Biochemist Reveals The Proven Habits To REVERSE Sleep Deprivation & Reduce Cancer Risk | Dr. Rhonda Patrick

Today, I am joined by leading health optimization expert Dr. Rhonda Patrick to dive deep into the science of sleep, exercise, and longevity. Dr. Patrick brings her extensive research background and practical experience to explain how sleep deprivation affects glucose regulation and brain function, and why high-intensity exercise is crucial for optimal health. She shares fascinating insights about the importance of protein intake, omega-3 fatty acids, and exercise timing, while debunking common myths about aging and nutrition. This conversation is packed with actionable protocols and evidence-based strategies to help you optimize your health and performance. Check out Dr. Patrick's FREE How to Train GuideIn this episode you will learn:How just 3 nights of reduced sleep can dramatically impact your glucose regulation and cognitive functionWhy 10 minutes of high-intensity exercise can help reverse the negative effects of sleep deprivationThe surprising connection between resistance training, lactate production, and brain healthHow to time your workouts and meals for optimal glucose regulation and cognitive performanceThe critical role of omega-3 fatty acids in longevity and why supplementation mattersFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1707For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Mark Hyman – greatness.lnk.to/1695SCDr. William Li – greatness.lnk.to/1410SCGlucose Goddess – greatness.lnk.to/1575SC 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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  What could you do with some extra cash this holiday season? You have been so generous for me all year round that I want to give back to you. Join my 12 Days of Greatness giveaway from now until December 23rd, where I'm giving away $250 gift cards to 48 lucky winners. That's right, this is your chance to win money directly from me. It's my way of giving back to you this giving season. To enter, go to lewishouse.com/Win. Give yourself an even better chance to win by pre-ordering my new book, Make Money Easy. Just save your receipt and you'll get 50 bonus entries. Let's make money easy together. Enter right now at lewishouse.com/Win. Hey everyone, I'm so excited that you're here today. We have an inspiring guest, Dr. Rhonda Patrick,

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  who has been on before, but it's been a few years. And I wanted to really get clarity because she has so much research. She does so much great content that I wanted to try to simplify some of the things that are happening right now in the health and fitness space. There's so many different opinions. And I like to get the best expert with the best research that can help us optimize the different parts of our life where we're struggling in all areas of life. And in this episode, she really shares some surprising things, especially the surprising connection between resistance training, lactate production, and brain health, which I want you to pay attention to when we get into it. Also, how to time your workouts and meals

• 1:27Lewis Howes?

  for optimal glucose regulation and cognitive performance. And she talks about one main supplement that I thought I was applying to my nutritional intake on a daily basis, but I'm not doing it enough. And she talks about the critical role of omega-3 fatty acids in longevity and why supplementation matters. I always go back and forth on supplementation. Is this actually mattering? Is this making a difference? She talks about the power of it and why you need to be paying attention to it and which supplements matter for you. That and so much more. I'm so excited that you're here today. I'm grateful for you. If you're enjoying this, make sure to Click the follow button over on Apple or Spotify.

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  Leave us a review and share this with one friend that you think this could be helpful for. You've got a friend in mind who's trying to optimize their health. Send them a link to this audio episode, share with them and ask them to share with you their biggest takeaway. Without further ado, let's dive into this with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back everyone in the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. Rhonda Patrick in the house. So good to see you. Thank you for being here. First time in person on the show, but second time on the show, right?

• 2:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's right. Great to be here.

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  I'm so excited that you're here. I've been a fan of your content for a long time. You've been serving humanity to help people improve their life by giving them the exact scientific, peer-reviewed protocols. And continually updating and optimizing these protocols over time for many years. Your podcast, your YouTube channel, your, your guides, your newsletter, they all add a lot of value to so many people. So. I'm grateful that you're here and there was something about we were talking about before we jumped on camera, which was around sleep. And I have a statistic, a couple of stats that I saw online about sleep and I want to have you reflect and share on this. Because you have so many different levels of expertise around sleep, nutrition, supplements, food, training, and really optimizing the body.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  But at this season of your life, I think we were talking about beforehand, sleep is something that people need to think about and. Their ability to work out and to physically like build muscle and strength and aerobic exercise. But I saw a, a survey, a WebMD survey found that an average American sleeps 5.7 hours a night. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but 5.7 hours a night. And then I also saw the National Institutes of Health says that six or seven hours of sleep is not enough. And can lead to chronic sleep deprivation. Now I'm curious, simple question, how many hours of sleep a night do you think humans actually do need to function at a high level? And.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  If we don't sleep that much, what does that mean? This like sleep, like chronic sleep deprivation? Like what does it actually do to the body if we don't sleep enough?

• 4:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, so the first question is, how much sleep do people need? And it's a little bit of, there's a general answer because, and I say this because, believe it or not, there are something called chronotypes where people actually, there's genes that affect how much sleep they actually need. And most people, okay, most people need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. However, I'll caveat that with that, you know, those outlier people that have certain genes that make them not require quite as much, and they can actually function quite well with less than seven hours. That's the exception, not the rule.

• 5:04Lewis Howes?

  They can function with less, but is it optimizing their, their, their body and their mind with less?

• 5:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's really interesting because it, it has to do with their circadian rhythm. So this, this 24 hour clock that our body is on, all of our cells are on, our metabolism, our neurotransmitter production, our hormone production. And when that circadian rhythm is disrupted, things kind of go haywire. And so their, their circadian rhythm, it's like a fundamental difference where it's just a little different. And so because of that, they can actually be healthier and healthy with like less sleep. And it's, I don't know so much about that exception, so I don't want to focus on that.

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  Is that like 1% of the population?

• 5:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I don't know what percent, it's not a lot, but it does exist. And I just want to acknowledge its existence because, you know, there are, people will hear this, seven to nine hours, and then there's that whatever, 1 to 3% of people that will yell and scream about how they don't need that.

• 6:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, I can function on five hours and I'm good and I'm, yeah, but, but how, maybe you can function now, but can you function in 20, 30 years? Like, and will that affect your body later because you sleep deprived now?

• 6:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, if you think about sleep, I mean, It's definitely, you know, a time of rejuvenation, of repair. So all of our repair processes are happening when we're sleeping. Whether that's repairing damage to our DNA to prevent us from getting cancer-causing mutations, so they're oncogenic mutations. Whether we're repairing our brain, so we're cleaning out a lot of gunk that builds up in our brain throughout the day. These are things that are like little, you know, pieces of protein fragments and aggregates. And, you know, and so when we sleep, it's like we clean that all out. It's a process called the lymphatic system that gets activated. And it literally squirts this lymphatic fluid throughout our brain, kind of like a wash,

• 7:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  like a cleansing. And it physically forces it out through the lymphatic system. And it's very important for preventing the buildup of protein aggregates like amyloid beta, which is involved in Alzheimer's disease. And it's why sleep is so inherently connected to neurodegenerative disease because it is a repair time, right? Lots of things going on with the brain. But also your metabolism and blood pressure. Your blood pressure resets. Everything's resetting during sleep. Digestion shuts down so that you can do all this repair stuff. So if you think about like your body as a, kind of like a, like a, like a phone. So your body, your body is a phone. And if you don't recharge your phone at night, right? It dies. It dies.

• 7:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's not going to run properly. It's going to, it's going to, you know, eventually die and you won't be able to use it. So, you know, it's kind of like the same thing. You have to recharge your battery when you're sleeping and that's kind of what you do. And that includes everything from brain function to immune cell function, your immune system's also replenished, to metabolism. And, and this is something that I don't think a lot of people think of. Most people, when they think of being sleep deprived, they think of brain fog. I'm like, I'm not functioning properly. I'm not thinking like, you know, my sharpest. But I don't know that most people are thinking of. Type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome. And this is something, I know I certainly wasn't thinking about it until I became a new

• 8:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  mother and was wearing a continuous glucose monitor. So that's something that you can attach to either your arm, or I put it on my abdomen area, and it continually measures your blood glucose levels. And of course, when you become a new parent, you're sleep deprived. You're not sleeping. Yeah, especially a mother, when you're waking up nursing your child three times a night, I mean, you're getting very fragmented sleep. And I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor, and it was very eye-opening what was happening to my blood glucose regulation. I mean, it was completely shot. What was happening? So my levels were looking like pre-diabetic. And this is like, I was still eating healthy, right? I was eating my healthy foods, my vegetables and my salmon and...

• 9:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Blueberries. Blueberries, yeah. I wasn't as physically active as my usual because, you know, especially, you know, the first month after having a baby. But I'll get to some good news in a minute. But that was, you know, to me, it was just like, it was so crazy to see like my fasting blood glucose levels so incredibly high without changing my diet, really. And, you know, I was still sort of physically active. I was going for walks, but I wasn't doing my usual, like a run. I eventually started doing HIIT. But, so, the point here is that actually, even just getting one to three hours less sleep per night for three nights in a row, I mean, think, how common is it to not, to

• 10:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  get one hour less of sleep a night for three nights in a row? So common, so common. It happens to me all the time, all the time. And there's been studies that have looked at, well, what does happen to normal, quote-unquote, "healthy" people that haven't been diagnosed with any sort of metabolic disease? What happens is after three nights of getting one to three hours less sleep per night, is that their body isn't disposing of glucose properly, so their blood glucose levels stay elevated. On top of that insulin, they're not making enough insulin to lower the blood glucose. Levels and so you get this double whammy almost looking like insulin resistant. Or prediabetic if you were to just look at the hard numbers.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And again, this is just from not getting enough sleep for three nights in a row. And it's not even like full on sleep restriction where you're taking, you're taking away. You know, four, five hours of their sleep. It's just one to three hours less. And so it really has profound effects on metabolism. And this sort of accumulates. So there's, there's a cumulative effect. It's called sleep debt, right? So when you're getting less and less sleep each night. It's like you build up this sleep debt.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Can you pay off the sleep debt ever?

• 11:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So the, the, the, the good news is, is that believe it or not. At least with respect to the, you know, metabolic effects. And also the cognitive effects is that exercise can help negate a lot of them. And that's what I also learned with my own personal experience.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And your quote, you have a quote on this that I saw online and said, even one hour of sleep less per night for three nights can disrupt. How your body processes sugar and lead to mild insulin resistance. But some good news here. Hit can almost reverse it. So can you go with less sleep, but then train hard and reverse the negative effects?

• 11:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So according to research, yes. And according to my own anecdotal data, yes. And I, and there's, there's, there's reasons why. So when you're doing high intensity interval training, so this is where you're going. You know, you're doing intervals that are hard. So you're going. Above what you normally would do if you're just going for a jog. You're going like eighty, eighty-five percent of your max heart rate. And you're doing it for a period of time. That's an interval. And then you kind of have a recovery period where you're going lighter, right? So you're doing a lot of. You know, vigorous intensity exercise where it's like during that interval, you can't talk because you're, you're working out too hard. So that's, that's the real test here. What happens when you're working out really hard like that is that you're pushing.

• 12:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Your energy system to utilize glucose only. And what happens is you utilize glucose only and you make a metabolite called lactate. And everyone thought lactate, this metabolite you're making when you're going hard is this, you know, waste product, byproduct. It's not useful. Turns out, very, very wrong. Lactate itself is not only used by other tissues. So when you're making lactate, your muscles are making lactate because they're using glucose. The reason they're using glucose is because your body can't get oxygen to your muscle quick enough to use oxygen as energy, basically, and make it through something using the mitochondria. So basically, you're making this lactate and using glucose instead, right?

• 13:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And the lactate then gets shuttled into the brain, it gets shuttled into the heart, into the liver. And it's not only used as a very energetically favorable source of energy, it's also called, what's called a signaling molecule. It's the way your muscle communicates with other parts of the body, including going back into the muscle. And so what lactate does is it signals to the cells, "Hey, make more of this, or make less of this." And what it does to the muscle is, the muscle's going, "I'm consuming a lot of glucose here because that's the only energy I can use. I need to make a way to get more of it." And so lactate actually signals to your muscle to make transporters for glucose, more of them come up. So, so transporters for glucose are kind of sitting below the surface of the muscle.

• 14:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're not really letting glucose in all the time. But when lactate comes around, they wake up, they go to the surface of the muscle, and they just allow a lot more glucose to come in.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Where are they getting that glucose from?

• 14:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, the glucose is from your food, or from gluconeogenesis, the process of making glucose from other materials, like glycerol, for example, or amino acids.

• 14:21Lewis Howes?

  But is it pulling it from like visceral fat, or more from the food that you just intake?

