The Exchanges

Q other leading commerce platforms. Go to shopify.com slash Shane now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. When I was thinking about where to start, I think the best place to start is to give people practical frameworks for approaching topics that we come across every day. So why don't we start with a practical framework for approaching nutrition and decisions about the food that we consume?

A I, you know, I kind of have my own framework for approaching nutrition in, in that it has a lot to do with, you know, I, I did my postdoc training in nutrition. And, um, and specifically looking at micronutrients. So these are about 40 or so essential vitamins and minerals that fatty acids also and amino acids that we have to get from our diet. Those are in a variety of foods, and different foods have different levels and quantities of them. And these micronutrients are running our metabolism, they're running everything, our neurotransmitters that we're producing, so our cognition, just absolutely everything That is going on in our bodies. So it's important to get them because if we don't get them, we can have deficiencies or insufficiencies, which is quite worse because insufficiencies are kind of something that you don't notice every day, but there's like insidious types of damage just happening each and every day. And it accumulates over time and plays a role in age-related diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative disease. So These, um, micronutrients are things like, you know, calcium, magnesium, vitamin K, vitamin D, which I'm sure we'll talk about is actually something you can mostly get from the sun, uh, omega-three, and so when you think about the micronutrients that you need in your diet, it makes it a little bit easier to think about what you should be eating. Well,…

AI assessment note: “when you think about the micronutrients that you need in your diet, it makes it a little bit easier”

Q barrier, the membrane between pesticides and you. How do you wash your produce? And, and like, and I say this having seen, I think last night on Instagram, you know, some, uh, guy putting baking soda and vinegar and like soaking it for 20 minutes and like, is that how we wash produce? Like, how do you wash produce to like get stuff off of it? What do you do?

A I just use water. I just use water and wash it because I do buy organic as well. So you're thinking about pesticides. You're like, oh, well, I don't want to get Parkinson's disease or cancer, right? It's causing damage. But so my mentor, Bruce Ames, um, he's, you know, now 96 years old. I don't know how many years ago it was. It must have been back in the eighties. He had done some experiments with a hematologist from his lab, and they were looking at what happens if you don't get enough folate. So that's another one of those essential micronutrients that you have to get from your diet. Guess what? Leafy greens are one of the best words of folate. So leafy greens are just, they're, they're packed with certain micronutrients, but they don't have a lot of protein, right? So folate, again, we have to get from our diet, and if we don't get enough folate, it actually causes damage to our DNA much more than eating a pesticide would, because folate is required to make new DNA. You know, we're constantly making new cells in our body, and if you don't have that folate, the precursor To make one of the nucleotides of DNA isn't going to be there, and so your body substitutes something else in there that's from RNA, that's not supposed to be there, and it causes DNA damage. And he had done these studies where it was like, he took animals, put them on a low folate diet, similar to what some…

AI assessment note: “I just use water. I just use water and wash it because I do buy organic”

Q thing to put in my body at the start of the day after having slept, which means I've been fasting? What is, like, the most incredible smoothie you can think of that would just be full of health benefits for the day? So it would have, like, omega-three, it would have protein powder, it would have, like, leafy, like, walk me through this. What do you, do you do this?

A I do smoothie. It does, It doesn't have omega-three, but I'll walk you through my, my, my smoothie that I do. I, I probably about four to five days a week have, have this smoothie. Typically, this smoothie is about, I don't know, four or so kale leaves, and that's usually my green source that I use, and so I'm getting the magnesium, I'm getting the vitamin K, I'm getting the folate, but I'm also getting something in there called lutein, And zeaxanthin, which is, these are carotenoids, much like beta carotene or astaxanthin, like we were talking about. It's another one that accumulates in the eye, rods and cones of the eye, so it helps prevent macular degeneration, but it accumulates in the brain as well, and it's so interesting because there's been studies that have shown that giving older adults, like supplementing with something like 20 mgs, which is what like three kale leaves has of lutein, um, it improves neural efficiency. So, so basically like your brain Works better with less energy. There's been other studies in older adults where giving them lutein and zeaxanthin will improve crystallized intelligence. So that's basically, as you get older, it's the ability to still kind of use all the information that you've learned throughout your life and like still use it. Um, so, so that's the kale. It also has fiber, right? Fiber is great for your gut. I also add an avocado and …

AI assessment note: “I'll walk you through my, my, my smoothie that I do.”

