Huberman LabTransform Your Mental Health With Diet & Lifestyle | Dr. Chris Palmer
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,632 words- 0:00 – 2:15
Dr. Chris Palmer
- AHAndrew Huberman
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Chris Palmer. Dr. Chris Palmer is a psychiatrist and researcher at Harvard University. He focuses on how metabolic health, and mitochondrial health in particular, can be leveraged to treat, and in some cases cure, psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, autism, depression, bipolar, and ADHD. Today we discuss how metabolic health, something we hear a lot about nowadays, is really about mitochondrial health and the specific lifestyle and other factors that you can use to improve mitochondrial number and function. We talk about things like exercise, sleep, sunlight, which you've heard about before, but we talk about those from a different perspective, and we discuss some things that have never been discussed before on this podcast, at least in light of mitochondrial health, things such as creatine, methylene blue, nicotine. And we talk about the key role of specific B vitamins and iron in brain function. We also have a very direct discussion about vaccines and whether or not inflammation caused by vaccines can potentially damage mitochondria, which then leads to mental health challenges. And of course, in that context, we discuss the vaccine autism debate. We also discuss public health and what is needed to truly change the way people exercise and eat and the rapidly changing landscape of the National Institutes of Health and the CDC. As you'll soon hear, Dr. Palmer gives us a masterclass on mitochondrial function and how to improve this vital aspect of our health. If you've heard about metabolic health, you've heard about the obesity crisis, that's important, but looking at all of that and approaching it through the lens of mitochondrial health, you'll soon learn, is absolutely the way to go. It's a new perspective that will change the way that you think about mental and physical health and that no doubt will impact your health practices in very positive ways. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Chris Palmer.
- 2:15 – 10:46
Integrating Metabolic, Mental & Physical Health; Childhood Trauma & Risk
- AHAndrew Huberman
Dr. Chris Palmer, welcome back.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Thank you so much for having me back.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I credit you with leading the call to arms, the public awareness, and the implementation of what some people call metabolic psychiatry, but what we could easily just call the relationship between mental and physical health and the use of nutrition, supplementation, and, where appropriate, prescription drugs for the treatment of mental health. But what do you call this field that you've basically founded and that you're pioneering? There are others, right? But, uh, that you're pioneering. And how should the general public think about the relationship between, like, mitochondria and their mental health? For, for those that are not aware. Educate us.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I could talk for hours on this. Um, so first of all, thank you for, um... I, I think you're actually giving me way too much credit though.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm. I don't know about that.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I, uh, I'm, I'm talking a lot about it, and I think I will accept that maybe I'm able to talk about it in a way that helps people understand it that other scientists haven't been able to. But, y- y- you know, one of the more important reasons I wanna say this is because unbeknownst to a lot of people, this field has actually been around for about a century and a half. Researchers in the 1800s, around the turn of the century, well up into the 1960s were hyper-focused on the role of metabolism in severe mental illness, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. They were actually measuring levels of lactate and glucose and, um, and, and other kind of metabolic biomarkers in people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, documenting differences, really kind of hone- honing in on th- these metabolic disruptions as potentially the cause of mental illness. And then our field lost its way. We, we became focused on neurotransmitters and assumed that they were the primary cause of mental illness while other fields were focused on psychological and social factors. You know, we got cognitive behavioral therapy. We still had psychodynamic psychotherapy, um, but people were doing research on adverse childhood experiences, that was really taking off, documenting that that's related. And so, you know, the field kind of splintered into these biological, psychological, social camps, um, and people really hyper-focused in all of these ways. To me, this field of integrating metabolism with mental health, with physical health is about unifying that whole story. It's about unifying and building on what these researchers 100 years ago were pursuing. It's about integrating the biological, psychological, and social camps. It's about putting it all together and stop being s- so reductionistic and simplistic to suggest that it's all biological or it's all psychological or it's all social, and that if one, if it's one, it can't be the other. It can be all of them, um, and it's different combinations for different people. So in many ways, I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants who have done groundbreaking work to create the science that allows us to put this all together. Um, with that said, I do firmly believe that we are on the cusp of...... a revolutionary change in the paradigm of the mental health field, of how we think about mental illness. You know, there are myriad biological things. The psychological and social things are all obvious and true. Yes, stress, trauma, loneliness, adverse childhood experiences, all of those things come together. Our field has long known that all of those things play a role in mental illness. Which, exactly which mental illnesses? It's essentially all of them. Every one of the labels in DSM-5 can be impacted by biological, psychological, and social factors. So trauma in childhood increases risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. Duh, everybody knows that. Trauma in childhood also increases risk for neurodevelopmental disorders if it occurs early enough. It increases risk for substance use disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, dementia later in life, and everything else, every label. What else do adverse childhood experiences increase risk for? All of the metabolic disorders, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, premature mortality. You know, we have statistics that, just sticking with that theme, adverse childhood experiences, if you have six or more adverse childhood experiences compared to somebody who has no adverse childhood experiences, now that's a rare group, uh, granted, but for the people who have six or more, on average, they live 20 years shorter. They lose 20 years of life because of those adverse childhood experiences. And so is that a mental health issue? I would say it's a physical health issue. It's both. It's both a mental health issue and a physical health issue, and so how can we understand that? How can we understand that trauma in childhood increases risk for heart disease and obesity and diabetes and dementia and PTSD and ADHD and substance use disorders, and the only way to connect it is through metabolism, and ultimately, through mitochondria? Unfortunately, people like simple answers, and they're like, "So diet will fix everything." I'm like, "No, I never said diet will fix everything." (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
But it can help.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It can help, and it can be life-changing and life-saving. I, I don't want to, I don't want to minimize or step back from my work with dietary interventions. There is no doubt in my mind it can dramatically change people's lives.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
But it's not just diet. It's lots of other things, and, um, and so it's putting it together and trying to make sense of the science for what does cardiovascular disease have to do with depression or PTSD? On the surface, a lot of people scratch their heads, and they really don't know. They, they assume that, "Well, one's a brain disorder, and one's a heart disorder," and it's like, "No, we need to integrate that because all of the risk factors, the s- this... Essentially, the same biopsychosocial risk factors that increase risk for heart disease also increase risk for brain disease, and we just, we need to start putting it together." We need to be more sophisticated. We have computers. We have AI. It's 2025. We can do better. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm. Yes, well, first of all, uh, I and I'm sure the listeners really appreciate your humility regarding who's responsible for the, uh, big surge in, uh, the interest in this field. Um, so thanks for crediting your predecessors and, um, the others in the field. Uh, at the same time, I credit you, um, with really popularizing a lot of these terms, being willing to go public-facing and, and share about metabolic psychiatry, for lack of a better, uh, way to put it, uh, metabolic psychiatry, and, and, and really championing these ideas and, uh, being open to being part of a medical and science and public discourse community. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say that. So hopefully you'll take that in, and if you won't, then... (laughs)
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I, I, I very much appreciate it, and thank you, thank you.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, well, it's true.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Thank you very much.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's true, and, and I'm not alone in, in that sentiment.
- 10:46 – 13:44
Sponsors: Our Place & LMNT
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Our Place. Our Place makes my favorite pots, pans, and other cookware. Surprisingly, toxic compounds such as PFASs, or forever chemicals, are still found in 80% of non-stick pans, as well as utensils, appliances, and countless other kitchen products. As I've discussed on this podcast, these PFASs, or forever chemicals, like Teflon, have been linked to major health issues such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues, and many other health concerns. So it's really important to avoid them. This is why I'm a huge fan of Our Place. Our Place products are made with the highest-quality materials and are all PFAS and toxin-free. I particularly love their Titanium Always Pan Pro. It's the first non-stick pan made with zero chemicals and zero coating. Instead, it's pure titanium. This means it has no harmful forever chemicals and that it doesn't degrade or lose its non-stick effect over time. It's also beautiful to look at. I cook eggs in my Titanium Always Pan Pro almost every morning. The design allows for the eggs to cook perfectly and without sticking to the pan. I also cook burgers and steaks in it, and it puts a really nice sear on the meat, but again, nothing sticks to it, so it's really easy to clean and even dishwasher-safe. I love it, and I use it constantly. Our Place now has a full line of Titanium Pro cookware that uses this first-of-its-kind titanium non-stick technology. So if you're looking for non-toxic, long-lasting pots and pans, go to fromourplace.com/huberman and use the code Huberman for 10% off your order.With a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns, you can experience this fantastic cookware with zero risk. Again, that's fromourplace.com/huberman to get 10% off. Today's episode is also brought to us by LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need, but nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all the cells in your body, especially your neurons, or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT dissolved in water makes it extremely easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of hydration and electrolytes, I dissolve one packet of LMNT in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning. I also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and therefore losing a lot of water and electrolytes. They have a bunch of different great-tasting flavors of LMNT. They have watermelon, citrus, et cetera. Frankly, I love them all. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with the purchase of any LMNT drink mix. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack.
