You're Thinking About Protein All Wrong with Simon Hill

Speaker 1 [00:00:00] You could smoke for a week or a month, it's probably not gonna give you lung cancer. You smoke across decades, it increases your risk of lung cancer, same thing with plant protein. You're increasing your exposure over decades, small amounts is gonna add up, and that's where you get these risk reductions that we're talking about. 

Speaker 2 [00:00:25] Hello, Renee. How are you doing? Hi, Melanie. It's great to be here with you today. You look beautiful as always. You look beautifu. Thank you. 

Speaker 3 [00:00:35] You know, there's nothing like waking up at 5 a.m., taking a quick, it's where post-memorial day in this traffic is. 

Speaker 2 [00:00:42] Yeah, well, I woke up at 2.30 in the morning today because I was just so excited for our interview today. No, I mean, probably a little bit of that, to be honest, because I had a little bit of, like. Uh, like our guest today, um, to me is like VVVIP in the nutritional world. So I was stoked about that. And then dietitian fangirls, yeah, for sure. Fangirl for sure, and then also, uh, you know, jet lag. So, well, you 

Speaker 3 [00:01:20] Well, I didn't have my little baby last night, so I actually got like, even though it was only seven hours, it was like a good seven hours. Not to say that. So you. 

Speaker 2 [00:01:28] Oh, so you got good sleep last night. I got good. I did. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Speaker 3 [00:01:32] This is very exciting. Longevity in the making. A drop in my postpartum longevity bucket. I'm here for it. Well, we have an incredible conversation coming. We're both stoked about having Simon Hill on our episode today. So that's upcoming. We have incredible myths or methods that we're going to be talking about today about seed cycling. But make sure you stay tuned towards the end because we always do a mailbag. We say it every episode, but we do a mailbox where you can submit your questions. 

Speaker 2 [00:02:02] We got deep. We only got to three because we just went in on these like Simon had so much to say. Let's dive into our method. This is going to be. 

Speaker 3 [00:02:13] I think a fun one. I think so. Run it. 

Speaker 2 [00:02:13] I think for both of us. 

Speaker 3 [00:02:16] I'm personally, as you know, very, very excited about our method today. It is all about seed cycling. Seed cycling, whether or not it is beneficial, how to use it, should it be implemented? Shall I begin? I think you should start. I, full disclosure, use seed cycling often with my female clients. Yeah, seat cycling is a process by which you utilize two different types of seeds at different phases of your cycle. So for your follicular phase, which is day one of your period to the day that you ovulate, so the first 14 days of your cycle, you will consume pumpkin seeds and flax seeds. Ideally, I like to tell people to grind them the day you're consuming it for more potency, about a tablespoon of each a day. Add it to your breakfast, smoothies, whatever you're going to consume. Then you'll switch the seeds on day 14 until the first day of your cycle, which is called your luteal phase, and you will consume sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. And again, one tablespoon of each, ideally ground up for potency. Very easy, honestly, to, the hardest part about, and well, before I go there, the reason that you do this is, or the way that we utilize this in a functional way is the, there are, The sesame seeds in the luteal phase and the flax seeds in the follicular phase are considered phytoestrogens. Phytonutrients that help to support whether you have excess estrogen or not enough estrogen at different varying cycles of your phases of your cycle, the phytonestrogen can go and actually plug and play. It's one of those interesting, has estrogen mimicking-like compounds within them that can help to support your body. While you're transitioning and cycling through. A lot of people have, there are lots of women that have low estrogen that need support. So, but the benefit of doing seed cycling is, as with all nutrition, and we actually kind of talked about that in our conversation with Simon today, is it's not something that you just do for one month. It's something that compounds over time. And so consistency is the most important and probably the hardest part about seed cycling is that you actually do need to do it for long periods of time. Now the varying, I'll hand it to you because I'm very curious about what you've read, but it's not necessarily something for everybody. It depends on what type of hormonal issues that you're experiencing. But I have found in my work with patients significant reductions for people who have really bad PMS, bad cramping, bad. Sleep issues that that seed cycling can significantly reduce those issues and also have seen the I have a lot of patients who are in the peri and postmenopausal stage of life and it can actually help to especially for those who aren't necessarily at work, even if you are on HRT, hormone replacement therapy, it can be supportive to continuing to be be cyclical and and following that pattern. So I've found it to be a lovely light. Therapy for a lot of my female patients specifically. Okay, I wanna hear your thoughts. For me, this has methods for sure. As with a lot things, it's not necessarily for everybody, but. 

Speaker 2 [00:05:44] Yeah, so I was significantly less familiar with seed cycling than you are because you obviously use it in your practice, but I did my own research to figure out what is the science here. What is the science? And right now, there really just isn't much clinical evidence to support this as being beneficial. Now, let me caveat that. The research that There was a review of research that tried to use seeds for PCOS and for women's health, more broadly. And they did see that things like flaxseed were helpful. But in terms of actually cycling it, there's just really not any evidence there. So my... Yet. But they've tried to do it. And what they're finding is like, yes, these... These seeds, and especially flax seeds, have some of this impact of kind of being this balancing act on estrogen, but the impact is pretty small. So its ability to make, like, really big change, I wonder if it's the seed cycling or something else, or if it is placebo effect, or what is it, I'm not sure. We would have to have better trials to know what's actually happening. But. Do I think that people should not have flaxseeds? Heck no. Flaxseed are healthy and amazing, and I think hopefully more research will be done, but this concept of seed cycling comes essentially from traditional Chinese medicine then kind of got reinvigorated in the 2010 kind of era by individuals who practice functional medicine, but there's just really, for me, It is not. Clinically validated enough for me to consider it a method, but if you have 

Speaker 3 [00:07:52] As with a lot of things that are in the functional world, simply because people don't put money into female research and also things that related to the specificity of nutrition. 

Speaker 2 [00:08:06] So, I think for me though, if this is kind of the only thing that's really left for you to try or this is something that your practitioner is like, I think that this will really work for you, there's no harm. Yeah, it's gentle. It's seeds. I'm never going to tell somebody to eat seeds. 

Speaker 3 [00:08:28] Yeah, you need more nuts and seeds in your diet anyways. I mean, yes. And the thing that spawned a thought for me of what you just said is flaxseeds have the most calcium of any food. And it's really important to note that for my peri-menopausal, post-menaposal women who estrogen and calcium are very closely connected also, so there could be an effect on the mineral composition, a vitamin mineral composition of the body as you change. There really isn't unless you have some sort of. Not our seed issue, there's really not a lot of downsides to practicing something like that. It can have, I found significant impacts on things like PMS symptoms, people have, but it is something you have to do every day. It's not something you can, you can pulse. So anyway. 

Speaker 2 [00:09:15] Yeah, I think you're gonna go method. Yes. I'm gonna go untested method. Okay, that was very kind. I don't think it's a myth because for it to be a myth, it would have to be proven wrong. Yes. And it has not been proven wrong, so there you go. Go grab your seeds, ladies. 

Speaker 3 [00:09:36] Sure. Yes. Sure. Grab your seats. No problem. All right. Let's get into this episode. Oh, you guys are going to have so much fun and stay tuned at the end. We still have our mail bags. So make sure you follow to the tail end. It's riveting. Let's go get a seat with Mr. Simon Hill. There we go. As dieticians, we are very happy and excited to have you on our show. We have the wonderful Simon Hill here with us, who is a nutritionist and physiotherapist. The founder of Living Proof, including the Proof Podcast, which has over, I think, 40 million listeners, which is incredible. You have done so much in the nutrition space and all very plant forward, talking a lot about, I think your book is called The Proof. Proof is in the plants, I believe, which is very aligned with a lot of what we talk about here, so we're very excited to have you on to be here. 

Speaker 1 [00:10:29] Feelings are mutual. Thank you for having me, I'm excited. 

Speaker 2 [00:10:32] Yes, so we usually like to kick things off with one of a relatively standard question that we ask all of our guests. It's what is the longevity hill that you will die on, which means what is something that you feel like isn't being talked about enough? What do you think needs to be shouted from the rooftops so that people can support a healthier, longer life? 

Speaker 1 [00:10:54] I'm gonna come back to protein here. 

Speaker 2 [00:10:56] Ooh! 

