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There's a lot of people out there looking at XYZ biomarker, your epigenetic age, your blood glucose levels, lots of different things that you can look at. But it turns out that cardiorespiratory Fitness really is the prominent marker for longevity.
When it comes to making sense of Nutrition. Fitness disease, prevention and Longevity few translate, the complexity of evidence-based science into practical advice for everyday living as effectively as dr. Rhonda Patrick, a PhD in biomedical science, who has devoted her career to understanding the many ways, lifestyle, choices, impact our health span and effectively, communicating your findings to Millions via her
Sound my ships.
If you're willing to go three times a week, do 30 minutes of 80% max heart rate, then Studies have shown. That can have an effect on your blood pressure. That's comparable to taking an antihypertensive drug. Wow and I think exercise is the most important thing.
What I admire about Rhonda isn't just her scientific rigor. It's her ability to help us apply this knowledge to improve our health or Fitness in our longevity. Rana, has a gift for effectively distilling. What matters?
Most into strategies, we can all benefit from adopting. This conversation is a bit of a two-hander the first part focuses on the benefits of vigorous exercise. Not only for the body, but also for the brain, in the second part, we discuss microplastics there omnipotence, the hidden dangers, on brain and body and the strategies we can adopt to avoid
them. We're really in the infancy and understanding microplastics and what they're doing to human health. We're consuming them.
You know, through our water and our foods, and we are also breathing them in through the
air.
Welcome. It's really good to see you. This is long overdue. There are so many topics that we could cover today. It's absolutely infinite and I know anything that I throw at you, we could probably spend an entire podcast on. So I think what we're going to do today is pick two topics and focus on them. We're going to start with Fitness and the impact of different versions of fitness and exercise on the
Various aspects of health, and then we're going to in the second half turned to microplastics, which has been your kind of focus as of late. You've done a lot of work in that regard. So let's start with Fitness. Maybe we can begin with just explaining the different varieties of it and how we should think about the distinctions between endurance, strength training and hit which is high intensity training.
It's funny that you want to
with, with Fitness and talk about the different types of Fitness because I really over the last couple of years, particularly last year, I've gone on a really personal fitness journey myself and largely as a consequence of diving into the various types of Fitness on my podcast and interviewing these experts in the fields of, you know, cardiovascular exercise endurance, exercise, high intensity interval training and then strength, training, strength, training and I would say resistance training are the
The areas that I have always lacked in just throughout my life, I've always been more of a cardio junkie someone that likes to go for a run or a bike ride, you know, jump rope. But I never, I
was always do, by the way. Sorry to interject, which you, which I did not know you do with our mutual friend. Hilary was gay. I do know that you guys knew each other
train. Yes, yes, cool. She's awesome. By the way, she is. But strength, training and resistance training, you know, focusing on muscle mass in.
And is something that I never didn't really, I always thought it was covered if I focused on my cardiovascular health. Right. And I just over the years started to realize that wasn't really the case. And if I didn't spend more time, engaging in resistance training and trying to build muscle reserve and build up my muscles, then I would probably regret it, you know, later in life as I'm aging. And so talking about the various types of exercise, I mean you probably can
Explain this better than myself because you're an endurance athlete. I mean, so there's cardiovascular exercise exercise. That is, you know, stressing your heart in a beneficial way and your cardiovascular system, your vascular system. And typically people, when they think about endurance training or cardiovascular types of exercise, they'll think of, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be really hard exercise but you are. You're doing something that's making you breathy.
So a lot of times people call this Zone to training, so you're you're able to hold a conversation but it's a breathy conversation, right? You're getting your heart rate and, you know, some people depending on their Fitness level, you can get your heart rate up to 70% your max heart rate, other people that are more athletic, you know, it might be different. So, you know, heart rates, kind of just a, a gauge, I think for there's a lot of personal variation there with in terms of the heart rate. And then there is more vigorous intensity exercise, right? And vigorous intensity exercise
is when you're really getting your, your heart rate, I would say above 80%, your max heart rate, closer to 85% your max heart rate, so you're not really able to have a conversation when you're when you're going harder like that. And you can only go for so hard for so long. So, you know, high intensity, interval training. There's a variety of different types of it where you're going for these bouts of vigorous exercise that can be 80%, max heart rate, or it can be 90% or 95% for a very short period of time. You're not
I go that hard for that long, right? So it's sort of interspersed with the the resting intervals as well but I like the term vigorous exercise because really vigorous exercise is just is just referring to, you're really working hard. And a lot of times when you're going into that vigorous exercise Arena, when you're getting into that eighty percent, max heart rate, herb of you are working your muscles really hard but also your cardiovascular system really hard in a way.
A way that you're producing something called lactate and this is, I think, really essential for the vigorous exercise story. Because typically, when you're engaging in cardiovascular exercise, the way your muscles are producing energy is through the mitochondria, which are these little tiny organelles inside your muscle that use oxygen to make energy, but when you're working really hard, the oxygen can't get to your muscles quick enough and so your muscles, you know, they sort of adapt and they start making energy just using glucose without the
And as a byproduct of that you produce lactate. And the reason I'm talking about this is because it's very important. I think to the story of vigorous intensity exercise because lactate for a long time, was thought to be a metabolic waste product, right? It was like and if anything it was thought to be harmful, it was causing muscle fatigue. It was making your muscles burn more. And we now know that's not necessarily the case, but what what's been sort of uncovered over the last
You know, I would say, couple of decades, is that lactated self, is a signaling molecule and it's an energetically favorable molecule as well. So the lactate that your muscles are producing are getting shuttle to other tissues, including the heart, the brain and not only are they being used as energy by the mitochondria and energetically favorable source of energy. So in terms of it's actually easier for
Your brain to use lactate than glucose is energy. It costs more energy to use glucose as energy than it does to use lactate. So it's energetically favorable. But what's even more interesting is that lactate is also increasing. The expression of other genes and this is happening in the brain and it's what's called a signaling molecule. So it's a way for your muscles to directly communicate with other organs. And it does this by saying hey you know, you got to we're working.
Really hard. So you need to adapt and it does this by increasing, you know, anti-inflammatory jeans or antioxidant jeans. But in the brain it increases a very important one called brain. Derived neurotrophic factor and this is basically one of the best things that you could do for your brain brain. Derived neurotrophic factor is a growth factor that causes you to grow more brain cells. It causes the connections between synapses to get stronger, so it's involved in learning and memory. It's essentially a youth Elixir for the
In and lactates involved in making or signaling to your brain to make more of it. So vigorous intensity exercise is great for that reason, but it's also great because it is a way of improving, our cardiorespiratory, Fitness or cardiovascular health. And so cardiorespiratory Fitness is a measure of its usually measured. In terms of VO2 max as you know, and it's the maximum amount of oxygen that you can take in during maximal exercise.
Sighs and cardiorespiratory Fitness is really a marker. I personally think it's now, you know, emerging data over the last five years or so has proven. That is probably the strongest marker we have of longevity today. You know, there's a lot of people out there looking at XYZ biomarker, your epigenetic age, you know, lots of different agent clocks or your blood glucose levels, lots of different things that you can look at. But it turns out that cardiorespiratory, Fitness really is
The prominent marker for longevity. Hmm. So if you're someone that's doing endurance exercise. Like if you're an elite athlete you know. These people are training like what? 30 hours a week. Yeah. On average fine average for the majority of people that are really just sort of interested in health and fitness and perhaps you know, don't have a lot of time to work out a lot, you know, they're barely trying to meet the minimum requirement of two and a half hours. A week of moderate-intensity exercise. Let's say they're they're really
Lee, they're limited by time constraints. Let's say, and but they want to improve their VO2 max, they want to improve their cardiorespiratory Fitness. So what kind of exercise that they engage in to improve their cardiorespiratory Fitness. So, if you're doing something like 30 hours a week, you know that that is something that, you know, you're splitting your time between doing cardiovascular, endurance training, but also some high intensity interval training. You're doing some vigorous intensity exercise along with that as well. So you're kind of covering all the bases but for people that are not doing such
Hours of training, there have been studies that have shown that even people that are meeting the two and a half hours of moderate intensity exercise, you know, per week, if they're only doing this sort of Zone to training, you know, where they're not really going into that vigorous Zone. A lot of up to 40% of people have a hard time, improving their VO2 max and they're called non-responders. And so, why is that? Why are they not responding to? You know, cardiovascular just simple, endurance training, 70%, max heart rate, let's say or below.
So the about modern intensity exercise and it's not really know why, but it's thought that the stress isn't great enough to cause the adaptations to allow them, to improve their VO2 max. And so, when you take those non-responders and then have them engage in vigorous intensity exercise than they're able to improve their cardiorespiratory. Fitness again, coming down to that adaptation where you're putting a greater stress on the cardiovascular system and North. Therefore your body is responding to that stress with a variety of different beneficial.
You know, response Pathways and so vo2max I would say again, as a marker of longevity, one of the best ways you can improve. That is by engaging in vigorous intensity exercise. So that would be kind of a long-winded answer to the different types of, you know, endurance versus kind of more, vigorous intensity exercise. And why I think there's differences but also, you know, there's some overlap as well. So, I mean there's a lot of other aspects, I'm not guessing there's so
many sort of vectors.
At play here. There there's aerobic capacity and aerobic capacity, the two different kind of energy systems and what they do for us. There's the time constraint aspect of this. How do you get the most bang for your buck? Especially, if the variable you're trying to move, the needle on is vo2max and more time? Crunch? Do you are the more important that becomes to prioritize? There's brain health, there's cardiovascular health. There's all of these sort of, you know, things teas out. What's interesting though is you know, I'm
I'm of the age where I grew up thinking that lactate, well, you know, was this waste product that you're always trying to, you know, get rid of and, and fitness was about your capacity to flush it effectively so that you could kind of rebound and recover more quickly. But to learn through your work, that this is actually the signaling molecule, that has it plays an important role in all these different kind of Pathways in the body is a super fascinating thing. So maybe let's like start with brain health.
And go a little bit deeper on what you were talking about with respect to like, brain-derived neurotropic factor and what this is doing. So like when we're building up lactate, as a result of vigorous exercise, its passing through the brain blood, the blood brain barrier is going into our brains and it's doing all sorts of beneficial things like something called neurogenesis, right? Like so talk a little bit more in-depth about the importance of lactate or the relationship between it
And and the healthy brain that we all are trying to, you know, kind of foster.
Yeah. I would love to. It's one of the reasons why I really try to engage in a lot of vigorous intensity exercise that I've gotten neurodegenerative disease on both sides of my family. So for me, I'm very brain focus. When it comes to exercise, it's one of the main reasons I do exercise. I feel better, but I also know that I'm delaying the Aging of my brain and helping prevent neurodegenerative disorders, so, lactate, you know? It depends on how
Ow, there's a lot of factors at play in terms of how much lactate you're going to make, right? So, how and how intense your going in terms of your exercise, your mitochondrial function, a lot of individual variability here at play. But generally speaking, you know, when you start to go into that vigorous intensity Zone, you know, you can start typically, our steady state lactate levels are like less than 1 millimolar and when you get when you start to go into, you know, 80-85 percent 90 percent, max heart rate you can get anywhere between 7 to 14 millimolar.
Of lactate in your blood straighten and this is can be measured you know you can go out and get tests, I've measured it before for myself the the the lactate levels. Don't last long in your blood system and that is because it is being transported and going and taken up by other tissues. So really, as far as I've measured repeatedly, it's about a 20-minute about 20-25 minutes and then it goes back to your Baseline. So there's been a variety of studies that have shown by the way dr. George Brooks from UC Berkeley was the
First to really proposed at the time, this lactate shuttle Theory as he called it, and it's not really a theory anymore. It's been proven time and time again, but he was really the first to propose that lactate was being transported into circulation. It was being taken up by a variety of other tissues, notably, the brain, and that it was, you know, having beneficial effects in these other organs. So in the brain. So there is a transporter lactate goes through this and it's called an MCT transporter, and it gets into the brain and there's been a variety.
Of human studies showing that. Actually, during physical activity lactate is fueling the brain. Because you know, your brain is working hard to. Your heart is working hard during exercise. Your lungs are working hard. Your brain is also working hard, right? I mean, you know this, as your as an endurance, athlete, your brain is also working hard during exercise and lactates, fueling that fueling the brain activity, that's been shown. And some of that also has to do with the fact that lactate I it's increasing brain, derived neurotrophic Factor. So you mentioned that bdnf for short and
That is doing a lot of things, it is helping grow new neurons, particularly in part of the brain called the hippocampus which is involved in learning and memory. It's also a part of the brain that atrophies with Alzheimer's disease. So there have been a variety of studies that have shown even older adults that are engaging in moderate intensity activity for about a year can increase the size of their hippocampus by like 2%, which is amazing because typically older adults lose their their hippocampus hippie.
His atrophies with time. So not only were they fighting and staving off the atrophying but they were also increasing it. So so that was pretty. I think one of the one of the big eye-opening studies and this was this was over 10 years ago. This was like a 2012 study that was published on showing this. So the brain. Derived neurotrophic factor is growing, new neurons can increase the size of the hippocampus but also it's really important for something called neuroplasticity and that is
It's kind of like you can think about keeping our brains more pliable and malleable and adaptable. So really neuroplasticity allows our brains to adapt to a changing environment and this is important for aging but it's also important for mental health. So so people with major depressive disorder for example, they have dysfunction and neuroplasticity so and then that kind of makes sense, right? If you can't adapt to a changing environment,
Stressful and can cause anxiety, can be depressing. So there have been a variety of different, you know, researchers that are trying to Target neuroplasticity as a treatment for depression. So, neuroplasticity not only plays a role in brain aging, but it also plays a role in mental health, and I think that's important to point out because I mean I think I think almost everyone by now knows that exercise is one of the best things you can do for mental health. The right. I mean it's like it's just
Just you can't deny it, right? I mean you go out even just even doing like a 10-minute high intensity workout, you feel better you know, you feel better.
Sure. But that's that's Downstream of all kinds of other things that are happening, right? The hormonal regulation aspect of it. I mean that, you know how how important is the plasticity peace in the mental health conversation and you know what is the significance of that plasticity?
Increase as a result of vigorous
exercise? Yeah it's a good thing you point out. I think there are a lot of things that are changing with exercise. I mean endorphins that make you feel good, you know and to cannabinoids that make you feel good. I mean there's serotonin gets increased, right? So there's a lot of different. I would say short-term effects for for that are potentially responsible for the beneficial like elevation and move that you experience after exercise with neuroplasticity. I
I would argue there's more of a long-term effect, right? It's your brain is now able to adapt better to a changing environment and that's going to have a more of a long-term consequence. So, neuroplasticity is another really important thing that brain-derived neurotrophic factor regulates and again, coming back to the lactate which is what we were talking about, you know, lactate is also when I say it's a signaling molecule, it is it is communicating and activating a lot of different things in the brain.
