Missing Micronutrients, Necessary 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

  There are simple solutions out there that will improve the way you feel right now and the way you feel 10 years later, 20 years later. It's not just about living forever. It's about feeling good. It's about being independent.

• 0:14Mayim Bialik?

  The cure for what ails us is a lot more in our control than we've been taught to believe.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Instead of what should I avoid, they should be thinking about what do I need? Multivitamins and supplementation are the low-hanging fruit. Doing two minutes of vigorous intensity exercise, studies have found that you have like a 50% lower cardiovascular-related mortality, a 50% lower cancer-related mortality. That's really significant. Nutrition also plays a role in our mental health as well.

• 0:40Mayim Bialik?

  Many doctors would see that and be like, "Take an SSRI and you'll feel better."

• 0:44Speaker 00

  I think first and foremost, it's important to establish the role that chronic inflammation plays in depression, chronic depressive symptoms, anxiety.

• 0:52Mayim Bialik?

  There are actually things going on chemically in your body that we have control over that can change the degree to which those depressive symptoms impact or damage your functioning.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  If you're feeding your body and your brain, all those things do get easier and the stress is less, and then you're happier. And like, who doesn't want that?

• 1:18Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Iyam Bialik.

• 1:19Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:20Mayim Bialik?

  Welcome to our Breakdown.

• 1:22Jonathan Cohen?

  This is a really important episode.

• 1:25Mayim Bialik?

  Before we tell you more about this episode, we want to make sure that everyone is following us over on Substack. Iyam Bialik's Breakdown is on Substack with never-before-seen content, never-before-heard content, behind-the-scenes stuff, our writing. So go over to Iyam Bialik's Breakdown on Substack. And now, we're going to talk about this very important episode.

• 1:42Jonathan Cohen?

  What if there were things that were controlling your health, having huge implications on your physical well-being, your emotional well-being, but most people, between 80% and 90% of people... Across the world, we're actually deficient in these key ingredients that could promote their wellbeing.

• 2:02Mayim Bialik?

  I think for me, this episode really brings to light the possibility that so much of your health is actually something you do have control over. And in many cases, you may be misdiagnosed with something, or sent down an entire medical journey that could be solved with some very, very simple changes in your diet or your supplements. And many people kind of roll their eyes when we talk about supplements, but we're going to be speaking to Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She's a scientist and a health educator, and she specializes in nutrition, aging, and disease prevention. And she's going to tell us all

• 2:43Mayim Bialik?

  of the things that so many of us could be doing that can change not only our physical health, but our mental health as well, before we get to the point where we feel like we have no other options. We have a lot of options.

• 2:56Jonathan Cohen?

  The steps that she's suggesting can increase our life expectancy, can reduce our risk of cancer, and dementia, and disease, all-cause mortality. There are so many things that we can be doing. And specifically, women, one of the things we cover, women are eight times more likely to have this negative effect, but this can be changed through the simple steps that she recommends.

• 3:19Mayim Bialik?

  Dr. Patrick earned her PhD in biomedical science, did her graduate research at St. Jude's Research Hospital, where she investigated mitochondrial metabolism, apoptosis, and cancer. And her broader research has been published in literally all the big journals. And she specializes in many different aspects of nutrition, such as omega-3 fatty acids. She's a board member of the Fatty Acid Research Institute. Didn't even know that was a thing. And her goal is to challenge the status quo, and encourage the wider public to think differently about health and longevity. We have such a fantastic time with her. Can't wait to share with you all of the wisdom that she has gathered. Dr. Rhonda Patrick, welcome to the Breakdown in person.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 4:03Mayim Bialik?

  We're excited to talk to you about all of the things. There's so much health information, there's so much health misinformation out there. I wonder if you can tell us, as we get started, what's your particular mission? Like, why do you do what you do and what is it?

• 4:19Speaker 00

  So, my mission is to age the best way that I can. You know, basically delay aging as much as possible, delay age-related disease as much as possible, and using science to understand how to do that, evidence-based research, and to share that with people that I love, my family, my friends, and the world. Because, I mean, why wouldn't I want everyone to age better and be happier and healthier? And so, my mission is kind of twofold, right? Personal, I want to, you know, age better, but I also want people to understand how they can age better.

• 4:52Mayim Bialik?

  What do you think people are getting wrong about our understanding of the aging process?

• 4:58Speaker 00

  I think, understanding that the way we age isn't just about genetics. I think a lot of people think that genetics play a big role, and genetics does play somewhat of a role, but it's a small role. I mean, it plays more of a role in whether or not you're going to live to be 115. And when I say "age better," I don't mean I want to live to be 100, like, that'd be cool. But what I mean is, I want to be healthy and active when I'm 70, 80, you know, 85, maybe 90 years old. So, genetics doesn't play as big of a role in the way you're aging with respect to your health span and your disease risk as much. It does play somewhat of a role, but your diet and your lifestyle play a really big role in that.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  And I think something that people aren't really understanding is, it's not just about macronutrients, our fat intake and our carbohydrate intake and our protein intake, right? We're so focused on that, right? It's a big focus on nutrition. It's also about the things that are called micronutrients that we're not getting from our diet. And that, I think, is a big, for me, I think people are just ignoring that and overlooking it, and it's so, so important.

• 6:08Mayim Bialik?

  I think a lot of people sort of go through life like...

• 6:13Mayim Bialik?

