Hello, my friend Lee fasters a little bit about today's episode. Today's host is not me. The reason is because this episode was originally put together for the benefit of the zero fasting tracker audience instead today. You'll find CEO of zero Mike Maser relating many of the questions submitted by some of you following either me or zero on social media zero was created by a mutual friend of ours and prior guests of the found my fitness podcast Kevin Rose and offers a simple solution for users to track their fasting times whether we're talking about time restricted eating or longer fasts, if you previously checked out 0 they've since added Apple watch support and are looking to add a host of other great features. So make sure to visit their website at zero fasting.com or give them a follow on Twitter at zero fasting. That's at Ze Ro faaast ing in this 45 minute episode. I answer some of the most popular questions related to fasting including what affects coffee supplements and amino acid have on fasting whether one method
Fasting is more beneficial than another what affect consumption of exoticness ketones may have on fasting whether it is good to exercise while fasting the ideal way to break a fast how fasting affects muscle mass how fasting plays a role in the growth longevity trade-off and so much more as you might expect much of my expertise in these areas is derived from the great conversations. I've had with leading experts in the field such as doctors valter Longo Ruth Patterson Guido Cromer and Sachin Panda, these episodes are amazing resources and I strongly encourage anyone listening to check those out at found my fitness.com forward slash episodes. Once again, that's found my fitness.com forward slash episodes. Now off to the
QA.
Hey everyone. I'm Mike mazur. I'm the CEO of zero. You can find us at zero fasting.com and I'm really excited to be here today with dr. Rhonda Patrick. Hey, Rhonda. Hey, so we're here today because we received a ton of questions from the zero community and Rhonda's community at found my fitness and it was about all things fasting. So you you submitted almost 500 questions to us a great turnout and while we can't get through all five hundred today. We went through them and found themes of certain topics around fasting and related topics that you want to hear about. So without further Ado we'll get into the questions but Rhonda before we do that, let's talk a bit about your background for folks that might not know so you did your PhD work at University of Tennessee and then you went on to do your research at st. Jude which of course is doing great work trying to solve Childhood Cancer. That's right. Yeah, so I did all my
Drat research at st. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is affiliated with the University of Tennessee. And while I was there, I studied the interface between mitochondrial metabolism and cancer and cell death. And so there's sort of you know, I did became this expert in mitochondria in you know, cancer metabolism and how cells die or don't die and that was sort of my focus during my graduate research there. That's phenomenally I've actually been working with st. Jude more on the fundraising side since 2011. So that's a cool connection that we have for just what's an amazing organization. Very amazing. Yeah. Just Cutting Edge research going on there. Absolutely. Well, let's get into the questions will get through as many as we can and given that it's bright and early in the morning here in San Diego. We got a ton of questions about coffee and caffeine and how it may or may not impact the beneficial effects of fasting so let's get right into it if that's cool. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay great.
So I've got my cheat sheet here on my iPad. The first question from John Phillips is can you discuss in further detail? Why you recommend a water-only fast versus consuming coffee or amino acids while in a fasted state. I'm looking to optimize my morning workouts with amino acids or caffeine boost and want to know what benefits I am potentially missing out on versus the benefits. I likely still receive so coffee amino acids. Yeah. There's a there's a lot in that question dance, but the coffee question as you mentioned is something that's certainly it's asked quite frequently and to sort of address that question. I think people mostly are asking it in the context of a type of fasting called time restricted eating time restricted eating. It has a fasting component to it, but it also has a circadian biology component to it and people might go well what a circadian
You and really you know, just sort of think about the fact that you know, you're awake during certain time. So you're awake in the morning, you know early in the morning your body produces a stress hormone called cortisol wakes you up your alert your active, you know, do all your activities and then as the day progresses and nighttime comes on you get sleepy you're making your body's making melatonin helps you with, you know, getting tired and you go to sleep and things sort of shut down, right? So there's natural Pathways, right? It's just sort of this Rhythm this circadian rhythm. That's what that's why they call it, you know circadian rhythm. So turns out, you know every cell in our body has one of those and including, you know Pathways like metabolism. So it's really important to make sure that you're consuming food when you know, the metabolic pathways are active, you know, you don't want to eat when they're not active and so a lot of this work has been done by dr. Sachin Panda at the Salk Institute and some of his colleagues, you know, they've shown that
What activates metabolism is you know, basically when you take in your first food, you you activate those metabolic pathways and then they'll be active for a certain amount of time. And then as the day goes on they become less active. For example, if you look at men who eat the same meal early in the morning and then they eat the same meal later in the evening. Same calories, same macro nutrient content everything. They're more insulin sensitive in the morning and their lessons Inland sensitive in the evening. Fatty acid metabolism is the same way so you may think well, maybe I'll just eat some fat in the evening Well turns out your fatty acids and being able to use those as and with you know, as energy is also on a circadian clock and there it's less active in the evening as well. So with that said where does coffee coming tonight, you know coffee if you're just if you're talking about coffee with cream, you know, obviously cream is got calories and fat and and that's you know something that would be considered, you know.
