Addressing Health Myths and Health Gurus | More Plates More Dates DSH #337

If you have a trend that is positive, it is still based on health parameters.

If you can get it to trend down and that is reinforcing to do the good habits, it could be worthwhile.

It's just not really scientifically validated to a degree that I would put any stock into.

Wow.

Oh, you're probably going to live to like, you know, let's say you're 50 and it says you're 30.

You're probably going to live to 100 because you would have otherwise died at 80.

Like, I would certainly not say that.

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Soul Schlauer, I'm here with Derek for more plates, more dates.

How's it going, my man?

Good.

How about yourself, man?

Good.

So I know you're in town for the longevity conference, right?

Yep.

Yep.

How's that going so far?

That's with your America Health Company?

Yeah, yeah.

It's

there's like presentations, expos, and it's kind of just a good networking opportunity.

So it starts in as before then.

And yeah, man, looking forward to it.

Nice.

Yeah.

I want to dive into America because I saw you say on another show, you really see a lot of potential in that company, even more than your supplement company, right?

Yeah, yeah, probably long term.

Yeah.

So what's sort of the model there?

In general, it is.

broad-spectrum preventative medicine.

So by preventative medicine, it's kind of like an approach to taking care of your health to prevent disease before it actually occurs rather than treating symptoms once they actually manifest themselves, rather than waiting until you have a literal heart attack to go, you know, see what's wrong or see what my cholesterol is.

You actually check this stuff ahead of time and proactively assess how do I optimize things?

Do I have any genetic predispositions I should be aware of?

How do I essentially avoid getting to a state of

disease or deterioration and optimize function?

So, that is kind of what we pride ourselves on is trying to assess as elaborately as possible.

How do we make sure you are in that position so you can confidently, you know, enter each day knowing you've peaked out your not just performance, but also you're not going to end up with, you know, a heart attack 15 years from now.

Yeah, that's cool.

So what are some common genetic predispositions people are walking around with that you see?

Probably one of the most notable is

there's a gene that predisposes you to, well, there's

an assortment of them, but ultimately you see the manifestation of it in your blood work as it's called lipoprotein little A, which is like the most atherogenic and when I say atherogenic like potential for atherosclerosis buildup as in plaque your arteries leading to

heart attack down the line or what have you.

So this marker is very, very difficult to modulate with diet and lifestyle.

So typically when you see somebody's blood work, there are a lot of things that can change dramatically just by losing weight, fixing your diet,

addressing like the low-hanging fruit stuff that everyone is aware of, essentially.

But with LP little A, it's very

genetically determined.

So even if you have perfect everything, I've seen people with the most dialed blood work and then sky-high LP little A and had

like calcium scores equivalent to like the worst of their age group, even though they were objectively very healthy from what you could see visually and every other biomarker on their blood work.

Wow.

So if you get this checked, even if, and it's very cheap, you could get it for like, I forget what it is off the top of my head, but I think it's like 20, 30 bucks or something.

Oh, for blood test?

Yeah, but if you get this checked, because it's so not manipulated by diet and lifestyle to any significant extent, like there are, you know, some imp there is some impact, but not enough that you wouldn't notice it being high.

Like it's not like it's transiently changing.

So even if you check at one time, you'll know essentially.

Yeah, you'll either be

in an area of, you know, I'm probably not genetically predisposed, or it's going to be very blatant that there's something going on.

And that is problematic because no matter what you do, lifestyle-wise, whatever, if you think that you're good to go and you're missing this kind of background factor, you could be stacking plaque in your arteries without even knowing it.

Dang.

So, that would be like the lowest-hanging fruit thing I can think of off the top of my head as far as genetic genetic predispositions that one might want to look for.

I think it's like the leading cause of death among cardiovascular-related genetic predispositions.

Wow.

Yeah.

And then

what was the question again?

What are some of the predispositions?

What are some common ones you see?

Yeah.

I suppose, like, there's a lot of genes that could, in

concordance with one another, create a state of

unhealthiness where it's not necessarily down to one specific gene.

Like, for example, I could point out: oh, if you have a mutation in the gene that encodes for, it's called MTHFR.

I'm sure you've heard of it.

Yeah.

And we're probably going to discuss Gary Brewer in a sec.

But anyway, he highlights the importance of that, like to high hell.

And a lot of people have it, like to the degree where I had it.

Yeah, within this room, like I have it, you have it.

It's probably a good likelihood he has it.

So most people, if you walk in a room, it's like over 50% of people have some sort of like

deficiency in this enzyme functionality.

And you could see the reflection of that in your blood work as high homocysteine, which is also like very pro-heart disease, among other things.

And that's an example of a very common genetic predisposition that could be harmful, but you can point it out.

pretty easily if you just look at your homocysteine in your blood work you don't need to get a 600 genetic analysis to figure out like okay maybe i have this thing that then maybe leads to a, you know, a biomarker being elevated.

Like, you just check the biomarker, and if it's elevated, maybe you can work backwards from there and implement some of the changes to actually correct it.

But

those are just two off the top of my head.

It's like very common.

That makes sense.

So, when it comes to gene breaks, are those you can't really fix those, right?

Those are just set in stone.

Yeah, like genetics is not necessarily my area of expertise.

So, I don't want to speak totally out of turn, but my understanding is if you have a mutation in a gene that encodes for, you know, the development of the creation of some sort of enzyme or protein in your body, it's not like you can just

go manually change it necessarily.

There are things you could do to enhance the expression of a gene that could be protective or kind of offset the deficiency or impairment of a certain, like, for example, with MTHFR.

There's evidence to suggest that if you just take a few milligrams of riboflavin per day, you could actually correct your MTHFR entirely rather than have to do a whole bunch of complicated complicated stuff.

But in general, like your genetics are set, and it's kind of what you do with those that makes a difference because they will express or up-regulate depending on what's going on.