• 14:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Usually it's from, from the food, or glycogen, stored as glycogen. But the point is that those, those glucose transporters that come up to the muscle, stay there for like 48 hours. And so your body becomes very, all the glucose that you're eating for the next two days is getting taken up into your muscle very effectively and efficiently. And so the net effect is, you know, this high intensity interval training is Getting that glucose out of your bloodstream and bringing it to your muscle where you want it. And so if you go back to the sleep story, you know, and there's multiple studies showing this, that people that even do high intensity interval training before they're sleep deprived, or they do it after they're sleep deprived, it doesn't matter if you're doing it within a 48 hour window or so of being, getting less sleep, what's happening is your glucose

• 15:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  regulation resets, right? Because you're, you're, you're causing that stress on your muscle to make more of those transporters, and so glucose, glucose gets taken in better. And then it also affects insulin signaling as well. So there's a lot of other ways that it's happening.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  So if I'm gonna, if I'm going to, if I know I'm gonna get less sleep tonight, is it useful to say, let me do a hard, high intensity interval training workout, six hours before or in the morning, and really push myself kind of hard for these 30 to 45 minutes, knowing I'm gonna get less sleep, and I'm gonna need to be on the next day? Like, I've got a lot of meetings, and I'm running around, and I'm traveling, and I'm gonna be, you know, jet lagged. What will that do for your mind or your body the next day?

• 15:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So, those studies have been done, and with respect, with respect to the metabolism, yes, doing it before, for sure, it's going to affect. Now, if you're talking about cognition and brain function, I would say, unfortunately, you're gonna want to do it the next day after you've been sleep deprived, before your meeting.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  So you wake up sleep deprived. You should go do it then?

• 16:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right then.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, right then. So-

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  But you're already exhausted. You're like, where am I going? I've got my keys, I gotta go back, I, I'm like, wake up, I'm gonna sleep right now.

• 16:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But do you have 10 minutes? Because that's what's been shown. 10 minutes of high intensity interval training can improve blood flow to the brain, it improves memory, it improves cognition, and it only took 10 minutes to do it. So maybe not the 30 minutes, but 10 minutes.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Not like a CrossFit style.

• 16:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Not like a full-on, like, the hardest thing that you usually do when you're on, on your game, but like, 10 minutes. Right? Go on 10 minutes, get on a Peloton or a bike or whatever and you do a 10 minute, whatever your program is and it will, I do it all the time. I do it all the time.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're sleep deprived all the time.

• 16:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, like if I'm like going to Florida, I live in California and I have to give a talk at like eight in the morning, which is like five in the morning, my time and I'm already sleep deprived from the travel, right? I will absolutely get up and do a HIIT first thing in the morning before the talk, even though it's already pretty darn early for me.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  And you're tired.

• 17:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I'm tired and that's the last thing I want to do, but like, I'm like 10 minutes?

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Like, I'll sit and drink coffee for 10 minutes. What's gonna be better? Right?

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Coffee sounds better.

• 17:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Both. I get the coffee before the HIIT.

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  That coffee sounds pretty good when you're tired. So how long will that positive effect last for? If you do, you're sleep deprived the night before, you wake up, you got a lot going on, but you're tired, you gotta wake up and get started, you do a 10, 15 minute HIIT style workout, how long will that make you feel awake or feel sharp and clear? Like, how long will that last for?

• 17:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It probably depends on a lot of factors, other factors too. I will say this, you mentioned doing the HIIT like, like the day before, like before you're gonna go, you know you're gonna be sleep deprived, right?

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  And then you're gonna, you're exhausting yourself, then you're exhausted.

• 18:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, but you know what? You're, in a way, so I'm talking about like, I talked about doing it right before whatever, whatever your meeting or your podcast or whatever it is, you have to be on, on point, right? Mostly because like, that's when you really like, you do, it's like the peak. But I will say this, yes, if you do it before, you still get brain benefits because again, coming back to lactate, so lactate, it all comes down to, in order to make lactate, you have to, you have to work hard. You have to be going 85% of your max heart rate, you know, and doing that 10, 20, 30 minutes, right? The more you do it, it's a dose dependent effect. That lactate goes into the brain. In fact, the brain is one of the biggest consumers of it.

• 18:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it increases something in the brain called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, B D N F. And this is something that will help you. It's something that increases the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. It increases the connections between neurons, right? So you're actually gonna help with memory, long-term memory, short-term memory as well. And it also improves something called neuroplasticity. So that is the ability of your brain to adapt to a changing environment, right? And that's very important. As we age, our brain becomes quote-unquote "less plastic," less adaptable. We're not able to change. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? You've heard that. It's kind of like that. Like, your brain is less adaptable.

• 19:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, neuroplasticity is something that you wanna, you wanna maintain it with age. And brain-derived neurotrophic factor regulates that. So because you're, you're getting that brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and there have been a variety of, you know, studies that have really shown that you do increase it from particularly vigorous exercise. Again, the lactate's key. So going back to your question, I do wanna, I do wanna sort of caveat what I originally said with, yes, it is going to improve brain function doing it before as well. But if you're wanting that, like, immediate blood flow effect where you just, you feel it, like, really, doing it right before is

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  Is better.

• 20:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, kind of better.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  And how long do you think that would last? Like, if you're, you're going from L.A. to Florida one day, you sleep four or five hours a night, you gotta wake up early, you work out, you got your speech. Like, how, could you go till dinner pretty sharp? Or is it really gonna last for, like, three hours? That sharpness, before it starts to fade?

• 20:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right.

• 20:34Lewis Howes?

  See what I'm saying? Like, alright, I did this HIIT workout, and I can go another 24-hour sleep-deprived and still be on?

• 20:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, I don't, not for the brain. For the glucose stuff, it lasts.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  The body, but not the brain?

• 20:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Not the brain, no. Yeah, it does, you do need, at least, like, you're gonna start to feel tired, right? And you might actually need, like, a little

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Nap or something.

• 20:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  A little nap, yep.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of naps, how important are naps? Are they helpful or hurtful for a human in their circadian rhythm, in their sleep process?

• 21:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I talked to Dr. Sachin Panda about, he's talked about naps a lot and he's a circadian biologist and really an expert and he really does think that naps are useful, particularly when you are sleep deprived.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And so if you can nap, great. I'm not really a napper, like it's hard for me to nap, like even when I'm tired. I'm not sure why, but it's just who I am and so, and I'm not saying I never do nap, but it is kind of, I think especially if I'm like amped up on, I know I have to do something like,

• 21:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's hard to shut down.

• 21:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's hard to shut down, right.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  And then wind it back up and yeah.

• 21:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I always go to the exercise, like I'll, I will just go to the gym, even though I'm tired.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I go to the gym, not for long, sometimes it's like 15 minutes. You know, and it does, it helps me, it really helps a lot.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  And try to go to bed a little earlier that night maybe if you can.

• 21:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Try to go to bed earlier, exactly, that's exactly what I, if you can't, like if you're like a conference thing where it's like multiple nights where you're staying up late, you go, you know, leave as early as you can, but again, that's where the exercise comes in, like it really does. Like even just doing it in your hotel, like I have this go-to routine I do in my hotel room. It's kind of like a version of what CrossFitter is called the Cindy workout. So I'll do 10 pushups and then I do 10 V-ups, which are kind of like a version of a setup, and then I do like 15 bodyweight squats. And I do it over and over and over for like 10, 15 minutes.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  With a rest or no, no rest?

• 22:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No rest.

• 22:30Lewis Howes?

  You just keep going?

• 22:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's like 10 minutes.

• 22:31Lewis Howes?

  Non-stop?

• 22:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I go from one to the next to the next. I mean, I'll like catch my breath for a minute, but like the recovery is very short, maybe 20 seconds. You know, like it's not like a big...

• 22:41Lewis Howes?

  So you're keeping your heart rate up the whole time?

• 22:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I keep my heart rate up the whole time and usually like, in many cases, I only do 10 minutes. Like if it's like a hotel room workout, well, I just need to do something quick and like get it, but it really works.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 22:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The Cindy workout, yeah.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Will that generate lactate also?

• 22:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  And where do you feel that?

• 23:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You can measure it, but like, heart rate is a good way. Like, if you're getting up to like 85%, so I wear my Apple Watch, right? And if you're getting up to like, you know, 85% of your max heart rate, 80, 85%, you're most likely gonna be making lactate.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  You're creating it.

• 23:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  What does it feel like to have lactate in the body?

• 23:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Burns.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  It burns. Does it burn like in the muscle group, or more in the lungs?

• 23:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I feel it in the muscle group. When I'm doing, when I'm doing things like body weight squats, or biking, or pushups. Yeah, I mean, you feel it.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  It feels heavy, it feels like it hurts, it's painful.

• 23:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I mean, even, yeah, you know, doing body weight squats are great. There's a study that came out, I don't know, it was like, six months ago or something, that showed doing 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes throughout like an eight-hour-ish workday, was better for glucose regulation, so this is your blood sugar regulation, than a 30-minute walk. And I timed myself, it took me 27 seconds to do 10 body weight squats. And, you know, so these are like exercise snacks, right? These are things that you do. It's a great way to break up your sedentary time. So when you're sitting in your office for hours at a time, you're sedentary.

• 24:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it's interesting because there's been a lot of research that have come out over the past few years, showing that being sedentary, I always used to think of being sedentary as like, you're not physically active. And sometimes I still use that word, you're sedentary. It's true, when you're sedentary, you're not physically active. And that's typically when you're doing a study and you're categorizing someone in a group, right? But, but you can be sedentary and still be physically active. So like, I do a lot of sitting when I'm at my computer, when I'm researching something, reading studies, you know, I'm at my computer, or I'm doing a podcast, I'm sitting, I sit for multiple hours, right? That is sedentary time. And that has been shown to be an independent risk factor for certain cancers.

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Meaning, independent of your physical activity even. Which is interesting, because it's like, it makes you think, wow, exercise, now getting up and doing, you know, a two-minute, three-minute, like, you know, you do some high knees, or you do some burpees, or some squats, or something where you're getting that physical activity, and you just do it for a couple of minutes and you break up your workday. It's, it's, what's really interesting is there's been studies showing that you, so people, there's exercise snacks in a structured way, like I just said, right, where you're like, okay, I set a timer every, you know, 45 minutes, I'm gonna get up and do 10 body weight squats. Okay, that's a structured exercise snack.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, some people have unstructured exercise snacks, so let's say they work on the fourth floor of an office building.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  And they walk the stairs.

• 25:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They sprint the stairs.

• 25:45Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 25:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They sprint the stairs. They get their heart rate up, right?

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Let's go!

• 25:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. So, so there's been large studies.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, sprinting.

• 25:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Not just taking, walking the stairs.

• 25:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No.

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  It's still good to walk the stairs too, right?

• 25:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Okay, I should, okay, let me, let me, let me define sprint, because if we're talking about a coach sprint, no, they're not doing what a coach sprint would be. What I mean is they're, they're going fast, okay?

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  They're running.

• 26:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're, yeah.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  They're running up the stairs.

• 26:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, right. They're going, they're going faster than just walking.

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're not, they're not sprinting in the coach sense of the word. Thank you for pointing that out, because people might, might be like, "Lana, you're crazy, they're not sprinting, no way." And you're right.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  They're running as fast as they can up the stairs.

• 26:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're as fast as they can, up the stairs. And their heart rate's getting pretty high. And this is, this has been measured, because there's been large studies that have put accelerometers on people, where they measure their heart rate. And they found that people that do anywhere from between two to six minutes of this sort of unstructured type of vigorous exercise, they have a 40% lower cancer-related mortality.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 26:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  40% lower all-cause mortality, so dying from all causes, 50% lower cardiovascular-related mortality. This is incredible, because this was even in people that identified themselves as non-exercisers. In other words, they don't go to the gym, they don't take that extra time, they just do this. This is how they exercise. They incorporate this, you know, lifestyle. It's called vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity, physical activity, VIBA. And it's, it's, it's kind of eye-opening, that even just doing two to six minutes. Now, when I gave you those statistics, that was the six-minute, that was the upper end, so the six minutes a day. But six minutes a day, who doesn't have six minutes a day?

• 27:26Lewis Howes?

  Why, why does it seem like, sometimes I hear people say, "Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this once every two hours, or set an alarm every hour at my desk, and I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna do 10 push-ups, right, or 20 sit-ups, or whatever it might be, or 10 air squats." And, yeah, it seems so easy to do it for 60 seconds, five times a day, right? Five minutes, 60 seconds, five times a day. Why is it that so few people do it consistently? They might try it for a day or two, but then they just stop to do five minutes, 60 seconds, five times a day. Why does it seem so hard for people to be consistent with this style of movement?