Food right cream if you're talking about just black coffee coffee without you know, any any for espresso like a shot of espresso exactly our espresso something without any calories essentially, right? Then the question becomes does that count as you know, starting your clocks and you know, there's no real direct data that has addressed that question a couple of my thoughts are for one. We do know that caffeine itself changes the Circadian clocks. So if you you know, give someone a cup of coffee later later in the day, it actually shifts the body's circadian clock that natural Rhythm by like 40 minutes. So it coffee itself is changing their circadian clocks extending it essentially. Yeah, it's delicious. Yeah, exactly. And additionally, you know, caffeine is metabolized by the gut it's also metabolized by the liver. So the question is does that you know, activating those metabolic pathways does that
Start your clocks. We don't really know if it's enough to or not. What we do know is that you know, there have been some studies. For example a study done by dr. Ruth Patterson at UCSD. She looked at time restricted eating in women that had previously had breast cancer women that that ate all of their food with in 11 hours and they fasted for 13 hours during that 13 hours. They were allowed to consume caffeine. So black coffee or tea without cream and even though they consumed the coffee during their fasting period they still had a 36 percent reduction in breast cancer recurrence. So they had positive benefits along the same lines. There's been some pilot studies in people with type 2 diabetes where they've done time restricted eating for anywhere between a six to eight hour window. So they're eating within a shorter window and their fasting for you know, 16 or more hours a day. They're also allowed to consume caffeine or tea and they had positive effects on
Blood glucose regulation insulin sensitivity weight loss, you know so clearly there's evidence in the scientific literature that if you consume black coffee within that fasting window, there's still positive effects happening. So if I can paraphrase while coffee or caffeine May slightly interrupt the Circadian window the metabolic benefits from black coffee or tea without additives are maintained. It seems as though, you know, at least according to these studies that you know, it's not negating right those metabolic benefits. Okay. However, the question becomes if you were not to consume that would you have a more robust effect. We don't know we need to study on this because this is like one of the most common questions we get but right I guess the early directional research is and for a lot of people coffee including myself coffee is crucial okay for right now, and we'll learn more about the detail level of what's Happening Maybe.
I also think that if you're talking about just you know, like I mentioned time restricted eating this is something that you're practicing on a daily basis, right? This is you're eating your food within 1/8 to you know, 12 hour time window and you're fasting, you know for 16 or and or up to you know, 12 to 16 hours, right? There's other types of fasting which we can talk about, you know, where you're doing another question right different modalities of fasting. Yeah, and and that's not case researchers also shown if you consume black coffee or tea without any calories that they're still benefits great. So and what about the amino acid aspect right? That's a great question as well and this this sort of touches on another, you know aspect of the of the fasting literature and that is you know, there are there are many benefits that occur during a fast and there are many types of fasting and when you're when you're actually fasting some of the things that are occurring
You're you're lowering different Pat your deactivating Pathways that are typically like a crow pathway for example, and it's called igf-1 to grow grow. Pathway mtor is another grow grow pathway. Both of those pathways are activated by amino acids. And so if you're if you're limiting your amino acid intake along with your calorie intake and everything else you're going to deactivate those Pathways and the deactivation of this down igf-1 will go down and Tobago down and those are essential for the activation of some of the benefits of fasting including a process called a toffee G, which is basically when your your cells start to recycle and interestingly they seem to recycle damaged components of themselves. So like mitochondria, which are you know, they're the PowerHouse of energy in your cell damaged mitochondria can be cleared away. So spring cleaning is the process of autophagy right buddy, you know. Peace
The protein dead cell act things are just in there. It gets rid of them but mtor has to be you know, deactivated igf-1 has to be deducted for that to happen, you know, so and then there's other things as well like which what we can talk about when we get into more of a prolonged type of fast. Those things also need to be ejected. So amino acids would be something that would sort of negate that interrupts that natural reduction of igf Ryan which may interfere with someone's half a G right got it. Okay, great. Well that's certainly important for a lot of folks in our audience. I'm going to move on to the next question still caffeine related will do we have ton of coffee questions, but I think we can probably dovetail off your current your last answer. This one's from meruna Heckman. If I got that name, right? First of all, thanks for all that. You do that's for you Rhonda. You've changed my life. Wow, that's that's awesome. Is there any more evidence yet surrounding if having coffee tea supplements Etc while
Disrupts the benefits of fasting I think you just answered most of that I think so, so it sounds like if you keep it to caffeine only you're not really interfering with igf-1 and mtor, but maybe not trying to add anything on top of that. What about electrolytes though? Like because we have a lot of questions, you know, electrolytes are guess technically a supplement your supplementing your natural biochemistry with you know, magnesium or salts any any thoughts on that, you know, I do think that if for time restricted eating, you know, I personally like to try to take everything within my eating window, but I don't think it's really key when you're talking about things like sodium potassium magnesium like as far as I know that's not really changing any of the the Circadian rhythm, but when you're talking about a prolonged fast when people are fasting for for example, maybe 48 hours or more and by the way, like as you get into a more prolonged fast, that's something that you may want to do under medical supervision.