Speaker 1 [00:10:58] Which it seems obvious, and protein right now is having a moment, it seems to always be having a moment. But I think about protein, I think it's a little different to the way that protein's being portrayed in the mainstream media right now. I think, it's great that there's a lot of emphasis right now on maintaining your functional independence as you age and staying strong. And so there's this quite strong message right now to make sure you're getting enough protein. 

Speaker 4 [00:11:26] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:11:29] And I think we should be asking a different question than other than how much protein do we need? I think should be ask what foods that are rich in protein are going to help us maintain our physical independence and stay strong, but also are gonna keep us healthy in 30 or 40 years time. Yes. And that's the pace that seems to be missing. And so the hill that I'll die on is that our protein conversation is way too reductionist, and when you look at the totality of evidence, it's clear that yes, protein amount, it's important, just like any macronutrient, getting essential fats and having carbohydrates, all these things are important, but the source of the protein where it's coming from, becoming a little bit. A little bit broader in the way that we're thinking about protein really dictates our risk of disease. So are we at risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, these diseases that we are all trying to avoid that are robbing evolved quality of life. So that's the kind of hill that I would die on. 

Speaker 2 [00:12:43] I mean, reductionist thinking is the problem in nutrition science. I feel like it's always been a problem, and it seems to continue to be a problem. But I'm curious to know the answer to that question, or where you would suggest that people find their protein sources. What is the final rec on your side? 

Speaker 1 [00:13:04] And this answer is nuanced, right? So that's another thing I think. Often we look for the black or white answer and the absolute answer, which does tend to get most of the attention on social media and whatnot. So there's two landmark papers from last year that speak to this question that I think did a really good job at trying to tease this out. Both out of Harvard, looking at big populations of people tracked over decades. Awesome. And... The neat thing about these types of studies is that you can assess how someone eats, and you can then track them over, not weeks or months, which a clinical trial usually does, but you can track them over a long enough period to see who develops disease. Longitudinal, yeah, super important. And you can also, in the high quality versions of these studies, reassess diet periodically. So in these papers, they were reassessing the diet every four years, as opposed to just doing a baseline. Dietary questionnaire and assuming people ate like that for 30 years. So this was high quality in that context. 

Speaker 2 [00:14:09] And they'd use food frequency questionnaires. 

Speaker 1 [00:14:12] Yeah, so they use food frequency questionnaires, so these two landmark studies both use those types of food frequency questionnaire and redid them every four years to pick up on any dietary change and most of us will adjust our diet through our life a little bit. You should. Yeah. And the first one was really interested in looking at does midlife protein intake, how does that affect what they call healthy aging? And healthy aging. In this paper was a composite outcome, and it included being free of 11 chronic diseases. It included having good mental health. It included, having good cognitive health. And it included, being physically independent. 

Speaker 2 [00:14:54] Sign me up. Sounds like it. 

Speaker 1 [00:14:55] Sounds like health span. Yeah, let's go. That's a pretty thorough definition of healthy aging. I think most people, if you could say you're going to have all of that later in life, and just to be a little more specific, physical independence meant that these people didn't rely on anyone else to go to the grocery store, to walk down the street, to get in and out of the car, et cetera, activities of daily living. And This was nearly 50,000 adults and they were followed for 30 years. Only 7% of them met that criteria by the end of the study when the study was done. So 93% of people didn't qualify for what was considered to be healthy aging. 

Speaker 2 [00:15:37] And this was at mid age. 

Speaker 1 [00:15:39] And this was looking at, so they were looking at their protein intake, specifically the researchers were interested in, how does protein intake and source of protein affect that outcome later in life? Okay. Make sense? Yes. 

Speaker 2 [00:15:53] We're with you. 

Speaker 1 [00:15:54] So then they're interested in, okay, the people that did well and met that criteria of healthy aging, what were they doing differently in terms of protein? And what became clear in this study, and coming back to your question around what does this actually look like. So firstly, people that had higher intake of plant protein had a greater odds of healthy aging. Significantly greater odds of healthy aging, okay? They had significantly greater odds of having good cognition and significantly greater odd to being physically independent. Nice. They then did a substitution analysis where they were looking at animal protein, dairy protein, and plant protein. 

Speaker 4 [00:16:40] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:16:42] What I can say there is plant protein performed the best from a healthy aging perspective and then dairy protein and then the other animal proteins. Graham. That's kind of as far as that study went in terms of the substitutions. They were still broad categories. 

Speaker 3 [00:16:56] Does that include fish? I'm assuming it does include fish, or does that have an outlaying? 

Speaker 1 [00:17:00] Yeah, I wish they actually separate the fish out, because I would say the rest of the, you always have to look at this within the totality of evidence. The rest of evidence that we have on fish tends to associate with good health outcomes. Definitely compared to red and to white meat. I think there are juries out a little bit. How does fish compare to nuts and seeds and legumes? 

Speaker 4 [00:17:24] Mm-hmm 

Speaker 1 [00:17:25] And maybe that comparison, there's less of an effect either way. But to circle back to your original question, and then we can come to that other paper if you want as well. When I think about protein and what this looks like when someone's at the grocery store, the average American right now is getting 75% of their protein every day from animal protein, 25% from plant. And if we could just get that to 50-50, it would make a huge difference. And that means eating less red and white, tends to be where a lot of that animal protein comes from, less red-and-white meat, and eating more beans and lentils and chickpeas and tempeh and tofu. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. But it's making some swaps through the week so that the ratio of animal to plant protein is moving more towards an even ratio. 

Speaker 3 [00:18:17] I'm really grateful that you said that because the hill that you die on or want to die on is also the one that we will also die on, especially right now because it's such a big conversation. But whenever we come out the gate and say something like, you're getting too much protein or you're eating too much animal proteins, people, it's a super emotional reaction that people have. They're very attached to what they're eating in their diets. And I love when you say it's not. All or nothing. It's it's just more plants. It is more plant forward, right? It's a little bit more emphasis on Foods that are both protein and fiber and you know plant from plants and when you're 

Speaker 2 [00:18:57] And when you're only asking for an additional 25% to your total 100%, I mean, if you think about how many meals you're having a day, it's probably like switching one of, one, maybe one and a half of your meals every day with a plant-based source of protein. 

Speaker 1 [00:19:10] Yeah, or just having slightly smaller piece of chicken or steak and adding some lentils or chickpeas to that meal as well. Or if you're making a lasagna, right? Instead of having that completely being ground beef, have half of it as lentils, things like that where you can sort of sneak these foods in. And you- Are you hungry right now? Sign me up for that recipe. Well, I think that's the other thing here is that- That swap doesn't have to mean a sacrifice in joy and flavor. Right, yes. So these foods don't have be bland. All those foods I reeled off, peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas, et cetera, tofu, tempeh, that. If you're not used to eating those foods, you might hear me right now and think, oh, it doesn't sound very good. But trust me, with just a little bit of practice and everything that is new takes a bit of time and a bit a practicing. With a little of practice and thought about the flavors that you enjoy, you can bring those flavors to those foods. And so each time you're doing this, you're getting a cumulative effect across your life. 

Speaker 4 [00:20:17] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:20:17] And this is how I'd like people to think about it. It's not something we want you to do for a week or a month. Kind of like smoking, right? You could smoke for a month or a week. It's probably not gonna give you lung cancer. You smoke across decades, it increases your risk of lung cancer, same thing with plant protein. You're increasing your exposure over decades. Small amounts is gonna add up, and that's where you get these risk reductions that we're talking about. 

Speaker 2 [00:20:44] So in this study, they're definitely leaning towards plant proteins. But have they within the plant protein group looked at amount of plant proteins? So were those who were consuming more plant protein versus potentially like the lower group of plant protein if they were primarily plant protein eaters, did they do that? 

Speaker 1 [00:21:06] That's a great question. I feel like you've been reading my mind. I wanted to get there, and that's the second study. Oh, good, my gosh. You guys are very well-read. 

Speaker 3 [00:21:18] Listen to the Almost Forever podcast. 

Speaker 1 [00:21:21] Yeah, that's it. 

Speaker 3 [00:21:22] Simon Hill approved this. 

Speaker 1 [00:21:23] That's impressive. I should be asking you. I don't know. 

Speaker 3 [00:21:27] I don't know. We're waiting, Simon, eagerly. Yeah. Easily. 

