Q&A #18: How to Test Blood Lipids—and Which Magnesium Form Is Best?

Hello, everyone. Welcome to, gosh, round 18 of the FoundMyFitness Crowdcast series. We've been, we've been going strong. For those of you that are new or new, you know, live right now here viewing me or listening to this, pre-recorded later. Just a little bit about how these work. I basically answer questions that have been submitted by members. Pro tip, submit your questions early. My team and I really like to get the questions early on so that we can do a deep dive in the literature if needed. And, you know, it's just my nature that I do really like to prepare So probably many of you have already noticed that little, that little trick that if you, that if you really want your questions to be seen, that you submit them early. Questions are voted by other members.

I don't necessarily always choose the most upvoted question. Sometimes the question has been answered before in previous Crowdcasts. So I try not to be too repetitive, although These days, I find myself trying so hard not to be repetitive that I forgot that a lot of times there's an influx of new people coming in all the time. And so, people may not know about what autophagy is or the importance of certain micronutrients or things that I've just talked about quite frequently in the past. So, I made a note to not be too concerned about not being repetitive, because it's really, I think, important to once in a while go back and revisit important topics.

And, and even for those that have heard it before, because sometimes you get, you gain some new insight from the repetition or from hearing it again. You kind of have a little bit of an aha moment or something like that. So, I also like to do some rapid-fire question, questions at the end, towards the end of the Crowdcast, where these are questions that are Don't take a long time to answer. And so, I, you know, I do a few of those as well. I also, throughout the Crowdcast session, like to answer some live questions in the chat. I already see some great questions being submitted in the chat. So, that's also something that's done. Before we get started, just remember that none of this is medical advice. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm a scientist.

Oftentimes what I'm doing here, my team and I, we work together and go through and do scholarly reading of the scientific literature, put together sort of facts, what the data shows, and sometimes I'll even interject my opinion. So please, any type of lifestyle change or any type of modification, please discuss that with your physician. With that said, we can jump in. And I do want to say here, just one of the questions I noticed in the chat from Lance about how after last month's special Q&A with Dr. Jed Fahey, where we were talking about all things sulforaphane as well as other isothiocyanates such as moringa, I had mentioned an anecdote of mine, how I noticed putting— adding moringa powder into my smoothies.

Had a pretty significant effect on my blood glucose levels, postprandial blood glucose levels, and also even fasting blood glucose levels where it was pretty consistently, it lowers it a few points. And of course, Dr. Fahey said, yes, that is something that does happen. And they're investigating this in clinical research and potentially investigating the use of moringa powder in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. And so, fun to see people here like Lance saying that he went out and bought some moringa powder. He also wears a continuous glucose monitor and he noticed the same thing. So, pretty exciting stuff. For those of you that haven't tried moringa powder, I use the brand that Dr. Fahey has validated. It's Kuli Kuli. I usually just order it from Amazon or Whole Foods.

And, It's not like it's an acquired taste. It has like a spicy taste, you know, much like the broccoli sprouts do. And I like adding it to the smoothies because it, you know, the smoothies does sort of help balance that taste out a little bit. And there's just, that's just the easiest way for me to consume it. So that's pretty much what I like to do. And I need to get back to adding, I kind of stopped adding it because I've been making a family smoothie where my 3-year-old gets some and he definitely will not drink it with moringa powder. So, I have to aliquot his out and then add the moringa powder back in because it's just really phenomenal what it's doing to my blood glucose levels, not to mention the other benefits as well. So, with that, I'm going to jump into the first question.

And, that question was submitted by Trevor. And, Trevor asks what my thoughts are on the recent study that I shared on social media regarding hyperbaric oxygen treatment and how hyperbaric oxygen treatment could reverse specific biomarkers of aging. I shared this on my Twitter. I shared this on Instagram and Facebook. If you don't follow, Any of those pages, I recommend whatever your favorite social media go-to, you know, sources, whether it's Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. I've been recently adding a lot of my favorite news stories to Instagram stories. So I'm trying to do, you know, an almost daily update on like cool stories and that. And that is where I shared it on Instagram as well, which gives you a link to the study.

So, for those of you that aren't familiar with hyperbaric oxygen treatment, it's essentially a very high-pressure, high-oxygen treatment. So, you go into this chamber that's pressurized and you're basically getting blasted with high levels of oxygen. This was a very small study. It was only in about 35 people. The study was conducted in Israel. I believe, at the University of Tel Aviv or somewhere in Tel Aviv. And it certainly was very exciting. And I think the more I thought about it, the more I, you know, wasn't quite sure it's an end-all cure to aging. So, what the study found was that a variety of these treatments, and I don't remember how many off the top of my head, but you could read the press release to find that, And the biomarkers of aging that were affected were telomere length.

So, telomeres are the tiny caps at the end of your chromosomes that protect your DNA from damage, wear and tear. And they get— with each cell division, every time your cell divides to make a new cell to replace that older cell, telomeres get shorter and shorter. And so, there's sort of a proxy for aging because the older you get, the shorter your telomeres get. And things can accelerate that shortening. So things like, of course, smoking, being exposed to a variety of environmental toxins, chronic inflammation, you know, lots of DNA damage, those things can and have been shown to accelerate telomere shortening because the telomere essentially is taking the hit for the DNA.

So if you are, for example, out in the sun for, you know, many hours and you're being exposed to a large amount of UV radiation, you know, the telomere is going to take the hit rather than your DNA because, you know, DNA getting— potentially getting the damage could lead to a mutation in a part of the gene that could potentially lead to cancer. And so, the telomeres will, like, take the hit so that doesn't happen. So, telomere length was actually lengthened by up to 38%. And these were measured in immune cells. And this is important. And I'll come back to that in a minute. The other biomarker that was measured was what's called senescence.

And, you know, cellular senescence, it's very intricately linked to telomere length because As a telomere reaches a critically short length, the cell detects that and realizes that, you know, this telomere is very, very short, and therefore, any damage that occurs isn't going to be protected by that telomere anymore and potentially could lead to cancer. And that's a very bad thing. And so, the cell as a protective mechanism to prevent cancer, stops dividing. And it doesn't necessarily die. So the cell doesn't die. It's not gone. It doesn't undergo what's called apoptosis, which is a type of programmed cell death. What it does is it sort of just goes into this very weird, almost like in a retirement kind of state.

State where it's kind of metabolically active, but it's not like a normal metabolism. And unfortunately, senescent cells, because they are still metabolically active but they're kind of weird, they end up secreting pro-inflammatory molecules and cytokines. And they can end up actually accelerating the aging process in nearby tissues or nearby cells within that tissue. So, you have, let's say, one cell and it's senescent. So, it's now senescent and it's secreting these pro-inflammatory cytokines that then start to affect the next cell next to it. And, just like chronic inflammation, I mean, that's a type of chronic inflammation. And so, it ends up accelerating the shortening of telomeres and thereby ending up that nearby cell will end up senescent sooner than it otherwise would have.

And so, for more on that, you guys can go back and listen to the interview I did with the top senescent researcher pretty much in the world, Dr. Judy Campisi. She's a phenomenal scientist and she's also started a company called Unity, which is the first company that has identified a variety of what are called senolytic drugs. These are compounds that have been identified that can potentially selectively clear out senescent cells and not damage normal healthy cells. And, you know, there's a variety of proof-of-principle studies that have been done in animals where that occurs and it can make an older animal seem more youthful. In terms of the way their organs are aging and things like that. So, that was kind of a long-winded explanation of the relevant biomarkers.

