Andrew Huberman on Protein, Peptides, and the Science of Feeling Better

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Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand, and on the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that. I now know that. I now know that. nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is The Goop Podcast. Bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers. Here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Welcome to The Goop Podcast. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. And today I'm sitting down with a neuroscientist and Stanford professor whose work has changed the way so many of us think about our health. We talk about some of the biggest conversations in wellness right now, from protein myths and peptides to the power of sunlight, and the small daily habits that can have a profound impact on how we feel. Disciplined, deeply analytical, and a little bit punk, Andrew Huberman. Thank you. Delighted to be here. I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast. I am a big fan of your work. Your deep dives are legendary. And I think when you started doing your podcast and I started listening to it, it was really amazing to kind of hear all of the rigorous science behind all of the things that I sort of was instinctively feeling. I was instinctively feeling that I was doing something. I was instinctively feeling and hearing around, you know, health and biology and sort of what the body is capable of when you give it the right conditions. Did you have any idea when you started the podcast it would become what it is? I mean, my son who's 19 is obsessed. He quotes you all the time, you know, and it's everybody from that to you hear like, oh, I heard, you know, Stacey Sims on Huberman. Like you just hear it all the time from every kind of co-host. Right. Right. Right. Right. Well, thanks for the kind words. And no, I had no idea. I'd never done anything public facing. It was kind of in me, like it was getting built up in me over the course of my academic career because I've always been interested in health. I mean, after I broke my foot skateboarding a couple of times, I had to break the cardinal rule of skateboarding, which was I went to the football coach because back then it was like jocks and skateboarders were, you know, two separate entities, right? This was like, it was like the breakfast club. And I went to him and I just said, listen, I I'm getting hurt and I need to get strong. Also, I got a new girlfriend, my first, you know, real girlfriend and her previous boyfriend had been on the football team. And I was like, this guy's kicking. I was like, you know, I, I need to, I need to figure something out here. So he, he explained, you know, here's how you strengthen your body, pushups, pull-ups, here's the weight room, you know? And so I'd sneak in there and not tell any of my skateboard friends I did that. Now skateboarders, they all work out. They even train their neck because of all the, trying to protect their bodies, they're athletes after all. But back then it was, you had to do it all in secret. And then I got really interested in nutrition and supplementation. - Because of the? - Yeah, sort of because of those community, you know, I spent a little bit of time in gyms, but none of the supplement, they were all like weight gainers and pre-workouts and things like that. It was really because my dad's Argentine and he had these strong feelings about like, you need to eat meat and you need to eat eggs and vegetables. And my mom was more of a vegetarian type. So there was a little bit of a conflict there. And I decided to just kind of experiment and see how I felt best. And so pretty early on, I was like, this is wild. Like we grew up eating decent food at home, but when I'm out with my friends, it's all crap. Like everyone's like Taco Bell and, you know, and I started realizing if I eat well, I feel better. Now this was like completely outside what my peers were doing. But then when I went off to college, so I went to Santa Barbara. - Yeah, go Gauchos. - Go Gauchos. And that's when I got really excited about biology and psychology. - And did you at that point think, oh my gosh, I'm actually smart. Like I'm capable of reading, researching, retaining information. Was that a turning point? - Yeah, I mean, I've always been good at memorizing information. And especially if I draw things out or I write them out. - Yeah, you're really, your recall is bananas. - Yeah, it's gotten a little shaky over the years, but yeah. My colleagues used to joke that I had PubMed in my head. - Right. - And I do, I can, I'm not, I don't have a photographic memory, but if I want to remember something, I generally can. It's like, this is not easy. It's hard. I had a lot of making up of, you know, gaps in my education to do, but I took, you know, I took all the courses I needed to take. And I was like, this is actually a lot easier than skateboarding because I can study 10 hours, but I don't break my bones. You know, I like, it doesn't hurt as much. And I think I just, wasn't destined to be an athlete. Falling in love with science repaired my relationship with my dad. - Oh, that's so nice to hear. - Because he's a scientist, he's a theoretical physicist. We then had some common ground. I think I didn't appreciate until I was older that, you know, he was foreign. So it wasn't that he didn't care about my soccer games or he didn't care about, it was just hard for him to plug into the culture that we were in. And we've enjoyed a really great relationship talking about physics and talking about science. And the culture of science, which is a whole other thing, the personalities. And so we like really, we bonded through that. - Did you resent that in any sense that you had to sort of, you were the one that had to take on the career and the education that would then bring you to connection with him? - Yeah, it's interesting. I think my dad and I have done some really good work, not formal therapy, but really good work around, - Psilocybin. - Yeah, I wish, I wish. I don't think my dad would do it. That would be cool. Dad, do you want to do a psilocybin journey with me? He probably would now. He's 82 and still just firing on eight cylinders. