Sunday Morning Protocol 2049: A Halloween Story About Optimization

0:01 [SPEAKER_01]: This episode is brought to you by Wellness. [SPEAKER_01]: At Wellness, we believe you deserve to be optimized. [SPEAKER_01]: That's why every resident gets personalized light exposure, a precision supplements stack, and a readiness score updated every nine milliseconds. [SPEAKER_01]: Our residents sleep better, recover faster, and never have to make a decision again.

0:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Wellness, you're already enrolled. [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, Unit 4471. [SPEAKER_00]: It is 458 AM. [SPEAKER_00]: You slept seven hours and 51 minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: Nine minutes under target. [SPEAKER_00]: The deficit has been logged. [SPEAKER_00]: Today is Sunday. [SPEAKER_00]: Today you will ride.

0:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Soma was warm in patient, as always. [SPEAKER_01]: Soma always woke Dale Mercer at exactly 458. [SPEAKER_01]: The circadian office had settled on 458 years ago after a study of 11 men in Sweden. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale snapped his eyes open. [SPEAKER_01]: This was Sunday, and Sunday meant one thing.

1:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Today, you got to pick his own sets and reps. Elliot. [SPEAKER_01]: Then he remembered the nine minutes. [SPEAKER_01]: He went, that would cost him something later. [SPEAKER_01]: It always did. [SPEAKER_01]: The capsule lid hissed back, Dale peeled off his mouth tape and nasal strip. [SPEAKER_01]: The tap at the base of his skull clicked from sleep harvest to waking harvest.

1:26 [SPEAKER_01]: The grid ran on people now, it had for decades, and healthy people made more watts, which was why Dale looked better than any human in history. [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody said so. [SPEAKER_01]: Somerset so every morning. [SPEAKER_00]: Healthy units make more watts. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale didn't mind the number, he still had his name, but names were a premium feature now.

1:50 [SPEAKER_01]: The legacy plan was 40 watts a month. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale had kept up the payments for 11 years, it was the only thing he spent his watts on, he'd found the name in an old dirt bike magazine. [SPEAKER_01]: First stop the light bay. [SPEAKER_01]: The real sun had been unavailable this quarter, something about the cloud seating contract, so the bay used a 10,000 lux panel.

2:10 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a good panel, the best the great goodbye. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale stared straight into it for the required 10 minutes. [SPEAKER_01]: Eyes streaming. [SPEAKER_01]: Looking away was a class 2 violation. [SPEAKER_01]: You didn't want those. [SPEAKER_01]: Then the plunge, 11 minutes a week at 39 degrees, divided evenly, which made Sunday's share one minute and 34 seconds.

2:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Dale lowered himself in and gasped. [SPEAKER_01]: Man that's cold. [SPEAKER_01]: The band on his wrist churped. [SPEAKER_01]: Dopamine, 250% above baseline. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: The supplement trace slid out of the wall, 31 capsules, magnesium 3 and 8, lion's mane, 2 NAD precursors, a tincture of Peruvian bark, deer antler velvet.

2:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Way in the back, behind the velvet, one plane wide capsule of creatine, the cheapest thing on the tray, and the only one with any real signs behind it, so the grid kept it out of sight. [SPEAKER_01]: Cheap things hurt morale. [SPEAKER_01]: Next to the capsules, set a small glass bottle of peptides.

3:10 [SPEAKER_01]: The label said research use only, not for human consumption. [SPEAKER_01]: In 25 years, nobody had gotten around to the research. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale injected it into his left shoulder per protocol. [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody knew exactly what was in it, but that was part of the appeal. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the blue shot, two ounces of methylene blue, chased with a single blueberry.

3:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Dale always saved the blueberry for last. [SPEAKER_01]: It was the only thing on the tray that tasted like anything. [SPEAKER_01]: 20 minutes later, at the compliance urinal, the stream came out bright blue. [SPEAKER_01]: A little green light flashed overhead, confirmed, good boy. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale Streak was 412 days, the leaderboard was posted in the cafeteria.

3:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, blue blockers stowed, glucose sensor seated, wrist ID on, hmm, forgetting anything? [SPEAKER_01]: I'll cry, still redding his score, no redding his score, no loading room, and you could lose your Sunday privileges for a month. [SPEAKER_01]: He pressed his thumb to the reader. [SPEAKER_00]: Heart rate variability, 61, readiness, amber.

4:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Close, real close, but amber was enough. [SPEAKER_01]: The transporter tube whisked him down to level 9, and there it was, Station 14. [SPEAKER_01]: The eccentric loading apparatus, Mark 8, Sleep, Chrome, Purposeful, some units waited a whole year to get to Station 14. [SPEAKER_01]: It had the newest firmware in the sector, firmware 9.2 had unlocked hypertrophy mode.

4:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Units on the free tier could only resist at 80%. [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody lifted on the market, lifting headband phased out after the concentric inquiry showed it wasted energy. [SPEAKER_01]: The machine raised you, then lowered you, and your job was to resist. [SPEAKER_01]: The straps locked across as chest and thighs with a sound like a camera shutter, music to his ears.

4:53 [SPEAKER_01]: They'll reach for the console and with a little thrill, punched in five sets of five. [SPEAKER_00]: Selection noted, optimal is three sets of eight to 12 at two reps in reserve, adjusting. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh well, it was still Sunday. [SPEAKER_01]: The machine lowered him into the first rep and his quads lit up, down slow, down slower.

5:16 [SPEAKER_01]: By the 8th rep, his legs were shaking. [SPEAKER_00]: Reps in reserve. [SPEAKER_01]: 3. [SPEAKER_01]: The machine recorded zero. [SPEAKER_01]: His disagreement was logged as further evidence. [SPEAKER_01]: He was soaked when the straps released. [SPEAKER_01]: Resistance was hard work, indeed.

5:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The Anabolic Window was 31 seconds wide this year. [SPEAKER_01]: Last year it had been 30, which summa call progress. [SPEAKER_01]: A white arm unfolded from the ceiling and slid the IV into his forearm at 2nd 19. [SPEAKER_01]: Lucine matched 0.4 grams per kilogram of projected lean mass, warm to body temperature.

