967 A Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier, & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick

"Psychological stress has a pretty profound effect on the immune system."Lewis is joined by Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a biomedical science PhD, to discuss her research on nutrition, aging, and stress. They discuss the four must-eat foods for longevity, the "healthy" foods that are actually problematic, the dangers of the self-love movement, and more.-For more Dr. Rhonda Patrick: lewishowes.com/967-For Lewis' interview with yogi and mystic Sadhguru: lewishowes.com/965-And text 614-350-9360 to start a conversation with Lewis Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 967 with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "The first wealth is health." And you all know the famous saying that you are what you eat. Well, my guest today takes a more nuanced view of things. But she agrees that what you put into your body is foundational to your well-being, and there is no happiness without health. Now, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a PhD in biomedical science, who has done extensive research on nutrition, aging, stress, and cancer. And Rhonda is one of the smartest people I've ever interviewed on these subjects. We covered so much ground in our conversation, and she finds it relatable to explain important science that can change your life. Knowledge is power, and I now feel

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  much more well-equipped to make choices about what I eat and how I live. And in this episode, we talk about the four things you should eat every single day if you want to stay healthy. Why you should watch out for grapes. That's right, grapes, among many other foods that could prove to be dangerous for you. Which types of exercise improve mental health and combat depression. The potential long-term health dangers of the self-love movement. I thought this was fascinating. And which vitamins you should take every single day, no matter what. Now, I love this interview, and I think you're going to love it as well and be super resourceful for you. So if you find it helpful in any way, remember, pass this along if it's making an impact on you. And if this is your first time here, thank

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  you for spending part of your day with me. And don't forget to click the subscribe button over on Apple and Spotify. And just a quick note, I wanted to mention that we taped this interview a few weeks back, yet it still remains as relevant as ever. Okay, without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

• 2:27Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm super excited about this. We have Dr. Rhonda Patrick in the house, who is a published scientist, health educator based in San Diego. She's also a PhD in biomedical science, someone who has done extensive research on aging, cancer, nutrition, and so many other things about optimizing your health. So I'm so excited that you're here. Rhonda, thank you for taking the time.

• 2:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, I'm excited to be here too. I'm glad we finally made this happen.

• 2:55Lewis Howes?

  Finally made it happen. I've been begging you to come on for years.

• 2:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  We just needed a pandemic to get you to go virtual.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  To make it happen. You never leave anywhere from San Diego. You're just obsessed in the research all day, teaching the world about how to be healthier. And so we finally made it happen. We'll have to make it happen in person in the future as well. But I'm so excited about this because I feel like people need you and your information more than ever right now. Obviously, you've been sharing a ton of great content over on your podcast. And we are in a moment of a lot of high anxiety, a lot of high stress, and routine disruption. You know, my girlfriend who lives with me, she had plans, she had dreams, and those plans and dreams went on hold, just like most of the world. So what does that do to

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  your body and immune system first, when you have this routine disruption, anxiety at an all time high, stress at an all time high, uncertainty at an all time high? How do we combat it? And what does that do to our immune system with all of that combined?

• 3:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's a lot of evidence, and in fact, a growing body of evidence, that psychological stress itself, which is what I think you're referring to, I mean, the fear of the unknown, not knowing what, you know, this COVID-19 illness is going to do, whether you're going to catch the virus, all those things, whether you're going to get your job, you're going to, you know, keep your job, but your housing, I mean, so many stresses associated with this pandemic. We do know that, you know, psychological stress has a pretty profound effect on the immune system. And it's known to depress immune function on the one hand, but also to cause inflammation on the other hand. It's kind of like this weird...

• 4:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  How is it doing both at the same time sort of deal? And it's funny, often in biology, you'll find a lot of systems like that. Where on the one hand, something will increase inflammation. But on the other hand, it's suppressing the immune system. And you might think, well, inflammation is active immune system, right? So it's one of those, it's just, there's so many interconnected systems. And, you know, one thing is doing, you know, one, one gene can activate one thing and then activate another and happens to be the opposite. So, but cortisol itself does increase with psychological stress. And we know that cortisol does depress the immune system.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  So anytime we have stress, anxiety, overwhelm, a fight or flight mentality, emotionally, psychologically, it transforms into the body, weakening its immune system. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 5:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes, yes. People are, you're more likely to probably succumb to a pathogen. And I think anybody, I remember I've gotten the flu twice, like, maybe I've had it more. I just remember twice in my life, really. Once was during finals week in college and it was like, I was taking like all the like hard, you know, I was taking graduate classes and everything at once. And it was like, I had this Spanish final and my Spanish teacher was like, if you miss the final, you're going to get an F. And I had an A in the class. So I came into that final that day and I was, I had a fever and I literally vomited, like in, in the classroom.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  No, the middle test.

• 6:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  On the day of the final, I vomited, like, I was like so sick.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  With your classmates around you or?

• 6:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  No way. You're just like, okay, I'm here, I don't want to fail, but I'm going to do whatever it takes.

• 6:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I went right to the trash can and threw up.

• 6:30Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 6:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So my teacher sent me home. You know, that, that was like something I remembered that time I had the flu. And the other time I had it was right after I had my son, I was getting no sleep. And sleep is also really important for immune function. And so I got the flu then. But anyways, I think my, my, the point of my, my, my story was that I think people have their own anecdotes. Where they're like, they remember getting sick when they had this stressful thing happening. Uh, you know, that sort of thing. So stress definitely can depress the immune system.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  For sure. So that's, that's definitely, and then, you know, there, there's all sorts of other things that affect immune function as well. Diet, you know, lifestyle, genetics.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  Do you think there's, do you think there's a way to defend ourselves against all disease and viruses? Do you think it's possible if we have the purest mind and psychological well-being? We eat the perfect foods. We have nine hours of sleep every night. We have the perfect environment. Is it possible to just the immune system say, nope, anything that comes in through the, the body or the skin? Like, um, we're just going to reject it because we have defended ourselves so well.

• 7:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think the only way you're going to do that is if you never expose yourself to a pathogen somehow by living in a bubble. So no, I don't think that, um, that you can fight off every single pathogen ever. Uh, you know, like that's, this is, it's not, it's not possible. And that mostly has to do with, you know, when, when you're exposed to new pathogens, things that your body has never seen before. Um, that, you know, there's no, there's, there's, there's really two arms to your immune system. There's the innate immune response, which is what happens when you encounter any pathogen. It's sort of this generalized response where you're basically, you know, trying to, trying to fight it off.

• 8:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And that happens, um, through a variety of mechanisms involving mostly what are called myeloid cells, macrophages, neutrophils. These are cells that are, um, like neutrophils, for example, increase, uh, produce hydrogen peroxide. They produce hyperchlorite, which is like bleach. You know, they're producing these things inside of your, inside of your body to, to fight off pathogens.

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  They create, you have, your body produces bleach or bleach-like material?

• 8:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Hyperchlorite, it does. Yeah, hydrogen peroxide as well. So.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  So is this your immune system develops this, or is this like your cells, is this?

• 8:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Your neutrophils are producing it. It's a type of immune cell.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 9:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There are various types of immune cells. You have myeloid cells and you have lymphoid cells. Most people are familiar with lymphoid cells, which are B and T cells. You've probably heard of those, right? And that, those also could be involved somewhat in the adaptive immune response, I'm sorry, in the innate. But mostly they're involved in what's called the adaptive immune response. And that's the immune response most people are aware of that don't, you know, study biology. That's the response where your B cells basically form what are called like B memory cells. And they produce antibodies, which can then recognize specific regions of a virus and, you know, protect you from that, from that virus, protect you from the virus entering your cells. You know, if you don't have, but if you've never been exposed to that virus, then you're not going to have that

• 9:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  antibody, right? You're not going to have that adaptive immune system hasn't been activated. And so you don't have protection against it. You rely on the innate one only.

• 9:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, so we actually want to be exposed to viruses and other bad, I guess, bugs. We want to be exposed to some degree, but not full-on attack. So that our body can build up antibodies. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 10:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I think that's an accurate statement. I think, you know, that, that it was thought for a long time that, you know, all pathogens were bad, all microbes were bad. And we wanted to have, you know, this clean hygiene, you know, we wanted to.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  All the time.

• 10:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  All the time.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  Never touch anything with your hands, make sure you cover everything, all the time. Yeah.

• 10:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And now this is how science is. The more tools you have, the more you can investigate questions and learn more answers from, from doing experiments. So as time goes on, you're sort of, your ideas change and knowledge changes, right? And that's, that's science. Science is the changing of it. So, you know, we know that microbes now, we've got the microbiome. We've got this skin microbiome, the gut microbiome. You know, the, the, the bacteria that are on our skin, the bacteria that are in our gut, um, also have important roles in. Helping us and helping our immune system, in fact. In fact, actually, there's been many studies showing now that early life exposure to dirt, you know, or even like pet dander,

• 11:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  you know, growing up with like a dog can help protect against asthma and even other types of autoimmune, yeah, autoimmune diseases. And it's really important in the first year of life. Like when my son was born, I was like taking him out in the dirt, you know, I was trying to get him all dirty. Instead of years ago, you know, my grandparents' generation, it was like, oh, you never want to go in the dirt because it's dirty and you can get sick. And, you know, obviously, we've learned a lot more since then. But even gut microbiome, the gut, like the composition of what's in your gut plays a major role in actually regulating your immune cells. And particularly, so what happens is, you know, bacteria in our gut will ferment certain types of fermentable carbohydrates that we eat.

• 11:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So these are carbohydrates that we don't digest. And they tend to be in plants and fruit. There's many examples of it, like you can find pectin or inulin or beta glucans. You know, there's lots of different types that are found in a variety of plants. And these bacteria will ferment basically these types of fiber. And they will produce a variety of different compounds, almost like little drug factories in our gut. And these compounds, some of them are called short-chain fatty acids because they're little tiny fatty acids. They get released into the bloodstream and they regulate, they basically send signals. It's like this signaling molecule that tells our T cells to make more of this type. And one of the types of T cells it makes is a type called regulatory T cells.

• 12:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And regulatory T cells play a very important role in preventing your immune system from attacking its own tissue, thinking its own tissue is foreign. So obviously, it plays a very important role in autoimmune disease.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get more of these T cells that are good?