So, the senescent cells that were measured were actually a type of immune cell called cytotoxic T lymphocytes. And, this hyperbaric treatment basically decreased the amount of senescent cytotoxic T lymphocytes by, again, close to around 37%, 38%. And that's really relevant because cytotoxic T lymphocytes are a type of immune cell that are very important for not only killing foreign pathogens, viruses, bacteria, but they also play a very, very important role in killing cancer cells. And as people age, the number of cytotoxic T lymphocytes decreases. Because you probably guessed, those cells undergo senescence. And so, as they undergo senescence, they can't divide and make new cells.

And so, the population of cytotoxic T lymphocytes becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller each year. Eventually, you have a very small pool of it. And so, you're more susceptible to viral infection, you're more susceptible to bacterial infection, and you're more susceptible to cancer, which is, you know, definitely happens with age. Yeah. And so, why I'm not sure that the hyperbaric treatment is a cure-all aging treatment is because it's really unclear whether telomere length, for one, is a very weird biomarker for aging.

And, in fact, you should go back and listen to the interview I did with Dr. Elissa Epel who has worked very, very closely over you know, over a decade, probably over 2, close to 2 decades with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for discovering the enzyme telomerase, which is able to rebuild telomeres. And she, in that interview with Dr. Elissa Epel, she discusses some of the nuances of telomeres and telomere length as a biomarker for aging and why it's kind of a weird one. It's not clear that the immune cell telomere length is indicative of— sorry, the immune cell telomere length is indicative of the rest of the body's tissues and how the telomeres are, how the cells are aging in other tissues. What it could be a marker of is immune function.

And certainly, the same goes for cellular senescence, you know, these cytotoxic T lymphocytes, it's unclear as to You know, the hyperbaric treatment may be affecting specifically that population of cells, but is it affecting your brain, or is it affecting your liver, or is it affecting your heart? It's really not clear. So I do think that it seems to have special relevance for the aging immune system, particularly with respect to the cytotoxic T cells. Cell population. So, for that reason, I find it exciting. Certainly, extremely preliminary, as I mentioned, a very small study, 35 people. So, I'm certainly keeping, you know, my eyes on, you know, whether or not more research comes out, but I'm also— I'm not going to go jump into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber just yet.

So, all right, the next question was submitted by Octave, and Octave also refers to a, um, a recent study that was that was published. And this study basically was interesting because it showed that people that had fragmented sleep and then drank coffee before eating a meal had a poorer glycemic response than people that, you know, I think the study was people that didn't drink the coffee after the poor night of sleep. And it's really kind of confusing because many, many studies have found that, in fact, it's quite paradoxical actually, because many studies have found that, you know, coffee consumption has a beneficial effect on glucose regulation and insulin sensitivity. And it seems as though much of those benefits are actually at the level of polyphenols found in coffee, not caffeine.

And in fact, caffeine itself in isolation from the polyphenols may actually be responsible for having a negative effect on blood glucose regulation. : So, there have been just countless studies that have found, clinical studies that have found that polyphenols do improve glucose and insulin sensitivity. And basically, the higher the concentration of polyphenols, the better the glucose regulation. And interestingly, there are studies, clinical studies that have shown that caffeine in the absence of polyphenols can actually cause a very transient insulin resistance and a poor glycemic response. This specific study that Octave was citing here, the type of coffee they used was Nesquik instant coffee. And, it seems very probable that instant coffee may not have as much of the polyphenols.

I mean, the more processing that's done with the coffee, that's been shown to lower the polyphenol content really in a dose-dependent manner. So, that's really one, and that's been shown empirically in several studies that if you've— and we talked about this in previous Crowdcasts, we've talked about the raw coffee beans and the green coffee beans and how how much of these certain types of polyphenols like the chlorogenic acid, for example, and how that's been shown to be beneficial on glucose regulation. So, I think that's one possibility. And, the fact that the caffeine itself, so you may have this instant coffee that's high in caffeine, low in polyphenols, bam.

So, what you got is, as I mentioned, the caffeine sort of in isolation from the polyphenols actually has been shown to have a negative effect on glucose regulation. And then you have the whole fragmented sleep component, which in and of itself, you know, many studies have found that just sleep restriction. So, you know, if you take someone that usually sleeps 8 hours a night and then you restrict them to 4 hours of sleep, they have terrible glucose regulation in the morning irrespective of coffee drinking, you know, or caffeine consumption. So, I mean, that's also another variable to consider because several studies have found that basically sleep deprivation and fragmented sleep and everything in that spectrum changes your muscle and your liver glucose absorption.

It also changes the beta cell sensitivity to glucose, which basically can affect how much insulin is produced, which would affect your blood glucose regulation as well. So, I think that Yeah. So, I would take that study with a grain of salt and not, like, freak out that drinking coffee is going to, you know, cause you to be insulin resistant because quite the opposite. Many studies have shown that, again, drinking coffee that's high in polyphenols can improve glucose regulation. So, Sharon is asking in the chat live, she says, how is fragmented sleep defined? So it really depends on the study, but generally speaking, fragmented sleep is when you have multiple interruptions in your sleep when you're awake for 10 to 20 minutes.

And so, for example, fragmented sleep is absolutely 100% unavoidable when you're a new parent. So you're constantly waking up to feed your newborn. So that's an example of fragmented sleep. So you're often woken up. And people can have fragmented sleep for many different reasons. Chronic stress is one that can really— having anxiety can wake people up in the middle of the night where they're thinking about things and their mind's really active, they're worried about stuff, and that can definitely lead to fragmented sleep. Yes. So the next question that I'm going to address was submitted by Alex. And Alex asked, is there a way to control parathyroid hormone? also known as PTH, to reduce the secretion, improve calcium sensitivity.

It seems to play a key role in calcium, in the calcium-vitamin D equation and osteoporosis, arterial sclerosis development long-term. Both are crucial for longevity, but it looks like parathyroid hormone reduction and control is generally missing from the research. Alright. So, A little background. Parathyroid hormone is secreted by the parathyroid glands, and those are located within the thyroid in the neck. It corrects low blood calcium levels by reabsorption from calcium stores in the bones. So, it increases reabsorption of filtered calcium in the kidneys and by increasing the calcium absorption in the gut by activating vitamin D. So, the parathyroid hormone will activate the vitamin D and this plays the role in increasing the calcium absorption.

And that usually happens in the case where people are more vitamin D deficient where when you're getting sufficient levels of vitamin D, the parathyroid hormone is not being activated as much because you're getting enough vitamin D to increase calcium absorption. Okay. Parathyroid hormone's also secreted when your blood calcium is low and when blood magnesium levels is mildly low or when your adrenaline or histamine levels are high. So, conditions that can actually inhibit parathyroid hormone release are when your blood calcium levels are high, your blood magnesium levels are severely low, Okay. And also when you have high levels of vitamin— the vitamin D active hormone calcitriol. But really, parathyroid hormone is not a huge contributing factor to osteoporosis.

It only causes osteoporosis when parathyroid hormone is chronically elevated as in the case of vitamin D deficiency. Or hyperparathyroidism. Outside of that situation, it's not really thought or shown, at least has been shown to really contribute that much to osteoporosis. So, I think the best way to prevent osteoporosis really is exercise. That's been shown to be a really big one releasing osteocalcin, which helps bring calcium to your bones, having adequate levels of dietary calcium, making sure you're vitamin D sufficient.