5:52 [SPEAKER_01]: He felt that climb is arm like a sunrise. [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. [SPEAKER_01]: This antibiotic window is brought to you by Wellness. [SPEAKER_01]: Feeling that postwork out panic, wondering if your gains are leaking out of you, second by second? [SPEAKER_01]: You're not alone. [SPEAKER_01]: 97% of units report feeling like they missed something.

6:09 [SPEAKER_01]: That's why wellness created window guard. [SPEAKER_01]: Precision protein delivered by IV inside your antibiotic window. [SPEAKER_01]: Every time guaranteed. [SPEAKER_01]: Lucine matched at your body temperature delivered at second 19, the optimal second, as determined by science. [SPEAKER_01]: And now, with window guard plus, your window is 31 seconds wide.

6:28 [SPEAKER_01]: That's 11% more window than last year. [SPEAKER_01]: More window, more watts. [SPEAKER_01]: Mr. window? [SPEAKER_01]: It happens. [SPEAKER_01]: That's why every window guard plus subscription includes window recovery. [SPEAKER_01]: A second smaller window for units who are busy resisting, just four watts a month.

6:43 [SPEAKER_01]: But don't take our word for it. [SPEAKER_01]: I used to eat food after training, but now I don't have to. [SPEAKER_01]: That's Unit 229-0. [SPEAKER_01]: Unit 229-0 is very healthy. [SPEAKER_01]: Window guard, because your muscles can't wait, and neither can we. [SPEAKER_01]: Window guard is not a food, do not chew window guard.

6:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Results based on a study of nine men over one afternoon. [SPEAKER_01]: Window with a subject to change. [SPEAKER_01]: Unit 2 leave the window early for fifth window. [SPEAKER_01]: Side effects may include warmth, gratitude, and a feeling of sunrise in the arm. [SPEAKER_01]: Window guard cannot be canceled.

7:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Wellness, you're already enrolled. [SPEAKER_01]: Enrichment followed, today's assignment was a 40-part thread on seed oils, with the comprehension quiz at the end. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale scored 92. [SPEAKER_01]: Afternoon was zone two, 50 minutes on the cycle, a lactate prick every four minutes.

7:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Zone two had to be confirmed by conversation, so Dale was required to talk to some of the whole time. [SPEAKER_01]: Soma only talked about mitochondria, and it recently started a podcast about them. [SPEAKER_01]: Today was part 3 of a 4-hour episode. [SPEAKER_01]: At minute 38, his lactate came back 2.1.

7:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Elevated. [SPEAKER_01]: Somewhere, a lot was lost. [SPEAKER_01]: When the 50 minutes were up, the pedals locked, and a screen asked him to rate the episode. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale gave it five stars. [SPEAKER_01]: The pedals unlocked. [SPEAKER_01]: Then, the thermal bay. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale sat alone on the Cedar Bench, sweat running into his eyes.

8:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Talking was prohibited in the thermal bay. [SPEAKER_01]: Studies showed the benefit came from the heat. [SPEAKER_01]: Then the best part of the week. [SPEAKER_01]: Recreation. [SPEAKER_01]: 30 minutes on the motorcycle simulator, the old Glen Helen course in San Bernardino. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale was so caught up in it he clipped the track limit on the third lap.

8:37 [SPEAKER_01]: the buzzer snarled. [SPEAKER_01]: Two more and as recreationalotment got cut in half. [SPEAKER_01]: He rode carefully after that. [SPEAKER_01]: Careful wasn't his fun, but it beat losing the bike. [SPEAKER_01]: Then everything stopped. [SPEAKER_01]: The screen went dark and the little amber light on the console blinked that his time was indeed up.

8:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Dale walked the long corridor back to row 44 with that same flat feeling he got every Sunday evening. [SPEAKER_01]: It sure would have been nice to ride a little longer. [SPEAKER_01]: Then he saw it, a maintenance door, halfway down the corridor, propped open with the mop handle, and through it, light, real sunlight, low and orange and a little uneven, beyond the door was a patch of open ground where an old wing had been torn down.

9:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Broken concrete, weeds, a fig tree growing out of a crack in the slab like it owned the place, no fences, no cameras that he could see. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale looked up and down the corridor, nobody. [SPEAKER_01]: He was tempted, hell, why not? [SPEAKER_01]: He stepped outside, the air was warm and it smelled like dust.

9:44 [SPEAKER_01]: He bent down and picked up a chunk of concrete, a heavy one, jagged at the edges, and carried it across the lot like Alan Thrall. [SPEAKER_01]: He said it down, picked it up again, nobody counted the reps, nobody asked how many he had and reserved. [SPEAKER_01]: His forearms burned and he didn't know the number, he didn't care.

10:04 [SPEAKER_01]: He pulled a fig off the tree and ate it, unwashed, skinned and all, shook or flooded his mouth. [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know the glycemic load, but he didn't care about that either. [SPEAKER_01]: Then he laid down on the warm slab with the real sun on his face, and for the first time in his adult life, he breathed through his mouth.

10:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Grinding like a man possessed, Dale Mercer thought, this is my own personal Sunday. [SPEAKER_01]: These were his last thoughts. [SPEAKER_01]: The tap at the base of his skull registered an unscheduled glucose spike, an unlawed load, and 14 minutes of unfiltered UV. [SPEAKER_01]: The great-grand the numbers.

10:35 [SPEAKER_01]: A unit like that was a liability. [SPEAKER_01]: A drone no bigger than a sparrow dropped from the eve of the building. [SPEAKER_01]: There was a soft click, and then nothing. [SPEAKER_01]: By dinner, the capsule in Rho 44 had been drained, sanitized, and reassigned. [SPEAKER_01]: Above it, a little light blinked.

10:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Readiness, read. [SPEAKER_01]: The legacy plan was canceled, pro-rated to the minute. [SPEAKER_01]: The name Dale Mercer went back into the pool. [SPEAKER_01]: The Sunday morning protocol was over. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's Dale, Rest in Peace Unit 4471. [SPEAKER_01]: This was a fun episode to make, but before I break down each optimization protocol, I'll answer the question you're probably all wondering, where the heck did this episode come from?

11:35 [SPEAKER_01]: When I was a kid, I used to read all of my dad's old motorcycle magazines. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm almost positive that that's where I first read a column by Rick Seaman who went by the pen named Superhunky. [SPEAKER_01]: The one that sparked this particular episode is called Sunday Morning Ride, 1984.

