Welcome everyone to Crowdcast number 29. This is the 29th issue of our Q&A series. It's pretty exciting. For those of you that are new, typically what I do is I choose questions in the ask a question section and I'll choose the questions based on number of upvotes. I'll choose the question based on the topic. as well as topics that I'm interested in going, you know, deeper into and learning more about. If your question does not get answered this round, you can always repost it in the next Q&A for the next month. I also do go back and look at old questions as well. So I typically do some deep dives on some questions. So some of the questions will have really long answers.

And then I go into some of the rapid-ish fire questions, these These have answers that sometimes are a couple of sentences long, or sometimes they're even a single word like yes or no. So that's, that's kind of how it, how it works. Um, some news, you guys can now listen to the Alquat, which is our members-only podcast, which we, we typically post one episode a week, including these Q&A series. You can listen to those on your dashboard. You can find that at foundmyfitness.com/dashboard. You can also download your private podcast feed player there on the dashboard if you'd like to listen to the Aliquot, you know, while you're doing something, you know, like doing the dishes or working out or something like that. So, um, so you'll find that on your dashboard.

We'll send out a review summary email in a, in a, the next few days that has a timeline to, uh, this episode and links to the YouTube video as well if you want to actually watch it again. So there we go. Let's let's get started. So the first question was from Justin, and Justin is actually part of our. Our group monthly group hangout, which happens the first Sunday of every month, so that would be tomorrow. He asked a question that really, you know, it's a very— it requires an in-depth analysis. And so I thought, because I've had this question in some shape or form before on Crowdcast, I thought I would also share the answer with you guys today because again, I've seen this question before.

So the question is, does eating either or consuming either high-fat or low-fat dairy increase cancer risk? It's a very broad sort of general question because there's lots of different types of cancer. So colorectal cancer was the first cancer I looked into. There's a lifetime risk of 4% for colorectal cancer. My general impression is that there's an inverse association with dairy consumption and colorectal cancer risk, meaning there is— the more dairy that is consumed, the lower the colorectal cancer risk. So there was one systematic review and meta-analysis of 19 different prospective cohort studies. So what that means is they're observational studies. That this is not something that can establish causation. It's an association only.

But those 19 different studies, when you pull them together and you look at the data, for every 400 grams a day of total dairy products consumed, this was associated with a 17% decreased risk of colorectal cancer. And every 200 grams a day of milk consumption was associated with a 9% decreased risk of colorectal cancer. When looking at either low-fat dairy or high-fat dairy, there was a trend towards a decreased risk for colorectal cancer. A separate review found that there was even more of a protective effect in terms of consuming dairy products on colorectal cancer incidence. So total dairy products were associated with a 38% decreased risk of colorectal cancer. And milk alone, if you were just looking at milk, there was a 20% decreased incidence in colorectal cancer.

And then there was another systematic review and meta-analysis that involved over 900,000 subjects, so almost a million different people, and over 5,200 colorectal cancer cases. And that meta-analysis found a 26% decreased risk of colon cancer in men that drank 2 or more glasses of milk per day. Even another meta-analysis with over 500,000 people, so half a million people, there was a dose-dependent decrease in colorectal cancer with milk consumption. So compared to those that drank the least amount of milk, those who drank a quarter to a half a glass a day had a 6% decreased risk compared to those who had Half or 1 glass a day. And having— sorry, those that had a higher basically milk consumption, so more than 1 glass a day, had a 15% decreased risk.

So really, I think it's pretty strong data to suggest that dairy consumption is associated with a decreased risk in colorectal cancer. And I see people in the chat here mentioning kefir. I just had my kefir this morning. I have it almost every single morning. I've been doing goat kefir and I really like the goat kefir, but I've been mixing it with some blackberries. So I have one of those NutriBullet blenders where you can just do like a single serving or like 2 servings. And I mix the blackberries or raspberries, both of which have been shown to have a positive effect on the gut microbiome because there's different types of fermentable fermentable fibers in them. And I've been mixing it with my goat kefir every morning. And it's really amazing.

My gut, I mean, I didn't really— my gut's always been pretty good, but I just— it's— you can just eating— like if I were to cheat and eat some pizza or something, I just feel like my gut is so much better. I also just got another microbiome test to sort of see if there's any effect of all the kefir consumption on my microbiome. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm really into the kefir and the fact that, you know, the dairy— and there was also another study, we talked about this in a previous Crowdcast, that dairy, that fermented food consumption, including kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, what was it, kombucha. So any of the fermented foods that people had consumed for about 6 weeks, There was a reduction in a variety of different biomarkers for inflammation.

So they had a decrease in a lot of inflammatory-related biomarkers, and they also had increases in diversity in microbiome species in their gut. So I'm pretty stoked about the kefir. Owen's asking what brand I use. Whatever the common goat kefir brand. I don't remember off the top of my head. Sorry. But there's pretty much one that you'll find that's pretty ubiquitous in the stores. So I would just look for the goat kefir. But that's not the end of the story. So that was colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is a pretty common cancer. And so it's really— I think there's been this misconception that dairy is associated with an increased cancer risk. And this is largely— and we'll get to this in a minute— it's largely based on a couple of studies in men with prostate cancer.

And when you hear— when someone hears, you know, there's an association with dairy consumption and prostate cancer, they sort of generalize it to all cancers. And I'm here to tell you that cancers are different. There are different pathways that are affected. The tumors are in different parts of the body, have different access to your vascular system, and so different tissue types. There's a lot of differences in different types of cancer. So when someone asks me a question like Justin did about milk consumption and cancer, you really have to dive into like a lot of different types of cancer because you just can't make that generalization. It'll be inaccurate. So let's talk about ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer lifetime risk is about 1.5% in women.

So a little bit lower than the lifetime risk of colorectal cancer, which I mentioned a minute ago, which was 4%. Several meta-analyses have found no association at all with ovarian cancer. So no decreased risk, no increased risk. Breast cancer. Breast cancer is one of the most frequent cancers that are found in people, of course, women being the The subject that are most likely to get breast cancer. Men have a very low risk of breast cancer. The lifetime risk of breast cancer is 13% in women. That's something like 1 in 8. It's really high. So breast cancer, anything that a woman can do in their lifestyle to decrease breast cancer risk is really good. So let's talk about dairy. There was one meta-analysis of 22 different, again, prospective cohort studies.

These are observational studies, association only. This was about 1.5 million participants. And there were also 5 case-controlled studies, including around 33,000 participants. They found— all these studies found that modest dairy consumption, so between 400 to 600 grams a day, was associated with a 6% reduction in the risk of breast cancer. High dairy consumption, so greater than 6 grams per day, was associated with an even greater decreased risk, so a 10% decreased risk in breast cancer risk. There was then a subgroup analysis, since we were talking about kefir, that looked at yogurt specifically and found that that there was up to a 15% reduced risk with yogurt consumption in terms of breast cancer risk. So that to me is pretty profound. I will continue on.