- 13:44 – 22:20
Depression Causes, Molecule Model?, Neuroplasticity?; Metabolism
- AHAndrew Huberman
If I think about a mental health condition like depression, let, let's take depression, um, uh, to start off. I can just broadly create two, you know, columns of, of things or approaches that one might take. Uh, one is this, uh, mental model of sort of a molecule deficiency. Like, de- I'm not saying this, but there are many who at one point thought, uh, depression is related to a deficiency in serotonin, or depression is related to a deficiency in dopamine, either levels, regulation, uh, enzymatic control. Whatever the, the, the level of control, just this idea that these molecules are somehow lacking, if you put them back, you can relieve some symptoms of depression. The other column that comes to mind for me, having looked at the data on cognitive behavioral therapy, on the, the data on, uh, psychedelics in the clinical setting for the treatment of depression, SSRIs and other, um, so-called antidepressants, is this notion of neuroplasticity, the idea that neural circuits can change and that neural circuits control our sense of wellbeing, our perception of self, perception of others, feelings of agency, et cetera. And it's now very clear that if you change levels of neuromodulators like dopamine, like serotonin, you don't necessarily cure depression, but you open a window for plasticity, and then perhaps the therapy that you're doing can modify brain circuits more robustly. So, I think, uh, in terms of molecule deficiency, maybe it's a vitamin deficiency, a neuromodulator deficiency, and then I also think about plasticity, that these treatments are just allowing for more brain change more rapidly. What other columns would you add to that picture? Um, and perhaps first, do you think that picture is, um, woefully inadequate, uh, or just partially inadequate? Because I think this is the way most people think about the treatment of mental health. They think, "Oh, there's something missing." You take a drug and you get that thing back. And then, like ADHD, you don't have enough dopamine or you, well, uh, you put it in and then all of a sudden attentional circuits work better, this kind of thing, versus plasticity, which is the modification of those circuits. And the two things are not mutually exclusive, but I, I think until now, there really hasn't been a, a, a clear understanding that there are other columns for, um, for mechanistic change in, in mental health.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I would say the concept of metabolism, metabolic regulation, mitochondrial function, mitochondrial health actually is an umbrella concept for everything you've just said.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It's an umbrella concept for, well, how do we create neurotransmitters? Where do these neurotransmitters come from? What regulates their production, release from cells? And then even to go further, what impact do those neurotransmitters have on other cells? They are largely regulating brain metabolism, and the way we usually think about it is they are regulating brain activity, but if you ask the question, "Well, what is brain activity?" brain activity is either... it's fueled by metabolism, that, uh, uh, a neuron cannot be active unless it has the capacity to increase its ATP kind of production. And then when you suppress a neuron, when you, when you inhibit its function, the ATP production goes down. So, whether you want to think of metabolism as just a consequence of neural activity, I actually think about it as an integral part of neural activity.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It's kind of like your car can't go without the engine.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
A cell can't go without mitochondria. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Um, a cell can't do what it's supposed to do without mitochondria. The other concept that you mentioned, neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity is all about energy and metabolic resources to create new connections, new neural connections between axons, dendrites, somas, other, other aspects of neurons and cells and other types of cells, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes. Um, but in order to get neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity implies growth....and modulation and e-e-even pruning, but it involves change. And in order for a living organism to change, that requires this foundational concept of metabolism. Now on the surface, to a lot of people, that sounds too abstract and it sounds like, "Well, that's ridiculous then if you're, you're saying that metabolism is everything in biology." And I kind of am. Of course it is. You, you can't talk about biology without talking about metabolism. But when you talk about metabolic health, it becomes much more concrete, pragmatic, and real with real tools that you talk about (laughs) all of the time on this podcast. Exercise promotes metabolic health. Exercise promotes neuroplasticity. They are inseparable. You can't improve your metabolic health without also at least opening up the opportunity for neuroplasticity. Improving your diet does the same thing. Sleep or lack thereof can impact this. Substance use can impact this. And so, you know, in a way, it, it basically says let's connect all of the dots. Let's not hyperfocus on serotonin and a serotonin imbalance or deficiency as the singular cause of depression, because for those of you who don't know, that is ridiculously (laughs) reductionistic.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And it is absolutely not true. We know that. We know that with certainty now. You know, the, the whole serotonin hypothesis of depression came about not because researchers identified serotonin deficits in the brain. That entire concept came from the observation that medications that modulate serotonin activity or inhibit its reuptake into neurons, those medications, SSRIs, other types of antidepressants, those medications can reduce the symptoms of depression in some people. That was just a purely serendipitous finding. It was serendipity. The first antidepressant was actually a tuberculosis treatment.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
They were giving it to patients on a tuberculosis ward, and an astute infectious disease doctor noticed, "Some of these dep- patients are really depressed, but when I give them this tuberculosis treatment, they perk up. Like, within a few weeks, they start looking a lot less depressed. And I don't think it's a coincidence. I think it's the medication I'm giving them."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Do you recall what the drug was?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Iproniazid. It's the first MAO inhibitor, and, um, I could be saying the name wrong, but, uh, it's first MAO inhibitor. And, uh, that became the first antidepressant.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Which makes sense. Uh, MAO inhibitors inhibit the enzymes that break down, or let's just speak about these enzymes broadly, either ... I think most antidepressant drugs or treatments for ADHD, typical prescription treatments, um, either reduce the breakdown of neuromodulators like serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, depending on which one we're talking about, or they, um, they reduce the reuptake so that there's just more neuromodulator around for longer.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Yes.