Speaker 1 [00:21:30] So the second study was done by Andrea Glenn. This is also out of Harvard, and I actually had her on my show recently to go through this in detail. I was waiting for this kind of study to come out because it was looking at not only animal versus plant protein, but the total protein density of the diet. Because you could have a high plant to animal protein diet. In a context of a low protein diet, a moderate and a high, okay? And so they were interested, they did two different papers, but the first one was looking at cardiovascular mortality, so risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. And again, they saw that higher plant to animal ratio was lower risk of cardiovascular mortality. And the lowest risk was at about a one-to-one ratio. 

Speaker 4 [00:22:24] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:22:25] They didn't have enough subjects eating more plant protein. So that's kind of where they got to. Then they asked the question of, okay, once you have a high plant to animal protein ratio, does protein density matter? This is a question that I think a lot of people in the plant-based community have kind of been waiting for. They actually found the people that did the best had the lowest cardiovascular mortality. Can you guess? 

Speaker 3 [00:22:52] I mean, I, I was going to say moderate. 

Speaker 2 [00:22:55] Moderate. Low. High. 

Speaker 1 [00:22:59] So people that were eating more protein, but had a bias to plant protein, they did better than the people that had a bias to plan protein, but had low protein diet. 

Speaker 2 [00:23:12] Wow, are you surprised? I'm a little surprised. You know what, I'm actually not. Wow, okay. Because of all of the research that we're seeing on protein for muscular health and strength, which we know has better longevity outcomes. Especially as you age, for sure. I mean, this is specifically for cardiovascular health, right? 

Speaker 1 [00:23:33] They looked again at total mortality. 

Speaker 2 [00:23:36] And that was also better with high. Yeah, and that's why I would see it for that. But for cardiovascular health specifically, increased plant proteins, we see like the phytonutrients that are in, for example, tofu, tempeh, et cetera. There's probably some added benefits there. 

Speaker 3 [00:23:54] Which then binds to things like cholesterol and removes it from your body, all the things that we know are a problem matter for cardiovascular patients. 

Speaker 1 [00:24:03] It's probably a combination of, you're reducing your exposure to certain things in animal proteins that are harmful at a certain dose. So when you're eating a lot of animal protein, you increase your exposure to heme iron. 

Speaker 5 [00:24:18] For example... 

Speaker 1 [00:24:19] Which is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. And then from the protein density side of things, as you were saying, it's a package. So as you're getting more plant protein, certainly you're dialing up fiber. Resistance to arch is another one, which the microbiome ferments and we can increase in short-chain fatty acids, which have a whole lot of effects on the body, polyphenols, the list kind of goes on. Right. That this research has certainly, I think, made me feel stronger in my position that when someone shifts from a typical diet to a more plant-based diet, I don't think it's enough just to tell people, okay, just eat less animal protein and protein will take care of itself. Because if they're removing steak and chicken and instead just eating just whole grains or whatever grains. And not focusing on those more protein-rich plant foods, then I think they may not be getting as good of outcomes as they could be getting. 

Speaker 2 [00:25:26] For sure. So is, go, go. She's passionate, she's passionate. This is great research and I'm so glad that it exists. Do, with everybody now all over social media going for this gram per pound level of protein, do you think that with this research we can justify gram per pound of protein from plant-based sources or is that still too high? 

Speaker 1 [00:25:56] I don't think so from this research. The high protein group just so we're clear was 20% of total calories. Okay. 

Speaker 3 [00:26:04] Okay, so that's about what we would recommend anyways. 

Speaker 1 [00:26:07] Yeah, it's not a gram per pound for the typical person. It's going to be less than that. And the average person in America, based on the studies that I've looked at, tends to get kind of 1.1 to 1.2 grams per kilogram. 

Speaker 3 [00:26:22] Yes, kilogram specifically, which is not per gram, yes, per gram. Per kilogram. 

Speaker 1 [00:26:28] And look, there could be an argument that could be a tiny bit higher, maybe for some people within the population. But my argument would be that if the average person was to maintain 1.2 grams per kilogram but have the bias to plant protein, outside of that, the most important missing piece of the puzzle is resistance training. 

Speaker 4 [00:26:54] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:26:55] Because once you go from 1.2 grams per kilogram to, say, 1.6, if you look at the research looking at muscle hypertrophy and strength, the effect size is very, very small, right? Yep. So, Sockopenia that we're experiencing in America or in Australia. 

Speaker 3 [00:27:16] Which is muscle loss. 

Speaker 1 [00:27:19] I don't think you can create a strong argument that that's primarily driven through a lack of protein. When you look at the average protein intake, it's driven through sedentary lifestyle. So for the average person out there, I think the message is you don't have to go and eat way more protein than you're eating. I think you should think about where you're getting your protein from, make suitable swaps, and then do resistance training regularly. And if you do those two things- Can we just mic? Can we? 

Speaker 2 [00:27:47] Well, that study just also came out, I kid you not, like a couple of weeks ago that did that in older adults where they took older adults, they gave them a ton of protein. Some were doing more weight training versus the others, and only those that were doing the weight training with the higher protein actually saw the benefit. And so it's not just, you can't just have a ton of protein and not do the weight training. It's not going to give you the same. 

Speaker 3 [00:28:14] Yeah, the idea that the more protein you eat, the more cut you're going to be is not quite one for one, like people like to think. Men. 

Speaker 2 [00:28:22] We could probably just keep talking about this for another six hours. But that was a great hill. But I am curious to know a little bit more about you, Simon. You know, your background originally was in physiotherapy, and then you decided to make a switch into the world of nutrition. And I'm curious what prompted that. 

Speaker 1 [00:28:42] So I was working with professional footballers. I don't know if you know AFL. 

Speaker 2 [00:28:47] Yes. Yeah. Sure. You guys seen it? Sure. 

Speaker 1 [00:28:49] Yeah, it's like a 

Speaker 2 [00:28:50] I'm assuming it's Australian. 

Speaker 1 [00:28:51] It's Australian rules football. It's a type of football where you don't wear padding and it's pretty physical, great game. So I was working in that area and I was focused on rehabbing injuries and strength and conditioning and those sorts of things. And also I had an interest in nutrition myself personally and realized that most of the nutrition information I was picking up. Was from the locker room and from magazines. And I'd just gone through university, had done this physiotherapy degree, and had learned about what evidence-based practice is in a completely different field. But it kind of dawned on me that I had these strong beliefs about nutrition and I knew nothing. I never looked at the nutrition literature. And so I just picked this up from people around me and assumed it to be accurate and Held onto it. 

Speaker 3 [00:29:51] Yeah, which I want to go into what those were. I want know what... 

Speaker 1 [00:29:56] Yeah. Well, I mean, you can probably guess. So I was reading all the fitness magazines and so my diet had not much diversity in Australia, a lot of red meat, beef and lamb. Lamb is very popular in Australia. Whey protein and then veggies was broccoli and sweet potato and maybe some rice. 

Speaker 2 [00:30:21] Some good meal prep action probably happening. 

Speaker 1 [00:30:25] Typical dude in his early 20s. I was keeping things simple. And to be honest, my health was great because when you're young, it is generally. 

Speaker 3 [00:30:33] You have more wiggles. 

Speaker 1 [00:30:34] Yeah, you have more wiggle room and it's not as though eating a diet that's increasing your risk of disease, you're not going to experience that usually in your 20s. So everything was kind of going swimmingly and I was also playing sport myself and things were great, but I realized I had this knowledge deficit and the first time I really ever saw that. Firsthand that health's not guaranteed. I don't know if you guys have ever had this experience, but when I grew up, like as a little kid, kind of didn't really understand the concept of death. Until I started to see people around me have experienced poor health or my grandparents die or something like that. And when I was 15, I was with my dad and he had a heart attack. And he started to get the chest pain in the car and it was just me and him together. And long story short. He survived that. And I'd always had in the back of my mind that that was going to be something that I could experience. It was only 41. So I guess when I got into my 20s, like that seed had been planted. And then as I was going through university and learning about science, I naturally became interested in asking questions and then looking at the literature. 