There was another study of 18 different cohort studies. So this involved a little bit over a million participants. So these are really high participant numbers that I'm talking about, these meta-analyses. This isn't like just one little study. These are quite a few studies pulled together. This meta-analysis found a 15% decreased risk in breast cancer with the highest intake of dairy. For milk consumption, there was a 9% decreased risk that was trending, but it wasn't statistically significant. And another meta-analysis showed a very slight increased risk from dairy fat consumption. And this is with— these were with high-fat dairy.

But the meta-analysis— so the case-control studies showed there was a slightly increased risk, but actually when you looked at the meta-analysis, looking at all the data together, there was no association with breast cancer risk. And so really, this could be a classic example of recall bias where these retrospective studies are really susceptible to them. So women that maybe come down with cancer and then they're asked, oh, have you consumed a lot of dairy? They're thinking, oh, maybe there's an association, and they kind of— they have this recall bias where they really didn't. You know, consume a lot of high-fat dairy, but they're sort of saying that they did because it's just a— it's, you know, a lot of these prospective studies, one of the major flaws is these dietary questionnaires.

I mean, like, trying to remember what you ate over the past, you know, 5 years is pretty hard to do. All right, I'm gonna talk about the prostate cancer. This is sort of the elephant in the room. So general impression, if you look at at most of the studies, there is a very small but significant increased risk. So one study, there was a meta-analysis of 32 prospective studies. This was looking at intake of dairy products and calcium and prostate cancer risk. This study, this meta-analysis of 32 different prospective cohort studies found that for every 400 grams of dairy products that were consumed, there was a 7% increased risk of prostate cancer. And for every 200 grams of milk that was consumed, there was a 3% increased risk.

So sort of a dose-dependent, the smaller amount, the— The smaller the increased risk. But there is another meta-analysis that was actually more recent than that one that did not show any association between dairy intake and overall risk of prostate cancer. Only after a secondary analysis did they find an association specifically with regular fat dairy products in combination with late-stage prostate cancer risk. So in all the other scenarios, there was no associations. The authors concluded, our findings, quote, our findings do not support the previously reported harmful impact of dairy consumption on overall prostate cancer risk among men in the United States. It's really hard to say what's going on here.

It's possible that dairy could be causing an increased risk of prostate cancer, but it's also possible that there's other confounding factors. You know, there's a lot of people that are lactose intolerant, and consuming dairy could increase inflammation in those individuals. And inflammation is one of the major driving factors of prostate cancer. It's also important to keep in mind that while prostate cancer is— it's the most common cancer found in men, it is very, very slow growing. In other words, most men with prostate cancer die with prostate cancer, not from it. So, I mean, that's just also something— I'm not, I'm not saying that there aren't people that die from it, but, but majority of the men that actually have prostate cancer do die with it and not from it.

So, um, I think that again, there's, there seems to be maybe a slight increased risk Other studies have found that's not the case. There may be some sort of, you know, nuance going on again where it's like, okay, maybe it's the men that are lactose intolerant that are coming down with prostate cancer, or that are— sorry, that are more affected from dairy consumption, you know, and in terms of their prostate cancer risk. So I think that's something to keep in mind. But again, I think there's been a lot of talk, especially among vegans and vegetarians. I think they've sort of heard about this association with prostate cancer and dairy and have sort of generalized it to like, oh, all dairy is bad. That's why you should be vegan. And, you know, it's just there's a lot of nuance there.

I'm not sure why people are having issues. Please, please close the window and reopen it. A lot of people can hear me and see me just fine. So it sounds like there was some kind of blip at the beginning. So just, you can close and then rejoin, and that should fix the issue. Bladder cancer was one I forgot to mention. There was actually just no association at all. So again, I think that there's a protective association with dairy consumption on most cancers or no association at all. But in the case of prostate cancer, there may be an increased risk with certain scenarios, and we don't really understand that yet. So, you know, I think that overall, if you look at dairy consumption, if you look at prospective studies, they're actually associated with a longer lifespan. Not sure exactly why.

Maybe it's due to a decreased risk in cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer in the United States. But I am personally not super concerned with dairy consumption and cancer risk. All right. Next question was from Marley. And Marley asks about supplements. suggested for supplements suggested for sleep by Dr. Huberman, a neurobiologist. Some of these supplements were magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine. All of these, he said, had cell senescence and cognitive benefits that would aid in sleep. So magnesium threonate, I will say, um, There have been— so the recommendation there was 300 to 400 milligrams 30 minutes before bed. If we look at the data, there have only been 2 clinical trials on magnesium threonate, and one looked at its effects on sleep.

So we talked about this study previously in Crowdcast number 18 in the context of cognition. The study gave daily magnesium threonate, 1,500 to 2,000 milligrams a day for 12 weeks. This study, as well as the animal study, were both industry-led, meaning they were led by the company that has the patent on magnesium threonate. And so, there's a potential conflict of interest. Doesn't necessarily mean it is, but it's just something to keep in mind. But in short, there was little evidence that magnesium made it to the brain, that magnesium threonate actually made it to the brain. And the study did not show a statistically significant improvement in any of the 4 cognitive tests used. Only when pooling all those cognitive tests together, all 4 of them, was there statistical significance.

So it's kind of a statistical way to manipulate the data, you know. In terms of sleep, there's been one study, and the study found that magnesium threonate significantly improved sleep quality. However, the placebo group showed a similar benefit, implying that the benefits of magnesium threonate were simply due to the placebo effect. I'm not sure why this is, you know, being recommended for sleep other than it's probably a placebo effect, which is fine. I think there's a lot of hype for it and not a lot of data to suggest that it's actually doing something for sleep. Other than what a placebo would do. Again, placebo had the same effect as magnesium threonate. So I think there's limited evidence and there's probably a strong placebo effect, but placebo is great if it works, right?

Who cares? So that's kind of my opinion. Apigenin. Let's move on to the next recommendation. Apigenin, it's a flavonoid. It's found in certain fruits and vegetables, including chamomile tea. There's very little data on apigenin for sleep. While there haven't been any clinical studies evaluating apigenin's ability to improve sleep, there are studies on apigenin-rich foods and herbal teas like chamomile tea. So there was one cross-sectional study looking at Italian adults, and they found that those who ate a diet rich in apigenin were more likely to have better sleep quality. Of course, you know, there could be a million things. Apigenin-rich diet means you're getting a lot of fruits and vegetables and micronutrients.

