doing it anyways. She ships them to my house, and so I have four bottles of exosomes waiting at my house when I get home. And I will also nebulize those. They're little vials. You put a little bit of typically like sterile water into them and then you can inject them, you can nebulize them. You can use them as a nasal spray.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:42]: Those are more expensive. Exosomes are not inexpensive.

Sharad Baid [00:26:45]: Amazing, Amazing.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:46]: Some of them can be a thousand to fifty for a bottle. But if you were to stack all those things, that would be. Yeah, that would help out with the pollution piece. But back to how we got on this topic. You talked about sugar as being something that would contribute to diabetic risk in India. I would say that seed oils and air pollution are just big of an issue to think about.

Sharad Baid [00:27:08]: I'm glad that you do so many things and not walking out of a podcast the way Bryan Johnson did for the AQI.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:16]: Bryan Johnson was here a few days ago. He's a great guy. He's super dedicated. He's, you know, one of the most well researched human guinea pigs in the world right now.

Sharad Baid [00:27:24]: Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:25]: I don't know that a lot of what he does is super relatable or doable for the general population, but he's sacrificing his body, you know, and testing these things out. And not everybody has the same genetics as Bryan Johnson. So obviously what he's doing might not work for you.

Sharad Baid [00:27:38]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:39]: But he certainly brought a lot of, I think, positive interest into that idea of extending human lifespan or health span, if that's also what you care about. But yeah, I saw that podcast where he was wearing a mask during the podcast and eventually he just left. If I really, truly wanted to live as long as Bryan Johnson wants to, and I was as dedicated as he is, I probably would leave also and just go curl up in my hotel room with the HEPA air filter. I think it's difficult to live life in a bubble, though. So you do what you can to minimize the damage. And I don't travel with you guys. Pick me up from the airport. I don't even check a bag when I travel.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:18]: I'm now checking a bag because you guys are so generous. Every time I give a talk, it seems like I get a gift or I've got plates and cups and all. I literally had to buy an extra bag. So, yes, now I'm checking a bag when I travel. I travel very light. But I also have a few key things. I even brought a few of them for show. Patel, if you want that I consider to be like biohacks, Biohacker travels.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:41]: So first of all, after I go through security, because if I do this When I go through security, they freak out. And I learned that lesson the hard way. Literally the last time I was in India, having to get stripped down completely naked in the women's changing tent because I was a complete ghost passing through security. And the soldier flipped out and literally almost went to the point of shoving the wand up my butt to see what I had on. So this is an EMF blocking blanket. Right. So I pull this over my body when I'm on the airplane, and it helps to block radio frequencies, WIFI radiation from causing a little bit of a draining of my body's battery. You know, last night when I was giving my talk, I discussed how your, you know, your body is a battery and each of the cells operate at a specific electrochemical gradient, like negative charge on the inside, slight positive charge on the outside, hefty exposure to EMFs in the environment from WIFI routers, from cell phones, from X ray scanners, and the like.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:44]: All of this can cause a calcium influx into the cell which positively polarize or positively charge that cell a little bit. And it can reduce cellular metabolism to a certain extent. And call it your brain fog when you sleep. So I just pull this over? Yeah, this is like a blanket. Not even when I sleep. Just I'm sitting there and then this is really cool. This is a full pull on hoodie that I can wear that also blocks emf. And again, like, if I were to go through an X ray scanner, I would look like a ghost wearing this.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:11]: And even though the hoodie, every time.

