Joe Rogan Experience #1235 - Ben Greenfield

Joe Rogan 0:03 4, 3, 2, 1.

Ben Greenfield 0:07 1.

Joe Rogan 0:08 Hello-

Ben Greenfield 0:08 Index finger.

Joe Rogan 0:09 ... Ben.

Ben Greenfield 0:09 Hello.

Joe Rogan 0:10 What's up, buddy?

Ben Greenfield 0:11 There's a discrepancy. My, my coffee is way, way bigger than yours. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:16 Uh, what's this?

Ben Greenfield 0:16 I've got, like, this 40-ounce Big Gulp French press.

Joe Rogan 0:20 Yes. Um-

Ben Greenfield 0:22 Versus the... Is that a Caveman?

Joe Rogan 0:23 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 0:23 Cold brew.

Joe Rogan 0:24 Nitros.

Ben Greenfield 0:25 Yeah. Those are pretty good too.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Yeah. I love them.

Ben Greenfield 0:26 Those pop the punch.

Joe Rogan 0:27 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 0:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:28 Dude, thank you so much for the bread and the macaroons and-

Ben Greenfield 0:31 (laughs) The goodies?

Joe Rogan 0:32 Yeah. That's, that's awesome.

Ben Greenfield 0:34 They... I... I would-

Joe Rogan 0:34 Awesome stuff.

Ben Greenfield 0:35 I would probably be morbidly obese if I wasn't an exercise freak, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 0:39 It seems like it.

Ben Greenfield 0:40 Yeah. Yeah. Jessa makes that sourdough bread and it is fricking amazing.

Joe Rogan 0:45 Did you do that carnivore diet thing? Did you try that out?

Ben Greenfield 0:48 No.

Joe Rogan 0:48 You didn't?

Ben Greenfield 0:49 No.

Joe Rogan 0:49 No.

Ben Greenfield 0:49 I like meat, but I didn't do the carnivore diet.

Joe Rogan 0:51 I thought you were gonna do it for a certain-

Ben Greenfield 0:52 No.

Joe Rogan 0:52 ... amount of time and test it.

Ben Greenfield 0:53 I thought about it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:54 (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 0:54 I'm too much of a foodie. I'm t- Like, I... What I did was I tried to eat rib eye steaks every night for dinner.

Joe Rogan 1:01 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:01 So I did, like, a 33% carnivore diet. But, uh, there was a study actually that came out, it was just, like, two days ago, on that TMAO.

Joe Rogan 1:11 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:11 The, the sugar that is associated with gut damage when you're eating a, a high red meat diet.

Joe Rogan 1:18 Right. When your body-

Ben Greenfield 1:19 And-

Joe Rogan 1:19 ... takes excess protein and it turns it into sugar.

Ben Greenfield 1:22 Right. With, theoretically, the idea being that that might be present because your microbiome is imbalanced from a diet that's too heavy in meat if you weren't getting enough fiber.

Joe Rogan 1:31 Is it a microbe... It's, it's because of your biome? I thought it was just because of glucogenesis, because y- your body has nothing but meat, your body turns it into glucose.

Ben Greenfield 1:42 No. That w- That would be something different. That, that-

Joe Rogan 1:45 Oh, really?

Ben Greenfield 1:45 That conversion to glucose is a different sugar than the TMAO.

Joe Rogan 1:49 Oh.

Ben Greenfield 1:49 So what the TMAO is, is that's gonna be present if you aren't getting enough fiber or if your biome-

Joe Rogan 1:55 Ah.

Ben Greenfield 1:55 ... is imbalanced. But what this study, uh, a couple of days, looked at was people who were eating, like, a fish and egg and plant-rich diet, and they had high levels of TMAO too, but they weren't deleterious. They're actually protective-

Joe Rogan 2:10 Because of the fiber?

Ben Greenfield 2:10 ... because they had the fiber.

Joe Rogan 2:11 Mm-hmm. Interesting.

Ben Greenfield 2:12 Yeah. I mean, you could do... You could do a carnivore diet if you were... There, there's a few populations that do this, like in, in Spain. I forget the name of the sausage, but they'll, like, eat the, they'll eat the ruminant. Like, they'll eat the, the intestine of the ruminant-

Joe Rogan 2:24 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 2:25 ... and get their grasses and their fibers and their plants literally by eating the stomach of the animal, but-

Joe Rogan 2:29 Like a cat.

Ben Greenfield 2:30 Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's the same issue with, like, uh, you know, methionine. Too much of the amino acid methionine from just eating red meat would be deleterious, but if you're getting glycine and some of these other amino acids, if you're eating, like, nose to tail, right?

Joe Rogan 2:45 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 2:45 Bone marrow-

Joe Rogan 2:46 Right.

Ben Greenfield 2:46 ... bone broth, all the organ meats-

Joe Rogan 2:48 Organ meats, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 2:48 ... you know, head cheese, braunschweiger. Just, like, all these different mixes of meats. I think that would be the way to do a carnivore diet.

Joe Rogan 2:55 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 2:56 I just did culture that idea.

Joe Rogan 2:56 There's a lot of people that are proponents of that as well. And then there's a bunch of people that are... You know, it's interesting because you've got a... There's a disparity between the anecdotal accounts of health and wellbeing and then blood work.

Ben Greenfield 3:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:09 The blood work these folks get is not impressive. Um-

Ben Greenfield 3:12 You mean the people on the carnivore diet?

Joe Rogan 3:13 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 3:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:13 From what I've seen. I haven't seen anything where I see all their inflammatory markers down, their testosterone up. I haven't seen anything where it's looking really good.

Ben Greenfield 3:22 Yeah. T- And high blood glucose is another thing that you see.

Joe Rogan 3:25 But I should say that there haven't been a lot of s- tests done.

Ben Greenfield 3:27 Not a lot. There's-

Joe Rogan 3:28 It's not like a lot of people are publishing stuff on it, but the anecdotal evidence is amazing. It's, like, it's really weird. Like, uh, my friend Jordan Peterson, he's had a tremendous success with it.

Ben Greenfield 3:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:38 Lost a lot of body weight. He says he's in his intellectual prime. He said he's never felt better in terms of his energy levels. And that guy is, he is so rigid and disciplined with it. All he's eating is meat with salt on it and he drinks water. And that is it.

Ben Greenfield 3:51 Absolutely. Well, if you think about it, it's an elimination diet, right?

Joe Rogan 3:56 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 3:56 It's like an autoimmune diet-

Joe Rogan 3:57 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 3:58 ... where you can say, "Well, I, you know, I don't know what's giving me trouble, soy or wheat or, or dairy or what have you, so I'm just gonna stop eating all that stuff and switch to primarily meat."

Joe Rogan 4:07 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 4:07 The problem is that it's, uh, you know, I, I, I don't wanna call anybody out and, and, and s- and call them lazy, but it's almost like kind of a very easy lazy-esque approach. Because rather than figuring out how to do... You know, like that, that sourdough bread. It's slow fermented. The rye and the wheat are in there, but all the phytic acid that would normally inhibit your ability to absorb minerals is predigested by the lactobacillus and all the bacteria in the wheat. So you've got a bread that's lower in a glycemic index and it's, it's more easily digested. Some of, some of the-

Joe Rogan 4:44 Which is why both rye and sourdough-

Ben Greenfield 4:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:45 ... are more healthy for you.