Q So is there a difference? Like if I go out and buy a vitamin D three supplement, uh, is there a difference between that and the sun? And then do I want To take that with anything, I notice, I think Athletic Greens includes vitamin K with that. Is that for the bioavailability?

A No, it's not for the bioavailability, but let's, let's, let's address your questions because they're really great questions. Um, differences between sun exposure and supplemental form. Again, um, vitamin D three supplemental form, which is, which is key. So the differences between vitamin D three from the sun versus supplemental, yes, there's differences. So like Let's, let's say you're, um, you're like in like Sub-Saharan Africa where you're like so close to the equator and you're just, you know, you can make vitamin D, you know, three from the sun and you're out in the sun. Let's say you're like a Bushman or something out there all the time. There's been studies that have measured the levels of people that are like Aboriginal to these equatorial regions like Bushman in Sub-Saharan Africa, and their natural vitamin D levels are something like anywhere between 80 to a hundred nanograms per mil, but they don't really go above that. And the reason is because your body senses like the vitamin D levels. And when you're still being exposed to the sun, instead of converting it into like vitamin D three, it like converted into this other metabolite. So it's like, it's like, okay, we're, we're putting the brakes on this. We're not going to do anymore. If you're taking a supplement and you don't measure anything, like you can, let's say you're taking like an insane number, like There's,…

AI assessment note: “No, it's not for the bioavailability... the differences between vitamin D three from the sun versus supplemental, yes”

Q 70 page website on the benefits of a sauna. And I remember, like, skimming the first, like, three pages of it going, I really need a sauna. And so, you're the reason I have a sauna. But when we say doing the sauna, like, what does that mean in terms of temperature, in terms of duration? Is a hot tub the same as the sauna? Talk to me about that.

A So a lot of the studies that have been done on sauna have come out of Finland, where they're using Finnish saunas, which are generally speaking, it would, it would be what I would call like, it's, it's a regular sauna where you have like an electric heater with some rocks that are hot. Um, in, in Finland, they often use water and they pour it on the hot rocks. And so there's a humidity aspect there. Any between, Anywhere between 10 to 20% humidity. So a lot of the observational studies and intervention studies showing, like I just mentioned one about VO two max improvements, blood pressure improvements, they're, they're done in Finland, and a lot of those parameters used, generally speaking, are, you know, regular saunas of about 175 degrees Fahrenheit and 10 to 20% humidity. The average time spent in this sauna Is about 20 minutes for the, for the benefits to really be, I would say that robust. And, and then that there's frequency, right? So like how often do you do it? And so there've been a variety of studies that have looked at all cause mortality. So, so, so, you know, dying early from all causes that are non-accidental, and then looking at cardiovascular related mortality, mortality, like dying from a heart attack, for example. And People that are more, more frequently using the sauna, that's a dose dependent effect. So people that use the sauna, for example, two to three…

AI assessment note: “regular saunas of about 175 degrees Fahrenheit... average time spent in this sauna Is about 20 minutes”

Q a sec. I want to cover a sort of grass fed and then heat and cold exposure, and then we can, we can dive into fitness. Grass fed, non grass fed. Is there a difference? I see this everywhere between grass fed butter, non grass fed butter, grass fed beef, non grass fed beef. Is there a difference from a consumer point of view in terms of what I'm ingesting?

A There, there's slight differences there. Definitely. Um, so we were just talking about the omega three profile. So I would say one of the biggest differences is the omega three and then the omega six profile in, let's talk about meat, like grass fed, you know, cows that are grass fed versus not. So what I mean by that is like, they're getting that plant source of omega, that ALA, that, that Plant source of omega-three. They're getting, if they're, they're eating like grass, right? They're getting it from, from the plants that they're eating. And they're also not getting as much of what would be a type of food that is higher in omega-six. So this would be like, if they're being fed corn, for example, a corn, you know, oil-ish processed kind of like pellets or whatever, you know, if you're eating You know, for example, ground beef from a just conventional cow, then you're going to have a lot more of the omega six and less of the omega three.

