PART TWO: Key Supplements & The Science Behind Why They Work | Dr. Rhonda Patrick

What if aging didn’t have to mean decline? Dr. Rhonda Patrick (Ph. D. in biomedical science, expert in nutritional biochemistry and aging, and founder of FoundMyFitness) reveals the cutting-edge science behind living longer, feeling sharper, and preventing disease with evidence-based lifestyle changes. In this powerful conversation, Dr. Patrick uncovers the hidden nutrient deficiencies that may be driving depression and anxiety, and how your daily habits could be quietly accelerating inflammation, cognitive decline, and chronic illness. Learn why creatine may be the brain-boosting supplement you’re missing, the 2-minute "exercise snack" can rewire your brain and boost metabolic health, how running may outperform antidepressants for mood regulation, why living near a golf course might increase your toxic exposure and how alcohol affects women’s brains more severely than men’s. She also breaks down how much protein you really need (especially for vegans), coffee’s health benefits and how to brew it for maximum antioxidants, the role of nutrigenomics in disease prevention and personalized nutrition. If you're curious about longevity science, biohacking, or how to boost your brain and body without overhauling your life, this Dr. Rhonda Patrick interview is packed with practical, science-backed tools to upgrade your healthspan and feel better starting today. The Cognitive Enhancement Blueprint: https://bdnfprotocols.com/ The Omega-3 Supplementation Guide: https://fmfomega3guide.com/ How to Train According to the Experts: https://howtotrainguide.com/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/ BialikBreakdown.com https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOocPnDh2YQZZwh86K2OxA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:05Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mindy Alex.

• 1:06Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:07Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to part two of our conversation with scientist and health educator Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Make sure to follow us on Mindy Alex Breakdown at Substack for never-before-seen clips and episodes, and also some fun behind-the-scenes stuff, including from today's episode. As a reminder, Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a scientist and health educator recognized for leadership in nutrition, aging, and disease prevention, specialist in omega-3 fatty acids, mitochondrial metabolism. We're going to talk about so many different aspects of nutrition and also things that you can avoid to keep yourself optimally healthy in part two of our conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

• 1:48Mayim Bialik?

  I have a question as someone who happens to be vegan, but I think it's a question that everybody wants to have your answer on. What's up with protein? Like, are we getting too much? Which is what many of us have been told. Like, chill out, don't worry. Like, you're getting protein. There's protein in pasta. There's protein in rice, and don't freak out. Then, we went through a phase of like Jonathan eating his body weight in protein twice a day. There was a huge emphasis, especially among, I heard it among like men, of like, all the protein, all the meat, also add creatine, like, eat collagen, like, be a hunk of protein. What's the story with protein? And what is the perspective for women versus men? Is it a similar conversation?

• 2:33Mayim Bialik?

  I need to know.

• 2:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's funny. There's been, you know, in the aging field, which is where I'm sort of in, it's also been this thing where for the longest time, well, you don't want too much protein because that's going to accelerate aging. It's going to increase cancer risk. And, and this is largely done in animal studies, like rodents. And so, and there's lots of mechanism work there. And so, you know, you're kind of thinking, oh, well, protein's aging you. That's because it's activating growth pathways and that's involved in cancer. And, you know, so you want to, you want to kind of dial back on the protein.

• 3:06Mayim Bialik?

  This is also animal-based protein, correct? A lot of these studies were animal-based protein because most countries that, you know, get enough protein are actually not getting it from animal sources.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yes, so.

• 3:17Mayim Bialik?

  Except the United States.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Animal-based protein has a high concentration of essential amino acids, particularly leucine. And that is the sort of switch for some of these growth pathways like the mTOR pathway, but also IGF-1. These are both two pathways that are sort of involved in the aging process. So, yes, to some degree, that was kind of like animal, animal protein. And then there's like all this human data that was observational data that came out that was looking at all-cause mortality, cancer-related mortality. And it looked like, oh, if you ate. Protein from plants, you had a lower all-cause mortality. You had lower cancer-related mortality compared to the meat eaters. Well, it turns out, like, after then adjusting and looking at all these other healthy, healthier,

• 4:01Speaker 04

  unhealthy lifestyle factors, the meat eaters, if they had no unhealthy lifestyle factors, so they weren't overweight, they weren't sedentary, they weren't excessively drinking or smoking. Right. They had the same mortality as the vegan. Right. So, what it comes down to, and when you ask me, what about protein? So, look, protein is essential, right? We need protein to make proteins in our body. Everything, everything that we're doing, everything that's going on in our bodies is from proteins, and proteins require amino acids to be made. Our muscle also requires protein as well, and that's probably what most people are thinking about when they think about protein, they think about their muscle. And the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight. And that is probably where you're hearing a lot of people say, we're not getting enough protein.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  And the reason for that is because when that RDA was set, gosh, how many decades ago? I don't remember. Quite a few. Yeah. When that was set, the studies that were done- It has to be close to a century ago. I mean, no, I think it was like, oh, gosh, was it the- 30s, 40s? I think it was 60s, yeah. I think. I don't know. Well, someone can look that up. Yes, go ahead. But, but the point is, is that the studies that were done to, basically, the way that RDA was determined was, okay, how many, I mean, how much amino acids can we lose in a day without going into a negative balance, right? Because we don't actually store amino acids like we store triglycerides, we store fat

• 5:30Speaker 04

  in the form of triglycerides, or we store glucose in the form of glycogen, right? We don't store amino acids. Well, our muscles actually are the biggest storage of them, right? But you don't want to be breaking down your muscle tissue to get amino acids. And so, that was determined based off of- 1941. 1941, all right. 1941. Because in the middle of World War II, they were like, let's work on this.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  So basically, the studies that were done were to determine whether or not that was enough, how much protein you needed to take in to prevent, like, basically your body from losing more protein. And it turns out that the studies were kind of flawed and the guesses were sort of overestimated. And so more studies have been done recently with newer technologies that have determined, actually, it's more like 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram body weight is what we actually need.

• 6:19Mayim Bialik?

  That's more.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  It's more than 0.8, right.

• 6:21Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  And so that's kind of like the, I would say, the minimal amount of protein. And depending on how active you are, those requirements go up. If you are physically active-

• 6:31Mayim Bialik?

  Don't eat the dog's protein. He's leaning into his body. He's like, "I'm already not getting enough today."

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's where it goes up. If you're getting, if you're physically active, you want to get about between 1.2 to 1.6. It's more like 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight of protein. And that's largely based on studies looking at gaining muscle mass and strength as well. So they've been randomized controlled trials, giving people either 1.2, 1.6 kilograms per kilogram body weight of protein, and then looking at muscle mass gains and muscle strength gains. And giving them more protein, along with working out and exercising, it seems like the 1.6 is better.

• 7:10Mayim Bialik?

  And also, I just want to reiterate, when you say protein because of the society we live in, I automatically think of like meat, meat, meat, meat. And I think of all the things that are in meat that a lot of people don't want. But you're not just talking about meat. You're talking about, for people who want to eat fish, it could be fish. And there are other ways to get protein, and like, there are protein powders and things. So it doesn't just have, because like, the notion of like, eating meat five times a day, right? Like, doesn't sound attractive for many reasons, right? But that's not the only way that we're talking about getting protein.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  No, absolutely not. And yeah, and that's another sort of, I would say, shift in the way, like, of thinking in terms of protein. It used to be like, "Oh, you have to get all this protein from like, you know, a meat source or an animal source of protein." And, you know, vegans and vegetarians, "Oh, they're just so protein deficient." Well, it turns out, you know, people that are paying attention and eating multiple different types of protein and/or supplementing can actually gain as much muscle from the same amount of protein as people that are doing, eating meat. And so that's, and that, again, that was a big change, pretty recent, actually, I would say.

• 8:17Jonathan Cohen?

  The caveat to that is you can't really get it from vegetables and beans alone. You need some form of tofu, tempeh, protein powder. It's very difficult to only get that level of protein from vegetables and legumes.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Well, you have to, you have to, like, there's different types of plants.

• 8:37Mayim Bialik?

  It's grains.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, quinoa.

• 8:39Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  You know, there's different types of plants that have different amino acid compositions.

• 8:44Mayim Bialik?