Speaker 4 [00:31:51] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:31:52] My dad's a professor of physiology, so I grew up at a dinner table with lots of these studies printed everywhere and he would highlight everything. I love it. I'd get into the car and I'd have to shift all the papers out of the way. And so I had that knowledge deficit and thought, I'll go back to university. In Melbourne, there's a university deacon which has a really good master's program. So I went back and did that. And didn't really know what would come after that. And here we are today. 

Speaker 3 [00:32:24] I will say, though, it's very funny that you say that. Give your background and history as a kid, because that was very similar to my background, too. My dad's an orthopedic surgeon. My mom was an orthopedic nurse. Our dinner tables were very much about hips, and knee, and spine replacements, and all of the, you know, going through all of this crazy scientific info. And yeah, it that's cool. It's very cool. I love it. 

Speaker 2 [00:32:50] Yeah. And mine was the exact opposite. 

Speaker 3 [00:32:56] It to where we are, no matter where you're. 

Speaker 2 [00:32:58] There was no science duck at my dinner table, but, you know, here we are anyway. But what was happening at my dinner table is that, you know, my dad was he and still to this day, dad, I'm looking at you, needs better nutrition, like without a doubt. I'm just curious what what your experience with your dad was. Did you feel like something was missing and then that's what drew you in? Or what was the impetus? 

Speaker 1 [00:33:24] Well, when he had his heart attack and my brother and mom met us at the hospital and the next day We had a meeting with the cardiologist that at that point in time the way the cardiologists explained it to us was that Cardiovascular disease runs in families and that as we become young men We're gonna need to keep an eye on this and I interpreted that In in a way that I think many people do that. This is genetic. Yes, and it's guaranteed. Yeah, and so then as I was kind of speaking to earlier, it was when I started to get interested in science. That was empowering for me when I first discovered that hang on, yes, cardiovascular disease is running in families, but a lot of that is because we adopt the same lifestyle. It's not necessarily genetics. 

Speaker 2 [00:34:09] Hint hint, there's a mailbag question about this later on that we will be digging into. Stay tuned. 

Speaker 1 [00:34:15] Yeah, so that kind of flipped the script for me. 

Speaker 2 [00:34:19] And actually it's a formative moment. You know, when we spoke before the show, you told me a little bit about how you are doing a lot of this heart health testing on yourself right now. And you kind of hinted at a couple of things. So I think we should talk through that a little more. So can you talk about what you're testing and what you are seeing in yourself? 

Speaker 1 [00:34:44] Yeah, so depends how far down this rabbit hole we want to go. 

Speaker 3 [00:34:49] As far as we want, Simon. No, no, our producer is like, no. 

Speaker 1 [00:34:56] Let me let me say at a high level You know, so I changed my lifestyle at kind of late 20s early late 20's I changed the way that I was eating significantly And before that I as I mentioned I was healthy But when I look back at my blood work from my 20s my cholesterol was through the roof And a doctor never flagged that 

Speaker 2 [00:35:18] in your 20s? 

Speaker 1 [00:35:20] Yeah, never flagged it as how you should look at this. 

Speaker 3 [00:35:21] You should start practicing differently. 

Speaker 1 [00:35:24] And I think that's because I was presenting as a healthy, young adult, and doctors are often used to seeing people come in that are not so healthy and have a chronic disease or one on multiple medications. So maybe there was just like less time spent with me. But... As I got into my 30s, I became more interested in understanding what are the risk factors that are driving cardiovascular disease that I can do something about, right? That I can modify through my lifestyle so I don't follow in the footsteps of my dad. And I've done a ton of episodes, probably like 15 hours conversation with lipidologists and CT imaging experts looking at those risk factors. And high level, most people will have heard of these, but. LDL cholesterol is kind of the traditional risk factor that on your lipid panel that cardiologists are looking at. More recently, it's become a little bit more specific to what's called A per B. 

Speaker 4 [00:36:27] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:36:27] Which that's the rabbit hole that we'll avoid for now, so you get a better understanding of risk. So I've been monitoring that, and then like blood pressure, which I think is super underrated. A lot of people don't measure their blood pressure. 

Speaker 3 [00:36:42] And it's one of the easiest things to do at home, because you can easily buy a cuff and do it for you. 

Speaker 1 [00:36:47] I'd buy a car for like $40 now, you know, pretty high quality ones, and you can keep an eye on that. And then, you now, metabolic markers like triglycerides and HbA1c and blood glucose and these sorts of things. So I've kept a good close eye on those, but one of the things that I was really interested in was looking inside my arteries. Given the family history, given the 30 years of previous high cholesterol. 

Speaker 2 [00:37:11] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:37:12] What's going on in my arteries. 

Speaker 2 [00:37:14] Specifically looking for plaque, I would assume. Looking for plaque. 

Speaker 1 [00:37:16] Looking for plaque, yeah. So we did that scan and saw a very small amount. And then, you know, the next question that comes up is, okay, is that plaque that you've laid down in your first 30 years of life? Or is that more recent? How quickly are you laying it down? What's happening to it? And you can't answer that unless you. 

Speaker 3 [00:37:33] Do it again. Yep. 

Speaker 1 [00:37:35] So, I had a choice at that point in time, do I want to start a lipid-lowering medication like a PCSK9 inhibitor or something like that? And my LDL and APOB sit at about 70 to 80 with diet, so pretty low. And I chose to, I wanted to wait, kind of academic purposes as well. 

Speaker 3 [00:37:57] I was going to say, you've got to, I feel you have to wait at least one other test, right? 

Speaker 1 [00:38:02] Yeah, I think there are cardiologists out there who have certainly said to me, you should just start the lipid lowering therapies. And I understand their view on that. I kind of entered this from academic purposes because I knew that I would wait and I would likely start a lipid-lowering therapy anyway, and we can come to why, why I would do that. But anyway, I waited, I redid it. I have this episode coming out with one of the cardiologists that works at a company called Heart Flow. I have no affiliation with them at all. That's just who I used because they have an AI analysis that's validated to look more deeply at the plaque and quantifier. Cool. And so they did the baseline and the follow up. And by follow up, I had significant regression. 

Speaker 3 [00:38:56] Okay. 

Speaker 1 [00:38:57] And this is an interesting thing for people to understand is that you can get plaque regression. We know that. Yes, amazing. We know from studies where you put people on medications, if you get their LDL and A per B, typically it's like you have to get it below 70 or 80. That's where you start to see some regression, but most regression occurs at like 50 and lower. And essentially that is shrinking of the plaque, which often coincides with a little bit more calcium. So the total plaque comes down, they get a little bit more calcium, which is thought to stabilize that plaque. So we know that that's definitely possible and there are some other studies that have shown through lifestyle you can get plaque regression. So my results are not necessarily out of this world, sort of unsurprising because of particularly the nutrition and the way that I'm eating and where my A per B is at. And that's a result of, you know, prior to being. You know, in my 20s, my LDL was about 120. So I've gone from 120 down to 70s, I'd say between 70 and 80, by eating more plant protein, more fiber, and less saturated fats. 

Speaker 2 [00:40:09] That's significant. I mean, and it's so nice that it's nothing crazy. You're saying less saturated fat, more fiber, more plant-based protein. I mean we're not talking rocket science here. This is something that pretty much everybody can do. 

Speaker 3 [00:40:23] Well, and you're very physically active, we've alluded to that, which is incredible for heart health. So, it's not only nutrition, it is also lifestyle too. 

Speaker 1 [00:40:34] Yeah, that's true. I mean, I probably do. 

Speaker 3 [00:40:39] Big paddle player, everybody. 

Speaker 1 [00:40:40] We do like five to ten hours of paddle a week at the moment. Yeah, which is a lot of like zone three and four 

Speaker 3 [00:40:48] We may not have joined actual competitions. Amazing. 

Speaker 1 [00:40:51] Yeah, in a very amateur way. That's okay. 

Speaker 2 [00:40:55] You don't have to be great for it to have great cardiovascular in the past. 

Speaker 1 [00:40:58] That's true. My heart doesn't know if the bull's in or out. 

Speaker 3 [00:41:02] And you're superhuman, which is good for me because I would just run around in a circle. That's one of the sweetest analogies ever. Your heart doesn't know. 

Speaker 1 [00:41:11] Beating away. 

Speaker 3 [00:41:12] Yeah, that's awesome. 