• 12:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  One thing to keep in mind would be what regulates the gut microbiome? You know, one of the major things that regulates the gut microbiome is what I just said, eating a diverse array of fermentable fiber.

• 12:56Lewis Howes?

  Give me an example, what's a diverse array?

• 12:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So you have blueberries, you have, you know, you have nuts, mushrooms. You have some, you know, dark leafy greens. These have different types of, or you know, you've got onions and garlic. Those have a different type of fermentable fiber. There's, that should be differentiated from non-fermentable fiber, which would be cellulose, lighans. Well, just like, well broccoli has fermentable fibers and, but yeah. Most of the, the bulk of fiber in plants is non, is, is non-fermentable. So what that's doing is basically just helping move stuff through the intestines, right? Pushing it out.

• 13:36Lewis Howes?

  The fiber.

• 13:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's important.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  The fiber pulling it down and cleaning it out.

• 13:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Cleaning it out, right. And that's also important, but, but the fermentable fiber, the stuff that's, that can be eaten by this bacteria in our gut, like that is the good stuff. That's what's allowing the bacteria to make short chain fatty acids.

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  What are the top three to five tea foods? I'm trying to simplify for myself. These foods that can really develop that, yeah. What are the, what would you?

• 14:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's different, so the thing is different foods have different types and different types feed different types of bacteria. So if you want, you don't like for what, for example, some people want to hear, oh, well, I can supplement with inulin. I can get an inulin powder. Inulin is a type of fermentable fiber. You can find it, you can find it in a variety of plants. I think onions, for example. But if you only eat inulin, you're going to be basically feeding certain types of bacteria that, that use inulin or diet, you know, that ferment.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  The variety is what you're looking for.

• 14:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That helps with the diversity, you know, because these bacteria are playing different roles. Uh, so, you know, there's.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  I have been under the assumption that eating the same thing every day is good. It's like eating it clean, like a little bit of chicken, lots of veggies and eating it pretty much every meal is the right way to go in terms of like my health, nutrients, in terms of like body composition, how I want to look and feel. Is that something that I should be going away from and diversifying what I eat every day?

• 15:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, it sounds like you just said vegetables and vegetable. There's a lot of types of vegetables, right? So it's kind of nice. I'm just as guilty like for convenience. I'm busy. I know my, my husband gets tired of it, but I'm like the same. It's so much easier to have the same thing.

• 15:17Lewis Howes?

  Same thing every day.

• 15:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Because I, I find the thing that's healthiest and easiest to make. And you know, there's days where let's say, you know, I'm not, I'm not working all day, then I can, I can be more creative and I have more time. Generally speaking, it's easier to, to kind of stick to the same thing. But if you.

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  If you were going to, let's say you came up with a, a new company, a product that was a, a meal that you had to have the same meal every day for lunch and dinner and snack. And this would be the, the thing that you could sell to people. What would be included in that meal that you were like, you know what? If you, if you don't have the, all the variety and time to make these foods all day, but if you could do this three times a day, you're setting yourself up for a really good immune system and good gut bacteria.

• 15:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The same act, the same meal three times a day or different meals?

• 16:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes, same meal.

• 16:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I would say basically omega, I would, I would get salmon. I would get wild Alaskan salmon. And, and that's because salmon is one of the best sources of the marine omega three fatty acids, EPA and DHA, which are extremely important for health and particularly brain health, but even cardiovascular health. I mean, just, there's just been so much emerging evidence showing that the omega three fatty acids are really important for brain health and for.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  For cardiovascular health.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Piece of wild caught salmon.

• 16:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That would be my protein. And it's also lowest in mercury. There's, there's like two micrograms of mercury per four ounces cooked. So that's really low in mercury.

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  And cooked, cooked or raw fish?

• 16:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, actually cooking it even lowers the mercury bioavailability even more. So definitely, and raw, you don't want to like, I think there's too much concern with parasites and all that. So I would say cooked.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  Cooking me, okay. Number two.

• 16:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Number two, I would say, I always feel like I'm depriving myself and I'm kind of quoting my mentor here a little bit. If I don't have dark leafy greens with a meal, literally like every meal, I like to have dark leafy greens and.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  What are the top two or three?

• 17:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say kale because I would also like to have my sulforaphane. And sulforaphane, so much evidence that sulforaphane, I think, uh, may be important for longevity. So that would be my greens.

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  Kale.

• 17:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And yeah, I'd like maybe sauteed. Sauteed would be good because it's just you can't really eat raw kale unless you put it in a smoothie.

• 17:28Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 17:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Unless you put it in a smoothie.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 17:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Which, which I actually do. I drink my smoothie. I have blueberries. So maybe I would add the avocado and some blueberries, a little, a little cup of blueberries.

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  And that's it for your meal?

• 17:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, that would be my, that would be my.

• 17:42Lewis Howes?

  You'd have wild Alaskan salmon, dark leafy greens, sauteed kale. You'd have blueberries and some avocado.

• 17:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And avocado.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  If you ate those four things every day, multiple times a day, that, if that's what you could only eat, you feel like it would set you up for good amount of success.

• 17:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I do. I do. Yes.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

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• 18:52Lewis Howes?

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• 19:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, there's a lot of, so in kale, kale is probably one of the best sources of ludine and zeaxanthin, which are what are called carotenoids. And carotenoids, you're probably familiar with, or you're, and people listening or watching this are probably familiar with beta carotene. That's like the probably most famous, that's like the poster child for carotenoids. Beta carotene is a caroteneoid, it has antioxidant activity itself, but it also can be converted into vitamin A. Ludine and zeaxanthin are really interesting because they accumulate in two regions, in the rods and cones in the eye, and they're, they've been shown to play an important role in preventing age-related macular degeneration. But they've also really been shown to play an important role in the brain.

• 20:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And there's this accumulating evidence that this stuff is accumulating in the brain, and it really hasn't been known why. And, and the reason I say that is because ludine and zeaxanthin, because of their molecular structure, they're really good at basically sequestering single oxygen. And, and that plays a role like damaging the eyes, like when you're out in the sun, exposed to sun, and you know, cataracts and things like that. So that, that plays a role and you're basically eye, eye aging, quote unquote, right? But in the brain, there's no light. So why is this stuff accumulating in the brain? There's just been quite a few studies over the past five years or so, maybe last seven years, correlating it with cognitive function and improved cognitive function and delayed brain aging.

• 20:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And, and there's like studies, you know, correlating plasma levels of ludine and zeaxanthin with improved cognitive function. There's been randomized controlled trials supplementing with ludine and zeaxanthin, improving cognitive function in elderly adults. It's always nice to have a randomized controlled trial because that really helps establish causation. When you have these studies looking at associations, at the end of the day, it's an association and you never know, it could be some other factor, right? Playing a role. Sure, sure. So the ludine and zeaxanthin in kale, you've got some fiber, a little bit of fermentable fiber, you've got the sulforaphane, which has been shown to increase, it's been shown in, in, in human studies to increase glutathione in plasma and also in the brain, which is amazing. Glutathione is one of the major antioxidant systems in the body.

• 21:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And particularly in the brain, and I know we were kind of chatting before, before we got started about your former life as a, what I didn't realize even existed was this, which arena football you called it. And it sounds like that TBI could be a big thing.

• 22:00Lewis Howes?

  Uh, yeah. Lot of, lot of hits in the head, that's for sure.

• 22:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. Well, glutathione is one of the major antioxidants in the brain. It plays a very important role, particularly with any injury in the brain. So sulforaphane increases glutathione. It increases the, the enzymes that make glutathione and use it, and subsequently increases glutathione levels.

• 22:20Lewis Howes?

  I saw some, maybe it was another doctor, I'm trying to figure out who said this, that there was some research actually potentially saying that kale was not good for you, that it had some negative side effects as well. I don't know if you've seen that research or if that's just something.

• 22:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's no research I've seen on that. I've heard it. It's just, it's one of those things where people like to talk about potential anti-nutrients and one of the, what they're calling an anti-nutrient is actually sulforaphane because it can compete with iodine for transport into the thyroid. There's been studies, so for human studies where they've loaded up with sulforaphane, and there's been no effect on thyroid function. Those were short-term, like a week-long studies. There've been long-term studies on animals that actually have hypothyroidism. They were given sulforaphane and believe it or not, actually they were given broccoli sprouts extract, which is one of the best.

• 23:13Lewis Howes?

  I hear those are amazing for you.

• 23:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes. So broccoli sprouts have like a hundred times more sulforaphane than mature broccoli. Well, anyways.

• 23:20Lewis Howes?

  So should we throw some broccoli sprouts on top of the kale or the avocado?

• 23:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The broccoli sprouts actually would, if I could add more, I would absolutely put the broccoli sprouts in there, yes. But the, my point was that the animals that had hypothyroidism, it didn't make their hypothyroidism any worse at all. In fact, it helped the antioxidant status of their thyroid and improved some functions. So I think, that doesn't mean, you know, people with hypothyroidism shouldn't be, you know, weary or concerned about consuming too much sulforaphane, particularly if they're not getting iodine. Most people aren't iodine deficient. It's, it's like in salt, you know, most people are eating. Foods that already have salt and now, you know, iodine deficiency is not a big thing, particularly in the United States.

• 24:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, so I would, I would say that, that, that, uh, those statements by some people that are kind of more into the, the camp of don't eat any plants.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Aren't, aren't really.

• 24:14Lewis Howes?

  Not enough research on it, yeah.

• 24:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's not, there may be, you might find one study with one case report with a female who had some crazy disease or something and she was juicing like just ungodly amounts of kale every day where it's like, I mean, okay, like maybe there, maybe you can create a situation.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 24:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Where, you know.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  There's not enough research backing it though, yeah.

• 24:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, yeah, so.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about this. You have some great points here. I love your five foods that we should be eating for every meal. Now, as a, I'm a 37-year-old man, but I've got the, I like to think curiosity and imagination of a seven-year-old, but I also have the palate of a seven-year-old and I don't like blueberries, I don't, I don't like avocado, I'm the pickiest eater, I'm probably a pickier eater than your, than your child, and I want to ask you for the picky eaters of the world who don't eat berries and don't like avocado or aren't creative enough to go that far and they're limited in their creative thinking in terms of foods. Is it better to just have the supplementation, the vitamins and supplements that are the exact same nutrients and just take the supplements and vitamins as opposed to the actual food itself?