Sharad Baid [00:30:12]: You walk into the scanner, you wear this.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:14]: Yep. Pants and then even a little beanie. Right. So I can wear this on the airplane. And if I'm in a hotel room that has a lot of WIFI signals bouncing around and I flip on the phone and there's like more than you know, it was like 20 WIFI signals. I'll as you use this blanket during sleep as well. It's not the most comfortable blanket, but it works for blocking emf. It's like a silver line fabric.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:37]: So I travel with this or the EMF piece. I also have a set of headphones. Of course, noise blocking headphones are great for sleep, especially on airplanes. But these headphones are interesting because there's a cranial nerve that snakes through your whole body. It's called the vagus nerve. It stimulates the pacemaker cells of your heart. It innervates your organs. If you're in a stressed out state, you typically have poor feedback from your vagus nerve to the rest of your nervous system.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:12]: Including your heart. Now, many people now are measuring their heart rate variability, their readiness score, their stress score. And a big thing that feeds into that score is your heart rate variability a number of times in between each heartbeat. It should be variable, right? It should beat and 98 milliseconds, another beat and 102 milliseconds. It shouldn't be like a beat at 100 milliseconds and a beat at 100 milliseconds. There should be some variation. There's all sorts of ways that you can increase your vagal nerve tone. De stressing practices like yoga and meditation and breath work, cold plunging and cold therapy, particularly if your head gets under the water, chanting, singing, hummingbirds, gargling, all sorts of ways that you can do it.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:52]: But there are also electrical vagal nerve stimulators. Literally there are electrodes that are placed near the typically the auricular nerve underneath the ear. And that triggers the vagus nerve in a way that actually tones it and increases your heart rate variability. So check this out. These headphones basically look like normal noise blocking headphones. These are made by a company called Hoolest. However, they also have these little pieces that I can put on either side of the headphone. And then I take the covers off these pieces.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:26]: And so when I feel stressed, when I want to relax, if I wake up at night and have a difficult time falling back asleep, what I can do is put these headphones on. And they only because I just stuffed them into my bag hurriedly on the way coming in here, but basically I put them on and these little pieces go directly over the ear or under the ear, right, where it stimulates the vagus nerve and they deliver a mild electrical sensation that helps to tone the vagus nerve. So I can decrease stress while I'm on the go. And obviously since I like to travel with over the ear headphones anyways for the airplane, it's not like I have to travel with a bunch of extra stuff besides those two extra little vagal nerve stimulators that go over the headphones. And then in addition to that, in this bag. I'm a huge fan of red light therapy, but I'm not going to travel with a red light therapy bed or panels. And sometimes hard to hunt down these things when you're on the go. So what I've got in this bag are a few things.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:34]: First of all, this is a wraparound red light therapy device. It's even waterproof. This one's made by a company called Lumaflex. And I can flip this on. And what I do is when I'm laying in bed at night or when I get up in the morning, I put one on my back and one on my stomach. If I ever get any aches or strains or pains, I can wrap it around a joint. So I travel with two of them because they easily fit in here. So my favorite way to do it is I put one in front of me and one behind me when I get up in the morning.

Sharad Baid [00:34:01]: And because the muscle pain.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:03]: What's that?

Sharad Baid [00:34:04]: Is it for the muscle pain?

Ben Greenfield [00:34:04]: For muscle pain, for innervating the, or for kind of like warming and radiating the gut blood, which is going to basically cause photonic activation of all the cells in the body as the blood rushes past. So I'm getting this. This almost like the equivalent of red light therapy, but it's on the go wrapped around any joint. So I travel with these. And speaking of red light, I also travel with these. I was wearing these last night. So of course, these are pretty blue light biohack.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:32]: You put these on at night. So if you're in a hotel room that's got a bunch of bright lights, or I'm speaking at night under LED fluorescent lights, I can wear these? Yeah. And they keep your melatonin from being disrupted. Yeah, I saw you wearing them last night. Great on you. And then you can also, in the same way that you can block red light at night, you can get more natural. Bluish green light is the light spectrum that kind of causes the waking response. So if I'm not able to get outside in the sunlight when I'm traveling, maybe it's a cloudy day, maybe it's a time of day when the sun hasn't yet come up.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:08]: But I want to get my body awake. Maybe I'm in Las Vegas, where there's a bunch of tall buildings and you can't find the sun if your life depended on it. I'll pull on these glasses and These are called AYOs.