• 28:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I think it's a good question and it comes down to, you know, like maybe, maybe it disrupts their flow too much. They're in the middle of something working and so you bring up a good point and that is you really do, you have to find something that you will do consistently. It's very, very important and you know, because exercise is, it has to be part of your personal hygiene every day, right? Like brushing your teeth.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Like you, it's not an add-on. You don't add it on. You do it and, and I've sort of adopted this that, you know, I've recently really just focused a lot on resistance training, on doing a lot of high intensity interval training, also getting my aerobic exercise and it's a priority for me.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  When did it become a priority for you?

• 28:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I've always been sort of aerobic exercise, like a runner, you know, so I've always had that aerobic exercise part of my life, you know, I've always been physically active.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  But never lifting, huh?

• 29:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But lifting, lifting has been, I've, I would say I started making it a priority about a year and a half, maybe a year and a half ago, but like maybe like a year ago. And then really about nine months ago, getting really serious about it. And that happened when I started getting a coach. That helped me personally or like, you know, going to a gym, like a CrossFit gym, somewhere there's a community where you have this like accountability as well.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like though you needed to get into resistance training? Because you've been studying, you know, the body health for a long time. I mean, you're, you're the expert in this. It took you to your mid 40s to say, oh, I'm actually going to lift weights and do resistance and, and get into this. Why did you resist getting into resistance training sooner?

• 29:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I think what really motivated me to kind of prioritize it more was when I started to speak to some of these experts in muscle physiology, muscle protein synthesis, you know, in sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle loss, and knowing as I was getting into my 40s, you know, that like, it's getting real now, right?

• 30:24Lewis Howes?

  You can't just get away with it now.

• 30:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, it seems like it's unfortunate, but there is, you know, I don't know that I was like, it was, for me, it was kind of like, well, I do a lot of, you know, running, and really covering that, like aerobic exercise is the most important because it's, it's going to help with cardiovascular disease. Yeah, brain health and heart health and, and cancer and, and so, and then, you know, and then part of me, it's like, oh, I don't want to bulk up. There's always this like background fear of like getting too bulky.

• 30:55Lewis Howes?

  My shoulders are going to be big.

• 30:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, big biceps and, and so, but of course, like, well, you just don't lift as hard or heavy or whatever, like there's, you know, there's.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  Slow it down once you get big.

• 31:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  You're not going to get big overnight, yeah.

• 31:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. So, but, but getting into the science with the experts like Stu Phillips, Brad Schoenfeld, these are some, some of the, the leading experts in this, in this field that really kind of brought it home for me, which is, you know, as you're aging, and I also just seen it, I've seen it with family members, and I'm sure all of us have, where, you know, the, the family members that don't really focus on functional training or, or resistance training or, you know, maintaining, building and maintaining muscle, you know, as they start to get older and they have a hospital event or a surgery.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  It's hard.

• 31:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then, you know, they, they lose so much muscle mass, the, the two to three weeks, four weeks, like month after the event.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  Shrink.

• 31:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes, and then it happens again, right? And they don't ever gain it back. You don't gain it back as well when you're older, right? And so.

• 32:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Just seeing that with family members and like, understanding the science behind it, where it's like, wow, then you start to reach this like, what's called disability threshold, where there's a point of no return and you really lose your physical independence. Like, you just, your walking gait is so much slower. Like, everything is just harder, right? And so, I realized that I had to really focus on, like, I had to catch up even, right?

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Catch up too. And so, I got a coach, she's a great coach, she's, you know, I do a lot of CrossFit training, which I love. I think CrossFit's a great, it's got a great mixture of resistance training, but also high intensity interval training, both things which I think are really important, based on all the science that I've read and experts that I've interviewed in the field. And so, I think that was the real, the real thing that, that got me into it.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  But weren't you learning about this, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 years ago as well? Like, seeing the resistance training and building muscles helpful for longevity and helpful for recovery and all these different things as well?

• 33:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, you know, to a, so, I'll give you, this is gonna take us to another area a little bit. You know, I have, my, my core background research was, was, was really aging research.

• 33:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And, you know, 20 years ago, I was in an aging lab. And I remember 20 years ago, you know, at the ti, you know, even at that time, you know, amino acid restriction and protein restriction, like, not, not consuming a lot of protein was really starting to take off with that field in terms of improving longevity, right? And so, and a lot of this was from animal studies. So, you get these animal studies where you restrict dietary protein and they live longer.

• 33:48Lewis Howes?

  Restrict protein?

• 33:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You restrict, yeah, less protein.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 33:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  Huh, but I'm hearing different now, though, right?

• 33:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, right.

• 33:54Lewis Howes?

  So, you were hearing this 20 years ago as an anti-aging, you know, researcher?

• 33:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it only continued, it started 20 years ago. It was kind of like, you know, the start of it and then it continued on throughout, you know, and it's still a thing in the aging. Really? A lot of aging researchers think that, so there's a variety of lines of evidence that convinced, I think, I'd say these people that are in the longevity world, that you should limit your protein intake to be healthier. One is a lot of animal studies where they've done these protein restrictions and their cardiovascular system's better, they get, you know, don't get as much cancer, their life expectancy's extended, right? And so there's like a lot of reasons for these animal studies. I'll say though, then I had Dr.

• 34:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Sue Phillips on and he really brought up a lot of good points with that research, which is you have these mice in a sterile environment, they're not getting influenza, they're not getting, you know, any respiratory illness, not getting COVID. They're not in the wild. They're not in the wild, they're, they're not, you know, so they're not, they're basically just eating all day, they're kind of sedentary and they're eating, but they're not like being... A little box. Yeah, they're not being exposed to these, they're not, they're not like hitting these catabolic crises that humans do, that we just talked about, right? Where you, you, you're in the hospital and then you're not moving around because you've been sick for, you know, a couple of weeks or you have a surgery and that keeps happening and you lose all this muscle mass and you just, you really start to go down, right? Yeah.

• 35:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And, and it's a really good point because it's absolutely true. On top of that, you know, it's also, these mice are not very physically active and so if you're eating protein and you are physically active, the protein is going to your muscle and it's building muscle. Yes. Right? It's not activating all these pathways in the body that are known to help cancer cells grow like the IGF-1 or mTOR pathway. mTOR is getting activated, but it's doing it in the muscle where you want it. And so, you know, I was a little bit, a little bit indoctrinated in that field. Of like less protein. Of like less protein, yeah, and there's also... Less muscle. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't necessarily less muscle, but it kind of like the less protein,

• 36:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  like the, you know, it was not as important. Really?

• 36:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then there's a lot of observational data. So this is data in humans where you look at a correlation between what they eat and what an outcome is. So people that are eating like 20% of their calories are coming from protein, particularly animal-based protein. You know, there was like one study that came out and it was like they have a, you know, they're fourfold higher cancer mortality. You know, there's 75% higher all-cause mortality compared to people eating a lower protein diet. But yet again, it's a correlation, not causation. And in fact, some of the same authors of that study went on to publish another one, finding a similar thing, but then they looked at healthy lifestyle and unhealthy lifestyle factors.

• 36:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And what was found was that actually, people that were eating a lot of protein, animal-based protein, that had no unhealthy lifestyle factors, so they were physically active, they were not obese, they weren't smoking.

• 37:09Lewis Howes?

  Drinking or whatever.

• 37:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Consuming excess alcohol. They actually had the same life expectancy or the same all-cause mortality as people that were eating the lower protein or the plant-based protein. So it's, again, it comes down to, I think there's a lot of important factors involved in that protein story. Why protein? Restricting protein isn't necessarily what I think, I don't think it's the way to go. So like, maybe if you're a really obese person that's smoking and you're not going to be physically active, even then, I don't know that you want to go too far on protein restriction because protein's one of the major signals for building muscle, right? Protein synthesis in your muscle. The other one is physical activity and mechanical force. In fact, that's the major one. That's the one we should all be focusing on.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  But if you're doing a lot of physical activity and you're not eating protein, what's going to happen?

• 37:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's hard to repair, it's hard to repair that damage that you're.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  You're tearing your muscles.

• 38:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. So you do, you do need, you have higher protein requirements. And I also just now think that a lot of that aging research is, I think it's all, it's all in the lens of, okay, are we talking about a very obese person that needs to lose weight? Well, they can do with less protein and less calories and less fat and less everything, right? You know, let's lose the weight.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But like, are we talking about physically active people that are healthy? You know, the protein isn't, I don't think that restricting the protein is going to make them healthier. In fact, athletes, elite athletes are consuming way more protein than than the majority of us. And they actually have the longest life expectancy. These athletes are living like up to five years longer, elite athletes, like Olympians and stuff, Olympic athletes. They're living up to like five years longer than the average population, like the average person. Yeah, yeah, elite athletes, they have a much like up to like forty to fifty percent lower cancer incidence. Like they're, they're doing good. And these are again, at the elite level, you know, so.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  That's good enough. Part of me was worried like if you're training too hard, does that make you die younger? You know, it's like if you've been training so hard since you're like, whatever, twelve or fifteen and you're going for twenty years for that elite level, but I guess you're really optimizing your body too for performance.

• 39:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Your body is very adaptable. And so the thing is, I'm sure there's the outliers that that is true. But if you again, look at studies that are published, looking at generally like, you know, average population of like, there's a French Olympian athlete study. And then there's like, there's another Olympian athlete study that looks at multiple different Olympic athletes from around the world. And then just looking at some of the studies, looking at people that have an elite level of cardio respiratory fitness.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right? So that would be your ability to take in oxygen during maximal exercise is measured by VO2 max. There's studies showing that people that are in the elite level, so these are the elite athletes. Like they're in like the top two point three percent of VO2 max, have an eighty percent reduction in all cause mortality compared to people at the low end, like the people with low VO2 max, eighty percent. And what's even more mind blowing is that, first of all, the elite people, so people that are like, again, these are the athletes. If you compare them to people that are like me, like high, I have a high VO2 max for my age. I'm not, I'm not elite. Like, they still had a 20% lower all-cause mortality than... So, it seems like there's no limit, right?

• 40:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You keep going up. But the people with the low VO2 max, those people had a mortality that was comparable or worse to people that were smokers, had hypertension, diabetes.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 40:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I know. It's because being sedentary, like not being physically active, is a disease. It is a disease. I, I think it should be talked about as being a disease because it has the same mortality risk as people that are not... I mean, people that have diseases that we identify as disease, right? Like hypertension, diabetes.

• 41:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure. What do you, what do you consider as sedentary? What type, what is a sedentary lifestyle?

• 41:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Good question. Typically, I mean, it, what I'm talking about is the context of studies. And so typically, what would be defined as a sedentary lifestyle is someone that has no leisure time, physical activity. So, they don't play tennis, or pickleball, or soccer, or basketball, or baseball, or any type of leisure type of, you know, hockey, whatever, fill in the blank.

• 41:36Lewis Howes?

  Kickball.

• 41:36Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Kickball, handball.

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 41:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. So, um, or, you know, they don't go to the gym, or they don't run. So, they don't identify themselves as taking time to engage in some type of physical exercise.

• 41:50Lewis Howes?

  They get up, they go to take a shower, they walk to get food, whatever. But they, they go to their school, or they go to their office, but that's it.

• 41:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's it. And that's, that would be considered sedentary.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  They're getting like maybe a thousand steps a day, 2,000 steps a day, maybe. What is that like?

• 42:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I mean, it depends on if, you know, maybe they are walking. If they walk their dog more, they're getting more steps, you know? I mean, I think that's better than nothing.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  It's not a brisk wa, it's not like a speed walk.

• 42:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, most of the time, people walking their dogs are not doing brisk walks.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, they're stopping.

• 42:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, yeah. So, um, probably, I would say that, that's, I wonder if, I wonder if scientists actually ask them, "Do you walk your dog?" If that, I don't know, that might be considered sedentary. I would, I would call it sedentary.

• 42:34Lewis Howes?

  Right. Because it's not a brisk, it's not an intense activity.

• 42:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. And I do think, I think that 10,000 steps should be replaced with like the 10-minute of like vigorous exercise, like more, like a day. What do you need a day? 10 minutes of vigorous exercise. That's what I think.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Not 10,000 steps.

• 42:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, not 10,000 steps.

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 42:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes, because it comes down to, like, you can walk slow. Right? And it also takes, you know how long it takes?

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Takes a long time. It takes like hours.