So, you want your blood levels of the precursor to the active steroid hormone, which is the precursor is 25-hydroxyvitamin D. You want those levels to be between at least above 30 nanograms per mL, ideally 40 to 60 nanograms per mL according to the scientific literature. Showing that, you know, over 33 studies have shown that those levels are associated with lowest all-cause mortality. And another sort of factor to consider is vitamin K2. I think that's a, you know, sort of— there's much less evidence, but, you know, similar to what exercise is doing, it's activating proteins, not osteocalcin, but it's activating matrix Gla and other proteins that are involved in shuttling calcium out of the bloodstream and bringing it to the bones, bringing it to muscle tissue, bringing it to the tissues and bones that need it.

So, that's kind of my 2 cents. Sandra's asking about the best ways to measure bone loss. That's sort of outside of my scope. You know, that would be something I'd have to look up and read about all the best ways. So the next question was submitted by Lizette and Lizette asks, what are your thoughts on food inflammation tests that measure both IgG and immune complexes? Do they work? I've read that these tests are not accurate and results may lead people to unnecessarily avoid healthy foods or prompt individuals with food allergies to include foods that could be harmful to them. So let's talk a little bit about this. I do think there's a lot of interpretation in these quote unquote food allergy tests, but let's talk a little bit about terminology first.

So a food allergy is when the immune system inappropriately responds to a safe foreign substance, right? Like a safe food. Symptoms of food allergy include hives, swelling, itching, anaphylaxis, dizziness. Food sensitivity, also referred to sometimes as food intolerance, that really is the inability to process or absorb certain foods. And the symptoms of food sensitivities can include flatulence, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, cramping, nausea. So the current medical guidelines for diagnosing a food allergy kind of start with a characteristic history, physical examination, And then there's these tests that they use to validate. And oftentimes, there's the allergen-specific IgE antibody test, there's this skin prick test and food challenge.

The presence of food-specific IgG antibodies means that the body was exposed to that food. And it doesn't necessarily mean that the body's allergic to it. So the IgG antibodies to food do not clinically correlate with food allergies. So, for example, 2 studies with patients diagnosed with milk and peanut allergy showed that as their allergy test resolved, their IgE antibodies decreased, but their IgG antibodies actually increased. So, as they became less As their allergies lessened, they actually had an increase in the IgG antibody. So, it'd be very hard. I think it's really the IgG antibody test for diagnosing food allergies, food sensitivities doesn't seem to be very accurate. Okay, so one rapid-fire question real quick.

Dwight's asking, are there any risks to doing hyperbaric oxygen treatment? I, you know, it is, you're exposing your body to large amounts of oxygen. You know, it is a type of oxidative stress. However, it seems as though it could be a type of hormetic. Stress in such— in a similar manner that exercise is. Are there risks? I think there could be. I certainly would like to dive a little bit more into it. And, I saw someone else in the chat mentioning Dr. Dominic D'Agostino. He's done some animal research using hyperbaric oxygen treatment before. So, I might want to give him a a holler and ask him a little bit more and maybe just do a little more reading myself. But I certainly think it's possible.

I just don't know for sure what all those risks are other than the fact that it's oxidative stress for sure. It's a lot of oxygen. So, the next question was submitted by Max. And Max asked about the pros and cons about different forms of magnesium supplements: magnesium citrate, magnesium malate, magnesium threonate, magnesium oxide, magnesium chloride, magnesium sulfate, magnesium glycinate. All right, here we go. We're going to do a little tour of them. So, the main differences between these types of magnesium supplements are the bioavailability of the magnesium and the side effect, quote unquote, side effect profiles.

So the side effects of magnesium supplements, particularly at higher doses than 125 to 150 milligrams, can include diarrhea, gastrointestinal distress, And some of these supplements can be worse than others. In general, bioavailability is higher in the forms that are more water-soluble or bioavailability is actually higher in dietary magnesium. So, the bioavailability of dietary magnesium, so magnesium from food, is between 30% to 40%. So, let's talk about the supplements and I'm going to sort of go through them in order of increasing bioavailability. So, the first ones that I talk about are the least bioavailable and then the last ones will be the most. So, first is magnesium oxide. Magnesium oxide, I mean, I don't know anyone that takes that. It's mainly used as an antiacid, antacid.

And it comes in very large doses, but it's not very bioavailable. I mean, the bioavailability of magnesium oxide is between 2% to 4%. And that's because the magnesium ions don't dissociate very well. So basically, if someone's taking a 250-milligram magnesium oxide tablet, you might only absorb around 6 milligrams of it. And, it also can cause diarrhea and even vomiting. So, not my favorite magnesium, supplemental magnesium. So, magnesium chloride has a bioavailability of around 20%. It has been used in a variety of clinical studies. One study showed that it improved symptoms of depression in adults with mild depression if they used around 250 milligrams every day for 6 weeks. So that's kind of interesting. The next type of magnesium is actually the one I usually take.

It's magnesium glycinate. It has a bioavailability of around 25%. In clinical studies of depression, it also improved depression in adults after supplementing it for 12 weeks. And The magnesium dose in that study was dependent on a person's weight, so it ranged from 77 milligrams to 390 milligrams, really depending on the person's weight. Magnesium glycinate doesn't— it has a much less effect on the gut, so there's much less gastrointestinal problems with magnesium glycinate. Which is one of the reasons why I really like that one. It's pretty close in bioavailability to some of the more bioavailable ones like magnesium citrate, about 30% bioavailable. So, it's like 5% more bioavailable than magnesium glycinate, but magnesium citrate does have a side effect of causing loose bowels.

Dietary calcium, again, is the best. I mean, it's really good. It's between 30% to 40% foods. That are better than others because they're lower in phytate would be the leafy greens and seeds. So, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almonds, spinach, cashews, even peanuts and peanut butter even is a great source of magnesium. So, actually, if you think about peanut butter has around 50 milligrams per serving, typical serving size in peanut butter. So, that's pretty good if you're getting that. Magnesium threonate is sort of a new formulation. And, I've talked about this in a previous Crowdcast, perhaps even more than one. It's unclear what the bioavailability is, maybe somewhere between 30% to 40%.

It's been shown in one animal study to improve learning abilities and improve short-term learning and long-term learning and long-term memory in rats. Another animal study showed benefits on delaying the progression of Alzheimer's disease. And there was a human clinic— these were, of course, very high doses. And there was a clinical study that was a very high dose between 1.5 to 2 grams a day, which is extremely high. It was shown to improve cognitive ability, ability. And I talked about this kind of study in detail, but basically, the magnesium in the blood slightly increased, but there was no increase in red blood cells, which is sort of a better proxy. We'll talk about that in a minute. Most of the magnesium was actually quickly excreted.

So, it really— the magnesium in the urine was really high. The studies that showed improvement, the cognitive test, there was 4 of them. And, basically, only when they pooled all 4 studies together could they get statistical significance. So, each study in isolation, if you looked at it, there was no statistical significance. So, take it with a grain of salt. I think it's possible that it may help, but it's possible that it really might not do much. But, it's another source of magnesium. Magnesium malate, if anyone's ordered that before, it's really, in terms of weight, very low concentration of magnesium. So if you have a magnesium malate tablet, only about 13% of that tablet is magnesium. It's mostly malate. But it's got a really high bioavailability, about 70% bioavailable.