- 22:20 – 31:09
Mitochondrial Functions, Stress Response, Mental Health
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
- AHAndrew Huberman
Tell us about mitochondria in the framework of mental health.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So most people know mitochondria as the powerhouse of the cell, if, if they know th- it at all, so these tiny little organelles. And the powerhouse of the cell reference means that mitochondria take the breakdown products of the food that we're eating. They are the primary thing using the oxygen that we're breathing in. They are creating the carbon dioxide that we're breathing out, and that they are turning food into ATP, which is the energy currency of the cell. So they're taking food and oxygen and lots of other things, but l- let's just simplify, food and oxygen, converting it into ATP, and that is what the powerhouse of the cell kind of refers to. There is no doubt they do that. There is no doubt that when that process stops, humans have about six minutes or so, and then we're dead. That process is critical to life. There is no other process in the human body that you can disrupt that will kill the organism faster. It, it is central to living organisms, this production of ATP. So I don't at all mean to take away or minimize that function, but research over the last 25 years has completely upended that simplistic notion of what mitochondria are doing. They are actually doing so much more. Some people have created the reference that mitochondria are like the workers inside a cell, that in order for a cell to work, you need a workforce 'cause there's so much that needs to be done. Signals need to be sent. Thing, u- like, all this work, all of these different things need to be functioning, and mitochondria are absolutely providing the energy for those things to happen, but they're also orchestrating a lot of it. So for example-They play a direct role in converting food into some of the substrates for the production of neurotransmitters. Um, but they also go further. They store, like some neurotransmitters, like GABA, within themselves and that plays a role in GABA's release from a neuron. They actually go to the cell membrane and move along the membrane dispensing vesicles of neurotransmitters, and when you take the mitochondria away from the synapse but provide that synapse with ATP, vesicles don't get released. Neurotransmitters aren't getting released. The mitochondria are doing more, we don't exactly know what, but they're doing more than just providing the energy. They, they play a role in turning inflammation in immune cells both on and off. They help start the process, but they also help coordinate the cessation of that process. They play an instrumental role in both the first and the last step in the synthesis of cortisol, and they play a role in the first step in the synthesis of all of the steroid hormones which include estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. So that if you have disregulation of cortisol or if you have disregulation of testosterone, or estrogen, or progesterone you must understand the role of mitochondria in that disregulation because they are critical in the production and release of these hormones. They are the primary regulator of epigenetics. So, epigenetics are the expression of genes from the cell nucleus and researchers have long known that that's related to levels of reactive oxygen species. It's related to levels of calcium. It's related to other cell signals. Those cell signals are mostly originating within mitochondria during the development of any cell. Mitochondria, they are like a universe unto themselves and there's so much we don't know about them. But what, what researchers have found is that mitochondria actually line up, literally line up in an organized fashion around the cell nucleus and take on different conformations and that is somehow sending signals to the genes to result in the expression or the suppression of different genes from the nucleus. And that when researchers take these mitochondria and like mess them up or something, (laughs) the- the cell doesn't develop normally. You know, they've been implicated in all of the phases of the human stress response to psychological stress. So that includes cortisol release, noradrenaline release. It includes inflammation and it includes epigenetic changes. So those are kind of the four buckets of the human stress response. Cortisol, adrenaline, inflammation, and epigenetic changes. And researchers actually manipulated mitochondrial genes, two genes in the cell nucleus that control for mitochondrial proteins, and two genes in mitochondria themselves, and by manipulating these four different genes, one at a time in mice, they could impact all of the four aspects of the stress response. And so what that means is that mitochondria are somehow involved in regulating the human stress response. And so the way that I think about it is that, and the way that many researchers actually think about it now, is that mitochondria, you know, there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of them in our cells, in each of our cells. Most neurons have thousands of mitochondria. The mitochondria are actually moving around. They use the cytoskeleton to move around the cell. They fuse with each other. They i- i- it's called mitochondrial dynamics. They like change shape. They do all sorts of things and again that impacts all of these signaling processes. But that's just within one little cell so you can think of one cell as a- like almost a village of mitochondria that they're all just doing different things and working together to help that cell function. But in fact when you think about hormones like cortisol, you can think about it as a way for mitochondria in one cell to produce cortisol that then gets sent to mitochondria in another cell to, to make that other cell do something. To either increase its a- activity or decrease its activity. Some people actually think about human cells as just a network of mitochondria. (laughs) All kind of m- mitochondria throughout the body and brain are just doing all sorts of things and at the end of the day we come back to just common sense. At the end of the day it's about helping the organism adapt and survive. Ultimately organisms, rule number one they need to survive. Rule number two they need to reproduce, and rule number three they need to adapt.... and mitochondria are playing a foundational role in all of those basic aspects of organismal survival. And again, to some people, the, the, "Well, that's so high level. That's like, what you're saying, it's everything." I'm like, "Yeah, it kind of is, and mental health falls under it." How could we think about mental health without thinking about the big picture? Like, let's start with the big picture, and then let's put health into it, and let's put the lack of adaptation, or the lack of survival, or the, these other things.
- 31:09 – 33:59
Sponsors: AG1 & Eight Sleep
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink with adaptogens. I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring this podcast. The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still take AG1 is because it is the highest quality and most complete foundational nutritional supplement. What that means is that AG1 ensures that you're getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients to form a strong foundation for your daily health. AG1 also has probiotics and prebiotics that support a healthy gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms that line your digestive tract and impact things such as your immune system status, your metabolic health, your hormone health, and much more. So, I've consistently found that when I take AG1 daily, my digestion is improved, my immune system is more robust, and my mood and mental focus are at their best. In fact, if I could take just one supplement, that supplement would be AG1. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs, plus a year's supply of vitamin D3K2 with your order of AG1. Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim this special offer. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. Now, I've spoken before on this podcast about the critical need for us to get adequate amounts of quality sleep each and every night. Now, one of the best ways to ensure a great night's sleep is to ensure that the temperature of your sleeping environment is correct, and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop about one to three degrees. And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. Eight Sleep automatically regulates the temperature of your bed throughout the night according to your unique needs. Now, I find that extremely useful because I like to make the bed really cool at the beginning of the night, even colder in the middle of the night, and warm as I wake up. That's what gives me the most slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep, and I know that because Eight Sleep has a great sleep tracker that tells me how well I've slept and the types of sleep that I'm getting throughout the night. I've been sleeping on an Eight Sleep mattress cover for four years now, and it has completely transformed and improved the quality of my sleep. Their latest model, the Pod 4 Ultra also has snoring detection that will automatically lift your head a few degrees in order to improve your airflow and stop you from snoring. If you decide to try Eight Sleep, you have 30 days to try it at home, and you can return it if you don't like it, no questions asked, but I'm sure that you'll love it. Go to eightsleep.com/huberman to save up to $350 off your Pod 4 Ultra. Eight Sleep ships to many countries worldwide, including Mexico and the UAE. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman to save up to $350 off your Pod 4 Ultra.
- 33:59 – 39:38
Mitochondrial Health & 6 Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine
- AHAndrew Huberman
What are some of the things that we know can improve mitochondrial health, either number, function, or otherwise? And maybe we could talk about the basics first and get a little bit granular, if you could, about, you know, what, what are the prescriptions for keeping your mitochondria healthy or improving your mitochondrial number and improving their function? And then, uh, we can transition from there to the more, let's just say, um, uh, the more advanced ways of doing that. Um, th- is there a role for supplementation? Is there a role for drugs? Is there, uh, you know, these days, well, I hear about urolithin A. I, um, 'cause I'm a little bit of an adventurer these days, I, um, and I'm turning 50 later this year, I decided to, uh, experiment with a peptide that is, uh, SR-31, which is specifically to improve mitochondrial function. I'm doing this with the full understanding-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Very cool.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... it may do nothing, or it may kill me. I don't know.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs) Let's hope not.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But, uh, we'll find out. But, um, someone had to do it, and, and I'm a one variable at a time kind of guy. Um, so it was important for me to stay with my current regimen and only change that, do blood work, et cetera, because a lot of people, some people out there are more, um, i- in the mode of trying to do a bunch of things, and, and I don't think that's as helpful to me. I- it's also just not-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It's not.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in, in, it's not in keeping with my nature.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
You're a scientist. That's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm a scientist. One variable at a time.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