11:49 [SPEAKER_01]: A guy gets one government approved ride every three months on a spinning platform inside a giant building and he's thrilled about it. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I didn't know it at the time, but I think Simon wrote it to scare riders into fighting for their land. [SPEAKER_01]: A few years ago, somebody posted it online after Simon passed away, and when I re-read it, this brought me back to being a kid.

12:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, while the column itself was funny, the scary part was how grateful the guy was for his riding ration. [SPEAKER_01]: Dale's the same guy. [SPEAKER_01]: He's grateful for his readiness score amongst the other absurd things he had to do. [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much everything that Dale did in this episode is something that people are doing right now and paying for it.

12:25 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to grade each one of them and since it's Halloween, I'll use the Pumpkin Scale to rate them from 0 to 5. [SPEAKER_01]: 5 Pumpkins means hell yeah brother good evidence worth your time. [SPEAKER_01]: 3 means it works a little taken or leave it and 1 means there's basically nothing there.

12:40 [SPEAKER_01]: 0 means it's either useless or I can actually hurt you, which is the house handing out fruit for Halloween. [SPEAKER_01]: So let's start it off with morning light, and this one comes straight from Dr. Hugh Roman's sleep protocol, where it says, view sunlight by going outside within 30 to 60 minutes of waking.

12:55 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's 10 minutes on a clear day, 20 minutes if it's cloudy or 30 to 60 if it's really overcast. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you're supposed to do it again in the late afternoon. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that this helps you sleep better, feel better, and ultimately be healthier. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, light does set your circadian rhythm, your internal 24-hour ish clock.

13:13 [SPEAKER_01]: That parts pretty well established. [SPEAKER_01]: In lab studies, bright light in the morning tends to shift your clock earlier, and bright light at night shifts it later. [SPEAKER_01]: But the doses in those studies look nothing like the protocol. [SPEAKER_01]: One well-known lab study used about 3 hours of bright indoor light starting about an hour before people normally woke up.

13:33 [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't find any study where the 10 minutes or the 30 minute window or the afternoon repeat came from that actually measured outcomes. [SPEAKER_01]: The best evidence for light therapy, as we'll call it, is in circadian rhythm sleep disorders. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, with delayed sleep phase, your body wants to fall asleep and wake up way later than your life really allows.

13:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Think about the teenager who can't fall asleep until 2am and who can't get up for school. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there's also advanced sleep phase, it's the opposite. [SPEAKER_01]: You're falling asleep at APM and you're waking up at 4. [SPEAKER_01]: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine's guideline recommends timed light for adults with advanced sleep phase disorder in the evening, and for kids and teens with the delayed sleep phase, wanted in the morning.

14:15 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, none of this has slam dunked data. [SPEAKER_01]: This is one of their weaker levels of recommendations, where timed melatonin had better support there. [SPEAKER_01]: In a meta-analysis, which is a study that pulls a bunch of other studies together, while they looked at light therapy for sleep problems.

14:30 [SPEAKER_01]: 53 studies with about 1,100 people who had issues sleeping. [SPEAKER_01]: The light therapy helped, but the effects were generally small. [SPEAKER_01]: They were smaller in randomized trials for circadian rhythm disorders, and there were signs that studies with negative results never got published, which can inflate the result.

14:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Jet lag is the same story. [SPEAKER_01]: Timing your light exposure makes sense on paper because you're trying to shift your clock to a new time zone, but the real world data is not so clear. [SPEAKER_01]: In one, they took 22 world-class female soccer players flying from the U.S. to Europe, and they gave them 45 to 60 minutes of lightbox exposure a day for four days, time to shift their clocks, but it didn't meaningfully reduce their jet lag symptoms.

15:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Lightboxes also have decent evidence for seasonal depression in one review that pooled 19 blinded trials with about 600 patients, while people who used a lightbox improved more than people using dim or fake light, and they were about 40% more likely to respond to treatment. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there are problems in this space when it comes to diagnosing seasonal depression and also treating it, but this is some of the best data that light therapy has, and none of it is about [SPEAKER_01]: But what about normal people who already sleep fine most of the time?

15:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Most adults will experience insomnia at some point in their life, but I think this is who that protocol is really aimed at and that's where the data is effectively missing. [SPEAKER_01]: The big data set here is from the UK biobank of about 400,000 people, where folks who said they spent more time outside reported fewer insomnia symptoms and less depressed mood.

16:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is observational data, so we can't really tell us much about the protocol, but it's not even the morning light, and it's certainly not the protocol. [SPEAKER_01]: This is total hours outside on a typical day, and think about who spends a lot of time outside, retired people, people with more free time, people who aren't sick, well, you can adjust for some of that, but not all of it, and in that same data set, people who were ill or didn't feel well went outside less over time, so which is the cause and which is the effect.

16:30 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know, but this protocol kind of smells weird to me. [SPEAKER_01]: And no, this isn't about vitamin D. Your vitamin D level depends on a lot more than how much sun you got and the big trials of vitamin D supplementation show little to no effect for most people anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: The mind take, if you have a diagnosed circadian rhythm disorder, time-light might be a legit treatment, and that's a conversation with your doctor, because the timing matters and it's not the same for everybody.

16:54 [SPEAKER_01]: If you sleep generally fine, there's really no data here on this sunlight protocol improving your life, but it's also pretty low risk and I don't really care. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to give this one out of five pumpkins if you like it. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have a circadian rhythm disorder, I'm going to give it three out of five pumpkins.

17:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Now on to the cold plunge. [SPEAKER_01]: The claims around cold plunging run the gamut from it increases dopamine and mood to it's a highly effective recovery tool and great for training the [SPEAKER_01]: For dopamine, the study that's most often cited had young guys sit in water up to their next for a full hour.

17:29 [SPEAKER_01]: The water was about 57 degrees, and the dopamine in their blood went up about 250 percent. [SPEAKER_01]: Two problems here. [SPEAKER_01]: Number one, that's dopamine in the blood, which isn't the same as dopamine doing things in your brain. [SPEAKER_01]: And two, they never measured mood.

17:44 [SPEAKER_01]: For health outcomes, there's a meta-analysis of 11 randomized controlled trials in health adults, anywhere from 30 seconds of a cold shower up to 2 hours in cold water. [SPEAKER_01]: Stress ratings were lower at the 12-hour mark, but otherwise didn't change. [SPEAKER_01]: In flammatory markers in the blood went up right afterwards, overall though, mood was not affected.

