Joe Rogan Experience #1235 - Ben Greenfield

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   4, 3, 2, 1.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      4, 3, 2, 1.

   2. BGBen Greenfield0:07

      1.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      Hello-

   4. BGBen Greenfield0:08

      Index finger.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      ... Ben.

   6. BGBen Greenfield0:09

      Hello.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      What's up, buddy?

   8. BGBen Greenfield0:11

      There's a discrepancy. My, my coffee is way, way bigger than yours. (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Uh, what's this?

   10. BGBen Greenfield0:16

       I've got, like, this 40-ounce Big Gulp French press.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:20

       Yes. Um-

   12. BGBen Greenfield0:22

       Versus the... Is that a Caveman?

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       Yeah.

   14. BGBen Greenfield0:23

       Cold brew.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       Nitros.

   16. BGBen Greenfield0:25

       Yeah. Those are pretty good too.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       Yeah. I love them.

   18. BGBen Greenfield0:26

       Those pop the punch.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Yeah.

   20. BGBen Greenfield0:28

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       Dude, thank you so much for the bread and the macaroons and-

   22. BGBen Greenfield0:31

       (laughs) The goodies?

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Yeah. That's, that's awesome.

   24. BGBen Greenfield0:34

       They... I... I would-

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       Awesome stuff.

   26. BGBen Greenfield0:35

       I would probably be morbidly obese if I wasn't an exercise freak, but, uh-

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       It seems like it.

   28. BGBen Greenfield0:40

       Yeah. Yeah. Jessa makes that sourdough bread and it is fricking amazing.

   29. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Did you do that carnivore diet thing? Did you try that out?

   30. BGBen Greenfield0:48

       No.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   ... so that amplifies…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

   2. BGBen Greenfield15:00

      ... so that amplifies as well.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      ... that's designed for that. What the fuck is that called again? There's a-

   4. BGBen Greenfield15:03

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      ... a specific sauna that a lot of, uh, UFC guys are using.

   6. BGBen Greenfield15:07

      They're, they're in Vegas, um.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:08

      And they're building them-

   8. BGBen Greenfield15:09

      (lips smacking)

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      ... um, in gyms. I know, uh, Winkeljohn's gym, Mike, um, Jack Sonnen-

   10. BGBen Greenfield15:13

       It's got, like, a TV panel in there.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:14

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. BGBen Greenfield15:15

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:15

       They have televisions in there-

   14. BGBen Greenfield15:16

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:16

       ... so you can even watch things.

   16. BGBen Greenfield15:17

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       Like, watch, like, uh, directionals or, uh, watch some sort of a instructional video on exercise.

   18. BGBen Greenfield15:23

       Uh, yeah. That's what I think they're doing is they're trying to have you do your workout. Like, you look at a screen in the sauna-

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:28

       Yeah.

   20. BGBen Greenfield15:28

       ... and you do your workout while you're looking at the screen in the sauna.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       I think it's a FITSPA. I think it's called FITSPA-

   22. BGBen Greenfield15:32

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan15:32

       ... something like that.

   24. BGBen Greenfield15:32

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan15:33

       But the, um, the, the, the hot one that I go into, I mean, I, I sweat so much. I, I have a hard time believing I would sweat more anywhere else. I mean, I'm literally pouring sweat and I keep that fucker around 190 degrees.

   26. BGBen Greenfield15:46

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       So I'm, I'm really feeling, but I love it.

   28. BGBen Greenfield15:48

       In an ideal scenario, I would like it. I don't have a dry sauna, but I would like to get a barrel sauna 'cause I have the, the infrared in my basement. It's one of those big ones, like the four-person infrared sauna that-

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       Mm-hmm.

   30. BGBen Greenfield15:59

       ... that you can get into and exercise. You can, you can-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   So you essentially get…

   1. BGBen Greenfield30:00

      like using the blood of somebody else, and you get all these stem cells released into your body.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      So you essentially get the same effect as you would if you took young person's blood.

   3. BGBen Greenfield30:08

      If you did a young blood transfer. Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      And the young blood transfer, they're not transferring the entire body's supply of blood.

   5. BGBen Greenfield30:14

      No, they're- they're-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      How much are they-

   7. BGBen Greenfield30:15

      ... they're taking- they're taking a bunch of plasma. I don't know the volume that they're using. In my case they took a pint of my blood, so four-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:21

      Right.

   9. BGBen Greenfield30:21

      ... four 60cc tubes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:23

       Now is there any anecdotal evidence or any published evidence on your style, the w- what you're trying to do and- and the benefits of it?

   11. BGBen Greenfield30:30

       No.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       No.

   13. BGBen Greenfield30:31

       Just N equals one. I just felt like a million bucks afterwards.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       Yeah?

   15. BGBen Greenfield30:34

       The, um, the other one that I did that worked very well on my knee, 'cause I have some meniscus issues on my left knee-

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BGBen Greenfield30:41

       ... was I did what's called a nerve hydrodissection. Have you heard of this before?

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       No.