Yeah, absolutely. I should just I should say now that while you're a PhD, you're not a practicing clinician. And so none of what we talked about today should be construed as as medical advice. But but research findings exactly. Yeah information. So with with so basically the electrolyte stuff, I think that you know, there is evidence in the literature you look at someone that's doing a prolonged fast. You do start to deplete things like sodium and potassium immediately those things were to taper off as the fast goes on but I do think it you know, there is some evidence that it's good to take an electrolyte simple supplement right particularly with the prolonged fasting water only right even more importantly. Yeah. So and you know, there's a variety of like mineral and electrolyzed supplements out there cool. So, okay great. I think we've covered most of the coffee and caffeine questions which is which is great to get started. You talked a little bit about time restrictive.
Sitting next question. I think we'll build on that which is from Sam Reyes. The question is has there been any evidence suggesting one method of fasting is more beneficial than others, right? I think that's a really good question Broadway. It's a very broad question, but sort of gives me a chance to describe some of the different types of fasting which I kind of touched on already. But you know you here you here in like popular culture or you hear everyone say intermittent fasting right and intermittent fasting becomes this like blanket term for all things fast, like valter Longo like doesn't like that term right? It's just so General right doctor walked valter Longo from USC who is a really an expertise does a lot of research on fasting he is mentioned how you know, intermittent fasting can be considered in humans fasting up to about you know, 24 hours and then prolong fasting happens when you get into like the 48-hour Mark, so two days or longer and then of course your timer
I could eating which has a intermittent fasting component to it. But it also has that circadian biology component to it. You want to eat within the time when your metabolism is optimal and when you're not eating you're obviously fasting and so, you know people end up doing up to 16 our fasting period so if they're eating with an eight-hour window their fasting for 16 hours and that's kind of locally is called 16:8 it 16 a yeah, exactly, right so that so that would also be time restricted eating that's something that you're doing on a daily basis. And so as I had already mentioned with the time restricted eating, you know, there's you get you get the benefits of the fasting part. So you're fasting for 16 hours part of the benefits, you know with that are things like you do start to have repair possible processes that are activated in order to repair damage, whether it's damage to your DNA or you know damage to proteins or just damage like I mentioned mitochondria are just pieces of you know dead cells floating around that stuff is is cleared away and repair
Ordering a fasting state. So you get that with the intermittent fasting and time restricted eating which has a fasting component in addition the time restricted eating you have the benefits and this has been shown by dr. Sajan Panda Ruth Patterson others that you're eating within your your circadian biology in terms of when your metabolism is this most optimal so you don't want to you know, for example, if you if you eat your first, you know bite of food at 8 a.m. In the morning and then you're eating dinner at 8:30 or 9:00. You're you know, you're basically you've already gone past 12 hours or tab ilysm at 8:30 or 9:00 isn't going to be very good. And so and what may end up happening is you're not going to be as insulin sensitive. So your blood glucose levels are going to be higher your fasting blood glucose is going to be higher your fatty acid metabolism status good. So you're gonna start to store fatty acids and adipose tissue rather than using those energy. So you'll start to like gain more fat Mass which is
All sorts of problems in addition to that. You may also your body because you have been going it's been like over a 12 hour mark when you eat that food in the evening. You may be resetting the clock and your body thinks it's it's resetting the start time of metabolism. So the whole time you're sleeping is when your metabolism is at its best when you wake up in the morning and it's completely misaligned. So everything is misaligned and hands your metabolism. So that that means that you're always going to have higher blood glucose levels. Your fatty acids are going to be more likely to be stored in adipose tissue rather than uses energy so that misalignment so that's the benefit for time restricted eating or time shake it feeding as it's called with animal studies. And then as you mentioned, dr. Voss valter Longo his research, he does a lot of research on what's called prolonged fasting typically 48 hours or longer again, as you get into that you may want to do that under medical supervision now, he is done a lot of research and animals showing that you know, if you do a prolong fast,