And I mean, there's like 1,000 confounding factors there, but, you know, it is what it is. This has been followed up with several different small clinical trials that have shown that chamomile is moderately effective in improving subjective sleep quality. Compared to placebo. There's a lack of evidence on apigenin supplements. I would say that there could be other factors in the chamomile tea. There could be something with drinking the hot liquid in addition. Who knows? Because there haven't actually been studies looking at supplementation with apigenin, it seems as though at least doing the chamomile tea seems to have, you know, some— seems to affect, you know, the subjective sleep quality somewhat. So again, not super strong evidence, but, you know, that's the data. Theanine.

Theanine is— it's found in green tea, and it is known for sort of its calming effects. There was one phase 2 randomized controlled trial that showed it was able to improve sleep efficiency in boys with autism. There were 2 phase 2 randomized controlled trials that showed 200 to 900 milligrams a day of theanine improved subjective sleep quality in middle-aged adults. In addition, 2 small open-label studies showed improved sleep quality in patients with depression and schizophrenia. While larger phase 3 studies are needed, to validate these findings. The evidence for L-theanine seems stronger than apigenin and magnesium threonate. So I would start with that if it were me.

But I really think that the best thing you can do to improve your sleep is to work on healthy sleeping habits, which we've talked about a number of times in this Q&A series. So That's kind of my take on those supplements. Marina is asking in the chat if magnesium malate is more beneficial than other forms of magnesium. I like this question, and I'll tell you why I like this question, because it touches on some of my friend and former colleague's work. With short-chain fatty acids. So short-chain fatty acids are these organic acids like malic acid, malate is the— it gets the conjugated version of it, or lactic acid or lactate, or citric acid, citrate. So you'll find, for example, malic acid or malate is— the best food source would be a green apple.

It's responsible for that sour taste in some fruits. So Granny Smith apple is really high in malate. Some other berries as well, like, you know, you can find some in blueberries and some of the other berries. But the reason I like this question is because Mark Shigenaga, Dr. Mark Shigenaga, my friend and former colleague, brilliant guy, gut expert, he's right now actually in the process of submitting a manuscript on some of the— covering some of this, where he found that basically malate, when consuming malate or malic acid, it gets— the conjugate, it gets turned into malate, that it basically is really, really good for the gut because it gets shuttled into the mitochondria of the gut and it is used as an energy source.

And so, You end up having like your gut goblet cells end up making more mucin, which is something that is a component of the gut barrier. So, so malate's actually really good for the gut, and that's one of the reasons why I do like magnesium malate. So magnesium, it's usually complex to either malate or citrate. Citrate's also really good, and it does a similar thing. Magnesium glycinate doesn't do— it's not as good for the gut, but it is absorbed well. Magnesium malate is also absorbed well. And again, a lot of people actually have irritation issues when they take a magnesium supplement because it can act as an irritant on the gut and also can be like— have like a laxative effect as well. But some people can actually get like pain from taking magnesium.

And I really think that the The malate may help negate some of that because it's actually really good for the gut. So the only problem that I've seen with a lot of the magnesium malate supplements out there is their dose is like, it's pretty low. Right now, I'm taking magnesium citrate, which also has a similar effect on the gut. And I'm taking— that's by Thorne, and it's like 125 milligrams or something like that. I also take Magnesium. It's a it's like a drink. It's it's a packet, and you put it in water. Magnesium. I'm trying to remember who it's from. The the name of the company Moon Juice. It's made by Moon Juice, and I have no affiliation with either of these companies, by the way. They're just products that I use and like. So that's my little tangent there on the magnesium malate.

And chat is mentioning magnesium taurate in the chat. And also, yeah, magnesium taurate is also a good one as well. So the next question was from Matthew, and Matthew was asking about foods or supplements or lifestyle choices that have been shown to make a difference, where there's actual data shown to make a difference with ADHD and also impulse control. And so it's funny because this is like, there was a couple of very recent studies that were looking at this, and I think I shared them on social media. And they're very relevant to some earlier publications of mine that I had done.

And so the first nutrient, micronutrient, if you could call it that, I think it's more of a hormone, so would be vitamin D. There was just a recent study showing that, a randomized controlled trial showing that vitamin D plus magnesium improved impulse control and symptoms of ADHD. And then when I went through and read that study, they referenced several other recent studies that have shown that vitamin D improves impulse control. And the reason I found that so interesting is because back in 2014, I published my first paper on in silico evidence showing that vitamin D regulates the tryptophan hydroxylase genes. There's 2 of them. And tryptophan hydroxylase is responsible for converting tryptophan into serotonin. And, um, and, and it regulates the one in the brain. It's called TPH2.

And the reason that's so important— and I, I published another paper in 2015 talking about the relevance this has for ADHD, impulse control, and other types of neurodevelopmental and maybe neuropsychiatric disorders, anxiety, autism, schizophrenia. The relevance there is there have been many, many studies that have causally shown that if you deplete tryptophan in someone's diet, and you can do this by a variety of ways, and the main way is to give people a big shake full of branched-chain amino acids that lack leucine, and the branched-chain amino acids will outcompete tryptophan for transport into the brain because tryptophan has to be transported into the brain before your brain can make serotonin.

You can't— serotonin is made also in your gut, but it doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. So you have to get tryptophan into the brain. Branched-chain amino acids compete for the same transporter. They actually bind to it better, and so they outcompete. And so there have been a variety of studies by Molly— Dr. Molly Crockett and others that have shown that you can basically take a person, a normal person that has no ADHD, no impulse control problems, and you can deplete them of 90% of their brain serotonin in a matter of hours. And then you can study the effects. What happens if you can't make serotonin? Well, impulse— impulsive— impulsivity is one thing that goes through the roof where basically there's no control on impulsive behaviors. They become impulsive.

Mood is affected, aggressive behavior, people become aggressive, they become depressed. So a variety of negative, you know, affect types of behaviors occur, really suggesting that serotonin plays a major role not only in mood, but in impulse control, in, you know, in controlling aggressive behavior, particularly impulsive aggressive behavior, which could be something that affects, you know, particularly young boys that may have ADHD. So vitamin D, again, I think that's the mechanism. I went off on a tangent because it relates to some of my previous research.

And so I think that knowing mechanism also kind of helps confirm, you know, knowing that there's been randomized controlled trials showing vitamin D helps with impulsive behavior, helps with ADHD symptoms, and then knowing the mechanism of how that occurs really kind of solidifies it. Omega-3, there have been studies that have shown children suffering from ADHD A majority of them actually have low EPA and DHA, the marine omega-3 fatty acids. Not surprising. In fact, the majority of Americans do not consume enough fish. They do not supplement with omega-3 supplements. And so generally speaking, not only children with ADHD, but their parents that may not have ADHD are also likely deficient.