And I'm sure you've heard of epigenetics.

Sometimes the circumstances you impose on yourself will actually dictate what processes and signaling happens in your body, even with the same genetics.

So that's why if you have risk factors or certain lifestyle habits that are like blatantly bad for you, like like smoking, you know, like it'll affect the way your genes, you know, turn on or off or

work well or don't work well, and so on.

Yeah, that makes sense.

What's your take on people that say you can treat diseases and such naturally, holistically, that your body has the capabilities to heal everything?

I think

to some extent, like I certainly don't want to suggest that you need drugs or anything to fix all ailments or whatnot, because that's certainly not the case.

And most of them can be corrected by basic lifestyle, diet, training, nutrition, sleep, hygiene, etc.

But there are certain things that are very difficult to get around too, like the LP little A.

Good luck just going on a treadmill like that down to single digits.

It's just probably not going to happen if you're very predisposed.

And some people with familial hypercholesterolemia, which is like pretty much a sky-high

LDL level in your blood work, you're not necessarily going to be able to fix that just by dieting your way down.

And it'll help by all means.

But some people have unique predispositions that almost like supersede the stuff that for maybe an average person might get you to like negligible to almost no risk.

It's very dependent.

Like, some people smoke until they're a hundred and they will outlive a guy who's like a dialed biohacker.

That's true.

What do you think causes that?

Is that their genetics just different from everyone else's?

Um, yeah, it seems to be that they

are able to essentially deteriorate slower than the next person.

And that is essentially dictated by genetics, but also,

you know, like you could easily argue that person, if they had a perfect diet training, et cetera, maybe they would have lived to 115 instead of like 105 or something.

Yeah.

But we don't really know.

It's not like we have a controlled experiment where we can compare, well, you smoking and not giving a about anything versus you having dialed in, you know, biohacker level stuff.

How much of a difference does that actually make on longevity?

It's tough to say.

But at the end of the day, I do think there is like like a huge, the cards you're dealt component.

And then with those cards, how do you, you know, optimize accordingly?

Because there's certain things that, you know, with the lipid predispositions, like the cholesterol stuff I mentioned, some of those, you might end up dying like decades sooner if you did not intervene early.

But then some stuff, like, I don't know, maybe cancer cell proliferation and some, you know, thing down the line, for all we know, if you had a perfect diet and lifestyle, you could get it at 75 instead of 80.

I don't know.

Like

it's hard to actually quantify, and I would love to give some sort of like hard numbers to it.

But at the end of the day, you can, with the cards you're dealt, do all the things that are natural.

And oftentimes those will get you to a point where you've minimized your risk to whatever natural potential you can and how many years that will help you with.

Who knows?

Yeah, but at least the quality of life on your way there too, we can say with with near certainty is going to be significantly different versus poor lifestyle, etc.

Yeah, I think just control what you can, right?

People overthink it.

Yeah, like I would love to say everyone with bad genetics or even average genetics could get to 100 plus years old just by doing everything perfectly.

And it's definitely not the case.

Right.

So in terms of longevity, has there been any compelling studies or research done there?

Any supplements that have been proven to you know prolong life?

In rodents, yeah.

We'll see, it's called the ITP, and they do like drug analysis studies every year on rodents and assess what are like the most longevity enhancing things and each year they will add to the list with things that have moved the needle the most and some of those include like metformin rapamycin recently they just added some others i believe um Astaxanthin was added the other day, which is like found in krill oil.

It's like an antioxidant.

17 alpha estradiol, also notable, which is interesting because it's like now dudes are putting estrogen essentially on their

like estrogen cream on their body really like brian johnson that biohacker dude oh he does everything

yeah but um yeah there's a lot of things that in rodents will show you know 25 plus percent increase in lifespan just by implementing one or two different things in humans does it actually play out like that not really but there are certain things that will help we just couldn't say with concrete metrics you know use rapamycin and you will you know extend your lifespan by another 20 years yeah i would i would assume that's far-fetched, but a lot of people will use the literature available to then extrapolate out and say, based on the clinical data in humans, what is the risk profile of this drug?

Is it low enough that I'm willing to risk whatever downside, which may be potentially negligible, depending on the compound in question, for the potential upside, which could be

significant enhancement and vitality, longevity, kind of to be determined.

And that's where the advent of some of these guys come out where they're just trying trying everything under the sun, like Brian Johnson.

Yeah, what's your take on him?

Because I tried his blueprint for a bit, not even the full blueprint, because he takes like 110 supplements.

I tried about 30 of them, and I just couldn't do it honestly.

Yeah, like, how would you even do it, though?

It hurt my body.

Like, I was taking so many supplements, I would feel.

I don't know if I was drinking enough water, honestly, but I just feel like eating interesting because I do think what he is doing is interesting and worthwhile to follow and use as some sort of reference of you know, a guy who was trying everything under as controlled of conditions as he can.

Yeah.

But when you actually take away conclusions that are applicable at scale, you can't do that, which often he will, you know, say something did or didn't work or it affected me in this way.

But the consideration among he has so many variables changing all the time.

Yeah.

And he has his own, you know, genetic predisposition that is unique to him and not anyone else.

So to think that we can take from what he's doing to apply to a going to be, I don't know, something we could just cookie cut or copy.

I don't think he would assert this, by the way.

I don't think he'd say, copy exactly what I'm doing, even if it's working for him.

But some of the stuff he does, I just don't really understand.

For example, calorie depriving the hell out of yourself just to use testosterone.

Like maybe you could have just ate more.

and not had to use exogenous hormones, you know?

Right.

I don't know to knock it.