• 42:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, like an hour and a half or something like it's not, you know, and I just told you that, you know, 10 body weight squats every, every 45 minutes for an eight hour, you know, work week is better at glucose regulation than 30 minute walk.

• 43:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right? So I, I do think that the 10, 10,000 steps a day should be replaced with 10 minutes of vigorous exercise. I personally feel that way. But like the sedentary aspect, you know, we're talking about being sedentary. There was a classic study that was Ben, Dr. Ben Levine, he was on my podcast. He's, he's really the leader in how the heart adapts to stress, whether it's exercise or space or whatever. He's a, he's like a juggernaut in the exercise physiology world. And his mentors had done a study when he was a young boy where they took these like 10 guys and measured, you know, their cardio respiratory fitness and a variety of cardiovascular endpoints. And, and then they put them under bed rest for

• 43:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  three weeks. So you're talking about what's being sedentary. At the extreme level of being sedentary, we're talking, these guys were in bed for three weeks, using, they used a catheter to go to the bathroom.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  No way. That would drive me nuts.

• 44:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, totally would. But these, there's 10, there are people that volunteered to do this.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  They must've got paid a lot of money for that. I don't know. That's.

• 44:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I don't know. I, I agree with you.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  Three weeks.

• 44:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Three weeks.

• 44:19Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom.

• 44:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. This is the extreme. They wanted to really understand what full sedentaryism did.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  What happened?

• 44:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, so their cardio respiratory fitness was just, it went, it was just shot to the ground. I mean, it was terrible after three weeks. But here's the real kicker. So, so Ben Levine was a young boy when this was done. This was done by his mentors. Okay? You know, fast forward 30 years. Okay? They found these same 10 guys. They found these same 10 guys. Okay? Now here's Ben. Ben, this is Ben's being involved in this study. Gets these, they get these same guys and they measure what 30 years, because they have all their data from before the bed rest, right? They measure what 30 years of aging does on their cardiovascular system. And do you want to know what is insane? 30 years of aging was not worse than what, three weeks of bedrest did.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh. That's crazy.

• 45:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It was not worse than three weeks of bedrest in terms of their cardiorespiratory fitness, which I personally think is one of the best markers for longevity that we can measure. VO2 max.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  How often are you studying it? I've actually never tested my VO2 max.

• 45:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I-

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  How often do you test it?

• 45:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Good question. Okay, so embarrassingly, I do an estimator for it. I have, so how do you measure VO2 max?

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  So you put the mask on?

• 45:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You have to go to a lab. You have to, to really precisely measure it, you get a lab and you can Google-

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  But you're doing your Apple Watch.

• 45:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I do my Apple Watch, but also there's something called the 12-minute run test, which is a good way to do it. It's actually a little better than the Apple Watch, I think. So what you'd have to do is, because your Apple Watch is measuring, so I do a lot of running, but I do a lot of trail running, and trail running is like hills, okay? And you run slower when you're on hill, running on a hill, right? And so your true VO2 max, you want to have a flat surface where you're running. So you have to find like a track field and you want to run as, as fast as you can maintain for that 12 minutes. So it has to be a sustainable 12-minute speed. You don't want to go too fast, but you don't want to go too slow. Right.

• 46:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So it has to be like a sustainable speed, but you're, you're really pushing hard, but you're able to sustain that for 12 minutes. And you do that 12-minute run test on a flat, flat track.

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  So you do that track now also, right? Yeah.

• 46:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. Yeah. You just have to have, measure your distance. So measure your distance that you ran and the time. And then there's an equation you can plug it into. It's called the Cooper test. And that'll give you, pretty much, that's what your Apple Watch is doing.

• 46:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Or your whatever device that's measuring VO2 max is doing something similar. But again, if you're just using, like, I use my Apple Watch and I look at it, I'm like, oh, but it's like- I'm running on all these hills. It's not really like true, right? You need a flat. So it could be a flat treadmill or like a track.

• 47:11Lewis Howes?

  And what do you get? Well, you get the distance, the time, and then what?

• 47:15Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's all you need. You need to know the distance and your time.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  And then I'll tell you.

• 47:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And there's an equation.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  And then the equation tells you your VO2 max.

• 47:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, there's like an equation. I don't remember.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Based on your height and weight or is this like?

• 47:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, so you're so, so it's not. No, it's not. No. Then you can like compare what your VO2 max is based on your height and your, your gender and your weight and all that.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Okay, age and all that stuff.

• 47:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, you'll, you'll know where you rank. You'll know where you rank. Right, no, like I'm supposed to be here, but I'm.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  Top 10%.

• 47:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, yeah, exactly. But, um, and one of the best ways to improve VO2 max is high intensity interval training. So there's been those studies done where like even people that are doing, so what's the, what, what do we hear about physical activity requirements? We hear two and a half hours of moderate intensity exercise a week, right? That would be, you know, the kind of exercise where you can, the talk test. So you can talk, you can have a, sort of have a conversation, but you're breathy.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right?

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  You should be doing how much HIIT training a week?

• 48:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, so this is where.

• 48:13Lewis Howes?

  Where you can't talk.

• 48:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, well, that, well, so that.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  How many minutes a week?

• 48:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It all depends, right? So, so people that are doing two and a half hours of this moderate intensity, about 40% of those people still can't improve their VO2 max until they add in high intensity. Right. Now, the question is, well, how much? Well, how much do you want to improve? Right? I mean, obviously you don't want to like burn out, like, like all your exercise is HIIT, like it's a bit much, right? But, um, you know, if you're doing, some of the best ways to do it would be like a longer interval. So like a one minute interval of like going harder. Or there's the Norwegian four by four. This is one of the best ways to improve your VO2 max. And that is where you go four minutes at, at an intensity that's pretty high that you can maintain and sustain for that entire four minutes. Usually it's about 85% max heart rate.

• 49:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So you're going pretty hard for the entire four minutes, as hard as you can maintain for the entire four minutes. And then you rest for three minutes. Rest as in low intensity, very low. You want your heart rate to come down. And then you do it, repeat four, so you do it four times. And that is one of the best ways to improve. Your cardio respiratory fitness and in fact that same guy researcher Dr. Ben Levine that I talked about with the Dallas it's called the Dallas Bedrest Study it's just phenomenal.

• 49:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 49:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, he in my opinion has done an even more interesting study where he took 50 year olds so he and his colleagues his lab they took 50 year olds that were sedentary so no they weren't physically active but they hadn't been identified with any other disease besides sedentaryism which I think is a disease they hadn't been identified with type 2 diabetes or hypertension or anything else so they were quote unquote what they would call healthy right.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  They didn't work out.

• 49:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They didn't work out so I wouldn't call them healthy but this is what you.

• 49:56Lewis Howes?

  They were diseaseless.

• 49:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They were disease free. No but they were sedentary so I wouldn't.

• 50:01Lewis Howes?

  That's a disease.

• 50:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right so but they took them and they put them on a two year pretty intense exercise intervention protocol okay.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  They probably transformed.

• 50:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Unbelievable.

• 50:12Lewis Howes?

  They didn't even look like the same person.

• 50:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They okay so they went from not exercising to five to six hours of physical activity a week a large portion of that they were doing what's called maximal maximal maximal sustainable intensity so you're you're doing it's a lot of vigorous exercise they're like 80% max heart rate 75 80% max heart rate and then they were doing the Norwegian four by four once a week. And they didn't start them out with this right out the gate it was like the first six months was like progressive right and after the two years okay so as we age our hearts get smaller and stiffer okay smaller and stiffer as we age and that affects not only our exercise capacity but it affects our cardiovascular disease risk our heart attack risk hypertension

• 50:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  risk right all of these things are connected so after those two years of you know five to six hours of physical pretty good physical exercise every single week their hearts looked 20 years younger in terms of structure.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 51:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Their structure 20 years younger so they were 50 and if you look just at the the the structure of the heart their hearts look like 30 year olds.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Incredible. And it's really, I think, a very motivating piece of evidence that's like, it's never too late, right? It's never too late. 50. They're doing this at 50, so it's never too late. But also, just look what, look what exercise can do.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right? And that's like, for me, I like to understand, I get this like dopamine, I'm like, oh, yes, like, this is what I can do. I'm, I'm on it, you know, and it's, it's like, that's, it helps me adopt a type of, you know, protocol where I'm, I'm doing, you know, my exercise and I'm motivated. And that's, that was definitely part of it, too.

• 51:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 51:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Where it's.

• 51:54Lewis Howes?

  What's been the biggest thing that you've noticed, kind of going all in on this high intensity interval training, VO2 max, you know, optimization over the last year, year and a half? What's the big thing you've seen in yourself personally?

• 52:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Certainly, I would say I'm stronger and my VO2 max has improved, my running, I'm faster. And even the strength training has helped with that. And so there's been like, like, I've, I've definitely been like lifting a lot more and that's carried over to my cardiovascular performance as well.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 52:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Um, I don't know. I think my legs are stronger, you know, I think is a big part of it. I also am using more upper body, too, when I run, like, I feel like, especially on like hills or something, it helps me like, go up the hill. Also, I'm going to be honest, lifting is hard. Like, you know, I'm doing, it's, it's, it's hard mentally.

• 52:54Lewis Howes?

  Very hard.

• 52:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it's.

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  And physically, too.

• 52:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Physically, too, but mentally, like, I'm doing, I do a lot of barbell work. I'm doing front squats where I clean and, you know, it's, it's scary. This meant, like, there's, it's, there's never a time when I'm not down there. And I always do progressive loading, right? So I actually have, I've not injured myself when I work with a coach.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 53:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, but I'm scared.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  You have to focus. You have to focus. Really pay attention.

• 53:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I feel like it's made, the mental toughness I've gotten from weight training has carried over to other areas. Like when I'm running and it's like going fast is hard. And so it's, you know, or doing work, like work, things that I'm procrastinating. It comes, it becomes a little easier. It really does carry over.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Really does carry over. And so I think about that too now when I'm like, gosh, I like, I don't want to do this. Like, but I know it's going to make me stronger and it's going to help me in other areas. Right?

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  How has it helped you as a parent?

• 53:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, the same goes for that as well. I mean, for one, I feel, you know, happier because exercise affects mood. And, and that also helped, like with sleepless nights and stuff, it helps. But, you know, you, you have to, there's a lot of struggles of being, as being a parent. Right? You're, you're caring for this other person. You want the best for them. You don't want to intervene too much. You want them to learn. I mean, there's like a million things that you're like the stress, right? The stress that ages us. I mean, I feel like I aged like 20 years after I became a mom.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 54:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It was like, oh yeah, for sure. Not just the sleep, like not like the lack of sleep, but just the stress of like the worry, the worry of everything, you know? And, and stress is accelerates aging on like a molecular level. Like, you know, there's lots of, like, I could go into the details on it where it's just not good. But I do like the exercise is a big, it, it makes me mentally more happy, stronger.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And yeah, I, I just think it's, it's a big part of mental health for sure. And, and buffering, countering those negative effects that stress does have because there's lots of things that are out of your control. And you have to like, you have to find a way to buffer that. And exercise is one of those ways that does buffer it for sure.

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  Something I wanted to talk about, which you mentioned earlier, from lack of sleep to also high intensity exercise or resistance training.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  And a lot of the talk that's been in the health world or just in the atmosphere lately has been about glucose spikes. When you lose sleep, what happens to your glucose spikes, I guess, in the body? And also, when you're high intensity training, what happens to your glucose levels?

• 55:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so it depends on, you know, what a person is referring to when, like, like an average person is saying glucose spike. Probably they're talking about post-prandial, maybe like after a meal. And, and so, when, when you are training, those spikes are not going to be as high. Because, again, it goes down to what I already talked about. You're, as, as soon as you get glucose into your body, it's going, it's shuttled into your muscle because for 48 hours, those glucose transporters, they're called Glut4 transporters, they are, they are ready, they're like this, just like this big open like sink that's like taking it in, taking it in. And, and anyone can wear a continuous glucose monitor and, and see that, right?

• 56:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That, that, that happens. Now, you know, I would say, the, the, the bigger concern isn't necessarily the spikes if you clear it pretty quickly. The bigger concern is the long-term glucose, where it's just constantly around. Because, this goes back to the, the heart stiffening with age I talked about. So, what happens is, is that when you have glucose, that's continually around, let's say you, you're sedentary, you just never exercise. So, you know, your muscles aren't that responsive to the glucose, it might be taken up into your adipose tissue instead, and of course, you're gonna gain more fat that way. But also, it might just sit around longer. And so, what happens when glucose sits around in your, in your vascular system, is it reacts

• 57:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  with, it, it forms something called advanced glycation end products, or AGES. And they do AGES, so it's easy to remember. And these react with...