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that is part of it. There was this resent, like I'm not going to be a scientist, you know, this kind of thing. And then, I mean, I think maybe it's just getting older. I'm like, like, how did I possibly expect him to like know exactly what I needed? But at all times. - It's like a resizing that we do of our parents in a way, you know, it's like we afford them the dignity of being just a person, you know, at the end of the day, I think it's a, it's a big milestone to cross as an adult. - Yeah, no, I realize I'm getting a little emotional about it because I think I've finally come to this place where I got my mom's kind of sensitivity and I'm very grateful to her for that. My mom would do like poetry clubs in the summer. We would all have to like remember poetry and then we'd get a gummy worm or something like that. Like she's the lyrical one. - I love it. - And my dad, yeah, his life was very foreign to me. I think as I, that's what it is. I just realized now, thank you. As I got into science and then I realized it's like, this requires a lot of time and it occupies a lot of mental space. And that must've been what he was doing. So we got to communicate about that a bit and now it's been great. And also I should say my dad, he's a bit of an iconoclast because he was an experimental physicist turned theoretical physicist, turned computer scientist. And he never allowed himself to be so central to one little sub community that they owned him. Like no one can own him. And so I've got that spirit in me. Like I love podcasting, but you know, I don't want to see myself just as a podcaster, just like I didn't want to see myself just as a scientist. - I understand that very much, I do. What is the criteria you use to determine whether you're going to put somebody on the pod? - I really like people that are outside the box and they're just like taking on, you know, built entire industries. Come on the podcast, by the way, this has been in the back of my mind. I'm not smart enough for your podcast. No, you absolutely are. Are you kidding me? I mean, I think you're an amazing example of, of somebody who has followed their interests, has built incredible businesses, but where there's so much of so much offering based on your experience, right? I think that the, yeah, I think that's really it is that some people want their experience and their knowledge to be theirs and keep it in their community so that no one can kind of damage the bubble. And I think the really brave people, and I'm truly, you know, you embody this, like they're putting things out there with the understanding that some people aren't going to like it or, um, but so many people will love it and resonate with it and be like, that's really cool. So when I bring people on to talk about their work, if they're practitioners, it's, I want to know what their mindset was when, how they cast away the, the history of their field, how they battle challenge, how they frame things. I think that that's the human spirit, all the different elements braided together. Exactly. And there's always a sub story. Like it could be, okay, the challenges of my childhood, but also these days I'm really more in like, my mom had a poetry club. I had a bird club with my, with my friend, Eddie is going to kill me for saying this. And he's the chair of neurosurgery. He's the, I will go on record and no one will battle me on this in the community of nerd. He is the best neurosurgeon on the planet. Wow. And he's highly revered. He does surgeries. No one else will do. Is he doing the Neuralink stuff? He has his own company doing that. They, sorry, Elon, they would love to get him at Neuralink. He's doing things, honestly, they're doing very cool stuff. He's doing things 10 times cooler. Wow. I mean, he's been written up a number of times. I'm so proud of him for, he's gotten people with locked in syndrome to speak. Oh my gosh. He had a patient, Pablo, who hadn't spoken in 10 years and through an AI interface that he built with, you know, decoding speech and language, which is really what Eddie's expert at, Pablo said. Hello. He can communicate with people. Oh my gosh. I mean, he's been written up a number of times for that and other feats. He's spectacularly good. And he's, and he's, he obviously has the heart of a poet as well. If he's having a bird club and also getting someone to speak, it's so poetic. It's, it's amazing. It's amazing. I mean, he's, he's, he's changing neurosurgery. He's changing medicine. He saved a, I won't mention it. There's a very public facing physician who paralyzed himself with a stem cell injection into his spine recently. Don't get stem cells injected into the discs. I was told because the discs can't receive stem cells, but he went to a clinic. He was paralyzed. Eddie did the surgery. His team did the surgery. I should say that no one else would do. This gentleman is now walking again. They were going to sever his spinal cord. So these, these are real heroes. So, you know, I feel like a lot of the podcast for me was about my love of a topic, right? The beauty and utility of biology and proliferate this wisdom, like throughout the culture, you have so many listeners. I mean, it's amazing to be like the, the tree and then the roots that spread from it. It's been fun. It's been wild. I mean, I, I, the public facing piece has been really hard. I was not prepared for that. You weren't what's, what was hard or what is hard. You said it in your discussion with Rick, you know, people kind of want to find it, keep you where they found you. And so I think people are like, oh, he's science professor talking about biology. But you know, I brought on former Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates on the podcast. He has the best training tools and he doesn't care if there's a double blind placebo controlled study for that. We just want to showcase that knowledge. So people see that and then they go, wait, what's happened to your podcast. But I hate to say this. It sounds kind of selfish because there's always been a give in the podcast, but the podcast is called Huberman lab for a reason. I mean, it's my podcast. If I want to talk to someone, I'm going to talk to them. I'm totally, you know, my PhD is still there. I'm still tenured. I'm not worried about whether or not I was, or I'm a scientist. It's, you know, so it's obviously for the audience. But if I want to talk to Dorian or David Cho, I'm going to talk to them, you know? And so the hard part I think is when people think that that fundamentally changes the information they heard before, it's not different. It's still true. It's also been important, I think, for me to understand that, you know, vegans versus carnivore versus, you know, for a long time, resistance training was looked down upon for women. Now we know it's very important. The science takes a while to catch up. Yeah. And I think that. Um, it's exciting to me now that health and wellness is a hybrid of, of these things. I've got a colleague at Harvard Med, Shufu Ma, who studies acupuncture. Wow. He's figuring out that certain combinations of needle sites lead to either increases or decreases in inflammation. The ones that increase inflammation can increase mood because sometimes they'll stimulate dopamine release. The other ones can, you know, reliably reduce inflammation to get to gut health issues and things of that sort. So if five years ago or 10 years ago, I said, oh, you know, I'm going to host someone on the podcast to talk about