Not only do you have this at apogee start to act activate which we talked about as the fast becomes more prolonged you actually start to get the clearing away of cells damaged cells seems to be preferentially damaged cells that are cleared away and in the process of that happening you actually activate stem cells and sort of replenish those damaged cells with new healthy young cells. He's shown this in animals were literally during the fasting period organs will shrink and then during the refeeding period which we'll talk about a little bit later they regrow so you're basically getting rid of the damaged cells mostly it seems and then your replenishing them with healthy new Young cells and their regrowing that's all been done in animal studies. He has some preliminary evidence in humans where it seems as though looking at various markers of like Stem Cell Activation, for example, that does seem to be happening but he's got some ongoing studies where they're going to look at that in much more detail. So
You know, that's a benefit of the prolonged fasting which you don't really get from a shorter fast, right? Because you need to really have a stronger stress. You have to have your igf-1 levels really dip down that takes time. I think they're probably Pro Lawn which you know, we won't get too much into but it's it has some calories per day, but that's like a five day regimen. So you really looking at kind of five days to get most of those benefits you discussed. So Probe on is is that that's the name for their fasting mimicking diet, right which I was developed by dr. Valter Longo and it's a very specific has a very specific macro nutrient content. So a specific amount of fat and protein and carbohydrates. Yeah and a total calorie at cap. So, you know, I think that like the first day it's up to a thousand calories and then II V day you're getting getting a little bit a little over 700 calories a day and he has shown again. He showed an animal studies the same benefits with the organ shrinking and then regrowing yeah, and then he sends some clinical studies in humans showing.
Variety of metabolic benefits you're getting you know, of course improve glucose levels insulin sensitivity. He shows igf-1 does go down and and you know cholesterol like there's benefits with your cholesterol metabolism, things like that, right? So so that's also another sort of part of fasting where the same idea of a prolonged fast that you mentioned where you getting the etapa G and the stem cell production over a multiple day fast except in his case bringing low calories into the equation ostensibly to probably make it just easier for people to stick with then than a water-only fast definitely seems like it's easier for people to stick with or at least try out, you know, in animals. He has shown that you do get a lot of the same benefits as a water fast, but you have to remember, you know, animals have a much faster metabolism human right? In fact, if you want if you fast a mouse a rodent for 48 hours, they lose twenty percent of their body weight. Well, I human losses.
Maybe 2% tell you from experience that doesn't have no I've tried about know. So the question then becomes well, you know how much of the organ shrinking regrowing joette with just a fasting mimicking for five days versus a you know, actually not eating or you know, so there's lots of little nuances that aren't quite figured out yet. Yeah, but certainly there are benefits and he's shown that in humans. So just to wrap up the question. It sounds like you know, the question is is a fastened tight more beneficial than other it sounds like it's their different instruments different tools for different outcomes. And you know, maybe combining some of these modalities may be doing, you know time of sugar feeding circadian more regularly and then periodically for to kind of get those cleansing benefits metabolic cleansing you do maybe a longer one if again if your doctor says it's okay and you're cleared for it, could that be a good sort of sequencing for people? Yeah, and I
I think that's that's a good summer. And I think I should probably also mention another benefit that comes from the both intermittent fasting and certainly prolonged fasting is your body shifts from glucose metabolism metabolism carbohydrates to fatty acid metabolism John's and use pretty get there you get to production of Ketone bodies like beta-hydroxybutyrate which is in and of itself been shown by people like dr. Eric Burdon to be anti-aging in a sense where there it's a signaling molecule that's been shown to activate Gene genetic Pathways in the body that are known to delay age-related diseases that are known to help increase repair processes. It's been shown to reduce damage that's generated by your mitochondria, which are you know, basically what's generating most of the energy inside of your cells, but that whole process of generating energy what we known as known as metabolism generates a lot of you know, very harmful reactive byproducts and beta-hydroxybutyrate lowers that so it kind of makes your mitochondria more
Efficient
got it. That's another benefit with the inner foot intermittent fasting and certainly problem casting cool. Well, let's I'm sure you could spend a whole day talking about different passing clouds, but we don't have that much time because we have other questions. So let's move into actually you talked about ketones a bit and that last answer. So let's move on to a question about ketones from Austin will consumption of exoticness ketones disrupt a fasting State and I know that there's been a lot of work in producing Ketone supplements. So that's the question I think is what will that disruptive fast? It's certainly a question that I've had myself. I've actually tried a beta-hydroxybutyrate Esther. So beta-hydroxybutyrate is the major circulating Ketone body that's generated when your body starts to go into ketogenesis. A lot of things do happen when you're fasting and that's one of them. So basically anywhere between it takes anywhere between, you know,