But the dose is quite low. And so, initially, I remember years ago back in, I don't know, 2012 or '13, I wanted to take magnesium. I wanted more malate in my diet because malate can be shuttled into the mitochondria and is a really easily utilizable source of energy much like much like ketone bodies or lactate. And, I thought, well, one of my colleagues, Dr. Mark Shigenaga, was doing a lot of research on malate and he showed that it was beneficial for the gut. So, I was like, oh, well, I'll get this magnesium malate and supplement with that. But, it just ended up being too much of a hassle because such a low dose of magnesium. But again, it's more bioavailable, so trade-off, right? Lastly, magnesium sulfate, really that's just used for intravenous administration.

So it's 100% bioavailable, of course, and there are side effects. But that's sort of the lowdown on magnesium supplements. The RDA for magnesium is dependent on age. It's dependent on gender. So adults, for adult men, the recommended daily amount is 420 milligrams. For women, it's 360. And for pregnant women, it's 400 milligrams. And for 1-year-olds, it's around 80 milligrams. 50% of the country doesn't get enough magnesium. So, you know, they're not eating enough of the foods that are high in magnesium. So that's one reason why you should increase your dietary intake of magnesium. The next question has to do with magnesium as well. And it's really— the question was, If my blood levels, you know, are normal for magnesium, is it you know should you take a magnesium?

Should you try to get more dietary magnesium and or should you supplement? And first of all, I want I think it's really important to mention that I would say like ninety five percent maybe more of the blood tests, if you go and get your magnesium levels measured, they're actually going to measure your magnesium in plasma, which is essentially pointless because plasma magnesium levels don't really tell you if you're deficient because magnesium is so important. that your body pulls magnesium out of your bones to keep plasma levels stable. And so, a person can be not getting enough magnesium and they can have insufficient, even moderate deficiency, and a plasma magnesium blood test will keep you in the normal range.

The other way to measure magnesium is from red blood cells, which is a little bit better. But still, it's still, I think, unfortunately, the best way to really know if you're getting enough magnesium is the old-school calculating your dietary intake. I had some former colleagues of mine that were trying to develop a magnesium test from lymphocytes. And, there were so many technical hurdles and that The test never really made it anywhere, and they just you know sort of I think I think that project kind of died. But I really I really think unlike most things where you know measuring quantifying the levels is is really great. It all depends on the sensitivity of the test, right? So if the sensitivity of the test is nothing, then there's no you know.

Unless you're severely deficient, you know, you got like you got like Crohn's disease and you can't you're not absorbing your magnesium, then you're not really going to know much from a plasma test. So the other thing to keep in mind is is that basically there there have been some some studies that have looked at plasma levels of magnesium. And they found that basically unless, again, unless a person was severely deficient and they were in the lowest quartile of the plasma magnesium, that basically that's the only thing that was really indicative of anything and it showed a 32% increase in all-cause mortality. So, I really think that basically the caveat here is that You know, you could show up.

You could show up even you know good for red blood cell magnesium, and still there's room for optimization if you're not. If you're a male and you're and you're not getting you're not meeting that RDA of 420 milligrams if you're an adult male, right? Then then there's room for optimization. So Taryn's asking in the chat about the marine omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, and whether they compete for absorption. Should they be taken separate times? The short answer is there is some kind of nuance there with competition for some of these desaturase enzymes and stuff. I take them at different times. So, I take my EPA in the morning and I take my DHA in the evening. Interestingly, there have been some studies showing that DHA improves sleep. So, why not take it in the evening, right?

But yes, I do take, I do take them at separate times. Okay, so the next question is really a complicated one, and it has to do with blood lipids, and it's something that we've talked about several times in in these Crowdcasts and in quite great detail. So I'm going to sort of touch on some of these things and maybe from a little bit of a different perspective than usual. But I will say that I do, and I would like to sit down and have a discussion with my friend and former colleague, Dr. Ronald Krauss, who I interviewed on the podcast Way back in 2015, when we worked down the hall from each other, brilliant scientist and physician. And it's been it's been long enough that I think it's time to sort of have a round two to get some of his thoughts, his more current thoughts on a lot of the.

Cholesterol and, you know, all the basically lipidology in general. So, this question has to do with if you're getting a blood test, you know, which panels to choose, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, very low LDL, ApoA, ApoB, calculating the different ratios, the elevated HDL to the LDL or The ApoA1 to ApoB, you know, is there— there's a lot of stuff. And it's not, you know, it's really like, it can be overwhelming and sort of hard to differentiate where focus should be. And I think that, you know, Ron, as Ron would probably say, you know, looking at everything is really important, you know, the big picture. Is certainly probably one of the most important things.

But let's just do a really quick review on some of these lipids because maybe not everyone knows what ApoB is, you know, for example. The traditional lipid panel consists of HDL, LDL, and VLDL, triglycerides, and total cholesterol. So, In that panel, HDL is high-density lipoprotein, and it's a lipoprotein that carries many things including cholesterol. And it's thought to be called the quote-unquote good cholesterol because it returns cholesterol from blood vessels to— from your blood vessels and from your tissues, and it returns it back to the liver. So it sort of recycles it back. And that's essentially— that's the large buoyant HDL specifically because there's different sizes of these lipoproteins, and that's really important.

The LDL is low-density lipoprotein, and that really has been characterized as bad cholesterol because it does the opposite as HDL. It can take cholesterol from the liver and transport it and deposit it into blood vessels, but that can become a problem. And it also deposits into tissues, which is good because your tissues need cholesterol. You need every cell in your body. Your cell membranes are made of cholesterol, and you know without that cholesterol there's going to be major problems. So LDL is doing important things as well, and the sizes of the LDL particles is where it's really at because they come in you know large buoyant sort of medium and these these small dense particles. The large buoyant LDL particles are actually not quote unquote bad.

They're actually, they've been shown in research over the last 2 decades to be beneficial because large buoyant cholesterol is what is transporting cholesterol to tissues and cells that need it, cells that are damaged, cells that need repair. New cells. When you make a new cell, you need cholesterol. And that type of LDL is less likely to become trapped and deposit cholesterol into the arteries, blood vessels. The small dense LDL, the small particles, those are the ones that are much more likely to deposit into blood vessels, and those are much more likely to be atherogenic, and is why it's important to not only measure LDL, but to measure the size of the LDL particles.

And also, the same goes for HDL because you can have really high HDL, but if you measure the particle, if you break that HDL down and you say, okay, well, within that HDL pool, what are the sizes of the HDL? Because it's the large buoyant HDL that is actually recycling that cholesterol back to the liver and getting it out of the bloodstream, right? That's what you want. So, if you have really high HDL, but it's mostly small, the small HDL, It's not quite as beneficial, so it can be a little misleading to just measure total HDL and total LDL without measuring particle sizes of those lipoproteins again because you could have high HDL, but they're not it's not the HDL that's the good stuff; it's mostly the bad stuff.

You could have high LDL, but it could be mostly be the good stuff and not the bad stuff, and vice versa. Right? You could actually have lower levels of LDL, but then you measure the particle size and most of it's the— and this usually is not the case, but it can be. So, I think the data, and I've just been convinced that the data really suggests that particle size is important to measure. And that is not something that is standard when you're going, let's say, for a checkup and you're getting a standard lipid test from your physician. That's something that needs to be asked for. And perhaps, I'm not sure if insurance covers it or in some cases it might, but I do think it's extremely important. So in addition to that, there's a VLDL, which is the very low-density lipoproteins.