acupuncture. Right. People have been like, oh God, like, what is this? You know, next, next magic carpets. I'm aware. And so, but I think that the sand between the silos is really starting to show up and it's super exciting. It is. And I think that's also where, you know, the consumer in having this new sort of agency around their health and ideas are really forging forward in that sense. And, and I also think too, you know, there's, and I say this all the time, you know, in the early days of goop would, people would say like, why are you writing a piece on acupuncture or something, you know, in that world? And the other part is, you know, first of all, I believe always like if something, if there's a modality that is generations and generations and generations old, there's going to be something in there. Like there's, there's just always is. And also you always have to look at, and I'm not saying, of course we need double blind placebo. Backed studies, especially when it comes to things like medications and all the things, but there's always somebody who stands to benefit from that monetarily. And like, you know, somebody who goes out of their way to study acupuncture and like puts the science behind it, like nobody's going to patent that. It's not going to become like a $3 billion drug. So, you know, the impetus isn't there a lot of times to study these things and to put scientific backing behind them, but there's still validity to that. And I think that's one of the things that we're going to have to look at. And I think that there are two areas that I learned about recently through the podcast that have just completely reframed the way I think about traditional and modern medicine. The first was I had a guy on the podcast, Chris McCurdy. He's a researcher down in Florida and he studies kratom, which is this plant that causes both increases in alertness and it's also a mild sedative and it's used in Indonesia and people chew on it there. And, you know, it's just part of the culture. Here, it's been used to isolate just kratom from the plant and to create these very potent chemical derivatives that act like opioids. And so it's become a real problem. It's helped some people get off opioids, but it's become a real problem drug. It's more like taking the coca. It's like an over-the-counter thing. Yeah. I saw it on the show. A lot of issues and you're going to start hearing more about this. And he explained that just like the coca leaf can be used to isolate cocaine, which obviously can cause problems. For people, but that there are many things within the coca leaf that are beneficial. Right. And that opened up a discussion where he said all the drug companies have what are called bio prospectors. Most all of the drugs that we take it, unless it's a synthetic version of a hormone or something or a peptide are drugs that were discovered because they have bio prospectors literally in the jungle, learning about these different plants, bringing them back, isolating the different components and seeing which one would be good pain killers, which one would be opioids, which would be the best. So the notion that, you know, plants and plant medicine, um, outside of psychedelics as well, plant medicines, um, alkaloids and things like that would somehow be woo is ridiculous. These are the origin of most modern medicine. Right. Like isn't willow the basis for aspirin and Berberine is the basis for metformin. Metformin works as well as metformin for regulating blood sugar. You know, at a fraction of the cost, which, and then I had a guy named David Fagan, bomb on the podcast, who was a physician who got Castleman's disease, who cured his own Castleman's disease. He was Castleman's disease, very serious disease. It's, um, it's a cancer like disease, I believe. Um, check me on that, but he was close to death in medical school and he actually had to sign away his life and his, you know, he just said, you know, the hell with it. I'm just going to start taking every approved medication in small combinations and he cured his own Castleman's disease. He now has a, a, uh, not-for-profit called every cure where people who, or whose kids have diseases that are resistant to treatment can use AI to try and come up with using existing approved medications to treat their condition with great success. So here's, what's interesting. Most drugs, once they pass through the patent, they're not of interest to the drug companies anymore because they can be sold so cheaply. So there are tons and tons of drugs that have. 40, 50 different targets in the body that were marketed for one thing passed through the patent and actually can be very effective for treating other things. But we don't know nobody's studying them in laboratories. No one's marketing them. And you know, his example is an extreme one, but he's got dozens of other examples there. So it means that they, you know, the so-called pharmaceutical industry, while I do think they provide some useful things. You know, it is a business and, um, like right now, GLPs obviously are a big deal and, um, there's something, and by the way, that was discovered because a biologist, was studying Gila monsters. Gila monsters don't need to eat very often. What is a Gila monster? A Gila monster is one of those big, chubby, venomous South American reptiles. I think it was in that movie. What was that Marlon Brando and Matt and who's Sarah Jessica Parker's husband? Matthew Broderick. Broderick. And wasn't it, he was in a movie where there was like a Gila monster or Komodo dragon or something. Anyway, the Gila monster spelled G-I-L-A does not need to eat very often. Some nerdy biologist was like, I wonder how they don't get hungry. Isolated a peptide from the Gila monster. Oh my gosh. Turns out that's the GLP-1. Are you serious? Serious. I did not know that. So this is how biology, even like nerd biology, basic science can lead to cures for obesity, even though there's some issues with GLPs perhaps. But so then you get the- What are they? Well, you get a lot of muscle loss unless people resistance train. Right. The early versions of them, Ozempic, Manjaro, et cetera, for some people, they get a lot of gastric discomfort because there are receptors in the hypothalamus that controls hunger and there are also receptors in the gut. So it makes people feel really full. And there are receptors for the GLPs all over the brain, just like serotonin and SSRIs. It's not a clean treatment for depression. People get side effects. Same thing with the GLPs. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. Black Friday is happening now at The Home Depot, and they've got just the tree for your style, space, and budget. Make the holidays merry and bright with artificial trees starting at $49. Then make it your own with ornaments and trimmings for every holiday style. Find your perfect tree at the number one Christmas tree retailer and get low prices guaranteed on all three. Get a head start on holiday gifting with artificial trees starting at $49. Find your perfect tree at the number one Christmas tree retailer and get low prices guaranteed on all your festive favorites at The Home Depot. Exclusions apply. Visit homedepot.com slash price match for details. Can you explain why they're saying there are certain GOPs that are single agonists, double, and now there are triple agonists, which are purported to be better overall for the health or less, you know, disadvantageous to muscle loss? What does that mean? Yeah, so the. And is that true? It is true. Okay. The big thing that's coming out soon is Reta-Trutide. Right. People are already taking it, but they're getting gray market versions or black market versions. So the early version of these drugs existed a while ago where you could agonize, meaning increase the amount of GLP-1. That was used to treat diabetes pretty successfully, and those were two to fourfold increases in GLP-1. People did not lose much weight, if any. Then they developed Ozempic-Monjaro. Which increased levels of circulating GLPs like a thousandfold. So huge increases. The brain and body are not accustomed to seeing this, okay? But people would lose a ton of weight, but they would also lose muscle mass. By not eating or there's a secondary. They would just, they would go into, right, subcaloric mode so fast. Right. It would reduce that appetite so fast at the level of the brain and the body. So feeling full and not having the drive to eat. Right. And they would lose so much weight so fast in a large percentage of it was muscle mass, unless they did resistance training. Right. People quickly realized that they could take less and still get a really great effect. That irked the drug companies. The side effects thing kind of got out of control. And then it became somewhat political. You know, people were saying, from the exercise community, I think unfairly, said, hey, listen, you know, you just need to do lifestyle things. And, you know, I do think that once a person gets, puts on enough adipose tissue, it changes the hormone environment. Which changes the brain and all, and there's a lot of dysregulation that makes it really hard for them to quote unquote, just eat less. I'm not trying to give people a pass. I do think that people should take really good care of themselves, but these drugs were saving lives. Right. We now have GLP-3, which, uh, which is redditrutide, um, Eli Lilly holds the patent. Uh, I said, we, I don't have any relationship with Eli Lilly. I wish I bought stock because they're about to make a trillion or more dollars with redditrutide. Redditrutide is a more mild agonist of GLP-1. It also increases glucoglucose. Glucogon and something called GIP. So it hits three different pathways, each a bit more subtly. So lower side effect profile and people lose up to a third of their body weight across a year or so. Wow. And it does seem to have some muscle sparing effect. Now what people in the kind of exercise fitness community have realized is that there are places that will synthesize redditrutide. They're taking, I'm not recommending people do this, but there's, they're taking a gray market, black market. We're getting it from compounding pharmacies. Eli Lilly. Eli Lilly is very upset about this because they stand to make an absolute fortune with this drug. But people are also realizing again, that they can take less. They don't necessarily need to take the full prescription dose, which means they can extend the thousand dollar or whatever it is per month prescription. I don't know what the exact price is. They can share it with family members, which you're not supposed to do. People have gotten a little bit renegade about this stuff. It's sort of like sharing music in the, in the two thousands and people are like, I'm not going to buy this. Are you kidding me? me? I'm not going to buy this movie unless I really love the artists that people are starting I'm not going to buy this movie. to get stuff where they can find it. But I do recommend that people avoid black market and gray market sources because they can be less than pure and you don't actually know what you're getting. Well, that's, it's pretty concerning. I mean, I think this, it's been interesting to observe this whole peptide craze. And I, I do understand that there are certain injectable peptides that are really helpful for brain health, gut health, you know, read a true tide, this kind of thing, But there are like Chinese peptide, you know, where people are just, so how dangerous is that? I mean, how, what do you think people should, you know, because it's sort of like you've got, you know, naturopaths passing around peptides and you have kind of these sellers of peptides and they're getting them from China. So, I mean, how dangerous? Yeah. I mean, we're, we're sort of where we were with supplements in the nineties where there's really no third party testing and it's kind of word of mouth. And, you know, I mean, there were diet supplements in the nineties and two thousands that contained amphetamine and there were muscle building ones that had steroids in them. We know this. And then now we have third party testing and reputable brands and, you know, the sort of big five or six brands that we all trust. And then for herbs, people trust certain brands. And so if you are absolutely committed to getting true, pure redditruetide, you'll have to get it from Eli Lilly. Right. If you want- And what is the vehicle? Is it a needle from Eli Lilly? Yeah, they're thinking about, and they may even have an oral form, but it's going to be injectable, subcutaneous, just like a little 31 gauge needle. That's dosed out? Yeah, most likely. So how can people share it then? Oh, or they just draw from the ampule. Yeah. Yeah. That's you can undo the thing. Oh no. So you'll just, you'll get the ampule draw out some into a disposable syringe and then inject or the pens and they change the needles on the pens. I'm not recommending people do this, but I'm not suggesting people do any of this, but let's just say I've never taken a GLP, but it'd be kind of interesting to do it as an experiment and see how I felt. But I like to eat. I love to eat. I eat coop kitchen every single day. People think this is a promotional. I don't get paid to say that. I'm telling you, I love, I eat it every single day, just as I did before we met in person. Thank you. Yeah, I love it. We'll get back to that, I'm sure. But I love to eat. The reddit TrueTide is available now from gray market sources. The problem is that those who gray market sources can have what's called lipopolysaccharide, LPS. It can say 99% purity, but that 1% means there could be some LPS. LPS will cause inflammation. one injection isn't going to do it, but multiple injections over time, I could see where that could become problematic. Compounding