12 to 36 hours for your liver or to deplete the glycogen and once that's depleted what ends up happening is you immobilize fatty acids from your adipose tissue, they go to the liver and they're actually used to to make Ketone bodies. So your oxidizing the fatty acids Now using the to make Ketone bodies like beta-hydroxybutyrate those Ketone bodies can then be used as an alternative energy source themselves, which is incredible. I mean just on that point the fact that you know, the the analog I've heard is you basically turning your body from a burning gas to diesel It's like a completely different fuel glucose to two ketones. It's amazing that our bodies can even do that and in some ways, you know, it's a preferred fuel for different organs in our body, right? It seems as though it might be it certainly seems to be metabolically efficient, you know, so it takes less energy to use a ketone body compared to glucose. So
It's energetically favorable in that sense, which which is nice so it doesn't sound like it doesn't really interrupt a fast. It's sort of part of the natural well, so yeah, let me know so I'll let me continue. So that is that was the natural phenomena. I was explaining right got it. Now what what ends up happening? So there's been about five clinical studies that I have that I have read that have 30 most of the clinical studies with exoticness ketones Esters and just for the audience Exotics meaning not produced in the body exactly. You're taking it externally exactly. You're taking a like a supplemental form of it. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that so the the exoticness Ketone Esters that are taken basically a lot of the studies that have been done. I've been looking in the context of like athletic performance, but they also look at other metabolic parameters, which is interesting because that's kind of where you can find some of this data if you look carefully right and and within these five studies there have been it seems to be that what what's
Shown is that the exoticness consuming for example, the exoticness beta-hydroxybutyrate the supplemental beta-hydroxybutyrate Esther it ends up increases the the blood levels, you know beta hydroxy butyrate pretty pretty high but it also seems to decrease circulating free fatty acids, which suggests you're not immobilizing fatty acids from your adipose tissue to be used to make your own which means you may not be getting the benefit of what you would call a fat loss. Right and that and that's a regulatory Loop that occurs in the body. So, you know, when you're when you're when you're beta-hydroxybutyrate levels get high enough, you know, your body says, okay. We don't need to make any more of these so it stops the immobilizing god called lipolysis The Cutting of the fatty acids from adipose tissue, right interesting. So your body is stopping you from making too much, right? So that does seem to happen Okay, but then again the exoticness Ketone Esters don't last for that long and if you're exercising or doing
Look like tivity it's dose-dependent. So the more the more active you are the quicker you use up those Ketone bodies. Yes, interesting because you know, I know that when I'm practicing fasting which which gets my ketones way up and then I'm doing a ketogenic diet, which does the same thing and then I go for a Big Workout. I'll come back and measure my my Ketone bodies and their way down and I guess it's because I've been using anything tones for exactly during the workout for energy. Yeah exactly. What happens? Yeah. So that's kind of my one caveat with that. I would be aware of with we know consuming the estimated Roxy butyrate supplemental Esters or salts if you want but cells don't work that. Well a good point is that they've also been shown consuming the exoticness beta-hydroxybutyrate has been shown in humans to prevent the use of amino acids from muscle. So it stops and which also is you know, make sense during a prolonged fast. Your body has mechanisms at play that help prevent you from
No using muscle using proteins and amino acids from your muscles energy. And one of those is that you know, the Ketone bodies prevents that from happening. So that's a good thing. But so there's a trade-off potentially. Yeah. And again, this is something that you know, I don't know how much of a difference it makes but it's something to keep in mind. Yep. And if you're an athlete and you're needing fuel maybe you're a better candidate than a some of those just looking for purely metabolic body-based Ketone production and it's a maybe but right to factor. Well, that's a great segue actually to another question related to exercise and and growth. So, let's see
So I practice this is from Angel or on hell. Hope I got the name, right? So I practiced a simple 12-hour eating window and a 24-hour fast once a week. So it's intermittent fasting with it. But the 24-hour fast per week. My question is are there any downsides to training fasted as I usually do the exercises involved are heavy weight training and moderate cardio afterwards. Just wanted to know if I metabolically doing harm or having adverse effects of the intended goals. Thanks and love your work.