AI assessment note: “one of the biggest differences is the omega three and then the omega six profile”

Q How do we make sense of all this?

A Let's not, like, let's get, be clear, like you, you, if you have, you know, fair skin, and you're going out in the sun a lot, then you can increase your risk for DNA damage, and, you know, skin cancer is one. Like, for example, Australia. Australia is like, like the melanoma cancer is like through the roof in Australia, and melanoma is like the worst type of skin cancer to get. You know, there's a lot of fair-skinned people living there, and Australia's very close to the equator. You know, there's, there's definitely many months out of the year where you're just lots and lots of UVB radiation. But, um, people that were sort of native to that region had darker, um, skin. They had more melanin. And so, the solution to people that are more fair-skinned living in Australia is actually sunscreen and a hat and, um, and a vitamin D three supplement. Yeah. The, the, the question is where do you find the balance, right? Like how much sun exposure is enough and do I need to supplement and do I have to wear sunscreen? And I think that all depends on a variety of factors. It isn't like a one size fits all. It's like, okay, well, where do you live? Do you live, you know, in Southern California, like where I do, do you live in Australia? Uh, do you live in Canada? Those are, those are all factors to keep in mind. And then just measuring vitamin D levels. Where am I at? Then, then you can go,…

AI assessment note: “The question is where do you find the balance... it all depends on a variety of factors”

Q Is there a difference between wild and non-wild, I guess, or captive or factory farm, whatever you want to call it, farmed fish, in terms of the nutrient density that we're pulling out of them?

A You know, there is a difference. I mean, the, the wild salmon, they're out, they're in the ocean, and they're eating fish and, like, you know, crustaceans and all the things that they're supposed to eat. Like, that's what they eat, right? In the, the farmed salmon, I, you know, correct, I, I, I'm pretty sure there's There's some, there's some feeding of stuff that's like not even, I mean, we're talking like corn and stuff too. Yeah. If you were to look at the fish, uh, before in the factories, before they inject it with astaxanthin, they look albino because they're lack, because they don't eat all the right things. So they're not naturally pink. I said inject, but I'm not sure. Maybe they actually just give it astaxanthin. They eat it. I forgot, but they're, they're, they're giving it exogenous astaxanthin so that it does have the pink color. The omega three content was also higher in the wild salmon. So again, to your question, yes, there is a difference between the farmed salmon and the wild salmon, but you know, sometimes when you're out at a restaurant, like you're not going to get, they're not going to get the wild salmon. Is it the, is it the end of the world? In my opinion? No. Like I said, choose your battles. I still think you still are getting omega threes. You're still getting DHA and EPA. It's not like it's terrible, but I do think it's Preferable if you are getting…

AI assessment note: “The omega three content was also higher in the wild salmon.”

Q There's an immune benefit, too, like your immune system, isn't there?

A There is, yeah. So there was, um, there have been some observational data studies as well looking at, like, pneumonia risk. It's, I think it was something like 40% lower in people that use the sauna four to seven times a week, and there have been a lot of really early studies on, um, again, these are coming out of Finland where there's humidity, so, you know, there's steam involved as well. You're, you're, you're working your cardiovascular system. I mean, the lungs are affected, and I don't know all the, the mechanisms, and I don't know that they've all been worked out, but there is some sort of benefit on the lugs, and also just the immune system as well. It seems like immune changes happen as well, and it's funny. I do get into the sauna when I'm feeling a little under the weather, or even if I am sick, it, because I find it's easier than getting on my Peloton I, I get in there and I'll do the steam and I feel so much better. I feel so much better.

AI assessment note: “There is, yeah. So there was, um, there have been some observational data”

Q One thing we can all afford is vitamin D, and we're all sort of lacking in that. Walk me through sort of, um, how we can get that, the difference between sunlight and supplementation, as well as the effect of sunscreen on our absorption of vitamin D, and is sunscreen actually killing us more than just being in the sun?