Rain. So norepinephrine is another one. That's been shown to increase and norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for Focus attention but also mood you know so people are often treated with norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors for anxiety and also depression. So
Lactate plays a role in increasing that as well. But again, we're just getting down into the nitty-gritty of one aspect of exercise. And as you pointed out, there's a whole plethora of changes that occur with exercise that are beneficial not limited to lactate. I just, I think the lactate story is so important because it really is a proven mechanism. Both human and animal studies, it's something that's measurable, you know, it and it again, it's something also that
We've known is it links it? Links, the more high intensity exercise. The more vigorous exercise with, you know, a lot of these beneficial effects on the brain.
What do we know are? Or don't know yet about the impact of lactate or just vigorous exercise in General, on the impact of somebody who is suffering, some form of neurodegeneration like, obviously it's a good thing and I'm sure it ameliorates the
Is there any indicia of it? Reversing any of those conditions or is it purely something that is preventative and and perhaps helpful in terms of like managing somebody, who's in that state of declined,
I would love to see studies like that done. It's a really good question and Rich, I will say this, oh, I haven't really seen much in with respect to someone that has neurodegenerative disease. For example. And, you know, let's say, you give them sodium lactate, right? That's something that you could admit.
Pastor and and see how that affects their cognition. What has been done is studies looking at traumatic brain injury, so traumatic, brain injury in many respects I think is almost like it's almost like studying brain Aging in real time because you're having this traumatic effect on the brain, right? So whether it's a, you know, blunt force or you're in a car accident or whatever and it's causing,
Massive inflammation mass of oxidative stress, and a lot of the pathological features of, for example, Alzheimer's disease happen with traumatic, brain injury like amyloid-beta, plaque buildup. It happens. Boom. Like that after traumatic brain injury, so traumatic, brain injury. Like I said, in many ways I do think is kind of like a almost like a model to study brain aging or neurodegenerative disease in sort of like this real time. When you get like a young person in this you know
Terrible thing happens when you can kind of study it. So there have been studies looking at traumatic brain injury and administering, sodium lactate and that has been shown to improve some of what are called, the Glasgow score. So these are like scores that are done to look at how people are improving in terms of their traumatic, brain, injury, or responding to treatments. And so those those Studies have found that sodium lactate, for example, can improve Glasgow scores with respect to the traumatic brain injury. Which to me indicates, you know, there's a variety of different
The brat battery of tests that are done, I don't know all of them, but like, you know in general it seems as though the sodium lactate is improving those scores and I'll tell you it makes a lot of sense to me. Because first of all, I don't know that many people realize this, but our neurons actually consume a lot of lactate for energy. In fact, they prefer it over glucose and that's because our astrocytes which are supporting brain cells in our brain, produce lactate. So, our astrocytes are mostly glycol.
Addicts. Oh, they're they're not using their mitochondria, their make their using glucose and they're producing lactate and then our brain, our neurons are taking up that lactate and they're using it as energy again because it's energetically favorable. So if you give someone with traumatic brain injury or perhaps, I would go as far as to extrapolate Alzheimer's disease, you know of lactate is getting into their brain. It it is less energy to use that lactate than it is to use glucose and on top of that there's something called the glucose sparing effect.
So glucose if your neurons don't need to use glucose if they're using lactate. Instead this allows glucose to be spared and why is that important? It's important because glucose is used to make something called nadph, which is a precursor to form glutathione which is the brains major, major antioxidant system. And this is why I think that sodium lactate helps with traumatic brain injury. And that's why I think that it, you know,
Lactate in general is good for the brain and could help with, you know, neurodegenerative diseases in general. Is because you know when you're freeing up the glucose, it's now used to make this important antioxidant in the brain and so it's you're getting a couple of things happening here, like a to punch hit, right? You got the lactate which is energetically favorable, it's being used by neurons to make energy they like using lactate and they prefer it or using it when the astrocytes are functioning normally TB is messed up. So, in under a TBI can
Mission your exercises aren't making the lactate and so everything's all messed up. So that's number one. Number two. Now you're sparing the glucose and glucose can be used to make glutathione and its hands down. Glutathione is so important for the brain, particularly under conditions of TBI or neurogenic disease. Brain Aging in general.
How does that work in terms of how your body prioritizes? You know, the the sort of byproducts of glucose because if you're generating your own lactate,
Eight, it means you're burning your glucose pretty quickly, right? Like it's a match that, you know, burns out fast if you're staying in that state. So while you're burning this glucose, I suppose that is also doing this other the second punch of the to punch. Yeah, you're saying
that, I mean, it's a good question. So you're you know obviously like glucose is important to get into the brain and the glucose is being used by your muscles at the same time, if your
exercises were gobbling it up, right? And that's like getting in the way of it, getting to your brain, we have to feel your body.
Which makes me think like, is there in the way that exhaustion is ketones, are like all the rage is, there is there a version of that for lactate and exoticness lactate to create this sort of like brain fuel? So that even when you're not in that state of generating your own lactate, you can be feeding it to your brain in a way that has all of these other benefits as a consequence.
So I don't know that I've seen that version like a sort of like
Like lactate kind of Ketone
drink this in your whole body will burn, right? Your it's good for your brain. Is that, I mean, is that what it would feel like if you so the Pacific ejected in, you think
you're funny. It's funny cause you're thinking about it in the right way because beta-hydroxybutyrate, right? So that is like the major circulating Ketone when you're in ketosis or if you're if you're getting one of these exogenous Ketone drinks which they use beta-hydroxybutyrate it has very similar properties to lactate
It increases brain tribe, Nur it's a signaling molecule and increases brain, derived neurotrophic Factor. It also is, can spare glucose so it can be used as an energetically favorable source of energy by the brain under traumatic brain, injury conditions and some of those Studies have been done in fact, lactate and beta-hydroxybutyrate also like almost do very very similar things and it does that glucose sparing effect as well. So it's sparing, the glucose and the Brain, allowing it to be freed up to make glutathione.
So it's so interesting that you bring that up because in a lot of ways, they're almost very, very similar in terms of what they can do and with their with their respects as being a signaling molecule in the brain. So yeah. So it's kind of interesting. Yeah, so will he, here
you go. Ronda like, I'm serving you up like your this is, this is, you know, a whole new market. You know, you could create this product and, you know, turn it into a whole thing,
or you could just work out and and not only
Everybody
loves like, oh I don't have to work out, I can get the benefits.
But taking that thing no love that. I know people do love it.
Like who doesn't like there's like there's every every year to find a study like
every diatribe about like why exercise is important, isn't it is a way to identify like some end run around it that?
Yeah, I know, I just don't think you can shortcut it like that. Now, if you're, if you're a TB, if you're having TBI or you're an Alzheimer's patient, you know, there's an argument to be made to give them some kind of Elixir that they can, you know?
That can benefit them. But if you're like us, there's an argument to put in the effort, right? Because, you know, it's not just about lactate lactates, one part of the story. There's cardiorespiratory Fitness as we mentioned, right? And I mean, that's, that's another important marker for longevity. And there's also studies showing that, you know, you can take, you can take a 50 year old person who is sedentary. So they're they're not physically active, but they don't have
The other markers of disease so they're not, you know, they don't have type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease or hypertension and put them under a pretty intense exercise protocol for two years and basically you can reverse the aging of their heart by almost 20 years so the study was done by dr. Been lovin out of UT Southwestern in Dallas and what he showed was, you know, so as we age our heart structure, gets it changes with time. So,
Gets our heart gets stiffer and shrinks and that plays a role in increasing our cardiovascular disease risk and plays a role in, you know, affecting our aerobic capacity. So what he wanted to know, he asked the question oh can I can I take these people that are essentially been sedentary their life their whole life, but there are otherwise not you know, they don't have any identifiable diseases and can I can I make their hearts like better and so his group put them on a pretty intense exercise protocol for two years and it was a progressive loading. So you know,
Like right out the gate, there were doing five hours of exercise a week, you know which is essentially what they were doing at the end of the two years. They're doing about five to six hours of a lot of vigorous intensity exercise moderate as well, but they were doing high intensity interval training. They were doing something called the Norwegian 4x4 protocol. This is, you know, you're doing four minutes of, you know, as hard as you can maintain for that four minutes. So, you know, most people are probably doing 80% their max heart rate or something like that or the not going all out obviously.
Yeah, and then you recover for three minutes and that's really your really going down to let your heart rate go down and then you do that four times, they did that once a week on top of just doing a lot of aerobic you know, training and they were able to reverse the aging. The structural changes their aging Heart by twenty years which is incredible you know. Absolutely incredible. You took a 50 year old and make their hearts look like a 30 year old man who wouldn't who wouldn't sign up for that? You're not going to get that with beta-hydroxybutyrate a lactate.
And what do we know again another like what do we know or not?
About the the impact of vigorous exercise versus endurance exercise on moving the needle on cardiovascular
health, I mean, they're both good for cardiovascular health, right? You know, like I what I was mentioning was the cardiorespiratory, Fitness aspect and the reason I was mentioned is because almost half the population isn't responding to that. If they're just doing the sort of moderate intensity exercise, where they're doing 70% their, max heart rate for two and a half hours a week.
Like to mention that because it seems as a sizable part of the population. Really does need a little bit more stress for their body to adapt for whatever reason. I don't know that. That's well understood but what is understood at? That is. Does it Kerr? And so, you know, I do think again, you don't want to compare apples to oranges. So, like a lot of times, we'll look at what these endurance athletes are doing and they're doing a lot of Zone to exercise, right? But they're doing a lot of it. So I don't think you can compare.
When he was doing over 10 hours a week to.
Yeah. I mean yeah nobody should really look at that as a benchmark to decide what they're going to do. And you know those people their Zone 2 is very unlike. The average person's Zone to because they're because they've been doing it for so many years and they built this huge base. Like the they're kind of like Pace that they're able to maintain would be you know be on the threshold of an average person.
So they're, they're putting a even though they're cardiovascularly, they can handle it. There they are putting an additional strain on their ligaments and their muscles and things like that. It's very different from the average person, but in that conversation, I think it needs to be said that what endurance athletes or any like, you know, Elite athlete understands is is the idea of training on these polarities and I think the average person spends most of their time somewhere.
Of in the middle they're going a little bit too hard for Zone 2. If they only have a couple hours a week like Zone to because they're not that fit feels like they're not getting anything out of it and they're not pushing themselves hard enough to get into that threshold. Vigorous state required to catalyze all of these kind of benefits that you're talking about. So a lot of it is like slowing down and then knowing when to speed up and how you create that mix and the construct of how many hours a week you're capable of, like devoting to these
Things, right? And then don't forget, we have to add in some strength training and resistance training way. So I mean there's a lot and then you have to work and take care of your family. And so you know it there's a lot of factors here and I think that's where I personally do like the, you know, the I guess option to to go a little bit harder and not have to spend as much time and at least be able to make improvements to my cardiovascular system to you know, cardiorespiratory Fitness and
Things like the lactate and not to mention, you're doing other. There's other benefits. Like you're increasing the number of mitochondria in your muscle, you know, is called mitochondrial biogenesis. And that's both, you know, doing moderate intensity and high intensity you know, exercise does
that over time isn't zoned to a more effective way to build mitochondrial
density. So it depends if you're if you're comparing, let's say you're comparing someone that is doing.
Doing a 30-minute Zone to run versus a 30 minute more, vigorous run. Then you're going to, you're going to increase the number of mitochondrial density more by doing the vigorous intensity and that is because lactate itself. Actually signals to your mitochondria to make more mitochondria. And the reason for that is because your your body, it's an adaptation, your body is freaking out. Your body's going, I can't use my mitochondria getting oxygen here, quick enough to make energy with my mitochondria there.
I need to make more mitochondria, to try to adapt so that I can use the mitochondria to make the energy. Do you think I'm saying? So, so the high intensities of the vigorous intensity exercise, stresses the mitochondria in a way through lactate that's increasing the mitochondrial number. But you know Zone to training can affect mitochondrial size. So it can make mitochondrial, you can increase the mitochondrial size and so there are differences there. But generally speaking, if you were doing the same volume of
Of training than hot then add more. Vigorous exercise would actually improve mitochondrial density more. Now if you were to then take and do like let's say you were going to do an hour-long Zone 2 versus you know the 30-minute then maybe you start to get more differences, right? So again it's like it all depends on what we're comparing here. Apples to oranges like are the same durations the same or because most of the time, if you're doing Zone to, you're going to have a longer duration, anyways. Right? Then that's the whole point of doing high intensity, interval training is Tides time efficient, right? So you can
At more bang for your buck in some regards. Now there are differences as well and certainly for people that are endurance athletes, they have to spend more time doing doing more Zone 2. But in no way what I ever say or think it's accurate to say that doing, vigorous intensity exercise is not improving your mitochondrial function or improving mitochondrial number or density because it absolutely is. It's very, very strongly, improving mitochondrial function and mitochondrial density. So I wouldn't feel like you're lacking something by, you know, engage
Aging more in high intensity interval training and not doing enough some to either. So I think there's a little confusion out there with that. So I want to clarify that
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Let's turn to the metabolic Health aspects of this. When you think of endurance training or Zone to your thinking about the efficiency, with, which your body is able to utilize oxygen and the adaptation to burning fat as fuel, that sort of like, the thing that you're trying to like, improve when you're doing that form of exercise, whereas high intensity exercise, your burning glucose for fuel.
You don't you're not, you don't have, you don't have the ability to store glucose like you can fat. So you're going to run out of that eventually and all the lactate happens and all of the like what do we what have you sort of Unearthed in terms of the impact of these? Two different types of exercise on metabolic health and maintaining like sort of our ability to regulate our metabolism
optimally? Yeah. So I you know I think that that was a very nice way to put the question of
We've explained a lot there and so just to clarify, I do think that so when you are doing more, vigorous intensity exercise, first of all it's not just an all-or-nothing 0 to 1. You're not just only anaerobic, unless you're really all that synchron has on aspect right anyway? Right. So, so I think some people kind of people like to think black and white as we know, and so I do want people to realize that when you're doing like a vigorous intensity type of exercise that is, let's say, 80 85 percent max heart rate, you are also using
Your mitochondria and you're also still burning fat and are doing that as well. So, you're also, you're shifting and doing both, it's not just one or the other. And, unless you're really doing like a wing gay or something like all-out Sprint, right, where you're just, you're going, just I've never done one. So I don't really know because I've tried to go all out or know that I've actually habit. It's pretty, pretty
terrible. They're still Fitness for you for it to be found for you.
Then Hill. Sprints are like the bane of my existence. There's so they're so hard, but so Jack
I wanted to mention that and also that because you know when you're doing high intensity interval training, vigorous exercise, you are increasing mitochondrial density, which again, the more mitochondria you have, you do get better at burning fat as well, just by having more mitochondria, but as you said, yes. So people that are doing more type of Zone, 2 training to become better at burning fat, because they're kind of, like staying at within that threshold of not going into burning glucose, right? And so,
Does kind of give an advantage for that for that reason, but it's not that doing the other type of exercise isn't getting you that at all right? That's just important to consider. But the other metabolic effects that are, I think are also important and again, not black and white is that if you are doing more of a vigorous type of exercise, going going again, to lactate being a signaling, molecule lactate signals to your muscle to get more glucose in it, right? Because your muscles are using so much glucose that your body's
Going, I got to get more of this in here so that I can keep making energy. And so what it does is it increases the production, it's actually what it does, is it increases the translocation of what are called glucose for Transporters glute for Transporters, which are just below the surface of the muscle and lactate causes them to go up to the cell surface and kind of its opens up the floodgates for glucose to come in. Right? And this is really, really beneficial because it is a way of getting glucose out of your circulation.