• 57:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  DNA, proteins, collagen in our body. And what they do, it's called, it's like the chemical reaction is called the Maillard reaction. And it cross links collagen and stuff together. When it's collagen, collagen is there forever, right? So collagen's lining our blood vessels, it's lining our myocardium, our pericardium, right? And when that collagen gets cross linked, it gets stiff. It gets stiff. When it gets cross linked in our vascular system, it gets stiff. That causes hypertension. It causes what's called vascular compliance to go down. And so you're basically stiffening your heart through glucose. And the way around that-

• 58:10Lewis Howes?

  Is that with sedentary, with being sedentary? Or with having too much sugar consistently?

• 58:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, it's really, okay, being sedentary is really what's facilitating in people. So diabetics have the worst of the worst because they have a hard time regulating their blood sugar. So they have the most advanced vacation end products and the most problems with this issue, unfortunately.

• 58:33Lewis Howes?

  Does that mean when they eat processed or sugary foods, they have a high glucose spike? And then if they don't move, they don't, they can't process it better?

• 58:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They're not disposing of the glucose correctly, right? And you know-

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  And that consistently every day over years?

• 58:48Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Every day adds up. It's cumulative, right? Exactly. So when you have a person that, let's say, is very physically active and they go eat a Twinkie, they're gonna get a little bit of glucose spike. It's not gonna be like the sedentary person that eats the Twinkie, right? Because they're, again, it's going right into their muscle. It's like this like, you know, pipeline, right, to the muscle. So it really, exercise is really helping a lot with that. And it's not like, if you're getting the spike, you know, everyone's kind of spikes after a meal, but like if you do that, in fact, there's been studies showing that, like doing those exercise snacks we were talking about, if you time them around meals, most of the studies have been done with people that have metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes.

• 59:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And they get these people to do like 30 minutes of exercise, like before a meal, anywhere between like an hour or so before a meal or after a meal. And it really dramatically improves their glucose disposal. So they're not getting that big spike.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  Before and after?

• 59:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You can do the exercise before or after, either, either or. It doesn't have to be both. But, but yeah, so timing it around a meal also really, and again, it's the vigorous exercise that's the best. You always hear about, oh, you should go for a walk after a meal. Actually, the body weight squats or something that's really gonna get like heart rate high, higher, is the lactate you wanna generate because that's what's causing the glucose transporters to basically become, you know, able to take the glucose in. So that's where the vigorous comes in.

• 1:00:19Lewis Howes?

  After a meal, so you enjoy a meal out with friends, you know you're gonna eat poorly, you're having a celebration, you're eating desserts, you're having all the fats, all the things. When should you do this vigorous workout? Like, right after you finish or like 30 minutes after?

• 1:00:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  You could do it 30 minutes after, like, I was in, you know, I was in Mallorca, Spain this last summer.

• 1:00:39Lewis Howes?

  Live the dream.

• 1:00:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I don't know about you, but like anytime in Europe, like gelato is just like everywhere.

• 1:00:45Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere.

• 1:00:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I've got like, yeah, I've got like a kid, it's like, yeah, I mean, like, and how could I not?

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:00:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I was absolutely on the street doing air squats, I was doing body weight squats.

• 1:00:55Lewis Howes?

  You're eating and squatting right at the same time?

• 1:00:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  After the gelato. But like, yes, I do stuff like that, where it's like, we were also walking a lot, but I did the body, like, if it was like, I'm gonna eat something that I never eat, that's just really high in sugar, I'm gonna get that, I'm gonna do something.

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  How long are you doing it for? Are you doing like 10 minutes right then or are you doing like?

• 1:01:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, no, I mean, I mean, yeah, I was just doing like a couple of minutes.

• 1:01:16Lewis Howes?

  20 air squats.

• 1:01:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, and then I was continuing walking, so I was still getting that. But, you know, if, if, if it was someone that like, I wasn't like on a vacation, but like, yeah, if you wanna stop and do like five minutes of like body weight squats, it's, it's hard. You do five, yeah.

• 1:01:31Lewis Howes?

  Nonstop, just five minutes?

• 1:01:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I mean, you rest like for like 20 seconds, like, but it's hard.

• 1:01:36Lewis Howes?

  How much benefit would that actually give you? Let's say you have a bucket of ice cream, you know, you eat and then you have, not a bucket, but I mean, like, three scoops of ice cream, you know, you have a lot of ice cream after you eat, big meal, you know, you're having cheese, you're having the breads, you're having everything. Then you got your ice cream. I mean, it's like a glucose spike, right? How much can just five minutes of air squats actually?

• 1:01:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's gonna help a little, but that's a situation where you wanna make sure you have gotten your your 20 or 30 minute exercise in.

• 1:02:06Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 1:02:06Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Or even if you did it earlier in the day.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  Alright.

• 1:02:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, because, but, but add the extra five minutes on top of that.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  It'll really help.

• 1:02:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It, it does. Meal timing, like around the meal time. A little extra helps. But yeah, that's the case where if you're already physically active and you're doing, you do that extra. I like to do mine in the morning.

• 1:02:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's just how I like, even though I perform better, performance wise, if I, if I go for a run in the afternoon, I'll be like faster.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I still like the, the pump I get in the morning.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it feels good to get it complete also.

• 1:02:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It does. It feels good to get it complete.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  Get tired or later in the day sometimes.

• 1:02:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It does, yeah. And then also I was talking about mental, that mental toughness, like when I lift in the morning and I, and I, and I get, I do those like hard squats and stuff. Other, other things are easier.

• 1:02:48Lewis Howes?

  I can do anything today. Let's go.

• 1:02:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But it's true. I mean, I mean, it's not anything. Yeah, it's still hard, but like it is a little easier. It really is. Like I, I for sure know it. It's easier.

• 1:03:00Lewis Howes?

  As one of the leading anti-aging experts in the world, you've been studying this for a long time, right? 20 plus years you've been studying anti-aging, right?

• 1:03:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, I did my first aging experiments 20 years ago.

• 1:03:12Lewis Howes?

  3 years ago.

• 1:03:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That was when I was just, you know, starting my, my-

• 1:03:17Lewis Howes?

  Starting out.

• 1:03:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  My scientific career.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  But you knew this for two decades of anti-aging studying, right? You've been diving deep into this research. As someone who's been studying this for two decades plus, what has been the biggest shock for you in the last few years around how to live longer and anti-aging? That you thought 20 years ago, this is the way, but actually you're starting to wake up and see new research or studies or personal uh, strategies that you're like, oh, that's not the way. This is actually the way.

• 1:03:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, the answer to that would, my, my real answer to that is kinda like more um, hardcore science. And I don't know if you want that or, or not, but it actually has to do with like- 20 years ago, I thought aging was caused by an accumulation of damage that we're just getting over time. So damage just in general to our DNA, to our proteins, to our mitochondria. You know, and you have these hallmarks of aging and you have to go and fix each hallmark, like a surgeon. And it's like you have to fix your genomic instability and you have to fix your mitochondria and you have to fix everything, right? Now, I think aging is a program, past 20 years. I think aging is a program.

• 1:04:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it's something that is in our, it's in our DNA at the level of our epigenome. So our epigenetics, this is, these are things that are sort of, kind of on top of our DNA that turn our genes on and activate them or turn them off and deactivate them. And it comes down to this concept of Dr. Steve Horvath's biological aging clocks. You've heard of these? The biological aging clocks.

• 1:04:56Lewis Howes?

  Like chronological aging versus biological?

• 1:04:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Biological aging, right. And so-

• 1:04:59Lewis Howes?

  How do you test that?

• 1:05:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  They do, there's a variety of tests for it.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  Blood work, is that what it is?

• 1:05:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  There's a blood work test and they test, they're called methyl groups. Essentially, they're just carbon with three hydrogens and there's a pattern of them. On our DNA, there's a pattern of them. And this pattern, I think, is the aging program. I'm following the leading scientists, but now, this is, this is now my belief 20 years later, that there is a program of aging and it's these patterns of these methyl groups on our DNA that change with time, that makes us age. And the reason I think that is because if you think about reproduction, so if you think about like a sperm and an egg, I mean, these aren't young cells. And in the best case scenario, I mean, you've got like a 20-year-old, but like, you know, a lot of people are reproducing at 30 and 40, right?

• 1:05:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So these are older cells, I mean, they're still older even at 20. They're older. They come together, they recombine, their epigenome completely resets and they make a young organism with no sign of aging.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Then interesting.

• 1:06:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No sign of aging.

• 1:06:02Lewis Howes?

  How's that possible?

• 1:06:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The epigenome resets, completely resets, and there's no sign of aging.

• 1:06:08Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of fascinating, isn't it?

• 1:06:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's very fascinating.

• 1:06:09Lewis Howes?

  So how do we reset it within ourselves?

• 1:06:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's the question. And so now, there have been, over the last, I would say, oh, gosh- Five to seven years. There's been a, so, okay, let me take it even a step further back, okay. Back in 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese scientist, won the Nobel Prize for discovering four different genes that are very specific type of genes are called transcription factors because they can regulate a lot of different genes in our body. He discovered that if he could took four of these transcription factors and took any cell from the body, any old cell from an 80-year-old woman, skin cell, and he put these four transcription factor genes on them, on that old 80-year-old cell, he could

• 1:06:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  revert it into an embryonic stem cell. Come on. With no sign of aging, right? It's an embryonic stem cell that now can form any cell in the body. This is a, it's called induced pluripotent stem cell. So it resets the epigenome completely. The cell loses its identity. It doesn't know it's a skin cell anymore. It's an embryonic stem cell. But it can now form any type of cell, right? And so that is also evidence that resetting the epigenome, at least to the very extreme case, right, all the way to the embryonic stem cell state, is a way of reprogramming the cell into a very youthful state. And there's some more lines of evidence. Cloning is another one.

• 1:07:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So you take a nucleus from like an old cell, put it in a young cytoplasm of an egg, and the epigenome is reset and you have a young organism, right? So there's, there's other lines of evidence of this. But in the last five-ish years, there's been some research that have been done by a variety of scientists where they've taken those Yamanaka factors, they're called, the four transcription factors, and they've given them to mice, older mice. And they don't want to make all the mice cells become stem cells, right? Like, they don't want the cell to lose its identity. It'll just be like a blob, right? Right.

• 1:08:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Almost like a big tumor cell or something. Right. What they want is to reset that epigenome in a way to make it, to return it to a more youthful state. And so they've been able to sort of pulse it on, not, you just kind of like, you gotta find the right timing, the right timing. And so they, they, they're, they're making progress with this. And there's been some studies that have shown, you know, you kind of, it's called partial cellular reprogramming, so they're not doing the full-on reprogramming, but they're partially doing it. And it does rejuvenate a lot of aspects of aging in these rodents. There's a lot of hurdles to overcome. And I know that this was the answer you were looking for, but I'm super excited about

• 1:08:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  it. It's very interesting. I think that we are very likely going to through, I think there's this process of epigenetic reprogramming and Altos Labs, they're doing phenomenal research. They have a lot of the top scientists, Dr. Steve Horvath, Dr. Morgan Levine. I've had both of them on my podcast. They're both really good. I mean, Dr. Steve Horvath is the one who, he's the pioneer of the Horvath clocks, the epigenetic clocks that can identify this biological age, this molecular age that really identifies like how old you are versus your chronological age. But I do think that if they can figure out some of these hurdles,

• 1:09:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  that we might have a tune-up where we go and get rejuvenated.

• 1:09:36Lewis Howes?

  Like, what, reverse the clock 10 years overnight or something?

• 1:09:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right, exactly, or more.

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:09:40Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  Come on. How far away are we from this?

• 1:09:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I don't, you know, I don't, I could say a couple decades I could see for sure, like, because things are really growing. Things are growing. And then gene engineering, you know, there's, there's a lot of exponential growth in some of this synthetic biology world where they're, they're, you know, doing all this gene engineering and it's like, they're just really kind of, like, it's kind of phenomenal.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  Are you testing any of this stuff on yourself? Are you doing any stem cell injections or like going to these labs and trying these things? Or are you just researching and noticing?

• 1:10:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I am very cautious when it comes to some of that stuff. So, but it's not that I don't think some of it works. Also, I just, you know, I'm a little bit of a scaredy cat, but I stick with the exercise. I'm just researching.

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  Food, exercise, sleep?

