Q&A #49: How Can You Lower ApoB With APOE4—and Can You Slow or Reverse Gray Hair?

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crowdcast number 49. Excited to be here today. A couple of announcements. So we are releasing the Chris McGlory podcast, which has everything to do with the effects of omega-3 on skeletal muscle. Very exciting findings out of his lab. That is going to be out for— we're trying to get it out for members early, a day early. So in order to be able to listen to that podcast, you need to have the private podcast player, which you, if you haven't already downloaded it, you can get it on the FoundMyFitness dashboard. So that's your dashboard. You can find that at foundmyfitness.com/dashboard. And you can download the private podcast player where you can then listen to our almost weekly aliquot episodes and also the Q&As that we do here live.

We post them After so you can listen to them again as well. So make sure you guys have that private podcast feed player if you want to go ahead and listen to the Chris McElroy podcast early. All right. So for those of you that are new, typically what I do is I go through many of the questions that were submitted and I do a deep dive on a few of them that I choose. Ones that are top voted, also ones that are interesting and that we haven't really covered much before. Occasionally I will revisit questions that we've covered in the past and sort of add a little extra information, but also give you resources to where to find previous answers for those questions as well. So that, that's something that will, will happen today.

And then towards the end, we do a rapid fire where I answer a variety of questions that are sort of short answer and don't require such a deep dive on my end or on the end of my team. And then I also answer questions throughout the Q&A live in the chat. So that's what the chat section here is for. So for me answering a lot of these questions, I'll look— after I answer a question, I'll look at the chat and see if there's anything related. So let's get started. The first question that I'm addressing was submitted by Liz. It was also a very highly upvoted question. And Liz says, UK exercise physiologist Damian Bailey says his studies show that 3 to 5 minutes of squat stands has beneficial effects on the brain that exceed those of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity continuous exercise.

Apparently, the effect on the cerebral vasculature is similar to that produced by high-intensity interval training and may have similar neuroprotective effects with less effort. Does this seem likely? I wonder if you have any suggestions about what schedule and pacing of squats would have the most benefit. So I chose this question because I'd never heard of this physiologist and certainly haven't heard of the claims. And so I was kind of intrigued. So there's a variety of links that were also submitted in that question I looked through and then a study. So I would say the high-level summary here is the idea that Damien is presenting or proposing is that you do repetitive squats.

So you move your head up and down against and with the force of gravity, which causes like an orthostatic stress. So this is like a shift of blood from the chest to the distensible venous capacity system below the diaphragm. So the blood vessels, including those in the brain, can only partially buffer these changes in blood flow. So there's like a very drastic acceleration and deceleration of the blood in those blood vessels. So this way, it's kind of like a shock absorber. So the blood vessels are shock absorbers. And, you know, it's basically like an already trained— it can be, you know, you can train it and basically stimulate it with relatively less or little training effort. That's the whole concept.

And typically steady state or continuous exercise, such as doing spinning, does not produce such an orthostatic stress. So researchers suggest that certain cerebral vascular benefits associated with higher cardiorespiratory fitness occur when there's a regulatory capacity on the cerebral vascular system. So like when that system is challenged. There is a lack of research on the exact effects of this type of training. So the squatting 3 to 5 minutes, 3 times a week, there's really no research on that looking at neurogenesis, looking at brain architecture or cognition, or how it even compares to other training methods like high-intensity interval training.

So it's really hard to make any conclusions given the large body of research showing the benefits of prolonged, moderate, steady-state continuous exercise on health, on the brain, the benefits of vigorous exercise like high-intensity interval training, particularly on the brain. So I think the proposed training by this physiologist, Damian Bailey, is something that I view as in addition to an already, like, you know, a training program that's already established, something that you are already doing with, you know, a combination of high-intensity interval training, more moderate-intensity continuous training.

Or even these exercise snacks where you do 1 to 2 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise throughout the day, rather than replacing that exercise with these types of sort of squat, repetitive squat movements. So I think that's something that I just— I don't feel confident that what he's claiming is backed by science. It's interesting. I can see the theory, but there's just no evidence. And I would be— I mean, there's just an overwhelming amount of evidence about continuous training and the effects on the brain and the cerebral vascular system. And, in fact, much of the effects on the cerebral vascular system have to do with sheer force that is created by blood flow. And that happens when you are elevating your heart rate.

The more you elevate your heart rate, in other words, the higher the intensity of the exercise, the The more the shear flow, the more you're making brain-derived neurotrophic factor, VEGF, which is vascular endothelial growth factor, at the blood-brain barrier in the brain. This is growing new blood vessels. This is growing new neurons. This is enhancing the connection between neurons. It's doing many things that it's just— it's undeniable that high-intensity vigorous or even moderate-intensity exercise does. So I would not stop doing that exercise, and I wouldn't replace it with these squat things. That's something that you can maybe just do in addition to it. That's kind of like my high-level summary on that topic.

So John's asking in the live chat, hi Rhonda, are there biomarkers or other ways by which one can assess the robustness of one's cerebral perfusion? Also, can one assess the integrity and function of the cerebral microvasculature without the use of imaging. So if you go on to our episode page with Dr. Axel Montagne— so you go to foundmyfitness.com and you click on the episodes page, and up there at the top, the one of the recent episodes will be Axel Montaigne— click on that episode page. We have a big slide on that episode page that has lists a variety of biomarkers that can be measured to look at the integrity of the blood-brain barrier, uh, the integrity of the microvasculature.

Many of these— there are some imaging ones, but there's also some, you know, that are, that are blood-based biomarkers. The problem is, is that this isn't something that's very— it's not clinically practiced yet. So, you know, you'd have to either have some kind of concierge doctor that would be willing to do it, or just kind of stand by and wait until it becomes more clinical, I would say clinically relevant and clinically applicable. But those biomarkers are listed and they are ones that can be measured in blood to assess the integrity of the microvasculature and the blood-brain barrier.

With respect to assessing the robustness of your cerebral perfusion, that could be done with imaging, but I would say What I think is one of the best proxies of that at home would be actually measuring your lactate because the higher the intensity, the more the cerebral, you know, the more you're getting this cerebral perfusion into the brain, the blood flow is intenser. And so you can measure your lactate and I use the Nova Biomedical lactate meter. So, you know, when you start to get over, so baseline levels would be somewhere around like 1 millimolar. And when you start to get over that, when you start to get into the, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, you know, 9 millimolar range, then you're really— you're doing— you're getting your intense exercise.

I think the other way really honestly is measuring your heart rate and doing, you know, measuring your heart rate and making sure you're— if you're 75, 80, 85% max heart rate, that's pretty intense. vigorous exercise. And that also is pretty indicative that your blood flow is going to be— you're going to be getting that cerebral perfusion into the brain. So those are kind of, I would say, the easiest proxies that I myself use just to know, you know, that it's one of the reasons why I'm also so focused on higher-intensity exercise as well. So the next question we're going to address has to do with senescent cells. So these are cells that are— they are still alive, but they're— and they're sort of metabolically active, but they're not really functional.

And they're metabolically active just enough to secrete pro-inflammatory molecules, cytokines, that unfortunately then damage nearby cells because they're secreting it into this extracellular milieu, which then sort of makes a pro-inflammatory state for a nearby cell, which accelerates the aging process. Senescent cells happen with age. We accumulate more of them as we age. And so they are problematic because they do essentially accelerate the aging process. So Tom asked the question, Rhonda, about senescent cells. Any new information on the efficacy of feistin quercetin or other molecules. So we have a topic page on quercetin for those of you interested in diving deeper into quercetin and including its effects on senescent cells. You can find that at foundmyfitness.com.

Click on the topics page and then you can do the alphabetized list, go on Q and click on quercetin. It's a pretty good topic page. And we do continually add to them. So like a high-level summary, there are several randomized controlled trials that are planned or they're in process right now investigating the effects of what are called senolytics. So these are molecules, they're compounds that have been shown or thought to clear away senescent cells. And so there are randomized controls looking at these senolytics in conditions like Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, or osteoarthritis. There's really not a lot of already published data out there with respect to clinical trials.