   19. BGBen Greenfield30:45

       ... hydrodissection is a protocol where they take, uh, like a liquid and they use the liquid to act like the scalpel or the knife that a surgeon would use to kind of remove adhesions, like scar tissue adhesions, or separate a nerve that's causing pain or discomfort, or lack of mobility in a certain joint. But when they do a nerve hydrodissection, they don't have to use like, you know, something like they'd use in prolotherapy, like sugar water-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       Mm-hmm.

   21. BGBen Greenfield31:14

       ... or regular water. Uh, what I had done, and this was at a clinic called Bio Reset in, uh, in San Jose with Dr. Matt Cook down there, he went in and did a nerve hydrodissection and he used ozone and a, a placental cell. It wasn't like a culture-expanded placental cell, which is what I understand to be illegal in the US, but just, like, a regular placental extract. He did that into my knee and my knee went from, like, 25% to 100% in a couple of weeks.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       Really?

   23. BGBen Greenfield31:45

       And that, that protocol was called nerve hydrodissection. They use ultrasound imaging to, to basically visualize where the needle is going into the knee. They identify the area where the adhesion or the scar tissue is. They inject it right there and then that, I mean, it's like a 10-minute-long procedure.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:01

       Now, this is for only a buildup of adhesion in scar tissue? What about for people that, you know, might need-

   25. BGBen Greenfield32:07

       Well-

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       ... a scoping?

   27. BGBen Greenfield32:09

       ... it was developed- yeah, it was developed for nerve pain.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       Hmm.

   29. BGBen Greenfield32:11

       And what they found was that it actually seems to cause some kind of a release of the scar tissue, followed by an increase in the blood flow, which is difficult to get in some areas of the knee.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Right, especially the meniscus.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. Well, that- that…

   1. BGBen Greenfield45:00

      that, and this was, I think this was, like, 2013, like, this was a while ago, where they took mice and they gave one group testosterone and the other group didn't get it, and then they spent six months off testosterone. I don't remember how long they were on it, but they spent six months off it, and then they took those mice and they trained them with the training protocol. And the mice that were on the testosterone but were no longer on it had a 30% increase in muscle mass compared to the other mice that only had a 5% increase on it. So once again, th- and this was probably related to that myonuclei thing that just came out in this recent study, so it turns out that, A, you should, you should lift, like, when you're young, 'cause you can build all these myonuclei that just basically hang around in your body, and then B, when they, like, ban somebody from sport for doping and then they come back and start to compete in that sport again, they still have an advantage.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:55

      Mm. Well, that- that has huge implications for MMA-

   3. BGBen Greenfield45:58

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:59

      ... 'cause it's, that's the big debate right now. How long should someone get suspended for and for how long, you know, how long afterwards should they be considered enhanced?

   5. BGBen Greenfield46:08

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:09

      You know? Like, the- they're giving people some pretty significant suspensions now for steroids, like two years, but, you know, there's this Jon Jones case that I'm sure you're aware of. Are you aware of this?

   7. BGBen Greenfield46:19

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:19

      Yeah. Where he's testing positive for the metabolite for, a- a long-term metabolite for a very small dose. He's never tested positive for a short-term metabolite, which-

   9. BGBen Greenfield46:31

      For testosterone?

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       No, it's not testosterone. It's, um, what is the stuff? Turanibol? Yeah.

   11. BGBen Greenfield46:36

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:37

       And essentially it's a tainted supplement and it's not, it doesn't have any performance-enhancing benefit in terms of, like, the- the amount of, the dosage that he's tested positive for. But it's lingering-

   13. BGBen Greenfield46:48

       Hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:48

       ... in his system because the protocols for, um, well, their ability, rather, to detect these metabolites has increased rapidly.

   15. BGBen Greenfield46:56

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       I mean, over the last year, it's- it's just unbelievably more sensitive to the point where, you know, they're detecting these infinitesimally small levels of these metabolites, and there also seems to be some sort of a pulsing effect-

   17. BGBen Greenfield47:09

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       ... where your body releases these infinitesimally small metabolites and then doesn't, so you'll test negative, and then the next week you'll test positive, but only for the long-term metabolite, which is an indication that there's no re-administration of the performance-enhancing drug.

   19. BGBen Greenfield47:22

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:23

       So it's real-

   21. BGBen Greenfield47:23

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:23

       It's- it's, and everybody's mad. There's so many athletes that are mad about it. And from what you're saying and from this, uh, study that Dr. Rhonda Patrick highlighted, it's, you know, it's- it's sign-

   23. BGBen Greenfield47:35

       Rightly so.

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:35

       ... especially for someone who's willingly taken something-

   25. BGBen Greenfield47:38

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:38

       ... there's a lot of people-

   27. BGBen Greenfield47:39

       It's- it's one of those, like-

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       ... that have accidental-

   29. BGBen Greenfield47:40

       ... once a doper, always a doper type of things.