• 1:10:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. And so, and so those are the big things. And, you know, to kind of maybe go back to your question, I would say that, you know, I used to think that, you know, limiting protein was probably like, oh, you're better off being more plant-based. Like, now I don't, I think exercise is the king. I think exercise is the longevity drug that if you could pill it up, we'd all be taking it. We all should be taking it. And I think that the protein is important for fueling our muscles, for improving muscle mass and for repair as well. And so that would be a bigger thing. And also intermittent fasting as well.

• 1:11:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I still try and I still think that it's important to do a type of it, time restricted eating.

• 1:11:17Lewis Howes?

  Because even on your speech that you had with Dr. Valta Longo, he was saying people thought it was 16 hours. Now it's actually more 12 hour time restricted. Is that right? I don't know if that's the new research.

• 1:11:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I don't know exactly what endpoints that he was talking about, but I think the way I sort of think about it is you want to have a fasting period while you're sleeping. Because if the repair processes that we were talking about, to kind of go back to the start of this podcast, is that we were talking about your DNA is repaired when you're sleeping. You're cleaning out stuff inside of your cells, pieces of DNA that from cells dividing that have just kind of fragmented off or gunk, you know, just pieces of cell. Like there's all this gunk in our cells. And that process is cleared out.

• 1:12:05Lewis Howes?

  When you sleep.

• 1:12:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  When you sleep. However, if you had just ate a meal before you hit the pillow, your digestion, all that stuff, that goes on for like five hours. There's a lot of stuff happening.

• 1:12:20Lewis Howes?

  Man, it's so good to eat.

• 1:12:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Energy away from that. The energy ships from repair. It's still in digestive mode.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:12:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So repair mode needs to be fasted.

• 1:12:31Lewis Howes?

  So when should you stop eating before you go to sleep? Like, how much time should you have before you go to sleep?

• 1:12:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think typically it's like three hours are what a lot of the experts like Dr. Sachin Panda have sort of come to the conclusion. Because if you think about, if you had, if you finished eating three hours before you go to sleep, then for the first two hours, you're going to be finishing up the digestion process, right? And then the rest of the time, it's repair mode, right? It's repair mode. So you want to give your body repair mode. And that's where I.

• 1:13:02Lewis Howes?

  Is that no treats? Not even a little snack, a couple of nuts?

• 1:13:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I mean, that's not going to be as big as a meal, right? Like, let's be real. So some people really take it seriously. Like, they don't want to take a vitamin or anything. Like, don't worry about that.

• 1:13:17Lewis Howes?

  Drink water or whatever.

• 1:13:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I take my vitamins like close to bed, you know? So. But, but yeah, you don't want a full-on meal.

• 1:13:23Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:13:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I mean, now, of course, there's, there's times when I've been so obsessive about it where I, then I go to bed hungry and I'm cold because my metabolism is down.

• 1:13:32Lewis Howes?

  You don't sleep well.

• 1:13:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then I don't sleep well. Exactly. I wake up cold all night and I'm like, well, maybe I should have had a little something to eat because that.

• 1:13:39Lewis Howes?

  But isn't it good to sleep cold? Isn't that like dark room, cold?

• 1:13:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's, it's a different kind of cold when.

• 1:13:46Lewis Howes?

  And your bones cold.

• 1:13:47Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's your bones cold. Yeah. It's not like you can put the blanket on and feel.

• 1:13:52Lewis Howes?

  It's eternal cold.

• 1:13:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's like, yeah, it's like that cold that you can't, you just can't fit.

• 1:13:57Lewis Howes?

  Another blanket won't help me.

• 1:14:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. So that's, so yeah, I will say that I, I've decided I'm not, I'm not going to be so obsessive about it.

• 1:14:07Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting.

• 1:14:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But like, with the fasting thing too, it's, what's interesting is, um, I do think that a lot, you know, there's, the, the problem that people could come across is where they, they're skipping so many meals that they're not getting enough protein.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:14:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then are they working out to making, make sure they're at least getting that aspect of increasing, you know, getting that muscle protein synthesis? Because, so if you are going to be doing some intermittent fasting and there's an argument to be made to kind of like, do a little once in a while, sort of just clean out, right? Where you kind of stress your body a little bit and do that. But I feel like, I mean, that's what exercise does. And in fact, exercise activates, vigorous exercise activates a lot of those same repair processes, like autophagy. That's one of the things that's happening when you're not eating.

• 1:14:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:14:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It also happens when you're sleeping and not eating.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:14:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So, um, again, it comes back to exercise forgives a lot of sins, not all of them, but I mean.

• 1:14:59Lewis Howes?

  A lot of them.

• 1:14:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It really does.

• 1:15:00Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you know, food has a, plays a big part of it. What would you say would be a few foods that you would recommend to help with optimal sleep?

• 1:15:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  With optimal sleep?

• 1:15:12Lewis Howes?

  Like what, what three to five foods should we be eating to support us in sleeping better? And what should we remove to help us sleep better?

• 1:15:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So there's a lot, there's, there's been some studies and this isn't, you know, I don't remember the details. Like in great detail, basically. There have been studies that have looked at like, if you eat a high carbohydrate meal for dinner versus a high fat meal versus high protein. And I don't remember all the details. All I remember is that one would improve deep sleep, but the other would improve REM. And so it was this kind of mixed bag where it's like, okay, well, if I am going to do the higher carbohydrate meal, then at least I'm going to get one of those other one. I don't know, I forgot which one it is. Been a few years since I read those studies. But like, if you're looking at like the macronutrient level,

• 1:16:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say that, that it, it seems as though different types of foods are affecting different stages of sleep. Interesting. It is interesting. And it also is, sorry to all the people out there that want to say it's the one or the other. Let's, I'm just going to tell you what the data says is that it's like, I don't remember which one improved the deep sleep and which one. Because honestly, I don't know that, you know, I, yeah, eating your meal right before bed also kind of disrupts your sleep. And I think that might be even more important than like what you're eating. As well as getting that physical activity earlier in the day makes a difference. And then the other thing that I think is even more important than the food is heat stress. Like doing a hot tub or a sauna.

• 1:16:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That, if you do that, pretty close to bedtime, like not necessarily right before bed, but like maybe a couple of hours before bed. It really seems to improve sleep. Really? Yeah, and there's a lot of potential reasons for that. But, um, you know, like growth hormone being one, you know, and also like it increases the, what are called somnogenic cytokines. So when you, when you get in a hot tub or sauna, you're actually increasing some inflammatory markers that are also called somnogenic cytokines because they induce sleep. And so. There's a reason. Now, you want to be able to cool off. You're talking about being cool. You don't want to like get in the sauna, then get right into bed. You're sweating in bed and then you can't

• 1:17:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  go to sleep. But usually if you take like a shower, a cooler shower after that, you know, or some people like to get in their, their cold plunge, but you don't have a cold plunge and just do a shower.

• 1:17:38Lewis Howes?

  Cold shower.

• 1:17:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, and then it really does. In fact, my husband is religious about it. Every night he has to do, he does the hot tub.

• 1:17:45Lewis Howes?

  And then cold?

• 1:17:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then cold, cold plunge. And then.

• 1:17:48Lewis Howes?

  He sleeps like a baby?

• 1:17:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Sleeps like a baby, like, because I, I don't have as much trouble falling asleep. Like, I get, he's more of a night person.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Like, I, I can go to bed at nine, nine, I'll be asleep at nine thirty, no problem. Uh, so.

• 1:18:01Lewis Howes?

  So the cold doesn't keep him awake?

• 1:18:03Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, mm-mm. It doesn't. No, I know a lot of people use the cold to kind of get that like norepinephrine burst where you wake up in the morning and you get that hit and you feel good and you're starting, um, no, I'm sure while he's in it, but it's like, it, maybe the combination with the heat does something.

• 1:18:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:18:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, because he doesn't just do the cold.

• 1:18:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's hot and cold. And then he's like, alright, I'm tired.

• 1:18:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But he does the hot for a while and then gets into the cold. Probably he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to like be sweating.

• 1:18:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, if you could create an optimal day protocol, let's just say you have all things perfect in life, and you can wake up, go to sleep at a certain time, eat what you want, train the way you want, do hot, do cold, like, you have a perfect day all the time in the world. How would you set up your perfect day protocol with sleep, food, and workouts?

• 1:18:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Perfect for, um, for like being healthy.

• 1:19:00Lewis Howes?

  For, for, yeah, optimal human.

• 1:19:02Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yes.

• 1:19:03Lewis Howes?

  Protocol for longevity, for optimal strength currently, like, what would that perfect day look like for you? What would you eat? When would you wake up?

• 1:19:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Lewis Howes?

  How would you train? Would you do any like heat, cold, you know, any of that stuff?

• 1:19:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:17Lewis Howes?

  Would you do a, a, a oxygen chamber?

• 1:19:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  All the time, all the time.

• 1:19:21Lewis Howes?

  Anything you could do.

• 1:19:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Okay, so what I would do is wake up when I would naturally wake up.

• 1:19:26Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:19:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I typically naturally wake up around seven AM, and.

• 1:19:31Lewis Howes?

  No alarm, though, just wake up naturally?

• 1:19:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I don't, yeah, I mean, the only time I use an alarm is if I have to wake up before seven, like I'm doing a sunrise hike or something, or I'm in another, um, time zone or something and I have to use it. But I would wake up naturally, um, which is usually around seven AM. I personally like to have coffee, so I, you know, I have my coffee. And then sometimes I'll do like a little bit of like maybe a protein shake or I'll have some like egg or something like very light that's protein. And then I'll go outside because I want that early morning light exposure to reset my circadian rhythm so that I again fall asleep at the right time.

• 1:20:17Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And it's really that light exposure early in the morning is very important for that resetting of the circadian rhythm. I would go outside and I work out. I work out outside. Actually, almost all the time. Really? I work out outside. I do my lifting outside. So I would go out and I would do my sort of CrossFit training protocol, which I love. And so this was, it's like an hour long workout and I do some resistance training. Depending on the day, maybe I'll do some squats and deadlifts. Mix it in with a workout, maybe some rowing in there. Burpees, a little pushups, you know, I'm getting, getting, getting the best of both worlds. I'm getting the hit and the, the resistance training. I do that for an hour.

• 1:20:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then I would probably have the sauna already on. And it would be about 175. I don't like to go too high these days. Like about 175, especially after a workout. And I go in the sauna and I would either listen to some music or maybe a podcast that I'm interested in listening to, or maybe read a book or read a science study. And so I'd be in there for about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how I'm feeling. And sometimes I'll put some water on the rocks to get steam. I like the steam as well. So I do that. Then I'll get out and then I'll have my bigger protein meal. So I'll have.

• 1:21:43Lewis Howes?

  So a little bit of food before the workout, then more after.

• 1:21:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I like, I like a little bit because especially if you're going a little bit harder and you're doing some high intensity. I find that it helps me not get so dizzy.

• 1:21:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Gets you more energy too.

• 1:21:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so, so I mentioned like I'll have like a protein shake. Sometimes I'll also have like a half an apple. Like I'll cut half an apple from my. Something like I like a little bit of, of something. And then after that I'll have my meal, like I'll have a frittata, egg frittata that has broccoli in it. I'll have a big serving of it. And then I'll have some, I like my yerba mate tea. So I don't drink too much coffee. I certainly don't, I, I usually only have one cup in the morning. Sometimes I'll have two, but most of the time I, I go to the yerba mate, hot tea, loose leaf tea. And I'll make that after I have my meal and then I like to sit down and do some science, read some science, like what's the latest.

• 1:22:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I get into all that, you know, cognitive stimulation is very important, right? It's very important to keep the mind sharp and cognitive stimulation is also very important for brain drive neurotrophic factor. We're talking about exercise increasing it. Well, cognitive stimulation does as well. Novelty, learning something new, all those things are important. So having a podcast like the School of Greatness where you're constantly, you know, learning new things, it's very, very good for the brain. So I, so I like to do that while I'm drinking my yerba mate tea. And then the afternoon, I will get hungry again and I will, I will have two homemade turkey burgers. Another, I'm, I'm really getting big on the, the protein, but then I also have some kale and blueberries in a shake together.

• 1:23:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And that also really kind of gives me a brain boost. I don't know what it is. I think it's the polyphenols and the blueberries, but I'm not alone in that, like other people.

• 1:23:32Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:23:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Talked about it, where it's like, instead of having the caffeine that mid afternoon, I get the blueberries. And there's studies showing that it improves cognition and memory across the lifespan. Young, young children, adolescence, older age. Boom. So I do that and.