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  Or is the organic, fresh-caught food always better than the, the fish oil or the blueberry vitamin? What do you think about that?

• 25:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so I think that there's huge differences when you're talking about eating a food versus taking a supplement. And I do think, for example, a multivitamin supplement is, I take it every day and I think it's great insurance to make sure, because you know, there are 40 essential micronutrients, which are vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids and amino acids we have to get from our diet. And they're important for not only helping us, you know, not die, for example, you know, scurvy, but also for long-term function, for the way we age, preventing insidious damage. But there's also a variety of these compounds we don't know about. You know, there's the fermentable fibers that are feeding the gut microbiome and which

• 26:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  are making all these chemicals, like little drug factories in our gut that are regulating the immune system. We've got polyphenols like blueberries have been shown, you know, to in multiple clinical studies, it's been shown to increase blood flow to the brain and improve cognitive function and memory in both young adolescents and older adults. So, and this was, this was due, thought to be due to the anthocyanins in blueberries. And, you know, food has so many components, probably so many things we haven't even discovered yet. You know, so many compounds that were just, you know, there's this new, new compound that was discovered in dark leafy greens called sulfaquinolobone or something, which is now been shown to like to have a specific purpose of feeding the gut microbiome, kind of like the fermentable

• 26:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  fiber. So it's one of those things where you, you know, food has so much to it. And there's so many, there's so many parts to the story. It's not just about getting the vitamin, right? It's not just about getting that one mineral. So, and I will say that in my, when I was a postdoc with Dr. Bruce Ames at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, there was a variety of clinical studies that I was a part of where they, my colleagues had designed this, this nutrient dense bar that had a variety of vitamins and minerals. It also had DHA, which is one of the marine omega-3 fatty acids found in fish. And it also had fiber, a fiber matrix. And there was a variety of studies that we were doing in obese and lean individuals.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  So it was like the ultimate food bar. It was like everything you need in this meal.

• 27:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It was like the, you know, it was like the micronutrient bar where you were giving the micronutrients, but you were delivering them with a, with a food matrix, like fiber, right?

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And there's all these benefits that were found from this, from this bar that were particularly benefits found in people that were overweight or obese that we didn't ask them to change their diet. They were eating their same diet, but you give them this bar on top of that and you would have improvements. You would have improvements and, and inflammation and like, you know, um, HDL cholesterol, which is a good type of cholesterol. Um, you see, you'd have all these improvements, but if you took away that food matrix and just had the bar without the fiber and just the micronutrients, some of those benefits would go away. And, but if you gave the fiber by itself. The benefits would go away. It was the whole package. It was everything together that was important. So,

• 28:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  you know, with that said, um, I do think there is a place for supplementation and particularly with fish oil. I think fish oil is, is one of those supplements that I, every day I take it. And I think that, that there's just mounting evidence that it's beneficial. I mean, high dose, it has to be in the right dose for some people and it's, I mean, it's been shown to really lower triglycerides, for example, but again, there's conflicting studies and a lot of times when you look at these clinical trials, it all has to do with dose. It has to do with, were they taking a statin, for example, which can sort of mask some of the benefits, you know, there's all sorts of things that are

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Complications.

• 29:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It complicates everything. And then you get all this data and you're like, wait a minute, but yesterday was not good for you. Today it is.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  I know, right? How are you supposed to know? And there's so much information out there about medical news, about health news, nutrition news, supplement news. How do you know what to trust when there's just so much news out there about what's working and what's not working?

• 29:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I mean, it's hard to know. It's, it's hard. I have to, it's hard for me to kind of sort through it. You know, then you add the list, this layer of genetics that's also complicating, particularly with the randomized controlled trials. Like there's genes that people have where they actually need a higher dose of fish oil to have benefits, which is super interesting. There's also genes where people that get omega three from the plant source, because there's a plant form, alpha-linoleic acid, ALA, that from chia seeds or flax seeds or walnuts, they don't convert that ALA into the EPA and DHA very well. And those EPA and DHA are ultimately what are regulating everything that's important for health.

• 30:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So again, you know, you have the genetics that comes into, and this is also the case for, for studies on saturated fat, you know, the genetics plays a role in that as well. So there's all sorts of, there's so many factors when, when, when designing a clinical trial. And I think, I think the burden is on the researchers. The researchers have to come to a consensus.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And, and realize, look.

• 30:33Lewis Howes?

  But then, but then a decade later, they may come to a new consensus with the research where it's like, we, we thought, I don't know, leafy greens were healthy, but now it's actually killing you. Right? It's like, I don't, not that it's going to happen, but I'm just saying, it seems like over decades, what scientists and researchers think sometimes is accurate, we find later evidence that it may not be a hundred percent true.

• 30:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That is true, that is true, but I think when you have overwhelming evidence in multiple fields and multiple areas, so you have the epidemiological evidence, you have the associative studies, you have the randomized controlled trials where you start and you give someone something and then you measure an endpoint.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  The double placebo testing.

• 31:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, and then you have the mechanistic studies where you start to look at how it's happening and you do these animal studies, you know, that together combined, the whole comprehensive literature, I would say, is what really strengthens.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the matrix of studies.

• 31:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, when everything starts to come and point to that direction.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  I have so many questions, this one just came to my mind really quick, as I, you know, I live in Los Angeles, I'm from Ohio, so being from Ohio, you grow up eating meat and cheese and milk, I remember I lived in a dorm, I went to, in 8th grade, I went to a private school, boarding school, and I lived in a dorm with a bunch of other kids in middle school, and I actually had a milk dispenser, a 5 gallon whole milk dispenser, and I would drink that every 3 days by myself, 5 gallons within 3 days, because I thought milk was good, you're supposed to drink it all day long, you know, you drink it before sleep, everything. I have a question about being in LA now, growing up in Ohio, which was all about meat

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  and potatoes, now being in LA, it's all about being vegan, and everything is around, everything is around either keto, or veganism, or paleo, or vegan, it's like you're good, you're bad, you're right, you're wrong, there's documentaries that are coming out all the time about veganism, all that stuff. If you had to calculate with your wealth of information and knowledge, who would be healthier, the person who is vegan, eating the best foods all day, or the meat eater, eating the best, healthiest foods all day, who do you think would have a healthier?

• 32:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The meat eater also would be including, eating vegetables.

• 32:50Lewis Howes?

  Including plants and vegetables as well.

• 32:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Okay.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  But does someone who's...

• 32:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're omnivore.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes, they're eating meat, but they're also eating all the other good foods, or someone who's eating all the other good foods excluding meat.

• 33:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So taking out all the processed foods in both camps, right?

• 33:05Lewis Howes?

  Both camps, no, whole foods, healthy, one is having meat every day, a portion of meat, and one is not having meat. Who is a healthier, happier human being that lives longer?

• 33:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I can tell you, I don't know, but...

• 33:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  We can talk about what the evidence has shown. And I think probably the strongest evidence to date, most of this evidence is unfortunately epidemiological. Because you're never going to get a randomized controlled trial that's 50 years long. You know, I mean, you're just, you're not going to, that's not going to happen. It's too expensive and people won't follow the same diet for that long, right? So you won't ever have a longevity study. That's a randomized controlled trial. But looking at the epidemiological studies, for a long time, you'd have study after study coming out showing, oh, eating vegetarians have a lower, what's called all-cause mortality than non-vegetarians. Or than people that eat animal meat.

• 34:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  All-cause mortality means basically dying from all types of diseases that are non-accidental.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Diabetes.

• 34:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Cancer, type 2 diabetes. Yeah, exactly. Heart disease, so.

• 34:16Lewis Howes?

  So vegetarians die less.

• 34:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Lots of studies have shown that. But with the problem with epidemiological studies is there's what are called confounding factors. So you have people that are also obese, you have people that are sedentary, you have people that exercise, you have people that smoke. You have, you know, so what about all those other things? How do those come into play, right?

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 34:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And so there have now been studies, large, large studies, that have looked at confounding factors. And have found, yes, vegetarians do have a lower all-cause mortality, particularly cancer-related mortality, than people who eat meat. But when you take all the unhealthy lifestyle factors away, so people that are not obese, don't smoke, that are physically active, and that don't consume excessive alcohol. If they eat meat, they have the same mortality rate as a vegetarian.

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But if you take the meat eater and you add one of those in, like obesity, then they are going to have a higher, sorry, yeah, a higher mortality rate than the vegetarian. So basically, I think there's lots of reasons. I think for one, we know that meat has a different amino acid profile. And part of that amino acid profile can activate a hormone, a very important hormone, but it's got sort of, it's like a double-edged sword hormone. It's called IGF-1, insulin growth factor like 1.

• 35:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And this hormone is an important hormone, like during development, it helps you grow. I mean, it's needed to grow. People that have genetic, you know, polymorphisms in genes that affect that pathway and have less of it have stunted growth. So it's important for growth. It's important for muscle repair. Like you want IGF-1 in your muscles to help repair muscles after, you know, after you injure them or after you exercise, right? That's the type of injury you're.

• 36:11Lewis Howes?

  But can't you get that from supplementation, from protein or supplements as well?

• 36:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, so this is the, this is the bottom line is that the IGF-1, which is activated by essential amino acids, you know, you've got like leucine, for example, methionine. These things, it also is important for, in the brain for growing new neurons. I'm just telling you the importance of it because the problem with IGF-1 is that as we age and we accumulate damage within our cells and we, and this happens to everyone. And you have a cell that, let's say a cell gets enough damage, it has a mutation that could potentially become a cancer causing mutation. The IGF-1 that's around, which is around a lot more in meat eaters, it allows a damaged

• 36:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  cell to overcome signals in our body that will usually kill it and say, oh, this has got damage. If we don't kill it, it could become cancer. IGF-1 goes, no, no, no, grow, keep, keep growing. And so IGF-1.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  It's a growth hormone or stimulus.

• 37:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Exactly what it is, yeah. And in fact.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  So it's going to grow any cancer or any disease?

• 37:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's going to allow things to grow more, yeah. So that's, that's kind of part of the problem.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Is that why?

• 37:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  If someone is obese or a smoker, you know, doing things that are, you know, excess, causing excess damage, then that could put you at risk, right?