And VLDL is similar to LDL in that it delivers triglycerides instead of cholesterol from the liver. So it delivers triglycerides, it brings them from the liver and brings them to areas in the body. For anyone that wants to go more into this, please go back and see my interview many years ago with Dr. Ronald Krauss. You can find that on the episodes page or if you look far enough on iTunes and whatever your podcast feed is, you can find it. So let's talk a little bit about some of the other markers that were mentioned in this question, ApoB, for example. ApoB is a protein that is produced in liver and it provides structural support for lipoproteins, particularly VLDL, which is also a precursor to LDL. By the way, ApoB is a good marker for cardiovascular health for a couple of reasons.

One, ApoB is actually— so it's basically a more direct way to measure LDL particle number. So we're not talking about size, we're just talking about how many actual particle numbers, right, there are. And so that may be more relevant for cardiovascular health than actually total LDL for much the same reason as looking at particle size as well, because typically the small dense LDL particles, which are the ones that are more likely to deposit into the blood vessels, the ApoB protein sort of becomes obscured in those— on those particle— on the small dense particles. It can't be recycled back. And so measuring that ApoB number, having that ApoB number in your vascular system is kind of a marker of these particles perhaps that are not being recycled back properly.

And that's— the ApoB is what's likely to more insert into your arterial walls. And so, again, they're present a lot. They're present on— so ApoB and small dense LDL, they're kind of on the same coin, right? They're kind of measuring the same thing because those small dense LDL particles are much more likely to deposit in the arterial walls, and the ApoB protein on those small dense LDL particles are the ones that are doing that. So, I think ApoB is a pretty good marker. At least, you know, I've been convinced with much of the work by Dr. Ronald Krauss and his colleagues and others that it really is a good marker for cardiovascular health. Interestingly, ApoB regulation is kind of tricky. It's mostly regulated through it being degraded and not made. It's constantly being made by your liver.

Your liver is constantly making this stuff. Inflammation is one thing that does increase the production of ApoB. Because ApoB is present on the very low-density lipoproteins, the VLDL. And, what's interesting is what— the VLDL is also really kind of good at binding some of these inflammatory mediators like endotoxin, for example. So, inflammation, there's a mechanism that kicks in that cranks up VLDL production, which is one reason why you should always get multiple lipid panels done when making any kind of dietary lifestyle decision, treatment decision. Because if you just do a lipid panel once and this is a snapshot, let's say there was some kind of stressful event and you were under stress. Stress causes inflammation in the gut. And that absolutely causes VLDL to go up.

Psychological stress causes VLDL to go up. Or let's say you were sick and you had a cold, you had some kind of the flu, or you had your blood test done around that time shortly after where the inflammation was still high. You know, all of a sudden your LDL, your VLDL are through the roof, but in reality, that was only because of the acute inflammation that you were under. So it's really, really important. And that's kind of just as an aside, you know, that these things, these tests need to be done multiple times. And that unfortunately, you know, there are people that will get a test done once and make a decision like getting on statins or something. And it's like, well, maybe we should do a couple more tests and make sure that's the right decision.

I also want to mention that fish oil supplementation has been actually shown to decrease ApoB levels in people that have dyslipidemia and in people that actually had normal lipid levels, so not people with dyslipidemia, the fish oil, there was a trend towards decreasing ApoB. It wasn't statistically significant. But it seems oftentimes the statistical significance, again, it's kind of like one of those things we don't really know. Is it because the sample size was too small? That's often the case. Also could be the dose wasn't right in that population or, you know, so So that's always something that I really found interesting. I think there's a lot of studies out there if you look at the published data in terms of looking at ApoB and ApoA and LDL and HDL.

And you can pretty much find, you know, all of it in terms of like, oh, well, looking at total cholesterol and LDL is really important for cardiovascular risk and looking at APOB is really important. And I think that, you know, there are a lot of details and nuances and moving parts here. And I think that all of it really is important to look at, triglycerides, everything. But, you know, I think some of the really big take-homes that I focus on myself are definitely getting the whole panel. But really looking at particle size, HDL particle size, LDL particle size, looking at my ApoB, and to some extent, you know, monitoring my LDL levels and total cholesterol levels for sure, and my triglycerides, which are always just rock bottom low. But I don't really have an answer.

You know, I think that, again, I do think that I kind of just wanted to cover some of the basics and if people have sort of an understanding of the importance of ApoB, the importance of particle size, LDL particle size, HDL particle size, that sort of makes more sense why just measuring total HDL could be good but it could mean nothing really depending on the particle size of that HDL, right? Same with LDL. And that's kind of my take-home. And again, I do want to have a follow-up with Dr. Krause because he's just so knowledgeable on this topic. And I think it would be beneficial for me and for everyone as well. So... Okay. All right. So the next question has to do with medium-chain triglycerides. And medium-chain fatty acids. So the question was from Callum.

He asked about how most supplement companies focus their quote-unquote keto products. They focus on using predominantly caprylic acid, which is an 8-chain fatty acid. And so Calm is asking, what are the potential benefits of the other medium-chain triglycerides such as— so the caprylic, capric, and lauric. So I don't know if I said it correctly the first time, but caprylic is the 8-chain one and capric is the 10-chain and lauric is 12-chain. So medium-chain triglycerides are basically 8 to 12 carbon fatty acids that are attached to a glycerol molecule, a glycerol backbone. And in the gut, the pancreatic lipase releases those medium-chain fatty acids from the glycerol backbone, and then it's absorbed and sent to the liver by the portal vein.

And so, that's very different than the way long-chain fatty acids are metabolized. So, Carbons that are more than 12, 12 carbons in length, they're metabolized very differently. But so basically, the distinction is that the liver has an opportunity to process medium-chain fatty acids before the rest of the body has access to them. So the vast majority of the medium-chain fatty acids Regardless of whether they're caprylic, C8, capric, C10, or lauric acid, which is C12, they're all basically catabolized in the liver via beta oxidation, which is the way this happens in the mitochondria and it's how the body uses fatty acids as energy. So, I really think that the beta oxidation, they're using these medium-chain fatty acids and acetyl-CoA is produced.

And basically, it either makes ATP or that acetyl-CoA that's made can then be used to make longer-chain fatty acids or triglycerides, or it could be used to make beta-hydroxybutyrate, a ketone. That can then enter the bloodstream and has all sorts of interesting benefits as a signaling molecule and also can be used as a source of energy as well. But really, only 2% to 3% of the medium-chain fatty acids bypass the liver without metabolism or get absorbed into the lymphatics in the gut. So basically, that means that basically 97% of the medium-chain fatty acids Okay. Bypass the liver without metabolism. Sorry, 90% of the medium-chain fatty acids that we consume actually result in the same fate in terms of the metabolism in the liver.

So, really, only 2% to 3% of those medium-chain fatty acids have specific effects because they stay either 8-carbon or 10-carbon or 12-carbon. So, you have to realize that the capric or caprylic acid that you're consuming, most of it has the same fate as if you were consuming the capric or the lauric. It's a very small percentage, 2% to 3% that has a different effect. And, that's really why you see a lot of overlap between any health benefits of caprylic acid versus capric acid versus lauric acid. You know, there have been some studies that have looked at caprylic acid and they found, you know, caprylic acid has been shown when given in a 4-milligram dose per kilogram body weight, it could help in reducing postural tremor in patients with essential tremor after 3 hours after consumption.