Get to your muscle where you want it, right? So the elevations in your glute for Transporters last for, like 48 hours, and it's want, it's why there have been studies that have come out recently showing that you can do 10 bodyweight squats, 10 bodyweight squats, every 45 minutes throughout at eight about eight hour workday, and that will improve your blood glucose regulation better than a 30 minute walk. Wow. And I
type of my shirt. You were just doing those before we start.
The body, these are the brain. But but but again so the the more vigorous the intensity of the exercise, the more improved glucose regulation you are going to have and that is absolutely time and time again proven. So you will improve your glucose regulation by doing more, vigorous types of exercise, again through lactate which is that signaling molecule, and it's really important to realize, we talked about the heart, the Aging heart, how it gets stiffer and smaller with age. Well, the stiffness of the heart,
Is actually partly caused by glucose in the vascular system. So the longer you have glucose sitting around and your vascular system, it reacts with proteins, Rex, with DNA lipids, but specifically it reacts with proteins, including collagen and through, What's called the maillard reaction, it forms something called Advanced glycation end products or ages for short. And these things, they basically, cause your proteins become stiff and they ended. And they last like, if you were talking about collagen,
Collagen in your vascular system or in your myocardium. For example, your pericardium has collagen it gets stiffer, as you know, as the advanced glycation end products form. And it's all a con, a byproduct of glucose being around for too long. So people with type 2, diabetes, for example, have you no problems. Stiffness of the blood vessels, they get cardiovascular disease sooner, all sorts of problems. And so I think one of the reasons that exercise plays an important role in D stiffening the heart or preventing the stiffness of the
It is because of the just enormous Improvement in glucose regulation that you're getting from exercise. And it's not that you're not getting glucose improvements from doing like Zone to you. Absolutely are for sure. Especially like, now, if you're comparing again, 20 minutes to 20 minutes, you're going to get, you're going to get better glucose regulation with more, vigorous intensity exercise. But you know generally speaking, any type of cardiovascular exercise is going to improve glucose regulation. However, the more vigorous the
Intensity the better, the Improvement and that is because lactate increases is this is the signal, that's increasing those glucose Transporters to come up to your muscle and bring in more
glucose. I'm trying to understand the distinction between taking that glucose that's sitting at a sitting around and putting it to work. And the impact that that has on, you know, not stiffening up the heart as you described because you're deploying it you're making use of it, right? But your ability to regulate glucose
Is a different thing, right? Like those are two different things. So what it what is glucose regulation? You know, that gets modulated or improved as a result of the high intensity exercise. I mean it doesn't happen with endurance or strength
training. I don't know that there is something that doesn't happen with other endurance, training. I just think it's it's a more robust effect if that makes more sense and there's a lot of different things that are happening. But I say one of the one of the main things is the disposal of glucose, getting rid of it.
Right? And that's going into muscle rather than adipose tissue were when stored in a petition adipose tissue. That's that's not a good thing either, right? So you want it to go to your muscle. And so really the regulatory role I'm talking about here is like, like disposal like getting rid of it through muscle, right? So, it's not sitting around and your vascular system for a longer period of time, but, you know, the there's so many different aspects of glucose regulation,
right? I guess what I'm getting at is more like, okay, so your yes, you're making use of it.
You're putting it to work. You have these receptors on the cells that are able to kind of take the glucose in but on some level like metabolic health or glucose regulation as a function of pancreatic Health, right? Like how how sensitive are you to insulin and how how functional is that aspect of metabolic Health. Kind of like working. So does exercise have an impact like impact on the insulin
sensitivity aspect of it? Yes, yes, yes. It's affecting so many different.
Areas of you know, insulin sensitivity glucose regulation with respect to the Transporters bringing into muscle. You know, there's a lot of different things that are going on with exercise. Again, it's not like this one thing, only it's many, many things, but the transport, getting that glucose into muscle is a big. It's like a sink. It's a big, it's a big reason why exercise does improve. You know, your blood glucose levels in general, right? It lowers the long-term marker of glucose
1C but the thing about hba1c is, you know, it's a long-term marker of glucose blood glucose. It's, you know, what 120 days or so I think is what it is. It's how long, your blood cells turn over, but you have to realize, you know, the collagen that's inside of your vascular system. That's whining. Your myocardium and your pericardium think that's that's there forever, right? And so when you have glucose reacting with that collagen, we're talking about a long-term effect that's that's forever. It's contributing to The Chronic Insidious type.
Of stiffening of the collagen surrounding your heart and also, in your vascular system. So it's playing a role in hypertension but also in the, the stiffening of the heart, you know, through The myocardium and pericardium so interesting. Yeah, it is, it really is. I think one of the big reasons why exercise is so important for cardiovascular health. Also comes down to basically just glucose, disposal, getting getting that glucose out of your ass cooler system. You know, there's another thing I wanted to mention that that comes down to sleep and, you know,
Not getting enough, sleep. Also changes. A lot of the glucose regulatory System, including insulin sensitivity, including glucose, disposal. So going, you know, all those things we just talked about. And what's interesting, is that doing high intensity, interval training can really ameliorate most of those negative effects from from not getting enough sleep in terms of like glucose and how it's like your glucose isn't being regulated and that's something that
I learned firsthand by wearing a continuous glucose monitor while I was a new mom and not getting sleep. You know the first year I was in a new mom. I mean it was like I was appalled by what was happening to my glucose like the first month I would say when I wasn't exercising it was like in a cave, you know, and my blood glucose levels were looking pre-diabetic. I mean, it was like really crazy because I was eating healthy, you know, wasn't eating a bunch of processed foods, it wasn't even a lot of Highly refined sugars or any like that and that's what it sort of
To get it me to assert, look into the literature and go. What is going on? If you like if you're getting, you know, fragmented sleep, how is it causing diabetes and sure enough, there's study after study, after study, I mean, just endless data out there showing that it does. And then I came across some studies. What I started doing was spin class and notice that it was totally better like my lasted about 48 hours so it have to do with spin class. Like every 48 Hours,
the poor sleep remaining
constant, the poor sleep is constant. I mean, you have to consider it
We have the feed your
baby with a baby. Yeah, yeah.
But but the, the high intensity interval training buffered, it really buffered it really did buffer. And then, you know, sure enough you look in the literature and there's, you know, a few studies showing the same thing and I do think it comes down to that again, it's increasing. Those glucose Transporters, which are just when you have a really high density of those on your muscle, it's like just having the sink open so the blood glucose goes into your you know, vascular system and the sinks there.
Just goes into it, you know, then it's pretty sensitive for, like I said, about 48 Hours. The first 24 hours are the most sensitive but it's very important. It's very important exercise is important to do, you know, even even when you're not feeling like it is the bottom line,
my experience wearing a constant glucose continuous glucose monitor was with similar like, when I don't sleep well, I, you know, my levels are all over the place, like it's crazy and it's immediate like you're just, you're suddenly
Like are a different person in terms of your body's ability to like, you know, manage what you're putting into your mouth. It's crazy. But I'm curious before we kind of move on to the next topic or aspect of Fitness. If somebody is extremely metabolically. Disregulated. They have type 2, diabetes, or there pre-diabetic. What do we know about the impact of exercise in particular? Vigorous exercise on, not just managing that condition, but but reversing it like if
He's in full-blown type to, you know, can they move that backwards? And if so like, how much?
Yeah, great question. So I'll start with pre-diabetes because I love talking about this study there was like, probably one of the largest studies done looking at the effect of exercise versus metformin on the progression of prediabetes into diabetes. And the reason I like this study is because there's so many
People on Metformin. I mean, it's a pretty common, you know, you talk to someone with with type 2 diabetes and they're there on, you know, some generic. So
it's a longevity drug, like, people that are perfectly healthy are
taking it. Yeah, and I disagree with that. But yes. So so then this is why I like talking about this study because exercise out performed and this was, you know, people were doing like moderate, intensity exercise but it out performed metformin by almost like 30 to 40.
Sent 40, maybe those closer to 40%. So, you know, it out performed it. In other words, it stop the progression of prediabetes to type 2. Diabetes, much much, better than that foreman did exercise, right? So I like that study because it really shows the power of exercise and how know you're not going to pull it up. You're not going to pull it up. It's not it's not the same. There are of course, a lot of other studies that have shown that people that have type 2 diabetes.
He's can reverse their type 2 diabetes with exercise. I don't know by the magnitude because, you know, it's been so many years since I've looked at any of those studies, not something I've looked at recently, but I do think it is a powerful tool that we all have at our disposal that we should be using. And I'm saying we, I mean, I personally don't have type 2 diabetes, but like we as people, right? I mean, people with type 2 diabetes, that think that they're sort of, you know, cursed with this disease that they can never Escape.
Escape it's not necessarily true. You know there are lifestyle modifications, including exercise, probably being the most important. I don't think anything anything is more important than exercise in terms of health but also in Reverse reversing type 2 diabetes. I think that's one of the biggest the biggest factors and again the more vigorous the intensity, it is better. Like so for example there's been studies that have shown, you know, if you take people that walk
At all you know. Yeah brisk. Walk and then you take those brisk Walkers and then make them do intervals where they're really going faster than you know than brisk walking again. And then really going like like almost jogging and then brisk walking. They again are have improved markers of insulin, sensitivity of glucose regulation, all those things if they're doing the intervals, right? So vigorous exercise is really important with respect to, I would say
Preventing the progression of diabetes protecting you against getting diabetes and also in terms of helping reverse type 2 diabetes, all of the above very, very important.
Yeah. When you think about what people suffer from the most it's you know, being metabolically dysregulated pre-diabetic diabetic, it's cardiovascular disease, its stroke, which is just a circulatory, you know, condition disease, right? And hypertension like high blood pressure. So high blood
Pressure. I mean obviously exercise is going to lower your blood pressure. Are there things about that aspect of this that are worth kind of highlighting,
with respect to comparing
different, secondary person and their risk. You know, who is sort of teetering on hypertension and what exercise can do to move? The needle on
that? Yes. Yeah. There's been a quite a few studies. There's one in particular. I think it was a meta-analysis of multiple different randomized.
Controlled trials showing that it was like 30 minutes a day or something. Don't quote me on this maybe about 30 minutes three times a week. I think. And it was in moderate to vigorous intensity exercise. Again I think was about three times a week over the course of a month or so these people had improvements in their and their blood pressure that were comparable to antihypertensive treatments and antihypertensive drugs. So yeah it can have druggable size effects, you know, if you are committed to
Improving your health improving, your blood pressure, you know without taking medication. You have to be committed to it like you it's not going to happen unless you put in the effort. But if you're willing to go three times a week, do 30 minutes of, you know, 80% max heart rate, let's say you know then then Studies have shown that can have a an effect on your blood pressure. That's comparable to taking an antihypertensive drug and I think that's profound, you know, when you're talking about druggable size effects here and it's not just
Just hypertension that it's that that's been shown depression as well. It's been compared to a lot of different ssris so there have been studies that have compared like running to people taking ssris and it was as good. If not better at improving a variety of depressive symptoms in people with depression. Running was yeah, compared to ssris. So again now that's wild. It is it's you know, you know some people have like depression where they just can't even like, get out of bed and
Dude, that run. I mean, that's like a whole other, you know, category, but there are people that that are have depressive symptoms, pay. Maybe they don't have full-blown, like major depressive disorder. But you know, they have anxiety or bouts of depression or you know, and they can move like they can get enough willpower to and so I mean it's really important. It's such an amazing tool that we have to improve so many aspects of our health. I did a lot of research in nutrition and so it's, you know, it's something that
I've always thought as the most important thing and I'm not saying I don't think nutrition is important but I think exercise is the most. I think it's the most important
thing. It seems to be the
consensus. Yeah, I think, I mean you can get
overboard and in particular with respect to health panics
extension, right? Yeah. And just even all-cause mortality. I mean I think you can you can you can get away with some other bad behaviors. Like, like I said, like the sleep, you know, if you're if you're not getting enough good sleep, there's also
Studies showing that people that are, you know, getting fewer than seven hours of sleep at night. They have a higher all-cause mortality than people that are getting greater than 7 like 7 to 9 hours a night. But if they're physically active and getting fewer than seven hours, guess what they have the same all-cause mortality again. So exercise I think really does forgive some of the sins and that's where, you know, if you're going to cheat, you know, make sure you're physically active,
but they do say, you can't exercise your way out of
Of a bad diet, which makes me think about elevated cholesterol. So somebody has a high ecobee or their LDL is out of whack. Maybe they're on a Statin or their doctor has told them, they should be. What is the impact of exercise versus making changes in your diet, to deal with that specific
thing? Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, dietary changes for apob LDL. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a big one for sure. Because we know, saturated fat, especially in combination with refined sugars.
Make make a disaster for a probie and also for small dense LDL particles which kind of are more prone to lodging into the arterial wall. And so yes, diet is important and you can't exercise your way out of a bad guy in that regard. So you do you do need to care for both for sure but I do think like if someone held a gun to my head and say choose one, what's the most important thing I would I would say
exercise. Yeah, cancer. What do we know about the?
Impact of exercise on cancer prevention,
cancer, prevention and treatment. I mean, that's that's I think one of the, you know cancer so we've been talking a lot about cardiovascular health. And as you mentioned it's like the number one, the number one cause of death in the United States and a lot of I think most developed Nations cancers number two cause of death right follows cardiovascular disease and exercise is one of the best things you can do for cancer prevention and also for cancer treatment. In other words,
If you've been diagnosed with cancer, which is probably where most people wouldn't actually when they wouldn't exercise. They think, oh my goodness, I need my energy. I, you know, I need to rest and in fact I think a lot of oncologist for many many years were advising against exercise because they didn't think they could. But as it turns out, you know, exercise when you when you exercise so many different things are happening. So you're having an inflammatory immune immune
cell changes, so exercise can improve and increase the number of a type of immune cell that can kill cancer cells. So cytotoxic T lymphocytes is one of them a natural till natural killer T cells is another one but also you have to realize is that, you know, cancer cells, cancer cells, take a long time to form a tumor. We're talking about solid tumors like, you know, so not blood cancers. Right? Takes a long time to form a solid tumor. I mean, this is something that's like decade. Like a decade, you know, doesn't just happen in a year.
I
mean it takes multiple years before you actually forming a solid tumor and so as you get that one cancer cell and then you get the two and then the four and then you get the 8 and whatever you know as they start to divide cancer cells are not like our normal cells, they're they're really wonky and messed up, they've got all sorts of abnormal things going on there there, what are called stressed cells, and it's it's it's one of the reasons why chemotherapy works is that, so chemotherapies toxic, right, kills normal cells to, but
It kills cancer cells because cancer cells are in a way. They're primed to die there, waiting to die, but they've, they've gotten mutations that have helped them override our natural program systems that are trying to kill them or they evade the immune system, or they found a ways around it right to die. And so they're kind of waiting to die and they just need like a stressor to help push them over the edge, which is kind of what a chemo drug does because chemo is toxic. And so it's that push. Well exercise also is a
Stress. And so when you exercise, it is a stressful thing on your body and you know, you increase the production of inflammatory cytokines while you're exercising, but then you have this beneficial response, this adaptation of anti-inflammatory cytokines. So you have a net benefit of, you know, anti-inflammatory effect. For example when you're exercising your normal cells are able to make antioxidants and anti-inflammatory cytokines in there, they're adapting.