We do have some of them covered on our quercetin topic page with respect to quercetin, and I'll talk about a few right now. So there was a very small open-label pilot study. So this is not a placebo-controlled trial. This was looking at dasatinib plus quercetin in patients with pulmonary fibrosis, which is a disease in which lung fibroblasts and epithelial cells become prematurely senescent. And it basically affects people's cardiorespiratory fitness. So the random— so basically what that showed is that there was a clinical increase in their walking distance, so their 6-minute walking distance, their 4-minute gait speed, and then their chair stands.

So in other words, the— The quercetin and the dasatinib was able to improve their cardiorespiratory fitness, which would suggest that it was clearing away senescent cells, but that was not shown. I mean, that's going to be really hard to show in a human. That's where you kind of look to animal studies to go into the, you know, the actual molecular biology where you're showing that senescent cells are being cleared away, at least in the lungs. There was a randomized controlled trial, another small one. This was in 12 patients with pulmonary fibrosis that did not confirm these effects. So I think that, you know, there's a little bit of disconnect there. There's some conflicting information.

Both of them are very small studies, and so it's really unclear what those quercetin plus dasatinib is doing at this time. I would say the best— my current belief right now is I would not go out and start taking certainly dasatinib, and dasatinib is also— it's used to kill cancer cells. It's very effective against leukemias. So getting the right dose and combination and all that is like— there's a lot of fine-tuning that needs to be done. Quercetin is an interesting one if people are interested in supplementing with quercetin. I do have it at my house. I do think phytosomal quercetin is the best source because it is not absorbed very well. It's not very bioavailable. So liposomal quercetin has been shown to increase bioavailability.

There's some interesting data on allergies, seasonal allergies. It's also very small studies, and I would say very early. You know, we're just sort of scratching the surface on the effects of quercetin on, you know, the immune system and allergies. But nonetheless, there's a lot of anecdotal data, people out there talking about how it seems to help with their allergies. So quercetin is an interesting one, but, you know, and the feistin, that's something that really, it's just, there's just animal research. And so there's, it's really, there's ongoing trials. There's like a list of a lot of trials that are ongoing right now, but there's just no published data on it. And the only published data I could find with feistin is with animal studies. So we just have to stand by and wait and see.

There's one on osteoarthritis, one on frailty coming out that's in progress. but just no published data. So I would say not much to talk about there other than what's already sort of on our topic page with quercetin. Blake is asking in the live chat if I still supplement with moringa. I'm gonna go through my supplement list towards the end when I get to the rapid-fire questions. I do have a bunch of moringa powder here. I personally, Yeah. I like to supplement with the Prostafane or the Brock, which is Prostafane that is now in the US. It's like the US-branded version of Prostafane, and we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But moringa powder, I still think, is a good way to do it.

I just find that putting it— it just makes the smoothies taste so horrific that it's easier for me to just take a pill with the Prostafane. or the Brock, you know, is a lot easier for me. Okay, so the next question was submitted by Lisa, and it's about lipids. So Lisa says, hi Rhonda, I would love to hear you discuss lipid-lowering effects for those with high ApoB or borderline high ApoB, and also in the context of ApoE4. Peter Attia seems so much more bullish on pharmaceutical interventions than you are. I want to know if caution may be warranted here. So you guys should know that Peter and I just recorded a podcast. He came out a few weeks ago, like 3 weeks ago, to our studio, and we recorded a 3.5-hour podcast.

It's a very long podcast, and we spent a big chunk of time talking about lipids and ApoB and lifestyle factors that regulate ApoB, and then we went into pharmaceutical interventions as well. And so I would say that that section on the episode you're really going to want to listen to. It was quite good, very, very in-depth. I have previously talked about— in fact, we released an Aliquot on lifestyle interventions to lower ApoB with an emphasis on ApoE4 as well. And so I would suggest that you go back and listen to that aliquot. You can find it again on your members dashboard, foundmyfitness.com/dashboard. The aliquots are all there, or if you already have your private podcast player, then you can just open that up and look for the aliquot. It wasn't that long ago on ApoB.

But I will say, I did also— there's a couple of Mm-hmm. Mentions of statins. So we talked about statins and ApoE4 in Q&A session number 16. By the way, it was very interesting because in this conversation I had with Peter, I specifically asked him about statins and E4 and neurodegenerative disease risk, and he was of the opinion that people with ApoE4 might want to avoid statins because of a potential negative effect on dementia. But more on that when we release that podcast. There's a lot more details in that episode on that. So Q&A session number 16 for the Crowdcast, we covered whether or not there are times statins could be contraindicated for a person with ApoE4. Or we talked about whether, you know, contraindication for people with ApoE4 with an LDL over 200.

So you could go back and listen to that Q&A as well. We talked about, of course, particle size, LDL particle size being very important. And we talked a lot about this. Peter and I talked a lot about particle size versus ApoB and the combination of the two. just really in-depth about that. So the Aliquod that, uh, we discussed the lifestyle factors that lower ApoB actually was Aliquod 81. So that I would go back and listen to Aliquod 81 because that, that's where we talk about Mediterranean diet, exercise, um, and actually even supplements like zinc and omega-3 fatty acids can lower ApoB. And that there's also individual responses to diet that can basically affect a person's response to dietary changes in terms of their ApoB levels.

So knowing, you know, making sure you keep measuring things before and after is very important. Don't just start doing a Mediterranean diet and not like measure something after, you know, changing to that Mediterranean diet. But the Mediterranean diet, particularly high in olive oil, so olive oil itself and the polyphenols in it have been shown to lower ApoB. There's the beta-glucans in oats, which also I think there's supplemental forms of that as well, of the beta-glucans. Those have been shown to lower ApoB. There's flavonoids found in citrus fruits, so it's hesperidin, that's been shown to lower ApoB. That was all from Q&A session Crowdcast number 42.

And then we talked a lot about statins and versus lifestyle changes to lower high particle LDL particle number, and that was in Q&A session number 38. So we talked about, you know, basically the easiest things would be if you already have a high BMI, like lowering that, you know, like that also, that's extremely important. Exercise, not smoking, maintaining a healthy blood pressure. Glucose homeostasis is really important as well. High fiber diet. And another thing that can help is replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. And that is something that Peter and I also talked about. Like, unfortunately, like, there are many people, not everyone, many people that respond to dietary saturated fat by increasing their LDL particle number and increasing ApoB.

There are some people that do not respond this way. And so again, it's one of those things you have to measure and see. If you are doing a high-fat diet and a lot of the fat is coming from saturated fat sources, you have to measure your ApoB and your LDL particle number and your LDL particle size because a lot of people will respond negatively to the high saturated fat. diet. And you can still do a high-fat diet where you take more of the fat from monounsaturated fat sources like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and polyunsaturated sources, again, like nuts and fish, fish oil. So there's ways to, you know, do a higher-fat diet without having so much of it being saturated fat.

So in other words, lowering— The butter, so replacing the butter with olive oil, you know, eating more salmon and not eating like the fattiest source of red meat every day. I mean, just, you know, kind of balancing that a little bit more. So that also is something that seems to really lower LDL particle number and ApoB. And then we talked about in Q&A session number 37, certain supplements that have been shown to lower— ApoB. ApoB and foods as well. So that would be omega-3, has been shown to lower ApoB. Inflammation increases ApoB, which may be a big way in which omega-3 lowers ApoB because inflammation is so powerful at lowering inflammation. And then again, we talked a lot more about diet and phenotype.

Some people, you know, again, the way they're responding to more of a high-fat diet versus a— Low-fat diet. high-carb diet. And some people actually just really respond negatively to a high-fat diet, a high saturated fat diet. And so you really have to know if you're one of those people. And so that's something that just through testing, you know, changing your diet and measuring your ApoB and particle number and particle size is how you'll figure that out. And then in Q&A session number 47, which was a couple of months ago, we talked about berberine. And the promise of berberine in lowering LDL particle number. And that's something that was super interesting to me. I started supplementing with berberine. So go back and listen to that episode.