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  Because I've heard stories and seen cases of people that were eating meat, got some type of cancer, whether it be early form cancer or some stage of cancer, went complete vegetarian, vegan, and it stopped growing. I've heard stories of that. I don't know if that's 100% accurate or if there's other factors that played into that. Without chemo, without those types of things, is that possible?

• 37:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I've certainly, you know, I've certainly heard anecdotal stories about as well. And there's been animal studies showing that. And when you take an animal and let's say you inject it with a human cancer cell to form a tumor. And then you give that animal a high protein versus low protein diet. Then the low protein diet, you know, blunts the cancer growth, whereas the high one. But that doesn't mean that eating meat causes cancer. It doesn't mean that. It means that if you already have cancer.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  It can accelerate it potentially.

• 38:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It can potentially, yeah. I, you know, I think that the, the, the, the key here also is exercise. Exercise, you know, helps take that IGF-1 and move it into the brain and move it into muscle cells. Where it's doing good stuff. You want IGF-1 in your brain. IGF-1 is important to grow new neurons, which, I mean, as we age, you know, neurodegenerative disease is a big risk. And you wanna, you wanna, you know, grow new neurons in old age. It also allows existing neurons to survive. So, exercise increases IGF-1 in the brain. It also helps increase it in muscle tissue as well. So, I think that's one of the reasons why you look at the meat eaters and the ones that are physically active, not obese.

• 39:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Basically, if you don't have these unhealthy lifestyle factors, then I think that eating meat is healthy. And, and honestly, I think that a vegetarian, you really, like, you have to do a lot of work to make sure that you're getting all the right nutrients. There's, there's risk factors for deficiencies in zinc, which is found in, you know, in meat products. Risk factors for deficiencies in, obviously, B12 and other things, you know, just making sure you're getting the right profile. So, you definitely wanna make sure you're, and I don't know what all the combinations are, you know, like you have to eat.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 39:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The beans and the.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, the proteins. What would be, if you were a meat eater, but you said, you know what? I wanna cut out certain types of meat. I wanna be a more conscious meat eater, if that's a thing. And I wanna be a healthier meat eater. And I only wanna choose like one to three different types of meat. We've got wild Alaskan caught salmon as one piece of meat. What would be the other two that you would add if these were the only meats you're gonna eat? Cause you were trying to minimize your consumption of meat? What would be the other two types of meat that you think would be beneficial for your health and brain memory?

• 40:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I would, I would say, based on interesting studies that have been done looking at what is called epigenetic age. Epigenetic age is probably one of the, I would say it's the fastest growing biomarkers for what's called biological age and versus chronological age. So people can be biologically younger or biologically older than their chronological age.

• 40:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, like I'm 37, but I could be 17, right? Like, with my health, my internal health.

• 40:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say genetics would probably play a bigger role in that than, than lifestyle. I don't think diet and lifestyle will put you back that far, but yes.

• 40:55Lewis Howes?

  Or I could look like I'm 45, 55, if I was smoking all day, drinking all day, eating anything crap.

• 41:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, obese, not, you know, sedentary. There's, there's lots of, there's lots of lifestyle factors that can make you have an older biological age. And those are the things we just mentioned, obesity, sedentary, smoking, excess alcohol consumption. But there's also been studies looking at dietary patterns and their, you know, supplement intake as well. And what epigenetic age is, is basically, it looks at what are called methylation patterns. Methylation are, methylation is like a, basically a carbon with three hydrogen atoms and they're, what they're doing is they're basically sitting on top of your DNA and changing the way genes are turned on and turned off. And what's really interesting is that this methylation pattern, this work has been done, was really pioneered by Dr.

• 41:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Steve Horvath at UCLA. And he, he basically showed that he could look at these, he could take some DNA and look at the methylation pattern, and with like 96% accuracy, he could predict your age plus or minus four years. Like it's super accurate. And then he's developed a bunch of other clocks, these epigenetic aging clocks, that can be more accurately, accurately predict biological age. And so what he's found is that there's an association with Lower biological epigenetic age when you're eating fish or poultry, which I found very interesting. I know this was a very long-winded answer to your question.

• 42:26Lewis Howes?

  Birds and fish?

• 42:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And based on that, kind of for a while, I was like, well, what's the real benefit of poultry? Am I, you know, like, why not get more red meat and have more iron? And, you know, so, um, so that, that, that study kind of made me think about it. And I'm like, oh, well, that's because red meat wasn't associated with the, with the lower epigenetic age. So I thought that was really interesting. And so that, uh,

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  So would you say, would you say eating red meat is making us older?

• 42:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, I don't think there's evidence of that. I do, I, I will say that the red meat studies are extremely nuanced because lots of times stuff is glumped together with processed meat, like, you know, the, the lunch meats and the bacon and then the sausage and the processed meat, there's a layer of complication on that. And that is that it has nitrites in it. Nitrites are preservatives. Uh, the problem is that they can also form nitrosamines in the body, which are potential carcinogens. They can cause DNA damage and, and do all sorts of terrible things. So a lot of red meat studies are really, um, there's a lot of nuance there with, with that.

• 43:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And in fact, in all, with a lot of the red meat studies, there's been a lot of studies looking at red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes risk. And it's weird because there's an increased risk with red meat consumption. Study after study after, so once in a while I'll get like a vegan that'll throw me a question and they'll send me some links and I'm like, wow, there's something to this. Like, I didn't realize that, you know, so I'll look into it. And, um, and this is, you know, how you kind of learn things from really good questions and from people that send you links to studies.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And so my team and I were looking into this and we finally, after reading just, you know, dozens of studies, there was one consistent. Theme within all the studies showing that red meat consumption increases type 2 diabetes risk. And that was BMI. It only did it in people with a high BMI, for the most part.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Body mass index, is that BMI?

• 44:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes. And BMI is not a great, I mean, like, someone that has a lot of muscle can be categorized as high BMI. So it's not a great, it's not a great indicator. But generally speaking, if you're obese, you've got a higher BMI. So that was, that was the

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 44:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Interesting thing, again.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Let's, I mean, let's, so poultry and fish would be the things that are the best meats to eat from, based on what I'm hearing you say from your mentor and from the research so far, what we have?

• 44:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would, I would say, yeah. I mean, so far.

• 44:59Lewis Howes?

  If you're only picking two meats, it's fish and poultry, right?

• 45:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I hate to say it, I don't, you know, I don't really know, but

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I found those studies interesting.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 45:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I would, I would say that I don't, I still am not convinced that red meat is bad.

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 45:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Unless you're obese, or

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  Then you don't think you should.

• 45:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You're overweight and you're eating red meat, and you gotta work on losing, you work on the losing weight.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  How old is your child right now?

• 45:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Two and a half.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Two and a half?

• 45:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  As a mom and a scientist and researcher, what are the healthy foods out there that people in the mass population think as healthy, that you will never want your child to eat?

• 45:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, I think there's all sorts of processed toddler foods you'll find out there, and I've experimented with a couple on myself. I wear a continuous glucose monitor, just to see how my body responds to various foods in terms of increasing blood glucose levels. So it's called postprandial blood glucose, and I'm also interested in my fasting blood glucose levels, how different lifestyle factors affect that. And I should mention this, that basically, we were talking all about these studies with eating meat and vegetarians and You know, there's also a huge layer of complication with genetics, believe it or not. There are genes that people have that eating a high protein diet makes them actually gain

• 46:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  weight and have poorer lipids. And there are genes that people have that eating a high protein diet makes them lose weight, the complete opposite.

• 46:32Lewis Howes?

  So you need to know your genetics first, really, before the diet you eat.

• 46:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The genetics may tell you the why of some of the conflicting research. And this goes for fats as well. There are genes, people that eat saturated fat, they can have an increased glucose response versus most of the time, what increases your postprandoglucose response is actually carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates. But, but there are, there are situations that, that that's not true. There was this beautiful study published back in 2015 in the, in the Journal of Cell Metabolism. It was done at the Weisman Institute in Israel. And I love this study because they put continuous glucose monitors, like I'm wearing now, on 800 people. And

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  Is this something like in your stomach and your arm, like in your body?

• 47:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right on my abdomen, right here. It's like a little

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Inside the skin?

• 47:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's, so it's like a little microneedle. It's like tiny little microneedle that goes through. Yeah. But you, it doesn't

• 47:24Lewis Howes?

  Such a baby.

• 47:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's, yeah, it's like, it doesn't hurt at all.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So it's on your 24/7?

• 47:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is. Yeah. Most of the time I wear, I mean, it expires every 10 days and I have to like replace it. And sometimes I take a couple of days off and

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 47:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You know, but yes, I'm wearing, I, I've learned, we can talk about, I've learned a ton of things from that. But I was getting to a point.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  The Weisman, sorry, I'm

• 47:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The Weisman, yes. 800, 800 people wearing this continuous glucose monitor. They gave these people a variety of different types of foods. You know, they gave them high fat, they gave them a high refined carbohydrate, like white bread, they gave them complex carbohydrate, like a banana, and measured their glucose response to a variety of foods. And what was so enlightening and illuminating about this study was that everyone had different responses to these foods. And it was, they also then did genetic testing on these people and they measured microbiome and also physical activity. And it turns out, all those things play a role in their blood glucose response. Their genetics. Their microbiome composition, how much they exercise, I think, and then sleep also, but that wasn't part of the study. That's another, those are other studies.

• 48:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But the point is that, you know, we're sitting here talking about people's response to, for example, red meat. I think that as moving forward, this field of this interaction between genes and diets, called nutrigenomics, I think that field is growing and more clinical studies will start to include it. The problem is it's more expensive. Anytime you have to add another clinical test, particularly if it involves getting a sample of DNA, although these days now you can get them from saliva and so it shouldn't be as difficult. But, but again, it's just another layer of, you know.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what would the healthy foods be that you would never want your kid to?

• 49:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. Exactly. So that's what I was getting to. There's these, there's these foods that are organic, almond butter, little snacks and all this. And so I was trying this stuff and it, I mean, just tiny little thing raised my blood glucose levels like just unbelievably high, like as if I had eaten like two meals.