  I'm gonna eat the things that my parents feed me. Then I'm gonna eat the things that I find at college. And like, maybe I'll be someone who works out, but maybe I won't be. And then at some point, you try to look your best for your wedding. And you have children. And then at some point, your skin starts sagging, your hearing goes and your vision goes. And then you get sick and die. I think for a lot of people, that feels like the trajectory. Where am I getting it wrong? Because that's what it feels like to me.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Well, you're right. It's, it's basically like, I, I think people aren't thinking about, when they think about disease risk, they think about like, what's happening right now, right? Like, so I talked about micronutrients. And these are, you know, 30 to 40 essential vitamins and minerals that we have to get from our diet. We can't make them, we need to get them. And when you think about a deficiency in one of them, for example, you know, vitamin C comes to mind, because this is when people think about scurvy, right? You, you don't look in the mirror and say, well, I don't have scurvy, therefore I'm getting enough vitamin C.

• 7:12Mayim Bialik?

  That's exactly what I do.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Right?

• 7:16Mayim Bialik?

  I'm like, every morning, I'm like, scurvy? No, good.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  But what you don't realize is, is that, well, there's subclinical deficiencies. In fact, like, 40% of people aren't getting enough vitamin C, believe it or not. And the requirements aren't even that high. And so what happens is, wound healing is not as well. So you're not gonna like, your, your wounds aren't gonna heal as good. Your immune system isn't gonna be quite up to snuff. So you're gonna be getting sick more. You know, so things like that collagen production is gonna affect your blood vessels. They're gonna be stiffer and weaker. And that sort of insidious type of damage accumulates with age and leads to age-related diseases. So you're exactly right. And I gave vitamin C, but that's not the best example because there's-

• 7:53Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, give us another one.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's examples where people are not, I mean, 90% of people aren't getting enough choline from their diet.

• 8:01Mayim Bialik?

  What's choline?

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Choline is a really important nutrient that is abundant in egg yolk. It's abundant in egg yolk. It's also in vegetables. You have to eat, you need soybeans or chickpeas as well. But you have to eat a lot of them, or you have to supplement. And choline, the reason it's so important, and I said 90% of the population's not getting an adequate intake of it. The reason for that is because they're not really eating enough eggs or, you know, the vegetables that have choline in it. And choline is, first of all, it's a precursor for acetylcholine, which is an important neurotransmitter. It's also important to make phosphatidylcholine, which is important for all our cells, including neurons and neurotransmission.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  But maybe even more important, it's, it plays a very important role in what's called this, this methyl metabolism in our body. And methylation, you hear a lot about that. Well, I'll just save going into the weeds for another episode, but essentially what happens is something called homocysteine in our body doesn't get reconverted into methionine. And so we end up having high homocysteine. You may have heard of this. High homocysteine dramatically increases atherosclerosis risk, cardiovascular disease risk, also dementia and Alzheimer's disease. And that's just if you have a little bit less choline than you're supposed to have. This isn't like a clinical deficiency. When you start to have a clinical deficiency, you start to get fatty liver, non-alcoholic fatty liver.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  So 90% of people are walking around and they probably have high homocysteine. And it's not something that's routinely measured. You go to your physician and you get like, you know, a standard test. They're not measuring for homocysteine usually. You have to like ask for it or you have to have a really good doctor that's looking into that. And it's really important because it does biomark your cardiovascular disease risk and your Alzheimer's disease risk. And there's a simple solution. You can, you know, eat your eggs. About three eggs a day is enough to get women, women to their choline.

• 9:56Mayim Bialik?

  There's a shortage, you know.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  There's a shortage in eggs.

• 9:58Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Or you can supplement is the other option as well. So phosphatidylcholine from lethocin is another option. So choline is very important also for, you know, the way our brain is functioning and brain development even. In fact, there's been studies showing that pregnant women, there was a randomized controlled trial showing pregnant women, even those meeting the RDA. Which is around five, they were giving a little over that, so about 500 milligrams a day. They, their children did good, but when they doubled that to about 900 a day, those women had children that had dramatically better IQ tests, they scored better on cognitive function. So choline, it plays a very important role in brain development and brain function as well. And that's just one example.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  There's also another one that's very common is vitamin E, believe it or not. And you might be going, vitamin E.

• 10:47Mayim Bialik?

  It's the one you put on scars to make scars go away.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Right. Vitamin E, that's like, you know, why is, seriously, like 87% of the population's not getting enough vitamin E from their diet? If you consider supplementation, 60% is not getting enough. So even after supplementation, people are not getting enough vitamin E.

• 11:06Mayim Bialik?

  Myobialx Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets, and cozy cashmere scarves, and gloves, to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I'm personally obsessed with Quince's 100% European linen wide-leg pants.

• 11:50Mayim Bialik?

  I can wear them year-round because I live in Southern California. They feel like PJs, but it looks like I put a ton of effort in, whether I'm dressing for casual workdays, lazy weekends, or vacation vibes. I'm also obsessed with their sheets, so soft. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middle people, so you pay for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just apparel. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Myobialx Breakdown.

• 12:35Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  That sound? That's the National Squash League. Pro teams, the world's best players, and rallies so fast you'll forget to breathe. Season four is in full swing, and every match streams free on YouTube. Big hits, bigger rivalries, and a front row seat from wherever you are. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  What's with vitamin E? So there's different forms of vitamin E. There's the tocotrienols and the tocopherols. We're just going to focus on one, and that is the essential one that you need. That's alpha tocopherol. That's the main form of vitamin E. And why do you need vitamin E? Well, if you don't get vitamin E, what ends up happening is a disease that's acute. And that's the kind of stuff you're talking about. You don't really see every day, so you don't really, you think you're fine until you keep going along, and then all of a sudden, boom, you have atherosclerosis or whatever. So with vitamin E, the disease is you get, it's called hemolytic anemia. So your red blood cells start to just burst because of oxidative stress. Vitamin E is a very potent antioxidant. It's found in, it's able to go, it's fat soluble,

• 13:51Speaker 00

  so it's able to go into the membranes of cells and do its antioxidant thing. But most people are not walking around with that severe form. Some people are. But the subclinical deficiency of it is you end up, you end up having oxidized LDL cholesterol. A lot of people have heard of LDL cholesterol. Oh, that increases my cardiovascular disease risk. But what people don't understand is the oxidized form of it is really bad. And so a lot of people are walking around with oxidized LDL because they're not meeting their vitamin E requirement. And what that does is it essentially tells your immune system, inflammation, inflammation, immune system comes and tries to attack the oxidized LDL, and then you have a formation of a foam cell. So you're getting the beginnings of atherosclerosis, essentially.