We've also been updating the berberine topic page that you can go and find on the topics page as well. And then if you guys want to go back and listen to some crash courses on cardiovascular biomarkers, You can go back to Q&A number 43. I talk about a variety of important cardiovascular biomarkers. Q&A session number 18 is my crash course on blood lipid particles. And I go all into the ApoB and the ApoB diagnostic algorithm, which, you know, demonstrates which lipoproteins are elevated and what conditions could produce these abnormalities. So lots and lots of good information. that have been covered on this. And like I said, Peter and I went into so much detail on lipids, and this is coming— this will be coming out towards the end of summer.

So it's a really good podcast, and it's really heavily focused a lot on lipids as well. Is there a way to know if saturated fat should be avoided based on your genetic report? So we do have a variety of single nucleotide polymorphisms known as SNPs for short. These are changes in the single nucleotide in DNA in certain genes that can change— alter the function of it somewhat. And there are a variety of SNPs that we do give you data on that are known to have a negative effect on the way the body metabolizes saturated fat.

I would say that in and of itself won't— isn't the end-all be-all because genetics is so complicated and there could be other genes that have not been identified by 23andMe and just aren't something that's in our report that could counter those because there's a lot of interactions. There's lots of genes affecting metabolism, lots of genes that affect— the way our bodies metabolize saturated fat. And so I would say that would be a start where it's, you know, it's like, oh, well, I could be one of those people. But the only way to really know is to measure your lipids.

And if you're eating a diet that is high in saturated fat and your lipids are really, really, really high, then that is sort of a red flag, I would say, and that would be a time to then replace— You don't have to replace all your saturated fats. It's not like you can't eat any fatty cuts of red meat. But I would say the easiest place to start with replacing saturated fat is to look— one, butter, because it's unnecessary. You can use olive oil. Two, I would say, would be looking at any processed foods you're eating. There's a lot of palm oil or coconut oil. a lot of palm oil and stuff, and that's the source of saturated fat. And then there's cocoa butter as well, so like chocolate, how much chocolate are you eating? And I mean, if it's just a little bit, you know, probably not a big deal.

But butter is a big source, and heavy cream in your coffee, half-and-half, it's a very big source of saturated fat for many people that they're getting constantly every day, especially if you're drinking more than 1 cup of coffee. MCT is also a source of saturated fat. So the easiest thing would be to sort of start with the more processed type of saturated fats, leaving the more whole food source like the red meat. You know, I would start with the processed sources because those are really easy to cut and to sort of swap out with olive oil or, you know, other— you could use other sources of Of cream as well, like oat milk or, you know, just drinking it black. Dustin's asking in the chat about ApoE4 typically having a more negative effect on the saturated fat effect. Yes. Yes.

So ApoE4 affects the recycling of LDL particles. And ApoB is how— so ApoB binds to the LDL receptor on the liver. And that LDL particle then gets taken up into the liver, and that's how it is taken out of the bloodstream. People with ApoE4, that interaction's not happening quite as good. And so at any given point, a person with an ApoE4 allele, one ApoE4 allele, and of course it's a dose-dependent effect. If you have 2, it's even more profound or pronounced. you're going to have more LDL particles and more ApoB at any given time because they're not being recycled as effectively.

So I do think that people with ApoE4 generally are better off not eating so much of the saturated fat sources, particularly the processed saturated fat sources, like the butter and the cream and the things that you just don't need, right? Yeah. When you're eating the red meat, that's a little bit— there's also lean red meat, right? I mean, you could be eating bison and— but let's just, for argument's sake, when you're eating red meat, which also does have saturated fat, you're getting a really high-quality protein source. You're getting iron. You're getting— you know, there are other things that you need that you're also getting. When you're just eating the butter or the cream, I mean, it's just not— You don't need that. Like, you don't need butter. You don't need it.

You can get your fat from, again, from the red meat and from other, you know, monounsaturated sources as well as polyunsaturated sources as well. So generally speaking, for people that do have ApoE4 and for people that also, you know, which is a quarter of the population, they're probably better off— Replacing some of the more processed saturated fats with mono and polyunsaturated fat. And when I say polyunsaturated fat, I don't mean vegetable oil. I mean whole food sources or fish oil, although you're not going to be cooking with fish oil. I think olive oil, avocado oil is another great one you can use for cooking oil as well. Okay. So let's move on to this other interesting question about graying hair. So Chris asked about graying hair and the science of graying hair. Hi, Rhonda.

I would love to hear your thoughts or research on graying hair, and more specifically, is there anything that can be done— lifestyle, nutrition, supplements— that can slow this process down? First and foremost, unfortunately, graying hair is largely, largely, largely genetic determined. So keep that in mind. Like, You could be extremely healthy, have a great lifestyle, getting all your micronutrients, low stress. That is all going to help. But if you've got those early graying genes, if your parents grayed really early in life, it's very likely that you're fighting genetics there on that. So keep that in mind. So the loss of hair pigmentation is a hallmark of aging. It typically begins actually during a person's 20s.

The timing and extent of graying vary again according to genetics and the interaction between biological factors. Psychological factors is a really big one. And graying hair is generally considered irreversible, but there have been some recent data that have come out that demonstrate that might not be so true, that graying is not necessarily a linear process. And that some graying hair may be reversible depending again on what's driving the graying. So if we're talking about genetic factors, it's going to be largely irreversible. But if we're talking about external factors like stress, it may actually be reversible. So one of the primary drivers of graying hair is oxidative stress. In the hair follicle, which damages the pigment-producing region, the melanocyte, of the hair shaft.

So oxidative stress, we've talked about this a million times. It occurs when our mitochondria inside of our cells are making energy. You know, it's an internal— it happens, there's like an internal thing that's happening, and there's psychological factors, biological factors that can affect it as well. So there's evidence that depigmented hair has mitochondrial energy metabolic dysfunction. So it's really interesting because there's a lot of case reports and anecdotal reports that suggest that repigmentation can occur and it can cause kind of like a bicolor hair. In other words, like the repigmentation sometimes is a different color than what the person's original hair color was, which is fascinating.

So there's one, um, study, I don't know, it was about a year ago or so, that we, we actually put out in our Science Digest where, where the authors of the study collected dark, depigmented, and also bicolor hairs from about 14 young adults. Their average age was about 35. They didn't color their hair, they didn't bleach their hair, there's no chemically treated hair, nothing. They were just natural. And, um, there, there, you know, some of these participants, participants also completed a lot of stress assessment questionnaires on a life event calendar. And, um, the, the authors of this, the researchers, were able to overlay the hair pigmentation patterns with life events in these, these participants.

So they found that a depigmentation and repigmentation event corresponded with moments in their— in the participants' lives linked to a stressful event. So there was like marital discord, for example. So, um, that, that was linked to when hair pigment was depigmented, hair depigmented, so it became gray. And then the repigmentation was linked— again, this is, um, the repigmentation was, again, uh, they were able to identify it because it was a different color of, um, there was a different color of hair versus what their natural color was, and that was linked to a non-stressful event. Typically it was when the person had gone on a vacation.

So the authors concluded that there was these depigmented hairs, um, there was a depigmentation and repigmentation that was really linked to psychological stress. And they also measured and looked at the depigmented hairs and they found mitochondrial dysfunction in this, you know, the melanocytes, these cells that are producing pigmentation, suggesting that mitochondrial metabolism is involved in the graying process as well. And, you know, I would say, so you might go here and think, well, then maybe we need to, you know, do everything to improve our mitochondrial health and that, you know, that's something that we should focus on for Preventing gray hair, and I would say like that's absolutely true. And one of the best things you can do is exercise.

Exercise is one of the best things for your mitochondria. It doesn't have to be the zone two training. High intensity interval training is very good for mitochondria. It grows new healthy young mitochondria. So both you know you know whether you're whether you're doing more low to moderate intensity exercise or you're doing high intensity interval training or vigorous exercise, all of it is really good for for mitochondria and improving. Your mitochondrial health. With respect to supplements, alpha-lipoic acid, ubiquinol— these are both antioxidants. There's the, there's the MitoPure, which is thought to be the, um, it's the urolithin A that's found in pomegranate that can clear away damaged mitochondria. Resveratrol has been shown to improve mitochondria.

