Joe Rogan Experience #2170 - Max Lugavere - All we were told about Alzheimer's is wrong

Joe Rogan Experience #2170 - Max Lugavere

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Joe Rogan podcast check it out The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day Joe Rogan
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podcast by night all day what's up Max how are you so good I
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know what's cracking oh man just uh first of all honored to be here thank
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you love you and your work and yeah I mean just uh National Treasure that's very nice of you go out
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on a limb and say it but um no I'm super super excited because I've been working on this documentary for the last 10
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years of my life and um it's finally out today which uh I'm super pumped for it's
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called a little empty boxes and we talked about it the last time I was here mhm and um it's a project that means the
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world to me I think it's the most important thing I've ever done and it's the first ever dementia prevention documentary about the science of
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dementia prevention but it focuses it's a very emotional and personal film for me because it follows my mom who for
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many years suffered from a rare form of dementia called Louis body dementia which is akin to having both Parkinson's
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disease and Alzheimer's disease at the same time that's a Robin Williams had that's what Robin Williams had yeah yeah
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and it's a it's a rare condition it affects about 1 million people in the United States but it's a um it's a
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dementia and dementia is now a soaring public health problem and there's a lot
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of controversy in within the field um the last time I was here we talked about
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you you know fraud in the um in the research space with regard to the
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prevailing hypothesis as to what causes Alzheimer's disease which is the most common form of dementia and actually
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finally over the past month that paper was finally retracted it took two years but um could you explain to everybody
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what the fraud was Yeah so basically among the dementias Alzheimer's disease
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is the most common form of it and that affects about 6 million people in the United States and since it was first
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named in 1906 by physician aloise Alzheimer the prevailing hypothesis as to what causes
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Alzheimer's disease dubbed the amalo hypothesis has been that this plaque formed by a precursor protein called
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amalo beta accumulates in the brain and by finding a drug that can potentially
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remove extract that that those plaques from the brain from the extracellular
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space around neurons that we could essentially cure the disease that the that the causal factor in the condition
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was this was ultimately this amalo beta protein which forms the plaque
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and trial after trial has been a dismal had been a dismal failure and it wasn't
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looking good until in um 2006 a paper was published in nature which for any
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scientist publishing in nature it's like winning an Academy Award and that paper
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essentially what that did was it it allegedly identified this variant of
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amalo beta that connected the plaque to the cognitive dysfunction so the most important clinical feature of
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Alzheimer's disease because for a long time it was known that cognitively healthy people accumulate plaque in
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their brains and that plaque doesn't seem to correlate with cognitive impairment or anything like that and so
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that was very deflating for researchers in the field until this 2006 paper came out and what it did was it renewed faith
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in this in this hypothesis which was always a hypothesis and continued to
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send billions and billions of dollars worth of funding down this path and what turned out to be the case just two years
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ago was that that paper was essentially fraudulent and it represented about 16
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years worth of wasted time wasted money which was hugely deflating for not just the research Community but also for any
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patient who's ever suffered from Alzheimer's disease and you know the way that the field is now
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slowly starting to turn but this is a drum that I've been beating for the past 10 years is that we really need to start
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talking about these conditions in terms of prevention and that's what inspired me to set down this path of creating
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this documentary little empty boxes what was the fraud like what what how did they do it so
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basically the in the paper there were they identifi these proteins that they
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isolated in Rat models of the condition Mouse models the of the condition called a a beta star
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56 again amalo is amalo is there at the scene of the crime so to speak so when
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you have Alzheimer's disease somebody who's died of Alzheimer's disease what they what they find inevitably in the brains of cadavers who've died from
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Alzheimer's disease are two features they see this aggregation of these plaques amalo beta plaques and Tangled
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proteins called ta and so it was a very seductive narrative that this plaque causes the
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condition right for years the problem is they've succeeded at reducing the plaque
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in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease but that hasn't led to any Improvement in the clinically meaningful
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features of the disease that we that we aspire to improve for sufferers of Alzheimer's disease right the cognitive
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the cognitive function and in tandem with that we see that amalo is produced naturally in all
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brains and people who are cognitively healthy have amalo in their brains there's a degree of amalo burden that
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seems to be inevitable as a as um as a just general phenomena due to
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aging and so it it was very it was becoming very clear that amid is not the causitive feature here that there is
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some other factor or factors at play which lead to cognitive
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degeneration until 2006 and in in 2006 what happened this paper basically found
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this subtype that when injected into a mouse caused profound cognitive
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dysfunction and what they did was they Illustrated these proteins on what are called in what's called a western blot
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analysis which is basic basically a graphical depiction of proteins and um the peer review process
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for papers I mean they people go in and they crunch the numbers and stuff but they don't look at like imagery and they don't they don't look with a they don't
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go through the imagery with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it hasn't been photoshopped essentially but one sleuth
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who is a scientist himself um this researcher uh from Vanderbilt named Matthew shrag actually identified that a
