Four Practices Dr. Rhonda Patrick Uses to Support Healthy Aging

Okay, so the next upvoted question is from Jim S., and it's— the question is, experts disagree on many things. One second something is great, the next it's a death sentence. What are the 3 to 5 most compelling things related to improving health and longevity that you strongly believe in that others might not? For example, using the sauna. And then there are some comments there about the protocol for the sauna and things like that. Take a sip of water. So I would say that— so the 3 to 5 things that I, you know, I think are good for longevity that other people may not think are great, I would say that for one thing, that doesn't necessarily mean they're the 3 to 5 things that are the best.

So if we're talking about Things that most people do agree on, I would say most people agree cutting out refined sugar, refined carbohydrates is great for longevity. Most people agree that, you know, exercise and not being sedentary is good for longevity. Most people agree that high vegetable intake is great. So those things are all obvious, obvious ones. But, you know, things that are— that I think are also good for longevity that most people don't necessarily consider. I would definitely say the sauna, using the sauna 4 times, 4 times a week would be probably have the highest, would have the most robust effect.

So we know that from studies out of Finland that using the sauna 4 to 7 times a week is associated with like a 50% lower cardiovascular disease risk, a 66% lower Alzheimer's, a 60% lower dementia risk. So those are, you know, those are really, you know, age-related diseases, and certainly cardiovascular disease is one of the top killers in the United States and also in a lot of other countries as well. The sauna mimics cardiovascular exercise in a lot of respects, but we also know that in addition, you know, in addition to that, it's improving blood vessel pliability, so blood vessel function, It's improving, you know, just the way that your blood vessels are working in general. It's also allowing your heart to do less work because there's increased plasma volume.

And, you know, basically your blood is flowing to organs a lot easier, which means that your heart has to do less work to pump it to get it to your different organs. Including the brain. And also heat shock proteins are another really pro-longevity factor that have been shown in multiple studies, including human studies. Humans that have polymorphisms that make them have more heat shock proteins are more likely to be a centenarian. We know that from studies, human studies that have looked at heat shock proteins in muscle biopsies, Um, that sitting in the sauna for— in a 163-degree Fahrenheit sauna for about 30 minutes can increase heat shock proteins by about 50%, and that, that lasts for 2 days.

So you don't have to do the sauna for 2 days, and that heat shock increase in heat shock proteins will be sustained for 48 hours, um, which is also really, really nice. So, um, the studies out of Finland that I cited, that the temperature was about 174 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, at least 20 minutes. So that was sort of like the minimum temperature and the minimum time was about 20 minutes to have the robust effect, the 50% lower cardiovascular disease, was a 40% lower all-cause mortality, 66% lower Alzheimer's disease-related mortality. So I think that, The 4 times is the most robust. 2 to 3 times also had an effect. It wasn't quite as robust. For example, instead of a 50% lower cardiovascular disease— cardiovascular disease-related mortality, it was a 24% lower risk.

So, um, not quite as robust, but still you're getting an effect. Uh, but if you really want that pro-longevity, I would say the 4 times a week is the minimum dose at 174 degrees for about 20 minutes. That would be— and at that degree, you're getting the— you're gonna get the heat shock protein effect as well. So that would be one. The second thing I would say would be that maybe most people aren't talking about are the broccoli sprouts. I think sulforaphane is an up-and-coming longevity compound. Lots and lots of clinical evidence that it, you know, it decreases cancer incidence, decreases cancer recurrence, increases a variety of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory pathways in humans. It lowers risk factors and biomarkers for oxidized LDL and cardiovascular disease-related markers.

Good for brain function. I mean, just a whole list of benefits. So I'd say that that's another one that most probably pro-longevity people are not talking about. And then the third, I would say, for example, I would say time-restricted eating. And I think that's kind of becoming more popular to talk about, at least in this, in the intermittent fasting respect. People are talking about that being a pro-longevity. I would say for sure time-restricted eating within at least no longer than 11-hour time window, preferably like 10 hours. And then I would say the other one is high-intensity interval training. It's one that I've become increasingly interested in.

And VO2 max is a biomarker for Aging, we know that— so VO2 max is the ability of your body to take in oxygen during exercise and then transport that oxygen to various tissues. VO2 max decreases by 10% per decade, and high-intensity interval training— in fact, there's been multiple, multiple studies showing that is one of the most efficient ways to increase VO2 max. Aerobic exercise absolutely does it as well. But when I say efficient, what I mean is, for example, studies have shown that doing just 24 sessions of a high-intensity interval training protocol, 45-minute protocol where you're having like 4 1-minute high-intensity pushes, you know, separated by, by, you know, active recovery, recovery, and you have a warm-up and a cool-down period and all that.

After 24 sessions, people's VO2 max increased by 12%. And that's like literally turning you back a decade in terms of aging. So I'd say that that is another probably up-and-coming, I'd say, practice for pro-longevity that I don't hear a lot of people talking about just yet. But I do think that it's going to be something that may play a role. Also, it's been shown in clinical studies in humans to increase mitochondrial biogenesis, the growth of new mitochondria in cells, up to like 70%. And I mean, that's amazing because you're talking about, you know, essentially replacing damaged, old, dysfunctional mitochondria with young, healthy, new mitochondria. And mitochondria are how you're making energy.

So that's— you're gonna have, you know, more better energy, more efficient energy production. And also, you're gonna be less likely to leak out damaging byproducts, which are, you know, constantly being made by your mitochondria, reactive oxygen species, free oxygen radicals. These things are damaging a variety of things in your cell, including DNA, including mitochondria. So young mitochondria leak out less of these damaging byproducts than old mitochondria. So if you take, like, for example, a 20-year-old and compare them to an 80-year-old, and you look at You look at their, their mitochondrial efficiency, a 20-year-old will have less, you know, damaging byproducts being leaked out than, than an 80-year-old. So replacing your old damaged mitochondria is also a good thing.

Again, high-intensity interval training. So I think those are the 3 things I would say most people are not talking about. They're not necessarily end-all be-all, but they're, they're 3 things I'd say that, you know, are compelling, and I strongly think they're gonna— that are going to make their way into the longevity arena very soon. In terms of how many high-intensity interval sessions per week, I would say 3. In fact, the study that I talked about— so this is Bill asking— the study that I talked about with the 24 sessions, that was over an 8-week period. And interestingly, that study also looked at people that did— were doing, um, more high-intensity training within that time period. So they were doing like 4 or 5 high-intensity interval sessions. There was actually a threshold.

So after, um, doing it 3 times a week, uh, people that started doing it 4, 5 times a week, there was diminishing returns. So their VO2 max did increase, but it was like an 8% increase as opposed to like a 12%. which really suggests that your body needs to recover. So I would say that, you know, probably even 2 to 3 times a week would be optimal, you know, for the high-intensity interval training. You definitely don't wanna be doing that like, you know, 4 or 5 times a week. Okay. Let's move on to the next. Yeah, and then in terms of what is a high-intensity interval training, I mean, there's lots of things you can do. Essentially, you're just trying to go you know, over, over 80% of your maximal oxygen intake.

A lot of times what people, what, you know, people do to do that is like a sprint, you know, a sprint, a hill sprint. I, I do mine on, on stationary bikes, sprinting, and also I do hill sprinting. Swimming, you can do it with swimming, burpees, all these things you can do. Lots of, you know, lots of things you can do for a high-intensity interval training. It doesn't necessarily have to be just the biking.