• 1:23:47Lewis Howes?

  What's the next best thing besides blueberries that will give you that?

• 1:23:51Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  CocoVia has been shown that. So it's a type of cacao powder that has very, very similar polyphenols.

• 1:23:58Lewis Howes?

  CocoVia?

• 1:23:59Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, that's the brand name I use and because they're, they're. Powder has been you has been shown in clinical studies to improve blood flow to the brain, to improve cognition and memory in older adults. So, and also blood pressure, it's been shown to improve blood pressure. In fact, I've gotten my mom and people in my family to use it and have improvements in their blood pressure as well.

• 1:24:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:24:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:22Lewis Howes?

  So it's like a cocoa powder?

• 1:24:23Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's a cocoa powder that's unflavored. You could put it, I usually, I don't usually put it in my smoothie, you could. I usually put it in, I usually drink like a, especially in the wintertime, I do like a, like a cocoa. So I'll put cocoa via with some water and then I'll mix in a little bit of like monk fruit or stevia. And I'll just drink that.

• 1:24:41Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:24:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Um, so.

• 1:24:42Lewis Howes?

  Just water blended in or mix it in?

• 1:24:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right.

• 1:24:44Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:24:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. You don't want to put milk or dairy in there because it blunts the polyphenol. It binds up the polyphenols and then you're not going to get the same effect. So if you're gonna, if you like.

• 1:24:53Lewis Howes?

  Almond milk or no?

• 1:24:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Almond milk's fine. If you like creaminess, almond milk would work, but you don't want like dairy.

• 1:24:58Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay.

• 1:24:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But, so that, so that.

• 1:25:00Lewis Howes?

  So give it a, okay.

• 1:25:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So you're telling me that, I'm telling you like my perfect day that I, you know, can do, right? Um, so turkey burgers and then, um, you know, then I would say on the ideal day, then I like to go out and do just a couple mile run in the, in like, in like, this is about, I would say three o'clock in the afternoon. Um, usually I do it when my son's at soccer. It's like, what else am I going to do?

• 1:25:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But I'll.

• 1:25:24Lewis Howes?

  Jog around.

• 1:25:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I jog around the trail. And this is like, I love it. I feel when I get that second exercise thing in, and it's not like a long, you know, it's 20 minutes or whatever. I'm doing like, like a, okay. It's not like a long, and I'm not going hard.

• 1:25:37Lewis Howes?

  Jog, fast jog.

• 1:25:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, it's like a zone two type of, I could like, you know, have a, have a breathy conversation. I'll do some intervals. I'll mix, I'll run a little faster. So I will kind of do a little bit of intervals in there sometimes. Um, but, but I like to get that, like, those are the best days when I get that second hit of exercise in.

• 1:25:54Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:25:54Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Um, about three o'clock. And then, um, it's time to.

• 1:26:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Let's see, did I do any supplements in the morning? No, I usually do my supplements. Sometimes I'll take an omega-3 in the morning as well. These days I've been only doing it at night. So then I get to dinnertime and dinner, I like to have some nice protein. And then I like to have either roasted vegetables or a salad. So I like to get some more vegetables in there and salad. Also, sometimes I'll have, you know, an orange or an apple or something for dessert. And I know people are conservative for fruit. I think fruit's great. I just don't eat nonstop fruit. So I'll have that as well. And then I'll get my, this is when I get my supplements. So I do a lot of, I do a lot of vitamins.

• 1:26:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So I do about two grams of omega-3. Usually it's about two to one ratio EPA, DHA. And then I do, let's see, so the omega-3, then do vitamin D. So I take around, I total around 4,000 IUs of vitamin D a day. So I get like 2,000 in a vitamin D supplement, plus 2,000 in my, in my multivitamin. So I take a multivitamin as well. And then I take magnesium glycinate. And then I take another product called magnesium, which is like a powder I put in my water that I take all my vitamins with. And it's got like a mixture of some other magnesium, organic magnesium salts as well. And then I take alpha-lipoic acid.

• 1:27:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Are you wanting all the, all the perfect stuff? Alpha-lipoic acid, which has been shown to blunt the advanced glycation end products. So it's been shown to lower those in clinical studies. In fact, people with type 2 diabetes, it's been shown to improve their ages. So I take that. And then I take benfotamine, another, another vitamin that's been shown to help with advanced glycation end products. Pretty, that's an important aspect that I'm focused on. And that's just a fat soluble vitamin B1. Take that. And then I take lutein and zeaxanthin for my eyes. I take CoQ10. And then I take, I'm probably gonna miss something. I take sulforaphane. Sulforaphane helps detoxify a lot of terrible things that we're exposed to, like plastic chemicals

• 1:28:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  like BPA, but also air pollution factors as well. It activates a very powerful detoxification system in our bodies. I take that. And then.

• 1:28:23Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be without taking supplements? You think you'd still be as healthy and optimal as you are? Or is it just more of a psychological boost for you?

• 1:28:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  No, no. I mean, so look, I'll tell you, the omega-3 one's critical. So there's studies that have now shown that having a low omega-3 index is like smoking.

• 1:28:43Lewis Howes?

  Come on, really? Wow.

• 1:28:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's like smoking. So omega-3 levels, as measured by the omega-3 index. So this is like measuring it in your red blood cells. It's a long-term marker of omega-3. It's a beautiful study that was done by Dr. Bill Harris. It was a Framingham cohort, published a few years ago. And he looked at people's omega-3 levels, so high or low. High would be 8%, low would be 4%. He's the pioneer of the omega-3 index. And basically, people that were non-smokers but had a low omega-3 index had the same life expectancy as smokers with a high omega-3 index.

• 1:29:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:29:22Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I mean, if you look at their life expectancy curve, they're overlaid. I mean, it's like, I wish I could pull up the figure. It's mind-blowing.

• 1:29:29Lewis Howes?

  And the only way you can get omega-3, is that from fish?

• 1:29:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So, no. Yes. Seafood is, seafood is the major, that's what's gonna drive your omega-3 index. It needs to be EPA, DHA, that's from the marine sources. ALA, the plant source of omega-3, can be converted into those two other omega-3 fatty acids very, very inefficiently. And so, really, you need to get the marine source. For people that are vegetarians or vegans, microalgae is the source, or microalgae oil. You have to take a lot of it. But studies have found that, so people with 4% omega-3 index, that's low. Actually, people in the US, the average omega-3 index is like 5%.

• 1:30:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  If you take two grams of omega-3, so supplemental omega-3 per day for, was it like three months or so, then, or three or four months, then you can go from a 4% low omega-3 index to a 8% high omega-3 index. And people that have an 8% omega-3 index have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to the people with low.

• 1:30:33Lewis Howes?

  Come on, really?

• 1:30:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  If you think about Japan, Japan, they have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to the US on average.

• 1:30:40Lewis Howes?

  They have a lot of fish in their diet.

• 1:30:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Their omega-3 index is 10%, ours is 5%. So their average omega-3 index is 10%, our average here in the US is 5%.

• 1:30:50Lewis Howes?

  And that's just connected to fish?

• 1:30:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's connected to fish intake, right.

• 1:30:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow. But you can't eat too much fish because of mercury, right?

• 1:30:57Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I mean, it depends on the type of fish you're eating too, right? So like, the best types of fish to eat would be salmon, mackerel, sardines, like, these are high omega-3 but low mercury fish. And there's actually even studies showing that the omega-3 fatty acids protect against the mercury to some degree. You don't want to eat swordfish every day, swordfish is very high. Like, that's a very real thing. If you can get, like, really high mercury levels, then it can be bad. But if you're eating, like, I eat salmon like three times a week, you know, and maybe four sometimes. I eat salmon a lot. But I also take my omega-3 supplements. So it came back to that question is, do you think you could get away from all the supplements? I mean, I do think that there's a few that are really important, omega-3 and vitamin

• 1:31:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  D, you know, you can make it from the sun. It is a, it gets converted into a steroid hormone, very, very important, very important. It's a steroid hormone, regulating, you know, 5% of the human genome. So without it, lots of stuff's going wrong. But, you know, there's a lot of things that regulate whether or not you can make vitamin D, right, where you live. How much melanin you have in your skin, that's a natural sunscreen, if you wear sunscreen or if you have a lot of protective clothing. As you get older, you're four times less efficient at making it. So lots of things, right? So that's where the supplement does help. So I don't, you know,

• 1:32:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say, no, I would, I would want, I would want those couple of supplements.

• 1:32:24Lewis Howes?

  Do you have a list on your site anywhere of all the supplements you take?

• 1:32:27Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I don't have a list on my site. I do have, I do talk about it on my, on my membership. I have a lot of Q and As I do once a month.

• 1:32:33Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 1:32:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I, I, I'm thinking about something like, you know, having some kind of maybe list because other people have lists of the supplements.

• 1:32:40Lewis Howes?

  Everyone's got their list, right?

• 1:32:41Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Not necessarily right.

• 1:32:42Lewis Howes?

  Really? Well, I want your list then. That's what I want.

• 1:32:45Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah. But my list changes a lot.

• 1:32:47Lewis Howes?

  And that's the thing. It's like what you took two years ago is different than this year.

• 1:32:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is. It changes a lot. Like sometimes I

• 1:32:53Lewis Howes?

  You need a rolling list, you know, you need an updateable list.

• 1:32:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  What do I like, I'll like, is this really like, I used to take NAD, like, you know, precursors.

• 1:33:02Lewis Howes?

  If you could only take three supplements a day, and this, you're only allowed three right now, what would you take consistently?

• 1:33:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would take omega three, vitamin D, and sulforaphane.

• 1:33:13Lewis Howes?

  Okay. To simplify it for people. If they're like, I can't take these 30 supplements and I don't know, you know,

• 1:33:18Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:18Lewis Howes?

  Which brands are good, which ones are not good?

• 1:33:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But I would definitely make sure I'm getting my magnesium from my food. Because I left that one out.

• 1:33:25Lewis Howes?

  So magnesium?

• 1:33:26Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I left that one. Well, if I only had three.

• 1:33:28Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. But then you'd be focusing on the magnesium based foods.

• 1:33:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  My leafy greens and my nuts, like almonds are very high in magnesium. Right. Because, because I want to make sure I'm getting, you know, meeting the

• 1:33:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, top five supplements. What if you could only get five supplements a day? What would those top five be?

• 1:33:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Omega three.

• 1:33:44Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:33:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Vitamin D.

• 1:33:45Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:33:46Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Sulforaphane, magnesium, and the multivitamin.

• 1:33:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay. That seems more reasonable.

• 1:33:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  That's the top five.

• 1:33:55Lewis Howes?

  What is sulforaphane?

• 1:33:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, sulforaphane is, it's

• 1:34:00Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  A compound that is made from a precursor that is found in certain types of cruciferous vegetables, so these are broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, those types of vegetables. It's really, the precursor is called glucoraphanin, and when you break the plant, like by chewing it, or you break the plant wall, the glucoraphanin becomes, comes in contact with an enzyme called myrosinase that breaks it down into a compound called sulforaphane.

• 1:34:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:34:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So, sulforaphane is really high in broccoli sprouts. In fact, it's a hundred times higher than mature broccoli. Sprouting broccoli is another option. Broccoli sprouts is another option. I prefer to just take a supplement that, you have to find a good one, so there's a couple of good ones, avmecal and prostophane.

• 1:34:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:34:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And brok, they're all sort of, those are like the high, the high quality sulforaphane supplements. But sulforaphane activates a pathway in your body called N R F two. That's a major, major activator of a lot of different genes in our body that get rid of toxic compounds like carcinogens. So like if you're eating, let's say you're eating bacon, you can be exposed to something called heterocyclic amines, which can cause cancer. Well, activating N R F two through sulforaphane can stop your body from getting those terrible heterocyclic amines, right?

• 1:35:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:35:25Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  So it's very good at detoxifying carcinogens, but also other factors like air pollution, bending that you breathe in. I'm concerned with plastic chemicals like B P A, B P S. I think it's very good at detoxifying that because it does the same, it activates pathways that are able to take B P A and make it water soluble because you excrete a lot of B P A through your urine. So, that's why I think sulforaphane is very important.

• 1:35:48Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Was this, I don't know if I interrupted you for your perfect day, but that would be the, would there be anything else?

• 1:35:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, so I take my supplements and then Sometimes I also like to do a little hot tub at night as well. And so that would be like the end of the day would be hot tub relaxing outside under the stars. With some relaxing music, conversation with my husband and then bedtime.

• 1:36:15Lewis Howes?

  Sounds like a good day.