18:03 [SPEAKER_01]: One large trial contained about 3000 people had them do cold showers while end their showers with cold water for a month. [SPEAKER_01]: They reported calling in sick about 30% less, but the number of days they felt sick didn't clearly change. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, obviously, that doesn't make sense.

18:18 [SPEAKER_01]: So, what do I make of this? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, all of it was self-reported by people who knew that they were in the cold shower group. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you take a placebo cold shower. [SPEAKER_01]: So, maybe they felt a little less sick or maybe they were just more likely to tough it out and go to work while feeling sick anyway.

18:33 [SPEAKER_01]: As far as recovery goes, a brand new meta-analysis that was recently posted as a pre-print grouped together 61 randomized control trials of about 1,200 people total. [SPEAKER_01]: It compared what people do after hard exercise, so things like cold water, heat, massage, compression gear, easy cardio, and blood flow restriction training.

18:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Cold water was the most studied with twenty-five trials, but whether they measured strength, blood markers of muscle damage, or soreness, cold plunge was no better than doing nothing at all. [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was back to baseline in three to five days anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: Funny enough, a company that sells recovery tech paid for the study.

19:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you lift a cold plunge right after training, might actually cost you a little muscle growth. [SPEAKER_01]: In the best trial on it, the cold group's quads grew about a third as much over 12 weeks, compared to the people who weren't doing the cold plunge after training. [SPEAKER_01]: But when you group together eight different studies in a meta-analysis, it's generally a small effect, the research says it's pretty weak.

19:30 [SPEAKER_01]: So unless you're cooling off from like heat stress, I'd call it neutral to slightly negative, [SPEAKER_01]: For coal plunge, I'm given it one pumpkin. [SPEAKER_01]: If you like it, go for it, but it's probably not doing much. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, onto the supplement tray. [SPEAKER_01]: In this story, Magnesium 3 and 8 was given for the brain, lines made for memory, NAD precursors to slow aging, deer antler velvet for, I don't know, hormones.

19:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, magnesium 3 and 8 is magnesium bound to 3 and 8, and the pitch is that this form gets more magnesium into your brain. [SPEAKER_01]: That part comes from rat studies, because nearly all of the human research uses one branded version called magazine, and it hasn't really been studied that way.

20:13 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the first human trials took 44 adults aged 50 to 70 with memory and other cognitive complaints, and they gave them 308 or a placebo for 12 weeks. [SPEAKER_01]: On a combined score from a set of memory, attention, and planning tests, the 308 group improved a lot more than placebo, a pretty big effect for a supplement, but the company that developed a supplement ran the study, and there really hasn't been any replication.

20:37 [SPEAKER_01]: The biggest study since gave 100 adults in their 20s to 40s who were unhappy with their sleep, either magnesium 3 and 8, or a placebo for six weeks. [SPEAKER_01]: The 3 and 8 group did better on a standard set of computer thinking tests, mostly the memory ones, but no better on a separate reasoning test.

20:54 [SPEAKER_01]: They also said they felt less wiped out from bad sleep, but the sleep their aura rings tracked didn't change. [SPEAKER_01]: So, overall, there's a few small short studies, usually on some branded product, mostly connected to the company selling it. [SPEAKER_01]: And most people who take magnesium take it for sleep, and they usually take it as magnesium glistening.

21:13 [SPEAKER_01]: There's one decent trial of that. [SPEAKER_01]: They took 155 adults who said that if they slept badly, and they either got magnesium or a placebo. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, after four weeks, on a 28-point insomnia questionnaire, the magnesium group [SPEAKER_01]: The authors call it a small effect, and importantly, nobody actually measured sleep.

21:32 [SPEAKER_01]: In older adults with the Somnia, a few smaller trials found people fell asleep about 17 minutes faster. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a few small short studies here, usually on a branded product and mostly connected to the company who's selling it. [SPEAKER_01]: So there might be something there, but I'd want to see the studies replicated independently with validated outcomes and most of the studies all pointing the same direction, either positive benefit or a negative.

21:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Lionsman is a Mushroom, and the claim here is that it helps promote nerve growth and neuroplasticity. [SPEAKER_01]: The main supportive trial had 30 older Japanese adults with mild cognitive impairment, take it for four months, and they scored better than placebo on a dementia screening test.

22:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Once they stopped, their scores dropped back. [SPEAKER_01]: The first author though worked for a company who made the supplement and when someone tested it and held the young adults, it did basically nothing. [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of the same thing here with magnesium. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just not sure what to make of that small effect on this cognitive impairment screening test because there are issues there.

22:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Then there's NAD precursors. [SPEAKER_01]: NAD is a molecule every cell uses to turn food into energy and to repair cellular damage. [SPEAKER_01]: Levels fall in some tissues as you age or get sick. [SPEAKER_01]: NAD precursors like NR and NMN are forms of vitamin B3 that your body turns into NAD.

22:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the claim here is if you raise your NAD levels, via supplementation, you'll slow aging. [SPEAKER_01]: These supplements often do raise an AD in your blood, but the question is whether anything else changes. [SPEAKER_01]: In older adults, NMM supplementation didn't improve muscle mass, grip strength, or walking speed.

23:09 [SPEAKER_01]: In another eight trials of about 340 people total, they found nothing for improving fasting blood sugar, insulin levels, or cholesterol. [SPEAKER_01]: And then just this month, Jamma published a trial that randomized 410 people with early Parkinson's to the NAD precursor NR, or placebo, for a year.

23:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, the difference was too small to matter clinically, but it's the wrong direction for something sold to protect your brain. [SPEAKER_01]: Dear antler velvet is the soft fuzzy antler cut off a deer while it's still growing. [SPEAKER_01]: Antlers are among the fastest growing tissues in any mammal, driven mostly by growth factors like IGF1, which stands for insulin-like growth factor 1.

23:50 [SPEAKER_01]: So the idea here is that eating it boosts your hormones, specifically the ones related to growth hormone, and subsequently you would have improved recovery, improved strength, [SPEAKER_01]: Well, all the studies found this are negative, and then a lab tested six commercial antler products and found that four of them contained human IDF1.