pharmacies are going to be better than online, you know, gray and black market sources. People say Chinese peptides as a way of kind of dissing foreign sources. But the truth is there are a lot of sources here in the United States that are dirty too. Right. And they might not be retatrutide. It might be growth hormone. It might be, um, who knows? And that's the problem. So you need a reliable source. I do think regardless of the source of the drug, you need to work with an MD. So if you get it from an MD who, uh, you know, gets it to you through a compounding pharmacy right now, it's illegal to do that for Reta True Tide because Lily holds the patent, but people are doing it. But things like BPC 157, which seems everyone is now taking for tissue repair and inflammation. Yeah. I'm not aware of a single adverse event. I'm also not aware of a single clinical trial in humans. There's one which looked at gut health, but it's not a great study. There is a company that owns the patent, but they're just not interested in the drug enough or in this peptide enough - Have you tried any of the peptides? - Yeah, I've tried a lot. to peptides. I'll experiment with things and I rarely continue to do things. So I tried a peptide called pinellin, which has very, very little human data. I no longer take it, but I got great results from it. It gave me three hours a night of REM sleep. You're kidding. It was amazing. Three hours a night of REM sleep. Is that healthy to have? It felt great to me. I thought I'd try it. I'm a bit of an adventurer. You know, I didn't put it out there as a protocol or something to suggest to people because that's just me. That's my own use. I've taken BPC-157. If I have a joint that's in pain, I maintain pretty, I've been lucky to be pretty much injury free. Knock on wood. That's because you hung up your skateboard. Because I hung up the skateboard and because I try, you know, this is, if I can give any fitness advice to people is don't do the workout that you get challenged to do. Like when it's, when you go visit a friend, they're like, let's do this class or something. That's when people get hurt. You know, I always hurt myself putting down the heavy weight. That's every time. So picking up and putting down weight is often when people get hurt because, because we're not bracing, we're not ready for the lift. We're not thinking about that. Or even just we're in a staggered stance and kind of leaning over. I don't know, get someone else to put it back on. It'd be good for them too. So I think that, so pineal and BPC I've tried. The problem is I don't have a control experiment. So pineal and I stopped taking because I couldn't, I couldn't find another clean source and I didn't really need it. My sleep's solid doing what I do. With BPC 157, I'm lucky to not have an injury I'm dealing with, but I was, it's hard to get really true BPC 157 now. Yeah. But it's out there. Why is that? Because this other company holds the patent? No one's really made, well, no, it's not supposed to be sold. So no one's compounding it. There might be some places that are, but they're not supposed to. And then I should say there are a bunch of peptides like tesamorelin, ipamorelin, MK-677. These are growth hormone secretagogues that people take before sleep to promote growth hormone release in sleep. And those are FDA approved for other things. So those are less kind of mysterious and at the cutting edge because they were approved for other purposes by drug companies. So what is ipamorelin approved for? For increasing growth hormone for people like with reduced stature. Yeah. So some people will take growth hormone to try and grow taller when they're kids. Other people will take a growth hormone secretagogue. There are a couple other clinical indications I can't quite remember, but things like melanotan, which is related to a peptide that's essentially secreted from the pituitary and it literally causes tanning of the skin. It tends to make people hypersexual. It's a very interesting peptide. Let me write that one down. Well, the problem is it can make people so, there's some really scary images online of people taking too much melanotan and they look like they turn like deep bronze when their natural skin tone is not that. Wow. Okay. So you might say, oh, that sounds great, but it looks a bit unnatural. Some of the orange people that you see on television are probably on melanotan. It gives immense amounts of energy, increases libido like crazy, reduces fat. What's really interesting about the peptide that it mimics is it comes from in the pituitary and not to nerd out here, but when we are in sunlight, right, my favorite topic, when we're in sunlight, it increases the release of this particular peptide. Now this peptide tans people from the inside when they take it, but it's the pigmentation pathway. So melano is very closely related to the dopamine pathway. Again, I don't want to start getting into the biochemistry here, but there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a enzyme called tyrosinase, which is in the, so tyrosine, which comes from foods, like for instance, hard Parmesan cheese, the crystals on the outside of Parmesan cheese, that's, that's basically tyrosine. It's the, you know, it's amino acid, which is a precursor to dopamine. Incredible, right? Amazing. The mutation that creates albinism. So you, um, or that, uh, is based on a mutation in the tyrosinase enzyme, which is a rate limiting enzyme in the synthesis, of melanin and dopamine. Wow. Incredible. And then you think, well, what about the beautiful, like Arctic fox, which is white in the winter and is pigmented in the summer. And guess what? It's because sunlight activates this peptide and some other pathways through the tyrosinase activity or tyrosine activity, tyrosinase, and then eventually dopamine. There's a bunch of steps there, L-dopa and then dopamine. The animal has now energy, libido, it's pigmented, and it goes out and finds mates and mates in the winter. It's a shutdown time, right? So sunlight is the thing that catalyzes these increases in dopamine, in pigmentation and so on. And so a smart biochemist figured, Oh, let's isolate this peptide. And a company said, Oh, let's create melanotan. And it's actually used to treat hyposexuality. It was approved for, um, for women first. I think the drug is called Vilesi or something like that. Uh, that could be getting that wrong, but you know, this has taken in some niche, communities. I'm not, but I love, I've never taken it. Um, but very interesting, right? Energy, libido, dopamine, and mood, uh, levels of activity for long days, 14 hour days. We see this in the animal kingdom and you see it in humans. I'm not recommending people take melanotan, but that's an FDA approved peptide for instance. Yeah. Yeah. So the, you know, whether or not you're talking about Gila monsters and curing obesity or treating