Speaker 2 [00:41:15] But I think that's my point, is that we're not talking about rocket science here. Everybody can do this. But my question is, does everybody need to do the scans? So who do you actually think should be going and going, you know, leveling up beyond just maybe getting their LDL and APO-B tested? Who should go do these deeper plaques? 

Speaker 1 [00:41:36] Firstly, I'll say I'm not a cardiologist, so speak to your cardiologist. Political answer. Okay. What else? I think the scans have a lot of evidence for secondary prevention, so someone who's had an event, right? Definitely I think most cardiologists understand the importance of looking at the soft plaque and the calcium and then being able to treat that person based on their overall risk profile and then being able to repeat scan kind of in the future. To help manage that patient. I think primary prevention, there's still more science that needs to be done as to whether it aids clinical management. 

Speaker 4 [00:42:15] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:42:17] Thinking the way that I would approach this as an individual, yes, I do think it's helpful because if I did the scan and I saw the zero plaque at all, right, no plaque. Then I would probably think, well, my lifestyle's working, my 70 to 80 LDL cholesterol A per B, I'm happy with that. But I've seen some plaque, there was some plaque there. And most of the time, what causes a cardiac event is the soft plaque, right? So the mild plaque that I had is soft plaque. Most of the times it is that. And even though it's a very small amount, that could still lead to a cardiac even in the future. So if I'm... Now that I know that that's there, and I'm looking at the evidence, and I am trying to be really objective in what's best for me, getting my ApoB down to below 50, where we see much more regression, it makes a lot of sense. And so I have that extra motivation because I've seen the scan. 

Speaker 2 [00:43:18] To be even more plant-focused, or even more fiber? Like, what are you thinking you're gonna- I'm not sure I can- 

Speaker 1 [00:43:22] I'm not sure I can really change my nutrition much more to get it down. Because I've come down from 120 to 70s, which already is a huge drop. Most people with a lot of nutrition changes can probably get about a 30% reduction. And the portfolio diet sort of shows that. 

Speaker 5 [00:43:41] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:43:41] And like the longevity diet, these are all kind of diets that are gonna lead to, depending on someone's genes, because people respond differently, right? It's 20 to 30% reduction in LDL cholesterol. So for me, it's about looking at what medicines are available that could help me lower it down and have good evidence for reducing risk of events. Yeah. 

Speaker 3 [00:44:06] Would you say, well, first of all, I like that you said that because I also, when I work with patients, I work a lot of patients with very severe gut related issues that have led to things like autoimmune conditions or anxiety, depression, and I often don't congratulate them ever, but it's very helpful to have something so significant to actually be the motivator to make change, so I'm really glad that you. Have that to be, no, I want it even more power, even more beneficial for me. But I'm curious to know, do you have, it seems like your cardiovascular health because of your dad, because of you own experiences has been like one of the main drivers. Through your work and experience, do you, have you noticed anything else or identified anything else in your own health or in learning about this that you feel like is just as important as. Your cardiovascular health in terms of your motivation to live and adopt different lifestyle habits. 

Speaker 1 [00:45:07] I think the thing that scares me most is losing my cognition. 

Speaker 3 [00:45:12] Yeah, yes. 

Speaker 1 [00:45:14] And it's related to cardiovascular disease in many ways. 

Speaker 3 [00:45:18] You had mentioned, when you were reading off the labs that you regularly draw, you also mentioned glucose and HbA1c, all the things that are related to conditions like diabetes, for instance. But it is a term called cardiometabolic. There's a variety of conditions that impact not just your cardiovascular disease, your heart health, but also the way that you utilize glucose. And we've heard that there is research to point to. Alzheimer's dementia being considered type 3 diabetes, for instance, right, related to glucose irregularities and high Hb1c. So, yeah, it's all, I mean, functional medicine is all connected, right. 

Speaker 1 [00:45:55] Yeah, I will say one, because sometimes this can be a little bit of a morbid conversation. One thing that's worth celebrating is that on a per thousand people, the risk of developing dementia has dropped significantly. Why? So there are more people living with dementia today, but that's because we have a bigger population. But the actual risk per thousand over the last three decades has dropped significantly. And we're getting much better at treating risk factors. So the reduction in smoking, the reduction in consumption of alcohol in some populations, the treatment of cholesterol, education around exercise, although we can do much better. These things are having an impact. So there actually is a success story that's hidden or lost when you just look at the absolute numbers of people living with dementia. Right. And yes, a lot of us have that person in our life or had that person our life and it's really scary. But overall as a population, we are actually doing much better at preventing it. 

Speaker 3 [00:47:00] Thanks for being optimist. Yes. Simon. 

Speaker 2 [00:47:01] Are we, is there anything that really stands out as a really great way to support prevention specifically for cognitive decline? 

Speaker 1 [00:47:11] Being social, being social and active. Sweet, I can do that. Yes, we can all do that! Finding sports or ways to move your body with other people. 

Speaker 3 [00:47:20] Or I was just telling Renee that I've gotten very into mahjong, which is a team board game, very good for cognitive health. 

Speaker 2 [00:47:27] Yes, we're doing it. 

Speaker 3 [00:47:28] So we agree with that. The social connection, the relationships, the sense of purpose, all of the things that are less hard and fast as it comes to data are equally as impactful over time, especially as you get older, I think. Because it's harder to find those communities as you age. 

Speaker 1 [00:47:47] Yeah, there's also a couple other more left field or obscure ones that would be worth mentioning. So. 

Speaker 2 [00:47:52] The left field is our favorite. Yeah, we're ready. 

Speaker 1 [00:47:56] The Lancet actually put out a paper last year or the year before on 14 modifiable risk factors that could cut incidence of dementia further by a further 50%. 

Speaker 2 [00:48:09] Wow, that's a big number. 

Speaker 1 [00:48:11] Yeah, and in this paper, actually, they weren't talking about GLP-1s and other medications, which is a separate conversation, but they highlighted two that stuck out to me, and they were uncorrected vision loss and hearing loss. 

Speaker 4 [00:48:25] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:48:28] It's not to say that if you have bad vision, which I do, or bad hearing, that you're going to get dementia, but it's that if leave it uncorrected and you're going decades without correcting that, then it seems to be increasing the risk of dementia. 

Speaker 2 [00:48:44] When you say uncorrected, so I had, I'm legally blind, minus 11.5. Not anymore, I got ICL surgery. She wants to be diagnosed. No, no, this is so exciting. But I'm just wondering, because it took me a long time to, sorry, have the balls to do this surgery. She was blind as a bat. Yeah. And so I'm curious, before that point, is that considered uncorrupted, even though I was wearing contact lenses and wearing glasses. Or is uncorrected, like, walking around blind as a bat. 

Speaker 1 [00:49:17] Yeah, uncorrected is walking around, basically taking in the world without that visual stimuli. Okay. Yeah. Okay, wow. Or the auditory stimuli not being there. And the mechanisms aren't fully understood, but it's probably from Azure, it's like a muscle. Use it or lose it. And if you're not stimulating that part of the brain through having that input, then it could be changing the structure of the brain over time. 

Speaker 2 [00:49:47] And also just like the neural pathways in your brain are just being activated less. And so it's like that neuroplasticity piece probably coming into all this, right? 

Speaker 1 [00:49:55] I mean. Yeah, and just thinking now, it could also be, you know, I wear contacts. Mine's minus five, so not quite a minus 11. But if I wasn't wearing contacts, I think I would isolate myself. Yeah. I would actually not be as social. You know, I wouldn't be able to make out people's faces. And if I didn't have my hearing, I'm sure that's going to affect being social. So there's like. 

Speaker 2 [00:50:17] You don't participate in as many conversations in a loud restaurant. Yeah, totally. Go get your vision tested. Make sure that you are correcting wherever and in your, in your hearing. I mean, I never get my hearing tested. 

Speaker 1 [00:50:30] I think hearing is a big one, because you kind of just assume that it's all okay, but there's different frequencies, and so you can go and do an audiogram and kind of get 

Speaker 3 [00:50:45] I would love to, and that's also decently easy to find and to access, right? Is it? Okay, Google. 

Speaker 2 [00:50:51] Google Audiogram. 

Speaker 3 [00:50:54] We, so we need to go to our, we get to go to our mailbag in a second, but do you have like the other two from the 14 list of plants that I'm curious that you were like most surprised by? 