Ben Greenfield 4:46 Right. And you put the rye in it 'cause it lowers the glycemic index. And then you've got the, um, uh, what's it called? The, uh, the... I, I forget the term. Uh, it's like a gluten-digesting enzyme that gets activated with the lactobacillus. So that's a smart bread. I mean, it takes fricking 24 hours to... It's, it's not 24 hours, but it's, like, 15 minutes over 24 hours that it takes to make it. That's an intelligent approach to food preparation, right? That's the way that our ancestors or many of the Blue Zones would have treated their foods. Fermenting, soaking, sprouting, slow food. And you can take a lot of these things that would result in, you know, you're talking about Jordan Peterson. I know his daughter does this as well-

Joe Rogan 5:27 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 5:27 ... Mikaela Peterson. They use that elimination diet, you know, which is the carnivore diet, to clear up a lot of those autoimmune issues, but you could also just render food more digestible or switch to an elimination diet or an autoimmune diet for eight weeks or 12 weeks, something like the carnivore diet, heal the gut, and then return back to a more all-inclusive eating pattern that allows you to eat, you know, dairy, wheat, plants, et cetera. All these things that would normally damage the gut if the gut is actually leaky.

Joe Rogan 6:00 So what are the, like... What- what's the process? Like, what is happening when they go on this very strict elimination diet and they're just eating meat? Like, what is happening to their gut that allows them to have all these pretty, pretty significant health benefits? A lot of loss of weight, increase of energy-

Ben Greenfield 6:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:17 ... autoimmune issues. Like, Jordan had some, um, some pretty significant gum issues.

Ben Greenfield 6:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:23 Those all went away. Depression, that went away. A lot of-

Ben Greenfield 6:26 Right. Some of the, some of the gum and the joint stuff might be just as much related to the fact that he's getting a shit ton of collagen-

Joe Rogan 6:33 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 6:33 ... you know, fiber. I, uh, or, uh, or not fiber, but, uh, you know, elastin and muscle fiber precursors. He's getting a lot of protein. Um, I don't know if he's eating bone broth and bone marrow, but maybe a lot of glycine and some of these other metabolites.

Joe Rogan 6:46 I don't believe he is.

Ben Greenfield 6:46 So part of it could just be more fuel on board to repair muscles-

Joe Rogan 6:50 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 6:50 ... or to repair the joints. But then the other part of it is that when you eliminate inflammatory products that you're consuming, like let's say you're eating whatever, you know, Wonder Bread and commercial dairy, or, or unfermented soy, or any of these things that can actually damage the lining of the gut, you're creating an inflammatory scenario. And I know you're, you're familiar with the gut-brain axis and how our, our gut interacts with our nervous system via the vagus nerve. And when you have inflammation in the gut, that affects neural symptoms, it affects sleep, it affects intellectual performance, and then you've also got the autoimmune component. If you're actually truly allergic to or intolerant to some of those proteins that wind up in the bloodstream in the presence of a leaky gut, you know, plant proteins, uh, lectins are another one that a lot of people complain about, then you create almost like a full body damage scenario. So the idea is you get rid of all that stuff, you introduce the carnivore diet, and I don't know that there's a lot of components of the carnivore diet that are actually healing the gut as much as it's the absence or elimination of the foods that were harming it.

Joe Rogan 7:53 Mm. Interesting. The, you know, the, the Bell Brothers, Chris and Mark, do you know those guys?

Ben Greenfield 7:56 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:57 Um, their take on it is basically they've never felt better. And, you know, these are guys that work out very heavily. The difference between them and Jordan is probably that, especially, you know, Mark is a gorilla.

Ben Greenfield 8:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:08 You know, he's powerlifting, and you know, has been doing that basically his whole life. These guys are... What their take on it is essentially they're, at least the way they think, is that most people that are talking about diet, they really don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Even though you might be able to look at it on paper and you might have these ideas about what's beneficial or non-beneficial, some people are proponents of vegan diets, some people are proponents of, you know, paleo. He's like, "Until you are actually physically doing something, until you are actually doing something with that diet and then you report how much better you feel, the people that are actually training really hard, those are the ones you should rely on." And he's saying for him personally, he's never felt better, never been leaner.

Ben Greenfield 8:52 Yeah, and a big part of it, I mean, this just returns to diet personalization and customization as a whole.

Joe Rogan 8:58 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 8:58 You know, we live in an era where you can self-quantify pretty easily with genetics and you can find out what ancestry you came from, what blood markers that you have, what your gut microbiome looks like. And, uh, I don't think we talked about this on the last show, but there's this idea of eating according to your ancestry.

Joe Rogan 9:15 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 9:15 And the concept of what are called cold spots, like areas around the world where people have a genetic susceptibility to have certain diseases that they don't actually develop. Those diseases don't actually manifest because of their traditional diet. Like, you look at, like, the Icelandic population that carries the genes that would render them more susceptible to something like depression or seasonal affective disorder. But their diet is very rich in omega-3 fatty acids and DHA, which we know can protect against those disorders. And, and you take, take the Icelandic population and you uproot them and put them in the context of a Westernized diet, and all of a sudden depression and SAD manifests, so you could-

Joe Rogan 9:54 That's interesting.

Ben Greenfield 9:55 ... say the same thing for like, uh, Cameroon, Cameroon, Africa. Higher than normal risk for colon cancer, but they're eating a diet that's-

Joe Rogan 10:02 Why is it-

Ben Greenfield 10:03 ... high, that, that's high in fiber and that-

Joe Rogan 10:04 Why is it higher than normal risk?

Ben Greenfield 10:06 I don't know. It's a genetic susceptibility.

Joe Rogan 10:08 Oh.

Ben Greenfield 10:08 But, but the idea is that that population probably figured out at some point in human history that if they eat a lot of plants or they eat a lot of fiber, all of a sudden people don't have as many issues with their colon, right? And then you take that same population again, strip out the fiber, put them on a Westernized diet, and you get a large portion of the African American population developing colon cancer, um-

Joe Rogan 10:30 That's crazy about the seasonal affective disorder, and you gotta wonder-

Ben Greenfield 10:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:34 ... how would that affect people that live in Seattle, the Pacific Northwest, that are dealing with-

Ben Greenfield 10:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:37 ... constant rain. I wonder if that would have some sort of an impact on them.

Ben Greenfield 10:41 Probably even more if you come from that population. I mean, I'm on the Spokane side, but-

Joe Rogan 10:45 Right.

Ben Greenfield 10:45 ... you know, I'm, I'm out in the middle of the forest. I get sun from maybe 10:00 to 2:00, and I'm on a north-facing slope and I work indoors a lot of the time. You know, I'm typing on my computer, uh, you know, I'm, I'm blogging and, and so I- I don't get a lot of sun exposure, but that's where, you know, all these newfangled light panels and head-worn light devices and things come in that were actually developed for seasonal affective disorder that actually work pretty well just to keep your mood up if you're working indoors and you don't get sunlight exposure.

Joe Rogan 11:12 Right, but Spokane is a different environment, right? You're not dealing with the constant rain that they're dealing with-

Ben Greenfield 11:16 No.

Joe Rogan 11:16 ... on the actual coast.

Ben Greenfield 11:17 No, the precipitation builds up on the, on the mountains and then dumps back on in Seattle. Spokane doesn't get as much-

Joe Rogan 11:22 Yeah, I mean, it still must be... You must get much more than you get in California, or Southern California at least. But, uh, it's, uh, it's supposed to be very beautiful out there.

Ben Greenfield 11:30 It's, it's gorgeous. So I'm about 25 minutes from Coeur d'Alene-

Joe Rogan 11:34 Oh, really?

Ben Greenfield 11:35 ... and I, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:35 Oh, okay.

Ben Greenfield 11:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:36 That's supposed to be amazing.

Ben Greenfield 11:37 So it's like-

Joe Rogan 11:37 I've never been-

Ben Greenfield 11:37 Coeur d'Alene's beautiful. I used to go over there and I raced the Ironman, and they, they'd have that in Lake Coeur d'Alene. It's an iconic race just because, I mean, the, the mountains, the lake, everything is just gorgeous.