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       There is that.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:31

   Can I pause you…

   1. BGBen Greenfield1:00:00

      fiber or legumes is a big one that you see in the Blue Zones, right? Like high intake of things like lentils and split mung beans and a lot of these things that get thrown under the bus now where we're talking about lectins and gut damage. But ultimately, returning back to what I said earlier, soaking and sprouting and fermentation makes a lot of those things-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      Can I pause you there?

   3. BGBen Greenfield1:00:19

      ... more healthy. Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:19

      I'm not aware of that. What are, what are the issues with lectins and gut-

   5. BGBen Greenfield1:00:22

      So the issue with lectins, and this is based on a, on a book that was published I think about two years ago called The Plant Paradox by Dr. Steven Gundry. And he talks about how lectins are these built-in natural plant defense mechanisms that are in primarily plants and seeds and the skins of certain fruits and vegetables that would cause your digestive tract to become damaged or give you a deleterious or inflammatory response to that food. Kind of a similar argument as the paleo people make, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

      Mm-hmm.

   7. BGBen Greenfield1:00:52

      They say, "Well, you don't, don't eat dairy 'cause that could have inflammatory proteins in it that might cause an autoimmune reaction." Or, or, "Don't eat bread because of the gluten and the phytic acid." But when, when you step back and you look at a lot of, a lot of Blue Zones, a lot of longevity hotspots, a lot of centenarians, you don't see avoidance of these foods. You see smart preparation of them, right? When you hunt, you don't sit up in a tree with a, like a dagger in your teeth like Peter Pan and jump out of the tree on, you know, on the back of a deer and, and, you know, just...... start eating the deer, right? Like, you have to go through a pretty long process of tracking and stalking and hunting and, and field dressing and quartering. And even then, you know, there, there's a pretty intensive cooking process. And we do things like, you know, like coffee rubs and things to decrease the amount of carcinogens in the meat when you cook it. And, and we dry age, and you'll take the organ meats and soak them in lemon juice or buttermilk to remove the-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

      Stop. Hold on. So there-

   9. BGBen Greenfield1:01:50

      ... gamey flavor and blah, blah, blah. But-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:52

       Stop. Stop. Stop.

   11. BGBen Greenfield1:01:53

       Okay.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       Hold on. I got, I gotta do this to you.

   13. BGBen Greenfield1:01:54

       Okay. All right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       Otherwise, I'm gonna forget. Coffee rubs. What does it ... How does it de- dec- decrease the amount of carcinogens?

   15. BGBen Greenfield1:01:59

       Well, coffee, rosemary, thyme, a lot of these things that we use as rubs, one of the benefits of them is they decrease the formation of a lot of these carcinogenic compounds in the meat, you know, like the burnt, charred components of the meat. Anything that's an antioxidant, right, and, and you could, you could just go in your spice cupboard and start to make up rubs based on this concept. Anything that would be, you know, (laughs) these sirtuin precursors that people are talking about now for anti-aging, like blueberries and red wine and dark chocolate and dark purple fruits and berries, et cetera, you dry those, you powder those, that's a great rub, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:30

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BGBen Greenfield1:02:30

       Because all of a sudden, you're decreasing the carcinogenic aspects of burnt meat or charred meat or, or heavily cooked proteins particularly. So the idea is you want to prepare your food in a manner that renders it digestible and that unlocks the nutrients. And so when we talk about dietary customization, not only do you see calorie restriction, compressed feeding windows, fasting as one element that regardless of the diet that you choose has been shown to improve health and lifespan, but you also see low amounts of glycemic variability. You see a high amount of emphasis placed on rendering the food digestible, again, no matter what it is that you're eating. And so, uh, you know, uh, whether you're eating a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet or a, you know, high carb/low fat, high fat/low carb, what have you, the idea is you try to choose real, recognizable food. Then you render that digestible. And you eat as many different food groups as you can eat based on self-experimentation primarily until you land on that diet that, that works well for you. And if you can combine that with self-quantification, blood, biomarkers, look at your microbiome, look at your genetics, I mean, there's no reason that, that most people shouldn't just be able to eat the diet that works for their body.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:03:48

       But it's a hard thing to discover, the, th- the idea that you can figure out what works best for you, like what feels best. Like, people start convincing themselves-

   19. BGBen Greenfield1:03:57

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03:57

       ... you know, that one thing is more beneficial to the other. And that's one of the things that people wonder about this whole carnivore thing is like, are they mind-fucking themselves? Are they giving themselves a placebo benefit of only eating this way?

   21. BGBen Greenfield1:04:10

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:10

       And then you just go to Shaun Baker's Instagram every day and you hashtag meat heals and you're like, "Yes-"

   23. BGBen Greenfield1:04:14

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:15

       "... meat's healing me." And you start believing it.

   25. BGBen Greenfield1:04:17

       Well, it's a tribe, right? It's a tribe.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:17

       Yes. It's-

   27. BGBen Greenfield1:04:18

       It's like a church. It's a religion.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:04:19

       It's the exact-

   29. BGBen Greenfield1:04:20

       Uh, nutrition is highly religious and dogmatic.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:04:22

       Well, the, the carnivore diet people are the exact opposite of the vegan people. They are the same but different.

Episode duration: 2:22:52