  But I don't rely on vegetables for my protein, not at all.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Beans, quinoa.

• 8:48Mayim Bialik?

  It's gotta be, it's gotta be beans, nuts. It's gotta be things like that. And yeah, there's some in like rice and pasta and things like that. But no, it doesn't come from, from vegetables. But the fact is, as we talk about, it's very carb heavy. Like, my protein intake is so carb heavy. Like, you know, my friend Denise, who helped me kind of completely become vegan. She was like, when she became vegan, she gained 20 pounds in like two months. Cause she was eating nuts and seeds all day. And she's like, I'm so healthy. And she looked down, she was like, what just happened? So, yeah, the, the notion is like, depending on where this protein source is coming, it can be very high in fat, it can be very high in carbs. So it's definitely a balance.

• 9:27Jonathan Cohen?

  I think the other conversation that's happening alongside the protein conversation is, should everyone be on creatine?

• 9:35Speaker 04

  I know, right? I mean, like.

• 9:37Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, you sprinkled it all around the room when you came in.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  I mean, I did. I was, I was, I dosed up today because I wanted my brain to be working, but yeah.

• 9:44Mayim Bialik?

  What is creatine? Tell us what creatine is.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, so creatine, you probably think of, you think of the, the bodybuilder, muscle guy.

• 9:51Mayim Bialik?

  100%. It's in a big, white, plastic tub, whatever it is.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Right, and then I always think about the water rate I'm, I'm gonna gain. Like, that, like, those are the images that I think about when I think of creatine. Well, well, creatine is, it's, it's really important for energy production. And I don't wanna get like too much into that mechanism. But essentially what you need to know is that it is important for energy production. And so.

• 10:13Mayim Bialik?

  But is it a thing that's in our body already?

• 10:15Speaker 04

  It is something that's in our, it's in our muscles. It's in our body, yes, it's in our brain. We make it in our brain, we make it in our muscles. Sorry, we make it in our liver, we make it in our brain, not in our muscles. Our muscles take it up from, from what's made in our liver. Our muscles are what crave it the most, right? Especially because we're, when we're working out and working our muscles, then the creatine's really coming from either what we're making in our liver, to our muscles, or from what we're supplementing. So we're not.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Essentially creatine is especially vegan. Vegans are not getting enough of it because creatine is found in muscle meat. So people that are eating meat are getting a dietary source of creatine. Right. But vegans and vegetarians are not getting that creatine. So it's vegan to take it, it's an organic compound? Yes, it's synthesized. Right. Yeah, you're not, it's not like being isolated from like cow muscle. Right, right, right. But, so what is it doing? You know, it's, it's really, so the muscles are really greedy and your muscles take it up because it, it's, you know, helps with energy production, right? But aside from that, other organs in the body also need it, like the brain. And that's why the brain also makes its own creatine pool. And when you get like a higher amount of creatine, if you dose, if you're taking a higher amount of creatine,

• 11:24Speaker 04

  whatever your muscles don't take up, your muscles get the first pick because they're very, very greedy. Then creatine's left over to kind of get into the brain. And so people that are taking about five grams of creatine a day, which is what I used to take, it's enough for your muscles. That's pretty much what your muscles are happy with. And when I say your muscles, like why do your muscles want it? It's not necessarily going to bulk you up. It's not like protein. It doesn't, creatine doesn't increase muscle protein synthesis. You're not going to, you know, get bigger muscles unless you work out. What it does do is helps you work out harder because you have, like you're able to basically get more energy and more power. So the volume of your workouts are, are better. Now it feels like you're giving me a steroid. But it's not, it's not a steroid. Am I going to be like grunting? It's all, it's all the effort, right? Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  I, I definitely was grunting yesterday morning, I had my strength training, not to. So you said that you used to take five milligrams? Five grams. Five grams. I used to take five grams because I wanted it for my, my workouts. And now you take? And now I take 10. Every day, all the time, no matter what? Every day, all the time, no matter what. Um, I, baseline is 10. And I do that because of the brain effects. So there's been studies now coming out that it improves cognitive function. It might be important for brain aging. Depression is another one that's coming out. Again, energy production in the brain, very important, but you have to get above that five grams to like have spillover, right? To the brain. But there's an even bigger, you know, I would say, dose that I take on days when I don't

• 12:53Speaker 04

  sleep well. So if I'm traveling, I'm jet lagged, I'm in like the other part of the country, and I have to give a talk at like 8 a.m., which is, you know, 5 a.m. my biological time. In those sorts of scenarios, I actually take 15 to 20 grams. And it's amazing what it does to me. No, it's like speed. It's like, without the speed. It's like speed without the speed. You're like, it's like caffeine without the caffeine. Can you abuse it? Um, I mean, I wouldn't take much more than that. So it's not like addictive. It doesn't, I don't feel like, I don't wake up in the morning. Yes, but you know what is addictive? Being alert and like on target. Like. In the context, it only really works in the context of a background deprivation, stress, something stressful, like sleep deprivation. Right.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  And this has been shown, I mean, yeah, right? Well, no, but I'm, you know, I'm kind of curious, like, yeah. It's been shown in studies. And so what it's, what, I guess, you know, the question is, okay, well, how much stress in your life? A lot of us do have a lot of stress. So I do think it makes, it does make a difference, right? But it helps, it helps, you don't need as much sleep even. So this has been shown in studies. And in fact, one of my vegan friends was like, she messaged me back, she's like, this is, I don't need as much sleep, and I have all this energy, what's going on? And I'm like, well, you weren't getting any dietary creatine, because, you know, you don't eat any meat, and you weren't supplementing with it. So you will only rely, and you work out. I'm like, you're only relying on what your liver can make, which is not that much. So it really kind of changed your life.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  She was Bruce Banner, now she's Hulk. What happens is creatine, I'm talking about the role it plays in energy production, but it also plays another role. Interestingly, it plays a role in that whole methylation process as well, that we think about folate, choline, and creatine does it too. So creatine can also help turn homocysteine back into methionine. It can help with gene expression. So methylations are like carbon, carbon with three hydrogens, they can basically change the way our genes are activated. You need methylation groups to have that happen. Creatine helps with that. So I think when you free up. Creatine, when it's like, okay, the muscles aren't using every last bit of it, because now you're giving it an exogenous source through supplementation, then other things can happen, right?

• 15:08Speaker 04

  Other things like the methylation process can happen, right? So changing the way genes are activated in the brain. But in the context of stress, stress requires a lot of energy. It depletes your creatine. And so in that background, giving your body the extra creatine will give you more energy, because that energy that you would have had otherwise was taken, because the stress is very energy consuming.

• 15:29Mayim Bialik?

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• 17:01Speaker 05

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• 17:29Mayim Bialik?

  Well, also, I'm thinking, just in terms of the creatine conversation, how many of those things diagnostically would earn you a prescription for an SSRI? Right? I can't sleep, I don't have energy, which means I'm not working out. So then you're not generating any positive feel-good chemicals, right?

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:46Mayim Bialik?

  You're not going to feel good about yourself. You don't have the kind of like oomph to get up and go. Many doctors would see that and be like, you're, for me, you know, you're a woman of a certain age, like, take an SSRI and you'll feel better, right?

• 17:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:00Mayim Bialik?

  And how many people are disappointed by that? Because there's other biochemical things going on that we don't even know about.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:06Mayim Bialik?

  It's fascinating. Jonathan had a list of rapid-fire things, and I just want to mention that the first three items are this: alcohol, coffee, golf course. Go.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, don't, don't, don't, don't live on a golf course and sip your, and sip your wine. Yeah. No, there was, there's a really interesting study that came out recently that living near a golf course dramatically increases the risk of Parkinson's disease. Because golf courses are notoriously sprayed with... Round up, glyphosate. I mean, they're, I mean, that's like, you look at a golf course, like, I don't know that I can find a weed, like, at any golf course I've ever, you know, been to. So, the pesticide exposure is, I would say, the most classical way of inducing Parkinson's like symptoms in animals. I mean, that's like, what researchers do to induce Parkinson's, is they give, like, Paraquat, Rotenone, right?