Sharad Baid [00:35:18]: Wow.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:19]: And they go over my eyes just like that. Matter of fact, I may have misspoken these ones. There's two different brands I travel with, one called AYO and one called Retimers. These might be the Retimers. Anyways, those are the two brands, AYO and Retimer. And they produce this spectrum that I can use while I'm checking my morning emails or walking around the hotel room. And what is it in the morning making coffee. It causes an awakening response to occur very similar to what you get if you were looking at sunlight.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:46]: So it's a way you can kind of hack your circadian rhythm by getting exposed to more of the blue light. So you'd want to avoid the blue light at night. You can wear glasses like that in the morning, so might have stool. Yeah, it helps with circadian rhythmicity. Yeah, exactly. So then these two, these are interesting. This one's called the Apollo. And this can go around my wrist or my ankle.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:10]: And then I can use an app on my phone to select whether I want it to be set in sleep mode, relaxation mode, meditation mode, focus, energy, social. And it delivers a mild vibratory sensation around typically your ankle or your wrist, and it shifts you into that desired state. I love this for sleeping on airplanes, for giving a talk. I can put, I had it on last night in energy mode, so I'd stay energetic at night when I was giving my talk.

Sharad Baid [00:36:37]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:38]: And it's a very subtle sensation, but it. And obviously it's highly portable and I can travel with this anywhere in the world. So that one helps with. With sleep or energy. And then this one, this is one of my favorites. So when I wake up in the morning, sometimes I want like that extra 20 minutes in bed or sometimes very similar to. To what happens to a lot of people. I wake up at like 3AM with racing thoughts or something like that.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:02]: This is called a Sensate. And you wear it around your neck. It goes right over the collarbone. So it stimulates the area of the collarbone responsible for triggering the vagus nerve, similar to the vagal nerve stimulators on the back of the net.

Sharad Baid [00:37:15]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:15]: And then you put it on and it plays music through your headphones that correlate to the vibrating sensation that the Sensate is making.

Sharad Baid [00:37:23]: Incredible.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:24]: And it just pulls you into this peaceful, meditative like state. You just forget all your worries. You lay back. It feels like a cat purring on your chest almost. But this thing, it's super simple and easy and I'm addicted to it. It's amazing. I do one almost every single morning for about 20 minutes when I travel. And so those are just a few of the little things that don't require me to check a bag, per se.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:47]: But those are examples of what I suppose back to your original question, would be considered biohacks. But they're relatable. And a lot of those things, those are affordable for the general population as well.

Sharad Baid [00:37:58]: Now that you're in India. And a study says that, you know, 60% of the Indians chooses to be vegetarian, Right? They have a vegetarian diet. And a majority of them do not stay Away from meat for religious reasons as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:11]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:38:11]: So I'm a vegetarian myself. Yeah. How do you supplement the vegetarian food? Like how do we get our protein intake?

Ben Greenfield [00:38:21]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:38:21]: What, what's your advice to the people who have. Can't eat meat for that matter?

Ben Greenfield [00:38:26]: Yep. So I look at the blood work of a lot of plant based eaters and I tend to see the same deficiencies pop up over and over, just beat. Basically it's Creatine, vitamin B12. It's not tested as much, but taurine tends to be low in these individuals, Omega Fatty Acids. Overall, protein intake tends to be low and iron. Those are some of the biggies right now. What's interesting is you don't see those abnormalities pop up as much in the people who are using more ancestral preparation methods for the plants that they're consuming.

Sharad Baid [00:39:07]: What do you mean ancestral soak?

Ben Greenfield [00:39:09]: When you sprout.

Sharad Baid [00:39:11]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:11]: When you do slow cooking methods, you unlock a lot more of the nutrients from the amaranth and the quinoa and the millet and the lentils and the legumes and all these foods that tend to be some of the protein sources.

Sharad Baid [00:39:23]: On a plant, those are second diet, second class protein.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:26]: Yeah. But if you're simply just like cooking them quickly, you're not unlocking a lot of those nutrients.

Sharad Baid [00:39:30]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:31]: So the first thing I encourage people to do is soak, sprout, ferment. You know, you can even eat sprouts like seeds that have been sprouted, obviously eating a wide variety of foods. This is like Vegetarianism 101. Rotate your grains and your beans and your rices and eat a variety. And don't just have one type of grain or bean or rice or grass, that you're getting a multitude of different amino acids from those sources. But again, they're not going to be unlocked.