If he wants to be leaner and he also wants to sustain, you know, vitality, libido, quality of life, and muscle, muscle

by all means dude but to assert like i'm in the top whatever percent for testosterone it's like oh is he injecting it i didn't know that hey he uses a cream i think oh cream might be a patch but either way he's on test yeah dang i thought he was all natural that's that's a shame yeah but it's like he's he's up front ish about it but then when you assert certain like you know uh

strength metrics or like you know asserting your free androgen index is like i'm the top whatever percent it's like well what would it be if you weren't on test?

I'd be curious.

Yeah, that's true.

So, yeah, like some of the stuff he does, really interesting dude.

I think what he's doing is an interesting use of his money too.

Like, obviously, it's maybe better than sitting around playing video games all day or, you know, going on vacations perpetually, essentially.

But, and I follow it,

you know, loosely here and there.

So.

I think what he is doing has some validity and he's willing to use like experimental compounds that a lot of people wouldn't inject into themselves.

So like I'll watch with a relative interest, but I don't take from what he's doing a lot of practical takeaways often.

And

other than the basics, like I think a lot of people could get inspired to change their lifestyle and actually die it, dial in their sleep and gamify the process, which is something I think that is cool that what he's doing.

He has like a leaderboard that shows, you know, whose rate of aging is the best and compete against me.

My sleep score on whoop is constantly top whatever percent.

And then he presents kind of this dynamic where you kind of want to see what you can do and see if you can can beat yourself and yeah that's cool yeah the only thing that sucks about that though is the gamification though too it's good for trending and actually seeing you know what patterns are leading to good outcomes necessarily but at the end of the day these aging analysis scores are essentially like you can't actually determine you know, your biological age and rate of aging equals this based on an array of markers that could change transiently.

Like, it's very hard to take from that and say, you know, I'm the equivalent of a 30-year-old when you're like 45.

It's not the case.

Like, right now, the way your

health status looks transiently perhaps looks like the rate of aging of that younger individual.

But it's like, there's been plenty of studies at this point that have shown you could change those numbers literally within days just by changing the way you're eating, your lifestyle, sleep hygiene, et cetera.

So, like, I could look like I'm, you know, like 40 tomorrow and then 20 the next day by just like changing a couple things.

Dang, I wish I talked to you before Black Friday.

I just ordered David Sinclair's Tally Health genetic test, the cheek swab one.

The thing though is, and this is similar to what I said about the gamification, although it's not like that practical, if you have a trend that is positive, it is still based on health parameters.

So if you're like, you know, if you have some arbitrary, oh, you're 30, but it equals, it says you're 25, if you can get it to trend down and that is reinforcing to do the good habits, could be worthwhile.

It's just not really scientifically validated to a degree that I would put any stock into,

oh, you're probably going to live to like, you know, let's say you're 50 and it says you're 30, you're probably going to live to 100 because you would have otherwise died at 80.

Like I would certainly not say that.

And I would also be very cautious to not buy products.

that are designed specifically to impact the biological age score because that's what a lot lot of, that's where it gets really finicky.

Yeah.

The monetization of these tests.

Yeah, people are making a ton off those.

And he always talks about how he's 18 years old on those tests.

Yeah, I would be very curious what the verbiage is, exactly what he says, because he's got to be careful, I would think, if he is rigorous about his

assessment of what is legitimate and not.

Because he very much prides himself on making decisions that are data-backed rather than just, you know, what seems to be useful based on his own, you know, intuition or what he wants to to do.

It's like, I eat this sludge because it's based on longevity analysis.

It's like the best thing I could be doing, which is obviously questionable.

But

for him to say, I am the equivalent of an 18-year-old,

that would be misleading.

So if he's saying my rate of aging in like this organ equals that of an 18-year-old, maybe I could.

I think that's more of what he's saying.

I was kind of paraphrasing.

Sure, sure.

You were mid-40s and you're healthier than you were a few years.

Fantastic.

You'll probably live longer and have much higher quality of life on the way there.

And that's the takeaway, not necessarily that

an 18-year-old would still smoke you when it comes to a lot of metrics that you would assert you're equal to on.

Yes, you're basically saying a blood test is enough metrics and data.

You don't need to take the extra step with these aging tests.

Not what I'm saying.

I just think that it gets a bit finicky when you're using it to determine either...

where you actually stand health-wise, because I don't think that's going to factor in, like, for example, the LP little A predisposition.

Is like a biological age analysis going to tell me that I have the predisposition to stack plaque in my arteries until one day I have a jammer?

Probably not.

It might, you know, have some sort of concordance with insulin sensitivity and other metrics that could avoid cardiovascular disease.

But there are some things that are just like, you need to get granular with actual literature-backed information and not base it on, you know, my methylation score equals this, therefore I'm healthy.

Like, yeah.

And he uses elaborate blood work, by the way.

He doesn't just use these like clock things as his assessment.

So worth noting.

And he's pretty rigorous.

But at the same time, it's like, again, the takeaway is what can we take from it when you're on 100 plus things and you're adding in like very potent drugs and often experimental all the time.

We have no idea how that affects everything else.

And frankly, he has no idea either.

Like he added an oral monoxidal the other day for hair growth, which is helpful, but also a really primitive

anti-hypertensive medication that affects your ability to regulate fluid dynamics.

And it's just not a great drug.

It can lead to arrhythmias.

It's way better topically.

There are other ways to enhance how good it works topically.

And he just adds in willy-nilly and doesn't really like how that's going to affect your blood pressure, how that's going to affect everything else you're doing.

Like one change could influence the, I don't know, takeaways of a hundred other things you're doing.

Wow.

Yeah.

And if you're taking a hundred a day, who knows?

Yeah.

Like these are potent drugs in this protocol, too.

Like a lot of them are just basic supplements and stuff, but often it's, you just chuck in like folastatin gene therapy or like

thymicin derivatives or whatever.

What did you think of his recent study about measuring the boners while he sleeps?

Yeah.

I haven't looked at it intricately to see what was the takeaway that he said.

He measures how long he's hard at night, and he's trying to increase that time.