You're a scientist. That is great.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's right. I'm monogamous with respect to variables.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs) It is great.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right. So, what can we do at a basic level to keep and improve our mitochondrial number and function? And if we have to hit on some of the usual suspects, fine, but if you could tell us how, how we can do this.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So, I'm really gonna start with the basics, and they're gonna sound cliche, and they're gonna sound too basic to most people, and I just want to set the stage for even for severe mental illness, we can talk about strategies that will work. And these strategies that I'm gonna describe are not really appropriate. Like, when some- when somebody becomes severely ill, these strategies may not be sufficient.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
But the basics are what we call the field of lifestyle medicine. So, there are six pillars of lifestyle medicine. They include diet, nutrition, exercise or movement, sleep, managing substance use, ideally reducing it or minimizing it or eliminating it, stress reduction practices, mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and the last one is relationships.I throw in the word purpose into relationships because I think even if you don't have a lot of friends or family, you can still have a very full, thriving life if you have a purpose. So, those are the six pillars. Unfortunately, this is where the cliches and the worthless advice begin, especially in the diet nutrition camp, because people will say, "Eat more plants. Eat some broccoli. Have some good blueberries. Blueberries have antioxidants. Have some blueberries on whatever else you're eating and everything will be fine. If you just add a couple of servings of blueberries a week, you'll improve your health."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Brain food. (laughs)
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And that ... It is such worthless advice.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It is not at all that simple. And so, so I think diet nutrition gets complicated fast. The other things are actually pretty straightforward. Should you move your body? Yes. Should you stress your body intermittently, allowing for full recovery? Yes. That's wha- what most people call exercise, and what are you doing when you exercise? You're actually ... If we look at, like, the muscles, for example, muscle tissue, what exactly does exercise do? Whether it's isometric exercise to increase the size of the muscle or whether it's endurance capacity, which actually does not change the size of the muscle at all, um, but allows for somebody to run longer, faster, harder. So marathon runners, for example, can be quite thin. You can look at a marathon runner and think, "You're not even an athlete." They don't look all that different, yet they can run sometimes 100 miles. And what makes their muscles different than my muscles? 'Cause I can't run 100 miles.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Me either.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs) Um, what makes their muscles different than mine? Even if the size isn't different, there is one and only one thing that makes their muscles different, and it's called mitochondria.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The number?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
The number of mitochondria, and, and almost certainly the health of mitochondria. You can actually take a biopsy of their muscle, and you will see a much higher density of mitochondria in their muscle tissue than you will in mine. If you actually then did a, a, a more thorough assessment of ATP capacity, they ... Their muscles or, or their mitochondria would be much healthier than mine. They ... Their mitochondria would have greater capacity for ATP production than my mitochondria would. Um, so that's exercise. There are lots of things you can do with exercise. For people who don't exercise at all, yes, get out and just walk. Just d- do something. Maybe get some sunlight in the morning while you're (laughs) , while you're at it. Um-
- AHAndrew Huberman
That sounds like a good idea.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs) Uh ... Y- ... The substance use, um, is obvious.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It's the thing y- you've been talking about it. I've been
- 39:38 – 45:47
Stimulants, Mitochondria, Dopamine; Alcohol
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
talking about it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Which substances deplete mitochondria? I've been very interested in this. Um, I, I'm a big lover of certain, uh, genres of music, and, um, whenever the topic of music comes up, the name Rick Rubin comes up because he's been on this podcast twice, the, the famous Rick Rubin, amazing producer, and I'm blessed to have him as a close friend, and I often ask Rick, I'm like, "Why are so many of these folks in the ... in music dead?" There seems to be a history of people who did, um, stimulants, uh, t- took a lot of stimulants, cocaine and amphetamine in particular. Um, musicians that did that in the '70s and '80s and '90s seemed to drop dead of heart attacks later when they were not currently using, as far as we know, those stimulants. Is it ... Is it the case that stimulants like cocaine and amphetamine deplete cells of mitochondria? Do we ... Do we know that to be true?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
We do know, and it's slightly more complex story, so it's all about the dose. Um ... So stimulants are used to treat ADHD, and we know that people ... W- we've known for decades, people who have ADHD, who have symptoms of ADHD have glucose hypometabolism in their brains.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So their brains are not producing enough ATP from glucose. What is one way to increase that? Dopamine. Dopamine will increase that. So you can give people stimulants to improve their brain metabolism enough so that they now no longer have symptoms or at least have a reduction in their symptoms. That story is unequivocally true. We have lots of animal data, human neuroimaging data, clinical research studies documenting that appropriate doses of stimulants, so that's usually lowish doses, can improve brain metabolism, and what that means is that it's ... they're actually stimulating mitochondria to produce more ATP. However, metabolism is all about balance. You can underdo it, and you can overdo it, and when you overdo it, what happens is that if you hyperstimulate mitochondria with high doses of stimulants, the mitochondria are essentially running on all cylinders and electrons start leaking out of the electron transport chain, and what happens is that that creates reactive oxygen species which then damage the mitochondria themselves and damage other aspects of the cell. And it can lead to chronic mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic metabolic dysfunction.It's challenging with stimulants 'cause people are looking for a yes or no answer. "So, Dr. Palmer, do you think stimulants are good or bad?" Um, uh, I don't have an answer to that. It depends on the person. It depends on the dose of stimulants. It depends on the type of stimulant. It depends on what impact it's having on that person. Um, but we need to open our minds to the possibility that, yes, maybe some people do benefit from stimulants, and maybe, at the same time, other people are harmed in catastrophic ways by stimulants. Um, and it, it can all be linked through mitochondrial mechanisms. It can certainly be linked through dopamine, but again, we have to ask, "Well, what is that dopamine doing to the target cells that when dopamine gets released and connects with a dopamine receptor, what happens to that target cell?" It changes the metabolism of that target cell. It increases the activity of that target cell. So stimulants are, one, back to this bigger kind of lifestyle medicine picture, stimulants are definitely, one, high dose stimulants, very harmful to human health.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm. What are some others?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Alcohol.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
We've known since the 1960s... In the 1960s, researchers were trying to figure out how the hell does alcohol cause cirrhosis. We knew that. We've known that. We've known that for a long time. Alcoholics develop liver failure. They develop cirrhosis of the liver, and they can die from it. How exactly does that happen? In the 1960s, researchers figured out it's mitochondrial toxicity-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... in the liver cells. That is what's making the liver cells die. That alcohol gets converted into this molecule called acetaldehyde, which is very toxic to lots of cell parts, but in particular to mitochondria. Mitochondria are processing this alcohol, and other enzymes and kind of other things are trying to detoxify the alcohol, but at the end of the day, mitochondrial toxicity seems to be a clear route. So when, you know, when I was doing research on mitochondria for the book, it, I, there was an over, there were over 10,000 published research articles of alcohol and mitochondria, and I was initially shocked by that, and I wondered like, "What's that about?" Like, how... That's, that's how I know this 1960s story and everything else is 'cause researchers have been looking at how, how is it that alcohol can be so toxic? And the two organs that are most effective are the liver, because that's the primary organ trying to detoxify it, and then the brain. And why the brain? Because the brain is highly sensitive to metabolic disruption.
- 45:47 – 52:23
Nicotine; Substance Use, Metabolic Health & Disease
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Other substances of abuse, tobacco, the carcinogens in tobacco.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So not nicotine per se. Do we know if nicotine is depleting mitochondria?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Nicotine is a stimulant for mitochondria. So again, similar story. Low doses can be great. High doses may in fact be toxic.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, good.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
You've got to get, you got to, you got to find the right balance.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm not a big nicotine guy, but-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... lately, I've started, uh, chewing half of a piece of nicotine gum a few times a week. Um, so two milligrams to four milligrams, which is very low dose. Um, couple, couple of, I would say maybe three or four days a week, I'll do that. And, um, I'm doing it specifically for brain health reasons, and I have no relationship to any nicotine pouch or gum or anything like that. So I want to be really, uh, like company. Um, so I'm doing a little experiment and, uh, you know, it's, it's an interesting stimulant because it relaxes you a little bit too, but I wouldn't want kids to start doing this or people in their 20s or 30s. Like I said, I'm approaching the fifth floor. I'm going to be 50 in September, and, um, I want to do everything I can to hold on to the neurons I've got. So I think low level stimulation of perhaps the mitochondria and other, um, certainly the acetylcholine system with nicotine, uh, is a good idea. But what I see is a lot of people who are taking these pouches that range from anywhere from three milligrams on the low end, uh, dose side all the way up to eight milligrams, and it is very habit forming. People start with one pouch or two pouches a day, and pretty soon they're doing a canister every day or two. So even the cost starts to be a big deal, but it's, it's pretty incredible. I was on the Berkeley campus, and I went to a little convenience store near the Berkeley campus recently. This kid came in and we started chatting. He's a podcast fan, and we were chatting, and he was there to buy, uh, nicotine pouches. I said, "How many of those do you go through a week?" And he's like, "Seven or eight." I was like, "Really?" He's an engineering student, but in my years in college, it was always just, you know, some coffee or something. Yeah, some coffee. We didn't really have-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I'd stick with coffee. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. For the young, for young folks-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
For the young.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
For the young folks.