Great question. There have been meta-analysis of studies done. So that just means there's lots of studies that have been that have looked at for example trim doing physical activity either aerobic or anaerobic activity in a fasted State versus pre-exercise feeding. So you eat before exercise and a meta-analysis is just kind of Aggregates all those studies that have been done and looks at what the data says and so meta-analysis set up a been done on that topic have shown that pre feeding before exercise improves. It seems to improve long-duration aerobic exercise. So durations longer than 60 minutes, but it doesn't seem to really have much of an effect on performance. If it's a robic exercise less than 60 Minutes on a similar know it's also pre feeding, you know, eating before you exercise has also been shown to improve anaerobic exercise. So like run till exhaustion, but it doesn't really seem to have much of a
Fact on high intensity interval training so there is a little bit of a performance enhancement with eating before you work out in terms of long duration aerobic at triathletes long long distance running. Right, right. Yeah, which actually makes sense for weight training sounds like if you're keeping it within 60 minutes, so so even even less than yeah, even even running, you know less than 60 Minutes or a high intensity interval training class, but what's really interesting is those meta-analysis showed that eating before you exercise? So if you fat if you're training fasted you get really robust
enhancements
in glucose, you know sensitivity, but really robust enhancements in your mitochondrial adaptations to using fatty acids. So you're basically your mitochondria become really primed for fatty acid used which makes sense. If you're in a fasted State you're going to have you know your
Completing your glucose and you have moreover these fatty acids that are available for energy. There's a lot of increased activity in genes that regulate fatty acid metabolism. That's really expressed. When you train in a fasted State interestingly when you feed before you train those adaptations are blunted. Mmm with respect to the fatty acid tap update. Yeah bike the really priming your mitochondria to be like robust to use fatty acids as a source of energy, you still get glucose, you know, effects and enhancements and stuff, even when you're training when you're you know, eat something before hand, but it seems as though those might those the fatty acid adaptations that the mitochondria shift to are blunted somewhat so it sounds like for on Hell or angel that you know, if you're doing kind of a weight lifting with cardio shouldn't be a dramatic effect. I will I will add to that because I think even one of the
Previous questions you were asking someone was asking about the amino acids wanting to amino acid take before they train and they're wanting to like for high perch like hypertrophy. Yeah, you know, so basically wanting to grow more muscle I will say that there have been studies looking at there's been a lot of research that has been done looking at you know, is there this anabolic window that you have to take in amino acids and protein to like, you know increase muscle growth and I think over the past few years Studies have it's been pretty consensus that there's a lot longer time that you have. It used to be thought like this is one hour window. You have to down this protein shake immediately or you're going to miss it. Right? I don't think that's the case. I think that there's been a lot of research that has come out showing that you actually can can take an amino acid or you know protein hours after a workout. However, if you are doing if you're going into your workout fasted, let's say your you've been fasting for 16 hours.
You don't your aren't you aren't storing protein. So in that case if you are doing a fasted strength training workout, you may want to consume protein within an hour after they got a good distinction. Yeah, if you're in a fast if you're in a fasted State like okay pretty a pretty fast. Like that's a great great recap for for on our Angel not sure. Okay moving on to next question. I think we have time for maybe one or two more because these are the require a lot of explanation. Let's talk about longevity. That's a lot of the reason that our audience in your audience, you know is doing fasting so this is from Nina. Can you elaborate on the growth longevity trade-off? So you talked a little bit about that beginning with igf-1 and Longevity so the growth longevity trade off by fasting we down regulate the Aging Pathways such as mtor growth hormone and igf-1 clearly need this done her homework and listen to you.
But in order to build muscle through resistance training, we need to eat protein and have these Pathways activated in order to maintain build muscle. Is there a way we can get the best of both worlds? It's a great question is the trade-off overstated how so thank you exclamation point to me any question but it relates to a lot of what you talked about already it does and I think I will try to keep it as brief as possible. I think you know, I do need to kind of just briefly explain, you know, the the role of igf-1 mtor in you know aging and in the field of Aging research there have been many many many studies that have shown that higher igf-1 particular higher igf-1 is associated with higher cancer incidents and this has been shown and if you look in humans humans that have a mutation in genes that regulate igf-1 that make them have like a higher igf-1 level all the time.
Kind of they have actually higher cancer incidents than people that don't have those and the idea there is that your igf one's high. It's a growth mechanism and it's could promote tumors to grow. Yes. Exactly. So because igf-1 is a gross signal as you mentioned. It allows basically, you know, when you have accumulated damage and yourselves, whether that damage comes from the mitochondria and genomic damage there, they're signaling Pathways that are activated that say look the cells to chew damage to repair. I need to kill it. I need to get rid of it because I may acquire a very dangerous mutation that could allow cancer to survive. And so your body has this beautiful way of doing that and it's called program cell death or apoptosis. It's we kill the cell but igf-1 if igf-1 is around and Express at a high level. It's kind of around going no no, no grow grow. Grow your cool. You can stay I'm here about the damaged cells. Yeah forget about on. Yeah, so
Basically overrides those checkpoint got it says die and so it can become very dangerous because it can allow us one cell to then grow which then replicates and makes more cells and then you eventually get the formation of a tumor sometimes is take several decades to happen. And then of course, you know it bypasses immune Point immune cells and things like that that are also involved in killing the cells but that is one important way that igf-1 plays a role in cancer humans that have more of it have a higher cancer incidents and the the vice versa so humans that have mutations in make less of it have less cancer incidents. It's been shown in many many animal studies volt. Dr. Valter. Longo is shown this and others so many others that you know, igf-1 can override, you know, if you if you basically inject human tumor cells into a mouse and increase their igf-1 by a variety of modalities, including high protein intake you can actually allow the cancer cells to grow faster and just real quick on the high protein intake of the the latest diet Trend. I think it's
Waning is just been protein protein protein, right? And so I mean we have yet to see the impacts, you know long term of all that protein uptake, which is I think interesting. I don't want to concern people but you know protein does up regulate igf-1, correct? Yeah, it does. Yeah, you know and to address the good part of igf-1. I mean so so we talked about this bad part where it's and he is asking, you know that the about that trade off like chocolate. Yeah, you know, igf-1 in addition to the cancer at also deactivates a very important longevity pathway Gene in the body called foxo, which is really really associated with it regulates all sorts of genes that are involved in repair and stem cell production at apogee all those through high G F1 or is that all turns that off it turns off at apogee you turns off all that stuff saying, okay, so she's speeding no protein.