• 19:01Speaker 04

  These things cause mitochondrial toxicity, your mitochondria are the energy-producing organelles in your cells. They cause it in the, in the dopaminergic neurons, in the substantia nigra, right? Part of the brain. So, what's, what, the prevailing theory with the golf course is that these pesticides are getting into the water source. And people that live near the golf course are drinking... Water that has this, you know, pesticides in it, Roundup, glyphosate, whatever they're using.

• 19:31Jonathan Cohen?

  So golfers don't have to be terrified necessarily, like if you're spending a lot of time on golf courses versus living next to it?

• 19:37Speaker 04

  No, exactly. That's a great question. I mean, unless they're like spraying, like you're inhaling it, like, I mean, if they're spraying the course, I run sometimes along a golf course, and there are times when they're spraying, and I'm like trying to get ahead of the spraying machine thing, and I'm like, I just have to like figure out when they're spraying and not run on those days.

• 19:53Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I think the issue also is not so much like, don't live on a golf course. The issue is a larger one, that the things that give us so much luxury, joy, and pleasure, like having a weed-free garden, which is something that's very important, we now know things, and The Future of Food and Food, Inc. are two wonderful documentaries that I highly recommend that discuss, in particular, Roundup and Monsanto. And, you know, these used to be things that were on the fringes of conversations, and people used to kind of roll their eyes and say like, that's ridiculous, you're worried about hippie things. But what we know now is that the things that that give us a lot of conveniences do come with a very high price. And once that information is out there, we are so grateful to people like you

• 20:35Mayim Bialik?

  for spreading this information, because it's not something we can ignore. If you're living somewhere where pesticides are being sprayed, and if there are no weeds, which is a naturally occurring thing to have when there's grass, chances are there's a downside to that luxury, as it were.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  And, you know, these pesticides and a lot of other forever chemicals, these things are contaminating our water sources, our soil. Like, I mean, it's ending up in the sludge that's give, you know, in the conventional farming that's used, not organic, but it's actually ended up in organic farming, too. But it's like, we're, everything's contaminated. We got microplastics, we got the forever chemicals, we have, you know, now this, the Roundup and the pesticides. Water filters do help. I mean, they help filter out a lot of these chemicals and like small, small particles and stuff. But, but yeah, it's, it's a big problem like how I, I, the damage is done already. So like now it's like, okay, do we keep doing more damage? Can we somehow stop that damage? At what point is enough enough, right? I mean, at what point can we say?

• 21:36Mayim Bialik?

  You sure you want to live to 115?

• 21:38Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, it's the microplastics and the forever chemicals. That's the thing that also gets me, right? I mean, it's in everything. It's in, it's in our fruits and vegetables. You think you're eating healthy and then you're like, oh, everything's coated in forever chemicals now. Because it's in our soil.

• 21:52Jonathan Cohen?

  We did an episode on this and then the doctor we had on was like, oh yeah, it's in the ocean and in the rainwater. So it's in the air.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's in the air. It's in, I mean, it's everywhere. So you need air filter, water filter, right? Yeah, so that's the, the golf course.

• 22:08Jonathan Cohen?

  New product idea. We live in a bubble. It's filtered. Be totally safe. The other conversation that's happening a lot is about alcohol. It feels like the tide has turned on alcohol. It used to be a little bit is good. It used to be red wine is good. Now none of it is good.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Well, you know.

• 22:28Mayim Bialik?

  Alcohol's a toxin.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  It is. I mean, I, I think a lot of the studies that have been sort of re-analyzed. That came out claiming that, oh, moderation, actually not only is it not harmful, it's beneficial compared to not drinking alcohol.

• 22:43Mayim Bialik?

  Especially for women. Let's market it to women. It's delicious.

• 22:46Speaker 04

  Which is actually the worst. Women are, is, is actually, women are most susceptible to the damage related to alcohol. Yeah. We can talk about that in a minute, but like.

• 22:54Mayim Bialik?

  We're also most susceptible to the damage created when I don't drink alcohol.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  That's hilarious and so true.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  But yeah, so.

• 23:03Mayim Bialik?

  If you don't want me sober all the time, I'll tear shit down.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  All those, all those studies were actually like comparing non-drinkers to people that are doing moderate alcohol consumption. It turns out there was this whole sick user bias where the non-drinkers were like former drinkers. And so they were comparing them to people that had done so much damage that they had quit drinking, right? And this was not just one study, this is many studies. And so now it's kind of like, oh, I don't know that we can use that data, right? I mean, Well, it's cumulative, so yeah. Right. And so, and there's just, there's a big spectrum here. And I think at the end of the day, my biggest concern, particularly for women, is breast cancer risk. Because alcohol, one of the, I would say, one of the biggest risk factors for alcohol consumption

• 23:50Speaker 04

  is increasing cancer risk. And, and when you think about a person's, when your lifetime risk for, you know, esophageal cancer, which is one that alcohol increases. And I'm like, I don't know, our lifetime risk is one in 500. It's not that big, right? Like, so a little modest half a percent increase isn't really concerning to me. But what is concerning is my lifetime risk of one in eight for breast cancer. Like, every woman has a one in eight lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. That's pretty low. I mean, you get in a crowd, in a room with eight women, one of those women in that room will be diagnosed with breast cancer, right? There's a lot of lifestyle factors that can affect that risk. So obesity can increase the risk. Alcohol definitely increases the risk. Smoking increases the

• 24:34Speaker 04

  risk as well. And then there's, you know, some other things as well. But those are the main ones. Alcohol really has a dose-dependent effect. And, and there's no amount, even light drinking increases the risk. What is alcohol doing? Oh, gosh. I mean, it's getting metabolized into toxic things that are, that are causing cell death, that are damaging DNA. They're damaging, that's what's essentially causing the, the cancer, right? You're damaging your DNA. And that's what it's doing. It's, it's creating these aldehydes and things that are reacting with your DNA. It's, it's bad, you know? It's, it's a toxin. Yeah, it does kind of lower your inhibitions and, you know, maybe affecting serotonin and stuff like that. And it can, and be fun to do once in a while, but like, it's certainly not something that you want to do every day, for sure.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  And that was like the, the message, you know, years ago. Glass of wine a day. Yeah, it's good. I mean, glass of wine a day for a woman is very bad, very bad, because breast cancer risk. I don't know that I've heard that.

• 25:32Mayim Bialik?

  It's so funny because it's such a huge marketing, you know, like, is it wine o'clock? Like, how many dish towels do you see sold with that?

• 25:38Speaker 04

  And women are actually more susceptible to the toxic metabolites because we have a lower body mass. So we actually, that's why it takes less alcohol for us to feel the effects.

• 25:47Mayim Bialik?

  Sorry, I'm just thinking about like, we're also like more susceptible to like the marketing and the marketing is so geared at that. I'm thinking about the, what was it? The skinny cigarettes marketing of my childhood. It was like, this is the sexy cigarette for you. And I feel like in so many ways, that's what wine has become, right? It's this culture of like, oh, here's a little wine charm set. Like, everything's like wine goodies, right?

• 26:09Speaker 04

  I do feel like it's changing somewhat. I mean, you see a lot of these like, you know, mocktails. I mean, they're really showing up everywhere now.

• 26:17Jonathan Cohen?

  There's a huge industry of, of non-alcoholic fancy drinks.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  Whenever there's money to be made, that explodes, right? Like, there are people like, oh, this is like, this is, this is a great business, which is good. But cancer is my, my main concern with alcohol consumption is, is the breast cancer risk. Now, if you have like a family history, then it's like, you know, I don't have a family history. If you're Ashkenazi Jew, yeah, for sure.

• 26:41Mayim Bialik?

  We should not be drinking.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  That's like, yeah, breast cancer, I mean, that's a big one, right? We're doing, doing the mammograms every year.

• 26:48Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:50Jonathan Cohen?

  Talk to us about coffee.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Coffee. I know. I mean, should you drink it? Should you not drink it? Everyone drinks it, right? Who doesn't drink coffee?

• 26:58Mayim Bialik?

  I don't drink coffee.

• 26:59Jonathan Cohen?

  It's probably the, well, you drink a little bit of tea through your boba, but probably not enough caffeine.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh. Do you know how much microplastic is in boba?

• 27:07Mayim Bialik?