There's been some other placebo-controlled studies showing that it helps improve essential voice tremor. So it really seems to affect tremors. High consumption of caprylic acid could also, you know, affect the microbiome as well. Capric acid. So caprylic is the 8 carbons, which you do find in many of these MCT products on the market. Capric acid has been shown in animal studies to help with help treating, you know, animals that have been given epilepsy or have epilepsy, you know. So that's, you know, pretty limited research there. Lauric acid, there's been a lot of evidence showing that it does seem to to have positive effects on the microbiome as well, and antiviral effects.

It's also associated with changing It helps with satiety, so it changes like ghrelin, the hunger hormone, so people become more satiated. There's also some evidence that it may help with cardiovascular health. Lauric acid is something that's very—it's very concentrated in coconut oil, and a type of another form of lauric acid, monolaurate, is actually very concentrated in breast milk. So, that's kind of like the breakdown. Again, most of these things are doing similar effects. And, in fact, I think if you were to probably do a head-to-head comparison of the caprylic acid and the capric acid on the tremor, you'd probably find the same thing. So, perhaps these products, there's a lot of echo chamber where you find one product does it and then people sort of copy it.

Maybe there's production reasons that I'm unaware of. You know, lauric acid, for one, is solid at room temperature, um, or below, and is a liquid above room temperature. And so that, that becomes sort of an issue when you're trying to make these products that are liquid, right? Uh, so that could be, you know, obviously one reason why many products don't put lauric acid. Um, but, you know, maybe there's some other, you know, production issues that sort of steer people towards using capric acid, or sorry, caprylic acid versus capric acid. The next question was submitted. I don't know the name of the person. I didn't write that one down. Sorry.

But essentially, the question was about lactate levels and measuring lactate levels because there's a lot of lactate meters on the market and you can sort of measure them to. Sort of gauge your exercise zone or intensity and whether that's like a necessary or good thing to do. I'm not an expert. I'm not an exercise physiologist. I did do a really great podcast with Dr. George Brooks some years ago who leads the exercise physiology department at UC Berkeley and is also the pioneer of the lactate shuttle. It was a really excellent podcast. You guys should go back and listen to it.

Nor he talks about all the benefits of lactate that's produced or generated during exercise, and particularly you know when you when you reach that high intensity threshold, and how that you know the lactate shuttles into different tissues like the heart, the brain, and is a really easily utilizable source of energy, and has all sorts of interesting signaling functions as well. But It is my, from reading some of the literature, and again, I'm not an expert on this, so please take this with a grain of salt. I tend to lean towards heart rate being a more accurate way to measure exercise intensity or zone because the rise in lactate levels actually lags behind heart rate. And actually, lactate levels will persist even after heart rate returns to baseline.

So, heart rate will increase linearly with exercise exertion while lactate increases exponentially. So, this means when you're using a formula that's based off of a percentage, so for example, 60% to 70% max heart rate, there's a linear association, heart rate will give you more accurate prediction of, you know, than gives you more an accurate prediction of something than exponential association. So that's sort of my sort of two, my two cents on that in terms of, it's also easier to, you know, there's so many heart rate monitors out there. So that's what I like to do. And I think that it makes more sense when you're talking about something that's in a linear range versus log. So just my 2 cents. As I said, not an expert.

Moses is asking in the chat about medium-chain triglycerides raising LDL or particle number. I know there have been studies looking at coconut oil, which is very, you know, it's a saturated fat and it does absolutely raise LDL. I've done Several experiments on myself, anecdotally speaking, cutting coconut oil out of my diet dramatically lowered my LDL. I would have to go back and look at the literature to see if there's specifically any data that has quantified whether or not specifically just consuming a medium-chain triglyceride increases LDL. So if that's something you would like us to look into, post that on the next Crowdcast, please. Okay. Let's move on to the next question, which was submitted by Mako, I believe. And, this question I've seen recycled many times.

I'm finally getting to answer it. The question says, sunlight has health benefits, vitamin D, nitric oxide, eye health, sleep, et cetera. But, as Dr. David Sinclair and as yourself noted, it also causes DNA damage. Is there a threshold of sun exposure necessary before DNA damage occurs, or does DNA damage begin immediately when sunlight hits the skin? Is there a level of UV index where it begins to matter? I wish we knew the answer to that question. I wish there was some data to support answering that question confidently. Unfortunately, there's no UV index that I know of that exists that has quantified the minimum amount of UVB exposure you can be exposed to without damage. I guess the question becomes significant damage and damage enough to matter, right?

The UV radiation, it does damage your DNA. And, I mean, it's certainly involved in skin aging. I mean, there's there's the DNA damage that can go real deep. And, I personally think that for someone that's really trying to avoid the DNA damage, early sunshine is probably the best bet in terms of the rays aren't quite as damaging earlier. That at least is known. And, you know, going out in 15, 20 minutes. That's kind of what I do. The rest of the day, I do have sunscreen on or I have a big hat or something to protect my skin.

And, you know, but again, that's kind of— it's not— it's just, you know, we do know again that the sun is less damaging earlier in the day, but we don't have like all this empirical data to back everything up, right, where you're less likely to get damage, DNA damage in your epithelial cells. I do think that also it depends a lot on a person's amount of melanin. So, how dark their skin color is, the more melanin they have, the darker their skin color, the more that protects from the damaging UV rays, but also the less a person's going to make vitamin D efficiently. It depends on latitude where you're at. So, certain parts of the year in more northern parts of the country, in the United States, for example, UV radiation doesn't even hit the atmosphere.

And so, not only is the person not making vitamin D, but they're not getting a lot of the damaging DNA-damaging rays as well. You know, so that there's a lot of factors there. And also, as you get older, you become less efficient anywhere between you make anywhere between two to four times less vitamin D from the sun. And so then you start to weigh the pros and the cons here, and it seems like well, you're not even making that much vitamin D from the sun. Then maybe you might as well take a supplement. You know, so I think there's just. A lot of moving parts in that question. And it is, you can absolutely be exposed to bright light early in the morning, and that is really important.

And certainly, in early development, being outside in bright light is very protective against developing myopia, so nearsightedness. It's one reason why I really try to get my son, who's 3, Yeah. Now, he's 3 years old now. I try to get him outside a lot because it really does protect against myopia. It's one of the main factors. And again, it sets the circadian clock. I mean, it helps all of us set our clock so that we know our clock registers it as daytime. And so, we get sleepy earlier when we're supposed to rather than being up all night. So, as Mako mentioned, all those factors are important. Bright light exposure is important.

But personally, I try not to be— I mean, I've seen so many people in Southern California and other parts of the country like Florida where there's a lot of sun year-round and they just look leathery, their skin. And it just doesn't look very healthy. All right. So the next question was from Jared. Jared asks, our 4-year-old— our daughter is 4 months old. When I start to introduce foods in addition to breast milk, of course, I'm curious what to feed her. I note that you put fish oil supplements into your son's meals. Could you talk about your experience in this arena? I'm interested in foods and supplements. Yeah. So, 4 months, between 4 and 6 months, that's around the time that most infants are introduced to complementary foods. Complementary meaning along with still breastfeeding ideally.

If any of you watched our breast milk, the biology of breast milk video, very important. And, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for 1 year, at the very least 6 months. 1 year is, of course, in addition with complementary foods, not exclusive. They recommend exclusive breastfeeding until around 6 months, around 6 months or so. But, one thing to keep in mind, and I talked about this in that video, is that breast milk is a phenomenal source of DHA, the marine omega-3 fatty acids that's really important for brain development. And, there have been several studies that have shown that mothers consuming fish oil supplements and/or fatty fish have children that score better on intelligence tests and a variety of different intelligence tests.