Studies that have shown an improvement in ADHD symptoms found dosages had to be higher than 500 milligrams, and that was with EPA. There was another meta-analysis of 10 different randomized controlled trials that showed that EPA supplementation demonstrated a small but significant dose-dependent improvement in ADHD symptoms. So again, it seemed like you needed to have at least 500 milligrams. Which suggests that dose is important. Exercise is a big lifestyle factor. There's been many studies that have shown like just even doing 30 minutes of exercise before going to school that children with ADHD are— their ADHD outbursts and things like that, behavioral problems are lessened. So, you know, exercise is really important.

There have been— there's one small randomized controlled trial showing that 4 months of daily ashwagandha supplementation improved attention in children with ADHD compared to placebo. That's only one study. The vitamin D I was talking about, there's been quite— there's been a few studies, so it's not just one study. So I would take that with a grain of salt. Another one is maritime pine. There was one small double-blinded placebo-controlled trial that showed 1 milligram per kilogram body weight a day of maritime pine was able to improve symptoms of ADHD. Again, one study. I'm just giving you some data. Take it with a grain of salt. This isn't like— there's not— generally speaking, you want to try to find things that have more than one study and start there. Caffeine, interesting story.

So in the 1970s, there were clinical trials that evaluated caffeine's therapeutic potential for treating ADHD. And these studies were smaller, but they basically showed that caffeine had a small but significant benefit to people with ADHD compared to placebo. However, caffeine was overshadowed, if you so will call it, by the psychostimulants like Adderall and methylphenidate. And so caffeine has now fallen out of the spotlight and those have taken the spotlight. Those psychostimulants have taken the spotlight. Some patients prefer caffeine because it's obviously safer than the psychostimulants and there's fewer side effects.

So I just thought that was sort of interesting how it was, you know, before we had Adderall and, you know, methylphenidate that people were actually using and there was science to back it up, caffeine. So multivitamins, that's a low-hanging fruit. A lot of multivitamins is a good way to get micronutrients. You know, it's a sort of backup insurance policy to make sure that you're you yourself or your children are getting all the micronutrients they need because many, many children are not. And children with ADHD are more likely to have micronutrient deficiencies in iron, copper, zinc, magnesium. There's no evidence that supplementing with a micro— with a multivitamin actually improves the symptoms.

But I think that it's unclear whether or not maybe some of these micronutrient deficiencies, particularly when they start to combine, They may exacerbate symptoms. Magnesium. There's been a lot of buzz on magnesium for ADHD, and they all really cite one clinical study that showed an improvement with magnesium and vitamin B6. The problem with that study is it was not blinded. It did not have a placebo. And so there was just a very recent study, the one that came out like a couple of weeks ago or something, that that showed vitamin D plus magnesium improved ADHD symptoms in children, and that's what I just mentioned when I talked about ADHD. So keep all that in mind. Steve is mentioning the vitamin D dose for the children of the study that I mentioned.

This was— there were 50,000 IUs per week, so they were giving a weekly dose. And, you know, I think if you compare, so, you know, what would 50,000 per week be on a daily basis? And I do think it's a very high dose. You know, so the question is measuring vitamin D levels in the child. Before and after. This was also done in a population— this was done in a population of children that had darker skin. I think it was perhaps Middle East or Egypt or something. A lot of people in those countries have darker skin, which is great for protecting you from the burning rays of the sun, but terrible if you're trying to make vitamin D. And And also, many of those countries, people will cover up or use umbrellas, and they sort of— so it sort of exacerbates the vitamin D deficiency.

But it really is a good point, Steve. There have been other studies that haven't shown— that have shown vitamin D supplementation helps without such a high dose. So, you know, personally, I, you know, I think it's like that would come out to like 7,000 IUs a day. Like, you just can't do that in a child. That's too much. The weekly, they may not be absorbing. It may not actually be as equivalent to the 7,000 IUs a day. Personally, I think a good rule of thumb is to look at the body weight of the child. So what I'll do is I have a sheet. Yeah. I have a study that actually I just bookmarked last week on trying to find optimal doses based on body weight. And I will cover that next time. I will start with that.

And that way, we can talk about the best vitamin D supplementation range for children and even actually people that are obese because they need to actually take a higher dose. than people that have lean body mass. Brittany's asking if I have any multivitamin recommendations for young children. I do. So there's 2 that I like. There's differences in them. One has to do with the taste preference of your child. The Nordic Natural multivitamin gummy zero sugar one is great because there's xylitol in it, which is good for your teeth, and it doesn't have the sugar. You make sure it's the zero sugar one because Nordic Naturals does make a multivitamin gummy that has sugar. Stay away from those. The problem is it's like this orange taste, and not all children like that taste.

There's another multivitamin that I also like that is by Pure Encapsulations, and it's the only multivitamin gummy they have. It's called Pure Nutrients. It has like some concentrated like blueberry juice and strawberry juice. So there is a little bit of sugar, not much. It's like 2 grams or something. And I find that like my son likes that one better. And so what I do is I have him take that and I immediately brush his teeth after the gummy. Again, there's not too much sugar in it. It's a little bit, but that's the one that my son prefers. Stacy's asking in the chat about DHA versus EPA. While breastfeeding. I focused on DHA while breastfeeding and during pregnancy because DHA is extremely important during brain development. So I was taking 3 grams of DHA a day while breastfeeding.

All right. Next question was from Maxim. And Maxim was asking about heart rate variability. He says, what are your thoughts about using heart rate variability as a KPI for health and fitness? Some apps state that heart rate variability is a valuable asset. What about breathing practices with heart rate variability biofeedback, like elitehrv.com. So heart rate variability is the variation of time between each heartbeat. It was first used to predict the risk of sudden cardiac death and mortality in patients who recently had a heart attack. Heart rate variability less than 8 milliseconds is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality, And heart rate variability less than 20 milliseconds increases the risk of sudden cardiac death.

However, heart rate variability— heart rate variabilities, or HRV, above those values do not really correlate necessarily with improved all-cause mortality. They just don't correlate with increased risk, if that makes sense. So— It's not necessarily what I would call a phenomenal biomarker of health because, like, with exercise, like, you have, you know, improved all-cause mortality. But I do think that HRV is good to look at risk for, you know, all-cause mortality or sudden cardiac for increased risk of those. We know that HRV slowly declines with age. It is around 70 milliseconds in our 20s, and then it plateaus to 30. It plateaus to around 30 in our 70s. So, both exercise and sauna can increase our HRV.