  I know. He always tells me.

• 27:08Jonathan Cohen?

  Thank you.

• 27:09Mayim Bialik?

  There was a girl on Instagram and her stomach was full of boba. It was like all just like a big plastic mess.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  It's the top, those things are plastic. They're plastic.

• 27:18Mayim Bialik?

  Honey, it's the only fun thing left. It's the only fun thing.

• 27:22Jonathan Cohen?

  You're just putting Lego pieces.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  Eat it with fiber. Eat it with fiber. Fiber like stops the absorption of microplastics. Yeah. It stops the absorption of microplastics.

• 27:30Mayim Bialik?

  Put chia seeds in my boba?

• 27:31Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right. Chia seeds in the boba. Yeah.

• 27:33Jonathan Cohen?

  The benefits of coffee, I want to sort of reconcile that. I drink a good amount of coffee.

• 27:39Mayim Bialik?

  He gets weird if he drinks too much and he gets weird if he drinks too little.

• 27:41Jonathan Cohen?

  That is correct.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Add some L-theanine.

• 27:44Jonathan Cohen?

  That, so I've tried that, but Dr. Amen is like, no caffeine is good for your brain. It restricts blood flow. He's like totally against caffeine. Help me reconcile the difference.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh, really?

• 27:55Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  That's so interesting because, okay, so let's, we'll get to the brain in a minute. But yeah, coffee, I did a deep dive on it and it's, it's got so many health benefits that are undeniable. Undeniable. I mean, the polyphenol content in coffee is extremely high.

• 28:11Mayim Bialik?

  And we're talking about coffee itself, not if you add a shit ton of sugar and milk.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Oh, definitely, yeah, no.

• 28:17Jonathan Cohen?

  I drink my coffee black.

• 28:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, the additive stuff negates everything. Forget that.

• 28:21Mayim Bialik?

  Right, because a lot of people are like, I go to Starbucks, it's great.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  No, it's the coffee itself.

• 28:25Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  Polyphenols, like the chlorogenic acids are really, really powerful polyphenols that are doing anti-inflammatory, antioxidant. They're very beneficial. And so there have been studies showing that people that drink coffee, one to three cups a day, have a lower all-cause mortality, so like 30% lower than people who don't drink coffee. And, and there's been a lot of studies now looking at like biological aging. So, you know, they're looking at these like epigenetic signatures, these methylation groups that change with age. And you can look at these groups and like you can determine someone's age based on that like characterization of it. And it's delaying biological aging by like one year. So, pretty, pretty, yeah, that's pretty, it's pretty profound with, when you're talking about at least that type of,

• 29:08Speaker 04

  you know, data set, when you're looking at like biological aging. It's been associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk, type 2 diabetes, I mean, just everything, everything. And when it comes to dementia and Alzheimer's disease, I should, I should caveat that decaffeinated coffee is also beneficial, again, because of the polyphenols. Like, it's not the caffeine unless we're talking about the brain. So the dementia risk and Alzheimer's disease risk seems to be dependent on having caffeine there. Decaf didn't have that effect. So I don't know why someone would think that the, the caffeine causing vasoconstriction, the amount of vasoconstriction's not that high. And there's also a, I think, maybe the polyphenols are countering that,

• 29:51Speaker 04

  but you'd think the decaf coffee would have the same effect. It doesn't.

• 29:54Jonathan Cohen?

  It doesn't.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Caffeine is required for, which is, you know, it's so interesting, and I was thinking about this, is that nicotine, which is all the rage, and I would stay away from that, but is kind of structurally...

• 30:05Mayim Bialik?

  I'm sorry, it's all the rage?

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, people are like...

• 30:07Jonathan Cohen?

  She doesn't go on the internet, she doesn't know.

• 30:09Mayim Bialik?

  Also, the Dr. Amen study was people who drink like six cups or more a day. It was with like high, high volume of coffee.

• 30:14Speaker 04

  Okay, let me explain this, okay. So here, here's what it comes down to. People that drink like eight cups, eight cups or more a day have an increased risk. Right. But it was only at eight cups or more, when they were doing one, two, three, four cups, they had a 50% lower risk. So, there's something about Little bit selective data, yeah. Yeah, like eight cups of coffee, like I don't know who's doing that, but like

• 30:37Jonathan Cohen?

  That's a lot.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  No, and that's gonna disrupt sleep, it's gonna, yeah, you're gonna be a wreck. You're gonna disrupt sleep, which is a dementia risk, yeah, so, but it's also the brewing, the way you brew it that matters. So, filtering it, filters out these dioterpines, which increase LDL cholesterol. So that's also important, because you can, you can, you can increase your LDL cholesterol, especially if you're adding like cream to your coffee, you know, 30, 30 units, like just from Wait, you were talking about nicotine, nicotine's all the rage? Oh, yeah, so what I was getting at was that nicotine, nicotine is used as a nootropic. People are like using these, you know, little mints, or the zen, like the zen bags and stuff. I've never tried it, but Nicorette, like the gum, for a nootropic effect. It improves your cognitive performance. You focus, you're like in the zone, you're productive.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  I'm terrified that I'll love it, so I'm definitely not trying it. It's delightful. Yeah. It's a great drug.

• 31:27Jonathan Cohen?

  And some people claim that it has anti-Alzheimer's properties.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Exactly, that's what I was getting at. So, there are a few studies looking at nicotine, and nicotine also causes vasoconstriction though. Yep. But it's doing it like, I would say, there's a little bit of similarity between nicotine and caffeine, very like structurally. Both diuretics, right? Uh, is nicotine a diuretic too? Yeah, because they used to recommend it for digestion.

• 31:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Oh, I didn't know that. Get it, like? Yeah, but I think there's some overlap. Yeah. The fact of the matter that the, the coffee required the caffeine to be protective against Parkinson's. They're, yeah, they're both, it's like they're both doing something similar, where there is a protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases, for whatever reason, there's all kinds of speculation, I don't think that we really know. So just don't smoke it, put it in your gum? I don't know, no, no, I don't think that's good. No. No, because it does, it's, it causes cardiovascular disease, hypertension, it's constricting your, your blood vessels, yeah. So that's just the, that's not a mechanism of the smoke, that's the nicotine? Yeah, that's not, and that's not a mechanism of caffeine, caffeine's not entering that, it's nicotine. But people are doing it because they want to like be productive. They want to like be smarter. It's a Can't they just microdose like all the guys in Silicon Valley? I, that's what, that, yeah, if you're gonna do it, definitely microdose.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  But people are not, people are like, I've had people come up to me after talks and they're like, oh, I take, I take, you know, I go through like six of these a day. And I'm like, six of these, like?

• 32:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Closing the loop on coffee, though, just on the, um, on, on the decaf. I've heard that that's washed with chemicals when you do a decaf and so you should avoid decaf because of the chemical process.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, so it depends on what decaf, you know, coffee you're buying. So, yes, it is kind of like a paint thinner like-ish What? method that's used to decaffeinate coffee. However, by the time, you know, whatever's ending up in your cup of coffee is so insignificant. I don't know. All these studies on all the benefits of decaf, people are drinking just decaf coffee. Like, they're not buying, there's other methods, like you can use the Swiss water method or the carbon dioxide method. Don't tell him, he'll start doing it. But, no, I mean, I mean, I buy that because like, you know, you kind of obsess over the little things. But I think at the end of the day, you have to choose your battles. I don't think that's a battle to choose. I think that all these studies are showing people drinking decaf coffee have so many benefits.

• 33:40Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  And most of them are just drinking

• 33:42Jonathan Cohen?

  Tell, tell me your coffee protocol. Your, your, what, what filter system are you using? What, what are you doing?

• 33:48Speaker 04

  I have the, I like the, the pour over and the Chemex filter, which is a, the, not the bleached one, but it's like the, you know, the brown paper filter one.

• 33:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Are, are there coatings of microplastic in those? That's what I use and I'm wondering.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  Not supposed to be, but I'm sure a study will come out in a month or two saying yes, because that seems to be where we're going. I got you a ceramic filter.

• 34:07Jonathan Cohen?

  The ceramic filter clogs, though, and it's very hard. And then you spend like 25 minutes making

• 34:12Speaker 04

  You want to die, or don't you? That's the best way. I also do instant coffee, which has benefits as well.