Speaker 1 [00:51:05] Most surprised by those those were the two that stuck out as being surprised the other ones I think most people will be familiar with right. Yeah, so like so I'm a cholesterol for example, right, right And I'm not even managing blood glucose. Yeah 

Speaker 3 [00:51:20] Which, thank goodness, that's another method of the trends that we talk about here on the show that I'm glad that people are paying more attention to that. It's really a huge, meaningful shift to focus on your glucose levels, CGMs for the win. 

Speaker 2 [00:51:39] I guess I'll have my final question that I want to ask Simon, which is, you have a huge listener base. Your podcast is super fun to listen to. You get incredible guests on. What have you, you read this Lancet, you found this surprising thing. In your podcast, what has been the most surprising thing that you feel like you've heard in the last, I'm going to narrow it to the last few months. Like something that you were like, whoa, the world needs to know this. So that our podcast listeners can go hunt down your podcast. I've had some. 

Speaker 1 [00:52:11] I've had some fun episodes recently, I've got to say unregulated peptides. 

Speaker 3 [00:52:19] That's a hot button topic. 

Speaker 1 [00:52:22] I'm a little worried, I'm little worried just by the enthusiasm around injecting experimental compounds. A, when we're not 100% sure on the active, on kind of where it's affecting, how it's influencing physiology throughout the body, and what the long-term effects are. And then B, because a lot of the things that are being injected are not coming from somewhere where there's a lot of rigorous kind of testing. Of those peptides. So I would say lack of regulation and despite that lack of regulation, this huge amount of enthusiasm is concerning. 

Speaker 2 [00:53:05] People love a quick fix. I don't even know if it's a quick fit. Like, it is, it's, I think the peptide world is super fascinating right now. It's fascinating. And that to me, it like it's exciting. And I think it's that excitement of like, ooh, look at all these things that maybe we could do with this and just like jumping the gun. It's like, it just, you're so excited that you're just, you're going in without having all of the rigor that it should have. I'm curious though, like with. The GLP ones that are out there now, and even some of the triple-acting, whatever ones that slowly coming out, those ones have more rigorous testing in certain populations. How do you feel about those in those populations? But then, second question is, how do you about those unhealthy populations? Where we have less data. 

Speaker 3 [00:53:56] But we have the data on unhealthy bodies. Which is quite literally the scenario we find ourselves in. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 [00:54:01] Good questions. So I think the first thing to canvass this is that peptides is an umbrella term. Not all peptides are equal. Some peptides have gone through phase three clinical trials, which means that they've jumped through all these hoops to show that they have some degree of effectiveness and that we understand the safety profile. It doesn't mean they don't have any adverse effects. It just means that we can understand it. And when you understand the effect size on something like weight or if it was some other outcome, like a health outcome, and you understand the safety profile from a well-powered study, you can make an informed decision with your doctor. 

Speaker 3 [00:54:37] Yes. That's what science ultimately is, is that you have enough information to make a decision for yourself. 

Speaker 1 [00:54:45] Without that, you're flying blind. So I actually, I don't have a problem with someone who is taking an unregulated peptide personally. I just want them to know you're taking that risk. If they sit here and say, I accept that risk, I mean, the first thing I would say is, it's hard for you to accept the risk because you can't quantify it. You're accepting that you can quantify the risk. 

Speaker 2 [00:55:07] Yeah, what if we told you you're gonna go blind in 20 years? Now, are you still gonna wanna do this? You don't know. We don't, there's a lot we don't. You just don't? 

Speaker 1 [00:55:13] Yeah, and there is often, we know that drugs have off-target effects, right? And I think there's this idea that peptides aren't drugs, they're drugs. These are medicines, right. Just because your body produces it doesn't mean it's not a medicine, right, testosterone replacement therapy is a medicine. Your body makes testosterone. So we need to kind of clarify that. I think GLP-1s for the right person appear to be hugely beneficial. We have a massive problem in this country, in America and Australia, with obesity and metabolic conditions. 

Speaker 3 [00:55:51] It can be, it can be life-saving. 

Speaker 1 [00:55:53] It can be life-saving and I think what frustrates me is that sometimes online you'll see someone who has lost a lot of weight through diet will say, these drugs are not needed. I lost weight just through diet. Everyone can do it. And I think that's overlooking what the drivers of obesity are. There are a whole lot of socioeconomic drivers that make it an uneven playing field. Food noise right now is, we're still working on instruments to quantify it, but it seems like food noise is not the same between people. So it's not a level playing field just because I lost X kilograms on X diet doesn't mean the next person can 

Speaker 3 [00:56:34] and will. And also... Can we just get rid of the fact that this is all willpower versus not willpower? I think that conversation is just so tired. Like, please, we know enough now that it is, and actually think that, not to interrupt you, but I do think that the GLP-1, the advent of the GLp-1 craze has been meaningful in that it has opened up people's concept of, oh, this is physiological. There are physiological elements to this being an issue. It's not just, oh you can't help yourself because you're eating XYZ foods. So, anyway, sorry, I had a moment of burst. 

Speaker 1 [00:57:08] We live in an environment that's very tempting, and there's a mismatch between the environment and our genes, and I don't think it's that hard to appreciate that some people are more vulnerable to the environment than others, which is why some people can stay thin in this environment, sure. But others can't because they're more vulnerable for whatever reason. Is it their socioeconomic factors, or is it genetics, whatever. So I think... Given the downstream effects that being obese has, and particularly carrying excess fat around the organs and inside the organs, from a metabolic point of view, I think with that in mind, this stands to be hugely beneficial for the individual and for the chronic disease burden. And I think we'll see that play out. And you know... The other false equivalence or kind of false dichotomy I see people say is, well, you know, just compare GLP-1s to a diet, but you have to appreciate these people have tried the diet and it hasn't worked. So what you have do is take the individual and compare them, compare the GLP 1 and losing 25, 30% of body weight to being obese for the next three decades. 

Speaker 4 [00:58:22] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [00:58:22] That's the comparison. And then you're looking at what are the health outcome differences between those two people? Who's mental health better? Who has lower risk of chronic disease? And so that's kind of the calculation that we're trying to make. And we have the phase three clinical trials to help us understand that. And will get much more data. Some of these drugs have been used for over a decade because they were first used for people with I have two diabetes. 

Speaker 3 [00:58:50] No, they've been around a while. 

Speaker 1 [00:58:51] So, we have some long-term data showing reduction or reduced risk of dementia, for example. These are associations. But we'll have more and more data the longer we have because these drugs are being used much more now. Um In terms of people using GLP wands that don't meet the criteria of those studies, I think that's a gap in the evidence right now. And so I don't think we have a concrete kind of answer as to whether, yeah, yeah. Is there microdosing protocols or certain GLP wands for the person who's not obese or significantly overweight and doesn't have metabolic disease now? Is there a kind of protocols that can help that person over the next 20 years not gain weight and develop metabolic disease? That's an interesting question. 

Speaker 3 [00:59:44] Mm-hmm. It's a big question. It is a very big question, I know. Rene is pulling out all the big stops on the questions today. Yeah, well, you know, I'm curious. Yeah, this is, it's fascinating. It's super, and we started the conversation, But that this whole industry every day is something new and exciting. And I do love, we love to nerd out on the data, but there is still so much left together. So should we answer some questions from the listeners? Yes. So, so just so you know, we do, we collect questions from our listeners so that we can answer a few of them live. And you're, this is for all of us, a combo. Great. Yes. Okay, I got it. I got, I go. You go. Okay. What is mailbag? Welcome, everybody. And if you want to send your questions in to have us answer potentially live, you can DM us at Prolon, at our Instagram account. OK, first mail back of the day. What's the right amount of sauna for women? I keep seeing protocols designed for men. Does the dose change? Anybody have a burning desire to answer that? Unless you are ready to. 

Speaker 1 [01:00:53] No, this one's like outside of my lane. 

Speaker 2 [01:00:57] So I actually am a big sauna lover, so this is very much my wheelhouse, just personally from doing this and then sitting in very, very hot saunas wondering, am I doing too much? Like, because I'll go to 100 degrees. 

Speaker 3 [01:01:14] To say the temperature, it's not just frequency, it is also temperature exposure, right? 