Cancer cells can adapt. And so exercise actually can cause them to die, because they're so stressed, that's one thing that happens. And so, it's one of the reasons that you can sort of, you know, if you have a to a cancer cell or two or 10 or 20, you know, the more you're exercising, the more you're likely causing your immune system, to be able to find them by increasing those important immune cells. I talked about that can help you know, kill cancer cells, the more you can kill them directly from just the stress. But also
Cancer cells have something on them called there. They have mechanoreceptor Zahn them, which are normal cells have two since they sense movement basically, and as you exercise, your blood flow is moving, right? And so again, it's another type of stress that kills the cancer cell but not normal cells, and these are usually cancer cells that have better in your vascular system, right? So, these are called circulating tumor cells. And so those are the ones that the blood flow itself. Just the shearing force of it.
It can kill because the cancer cells can't take that shearing stress that sharing for stress. So that's it very interesting way that exercise can play a role in prevention and also cancer treatment and there's been a variety of studies that have been done. Now looking at people that have colorectal cancer or breast cancer and they engage in exercise you know these people are like 40 percent less likely to have cancer recurrence in 63 percent less likely to have their died from dive.
Their cancer. So they're improving their overall cancer outcome, right? Just from from exercising. And also, there's been studies showing that people that are exercising that have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer and breast cancer. The to cancers that have looked at the most in this regard, but they decrease their number or number of circulating tumor cells. Those cells that are in that escape, the primary site of the tumor, get into circulation, to go take Camp somewhere else, right? It's called metastasis cancer metastasis. Well if you can stop your cancer cells from a
NASA size and that really improves your outcome as well and exercise has been shown to do that. So again, it plays a big role in that as well. But then again, you know, exercise you talked about prevention, there's so many things going on with prevention, right? It's pretty changing our immune system, it's improving metabolic Health. Metabolic health is important for cancer as well. I mean obesity is, you know there's like 13 different cancers that are associated with obesity and everything from glucose and Insulin to hormones. I mean, there's there's so many factors that
At play, you know, that I just we could go on or
not independent, they're not independent exactly. Are all like, it's all it's all connected. It's interesting. I mean it makes sense on one level, like everything that you said like, of course we should be doing that and I can understand why that would have a positive impact and in terms of like staving off the progression of cancer, but on the other hand I'm thinking like exercise induced stress creates oxidation which, you know, my layperson brain is Like Oxygen
Sedation bad, right? Like this is this is not good for your cells and probably isn't good for cancer cells either. And the inflammation that is a consequence of exercise. Also, inflammation, bad. You don't want, this is not good for your health, right? But there's differences between acute and chronic and I don't know. Maybe you can kind of like if anyone else is struggling with this, like me, you can kind of figure, you know, make that a little bit more clear. Well,
that's exactly right. And so exercise.
Is a type of what is called, hormetic stress, right? So this is a type of beneficial stress, it does create oxidation. It does create reactive, oxygen species. It does create il-6 and inflammatory, pro-inflammatory cytokines it causes inflammation acutely but but there's an Adaptive response to that our cells are creating antioxidant jeans like glutathione like superoxide dismutase, like all these other genes that are not only dealing with that little bit of a cute oxidation that you just
Generated from the exercise that little bit of inflammation that you just generated from the exercise. Not only is it dealing with that. It's, it's dealing with the inflammation days later that's generated from just normal living, right? So it has a net anti-inflammatory and a net antioxidant effect, but as you mentioned the cancer cells, they don't have that hormetic response. They don't have that adaptive response. They don't increase their antioxidant genes or their anti-inflammatory genes in response to the exercise. They can
Can't they are messed up. They are completely mutated and screwed up and so they die. And that is the mechanism is there's, that's the mechanism. How it works, right? And it's part of the reason why even so, but dr. Valter Longo a mutual friend of ours, I mean he's shown in a few studies now what he coined is differential stress resistance and he showed it in the context of fasting, which is also a stress on the body. And so the fasting itself if you do that. Like shortly before cancer.
Treatment. It also does. A similar thing is exercise its differential stress resistance, right? It is, it is killing the cancer cells will almost selectively while causing the normal cells to have more antioxidant and more anti inflammatory responses through that stress you know that stress response that's happening right. And so that's also the same thing with like deliberate heat exposure from the sauna. It does something similar, right? There's eating it cutely is like you get in the sauna, it's hot.
Your creative reactive oxygen species, inflammation il-6 is going up but the net effect is you have more what's called il-10. That's an anti-inflammatory that's lasting for much longer than that. Acute inflammatory response. So a lot of these types of, you know, beneficial types of stress, whether we're talking about exercise, or fasting, or talking about deliberate heat exposure, or even plant phytochemicals. So, a lot of chemical vital chemicals that are in plants like sulfur Fein or
Resveratrol or curcumin in turmeric. You know, these are all chemicals that are you know, they have a big cause a little bit of stress in our body but they dramatically activate stress, response, Pathways like the Nrf2 pathway which is hugely beneficial and increasing a variety of anti-inflammatory genes and antioxidants. It's that good type of stress that you stress. That's that we're looking for. And that's exercise. That's something that exercise is doing
setting aside, cancers of the blood
Not all cancers are the same. Are there some that are more resilient or and and some that are more kind of receptive to exercise in terms of like, you know, the that what we're looking to do
here, it does seem like some of them are and that's probably why a lot of cancers that are looked at are so breast cancer, prostate cancer, like the ones that are like hormonal related to are, also very related to like, metabolism in general, seem to be
The ones that are really looked at in terms of being affected by exercise and then colorectal cancer colon cancer is another one that's been looked at a lot and seems to respond well to exercise. Now I don't know about other cancers like brain cancer. For example, I would imagine it would be beneficial but, you know, there's just, I think there's a, there's a lack of data to really to show that but yes, cancers are different. You're right. I mean, so it's, you know, I don't know that it's necessarily a sure thing, but I do feel
strongly that, you know, exercise is beneficial like period, and it does seem to be beneficial for most types of cancer.
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What is the question around exercise? That that's nagging at you and what would be the study that you would construct to get answers? Like what's still out there that we don't fully understand that. You wish we did. And have a sense of how we could if we could just do this one study. Oh gosh, it
was really a lot right there. Like there is. Yeah, I mean, I I think, you know, I've been, I'm really like I said, I'm really into the brain. There's been a variety of studies
that I think we need to look at
the impact of like,
Lifelong exercise and neurodegenerative disease risk and, you know, and not and not in a way where it's just a questionnaire this one week. And then let's just say that's how much you exercise for the last, you know, 10 years like because it's just not very good. It's not a very good indicator of okay, whether or not they are actually exercising as much as they did that one week, right? Because that's what a lot of observational data looks at. So I would love to see, you know, something that is more like a randomized controlled trial looking at people.
That are engaging in exercise or not and their their risk of neurodegenerative disease. Particularly if they have genes that elevate their risk like the apoe4. Allele is one. That's a big
one. Yeah. To what? Extent does exercise over override the right. Not a predisposition. If you take somebody who is a lifelong athlete and they're doing a perfectly their entire life and they have the right mix of endurance and strength and high intensity. Are does that create a situation in which they sides?
A disease that otherwise would have almost been a
certainty and I think it would for sure I do. But, you know, we just don't have that data.
I want to move on to microplastics. But is there anything that we haven't kind of put a finer point on that you want to make sure that you make clear before we
pivot? Well, I didn't, you know, I didn't talk about my personal journey and strength training, but I will say that I've really gotten into
doing dead
CrossFit deadlifts squats. And I mean,
I feel great, I feel stripe gotten stronger. I, you know, I just, I feel, I feel really, really good. I've, you know, I got a coach, I'm working with and she's wonderful. She's making, she's helping me get stronger and there's a lot of benefits to it, you know, I think the muscle mass and I know you've had dr. Lane Norton on who's talked a lot about the benefits. I won't go into all that is, he's talked about that. But, you know,
I would say that in addition to the fact that I'm building up my muscle reserve and you know, that's very important for for aging as well. It's hard. Like, it's really hard to do like like front squats and like clean to clean it up and do a front squat and I find myself as I start my day, I do I do, I work out in the morning and I find that it's almost mentally harder for me than physically. I mean sure it's physically hard but it is
Is mentally challenging for me to do what I'm doing, like the deadlifts and squats, the cleaning, and the squats. And I find that everything else in the day that I do is so much easier and I love that. I love starting my day like that because it's like I get through this. Like mental hurdle of this really hard thing in the morning and then the other really hard work thing that I have to do isn't so hard. Right? And and that is it.
Whole other area of benefits. I wasn't expecting at all, at
all. It's really cool. I mean, I'm on a similar sort of trajectory as somebody who, you know, I grew up as a swimmer and swimming is, you know, very much endurance, Focus, but it's all about intervals. So, you know, from a very young age. It's your doing, you know, hard reap he's with rest and it's, that's that whole world. So, I kind of did that first and then later in life became the ultra endurance athlete and rarely, you know, kind of exceeded my zone 2.
You know, like and no gym work and, you know, almost none of that, right? And now, you know, I just turned 58 and it's like, oh you need your, you need your muscle mass and all these. So I certainly never been a gym rat but I've gone, you know, into the gym with a level of intentionality that I never have before to kind of explore this world. That, you know, I was never kind of really, you know, that attracted to. But I similarly, like, I'm not doing deadlifts and stuff like you are yet. I would say, because I've got a back.
Shoot. I got to resolve but I do, you know, I do agree. Like I've had I've seen those benefits and terms of what it feels like to be strong. Like I know what it's like to be really lean and efficient and feel like you can just run forever and this is a different feeling. I would say that I don't get the kind of endorphin boost that endurance exercise gives me strength is kind of a, it's kind of a dull, it's a good feeling afterwards, but it's different. It's a little bit of a dollar feeling but the one
Thing that you've now inspired me to go back to, which I haven't been doing very much of is like high intensity stuff. It's like I'm either doing Zone 2 or I'm doing like, you know, lifting right. But I'm not doing that other piece. And if anything was accomplished today, I've now you know kind of much more enthusiastic about making sure that I you know, tiptoe back into that as a core piece of what I'm doing every
week. Nice.
Yeah, mix in a little better.
Before we move on to microplastics. I think a good place to end. This section of the podcast is to kind of explain specifically what vigorous exercise is or high intensity training. Like what would a routine be for somebody who's never done this before, or where can somebody find examples of routines to begin this journey?
Okay. So, there's a lot of examples of what a high intensity interval routine would be depending on like what kind of
Interval, you're looking for what kind of outcome, you're trying to improve whether that's improving your cardio, respiratory, Fitness, your VO2 max, or you wanting to really get that bdnf increase because their studies that have really been shown to do to do both of those things. So, I would say in terms of the vo2max improvements, what's been shown to be the, most beneficial is the Norwegian 4x4 protocol, that I mentioned, because for whatever reason the longer intervals of of going
As hard as you can, for a longer period of time, this is not all out. It's as hard as you can go and maintain for that duration of four minutes, right? And so, it's going to be different for everyone, but you kind of have to pace yourself and you do
that. You do on a treadmill or a stationary bike or a rowing
machine. You can do it on any of them. I've been doing it on a rowing machine, but it was actually, I think, you know, stationary bikes or what some of these other Studies have shown as well. People can do
Running on a treadmill. I mean it really you can kind of pick what you want but the idea is you want to do four minutes as at the intensity at the highest intensity that you can maintain for that four minutes which is not all out. You do recovery for three minutes at a very low intensity and then you do that and you repeat it four times, you do it four times, it's called the Norwegian 4 by 4. That's been shown to be one of the best ways to improve cardiorespiratory Fitness and in that study where the heart aging was reversed by 20 years. Those people
Will did it once a week and so you do that once a week. That's great. I do it on a concept to rower, but you can do it on a bike, you can do it, you know, whatever whatever it is that works. Well for you that you will be consistent in doing that. Now I should also point out, if you've never really done high intensity interval training before you're going to start out, probably going a lot slower for your interval and that's fine because you're gonna have to
because you're
Or Your Capacity to recover during the rest aspect of the interval is not going to be, you know that great, right? So if you go too hard on the first one you're not going to make it through the rest of the
set. Exactly. Yeah and so for people that are interested in there's like I said there's a lot of different protocols out there for vigorous intensity exercise. Improving a variety of different parameters. I do have a free guide called how to train according to the experts and its really. According to all the experts that I've interviewed
My podcast in terms of like the different protocols for training and what they have been shown to improve, its all evidence-based people can find that out at how to train guide.com and that's just a free guide. That's, it's got all the different protocols. And then there's another protocol for the b d and f. So that would be what you can do to increase your brain. Derived neurotrophic Factor. There's also a variety of protocols that have been shown to do that. One of them is going at least 80 to 85%.
Max heart rate for 20 to 30 minutes and that I believe was running but you'd have to check I have a free guide on that and that that guide is called bdnf protocols.com and it's a variety of different protocols that have been you know shown to increase brain. Derived neurotrophic Factor. If people are really specifically looking for that type of protocol which is something like I said I myself am interested in looking at
if somebody is extremely time crunched in there like how am I going to do my zone to my
Vigorous exercise, and my strength training is there any wisdom or logic and creating a routine? That is sort of a hybrid of all of those things? In other words like a like a circuit training thing. So you're getting some strength, you're getting some, you know, Fitness. Maybe you're going from the rowing machine to the, you know, whatever like you create this thing where your where your your heart is very elevated and it's very difficult but it's mixing in these different disciplines.
Yes. I would say the closest thing that I have found that I
I also do myself is a type of more CrossFit, type of training. And so with with this CrossFit type of training often, what's happened is, you know, you within an hour block of time you start out with doing some strength training so you can do barbells, you can do, you know, whatever it is, that you're going to be focused on that day. Deadlifts squats, variety of different exercises and then towards the tail end of the of the training is, you know, as a workout and the work
Out is a very circuit type of thing where you're incorporating a lot of high-intensity interval training in with some of the strength training as well. But the strength training that you moat the bulk of it is like at the front end of the workout. So so when you do the workout, you know you're doing a rowing machine or you're doing the bike or you're doing, you know, the any type of bike so you could be doing the assault bike or you know, whatever type of bike. You're, you know, doing jumping rope, and then you can incorporate some other aspects.
Of you know, squats and deadlifts other things like push-ups or dips, things like that as well. So I do think CrossFit type of training is a really great way, you know, to incorporate all of those aspects where the hit and the strength training. But then you also want to make sure to get some of your legs own to whether that's running, which is my my choice. That's what I choose for my zone to, I like to do my runs or my recovery days, which are the days I'm not doing my hit and my CrossFit.
Or you can do swimming, you can do biking, you know, whatever it is that you enjoy, and you will do. And I think the bottom line here is, you have to find something that you do enjoy and try to someone that, you know, that you'll maintain and do, right? And if you're just starting out, obviously, you know, you're not going to be doing going really hard at first. Your, it's a to Progressive program. You'll give actually get there, but just start out doing something. And then, you know, find find what it what.