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lot of these images had artifacts that made it very clear that they were faked oh yeah so fullon fraud full-on fraud
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and by the way and it was it's it's been two years it took two years for that paper finally to be retracted are there
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any consequences towards people that published that paper I mean it's obviously they have a
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lot of egg on their face so to speak I mean very it's it's hugely humiliating
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um but no I don't think that there's they're still employed they're yeah the
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lead researcher still employed I mean they're they're investigating sane lesny who's a university of uh he is a I want
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to say Michigan not Michigan um it'll come to me but the the the the primary
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researcher is being investigated um as far as I know so the primary researcher they're connect to
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the Photoshop saying this person might have been the one that released it it was very clear it was very clear and
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that you know that's it's so dirty soty it's so evil for all the people that are looking for some sort of relief yeah and
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that you know you have this scientific paper you published and you knowingly release these photoshopped images in
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order to validate your paper there's a ton of Fraud and God yeah it's so evil
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when you think about how many people suffer from this so many people and you're giving them this false hope just
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to boost up your academic career yeah it's awful the lost time and by the way
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that paper has been subsequently referenced thousands of times in the medical medical literature basically you
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know negating a ton of research I mean like count countless papers that have
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been since published that have referenced that paper in 2006 that nature paper that was finally retracted
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I mean think about the Lost Time think about the needless suffering yeah and it's my view that dementia
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essentially by the time you are diagnosed with dementia we'll say Alzheimer's disease you are in late
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stage Alzheimer's disease whether it's mild whether you were just diagnosed yesterday it's it's this is a disease of
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midlife with symptoms that appear in late life and so that's why the field is now slowly hopefully I hope pivoting
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more towards prevention and where the money I think needs to go is I in into
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identifying that goal golden biomarker that's associated with the onset of the condition so that clinicians can
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intervene earlier because right now when you catch it it's sort of like pancreatic cancer which incidentally my mom passed from in 2018 but it's you
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know pancreatic cancer most of the time it's diagnosed and it's too late the C the tumor is already
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metastasized and so this is kind of similar with Alzheimer's Disease by the time it's diagnosed it's already you're already very late in the game there's
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widespread neuronal uh dysfunction gluc ose metabolism in the brain is diminished by 50% so it's again you're
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you're catching it in its latest stages ultimately and that's why I think Alzheimer's drug trials have a 99% 99.6%
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fail rate Because by the time you catch it I think reversing it is you know impossible I think it can be slowed with
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exercise with with a with a multimodal dietar and lifestyle intervention but um but yeah it's really it's really sad and
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so that's why 10 years ago when I saw this developing in my mom and I stumbled upon all this research and I began really diving in
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it became very clear to me that this is something that that anybody with a brain needs to be aware of and talking about
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and what what's the factors when it comes to someone eventually getting
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Alzheimer's is it purely genetic is it lifestyle is it diet are there environmental factors and toxins like
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what is it yeah so there are what are called risk factors so the the heritability of Alzheimer's disease is
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very low it's like 2 to 3% and the variant that is hereditary is early onset familial but that affects that
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that makes up a very tiny proportion of overall Alzheimer's incidents and similarly with Parkinson's disease the
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heritability of Parkinson's disease is very low I mean this and I definitely want to talk about Parkinson's disease because there's a lot of really
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interesting new research in that in that field but by and large with regard to
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Alzheimer's disease you have what are called your non-modifiable risk factors which are your age you can't change your
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age your gender you can't change your gender and your genes you can't change your genes although you can affect genes Express themselves which is known as
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epigenetics but then you have your modifiable risk factors which I think is so exciting because these are the the
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risk factors that you have agency over you can you can control obesity
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hypertension type two diabetes I mean these are all nutritionally mediated
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obviously which I love talking about nutrition and nutrition in so far as it can prevent or reverse obesity I think
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that's incredibly empowering type 2 diabetes if you have type 2 diabetes your risk for developing Alzheimer's
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diseasing increases between two and fourfold they're actually now um we interviewed in my documentary The
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researcher who coined the term type 3 diabetes have you heard that are you familiar with that concept no I haven't
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so it's looking a lot like Alzheimer's disease might in fact be a form of diabetes of the
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brain wow which is a mindblowing way to think about this condition um and in
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fact we see that peripheral insulin resistance so the the home Mark of type
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two type two diabetes is insulin resistance and we see that the more insulin resistant a person is the more
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difficulty their brains seem to have with regard to creating ATP which is the primary energy currency of our
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cells and the researcher who coined type 3 diabetes her name is Suzanne deamon she's a Brown University researcher and
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she is in no way in the public sphere she's a you know purely a bench researcher she's actually in my
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documentary it was like incredible to get to interview her and speak to her but it seems that insulin
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resistance causes the brain to suffer in many ways it damages the blood vessels ultimately when you have type two
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diabetes it damages the blood vessels that supply the brain with oxygen nutrients energy but it also seems to
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impair there also seems to be an aspect of insulin resistance that reduces the
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brain's ability to generate energy okay so when you first started