Joe Rogan 11:47 I saw pictures of the lake where people were taking photographs of the bottom of the lake, like from 100 feet. 100 feet deep of water you could see the bottom of the lake. It's that clear.

Ben Greenfield 11:56 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:56 Like, that is insane.

Ben Greenfield 11:57 But it's kind of funny because it's actually polluted 'cause of all the mines that they have around there.

Joe Rogan 12:01 Really?

Ben Greenfield 12:01 Like, there's a lot of metals in it 'cause the Coeur d'Alene feeds into the Spokane River-

Joe Rogan 12:05 Ah.

Ben Greenfield 12:05 ... and your, your allotment of fish that you're supposed to eat from the Spokane River is, like, one a year.

Joe Rogan 12:09 What?

Ben Greenfield 12:10 Like, like, it's that high in metals. So I mean, I, I don't eat any. I don't want... I don't choose them up and go down there and-

Joe Rogan 12:16 No kidding. That's awful.

Ben Greenfield 12:17 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:18 God damn it. That, that-

Ben Greenfield 12:19 Yeah, but it's a beautiful lake.... I mean, it's-

Joe Rogan 12:22 But what is the allotment of fish that you're supposed to eat from the lake? Is it similar?

Ben Greenfield 12:25 I, I don't know. I don't know. But if I, if I went to Coeur d'Alene and I spent a lot of time swimming there, I'd probably spend some time in the infrared sauna too.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Oh. (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 12:32 Sweat some of those metals out.

Joe Rogan 12:33 So let me ask you this. What's the benefit of an infrared sauna versus traditional sauna? Is there a benefit?

Ben Greenfield 12:38 (lips smacking) So the, (sighs) the idea is it's cooler. You know, I... Do you have an infrared here?

Joe Rogan 12:43 No, where are you going?

Ben Greenfield 12:43 Right. So you walk into the infrared, it's like 155 to 158 degrees, most of them.

Joe Rogan 12:48 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 12:48 There's a couple that'll go up to, like, 170. (inhales deeply) Even though the air is cooler, the actual photons of light that are being released by the panels just... You're, you're surrounded by infrared panels while you're in there. Those penetrate more deeply into tissue. So you wind up getting a deeper sweat. You sweat for a longer time. You can stay in there longer because it's not quite as hot. But, uh, you look at, like, the studies out of Finland.

Joe Rogan 13:13 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 13:13 Right? These, these studies that show four to five year lifespan increases from a, from a weekly sauna protocol of, you know, I think it's, like, four times a week for 20 to 30 minutes. Uh, and the, and the significant drop in dementia and Alzheimer's and a lot of these, these mortality risk factors. And you look at the studies that have been done in athletes where you get almost a, an erythropoietin, like, like a blood doping effect from sauna exposure when done post-workout, right?

Joe Rogan 13:40 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 13:40 You stay in there for 20 to 30 minutes post-workout. All of these were done in a dry sauna, but-

Joe Rogan 13:45 Yeah. That's why I use a dry sauna.

Ben Greenfield 13:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:47 Uh, as per Rhonda Patrick's recommendation.

Ben Greenfield 13:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:50 I just got that 'cause she said there's no real studies like that on an infrared.

Ben Greenfield 13:54 There's a few metal that... So they, they've analyzed metal and detoxification in some of these infrared saunas. And they have found that, that you release more through your sweat. You get a deeper sweat. So if your goal is something like detoxification, then theoretically-

Joe Rogan 14:07 But how is that even possible?

Ben Greenfield 14:09 ... an infrared will work better.

Joe Rogan 14:09 Like when I'm in that, I'm fucking drenched.

Ben Greenfield 14:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:11 Like, how could I get more-

Ben Greenfield 14:13 Uh-

Joe Rogan 14:13 ... out of that?

Ben Greenfield 14:13 Have you tried, like a, like, tried like a 30-minute infrared versus a-

Joe Rogan 14:16 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 14:16 ... 30-minute dry?

Joe Rogan 14:17 I have. Um-

Ben Greenfield 14:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:19 I, uh, I'm an idiot, so, uh, I don't feel like I'm suffering as much, so I don't like it. (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 14:24 When you're in the infrared, you don't feel like you're suffering as much.

Joe Rogan 14:26 Exactly.

Ben Greenfield 14:26 Yeah. See, that's the thing is, uh, and, and maybe I'm jaded 'cause when I'm in my infrared, like, I've got a, I've got a kettlebell in there. I've put my bike in there.

Joe Rogan 14:33 Oh, okay.

Ben Greenfield 14:34 I do yoga in there. When I go in there at night, actually, like I was telling you, we were talking about those, those massage devices, those, they-

Joe Rogan 14:40 PSORITE.

Ben Greenfield 14:41 They have out there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:41 PSORITE, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 14:42 Yeah, the PSORITE, the ones that are like a f-

Joe Rogan 14:44 P-S-O-R-I-T-E.

Ben Greenfield 14:45 They're like a sheath in your abs.

Joe Rogan 14:47 Love those things.

Ben Greenfield 14:47 But they open up your-

Joe Rogan 14:48 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 14:49 ... your cell. They open up and you can work them out on a lot of different body parts.

Joe Rogan 14:51 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 14:52 Um, anyway, so I'll have stuff like that in there and occasionally do body work. But I actually move, I exercise in the sauna-

Joe Rogan 14:59 There's actually a sauna-

Ben Greenfield 15:00 ... so that amplifies as well.

Joe Rogan 15:00 ... that's designed for that. What the fuck is that called again? There's a-

Ben Greenfield 15:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:04 ... a specific sauna that a lot of, uh, UFC guys are using.

Ben Greenfield 15:07 They're, they're in Vegas, um.

Joe Rogan 15:08 And they're building them-

Ben Greenfield 15:09 (lips smacking)

Joe Rogan 15:09 ... um, in gyms. I know, uh, Winkeljohn's gym, Mike, um, Jack Sonnen-

Ben Greenfield 15:13 It's got, like, a TV panel in there.

Joe Rogan 15:14 Yeah, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 15:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:15 They have televisions in there-

Ben Greenfield 15:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:16 ... so you can even watch things.

Ben Greenfield 15:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:17 Like, watch, like, uh, directionals or, uh, watch some sort of a instructional video on exercise.

Ben Greenfield 15:23 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-

Joe Rogan 15:28 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 15:28 ... and you do your workout while you're looking at the screen in the sauna.

Joe Rogan 15:29 I think it's a FITSPA. I think it's called FITSPA-

Ben Greenfield 15:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:32 ... something like that.

Ben Greenfield 15:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:33 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.

Ben Greenfield 15:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:46 So I'm, I'm really feeling, but I love it.

Ben Greenfield 15:48 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-

Joe Rogan 15:58 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 15:59 ... that you can get into and exercise. You can, you can-

Joe Rogan 16:01 Yoga.

Ben Greenfield 16:01 ... have more people in there.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 16:02 You know, do yoga, whatnot. And I'm, you know, I'm 6'2", but I can get into, like, a full down dog or into a lunge or whatever. But I'd love to have a dry sauna as well.

Joe Rogan 16:10 What is a barrel sauna?

Ben Greenfield 16:12 A barrel sauna is a... it's like a big barrel. You've probably seen them before. They're, um...

Joe Rogan 16:17 I don't think so.

Ben Greenfield 16:17 They got benches on either side. They're shaped like a, like a cylinder. Uh, they're, they're, they're very popular. They build up a lot of heat. I think even the shape of the barrel somehow allows the heat to be distributed more evenly through the sauna or something like that.

Joe Rogan 16:31 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 16:31 Almost, almost like a Traeger Grill, for example.