A So vitamin D, food is not a great source of it. Like you can find, like it's, it is fortified in some fatty foods. Unfortunately, it's fortified with the wrong form. It's fortified with D two rather than D three, which is what we make in our skin from the sun. The primary source of it is, as you mentioned, it's from the sun and specifically it's UVB radiation from the sun. That is really important because UVB radiation only occurs during certain times of the year. In regions where you're more northern, so for example in Canada, you're not making vitamin D a good, you know, four or five months out of the year, it's very, it's very challenging to make a lot of vitamin D from being out in the sun. Summertime, you know, different, lots of UVB radiation, right? So you need to be in the sun, and you need to be at a certain time of year, depending on where you live, it all, there's lots of things. You mentioned sunscreen as well. There's a lot of factors that are, that are involved in, you know, the ability to produce vitamin D three in the skin from the UVB radiation, and that has to do with sunscreen. So anything that blocks out UVB radiation is going to block out the ability to make vitamin D. Um, melanin, the, the pigmentation that is like a sunscreen, it's natural sunscreen and people that some people have, like, In some regions of the world that are certainly more equatorial, th…

AI assessment note: “anything that blocks out UVB radiation is going to block out the ability to make”

Q And what about the omega-threes? Is it, can I just go to the store if I'm not going to eat a lot of fish and buy an omega-three supplement and, or is fish the primary way that we actually get bioavailability from this?

A Yeah, that's also a great question. It really does obviously depend on, um, quite a few factors. So with respect to the seafood and fish, the type of fish does matter, right? So like you need, like there's some fish, like that's just not, That fatty. The omega-III's EPA and DHA are the marine forms of the omega-III, and those are the ones I was talking about with the omega-III index and life expectancy. Those are the forms that have been used in randomized controlled trials with supplementation that have decreased cardiovascular events by like, 25% compared to placebo. Those are the ones that are important. They're, they're only in the really oily fatty fish. So one of the best forms is salmon. And wild salmon has higher levels than farmed. For example, wild Alaskan salmon is probably one of the best salmons to, to consume for omega- three. Um, it also has astaxanthin. It's what gives the fish that pink color. If you are eating quite a lot of fish, you'd have to really get an omega- three index test to know for sure how much you require. But you know, I would say probably like at least, you know, you're eating it four times a week. Something like that, which most people do not do. In Japan, they do, and their omega-three index is very high. Like, I don't even know from any Japanese supplement. They're just, they eat seafood, like, every day. The other thing to consider is, well…

AI assessment note: “Those are the forms that have been used in randomized controlled trials with supplementation”

Q And you mentioned organic. Is there a difference between organic and inorganic, I guess, but inorganic in the sense of being non-organic produce? Why would we choose one over another, and what difference does it make from a composition or bioavailability point of view?

A So pesticides are obviously something that are used now in agriculture because we're You know, these farms are huge, and we're growing mass quantities of foods, and so they're spraying things that'll ward off insects, so insecticides or pesticides are known, and also fungicides and other things to prevent fungus and anything that's going to destroy the crop, right? A lot of these types of pesticides are obviously damaging to the insects, but to humans, the question is, well, are they damaging to humans? You know, there, there were a lot, especially things like rotenone, paraquat, these were used, For a long time. And those are, those are chemicals that actually cause, we, we use them. Scientists use them. I've used it myself in the lab to induce Parkinson-like symptoms in animals because it disrupts your mitochondria, which are the, they're little organelles inside of almost all of your cells and that are producing energy. Super important. And in Parkinson's disease, The mitochondria and your neurons kind of become dysfunctional, and you can do, you can cause this by just giving them this, this pesticide, paraquat, or rotenome. I remember, this is, it's funny, I remember the first time I was learning about this in, you know, this was actually even before I was in graduate school, but also in graduate school, I was like, oh, I'm putting this stuff, you know, to, to give it to a,…

AI assessment note: “So pesticides are obviously something that are used now in agriculture”