Sharad Baid [00:39:56]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:57]: Let me put it this way. Consuming like a bowl of quinoa for breakfast that you've soaked at night and rinsed off and then let soak again in a little bit of water and vinegar and then rinse that again in the morning and then prepare it almost similar to how you might do overnight oatmeal. You're going to get more protein and less digestive distress from that quinoa that's been slowly prepared. So rotating and also using ancestral preparation methods is important. Nowadays you can get rice protein powder, pea protein powder, hemp protein powder. A research study came out several years ago showing that if you consume digestive enzymes, when you have a plant based protein, you increase the amino acid bioavailability of that protein. So you can kind of like hack a plant based protein powder by adding enzymes to it. And it's still not as good as whey protein or egg protein for example.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:51]: But you are.

Sharad Baid [00:40:52]: But whey protein is still okay because it comes from dairy. So we consume a lot of whey protein as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:56]: Yeah. So whey protein would be okay. I actually didn't know that. I thought that you also stayed away from whey protein.

Sharad Baid [00:41:00]: No, no, no, because consum whey comes.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:02]: From cows, but it's a daily product, so yes, it's fine. Yeah. So whey proteins got great amino acid bioavailability. One of the top selling products for one of my companies called Kion, a nutrition supplements company, are vegan essential amino acids. These are the building blocks of protein that are pre digested that amplify your body's own blood levels of amino acids for muscle building, for repair, for recovery. But they're a non animal based source. So essential amino acids are all nine amino acids. Branch chin amino acids aren't so good.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:36]: They're almost like inexpensive flavored water and they spike blood glucose a little bit. And I'm not a huge fan of those. But if you get all nine essential amino acids by essential, they're the ones that your body can't make on its own.

Sharad Baid [00:41:46]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:47]: You can actually increase your protein availability. Collagen and gelatin are a little bit similar to that. For many vegetarians those aren't an option unless it depends. There are. There are not many good sources of collagen and gelatin that you're going to find in the plant based world. But essential amino acids, that's another really, really good way to range your levels up. You should be shooting for about 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight you can use.

Sharad Baid [00:42:17]: So we supplement through whey protein and through the amino acids.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:21]: Yeah, yeah. And digestive enzymes at the same time that you have the supplements. And then the other things I talked about, you know, iron, if you're eating a wide variety of legumes, et cetera, you can usually get enough iron. But some people need to supplement with iron. An example of a form that doesn't irritate the gut would be like iron bisglycinate, taurine, you can supplement with. Creatine's fantastic. Just pure plain old Creatine monohydrate, around 5 grams a day for both men and women. For the neural brain enhancing effects, you can even get up to 10 to 20 grams.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:52]: The higher amounts are also fantastic. For deprivation. Some kind of a vitamin B complex in many cases, like a fat soluble vitamin complex as well, like your vitamin D, A, E and K. That's something that tends to be a little bit lower in plant based eaters. And then the last one would be Omega Fatty Acids.

Sharad Baid [00:43:10]: Okay.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:10]: And if you're doing a lot of chia seeds, flax seeds, nuts, you'll get a decent amount of Omega Fatty Acids, but the conversion is pretty poor. And you can, I mean, of those fats in the DHA and EPA in your body. So you can use a plant based source of Omega Fatty Acids as well. And one of the best ways to do that is via algae like Chlorella, Spirulina, et cetera. A lot of algae has decent Omegas in it. So those are some of the things.

Sharad Baid [00:43:39]: Very nice, very nice. So I was told that when you turn 30, you lose 1% of the muscle mass every year. It's called sarcopenia or something.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:49]: Yeah. Depending on how much protein you eat and whether or not you're lifting weights. Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:43:53]: Right. So what are the biohack techniques to improve or, you know, boost your muscle mass and improve your recovery? Because as you know, muscle is the organ of longevity.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:04]: Yeah, yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:44:06]: Exercise, I understand, but how important is muscle building?