Joe Rogan 16:33 Mm-hmm. Okay, so this is it.

Ben Greenfield 16:34 But yeah, yeah. So that's, that's what the barrel sauna looks like.

Joe Rogan 16:37 It looks like a smoker.

Ben Greenfield 16:37 Yeah, so I've got... What I did was I bought-

Joe Rogan 16:40 It's cool-looking.

Ben Greenfield 16:40 ... one of those, um, those endless pools that you swim against.

Joe Rogan 16:43 Jamie, go to that one on the upper right-hand corner with the bubble on the outside of it. That looks fucking awesome.

Ben Greenfield 16:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:47 You keep that sucker in your backyard.

Ben Greenfield 16:48 I was at a guy's house in Santa Monica-

Joe Rogan 16:50 Wow, that's so cool.

Ben Greenfield 16:52 ... a couple weeks ago, had one of those. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:52 Look at that thing.

Ben Greenfield 16:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:53 And it heats up the same way. There's some sort of a power source attached to that?

Ben Greenfield 16:57 Yeah, yeah. It's the same thing.

Joe Rogan 16:58 All right. That's pretty badass.

Ben Greenfield 16:59 Yeah. See, I wanna get one of those and just put it out in the forest so I can look out with this view.

Joe Rogan 17:02 Cedar barrel sauna. Yeah, it looks fucking cool.

Ben Greenfield 17:05 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:06 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 17:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:07 Especially if you're in, like, a cold area and you could, like... Like that. Look at that, guys.

Ben Greenfield 17:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:11 Getting set up, looking over a lake. Ah.

Ben Greenfield 17:12 You could look out into the snow.

Joe Rogan 17:14 Serene.

Ben Greenfield 17:15 Yeah, it's pretty.

Joe Rogan 17:16 Ah, pretty.

Ben Greenfield 17:17 It's like a pastoral scene.

Joe Rogan 17:19 Yeah, man.

Ben Greenfield 17:19 Do you ever get in the, in the cryo after you do the sauna? You go straight to cryo?

Joe Rogan 17:21 I do sometimes. Uh, but most days, no. Most days I do either or. Yesterday I did cryo.

Ben Greenfield 17:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:28 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 17:28 Yeah. I've, I've been doing cryo every day 'cause I'm staying down at the Hilton and they have a, a cryotherapy chamber there.

Joe Rogan 17:34 Oh, nice.

Ben Greenfield 17:34 But I'm a bigger fan of the cold water, the cold water immersion.

Joe Rogan 17:35 Wait a minute, the Hilton has a cryotherapy chamber?

Ben Greenfield 17:37 Yeah, they've got a cryotherapy chamber. They've got, they've got a bunch of, uh-

Joe Rogan 17:41 If somebody works it.

Ben Greenfield 17:42 They have, like, this thing called UpgradeLabs in, like, the basement of this, uh, this Hilton.

Joe Rogan 17:47 Really?

Ben Greenfield 17:47 And they've got, like, a cryo. They've got a infrared sauna. They've got... So I've j- I've just been going down there every day and, and working out. My workout this morning, actually, I did this machine. They've got a machine called a, a Vasper. Have you seen this before?

Joe Rogan 17:59 No.

Ben Greenfield 17:59 You put, like... It's got cold cuffs. You, you know, kaatsu training, like, blood flow restriction training, right?

Joe Rogan 18:05 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 18:05 So you put cold cuffs on your arms and then you put cold cuffs on your legs. And it increase the millimeters of mercury until you're, basically you get less blood flow to your arms and your legs. And then it's one of these full body exercise devices, right? So you're moving your arms and your legs like an elliptical trainer.

Joe Rogan 18:20 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 18:21 You're barefoot and the whole thing is cold. So it's pumping cold water through the blood pressure cuffs on your arms and your legs. And then it's got cold water back behind you on the, uh...

Joe Rogan 18:30 Here it is right here. We're watching-

Ben Greenfield 18:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:33 ... this, uh...

Ben Greenfield 18:33 ... and it- and by the way, this- this thing is not gonna make you an athlete. Like, that's not the purpose of a- of something like this. It's-

Joe Rogan 18:38 What is the purpose of it?

Ben Greenfield 18:40 Just general fitness. You know, you're- you're getting cold and when you take off the blood pressure cuffs, what happens is you've got a bunch of lactic acid trapped in the muscle as you're- as you're moving. And typically, you're doing like 30 seconds as hard as you can go, so you might go, I mean, pretty heavy wattage, like 600, 800 watts for 15 to 30 seconds and then you recover. And when you finish and you take those cuffs off, you get this amplification in growth hormone, testosterone, and based on some of the research they're talking about now, stem cell mobilization.

Joe Rogan 19:12 Really?

Ben Greenfield 19:12 So they- and it's like this- this super quick 21-minute workout. I actually wanna get one for my house. Um-

Joe Rogan 19:16 And how long is the amplification of testosterone and growth hormone and all that stuff?

Ben Greenfield 19:21 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 19:21 Like, how long does it last for?

Ben Greenfield 19:22 I don't know. I mean, in- in many cases, I mean, it's like a lot of things that affect testosterone or growth hormone or inflammation generally, it's like a 24 to 48-hour cycle. You know, it's like weed.

Joe Rogan 19:33 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 19:33 You know, we- we know that weed suppresses testosterone, but it's not chronic. It's a- it's a temporary 24-hour drop in testosterone. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:39 Does it really suppress testosterone?

Ben Greenfield 19:42 It does. It does.

Joe Rogan 19:42 I didn't know about that.

Ben Greenfield 19:43 Yeah. Although a lot-

Joe Rogan 19:44 How does it do that?

Ben Greenfield 19:44 A lot of the studies on- on marijuana, they're using pretty high dosage and they're using rodent models. They're using like 100 to 200 milligrams in rodent models and showing-

Joe Rogan 19:53 On a rodent? (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 19:53 Yeah. Yeah, and they're show- or- or- I'm- I'm sorry, what would be the equivalent-

Joe Rogan 19:58 Oh, okay.

Ben Greenfield 19:58 ... of a 100 to 200 milligrams in a human-

Joe Rogan 20:00 Okay.

Ben Greenfield 20:00 ... on a rodent model. You know, and a lot of- a lot of the studies on supplementation, think- same thing with TBI and concussion, you know, you hear about DHA-

Joe Rogan 20:08 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 20:08 ... and fish oil for that. But you need to take a lot of fish oil, a lot of DHA. Like, if you extrapolate from the rodent models, you're looking at like 50 to 60 grams of DHA or fish oil to manage like TBI or concussion, which is- it's a lot of DHA, but if you were gonna use like a multimodal approach to-

Joe Rogan 20:28 Hm.

Ben Greenfield 20:28 ... to TBI or- or to Alzheimer's or dementia.

Joe Rogan 20:31 Right.

Ben Greenfield 20:31 I mean, I'm a- I'm a huge fan of that. I'm a fan of- of like hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Um, ketosis definitely works, uh, that- these- these light devices that you wear on your head now, they've got a lot of research coming out on something called photobiomodulation for TBI and these things produce, uh, hertz frequencies, at a 10 to 40 hertz range. You place them on your head, typically there's like a probe that goes into your nose and they've got new research coming out on this for restoring blood flow to the head, increasing your alpha brain wave production, your gamma grip- brain wave production. Very cool devices. Um-

Joe Rogan 21:11 So what does- what does the probe up your nose do?

Ben Greenfield 21:13 Uh, it- it delivers, uh, a wavelength of light that is supposed to activate part of the mitochondria that's called cytochrome c oxidase. And when you activate that, you get increased mitochondrial activity, you get increased blood flow, you get increased production of nitric oxide. And this kind of returns to what I was talking about with seasonal affective disorder, where you can use a lot of- a lot of these new things that are designed to deliver infrared light or light to the body to increase mitochondrial density or to increase blood flow or to increase nitric oxide. And people are now using this for TBI and concussion and stem cells as well.