There's a lot of different supplements that have been shown to improve mitochondrial function. All of them, I would say, they're, like, not even comparable to what exercise can do. So that's the thing to focus on. But it is, you know, interesting to think that maybe some of these supplements could affect mitochondrial health. You know, certainly ubiquinol has been shown to, particularly in the context of statins, So, you know, not a lot of research looking at graying hair, but I think, you know, you could draw some parallels and say, well, maybe there's, you know, a possibility that anything that's going to improve my mitochondria will also, you know, help with slowing the graying of hair.

And certainly going on, you know, vacations and trying to lower and buffer your stress, meditation, yoga, things that can buffer out the psychological stress are really important as well. There's also been some evidence that certain vitamins, particularly B vitamins, can affect premature graying of hair. So this is when you're really— a person has graying hair in their 20s, it's happening really early. That's been linked to vitamin B12 deficiency, folic acid, B7 deficiency as well. So those things have also been shown to reverse graying hair, but again, it's really— Sort of, I would say, isolated to this population of people that have severe vitamin deficiency, B12, B7, folic acid deficiency, and they have really, really early prematurely graying hair.

Other than that, it's not like someone that has normal B vitamin levels of their B vitamins is going to reverse their graying hair by taking a B complex. Like, that's not going to happen. Okay, and something I did want to mention, um, There's no direct evidence on photobiomodulation. So this is red light laser therapy or red light therapy, doesn't necessarily have to be laser, it could be LED, on hair graying. There's no evidence on it. There is evidence looking at, first of all, vitiligo. So vitiligo is, you know, where you have depigmentation in melanocytes and skin cells.

So there's a study involving 30 people that had sort of segmental type vitiligo, so it's either on their head or their neck, and photobiomodulation was able to repigment, uh, improve their repigmentation in about 60% of these people with successive treatments. And so, so the reason I thought it was interesting was because photobiomodulation has been shown to affect also regrowing of the hair. And, um, on— we have a photobiomodulation topic page that we're about to be posting, and so that's going to go live and you guys will have all this information. But the, the parameters are really important for regrowing the hair. So the wavelength for regrowing hair was 655 nanometers, and the irradiance was a combination of either LED or laser, or and laser.

And so it was about 22 milliwatts per centimeter squared for the LED and 4.6 milliwatts per centimeter squared for the laser. And there's some commercially available devices that, um, that may at least have some of those parameters. So the HairMax laser comb and the Lexington International. And I think I'm gonna go ahead and, um, I'm going to get one of these devices. I'm not sure if I'm going to do which one I'm going to do out of the two of those yet, but I am going to get one for my husband to try out. And I did— I am going to talk about the device I have. So this actually brings me to the next question, which was submitted by Alyssa, and it has to do with red light therapy, photobiomodulation, and skin aging.

So Alyssa says, I'm intrigued by the The anti-aging red light facial device you mentioned in the last Q&A, as well as the one your mother-in-law used for her spider veins, could you go into a little more detail, please? So the primary mechanism by which photobiomodulation exerts its effects involves chromophores, which are like these class of light-sensing molecules present in cells. And the principal one that is found in our cells is cytochrome c oxidase. : Which has a copper. So, the cytochrome c oxidase is actually in the mitochondria, and it's one of the major mechanisms thought to be the primary mechanism for how photobiomodulation works. So, there's a randomized placebo-controlled trial doing split-face testing. So, either, you know, a placebo LED or an actual red light LED.

On the skin of 76 either mostly females— there was one male, I don't know why they put one male in there— but people. And basically the photobiomodulation device used was the Omnilux Plus, which is what I have. I— it's the, the Omnilux is what I bought. And, um, it basically— it improved the severity, severity of the wrinkles. So there was a significant decrease on the treated side versus the placebo side. And there was an improvement in their average roughness. So like a 63% improvement— sorry, a 36% improvement. 63 would have been wow. And there was also improvements in skin elasticity, 19% improvement in skin elasticity. So quite a few improvements.

And also it's interesting they ask They asked both the investigators and the participants to assess their— what side of their face they thought was improved. And they did get it right. And both the investigators— and they were blinded, remember, they didn't know which treatment was which. And the participants were quite happy with how the side of their face that was actually treated looked. And then there was biopsies done and collagen was actually The amount of collagen fibers increased in the side of the face that was treated with the LED red light. Their elastic fibers increased as well. Their fibroblasts increased.

And this is something that also resistance training— all these things, by the way, resistance training was exercise in general, but resistance training in particular affected the fibroblasts, which increases the thickness of the dermis. And the thickness of the dermis was improved. So, and then immunohistochemistry. So they looked at like inflammatory molecules and stuff in the skin, and those were all decreased. And so, um, there's a lot of really important, I would say, parameters that really were obviously improved in the red light therapy treatment group compared to placebo. And there's also some other studies on skin rejuvenation. So there was like 137 women aged 40 to 65 that did the LED, again, LED treatment for 4 weeks and with a different device but, you know, similar parameters.

It reduced their wrinkle volume by almost 32%. It improved their brow positioning. So like it wasn't so saggy, which I thought was really interesting as well. Improved their pore size, their skin texture, overall appearance. All this stuff seems to be safe. There's been some safety studies looking at dose escalation, determining the maximum tolerated dose in people with different skin colors. And they figured out, like, when you get to a really, really high dose, so non-Hispanic Caucasians who have fairer skin. So melanin is, you know, we were talking about it in the context of hair. Well, melanin is also produced in skin. It's responsible for producing that pigmentation color, protects you from UV radiation, also makes your skin color a little bit darker.

It is a little more challenging for red light therapy, you know, for these wavelengths to penetrate through the melanin because melanin is a protective barrier, right? It protects from radiation. It protects from red light. I mean, it's protecting your skin. In the one sense, it's also protecting your skin from skin aging a little more because you're having that extra layer of protection. But anyways, so people that were Caucasian didn't have as much melanin in their skin, did have blistering and prolonged redness when about 480 joules per centimeter were used, which is a pretty high dose. And this studies that showed any sort of benefits on skin aging and skin rejuvenation were anywhere between 3.5 to 126 joules per centimeter, far below 480.

So I don't think there's any concern about— in fact, I don't know that any device out there would even ever do 480. So, you know, these dose escalation studies, I think, show that for the devices out there that are commercially available, they're pretty safe with respect to not causing skin blistering or damage or redness. There's really no consent— consensus for the best, um, what device to use for skin rejuvenation. I would say, um, the parameters, looking at the parameters of these studies, a wavelength between 400 to 850 nanometers, those have been shown to work. The irradiance is very important, and this is almost never listed by the company. You have to like email them and ask. So annoying. They'll, they'll, they'll all list their wavelength, but they'll never list the irradiance.

So this is the energy. This is like the wattage, and that is very important. So the irradiance for the LED devices— most of these are LED, not laser— LED devices are between 6.4 milliwatts per centimeter squared to 105 milliwatts per centimeter squared. And the time used for each session is anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes, average of about 15, I would say, minutes. And the number of sessions per week were about 2 to 3. Uh, the combining or alternating use of shorter and longer wavelengths kind of allows you to get a superficial treatment versus deeper treatment as well. So I think there may be a combined benefit to going shorter and longer wavelengths because then you're talking about getting more superficial versus also getting like deeper.

The commercially available photobiomodulation devices in the skin rejuvenation arena, really, there's multiple. So there's the Omnilux Revive, Omnilux Plus, I think, you know, they, they do, they do have a higher price, and some of them do have high, like, space requirements. There's the Omnilux LED mask. Actually, that's the— I got the mask one, um, which is comparable to what's used. It's used in these studies. So the Omnilux LED mask uses a wavelength of between 630 to 680 nanometers. It's the infrared LED The infrared LED goes between 800 and 880 nanometers, and it has an irradiance between 10 to 60 milliwatts per centimeter squared. There are many other products on the market.