How does he measure it?

Some device, he puts it on his

and then I think he's hard for two hours and 20 minutes or something.

What's the optimal?

I guess that's a measure of health.

I don't even know.

That's a good question.

Yeah, because he's, I know he got divorced and he likes to sleep alone to get those high sleep scores.

Yeah, yeah.

He said it's actually harder to get those sleep scores when there's someone sleeping with you.

So that's interesting.

Yeah.

There's extreme levels to this stuff, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, obviously, I wouldn't

necessarily do this.

But yeah, I think that I don't think anyone has, I don't know if anyone's ever assessed that.

So that's, you know, interesting.

But in general, when it comes to like hormone balance, if you have morning wood versus not, like that's that's kind of a good sign or proxy for some level of like hormonal imbalance or deterioration.

Because when you're younger, you're pretty much waking up with morning wood every day.

And then at some point, oftentimes people will realize they're becoming less sexually driven.

They're, you know,

morning wood's gone.

They have erectile dysfunction in the bedroom.

Like, these are proxies for actual

actual health status, but you know, the measuring like duration of bone uranium while sleeping.

I don't know.

How much importance do you put on testosterone?

A lot of people talk about it.

I think it depends if you're symptomatic, because a lot of times people will look at the number and then get very,

I don't know,

numbers oriented to where they'll look at a piece of paper and have it dictate whether they take hormones, for example, or if they psychologically believe that they need something to optimize it.

Sometimes people with very low test levels objectively actually perform better, build more muscle, are in a better, better state of mind, have better health in other organ systems, et cetera, even with a lower testosterone level.

Like some of the most jacked guys I know are like 500 total T's.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

So it depends on your sensitivity to the hormones.

And a lot of times people need to understand the number is how much you're producing that is in your blood at that snapshot in time.

And the reason your body produces a certain amount is to achieve an outcome.

So it's like, if I need less testosterone to achieve a function, it doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad thing because there are certain circumstances where people will have like 1200

total testosterone, which objectively on paper to the layman, they'd be like, wow, look at that.

You're pretty much like the pinnacle of masculinity.

You make so much tests.

Grego Gallagher.

But like

that amount.

Presumably, unless you're intervening with something to achieve it, your body has dictated you need to produce this much in order to achieve functionality in like whatever it is you're needing to accomplish in organs.

So like,

it doesn't mean it's good necessarily that you need to produce twice as much to get the same outcome as another guy.

Yeah.

With that said, there is a level of deterioration too, where if you go below, you know, a certain amount for you, maybe that number is higher or lower for you specifically, but there is a level where deficiency typically will result in, you know, symptoms.

And that's why this reference range, it's just like a gauge at the end of of the day and averages, but it doesn't dictate that this is definitely, oh, if you have a, you know, less than 300 equals, you're 100%

going to have every low testosterone-related issue, or that if you're at 1,200, it's guaranteed that anything.

It's just a, it's a reference at the end of the day, but you need to, this is why working with a professional is so key to interpret this stuff.

Like, yeah, Alex Romosi used to walk around with like, in the hundreds of, like, it was like 100 and something, his total teeth.

The guy is yoked out of his tree.

That's it.

Functions well.

Damn.

Yeah.

I didn't know that was possible.

That's the lowest I've heard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think he said on Graham Steffens podcast the other day, he has like 124 total T.

Oh, like right now or back then?

Now.

What?

He's jacked.

Yeah.

So

with that said, though,

he's always had those levels, which is weird, too.

And he has started HRT and he could speak to the more.

detail around why his test is so low still on HRT.

Presumably it's just missing shots and being lazy about it.

But at the end of the day, like he has still been functioning okay with that level.

Granted, I would even tell him like, dude, you should

maybe get that taken care of or stick to your shot schedule better.

Because you're more prone to skinny, right?

Yeah, like there are, there's a certain level where in general, the majority of people will experience some level of suboptimal function.

So like that's kind of a gauge where I'm like, dude, you're almost in female hormone territory, essentially.

So it's worth looking into further so don't disregard the number but just be aware and cognizant that if you have a 500 total task and your buddy has a 900 yeah it does not mean that you need trt to get up to his level necessarily are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest well click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys

you're speaking straight to me because i had a 552 and i thought that was low so i started i didn't do any of that but i did some uh holistic stuff okay maybe there was no need for it maybe but at the same time it's like you could also see corroborating data from other biomarkers to assess like was that whatever changes you implemented was that worthwhile is your insulin sensitivity better is your i don't know liver parameters kidney parameters are these things improving or are you just chasing a total T number because it's like sometimes medications people get put on are actually just chasing a number and don't actually really improve anything else.

Wow.

So that's where you kind of got to dial in.

What is leading me to try and optimize it?

Do I have any symptoms?

Could I, you know, is there a spectrum of where I think I've deteriorated and I'm okay at functioning, but I used to feel better.

My libido is kind of like 70% of what it was.

Does everything else in my blood work look okay?

You know, that kind of stuff is all.

You need a complete picture before you just especially get on something that's going to shut you down.

Yeah.

So what type of supplements are you taking i know you own gorilla mind which is a huge supplement company and you super successful there are you taking anything on a daily basis right now yeah yeah i uh

let's see where would i start oh you're like brian johnson no no no um

vitamin d and k2 i take that essentially daily ubiquinol i also take daily um what does that do ubiquinol is like um

It's pro-heart health and it is something that as you get older, you convert less CoQ10 into ubiquinol it's kind of like the downstream metabolite of it that is active in the body and it's uh i don't know pro-mitochondrial health health uh cardiovascular support but it's kind of like a failsafe for me like i just want to make sure i get enough of it even in a state of um

i don't know like i do take a a baby dose of a statin which does deplete coq10 levels so i'm kind of like supplementing to kind of offset that got it is at least what I've determined is potentially worthwhile use to use it daily.