- AHAndrew Huberman
For the young.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And-
- AHAndrew Huberman
A little bit, a little bit of coffee or the latte.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And again, it's about-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... it's about dose.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yep.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And it's about look... So most things that enhance metabolism quickly can be addictive.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And I think that's the challenge for a lot of people is that you get that energy right away. At some point, you acclimate to that substance somewhat, and then you want more. You want that same increase that you got before. Um, so it's just important to kind of be mindful that you can over stimulate-... metabolism, mitochondrial function.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then you start depleting mitochondria.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And, and, and then yeah. And then you actually, the mitochondrias begin producing more reactive oxygen species, which ends up being detrimental.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So it's like driving your car... Again, if you think about mitochondria like an engine, it's like an engine of the, of your car. When you're driving your car on the highway, you don't want to go too slow, and you don't want to go too fast.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
You need to have balance.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And acceleration is costly. And acceleration is costly, right? I mean, that, transmission systems, you know, create this incredible efficiency of being able to travel at speed, uh, with more efficiency, you know, but accelerating is, is, is a, is a different thing altogether.
- 52:23 – 59:18
Children, Energy & Metabolic Function; Diseases of Aging & Mental Disorders
- AHAndrew Huberman
um, years ago, my postdoc advisor, the late Ben Barres, he died unfortunately of pancreatic cancer, but just an incredible scientist, um, MD, and, uh, scientist who really popularized the st- the study of glia. Prior to that, they were seeing this kind of like backwater science. No one, everyone thought it was just glue for the brain. He used to, uh, stop us in the hallways late at night, and he used to, we called it getting Ben-ed, 'cause you'd want to leave-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and you would, like, he, he was a night owl. It was awful, and you'd get stuck there. But I'll never forget. He stopped me, he called me Andy, and he said ... He did this numerous times, but he said, "Andy, why..." No one calls me that, by the way, anymore.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, he said, "Andy, why is it that as we get older, we have less energy?" And I'm like, "I don't know, Ben." He's like, "Someone needs to ..." He's like, "Why don't you work on that? Why are you working on these retinal cells? Like, you, you should work on that." And he said, "Why is it that we, that our brain is less plastic?" I'm like, "Well, I don't know. I think it's the glia," right? And there, there is some evidence that (laughs) it has something to do with the glia, um, among other things. But there's a fundamentally interesting question. When you look at kids and they're just full of energy, and we, there's the NAD hypothesis, and there's these other ... But it always seems to circle back to mitochondria-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... over and over. So, I think the answer is very clear. It's, it's, we have a ton of mitochondria early in life, and over time, it gets depleted. Is it that simple? I mean, there are other things too.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
There are other things, but I, I actually do think that's a, it's, it's not just the, the number and density of mitochondria, but it's the health of mitochondria. Because unfortunately, you know, our, our cells have a process for getting rid of defective mitochondria. Um, it's part of autophagy. There's a sub kind of category called mitophagy in which defective mitochondria should be shuttled to lysosomes or shuttled out of cells. Recent paper actually found that microglia in the brain, again, send out these nano tunnels to astrocytes and collect defective mitochondria from the neuron-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Amazing.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... and then take care of the disposal process for that neuron.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Glia are so cool.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And that when you inhibit that, it appears to increase and accelerate neurodegeneration. And when you enhance that, it appears to improve, um, or reduce neurodegeneration. But I think it is. I think children have more energy...... because they have healthier metabolism, healthier mitochondrial function. And when we look at like ... A- a- again, like is there evidence for that? There's overwhelming evidence for that. There are thousands of peer-reviewed published articles in leading journals, Nature, Cell, like all sorts of journals over the last several decades. Just to, again, try to bring this back to just common sense, so we have these things called diseases of aging. What are the diseases of aging? The diseases of aging are obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders. Those are universally thought of as diseases of aging. Interestingly, what often gets left off of that category are the mental disorders, especially today. A lot of people think of mental disorders as primarily a youth problem, but in fact, mental disorders, depression, anxiety, psychosis, are actually diseases of aging. So the Center for Disease Control has put out kind of charts of any age group w- what is the probability if you are, you know, a youth in America today that you will be prescribed an antidepressant, an SSRI antidepressant? If you're between 20 and 40, what's the probability among the remaining people who are still 20 to 40, among all the people a- that age? As people get older, the risk for antidepressant prescription goes up. The highest category of people prescribed antidepressants are 65 and older.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Really? Well, I guess, uh, in some sense, that make sense, although I would've thought it would be the younger population.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I- most people do, and that's why-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... I'm saying this 'cause it's shocking to most people. It was actually surprising to me, but I'm th- I was thinking, "Wait, if my theory's correct, then mental disorders should be a disease of aging." And in fact, they are. Antipsychotic prescriptions, what age group is the most likely to be prescribed an antipsychotic? Over age 80.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Really?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Oh, it goes through the roof because dementia is associated with 40 to 50% of the people with dementia will have psychotic symptoms, hallucinations and delusions. Um, they'll have agitation. The benzodiazepines, the prescription rate goes up. Now with them, with benzos, there, there is a dip starting at age 65, and that is really because physicians are explicitly told, "Do not prescribe benzos (laughs) to people over 65." So the rate starts going down.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
But with antidepressants, it's almost linear. The older you are, the more likely you are to be-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... receiving a prescription for an antidepressant. Antipsychotics, there are some waves and shifts. Women, for example, around the time of menopause, get a peak. So you get a peak around the age of 20, which is new-onset schizophrenia, and then it kind of comes down a little, and then women around the time of menopause, higher peak, and then it kind of comes down a little, and then late in life, goes through the roof. Goes through the roof, again, because of what we call dementia. So the diseases of aging, anyway, are all of the metabolic disorders and, oh, by the way, the mental disorders.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And in my mind, we need to tie that together. That is not a serotonin problem.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
W- we need to tie that science together, and the only way to tie that science together is to look at the bigger picture that we call metabolism, and ultimately, you have to look at mitochondria and mitochondrial biology to understand it.