Again, I would email them to get their irradiance, you know, to see what the wavelengths, irradiance, and all that is before buying it. And for me, I think the Omnilux LED mask is a winner because it has been used in clinical research. I did already email them, figure out their irradiance. It's within the range I just told you. So I think I haven't started using it yet because I've been traveling and just things have been so crazy. But now that I'm back, I am going to start my protocol. So we can continue to talk about that as we go into next month and after that as well. All right. So we're going to go into some rapid-fire questions. Rhonda, I was wondering, do you recommend supplementing with protein powder?

And if so, could you give recommendations on your top brands or what to look for? Do you prefer plant-based? Looking for one to add to my smoothies or other recipes, but there's so many. Any help would be greatly appreciated. So I'm glad Randy asked this question. Yes, I do supplement with protein powder, particularly because I've been a lot more I've been doing a lot more resistance training this past year. And so I think it's important to— I think it's better to do animal-based. So you either get egg white or whey protein versus plant protein, just because the volume that you'd have to take in is less because of the essential amino acid profile.

You can do plant-based protein powders, but you have to do some combination with the pea and the rice and making sure you're getting all the right amino acids as well. It's just a little more work. My go-to— so I have some go-to protein powders that I use. One is whey protein powder by Thorne, and I get this for the family. I get the chocolate flavor one because I also give it to my son. So there's been studies showing that animal-based protein increases height more than plant-based protein in growing children. So that's something to consider if your child especially doesn't like— there's a lot of— children go through a lot of phases with texture and what they like to eat. And meat is one that a lot of children, you know, it's hard.

Some children will eat it just fine, but there's a lot of children that won't eat a lot of meat. And so you have to give them eggs, egg whites, or the protein powder that has whey or egg white as well. I like Julian Bakery egg white protein powder. Over the years, that's the main source that I've used over the years because I like the egg white protein powder. But with this whole avian virus that's been going around for the past year, The price of, as you probably have noticed in the grocery store, eggs have gone up. But the price of the protein powder has skyrocketed as well because they're made from egg whites. The price has come down just a little bit, but still is quite high compared to what I've used in the past. Julian Bakery also makes a really good protein bar, which I buy.

So they have egg white protein bars and they're made with monk fruit. They don't have a bunch— and they have like prebiotic fiber in it. They don't have a bunch of junk. So they're high in fiber and they're high in protein. So they have both egg white protein bars and they have whey protein bars. I get both of them. I give them to my son when I'm on the go and I need to replace a meal with protein. That's what I'll use, particularly when I'm going into the car and doing things. So those are my main source. I think whey egg whites are the best. I like Julian Bakery and I like Thorne, and I don't have affiliation with these companies. I just like their products. All right. The next question was from Andrew.

Andrew says, just catching up on your last Q&A where you said you've added to your supplement protocol since the last update. Please, could you provide an update? Here's an update on my protocol that I'm supplementing with. So I still am doing my omega-3s. So I like to do about 2 grams in the morning and 2 grams in the evening. I like to split it up throughout the day because I think from an inflammatory status, and particularly I'm taking them with meals, it blunts some of the The intestinal permeability response. I think it's really good to kind of separate them. So I do 4 grams. Actually, I do between 4 and 6 grams. So I should say, you know, depending on whether or not I'm doing morning, you know, if I forget to do morning and I do evening, I'll do just 4 grams.

But when I do morning and evening, I actually do 3 and 3, which is 6. Of course, I take my vitamin D supplement. I'm getting probably around total of about 5,000 IUs a day. I do a multivitamin, which is One by Pure Encapsulations. I take magnesium, and I do Pure Encapsulations. I'm doing right now, I'm doing magnesium glycinate, and that is, I think it's like 125 or 130 milligrams or something like that, but it's the one from Pure Encapsulations. I take the vitamin K2. MK-4. MK, I think it's MK-4 from Life Extension. I supplement with CoQvia and I do the capsules and I also do the powder. Like right now, I'm drinking some CoQvia powder. I'm all out of the capsules. So I have both of those in my house and I kind of like to add some to my coffee or I just drink it by itself as well.

PQQ, I take 20 milligrams a day. Life Extension, alpha-lipoic acid, I get the one from— I think it's Pure Encapsulations I'm taking. And berberine, I got that from Thorne. I'm taking their berberine, whatever. They only have one. It's the dose that they have. That's what I'm taking. Lutein and zeaxanthin, I take from Pure Encapsulations. It's the only dose they have there. I take ubiquinol. I was doing 200 milligrams. I've dropped down to 100. It's like so expensive. So I just, you know, I think 100 milligrams a day. If there was someone taking a statin, then I would up it to the 200 milligrams a day. But ubiquinol is already so much more bioavailable than ubiquinone, which is the oxidized form of CoQ10. That I think 100 milligrams is sufficient.

And then I take— I'm taking this Renewal, it's called, and it's from Pure Encapsulations, and it has a little bit of the MitoPure in it, which is the urolithin A. It has a little bit of resveratrol, and it has a little bit of the, again, CoQ10. So I've already dropped down my CoQ10 as well because I'm also taking the Renewal. On weekends, I take liposomal glutathione. So I have from Pure Encapsulations, it's a little bottle that I keep in the refrigerator. It has a shelf life and I just spray it. I put a couple of squirts either, you know, I'll just do it in my mouth or I'll put it in like if I have like, you know, if I want to put it in my coffee or something. Although I like to just put it in my mouth so it doesn't make my stuff taste weird.

Liposomal glutathione really helps to— I hate using this word, but it really does help detox alcohol. And I don't usually drink more than one. Like, I usually drink like a hard kombucha or something if I'm doing socializing, or one glass of wine or one beer. Like, it's not like I binge drink, but I also just like to take the liposomal glutathione as sort of a way to, you know, detox some of that as well. I think that's— oh, and L-carnitine I've added to my— you can get the alpha-lipoic acid, L-carnitine mixture from Juvenon. I think there's a lot of evidence that those 2 combined improve mitochondrial function. But I just already have a surplus of the alpha-lipoic acid. And so I think, you know, it doesn't have to be combined like the Juvenon does. I think you can take it.

alpha-lipoic acid and L-carnitine, and then, you know, you're getting sort of the same thing. And actually, you can even get a little bit of a higher dose, and a little bit— it's a little bit more cost-effective as well. Someone was asking me about the cost-effective list of supplements. And so I would say what I— the most important ones would be the omega-3, the vitamin D, the multivitamin, magnesium, and K2. I think that would be my, my cost-effective my cost-effective, uh, you know, shortlist to save money. Janet's asking where I get my ubiquinol from. I do get it from Pure Encapsulations. It is expensive. Um, if you, if you know anyone with a nursing degree, a medical degree, a PhD, there might be another healthcare degree, um, you can get a discount from Pure Encapsulations.

Um, but I do realize they are expensive. They are a high-quality supplement brand. I know they were recently acquired by Nestlé, but like, I don't, I don't see that it is going to affect the quality of their supplements. Um, over the years, like, my mentor Bruce has known a variety of the scientists and, and people that were, you know, working at Pure Encapsulations and have tested like a lot of their, their, their supplements as well. I would say a more cost-effective supplement brand that's pretty good is Life Extension, and Swanson is really cost-effective. And believe it or not, Swanson is pretty good as well. So if you're really looking to save money I would say that Swanson, believe it or not, it is pretty affordable. And they do have, again, pretty high-quality supplements.

So that would be another consideration. Just because I don't use Swanson doesn't mean that it's not an option, particularly for people that are really looking on a budget. So I would say that Swanson would be another brand. Life Extension and Swanson are both pretty, I would say, they're pretty cost— they're pretty affordable and still have high enough quality supplements in my opinion. Alan's asking about how important it is for someone who is older to take urolithin A. So my thoughts, and I've talked about this on Q&As before on urolithin A, is a pretty affordable source of it is literally just eating Pomegranate or even drinking the pomegranate juice, which does have more sugar, but it's got a ton of urolithin A. And, well, I should be more accurate.

Urolithin A, it's got the flavanol precursor and your gut then converts that into urolithin A. And of course, there's a lot of individual variation on that, like everything. So some people are doing it much better than others, which is why Mitopure claims taking their stabilized urolithin A is the best way to do it because then you're assuring that you are getting a more consistent source of urolithin A. However, they are astronomically high priced. Like they are just In my opinion, it's outrageous how much they charge.