Joe Rogan 21:49 Wow.

Ben Greenfield 21:49 They- they've got a... Actually, last time I was on the show, we were talking about how when I got that concussion in Austin-

Joe Rogan 21:55 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 21:55 ... I did a self-administered infusion of sugar alcohols. I used mannitol and then I followed that up with stem cells 'cause I had my stem cells stored down in Florida and also in this lab called Forever Labs in Berkeley. And I followed that up, I chased it with a stem cell injection because when you inject sugar alcohol into your bloodstream, it renders your blood-brain barrier more permeable and then the stem cells can cross over through the blood-brain barrier.

Joe Rogan 22:18 Whoa.

Ben Greenfield 22:19 But now with the-

Joe Rogan 22:20 Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute. Hold on. Slow down. So this su- y- you're- how are you- what are you doing with sugar alcohol? How are you administering it?

Ben Greenfield 22:27 Intravenously.

Joe Rogan 22:28 How- (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 22:28 In- in intravenous mannitol solution of sugar alcohol.

Joe Rogan 22:30 You're doing this yourself?

Ben Greenfield 22:32 I do this myself, but you can get this done by a doctor too.

Joe Rogan 22:34 And when you're doing it, like how do-

Ben Greenfield 22:35 I re- I recommend you get it done by a doctor, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:36 It sounds like a good idea to do.

Ben Greenfield 22:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:38 Now what- what kind of dosage are you using?

Ben Greenfield 22:40 Of mannitol?

Joe Rogan 22:40 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 22:41 I don't remember. It wa- it was- it was what I was advised to do by the doc who- who taught me this protocol.

Joe Rogan 22:46 So-

Ben Greenfield 22:46 I don't remember how much it was, but it- it was- it was like a-

Joe Rogan 22:48 You're setting up your own IV.

Ben Greenfield 22:49 ... it was like a- like a vial. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:50 Okay.

Ben Greenfield 22:50 I do- I do the same thing with NAD every week. I do a- a weekly NAD injection.

Joe Rogan 22:55 Every week?

Ben Greenfield 22:55 And it's a... Yeah. Yeah, it's a-

Joe Rogan 22:56 Do you do a push NAD that takes 10 minutes or-

Ben Greenfield 22:58 It's a- it's a push IV. 10 minutes-

Joe Rogan 23:00 Okay.

Ben Greenfield 23:00 ... is pushing it.

Joe Rogan 23:01 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 23:01 Um, it hurt- I mean, so normally if you were to get 500 to 1000 milligrams of NAD, most people will sit under a four to a six-hour drip IV to do that.

Joe Rogan 23:11 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 23:12 And, uh, one reason for that, that- that they say is that- that you get less of it degraded by the liver and the kidneys and the gut as the NAD goes into the body.

Joe Rogan 23:21 Then a push.

Ben Greenfield 23:21 But I think, uh, I think that the bigger factor is simply the fact that when you do a push, like you're nauseous, you feel like your whole body's on fire. I mean, you f- you feel like Superman afterwards, but it's a very, very uncomfortable IV and I don't want anybody pushing that in except me. Like, I wanna be in charge of the trigger when I'm putting that thing in because I gotta stop and go and stop and go. But it's- it's- it's quicker, it's more convenient than sitting down and doing an IV.

Joe Rogan 23:46 So a push, you would actually have a nurse actually pushing down on the button as things are going?

Ben Greenfield 23:52 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Joe Rogan 23:53 And i- in intermittent intervals?

Ben Greenfield 23:56 Uh, I do about two, like two ticks on the syringe at a time 'cause it's a 30 ml syringe. So I'll go like two ccs then stop, and you could feel like your heart rate go up and you get nauseous and- and your skin kind of flushes a little bit.

Joe Rogan 24:09 Huh.

Ben Greenfield 24:10 And you breathe it off, then you wait like 10, 15 seconds and you do another push, and once you're way through-

Joe Rogan 24:14 Kyle Kinneberry was saying it felt like his guts were on fire.

Ben Greenfield 24:16 Yeah. Ky- Kyle, I think is the champ.

Joe Rogan 24:19 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 24:19 I think he did it in like five minutes or something like that.

Joe Rogan 24:22 (laughs) That sounds like Kyle.

Ben Greenfield 24:22 Which is like, like for me, if I- if I can do it in 10 minutes, then, you know, I've- i- i- it's- it's absolutely mind-blowing in terms of how hard that is.

Joe Rogan 24:33 Hm. Really?

Ben Greenfield 24:33 So I don't know how he did it in five minutes, but...

Joe Rogan 24:35 Well, he's a savage.

Ben Greenfield 24:36 You know, it's interesting though, I s- I started to listen to your podcast with David Sinclair.

Joe Rogan 24:40 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 24:40 ... on the- on the car ride over, and he's talking about this NMN stuff-

Joe Rogan 24:43 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 24:44 ... which supposedly when orally administered simulates a lot of what NR, nicotinamide riboside, which is one thing that a lot of people are taking for anti-aging, and NAD, which is what we were just talking about, administered via either, i- in most cases it's IV. There's a couple companies doing like an oral NAD version. But supposedly MA- NMN, uh, I don't know if Sinclair has any human studies coming out on this right now, but he... or- or at least released. But he's done rodent studies and shown that it's like exercise in a bottle.

Joe Rogan 25:15 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 25:15 The NAD, from what I understand though, and this returns to the TBI concussion piece, crosses the blood-brain barrier easily, or more easily than NMN or NR. So if you were doing it for like a cognitive or a neurological effect you may wanna choose NAD. Sounds to me like from the research I've seen if you were doing it for the exercise effect, maybe you'd choose NMN or NR.

Joe Rogan 25:36 Hmm, interesting. So maybe-

Ben Greenfield 25:37 The anti-aging effect of it, (laughs) they don't even know in many cases h- all the pathways on which these things are working, but most of them are related to these sirtuin pathways, right, like sirtuin-activating compounds that actually allow your mitochondria to repair more quickly or give your body more antioxidants. So, the idea is they probably all have a pretty good effect on anti-aging.

Joe Rogan 25:59 And when you're doing it, are you pushing yourself? You say you're doing it once a week.

Ben Greenfield 26:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:02 Are you doing it yourself? Are you pushing it?

Ben Greenfield 26:05 The IV? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:05 Yeah, and h- how much time do you give yourself?

Ben Greenfield 26:08 To actually do the NAD?

Joe Rogan 26:09 Yeah, yeah.

Ben Greenfield 26:10 If I've got 20 minutes, I'm happy. Like if- if I have to compress it into 10 minutes, it- it hurts.

Joe Rogan 26:15 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 26:15 Like I- I like to at least allow for 20 minutes. And then, uh, you follow it up in most cases with like an IV cocktail, like- like a- like a Meyers cocktail, vitamin cocktail.

Joe Rogan 26:25 Hmm, why so?

Ben Greenfield 26:25 And supposedly- supposedly that... it does a few things. Supposedly i- enhances your stem cell mobilization or the- or the activity of stem cells and allows the ND to be absorbed into the cells more easily.

Joe Rogan 26:36 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 26:36 So you- you basically... I mean the way I do it is I use like just a butterfly needle and you do the NAD administration, and then you just unscrew the- the end of the- the butterfly needle line, and then you put the vitamin cocktail in and follow up with a vitamin cocktail, which takes like 30 to 60 seconds and then you're done.

Joe Rogan 26:53 Hmm. And why do you do it once a week?