• 34:17Jonathan Cohen?

  Interesting.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  And so, but yeah, but like, like I said, Couldn't picture you a Folgers girl, but okay. I mean, not Folgers, but like, you know, sometimes I'm like, I just don't have time and I'm traveling or whatever. I'll do, and instant has some of the same benefits. I've had one can for 20 years in the freezer because I use it when I make my honey cake. There's, there's a, there's a brand like Haggen's Instant Coffee, which is pretty good.

• 34:37Jonathan Cohen?

  What's the difference between instant coffee benefit and like pour over benefit?

• 34:42Speaker 04

  So the instant coffee, you're getting a lot of the same polyphenols and with the pour over, what you're doing is you're filtering out those di- di- terpenes which can raise LDL. But the amount in instant is so small that it's really not a big factor. Yeah.

• 34:56Mayim Bialik?

  So with everything that we've talked about and especially as we've gotten pretty detailed with coffee, what's the, what's the most, you know, kind of unusual thing you've tried for your own health?

• 35:09Speaker 04

  The most unusual thing that I've tried?

• 35:11Mayim Bialik?

  What would we consider unusual?

• 35:13Jonathan Cohen?

  You don't have to limit it to one. We're fascinated.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, I, I don't know that there's such an unusual thing. I mean, I've broccoli sprouts. I was, I was like doing a lot of broccoli sprouts.

• 35:22Mayim Bialik?

  Were you doing them?

• 35:23Speaker 04

  I was. I was doing.

• 35:24Mayim Bialik?

  You eating them?

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Bags and I was like, like so much broccoli sprouts.

• 35:29Jonathan Cohen?

  You're off that now?

• 35:30Speaker 04

  No, I, now I supplement.

• 35:31Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 04

  But I was like.

• 35:32Mayim Bialik?

  But you're just eating them raw?

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:33Mayim Bialik?

  Bags of broccoli sprouts.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  I was making smoothies with them. It was disgusting. And I was like drinking them.

• 35:38Jonathan Cohen?

  And you're just more efficient to, to supplement?

• 35:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. Now I'm, it's less work. I mean, it was cheap, like growing, growing your own sprouts is much cheaper than supplementing. Supplementing is expensive, but it was, it is cheaper and, and you know, I was doing this when I really couldn't afford supplementing. And I was making smoothies with them, but I was getting a nootropic effect too, like I was feeling something in my brain. But I think that's probably one of the weirder things that I've done that, you know, I've done like exogenous ketones and all that stuff. But like everyone does that. I don't think.

• 36:08Mayim Bialik?

  What's an exogenous ketone?

• 36:09Jonathan Cohen?

  This whole episode is my experiences trends on the internet for the first time.

• 36:13Mayim Bialik?

  What's exogenous ketone? I mean, I know what the words mean and I could draw a ketone.

• 36:18Jonathan Cohen?

  It's all those jars in the cupboard, in the corner that we never go to. In, in the, in the kitchen that you never look in.

• 36:25Mayim Bialik?

  I was saying which cupboard because half of the kitchen is all these things that you tell him about. What's exogenous ketones?

• 36:32Speaker 04

  So exogenous ketones, so ketones are something that our bodies make when we're using fatty acids for energy. So it could be during a fast or if we're on a ketogenic diet or we're exercising really hard, right? And haven't had enough calories. And so you make something called ketones. The major circulating one is beta hydroxybutyrate. And beta hydroxybutyrate is interesting, not because it's a source of energy, so it can be used as a source of energy, and that's really cool. Why it's interesting is because it's a signaling molecule. So it's like, it's acting like lactate in that it's increasing brain derived neurotrophic factor. It's like, it's a way of increasing, it's like a stress response, because your body's like, oh, I'm in this ketosis, I need to activate all these

• 37:13Speaker 04

  other beneficial genes that are involved in dealing with stress, right? So exogenous ketones are a way of taking that supplementally, exogenously, right? And so there have been, you know, a variety of different types of this on the market, and I've, you know, people, people like taking beta hydroxybutyrate because it does help with focus and attention. It seems to really kind of get you into that. I mean, maybe it's something like the nicotine. I don't know, I've never done the nicotine, but it does kind of like help you hone in and kind of like focus and be more alert and just like on your game a little bit better.

• 37:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Are you on it now or off it now?

• 37:48Speaker 04

  I just ordered some, actually. It's funny, you're asking. I haven't done exogenous ketones in years. I don't know how you've gotten anything done. I'm amazed you can advocate anything. I, I've just worked really hard.

• 37:59Jonathan Cohen?

  But what, what drew you back to them?

• 38:02Speaker 04

  What drew me back to them was a conversation I had with a friend whose mother is kind of dealing with mild Alzheimer's disease. And I was kind of, and he was asking me about ketosis, and I was kind of getting back into that world that I had, you know, kind of was in a few years ago. And so I started kind of like researching it again. And I was like, gosh, this is like so beneficial. I personally don't like being on a ketogenic diet. There's so many plants I like to eat, and it just kicks me out of ketosis. And, but I do think there's benefits, and maybe I can cycle it in. But, you know, so I, I've done ketogenic diet. I really loved the way I felt when I was on it. Never had that energy crash in the middle of the day, you know, like that mid-afternoon

• 38:47Speaker 04

  energy crash where you're like, some people go for their diet coke, some people go for their nicotine or whatever. I'm just drinking like blueberry smoothies because that polyphenols help me, or I'll do my exercise snacks. But the exogenous ketones are kind of a nice compromise for me because I can get some of those ketones for like three hours or so without having to like the work of like doing nutritional ketosis, which is hard work. Now, also, I do practice time-restricted eating, so when you're in a fasted state for, you know, 16 hours, you're really, it depends on the person.

• 39:23Mayim Bialik?

  When do you stop eating?

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Well, it depends on what's going on. Like, I have a family and it's-

• 39:27Mayim Bialik?

  Do you have children?

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah.

• 39:29Mayim Bialik?

  How old are the humans?

• 39:30Speaker 04

  My son is seven. Well, he'll be eight in a couple of months, so almost eight.

• 39:34Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so, okay, but like on an average day, like, I'm trying to think which 16 hours, like if you were to stop eating at seven?

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's usually I have dinner at six, so I'll be done before seven.

• 39:44Mayim Bialik?

  And then no snacky poo?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  No snacks, no late, no late time eating, that's a no-no, that's not really good at all. Actually, that disrupts your sleep.

• 39:51Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 04

  Big time. You don't want to be digesting while you're sleeping.

• 39:54Mayim Bialik?

  Says you.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Right? So, yeah, you start, basically-

• 40:00Mayim Bialik?

  That would be like seven to noon, am I doing the math right?

• 40:02Speaker 04

  Something like that, yeah.

• 40:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, so you don't have breakfast.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  I mean-

• 40:05Mayim Bialik?

  What I was raised was the most important meal of the day, but that's why-

• 40:08Speaker 04

  I don't always do-

• 40:09Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  16 hours, I mean, most, I would say most times I'm, I'm more like, I was saying 16 because that's like-

• 40:15Mayim Bialik?

  Are you about to brag that you don't eat a midnight snack, lady? That's not that important.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  No, no, I, I think what I'm saying is, I think you're kind of misunderstood when I was talking about 16, it wasn't necessarily me. I do eat breakfast after my workout. My breakfast is usually like 10, 10:30.

• 40:28Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, got it.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  But-

• 40:30Mayim Bialik?

  When I hear like fasting, like, I get really scared. That sounds like kind of reasonable.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:35Mayim Bialik?

  Meaning like, eat at an early time, like, don't have, don't have three snacks-

• 40:39Speaker 04

  No wine.

• 40:40Mayim Bialik?

  Before bed, no wine, no midnight snack.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:44Mayim Bialik?

  And then wake up, get your kid to school, do a workout, then start the party.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  I mean, it depends on the type of workout. Sometimes I have to have like a banana or something before the workout.

• 40:53Mayim Bialik?

  Right, okay, that makes sense.

• 40:54Jonathan Cohen?