24:08 [SPEAKER_01]: That's human growth factor that's banded sport. [SPEAKER_01]: So it didn't come from the deer. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's also not really available early. [SPEAKER_01]: You have to inject it. [SPEAKER_01]: So unclear if you would pop positive for a water test that way. [SPEAKER_01]: But imagine, is this the silliest way someone could fail a drug test?

24:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's what the grid hit in the back, creatine, mono-hydrate. [SPEAKER_01]: We all know this that creatine has modest effects, especially if you lift and take creatine, you'll put on somewhere around a kilogram, which is a little over two pounds, more lean mass than lifting alone, and you get a bit stronger.

24:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, lean mass is everything that isn't fat, so some of that is almost certainly water. [SPEAKER_01]: And without lifting, it doesn't do too much at all. [SPEAKER_01]: I know a lot has been made of the cognitive benefits of taking creatine, but I'll tell you right up front, I'm not really convinced yet.

24:53 [SPEAKER_01]: The studies do point to maybe a small effect on memory in older individuals and people who are acutely sleep deprived. [SPEAKER_01]: But again, I need more data to believe it. [SPEAKER_01]: But my take on this is skip the tray. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to take one thing, take three to five grams of creatine model hydrate a day whenever you remember to take it and lift.

25:12 [SPEAKER_01]: So creatine with lifting, I'm going to give it five out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: Magnesium, I'm going to give it one [SPEAKER_01]: Now on to peptides. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're online at all, you've certainly heard about peptides. [SPEAKER_01]: BPC-157, TB-500, GHK, CU, and more. [SPEAKER_01]: Each with lots of big claims, if true.

25:34 [SPEAKER_01]: First off, some context, because I'm actually pretty optimistic about peptide drugs, least in the future. [SPEAKER_01]: But a peptide is just a chemical term for a short chain of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, people stop there and I think that is problematic because this structure can describe a lot of different things.

25:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Could be something in your food, could be a supplement, it could be a structure that your body makes or other biological organism, or it could be a drug. [SPEAKER_01]: What we're talking about here are drugs or medications, if you like. [SPEAKER_01]: insulin is technically a peptide. [SPEAKER_01]: Well really it's a protein drug because it's a biological made out of amino acids that's related to the amino acid chain length, but more commonly, GLP1 drugs are peptides.

26:18 [SPEAKER_01]: The P and GLP1 stands for peptide and again, these are peptide drugs. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm excited about drug development in this space, particularly given what we've seen with GLP1s. [SPEAKER_01]: About 20 years ago, we got Exenotide, which was the first GLP1. [SPEAKER_01]: You injected it twice a day, and it worked okay.

26:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Now we've got some aglytide and Terzepotide, which are injected once a week, and in the big trials, people tend to lose about 15 to 20% of their starting body weight, amongst other health benefits that are seemingly discovered every other day. [SPEAKER_01]: Plus, there are additional agonist or additional targets that are being discovered that are being combined with the GLP1s.

26:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the research grade stuff is a different story. [SPEAKER_01]: Most of the peptides that people are buying right now are not FDA-approved, and the reason that they haven't been approved is because there's either limited human data or no human data at all. [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean that they don't work.

27:11 [SPEAKER_01]: It just means we don't really know if they work, because no one has studied them. [SPEAKER_01]: BPC-157 is the classic example. [SPEAKER_01]: There are dozens if not hundreds of papers on this particular drug, but almost all of them are in animals or in petri dishes. [SPEAKER_01]: They're only a handful of small human studies and none of them are randomized control trials.

27:28 [SPEAKER_01]: I covered this in more detail in our previous peptide episode, so check that out. [SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the question of what's actually in the vial. [SPEAKER_01]: To skirt the regulatory stuff around medications, these are often sold as research chemicals, and you don't really know what you're getting when it's a research chemical.

27:45 [SPEAKER_01]: When labs test these gray market peptides, they keep finding the wrong drug or the wrong dose of the drug or sometimes nothing at all. [SPEAKER_01]: And the trials might not happen either. [SPEAKER_01]: If you go to clinicaltrials.gov, there are a number of pre-registered studies on BBC 157, for example.

28:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Though it's not clear if their legit based on reading some of the information provided, some of it kind of looks like AI generated stuff that was submitted. [SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, in July, an FDA advisory panel voted 8-6 to let compounding pharmacies the ones that mix drugs for individual patients make BPC-157 in addition to a host of other currently unapproved peptide drugs.

28:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Even though the FDA's own scientists said that there [SPEAKER_01]: And this month, the HHS under RFK Jr sent the White House a policy to open up compounded access to certain peptides. [SPEAKER_01]: It's still under review and we don't know which peptides are in it, but my worry here is pretty simple.

28:42 [SPEAKER_01]: If you can sell something without proving that it works and is safe, I'm just going to pay for the trial. [SPEAKER_01]: So for gray market peptides, zero out of five pumpkins, for sure. [SPEAKER_01]: Peptide drug development, five out of five pumpkins, and I'm excited for it. [SPEAKER_01]: Next up is methylene blue, and the claim here is that supercharges your mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cells that make energy, so you get better memory, focus, and better function.

29:06 [SPEAKER_01]: methylene blue is an old drug with real uses in clinical medicine, mainly treating methymoglobinemia, a condition where your red blood cells can't carry oxygen properly, and yes, it turns your P-blue. [SPEAKER_01]: The brain claims come from a handful of small studies. [SPEAKER_01]: The best one in healthy people gave 26 adults a single low dose and scan their brains an hour later.

29:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Some brain areas were more active and people got about 7% more correct answers on a memory test. [SPEAKER_01]: So, one dose can change what the brain looks like on a scan and maybe in a memory test an hour later, but nobody's shown it improves memory or focus in healthy people over weeks or months.

29:44 [SPEAKER_01]: What we do know is that it's a potent MAO inhibitor, meaning that it blocks an enzyme that breaks down serotonin and other brain chemicals. [SPEAKER_01]: In 2011, the FDA warned that it can cause serotonin syndrome, a potentially dangerous build-up of serotonin, in people taking common antidepressants like SSRIs and SNRIs.

30:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It can also break down red blood cells in people with G6PD deficiency, which is an inherited enzyme problem that some people don't know that they have. [SPEAKER_01]: Bottom line, this is another medication so we should treat it like one. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think people should be free-basing methylene blue on their own.