As your cardiovascular fitness improves, you increase your parasympathetic tone in your heart during rest, and this leads to a lower resting heart rate. And increased HRV, and actually another thing that does increase HRV in addition to sauna and exercise is cold exposure. So outside the context of a recent heart attack or maybe family risk of you know heart attack, it's it's it's hard to know if HRV is really a great. It's hard to know the clinical practicality of it, but I do think it's good to be used as. A surrogate marker for parasympathetic tone and parasympathetic activity. So there's a handful of studies that's shown association with HRV with things like stress and post-workout recovery.

So I think in that regard, HRV is a good biomarker to use for those things, but I'm a little hesitant to To say that it's a great marker for health and fitness, generally speaking. I think, you know, there's an argument to say that, yes, but I would use it alongside many different other biomarkers, basically. Steve is asking in the chat if I'm still using CocoVia. I wish I was. I had like stopped because I stopped actually towards spring, summer because I was using the packets instead of the supplement pills. I had been giving all the supplement pills to my mom. And so as it became warmer, I stopped using the packets, which I had a lot of. But now that winter is here, I'm actually I just thought about it literally the other night, like getting my CocoVia back.

Right now I'm drinking herbal tea. I find it hard to drink a lot of cold water in the colder seasons to stay hydrated. So I'm going to be adding back my CocoVia. My reasons are manifold. One, it's been shown to improve collagen in the skin. And I'll be honest with you, that was the reason why I was thinking about it the other night. But 2 is the increased blood flow to the brain, and so that is something that I'm also interested in. Okay, let's move on to the next question. Isabel asks about sugar. Okay, we're going to dive into this a little bit. She asks— she says, of course, sugar is best to be avoided or limited, but what are your thoughts on any sugar consumption that does occur? For instance, the best or worst time of day to consume sugar, glucose versus fructose.

If occasionally eating fruit, is this better with some fat or protein or alone in terms of the insulin response? Finally, any thoughts on natural artificial sweeteners like stevia or erythritol? Okay, so there's many, many parts to this question. We'll kind of try to hit on all of them. Starting with the time of day, I think most of you have heard me say this many times that we— that humans, we are diurnal creatures. We have, you know, a clock, a circadian rhythm, and in addition to sleep and wake cycle, our metabolism is also on a clock. And what many, many different studies have shown is that we are most insulin sensitive in the morning when our clock is first reset. And as the day progresses, we become less insulin sensitive. And as we hit nighttime, we are the most insulin sensitive.

And some of that has to do with the circadian rhythm of melatonin production. And as we start to hit dusk, we start to make small amounts of melatonin and that, you know, sort of increases as nighttime goes on, melatonin basically shuts down the production of insulin in our pancreatic beta cells. And so if you're not making insulin, then you are not going to take glucose up into your muscle or adipose tissue when you should, because it needs insulin to do that. And so what ends up happening is your blood sugar levels are really high. and they stay high and elevated throughout the night, and you'll end up having— waking up with high blood sugar. You also run the risk of advanced glycation end products, which form the longer your blood glucose levels remain elevated.

This is a big problem with people with diabetes because they don't regulate their blood glucose levels well. They're very high risk for advanced glycation end product problems, which— They damage DNA, they damage lipid, they damage proteins. It can lead to a variety of problems. But ultimately, if you're thinking about it, they— one thing to sort of keep in mind in addition to like having clinical manifestations like, you know, retinopathy and things like that, they just accelerate the aging process on a molecular level. That's not something that we want to do. So I would say Yeah, morning, best time to eat your cheats, I guess. I don't know. Anything that's going to give you a high glucose response. Fructose and glucose.

So this is a good question because I don't think I've covered this anytime recently. It's been a long time since I went into this. Fructose is metabolized differently than glucose is. Fructose does not cause an insulin response. It does not, you don't release insulin. And so fructose does not increase a hormone that is important for satiety called leptin. And we're going to get back to that in just a minute. Sucrose, which is table sugar, is a 50/50 mixture of glucose Glucose and fructose, and so high fructose corn syrup is there's different formulations of it, but they all they all contain a higher percentage of fructose and a lower percentage of glucose. So most the time you'll find 55% fructose and 45% glucose with high fructose corn syrup. So it's a little bit.

Higher on the fructose side. So when we're talking about refined sugar, we are usually talking about sucrose table sugar, which is a 50/50 mixture. We're talking about high fructose corn syrup, which is a 55 to 45 mixture. And in both cases, there there's no food matrix. In other words, there's no fiber. There's not. There's nothing. It's just the refined sugar taken out. From the actual food context, so glucose uptake into cells depends on insulin release, and I just talked about that a second ago. So basically, when you have when you eat something that that increases your blood glucose level, that causes your insulin to be causes you you make insulin and then you release the insulin, and then you take the glucose up into various tissues depending on your activity and exercise level.

If you're physically active, you're you could take it up into your muscles. Yeah. Which is preferable. Otherwise, you'll take it up into adipose tissue, and so you can end up accumulating more fat. But if you're constantly doing the glucose, glucose, glucose, this also can lead to insulin resistance, whole other topic. Fructose, on the other hand, fructose is mostly metabolized by the liver. Like I said, it does not depend on insulin, so it does not cause an insulin response. Fructose and glucose, they're— most people when they hear the word fructose, they think fruit. Fructose and glucose are both found in fruits. Some fruits have a higher concentration of fructose, but they are complexed with fiber and polyphenols and other compounds that changes the way it's metabolized.

The fiber matrix is a big deal in terms of the way it's metabolized. So disregarding the fruit, if you look at the way fructose is metabolized, so let's say we're talking about table sugar, sucrose, or we're talking about high fructose corn syrup, those things are basically in like all refined packaged foods that are sweet or have some sort of sweet taste to it. It's kind of really bad the way it's metabolized. So I mentioned it's metabolized by the liver. Fructose actually acts as something called an ATP trap in the liver. And so ATP is the unit of energy that your body uses to perform different functions. You know, it's called adenosine triphosphate. There's 3 phosphate groups on it. The fructose causes one of those phosphate groups to be removed.

And so it's no longer ATP, it's called ADP, adenosine diphosphate. And in order for another enzyme basically has to put a phosphate group back on that ADP in order for fructose to be metabolized. And so this ends up causing this crisis because you can't metabolize the fructose because your ATP levels fall in the liver. And so your liver kind of freaks out and it sends a signal to the brain that you are not satiated. Because you're not getting enough of this energy. Again, as I mentioned, because it keeps taking that phosphate group off and the energy, the ATP levels are what are sensed to like make, you know, satiety hormones.