But it also seems to be just very pro heart support.

So I've used that essentially for years.

What else off the top of my head?

Beef liver.

If I don't feel like eating it that day, I will take an actual like desiccated beef liver supplement.

Liver King.

Yeah.

One of the things he says that I think is actually worthwhile.

What else?

Sometimes N-acetylcysteine, which is like a very potent glutathione precursor, which is like the master antioxidant of the body.

Let's see, what else?

So, not too much, actually.

Well, I feel like people at this point are probably already thinking, Jesus Christ, that's so much stuff.

Sometimes sleep-enhancing stuff, like I have a product called Gorilla Dream, which is like an array of different herbs and

vitamins and minerals that supports essentially getting into sleep and staying in deep sleep.

Okay.

Yeah, those are kind of like the heavy hitters.

Yeah, that's not too bad.

I thought it'd be way longer.

There might be like a cut.

there's definitely a couple things i'm i'm misremembering or forgetting i should say but um it's all good yeah maybe i'll think of them in a sec but yeah you're not afraid to call out people i noticed on your youtube you've went out liver king you went at logan paul you go after these people taking steroids when did that start or have you always done that um

yeah it uh

I'm trying to think of like the first call-out video I did.

It's kind of hard to...

Were you like that before like YouTube?

Were you calling people out?

No, no, not necessarily.

Yeah, but I was also like pretty naive, I guess, in high school and whatnot.

Like, if somebody told me they were doing, you know, uh, some natural supplement and they were actually taking the dynamo, I'd be like, oh, that's crazy.

And then do their exact thing and not get any of the results.

So, um, I don't know.

It was just over time, I started to notice it more prevalent, and I'd see we would always talk about it behind the scenes.

And even on podcasts, I'd see like Joe Rogan talking to his buddies.

Like, do you think the rock's on gear?

Like, no way.

Yeah.

You know, speculating about who's taking what.

I'm like, yeah, we all talk about.

So I might as well make a video about what I think because people ask me all the time, too.

So I started to just make videos analyzing certain like trending topics and situations that were relevant to my areas of interest.

And I don't know, some of them picked up steam and it kind of went from there.

And

yeah, some of the videos that are like more aggressive call-outs, I feel like, almost need to be done to educate the consumer

before they buy something and use it for a long time because people will hype up stuff that is either, I don't know, like objectively a poor quality product and they just mislead the shit out of you, like Logan Paul, or

they will over-hype something but not give caveats and context.

Like, there's a lot of stuff that just needs to be said to give the consumer full both sides of the story.

Like, you're even asking me, like, you know, Gary Brecca.

I took his gene test, and what do you think?

And it's like, he was very convincing, presumably, and speaks very articulately, concisely.

When you hear him talk, you very much believe what he says because the guy speaks so confidently and even with like

enthusiasm about being able to educate people about the subject matter.

Like he very is, he seems very passionate about it, which oftentimes is either good acting or it's people who are really rigorous about what they're doing and believe in it strongly.

Yeah.

So go out there and, you know, yell it.

to the high heavens about something they believe in.

But when you listen to that guy, it's very hard for a lot of people, even very educated people, to know if it's BS or not.

Like, you know, he was on Joe Rogan's the other day, and Joe is on, you know, certain supplements now because of him.

Oh, is he?

Yeah.

Wow.

So he got Joe Rogan, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's very convincing, man.

No, with that said, some of the stuff he says is not like...

It's pretty benign.

Like, if he says, get on a methylated B complex, it's not necessarily going to be problematic, especially when it's something you can just urinate out the excess.

But to assert that, you know, almost everyone's issues are a result of a lack of, you know, methyl folate or whatever,

or that, you know, like he told Joe, his hypothyroidism was probably caused by low methylation in the gut from T4 to T3.

And it's like, that's not how T4 is converted to T3

at all.

So to just say something so confidently.

But only guys with your background will even understand.

Yeah, exactly.

99% of people will be like, oh, that's crazy.

I mean, they see Dana White talking really highly of him, and no one has your background to really dive in and analyze these numbers.

Yeah, like sometimes I even see charlatans or people who are misleading speak so confidently about a subject that I thought I knew that all fact check myself on Google.

I'll be like, wait, am I wrong?

Because he was so, you know, die-hard about the way he said it.

I'd be like, that sounds really weird to me.

But then I go check.

I'm like, no, that is not how it works.

So I don't know.

It's weird, though, because it makes me wonder, is this guy just delusional or does he actually

like, does he really believe what he's saying?

Or is it to like, you know, to sell products or I don't know.

But anyway, so a lot of those guys though, they have good messages overall.

Like Gary Bruckett would absolutely say, like, fix your diet, lose weight, do this, do that.

So it's just about learning how to identify.

I don't know, high-quality information and letting it dictate what you're putting in your body.

You got to like be pretty rigorous about vetting the people you trust as like health gurus.

Yeah, it's tough making claims in the health space because you'll have so many people, you know, there to fact check it.

Yeah.

And then even when you're trying to fact check the fact checkers, oftentimes people respond and then they sound convincing.

Yeah.

Like I think Gary was on impact theory the other day too.

And then he was responding to something Lane Norton said about his claims.

Oh, yeah.

And he sounded pretty convincing when he was saying it.

And then I was like, oh, is he right?

Is Lane wrong?

No, Lane's right.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I've never seen him respond to Lane because Lane always comments and I've never seen Gary.

He very tactfully navigates around the subjects.

Yeah.

And there's always new trends.

Like, what do you think of this cold plunging stuff?

I think cold plunge.

Oh, man, this claim by Gary is ruthless.

He'd be like, no diet or exercise is as effective for burning fat as cold exposure, which is like...

bafflingly absurd.

So obviously not the case.

However, I think cold exposure is good for

pushing endogenous release of catecholamine.