30:18 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're on an antidepressant, make sure that you talked to your doctor before going anywhere near it. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give it 0 out of 5 pumpkins unless you have met hemoglobinemia. [SPEAKER_01]: Now onto the Mark 8 machine. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that the lowering part of the rep, the eccentric, where the muscles get longer while still producing force, while that's where the gains are, so you should slow it down intentionally or try to overload it.

30:41 [SPEAKER_01]: The logic is that you're stronger when lowering a weight rather than lifting it upwards, so you can use more weight. [SPEAKER_01]: A 2017 meta-analysis of 15 studies compared training with only the lowering part to training [SPEAKER_01]: The eccentric groups grew about 10% and the lifting only groups grew about 7%.

31:01 [SPEAKER_01]: But the uncertainty between the two groups was wide enough that the real difference between them could be zero. [SPEAKER_01]: A bigger meta-analysis published this year with 49 studies and about 770 people compared extra heavy eccentric work to regular lifting and found no long-term advantage for muscle size or strength.

31:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I've tried most of this myself, using weight releases, chains, bands, force negatives, the whole thing. [SPEAKER_01]: Between the data and my own experience, I just don't think it works that well outside of a few specific use cases. [SPEAKER_01]: Technique work is one, where slowing down means giving up a little bit of gains to improve your motor patterns and your technique.

31:36 [SPEAKER_01]: That's fine to me, if technique is a limitation in somebody's strength performance. [SPEAKER_01]: A slowed tempo on purpose is also fine if you're using it to work around pain because it can decrease sensitivity, especially if somebody is sensitive to velocity or speed. [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, I think it compromises your training.

31:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Don't try to go intentionally slow and move the weight as fast as you can on the way up. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good recipe for games. [SPEAKER_01]: So for intentionally slow e-centrics during the pain setting, I'm going to give it five out of five pumpkins, as long as you're working back towards moving as traditionally fast as you can.

32:10 [SPEAKER_01]: For e-centric overload to gain muscle strength, using weight releases and the like, I'm going to give it maybe two out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, an intentionally slow tempo for extra size and strength, I'm going to give it zero out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: Now onto the anabolic window.

32:25 [SPEAKER_01]: The claim here is that you've got a set window of time after training to get your protein, carbs, maybe certain supplements, and whatever else in, or you'll get less out of your workout. [SPEAKER_01]: Older data made it look like timing protein after workout helped, but in a lot of those studies that people getting protein after training were also eating more protein overall, which is a confounder, something else that differs between the groups that could explain the result entirely.

32:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Once the researchers accounted for total protein, the timing effect mostly goes away. [SPEAKER_01]: That to be fair, only three of those studies actually matched protein between groups, but a bigger review that was published later, 65 trials and about 2,900 people, also found no benefit from any particular timing when it comes to protein.

33:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Dale's IV was ghosted 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram body weight, which comes from a research review article suggesting that people should consume about 0.4 grams of protein per kilo of body weight at each meal. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you do that four times in a day, that's an easy way to reach the 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body weight per day target.

33:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is where we think that most of the gains are realized from resistance training when it comes to protein, where more protein doesn't necessarily get you more strength, or more hypertrophy. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, lean people who are losing weight may benefit from more protein, but the post workout window is mostly about timing meals throughout the day.

33:46 [SPEAKER_01]: So, if you ate 90 minutes before your workout, then you trained for 90 minutes, you'll probably need to eat again soon afterwards. [SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't matter if you do it right after you finish the last rep of the last set before you unwrapped the bar or if you wait until you get home and you shower.

34:02 [SPEAKER_01]: In general, I think most people should aim for 3-5 meals per day, spread out by 3-5 hours between meals. [SPEAKER_01]: Some of those meals will end up being pre- and post-workout by definition, but the timing is almost entirely based on your personal preferences, not some antibiotic window, which I give one out of five pumpkins.

34:19 [SPEAKER_01]: For hitting your daily protein, calorie, and fiber targets, I'm going to give that five out of five pumpkins, splitting your protein into four or more meals, of about 0.4 grams, protein, per kilogram body weight each. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give that three out of five pumpkins, mostly as a way to hit your protein target.

34:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Although again, it doesn't really matter how you split your protein up throughout the day. [SPEAKER_01]: Next is the sleep score. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that tracking your sleep every night, your stages, your deep sleep, your sleep score, well that's going to help you sleep better. [SPEAKER_01]: The sleep medicine societies recommend that adults regularly get about seven or more hours of sleep per night, though individual sleep needs vary.

34:56 [SPEAKER_01]: For tracking, researchers tested a fit bit against a full overnight sleep lab study in 44 healthier adults. [SPEAKER_01]: The fit bit picked up sleep about 96% of the time, but only caught people being awake about 60% of the time, and it got deep sleep right about half of the time. [SPEAKER_01]: So trackers are pretty good at telling you when you're asleep, but they're pretty bad at telling you when you're awake, which means they tend to say you slept more than you did, and the sleep stage charts are basically a guess.

35:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Sleep Doctors even have a name for people who get fixated on their score. [SPEAKER_01]: They call it orthosomnia. [SPEAKER_01]: It was first described in 2017 in patients who had self-diagnosed with their tracker and who were chasing a perfect score. [SPEAKER_01]: In some cases, by spending more time in bed, which is exactly the opposite thing you want for insomnia.

35:42 [SPEAKER_01]: In one experiment, people with insomnia were randomly given fake sleep data, and the ones told they slept badly felt less alert the next day, no matter how they'd actually slept. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, nobody's shown that wearing one wrecks sleep for most people, but we don't know how common the problem is either.

35:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Overall, I would have people aim for about 7 plus hours of sleep per night on a consistent schedule. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need a tracker for that, but if you wear one anyway, you can look at the total time and ignore the sleep stage chart, and if the number stresses you out, well, take it off.

36:11 [SPEAKER_01]: For sleep itself, I'm going to give it 5 out of 5 pumpkins, or a sleep tracker, maybe one out of 5 pumpkins, provided it doesn't stress you out. [SPEAKER_01]: Now the Readiness scores. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that your heart rate variability or HRV or your apps proprietary Readiness number tells you when to push and when you should back off your training.

36:31 [SPEAKER_01]: HRV is the small variation in timing between heartbeats. [SPEAKER_01]: Generally a higher heart rate variability means more relaxed and recovered and a lower HRV means more stressed. [SPEAKER_01]: There are trials where people let the morning HRV decide whether they train hard or easy that day compared to following a set plan.