Right off is that if one has a really good it's also very important. I mean obviously during development. It's part of the growth, you know, pathway. You need a grow right but it's also an important growth pathway and muscle to repair muscle to grow muscle, which is also important for longevity. I mean, there's multiple studies that come by even recently showing that muscle mass is really important for lowering all-cause mortality and preventing Frailty and things like that. It also gets into the brain is an important growth factor for neurons. It actually helps you grow nor not new neurons that's called neurogenesis and it actually helps prevent neurons from Daiso allows the existing neurons to keep living. So it's a it's an important signaling pathway in your brain and muscle I've seen a handful of studies in mice and in humans that have shown exercise being Physically Active helps bring igf-1 into the brain. So it crosses over the blood-brain barrier and gets it into the brain where you want it and also gets into the muscle so
As opposed to having your igf-1 around in your bloodstream where then goes to other tissues or stays around and is being a grow signal for potentially damaged cells. You actually wanted to get into your brain and your muscle. So I think exercise and physical activity is a really good way to make sure that igf-1 that you're getting is going to the right places. And in fact interesting there there have been studies looking at protein intake and all-cause mortality that have shown that higher protein intake does increased all-cause mortality and cancer mortality as well. However, in people that have none of that unhealthy lifestyle factors that are looked at for example, they're not obese. They are physically active they don't smoke or not drinking excessive alcohol there and they still have high protein intake that the same mortality in cancer mortality rate as someone that has a lower Protein that's a great recap and when I guess intuitively, you know, if you're going to give your body all this Fuel and growth use it it's really no use it for what it makes designed to do and then but
If you're giving you all that fuel and you're not using it, it can be left to do that's everything. Yeah, but to sort of I went on the tangent there to kind of get to her the second part of her question. Yeah, which was you know, is there is there a happy medium? Yeah, like what the Golden Rule here. Where is The Sweet Spot? Yeah, you know for a long time it was thought you know, the this process of known what's known as calorie restriction, which does lower igf-1 but you're doing it all the time you're constantly eating like 30% less than what you would and right. It's nice, you know, some people are kind of miserable doing you're chronically low on your igf-1. Is that good you because you want igf once for some things and in fact, I had a conversation with dr. Paul too long ago he and he is even talked about the fact that you know, the prolong fast seem to be a good sweet spot because during the you doing a prolong fast you actually drop your igf-1 during that fasting period and that is what is critical for the ape.
Ptosis the clearing away the damaged cells. It's a it's important to activate the stem cells. But once you once you get to that point and you then refeed you actually want igf-1 you want igf-1 because igf-1 and then allows the stem cells to grow and make more cells and replenish that population and regrow so you actually there's this balance and it's like igf-1 is important in that it plays an important. You want it lowered to get that whole clearing away in a tagine if the rebuilding and the rebuilding you want it. So there's this nice sweet spot. I know it's the beautiful machine of our body that goes through modalities of cleansing and it's the reason that I think fasting has become rightly, very intermittent fasting clock restriction is become so popular because you know, that's kind of how ancestrally we were we were we were brought up. I mean, we didn't have, you know, 7-Elevens and supermarkets and cupboards full of food all the time or constantly eating we had these natural breaks where we were
Hunting for food or gathering for food and we weren't eating all the time our bodies were repairing and then we got to refeed when we know caught the the the deer and ate it and and then, you know brought ourselves to that rebuilding phase exactly replicating what for Millennia we've been as humans designed to do exactly exactly. Yeah. That's an awesome. Awesome question a great great answer. Do we have time for one more? How we doing?