So by that I mean like your fight or flight hormones.

You can really wake up and get yourself alert and functional by doing it.

However, does it have any actual like health benefits or performance enhancement?

I think in an anti-inflammatory context for athletes, it could be useful for recovery purposes and rehabilitation and whatnot.

But for like anything to do with fat loss, it's not the lowest hanging fruit.

And it's pretty expensive and also time intensive to like set up and do everything versus just like take an extra thousand steps or something.

Not that you could even burn the fat anyways from that, but it's just wild that this is highlighted as one of the attributes, which it's not.

You should be using it for

mental fortitude, getting awake and alert, or anti-inflammation.

I think are the three kind of main things I would be using it for.

And yeah, like if you're waking up and you're sluggish and need to get going instead of popping an Adderall and getting a cold plunge and you'll be, you know, you'll be awake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was watching My First Million, and the owner of plunge.com is doing $100 million a year selling those things.

They're five G's each.

Margins are not great, though.

Oh, they're not?

Okay.

At least from what I know.

But like, it's cool.

Like, I like the product.

I would be curious how they're going to monetize beyond it, though, because it's like,

it's a fad, right?

But it's also like a one-shot kill product.

Like, once you sell it, what are you upselling with it?

Is there some sort of upkeep or subscription model?

Like, at least with things like eight sleep or whatever, it'll be like stay on our subscription to be able to interpret your metrics and get, you know, active live auto recommendations and adjustments.

Whereas the cold plunge, it's like, I just question, I think it's cool, by the way.

I think what they're doing is awesome.

I think their product looks sick.

I think we've even worked with them at some point through Merrick and might even have a partnership set up.

But

yeah, I'd recommend checking them out.

I just wondering from an economic standpoint, like how that stacks up.

Yeah, the subscription model, even Aura Ring now, I remember when I bought one five years ago, they didn't have a subscription.

And and I just bought another one because I lost it.

They have like a monthly subscription now, and maybe I'm wrong, and maybe the economics must make enough sense for them to be, you know, leaning into it so hard.

And maybe a little pivot into, have they done saunas yet?

I don't know.

I just found out about them today.

I mean, the fact they're killing it like that is crazy to me.

Good domain to have, too.

Yeah, plunge.com.

Did they have at plunge or what is it?

Plunge.com.

But like they're handling.

Oh, they're true.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, I just found out about them.

I didn't realize that many people were doing cold punches.

Yeah, I wonder what the SEO is like around that.

Type in Cold cold punch if that's the main thing.

But anyway, yeah, their product looks cool.

And I think, in general,

a lot of people do use it as a way to change the trajectory of their lifestyle, which I think is super impactful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You call out, I should have mentioned this earlier, you call out a lot of people that take steroids, but they won't admit it.

I know people are questioning if Logan Paul was on them during that last fight.

What did you think of that?

I couldn't say definitively.

I know that their drug testing was like in competition testing, essentially, meaning it's like around the window of the

fight.

So you could easily be prepared to clear it out of your system in time, should you know that that is the only time you're getting tested.

So, you know, does that mean he cheated?

Not necessarily.

And it doesn't seem like there was rigorous rules around like, you know, testing anyways.

So technically he didn't do anything wrong if he did.

And the WWE, well, I guess, I don't know.

I'm sure there is like don't take gears probably some in the contract, but yeah, I haven't seen it.

And in the WWE, you're kind of like unspokenly encouraged, I would say.

So, I don't know, like, it's uh, with him, he certainly looks the part, but he also is a genetic specimen.

So, the guy, even if he's, even as a natural, like, looks nuts.

So, you know, for him to be training for boxing and to be putting on size during that, it's kind of odd, but I wouldn't say impossible for him to look the way he does natural.

But, you know, it's pretty on the fence, dude.

I would say there's like a high probability,

but,

you know, it would just be.

You were the first one to call out Liver King, right?

For steroids?

Well, with proof, yeah, probably.

You got the emails leaked, right?

Yeah, I saw that video.

That was crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

That one got a lot of views.

Yeah, no, yeah, wild situation, dude.

And it's like, you know, you hear about these things.

It's like, you know, the natty natty or not discussion, and you don't really know for sure.

You can never say or prove.

You kind of just speculate with relative certainty.

But this is a good example of like, here's at scale what actually happens in misleading marketing.

Yeah.

And I don't know why he leaned into it so hard because he definitely made it more difficult for himself once it, you know, pushed came to shove and it came to light.

Because

you didn't need to like on people who take TRT, for example.

Like he could have easily just said, you know, doctor doctor-prescribed hormone therapy is reasonable for guys who need it, but I don't do it if you wanted to lie in a polite way, at least.

But he would go on podcasts and say, You're subprimal if you use hormones.

Like, you should be do it naturally, like me, eat testicles, and you do it naturally.

You're pathetic.

I was like, dude, so over the top, unnecessary.

He went hard, man.

I've also seen you talk about hair loss.

A lot of people are experiencing that.

Your hair looks great, man.

So, what's the secret there?

I try.

I wish I could have, i might get a transplant at some point oh yeah you don't need it though you look good right now uh yeah it's hair uh subjective i guess yeah it's kind of like body dysmorphia i guess and fitness too with hair because uh if you know you could get a lot better then it's hard to overlook um but anyway the most impactful things i've done and if i started them this is kind of the i don't know manifestation of my content is this is stuff i wish i did sooner because i could have probably prevented any permanency of loss to where I even would think I need a transplant.

I could have stopped it like dead in its tracks.

Oh, yeah.

Similarly to atherosclerosis, like there's ways to manually intervene.

The problem is it is with drugs often.

So, you know, I don't want to say you should get on drugs similarly to if you have, you know, sky-high lipid parameters that are very unaffected by lifestyle.