• 49:18Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 49:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You know, and so, yeah, it was insane, some of these stuff that just has some added, a little bit of added sugar or a little, you know, so it's just really, I would stay away from all those foods that are packaged. You know, the, I see like children eating these squeezy foods and stuff and I've never, I've never given my son that. I know that it's a lot of work making food.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 49:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's definitely a lot of work. But there's new, there's like companies out there now that'll like give, you know, send you like already like made, great, organic, real food.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 49:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So there's, there's, there's.

• 49:49Lewis Howes?

  What are, what are like five foods that you think are hurting us on a daily basis? Like in terms of just like sugar, bread, rice, like what would you say are the fives that we should never be eating unless?

• 50:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say, I mean, I don't know if I can categorize it to fives. I would say that probably the biggest thing to avoid is refined carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates are really, you know.

• 50:13Lewis Howes?

  Like what are, where do we see refined carbohydrates the most? Is that cereals? Is that bread?

• 50:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes. Cereals, breads, most of the time, I mean, not all breads have, have them, but like, you know, a lot of the, the, the white breads and stuff, white flour like in pizza, you know. You know, cookies, cakes.

• 50:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  All that pretzels, like those things, the refined carbohydrates, there's really just no nutritional value. I mean, the whole point of food is to provide your body with the nutrients it needs to not only be healthy now, but to also age healthy. And I think that people get really focused a lot on macronutrients like protein, carbohydrate, fat, and they don't realize that all these micronutrients that I mentioned, there's 40 that you have to get from your diet. You know, like, those are important. These things are what are called cofactors for enzymes that are running your metabolism, enzymes that are producing neurotransmitters in your brain so your brain can function. And you

• 51:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  know, if you don't get enough, like magnesium, magnesium's found at the center of a chlorophyll molecule. Chlorophyll's what give plants their green color.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So magnesium's very high in dark leafy greens. Almost half the country in the United States doesn't get enough magnesium from their food. There's been, you know, large nutritional surveys and stuff that have shown that year after year. And the problem with magnesium is like, you know, you need it to make energy. You need it to make and use energy. But you also need it to repair damage, DNA damage. And so you can imagine what happens if you're short in that essential mineral. Your body might actually triage the mineral to the short-term thing, making energy. If you can't make energy, you're gonna die. So of course, your body's gonna say, any magnesium I have, it's gonna go to that essential process. DNA repair, like, that's something that only matters

• 52:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  in your fifth, sixth, seventh decade of life. Cancer crops up, right? So who cares if that's not, you know, 100% optimally working. This whole idea of sort of triaging micronutrients is called the triage theory. It was put forth by my mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames, and he published a couple of papers with supporting evidence of that theory. But the theory is basically, and again, there's some supporting evidence with a couple of micronutrients that basically... These essential vitamins and minerals, if you're short in them, they're triaged to systems based on binding constants. For example, some minerals will bind tighter to some enzymes versus other ones. And so the ones that are binding tighter are the enzymes that are important

• 52:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  for short-term health, to prevent you from dying, basically, versus long-term health. Things like repairing damaged DNA, which doesn't matter right now. You can't see DNA damage. It's not something, but it's happening. It's happening all the time. So I think micronutrients are really important, and the foods that you're gonna find them in are whole foods. You're gonna find them in plants, you're gonna find them in meats. Meats are a great source of micronutrients. Organ meats are also a great source.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Organ meats.

• 53:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, organ meats, like liver. That would be probably the stuff that, I know, it's really an acquired taste. I recently found, there's a company that I found will make ground meat with a certain percentage of liver and kidney and

• 53:36Lewis Howes?

  So it tastes better.

• 53:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Another one. And if I make it, if I put it like in a, you know, if I make like a chili or something like

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  It can't taste it.

• 53:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You can't taste it. And so I'm getting, I'm getting, you know, some of the organ meats, which is kind of fun as well.

• 53:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh. I remember when I went to, my first time I went to Mexico City, it was 2008, early 2008. I was wearing a full-arm cast. So I'm already 6'4", gringo, white guy in the middle of Mexico. I'm a foot taller than everyone in Mexico City. I'm wearing this cast because I had surgery on my wrist. I broke my wrist, did a bone graft from my hip to my wrist, playing arena football. That's how I got injured. And I went to Mexico City. I stayed in a $7 a day hostel right near the center of Mexico City. And I said to myself, you know what? I have the palate of a seven-year-old, but I'm gonna be adventurous on this trip. I'm gonna try things. I'm gonna expand my horizons. And I'm just gonna say

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  yes to foods. And there was one point, I went to a lucha libre match, a lucha door match, which is like the wrestling of Mexico, right? Where they wear masks and they wrestle. And outside of this wrestling match, I went to watch as a fan. I went outside because Nacho Libre had come out right before this, so I became familiar of the sport. It's a movie, Jack Black, fun movie. And there was all these street carts of food outside of this match. And I said, you know what? Give me everything to this one guy. And he started saying, I was like, what is this, this, this? And he was saying all these things. It, and I heard him say corazón, which is heart. And I was like, oh, that's the heart. And then one was a tongue and one was the liver and this and this.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  And I said, throw it all in there. And so he made me a taco with all of it. And it's probably because it was street meat. It wasn't that healthy. I was sick for the next three days. But uh, I'm always weary of that stuff. So make sure you get organic, clean meats when you do it.

• 55:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Okay, so you're kind of reminding me, um, I went to Japan a couple of years ago and same deal. Like my, my husband and I went to this uh sushi place and

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh no.

• 55:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And the, and the, the chef, there was no English and there was just stuff on the menu and we just got it. And apparently it was like tongue and all sorts of

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  Oh no.

• 55:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And this is, I think it was

• 55:49Lewis Howes?

  Raw?

• 55:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Think it was, um, no, it was slightly cooked.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 55:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. It was slightly cooked, but there was another sushi place we went to and, and they, they, if you didn't, it was like at this famous fish market. I forgot the name of it already because I didn't have my blueberries this morning. But basically, uh, if you don't speak Japanese, you get the one for all sushi menu.

• 56:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And so we went there and so we, you know, of course didn't speak Japanese. And so we got whatever they gave us and it like had, I think it was like turtle or something. And I was just so sad because I love turtles. I didn't want to eat the turtle anyways, so.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh man. Okay, so the foods, the foods we're here, we should not be eating cereal, breads, pizzas, cookies, cakes, anything with refined carbs, refined sugars, no, no.

• 56:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's probably the, the biggest thing to cut out. I think cutting that out, if people could cut that out, you know, the sweetened, sugar sweetened beverages, huge.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  All that stuff. What are the, what are the things that are super healthy marketed wise? I mean, besides beyond cereals, breads and pizza, which they say, they try to make them sound healthy. But the things that might seem healthier that we shouldn't be eating. Are there certain fruits and vegetables? Or other things that maybe like, you know what, these actually hurt the body than than help them.

• 57:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I see, I think I haven't seen any research showing that fruits and vegetables hurt the body, but I there are fruits, you know, I've been wearing my glucose continuous glucose monitor, there are fruits that I can tell you for sure, raise my postprandial blood glucose levels insanely high and still leave me hungry and unsatiated, and that would be grapes.

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 57:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Grapes are like, there, so there was this one time we were, I was traveling and my son was like, I don't know, he was, he was less than one, and I was trying to get him a fruit cup with, it had some cantaloupe, you know, since, cause he was still eating, he was eating solid, solid foods at that point, but grapes are a choking hazard. And so like the grapes, I'm like, oh no, no, let me get, I was like eating the grapes out of the, you know, out of the little fruit cup real quick because I didn't want him to like, you know, have the even potential of grabbing them. And my blood glucose levels just rose so high, I mean, I, I, it was insane. So then I tested it again, um, and same thing, tested it again, same thing. So I would say.

• 58:04Lewis Howes?

  Does that have to do with DNA, your DNA, would it be different for someone else's DNA or genes?

• 58:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think it just has, has to do with the, the sugar, the ratio of sugar to fiber. So one of the things that's really consistent with lowering the postprandial glucose response is fiber, more fiber. Um, and, and that was actually shown in that study that I mentioned, that Weisman Institute study with 800 people. One thing that was consistent throughout that was that high fiber did slow the glucose response, but.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  So if you had a little bit, if you had like some almond butter by itself, the glucose levels would shoot up, but if you had almond butter with, uh, I don't know, some fiber, it might go down.

• 58:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Actually, what's really interesting is that you bring up another important point, interesting point. Almond butter typically doesn't have a lot of sugar unless it's added sugar. I mean, so, so I, I get almond.

• 58:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, and you can, you can have the little bit in there and it actually won't really raise your blood glucose levels, particularly because protein also seems to blunt some of that. But what's interesting is there's been some studies and I've tested this myself, if I eat like protein or fiber and you eat it like 10 minutes before you are going to eat, uh, let's say some grapes, or in someone else's case, like you, who's maybe eating a cookie or something, right? Yeah.

• 59:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So it actually lowers the blood glucose levels, it lowers the postprandial blood glucose levels of protein. This has been shown in a couple of studies in people with type 2 diabetes.

• 59:33Lewis Howes?

  So if I eat a cake for dinner by itself, my glucose levels are gonna go up. If I have meat, fiber, and then 10 minutes later have a little bit of gelato, or a little bit of tiramisu, or something, you know, a little-

• 59:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's better than the tiramisu, yeah, it's better than it by itself. That probably is why, I mean, humans probably notice, that's why dessert comes after the meal, right?

• 59:54Lewis Howes?

  Ah, man, I just, I just eat dessert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner growing up, you know? Um, okay, this is fascinating. So no grapes?

• 1:00:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so if you're talking about the so-called healthy foods, you know, I think, you know, I think that there's, some people also can have a big, you know, bowl of oatmeal with a bunch of, you know, stuff in it, and they may have a higher blood glucose response. That also really, I think, does depend a lot on people's exercise routines. Like, I've noticed in myself, that if I, if I go out for a run, a bowl of oatmeal doesn't really affect me as much as if I don't, you know, so.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  You talk, we're talking about health in general here, but we're talking about the brain and food connection. Right now, in the world, it seems like mental health and depression is a hot topic. It's something, a lot of people are talking about, they're having mental health challenges, depression challenges, and I'm sure there's many factors to this: social media, comparison, bad foods, a lack of exercise, a lack of sleep, anxiety, up all night, environment, lack of purpose, lack of, there's a lot of social factors probably that tie into mental health challenges. How important is food by itself in relating to minimizing depression, social anxiety, and mental health?