- 59:18 – 1:01:06
Sponsor: Function
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFASes or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification, and I should say by taking a second Function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board, and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.Let's
- 1:01:06 – 1:09:30
Diet & Metabolism; Ultra-Processed Foods, Additives, GRAS
- AHAndrew Huberman
talk about diet and nutrition for a moment. Um, in recent years, you've talked a lot about the clinical use of the ketogenic diet for various mental health disorders, and cited some spectacular results. Um, and this has had a huge impact on everybody's thinking about what ketogenic diets originally were for, it was developed as a medical treatment for epilepsy, is my understanding, only later did it become, uh, popular as a potential avenue for losing body fat, et cetera. But what are some of the ways that people can use diet and nutrition to improve metabolic health generally? But let's be more specific, mitochondrial health, number, turnover, all the good stuff that happens in mitochondria. Um, how can nutrition be used, um, to improve that, and why would it be that the ketogenic diet would improve mitochondrial function? Or is it that the ketogenic diet bypasses the need for standard cellular metabolism by, um, pulling on some other cellular metab- metabolism, um, uh, mechanisms. I'm, I'm just trying to draw the link here between, uh, ketogenic diet and mitochondria, because we've, you've well-established that mitochondria are central to this whole picture of mental and physical health.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I'll throw in a plug before I go deep into the, um, ketogenic diet story, but you, you also threw a question in there about other dietary interventions or how can diet impact. There is no question diet plays a profound, profound and central role to human metabolism and all of the consequences of human metabolism, and you very eloquently laid out the case for early life. A woman who's breastfeeding her infant, that breast milk has a profound impact on whether that baby's brain develops normally or not. That has dire consequences, potentially, for the outcome and the health of that child, and it's all about nutrition. We've known that for decades, that if women are malnourished during pregnancy, it impacts that infant's... The, the, the fetus' lifespan, really. It increases risk for mental disorders and metabolic disorders, increases risk... If, if your mother is starving while she's pregnant or has to fast or has to go without nutrients, it increases that child's risk for metabolic disorders, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. Um, we've known that, and that is, um... You know, there are lots of theories about obesity around that. It also, surprisingly, increases risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder and all sorts of other mental disorders. In terms of other dietary patterns, I, I just want to... And we can do a deep dive into any of these if you want, and then I'll go on to ketogenic diets. But ultra-processed foods, really bad for your physical health and your mental health. We have just growing body of evidence for that.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is that because of the increased calorie consumption? There's this really nice paper that was published a few years ago showing that people who, um, eat above a certain threshold of processed foods tend to consume on average about 500 calories more than they require per day, which might not seem like much, um, but over time, that compounds and-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Huge.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... they gain a lot of adipose tissue, and then the adipose tissue is secreting a lot of things into the bloodstream that make the whole situation even worse, both brain and bodily. Um, but aside from the caloric load, uh, I mean, is there any evidence that these food dyes and other things that are included in these foods are, are detrimental to mitochondrial health? This is a somewhat controversial thing these days because some of these dyes were banned recently, which I saw as a good thing, but then some of the diehards in the scientific community were like, "Oh, those dosages are... Represent like 6,000 fold what you'd have to eat, what most people eat," you know, the dosages used in mice, but, but the FDA still pulled those dyes, and the FDA's a pretty conservative body. Um, so I don't know. It... I... Not every chemical is bad, of course, um, but are these additives really that bad?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So, to try to answer your question, are the chemicals and additives harmful, the real answer is we don't actually have adequate scientific evidence one way or another. And why don't we have adequate scientific evidence? Because we're not spending money to research it. So right now, the, the rules to this day are that, um, you know, there's this concept called GRAS, generally regarded as safe, that food companies can develop new molecules (laughs) that will preserve a food, make a food hyper-palatable, make it tastier, make it more shelf s- stable, whatever, whatever they want to claim it does, that they can develop molecules, they can put these molecules into our food, and they can get away with just saying, "Well, this is just generally regarded as safe," without any adequate safety testing whatsoever, and the FDA allows that. Now, the new, and new administration, RFK Jr. just recently said he's going to try to change that rule, and I welcome that change. I think that will be a phenomenal change. But the re- so the reality is that...... testing hasn't been done on all of these molecules. There are tens of thousands of molecules and, like new chemicals, new additives, things that sometimes aren't even on the label that are added to food, and we really don't know for sure for each and every one of them whether this one is safe or not safe. What we do know overall, and this unfortunately comes down to epidemiological studies where they just look at hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, and they assess, like how much ultra-processed food is this person eating, and is that associated... If we look at large populations of people and we stratify them by th- these, these people are eating mo- mostly ultra-processed foods and these people are hardly eating any, are there differences in their health outcomes? And the answer to that is unequivocal, and it is perfectly clear. The more ultra-processed foods you eat, the worse your physical and mental health, both. It's cardiovascular disease, it's obesity, it's diabetes, it's mortality, it's cancer. It's also a broad range of mental disorders. And so we know that. We, we've got more granular data that's... hyper-focuses on the mental health story. You know, one study, over 300,000 people, the more ultra-processed foods you eat, a direct linear relationship, it was shocking how linear it was, (laughs) the more ultra-processed foods you eat, the worse your mental health. And it was so striking. It was not a subtle difference. It wasn't like, you know, oh, it was a 3% difference between the lowest... it was a three-fold difference.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wow.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
The people who consumed ultra-processed foods every day, multiple times a day, 58% of them had poor mental health compared to only 18% of the people who rarely or never consumed ultra-processed foods.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wow. So this
- 1:09:30 – 1:19:14
Rebellious Spirit, Ultra-Processed Foods & Food Industry Funding
- AHAndrew Huberman
would be even just like somebody has like a bag of chips and some, um, you know, just pour in water type pre-made soup or something like that. Uh, those are ultra-processed. Um, this would be somebody orders a sandwich at the deli for lunch, which can be done in a relatively healthy way depending on what's in that sandwich. Um, and then does soda and bag of chips on the side. Like, I mean, you're... that's a lot of, in my opinion, highly processed food. But people... I think sometimes people don't think of it that way.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
One of the... I was, um, surprised and somewhat delighted to learn that one of the ways that, um, the... you know, the public health, uh, folks, uh, got kids to smoke fewer cigarettes... 'cause when I was growing up, like smoking was cool. Like if you smoked a cigarette, it was cool. People thought it was cool. It f- it definitely is reinforcing because of the nicotine, the dopamine increases, um, and it was considered cool. Um, you had your like Marlboro Man image from the preceding decades, but then it was really the, the, uh, the '90s kind of, um... it was the actors and models and stuff that made it cool. Like people smoked, and it was supposed to be cool. And one of the ways that, um, we ended up with people smoking far less was not just to ban it on campuses, 'cause that just makes teens want to do it more, right-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in college they want to do it more, um, was to have these commercials of these, um... It was all, to be direct, it was just like these, um, rich white guys in a room that was portraying like the boardroom of a tobacco company, and they were like cackling and talking about like, "Ha ha ha," they say, "We're gonna..." They don't think it causes cancer and this kind of thing. Basically pitting youth against adults so that the youth felt like their money was being taken by the, by the establishment. So, is there a world where, you know, kids are gonna be like, you know, forgive me but, you know, like, "F that, I'm not eating Doritos." (laughs) You know, like, "I'm not gonna be manipulated by highly processed foods," or, "I'm gonna hold onto my mental health by making healthy choices in terms of food." It's tricky, but it has a lot of the same parallels to cigarette use or alcohol use. But I feel like the only way to really get Americans to change their behavior, besides scaring them fundamentally, but even if you do that, is to incentivize it. And one of the best incentives historically for public health change has been to pit the, th- make the public feel like they're pitted against the people that are trying to take their money unfairly and make them unhealthy at the same time. You gotta activate that kind of rebellious spirit. The "Uh-uh, not gonna do it." Just telling people it's bad for you doesn't work, right? We know that. How do we incentivize people?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Yeah, I'm not gonna give a cliche answer because this is the trillion-dollar question that everybody's asking. And it, and it, it really... you know, the, the health of our country really kind of depends on it. With billions of dollars th- this industry has in revenue annually, they can spend a lot of that money on really impactful marketing campaigns, getting people to believe that it's not... i- i- it's not as unhealthy as Chris Palmer and Andrew Huberman are saying. "It's fine. Everybody deserves a treat." Within the last couple of weeks, the American Heart Association was actively lobbying...... against a Texas bill that was trying to restrict spending food stamp money on junk food.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I saw that clip. It's so disturbing to see someone from the American Heart Association actively lobbying to keep tax dollars directed towards including sugary soda, not even diet soda, but sugary soda in, uh, lunches and, and, food for people who are, uh, l- low income.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And he went on record as saying, "This junk food, this ultra-processed food is not the root cause of obesity or diabetes or any of these health conditions," which is an absolute abject lie. And when you have supposedly respected organizations being bought by industry promoting misinformation, I, it's really hard. You know, everybody's all upset that like, "Oh, people don't trust the science. They're not respecting the respected organizations." Well, the respected organizations need to step up and start behaving in a respectable manner. They need to stop. The American Heart Association should not be taking a dime from any industry that plays a role in heart disease. Like, they, it would be like, it would be like the American Heart Association taking money from tobacco companies and then coming out and say, "Smoking doesn't really cause heart disease, people. Everybody calm down. There, we, there, there's still a lot that we don't know. We need more research. We need more research. Smoking doesn't cause heart disease, people. This is just scaremongering."