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becoming aware of this your mother uh develops this condition you first start being aware of it what were the first
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things that you noticed that started to get you to question whether or not the
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conventional applications of drugs and thing are on the right path yeah I mean
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you know I grew up in New York City and when my mom first started to show these symptoms and how did you notice it like
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what what what were the symptoms she would I mean we would have I was living in La at the time and so we we would we
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would touch base every other day via phone and she started to complain to me about brain fog and there was some
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aspect of what she was sharing with me that I thought was just a natural part of getting older but
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ultimately she revealed to me and the rest of my family that she had sought the help of a
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neurologist and that seemed odd you know why would my mom I I hadn't had any
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prior family incidents of dementia anything like that why would why was my
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mom suddenly going to see a neurologist and but you know like I was
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still in La living my my life I was in my late 20s at the time but it wasn't
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until a trip to Miami my family went down to Miami to hang out with my dad cuz my parents had been separated and my
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mom was in the kitchen and she confessed to the family that she'd been having
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memory problems at this point so it had been described as brain fog but she revealed that she had sought the help of
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a neurologist and you know me and my and my brothers and my dad we were in total disbelief that
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my mom was having anything outside of the could could possibly be having anything outside of the realm of ordinary and so we were kind of mocking
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her in a way um and we said well if you're really having such such profound
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problems what month is it or I think it was like what year is it or something like that and she couldn't recall she
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couldn't recall what the month was and she started to cry and at that point for
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me that's when I knew that something was really wrong and that I needed to step in cuz you know when you're sick it is a
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really that's a really scary place to be it could be frustrating it could be confusing and you know when you're in
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these doctor's offices and they're you know often times they don't have the best bedside Manner and they run a
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battery of esoteric tests it can be incredibly overwhelming and it becomes really hard to advocate for yourself
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I've learned as somebody with a chronic illness not least of which a chronic illness that's affecting your cognition and so I
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decided at that point um essentially that I had to pack up my La life I moved
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back to New York and I started going with my mom from doctor's visit to doctor's visit and again you know I'm
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pretty privileged grew up in New York City my mom had health insurance resources we started going you know to
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all of these different Cathedrals to Western medicine academic medical insight and in every instance I
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experienced what I've come to call over time adios diagnose and adios a physician would you know run
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these tests titrate up the dose of a medication that she was already on one physician actually thought that all of her symptoms were due to depression
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right there's this like idea of the hysterical woman today one in four women over the age of 40 are on an
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anti-depressant drug you know so one one and four yeah over the age of 40 Jesus Christ yeah they're I mean I'm not
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saying there's no use for them those kinds of drugs but they're very over overprescribed um that's not that's not I don't think
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that's controversial and so my mom was given one of these drugs without full informed
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consent I don't think I mean ultimately we tried to get her off of them which we found out was incredibly difficult to do
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titrating off one of these ssris is really really hard actually and it turned out obviously to
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be to be the case that my mom that these symptoms were not due to depression they were due to degeneration in her brain
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and we went from doctor's office to doctor's office ultimately ating in a trip to the Cleveland Clinic so just imagine like we're in New York City
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right we have like multiple hospitals at our at our disposal we had to book a trip to the Cleveland Clinic and it was
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there that for the first time my mom was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative condition so she was prescribed drugs
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for both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease at that time and that to me was I'd never I've always
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been a pretty chill guy but that was the first time in my life I'd ever i' I've ever had a panic attack just Googling
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the drugs you know like a scared like any scared kid would do when their mom receives a a lifechanging
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diagnosis and um and that was the moment for me that I realized that my life had to Pivot and I I had no choice but to
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dedicate myself to learning all that I could about these conditions and so you
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find out about the fraud and how long into your research did you find out that
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most of what people understood about the condition was based on this fraudulent
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study well it's not even just the study it's the fact that these conditions begin decades before the emergence of
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symptoms so you know again it's it's a disease of of midlife essentially they
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Alzheimer's disease begins 20 to 30 years if not more before the the first symptom and so to me it became very
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clear that we were approaching these conditions in the wrong way you know trying to acting in a in a reactionary way to
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something that had taken decades to manifest to me just seemed wrong
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and I stumbled upon the work of a neurologist at Wild Cornell New York
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Presbyterian who was talking about Alzheimer's disease as a preventable
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condition which is not something that I'd heard prior to coming across his work and I realized at that time that
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this was like considered 10 years ago a fringe idea dementia prevention was like a fringe idea except for through the
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lens of this neurologist who was working within the confines of you know rigorous randomized research and you know and
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checking all the boxes for scientific credibility and
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um and so to me it became really it became really clear that that this is a topic that I needed to help amplify
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using my skill set as a non-medical doctor as a non-academic scientist and I also learned really early on that it's
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not a genetic condition that we have genetic risk factors but that um that we have a say when it comes to our