And so I do think that, you know, like you can take— if you're making a smoothie, you can take a little bit of the pomegranate juice, like the Pom Pom brand that you can buy from Costco, and you stick it in the smoothie, which has the fiber, so it slows the glucose response. And I don't think it's a big deal. Do I think it's— do I think there's enough evidence to say it's really important? No. Like, there's so much— there's such a lack of clinical evidence out there. Do I think it's likely that it could be beneficial? Yes. But do I think high-intensity interval training is more beneficial? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's— I think— I don't think you're going to get more from 500 milligrams of urolithin A than you're going to get from even 10 minutes. of a high-intensity workout.

And another brand that's a little more— so the urolithin A that I was— I said that I take a supplement called Renewal, and it's from Pure Encapsulations. It has urolithin A. It has a little bit of resveratrol, which also has been shown to increase mitophagy, and also has a little bit of the CoQ10 in it. So it's kind of like a combination of things to affect the mitochondria versus just a high dose of urolithin A. And that is a little more affordable than the MitoPure supplement as well. But again, I do think the pomegranate juice, you know, it's been shown in many clinical studies to improve many different functions, including cognitive function. So it's obviously doing something beneficial. I'm asking about the dose of alpha-lipoic acid I take. I didn't write that down.

I think it's anywhere between 400 to 600 milligrams. I take it from Pure Encapsulations. So whatever, they only sell one. So whatever their dose is, is what I'm taking. All right. So the next question was from Francis about my thoughts on drinking green tea, particularly green tea, which is high in Polyphenols like green tea matcha, if there's any brands that are good. What about contaminants? So, so many studies have shown that the polyphenols in green tea are very, very good. And there's been, of course, lots of observational data, but also randomized controlled trials as well. I think— so I've looked through ConsumerLab. Which does a lot of third-party testing on a lot of teas and green teas.

They've ranked the level of catechins, which is the really beneficial polyphenol, and then they've ranked contaminants. By the way, unlike chocolate and cacao, tea is not as high in a lot of these contaminants, so it's not as big of an issue. But you will see a lot of variation in the catechin concentration. And I think that a really good— a brand that I have is the Jade Leaf Organic Matcha. So it comes in a bag. I don't know if it's on Amazon. I buy it direct from the company. It's called Jade Leaf Organic Matcha. It's got the highest catechin concentration and the lowest contaminant concentration. And I think that's probably one of the best brands out there for green tea. Particularly matcha is one of the best forms of green tea.

It's very, very concentrated in the catechins, which by the way are also the same catechins are found, the EGCG, these are found in chocolate as well. And so you can get a lot of the same benefits without worrying about all the cadmium and lead and arsenic contamination that you find in all these chocolate brands. You can get it from matcha green tea. So the next rapid-fire question was from Tom. Tom says, Rhonda, I'm considering switching from fish oil capsules to cod liver oil because of the natural vitamin A and D and the more even distribution of DHA and EPA. And because it's something my grandparents used to recommend. Do you have any comments? I do have comments. So as you guys know, you know, a higher omega-3 index is associated with like a 5-year increased life expectancy.

So in people, it seems generally speaking, people need to take about 2 grams of omega-3 a day to get an 8% omega-3 index, which is what we're looking at for When I say higher omega-3 index, that's compared to sort of the average in the United States, which is 4% to 5%, or low omega-3 index, which would be 4%. Cod liver oil has, as mentioned, it has EPA, it has DHA, but it also has vitamin D and vitamin A. The concentration of all those products sort of do vary a lot between brands, but generally speaking, 1 teaspoon Yeah. Of cod liver oil has about 850 to 1,000 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids. So you'd need about 2 teaspoons to get that 2 grams. But 1 teaspoon, back to 1 teaspoon, okay? 1 teaspoon has roughly, like I said, 850 to 1,000 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids.

It has between 4,000 to 5,000 IUs of vitamin A. And it has between 400 to 450 IUs of vitamin D. So 2 grams of that would mean you would have— you would need about 2 to 2.5 teaspoons to get the 2 grams of omega-3. So this would mean you would be getting between 8,000 to 12,500 IUs of vitamin A along with about 800 or 1,100, about 1,000 IUs of vitamin D. The vitamin A is what concerns me because vitamin A is fat soluble, unlike vitamin D. Vitamin D is also fat soluble and it can lead to toxicity, but it takes astronomical doses for vitamin D to do that. Vitamin A, on the other hand, the upper limit is 10,000 IUs a day.

And I think taking 2 grams or 2.5 2.5 teaspoons of— sorry, 2.5 teaspoons of the cod liver oil, which potentially you're talking about over the 10,000 I use a day of vitamin A, is bad. It's very bad. Way too much vitamin A. Very imbalanced. And not getting enough vitamin D either. So I don't know that I would necessarily switch to cod liver oil as the only source of omega-3. Certainly, it could supplement if you're going to take 1 teaspoon, you get a little bit of the omega-3, but you also take some in addition to that. You'll also need some more vitamin D because it's not that high in vitamin D. It's got a lot of vitamin A, a lot of vitamin A. So that's kind of my comments on the cod liver oil. Okay, next question.

Nicole says, hi Rhonda, I looked into the American Gut Project after your last Crowdcast, but it appears as though they're not taking any more samples. as they have paused for COVID research. Is there any other company you recommend to look at into the gut microbiome? Yes. Glad you asked. In fact, there are now, I think, better tests, and in fact, I just got one in from Genova Diagnostics. Genova Diagnostics has several options. They have several options for a gut health test, and I really like them because it's not just looking at the gut microbiome. It's looking at the gut health. So the standard test is a little bit cheaper. It has digestion markers, inflammation markers. It has bacterial byproducts. It has pathogenic bacteria, yeast. And again, it's a little bit cheaper.

So for example, It'll look at— I mean, it'll tell you things like your fecal fat, triglycerides found in fat, long-chain fatty acids. Like this is all found in your feces, phospholipids, pancreatic enzymes, you know. It also looks at metabolic short-chain fatty acids. And this is very interesting because it really does— in addition to just looking at the bacteria, you're actually looking at something functional. Like we know a lot of the beneficial bacteria are making butyrate, right? So it looks at the percentage of butyrate. It looks at acetate. It looks at propionate. Like these are all short-chain fatty acids that are produced by gut bacteria, right? By the bacteria in your gut. So it looks at those as well. It also does look at some of the different types of bacteria.

So it looks at different Lactobacillus, different E. coli, Bifidobacterium. It looks at some additional ones that are like Staphylococcus and some other ones as well. It also looks at some mycology. So it does some mycology samples as well, looking at yeast. And then, so it does Candida and it looks at a variety of other types of fungal species. And then it looks at natural agents. So it'll look at— They'll tell you things that can maybe inhibit some of the pathogenic bacteria or have benefits as well. So like, for example, they'll give you a report that'll give you a sample of natural agents that might improve your gut, you know, generally speaking. So like berberine or caprylic acid or garlic, uva ursi is another one.

So they'll give you some natural agents that might affect, for example, Candida or might affect like some of the pathogenic bacteria or may affect some other things. So I think that standard gut health test is a really interesting option. Like I said, I just got one in and actually my husband's going to be the one doing it because ever since he had his appendix removed, he's had more gut issues, particularly if he drinks alcohol, and so than he used to have in the past. And so So I want to kind of get a little sample of, a little snapshot of his gut health. They have a Premier Gut Health Report as well. Now these are, I would say this is for someone that really is having more like gut issues. So they do everything that I just mentioned, plus they do like parasites.

They do a lot more microbiome sampling. They do dysbiosis scores. They do, you know, functional scores and, You know, a variety of therapeutic options as well. Oh, and I forgot to mention, they do a zonulin. They do a zonulin test as well. So I think that Genova Diagnostics— and by the way, you can just order this yourself. You don't need to have a physician to do it. So that's Genova Diagnostics. That's where you can find— I would just type in Genova Diagnostics gut health test, and then it'll— the page will show up, and then you can look into it and see which one that you would like to purchase. But I think those are the absolute hands-down best gut health tests out there that I've seen right now, and I've seen a lot of them.