But it's certainly worth consideration to think like what are the pros and cons and then making that educated decision for yourself.

And with hair loss, it's like ultimately the main hormone that causes hair follicles to miniaturize, which is like essentially the hair follicle shrinks until it's like visually you can't even see it anymore.

It's so unhealthy.

Yeah.

DHT, dihydrotestosterone, is the main androgen that converts from testosterone.

So when you produce testosterone in your testes, it converts to either the two primary ones are estrogen, which a lot of people are familiar with, estradiol, or DHT, dihydrotestosterone.

And on the spectrum of like feminine to masculine, estradiol is like the most feminine hormone, and DHT is the most masculine.

And essentially, what dictates if somebody is a male or female is the ratio between these.

And you could literally manually change somebody's gender visually, essentially, by manipulating these.

And this is what we see in bodybuilding all the time, professional sport, people who are transitioning from male to female, or vice versa.

Like you can manipulate this.

Oh, just through those two things, controlling the balance of androgens to estrogen is essentially what dictates if you're feminine or masculine.

Wow.

So if there is somebody, for example,

a guy who is then deciding to transition to female,

there are certain characteristics you won't be able to reverse because they're very

infrastructure oriented.

Like, for example, your vocal cords, the way they've developed from androgen exposure in adolescence, it's very unlikely you're going to get to a female level voice because once you've masculinized the actual structure, you're not going to be able to just reverse it necessarily.

No, turning back.

And similar to like certain features in the face, like the way your bones have grown.

Yeah, the cheeks, right?

Yeah, like there's certain things like your jaw that aren't necessarily going to be, in a lot of people, like look exactly like a female after transitioning and vice versa.

But ultimately, these are the hormones that dictate what do you end up like after you are going through adolescence and to what extent.

And with DHT, not only does it determine size, masculinizing characteristics, body hair growth, a myriad of things, body hair is a bit more genetic, but ultimately hair loss is dictated by

localized exposure to DHT in the scalp.

So

by inhibiting the conversion process through, it's called a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor, like finasteride, you can essentially manually impede this process.

and halt hair loss more or less, depending on how aggressive it is.

And there's more extreme drugs if you have like really aggressive hair loss where you inhibit all your DHT essentially, or compete with DHT for receptor binding in the scalp with other drugs, which is like reserved for the most hardcore prevention regimens.

But then it gets to the question: what is the side effects elsewhere?

Because these drugs, as much as we'd love it to be locally active where you want it and not active anywhere else, they're not refined and progressive enough to actually do that.

So, even with topical formulations of things like finasteride, they will still go systemic and cause reduction of DHD everywhere, which for some people, the majority of people, goes essentially unnoticeable.

Like you will, in general, not have noticeable change in libido, quality of life, anything.

But some people do get pretty significant side effects to where it becomes this like, you know, scary weighing of pros and cons.

It's like, do I want to lose my hair?

Do I want to potentially have these side effects?

Et cetera, et cetera.

So that's where you're at right now.

Yeah.

So like for me, I took the plunge years ago and I had no notable side effects that I can perceive.

So for me, at least to date, it's been a good trade-off because I would for sure be bald by no otherwise.

Dang, seriously?

Yeah.

Wow.

So that's worked for you then.

I do notice a lot of weightlifters have some hair issues.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

The more, because again, similar to what I said earlier about these hormones that dictate masculine versus feminine, the more you push on this vector of masculine, the faster you will accelerate whatever you're genetically predisposed to.

So if you're injecting hormones and spiking your hormone levels to like 10x or something, what they would naturally be,

you will assuredly expedite whatever it is that you are prone to that is dictating, you know, masculine characteristics.

So some people fortunately are essentially unscathed.

And it's like a very rare genetic.

predisposition that no one is even aware what the constellation of factors are that makes you so immune to it.

But some people will live to like old age and have, you know, 18-year-old hairlines, essentially.

Like Ronald Reagan, best hairline ever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some dudes just look phenomenal regardless of what happens.

But then most people in general, I think I forget the statistic, but it's as you get older, almost everyone will have some regression and it's determining, you know, are you okay with that

or not?

And you said DHT levels determine penis size?

Yeah, so exposure to DHT.

It's not necessarily just like what is in your blood it's more like at the tissue like how much do you need to actually okay mature so you could look at someone's dht levels on paper and know if they have a big dick or not no not necessarily similar to the test level though remember when i was like why is hormosi so jacked even though his test level is low yeah his response to testosterone is different Got it.

So it's the response.

Yeah, like he might have more muscle fibers than the next guy, for all we know.

He might have more androgen receptors or express harder when he binds with that testosterone.

And with size, it's like, you know, it's going to be dictated a lot by how much hormones are there, but also like your response to those hormones.

But in general, you could say with essential certainty that the more you push DHC higher, you would be closer to maxing out whatever your genetic potential is.

Yeah.

In adolescence, though, like once you're fully grown, you've kind of like, the boat has sailed a little bit.

Interesting.

What do you think of Tai Lopez?

I think he said if this fingers, I forget which one, if this one was longer, you have high testosterone or something, something like that.

Oh, yeah.

It's like the digit ratio or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I asked

Huberman about that because I think his lab was the one who determined this.

And I forget what his answer was.

There's definitely like a pattern, but I wouldn't necessarily read too much into it.

Yeah.

At the end of the day, people overthink stuff like that, I think.

He says, What are you going to do?

What actionable video?

Yeah, for sure.

Like, if you needed to see your finger was shorter to get a blood test, just get the blood test right.

Yeah.

Has there been anything you've heard from Huberman or Peter tia that really impacted you and you started implementing their advice um

yeah i think uh huberman's information about dopamine and actually using it as a way to drive pro um i don't know like goal seeking and how to not like burn yourself out how to go about modulating exposure to it being careful about when you are taking certain drugs, even situations that might spike it and being cognizant of what is happening in your brain has been impactful.