- AHAndrew Huberman
And that, and that happens.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
"This is just paranoid conspiracy theories."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
That is exactly what's happening now. They're taking money from food companies that have no vested interest in the hu- in the health of the population that they are feeding. They know perfectly well that these foods are highly palatable. Um, and what does that mean? It means addictive. And again, if I was selling food, I would want people to be addicted to the food I was selling. Why? Because you sell more. Higher margins. If you sell food that people aren't addicted to, they'll just move on to the other food that is addictive (laughs) and, and then you'll be out of business. So, it's not an easy problem to solve. I don't mean to imply it's easy, because if, if one or two companies steps up and does the right thing, they'll just go out of business.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I feel like the, the smoking parallel is, is critical, and maybe the trans fat, um, h- the history of, of entire cities banning the use of trans fats, for instance, or the use of, uh, styrofoam containers, right? I mean, it's very different, uh, dif- very different issue. This doesn't directly get to human health, although Styrofoam's not good, but it's about, it's about waste and, and, um, environment. But I feel like there has to be a top-down ban, and Americans also don't like bans, right? We don't, we don't like things... We like choice, but we don't like the consequences of those, of choice, and then we want people to fix the consequences of those choices, um, with treatments that don't have side effects, and then this is like kind of the cycle that, that I've observed in my lifetime over and over again. You know, I think it's the rebellion piece. It's when people realize they're being manipulated. Once people realize they're being manipulated, I feel like that's when they're willing to intervene, uh, and stop a, a otherwise reinforcing activity, a reinforced addictive a- activity, save money, and like take a different direction. Like, that's, that's inherent to the American spirit. As much as we love freedom, we also, we have this like, "No, you're not gonna t- you're not gonna do this to me," kind of spirit. We see it everywhere. This is my belief, but then again, I was kind of a rebellious teen. But, but if it's in service to health, why not?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I'm ho- I'm hopeful. I mean, my, my understanding, by no means am I an expert, but my understanding of what really drove the reduction in tobacco use was the taxes-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... and the ban on advertising, the ban on television advertisements.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
That, that when you get rid of the advertisements, you're no longer tempting people with it. Um, you're no longer able to spread misinformation. Um, and when you make the product so expensive, people just, even if they want to try it, even if they're already addicted to try, uh, uh, already addicted to it, now they are highly motivated to get off of it. Why? Because it's costing them an arm and a leg.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Money hurts.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And, and they-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... and they realize that, "I, I just don't want this." We could do similar things with ultra-processed foods if rebellion, education, whatever, I, I don't care what works.
- AHAndrew Huberman
All of the above.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
But, but we're, all of the above, we're, we're f- we're really fighting an uphill battle. So ultra-processed foods, that's just one story, vitamin nutrient deficiencies. Do you want to go to ketogenic diet? You asked me about that, and I got sidetracked. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, we went into a public health discourse. We're weaving back and forth. That's what we do here.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think it's, uh, look, it's very timely, right? I don't care if you're a, the staunchest Democrat or the staunchest Republican or somewhere in between, like these issues affect everybody, and, um, anyone who just wants to view MAHA as a Republican thing, it's fine that... I'm, I'm not affiliated with MAHA. I, I, I am in favor of improved public health from whatever angles that can meaningfully be done. Um, so-Tell
- 1:19:14 – 1:22:52
Ketogenic Diet, Epilepsy, Schizophrenia, Bipolar
- AHAndrew Huberman
us about ketogenic diet, and then I'd like to ask about things that we can do to improve mitochondrial function in these other bins. But does ketogenic diet improve mitochondrial function, and if so, ho- how does that work?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
The quick summary story for people who don't know ketogenic, so ketogenic diet is a 100-year-old evidence-based treatment for epilepsy. It can stop seizures even when medications fail to. We have, um, over a dozen controlled trials of ketogenic diets in children, in particular with treatment-resistant epilepsy. We have two Cochrane Reviews that came out positive. So Cochrane Reviews are the gold standard in the medical field for meta-analyses. Um, very rigorous and they analyzed the data that exists and came to the conclusion that ketogenic diet com- if somebody has treatment-resistant epilepsy compared to treatment as usual, which is try another anti-epileptic medication, the ketogenic diet is six times more likely to result in seizure freedom-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wow.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
...than just trying yet another epilepsy pill. So the ketogenic diet is a powerful anticonvulsant treatment. We use anticonvulsant treatments in psychiatry every day in tens of millions of people. Lots of these medications are used. So, um, so at this point, we now have over 50 published pilot trials, case series, case reports, other lines of evidence of the ketogenic diet for psychiatric disorders, um, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, anorexia nervosa surprisingly. Um, these 50 reports represent over 1,900 people, and on balance, the ketogenic diet appears to be an effective treatment, sometimes an extraordinarily effective treatment, like in able to induce remission of schizophrenia or bipolar, um, in people who otherwise had treatment-resistant disorders.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And they're going off medication simultaneously?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Some of them are. Um, so there are, you know, I've heard probably from thousands of people around the world since my work has become more public, and actually our first podcast together, hands down the most cited reason people know who I am.
- AHAndrew Huberman
As they should.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs) Well, I know about you, but it's Huberman, Hube- that Huberman Lab podcast. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I'm just a, I'm just a, a, a, uh, a runway for people to, uh, incredible message to take off, yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So thank you again for the opportunity to disseminate this word, and because at the end of the day, I'm hearing from thousands of people who simply listened to that podcast, made changes, started a ketogenic diet for their schizophrenia or other treatment-resistant mental disorder reach out to me, "You saved my life." I can't tell you how many times I've gotten handwritten notes, emails, messages from people who use those words, "You saved my life." I never met this person. All I did was share this knowledge, and then they saved their own lives with knowledge.
- 1:22:52 – 1:30:06
Ketogenic Diet, Fasting & Mitochondria; Gut Microbiome, Brain Metabolism
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Coming back to your question now in a roundabout way, does ketogenic diet impact mitochondrial health? We, we have strong evidence that it does, and, um, so it appears... So the ketogenic diet is mimicking the fasting state, and I just wanna say that again, the ketogenic diet mimics the fasting state. What does that mean? It means the ketogenic diet is mimicking no food consumption. So is the ketogenic diet the healthiest diet that everybody should follow? No, that's not the way I think about it. The ketogenic diet is an intervention. It is shifting metabolism, it is shifting countless kind of systems, signaling pathways, other things, gene expression in the human body and brain, and that results in effects. And the good news is th- these effects appear to be life-changing and life-saving sometimes, so they're highly beneficial effects. Um, again, dose and the way you do it matter 'cause fasting, the, the extreme version of fasting is starvation and that results in death, so that is not at all a good thing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Not feasible. (laughs)
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So let's make sure that if you're gonna do a ketogenic diet or a fasting regimen that you're not depriving yourself of essential nutrition, that, um, you're getting enough calories, you're getting enough nutrients, that you're doing it in a, a medically sound way so that you're optimizing your health and not hurting your health. Um, but we have, you know, it's, it's hard to measure this in humans in vi- i- in vitro because we can't, like, do an intervention to a human and then dissect their brain and, like, biopsy it and look at the mitochondria under the microscope. So we mostly have animal data that supports this, but animal data strongly supports that ketogenic interventions improve mitophagy, so getting rid of these old and defective mitochondria, so you're kind of cleaning house-You're getting rid of the bad, and then you're replacing them with new, fresh ones, mitochondrial biogenesis. So that at the end of the day, the cell will have more healthy mitochondria. Now, some researchers have really hyper-focused on the ketogenic diet might be working through the gut microbiome.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
This gut-brain connection, and we have some evidence that that is true. So researchers actually took feces from human children with epilepsy before starting a ketogenic diet and then afterward, while they were stable on a ketogenic diet, and then they transferred these fecal samples to mice who were predisposed to epilepsy or predisposed to seizures. When they took the feces from the children while the children still had... were seizing, the mice were more likely to seize. When they took the feces from the children doing the ketogenic diet and transferred it to the mice, the mice were less likely to have seizures.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Even though the mice were not on ketogenic diets.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So there's something in the feces of children (laughs) with epilepsy doing ketogenic diets that resul- that has an anti-seizure effect. What could that something be? It could be the gut microbiome, but it could be molecules, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, other things that those microbes are producing, or it could be neuropeptides and other factors that the gut cells are producing. So we really don't know for sure what exactly is it. So on the surface, there's something in the feces. There's a gut microbiome, a- a gut-brain connection thing. What does that have to do with mitochondria? So, another research group did that same model, got mice to have an anti-seizure effect from a ketogenic diet, and then dissected their brains, looking for what changed in the brain. How exactly is a ketogenic diet having an anti-seizure effect in the brain? 'Cause it, that's a, th- the pathology, the pathological finding, seizure, is occurring in the brain. And when they analyzed genetic changes, upregulation, downregulation, it all centered on mitochondria, that the changes in the gut were resulting in mitochondrial changes in the brain, which means brain energy metabolism in the brain. And, um, so again, it's... An umbrella theory doesn't replace what we know. It's not gut microbiome or serotonin. It's not gut microbiome or mitochondria. It's both. Both of them are true, and it's all interconnected. Um, so I, I do think we've got more than enough data that ketogenic therapies impact brain metabolism, which then impacts neurotransmitters, a, a s- really what I hope will become one of many really important studies, um, published by Ian Campbell and colleagues in the UK, that, uh, they just did a pilot trial, 20 patients with bipolar disorder put on ketogenic diets, and they found im- wide-ranging improvements in metabolic health biomarkers, like weight, blood pressure, other things, but they also found a reduction in brain, um, glutamate activity, which is often associated with bipolar disorder and hyperexcitability and seizures, um, and so that helps us understand. Again, it's not, it's not metabolic or glutamate, a neurotransmitter. It's both. It, it, it, it's putting it together.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, the Campbell study's really interesting. We will link to that in the show note captions, and incidentally, we will also link to this, um, American Heart Association appalling, uh-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... te- tes- quote-unquote "testimony."