And so what ends up happening is you get this vicious cycle where you eat a bunch of like, you know, sucrose or you drink a soda with like a Coke with high fructose corn syrup or you eat something with high fructose corn syrup in it. And you just keep eating it. You don't get full. So this is called ATP trapping. My brilliant friend Mark Shigenaga told me about this years ago, and I had looked it up, and I had never even heard about it, and it was fascinating. So this all makes— this is all really bad, and really to make it worse, when you eat too much of the fructose, what happens in the liver is it causes the liver to turn it into— turn fructose into triglycerides. And so you start to pump out more triglycerides, which increase the risk of heart attack or stroke.

So again, this is totally limited to refined sugars, not fruits that have the fiber matrix, which totally slows the digestion of the glucose and fructose. And so, and that kind of leads to another part of the question about consuming fruit with fat or protein. In fact, there have been studies that have found that if you consume even a refined carbohydrate, like 10 to 15 minutes after a high protein diet or a high fiber diet, that you will blunt and you will dramatically lower the blood glucose levels. And I have seen that in my own data many, many times. I've read a couple of randomized controlled trials. That have shown— this basically is a big help for people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes because they have problems regulating their blood glucose.

So protein and fiber can slow the glucose response. The last part of this question— very long question. The last part of this question has to do with natural sweeteners. We did cover this more in depth in Crowdcast number 21. So that episode goes into a lot of detail. If you want to go back and listen to that episode, Q&A number 21, you can find that on your dashboard. You can find it on your private podcast feed. But in short, you can find it in one of those places. So in this question, stevia was mentioned. Stevia is like 300 times sweeter than table sugar. It has a glycemic index of 0. Does erythritol affect the gut microbiome? It's really— it seems— it's really— it's unknown whether or not it does affect the gut microbiome. Animal studies show a negligible effect.

So it doesn't seem to really have— so far, at least with animal data, we don't really see a negative effect on the gut microbiome. But we don't have human data to really know for sure. Erythritol is unique in that it's 90% absorbed in the small intestine before it actually is ever exposed to the microbiome, which mostly occurs in the distal region of your colon. So it basically— the 90% is excreted in the urine before your body even has time to metabolize it. So it doesn't really have an effect on blood glucose levels. It doesn't have an effect on insulin levels. The 10% that actually does make it down to the colon It goes unmodified. And so the microbiome is exposed to it in the large intestine, but there's likely no significant interaction between them.

And it also has a glycemic index x sub 0. So I think generally speaking, a lot of these natural sweeteners, they seem to have a glycemic index of 0. Sometimes they can cause secretion of insulin. It's not no, it's not as much as like a sucrose would, you know, would do it. But it could possibly lead to, you know, increases in hunger, and so people can compensate by eating more. So that's why, like a lot of people with that are consuming like diet soft drinks, they have not been shown to lose weight because they like don't get that satiety kind of thing. So. But I think those are mostly with things that have been shown to also impact the gut microbiome. So that would be like sucralose. Splenda would be one that I can remember off the top of my head.

Again, go back to episode Crowdcast Q&A number 21 for more detail. People are asking about other things like Truvia. The one suggestion I have, and I can't remember if it was Truvia, it might have been Truvia, it was Stevia in the Raw, I think, is that if you look at the actual ingredients, a lot of these Stevia people that market their natural sweetener as being Stevia will be a mixture of like Stevia and I think Stevia in the Raw actually had like glucose in it. So it actually had sugar. So it was like there was like 1 gram of sugar in each packet. I just remember being stunned when I saw that. It was like my father-in-law used that a lot. I use something in my coffee. I'll use like, I like monk fruit, but my husband likes stevia. And what I buy for him is Sweet Leaf.

And it's 100% stevia. So you're not getting all the other stuff mixed in. But I don't know about Truvia. I don't remember off the top of my head. Just look at the ingredients and see. Some of them are mixed with like erythritol. Monk fruit does that a lot too, where they mix it and they market it as monk fruit or they'll market it as stevia, but then it's often a mixture. So you really have to pay attention to the details. So the next question was submitted by Cynthia, who asked about light therapy, specifically red light therapy, wondering if there was any science for, you know, behind it or whether it's a waste of time. So these— this red light therapy, light therapy It's known as photobiomodulation.

Early studies have shown that photobiomodulation treatment can improve muscle recovery, muscle endurance, hair growth, wound healing, and skin wrinkling. But I would say the research is really still in the very early stages and marketing has really gotten ahead of the research. The current studies are— they're either in animals or they're very, very small cohorts of people. That make it very difficult to generalize to a larger population. And the majority of studies actually do not show any effect because, you know, the desired effect really depends on the specific wavelength and the dose of the infrared lamp being used. So, for example, the wavelength and dose of muscle recovery are different from the wavelength and dose for skin wrinkling.

There's also a lot of variability between individuals. So different amounts of melanin in your skin affects like the absorption of the wavelength of these infrared lamps. There's really a need for larger randomized controlled studies that can really help us understand what dose and wavelength are optimal for a desired response. There's also been some studies that have shown a positive effect using light sources that went directly on the skin. And those products are on the market that are offered as light sources you sit in front of. So what I'm getting at here is that you're seeing a different difference in the methods. So you'll see a positive effect on X in the scientific literature, but the way that the infrared lamp was used was actually directly applied to the skin.

And then when you go to find your commercially available infrared lamp, you'll see they're all— they're not things that you apply to your skin, that it's something that you sit in front of. You know, so it's like, well, can I really apply the results from a scientific study showing that there's a benefit if I apply it to my skin if I'm just sitting in front of it? I don't know, maybe, but maybe not, right? So things like that to keep in mind. There's also been a lot of placebo effect with the IR lamps. So for example, there was a meta-analysis that analyzed studies that had a treatment group given a laser and a control group that was given a placebo laser. It also analyzed studies that had people that were given a treatment laser on one hand and a placebo laser on the other hand.

And it found that people that had rheumatoid arthritis had a 70% reduction in their pain compared to people given the placebo. You might think, wow, that's amazing. I'm going to get that for my grandma who has arthritis. However, if you look at the studies where the people were given the treatment laser on one hand and the placebo laser on the other hand, they had improvement in both hands. In terms of their pain and disease. One interpretation could be, well, this is all because of a placebo effect. It's just kind of hard to know. So I know there's commercial products out there. I know Joovv is one that really advertises a lot. And I personally think there's potential for red light therapy.

I do think that we are really behind in terms of scientific validation of it, but it could just be because we haven't— there haven't— there hasn't been enough research on it to establish the right protocols and procedures and the wavelength you need to use and how long you need to sit in front of it and, you know, how powerful the wattage needs to be. And, you know, like there's lots of little details of the protocol and procedure that need to be worked out. And I think there's probably a huge placebo effect going on here. And at the end of the day, placebos can be expensive, particularly in this case, like these Juve things are pretty expensive. But if they do work and people feel like their arthritis symptoms are better, that's kind of big.