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cognitive destiny that this is not a natural part of aging I mean you know everything in the body as you get older
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tends to falter in its functionality you know like our joints don't work as well and you know there is a degree of
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forgetfulness that I think is in a in a way a natural aspect of
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getting older but cognitive impairment that's not natural degeneration of our of our neurons of you know of for
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example the portion of the brain that that drives movement the substantial chagra which is which occurs in
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Parkinson's disease that's not normal and so it began this investigation for me trying to understand because I was
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seeing the person who meant the most to me of anybody in life you know degenerating every day in front of my face getting worse and worse and worse
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it it instilled this this burning desire in me to understand all that I could and to share to pre in the hopes that it
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might prevent it from happening to others and um and yeah it was also very odd because
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my um my maternal grandmother did not have dementia so it was really sad and and surreal in fact that my mom was
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increasingly requiring aroundthe clock care while her mother who lived in the
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same home and was 30 years older was cognitively totally healthy it was just
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the it was just the oddest thing my my my grandmother my mom's mom was in her 90s and totally cognitively healthy able
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to form cogent senses and my mom was struggling to express an idea to get out
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of a bathroom and it just to me it was it was so shocking that I you know it
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was like it was traumatic I mean I still have PTSD I think from from those days but it it's yeah it's motivated me to to
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do what I can to help and I saw all in in every you know by the end of my mom's life she was on 14 different
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Pharmaceuticals and I'm not I'm not anti- Pharma like if if there was a drug that would have actually helped my mom I would have been first in line at the
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pharmacy to to fill that prescription for her but the drugs don't work at all and Physicians are very quick to you
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know to write a prescription to like add a new drug to the Arsenal they're they're very um reluctant to
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deprescribe I've I have never seen a prescription de prescribe to my mom and
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by the end of her life she was on 14 different Pharmaceuticals and there's nobody on Earth that that understands how all of those different drugs are
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interacting in an you know in a in a system going growing increasingly frail it was just really
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sad and you know so I started to investigate these modifiable risk
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factors you know whether it's diet dietary diet related which it you know
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in my mom's case it may have had something to do with her diet over the years it might have had nothing to do with her diet over the years I'll never
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know but also now we're starting to see that air pollution is a major um
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contributor to neurod degeneration we're starting to see now that well as of 2020 it was acknowledged that um exposure to
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air pollution is actually one of these newly identified mod modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer's disease so
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exposure to fine particulate matter PM 2.5 actually might cause Alzheimer's disease for some patients and
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then most interestingly and this is one of the things that I want to talk about with you which I came across the work of
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a of a neurologist named Dr Ray dorsy who's over at University of Rochester who's done a lot of work publishing on
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the link between environmental toxicant and Parkinson's disease and Parkinson's disease is now the fastest growing brain
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disease and my mom's condition actually had more in common with Parkinson's disease than it did Alzheimer's disease
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she had Louis body dementia which is has more in common with Parkinson's even though they're they're both dementia um
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Louis body and and and and Alzheimer's but there's data now linking exposure to
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certain herbicides and pesticides to Parkinson's disease drama Ally increased risk anywhere
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between three 2 and a half to sixfold um increased risk which herbicides and
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pesticides so there's a pesticide called paraquat that there's a great article
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written in the guardian by um a journalist named Carrie Gillum and I got to speak uh on a panel with her recently
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at a at a scientific conference in DC called brain and environment and
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paraquat is this compound that it's a it's an herbicide that's produced in China but its use is banned in China we
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import it here yeah it's crazy we use it here
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and exposure occupational exposure to this compound is associated with between
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two and a half to three times a risk for the development of Parkinson's disease
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related compounds are literally used in Mouse models to create Parkinson's disease
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and the that has that creates it is has
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been under investigation for years and what has now come to light is that they
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knew about the fact that these that these chemicals accumulate in the brain in brain tissue and they seem to
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selectively Target the region of the brain associated with Parkinson's disease the substantia [ __ ] wow it's
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very scary and um you know what um crops are these used on is it specific crops
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is specific foods to avoid or how do you know if those pesticides or herbicides
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are being used well it's it's the the residues and the the exposure that you get from eating them
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is very low but we don't know what long-term exposure to those low levels
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is doing to us I mean my my mother is somebody who never believed in organic produce right and organic is not perfect
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and natural compounds some of them are the most dangerous compounds on Earth so I know you know some people listening
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might say oh you know here we go with the appeal to Nature fallacy but it's very clear that occupational exposure is
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very hazardous you have to be licensed you have to use this stuff very carefully but it some people actually
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use it to to to off themselves I mean it's like a it's a really toxic compound
25:46
and we're now we we now have data suggesting that it creates this
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condition that it selectively targets and and destroys dopamine producing neurons that that that immediate movement and um and it's used yeah it's
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used in in cereal grains things like that um why does uh cannabis oil have a
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profound effect on Parkinson's patients you know I don't I don't know about