Ben Greenfield [00:44:10]: Lifting weights and lifting weights, particularly at a rep range that doesn't allow you to get more than about 12 reps in. So a lot of people just lift too light. Right. So there's a whole concept of what's called reps in reserve. And you would want to. No, my rule is 3. Like if you can get to 12 and do 3 more, then your weight's too light, you need to increase your weight. So getting the muscle close to a high amount of time under tension, that induces as close to fatigue as possible without injury.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:39]: That's one heavy enough weights. Right. So like I, I went for a swim this morning and I did some squats in the gym.

Sharad Baid [00:44:48]: Right, Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:49]: And I did 10 sets of six squats.

Sharad Baid [00:44:51]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:52]: And in between the squats I was doing some planks and some core work and some recovery. But I, with the weight I was using, I wouldn't have been able to do nine squats. Right. So. So I was within that rule of three parameter. So lifting heavy weights, eating adequate protein. Right. We touched on that 0.7 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body, body weight, some form of thermal stress.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:10]: I briefly alluded to this earlier. Like the heat shock proteins that you get from the thermal stress in a sauna that helps to be able to maintain muscle. It's very interesting research. It doesn't seem like you'd be able to just build muscle by getting hot. It's more about maintaining muscle than building muscle. But having some kind of a robust sauna practice that can be helpful. Hormones especially as you age, women will see decreases in hormones like progesterone and testosterone. And men in particular see decrease in testosterone.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:39]: There are herbal agents like Tongkat Ali or Turkesterone that could help with testosterone. I'm not opposed to testosterone replacement therapy for people who are doing a lot of things that you'd want to do to maintain elevated testosterone levels, but still seeing deficits. So paying attention to hormones is important. And I mean, don't get on testosterone replacement therapy until you're at least lifting heavy weights, getting adequate sleep, de stressing and consuming. The building blocks for testosterone should be Creatine, minerals, Zinc, Magnesium, Boron and vitamin D. Right. You should have all those present in your diet. Omega-3 Fatty Acids will kind of fit into that as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:19]: Just addressing all the basic building blocks I see a lot of times especially it's popular in the U.S. people just get on testosterone replacement therapy when they haven't addressed the base foundational needs. So yeah, I would say the biggies would be eat adequate protein with weights, pay attention to your hormones, get hot on a frequent basis and that'll help.

Sharad Baid [00:46:37]: Right? Right. Amazing. So let's do a quick fire round. I'll ask you questions to give me short answers.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:45]: I'll be brief, I'm bad at that, but I'll do it.

Sharad Baid [00:46:48]: You know, nowadays you see a lot of celebrities with perfect body, toned body, perfect physique. Are they fooling us with their perfect routine of food and diet and exercise or is there something that they are going on is what's your take on Ozempic?

Ben Greenfield [00:47:05]: I work with a lot of celebrities. Most of them are devoting 3, 4 hours per day on their body and biohacking modalities and doing all the things that allow them to maintain that perfect physique. Along with typically hormones, steroids, peptides, so called gear, as well as for the fat loss piece, things like ozempic and GLP-1s which basically make you not want to eat.

Sharad Baid [00:47:28]: Is Ozempic safe?

Ben Greenfield [00:47:30]: Not in the dosages that are being used. It's a pretty impressive drug with really good safety records for things like diabetes. But you can control your appetite with it by using like 1/10 or less of the amount that's currently being dosed. At the high dosages, you get things like muscle loss, gut inflammation, depression, anxiety. So I like those drugs, but not in the amount or the dosage that they're being used, which I think is in excess.

Sharad Baid [00:47:56]: Right. So, Ben, I'm very curious to know what is the most craziest thing that you've done in the field of biohacking and health and fitness? What's the craziest thing that comes to your mind?

Ben Greenfield [00:48:08]: I've had every single one of my joints, toe to head, hair, skin, nails, gonads, everything injected with stem cells during a four to five hour surgery in Park City, Utah. I've done that twice.

Sharad Baid [00:48:19]: Injected stem cells in your joints?

Ben Greenfield [00:48:20]: Yeah. Okay. Every joint, all at once.

Sharad Baid [00:48:23]: And what does it do?