  So when are you using ketones? Are you using them in the morning while in a fasted state, or are you using them in the afternoon? Like, because you're supposed to use them without food, is that accurate?

• 41:01Speaker 04

  You don't have to use them without food.

• 41:03Jonathan Cohen?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 41:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it, it raises your, your ketone levels. Now, if you use them without food- You'll, if you're extending your fast, you'll probably get a bump even more. But um, yeah, I haven't, I just ordered them again. When I was experimenting with them, I was doing both. Uh, I, either way was good for me. I mean, even like being in a fed state, taking the ketones. It only lasted like- Fed state?

• 41:29Speaker 04

  Here's Dr. Vagin in a fed state.

• 41:33Jonathan Cohen?

  So you would use them in the afternoon and that would give you a bit of a bump as well? I haven't tried that yet.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah. And that's essentially what I ordered them for, to be honest. I was like, I'm not, because I don't drink coffee in the afternoon.

• 41:44Jonathan Cohen?

  But you have been uh, drinking beet powder, which I got very excited about when I saw, because I have-

• 41:50Speaker 04

  Name a powder he's not excited about.

• 41:54Jonathan Cohen?

  Tell us a little bit about beetroot powder.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have been drinking beetroot powder and- Is that like from the beet? Yeah, it's the extract. Yeah. So, so beets are really high in nitrate. Well, that's all I think of. They, they are high in sugar. I'm getting extract that's like low sugar. Okay. But beets are also, besides sugar, high in nitrates. Yeah. And nitrates are found in a lot of different plants, but beets have a lot of them. And when you eat them, nitrates get converted into nitric oxide. Right. Which is vasodilator, which increases blood flow. And there have been a host of studies looking at this, like humans taking beetroot extract. It increases blood flow to the brain. It increases blood flow to the muscle, muscles as well. People like endurance athletes like to use it before their endurance run or whatever.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  It increases blood flow to the brain and that's been showed to improve cognition, activate parts of the brain. Um, that's involved in like whatever task that you're doing, kind of helps activate that machinery. So you just put it in a smoothie? So what I do is I just put like a big heaping scoop in water and I just take a shot of it. It doesn't taste really great. Sure. But um, the other thing that- Nothing you eat tastes great.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  Well, I'm sure the high sugar one probably tastes good, but I don't get the high sugar one.

• 43:07Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  And, and so I take that and it gives me a little pump, like, like a little, almost kind of like what a, you know, little Peloton, 10 minute Peloton would do, where I get that like.

• 43:17Mayim Bialik?

  Kill you? That's what it would do to me. It would kill me. Wait, I'm gonna ask a question that I don't think any fancy doctor has ever asked you. What does your son eat?

• 43:26Speaker 04

  He's such a picky eater.

• 43:28Mayim Bialik?

  Does he eat chicken fingers?

• 43:29Speaker 04

  No.

• 43:29Mayim Bialik?

  Does he eat pizza?

• 43:31Speaker 04

  He likes pizza with no sauce.

• 43:33Mayim Bialik?

  Just sushi and snow.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  You know, the vegetables that I can get him to eat are spinach in his smoothie.

• 43:39Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, that's good.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  Carrots. He likes carrots.

• 43:41Mayim Bialik?

  He's in a smoothie phase.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  He likes smoothies.

• 43:43Mayim Bialik?

  My kids used to do smoothies and now I can't, I don't know what happened. Okay, but go ahead.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Well, he's in a smoothie phase. So I put the spinach in the smoothie. But, you know, we're working on like a little bit of broccoli, like, let's just eat this one, you know, broccoli floret.

• 43:56Mayim Bialik?

  But does he like meat, fish? Will he eat fish?

• 43:58Speaker 04

  He likes meat. He used to eat fish, not anymore. I don't know what's happened.

• 44:02Mayim Bialik?

  Deep fry it, then he'll eat it.

• 44:03Speaker 04

  Deep fry it, right.

• 44:05Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, what else? What snacks do you let him have?

• 44:08Speaker 04

  I mean, gosh, now.

• 44:10Mayim Bialik?

  Does he eat yogurt in a squeasy pouch?

• 44:12Speaker 04

  No, he does eat yogurt and granola, like the, that low sugar granola. It's called a bear or something, whatever. Yogurt and granola.

• 44:19Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  Um, he does eat sun chips. That's like his favorite snack, which what am I gonna do?

• 44:24Mayim Bialik?

  So good.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  I know. I loved those too. Um, you know, he eats like the typical snacks that kids will eat.

• 44:30Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so like when you send him to school, would people know that this is Dr. Rhonda Patrick's kid?

• 44:34Speaker 04

  Funny story. Um, he does read the nutrition facts on things and, and he'll, he'll point out to his friends about the sugar and he's like, you shouldn't eat that.

• 44:43Mayim Bialik?

  He's gonna get punched in the face is what he's gonna get.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Well, what's funny was one of his friends was like, nah, I like candy. But another friend of his, Annie was like telling his friends not to drink out of plastic bottles because of the microplastics.

• 44:55Mayim Bialik?

  Your child is a riot.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  But he did get one friend, one of his friends, the mother was telling me that he basically doesn't want plastic bottles anymore. She like had to stop, he, he like came home one day was like, you know, no, I can't drink out of plastic bottles because it's bad for you. And sugar, sugar's bad for you. I don't want all this sugar.

• 45:14Mayim Bialik?

  Oh my gosh.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  And so I guess he was drinking like.

• 45:16Mayim Bialik?

  You're gonna get punched in the face next.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Chocolate milk or something, yeah.

• 45:18Jonathan Cohen?

  He's the littlest influencer. He's recruiting.

• 45:21Speaker 04

  He is, he does, you know, he tells me, do podcasts on Coke and why it's bad for you. Don't drink soda. But he does, he's still a picky eater. I mean, his favorite food is bacon. And I'm like, oh, great. I just sent my oldest to college. He just finished his first year in college. And that's what I was most curious about. Like, how is he gonna eat? Like, once he's out of my, you know, purview. And I remember we had, um, we had foreign exchange students staying with us. And at the end of the two weeks that they were staying with us, the head of their program, we had like a going away party, and she said, "You sent the most interesting lunches with these children." Because it was like, raw vegetables, you know, cut up, and like, "Here's a little bean salad." And every other kid had like, a sandwich, or like a schnitzel.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  And I was like, "Here's your bell pepper color of the day, anyway." Um, yes, they will all rebel in their own way, I'm afraid, but yeah.

• 46:12Jonathan Cohen?

  Um, what do you want people to remember, take away as they're exploring their health journey? Trying to balance it all, trying to get the misinformation that's online. We recently actually just heard that like, a third of health information online is potentially inaccurate on TikTok, so.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Oh, on TikTok?

• 46:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Well, on a lot of probably platforms, yeah. There is, there is, I mean, there's lots of stuff out there that's not accurate, right? Um, I, I think the main takeaway that I want people to realize is they should be thinking about the way they're eating. They should be thinking about food, about like, instead of what should I avoid? They should be thinking about what do I need? And I think that makes it so much easier, because when you start to realize all these vitamins and minerals you need, essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, then you start to realize, okay, I need to eat my leafy greens. I need to eat, you know, my carrots for the beta carotene. I need to eat my seeds for the, and nuts for the vitamin E. You start to, you start to coordinate like each food.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Choline, I got my eggs, you know, or my soybeans if you're vegan, or chickpea, right? You start to coordinate like what foods are high in each, you know, nutrient. Protein, I need my protein. Okay, well, where am I gonna get my protein? But when you think about your meals like that, there's no room. You'll be full. There's no room for sun chips. There's no room for like the processed food stuff, right? Because you've already gotten full of what you actually need to fuel your body, to fuel everything. And I think that's a really good way to think about eating and nobody ever thinks about it that way. It's always avoid glucose, avoid processed foods, saturate as fat as bad, whatever. It's always this avoidance, like what not to eat. But like, what about thinking about what we actually should be eating? What do we need? And that makes it

• 48:01Speaker 04

  so much easier because you won't eat the other stuff. You don't need it, you know? So that's one thing. Two, I do think it's important to supplement to feel, fill your micronutrient gaps. I think it's a low hanging fruit. It makes a difference in the way you age and the way you feel. And it's, it's, it's super easy to do. It does make a difference. I think that's another one to take away. And the third one is, I think, exercise is the most important thing you can do for mental health and physical health and for your health span, improving the way you age, you know, is exercise. Nothing's better than that.