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cannabis oil but I can tell you about nicotine and nicotine is a very interesting compound from the vantage
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point of parkinsonism and I know I mean a lot of people you
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know love nicotine obvious for its its cognitive boosting effects um I'm not
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going to say that it's a it's a healthy compound I mean I think that it has cardiovascular repercussions um and the
26:39
like but there seems to be a and it and of course smoking is terrible for you but
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cardiovascular with the delivery method or just across the board nicotine by itself raises heart rate and it raises
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blood pressure acutely not by much but um presumably uh
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and it's vasoconstrictive as well so it you know there's some evidence suggesting it it impedes wound
27:05
healing um I will occasionally use nicotine as a as a cognitive enhancer
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but I also have I have chronic low back issues and um I think that you know for
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people with disc issues this is just a speculation but I think that it's probably not a good idea to chronically
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use nicotine if you have disc issues which are already your discs and your back are already poorly vascularized and nicotine is a vasoconstrictor
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vasoconstrictor um and smoking you know increases your risk for Alzheimer's
27:37
disease um I'm not I don't think that there's a a that we've identified a relationship between pure nicotine and
27:45
well pretty much anything the the the research on pure nicotine by itself is pretty sparse most of the most of the
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research on on the health effects of nicotine is confounded by smoking which is obviously obviously not good for you
27:55
but interestingly there does seem to be an inverse relationship between nicotine use even via smoking and parkinsonism so
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people who smoke cigarettes seem to be protected to some degree against Parkinson's disease which is very odd
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and they've shown in Mouse models that nicotine actually when they use some of
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these mitochondrial toxins some of these poisons like paraquat right or another one called mptp which is has been used
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as a as a street party drug but it's actually profoundly neurotoxic it's been shown to create chronic parkinsonism
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with just acute use nicotine actually prevents that in those models so it's
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been shown to somehow protect the brain from in in some in some regards um
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against Parkin Parkinson's disease so I wouldn't recommend using nicotine unless somebody and this is again a speculation
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but my my hypothesis is that if you were if you were exposed occupationally to some of these compounds like paraquad or
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rodino or um there are there are other compounds that are being directly connected to Parkinson's disease too
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like Tri chloroethylene I would say maybe nicotine is a is a potentially disease modifying intervention in those
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contexts so in these when they've studied patients the was there a small like a
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noticeably smaller instance of people that develop Parkinson who are smokers or was it non-existent like they're
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they're just I'm not sure the the relative risk um decrease but it's one of these odd
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things that seems pretty consistent in the literature that smokers are less likely to develop Parkinson's Disease by
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what factor I'm not sure I'm not sure the factor but it's significant it's significant but smoke but smokers are
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more likely to develop a whole host of other oh yeah it's terrible for you yeah but that's the interesting thing is that
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nicotine it's thought that nicotine protects this one region of the brain a
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significant way I'm sorry have they looked at people that are in taking nicotine in different ways like cigars
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uh gum patches things along those lines not a lot of the a lot of the research
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on nicotine is in animal models unfortunately um but it is I mean it does seem to do
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if you set the vascular effects aside which might play a role um in neurod
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degeneration because you know the brain relies on its vascular Network the brain you know is is a very hungry organ and
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Vascular Dimension is the second most common form of dementia actually but nicotine does seem to have some really
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protective effects on the brain it seems to reduce neuroinflammation um
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it might act in a way as an antioxidant in the brain I'm not recommending it because there are risks of course but
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um but they've shown that it seems to be protective in these animal models against against these poisons that would
30:59
otherwise cause parkinsonism and some other cool facts about nicotine
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actually cuz I did do a little bit of a deep dive recently into it because because I do notice a cognitive benefit when I when I use it nicotine how do you
31:12
use it I just use it I I I use it like before but what in what form a lozenge
31:18
like a little like you know lozenge um and uh and I don't have an addictive
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personality so for me I'm not like you know it's not something that I feel compelled to do every day but I do it uh
31:29
before like I have to go on like a TV show or do a big podcast or something and um and I do see you know I do
31:36
definitely see like a a cognitive like a you know it's a stimulant that's um that's pretty well known but um but yeah
31:44
nicotine also it has a very short halflife so it's half life is only about two hours I mean you compare that to coffee coffe is like eight hours so it's
31:52
it's relatively transient in your system but then I think the more interesting
31:57
compound is uh is its primary metabolite which is called Kine which it's kin's
32:02
halflife is 20 hours long and it seems to also boost cognitive function mental
32:08
health in so far as animal models can show us that these compounds boost mental health um might even enhance
32:15
what's called fear Extinction so for people with PTSD it might play a role so it's a it's a really interesting
32:21
compound but you know again it's it's highly addictive and um what is coine
32:28
it's nicotine's primary metabolite in the body so when you ingest nicotine
32:34
nicotine lasts in the body only about the half life is 2 hours so it lasts presumably about 4 hours um but it
32:41
converts to this compound called called Coty in the body and the half life of that compound is about 20 hours so it's
32:48
in your system for a long time and and that compound doesn't have any of the negative side effects of nicotine it
32:54
just seems to do all these interesting cool so does all the positives and none of the negatives seems to it I mean it's
33:00
not a stimulant short and long-term effects of oh that's Codine bro oh it's
33:06
uh Co I was trying to spell it and ited me and I fell down the path compound who look at that yeah that will [ __ ] you
33:14
up that's in cough syrup um cotinine yeah how do you spell it co t i n i n I
33:24
believe yeah it's super interesting stuff and do people take this as a supplement
33:31
no but it your body readily will create it from I don't know if it it it doesn't
33:37
have the um cotinine produced by the body after exposure to nicotine the main metabol of nicotine 70 80% of nicotine
33:44
is converted to coine cotinine is often used as a biomarker for exposure to tobacco smoke can be detected in urine
33:50
okay coine can remain in the body a day or more nicotine disappears within a few hours yeah but you can Google like cine
33:57
f Extinction or cine um cogn probably why people say that cigarettes relax
34:03
them yeah definitely I mean it's an anxiolytic it reduces anxiety
34:08