Ben Greenfield [00:48:24]: Longevity. And basically restoring your body's lost stem cell pool that occurs as you age. I've done gene therapy in Mexico, where you literally get an intramuscular injection. In this case, I did follistatin gene therapy, which caused 11 pounds of muscle gain in about three months, which would be unheard of via natural means, but it literally turns on the gene responsible for building muscle. That's interesting. And I've done, also in Mexico, full body blood filtration five hours a day for two days in a row in a hospital bed in Tijuana. Having all the blood pulled out of my body, pass through a filter to pull out pathogens, spike proteins, everything, and then back into completely clean up the body. Similar to a dialysis.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:11]: Yeah. God, yeah. Well, those would be, I would say, three things. Full body stem cell procedures, gene therapy, and blood filtration.

Sharad Baid [00:49:16]: Wow. Very interesting. If you could delete one mainstream myth about health and longevity, which is being very pushed by the experts in capitalism, what would it be?

Ben Greenfield [00:49:31]: One myth that you need to eat a lean, low fat diet in order to be healthy. Because fats serve as the building block for cholesterol, for hormones, and they're so necessary for so many metabolic functions that I think we're too fat phobic. And I wish people would quit throwing around words like or phrases like lean protein as much.

Sharad Baid [00:49:50]: Yeah. So can we really cheat genetics? I mean, some people are born with good genes, some are with bad genes. Can we, can we hack that? Can we cheat our genetics?

Ben Greenfield [00:50:02]: Yeah, you can test your genes. You can find out you have a high risk for, I don't know, like colon cancer and limit your red meat or alcohol consumption. You could find out you have a high risk for type 2 diabetes and wear a continuous glucose monitor like this and pay attention to your sugar and your carbohydrate and Your seed oil and your air pollution and things that we were talking about earlier. You could find out you have a high risk for blood pressure and take things like nitric oxide supporting foods like beets or cordyceps or extra virgin olive oil or some of these things that help out with nitric oxide production. You can find out they have a predisposition to certain diseases and adjust your lifestyle according to diet, your exercise, et cetera, so that the epigenetic factors responsible for manifesting that disease don't actually take place. And technically you could actually get nowadays like gene therapy and actually, if you want to delve deep into biohacking, actually get injectable gene therapy for some of these things. But yeah, you can certainly address genetic risk factors pretty adequately if you know what those genetic risk factors are.

Sharad Baid [00:51:01]: That's amazing. Wow.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:02]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:51:03]: So the last question, Ben, what's the best money hack that you could advise to the followers in India? Something which comes cheap. I mean, you've said a lot of things. I know. What is something which is the cheapest and the most effective and efficient biohacking technique?

Ben Greenfield [00:51:22]: The planet Earth. Every time lightning strikes the surface of the planet or solar radiation bombards the surface of the planet, it collects negative ions. When your skin comes in touch with the surface of the planet, you absorb those negative ions and it helps to recharge the body's battery. That's why the sandals I took off when I came in the door here have copper plugs in the bottom of them and copper laces. They're called Earth Runners. There's other brands out there that keep me grounded. And in connection with the planet Earth versus wearing big built up rubber soled shoes, I go outside barefoot. I'll do push ups with my hands on the concrete.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:52]: I try and get in touch with the surface of the planet for at least 20 minutes a day. But if you look at PubMed, there is a growing body of research on the effects of so called earthing or grounding. Cheap, easy, last time I checked, touching the ground was free. Yeah, most cities and countries and states, I'm sorry if you live in a place where it's not. But yeah, just earthing, grounding.

Sharad Baid [00:52:12]: Fantastic. Such a lovely conversation that we had, Ben. I really had a lot of fun and there's so much of information that you've given us. I mean, I really have to sit and decode each one of it and try to see what works for me.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:24]: Yeah.

Sharad Baid [00:52:24]: Thank you so much for being on this podcast. I totally loved it.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:27]: Thanks for having me.

Sharad Baid [00:52:28]: Thank you. Thank you for the smoothie too.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:31]: To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:35]: And content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:48]: 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 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 [00:53:41]: 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.

 

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