Speaker 2 [01:01:19] So it's, and also the type of sauna, right? So is it Finnish? That's this type of saunas that I personally prefer. But there's a lot of really great research also in some of the infrared saunahs. But, you know, what I have seen in the literature to date, for women specifically, it's really interesting. There are actually now some studies that have been done just in women in sauna usage. And... Hallelujah. Yeah, I mean, way less than men still. Always a problem, but there is some. And the safety data is showing about the same, that 80 degree to 100 degree range in the more finished heated saunas. Typically going for about 10 minutes to 15 minutes at a time is showing good. 120, bad, do not go that high. What they're also seeing is that you... Can do like this 80, 90, and you don't see any dramatically better benefits when you hit that 100. So you don't actually need to go so high. It's called. 

Speaker 3 [01:02:26] What do we call that, the diminishing returns after that point. 

Speaker 2 [01:02:35] What's interesting in some of the female data that they're seeing is that they are showing that women are actually better able to manage changes in temperature. So sauna may actually, this might be one of the things that women do and could get even more benefit than men. This is very, very early and I'm not going to go so far as to say that that is certainly the case. But just so far, because we're better able manage our temperature than men, we're to sweat sometimes. Better and more efficiently than men, the sauna may be better. I'd be. 

Speaker 1 [01:03:13] Was that in pre menopausal or post menopause or just every whole women? 

Speaker 2 [01:03:18] So that specific study was done in premenopausal studies, specifically also looking, so this is the data on also the time of month is not in humans, so this important. So what they're seeing in women, of course, so estrogen actually allows you to drop your body temp, progesterone allows you to increase your body temperature, and. I mean, marginally so, but there is some suggestion, this not tested in humans, so I'm not gonna go so far, as to say this, that potentially the luteal phase would not be the time to sauna because you're higher progesterone. Progesterones, sure. But it's just like super interesting that this is now finally starting to, we're starting to get into it. It's seeming to be, you know, the data that has been done in men for sauna usage is incredible. The opportunity that it has for neurodegenerative disease, for cardiovascular health is so strong. So, I mean, I'm certainly going to keep doing it. 

Speaker 1 [01:04:24] What does your weekly sauna protocol look like? 

Speaker 2 [01:04:26] So usually, I go, so I pair it with my workout. So I'm kind of like a ritual person, you know? I do my workout and then I hit the sauna. I try and do it about five days a week. I travel a lot and now saunas are almost everywhere. They're in so many of hotel gyms. And if not, they're now all over the place. So I hunt them down before I go somewhere because it's so, it's just, I feel so good. Mental health. It is. There's studies on... Of depression on mental and cognitive health. I mean, I'm a huge fan. Well, you're scared. 

Speaker 3 [01:05:03] The biggest, most porous organ we have, right? So it's great for detox in multiple ways. I use it for my gut health protocols too, but. 

Speaker 2 [01:05:10] It also improves blood pressure, so maybe there's something that could be helpful there. 

Speaker 3 [01:05:16] I'm also born and raised in Palm Springs. 

Speaker 1 [01:05:18] There's also some evidence that a warm bath can produce some of the benefits. 

Speaker 2 [01:05:24] Yes, okay, so I was looking into this, so we can go. So I was look into this. The warm bath, yes, it has, so they're looking at about like that 40 degrees Celsius because like obviously you don't wanna boil yourself, right? So you, but you can actually increase your body temperature to higher in a 40 degree bath than in like a 90 degree sauna. But you have to be in the hot bath for 45 minutes. The sauna you do for 10 to 15 minutes, three times is kind of the suggestion. And ideally flipping between hot and cold. So we're saying that. So we are saying that you could get some really incredible, like hot heat shock protein type response from a hot bath for 45 minutes. 

Speaker 3 [01:06:08] This was a very long answer to this mail and I'm here for it. This is great. Thank you to whoever. 

Speaker 2 [01:06:11] Thank you, thank you to whoever sent this question. 

Speaker 3 [01:06:14] Moving right along this is a this is one I'm I be curious to know your thoughts on this one is fruit bad for me 

Speaker 1 [01:06:21] No, I can almost categorically say no. Say no. I mean, how much might depend on the person, but fruit compared to pretty much most foods that people are eating is better. And most people are not eating enough fruit, you're getting lots of fiber, you get resistant starch, a lot of micronutrients, you got water, which is great for satiety and hydration. So yeah, big fan of fruit, even frozen fruit. Yeah. 

Speaker 3 [01:06:51] Almost better because it's frozen at the peak of ripeness. You get all of those nutrients at the pinnacle. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [01:06:57] You know why I really like this question, though, because, you know, to us it's probably like, yeah, fruit is amazing, but I do think that there's been a lot of fear around fruit and I, it, that, like, it. 

Speaker 3 [01:07:10] It hurts my heart. It does hurt my heart as well. I think part of it is because there's so much talk about things like high fructose corn syrup, which is a derivative of fruit, right? Fructose is the sweetest of all of the, between sucrose glucose and fructos. Fructos is the sweetness, so it produces a very sweet flavor and it's high frructose corn syrop as we know, which is in like sodas and processed foods is not good for you. But interesting little tidbit, in case you guys are interested. Um. There is in very deep gut health functional, gut health worlds combining sucrose and fructose can cause an inflammatory effect in some people. 

Speaker 2 [01:07:51] Some people, some people, including this girl. 

Speaker 3 [01:07:56] I feel like you're speaking from experience. I'm speaking from my experience, but I'm actually speaking from dealing with people who have chronic gut inflammation as well, where the combinations of things is an interesting discussion about what works, what doesn't work. So for me, because I am not going to be giving up fruit, fruit has enormous benefits for most people. I just give up sucrose. Right. So the combination isn't there. But that's how important fruit is, is that you are- Oh, I would never stop eating fruit. 

Speaker 2 [01:08:24] Right, and so the fear-mongering around fruit, I think, is coming from the fear around high fructose corn syrup, which is warranted, right? If you have excess amount of that, then we know your liver is just going to be taking a hit, especially if you're doing it all of the time. But fruit, even though it has fructase in it, that fructos, you're not going get enough of it in the way that you're consuming fruit. Unless you're drinking a bunch of fruit juice to actually have that same impact. A different conversation, right. And so it's like, there are two different conversations. So anybody tells you not to eat fruit. 

Speaker 1 [01:09:06] I think the other thing that kind of gets people to question for whether they should consume it is that they go and get their blood work and their blood sugar's high. And then the assumption is, okay, I should not eat foods that contain sugar because I have high blood sugar. And this is like a, I understand this is a confusing thing to navigate as an individual. If you say you have pre-diabetes. And like, and you put a CGM on and you notice that eating some fruit, your blood sugar goes up much more than eating bacon, which is, this is what happens online. You see, and then naturally that person, you know, they, you can, you, can understand how they may think, wow, my blood glucose is much flatter with bacon than it was with the fruit. My body's not suited to the fruit and Do we need a hat? 

Speaker 3 [01:10:03] I need to dive into this for one second because it's a really problem. We have lots to say. Go ahead. Continue. 

Speaker 1 [01:10:07] Do you want to jump in now and then we can throw it back and forth? Please, please, go ahead, go. I'm happy to. I liked that tidbit before. 

Speaker 3 [01:10:12] I just, it's not always about the glucose spike so much as how well you recover from it too, right? Like there's, you need to educate yourself. We're supposed to have some glucose spikes in and throughout the day but we don't want to keep them chronically elevated and we also want to understand what is your recovery from that glucose which is a thing called insulin that comes in and then picks up the glucose and if you're insulin resistant it's Anyway. 

Speaker 1 [01:10:39] Yeah, so can 

Speaker 3 [01:10:40] go further. 

Speaker 1 [01:10:41] I think there is more education that needs to be out there with how to use a CGM and what you're looking for because if you're just searching for flatter is better and any glucose going up and down, then you might end up making some food swaps that are not great for your health. The other thing is I think when people have a lot of fat built up in their liver and in their pancreas and maybe they have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. Their ability to tolerate carbohydrates does go down. And it's not that the foods containing carbohydrates are a problem. We know that fruit, for example, is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes. But once you have someone with type 2 Diabetes and you give them a lot of fruit, you might actually see an increase in blood glucose and it might actually not come down that quick. And... And so the question is, how can you restore some insulin sensitivity in that person so they can handle more fruit, which we know is a food group that associates with better long-term health? And. At least in the research that I've seen, and this is why you'll see people kind of arguing online about what diet's best for type 2 diabetes and you've got the person who did low fat, the person did low carb or whatever who says that they put their type 2 in remission. The commonality is that they found a way to eat that kept them full on less calories and they lost weight, enough weight to get. Enough fat out of the liver and pancreas. 