interesting yeah see I mean it does seem to be this SEL it's like this really interesting compound where it does all
34:14
these you know it has all these effects in the body that many of which I'm sure
34:20
are negative but it does seem to do some good stuff for the brain which is
34:25
fascinating you know um so I I think again I'm not promoting it but if you're
34:32
able to forge as an adult uh responsible relationship with it you know then maybe
34:40
it's worth experimenting with if you know particularly because of its you know
34:46
it's its potential to I don't want this to come off as an endorsement for nicotine but its ability potentially to
34:53
protect against parkinsonism is very is very interesting and so when a person
34:59
you're saying so this is something that starts to happen in midlife and then it really expresses itself in dramatic ways
35:05
years later what are other than the environmental factors what dietary
35:13
factors contribute except obviously pesticides and herbicides that are unfortunately a
35:20
part of our food system now yeah I mean here's the thing like or organic is uh
35:26
as I mentioned it's not a p and there today on social media if you even if you in so much as mention
35:34
organic and that debate organic versus conventional I mean there's there's so much controversy but you know I think
35:40
the as we've seen right with paraquat and this Chinese company that has
35:46
shrouded the data and in fact they they've assembled internally a SWAT team to basic to essentially suppress data
35:53
suggesting harm due to exposure to this to this herbicide even though it's banned in country even even though it's
35:59
banned in China yeah wow just so they could keep selling it just so they could keep selling it but there was there was
36:05
another there was another article that came out recently in um the publication prua written by I believe her name was
36:12
Sharon Lerner another journalist who I connected with at this DC event that I was at recently who it was this crazy 3M has
36:20
been hiding the health harms shrouding the health suppressing the health harms
36:26
due to exposure to these Pas pasas compounds that are forever forever
36:31
chemicals known endocrine disruptors in Band-Aids yeah so there's there's like
36:36
all this corporate collusion and shrouding of the truth and I'm just like
36:42
I think in so far as you can reduce your exposures to these kinds of things and and and and selectively you know if if
36:48
money is is is scarce you know selectively buy certain things organic I think that makes sense you know do they
36:55
have organic Band-Aids that's a good question I don't know but they recently identified these compounds and yeah yeah I read the study
37:01
about the Band-Aid thing and I was like Jesus Christ is anything safe it's not [ __ ] Band-Aids we've all got
37:07
microplastics in our balls these days microplastics in our Aromas right like they found in our in our arteries that
37:14
the presence of microplastics was associated with two to three two to threefold increased risk of cardiovascular death so here it is uh
37:21
partnering with environmental health news a consumer Watchdog sent 40 bandages of different brands to us
37:26
Environmental Protection Agency certified lab the lab found that 65% of the bandages compain contain detectable
37:33
levels of synthetic forever chemicals or pfas
37:38
yeah wow yeah and the that that is so crazy because it's an open wound yes
37:45
it's like literally mainlining right into your bloodstream it's nuts and you
37:50
talk about this stuff today on social media and you're accused of fear-mongering of being alarmist you're not it's yeah what is that though is
37:57
that trolls from pharmaceutical companies I mean there there that's
38:03
something that I guarantee you corporations use if if Nations use it
38:08
and we know they do and we know we do we know that there's troll farms in Russia we know this is a real thing why
38:15
wouldn't corporations use that too especially if they could farm that off and be removed from it as far as like
38:22
being able to trace back the paperwork I mean we see it all the I mean even with in our own you know
38:28
within our own government the USDA the the dietary guidelines for Americans 95%
38:33
of people on that committee have had have or have had conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry and the
38:41
food industry yeah at least 50% that I'm aware of today you know working on the
38:47
2020 20 2025 issue um we see all the time there's been a number of uh great
38:54
um journalism done by done in the Washington Post um exposing how the food industry pays
39:00
dietitians to promote you know certain a certain ideology around food that all
39:07
foods are cool you know you just have to eat less and move more all foods fit there are no good or bad foods which
39:13
yeah it's hilarious it's hilarious it's crazy yeah I mean these companies they they pay these people that are body
39:19
positive influencers as well yeah so they're they're basically paying people
39:24
that are ill because of eating these things to tell tell other people it's okay to eat these things and then it's
39:29
somehow or another phobic whether it's fat phobic or whatever it is to not
39:35
encourage body positivity and it's stupid it's just stupid it's stupid for the people that
39:42
are getting it it's St it's stupid for the people that are promoting it it's stupid for our culture to be inundated
39:49
with this nonsense and misinformation where we have to sort through it and try to do deeper research and condu conduct
39:57
you know consult people who actually understand what's going on it's so disheartening that we live in this world
40:03
that's so compromised by money that information about key things like your
40:08
own health is so distorted that it's hard like you know you talk to people
40:15
and so many people have like a basic misunderstanding of what is good and not good for you and all of it is because of
40:22
this kind of thing that it's just so prevalent and it's so confusing and you're getting expert advice from
40:29
people which is one of the wildest ones for me when you look at oh thank you did some coffee in your system there fell
40:36
thanks cheers sir cheers good to see you same um one of the things is crazy to me
40:42
is that we get expert advice from people that are clearly sick how many times have you had nutrition or dietary advice
40:49
from someone who is obese yeah you're fat you're you have no muscle your body
40:55
looks like it's just in Decay and you're the person giving advice yeah I mean Mo
41:02
most of the social media you know personas that I've observed that purport
41:08
to be experts or that you know that that seem to have I don't know
41:13
whether it's through credentialism a degree of authority I mean I wouldn't send a loved one to yeah you know it's
41:20
just gaslighting on a on a mass scale CU you know your your average person today comes across this iology that all foods
41:28
are fine it's all good and they try to reduce their consumption of the crap that they're
41:34
already eating and they end up failing at that because it's really hard to moderate your consumption of these foods
41:40
which have been engineered to be consumed quickly and regularly and then they feel as though
41:48
they're you know they they feel moral failure and and then it just creates
41:53
this vicious cycle of of yo-yo dieting we're not being honest about about the way that these Foods impact behavior and
42:00
today 60% of the calories that your average person consumes comes from ultr processed foods which are foods that are
42:05
highly calorie dense they are nutrient poor they are minimally satiating
42:11
they're Uber delicious I mean they push your brain to a bliss Point Beyond which self-control is is seemingly impossible
42:18
and by the way it's these ultr processed foods that are a major route of ingestion for these kinds of chemicals
42:24
that we're talking about these industrial chemicals forever chemicals you know ultr processed foods are you
42:29
know if you want more phalates in your body consume more Ultra processed foods there was a study that recently was
42:35
published that found that for every 10% increment in ultr processed food consumption pregnant women were ingesting about 14% higher levels of of
42:42
these phalates right I mean you had you did such an amazing episode with shaa Swan a couple years ago talking about
42:49
the fact that our exposure to these chemicals are reducing the anogenital distance in boys right which is a which
42:55
is a very easy I don't know about if easy is the right term but it's a very it's it's a very simple uh proxy to use
43:03
to identify how these compounds might be affecting us right but that's only what you can observe like how are these chemicals affecting us in other ways
43:11
right you know and um and so it's crazy and and these are the kinds of these are
43:16
the kinds of foods that we're just eating and mass day in and day out and 60% is the average children consume
43:22
about 70% Ultra processed foods today on average black Americans unfortunately
43:27
consume 80% Ultra processed foods and there's obviously this is not all Choice
43:32
there are systemic issues many people today still live in food deserts accessibility is an issue cost is an issue I know all that but the messaging
43:40
that we're getting from our most trusted sources is essentially that everything's fine just eat less move