• 48:32Mayim Bialik?

  I also want to direct people to, you have a cognitive enhancement blueprint at B D N F protocols.com. You have, as we mentioned, the omega-3 supplementation guide. That's F M F omega-3 guide.com. And also how to train according to the experts, which is something we didn't get to get into a lot. But that is at how to train guide.com. Tell people where they can find everything else about you.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Well, thank you. Yeah, those three guys are wonderful. Start. I've got a podcast. I'm on all platforms. It's called Found My Fitness. You can look my name up, Dr. Rhonda Patrick. I'm on social media. I'm on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all of it. You can find me again. Found My Fitness is my handle, or you can just look up Dr. Rhonda Patrick and you'll find me as well. And then I have a website where you can find me as well. And that's foundmyfitness.com.

• 49:23Mayim Bialik?

  Good branding. Thank you so much. Really so much fun to get to talk to you.

• 49:27Speaker 04

  Thanks so much.

• 49:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay. What I was, what I'm taking away here is that my coffee consumption is actually okay. I was worried that I was overdoing it for a while.

• 49:41Mayim Bialik?

  Everyone was worried. Everyone listening to this episode was like, what's Jonathan gonna do about his coffee?

• 49:46Jonathan Cohen?

  What I have noticed, though, is that it's, I feel like it's impacting my voice a little bit. I heard that singers don't consume coffee because it impacts their vocal cords.

• 49:56Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, it does.

• 49:57Jonathan Cohen?

  What does it do to the vocal cords?

• 49:58Mayim Bialik?

  Um.

• 50:00Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, I'm basically singing while talking. This is what I try to do for everyone.

• 50:03Mayim Bialik?

  I only hear singing when you open your, when you open your mouth.

• 50:06Jonathan Cohen?

  That's with my intention.

• 50:08Mayim Bialik?

  Hold on. It's, uh, well, it, so coffee is dehydrating. I know that, and it is a diuretic.

• 50:14Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm gonna drink some water right now.

• 50:16Mayim Bialik?

  It dehydrates the vocal cords. One of the things that, um, that happens, um, you know, when you have a weak voice or losing your voice, is actually that you're dehydrated, just like water. So, yeah, anything that's a diuretic, soda, um, those are things that make the body, you know, kind of lose water. Coffee contributes to acid reflux, which can irritate the vocal cords. And that is something that might happen in, um, in shorter time. And a lot of people may not realize that they're having acid reflux because it may not feel like acid reflux, like on the commercials. Um, but one of the symptoms is an irritation of vocal cords because it's literally coming back up.

• 50:57Jonathan Cohen?

  That I don't feel. Maybe, uh, yeah, I don't think that's my thing. Um, but interesting to know, and like so many of these other, uh, micronutrients that we're talking about, there's a cause and effect that we're not really aware of. And what I love about these types of conversations and the work that she does, as well as so many others in the space, and some of that we've, some that we've had on, it's looking at, oh, wait a second. That health issue that you're having may be related to something way upstream.

• 51:28Mayim Bialik?

  Fascinating.

• 51:29Jonathan Cohen?

  I've caught myself in some podcasts being like, clearing my throat and like, having it catchy. And I'm like, oh, I wonder if my coffee consumption beforehand had an impact? Should I be adding water to the mix?

• 51:40Mayim Bialik?

  No, no.

• 51:41Jonathan Cohen?

  Meaning, not in the coffee, but beforehand.

• 51:44Mayim Bialik?

  I think that it doesn't, it's not like that. It's not like I drink my coffee, my cords just get affected. It's more about the whole body.

• 51:51Jonathan Cohen?

  Overall.

• 51:51Mayim Bialik?

  You know, a lot of people usually, we can talk about it here. We talk about everything. A lot of people use coffee to poop. So when you poop, you're losing water. Like that's, it's a diuretic.

• 52:00Jonathan Cohen?

  But you're not suggesting not to poop because that would be very bad for you.

• 52:02Mayim Bialik?

  No, but same thing with cigarette smoke. It's gonna be a diuretic. That's gonna irritate your vocal cords in a way that caffeine will not.

• 52:10Jonathan Cohen?

  But she was saying two, like, the other thing that is, I think, important to differentiate is two to three to four cups is not necessarily like a cup like this that we're holding up. Like, three of these are, that's not a cup. Most coffees are like 12 to 16 ounces.

• 52:30Mayim Bialik?

  Well, most of that's milk and whipped cream.

• 52:32Jonathan Cohen?

  No, but I'm saying just if you're having, if you're going to get like a black coffee.

• 52:35Mayim Bialik?

  I can't even have that kind of dairy, but that's, if I were drinking coffee, that's what I would want. I would make it taste like so much like caramel and I'd want so much, I'd be like, double whipped cream, I'll pay an extra $2.

• 52:49Jonathan Cohen?

  That's why they don't let you in Starbucks.

• 52:51Mayim Bialik?

  That's why I don't drink coffee. That's what I would do to it.

• 52:53Jonathan Cohen?

  Did you ever drink coffee?

• 52:54Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, like in my, you know, in my coffee house days, like in the, you know, early 90s.

• 53:01Jonathan Cohen?

  With your French hat.

• 53:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, I graduated high school in 93. It was like the height of like, you know, Seattle culture, grunge culture.

• 53:10Jonathan Cohen?

  You're wearing your Doc Martens and your plaid shirt around your waist with your dark makeup.

• 53:15Mayim Bialik?

  Yes. It was definitely, um, it was definitely an era of hanging out at coffee shops.

• 53:21Jonathan Cohen?

  And what would you do? You would just like sip it, not really drink it? Or did you like it at that?

• 53:25Mayim Bialik?

  Even at that time, I think I was eating dairy, but it never occurred to me. My parents would drink coffee and my mom would put a lot of like milk in it. Like I knew how to, someone said to me, it's not a normal thing. I knew how to make each of my parents' favorite iced coffee. Like, that was a thing. Like, in the afternoon, in the summer. I would be like, okay, he wants this much milk, so it's this color, and she wants this one. It was like preparing their martini, but it was their iced coffee. So I, I had tasted it, it just tasted like sugar. So I drank it black, but like it never tasted great. I never really felt the effect. But I know that if I drink too much caffeine, I just get shaky and jittery. Also, when I speak, you animate like you're my stage mom. And I think it's an act of devotion.

• 54:07Mayim Bialik?

  But a lot of times I'll be talking to you and it's like we're on Dance Moms.

• 54:13Mayim Bialik?

  I'm your favorite dance child.

• 54:15Jonathan Cohen?

  What do I do?

• 54:15Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, well, say a sentence and I'll show you what you do.

• 54:18Jonathan Cohen?

  So when you were drinking.

• 54:22Mayim Bialik?

  It's, I think we're enmeshed and are you codependent would be an episode that Jonathan should review.

• 54:27Jonathan Cohen?

  Interesting. I don't have a good listening face.

• 54:31Mayim Bialik?

  You did very well today. You were very engaged with, um, with Dr. Rhonda. You clearly have been up on all of these topics. One of the things that I, um, appreciated that echoed another episode of ours that people liked a lot. Dr. William Lee, the way that he helps you design your eating really reminded me of the way that Dr. Patrick talks about it. Uh, the notion of what if instead of being like, what's available or like, what's convenient? You were like, I need to plan meals that check these boxes off so that I'm getting all the proper categories of nutrients and food. How do I plan my meal? And then low and behold, there wouldn't be a lot of room for, you know, kind of the, the filler that a lot of us want because it tastes so good.

• 55:15Jonathan Cohen?

  I was taking notes during this podcast, like I do sometimes. And what I was kind of shocked about, and this is not even a, you know, detailed list fully. 90% of people are missing this. 87% of people are deficient in this. 50 to 60% don't have enough of this. Like, there's an epidemic of pre-clinical health issues that are happening, that are just waiting below the surface.