Speaker 3 [01:12:20] Visceral fat is the fat that's around your central organs, right? 

Speaker 1 [01:12:23] And Roy Taylor, who's a professor in the UK, he's kind of defined this as your personal fat threshold. 

Speaker 4 [01:12:31] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [01:12:32] Which is why you can have two people in front of you who have the same body fatness, but one of them develops type 2 diabetes and the other doesn't. His research shows that this comes back to how, what your capacity is to store fat under the skin subcutaneously. Some people have more capacity. So they're protected at a certain body fatness. Whereas the same person next to them who has less capacity to store fat subcutaniously, that same body fat is they're storing more fat centrally. 

Speaker 4 [01:13:02] Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 1 [01:13:03] And it's the fat in the liver and the pancreas which is leading to causing that, particularly in the the insulin resistance and resulting in the elevations in HbO1c and fasting blood glucose. So the answer is, it's not that this person who's insulin resistant, that fruit is bad for them. It's that in your current state of physiology, you're not tolerating carbohydrates very well. And how can we restore that? And this is where, coming back to personal fat threshold, it's losing weight in whatever way works for you, whichever dietary pattern, or if it's GLB-1 plus a dietary pattern to get you below your personal fat threshhold, and you start to restore insulin sensitivity. Now, and you'll know this, that doesn't work exactly the same for everyone. Particularly if someone's had type 2 diabetes for 10 years, the pancreas can be very damaged and not producing much insulin at all. So the earlier you get onto that, the better. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [01:14:02] Or, use a solution that helps with regeneration of cellular health, which we know... What might that be? 

Speaker 1 [01:14:10] And this wasn't planned. No, it wasn't. Totally, which is one of the reasons I love ProLon. And seriously, I will myself do it every quarter going forward based on the evidence that I've seen. But the reduction in visceral fat, the restoration of the function of the pancreas is doing exactly what we're talking about. It's shifting someone's metabolic health from a point where... They don't have metabolic flexibility, right? You can't tolerate carbohydrates, and you don't want to be in that state because a lot of these carbohydrate-containing foods are improving health outcomes. So you want to find a way to get, and doing the five-day fasting-mimicking diet allows you to restore that insulin sensitivity. And then you can actually introduce these foods to some degree, the foods that we actually enjoy as well. 

Speaker 3 [01:15:06] Yeah, it's nature's gift, but I think it's very important to recognize, I think the one thing that I'm hearing loud and clear is, you will go through stages, potentially through your life where you're in an acute state of health, where you need a specific intervention, specific types of help. Whether that be nutritionally, through medication, through diet and lifestyle. But eventually, it's not to be so staunch that that is how your body is. It is how you're body is responding right now so that you can then change. I think there's a real, I get one of the hells I wanna die on or that I will die on is being, understanding that your body changes and your needs change and you need to be responsive to that. And you need to be flexible. And we have so many conversations of people are like, you know, this is just. What works for me, and I'm like, maybe it did once, and maybe it might again, but you have to be flexible in changing what your body needs, and sometimes your body needs an additional intervention to support you before you can get back to the things that may be incredible for you long-term. 

Speaker 1 [01:16:15] That the body, the body adapts. Yeah. 

Speaker 3 [01:16:19] It's, it's wired. 

Speaker 1 [01:16:21] It's wired to adapt and we understand that when we think about things like going to the gym, right? If you're not someone that goes to the gym lifting weights, you're going to start tomorrow with a personal trainer and they're not going to take you through the most intense two-hour workout with weights that are going to cause you to be injured. You're going develop a plan and go slowly and kind of introduce things over time. And I think like in this conversation with fruit someone who has poor metabolic health, just because you can't tolerate a lot of those foods right now, doesn't mean that with the right strategy, you can introduce those foods. It just might take you a little bit longer. You might need to employ strategies like a five-day fasting-mimicking diet to be to get there incrementally. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [01:17:12] I always think about you talking about people like on carnivore diets and how they say like I can't have vegetables now because veggies just don't work. 

Speaker 3 [01:17:20] Yeah, people with ulcerative colitis, for instance, last thing I'll say, is very similar that they would benefit from a very high fiber diet eventually, but if you are in an acute flare-up, you better avoid every piece of fiber in your diet. You are going bland. That's a similar concept. I mean, your interventions will change as your body is responding and adapting to your environment, so. Great conversation. Yes. Do we have time for one more? Okay. Do we like any of these last ones? 

Speaker 2 [01:17:51] I still let you choose, I let you chose. Yes, I think we're gonna just do the next one on the list, which is how much of our longevity is actually based on genes versus everything else? Yeah, we kind of touched on that. But I actually was curious about this and I was looking into it because I was like, is there really like a number that is generally accepted? And there is, turns out, which is about like 25 to 30% of our longevity. And our health is based off of genes. And they've done this from twin studies to looking at twins that are fraternal or identical and seeing how much of this is actually based on genetics because the identical twins have identical genetics. They hypothetically could die on the very exact same day. And if they don't, then they can see kind of how much difference there is. And so using primarily that information among some other. That's approximately what they're thinking it is. Which I thought was interesting. I don't know if you saw the Ancestry.com work that came out. They were looking at, because they have all of this DNA and genetic information, and they actually thought that it was even less associated, closer to 19% genetics. And I don't know all of the logistics on how they ran that study, because it's Ancestory.com, sorry. But I don... I don't know how strong their scientific rigor was on this study, but it's interesting. And I think, you know, in what we were talking about earlier, to me it is so awesome to know that our genetics are not determining everything about our health. And that the vast majority of our health is entirely in our hands. 

Speaker 1 [01:19:34] Yeah, we have more say. And then if you also add in the fact that even if you have a genetic predisposition, modern medicine is getting better and better. Yeah, modulating that. So you can modulate some of those things. 

Speaker 3 [01:19:48] You can turn your genes on or off, and I do think that's such a wonderful plug to figure out what works best, like what you're doing with your heart health work. I mean, some of that could have been your gene predisposition, right? That you can't potentially get lower than your 70 markers. I want to do a whole episode on epigenetics. 

Speaker 2 [01:20:08] And methylation and all of the fun stuff in that world. But one other thing that I wanted to note when I was looking into this that I thought was really interesting is that they're saying that those numbers, those like light on genetics is, for longevity, up to about like 90, 95 years old. Once you start seeing people that are in the 95 to 100 plus range, they are seeing some higher genetic, you know. Variability, yeah. Very well. Genes that these people have that others don't have that just make them more resistant. So things like Foxo and you know Apo or oh my gosh ApoE, Apo E4 anything else to add. 

Speaker 1 [01:20:54] I think that was pretty comprehensive. I'll be happy if I live to 95. 

Speaker 3 [01:20:57] Yeah, in a healthy body, hiking. 

Speaker 2 [01:21:00] And paddling and you know doing all the fun things. What do you envision yourself doing at 95? Like where do you do you think you're gonna be rocking the paddle court still? I hope so. 

Speaker 3 [01:21:10] For your sake. 

Speaker 1 [01:21:12] Just laughing with people. I don't know exactly what we'll be doing. I'd love to still be playing pedel, but just laughing with with people and sharing experiences with my friends and family. Yeah, and that's what life's all about. 

Speaker 3 [01:21:28] Here, here. Thank you so much for being on our show, Simon. Thanks for having me. It's like such an honor and pleasure as two nutrition geeks having you on our shows has been such fun. So thank you so. 

Speaker 1 [01:21:38] I enjoyed it. Thanks guys. 

Speaker 2 [01:21:50] Thanks for listening to Almost Forever. If you love the show, hit subscribe on YouTube at Prolon FMD or wherever you're listening and share it with someone you love. New episodes every other Wednesday drop on YouTube or wherever you listen. This is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or a substitute for professional health care services. Please talk to a qualified health care professional before making changes to your diet, exercise, or supplement routine. Views expressed by our guests are their own.