And some of his stuff about like, you know, circadian rhythms and light exposure, I think is pretty useful to understand, which I was like pretty

new to when I had first come across this stuff.

Light exposures like in the morning, get exposed.

Yeah, yeah.

Like it makes a big difference in setting your circadian clock, essentially, for telling your body, like, okay, this is when you get up.

This is where your cortisol should be higher.

This is when you should be up and alert.

And then as you've, most people are aware of not having blue light blasting in your face at nighttime.

Yeah.

But a lot of people aren't familiar with the converse side of that, where it's like in the morning, actually getting light in your eyes and making sure you're exposing yourself to the circumstances that tell your body, like, now is the time to get up and get moving, kind of thing.

Yeah.

So, that's you know, some of that stuff I think is impactful for sure.

And with Atia, a lot of it has been my understanding of cardiovascular disease and how preventable it could actually be.

So, what I mentioned with the lipids and atherogenic atherosclerosis potential,

he's pretty clear in that despite it being the leading cause of death in the States, which it is by a significant amount more than cancer even,

he thinks that it doesn't even need to be in the top 10 of leading causes of death.

Wow.

So, and it's the only thing that you can actually,

with near certainty, manually intravene if needed.

So, obviously, he, as well as I, as well as many others, would recommend optimizing lifestyle, diet, sleep hygiene, all that stuff.

But whatever you're left with after all that stuff, if it still looks like you could be in a position to accumulate plaque or you even got like imaging done to see and you have some level of plaque accumulation, like you got to really make a judgment call on if you want to get on, be the natural ancestrally consistent guy or be on drugs.

Because one of the two is like the right answer, but one of the two is the wrong answer potentially for those really genetically predisposed.

And, you know, to be able to learn that there is some level of manual intervention that could essentially wipe out the chance of heart disease in like almost everyone, I think it was pretty enlightening for me because I wasn't aware.

I was under the impression that as long as you optimize your lifestyle and everything's perfect, like you're probably fine.

Yeah, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Yeah, I guess there'll always be outliers, though, right?

Yeah, but I would say the outliers are more common than you'd think.

Wow.

Yeah.

I'm not to say that everyone's going to be prone or whatever, because some people with really high,

for example, those markers I mentioned earlier, there are some people that do actually live really long lives despite having high numbers.

And then it begs the question, like, how did they live so long when these numbers are supposed to be like equals heart disease in a lot of people?

And that's when it comes down to genetic predispositions.

And it's like, what do you want to hedge your risk on?

You know?

Yeah.

So there's ways to fact check through imaging, organ imaging and whatnot, and actually see heart structure function blockages in real time.

But it's like that's crazy.

It's just rigorously understanding this stuff is

pretty overwhelming when you get into it and learn about the realities.

I didn't know cardiovascular was number one, man.

Yeah, by a lot.

Do you think it's mainly diet or what are your takeaways from what's causing that?

Yeah, I think it's people being fat, exercising, shitty sleep, and yeah, diet for sure.

Because a lot of these numbers could dramatically change just by losing weight.

Also, blood pressure, often overlooked because everyone thinks about, oh, the cholesterol, the plaque buildup.

A lot of people don't realize the actual health of the artery is going to be dictated too by how much pressure is in it.

So if you have high blood pressure, which so many people walk around hypertensive and don't realize it, if you're damaging the endothelial wall, like that is how you're opening like the floodgates to actually allowing this like deposition.

of sterols in the arterial wall anyways to actually build this kind of like problem to begin with.

So that's super lifestyle modulated.

So if you are walking around hypertensive and not and thinking your diet is perfect, but ignoring certain things, like, you know, in general, I think the natural stuff is super impactful.

Yeah.

I try to be as natural as possible, but like you said, if you need to do certain things.

Yeah.

And like, I would love to take as little drugs as possible.

So, and I think most people could,

you know, have very high quality,

high quality lives and be very healthy without having to take anything necessarily.

But it's just being realistic about what the data shows too.

And if you need to dig into it further and potentially intervene, then being open to what the literature shows, I think, is worthwhile.

Yeah, it's certainly, as much as I would love to think ancestrally consistent practices and doing everything, you know, naturally is going to equal longest life possible with highest quality life.

Like the entire environment we're put in is unnatural to begin with.

We're sitting in like a room right now with all these lights and cameras and stuff, and you know, sleep regimens.

Like, nothing in this world is really natural at this point.

And I think, kind of just getting over that mental hurdle of I'm trying to be like a caveman or something,

or I just don't want to take any drugs.

Certain genetic predispositions, for all we know, have developed over time to be protective years ago that maybe we still have with us now that aren't as protective.

Like, there are certain predispositions that would,

you know, prevent you from getting, I don't know, like

you could eat raw meat and be less likely to get having issues from that, for example.

Back then, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, like,

things as they develop is less relevant when, you know, current cooking practices, for example.

Yeah.

Or like, why do I have an appendix, which just like does nothing?

You know, like, there are certain things that over time.

Wisdom teeth.

Yeah.

So, anyway, yeah, that's kind of the takeaway I would say.

As much as I don't want to lean in and say, you know, take drugs, it's kind of just be very open-minded and

unquestionably no one would disagree.

Optimize lifestyle, diet, sleep, circadian rhythms, etc.

Derek, it's been a blast, man.

Anything you want to close off with, promote, any websites?

Um, yeah, if you want to check me out, it's more plates, more dates on all social media, essentially.

Um, if you want to check out Merrick Health, it's my preventative medicine platform where we implement a lot of this diagnostic oversight oversight and develop rigorous recommendations based on the most cutting-edge literature.

And yeah, you can get a doctor who's in your camp to oversee this stuff and make sure you're on the up and up.

And yeah, I think that's probably it.

Thanks so much for coming on, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, I'll see you tomorrow.