• 1:01:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think food is extremely important because it's directly linked to obesity. Obesity itself causes low-grade inflammation. And foods that are really high, particularly when you combine a high saturated fat with a high refined sugar, so let's say you're eating your, you're drinking your glass of milk with your cookie, like, that's the worst, because you're getting the saturated fat and the sugar.

• 1:01:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And that's been shown to cause a very high, what's called, postprandial inflammatory response. We've been talking about postprandial glucose response, which is after you eat, so postprandial. There's an inflammatory response that also occurs after eating. And inflammation itself has been shown to inflammatory molecules cross the blood-brain barrier, and they have, they play a role in basically depressing dopamine signaling and serotonin and all sorts of, you know, affecting neurotransmitters and brain function. And there's been studies directly showing that if you inject a person with an inflammatory cytokine, it causes depressive symptoms versus

• 1:02:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:02:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  ... injected with saline. Yes.

• 1:02:23Lewis Howes?

  So the more inflammation we have in the body, it increases depression?

• 1:02:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Exactly. Inflammation, we used to think, again, the brain was separate from the body and that, you know, the immune system and all that didn't, you know, affect the brain. Turns out that was all wrong, absolutely wrong. And these inflammatory mediators do get into the brain, and they get into the brain and they change, you know, they're changing the firing of certain neurotransmitters and things like that. They're also activating the resident immune cells in the brain called microglia, astrocytes, a microglia, a type of astrocyte. And, you know, that also is linked to depression. And so, we put out

• 1:03:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  a little short video on this, on, animated video actually, on depression, inflammation and depression, and talk about a lot of the studies. Because it's something I don't think people realize, that the food you eat, and not only the food you eat, your lifestyle, you know, being obese and overweight, being sedentary, being sedentary, you know, exercise is one of the best anti-inflammatory Medicines you can get, period. And it also happens to be one of the, you know, best lifestyle remedies for depression as well. I mean randomized controlled trials showing that, all sorts of evidence. So.

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  Is this any type of exercise? Are you a HIIT training, cardio, 30 minutes, 60 minutes? What's your opinion?

• 1:03:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, there's been, there's been studies looking at, you know, I would say the large body of evidence seems to show aerobic exercise is really important with respect to depression. And that is because aerobic exercise leads to increases in what's called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF as it's called. It's basically a growth factor that's produced. You can, after just 20 minutes of a moderate intensity workout, you can increase your level, you can find levels increased by like up to 30% in plasma. It crosses into the brain and in the brain, it does a lot of things. Not only does it do what IGF-1 does, it actually grows new neurons.

• 1:04:36Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It helps you grow new neurons and it helps your neurons survive. So it plays an important role in preventing brain aging. But something else very unique that it does, it plays a role in what's called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is like your brain's ability to adapt to stressful conditions. You know, I mean, this is what children can do pretty, pretty good. As you get older, neuroplasticity goes down, as does everything. But it plays, neuroplasticity is important for, for being able to cope with stress. Like the stress of a pandemic, for example. You know, more neuroplasticity helps with those stressful divorce people are going through. You know, or losing your job. Lots of, lots of stressful things, but, but, but neuroplasticity helps the brain cope with that.

• 1:05:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And brain-derived neurotrophic factor helps increase neuroplasticity, which decreases with age. So again, aerobic exercise was important, but you know, there's been studies linking strength training to lower depression rates as well.

• 1:05:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Any type of exercise will help.

• 1:05:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Exactly, I do. But I really think that aerobic, there is, there is a place for aerobic with respect to the BDNF, the brain-derived neurotrophic.

• 1:05:43Lewis Howes?

  I always tell people that every day I try to put myself through some type of physical pain that makes me feel discomfort, whether that's sweating for 10 minutes or a two-hour workout or playing basketball, hiking, whatever. I try to put my mind and body through something where I'm like, gosh, I don't want to do this. But by putting myself through pain, controlled pain, it sets me up to be more under control when there is chaos and pain.

• 1:06:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right.

• 1:06:10Lewis Howes?

  I think that's the, the key we should get to is like controlled pain, healthy pain, so that you're not out of control when there is chaos and pain in the world.

• 1:06:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It, you're, what you're describing, um, scientists often refer to, uh, as hormesis. And that is basically a little bit of stress on the body, like exercise.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Um, basically because our body tries to maintain home, what's called homeostasis, um, a little bit of stress will cause our body to respond to that stress with a lot of anti-stress. Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, growing new brain cells, any, all these beneficial things. So.

• 1:06:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:06:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  A little bit of stress gives you a lot of good stuff, right?

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:06:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Whereas low-grade chronic stress all the time, it, it doesn't do anything. You're not, you're not getting that, you're not getting that powerful.

• 1:07:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, this is power, this is amazing. I'm going to say something that I hope I don't offend anyone when I say it, that I am all about self-love, self-care, loving yourself for who you are, accepting yourself for where you're at in your life, physically, emotionally, environment, financially, all that. The more I hear you talk about this, the quote-unquote self-love movement of accept who you are and accept where you're at with your body and what you eat and it's okay to eat whatever you want, just love yourself for who you are, is that self-love mentality, that specific type of mentality, killing people and hurting them if they aren't willing to adapt a, no,

• 1:07:44Lewis Howes?

  it's not okay to continue to eat whatever you want all the time and just love yourself and accept yourself for who you are. You have to make sure you arm your body and your mind and your health with the nutrients, the tools, the exercise in order to decrease depression.

• 1:08:01Lewis Howes?

  And increase happiness.

• 1:08:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I, I think that there's the, you know, absolutely, if you're going to just eat what you want and accept being obese, that you will, you'll be causing yourself more harm and both physically and mentally. And, and, and that also probably affects your loved ones as well. You, you know, that care about you, or perhaps that you're interacting with and you're in a terrible mood. And so, you know, when your neighbor's happy, you're happy, right? You know, so I think that there's, there's part of this movement, I think there's a fine balance between, you, you don't want to have your expectations so high that you can never be happy.

• 1:08:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you're, I'm never gonna look perfect and someone's always skinnier than me and I'm.

• 1:08:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I'm never gonna have blue eyes. I'm never, I'm never, you know, so if I'm always like, well, only people with blue eyes are the prettiest. Like, then I'll never be happy. So like, that's an unreasonable expectation, right? In my mind, so I mean, there are things where, you know, like, I'm never gonna be a billionaire. And if that, if that's all I wanted in life, to be happy, I'll never be happy. So there are things, I think, that you can, there, there's a certain balance between, and you want your expectations behind it in a way. You want to always aim for what you, you know, aim, aim for the stars in a way and, and try to like, work hard to get there. But there is sort of, there are certain things that, you know, you do have to lower, but.

• 1:09:16Lewis Howes?

  Sorry, go ahead, I don't wanna.

• 1:09:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, but, but with, but with, so, so what I'm trying to say is I think that self-love movement came from somewhere. Right? I think there was, there was something to that, right? But I think it sort of spiraled out of control and, and what, what's happened now is, is you're saying, well, accept things that I don't want to change, rather than you can't. Because you can change that, you can lose weight, you can eat different foods and get healthier.

• 1:09:43Lewis Howes?

  Make different decisions.

• 1:09:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Lewis Howes?

  It might be, yeah, I mean, sorry, I want to keep wanting to cut you off, but go ahead.

• 1:09:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so it's definitely, look, like with, with, with people that are eating refined sugar, people that are drinking these sugar sweetened beverages, you know, and there's, there's a lot of people. Maybe not so many people listening to the podcast or watching it, but there are people that do. And. You know, there's been studies that have shown refined sugar acts on the reward pathway in the brain, dopamine pathway, in a very similar manner to controlled substances, drugs like nicotine.

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:10:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Methamphetamine.

• 1:10:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Not to the same degree, but they're acting on the same systems and they're affecting reward pathways.

• 1:10:20Lewis Howes?

  It increases a feel-good hormone.

• 1:10:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It does.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  When you take it for the moment, but then it makes you decline afterwards and crash, right?

• 1:10:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It does. And you know, I think the important point to realize with that is that when you take that away, when you stop, what happens is there is a withdrawal. And it's been shown, at least with, for example, with nicotine studies, that, so basically what happens, you know, your dopamine's getting constantly fired, fired, fired, and so your, what's called dopamine receptors, which basically dopamine acts on to make you feel good, those start to decrease because your neurons are going, oh, well, I have so much of this around, I don't need so many of the receptors. So when you take away that thing that's causing the dopamine all the time to go away, you have fewer receptors and now you don't feel as much, I mean, it's just really bad.

• 1:11:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You're not feeling any amount of dopamine, right? But it's been shown that that sort of normalizes within three months.

• 1:11:09Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 1:11:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And three months is a long time, but it's actually not that long.

• 1:11:13Lewis Howes?

  Of cutting, of cutting out the sugar, you mean?

• 1:11:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, this has been shown with nicotine. I'm just drawing a parallel.

• 1:11:18Lewis Howes?

  Got you, got you.

• 1:11:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I'm drawing a parallel saying, look, it's not going to be easy the first month.

• 1:11:22Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard. It's so hard.

• 1:11:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's not going to be the first month. It may not be easy the second month, but it's going to get easier. And it's, not only is it going to get easier, you're going to be happier.

• 1:11:31Lewis Howes?

  Your body's going to regulate itself, the hormones are going to regulate, right? Things are going to self-regulate.

• 1:11:36Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Things start to, yeah, things start to get back to normal, exactly.

• 1:11:39Lewis Howes?

  It's very challenging, but it's necessary to get healthier and happier, right?

• 1:11:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is. I don't think people realize that, you know, depression, it's not, it's not just a genetic disorder. It's not just something that can't be fixed. Ever. No, in some cases, you know, there, there are, you know, there are definitely genetic cases of depression. I'm not saying that that's not the case.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  But can you heal depression through food and nutrition and exercise?

• 1:12:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, there have been studies that have shown that exercise can be a treatment for depression. There have been studies that shown changing someone's diet can also improve depress- depressive scores. And particularly the, the combined two is even more robust, which makes sense. You know, so I think there's, there's something for people to realize, people that are maybe eating a not so healthy diet, people that are overweight, you know, overweight, definitely obese. And if they, if they do have depression, that there, there, there very well could be a link between, you know, between the, the diet, the, the lifestyle, the obesity, you know, you know, fat cells itself, they also increase, they, they produce inflammatory cytokines.