Ben Greenfield 26:55 To feel good.

Joe Rogan 26:56 No, but why- why once a week? Why not twice a week? Why, you know, why not?

Ben Greenfield 26:59 The idea is you're- you're supposed to maintain your levels. There's even some evidence and- and it... you know, this is kinda similar to testosterone, that long-term use may suppress your body's own NAD production.

Joe Rogan 27:08 Oh, really?

Ben Greenfield 27:08 So if you're gonna start to do it, great, but you may want to realize that this is something you need to do regularly.

Joe Rogan 27:14 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 27:14 Like to keep your levels elevated because you may get like a down regulation effect.

Joe Rogan 27:19 Oh, interesting.

Ben Greenfield 27:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:19 So your body might recognize that there- it has an up- surplus of the nutrient.

Ben Greenfield 27:23 It's got- it's got a lot of NAD.

Joe Rogan 27:24 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 27:24 It doesn't need to make more. One of the, uh, one of the very interesting things though I did a couple weeks ago was I went to New York City and I got NAD from this doctor, uh, Dr. Chen over there. But then he infused me with, uh, CoQ10-

Joe Rogan 27:39 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 27:39 ... and a bunch of other vitamins to allow my body to make more of what are called adult pluripotent stem cells. They're also known as V cells, very small embryonic-like cells. Now if you've heard of, uh, parabiosis before, this idea of taking the blood from young mice and transferring that into old mice, there was research that they did at Stanford University on this, you impart essentially enhanced longevity to the old mice. The idea is that's a- that's a non-autologous transfer, right, like that's the- that's the transfer of- of blood from a- from a young, healthy donor into an older recipient. And there are companies now in Silicon Valley doing this, like the Young Blood Institute.

Joe Rogan 28:19 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 28:19 You know, for like $8,000 this company called Ambrosia will- will give you the plasma from a young, healthy donor.

Joe Rogan 28:25 Is there any evidence-

Ben Greenfield 28:26 But-

Joe Rogan 28:26 ... that that does anything good for you though, other than the studies that they've done on mice?

Ben Greenfield 28:30 Uh, I don't know of any studies on humans.

Joe Rogan 28:32 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 28:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:32 That's what I'm saying.

Ben Greenfield 28:33 No, but-

Joe Rogan 28:33 Is there anecdotal evidence? I mean of people that you know have done it?

Ben Greenfield 28:37 Oh, that's, uh, yeah, I'm- I'm about to- to get into that, so.

Joe Rogan 28:39 You're gonna do it. But you- but you haven't. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 28:41 Uh, no. No, I did an autologous version of that, so I di- I didn't wanna put somebody else's blood into my body.

Joe Rogan 28:46 So you did it on your own.

Ben Greenfield 28:47 So what I did was I had this doc take out a pint of my blood, and what happens is if you put all these vitamins like NAD and stuff into your blood, it increases your stem cell production. If you stress the blood after that, it dumps out a bunch of these tiny little adult pluripotent stem cells, which is exactly the same type of cell that you're getting when you do one of these young blood transfers.

Joe Rogan 29:08 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 29:08 So he stresses that overnight in cold. You can use cold, you could use pressure, you could use anything to- to increase the stem cell release from the blood cells, but they get stressed out, they release stem cells, and then what happens is you get them injected back into your body so this works-

Joe Rogan 29:23 Is this similar to like what they're doing with Regenaking?

Ben Greenfield 29:26 I don't think it's anything like that, no.

Joe Rogan 29:27 Well, you know Regenaking they take the blood out-

Ben Greenfield 29:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:29 ... and they stress it with heat.

Ben Greenfield 29:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:30 And then they spin it in a centrifuge and then-

Ben Greenfield 29:32 Yeah. Yeah, but I think- I think, and- and I don't know a lot about what Regenaking is doing but I think they're more concentrated in the growth factors. I think they might be doing exosomes. I know they've got some overseas places where they're doing like a culture expanded or something like that, but as far as in the US like this- this protocol is one of the few that I know of where you could take your own blood and get a lot of that same stuff that you'd get from culture expanded or from parabiosis, like using the blood of somebody else, and you get all these stem cells released into your body.

Joe Rogan 30:04 So you essentially get the same effect as you would if you took young person's blood.

Ben Greenfield 30:08 If you did a young blood transfer. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:10 And the young blood transfer, they're not transferring the entire body's supply of blood.

Ben Greenfield 30:14 No, they're- they're-

Joe Rogan 30:14 How much are they-

Ben Greenfield 30:15 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 30:21 Right.

Ben Greenfield 30:21 ... four 60cc tubes.

Joe Rogan 30:23 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?

Ben Greenfield 30:30 No.

Joe Rogan 30:31 No.

Ben Greenfield 30:31 Just N equals one. I just felt like a million bucks afterwards.

Joe Rogan 30:34 Yeah?

Ben Greenfield 30:34 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-

Joe Rogan 30:40 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 30:41 ... was I did what's called a nerve hydrodissection. Have you heard of this before?

Joe Rogan 30:44 No.

Ben Greenfield 30:45 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 31:14 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 31:14 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 31:45 Really?

Ben Greenfield 31:45 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.

Joe Rogan 32:01 Now, this is for only a buildup of adhesion in scar tissue? What about for people that, you know, might need-

Ben Greenfield 32:07 Well-

Joe Rogan 32:07 ... a scoping?

Ben Greenfield 32:09 ... it was developed- yeah, it was developed for nerve pain.

Joe Rogan 32:11 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 32:11 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.

Joe Rogan 32:21 Right, especially the meniscus.

Ben Greenfield 32:22 So, so yeah, I mean, uh, I would- I- if I ever get to the point where somebody wants to scope my knee or something like that, I would, I would definitely consider doing that treatment first.

Joe Rogan 32:32 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 32:32 'Cause it worked very well and it was just quick and easy.

Joe Rogan 32:35 I had a meniscus issue and I got exosomes shot into there. I've had it done three times now.

Ben Greenfield 32:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:40 And, uh, every time I've done it, I've experienced a, a good benefit from it, but then I beat the shit out of it and I think I gave it not enough time to heal up before I started-

Ben Greenfield 32:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:50 ... pounding again. I would give it, like, a week off, then start running again.

Ben Greenfield 32:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:54 But now I'm gonna give it a full six weeks with, uh, no pounding, no running hills, nothing crazy. And I've s- experienced just in the two weeks since the procedure a very significant decrease in pain, no inflammation, decrease in discomfort. I have to, like, try to make it feel weird now.

Ben Greenfield 33:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:12 I have to, like, go out of my way. And it seems like every week, that's more and more difficult to do and range of motion's increased. Uh, I basically can go all the way down with my ass to my ankles w- no problem. You know, I bend all the way down and back all the way up with no discomfort, no weirdness.

Ben Greenfield 33:29 Yeah. I kinda question the one thing, 'cause I've asked myself this before and I don't know if you have, like, when you get a protocol like that done-

Joe Rogan 33:37 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 33:37 ... and you kinda go easy on your knee 'cause you really want it to work and you start-

Joe Rogan 33:40 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 33:40 ... backing off of some of that stuff you were doing anyways, how much of it is you just backing off of what you were doing and how much of it is the exosomes and the stem cells-

Joe Rogan 33:48 Well-

Ben Greenfield 33:48 ... and everything else?

Joe Rogan 33:48 ... I know because I did try to back off initially and it didn't-

Ben Greenfield 33:51 All right.

Joe Rogan 33:51 ... have any impact at all.

Ben Greenfield 33:52 Yeah, so you compared-

Joe Rogan 33:52 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 33:53 Good.

Joe Rogan 33:53 When I, when I backed off initially with nothing, I said, "Let me just take some time off and let it- see if I can let it heal up." Didn't do shit.