• 14:36Mayim Bialik?

  What's the kind of metaphor for the human body? Right? Meaning, there are so many different components, and there are so many different chemical reactions. And it's not until you sort of look at this level or visit a functional medicine doctor, where they literally will show you the pathways, right, of any particular cell process and show you like, oh, you're having this problem it's because you're not converting this thing. Right? And I think a lot of women are maybe diving into this in hormone conversations. They're finally learning about kind of the precursors and all these things. Can you give us a general framework of how we should be looking at and thinking about the human body as, you know, kind of a mechanistic conglomeration?

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Gosh, if I could just pull up this one figure. If you Google biochemical pathways, you look at image, there's like this image of, it's overwhelming how many pathways are in this image. And it's true. I mean, it's just thousands and thousands of reactions going on. And these reactions require not only energy, we think about getting energy in the form of glucose or fatty acids. They require these vitamins and minerals as cofactors to do things so that they're able to do them. And so, you know, if you don't have those cofactors, it's like you have this orchestra ready to play, but there's no conductor there like telling you like how to play or when to, this, you know, instrument's going to play that piece and this one's going to play that. Right?

• 16:03Speaker 00

  So it's kind of all out of sync. And with the micronutrients, I mean, it's so easy to forget about them because we're so focused on, oh, I shouldn't eat processed foods. Oh, I'm so worried about my glucose spiking. How much protein did I get today? And, you know, protein is important. But if you think about food, looking at your plate and going, okay, what is in this food? Okay, I talked about, you know, eggs having choline. And then, you know, broccoli, soybeans, chickpeas also having choline. Vitamin E, why aren't people getting vitamin E? Well, the main source of it is nuts and seeds and people aren't eating nuts and seeds. It's just not part of our diet anymore. And if you're not eating nuts and seeds, you're not going to be getting enough vitamin E. And so what do you have to do?

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Okay, well, eat an ounce or two of almonds. You eat an ounce of almonds, that's like 25 almonds or so. That's half of the RDA, half right there. So you're, you know, you're, you're good. Then you can get the rest from maybe a multivitamin supplement. Vitamin K is another one. I mean, this one is also 50% of the population even after supplementation.

• 17:05Mayim Bialik?

  What is vitamin K?

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Vitamin K, vitamin K is interesting because it's actually required by plants to undergo photosynthesis. So plants are a really good source of vitamin K. And there's two types of vitamin K, K1 and K2. The plant source is, is the vitamin K1, it's called phylloquinone. And that is the actual form of vitamin K that is required, that you need. Vitamin K2 is found in some fermented foods. Natto, like fermented soybeans are a really good source of it. You can also find it in some dairy as well. But vitamin K2 isn't as essential because vitamin K1 can do all the functions that K2 does. And the reason people aren't meeting their vitamin K requirements is because they're not eating enough greens. They're not eating enough plants.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  And vitamin K is a cofactor. I was talking about a cofactor, you know, it's required for an enzyme to work properly. And it's, it does three really important functions. One, it goes to the liver and it regulates blood clotting, so coagulation. And that's the most essential one. When your vitamin K is really, really low, you have blood clotting problems where you're not able to clot. Very, very important. Number two, it also activates proteins that are not in your liver, but they're sort of in the periphery that shuttle calcium out of your, your blood vessels and bring it to your muscle and your bones. And that's really important because calcium precipitates easily, very easily. And so you want to get the calcium out of your vascular system and bring them to other tissues that where it's required and needed.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  That's number two. And number three, it also activates another protein called osteocalcin, which is important for bone rebuilding.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Your bone and making sure bone mineral density doesn't drop too low. And so vitamin K does all those things. And if you think about it back to this, I keep going back to this, you know, this image that you you gave of yourself going through life and like not realizing anything's wrong until you have the heart attack or whatever, you know, something happens. And it's so true because we think about these vitamins and minerals. It's like, well, if something isn't going wrong, then I must be fine, right? Oh, my blood's clotting. I'm I've got enough vitamin K. Well, this is something that was proposed by my mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames. And he basically proposed that these vitamins and minerals are essentially longevity vitamins. They're not just required for the short term prevention of death, which is essentially what all the RDAs are established for. RDAs are established for, okay, what happens?

• 19:28Speaker 00

  Oh, there's this disease that causes death. Let's go a little couple of standard deviations above that, and that's the RDA, right? Well, he what he proposes, actually, there's all these other functions of these vitamins and minerals that are involved in this insidious type of damage that accumulates over time, year after year, decade after decade. You don't see it. You don't look in the mirror. I mean, your gums aren't bleeding and falling off like scurvy, right? You can't see the oxidation of your LDL. You can't see that.

• 19:51Mayim Bialik?

  You flatter me.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Right? And you're not you're not visually visually seeing it. So it's not happening. Therefore, it's not happening, right? But it is happening silently and insidiously. And so what happens when you when you're with a vitamin K? Well, if you, you know, year after year, keep not getting enough vitamin K, you're going to have calcium buildup in your arteries. That's a known thing that is involved in atherosclerosis, right?