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Sorry, AHA. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sorry. I'm not, uh, not sorry.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, but then again, I'm not a physician, so I don't have to worry about that. Well, maybe I do. (laughs) Anyway.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
I'm not a cardiologist. (laughs)
- 1:30:06 – 1:38:40
Low-Fat Diets; Tool: Occasional Fasts; Ketogenic Diet; Intermittent Fasting
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
- AHAndrew Huberman
(laughs) Is there any, uh, rationale for people who don't have epilepsy or don't suffer from bipolar or schizophrenia, um, but like myself, would like to keep our mitochondrial function as, as strong as possible and for doing a brief ketogenic intervention?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Yes. The answer is yes. Can intermittent... And I'm, so I'm gonna lump ketogenic with other fasting-mimicking diets and fasting itself. So can intermittent fasting or can cycles of fasting have health-improving qualities or health-improving effects? Absolutely. So, interestingly, before I talk about even some of the science on this, and they're, it's not super robust. Why? Because again, we don't fund diet studies. There's no money to be made from dietary interventions.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Really?
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
There's no patent on it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Nobody cares about dietary interventions.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But there are a lot of studies on exercise interventions.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
But even those are, th- they're not huge-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... randomized controlled trials with 10,000 participants. They're not, you know, like, even the federal government will fund-... large-scale medication trials.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Statin studies and others, but they often don't ... I mean, there have been a few. The Women's Health Initiative funded a massive dietary intervention study, and unfortunately, that was a huge disappointment to the field because it was negative. They randomized women to just keep doing the diet you're eating or go on a low-fat diet, and the low-fat diet didn't do anything for their heart health or other objective kind of outcome measures.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And put another way, just to, just to really close this for people, it means a low-fat diet is no better than the standard American diet. A low-fat diet is equivalent. You get equivalent health effects from a low-fat diet to a standard American diet. That's really bad. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So low-fat diets need to go away, and people who promote low-fat diets need to stop promoting. They need to get, come up to speed with the science, and just, like, move on. Like, at least acknowledge there are healthy fats, even though fat has more calories. Don't worry about those calories. Worry about the health effects, the long-term health effects.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, you got to get those monounsaturated fats, and you got to eat your Omega-3s, and you have to, you know ... And I'm a believer in eating some butter here and there.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
You were asking me about intermittent-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Intermittent-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... ketogenic diets or intermittent fasting.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Intermittent, intermittent fasting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
So I'll just say that we have a long history in multiple cultures on Earth. For thousands of years, fasting has been part of healing rituals. Um, India, China, Christian, uh, like, fasting has been a part of rituals, and, you know, most people just assume it's religious folklore, just silliness or whatever. But I actually think millennia of humans were not all stupid idiots, and that some people along the way actually noticed this seems to do something useful. And that's probably why it found its way in every culture and persisted for thousands of years, because there was actually something meaningful happening. So, what we have now, in terms of more controlled trials, I'm gonna cite Valter Longo, who, um-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
... he doesn't call his diet a ketogenic diet, although it is a ketogenic diet. He calls his diet a fasting mimicking diet, and it's primarily a plant-based, 600 calorie a day diet.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Some people are gonna hear that and just gasp.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And it's, i- i- i- it is proprietary to him. I have no relationship with him. I'm not promoting his product, but he has a proprietary product called ProLon. You can get the benefits by just not eating anything or by eating (laughs) 600 calories a day. I mean, you can, you, you don't need to buy that proprietary product, but because he is selling this product, I believe he's using most or all of the funds that, from the- most or all of the proceeds from the sale of that to fund research on it. They've done a series of studies that, uh, five-day cycles several times a year seem to be fine and improve a wide range of health biomarkers.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And there's reason to believe that it may help improve metabolic health and longevity. So he's primarily a longevity, aging researcher. He is promoting that. Could ketogenic diets also produce similar effects? I believe they can. Again, it gets really controversial fast because ketogenic diets can sometimes include red meat, and then we got the American Heart Association telling us that red meat's bad for you and, "Don't eat that red meat."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Nonsense.
- 1:38:40 – 1:46:55
Nutrition Research, Food Industry Lobbyists; Ultra-Processed Foods, Addiction
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
uh, I mean, at the end of the day, I will say this. You know, w- I'm, you know, I've been talking a while with a, a really seasoned, established, um, expert in the nutritional space, in the conservative nutritional space. He's held several government positions. He's helped presidents and, um, others with campaigns, and he has made a very strong case to me that, you know, less than 5% of the research budget from the NIH is spent on nutritional research. The NIH has an office called the Office of Nutritional Research focused on org- organizing collaborations among different NIH institutes and centers, and their annual budget, for a major government organization, their annual budget is 1.3 million, with an M, dollars.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh my goodness. That's, uh, that's, uh-
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
Which, which is a joke.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, it's a joke.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
It is a laughable joke.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Can't do much with that.
- CPDr. Chris Palmer
And without trying to make this political, there have been people who've tried to increase the funding for nutrition research. Recently, it was proposed to increase that funding to $130 million, and it was cut. That idea was killed by the lobbyists of the food companies.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm gonna get really vocal about this lobbying through the American Heart Association thing, because I was just shocked, right? For all the obvious reasons, American Heart Association, you assume that they are all about healthy hearts, and we know metabolism is, and, um, healthy weight and activity and all that is healthy for hearts. And it, it was so clear that they were on the take from these food companies, and that's why they sent... Even just the timing and the delivery. Again, I'll post to the link because it's just, like, jaw-dropping. Like, I can't believe this. This is like, this is like the old commercials of the people from the cigarette industry saying that, "Cigarettes don't cause cancer," (laughs) and you, they know it does, and, and we're just, uh, this is happening now in real time, and, um, this conversation will certainly assist in, in drawing attention to this. I'll probably do a social media post on it as well. But there's this, this thing that happens in medicine and public health where the thing that's so obviously the problem is like, it's not even staring us in the face. It's like slapping us in the face, and we take 20 to 30 years relying largely on, um, messaging through Hollywood about what actors are doing, what athletes are doing. Then people are like, "Oh, yeah, maybe this is a thing." And then, think the battleship just slow- like, eventually just pivots. But there's been decades of horrible misfortune and loss in mental health and physical health, people thinking that there's something wrong with them or, you know, um, e- et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it's, it's, it's asinine. It's crazy. And so, I'm excited about MAHA even though I don't have any affiliation to it, because it, it's, it's the first time in my lifetime that anyone said like, "Hey, let's actually just talk about and think about how to really get healthy. What do we know right now?" And so, I'm, I'm not a political person, but I think it's really important, um, that we get focused on what's literally slapping us right in the face with like, "This is absurd." For- forgive me for editorializing here, but-
Episode duration: 3:12:02
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