So, what I did was I took 3 grams of DHA every day. There's been studies showing dose-dependent increases of DHA in women's breast milk. And, I mean, even all the way up to taking super mega doses up to 10 grams. So, I was taking 3 grams a day. And so, my son was getting the breast milk. And, I also introduced complementary foods around that time, 4 to 5 months. But, in addition to the breast milk, which I did rely on for for quite a while. I knew that my son was getting a daily dose of DHA from my breast milk because I was supplementing with such a high dose. And, that sort of really gave me comfort. I didn't do it every day, but with certain meals, I would take one of my capsules of fish oil and open it up and put a little bit in the baby food. I also would mix up salmon.

I would grind up salmon I had one of those little baby bullets, you know, those little like baby bullet blenders that you can make your own baby food. And I would do— I grind up salmon with like some cooked cherries or like cooked blueberries. And so it like made the salmon taste better. So he was getting the omega-3 in that as well. As my son got older and went into toddler years, then I started giving him the pure Pure Encapsulation Supplement, which is a kind of— it's like, it's not really like the normal gummies. It doesn't— it's not like the sticky kind of gummy that gets stuck in your teeth. And it's actually made with xylitol and lemon, has lemon flavor.

And each little quote-unquote— I call it a gummy, but again, it's like, it's more of like a slimy thing that you just use, like impossible to choke on. Each one has 250 milligrams of DHA, so 2 to 4 of those, you know, and you're good. So that's what I did. Derek's asking in the chat, if you're a vegetarian or a vegan, is it possible to get enough DHA through supplementation. The source of supplementation for— first of all, I think most vegetarians are doing flaxseed oil, which is not a source of DHA. It's a source of alpha-linolenic acid, ALA. And, you have to convert that to EPA and DHA. And so, it's depending on your conversion efficiency, You may not be converting very much of that.

The best vegan source of, or maybe not vegan, vegetarian, I don't know if vegans would even eat microalgae. It's microalgae oil. And microalgae oil is not very concentrated. So, you'd have to take a much higher dose. So, you'd have to take more Pills like, like I take six six pills of Norwegian Pure Three to get three grams of DHA of their. I take their high dose DHA one, and I mean to get three grams. I don't know what the concentration off top of my head. It's like thirty five milligrams per capsule somewhere in that range where you just have to take a lot more. So. You know, it can be done physically. It's physically possible. I don't know how realistic it is. I don't think people are going to pop 50 capsules a day.

And, you know, like, that's first of all, you're buying a lot of supplements and, you know, so, you know, it's possible. So, Lizette asks about fasting, time-restricted eating delaying. Can it delay menopause in women and how? May it affect egg quality over time? I've talked about, I've talked. So first of all, please don't you know like take this as medical advice at all because like this is I am not a medical doctor. I had done some reading in this in the scientific literature. Most of it's been animal studies, and so you really don't know how much of it translates. To humans.

And the reason I say that, really with respect to these dietary restriction studies where animals are fasted or they're fed 30% less calories every day than they otherwise would eat under normal circumstances, it's really hard to translate that to humans because, I mean, when you fast an animal for 2 days, they lose 20% of their body weight. When you fast a rodent for 2 days, they lose 20% of their body weight. When you fast a human for 2 days, they lose 2% of their body weight. Big difference there when you're directly comparing a 2-day fast, right?

And the same goes for a lot of these animal studies where— so, for example, I've read some animal studies, I believe it was mice, it could have been rats, but I believe it was mice, where the rodents were fed 30% less calories daily for, you know, months and months. And in the female mice, what it ended up doing was it ended up causing, you know, a shift in basically in the egg maturation process and ovulation. Basically, ovulation kind of stopped. So the female mice became sort of amenorrheic where they just weren't ovulating. And when they were then put back on a normal diet, meaning they weren't restricted of that 30% less food, and perhaps it was even more than 30%. So let's give a range, maybe 30% or more. It's been a few years since I read those studies.

Their ovulation picked back up. But what was interesting was that it really shifted their whole ovulation profile over so that basically their whole egg ovulation profile was younger. And that's certainly interesting. It did delay menopause and all those things. And But again, it's hard to know whether or not that can be translated. And I certainly don't, you know, there are women that have eating disorders. And so, that's not something I would say women should do. I mean, it's really not known what in humans, you know, if something like that could be beneficial and how much it would take to do that. I mean, I do remember when I was right after I graduated from college, I was running 8 miles a day, 5 days a week, and I was eating a very low-calorie diet.

And, I did become amenorrheic for quite a while just because I was so physically active and I was Exercise is another way of causing an energy crisis, much like fasting does, right? You can shift into ketosis through exercise depending on how much food you've had and such and things like that, much like fasting shifts you into ketosis as well. But it's not something I was intentionally trying to do. It just happened. And I did start reading up on that a few years when I was in graduate school. A few years later, I started reading up on how caloric restriction can affect these female animals and what it was doing to population. And so, I am unclear what the effects are on humans and whether or not it's something that even should be considered. It could be harmful and I just don't know.

But nonetheless, I just wanted to mention that study that I did read about the rodents because it's still interesting at the end of the day, right? Some rapid-fire questions. Ben asks, are there any supplements that are beneficial for eye health? Lutein and zeaxanthin and DHA, multiple studies showing Lutein and zeaxanthin are really concentrated in dark leafy greens, like chard is really high in it, kale, romaine lettuce, collard greens. I mean, you can just— dark leafy green spinach, they're really high in lutein and zeaxanthin. I have it in my multivitamin as well. Another rapid-fire question from Steve. Steve asks, would consuming moringa as hot tea inactivate myrosinase? Yes.

Moringa, I think Dr. Jed Fahey even mentioned this on our Crowdcast, special Crowdcast last month, that he consumes cold brew moringa tea. Does a Berkey filter safely filter tap water? I use a Berkey filter and I'm pretty convinced. I mean, that I've been pretty convinced that it filters out. Also, depending on the filters you get, like I have an extra fluoride filter, it filters out the fluoride and the chlorine and then viruses and other critters that could be in there. The water tastes different. If you drink the water out of the tap and then you put that tap water in the Berkey filter and then drink it, I mean, you'll taste the difference. It's definitely noticeable. Another question was from Janet. Janet asks about omega-3 supplements.

For those of us that don't have access to the N-Pure 3, which I take right now, which I'm taking, I am fortunate enough to have a big stash of them in my refrigerator. She asked, what would I buy? What are my top 3? Fish oil supplements that I would buy. And she says she's looked at ConsumerLab and picked their top picks, but they change often. My top go-to site for fish oil quality is labdoor.com. And they have rankings that do change. And If I were to buy a fish oil supplement on the market, I would go to labdoor.com, which I have no affiliation with at all, and I would buy their top-ranked one. I like Labdoor better than ConsumerLab. I like ConsumerLab and I use ConsumerLab for other types of rankings.

With specificity to fish oil, the reason I like Labdoor better is because in addition to measuring the concentration of the omega-3s, in the fish oil supplement. They measure oxidative levels of oxidation, which ConsumerLab does not, which is a big, huge oversight for them on that because it's one of the most important factors when buying a fish oil supplement is the oxidation levels. So, you want something that's high in omega-3, high in EPA, high in DHA, but low in You know, it's in oxidative levels because fish oil is an omega-3. Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids, which means they are very prone to oxidation. And so just the production process of making the fish oil, you know, isolating it, that whole thing can can be very can lead to oxidation.