• 20:16Mayim Bialik?

  I'm going to ask a really simple question. What's wrong with just getting old and dying?

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, essentially.

• 20:23Mayim Bialik?

  You know what I mean? Like, like, I'm being really honest. Like, you look amazing, and I'm sure you'll look amazing till you're 95. But for many of us, it's kind of like, I'm going to do the best I can. Like, I think a lot of us feel like I'm balancing so many things, like I'm juggling kids and this, that. And like, now I'm supposed to deal with my mental health. And I barely have time to exercise. And now am I doing the right kind of exercise? And I think a lot of us feel like, yeah, how do you fit it all in? Like, I criticize a lot of the people that Jonathan wants me to listen to because I'm like, I don't want to like spend my whole day trying to live forever. I want to live my life. Where is that balance and what is the goal?

• 20:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Let me take this one, and then I'm going to pass it back to you. What frustrates me the most is that there are preventable things that we're getting sick with. And the system has not been designed to have preventative health or wellbeing, which is my frustration. It's like, you hear this, "Oh, I should be getting these basic micronutrients and then I would avoid a lot of these problems that are building up slowly over time." And then you go to your regular GP and they're like, "You don't have a chronic condition that I can fix right now, so you're fine and in the clear as you continue towards this cliff."

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I agree with you on that, but I also think to sort of speak to your question directly, you know, the low-hanging fruit, and this is, you know, I'm talking about getting your foods from diet, and there's other, there's magnesium, there's so many other of these that are important as well. But multivitamins and supplementation are the low-hanging fruit because they have been shown to help fill the gaps in many of those places. And that is something that you try your best, you eat as healthy as you can, but you try to fill the gaps as well. And this is something that's been shown with, for example, a multivitamin. So multivitamins, oh, I remember 10 years ago, all the rage. "Multivitamins are not only useless, they're harmful." Right. "Enough is enough," was the name of the article. And now here we are, 10 years later, full circle, three large randomized controlled

• 22:16Speaker 00

  trials later, where we're really testing supplementation against a placebo. And we now know that even just supplementing with a standard, cheap Centrum Silver, run-of-the-mill multivitamin that's affordable, prevents cognitive aging. In fact, older adults that took it for a couple of years, it reversed their episodic aging of their brain by five years, and they're, basically their cognitive aging by three years. So there are improvements in executive function, learning, memory, episodic memory. I mean, as simple as a Centrum Silver a day. And I, by the way, I have no affiliation with them, but the point is, is that, you know, there is a low-hanging fruit. And yes, you should try to get as much as you can from your diet, but it is really hard.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And as you mentioned, you're juggling all these things, so what can I do? Well, I mean, the easiest thing is take a supplement, right? Like, that's one. You mentioned exercise. I mean, that's another one we should definitely get into. But, I mean, before even going into that, because there's also, I think, simple solutions there. You know, it's not just about living forever. You know, it's about feeling good. It's about being independent. It's about, it's about not making your kids rely, having your kids to like, take care of you. You don't want to be the burden, right? Like, you're not independent. You can't walk on your own. You can't feed yourself. Like, this is, this is the quality of life. We want a better quality of life. We want to be happy, right? Nutrition also plays a role in our mental health as well. You know, so this is all feeding into the way we live and how happy we are.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  And also just how you are, you know, you mentioned, I got, I got kids. I gotta do this and that. And like, it's the same thing. Like, you're overwhelmed and you're stressed, but like, if you have the right, you know, components to, that you're feeding your, your body and your brain, all those things do get easier and the stress is less and then you're happier. And like, who doesn't want that, right?

• 24:04Mayim Bialik?

  Can you talk a little bit about the, the connection? You know, we're, we're so used to kind of siloing different aspects of our health, right? And there's been so much emphasis and it was the impetus for us, you know, starting this podcast, right, to talk about mental health and mental wellbeing and it's a huge conversation. Can you discuss the intersectionality between getting the right nutrients and how that impacts our mental health?

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Um, you know, so, mental health is this kind of broad term that, you know, encompasses a lot of things, but in, for this discussion, we'll talk about it as, you know, mood, improved mood, less depressive symptoms.

• 24:43Mayim Bialik?

  Depression, anxiety.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Right, depression, anxiety. So, and there's a lot of different lifestyle factors that do affect this. I think first and foremost, it's important to establish the, the role that chronic inflammation plays in depression, chronic depressive symptoms, anxiety. And this has actually been shown in multiple, multiple observational studies, right? High inflammation, increased risk of depressive disorders, you know, major depressive disorder and other, other ones as well. And you might go, well, at the end of the day, there's a lot of other things going on here. How do we know it's the inflammation, right? So there've been some studies that have actually tested that directly and they've injected something called lipopolysaccharide, which is essentially the cell membrane of a bacterial cell wall. And we- Make a lot of it in our gut and it gets into our bloodstream. It's inflammation.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  And so basically it generates inflammation and inflammatory response. If you inject LPS that, you know, in generating inflammatory response in people, they get depressive symptoms. If you inject a placebo controlled saline solution, they do not. And even moreover, if you give people a omega three supplement like EPA that is blunting that inflammation, the depressive symptoms don't happen.

• 25:53Mayim Bialik?

  So as much as you want to wring your hands about, it's my mom, it's my alcoholic boyfriend, it's my kids making me crazy. Guess what? There are actually things going on chemically in your body that we have control over that can change the degree to which those depressive symptoms impact or damage your functioning.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Well, there's no doubt all of those things that you mentioned do cause inflammation.