• 55:44Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, in many cases, they're not below the surface. The general, like, the message that I got is we're not generally eating an appropriate amount of different nutrients. We're not living in an environment, both like literally the environment in terms of sun exposure and all these things, and also the sort of social environment to support the systems that our body naturally is made, you know, to operate with. So when we think about, you know, what, what the human experience was like a thousand years ago, what it was like 10,000 years ago, and what it was like 100,000 years ago, right? We're in a very different state of nature right now. And the things that have changed in our culture and in our way of living, they're cumulative

• 56:28Mayim Bialik?

  and they are cumulatively deleterious in many cases. Also, people used to live until they were 30, maybe 40. So what is it?

• 56:35Jonathan Cohen?

  We've been out of that for a little bit now.

• 56:38Mayim Bialik?

  We've been out of that for a little bit, but if you look at the length of time that Homo sapiens sapiens have existed, it's not, I mean, I know it's not as important to you to think about those people, but you know, there was a lot of time when, you know, people were, and granted, they were likely deficient in things and we know that from a lot of the really interesting, you know, physical anthropology studies and things like that, but, but, but yeah, in the sort of state that we're living in now, you know, it's been, it's been a rough go. It's really been a rough go and it's been a rough century in many ways and there have been so many advances, but as, as we talked about, a lot of those advances have turned out to be, you know, not necessarily in our best interest, right?

• 57:17Mayim Bialik?

  Microwaving plastic to heat things up is very, very efficient and it's a fast way to do things, but we now know that like if we can use glass, we really should be, right? Like for real.

• 57:28Jonathan Cohen?

  There's also a lot of positive and very practical steps that people can take, like it's not that difficult to get a multivitamin. It's not cost prohibitive getting the right multivitamin, making sure that you have a fish oil. Just how

• 57:43Mayim Bialik?

  Or an algae oil.

• 57:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Or an algae oil. Just how impactful that can be as an antioxidant to help us repair some of that oxidative stress that's coming into our body. Because we're getting exposed all the time and the other thing I thought was really interesting is the idea of an anti-inflammatory response. We talk about it physically here, but also emotionally, like there's a parallel. Meaning you can't eliminate all the stress that you're going to experience, both on a physical level and on a psychological level. So how on a psychological level do we use some of the tools that we talk about on this podcast? Framing, regulation, knowing what's in our control, what isn't? And then also how do we make sure that on a physiological level,

• 58:29Jonathan Cohen?

  we're getting the support we need so that when the stress does arise, our body's able to metabolize it? Talk a little bit more about the mind-body connection that

• 58:38Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, I mean, that

• 58:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Was unpacked here.

• 58:39Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, that's like, it's something I feel like I've heard before, but the way that she talked about it made so much sense to me and I just couldn't help but thinking like all The things that we go to the doctor for and they don't want to look for these things or there's not money to look for these things or there's not time for look for these things. So I really appreciate, you know, her kind of like filling us in on like, here are some things you can try before you have to try fill in the blank, right? Before you are put on a medication that you actually may not need. And I don't want to say that people shouldn't go on antidepressants. Like if you need an antidepressant, by all means, if you want to go on an antidepressant. But what if what you're dealing with is actually inflammation? And you've been given a diagnosis that's constitutional, right? Your body doesn't produce enough serotonin, right?

• 59:23Mayim Bialik?

  Like, that's a very different story and, you know, then you're dealing with like side effects of those medications. Or you just end up on an SSRI and you're like, I'm just gonna be on this forever. When maybe what's going on is like, A, some of the foods you're eating may be causing inflammation, like gut-brain connection. You may be like having a brain on fire is what I call it. Or what if some supplements could fill in some of those gaps to help reduce inflammation, which is a normal thing that happens, like there's inflammation. But like, what if you just don't have enough stuff? Like, what if you're literally going on a diagnosis that might not even be appropriate for what you're experiencing?

• 1:00:01Jonathan Cohen?

  You may be going to the doctor thinking that you have depression with all the clinical symptoms of depression. But really what might be happening is you may not have enough fish oils. You may not have enough vitamin E in order to have an anti-inflammatory response. So your body is having a physiological response. And sure, you could go back and do psychotherapy. And we're a big proponents of therapy here to understand your patterns.

• 1:00:26Mayim Bialik?

  No, but you might just need a supplement of some stuff that you can get at the supermarket.

• 1:00:30Jonathan Cohen?

  You may have had a nutrient deficiency, a micronutrient deficiency that is preventing your body from being able to regulate itself.

• 1:00:38Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I'm really, you know, grateful for, for people like Dr. Rhonda and. You know, and the Hubermans, and the Atias, and Dr. Lee, like, the people who are bringing this more into our consciousness, because there is more of it that's in our control, you know, and it can be very disempowering, you know, to be put on a medication and think that there's something wrong with you when there actually may be more to the story. So, we're, again, we're not advocating for people throwing out your SSRIs, but also finding out more information, or trying things in addition to what you're doing, because maybe it's not just about you're not meditating right, you're not exercising enough, you're not, you know, in a job that brings you the ultimate joy that it could.

• 1:01:17Jonathan Cohen?

  It's top-down, bottom-up.

• 1:01:18Mayim Bialik?

  Talking to you, Jonathan.

• 1:01:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. But, if we had to summarize, it's top-down, bottom-up, right? Top-down being, let's analyze how you think, what your thought processes, how you're making meaning of the world, what your past history is, your emotional complexity, your upbringing. Bottom-up, do you have the basic physiological building blocks? And that's actually a nice parallel, you know, on the podcast, we talk a lot about emotional health, we look at extrasensory ability, we explore the edges of what's possible, where science and spirituality meet, and then, we have a podcast like this, because we're all in physical form, we have these bodies, we can't have spiritual experience without still being alive in the vessels that we have come here in, and so, how do we take

• 1:02:02Jonathan Cohen?

  care of these bodies that we have in order to continue the human experience that we're all having? Bottom-up, how do we, how do we make sure that we're getting what we need?

• 1:02:12Mayim Bialik?

  One of the articles that she published with Dr. Ames, who she mentioned, was an article about vitamin D hormone regulation and serotonin synthesis, and the high rates of autism in boys, and a differential distribution of vitamin D and serotonin in boys that might account for the increased diagnosis in autism for boys. Very interesting paper. So she does so much, like, deep, deep work, but we're so grateful that she talked to us about all of these things, and also some fun stuff today. So, yeah, check out her website, check out, yeah, especially those guides that she talked about, they're really, really cool.

• 1:02:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Liam, if people don't know what Substack is...

• 1:02:54Jonathan Cohen?

  Tell them what Substack is.

• 1:02:55Mayim Bialik?

  Well, Substack is a platform that our podcast exists on where we have more in-depth conversations in many cases about the things that we talk about on the podcast. And Substack is also a place where we can communicate directly with our breakers and also share content that we've never shared anywhere else, that we've been kind of saving up to share with a more select audience of people that we know want that content. And so it exists over on Substack.

• 1:03:26Jonathan Cohen?

  That is very well explained. A lot of people ask, what is Substack? It is a platform. They have an app, they have a website, you create an account, you join and you follow us there.

• 1:03:37Mayim Bialik?

  You can look at what you want and not look at what you don't want. And yeah.

• 1:03:39Jonathan Cohen?

  There's a lot of things on Substack, but you can follow us, the podcast, the Breakdown community, the Breaker community. We have exclusive content there, never before released, not seen anywhere else. My and I do lives. If you love what you're hearing here, please come over, join us. Considered becoming a paid member, but there's also a free membership.

• 1:03:59Mayim Bialik?

  And also, I've gotten back to writing. So I do writing that is on My and Be Alex Breakdown Substack. And Jonathan does writing on his Substack page, which is Jonathan Cohen. I do have a Substack, but I write from the My and Be Alex Breakdown podcast. So you can also see writing, which is usually things elaborating on things we've talked about here, and also just general writing that otherwise I'd be blogging about or submitting to other publications. We now have a place where all of that lives. So head on over.

• 1:04:25Jonathan Cohen?

  The larger takeaway is Google Substack. Put it into Google, go to substack.com, search for My and Be Alex Breakdown and follow us there. We are so excited to continue to build the Breakdown community.

• 1:04:37Mayim Bialik?

  We'll see you over there. And from our Breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.