You like doing the most fine, what
you enjoy the most. I mean, this is going to be published in the New Year. Everyone's very excited about their fitness goals. And, you know, I think people just get maybe a little too excited and hit it a little bit too hard and suddenly find themselves in an unsustainable situation. So your point around like finding the thing you enjoy and not being in such a rush and just taking your time like building something that you know will that you can perpetuate that works within your life but also that
That doesn't have to happen like overnight as a result, right? Because you are enjoying what you're doing, right? I mean, it's going in and killing yourself and then being like, I can't do this anymore. Well,
I mean, that study that I talked about that, the two-year intervention study, where this 50 year olds reverse, their aging Heart by Twenty Years. These were people that were not physically active for like 50 years and they started out their first six months was a very slow, Progressive work up to eventually working out five hours five to six hours a week. So you know it's not like
Like they just started working out five to six hours a week. All vigorous doing the region for by far. No, it was a progressive loading. And it took about six months and after that first six months, then they really started to get into it after the year. And then the second year it was like they were going at it but you have to like you said, you have to allow yourself time. Don't like don't get discourage that on week one. You're like not able to do you know five hours of exercise in a week?
All right, let's shift gears microplastics.
First of all, like what inspired you to get so interested in this area and invest as much time as you have trying to understand this, this
world I would say what initially sparked my interest in microplastics, were the chemicals associated with them. So plastic, chemicals, like BPA, or BPS, the replacement for BPA or phalates or the forever. Chemicals p fasts. And the reason
I was very interested in those those chemicals associated with plastics and microplastics is because, you know, I was looking to get pregnant and so, you know, enter you know eight years ago when I became pregnant but I became interested in this a couple years before that. So I was about 10 years ago. I got very interested in the effects of these these plastic Associated chemicals on the endocrine system. So these are you know, these
BPS and BPA, they're called endocrine disruptors. So there, they can disrupt our hormonal system and they largely do that because they're mimicking estrogen. So they're called xenoestrogens. And I basically I knew that pregnancy is a very sensitive period of time. And I wanted to make sure that I was, you know, doing everything I could to, you know, give my future child the best.
Is it had? So, so that's where I really got interested in. So the plastic Associated chemicals fast forward, a few know, ten years. I would say in the past couple of years, microplastic stuff started coming out in the headlines and because I've already sort of been very interested in the plastic Associated chemicals. I was like gravitated towards wanting to understand that as well but that's where my initial interest came from
the minute you start. Raising the alarm around microplastics.
It does have like a ring of being alarmist. There's something sort of Cassandra about it. Like what are we really talking about here? Is this really something we should be worried about? Like this stuff is everywhere. People are, you know, seem to live with it. Fine. Is this not just something, you know, on the margins like a micro problem microplastics, right? So so maybe make the case for why we should take this seriously and be concerned and educate ourselves.
Moves around like the toxins in the world that are impacting our health.
Yeah, I think that you make a really good argument there or, you know, case point that we are living were humans are pretty robust. We're pretty resilient, right? I mean we can be challenged with things and deal with them. I would say that. First of all microplastics people may be wondering, what the heck is microplastics, Right? Define our terms, a little bit. Well, we know, we all know.
Because everywhere, right? It's everywhere goes just walk into a grocery store. Look open your refrigerator, just walk into your pantry. You'll see plastic plastic is everywhere. So micro Plastics, are they occur from the breakdown of larger plastic particles? So oxidation that same process, we were talking about oxidation, degrades plastic into smaller, plastic, particles and microplastics can range in size anywhere from, you know, 5,
M. So that would be like the size of a brain of grain of rice all the way down to like 20 million nanometers, which would be 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand, something that you wouldn't be able to see with your naked eye and it when they give that small in size, they're technically Nano Plastics. But largely the term microplastics is sort of includes the Nano Plastics as well. And so, these microplastics most the time we can't see them. I mean, we're not seeing them there.
They're contaminated in. We can talk about all the sources if you want later where they're found. But essentially we're consuming them, you know, through our water and our foods and we are also breathing them in through the air. Those are the two main ways are getting into our body and you say make the case. Like, is there a case that, you know, they're actually bad that we should care about it. And I would say that we're really in the infancy and understanding microplastics and what they're doing to human health, really, a lab. Okay.
Of the studies have come out. Actually this past year 2024, interestingly, I think it's scientists are have been starting to study it in the past couple of years and now studies are being published now. And I think it's going to continue to accelerate in terms of our understanding of their impact on human health. But what I can say right now is there was a study published in 2024, the city came out of Sal, Paulo Brazil. And that study had looked at Mike
Plastics in a variety of different organs and found that it was accumulating in the brain. Human brains about 10 times, the rate of other organs which to me was very alarming because blood-brain barrier is supposed to protect our brain. And in fact, if you would ask me, Rhonda what organ do you think is going to have the least amount of microplastics? I would say the brain because our blood brain barrier is going to protect us from having, you know, these micro Plastics in her brain. So that was very
confusing to me when I first read that study and it. So it turns out a couple of things one is that these small small micro Plastics, the Nano Plastics, these things can trust transverse, membranes, very easy, including our gut epithelial, they can get into the blood brain barrier very easily. So they're very, very small in size but that's not the reason probably that the micro Plastics are accumulating the brain. I think, the reason they're keeping their brain is because we are breathing them in and so,
We have olfactory neurons in our nose, right? That's responsible for detecting odor. Well, there's a direct connection to the central nervous system. The the olfactory pathway has like these axons that directly connect to our brain, and so you can inhale step through your nose and it's a way to bypass the blood-brain barrier and this is why some people are given drugs that are not able to be administered through you know, through the blood stream because they won't cross the blood-brain barrier but they can be inhaled. So sorry.
Anything that you
inhale will pass through the blood-brain barrier that can't
be. I don't know that anything that you inhale, but a very small particle that is like a nanometers NM size can get across the bloody scene
as an end run versus versus like being in your bloodstream and then running into
a problem when it's so there's two ways, it's getting into the brain. And look we don't really know why the brain is accumulating ten times more micro Plastics and other organs. And
More larger studies need to confirm this, this is all in its infancy, but I'm just saying a couple of probable mechanisms to explain it. Just knowing what I know about, you know, how particles and microplastics are in the air and how we are breathing them in and how that is another way to get into the brain as well. But I think, what was the most alarming about this study? Was that the individuals that were this was all post-mortem of course and you know some people
'Well, if you get a sample, if you get a population sample of people, there's going to be a certain percentage of people that have Alzheimer's disease. Well, the people that had Alzheimer's disease in this study were 10 to 20 times more likely to have microplastic particles in their brain. The people that did not have Alzheimer's disease. So there is not only is, you know, are these particles accumulate in the brain? It seems like it seems to be very tightly correlated to people that had Alzheimer's disease. And we know that from Anna.
Studies. When you have these small particulate matter in the brain, it is a activator of the inflammatory response and neuroinflammation is a well-known driver of neurodegenerative disease including Alzheimer's disease. It's just well known neuroinflammation. So that I would say is a again this is all in its infancy but it's the first piece of evidence that to me is like oh, microplastics are in our brains, they're really accumulate
I'm there. And there's they seem to be tightly associated with Alzheimer's disease. We know they cause and neuroinflammation. This is something that we need to understand better. I would say the other study that was also published this year. It was in the New England Journal of Medicine which is a pretty I would say a pretty reputable Journal that study looked at patients that were undergoing cardiac surgery and found that close to fifty percent or so of these of these patients had Mike
Plastic particles lodged in their arterial walls and it turns out that, you know, throughout the follow-up duration of the study which was three years, those individuals that had the microplastic particles lodged in their arterial walls, were four point five times more likely to experience a heart attack or a stroke within that three or follow-up. Then, the people without microplastics in
there, is there a relationship between the microplastics lodged in the arterial walls and and
How that impacts like plaque buildup or, or, you know, plaques getting cut loose because perhaps somebody who has that is having heart issues because they're consuming so many products that are wrapped in plastic. And you know, by definition is sort of in the
ultra-processed world. It's right. I think that's a great point. It that so the particles do cause inflammation like the those mechanistic Studies have been done, inflammation is a major driver of atherosclerosis, right? So it's affecting that hole.
Process, right? Of like the plaque and the foam cell formation around. So the macrophages come when there's an inflammatory response and then they get all trapped with the plaque and it forms these foam cells. And so it is a major driver of of that process. The inflammation is in the cardiovascular system but I do think that you're making a good point and that is, it's hard to uncouple. You know, people that are eating diets that are
you're eating a terrible. I mean, if you have a lot of microplastic in your brain and your body like you're probably
Lie like, you know, not living the healthiest lifestyle at the same time part of it is environmental and unavoidable but at the same time if you have an excessive amount of it, like maybe you're just eating, you're just putting your plastic wrap food in the microwave every day, right? And that's probably not good either, right? So like these, that that's contributing as
well. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's a very good point, that can't be dismissed for sure. On the other hand, these micro Plastics are pervasive, and they're everywhere, and they're in her water.
And they're in there in, you know, our fish that were consuming and you know, so you know, there could be an are there in our vegetables, so that the argument there is an argument to be made that. Well, you could be eating healthy and think you're eating healthy, and still getting a lot of microplastic particles and not realize that, like, you could be drinking bottled water out of a plastic bottle and still be going to the gym and still like, you know, eating healthy and not realize that the water that you're drinking out of the plastic bottle is, you know, shedding microplastics and
So heat as you mention heat in the microwave heat accelerates at oxidation process and so it really rapidly causes more microplastics to be shed into the beverages or into foods, but also the chemicals associated with them also. So there was a study showing that like boiling water can cause BPA, which is a plastic Associated chemical endocrine disruptor to leach into the liquid by like 55 times higher. So heat, really does accelerate that whole process of leaching, the micro Plastics and their chemicals.
Into into our our beverages into our Foods. You know. This is particulate matter in, you know, once it's getting into our organs, it doesn't have a way out, you know. So the fact that the inflammatory response that it's causing wouldn't be doing anything is to me, hard to believe. And then on top of that, you have the plastic Associated chemicals, right? So there's chemicals that are also in those micro Plastics, right?
You've got BPA and BPS. Those are probably the two main ones that are in those types of plastics but and those we know also have detrimental effects right? It's hard to imagine that it's not affecting it in a causal way but you're right. There's likely other confounding factors. In other words, people that are people that are eating more processed foods are likely consuming more per micro Plastics because processed foods are packaged in Plastics, right? For one. So I mean
It is kind of hard to uncouple those things, but I do think that. So the microplastics themselves, I think those are the two main studies that have caused me alarm. And then the third one is that there was a study that looked at microplastics in both human and dog semen. And it was found in 100% of both human and dog semen. Like, every single sample measured had microplastics and that was associated with also changes in motility.
T. So in other words like the ability of sperm to move swim and also morphology so the shape of it and so you know, is it affecting fertility while we know motility and morphology play a role in fertility. So likely we do know that the chemicals associated with microplastics like BPA. Play a role in fertility. There's been studies looking at women that have higher urinary BPA excretion that are undergoing in vitro fertilization IVF. They have half as many
Viable eggs. If they have higher urinary BPA compared to women have lower urinary BPA and they also are there there. Implantation success rate is much lower as well. So it is is impacting fertility in both men and women? At least we know the chemicals associated with them are again, the microplastics themselves like this is a really new field and our understanding of it is just in its infancy. In terms of understanding what it's doing doing to human health.
With, you know, the, the scary thing to me is that it is contaminated in our water sources. So it's it's in our, it's, in our tap water, it's certainly, if you're drinking out of a plastic bottle, you're getting even more plastic particles. But it's also it's in our soil, in, in, in, you know, a lot of the sludge that's used as fertilizer is contaminated with micro Plastics. And that's largely because, you know, wastewater treatment plants. They
Like pathogens and things like that they don't they don't treat for microplastics like those aren't being eliminated and the same goes for like forever chemicals or contaminated in our and our sludge and those are really problematic because you know unlike BPA which has a half-life of a couple of hours in our body forever chemicals. Have a half-life of like three to five years and their associated with cancer and all kinds of effects pee fast. Yeah. And they're contaminated in our, in our, in our soils and so they're getting, they're making our way into our produce.
Produce, you know, washing the produce helps, but I mean, it's in our oceans. And so, you know, fish have been contaminated with microplastics. It's shellfish are probably the biggest ones to avoid because the micro Plastics are in the digestive system of the fish. And so, if you're eating the whole like clamor, like an oyster, you're eating
everything goes, those animals are just filtered Yak. So basically, they're just accumulating and accumulating it.
And edit. And, you know, it really is a much more profound issue than like, hey, don't drink out of a plastic bottle or don't like put your food in the microwave, because of the water table, and the oceans, and the soil. So, even the most diligent Among Us who is avoiding purchasing anything wrapped in plastic or Plastic Products in general, if you're eating food, basically, you getting them, you're getting it because the animals are
You know, in the soil and drinking the water Etc. Like in their filtering, this as well and accumulating these things. So you're getting them in an even higher concentration, perhaps depending upon the animal. And you know what? It was fed and where it lived etcetera. But the real like kind of brainfuck in this whole thing is, is the fact that it's breathable that it's in the air that were inhaling it. And you said this amazing thing, which is that what did you say the beach week? The average person inhales, and
Equivalent of a 5 G credit card in plastic just by breathing.
Okay, I'm glad you brought this up. Is this true?
Because you modified your be like, what is this
real? So turns out the study that I cited for that.
Had a methodological flaw. Okay, which I did not know until after I released my episode on microplastics and and that is that when you're trying to look at the gram weight, so we are inhaling a lot of micro plastic particles. Yes. So microplastics, make up all the tires, you know, these there, since these synthetic, you know, tires and stuff that are it's not just rubber, it's made of these other plastic materials every time all these
Cars on the road or driving, its releasing it into the air, right? And also our shoes dryers who are clothing, my dress like all of our clothing. That's not 100% natural fiber. When we wash it, it's going into the water and then when we use the dryer is being released into the air. So we are inhaling a lot of microplastics, but it turns out the study that I quoted and many others have quoted when they were trying to figure out particle and then wait.
Were you see there's different size particles as I mentioned, right? You've got the grain of rice and then you've got thousand times smaller than a grain of sand, very different sizes here. And so when you're trying to estimate a weight, it's almost impossible, it's almost impossible and that study that, that that said, it was a 5 gram weight used, a lot of micro plastic particles that were based out of the ocean as their reference point to calculate the gram weight. And I don't know that we can
Necessarily say well that's the size particles that were inhaling and consuming everything that's in the ocean, right? So I would say my updated version of you know that would be depending on your lifestyle. People are consuming hundreds to thousands of particles microplastic particles a day, both inhaling and consuming. So you know I don't I can't give you the gram weight of that because I don't know that in
I'm questioning if anyone can really accurately give a gram way because there's so many different size variations in these particles. It's just impossible to actually be able to do that
whether or not, it's a credit card, doesn't matter. You're breathing it in. You're eating it, it's going into your skin, the clothes you wear, like it's all around us, right? So what aspect of this is something we should really be alarmed about because like like there's only so much control that we can exert over our environment and I don't want to fear Monger, I want to
Provide people with information and practical solutions that they can incorporate into their life. So maybe talk a little bit about what we should really kind of pay attention to like one of the worst offenders that we can actually do something about and make changes
around. Okay yeah I think that sounds good. I I want to mention you know I would say some of the studies looking at the plastic Associated. Chemicals are the strongest because we have, you know,
We have many many years of data with that. And so should we be worried about micro Plastics that are carrying BPA in them? I think we should. I mentioned the fertility but we also know that women that have pregnant women that have higher urinary BPA levels are six times more likely to have a child diagnosed with autism by the age 11 wow six times more likely and this is not just one study. Okay.