• 26:20Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  You know, there's cortisol. It's been shown that cortisol actually releases LPS. You're actually dumping that very stuff that people were injected with into your bloodstream. So all the psychological stress, all that psychological, social stress, financial stress, all of that causes inflammation. And so it's definitely, if you can do other things that can help blunt that inflammation, obviously you only have so much control over what other people are doing. Right? I mean, that that's out of your control sometimes. I mean, you can only control so much. But I do think that if you can, if you can really elicit this anti-inflammatory response with your diet and lifestyle. And I think, you know, when I say diet, I should also mention that obesity is another,

• 27:04Speaker 00

  you know, a thing that causes inflammation and that's also associated with depression. But, but the omega three fatty acids are something that I think are really important because it's not only important for mental health, but also overall your, your, the way you're aging. And it is a low hanging fruit, you know? So people can take a omega three supplement, either fish oil supplement or microalgae oil. You want to make sure you're getting not the plant source, the alpha linoleic acid, because it's just, it's not getting converted into the stuff that you really want. The DHA and EPA very good. And so you want to get a high quality fish oil supplement and. Again, there's studies showing it does help with depression, but now it's only going to do it to some degree. I think the bigger lever to pull here would be physical activity.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  And again, that's another thing you mentioned. Well, there's time, right? Well, who has time to go and do a, you know, two-hour run every day or whatever? I mean, I don't. So there's other ways that you can actually be more efficient about the way you exercise, high-intensity interval training being one. And that is something that has been shown to increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Now, that is something that is very important with depression because it plays a role in neuroplasticity, something I'm sure you know more about than I do. And that really essentially is allowing our brain to adapt and change to a changing environment. And that's something that people with depression, and when you're really stressed

• 28:31Speaker 00

  out, like, your brain isn't doing that correctly. It's not plastic enough. It's not able to adapt to the changing environment. And so what happens when you can't adapt is you feel depressed, right? You feel anxious, I can't deal with this, there's so much going on. It's like, you know. So, so brain-derived neurotrophic factor is key for that very thing, that neuroplasticity. And you can actually increase that dramatically with a six-minute workout. Six minutes? Who has six minutes? We all do. Yes, we all do. And so I think that's important to keep in mind. Now, you have to have the motivation to do that, right? And that's a whole other factor. And if some people are really, I mean, there are some people that are really clinically depressed, right? And that's a whole other sort of ballgame here. But if we're just talking about like, the stress of life, which

• 29:15Speaker 00

  we all experience, I think that, I mean, before I came on this podcast, what did I do? I did a, you know, 20-minute high-intensity workout. Oftentimes, I'll do 10 minutes. Sometimes I'll do exercise snacks. You know, these are, so these are, these are very interesting because it's essentially

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Two to three minutes of vigorous intensity exercise. So you're getting your heart rate above, you know, 75% max heart rate. You can do burpees, you can do, you know, air squats, you can do high knees, whatever. You get up from your desk and you do it for a couple of minutes. You get your heart rate up high and they're actually hard. Try it. Yeah. You know, like, we could get up into a break now, but like, essentially, what's been shown, there's these large studies that have measured, not the structured type that I'm talking about, there's unstructured type where you're using everyday life scenarios to get your heart rate up, right? I don't take the elevator, I take the stairs. Not only do I take the stairs, I go briskly up the stairs, right? You kind of use, I don't, you know, I'm walking to my office. I'm not taking the car because I live, you know, four blocks away.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  So I'm going to walk there and I'm going to walk briskly, like that type of scenario. And there have been these large studies that are called the vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity studies, VILPA for short. And so people have worn these accelerometers on their wrist, which essentially measure their heart rate. And scientists have been able to measure when their heart rates are spiking and how long that spike lasted. And these studies have found that just anywhere between, like, starting at two minutes, doing two minutes of vigorous intensity exercise to three minutes, and then doing that like two to, you know, anywhere between two to six times a day. The more you're doing it, so if you're doing that like six times a day, studies have found that you have like a 50% lower cardiovascular related mortality, a 50% lower cancer related mortality, and you're going to feel better.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  And these are in people that don't identify as exercisers. And those benefits were even if it was like three times a day. So they were doing two minutes, three times a day. They have like a 30% reduction in cardiovascular related mortality. That's really significant, you know? And I think that everyone has time to get up and do something for two minutes, three times a day. It's really not that hard. And it's, and makes you feel good. Like, I do exercise snacks when I'm sitting and working because I need like a pump to my brain. You're getting oxygen flow, you're, you're bringing oxygen to your brain, nutrients are being delivered to your brain. So it's doing something that's beneficial for your mental health as well. You know, and there have been studies that have actually compared classic, you know, standard SSRI treatments to, to actually running.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  And running performs as good, if not even better in some studies than classical antidepressant treatment. And that's not to say that those don't work for people, but a lot of people they don't work for, a lot of people they don't work for, particularly people that have a high inflammation. In fact, there's a study that was really interesting that found people that aren't responding to the SSRIs typically have high biomarkers of inflammation, so C-reactive protein. But back to the running, I mean, here you have something that's, you know, at our disposal. I mean, you don't need a gym membership to run. I mean, you just go outside and do it. It's free, right? Something that we can do, it's the only side effects are going to be reduced Alzheimer's disease risk, reduced cardiovascular disease risk, you're going to have a longer life, you're going to be, you're going to be more functional, right?

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Everything's beneficial, right? I mean, and it's helping with the depression as good as the pill you'd be taking with all the other negative side effects.

• 32:38Jonathan Cohen?