obesity, because lifestyle is still important, or you're talking about melanotan and, um, Arctic foxes turning, you know, Brown and in the summer and mating only during the summer, see this in tons of different species. There's a, this beautiful relationship between the seasons, the sun pigmentation and dopamine. Right. Yeah. And of course, testosterone and estrogen, which is all downstream of that. So, you know, we are, we're biological creatures and, you know, we have this, you know, brain override thing where we try and explain everything, but I think we're a lot more, um, susceptible to things like pheromones, even though pheromone effects in humans have been hard to find, but you know, most odors, the most primitive form of communication between animals is their instructions. So people trust your, your nose when, when picking a romantic partner, I really mean that if their sweat smells really bad to you, if they smell bad to you, I actually think they're bad for you. Interesting. I really believe this. I believe this. I don't have, there are some data, but like, I'm convinced that when people are afraid or they're anxious, they emit a certain odorants. Um, and I think we're going to start to learn more about this. And I think it's one of the things that social media divorces us from a bit. Um, and divorces us from a lot. It divorces us from a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a whole other podcast. Yeah. Yeah. What, um, what is the most like startling thing that you've learned doing the podcast? In terms of information, I think the thing, the conclusion, the conclusion that I've come to is that, you know, we have all the biological mechanisms within us to really take control of our state of mind, of our state of body, um, to quiet our mind or to simply be comfortable in the chaos of our mind, but that we're never taught that. Yeah. So whether or not you use an ice bath to raise your adrenaline and then kind of lean into a hard day and make it feel easier, or you use exercise to raise your mood, or you use long exhale breathing to slow your heart rate, um, or you get morning sunlight to kind of calibrate your whole system, which is really what it does. Um, I think I'm just overwhelmed by how amazing the human body is if we do the right things. I think that that's just, I'm still kind of in awe of it because I think other animals that I've spent a lot of time thinking about their biology are exceptionally good at a couple of things. Our, you know, blessing and our curse is that we can be good at any number of different things, but we are all pretty terrible at regulating our internal systems until we know what those things are. So for me, the, the, the kind of the awe, the, the appreciation is like, it's all there, you know, whether or not you decide to, you know, do 15 minutes of journaling about something really bothering you three times. The Pennebaker trauma treatment. I mean, there's the number of quality papers showing that that's extremely useful. You sit down and you write out for 15 minutes about a really real, something that's got you in your mind that you can't shake. And then you do it again a few days later, same, same practice. Then you do it again a few days later. I mean, that's been shown to reduce symptoms of trauma, to help people come to understand things, to purge some of the inner chatter around that, the way it's waking them up and bothering them. So all of those things are available to us. I think that I'm also still blown away by neuroplasticity. The fact that we, unlike other animals can reshape our neural circuitry because we decide to. And my scientific great grandparents, David Hubel and Torrenson Weasel, they essentially showed that brain plasticity can really occur. We kind of knew it from language learning and some observations in kids over, you know, centuries, but they really defined the, this thing that we call neuroplasticity and whether or not somebody does therapy or the Pennebaker journaling or or, um, or a darkness retreat, something I hope to never do. Um, I do not want to go in a dark, I'll tell you one, one thing is going to kill the darkness retreat industry. So forgive me, but someone I know did one. And I said, I just not for me, sell it to me. And she said, well, it was really tough. Cause at the end they turned on the lights and there were all these spiders in there. And I was like, never, I was like, forget it. I don't mind spiders, but I need to be able to see them around me. Um, I, I have no interest in it. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease symptoms. Don't pause for the moments that matter. That's why understanding your treatment options matters. Discover what's possible with Trimphia. Gucelcomab. Trimphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them in liver problems may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections. and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor, if you have an infection flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine, talk to your doctor and explore what's possible or call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more about Trimphia and visit Trimphia radio.com. Re-imagine how you do wellness with new first of their kind mochi bites from the number one gummy supplement brand. Oli multi beauty energy and sleep mochi bites are certified vegan gluten-free made with naturally sour sweeteners. Delectably tasty and take your routine from mundane to extraordinary all while delivering the same expert benefits. Elevate your wellness with mochi bites today. Sold exclusively at Target. These statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I wonder too if it's a specific personality type or specific like enneagram type that can weather that like there I would lose my mind. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a solid three on the enneagram. Okay. Where I am in the terms of the ladder of health, that's up to, you know, you can pull people close to me, but, um, I like to think I'm at least ascending as opposed to descending. Um, do you, do you like the enneagram? Yeah, I'm a one. Can you remind me what the one is? One is a reformer. So one is always trying to improve things all the time. That's a good one. And so it can index into, you know, like the more beautiful aspect of that. And it can index into like perfectionism and beating yourself up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the enneagram is brilliant. I do too. I think it's really brilliant. I think I, I got a lot more out of the enneagram than I did out of the sort of five personality dimensions. Yeah, me too. I didn't, I didn't. Also I'm very agreeable except when it comes to what I actually do, you know, I'm kind of disagreeable. Like I like people and I'll take it all in and then, but in the end I gotta go my own way. Yeah. So I felt like it didn't really this agreeableness thing