43:47
more yeah and it's so difficult for the average American to access information
43:53
from people that they can trust or to figure out who to trust you know you get experts that tell you oh you don't need
44:00
to take supplements you just need a well balanced diet and you go oh vitamins are [ __ ] and you have people expressing
44:05
that like it's just how could someone say that when there's so much data on the efficacy of vitamins and the benefit
44:12
of vitamin supplementation of course and vitamins I mean we we need vitamins
44:18
supplements can be really helpful and I get asked this a lot like who do you know who to trust on social media I
44:24
think a really good heuristic is you you know somebody actually I was giving a talk recently and somebody somebody
44:31
uh um highlighted that one good indicator of somebody who is is likely
44:39
trustworthy is somebody who is willing to present the opposing Viewpoint and not strawman the opposing viewpoint but
44:45
actually Steelman the opposing Viewpoint like to actually make clear what the opposing Viewpoint is and then to refute
44:51
that Viewpoint so they're not ideologically connected to the result exactly so I I try to do that I try to
44:57
you know share where I've changed my mind in the past um or where I've evolved my viewpoint um I try to be
45:04
clear about the things that I don't know I don't know you know I'm I'm also not trying to be one of these people on social media that like purports to know
45:10
everything to have the magic routine or protocol you know for for every for
45:16
everything you know as as like some kind of um you know all knowing um Arbiter of
45:22
of health information because I feel like there are still so many unknowns and I could easily day develop what it
45:28
is that my mom developed I hope I don't I had a a health scare in
45:34
2022 that um you know just proved to me that you know there is a lot of like
45:39
luck that goes into this you know into this equation as well my back hurts I don't know how to fix that like you know
45:45
what have you been doing for your back um well I try you have a bulging
45:51
discs what do you have oh man I have um like mild or it's probably progressed
45:57
but it's like disc desiccation between L5 and S1 and then um so it's like basically a dehydrated disc and uh which
46:05
I got from just squatting improperly 10 years ago and my back's like never been the same since um have you ever used a
46:14
reverse hyper no you don't know about that no uh it was uh a piece of
46:20
Machinery that was uh designed by um uh
46:26
West W side barbell Lou Roberts what's his name Simmons Simmons Louis Simmons
46:31
sorry Louis Simmons from Westside barbell developed this machine that strengthens the back and actively
46:37
decompresses the back and uh what it is is your body weight with your chest down
46:43
sits on this bench and underneath it you hook your legs to this thing that's like a leg curl and you lift up which
46:51
strengthens your back and on the D cell when it brings it down it's actively pulling your back H and it's phenomenal
46:59
W it's really good it's really good at decompressing your back it's really good at strengthening all the muscles around your back to keep your back stable this
47:05
is the machine right here we have one yeah we have the Rogue version of it out there in the studio I could show it to you after we're done here but I love it
47:12
it's phenomenal and it's it's great for developing leg strength and hamstring strength and glute strength but really I
47:18
use it for lower back for decompression show a video Jamie if you would so you
47:24
could we could see how it worked this is Louie uh he was on the podcast back in the day he was an amazing guy and very
47:31
Innovative so he was a powerlifter and developed some back problems himself but you see how on the down swing it's it's
47:39
actually pulling your back and you can feel it pull your back so you can feel it like separate everything you feel
47:46
like little things pop in there and it it provides relief and for him they were
47:51
telling them he had to get his disc fused because he had too much compression he said well what about decompression
47:57
and they were reluctant to consider that and so he's a genius a fitness genius
48:02
and so he designed a machine that would actively decompress the spine while strengthening the muscles around it whoa
48:10
that sounds awesome yeah have you done any decompression stuff I bought this thing that you like hang upside down on
48:16
it that uh you know I mean this was like a couple years ago um I don't know if it
48:23
helped that much you know what actually has helped me a lot what it I took up uh during the Pand boxing really yeah okay
48:28
so what's going on is just strengthening your lower back which is helping you that's helped yeah yeah you need to strengthen it for sure this is better um
48:36
another thing when you're talking about the hanging you're talking about a teeter right which Teeter I like that
48:41
that unit but Teeter makes what I think is a far better unit which is the decks whoa and so we have that outside too and
48:48
what that does is instead of hanging from your ankles so your legs tense up and your legs resist the weight of your
48:54
body instead of that every everything hinges down from your hips and you will like immediately feel when you get on
49:01
there your back popping and decompressing I use that every day it's
49:07
called the Dex de2 and uh you know just buy it off Amazon it's not expensive you also could
49:13
do back extension exercises on it it's very versatile machine but man for
49:18
decompressing the back I've never found anything better Chang my life that's awesome and I also use those kinds of
49:25
things with weight so I what I'll do is I'll hold uh two 20 lb dumbbells in my
49:31
hands and I'll do back extensions so I'm developing strength around all those
49:37
lower back issues I've had a lot of back issues from dis degeneration from Jiu-Jitsu you know 20 years of wrestling
49:45
with men and getting your neck strangled and it's like does a lot of stuff to your to your back that's not good and you've never had surgery right no
49:52
everyone that I know has had problems I do not know anyone that has had back surgery that's like that's the best
49:58
thing I ever did everyone like Daniel Cormier UFC champion you know he's like
50:04
I was never the same once they cut my back open it was never the same there's ways to also deal with it with stem
50:10
cells and one of the things they're doing now because the FDA has such restrictive rules on stem cells people
50:15
are going overseas and other countries to do it and uh I have some friends that run a clinic down in Tijana the cellular
50:23
performance Institute and I know many people including a good friend of mine my friend Shane Dorian who is a world
50:30
champion Surfer who had pretty severe back problems he went there and they
50:35
they're injecting directly into the discs and there's a very strict protocol
50:40
of recovery you're not doing anything physical for like a couple of months after that you can walk essentially they
50:47
don't want any stress on the back anything that's going to imped the healing process he said within 6 months
50:55
after that all of the ISS isues that he had went away wow getting up in the morning it was always like oh just stiff
51:01
no stiff like a new back now wow wild wild and you could do that again and you
51:06
could do it again and you could do it again like it's not like a thing you could only do once right it's not like a surgery that they're going to go in and
51:12
remove part of your disc so they do that the disectomy they'll take a a chunk of your disc out that's pressing against a
51:18
nerve but now guess what now you have less disc tissue you have less cushioning in between your spinal column
51:24
which is not good and this is a a way that they're doing now that seems to work and it's certainly at least worth a
51:31
try you know for people that are considering something that can have life-changing
51:36
effects yeah I mean whenever I sneeze I have back pain tilting over a sink putting on my underwear it's it's uh you
51:43
know but I live with it like I I me I'm strong I'm you know the strongest I've ever been I'm in you know good shape but
51:48
it is my it is sort of my Achilles heel um do you ever do uh windmills like
51:54
kettle bell windmills no another phenomenal lower back exercise great for
52:00
the entire core but it's you you clean and press a kettle bell and then you
52:06
turn to the side with like you so if I'm holding the kettle bell up with my right arm my left foot would be pointed that
52:12
way uh with your knee bent and you drop down like this whoa yeah and then all
52:17
the way up like that and so it's on both sides it's strengthening all the supporting muscles around your spine and
52:24
it just gives you much better range of mo motion I could feel things sort of pop and move and twist around when I do
52:30
it it's great love it phenomenal I'm going to do that yeah Turkish getups another one do you ever do those no not
52:37
a very sexy exercise but phenomenal for your core and just your overall ability
52:43
to move things you know because it it it it strengthens all of the connecting
52:50
areas instead of strengthening different specific muscle groups it's it really is working on strengthening all the
52:56