• 1:36:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, that's my idea. Like cold exposure wasn't in there. I add, I mix it up. Sometimes in the summer, I like to do it when it's really hot. Or like there's like a big event and it helps me with anxiety. But my major jam these days is just exercise, like getting out there and like getting at it.

• 1:36:31Lewis Howes?

  A couple of times a day would be great for you.

• 1:36:32Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is. Those are my best days.

• 1:36:34Lewis Howes?

  When you get two in.

• 1:36:35Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  When I get two in. Yeah.

• 1:36:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow. This is amazing. I'm so glad that you came back on the show. I want to tell people what, where they can get your stuff because you've got a lot of great reports, podcasts, everything. So if people aren't following you yet, we're going to have all this linked up. But is it more audio that you want to send people to or the YouTube is where you focus on more for your podcasts? Because you have an amazing resource that I want people to get.

• 1:37:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Well, you know, I like both. I think YouTube.

• 1:37:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay, cool. But if they can listen on audio as well, but YouTube is kind of where you put more focus right now?

• 1:37:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  YouTube is.

• 1:37:12Lewis Howes?

  We'll link up the YouTube. It's found my fitness, Dr. Rhonda Patrick's show over there. But make sure you guys subscribe. Make sure you listen to it, watch it. It's amazing content. And you only put it out once in a while when you've really done research on a subject where you go deep on something. So it's important to be watching, listening and subscribe to it when it comes out because it's all great stuff. And this stuff is evolving. You know, the research, the science seems like it's evolving. So you're getting the latest stuff, you're implementing it and then you're sharing it with everyone, right?

• 1:37:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right. And that's kind of like the idea why like my exercise journey where I've come up with this with how to train guide, right? How to train and it's like that's from my journey of interviewing the experts and then saying, I gotta put this together into a more protocols based guide. Right. And I've got a few of those where.

• 1:38:00Lewis Howes?

  I saw the, I saw the how to train one and they can go, it's a free guide?

• 1:38:04Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's a free guide. Yeah. How to train.com.

• 1:38:06Lewis Howes?

  How to train.com.

• 1:38:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Oh, sorry. How to train guide.com.

• 1:38:09Lewis Howes?

  How to train guide.com. You've got a few other guides as well, but that one is really like I watched it and breaks down everything from every muscle group on how to do exactly what you need to do to optimize it. Right?

• 1:38:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Right.

• 1:38:20Lewis Howes?

  For all the training from aerobic to lifting to HIIT, all that stuff.

• 1:38:24Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Based on the experts.

• 1:38:25Lewis Howes?

  Based on the science. The other one you have is.

• 1:38:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's the omega-3 one, too. I have an omega-3, omega-3 guide. It's FMF Omega 3 Guide.

• 1:38:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so if you want to learn the best supplements.

• 1:38:38Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It's, it's, it's about how to find the best omega-3 supplement, like what matters. And then I have like, I list eight different brands that are quality based on low oxidation status is big. That's like a really important one. And concentration of actually, there's so many supplements that don't even have the concentration of what you think is in there, in there. And so, so that's like a guide on like choosing the best omega-3 supplement.

• 1:39:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect. So we'll have that one linked up, F M F Omega 3 Guide dot com. And you've got one more, Protocol for Improving Cognitive Memory, which is huge.

• 1:39:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, it's the B D N F Protocols dot com. That's the B D N F Protocols Guide. Talks a lot, it talks about the, the easy hit exercises that have been shown to increase B D N F, as well as other things like polyphenols and how much. And other dietary factors that have been shown to improve and increase B D N F. It's why I do the cocoa via, it's why I do the blueberries.

• 1:39:32Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:39:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Those increase B D N F.

• 1:39:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm not a fan of blueberries, like the taste and the flavor. So the cocoa via powder, I'm gonna try that for sure.

• 1:39:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Try it. I try it out. Like, I actually feel, like, you can feel a, like, a pick-me-up from it, too. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there's a little bit of caffeine in cocoa, right? But I don't think that's it.

• 1:39:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:39:52Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Because there's, it's the blood flow. I'm almost certain. It's like, it increases blood flow to the brain.

• 1:39:56Lewis Howes?

  And is the, about the same amount as a couple of blueberries or something, or that would give you the?

• 1:40:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  The amount is, it's a scoop, and I think it's in the, in the protocols guide. But if you buy the cocoa via, by the way, I have no affiliation with them. You buy, I buy the powder. They have capsules as well. I buy the powder and I do a scoop of the powder. There's something about it being in hot liquid that kind of just goes to the brain, you know what I mean? Plus, it has that like coffee, it's like, oh, it feels like coffee effect. But I do one scoop.

• 1:40:27Lewis Howes?

  In hot water.

• 1:40:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  In hot water and I mix it up with the frother.

• 1:40:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:40:31Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And then.

• 1:40:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like a little hot chocolate.

• 1:40:33Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  It is, it is. You have to add a little stevia or something.

• 1:40:36Lewis Howes?

  To make it sweeter, it's bitter.

• 1:40:37Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Otherwise, otherwise, you're gonna be chugging it.

• 1:40:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, it's like, huh, okay.

• 1:40:42Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Very bitter.

• 1:40:43Lewis Howes?

  So they can get all these protocols there. We'll link it up as well. And I'm assuming they're on your website as well, correct? Foundmyfitness.com or?

• 1:40:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Foundmyfitness.com. All the guides aren't there. They're kind of like separate. Yeah, so like they're separate.

• 1:40:56Lewis Howes?

  We'll link them up. We'll link them up for people. You're on social media as well, everywhere, Found My Fitness. What's your main social media space right now? Is it mostly on YouTube? Are you on Instagram?

• 1:41:08Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, I'm on YouTube. I also have a clip channel where we do release something every day.

• 1:41:13Lewis Howes?

  There you go, on YouTube.

• 1:41:14Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Definitely every week, yeah. Found My Fitness Clips. But the main channel is where we release our long interview expert series. And I'm on X, Found My Fitness, Rhonda Patrick. And then I'm on Instagram also as Rhonda Patrick. I'm also on TikTok, although not as popular. We post, but not quite as popular on TikTok yet. There's a lot to compete with there.

• 1:41:42Lewis Howes?

  There's a lot. There's a lot. You should get on there, though. I think we could have someone post your content there for sure. Couple final questions for you. Before I ask Rhonda, I want to acknowledge you for the 20 years of consistency and saying, and also constantly researching and questioning your current beliefs or your previous beliefs and saying, how can I improve these beliefs? How can I not hold on to these? If there's something new, I'm willing to try that and share that with people as well. And I think that's really important that you're willing to do that. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly being in this mission to serve humanity, to help people learn this information, learn easier, because it does seem so confusing. There's so much content out there teaching stuff.

• 1:42:26Lewis Howes?

  And, you know, I feel like I have so many different leading experts on and I'm still confused sometimes. So I appreciate you for breaking down like an optimal day and explaining it step by step. And also trying to simplify some of these things because it can seem so overwhelming. And a lot of people don't have your brain. So I appreciate you creating guides for people. Like, here's a step-by-step approach. And I'm just grateful that you are alive today because we need people like you to help us be better. So I'm grateful that you're constantly diving the research and helping people. So thank you for what you do and for being here and for sharing this on my show. It means a lot. It's been four years, so I'm glad you're back. And I want to acknowledge you for

• 1:43:11Lewis Howes?

  Implementing this in your life, you seem like you're, I told you before, when I saw you a few weeks ago and today, I was like, man, you look really healthy, really fit, strong, like younger. So you're applying this to yourself and I'm glad you're implementing it because sometimes there's experts that teach, but they don't do it themselves. So I'm grateful you're doing it for yourself and seeing the benefits. It seems like it's really working. So, congrats on everything.

• 1:43:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Thank you so much, Lewis. Very, very kind words. I'm very appreciative to have the opportunity to come and chat with you and I appreciate everything that you said. It's very nice.

• 1:43:44Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:43:44Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  And I, yeah, I'd love to come back anytime and chat with you again, for sure.

• 1:43:48Lewis Howes?

  We'll make it happen, for sure. I think I asked you this question, I have two final questions. I think I asked you this before, but I'm curious if it's gonna be a different answer. It's called the three truths. So imagine hypothetical scenario, you get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on earth. And you get to, so you get to live as long as you want, 100, 200, whatever you want, but eventually you gotta die. You get to accomplish everything you want in this life. All your dreams come true, but for whatever reason, you can't take, you have to take all of your work with you. So everything you've created in this life, you gotta take it somewhere else. Whether you die, it's just gotta erase, or it's just not here for the world. So this conversation's

• 1:44:31Lewis Howes?

  gone. All your content you've made on your podcast, gone. Books, it's all gone, hypothetical. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three truths. And this is all we would have of your content, three lessons. What would those three truths be for you?

• 1:44:49Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  For all of my content? Okay, not for like life?

• 1:44:52Lewis Howes?

  Just from like, only three things you can leave behind, these lessons, what would those three things be?

• 1:44:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I would say...

• 1:45:01Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Exercise, get out there and make it a part of your personal hygiene. I think that exercise, it not only makes us healthier and improves the way we age. I think it makes us better humans. I think it makes us kinder, it makes us happier, it makes us, you know, just better people. And I think that affects the world. Yes. So if we could get everyone to like do, you know, five hours of exercise a week where they're doing like one hour a day during their work week. I really think that people would be nicer to each other. So that would be number one.

• 1:45:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think number two would be social connections with the people that you love. And to foster them and cherish them. That's, we didn't talk about that today and the role that plays in aging. Which is something, it does play a big role in aging. In fact, all the super agers seem to have this, you know, social connections is a very big, you know, not being lonely, like, like losing all your friends and not having that social connection is devastating on, on the body and the brain. And it does age you faster.

• 1:46:20Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  But also, again, it comes down to that like connectedness, like, like connecting with people. It's just, it's, it's so good. It's so, I don't, I don't, I don't know that it's better than or worse than like vitamin D, right? Like it's, it's so important. And I didn't talk about that in my perfect day, but it actually is a part of my big day. I have a family and I spend a lot of time with my family. So that would be number two. And I think number three would be that.

• 1:46:56Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think, I think there's a lot of potential people are missing in terms of their optimizing their, their health, their own health and their own lifespan and life expectancy and health span. And it, it all comes down to shifting a focus on what you need. What are the things that you need like to run your body, right? So we need essential vitamins and minerals. Like if you don't get vitamin C, eventually you could die, right? So magnesium, like these are 30 to 40 essential minerals and vitamins. We need these fatty acids. We

• 1:47:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  need amino acids. Like shift your thinking to what you need to fuel your body and everything else will fall into place. Instead of focusing on what you need, avoiding refined carbohydrates. Well, if you think about what you need to eat, that's not going to be in the equation. So it already goes away, right? And I think it's a simplified way of thinking about health, especially nutrition.

• 1:48:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Okay. So exercise daily, social connections, and focus on the food and vitamins you need.

• 1:48:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Yeah, the food and the vitamins that you need to run your body, right?

• 1:48:20Lewis Howes?

  It's optimizing, yeah. That's beautiful. I love those truths. Simple. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:48:28Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Ooh. I know, that's a hard one. So I think for me, my definition of greatness is really trying to push past my mental barriers, things that hold me back, things I'm afraid of, my fears, and

• 1:48:55Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  To avoid thinking and seeing, to try to see less of the negative and more of the positive, seeing less of the problems and more of the solutions.

• 1:49:07Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  I think that for me greatness is really pushing past the fears and negativity, I think. If I get past that, things are really great. I think last time I talked about honesty as being my greatness. And I think that's definitely still part of my greatness. But yeah, I think just getting past the hard, hard stuff is greatness. So whether it's in my social relationships, you know, or like being a parent, being a wife, being a daughter, or being a podcaster, or being a scientist, you know,

• 1:49:50Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  in every part of what makes me who I am, there are things that hold me back. There are things I'm scared of, and there are things that I can identify a lot of problems in without seeing the solutions. And I think that those are not greatness. I think that's holding me back from greatness.

• 1:50:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Rob, I appreciate it. Thank you for being here.

• 1:50:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:50:13Lewis Howes?

  It's powerful. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this and if you found value, make sure to share this with one friend. Just copy and paste the link and text a friend where you feel would be truly inspired by this episode as well. And also make sure to click the follow button on Apple or Spotify, wherever you're listening to this episode, because we have a massive episode coming up next that I do not want you to miss. So make sure to follow this and be on the lookout for the next episode coming with some massive content and guests. Also, I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in

• 1:50:57Lewis Howes?

  your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to Make Money Easy book. com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:51:41Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.