• 1:12:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So independent of the whole eating the diet and the postprandial inflammatory response, just having fat, like particularly visceral fat, like around your organs and stuff. Like this stuff, this stuff is causing low-grade inflammation. And do you know what low-grade inflammation is?

• 1:13:03Lewis Howes?

  What is it?

• 1:13:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It means that you're basically activating your immune cells a little bit all the time. And activated immune cells require a ton of energy. So you're taking energy away from your brain.

• 1:13:16Lewis Howes?

  From defending itself, yeah.

• 1:13:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  From, from just, just having, you know, having a great day from, I mean, energy.

• 1:13:24Lewis Howes?

  So just having energy?

• 1:13:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's like a sink. Exactly. Just having energy. It's a sink. Low-grade inflammation. I mean, you were telling me this, you know, we were chatting a little bit earlier about how you were eating this terrible diet back when you were doing your arena football and you were always tired.

• 1:13:39Lewis Howes?

  Always tired.

• 1:13:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Low-grade inflammation, it, it's an energy sink because it requires so much energy to activate your immune cells. And there's only so much energy. It's like a triage, right? It's triaging there.

• 1:13:51Lewis Howes?

  It's taken somewhere else. And it takes you away from your mission, from your vision of your life, from your career, from your energy with your family, your friends.

• 1:13:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, you have to have energy. I mean, it takes motivation to want to go to the gym. It takes motivation also to want to, to like do stuff or to talk to people to, you know.

• 1:14:07Lewis Howes?

  Is there? A genetic thing that or DNA thing that holds someone back from losing that weight if they've tried for years or is this still, you know, they're just lacking the discipline? What is that?

• 1:14:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's absolutely many genes that regulate obesity and my like I'll just tell you my mother-in-law, she is also little, not obese, she's, you know, has in the past had an overweight problem and has tried, I mean, she is the kind of person that tries and goes all in and she has tried every diet, just everything and just nothing seemed to work and so I personally know people like so I mean.

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  How does someone like that, if they try, try, try and it's just like, you know what, I'm beating myself up, the diets I'm trying, the exercise is not working, what do they need to shift?

• 1:15:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I do see you asked about genetics and there is a really important role for genetics as well, but I think that in order to know that, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to measure biomarkers in your blood, so you're gonna have to measure lipids like your LDL cholesterol, different particle sizes of those cholesterol, inflammatory biomarkers like high sensitivity reactive protein, your triglycerides, your HbA1c, which is a long-term measure of your long-term blood glucose levels, measure those things and also you can get a genetic test, there's a variety of genetic testing services out there, 23andMe, Ancestry DNA and basically, so I do have a genetic report that basically we look exclusively

• 1:15:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  or looking at genes that are affecting, basically interacting with diet and there's a lot of genes, so people that are eating a high protein diet, some people with a certain SNP, which is a one change in one nucleotide of DNA in the gene, basically can gain more weight and the opposite is true, like I mentioned, or eating the ratio of saturated fat to polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, so saturated fats found in foods like dairy, red meat, fatty cuts of red meat, polyunsaturated fats found in fish, monounsaturated fat is found in olive oil, olives, you know, nuts, so these things, like even the ratio of those things can affect,

• 1:16:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  depending on someone's genetics, their ability to gain or lose weight. And more so, like in people, there's some people have it where they eat a high carbohydrate diet and they gain more weight.

• 1:16:39Lewis Howes?

  So it's not as simple as what I'm hearing you say as just eat less calories a day and you should lose weight.

• 1:16:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Not always.

• 1:16:46Lewis Howes?

  If you suppress the calorie intake, you're going to burn more and eventually you're going to burn, you know.

• 1:16:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think that's the one thing that's pretty tried and true is that your caloric restriction,

• 1:16:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  most of the time, people will, you know, lose weight.

• 1:17:01Lewis Howes?

  Lose weight, got it, okay.

• 1:17:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, you know, the question is, how sustainable is that, you know, so you maybe, maybe what you would need to do, you know, the other thing is that a lot of times, obesity, there's, there's a dysregulation in hormones, hormones like insulin, leptin is another big one, and you have to reset those hormones in order to like, have a normal biology. And sometimes resetting those hormones takes a reset that's kind of a strong stressor, like, like a long fast, a long fast, you know, where you're basically, you're basically resetting those things, and, and that's what did it for my mother-in-law, so that was my long story.

• 1:17:40Lewis Howes?

  She did a long, did a long fast and helped her reset.

• 1:17:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  A couple of them, so she did, you know, now, now, by the way, you know, not eating for, when I say a long fast, typically intermittent fasting is, is anything less than 48 hours. A longer fast would be longer than 48 hours.

• 1:17:57Lewis Howes?

  Three, eight plus days.

• 1:17:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, now she did, the first time she did a three day, she started out by doing, um, sort of a, a caloric restriction, low calorie diet, just to kind of get her into it, and then she did a three day fast where she didn't eat anything, a little bit of salt, she would take a little bit of salt in and drink some water, and then she did four days. Um, and she did this like, you know, separated by like a month, and that reset her metabolism and all of a sudden, she started losing weight. You know, and this has also been the case for a few, a few other friends of mine that particularly one that's that was morbidly obese and he lost like 180 pounds.

• 1:18:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. The one question I want to finish with before I ask you the final two questions I ask everyone is the main vitamins and supplements you feel like every human being should be taking every single day. Like, what are the supplements that you take and you recommend for us? If we could take three to five every day, whether eating great food or bad food, what would you recommend?

• 1:18:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I will tell you, there are a few supplements that that I think are important, and I think the evidence shows are important and that I take every day. The first is vitamin D. And, you know, vitamin D actually is it gets converted into a steroid hormone. So it's a hormone, not just a vitamin, it's a hormone. And it regulates like 5% of the protein encoding human genome. That's a lot. 5% genes, 5% of all your genes.

• 1:19:27Lewis Howes?

  Is vitamin D.

• 1:19:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Eat vitamin D.

• 1:19:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:19:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Do its thing. Right. It's a lot.

• 1:19:31Lewis Howes?

  Is there, is there, can you overdose on vitamin D?

• 1:19:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, here's the thing with vitamin D. And the reason I, and the reason I think it's so important, because you can make it from the sun and you have exposure to UVB radiation, you make vitamin D3 in your skin. But you need the UVB radiation to do that. And UVB radiation, certain times of the year and certain parts of the of the world, you know, northern latitudes, doesn't reach the atmosphere, you know, five to six months out of the year. Long time, you know, maybe five months. I don't know. Fall, winter, you know. So people in northern latitudes, the way they're adapted to that is they typically have fair skin. Because melanin, which is pigment, it helps you give, gives your skin pigment, and pigment protects you from the burning rays

• 1:20:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  of the sun. It protects you from getting skin cancer, from, you know, basically, people, people that are living closer to the equators and southern regions. So you have like, South, South Asia, South India, Africa.

• 1:20:27Lewis Howes?

  Brazil.

• 1:20:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They have more, Brazil, exactly, South Brazil, they have more melanin, right? They have darker skin, which is great when you're close to the equator and you're in the sun all the time, right? Because you can make vitamin D. But when you take a person with that darker skin pigmentation and you move them, as now we're a global. Country, right? People, people live from all over the world, live in the United States. They live in a place in like Minnesota or Washington State or New York. They're going to be severely vitamin D deficient.

• 1:20:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:20:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You know, they're not getting that UV radiation.

• 1:20:57Lewis Howes?

  All those exchange students from Brazil going to Wisconsin, make sure you've got your vitamin D supplements.

• 1:21:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But here's the thing, 70% of the entire United States population, everyone included, has what's called insufficient vitamin D levels. So not just people with dark skin, everyone. And that's because we stay indoors now. We've got our computers, we've got, you know, offices. We're not out farming like we used to and we wear sunscreen when we are out. Sunscreen blocks UV radiation to protect us from the burning rays of the sun. So the bottom line is, most people aren't getting enough vitamin D. You asked, can you take, can you take too much vitamin D? Well, vitamin D is fat soluble, it is stored in fat. There have been upper limits, so the National Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine set the tolerable upper intake at 4,000 IU's a day.

• 1:21:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And, but there's been studies showing that 10,000 IU's a day still has no toxicity effects. And that's even long-term for several years. Some people do require a higher vitamin D dose, particularly people that are more deficient. The only way you're going to know is to get a blood test. Getting a blood test is really important.

• 1:22:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Blood levels between 40 to 16 nanograms per milliliter are ideal, according to all-cause mortality studies and things like that, but.

• 1:22:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:22:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I, I think that, and also people have SNPs, by the way. SNPs, meaning genes that regulate vitamin D production. So I've had now five friends of mine that have SNPs. They found out from using our genetic report because they were supplementing with 5,000, 7,000 IU's of vitamin D a day and they were still deficient and couldn't figure out why. And so people, I know, it's one of those things, and you wouldn't, and see, it's important to get a blood test. You would never know, you're taking, let's say you're taking your, your 5,000 IU's a day supplement and you never get a blood test, you're going to think you're fine. So blood test is really important, really important. You can order them at home, you know, people don't want to go to the doctor's, so you can order them at home.

• 1:22:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. So I mean, should we, should we be, I mean, with the, with the times that there are right now, staying inside is killing us then, even though we're supposed to stay inside and stay safe.

• 1:23:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So you're opening a whole can of worms because I think that there's no evidence, direct yet, evidence yet, that vitamin D helps prevent or treat COVID-19. Zero evidence of that. But what I will say is that there is mounting evidence that severe cases of COVID-19, people that are in ICUs, on ventilators, people that have severe cases. 98% of the severe cases, people are vitamin D deficient.