weaknesses in your system you know you know how Turkish getup works so you're lying flat on your back you press this
53:04
up you sit up you get to one knee you post the other knee you get up you stand up straight and then you lower yourself
53:10
back the same way damn very very difficult exercise difficult to do but
53:15
phenomenal for the whole thing wow and I think one of the problems that people have when it comes to weightlifting and
53:21
developing problems and you know I've certainly had plenty is that you're overlook loing certain muscle groups and
53:29
then all the stuff that connects things together the lower back the neck all these different issues they they happen
53:35
because your whole system is not strong uniformly like you're you're developing
53:43
strong muscle groups like quads you know but you know how what how are the
53:48
hamstrings how are the things behind your calves how are you know how are your tib muscles how was how's your
53:53
lower back like what's what's going on what exercis you've done to make sure that your spine is
54:00
protected I find that unilateral movements are really helpful like um Bulgarian split split squats as painful
54:07
as those are to do um I find that those help a lot and they don't aggravate aggravate my lower back at all like I
54:13
can't I can't barbell squat I can't even really CU my range of motion is now so limited do like leg presses like on the
54:19
machine your range of motion for your back when you do leg presses it's just
54:24
limited in the sense that like my I don't know what I I don't know the terminology but it's like hip mobility
54:30
or something like my legs only get to a certain point where I get that buttwink
54:35
thing you know like my lower back starts curving up okay words on the leg press and that's like strain do you um do
54:43
slant board exercises no I don't what is that okay there's a guy called the slant
54:48
board guy that made this dope product and one of the things I love about his go to slant board guys page one of the
54:54
things I love about his is his has these little hooks on the side where you can add bands to it as well W and so what a
55:01
slant board is is a board that you do squats on where the back of it is raised so your toes are pointing down your
55:07
heels are pointing up and what this allows you to do is get a very deep Bend of the knees and you get your
55:14
knees that push out over your toes and you really lower you know as to heels
55:21
and what I do with those that's it right there that's I have that one at home he made me one of so you can do this they're doing it with
55:28
different exercises here these are just calf strengthening exercises I do them with body weight squats and one of the
55:34
things I do them with is goblet squats um I have very strong legs but I never
55:40
do deadlifts and I never do like regular squats the heaviest thing I squat with
55:46
is a 100 lb kettle bell so I hold a 100lb kettle bell in in front of me and
55:52
then I do goblet squats on that and what that does is it strengthens you when you
55:58
have a a heavyweight like a 100 PB Kettle BT and you're holding it in this position just to hold it there your
56:04
whole body wants to go forward right because it's like it's all this weight out in front of you so you're
56:10
stabilizing it with your lower back you're stabilizing with your abs and then you're dropping down very deep into
56:17
this body weight Squat and then up for this goblet squat H and I do it on that
56:23
on the slant board phenomenal and it doesn't put a lot train on your back that's awesome I've noticed that front
56:29
squats or yeah maybe I guess I've used um dumbbells to do goblet s those are
56:35
great too yeah a lot less load on the spine so that's that's helped me a lot too and really hard to do yeah so this
56:42
is it right this gentleman's doing it right here perfectly so he's doing a bunch of different variations of it so
56:48
he's doing you know oh like yeah okay he's going s side lunges so the Goblet
56:54
Squad is there so he's got this is a who's this guy right here on oh it's on
57:00
the slant board guys channel so slant board guy like I said he sent me that
57:05
and he he's he's been doing this he made this quite a long time ago and I I think it's
57:11
just a phenomenal piece of exercise equipment that I I don't I have in every gym I have here I have my house that's
57:17
freaking awesome yeah yeah I mean f Fitness is a huge part of my life but it's uh I've been limited for the past
57:24
decade because of the back because of the back yeah I'm after this podcast I'm going to take you next door and show you
57:29
that reverse hyper and and you get to experience that Dex yeah just those two things alone I think will provide you
57:35
tremendous relief so excited and the decks you can just have in your house it's like simple easy to set up I'm so
57:41
down yeah yeah I mean you know there's a lot that I you know obviously don't know
57:47
but uh but I know what I know and I know that from a from a nutritional standpoint from an environmental exposure standpoint your average
57:54
American today is inflicting self harm unwittingly on a daily basis yeah via the foods via the exposures yeah we're
58:01
just constantly taking in things that give us inflamation yeah and you know where our
58:08
circadian rhythms are all disregulated we're more sedentary than we've ever been we're exposed to I mean the I
58:14
believe it was the environmental working group identified 217 industrial chemicals in Cord Blood you know of
58:21
pregnant women we just we being exposed you know from from Every Which Way and it's not necessarily that it's like one
58:28
compound that's causing all of our problems you know but it's it's cumulative injury it's like we our
58:35
bodies are resilient but they can only contend with so much so you you throw all these exposures against the backdrop
58:41
of widespread nutrient deficiencies you know unprecedented
58:46
sedentary Behavior chronic stress poor sleep and it's a it's a recipe for
58:52
chronic disease I mean it's not to me it's it's very clear as to why so many of us seem to be suffering yeah and it's
58:59
very difficult for someone who's swimming in a sea of that to figure out how to course correct yeah and I you
59:05
know to to to to quote unquote detoxify which has become one of these contentious words now on social media
59:12
granted maybe possibly for good reason because it's used to sell detox supplements and things like that but I
59:17
mean our bodies can detox we just have to make sure that we're giving our bodies the right the right raw materials to to do that and that's actually one
59:24
reason why I think you know I'm not a carnivore Dieter I'm I'm I'm a big advocate of consuming grass-fed
59:30
grass-finished meat I'm a you know huge protein guy but I do think dietary fiber plays an important role in terms of
59:36
helping us you know detoxify release some of these compounds when we go to theath how does dietary fiber play a
59:42
role in detoxifying so the three primary means in which a body detoxifies is via peeing
59:49
pooping and sweating and when you release bile acids into the Lumin of the
59:56
gut with those bile acids come compounds that the liver has has essentially
1:00:01
deemed has has marked for removal from the body and fiber dietary fiber soluble
1:00:07
fiber um specifically sequesters these bile acids and they because they're
1:00:14
absorbed by the soluble fiber they disallow reabsorption and so you poop them out that's one of the reasons
1:00:20
that's that's actually the mechanism by which soluble fiber reduces can reduce
1:00:25
LL cholesterol apob because it sequesters bio acids which your liver creates using cholesterol and um so you
1:00:34
you essentially like poop out lipids toxins I mean if you're not pooping on a regular basis you're harboring you know
1:00:40
toxins that's why I think that that's probably one of the mechanisms by which fiber seems to be so consistently
1:00:46
associated with health span lifespan um you know and those
1:00:52
observations are not necessarily causal like there's healthy user bias there I think you know obviously people who eat
1:00:58
more fruits and vegetables today they likely have other healthy dietary and lifestyle Habits Like that's
1:01:05
that's clear right but I do think there's a mechanism for fiber to help um remove some of these toxins and and the
1:01:12
like and is the idea behind that mechanism that fiber encourages defecation fiber the soluble fiber like
1:01:20
traps it basically bile acids get released into the Lumin of the gut which help break down down fats right you need
1:01:27
these you need these compounds to break down and and assimilate fats from your diet right but there's a very small I
1:01:32
believe it's at the end of the small intestine where these acids essentially would otherwise get reabsorbed but because they're trapped by the soluble
1:01:39
gel forming fiber they get passed and so how is that different than what would
1:01:45
happen if you just ate meat and you have these compounds that's a big question mark but
1:01:51
I think that that's uh something that is not often discussed and should be discussed one of the potential benefits
1:01:58
of fiber is the fact that it helps trap toxins in the gut and meat does not no
1:02:03
meat is meat is a low residue food food meat is largely absorbed in the small intestine I mean when people you know
1:02:09
the bulk of stool i