Ben Greenfield 34:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:00 It just-

Ben Greenfield 34:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:00 ... it stayed exactly the same. Like, it was just hurt, you know? Like, so it was one of those things where, in the past, I would've had to just deal with it.

Ben Greenfield 34:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:09 But now this is my new world, this is my new feeling in my knee until I get it scoped.

Ben Greenfield 34:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:14 So-

Ben Greenfield 34:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:15 ... it's pretty significant the impact that it's had. I mean, I'm a, a giant believer in stem cells and exosomes. I had a full-length rotator cuff tear in my right shoulder and now it's gone. It's gone. Like, it doesn't exist anymore. And-

Ben Greenfield 34:28 Really?

Joe Rogan 34:28 ... Dr. Rodney McGee outta Vegas go- d- you know, he-

Ben Greenfield 34:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:31 ... looked at the, uh, the MRI and he said to me, he goes, "You know how fucking crazy that is? Like, you had a tear in your rotator cuff and now there's no tear."

Ben Greenfield 34:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:40 Like, it's regenerated tissue.

Ben Greenfield 34:42 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 34:42 Which is the ultimate goal, right? I mean, now I have zero pain in this shoulder. I mean, nothing.

Ben Greenfield 34:47 Did you do-

Joe Rogan 34:48 It feels like there's nothing wrong with it.

Ben Greenfield 34:48 ... did you do peptides for long?

Joe Rogan 34:50 I did peptides, I did, uh, what is it, BPC 157?

Ben Greenfield 34:53 Yeah, that-

Joe Rogan 34:54 I did that.

Ben Greenfield 34:54 Well, BPC 157, that- that's the only one that's, that's still legal-

Joe Rogan 34:59 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 34:59 ... uh, according to USADA and WADA for athletes to use. And that one decreases inflammation and increases blood flow.

Joe Rogan 35:07 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 35:08 And then the other one, the one that, that's not allowed anymore is TB 500, thymosin beta 500, and that one repairs the actin and the myosin fibers.

Joe Rogan 35:16 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 35:16 And so in a, in a gold standard protocol, you go back and forth between the two for, like, two weeks.

Joe Rogan 35:21 What, so you switch it up one, one day, one the next day?

Ben Greenfield 35:23 You just, yeah, you would just, like, inject subcutaneously near the site of injury.

Joe Rogan 35:26 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 35:26 And that works for a lot of people. But peptides are weird. Like, I, uh, you know, I'm, I'm attending all these anti-aging and longevity conferences now 'cause I wanna learn a lot more about this.

Joe Rogan 35:33 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 35:33 I'm almost kinda, I'm kinda starting to pivot from just pure human performance to how can you, how can you live a long time.

Joe Rogan 35:39 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 35:40 And-

Joe Rogan 35:40 You should talk to Sinclair.

Ben Greenfield 35:41 Yeah, yeah. I, well, I, I wanna finish listening to your interview with him 'cause I was intrigued driving over.

Joe Rogan 35:45 Yeah, he's a fascinating guy.

Ben Greenfield 35:46 Yeah. So the, um, the idea is that these peptides are talked about a lot now in these anti-aging circles. Like, they, they've got weird names like, like epitalon is one. And two times a year, like, a 10 to 20-day injection protocol of epitalon, they're getting a bunch of increased mitochondrial density, decreased markers of aging, uh, increased fat loss, increased muscle gain, and they've done that in humans.

Joe Rogan 36:15 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 36:15 And so again, it's just a peptide, it's very easy. Like, you, you would inject it next to your abdominals subcutaneously. There's another one-

Joe Rogan 36:22 No side effects?

Ben Greenfield 36:23 ... c- this one. Uh, not with that one, but this one called melanotan. Have you heard of it before?

Joe Rogan 36:28 No.

Ben Greenfield 36:28 So I was intrigued by this. Somebody was telling me about it. It's a, it's a peptide and it was used in the bodybuilding industry for a long time because when you inject it, it gives you, uh, like, this amazing tan-

Joe Rogan 36:41 (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 36:42 ... hence they call it melanotan. It stimulates your melanin production.

Joe Rogan 36:44 Is that that lady that was on that fucking show that was turning black? She believed that she was-

Ben Greenfield 36:50 Yeah, that-

Joe Rogan 36:51 ... in the wrong skin so she was shooting something into her body and she got black like Congo black.

Ben Greenfield 36:56 Well, I- I- I tried it out.

Guest 36:58 (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 36:58 I tried it out for about a week. And-

Joe Rogan 37:00 Did you try to get black?

Ben Greenfield 37:01 N- no, I didn't try to get black. I just want-

Joe Rogan 37:03 What if it stuck?

Ben Greenfield 37:03 I just wanted to see what happened to the tan. I started to get some freckles, but the side effect of this is you get massive boners that last a really annoyingly long time. And so, you, like-

Joe Rogan 37:14 Oh, poor baby.

Ben Greenfield 37:14 Like, you can't s-

Joe Rogan 37:15 (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 37:15 No, but people will use this as like almost like, like a, an ED-

Joe Rogan 37:19 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 37:19 ... type of drug.

Joe Rogan 37:20 Right.

Ben Greenfield 37:20 But it ... And I don't even know the mechanism of action. Like, I-

Joe Rogan 37:23 Do you-

Ben Greenfield 37:23 I don't know how it's even working, but-

Joe Rogan 37:24 Well, it's giving you a black tan.

Ben Greenfield 37:25 So, basically you get a-

Joe Rogan 37:26 (laughs)

Ben Greenfield 37:26 Yeah, you get a tan and boners.

Joe Rogan 37:28 Yeah, this is what it looks like.

Ben Greenfield 37:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:29 Look at her.

Ben Greenfield 37:30 I don't ... Uh, no, that's not how you would administer Melano Tan.

Joe Rogan 37:33 What is-

Ben Greenfield 37:34 She's- she's doing some kinda like a volume filler.

Guest 37:35 She might have done something else, but yeah.

Ben Greenfield 37:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:36 What is that thing that she's doing with a syringe? What the f- ... That looks like a caulking gun. Like, what is she doing?

Guest 37:42 Might just be for a picture. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 37:43 Yeah. That bitch is crazy.

Ben Greenfield 37:44 Isn't that the type of thing, like, the Kardashians are doing to their ass cheeks? Like, like the fillers? (drum roll)

Joe Rogan 37:49 I don't know what they're doing to their ass cheeks.

Ben Greenfield 37:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:50 They're- they're doing something that seems like ... Well, it's very popular with the young people these days. They're taking fat outta certain parts of their body and putting it in their ass, right?

Ben Greenfield 38:00 Hm.

Joe Rogan 38:01 It's not ... Uh, I don't ... Let's l- we should find out.

Ben Greenfield 38:04 That's interesting.

Joe Rogan 38:04 How are they getting diaper butt? Just Google, "How are women today ... How are Instagram models getting diaper butt?"

Ben Greenfield 38:11 I'm curious.

Joe Rogan 38:11 'Cause that's what it is. It's where you have those little skinny legs.

Ben Greenfield 38:13 They're using their own- so they're taking their fat from somewhere else on their body.

Joe Rogan 38:16 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 38:16 And they're injecting that.

Joe Rogan 38:17 I know that some people do that.

Ben Greenfield 38:19 We should do that for our calves.

Joe Rogan 38:21 I know some people who do that way.

Ben Greenfield 38:21 We could start a Instagram calf channel.

Joe Rogan 38:23 No. I don't want fat calves, where they jiggle when you walk.

Ben Greenfield 38:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:26 Like a girl's butt.

Ben Greenfield 38:28 While he's pulling that up, what kinda coffee is this?