is like, how do you, when people offer a counter idea, what do you do? I'm not gonna fight them on it, but I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna like make a decision. Yeah. Yeah. So I felt like it didn't capture much, but the enneagram seems to really capture people. It's very, it has a lot of depth to it. Like there are many layers and aspects to it. The more you read about it, it's, it's pretty fascinating. The three is like the, the achiever, right? It's the achiever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My sister always gives me a hard time about that. She's like, you're a three. She's a therapist. I forget what she is. Maybe she, my, I think my dad's a four. He's even though he's a scientist, he's like the romantic, you know, like my dad constructs his days. He's like, I'm gonna walk here and we're gonna go there and we're gonna have this for dinner and we're gonna do this. It's Argentine. You know, it's like everything, everything's come and, and we were, he reports what he had for dinner. They're in Uruguay right now. He and his wife is seeing his brother. Like, what are you doing? Oh, we had this. It's all about the daily structure in a way that's, yeah, it's really, it's really cool. Do you use the enneagram like at work at hiring people or dating or anything like that? Oh my. Um, no, I should. Yeah. I used to do for work. So I have this weird, um, thing where, when it comes to picking people from my lab or coworkers or business partners, I'm proud to say only bull's eyes. Wow. I mean, they, people always say, oh, you're gonna have this terrible relationship with your graduate. I had a great relationship with my graduate advisor. I knew she was the one to mentor me at that stage and my postdoc advisor. And I hope my students would, you know, they've all done well. They're running labs or off doing their thing. Like I never had these like big conflicts. podcast team, you know, Rob Moore. And then the other guys I brought in also, I brought them in from skateboarding. Right. Rob's not from that, but I, I knew he was the guy. I knew he was the guy to produce the podcast. And I said to him, hopefully he doesn't mind. I was like, I'll do this, but, but only if we're equal partners, I'm not going to, none of this, like kind of, I'm the, you know, it's equal. And he was like, no way. And I'm like, well, then we're not doing it. And he was like, okay. And then we brought other people in. He's a phenom. And I brought Mike Blayback, who's a famous skateboard photographer. He shot Danny way, jumping the great wall. He's, I mean, he's iconic skateboard photographer, portrait photographer. Um, I was like, we need photos like Blayback, like who else would be, we bring. And then Chris, uh, Chris Ray and Martin Fobes there, they've won all sorts of awards for filming. Um, they're on the Red Bull film team and they skateboard and they work like nobody has their work ethic. My husband was like, can you ask him about this protein intake thing? Because he's like, he has always been into. Fitness and lifted weights and everything. But he's like, he says the amount of protein that he's seeing recommended is he thinks is insane. And like protein sequestered in every random thing. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's insane. Okay. Great. It's insane. I think if somebody re you know, like a teenager who's true, who's growing very fast should follow their appetite and eat nutritious food, including a lot of protein and healthy fat. Yeah. I think that this idea of one gram of protein, per pound of body weight, it's for some people, it's simple for other people. You feel kind of poisoned. I actually have been, you know, I, whether you eat breakfast or you don't doesn't matter so much. I think that it's, we can kind of sense when you've had enough, certainly animal protein. Yeah. And I think that, um, I don't have any hard studies to back this up, but if you start to feel like, Oh, like you're force feeding anything, it's bad. That's bad. But it's so conflicting. It's like, okay, you have to eat this much protein. It has to be like, you know, great quality animal protein, whatever grass fed dairy, whatever beef, et cetera. But then you have, you know, cardiologists saying don't eat red meat and you have, you know, I was reading something really interesting lately around like low inflammation, vegetarian diets being so good for lowering inflammation. So what's the deal? Yeah. So there's a great study here. We can look, we look to some really great peer reviewed science from Justin Sonnenberg, who's actually my upstairs neighbor at Stanford world expert in the microbiome. He and his wife, Erica run the, probably the best microbiome lab anywhere. And, um, Christopher Gardner, who's been a kind of champion of vegetarian diets. Um, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm, I'm an omnivore, but they did a study where they looked at people who ingest low sugar, low sugar, low sugar, low sugar, low sugar, fermented foods versus intentionally increasing low sugar, fermented foods versus increasing amount of dietary fiber from vegetables, some fruit, but mostly vegetables, some grains, et cetera. And then it was a crossover design. So people, the idea to wash out, then people switch groups and they looked at what's called the inflammatory. So looking at a bunch of different inflammatory markers, we can confidently say that ingesting a couple of servings or more per day, low sugar, fermented foods. So sauerkraut, natto, kefir, kefir, kimchi, Bulgarian full fat yogurt is my favorite or Greek yogurt, things like that. Um, greatly reduced the inflammatome. So wonderful, uh, by way of improving the gut microbiome in very significant thing that people say, well, if you have certain microbes and certain dysbiosis, then low sugar fermented isn't good. It feeds the wrong things. Yeah. We still don't know exactly which microbes are ideal, but you don't want to be dysbiotic where you don't have enough diversity there. So we're not quite at the place where we can say it's these microbes specifically. Okay. There are a few that, that appear to be beneficial, but diversity of gut microbiome is great. Low sugar fermented foods and, and, um, increasing them gradually is going to help, you know, so that you don't get a ton of gastric discomfort, but finding a few that you like and ingesting those every day, the fiber group was very interesting. People increase their fiber pretty dramatically. Some people had increases in inflammatory markers and we know that some people because of lectins and it seems it's seems that there, there's at least two different broad groups of people, some who can just eat lots and lots of vegetables of all kinds and it doesn't seem to irritate their gut. I think it's highly individual. For instance, I can eat cooked broccoli, love it. Cannot eat raw broccoli, cabbage, love it. Other