And you know, so measuring measuring those oxidation levels. Are really important when it comes to choosing a supplement. So labdoor.com does measure the oxidation levels. They also measure omega-3. And that information actually is available like on a free— there's like, they have a free page that ranks those fish oil supplements based on those factors. Someone else asks, I don't have the name, but they ask, what my thoughts are on standing desks and that recommended guidelines basically that even just not sitting are great. So, I'll just let you know this desk I have right here, I'll just do a little demonstration. It's a standing desk. I think they're fantastic. So, here we go. I'm now standing. Yeah.

There have been studies that have found that That even, you know, not exercising, just standing more throughout the day is beneficial in terms of all-cause mortality and things like that. So here's my standing desk. I'm going to be standing for the duration here, which is not much longer. But yeah, so they're great. I really like the standing desks. All right. Maybe I think this might be the last rapid-fire question that I have on my list. I, again, don't have who it was submitted by. Sometimes I forget to add the name, but it has to do with vitamin C supplementation. They ask, I'm a relatively healthy individual, what do I think the best strategy is for vitamin C supplementation? So, Yeah. So, not medical advice, again. I can tell you what I do.

So, I do think that vitamin C is really important and more of it is better. And, I think that we're going to, as research emerges, find that to be the case. However, I do try to uncouple it from my exercise. So, I end up taking my vitamin C before bed, right before bed, and along with my melatonin. And I take anywhere between 500 milligrams to a gram a day, really depending on if I feel run down or not. So sometimes I suck on the tab, like if it's a day that I'm on recovery, I actually will take vitamin C throughout the day. Like I'll either drink it in my water, which my husband likes to do a lot, but I actually have these little tablets that have xylitol in them, which are good for your teeth. And, I just suck on those and they're 500 milligrams each.

And so, I really probably get throughout the day on my recovery days, I end up getting a lot more vitamin C than I typically take. I see in the chat about recommendations for standing desks. I'm sure most of you know much more about them than I do. I actually have one from a friend in Finland. sort of the, you know, I'm, I'm not sure how easy they are to get in the United States, but it's the Sally brand. And I, this, it's really nice standing desk that, that I got many years ago, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. And I love it. It's great. But I'm sure there's like tons of those standing desks out there that you can find that are great. Okay, Matteo's asking which foods are best to get collagen and what form do I consume?

I mean, the best foods would be like, you know, eating cartilage off of, you know, bones, you know, like your chicken legs or something. But what I do is I do supplement with collagen. And if you haven't already, check out our topic page on collagen on foundmyfitness.com. You go to the topics pages in the navigation bar. We've got a phenomenal topic page on collagen. I do supplement with Great Lakes. I use— I put their— I like their vanilla-flavored one in my coffee. So, I put that in my coffee. Which has some, I believe it's stevia and a little bit of monk fruit extract. So it doesn't affect my glucose levels. And then I also put in our family smoothies, I put about 3 heaping scoops of the Great Lakes unflavored collagen. And so I have been doing that.

And there have been studies looking at, you know, randomized controlled trials looking at collagen powder supplementation and skin health. It's been shown to improve wrinkle depth and I believe skin elasticity, but all the data is on our topic page if you really want to dive into more. And the other thing I do is I avoid too much UVB exposure on my skin. So, that was the other thing we talked about. I do, when I'm out, You know, gardening or something or doing yard work or, you know, I wear a big— one of those big lifeguard hats, you know. When I go for my runs outside, I wear one of these like old lady visors, you know, where it's just like a big wide visor and then I have sunscreen on my face as well. So I think that's it for my rapid-fire questions.

I really enjoy these Crowdcasts, you guys. The questions I get, I saw someone asked a question about what questions do I like to get. They've noticed I've been focusing on diet-related ones and less on aging. And, I think for the last half of my Crowdcasts, and I've almost done 20, I would say the first 10, I really focused a lot on fasting and aging. And I felt like it was a little too repetitive, so I started to kind of go outside and answer things like about parathyroid hormone. And I just love the questions. You know, sometimes I, you know, we deep dive and I learn things that are outside my normal comfort zone. So please, you know, I love, you know, getting all these questions. And like I said earlier, I'm going to definitely try.

I'm going to try not to be so focused on not being repetitive, because I end up missing some of the stuff I love talking about, and because I'm afraid I talk about it too much. So I'm going to try not to go overboard on that in, in either direction. I do notice that some of you are regulars and are submitting a lot of questions each of these Crowdcasts, and it's really great to see that enthusiasm. For those of you that kind of want a little bit more, I do, I, Actually, tomorrow I'm having my monthly group Hangout. I have one every month. They usually end up being the day after the Crowdcast, which is kind of cool because people will attend. It's an exclusive group of people and it's a Google Hangout. So basically we're face-to-face and there's a small group of people.

And so we're having a discussion. The people in the Hangout get to talk, unlike the Crowdcast where it's kind of one-sided. You get to chat. It's a little more of an interactive experience. Great, great discussions we have there. People submit questions as well. And also it just ends up being a discussion. And a lot of times people will come to the Crowdcast and then want to like dive in more on something that we touched on in the Crowdcast. So it's a smaller group of people. It's funny, I've actually, I've become friends with a lot of people in that group. I've met some of those people in person as well. And so if you're interested in becoming, you know, in joining that exclusive group, it's $250 a month.

And that's something that you can, you can actually right now at the bottom, if you're attending live right now, you can go down to the bottom of your screen where it says upgrade to Hangout and click on that and you can upgrade to that. If you're, if you're listening to this, you weren't attending live and you're just listening to this on your podcast player, you're watching the YouTube video, you can actually email us at info— sorry, [email protected]. So let us know, just say upgrade to monthly hangout. So those also are really amazing hangouts. I enjoy those. And I give a summary after where, you know, people that don't— can't make the session, they get like a big summary of things that we talked about and stuff. I'm super excited about Yeah. Some things coming out.

We've got our podcast with Dr. Steve Horvath, who is the pioneer of the epigenetic aging clocks. He was the first to really discover that there is an epigenetic aging clock that exists and that it can basically be a really great marker of what it's called biological age. So, we'll be releasing that interview really shortly. Yeah. Along with a sort of primer video, not really a— it could be kind of a trailer, but it's really a video where we are explaining what these epigenetic clocks are from a general perspective to kind of like— it can be a complicated topic, particularly when you get 2 scientists jibber-jabbering away. So, I'm really excited about this new video with some great animations. We'll be releasing that probably a day or two before the Dr. Steve Horvath interview.

So, be on the lookout for those. They're coming super, super, super, super soon. And also, we just sent out an email this morning. The Science Digest went out. So, take a look at those. There's a lot of really good studies that we summarized. this time around. So make sure you open your email and look at those because there, there's some really neat stuff in there. With that said, thank you so much for your participation. Again, I really enjoy these Crowdcasts. I enjoy having you guys all here and answering the questions live and just getting all the great questions in general. So I'll be seeing you guys next month, I hope. And please submit your questions early. You can even right now go on the Crowdcast and submit a question.

I think, unless you don't have the password, which will— maybe the password went out in this email that was just sent this morning. I don't remember. Hopefully it did. But again, the sooner you submit the questions, the more likely I will see them because I like those. I like getting them early. OK, guys. Talk to you guys next month. Thank you so much and have an excellent weekend wherever you are. Bye.