  And some people who can't run for whatever reason, whether it's soreness, they can't go very far, like just getting your heart rate up in whatever capacity you can, maybe like a brisk walk to sort of, that leads to a slow jog, that leads to your running. It sounds like consistency and just getting your heart rate up is the key.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Getting your heart rate up is the key. There's stationary cycling as well. There's, there's a lot of ways to do that, right? And you have to find the way that you like, that you enjoy. I mean, I think that's the most important. You know, I would say briskly walking is, you'd have to do a lot of it. So you're trading volume for intensity, right? But I mean, if that's what you love to do and you don't mind doing more of it, then perhaps that's something that you should be doing. But, you know, then there's the other, you know, flip, flip of the coin and it's like, okay, let's do something intense and short. And that's what I like. I like to be efficient and I like to, the harder you work, it's actually more beneficial for your brain. The BDNF, like you have to make something called lactate. And that only happens when you're really working hard, your muscles are working hard.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  You have to get up past that like 75% max heart rate range. And, and that's when you start to get the lactate. And it's the lactate that's signaling to your brain, I'm stressed, this is a stressful situation I'm in. And so it's like an adaptation. Your brain starts to make brain drive neurotrophic factor. Because when you're working out, it's not just your muscles that are working hard, your heart that's working hard, your lungs, your brain is also working hard when you're exercising. So it's this, you know, the lactate that you're generating from the exercises is like this signaling molecule to the rest of your body. I like to think about it that way because I can make my lactate up, right? That's, that's, that's, that's one way I like to think about it.

• 34:17Mayim Bialik?

  One of the things that strikes me in all of the avenues that you talk about, whether it's nutrition or like macro versus micronutrients, or whether it's exercise.

• 34:27Mayim Bialik?

  It seems like, it seems like you have an in to a secret that is kept from most people. And what that is, is that, you know, the, the cure for what ails us, either physically or psychologically, is a lot more in our control than we've been taught to believe. And in many cases, the most efficient way for the medical system as it is now to treat us is to give us a pill and send us on our way, right? Or give us a diagnosis and say, here's the pill you take. And when you have side effects from that, when you have side effects from that, take this other pill. I mean, you just have to watch, you know, any late night television to see the number of drugs

• 35:12Mayim Bialik?

  they're trying to give you to cure the thing from the pill, from the pill, from the pill. But what you're saying is there's a not very well-kept secret, meaning it's open knowledge, right? That we have the key to many aspects of our mental health, our physical health, our longevity. It doesn't have to be something that's just for people who go to fancy functional medicine doctors or people who are given, you know, SSRIs and anti-anxiety meds and told this is what's going to cure you.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. I think. That's it's really, it's that's kind of part of my big message that I want to get across is that, look, there are simple solutions out there that will improve the way you feel right now and the way you feel later, 10 years later, 20 years later. And it's so, it's so easy, you know, I mean, a vitamin D supplement, omega 3, making sure you're getting magnesium, exercise snacks at the very least, you know, exercise. But, you know, polypharmacy is a big issue, as you mentioned, I mean, people, the old, the average older adult is on like six or something medications. I mean, it's outrageous, it's outrageous. And, and the reality is, is that like, there are things that they can do that may not,

• 36:26Speaker 00

  you know, you, there's, there's things that you can do that require a lot more effort that you could really do the, go the whole shebang, right? But we're talking about just little low hanging fruit things that people can do right now to pluck that fruit off the tree and improve their lives, improve the way they feel, improve the way they're aging. And that's, and I think that's the most important thing.

• 36:44Mayim Bialik?

  So how do you pick? I think that's sort of my question. I mean, I'm on like a Huberman diet. I take like 20 million pills a day. I take literally three full handfuls of pills, like that's my life. What do people choose? And I know you have kind of a, a select amount that if people wanted to sort of like hone in, I'd like to know, what are your top three? And then what are your top five? Meaning, three and then two more.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  So I think, you know, the top three supplements, and again, the reason the supplements are important is to really fill the nutritional gap. But not only nutritional gap, just our micronutrient gap. And I, and I'd say like, the top of that list would be vitamin D. And that's really important because it's not something that you're going to get from your diet. Less than 10% of vitamin D that we get in our bodies comes from our diet, right? We're making it from UVB radiation from the sun. And the problem is, is that 70% of us are not making enough because we're not going in the sun. Well, that's problem number one. We're not going in the sun anymore, like we used to, we're inside.

• 37:47Mayim Bialik?

  It gives you cancer, I don't want to go.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  It gives, yeah, there's skin cancer, right? I mean, so when you are in the sun, you have sunscreen, right? You're blocking out the very thing that can make vitamin D. There's a simple solution. That solution is a vitamin D supplement. Why is it my top of the list? Because vitamin D is actually a hormone. It's a steroid hormone. It is controlling over 5% of our protein encoding human genome. And essentially, what that means is it's getting into the nucleus of your cell, where all your DNA is, binding DNA, turning genes on, turning them off, in the way they're supposed to be. I mentioned that orchestra analogy a few minutes ago. It's essentially like if all your genes are not being turned on and off at the right moment, then things are out of whack. Like, you don't want all your neurotransmitters on when you're sleeping at night, right? Like, you want them on in the day when you're awake and alert.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  So there's a lot of coordination there. And vitamin D plays a role in that. And so, you know, not being, not having enough vitamin D isn't just not having enough vitamin. It's not having a hormone, right? That's controlling a lot in our bodies. And so, the solution is, and there's all these studies that have shown it accelerates the way you age, dementia risk goes up, all this stuff, right? So, the solution is a vitamin D supplement, which really is one of the cheapest supplements you can buy. It's like 10 cents a pill for a vitamin D supplement. I mean, back 10 years ago when I was saying this, it was 1 cent a pill, so it is going up in price. But, so, most people want to have blood levels around 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter. That's the sweet spot. But really, you just want to be above 30 nanograms per mil.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  And if you're like below 20, then you're deficient. Like, that's pretty bad. So typically, around 2,000 to 4,000 IU's a day, depending on the season, can get you to that good range. You have to get a blood test. That would be the top, the top supplement. The next one would be an omega-3 supplement. And I think, you know, 80 to 90% of the US population is not meeting the omega-3 requirements in terms of EPA and DHA. That's about 250mg a day. And the reason they're not meeting those requirements is because, one, they're not eating, they're eating fish. And if they're vegetarian, they're not supplementing with the right things, like microalgae oil. So, the EPA and DHA are hugely important for...