vegetables. It's tough for me. You know, I feel kind of not well when I eat them. So you need to experiment and find what vegetables and fruits work for you. Yeah. And it's interesting when people do the food sensitivity blood tests, which I don't know if those are really, you know, mirror what's good for you or not, but like a lot of people have an inflammatory response to broccoli or, you know, Yeah. Or even, um, you know, if you do some blood tests, they'll show that you make antibodies to say strawberries. I do that for him. I love strawberries, but the fact that I have antibodies probably reflects the fact that as a kid I had some mild allergic reaction to them. In fact, I remember getting a little rash cause I would eat like a whole bowl of strawberries, but now I can eat them just fine because I have antibodies. Right. So we have to be a little careful with the blood testing versus the actual, you know, actual allergic reaction. You were asking about protein, but the, the reason I'm taking this, this route to it is that the. eat enough fiber. This is important, but pick the right fibrous foods. And some people don't do well eating grains. They just don't. So when the cardiologists are saying too much red meat isn't good, what else are people eating? You know, I think that if people are going to increase their red meat consumption and I love a good steak four nights a week, um, yeah, I don't, I don't tend to eat that many grains. I have some rice, some oatmeal. I like some sourdough. I'll eat homemade pasta, but I don't tend to mix those at the same meal in at least in large quantities. Right? So I actually think the best studies have not been done of separating like your high protein. And then maybe you have like a pasta dish later that hasn't really been done. It's always so extreme. And so I don't really trust most of the studies, frankly, on nutrition. I think most of them are completely worthless. I really do. I think at the extremes, I think the conclusions are real too much saturated fat, not good, especially if you're consuming a lot of starchy carbohydrates and sugar, you know, the combination of starch and sugar and fat, that's where things get problematic because we can just consume so much of them. So, but when it comes to, um, one thing that I've been doing recently, and I, I learned this from Sean Mackey, our head of the pain division at Stanford, when he came on the podcast, I said, what do you think of kind of these like, you know, kind of woo stuff for gut pain. And he said, he used to think it was ridiculous, but then he himself had some really serious gut issues. And he discovered that onions and other histamine producing foods would do this. And some of this might run in families. And so my sister, for instance, said to me, you know, that she started taking a, it's an enzyme to help con before any kind of histamine containing food or meal. I was like, I'll do that. It's like a little pill. I take it. Oh my goodness. I feel so much better. I used to get this kind of thing where I'd feel like a little bit itchy, feel a little tired. If I had dairy a little bit later, it was, it was subtle, but I now take this little tiny, you know, histamine. I forget what the name of his, um, H O a that's a homeowner's association, something else. Anyway. Oh, and here I'm talking about my memory. Um, anyway, whatever the it's a, it's a enzyme that you take before meals that have high histamine content. I don't care what anyone tells me. I'm not waiting for a study. I feel right. You know, for pennies a day, I feel so much better. So some people might be susceptible to histamines and Sean, Dr. Sean Mackey's MD, PhD, after all, he said it relieved his gut pain to avoid high histamine containing foods or to take an enzyme that can help digest histamine containing foods. So I think we're very individual based on genetic lineage and how we grew up and on and on. I think that getting for, for men, probably getting a hundred grams of quality protein per day minimum is good. Should be pretty easy to do a couple of, even if you're eating twice a day, that's pretty easy to do depending on woman and her, her size and weight, maybe, um, slightly less than that. But if you're doing a ton of resistance training, you're working very long hours. Sure. Be, you know, increase the amount of protein, but that protein can come from a variety of sources. I don't like to eat, meat more than once a day. It's too hard to digest. I get tired. I don't like to eat meat too close to bedtime. I end up with the meat sweats thing. And, you know, I think we should all experiment and figure out what works for us. But I don't think he should feel pressured to get whatever it is, one gram per pound of body weight, especially if he's happy with his, you know, with his body composition and he feels like he's holding onto the muscle he's got. I'm so grateful to you because, you know, my son who's 19, who has, you know, this generation of kids, they have stuff, right? They have, um, anxiety stuff. And you honestly have given him permission to really think about himself as an autonomous person. You know, he wakes up, the first thing he does is go outside. Awesome. He's timing, you know, cause he's not a good sleeper either. So he follows you religiously. And, you know, I'm like, don't you want a cup of coffee? He's like, no, I have to wait, you know, the 60 minutes. He's cultivating good habits. Well, great. I look forward to meeting him. You have my phone number. So if he has any questions, he can reach out. I'm always happy to know that self-care is, um, is the best. It sets you up to be, uh, very successful. It does. And I think, you know, it's like, I'm his mom. So he's seen it this way, but it's just been so nice that he, you know, has found you and he, um, he loves you. So thank you. Well, thank you. Please give him my regards. And I'll say this was not a promotional, but I continue to eat goop kitchen every day. No, they don't pay me. I just love it. I started, ordering and I get it for my team. I love, love, love it. Yes. I eat the Huberman chili, but, and the roasted potatoes and the salads and the bone broth, the chicken broth. Um, yeah, I'm yeah. It's awesome. Thank you. It's awesome. It's so good. It's so good. And it's, the ingredients are so clean and I'm S I'm so proud of it. You know, I think there's, as you know, like food is medicine. You, you talked about it today. It's just the, you know, when we're conscious about, you know, and it's a privilege. So if we're lucky enough to be what we're eating, you know, to, to be able to provide meals like that, that are so delicious and healthy, it's like a lifelong dream fulfilled. No, it's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of cadence 13 studios. I hope you'll listen, follow rate and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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