KRD is asking about what causes small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, dysbiosis, and I mean, there's a lot of things that can cause it, you know, particularly antibiotic use and ironically, they'd like to try to resolve it with antibiotic use as well. There is a probiotic that I've recently, kind of recently come across but also have used and my husband has used and my brother-in-law who also has SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. that has really seemed to resolve it. It's actually made from a yeast called Saccharomyces boulardii, and it's called Florastor. And it's really like taking 3 capsules with like each meal, so like 2 or 3 times a day, seems to really be beneficial for resolving a lot of dysbiosis and like problems with the gut. Florastor.

So let's see if I'll type it in the chat here. I think it's F-L-U-R-O-S-T-O-R. I think that's it. So anyways, I would look into that as well. And I typically buy it, you can even buy it off Amazon. I would keep it in the refrigerator, although I don't think it's necessary. So there it is, Florastor, F-L-O-R-A-S-T-O-R. It's a really great probiotic. So the next question was from Anika who says, hi Rhonda, could you please share your personal strategies for minimizing alcohol-related harms on the body, protective supplements, gut, liver, brain, sleep, food, exercise before and after a social evening? Okay. So as I mentioned, you know, I think a big one after would be liposomal glutathione and N-acetylcysteine.

Those have both been shown to help the liver sort of, you know, function better with respect to detoxing, you know, alcohol. Then there is zinc, which you're dumping about 50%, you're excreting about 50% more zinc and vitamin C. So that these are also important after. And then I think also very, very important before, during, after hydration. Probably electrolyte hydration after as well, and exercise and you know exercise and sauna. But particularly important to hydrate if you are going to be doing the sauna and exercise because you will be then losing a lot of the minerals and and water. So you have to like it's going to be like extra extra extra hydration. That's kind of like that's kind of like my my. my typical protocol. Okay, a child development question.

John says, hi Rhonda, I will have a baby girl soon. When did you start supplementing your baby with vitamin D, magnesium, fish oil, and multivitamins respectively? Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? First of all, congratulations, John. That's so exciting. Vitamin D is immediately after birth. Like, that's something that, you know, taking those vitamin D drops, they're about 400 IUs, and doing— I did a couple of drops on my pinky and put it in their mouth. So that's, again, just immediately and continuing on. Fish oil is something that is transferred through breast milk, and I was doing a very high-dose fish oil. Again, you want to be doing at least, at the very least, 3 grams.

Well, I would say at least 2 grams, but I mean, 3 would be more ideal, maybe 4 grams, high DHA. The more DHA the mother takes, the more concentrated it is in the breast milk. And so that, of course, is immediate. In terms of giving it to my son or, you know, what I think would be best is once solid foods are introduced, I mean, it all depends on the child. I mean, typically it's about 6 months. Of age or after adding— I would take my capsule and open it up and add it to the baby food. And you start with that. And then once they become old enough to be able to chew on a gummy and not choke— again, that's all very dependent on the person, the, the, the child. There's a lot of individual variation there.

But until that point, until they can take the gummies, And by the way, the Pure Encapsulations gummies are probably the easiest ones to chew. They're really, really soft, and I think it's really, really hard to choke on them because they're like, I mean, they're kind of like a little slimy thing. But again, until that point, just putting a little capsule in the baby food that you're giving them. That's what I did. And then the multivitamin comes a little bit later. Again, I didn't do multivitamin until He was old enough to chew a gummy. Now, you could do a liquid form and add some drops again to the baby food, which maybe if looking back, I would've done differently. I didn't do that. Maybe that would be something I would do differently.

And then as they get to eating more solid foods and stuff, the HealRight bar, Mm-hmm. Which used to be the CHORI-bar. It was developed from my mentor, Bruce Ames, his lab. It has all the micronutrients, including vitamin D and DHA. It has a lot of really good stuff. And so, like, one square of that has even just 1,000 IUs of vitamin D. So that's something that you could even give to a 2-year-old once they start eating the solid foods. Squawashy is asking about my water filters, that, you know, do I still use a Berkey? They heard Berkey wasn't that great. I do use Berkey. I think the Berkeys are good. I don't think they're good for fluoride filtering, which I do not— I do not filter my fluoride any longer.

But I do think they're good at just, you know, a lot of other— filtering out a lot of other stuff. And you can tell a huge difference in the taste of water, at least in Southern California, in the tap versus the Berkey. I mean, it's like no question. Not even like anyone that tastes the two, it's like clearly the Berkey water tastes really good. The reason I haven't done reverse osmosis is because I am afraid of all— I mean, it just gets rid of everything, including a lot of the minerals and You know, lithium, like that's in the drinking water and it's beneficial. And so I just haven't been convinced that I need to go to reverse osmosis. I think the Berkey is doing what I need, to be honest. Now, I don't live in a place— the fluoride content in my water is quite low.

So I'm not really concerned about that aspect of my water. Have you ever looked into garlic supplements? for the allicin content, which cooking might destroy. I've heard others talking about multiple benefits. Yeah. So I have talked a lot about the benefits of allicin. In fact, many, many years ago on, I think, a Joe Rogan episode, we talked in depth about it. I do have garlic from Pure Encapsulations. I do think it is beneficial. I usually— I don't take it on a daily basis. If I've— I know that I've been exposed to, you know, pathogen, but also I think it's beneficial on the gut microbiome as well. So for people that do— are having gut microbiome problems, I think that might be a beneficial supplement to add is garlic. Hi, Rhonda.

The sweetener sucralose is in so many products now and is A study claims it's genotoxic because it causes DNA damage and leaky gut. Should we be concerned or is this a continued demonization of artificial sweeteners? I personally think sucralose is— I think there's enough human clinical evidence that sucralose is harmful, particularly it's affecting the gut microbiome, which is affecting glucose regulation. I would avoid it, honestly. I don't think— I think there's enough other sweeteners out there like monk fruit. fruit, allulose, that are not as bad. So I would avoid the sucralose. I do. I don't eat things that have sucralose in it. I mean, that's essentially Splenda.

I mean, we're like— that's like a long— I think most people in the health and fitness community feel pretty confident that the science is backing up the fact that Splenda or sucralose is really not— It's not good. Good for you. So I would try to avoid that. Nicole asks, hi, Rhonda. When do you recommend sauna, ice bath, and shower? In what order? What time of day? I know sauna can help sleep, but I've heard it's best to finish with the cold. Also wondering if showering is beneficial after a sauna to remove toxins. So first of all, it's not necessary to finish a sauna with a cold shower. In fact, I mean, you know, most of the sauna studies, that's not done. You know, there's many benefits that are just associated with sauna use.

I think that's a little more of a health influencer, maybe, thing that's gotten popular. It's not necessarily based on science. In fact, there's a lack of research showing the combined effects of sauna and cold exposure and contrast therapy. I think cold— so I am now trying to start my morning off in a cold plunge. I think cold is great for focus and attention. It sort of does what coffee does. It wakes you up and makes you like, it makes you like feel like you have energy. I mean, coffee wakes you up. It doesn't actually give you energy. It's a kind of a thing. You think you're getting energy, like it's actually just waking you up. So I do think the cold is great for that. Earlier, I like to, you know, do it like earlier, earlier in the day.

Sauna, I like to do either a sauna or a hot bath later in the evening because it really is beneficial for sleep. And I think that it is good to shower off after the sauna because you do excrete a lot of things from sweat, and so you want to wash them off your body. So you can just rinse off in the shower and, you know, get a little soap and wash your body. But that's kind of what I like to do. Now, sometimes I do the sauna in the middle of the day, like Sauna also helps me remember things. So if I'm working on something that I— like an event, a talk, a podcast, questions, like an interview, whatever, I will take my notes into the sauna and I will do it in the middle of the day because that's another way I help sort of encode things into my memory because it really, really works for me.