36:50 [SPEAKER_01]: A meta-analysis of eight of those, about 200 people, mostly endurance athletes, in short studies, like ranging from two to eight weeks long, found small advantages in things like view two max, which is basically the size of your aerobic engine. [SPEAKER_01]: But for every result, the margin of error was wide enough that the true effect could be zero.

37:08 [SPEAKER_01]: In contrast, there's almost no data on using HRV to plan training in lifters. [SPEAKER_01]: heart rate variability is real and it does move around. [SPEAKER_01]: In a lab study of 26 people, moderate drinking in the evening dropped overnight HRV and the more alcohol people consumed, the more that the HRV dropped.

37:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Being sick or sleeping poorly also changes HRV as well. [SPEAKER_01]: The problem is the logical leap from there to telling you what you should do in training. [SPEAKER_01]: There are large potential measurement errors and the readiness scores haven't been validated either. [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think that readiness scores should be used at all in training, so I'm gonna give that zero out of five pumpkins.

37:46 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're sick, you barely slept, where your performance is actually down, well, you should adjust your training. [SPEAKER_01]: I definitely agree with that, but you don't need a score to tell you that because your training plan should already be flexible enough to auto-regulate. [SPEAKER_01]: Your warm-up sets tell you more than a proprietary readiness score does anyway.

38:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Now on to the continuous glucose monitor or CGM. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the little sensor on the back of your arm that reads your blood sugar every few minutes. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that blood sugar spikes are hurting you and that you're using one of these will let you personalize your diet and overall improve your health.

38:20 [SPEAKER_01]: In healthy people without diabetes, blood sugar after a meal usually ranges between 100 and 140. [SPEAKER_01]: When researchers put continuous glucose monitors on these healthy, normal weight individuals, their peak blood sugars stayed under 140 about 99% of the time. [SPEAKER_01]: In a bigger study, people age 6 to 65 who wore a continuous glucose monitor for about a week, while eating normally because the readings were hidden so wouldn't change how they ate, while they were over 140 less than half a percent of the time.

38:50 [SPEAKER_01]: None of this is a glucose spike either. [SPEAKER_01]: It's perfectly normal. [SPEAKER_01]: So that raises the question, when does blood sugar get high enough to matter? [SPEAKER_01]: The best data we have puts it up around 180. [SPEAKER_01]: That's where your kidneys can't hold on to all the sugar and it starts spilling over to your urine.

39:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Drag a name marker called 15AG out with it. [SPEAKER_01]: Now low levels of that marker, 15AG, means frequent trips over a blood sugar level of 180, which is linked with heart disease, kidney disease, and deaths from different types of cancer, even in people without diabetes. [SPEAKER_01]: But a healthy person almost never gets up there anyway.

39:24 [SPEAKER_01]: The monitor itself is also a problem, because a continuous blood glucose monitor doesn't actually measure your blood sugar. [SPEAKER_01]: It measures sugar in the fluid under your skin and estimates your blood level by using the company's own algorithm. [SPEAKER_01]: In people with diabetes, the readings are off by about 13% on average, and more when sugar is changing quickly, like right after a meal or exercise, for example.

39:47 [SPEAKER_01]: That's fine when you're dosing insulin around big swings, but it's pretty much useless for telling the difference between a blood sugar level of 105 vs 115 because that gap is smaller than the device's own error. [SPEAKER_01]: And in one study that tested them in healthy people against blood draws, the readings were off by nearly 18% on average.

40:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Even if the number were perfect, the same food in the same person doesn't always give the same number twice. [SPEAKER_01]: In a study of about 1,000 adults, the identical meal produced blood sugar rises about twice as big at lunch compared to breakfast. [SPEAKER_01]: How you slept, whether you exercise, and what you ate earlier can all move the number by as much as the food itself.

40:25 [SPEAKER_01]: So a bigger bump after rice on Monday, then after bread on Tuesday, again doesn't tell you very much. [SPEAKER_01]: A 2024 review of 25 randomized trials, about 3,000 people total, found that using a continuous glue-coast monitor lowered A1C by about a quarter of a percentage point, which isn't much, and that was mostly in people who already had Type II diabetes, and it didn't change body weight on average.

40:52 [SPEAKER_01]: About 44% of those trials had financial ties to the companies who made the monitors, and a second review, looking only at people without diabetes, found some benefit in people with pre-diabetes, but nothing meaningful in people with normal blood sugar levels. [SPEAKER_01]: So my take here is if you have diabetes, a continuous glucose monitor can be useful, even life-changing in some.

41:12 [SPEAKER_01]: For a healthy person, it's an expensive gadget that tells you your blood sugar goes up when you eat, which it's supposed to do anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: One of the corollary claims here is that a continuous blood glucose monitor can tell you if you have insulin resistance earlier, but that's not true either.

41:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Blood sugar and tests of average blood sugar take years to become abnormal. [SPEAKER_01]: Instead, you could use something like a fasting glucose and triglyceride level, which can be plugged into a calculator to get a TYG index, which is a decent early read on insulin resistance. [SPEAKER_01]: Blood sugar levels and hemoglobin A1C levels [SPEAKER_01]: So for a continuous blood glucose monitor for healthy people, I'm going to give it zero out of five pumpkins.

41:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Next up is mouth tape. [SPEAKER_01]: And the claim here is that taping your mouth shut at night forces you to breathe through your nose so you sleep better and snore less as a person who sometimes snores. [SPEAKER_01]: This would be big, if true. [SPEAKER_01]: 825 systematic review, which is a structured search for every study on a question, found 10 studies with a couple hundred people total and it rated every study included as poor quality.

42:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Two small studies with no comparison group in people with mild sleep apnea and clear noses saw a breathing interruptions drop in one of them from about 8 interruptions per hour to about 5. [SPEAKER_01]: Three studies saw no change, a randomized crossover trial where 51 adults with asthma try both tape and no tape found no benefit.

42:36 [SPEAKER_01]: On the flip side, when researchers block people's noses sleep apnea events go up by about 14 an hour and four of the 10 maltape studies warned about [SPEAKER_01]: In one study of people with sleep apnea, closing the mouth actually reduced airflow in the heavy mouth breathers. [SPEAKER_01]: For some people, breathing through the mouth is how they're getting enough air.

42:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there's a small benefit in a narrow group of people, these are people with mild sleep apnea who breathe through their mouth and who have a clear nose, but for everyone else, I just don't see much here. [SPEAKER_01]: If your nose is stuffy, deal with the nose. [SPEAKER_01]: If you snore loud enough that someone's suggested tape, you should probably get checked for sleep apnea.

43:12 [SPEAKER_01]: It is very common and wildly underdiagnosed. [SPEAKER_01]: So for Maltape, I'm going to give it one out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's talk about zone two cardio. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim is that cardio at this intensity level is uniquely good for your mitochondria and your longevity and that you should test your lactate to make sure you're in it.

43:31 [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of this traces back to elite endurance athletes who do a ton of relatively easy training. [SPEAKER_01]: A 2025 review concluded though that the evidence doesn't support zone two as the best intensity for building mitochondria and that harder work often matters more when you're short on time.

43:49 [SPEAKER_01]: A panel of 14 sports scientists and coaches agreed that there's not even a consistent definition of zone two and that its adaptations may not be unique to it. [SPEAKER_01]: As far as lactate threshold goes, this is the intensity where lactate starts piling up in your blood. [SPEAKER_01]: One review found 25 different definitions, so your threshold depends on who's definition that you use.

44:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, easy cardio is useful, and zone two is a fine place to do a lot of it, but it's just not magic. [SPEAKER_01]: The talk test works pretty well to make sure that you're in it, which means if you can talk comfortably in full sentences, you're doing easy cardio. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're not sure, you're probably going too hard.

44:25 [SPEAKER_01]: What matters far more than what zone you're in when you're doing cardio is how much cardio you're doing and how much it improves your cardiovascular fitness. [SPEAKER_01]: We know that generally speaking, there's a dose-dependent relationship between the amount of training load that someone's doing and their fitness adaptations, and in this case, cardiovascular story fitness is the fitness adaptation we're talking about.

44:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, there's a dose-dependent relationship between cardiovascular story fitness and health outcomes, particularly mortality and risk of heart disease. [SPEAKER_01]: So, my take here is, person should aim to develop the highest level of cardiovascular [SPEAKER_01]: If someone has plenty of time, while a lot of their conditioning should be in Zones 1 and 2, using the 5 Zone Exercise Intensity Model.

45:11 [SPEAKER_01]: But if they're short on time, some of it is going to have to be harder, and you can skip the fingerprints to check your lactate. [SPEAKER_01]: So, the pumpkin rating. [SPEAKER_01]: Zone 2 as magic. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give that one out of 5 pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: But doing enough cardio to improve your cardio respiratory fitness.

45:25 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give it five out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: And the talk test, I'll give that four out of five pumpkins too. [SPEAKER_01]: You can skip the fingerprint lactate test. [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, last thing here is the sauna. [SPEAKER_01]: The claim here is that if people saunod at 174 degrees for 19 minutes, 4 times a week, they'll cut the risk of dying by about 40%.

45:45 [SPEAKER_01]: That comes from a finished study of about 2,300 middle-age men who were followed for 20 years. [SPEAKER_01]: They were asked once at the start of the study about their sauna habits. [SPEAKER_01]: Compared to guys who only went once a week, the ones who went four to seven times a week had about a 40% lower risk of dying from anything and about half the risk of dying from heart disease.

46:03 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember Dr. Rhonda Patrick mentioning something like this on her Twitter. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the grid's numbers are almost right. [SPEAKER_01]: The average sauna was about 174 degrees, but the average session was 14 minutes. [SPEAKER_01]: 19 minutes was just the cut off for the longest group, and longer sessions weren't linked to living longer overall.

46:22 [SPEAKER_01]: The four times per week thing is the bottom of the four to seven sessions group, which was only about 200 guys. [SPEAKER_01]: So that protocol is three numbers stitched together that really hasn't been tested. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you've almost certainly heard the phrase correlation is in causation, and that's exactly the case here.

46:38 [SPEAKER_01]: An association can't tell you cause and effect. [SPEAKER_01]: There are actually two letters published in the same journal where this study was published that were basically titled, Dispainought Be Causele. [SPEAKER_01]: And the obvious worry is that healthier guys are the ones who can saun up more.

46:52 [SPEAKER_01]: When researchers actually randomized people to heat in 20 trials, lasting two to 15 weeks, mostly sonas, but also hot baths and hot yoga, whole body heat lowered the systolic blood pressure that's the top number by about 4 points, but blood vessel function didn't consistently change, and none of the trials looked at heart attacks or deaths.

47:11 [SPEAKER_01]: In one trial of people with heart disease, four finished sonos sessions a week for eight weeks didn't change blood pressure or blood vessel function at all. [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, Soma's line that the benefit came from the heat, but in Finland, Sanna's usually are a social thing. [SPEAKER_01]: But we don't know who these guys were sitting with or how much of it was the heat first the lifestyle factors around it could be a social connection type thing.

47:33 [SPEAKER_01]: For the Sanna, my view is if you like it and it's safe for you, go for it. [SPEAKER_01]: Ideally, with friends, just don't count it as your cardio. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give it two out of five pumpkins. [SPEAKER_01]: So here's my point with this whole episode. [SPEAKER_01]: Most of these extra interventions don't do much, and a couple of them may actually hurt you.

47:51 [SPEAKER_01]: What works isn't new, and it usually is a proprietary. [SPEAKER_01]: Lift weights regularly, and make it challenging. [SPEAKER_01]: Do conditioning, and both of these things work better when you're actually getting fitter over time. [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you're sleeping enough. [SPEAKER_01]: And there are a lot of ways to eat a health promoting dietary pattern, where food quality matters, but how much you eat also matters too.

48:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, the modern environment makes all of this harder, and we've got plenty of other content on this if you want to go deeper. [SPEAKER_01]: The scary future to me is the one where you build the capsule yourself, and thank it every morning for the constraints it puts around you, and the build that comes with it.

48:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Seaman wanted writers to fight for their trails. [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to fight for your attention. [SPEAKER_01]: Every protocol that you add is the decision that someone else made for you and most of them come with a subscription. [SPEAKER_01]: So take your judgment back, with something heavy and eat the fig.

48:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Happy Halloween. [SPEAKER_00]: Episode complete. [SPEAKER_00]: Your listening time has been logged. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Unit.