Yeah,
let's do let's do one more. I've got okay, we'll do it. Look try to make it quick. Let's see. Okay. This is hopefully will be pretty quick. Let's do a post fast feeding. So a lot of questions about this. What's the ideal way to break a fast so you talked a little bit about this, you know, is there a method to the madness with macro timing and this is from Brian AB kitchen. Is there a method to the madness that Madness with macro timing and as it pertains to glycogen levels or is it fine to eat anything in particular once you reach your your once you break your fasting window once you end your fasting window, so what should we be consuming ideally after this fast? Well, I think we kind of address that you know, if we're talking about the prolonged fasts or someone that's doing a fast shorter than 48 hours. You know, you're you're basically at that.
At that point after your igf-1 is gone lower and you've done some of the etapa G and clearing away of the of the damaged parts of the cell and also apoptosis the damaged cell itself. You want that igf-1 active and what activates igf-1 are amino acids. So it particularly essential amino acids. So so eating some protein actually to break a fast seems like it would be a good idea because you want that igf-1 higher the other thing that actually regulates igf-1 bioavailability is carbohydrates. So so carbohydrates allow igf-1 to be more bioavailable. So most the time you're wanting to have less igf-1, but in the sense you want to have that regrow signal so so eating, you know, eating a balanced diet, but you know, when people are breaking a prolonged fast, some people have sensitivity, you know, their guts a little more sensitive if you haven't eaten for a few days, you know,
So you really have to sort of listen to your body like soft Landing out of it. Yeah, some people, you know, I've had people talk to me about taking like, you know, making a shake with some blueberries and they had a little bit of you know protein powder that you like a little small piece of salmon and some fruit other people like to kind of ease into it with some soups or bone broths and then eventually kind of make it make it. Yeah small piece of protein or something about taking on more circadian like 16 eights. I mean the thing I sort of want to emphasize here is that, you know, a lot of people use fasting as a license to kind of binge which obviously is not a good idea when you're breaking a fast especially a longer fast giving your body a chance to adjust back to a feeding state is important in eating, you know, non-processed Foods is super important. Would you agree? Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I think that eating eating a healthy diet with you know, lots of vegetables and you know, healthy meats and
Ready acids and things like that. It's important avoiding processed foods avoiding refined sugar all those things. I mean, if you're constantly eating refined sugars and all that. You're going to have a hard time. Your body is going to have a hard time switching over from metabolizing glucose to fatty acids. It's going to make its going to make that transition more difficult. So so that's that's another thing to keep in mind as well. Cool. I did I did want to mention a couple of things because I forgot to mention on some of the directions. Yeah. I think there were some some questions about like a top of G and a caffeine some coffee and you know, if that I talked about breaking the fast a little bit but the caffeine interfere with that. Yeah, and I thought that that was an important point because research by dr. Guido Guido Kramer has shown that actually the polyphenols in coffee and it can even be decaf coffee, you know, doesn't it can be T decaf coffee coffee? It's not the caffeine. It's the polyphenols that are in the Coffee Bean. They actually activate at apogee that he showed that an animal's but they actually
Role in activating a tapa G itself. I think he's made a lot of people stay because now that I can drink black coffee and I get even more benefits to autophagy that it's unclear if you're getting more more benefits. But yeah, I think there is that there does seem to be a caveat there where it seems as though well drinking the black coffee may actually enhance the etapa G. Awesome though. Well, this has been great. I know we only got to a fraction of the questions. I hope we can do this again because the science is evolving. I know there's tons of new studies coming out. I mean in 2019, I think you're on top of a bunch of new science, you know coming out related to fasting and human studies Etc. Yeah. There's like at least four or five new clinical studies on time restricted eating and then another handful on prolonged fasting that doctor Boldt along girls doing that's the you know, that's ongoing. So it's really exciting. Yeah. It's a very Dynamic world that we're in which is exciting and more data coming out, but I want to thank you and again,
Everyone who submitted questions, thank you. I'm sorry. We couldn't get to them all but hopefully we'll be back soon with with with more updates. And again Rhonda Patrick found my fitness and check out zero fasting and if you haven't downloaded it or listen to Rhonda's podcast, please do so. We'll put links in the show notes and from San Diego. That's it. Cool. Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for listening. If you're interested in tracking your fasting and time restricted eating make sure to check out zero on the Apple App Store or head over to their website at zero fasting.com. Well last mentioned before we go about the Kevin Rose connection. I would be remiss if I didn't share that I recently was invited to talk to Kevin's wife. Dr. Daria rose on her podcast. We talk a lot about my recent paper on DHA and phospholipid form and its relevance potentially for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. We also talked about some fun pregnancy related topics and more you can find that episode by looking up. Daria is podcast and grabbing it right off her feed the name of her podcast is food.
Podcast once again, that's foodist. Fo OD IST podcast alternatively. You can also head over to her website, which is www.ciminobenham.com. Once again, that's www.xybertrix.com. Thanks for listening more episodes coming soon.