So, but I typically do my sauna, hot tub, closer to bedtime, a couple hours before bedtime. So I've had a few people asking about Nordic Naturals for a fish oil supplement. I know I've talked about them many years ago. They used to be a higher quality brand supplement. I think as they got larger, they sort of compromised their quality control, and they're no longer a high quality supplement. Like, they're continually They're oxidized and they have a high, high, high oxidation status from third-party testing sites that measure their total oxidation. And also, they don't really have— their concentration of EPA and DHA has gone down. So I really don't like Nordic Naturals generally anymore.

Francis asked about the Brock supplement that I talk about taking and that they purchased it but are getting severe nausea and headaches and other adverse effects. Do I have any thoughts about this, about time of day, exact dose, or anything like that? Yeah, so I've gotten a lot of anecdotes and I've talked to a lot of people that either can't take Prostafane and/or Brock because it's just too strong for their stomach, even if they take it with food. So the first and foremost, if you take it with food, and I would, you know, like one, like one is 10 milligrams. That's pretty good. You know, 10 milligrams a day, you know, or if you're going to take— if you have 2 meals, you take one with one meal and one with the other meal.

Like, taking more than one, you're exponentially increasing the chances that you— it is going to, you know, be harsh on your stomach. I think it's better to split them up with multiple meals. So that's from my own personal experience as well. But also, I know there are some people that just even taking one, which is 10 milligrams, broccoli or prostaglandin with a meal, they still can't handle it, but they can handle Avocall. And Avocall is another really good sulforaphane supplement. It just has like, you know, half the amount of sulforaphane in it. So I think Avocall would be an option for people that just are really sensitive to the broccoli. for whatever reason, it's like hard for them to— on their stomach.

So, you know, that's kind of my— again, my protocol is I like to take one with a meal. And the more you take at once, the greater you're increasing your chance that you're going to have— it's going to be harsh on your stomach and make you like nauseous. What's the difference in the effect of muscles between increasing NAD and increasing creatine? So creatine plays a direct role in providing energy to the cells, particularly muscle cells, like during— particularly during exercise, high-intensity exercise, or short-duration activities. Lots of studies have been done looking at creatine supplementation. It's been well studied in the context of athletic performance, muscle strength. It works primarily by increasing phosphocreatine stores in muscle cells.

So phosphocreatine can then quickly donate a phosphate group to ADP to form ATP. During high-intensity exercise, so ATP is this energy production, right? It's supporting muscular contraction. It's supporting muscular strength, power. You know, basically your your your higher demand you're putting on your muscles, right? So that's what creatine is doing. NAD is more involved with overall energy metabolism and possibly mitochondrial biogenesis. It's also involved with serotonin. Sirtuin production, or I guess function, and lowering DNA damage. NAD+ also, you know, does play a role in energy metabolism through the electron transport chain as well.

But I don't think that it has been as studied, certainly not a supplemental source or anything like that, with respect to it improving muscle function or anything like that. So, you know, it's more of a general overall, like, cellular health, you know, thing that's required. All right. So Irene asks about vaccines. So Irene says, on your podcast with Joe Rogan, you have discussed spacing out baby vaccines to minimize the risk of having a large immune response. What was your protocol for this? So typically what I did, so first of all, I decided to wait until the blood-brain barrier was at least a little more developed with respect to giving vaccines to my child because everyone is different and the immune system is very linked to the brain and immune factors can cross over the blood-brain barrier, particularly when it's not very developed, and affect the brain.

Certainly, there's a lot of individual variation there. I personally did not put my child in an early daycare. I didn't have to put them in a daycare when they were a young infant or even a young toddler. For that reason, I wasn't as bullish on early vaccines because I didn't feel like my child was going to be exposed to pneumonia. Or pertussis, which these things can be very— I mean, they can be deadly, certainly, and certainly very damaging. So I think each person has to weigh what their situation is. Is my child going into a daycare where they're going to be around a ton of other kids? Because let me tell you, viruses, those things spread like wildfire.

I mean, so there's a very high chance, like rotavirus, like that stuff can be going around in daycare settings and in childcare settings. So because I wasn't doing that, I didn't feel the need to rush a vaccine earlier. I waited. In fact, it's not exactly known when the blood-brain barrier is fully developed. It's thought between I guess 3 and 4, really. By that point, yeah, it's definitely developed. So I actually was going to give my son— I was going to start doing the vaccines when he was 3, and then COVID hit. COVID hit when he was 2 and a half. And so I was like, for a while, I was scared to go to the doctor. So I actually didn't start vaccines until he was 4. And so his blood-brain barrier was very developed.

And then at that point, a lot of the vaccines that are recommended for younger infants weren't relevant to him anymore. And so I basically sat down with my pediatrician, my child's pediatrician, and I said I wanted to go— what are the most important vaccines for his age? Obviously, for the requirements to get in school, to go into preschool, kindergarten. And so I did the ones that were required for that, which ended up being really not that many vaccines. I did just the ones that were really, really required to get into California school. And I did space them out. I spaced them out looking— I went and I looked at the World Health Organization They have a lot of data on adverse, what are common adverse vaccine side effects.

And so I looked at those and I was trying to figure out which ones should I not do in combination and all that sort of stuff. And ultimately, what I ended up doing was not doing the singles. I was going to do the singles, and I think that's what I talked about on Joe's podcast. I went against that ultimately because I felt like they were getting more exposure to some of the adjuvants that are in the vaccines. And so I decided to not do that because I felt like the trade-off, the risk for that was like more of a trade-off that I didn't want to take. And the reason for doing the singles was because it wasn't going to elicit such a strong— like the immune response wasn't going to be so great. that things weren't going to cross the blood-brain barrier and affect the brain.

But at that point, my son was already so old, I felt like that risk was dramatically minimized, if that makes sense. So the vaccines that I ended up doing were, I did the Pertussis, the DTaP one, or whatever the— it's DTaP or Tdap. I forgot which one it is for the kids, but I did that. And they were— it was the Pertussis, the tetanus and what's the other one done with it. So there's 3 of them. And then I did the varicella, so chickenpox. We did the polio. We did— I think they required hep B as well. Anything else? There are really only like 5, I think, ones that were really required. So that's really what I did. I kind of had a really unconventional way I did the vaccines, but I really just focused on only the ones that were required for California schools, and I, again, spaced them out.

I really spaced out the Tdap. Oh, I did MMR as well, of course, and I didn't do the MMR singles, which is what I was originally going to do. In fact, when I looked at all the adverse, the vaccine adverse side effects, I was more concerned about the pertussis vaccine than I was MMR. And in fact, my son had a much more robust immune response to the pertussis than he did the MMR. Mm-hmm. All is that he basically, like the biggest side effect he had was like a little bit of a red arm with the Tdap one, and that again was because I think the tetanus part of it was sort of, you know, it was kind of eliciting a strong immune response, and so I really spaced that vaccine out. That was the one that I really focused on.

I wouldn't recommend doing it all like I did in like one year because I do feel like I would've spaced it out a little bit more, particularly the Tdap one, but because I had to get my son into preschool, I kind of was on a shorter timetable. And again, it was all like COVID threw everything off for me. I was going to start at an earlier age and I ended up waiting a little bit longer because I was scared to go into the doctor for quite a while. So, you know how it goes. But anyways, that's kind of what I did. And I went against the singles because, again, I felt that was actually exposing— going to expose my son to more of the adjuvants, which I actually didn't want.

And I had done such enough research that I felt that the MMR all-in-one, I didn't feel like it was really a big deal having those 3, the measles, mumps, rubella all-in-one because Again, his blood-brain barrier was already developed, and so I felt like the risk was greatly minimized with respect to the effects on the brain, the effects of the immune system response on the brain. All right. With that said, we're going to end this Crowdcast, and thank you guys so much for all your great questions. Make sure you submit questions for next month. Make sure you download your private podcast player for the early release of Chris McGlory podcast. It's really, really interesting stuff on omega-3 and muscle, stuff that you would not know about because this is like really emerging research.

So I'm pretty excited about all that. And I hope you guys, for those of you in the US, have a happy 4th. Have a happy holiday weekend. Do something fun. Get out in the sun. Enjoy, you know, a little bit of a stress-free time. And I'll talk to you guys next month. Bye.