• 40:00Speaker 00

  I mean, brain function, mental health, you know, cognitive aging, but cardiovascular health as well. And there's been a lot of work by my colleague, Dr. Bill Harris, showing that people that have a high omega-3 index, so you can measure that in red blood cells. If you have a high omega-3 index of 8%, you have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to people with a low omega-3 index of 4%. People in the US have an average of about 5%, so they're about on the low range. Five-year increased life expectancy. Now, the thing that's really mind-blowing, this is from the Framingham cohort, and what was really mind-blowing about this study was that Bill and his colleagues then sort of took that data and said, okay, let's look at smokers versus non-smokers with the omega-3 index.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  And what they found was that having a low omega-3 index was like smoking in terms of mortality risk. Yeah, so people with a low omega-3 index but did not smoke had the same mortality risk as smokers with a high omega-3 index. I mean, when I say same, I mean, if you were to look at this paper, at the graph of their their life expectancy, they're perfectly overlaid. Wow. Perfectly overlaid. And so all the smokers out there are like, yes, I'm gonna take omega-3! But like, that's not the point I'm making here, right? The point I'm making here is that not getting that, those important nutrients I talked about- Is as deleterious. As smoking. Right. Right. And everyone knows to avoid smoking, but nobody's thinking about avoiding omega-3. You know, there was a study out of Harvard, and I always talk about this study, it was

• 41:25Speaker 00

  like, published forever ago, like, 2010 or something. And it was, it identified omega, not getting the marine sources of omega-3, so DHA and EPA, as one of the top six preventable causes of death. Wow. Up there with hypertension, type 2 diabetes, smoking, there you go! And, and, you know, consuming trans fats were up there, but, you know, so, so no one's thinking about not getting enough omega-3. And again, there's a solution, not everyone's gonna be eating fish, there are fish oil supplements, omega-3-

• 41:54Speaker 00

  You know, high-quality supplements out there, but there's also algae oil as well.

• 41:58Mayim Bialik?

  There, that's the vegan alternative.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Right. I have a free guide that I put together on how to choose that. It's called, it's basically like all the top, you know, omega-3 supplements that are not oxidized and have the right amount of concentration of the stuff that's in there that they should. People can find that at F M F omega-3 diet dot com. But essentially, you can go and analyze all day to yourself. You can go to these third-party testing sites, like the International Fish Oil Standards site, which is what we did. They have tons and tons of data on there, and you can kind of go through it and look for the quality supplements that have a low oxidation and a high concentration. And so I think that's essentially like, I've got like eight or so that I've listed that are really good quality for both vegan and, you know, people that are taking fish oil as well.

• 42:40Jonathan Cohen?

  This is a little bit in the weeds, but what's happening in the oxidation, like, people are like, a supplement is a supplement, but clearly not.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  So polyunsaturated fatty acid, which is what omega-3s are, it's also what omega-6s are, is, I mean, they oxidize at lightning speed. I mean, it's, you, so, in fact, that's one of the reasons why you need so much vitamin E. The more, the more polyunsaturated fatty acid you take in, the more your vitamin E requirement goes up as well. But when you eat oxidized fat, it's, it's, it's, it's basically like generating an inflammatory signal in your body. It's, is what it's doing. It's, it's an inflammatory signal because it's not right. It's like a oxidized, your, your immune system recognizes it as like a foreign object. So it activates inflammation. So you want to avoid, if you can, you know, eating and consuming oxidized

• 43:27Speaker 00

  fat. And so that's what, with fish oil, you have to be very fastidious about the way you isolate it and stuff. And so

• 43:34Jonathan Cohen?

  So it's in the manufacturing process?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, manufacturing, but also when you get it, you should store it in the refrigerator. If you buy it in bulk, I store mine in the freezer. Doesn't harm it at all. It's actually great. So you store it in the freezer, and then when I'm ready to get in my new, my new bottle, I thaw it out and take it. Because, because cold stops oxidation, right? That's, that's essentially what's happening. So that would be number two. And then I would say the third supplement that's at the top of my list would, it's a, it's a race between a multivitamin and magnesium. And so I think I'll defer to the multivitamin on this one because it is covering the vitamin K base, the vitamin E base, the calcium, the vitamin C, all those other ones that are also, you know, important. So I think that would be my top three.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  And then the top five after the multivitamin would be magnesium.

• 44:24Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  And that is also something that half the US population is not getting enough of. It's essentially, it's at the center of a chlorophyll molecule. So anything green is high in magnesium. People aren't eating their greens. We've already established that with vitamin K. They're not eating their greens, right?

• 44:39Mayim Bialik?

  What happens when you're deficient in magnesium?