Multiple Studies have shown this and it's not just autism. There's a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders including ADHD anxiety, be urinary, BPA is associated with all of these neurodevelopmental disorders and also children with autism, have been shown to have up to 15 times, higher BP urinary BPA. They're not able to excrete it as well, so there's something funny going on there. So I do think there is again, and we know some mechanism
Because BPA is a xenoestrogen it is binding to estrogen receptors. It could be competing with estrogen. It also affects the aromatase enzyme, so this is the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen. It's very very important. During development, especially, you know, brain development for a male fetus, estrogen plays, a very important role in the developing male brain. And when you disrupt that hormonal balance, it can lead to neuro developmental defects and that's been shown
Joan mechanistically and animal studies. There have also been studies showing that children with disrupted. Aromatase enzymes are more likely to have autism. So it's something to pay attention to BPA and that's with respect to, you know, of course this is we're talking about development. I already talked about fertility but also the cardiovascular system. So there have been studies showing that people consuming canned soup
Out of a can cans are lined with BPA because they have plastic lining to protect the food from quoting it. Right. Those individuals, are they have like a thousand fold higher BPA. After consuming canned, soup versus the people that consume the very same soup, out of a glass jar, thousand fold higher BPA. That's an insane. Another separate Studies have shown that those that people consuming can soup again, we know it increases BPA.
Have a 16 fold higher increase in their blood pressure. Compared to people that are consuming soup out of, you know, not canned soup, soup out of like, you know, a jar. So the 16 fold increase in blood pressure. I want to just say for people that might go up, that's a lot. It actually translates to about a four point five millimeter mercury increase. So it's not super, super high increase but it's 16 fold higher than the people that didn't consume the canned soup. We know that BPA is affecting her.
Ah, moans, but it's also affecting calcium signaling in the vascular system. Very important for the way, our blood vessels contract dilate so bpa's affecting cardiovascular health. There's also been some studies looking at people with the highest urinary BPA. You know, they have a much much higher elevated risk of cardiovascular disease again. We can't confront, we can't avoid the confounder effect of perhaps these people are eating terrible diets as well, right? That's something to consider, but I do think the case of looking at some of these plastic,
It chemicals because we have a lot more data on that is, is stronger right now. At least, I won't know that that's going to be the case in five years where we'll have a lot more data on microplastics themselves, but I do think that makes a case of concern for our children developing, you know, Child Development for fertility. Cardiovascular health, you know, risk cancer risk. Is another one
also has been shown based upon what I've heard you say,
right? Yes. So there's cancer risk and that's
Also with other chemicals like the phthalates and then and then the forever chemicals, the pee fast, both of those are associate with cancer risk as well. So there is, I think, I think there's a reason to be concerned about plastic and plastic in our bodies and plastic chemicals in our bodies now. What can we do? Obviously like your question was okay, well we can't avoid it, you know?
We and let me just interject one one other point which I think is important this problem.
Not going away. It seems to be increasing quite rapidly. I heard you say basically that there's been there's a study that's that has shown a 50% increase in microplastics between 2016 and 2020. For yeah, terms of like what they're finding in people's bodies. I mean how did they do that study? Or determine that
figure? It was actually a part of the same study, the Brazilian study where there were looking at you know they were just you know looking at these cadavers and doing
Not looking at the organs from autopsies done, you know X many years ago versus today. And I've been trying to wrap my brain around that too because you know, when I think about it, I'm like well, you know, 2016 plastic was here, you know. So you're like what changed? Right what, what changed and I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I just, it's something to think about. Like, I don't know why that is like, is it? Is it because it's that? It's just accumulating more.
In our environment. I don't, I don't exactly know, but I do know, there is a lot more single-use plastic now and to go. I mean it's like it seems like a lot. I do see a lot more plastic in terms of like these packaging, our Foods making it easier for us to just get these to go foods. Like it's definitely something that I've seen increased gradually that. I mean that's the only thing that I can think of the other thing is, is that is it just accumulating more in our Foods? Now, we're that we're eating. And so now it's just it's taken some time and now
Now it's I don't really know to be honest but it is something to think about whether it's like the end all, be all truth. I'm not sure it's just one study. So I think I think more evidence
needs to do. I mean you would think if as it as it continues to accumulate in the soil and in our oceans and in our water table, that that is a build-up that is going to show up in an
autopsy, right? And that and that could be very well. What's happening, right? I mean, that, that could be what's happening but it when I think back to 2016,
Teen. I still think there's a lot of plastic back then too. So I'm just sort of thinking
out loud, and we've made a lot more plastic and like spread it around. That's
that's probably what's happening. Yeah, that's probably that's probably what's happening?
Right well let's let's go into like you know the like the things that we can do like what is the like what what is the you know in terms of like Risk and danger like where should our attention be
focused? I think that's a really good question because otherwise you can drive yourself literally.
Yeah. It's
Realising it is you don't want to be like the the boy in the bubble around forbid that bubble is made out of plastic, right?
Yeah.
It's like what are you gonna do then?
Like Howard Hughes, you're going to be like in the room and you're going to? Yeah I
know I can turn the heat up and then all that plastic from the bubble. Oh no.
So I think the worst offenders right so it's like it's sort of like an imperfect solution but really like you really want to sort of avoid the worst offenders when it comes to the worst offenders. First of all, heating plastic,
Lee Ann. Oh, so you want to, of course, never microwave anything in plastic, but also you have to think about these plastic bottles of water like, yeah, they're cold when you go into the CBS and grab it out of the fridge but like was it cold when it was on the freight train or the boat or, you know, wherever it was to get there? And how long has it been there in the warehouse before it was in the fridge and probably been exposed to some heat? Some shipping
container right like ever season.
You know, in the South Pacific or something, right?
I would say now, there's cases, like, when you're traveling, it's kind of hard to avoid water out of a plastic bottle, but for the most part trying to not drink water out of a plastic bottle is, is really advisable because that is a big source of microplastics and then if you can get a. Well, first of all, any type of activated carbon filter will filter out a lot of the plastic,
Associated chemicals. But if you really want to filter out all these micro Plastics in all their sizes, including 90 Plastics, reverse osmosis filter at home, whether it's a tabletop one that you just drink your water out of, or it's a whole home filtration system is though, is the way to go because it does filter out even the Nano Plastics. Now the thing to consider with that is also it filters out essential minerals and Trace elements. So you will have to make sure your
taking a nice mineral supplement make or you can even get some drops that are in like a glass bottle to add back to the water mineral drops. They make that you can add back to the water to make sure you're getting those essential minerals and Trace elements.
What are the important minerals
that is felt, there's a whole, there's a whole list of them. There's a whole nother for our. Yeah, I mean, it's like, magnesium, and calcium, and magnesium, and iodine, and lithium. And like, there's a whole list of chemicals that are filtered out, that, that are usually in in the water.
So you want to make sure that you're like if you're taking a multivitamin supplement, most of your bases are going to be covered probably but there's also some mineral supplements out there that are just like the it's like the mineral supplement and that covers all the ones that are better filtered out from reverse osmosis alternatively. Some people like to get these drops that are specifically made for people that have reverse osmosis filters and they're in, you want to get one that's in a glass. Container not plastic and then you
want to introduce those into your water. There's also filtration systems that will reintroduce the minerals back in, however, I'm not sure if those filtration systems are made of plastic so you know so you don't want to reintroduce the plastic after he eats filtered out so you know, you have
to crazy. Yeah. But but I guess I mean look there's a million different water water filtration systems out there. It's sort of dizzying, you know, for the average consumer as long as it's reverse osmosis osmosis exactly gonna be
okay.
Going to be you're going to be. Yeah you're like 95% there
right? And on the topic of plastic bottles, is there any wisdom at all? And I mean not all plastic is the same, right? Like there are different types of plastic bottles and you look underneath and there's the number and this is plastic safe etcetera. Is that all bunk from your perspective as long as it's plastic because there's no, it's really thin ones that are crinkly. You know, obviously you know that this is not good now. Yeah and then there's the
Thicker more robust like, you know, Gatorade comes in a, you know, like the so you're like, well, these aren't exactly the
same. Yes. Then you bring up a good point. So they'll crinkly ones are more like, I mean those are like degrading. Like like they're degrading like I was holding her hand, your hand. Yeah, so that's the whole thing at the micro Plastics are being shed, like, through the degradation process. I would say the black plastic soar, like the ones to really avoid. And those are like the reason for that is there was a, there was a study that came was published last.
The problem with the black plastic. So think Sushi container or any taker like a rotisserie or any taker, right? Rotisserie chicken like container or take. Take out, you know, container or those black Forks, you know, that you have at parties or whatever. Those are often, not always, but often made of recycled plastic from recycled electronics and the study that was published, I forgot the name of the journal. It was some kind of environmental, you know, health.
Journal that journal found that those black Plastics like the black plastic spatula. For example, those Plastics contain a variety of chemical chemicals that are carcinogen known carcinogens. So they have like flame retardants in them things that are just bad, bad chemicals and so there they seem to be even worse. So you really avoiding the black plastic, especially heating those, right? So you think of your to go food is going hot on the black plastic that's causing those
Costa leach into your food even more. I mentioned that heat, you know, causes the leaching of chemicals like BPA 55, times more. So you want to, you really want to try to avoid those black Plastics. Also the other, the other made offenders would be to go coffee mugs. Those are most to go coffee mugs or lined with plastic and that plastic breaks down with heat and BPA. And those are your
drinking hot. Yes, you drink hot in there. Yeah. So that isn't the same lining that you would find.
Find inside, like a can of a canned soup or a can of
beans. Yes. Yeah, it is. And then, also in a can of sparkling water, right? Like, those cans are lined. Aluminum cans are lined with plastic lining to protect the aluminum from corrosion from the beverage or food. So you think you think you're avoiding the plastic by drinking out of a can turns how you're actually speaking at a plastic line can and so if you can not drink those everyday,
I'd heard about like the, the black Plastics, but
The way I heard about it was through like the spatula version, right? I hadn't thought about like the to go food, packaging and all of that. And I think it brings up a another issue that maybe deserves a little elaboration which is which is which is the difference between what we think of as single-use plastic. And then the kind of plastic that, you know, we all have in our houses, whether it's a spatula or some other version of which it which is like, robust and thick and you're like well this isn't a single use plastic like this is probably okay.
No especially if you're cooking with it, right? Because it is cooking and heat is accelerating that whole degradation process. It is you are shedding micro Plastics and chemicals into the food. So you want to get wooden utensil cooking utensils and also I would say, I mean you can use the stainless steel as well. But you want to like use stainless steel on a stainless steel pan. But avoiding also the pans lined with like nonstick stuff, right? Because that has
Proper chemicals in it, the Teflon stuff. So yeah I I still if you're putting heat in any way shape or form on any type of plastic how robust it seems, it doesn't matter because the heat is really what's breaking that down. It's breaking it down and it's leaching into the food or the beverage. So the heat the heat is the thing to you talking about avoiding the worst offenders really is heat. So anything that's going to have heat with your plastic big time.
No. Try to avoid that. The water filters, another one. And then, you know, shellfish, probably, not not, somebody eat all the time, it's okay. I once in a while, right? But like the shellfish are, they have, unfortunately, a lot of micro Plastics in them and fish do as well. As long as you're not eating the digestive system of the fish, you know, but it's in fish produce as well, but wash your produce, you're better off, you're not, you're not like avoiding the, the food packaged in the Plastics. Now you strawberries coming.
Plastic container. And so you have to wash your strawberries really good, right? Because that it does shed shed particles. Now it's not like the strawberries have been that plastic container for that long. So it's not likely that it's shredding tons and tons and tons of particles into your strawberries. Right. It's more likely, that the strawberries take, took it up from the soil that's been contaminated with, with the plastic. But I think in terms of consumption that's those, are the main things to sort of avoid those worst offenders and then with respect to breathing it in, right?
Like getting a high quality HEPA filter for your house several rooms in your house. I mean, is it's they're not that expensive and you can have them, you know, in multiple certainly in the room, you're sleeping in. So, getting a HEPA filter can filter out some of those micro Plastics as well, because they are in our circulation, we do bre them in, unfortunately, using a dryer making sure that you're having good proper ventilation, that is ventilating. Outside is very important, right? Because the microplastics you're coming from work,
Nothing. In fact, our clothing is the major one of the major sources aside from the breakdown of the large plastic trash in our ocean, which is the major cause of micro Plastics in the ocean. Our clothing is the second major. Cause, so when we are all of our clothing, that's made of all these mixed fibers when we wash them, that, that runoff is going into the ocean and it's full of microplastics. So
is it are the are the Nano Plastics part of the clothing. Also that are being absorbed into our
Skin. Do we know this or not? Like I'm thinking like, maybe these are like edge cases. Like, this is getting in a Neurosis land. I'm talking about like my vitamin. I been there, I have a Vitamix it Splat that it's
plastic Ono, get the stainless steel one but it's
oh yeah. Like I don't have I have the plastic one, it's a thick plastic but sometimes like we're, you know, we're putting, you know, hot something hot in that and blending it up and I'm thinking like probably shouldn't do that, you
know? Yeah, I did the same thing. I actually just got in the past, you know, few months since I did this DVD.
It was a
stainless, stainless steel, Vitamix container. I got it a few months ago and it's great. It's I got one for my, I got it for my in-laws and he wanted my family that uses Vitamix. I'm like, no, you need to get this. It's $200, it goes on it. Just get the container because it'll fit on your Vitamix that you have. Unfortunately, friction does increase the shedding of microplastics. So, blending itself also affects it, but yeah, I was doing the same thing. I was doing the same thing. I mean, I don't want to be neurotic, you know. Yeah. I mean, look,
You can, you can you can take this to the X degree, right? Like you can, you can definitely go down that rabbit hole, but if there is a stainless steel Vitamix container, why not get it? If you can, it's not super expensive and you know, it's not going to hurt. So why not get it? I would say. But that's not the main focus. I would say we've discussed them the worst offenders, right?
Talk to me about how Soul contributes to this problem.
Yeah. So salt especially sea salt right if you're getting sea salt, your
Getting it from the ocean which is polluted with microplastics. So, sea salt is, is a contributor of microplastics to people and I, you know, I buy it in a plot little plus and it's in the plastic container. Exactly. And so, if you're going to use salt, it's better to get like a rock salt like, you know, pink Himalayan salt which also does have microplastics but less it has fewer particles than sea salt does. So you know.