• 1:23:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:23:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  In, in multiple studies in Philippines, Indonesia, New Orleans, whereas you get like 4% of people with, with mild, oh, sorry, severe cases are vitamin D sufficient. And multiple studies have been showing this. And there's a really important mechanistic link here. First of all, we know from genetic studies, people that are genetically low in vitamin D, because of like some of those SNPs I mentioned. If you look at those SNPs itself and look at those peoples, people that have those SNPs, we know they're genetically prone to low levels of vitamin D. And the only thing you look at is their genetics. They are, they have a higher death rate from respiratory tract infections than people without those SNPs. And this is a, I love these studies because it's called, it's called Mendelian randomization. The reason I love it is because there's all sorts of studies showing that low vitamin D levels

• 1:24:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  also increases the risk of X, Y, and Z.

• 1:24:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:24:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But low vitamin D levels means you're out in the sun less. You're maybe you're less physically active, you're, you know, so there's all these confounding factors. But when you just take the gene and you group that person based on their gene only, not on their vitamin D levels, and it's a way of, of randomizing them in a way, because there's no way that there's all these confounding factors with the genetics, right?

• 1:24:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So there's also randomized controlled trials. There's 25 different randomized controlled trials that were all analyzed together, showing that vitamin D supplementation. Decreases respiratory tract infections by 50% in people that are deficient and by 10% in people that already have sufficient levels but still take a supplement. All right, that's not COVID-19. Again, there's no evidence. This is not, I, I, that this needs to be tested.

• 1:25:01Lewis Howes?

  This is just good health practice to have vitamin D.

• 1:25:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is. I personally think that there is a strong possibility, and this is a hypothesis, that vitamin D levels may play a role in the severity of COVID-19. It's not going to stop you from getting COVID-19. I think it may play a role in the severity of it and meaning how your body responds to it.

• 1:25:24Lewis Howes?

  How long you, how long it takes you to heal?

• 1:25:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And just how, how severe of a case you have. Is it like a mild case of the, of a cold or a mild flu? Or is it something that's going to take you into the ICU?

• 1:25:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:25:36Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think that's a hypothesis that needs to be tested. But based on some of the evidence I talked about and based on the fact that it, what's really known is that, you know, vitamin D is important for immune function in so many respects because of the, you know, there's vitamin D receptors on many different immune cells and it plays a role, important role in many different immune functions. But in addition to that, the way the, this, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the virus that causes COVID-19 illness, the way it gets into a cell is through a receptor called the ACE2 receptor. The ACE2 receptor, ACE2 receptor also regulates a lot of things. It regulates blood pressure, fluid retention, you know, kidney function.

• 1:26:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It turns out that when the virus binds that receptor and gets into the cell, it, what's, it's what called down-regulates that receptor. We talked about that before with dopamine. Down-regulates, it means it makes fewer, it takes that receptor and pulls it inside. And so there's fewer of those receptors on the cell surface to do its job. And this was shown with SARS-1, SARS-CoV-1, there, which caused the original SARS outbreak back in 2003, that, that was shown to increase disease severity. Having less of ACE2 Believe it or not, the way that this thing gets into the cells, the ACE2, is the very thing that's needed to prevent serious lung injury. There's tons of animal studies showing that lung injury itself requires ACE2, but ACE2 gets decreased because lung injury decreases.

• 1:27:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's one of the ways that causes acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS, acute lung injury. So having ACE2 protects you. And what does vitamin D do? Well, animal studies have shown, rodent studies have shown, if you give an animal vitamin D and cause acute lung injury, the ACE2 levels go up and it protects them from the acute lung injury. ACE2 levels don't go up to animals that were given vitamin D but didn't have a lung injury. So in other words, the lung injury itself causes ACE2 to go down, but the vitamin D made it go back up. So what vitamin D is doing is maintaining homeostasis. Vitamin D is not a drug. It's not going to just increase ACE2 full stop in, you know, someone that doesn't have lower levels, at least according to rodent studies.

• 1:27:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The bottom line here is I think that, you know, emerging evidence suggests there is possibly a role for vitamin D in modulating disease severity. I know there are randomized controlled trials that are underway to test this. It's currently still a hypothesis, but I do think it is very, most people are getting insufficient vitamin D and particularly now, now it's probably even worse. Elderly people are more at risk, people with thicker skin, people with obesity is also because fat soluble, vitamin D is less bioavailable. So anyways, my point is that I think vitamin D is important to take. Certainly people can talk to their health practitioners about it. Yeah. In general, and particularly now. Fish oil is another one. I'll not ramble on as long. Go ahead. Fish oil is another one. Yep.

• 1:28:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And a multivitamin, I think. I think those are like the basic, port ones. Fish oil, I think, there's a variety of brands out there. You want to get a high quality one. Fish oil is very prone to oxidation, so you want to get a higher quality one and keep it in the refrigerator. And there's sites out there like Labdoor that have third-party tested oxidative, you know, different oxidative markers in fish oil brands. So you can look at those sites to find a good brand. Sure. Okay.

• 1:28:54Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating and I love listening to your show, Found My Fitness. People can listen to it on iTunes, Apple, Spotify, all the places. Also, foundmyfitness.com. You have a premium section for more where you do a Q and A, coaching type of answering questions for people, right?

• 1:29:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I do, yeah. So, Found My Fitness, all one word, yeah, iTunes, also on YouTube. I do have a premium where I don't do ads or sponsors, but I do have a, we're a premium subscription where people can, they get sort of perks by supporting us. And one of those perks is a monthly Q and A I do, so they submit questions. It's live, but if you don't want it live, you also get access to it on YouTube and also a private podcast feed as well.

• 1:29:32Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Yeah, you've got some incredible stuff on your podcast. I love listening to it and diving in on your research. So, everyone should go listen there if you want, again, if you want to convince Rhonda to come back on at some point in the future, whether it's this year or next year, to talk about, you know, since I have the biological age of a seven-year-old with a curiosity mind, if you want to hear from my perspective on fasting, anti-aging, longevity, then make sure to tag, uh, tag her on Instagram and Twitter and all those places when you're listening to this, so she, uh, maybe will come back on in the future. Where else can we follow you? Where do you hang out the most on social media?

• 1:30:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Um, I, Twitter, Instagram, Found My Fitness, all one word. And I'm also on Facebook and YouTube, YouTube is, is, is my YouTube channel, Found My Fitness.

• 1:30:17Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Amazing.

• 1:30:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's it. That's all the old places.

• 1:30:19Lewis Howes?

  This is the final couple of questions that I ask everyone at the end of my interviews. Uh, this is called the three truths. So, I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical question that you're as old as you want to be. You've figured out the longevity code, you're 300 years old, you're 120, however old you want to be, but eventually you got to turn the lights off and go to the next place after you, you leave this earth. You got to go at some point. And, uh, you've gotten to achieve every dream that you have. Rhonda, you have changed the world, you've cured cancer, whatever it is the dreams are, you've done it. You've grown up, you've seen your family grow up and have an amazing life. And for whatever reason, all of your work, materials, your research, your findings, your,

• 1:31:03Lewis Howes?

  uh, podcasts, videos, they all have to go with you to the next place. So, no one has access to any more of your content, any of your research, it's all gone. For whatever reason, hypothetical question. And you could share three things you know to be true with the world before you go. And these would be the only three things that people to have remember you by, or three lessons you would share with the world. Three important things they should do. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:31:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, wow. I would say, I would definitely, there is a low hanging fruit to be happy and that low hanging fruit is accomplished through making sure your body has the right micronutrients, exercise. I think that there's a low hanging fruit, the low hanging fruit is the main thing I would probably, the common theme. The low hanging fruit to living longer also is basically through trying to find and get the right micronutrients from your food. And when you do that, you end up eating healthier, like because there's no micronutrients in refined foods. You know, that's going to help your body, I think, help your body be healthier as well.

• 1:32:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then I think lastly, I would say to just enjoy the things that you love doing. I mean, being happy is, it's so important, you know, to take time and enjoy those things, for sure.

• 1:32:23Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Back to the basics. I love it. Before I ask the final question, I'll acknowledge you Rhonda for just being an incredible source of helpful wisdom and knowledge in a time and in a place where there's so much noise, you bring peace, clarity, found research, and you do it with such a grace and wisdom and joy and happiness. So I'm just acknowledge you for constantly showing up every day, being a mom, being a wife, taking care of yourself, being a human guinea pig, so that we can all learn how to become happier, healthier as well. And I just really appreciate all the work you do for all of us. It's really helpful. So I thank you for that.

• 1:33:07Lewis Howes?

  My final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:33:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  My definition of greatness, I think my definition of greatness is honesty. I think that that is the most important honesty, just pure honesty, period.

• 1:33:27Lewis Howes?

  Period. I love it. Dr. Rhonda Patrick, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Very grateful.

• 1:33:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Thank you. Thank you for all the flattering words too. It was really fun chatting with you.

• 1:33:42Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did enjoy it, make sure to share this with a friend because sharing is what greatness is all about. And you can get all of Rhonda's tips for a healthier life by searching Found My Fitness, all one word. And she's got an amazing podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and video content on YouTube as well. And of course, she's @FoundMyFitness across all social platforms. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. I hope you got some insights on how you can improve your health. And if you did, just share this over on your social media, post it on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook, or text it with a friend over WhatsApp or text and get this message out there. The link to send people is lewishouse.com/967, or just copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts

• 1:34:27Lewis Howes?

  or Spotify, or wherever you're listening to this right now, and share it with your friends. Of course, mental health is just as important as physical health. So if you haven't yet listened to my interview last week with the spiritual visionary Sadhguru, go listen to it right now. I'm telling you, it will change your life. And let's stay connected over text message. That's right, you can send me a text. I'm posting inspirational text messages to you every single week. All you need to do is text the word PODCAST to 614-350-3960, and I'll be able to send you messages over there. I'm also posting regular content over on TikTok, stuff you don't see anywhere else on social media.

• 1:35:09Lewis Howes?

  Go check me out, I'm @lewis, if you're diving into the TikTok world as well right now. And I love this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, "The first wealth is health." I want to remind you that no matter what problems you have in the world, none of those problems matter if you are under attack in your health, if you feel sick, if you can't move, if you've got some type of pain in your body or in your mind, that thing always becomes the main thing. So focus on health every single day. Do something to help improve your physical and mental and emotional health, and that way you'll have more energy to take on the challenges and take on your dreams of life every single day. I want to remind you how much you matter, how much I appreciate you, how much you are loved in the world. And you know what time it is.

• 1:35:54Lewis Howes?

  It's time to go out there and do something great.