So I think in summary, I think that we just haven't really established the right protocols yet, but I do think that there is huge promise for this to, to be worked out in the future. And until then, it may or may not be having an effect, um, through an actual mechanism other than placebo. Rowe is asking in the chat about what I think the benefits of regular cryotherapy beyond exercise and recovery are. You'll be happy to know we'll have—we're going to have a video coming out on this very soon. I just finished a couple of drafts of the script. You can check out our topic page on foundmyfitness.com. Yeah. Go to the C section on cold exposure. We have a whole topic page talking about what I think benefits are on mood and the brain, which has to do with norepinephrine release.

And so I have a cold plunge tub and we keep it at 49 degrees, 2 minutes in there, and my norepinephrine allegedly should be up twofold according to studies. So I think I, you know, my husband does it every day. He loves it. I don't do it as frequently as him. I need to because every time I do it, I'm like, I feel so great after, you know. So I think there's huge benefits in terms of cold exposure on the brain. And I have a video coming out on that very, very soon. I also have a manuscript in preparation to submit to a scientific journal. So fingers crossed. All right. I am going to transition to some rapid-ish fire questions.

A recent meta-analysis published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation revealed that taking marine omega-3 fatty acids in a high dose of 4 grams a day or more might cause AFib, atrial fibrillation, but it was not conclusive. Taking lower doses had no effect on AFib. Considering AFib can cause clots and stroke, what are your thoughts on this? Will you continue taking 4 grams a day? So I discussed this in a recent episode with one of the world's leading experts on omega-3 fatty acids, Dr. Bill Harris. That episode was released on audio, on our audio podcast. You can find— it's actually, I think, the episode right before the COVID-19 episode we released with Dr. Roger Seheult.

I forgot the episode number, but we're going to be— the video on that is actually going to be coming out very soon, probably in a couple of weeks. But I will tell you, so from that discussion and looking at the data, there has been a very slight association with AFib With doses of EPA of 4 grams or more a day. Again, this is the same dose that has been shown to reduce heart attacks. And actually, the same dose has been shown to reduce stroke incidence. It's been shown to reduce clot incidence. So as you pointed out, that AFib, the major concern with AFib is that it can lead to strokes and clots, clots and strokes. But there's a bit of a disconnect here because, at the end of the day, the very high-dose EPA of 4 grams a day reduces strokes and clots and heart attacks.

And so it's those endpoints that we actually care about, not— I mean, the AFib itself is kind of like, it's not comfortable to have. I mean, you know, it's not like something that you want, but the major concern of it is that AFib can lead to strokes and clots. Clots and strokes. So to me, it's kind of— I think that we need to understand this and it needs to be studied. But again, it sort of makes me feel better that knowing the endpoints of AFib, which are stroke and clots, are reduced with the high-dose, you know, fish oil and EPA, then I really feel a lot better. About that very small association, which seems to be only found in people that have had a previous heart incident. So again, I think it needs to be studied more, but I am not.

I am I am actually still taking actually even more than four grams a day. So so I'm I'm clearly to me again that's me experimenting on myself. I'm personally not too concerned, particularly since all the data points that four grams a day. Even with these huge randomized controlled trials, there's like a 25% reduction in cardiovascular events, including stroke and heart attacks and things like that. I tried ketosis for brain health, but lost too much weight and my LDL shot up. I added some whole grains and more veggies and stopped coconut oil, but still, it's still a high-fat diet with avocado, nuts, Is there evidence that this type of diet, which is high in good fats and relatively low in carbohydrates, is healthy if you're not in ketosis?

So I will say that swapping— there's been evidence that swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats improves cardiovascular disease risk factors. Totally, of course, independent of being in ketosis. But there— it's unclear. I think because we know swapping the saturated fats with, like, fats from avocados and nuts and fatty fish is healthy, that I don't see why, you know, adding in some whole grains with that and some more veggies, it seems like that would absolutely be a good diet.

And in fact, that type of diet is very much a Mediterranean-like diet, and there's just overwhelming evidence that Mediterranean diets are great for the brain, they're great for the heart, they're great for aging, and associated with lower all-cause mortality, lower Alzheimer's disease incidence, lower cancer incidence, lower cardiovascular disease. So I think the Mediterranean diet is really— it's hard to go wrong with a diet like that. There are some benefits that you're missing out on if you are not in ketosis. And, um, you know, that's, that's mostly uniquely to being, to making ketone bodies like beta-hydroxybutyrate.

To me, I'm going to try to cycle that in, that like keto diet in, you know, I haven't figured out how often, but I'm going to try to cycle it in and, um, you know, see, see how that works. And then of course there's intermittent fasting. You also make ketones with intermittent fasting. Hi, Dr. Patrick. We are so close to getting an outdoor sauna, but I'm stuck after reading this recent study linking heat shock proteins to heart valve calcification. Do you interpret this as saying HSPs are the cause or effect of calcification in this scenario? Would really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks so much. So, Chad, the study you linked actually showed that heat shock proteins are decreased. They are downregulated in calcific aortic valve disease.

In other words, it's the opposite of what you thought. The heat shock proteins are actually lower in this, you know, heart valve calcification scenario. And the sauna actually increases heat shock proteins. So to me, that actually makes more sense. And of course, the sauna is associated with probably the most robust effect is cardiovascular health. So Isabel, Isabel has a parenting question. She says, what evidence-based parenting books, methods do you recommend or did you use? Also, you mentioned you used flashcards to teach your child to read at an early age? Can you share more and specifically what flashcard sets you like? I did not follow any books, parenting books at all. And I did not, for the most part, I didn't follow flashcard sets. I started with making my own flashcards.

And I did this based on words that my son had experienced through life, like, you know, dog. We had seen dogs and I'd pointed out that's a dog, or tree, or sun, or hot. So, you know, all these, all these words that are sight words that were words that, you know, my little baby and toddler, you know, whenever you're walking around outside with your, with your baby and toddler, you point to things and you you call out what they are. So I made a bunch of flashcards based on those types of sight words, and that was the way I did it. I then started using a lot of products from Lakeshore, which is like one of my favorite stores to shop at. It's an educational store.

A lot of teachers shop there, and I used— they did have some flashcards there, sight word flashcards that I then later used, but also I use their sight words, their bingo game sight words. They have like a game and that's for when your child's a little bit older, like 3, you know? Like 3 would be like the youngest I would start that at. And then I also used Bob's Books, B-O-B-S. They're the best. And that's how my son learned to read super, super early. And they're the best books, and you can find those on Amazon. Rapid-fire question, is it okay to take a sauna straight after exercise, like a Peloton bike, since both produce some kind of stress to the body? Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's when I do it. I like to do it after I exercise.