Salt is also a contributor. I don't know that, it's the main main contributor. But if you're using salt, go for the Himalayan salt, rather than the, the Seesaw, or even the Mortons, like the old Morton's salt, you know, that was like, and everyone's table. 20 years ago. Those are rock salt as well.
And should we be concerned about the receipts? That were given every single day? Yeah, I've heard a lot about this. Is there, is there truth to this? I mean, I
My avoid like putting my hands on it just because this is what I've heard, but I haven't read the studies. I don't know how like, how robust of a problem this actually is
so receipts are made of thermal paper which are just heavily coated with BPA and I think the first study came out gosh, almost 10 years ago. I remember reading it 10 years ago and it was a study that was looking at people that had put lotion on their hands.
And then touch the the thermal paper of the receipt and it was like the BPA that got into their circulation was like astronomical. I mean so usually transdermal absorption isn't that big of a deal like you know. So we're talking about our clothing, it's not like I'm absorbing microplastics through my through my skin, very easily from the clothing. I'm wearing, it's really, it's really more
about what ends up in the water
table. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And sometimes, you know, if you're exercising in that clothing, maybe you're getting some particles, but the, the majority of the particles that you're breathing, you're not coming from your clothes directly. They're coming from the air from the other sources, right? But I do think that people that are that have I also try to avoid receipts and so I always opt for no receipt, or can you trash it for me. But I do think people that work in, you know, in Industry where there everyday and
allowing them all day long.
Yeah. They should be wearing nitrile glove. So
Oh, that there have been now, studies showing that people that handle handle thermal paper, which is the receipts and there, where nitrile gloves that blocks the BPA from being absorbed in their skin. And so, I don't think Blake texted the same thing. It really had to be a nitrile glove. So anyone that's in that industry that's handling receipts daily really should be wearing gloves, it should it should be something that I think all
You know, companies employ like to protect their, I mean, people don't know about this, right? I think, I think that they should be told. I mean, you've got like pregnant women working, buying a cash register and dealing with those BPA receipts. And I told you the study came out showing that you know pregnant women with higher urinary BPA, have six full, you know, higher likelihood of having a child with autism. So yeah, they're they're a little steps that can be taken that.
That I think, you know, there's a big bang for your buck, right? And certainly, if you're working in an industry where you're handling, the receipts, you should be wearing nitrile
gloves, what is your sense of the kind of regulatory landscape around all of this? It doesn't seem like we're really doing very much here. There is a lot more discourse about this and people are talking about it is there are there measures of foot address this in any kind of like, you know, macro way to prevent these things or outlaw certain
And you know uses of
plastic I you know look at
to profligate it's like everywhere
it. Well, here's look, there's I don't think enough is being done for sure. So you know, I'll tell you this. I was talking about the sludge that's put, you know, as use as fertilizer like this. So this is typically from waste water, right? A lot of organic farms are not allowed to use sludge, but it's somehow ends up in organic farms. Anyways, and there was a study that was
Is that came out, was it last summer? Even looking at it was a consumer lab reports came out where consumerlab was looking at Forever chemicals. So the P fast and there are just there contaminating, our water sources in our soil, there in the grass. And, you know, consumerlab have went out and went to a variety of different grocery stores around the country and looked at organic milk, grass-fed organic milk or you know conventional milk and sampled for these forever. Chemicals, remind you
Forever, chemicals are linked with cancer and they stay in our bodies for years. We can't get rid of them. Well, it turns out cows, which are eating grass, which is contaminated with the forever chemicals, do get rid of them, and they excrete them through their milk. And so Consumer Reports found that there's some like, milk milk that I've even bought before. It's like the grass fed organic Grass Valley, like the stuff that you think is like the best. That's the worst. It's like for contaminated. Well,
Tammany with forever. Chemicals is like these companies know about it, not every single one of their products was, but it's like something's going on here. Something's going on here there. And some of these were at levels that were exceedingly high. And so, you know, it's at a point where it's like, okay, why is the EPA? Why is the FDA not coming in and going hey you guys need to test for a forever chemicals, you need to test for microplastics and make sure the
Is that you're putting on the shelves, don't have high levels, like, Topo Chico is another one, right. There was a big consumer reporter. Remember, when that was a big thing that 2020, it came out where it's like, all these brands of sparkling water were contaminated with forever chemicals and Topo Chico. Was at a top of the list. I mean, it was like, it was an astronomical levels that they claim that they have gone down since then, but they had there's no data to show that. So it's like, okay, well,
you know, disincentive really accept the consumer market, right? It's not like anybody else.
To account and nobody knows about it. Like you tell people, they're like, oh, what really? Like this isn't like common knowledge and so, you know, I think that we, the FDA needs to come in and there needs to be standard set words, like, look, we you need to test your products for forever, chemicals, for BPA, for microplastics, like we need to not be giving people, you know, large quantities of this like you need to care about it. It's important and that hasn't been done.
Done. No.
Yeah, I mean I've had this conversation with Erin Brockovich. You know? Her whole life is about this and it's still such an uphill battle. I had Greg Renfrew in here who founded the company. Beautycounter which is like clean beauty products and her whole thing is the chemicals that find their way into the Cosmetic and beauty industry. And her basic thing is like this is not regulated at all. It's like safe until proven guilty and all these all these chemicals end up in all these products that we put on our skin and our map, you know, mouth and all that. All the
I can and, and it's all fine, you know, until it's until it's not right. Like because there's so many of these chemicals and that's
probably one of the most. I would say deceptive examples of it because you know, it's something that I wish I had focused more on, I would say like during my pregnancy with some of these chemicals that are disguised in our cosmetics and shampoos in our creams or lotions because Sal eights are probably one of the things that was discussed and that's that's something.
That's really, it's just it's in all our hygiene products and so I was looking for the phthalates, but it's disguised under the word fragrance, or parfum. And it's like, I didn't know Scott Ian anything. I didn't know that. Yeah. And so that if it says like fragrant fragrance or parfum in your, you know, list of chemical ingredients has been, it's a late and that has a profound effect on not only cancer. But like during pregnancy, it's hard to deny the evidence now that it's associated with urogenital defects.
Ways. So it's affecting and it's causing undescended testicles and it's causing High post media. So like their urethra is like moved further back. So, you know, it's harder for like, boys to pee like a stream. I mean, this is and this is something by the way that's been increasing in prevalence over time. Like, I can't tell you. How many moms I know they're like, oh yeah. My, my son has undescended testicles. And it's like, why is this so common? Now
it's not. I didn't even know that
that is. Oh yeah, it's a, no, it's really common. It's become really common and it's linked to phalates and again,
It's like, why is it allowed in all these products and why is it allowed to be disguised under this word of like, why do I have to call the company up and ask them like that shouldn't be the case that should be listed or it should be regulated? Like, you know, I don't how much evidence do we need to show that? Look, we've got there are effects happening from these chemicals from whether it's the phthalates or the BPA or the BPS, you know, all these things that are labeled as bpa-free. Like I've so many friends were like, oh that's I'm fine. I get BP.
P free plastic. And like, you realize that the stuff that they replace BPA with is just the same or worse. It's also endocrine disruptor doing the same things and it's just a brilliant marketing strategy where now, these companies that are selling bpa-free plastic or selling it to the people that think they're help, you know, getting a healthier type of plastic when really is just same old plastic with a different chemical doing the same thing, right? So yeah, it's it's
I shouldn't be laughing. No, it's not, it's real.
Awful that this is the State of
Affairs, it is. And also that like we have you know, we've got these Regulatory Agencies like the FDA like we have so much evidence. Now, like, how much evidence do you need to show that there's harmful effects of these chemicals, you know, getting into our Foods into our water contaminating, our milk like forever, chemicals and milk. Like I would never have thought that I'm worried about yogurt butter. You know, the forever chemicals are hydrophilic. They they, they like to accumulate in hydrophobic things so they like to accumulate.
Daddy thinks so the butter I'm like okay this kerrygold grass-fed butter that everyone thinks is so great, maybe it's got forever. We don't even know. You know there's nothing that we can to to test it until we have like a third party testing like Consumer Reports. Come out with this thing. Then it opens our eyes for like a month and then everyone forgets about it or at least people that read about it, forget about it and yet nothing is being done, you know, and what is your
sense of why the FDA or the EPA isn't all about this is it, is it that there
They're captured by, you know, corporate interest is it because they're dealing with too many other things or it's too big of a problem. I've probably
already out care. Probably all
these. It hasn't risen to the level of, you know, attention that, you know, like sort of public uproar for them to do anything
about. Yeah. I think I think there's probably a combination of all those factors, right? I mean, plastic is everywhere. Like, how are you going to? How are you going to get rid of?
Like everything's in plastic, you know. So you know it's probably a hard problem to solve. I do think there are certain ways that you can tackle it like especially when it comes to chemicals that are contaminating. The water like the forever chemicals like that. You can you can put a limitation and say, hey like you need a test, your products and if they are contaminated, first of all, don't sell them. If it's above a certain level.
Put it on your it needs to be labeled. This has fastened it, guess what? People will stop buying it. And eventually they're going to the company will care more about, trying to eliminate the pvasquez people. If it's labeled like, we have trans fats, labeled everywhere, zero trans fat, zero trans, fat, zero, trans fat. Okay. Everybody knows trans fats are bad, right? We have a lot of data on that. We have a lot of data on these endocrine disrupting chemicals. We don't have as much data on the microplastics themselves yet but
You have a lot of data on the chemicals associated with them. And, you know, I think it's time that things start to get labeled, you know, is they're BPA in this, is there a pfos, how much it's a simple test that can be done. They can do it. And I think if there's enough pressure on Republicans, if the consumer is saying, I'm not going to buy this. I'm going to opt for the one that's not contaminated, then maybe it'll be enough, pressure on the company to make a change like maybe that's the way to
go. And when when it's in everything that it's in,
All the things that you need to make the things. I know you don't mean, it becomes an intractable problem and also I think the defense perhaps has something to do with the fact that the the amounts are so micro Sol Trace. As to be kind of you know, easy to, you know, dismiss like like it's so small in here. Like, you can't make us put a label on it, that says it has, but the problem is because our exposure is. So chronic to everything in our environment, we're accumulating
Them. So it isn't any one thing. It's the aggregate, right? So sure of all of it right victimizing
us. Well also I do think that you know if you even look at some of the like relative amounts like if you looked at the sparkling water data that came out in 2020, you know Topo Chico was like nine point seven, six parts per million whereas something like Pellegrino was, I don't know if it was point zero one or point one either way big difference there. Big
France. Right? And so it's like, well, if I'm doing if I'm drinking three or four bottles of Topo Chico, every day and forever. Chemicals, stay in my body for three to five years, I don't know. That seems like a problem here and I think that's something particularly with the forever chemicals, that, that, I think that is one area that FDA needs to step in because of the persistence, in our body for so long. And the fact that it's now contaminating, our grass, you know, the cows that are eating the grass, you think that the cows eating the corn, I'm trying to avoid the question.
Fred cows, turns out the grass fed. Cows, are getting all these former chemicals because our soils polluted with it. And it's like, so, you know, I just think it's unacceptable for our milk to be contaminant. Argh organic grass fed milk to be contaminated with high levels of these forever. Chemicals, it's just really not acceptable. I don't I think someone needs to be done about it. The question is, how do you go around it? I do think that if you start to label things and you're right though, like if it's like a small amount,
No. And that's the same goes with trans-fats. Like a product contain can contain a very Trace amount of trans fat and be labeled zero trans fat because it's considered to be, you know, a trace amount, right? But I do think that if we start labeling things then that probably wouldn't make a difference. You know, when people it first of all increases awareness, we're still people go. What's Pee fast? And I look into it and they're read about it and they go, oh, this is something to be worried about. Okay, I'm going to start looking for foods that don't have
that there. Are there other countries that do this?
Our that are ahead of us in this. We're going. Oh
I don't I don't know if I know that the European Union, regulates a lot of other chemicals. Like the the artificial colors like they're red number 40 which is associated with cancer. Its associated with neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD but I don't know that they regulate the pee fast, that's a good question, it's possible. It's something I don't know.
So I'm sure I'm not alone in sitting here thinking like alright well like how do I even
No, it's going on. Like is there a test? Like, how do I find out? How, how, like, infected with microplastics? I actually am at this point. Like, can you figure that out? Is there a way to
know? So, I do know that there are some good tests that I actually have a couple sitting on my bathroom counter right now that are for. It's the, a lot of the chemicals associated with them. So they test for forever chemicals, they're BPA, phthalate, things like that, and that was through.
In wellness, it's called Barber and wellness. They have a toxins test. I have no affiliation with a blood tester. Has its I haven't done it so urine test and I like I said, it's on my counters. Haven't done it yet but it's a urinary test and the also do have a blood finger prick when I think as well. But the urinary test is is usually how its measured. And you know, the question is, well
what do you do with that? Sorry. Yeah. What are you gonna do with it? Well, for
one, you're going to
know what your exposure is like your Baseline exposure and then you can make some changes. Like, let's say you don't have a water filter yet you get your water filter and then you can measure again. I personally also, think so BPA mostly is excreted through urine. You do, sweat a little bit of BPA out. Mostly, it's excreted through urine, though. So sweat does help. If you're exercising or using the sauna something that's going to make you sweat, you can sweat a little more BPA out, but I do think that there's a case to be made.
For the compound found in highly and broccoli Sprouts, but also in mature, broccoli sulforaphane, because sulfur Fain increases an enzyme that causes BPA to be converted into, like a fat soluble, into water soluble product. And it, so it increases that enzyme. I there's no direct evidence that sulforaphane does increase the excretion of BPA. I'm doing my own tests to find out. I
Think highly highly likely based on the fact that that very same enzyme is what causes BPA to be excreted. The one that sold for pain tax activates but we do not that sulforaphane activates so that enzyme is part of what's called The Phase 2, detoxification enzymes and those enzymes detoxify. A variety of chemicals that were exposed to including air pollution things like acrolein or Benzene and Studies have shown that people that take sulforaphane, increase their Benzene and acrolein excretion by the
60% after 24 hours, this is very potent at a helping you excrete, a variety of chemicals that are detoxified through that pathway, which BPA is one of those chemicals. And there's also animal evidence showing that animals given sulforaphane and then exposed to high levels of BPA. It prevents like the kidney toxicity associated with it. So I think, if you connect the dots highly highly likely that sulfur, laughing does improve the excretion of bpa's. Well, more reason to eat broccoli, broccoli Sprouts. There's also some
elements that have sulforaphane. I I take one that, you know, I think is pretty credible. It's called AB McCall. I don't have any affiliation with them but their clinical studies on that showing that it's got a highly stabilized form of silver vein. And so I'm kind of doing some testing myself on working at. I would I would imagine that I'll be originally initially I should see more BPA in the urine because if you're excreting it faster you'll see more but then eventually, you know, as you limit your exposure.