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Well, it depends on what kind of deficiency we're talking about. If you're severely deficient, you start to get muscle spasms. Like, that's one of the, you know, I would say, more like clinical symptoms. But when you're just kind of suboptimal, like half the US population is, when you're just not getting that RDA requirement, which for women is about 320 milligrams a day, for men it's 420. If you're physically active, that requirement goes up even more because you're sweating and losing magnesium, but you're sweat. But for those people, I mean, maybe you're getting some muscle cramps. If that's something that's happening, then you really probably should be taking in more magnesium. But insidious damage, that insidious damage is happening. Magnesium is a cofactor for many important enzymes, 300 different enzymes. DNA repair is one of them.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  And if you can't repair damage to your DNA, then you increase the risk of getting cancer. And so what happens is DNA damage isn't a problem for five years. It's not a problem for 10 years. It's not a problem for 15 or 20 or 30. It starts to become a problem 40, 50, 60 years later, right? Then cancer rears its ugly head. And so it's not something that you're really going to pay attention to until it's too late. And so magnesium is, and there are studies, I've looked at this, so people that take, you know, for every 100-milligram decrease in magnesium intake, they have a 24% increased pancreatic cancer risk. And then people with the highest quartile of magnesium have a 50% lower cancer-related

• 46:12Speaker 00

  mortality compared to people in the lowest. Yeah, 50%. And then there are studies showing supplementation is beneficial as well. And with respect to the supplementation... I tend to think you really should try to get as much magnesium from your diet as you can because leafy greens are so good and there's so many different micronutrients that are in them that you're getting, like the vitamin K and the calcium and the vitamin C. But if you are going to supplement, then you want to probably take smaller doses of it. It can be an irritant on the gut, so you don't want to take a big bolus of magnesium. It can cause like muscle spasm, like your muscles and your intestinal system to kind of spasm and can cause diarrhea and things like that. So you want to take lower doses, maybe like 150 milligram, 300 milligram doses.

• 46:57Speaker 00

  And you want to take a salt form, so I would say magnesium malate, magnesium citrate are good forms, but also magnesium glycinate, which is what I take is a good form.

• 47:06Mayim Bialik?

  People like these for sleep, also magnesium. Like this is one of these things.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  For sleep as well and stress. I mean, when you're stressed, your body pulls on magnesium as well.

• 47:14Jonathan Cohen?

  There are so many different forms of magnesium. How do you decide what to prioritize? Do you take all of them? Like, how do people approach it?

• 47:21Speaker 00

  I like the magnesium glycinate because you're also getting glycine in there, glycinate. So magnesium is bound with glycine. It's very bioavailable, which is what you want, and it does sort of help with calmness. Glycine's like an inhibitory neurotransmitter, right? So I take it before bed as well, and it could be the placebo effect, which is a very valid real thing, and I love it. But, you know, it does seem to help with sleep as well.

• 47:47Jonathan Cohen?

  And are you missing, if you're not taking the other ones? Like, do we need all of them, or does glycinate work?

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Glycinate works. If you're taking magnesium threonate, that's kind of a brain-specific form of magnesium. And I would say, in that regard, then you definitely want to make sure you're getting other forms of magnesium for the DNA repair aspect that I was talking about. Also, magnesium is important for bone health, like 60% of magnesium stored in bone. And it, you know, it's one of those things that if you're having inadequate levels of magnesium, as 50% of the US population, your body will pull from your bones because it has to really maintain very tight levels of magnesium in the plasma. Very important. And so you'll pull from your bones, and by the time you're older, you know, an older adult, you've lost half your magnesium stores, which affects your bone mineral density and bone health, right?

• 48:38Speaker 00

  So those things all sort of converge together as well. So, yeah, I mean, I think magnesium threonate, which is something people do like for their brain, they're taking, it's like a, it's... There's some evidence showing that it can cross the blood-brain barrier better and get into the brain better, and therefore it has beneficial effects in the brain, like energy production, and it seems to be important for preventing perhaps cognitive decline as well. So if you're taking that form, I would say that you want to make sure you're also getting enough magnesium for the DNA repair and other enzymes as well that are not in the brain. Number five, choline, because it's, I used to supplement with it more, and I think I'm

• 49:20Speaker 00

  going to bring it back after like, kind of diving into it recently again, because it really, it really is important for brain health, you know, for preventing the oxidized, I mean, not oxidized, that's vitamin E, for preventing the homocysteine. The homocysteine is really important. I mean, that's another thing that a lot of people aren't measuring. So I think that would be my number five.

• 49:41Jonathan Cohen?

  Where does vitamin E fall in because of the importance?

• 49:44Speaker 00

  The vitamin E, RDA, is in the-

• 49:47Jonathan Cohen?

  Multivitamin.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Multivitamin.

• 49:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  And I do eat a lot of almonds. Like, I'm, that's my, that's my go-to, like, it's not time for dinner yet, but I've, you know, it's been many hours. It's almonds, raw almonds.

• 50:01Mayim Bialik?

  Not to get too in the weeds here in our own way, you mentioned nuts and seeds. So I'm a vegan person. He's a vegan-friendly health nut biohacker. We eat so many nuts and seeds. Like, I'm a walnut person. I prefer walnuts, but we put cashews in our smoothies. I'm trying to get all branches of the vitamins through all the different nuts.

• 50:21Jonathan Cohen?

  But it's work.

• 50:23Speaker 00

  It's definitely work.

• 50:28Mayim Bialik?

  It's time to pause our conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick because there is so much more to talk about. We're going to go much deeper into some specifics of things that people often ask about but don't have proper answers to. Coffee, pesticides, microplastics. Please stay tuned for episode two of our conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Make sure to check it out.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  With the AMEX Gold Card, you can earn four times points at US supermarkets. Because the best nights in start with the grocery run that makes it happen. Apply for the Gold Card at americanexpress.com/explore-gold. Terms and points cap apply.