Many, many of the sauna studies also have shown that people use the sauna directly after cardiovascular aerobic exercise. Mar Elizabeth, or maybe I forgot a Y. I'm sorry when I typed this out. Mary or Mar Elizabeth has a fertility question. What pro-fertility supplements would you suggest when trying to conceive? What was your regimen for your own contraception other than a diet rich in whole organic foods and plenty of exercise? What other things beyond supplements or certain foods would you highly suggest? For those who are trying to get pregnant, so I didn't follow any of the pro-fertility supplements that I you know sort of did a risk assessment and I always would find a potential bad effect.

So the only supplement that I took in addition to my fish oil and vitamin D, I cut out all my like longevity supplements that I was taking and I just started taking a prenatal vitamin. So, I took a prenatal and then I took my vitamin D and my fish oil. And probably the biggest thing that impacted me and the biggest thing I found in the literature, which I originally— I was pregnant for most of 2017. I got pregnant end of 2016. At that time, there was less evidence. Now, there has been more evidence since then. That cutting out caffeine is like, it is so important for conception and for both the woman, particularly the woman, but actually the man as well because it affects their sperm.

And so if it's harder to control the male side of things, I would say that the biggest thing that I think had an effect on my personal conception was cutting out the caffeine. And quite a few friends of mine that I told about that were having fertility problems, they did that and immediately got pregnant. And like I said, since then, there's been a lot of evidence that have now confirmed that caffeine does— it leads to a really, really early miscarriage. In fact, like at the level of just the blastocyst implanting in the uterus. And so you won't even know that you had a miscarriage. You just won't get pregnant. So that's kind of the biggest thing. What is the best broccoli or sulforaphane supplement to take? Would it have any effect on thyroid function in an older menopausal woman?

So the most clinical evidence in terms of a supplement that's been used in studies would be Avmacol and Prostafane. Prostafane has a much higher dose of sulforaphane compared to Avmacol. Avmacol has somewhere like 4 micrograms where Prostafane has 10 per supplement pill. I personally take— I take 1 Prostafane. Well, I had 2 this morning actually, but I take between 1 and 2 a day depending on the size of my meal. So if my meal is bigger, Then I will take two, and if it's if it's smaller, then I will take one. I have seen zero evidence to suggest that it affects thyroid. I've seen no clinical evidence. In fact, there's been studies that have shown no effect. I do thyroid tests routinely. It has never affected my thyroid hormones.

With that said, everybody's different, and there's no reason why someone who is worried about their thyroid shouldn't do a thyroid test, either a full panel or, you know, the basics before, get a baseline, and then do it after your supplementation with sulforaphane to make sure that for you it's also working. That would be the best scenario. And of course, you know, most insurance companies will cover a thyroid test, but they're not that expensive even if they don't. So Avocall and Prostafane are my favorites. based on actual clinical randomized controlled trial or open-label trial studies. Hi, in a recent Q&A, you said you would email a spreadsheet with a lot of info on a range of specific supplements. Could you send this again or make it available on your website, please?

So, what I was referring to with that spreadsheet was specifically omega-3 supplements, fish oil supplements. And I just recorded a screencast on that. And so, we'll be sharing that pretty soon. What is better at giving us the benefits of heat shock proteins, heat in the sauna or sub-zero temperatures in a cryogenic therapy type setup? I know cryotherapy isn't available in many places, so it might be a moot. But which extreme does more for us? Sauna, for sure. Sauna. So cold does also induce some stress response pathways. It does increase heat shock proteins to a lesser degree than the sauna, but it does. Elevate them somewhat, but the sauna does it more robustly. The sauna and the cold also both increase norepinephrine.

I just mentioned norepinephrine a few minutes ago when I was talking about 2 minutes in my 49-degree Fahrenheit cold tub. But, um, norepinephrine is also released by the sauna. Cold does it better though. So it's one of those, you know, There's overlap, but there's also like you get more robust responses in certain stress response pathways based on the type of stress that you are doing. Hello. I would like to try a keto diet. After listening to your discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast, it seems very difficult to get into ketosis and stay there. Do you have a meal plan that I could follow? I am pretty disciplined and I will follow a menu that is correct.

So, since I was on Joe's podcast last August, I've also had a phone conversation with Dr. Dom D'Agostino, who is one of the leading experts on ketogenic diets. He has been doing a ketogenic diet for years. He researches it. And him and I were talking and he was saying that basically, once— the first time you do the ketogenic diet, it's actually really challenging. And very hard to get and stay into ketosis without getting kicked out by even just eating a little bit of dark leafy keto greens. So it might just be— so I'm going to be starting it up again. And he mentioned that the second time I do it, that I actually will— it'll be easier for me to get into ketosis. So I am going to try it again. And I think after doing it again, I'm going to come up with some more meal plans.

And actually, Dom is coming back on the podcast in a couple of months. And so I think him and I are going to talk about meal plans and stuff. And I'm actually going to ask if he wants to do a Q&A with me for all the members, all the Family Fitness members. So you guys. So I'm hoping that he'll agree to that. And then we can talk in more detail about meal plans and things like that. He also had a suggestion about when you're first doing a ketogenic diet to supplement with what he actually recommended, ketone salts. And the ketone salt that he recommended was, let's see what it was called. It was Here we go. It was called— okay, I'm not finding it, but I will try to send that out in the summary that we email you guys. Because what's funny is I actually ordered it.

I haven't received it yet, but I just can't remember I think maybe it was— was it Keto Nutrition, maybe? Well, Keto Nutrition is his website. Okay. So that's a good source. Look into ketonutrition.org. He's got a lot of resources. He's got some recipes there. He's got a blog. So I would look into what Dom has. Keto Start. Is the name of the ketone salt, and it's by Audacious Nutrition. So that's something that I did order, and I'm going to try that out upon Dom's recommendation because I do trust that he knows a lot what he's talking about. And with that said, I am going to wrap this Q&A up. Again, if you guys want to listen to this episode, you can listen to it directly on your dashboard at foundmyfitness.com/dashboard.

You can also on your dashboard download your private podcast player if you have not already. We upload all our aliquot episodes onto the dashboard and the private podcast feed, and our Q&As also go up there as well. So you can listen to those again. We will send out a summary email with a timeline so that you can have links. Okay, I'm just looking at the chat and I saw some people were Confused about something, but I'm not sure what they were confused about. Okay, thanks everyone. So I will see you next month. Please submit your questions for next month in the Ask a Question section rather than in the chat section. If you want to talk about something like lectins next time, please submit a question and we can cover it then. So, look forward to seeing you guys soon. Thank you so much for all your support. I really appreciate all of you guys. I love doing these Crowdcasts. So thanks for joining me live today.