Then you'll have less, right? So like as you eliminate Plastics more in your in your life as much as you can, then you'll eventually see less BPA coming in through your urine
to your point earlier. There's, there's the chemicals associated with microplastics BPA, phthalate, speed fast, but then there's the microplastic itself, right? So as the brain is accumulating these things and it's showing up in our organs Etc, we can take sulfur or feign to like you
No, hopefully detox the BPA but that microplastic remains and there's some additional that that in and of itself separating the chemical aspect of it is problematic, particularly, it sounds like in terms of cardiac
health. Yeah, I'm glad you brought this
up, something you could do to get rid of it, as far as I know, is that
well, I'm glad you brought this up because so the microplastics once, they make their way into your circulation, the go to your organs. Like, there's no way out, right? I mean, it's like little
Particles tiny tiny particles accumulating in the organs, right? But when you're ingesting them through water or Foods or whatever, you know, just sort of thing that you're eating there is some I would say plenary evidence that dietary fiber may help prevent the absorption of those micro Plastics. So so what happens is, you know, the micro plastic particles first of all, depending on the size, if they're really
Really small in size, like the Nano plastic sighs, you know, they can trust transverse against the epithelia and sort of get absorbed very easily and quickly, but if you're the more dietary fiber, you're eating both the fermentable and non fermentable. So the non fermentable type of fiber would be the kind of fiber like on and vegetables that just move stuff through you, right? So the quicker, you're the more you're moving stuff through you, the less of a chance the microplastics have to stay around in your intestines and be absorbed.
So fiber dietary fiber that's non fermentable can help with that, but fermentable fiber also helps and it also helps with their very very small particles because fermentable fiber. So this is the kind of fiber that used to be called soluble fiber, that, you know, our gut microbiome is fermenting into all these beneficial short-chain fatty acids. Well, that type of fiber forms like a very viscous kind of lining that encapsulates, these micro plastic particles. These are been done in animal Studies. By the way, this has been worked out.
An animal studies and encapsulates, these micro plastic particles and helps move them through. So they're not absorbed through the intestinal tract. And so, I think there's an argument to be made for yet another reason why dietary fiber is beneficial in that it's helping, get prevent the absorption of the microplastics is. That's the only once it's in your circulation, it gets to your organs and I don't know of any way out. There's no, it's not getting out of that. No one's come up with the way of that yet.
That I've seen so or I can think
everybody should be eating a lot of fiber. Anyway. Right. A lot of reasons. Right?
Yes. Yeah. What
was the most? Surprising finding and all of this but it might be nice if you didn't expect.
Yeah, other brain. For sure. The accumulation in the brain was it was incredibly disturbing to me, I mean, ten times more 10 to 20 times more than other organs. I mean, to me it was like, oh crap, like this is, this is coming in through.
Through inhalation and through oral consumption. It's like a 2-pack punch. Again you know you're getting and it's going into the brain and I just I know how detrimental neuroinflammation is for brain Aging for also mental health, you know, inflammations been shown to play a causal role in depression as well. So when you have something that's just sitting around in your brain and it's like this tiny little producer of just inflammation, you know? It's just inflammation and then it's accumulating in the more you get, the more
Compounding effect, it has. It's very disturbing to me to think about. And so I'm I'm I would say I'm acutely aware of Clean Air, the air, I'm breathing in, you know, also, there's all sorts of studies that have come out, you know, cities with really bad air, pollution, like, Mexico City. There's been a few studies that have come out looking at, you know, post-mortem like infants and also children their brains have accumulated amyloid-beta plaques like like an eight.
Eight-year-old would have, you know, these are things that are involved in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease. It should no way shape or form be in an infant or a child brain. And so, it's really indicative that the air pollution is, is playing a role in Alzheimer's disease and again, air pollution comes with there's a whole host of particles and stuff that are particularly matter that micro Plastics are involved in. That they're in, they're in that whole sleuth of you know, particulate matter microplastics are in there. And so air pollution is now really, I think is now increasingly being
Recognized for a variety of neuroscientist as playing a pretty substantial causal role in Alzheimer's disease. So you have to think about that as well. You know, we live in the more urban environments that were living in especially if you're living in a city that's has more air pollution or also if you live close to a busy highway, right? I mean that's that's something to consider as well. Particularly with prioritizing getting a high quality HEPA filter, multiple HEPA filters, perhaps in
In around your house so that you can at least filter out the error when you're at at home and also trying to spend more time in Green Space. You know that it's also important
plastic is so ubiquitous and it's relatively new. It's a new introduction to humanity and it just continues to kind of like monopolize like every consumer product and food product Etc. And it feels like a to understand like oh wow, like we're accumulating this
Passing through the blood-brain barrier, we're running this massive experiment that we don't really know. We like there hasn't been a gent you know like has there been a generation that has been raised from day one you know in this world where of you of plastic being as ubiquitous as it is you know up to the age of like 80 or 90 where we can really see. Like the long-term impact of what this is. It feels like, all right well we're accumulating all this microplastics but like
Don't know if you all, are I feel. Okay, you know, I got one of cancer or whatever, you know, like so we I guess we don't know, right? That part of it. Well, that's part
of the Insidious damage, right? Where you can't. I mean you don't look in the mirror and see that you're like gums are falling apart and you have scurvy you, right. It's like this little bit of damage and it's happening every day and compounding as it accumulates you. You're accumulating more of it right? And that's part of that Insidious damage, I would say we do know from you know Environmental
Or at least not necessarily with microplastics but with the plastic Associated chemicals certainly like the forever chemicals firefighters. You know, the foam that they use. I mean that's like one of the major pollutants of forever chemicals in our environment and and firefighters have a astronomical increased cancer risk, you know, the flame, retardants the that. So anything that's like water, repellent oil repellent, you know, the flame retardant like these things have forever.
As in them and and there are carcinogens, you know, and so so in a way, you know, I made that analogy like earlier in the podcast we were talking about Alzheimer's disease and I made the analogy of traumatic, brain injury, being able to like, I feel like in many ways study Alzheimer's disease in real time where it's like brain aging happening in real time. You know, we can look at some of these people that are working in environments where they're being heavily exposed to some of these plastic chemicals and go look. These people are getting really high levels or being exposed to an awful lot of them at once and it's
God. So, I think we should lessons to be learned from that, right? And so are like, even with, you know, Erin Brockovich and that whole story, right? I mean, you've got like people that were exposed to astronomically high levels of some of these terrible chemicals. And, you know, it was causing terrible health effects. There was a there was a story. I think it was published in, like, the New York Times, a few months ago, on on these organic farmers that their Farm was contaminated with the forever. Chemicals, the pee fast.
And there, the kids were all getting sick, really sick and parents couldn't figure out what's going on. Like, why are the kids getting so sick? And finally, it came down to their soil, was contaminated, and the cows that that were, you know, grazing on their soil. That were feeding their family were excreting. All these forever chemicals in the milk and the kids were just eating, you know, gettin high high levels of it. So again, it comes I think that, yeah, we are running this experiment but in
A little too that I think that we can look at, you know, some of these environmental health, hazardous kind of occupations where people are are exposed to much higher levels and say, okay, what happens when you increase the magnitude of exposure causes cancer, it's not good, right? And say, well, we need to do something about this because this Insidious damage while we can't see it right now. Decade from now, two decades, three decades from now, maybe we are
And then not to mention development. Right pregnancy. That's a very, very sensitive period and that's when you know, microplastic particles are found in the placenta as well. In fact, the study that looked at that the placenta only sampled 4% of the placenta only 4% of the whole placenta and found about 12 micro plastic particles now in 4%, the placenta. So imagine how many particles are in the entire placenta, you know, I mean, what are they doing? And we know they cause inflammation that that we know they increase inflammatory cytokines.
Not is it's not good. You know. There's there's again going back to the autism link. I mentioned the BPA. You know, there's there's studies showing that like mothers that have a feverish response during pregnancy so they have a fever very activated immune response. A lot of activated cytokines much more likely to have a child diagnosed with autism. So there's there's a connection here right between inflammation and immune system and some of these chemicals and the micro Plastics and
Element and particularly neurodevelopmental disorders. I mean, like this is a very sensitive period. So I think I think more than anything that that is the time to be the most fastidious in terms of get a little bit crazy during that time. Get a little bit neurotic, be a little bit worried about plastic for those nine months. You know, I think that's the time if Annie to do
that. But as soon as you become fastidious, your you quickly realize like how difficult it is to sidestep this, like even the natural products are generally
Packaged in plastic, you know, like if it's a deodorant or whatever it is, you know, it's like it's really hard to like go and do an end run like how like how rigorous are you in your own life? Like now you've got a brain full of like all this information. So every time you go to the story, must be like, okay. Yes. Like well how do I do this? It doesn't come in glass. You know,
when it comes to things, I'm putting in my mouth, like, that's where I'm most concerned about trying to avoid the plastic. If it's, if it's
A fruit that's in a plastic you know, like a strawberry can strawberries in the plastic container. I mean, it hasn't been there for that long, right? And so I wash the strawberries off. What am I going to do about that? It's not like tons. And tons and tons of Michael plastic particles have shed into it. When it comes to like my deodorant in my shampoo, I am I'm less concerned about the it being in a plastic bottle. Really? There's no, it's really hard to avoid that. Knockout is let's be honest. Like you're not going to find a bunch of glass bottles and shit. Yeah, but I am looking at that.
Lates when it comes to cosmetic. So, you know, when it comes to like Cosmetics you're not absorbing that much of like the microplastics through the skin. It's really like, it's really the oral consumption and the breathing and the inhalation. Those are the two main routes with respect to microplastics. That really you should focus on like that the absorption through the skin. That's mostly again with like the BPA. If you're getting like the thermal paper something that's really really high and be proud.
EPA or the phthalates that are, you know, coming in through the skin absorption. That's that's when it comes to like skin absorption. Those are the things that I'm more concerned about now. Yes, there's probably some BPA getting into my, you know, shampoo that I'm shampooing on my head.
What about your toothpaste tube? And your toothbrush with the plastic bristles in the plastic handle and put in your mouth every day?
Yeah, I I've gone there. Yeah, I don't know what to do like
Have the bamboo handles. I don't know that the handle matters as much as the bristles which are made of plastic. Yeah, so
yeah, I have like the wooden ones too and the bamboo right? The bristles are plastic. Bristles are plastic to plastic in your
mouth. I know it was when I realized that I was very disturbed and then I started researching and it turns out toothbrushes used to be made of boar hair like a long time ago. I don't know that. That's any better brushing. My teeth with boar hair but yeah, they used to be made with boar hair, but look, there's room for innovation.
Right. I mean there's room for Innovation here. Maybe someone's going to come in with some cool new tooth brush with bristles that are not shutting a bunch of microplastics, you know? Fortunately, we're not swallowing, I mean, we're switching it out and I just try to like it, the water and rinse out, really good. After I brush my teeth so I'm not swallowing all the microplastics, you know, you're going to absorb only a certain mouth the mount through. I can see you're kind of like me where you start to go down the rabbit
hole and it's like a part of me doesn't want to think about this that much more because you could, you could become you could, you know,
Turn into a crazy person and and become like a reckless and you shouldn't and just you don't want to live your life in fear like and some of these things like yeah, there is no toothbrush. That doesn't have plastic bristles as far as I'm
aware, right? So let it go and try to, you know, not heat up the plastic in the microwave and try not to drink plastic out of something that's been heated and try to get a water filter and get an air filter and do the things that you can do. But then let other things go like, you know, if you're exercising, you know, you're doing a lot of you're eating, you're eating healthy.
You're getting your vegetables and your fiber and you're eating the sulforaphane and you're doing a lot of the important things you're getting good sleep, like, you really doing as much as you can, right? So you can't, like, I don't want to do the fear-mongering either, but I do want awareness to to be had. Like I do want people to be aware of this problem and to think about it because it is a problem and it's ignoring it's not the answer either but you know, going insanely crazy and neurotic about it is only, you know?
Stress. Chronic stress is probably one of the worst things you can do for your health. So stressing yourself out about it is probably not going to be beneficial either. I think if you're doing the main, the main things with getting a good reverse, osmosis filter getting a good air filter and avoiding avoiding drinking, you know, heating anything plastic, is the main thing. But, you know, to the most that you can try not to drink out of plastic water bottles and the food that you're consuming, you know, the hot plastic Foods, try not to do it every night like you get takeout once
In a while fine but like maybe maybe try not to get take out like you know every night. Yeah
I know you have a lot of resources on this on your website and obviously in your podcast are there. But are there consumer Watchdog groups out there or other kind of like NGO type resources online where people can educate themselves like what's the best place to direct someone who's like oh my God, like I want to learn more about this.
Microplastics. Yeah. And yeah. So I did do a podcast on microplastics and so you can find that in my podcast, but I do think that there's, if you're wanting to look, you know, I don't, I don't know about, you know, education-wise but I know that consumer wise. If you're looking for, if you're trying to find, if you're a products that you're buying or contaminated with perhaps like heavy metals or some of the plastic chemicals, like P Faso Consumer Reports consumerlab. They do a lot of
Third party party testing or like if you're looking at the water sparkling water, you're drinking, you want to see. I want a list of the best sparkling water,
which late it's the brand by brand. Like if you're going to choose one, which one,
right? Well, for me, I choose I like mountain valleys sparkling water or spring water in the glass bottle, but also Pellegrino is one of the lowest pee fast chemicals. But again, that was Consumer Reports. So they do, you know, you can go to these third party, testing sites to look for a variety of brands that have been, you know, at least
For having, you know, fewer amounts of some of these plastic Associated chemicals, like pee fast, which I think is useful for anyone. That's like, okay, I want to try to at least, you know, make sure I'm
getting but there's no like, microplastics dot-org, where you can go and like, double-check like every product that you want to buy. That would be great. Gentle risk or something like
that. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't looked into that. Yeah,
somebody should start so much. It starts out as a second business idea. I'm giving you today. What's going to make you money.
And one's going to require you to spend it on, right? All the money that you make on your legs, awesomeness, lactate. You're going to have to dump and microplastics dot-org, why you got a good place to end it? I mean there's obviously tons more but you go into such depth in such detail in your podcast and the materials that you make available. So for anybody who's listening to those who lose interest has been piqued? Yes, please venture over to Rhonda's.
The internet, she has plenty of stuff for you.
Ya found Mi fitness.com with my website and the the podcast is called found my fitness. I'm all over you
to all the places on YouTube and all that kind of stuff. And what's your next Obsession? Are you diving deep into, you know, some project where you're going to emerge with a new video that's going to blow everyone's mind about something. We haven't thought about something you haven't thought about what is that? What's the research that you're reading right now? That's like getting your
excited. Why do you have one?
Podcast, I'm coming out with on protein, but I think some of the research I've been reading about creatine's. Got me excited? That's, that's probably, especially with the effects on the brain. That's kind of an upcoming one as well. But I don't know yet. I gotta, I gotta figure out what my next like, where it's going to take me next. I'm not
sure. Well, when you figure it out, come back and tell us all about
it but loves you. Right. Yeah,
thanks Rhonda. This is really fun. I appreciate it. You are performing a public service and so I just
Want to acknowledge you for that. Like what you put out? Another world is important and makes a difference. So thank you for doing it and please keep
doing it. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests including links and resources related to everything discussed today. Visit the episode page at Rich world.com where you can find the entire podcast, archive, my books, Finding Ultra voicing change in the plant power way, as well as the plant power meal. Planner at meals dot Rich Roll.com. If you'd like to support the Paw
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