Joe Rogan 38:30 Uh, this is Black Rifle Coffee.

Ben Greenfield 38:31 It's good. I like it.

Joe Rogan 38:32 Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 38:34 I, uh-

Joe Rogan 38:34 Tetra-noned.

Ben Greenfield 38:34 I fig- I figured out something, uh ... And thank you, by the way, for hooking me up with Traeger.

Joe Rogan 38:39 Oh, no sweat.

Ben Greenfield 38:40 So, I got one of the-

Joe Rogan 38:40 It's great, right?

Ben Greenfield 38:40 I- I got one of those Traeger Timberlines.

Joe Rogan 38:41 Those are the shit.

Ben Greenfield 38:42 And, uh, I've been making a coffee rub for the steak.

Joe Rogan 38:45 Ah.

Ben Greenfield 38:45 You ever done a coffee rub before?

Joe Rogan 38:46 Yes, I have.

Ben Greenfield 38:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:47 Traeger has their own coffee rub.

Ben Greenfield 38:48 Well, they- they have their own. I love you Traeger, but they ... I- I sometimes never know what all is in some of these spices and rubs. You know?

Joe Rogan 38:55 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 38:55 They'll add some ty- you know, maltodextrin and sugar and stuff, so-

Joe Rogan 38:58 Yeah, there's some sugar in there.

Ben Greenfield 38:59 So, I fine grind-

Joe Rogan 38:59 Tastes too good.

Ben Greenfield 39:00 I fine grind coffee, and I mix that with black Kona salt, cayenne pepper-

Joe Rogan 39:04 Ooh.

Ben Greenfield 39:04 ... and paprika. And you can just make that rub-

Joe Rogan 39:07 Ooh.

Ben Greenfield 39:07 ... as thick as you want, put that on the rib eye ... And I've almost switched completely from doing my, my stove top sear followed by the quick broil on either side, to doing, like, a one and a half to two-hour smoke in the Traeger.

Joe Rogan 39:22 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 39:22 With that coffee rub on, and then just finishing it on the grill with the Traeger.

Joe Rogan 39:26 Yeah. I did a, uh, a, a pff- what, what would you call it? A prime rib. You know, like, so it's th- you know, it's basically rib eye roast.

Ben Greenfield 39:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:36 And I did one on the Traeger and I cooked it for, like, four hours at 220 degrees. Holy shit.

Ben Greenfield 39:42 You s- you smoked it-

Joe Rogan 39:44 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 39:44 ... for four hours?

Joe Rogan 39:45 Yes, yes. In a- it had ... I used-

Ben Greenfield 39:47 Wait, does the Traegers-

Joe Rogan 39:48 ... Traegers Prime Rib Rub.

Ben Greenfield 39:49 Does the Traeger smoke?

Joe Rogan 39:50 Yes, sure.

Ben Greenfield 39:50 Does the Traeger smoke at that temperature?

Joe Rogan 39:51 Yo, there's a Super Smoke setting at 225 and below.

Ben Greenfield 39:54 Okay.

Joe Rogan 39:55 You press the Super Smoke button, and it constantly infuses this pump of smoke, like-

Ben Greenfield 39:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:59 ... over i- like, it's like, "Vooh, vooh."

Ben Greenfield 40:01 I've never tried Super Smoke at that high of a temperature.

Joe Rogan 40:04 Oh, good Lord.

Ben Greenfield 40:05 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 40:05 It's good delicious.

Ben Greenfield 40:06 Dude.

Joe Rogan 40:07 And the- but the Traeger Prime Rib Rub, I know it has sugar in it, it tastes too delicious to not.

Ben Greenfield 40:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:12 But holy shit, when it's in there for three and a half, four hours and it has that crust on it-

Ben Greenfield 40:16 There's something-

Joe Rogan 40:17 ... good Lord.

Ben Greenfield 40:18 ... something about that long smoke. Have you tried a beer can chicken-

Joe Rogan 40:21 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 40:21 ... on that thing at all?

Joe Rogan 40:22 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 40:22 Beer can chicken. So, I've- I've- I've tried a bunch of different rubs on that, but just- just coarse salt and black pepper works fine for the beer can chicken. You empty about half of the beer can out, you open up the beer can, but then you poke a couple extra holes in the top so you get-

Joe Rogan 40:35 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 40:35 ... more of the steam so the inside of the chicken gets even more moist. But then what I figured out is if you use, like, a little, little scalpel or X-Acto knife and you cut open the skin of the chicken around the outside a little bit-

Joe Rogan 40:46 Mm.

Ben Greenfield 40:46 ... and you stuff that with pads of butter.

Joe Rogan 40:48 (exhales)

Ben Greenfield 40:48 And then you do your smoke-

Joe Rogan 40:49 Oh.

Ben Greenfield 40:50 ... with the pads of butter inside the chicken, the- the skin gets crispy.

Joe Rogan 40:54 Oh.

Ben Greenfield 40:54 Like, super crispy. And so you just ... It's like ... I think it's, like, an hour, an hour and a half you cook that one. And you can't, you can't smoke that one very successfully. Like, you wanna run the grill with the smoke on, but you can't super smoke it.

Joe Rogan 41:06 Hm.

Ben Greenfield 41:06 That doesn't seem to work so well. But that beer can chicken, that's fricking amazing.

Joe Rogan 41:10 Yeah, whoever figured that out.

Ben Greenfield 41:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:11 Whatever drunk figured that out-

Ben Greenfield 41:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:12 ... is a goddamn genius.

Ben Greenfield 41:14 It works.

Joe Rogan 41:14 I know what I'm gonna do.

Ben Greenfield 41:15 It works. But I've wondered before if there are other things that will work even better than beer.

Joe Rogan 41:21 What do you got, Jamie?

Guest 41:21 It says m- in most cases, what I'm finding (clears throat) is either Brazilian butt lift or just, like, a f- fat graft or fat injection.

Joe Rogan 41:29 Mm-hmm.

Guest 41:30 But there have been cases where I'm seeing they- they had to get an injection taken out within weeks because it was causing a problem, so, like, I don't know if that was just fat or ...

Ben Greenfield 41:37 What, you got the fat put in, then you have to get it taken back out?

Guest 41:39 Yeah, 'cause they were gonna ... They were dying.

Ben Greenfield 41:41 That'd be a bummer.

Joe Rogan 41:42 Oh, great. And then you have this fucking war zone of an ass.

Guest 41:45 But yeah, most of it-

Ben Greenfield 41:46 Yeah.

Guest 41:46 ... is lipo from one part.

Ben Greenfield 41:47 Yeah, it's gotta (laughs) , it's gotta leave some marks.

Joe Rogan 41:49 Like a Syrian s-

Ben Greenfield 41:50 A few pocks.

Joe Rogan 41:51 ... airstrip.

Ben Greenfield 41:52 Yeah. Yeah, no more-

Joe Rogan 41:53 Boom, boom.

Ben Greenfield 41:53 No more G-string.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 41:55 Um ...

Guest 41:56 32 people died, supposedly, in 2017 from ...

Joe Rogan 41:59 Wonderful.

Guest 41:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:00 Yeah, that's like the same amount-

Guest 42:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:01 ... of people that died from coconuts falling on their head.

Guest 42:04 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:04 That's a fucking ridiculous way to die. You know? And here's the thing. The- what they're doing is not aesthetically pleasing because it violates your sensibilities. 'Cause you look at the ass and you look at the legs and you go, "What's wrong here? How did you get that ass with those legs? They don't go together." Like, if you look at (smacks lips) like, a CrossFitter's legs-

Ben Greenfield 42:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:25 ... like, one of them powerful gals-

Ben Greenfield 42:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:27 ... with a big butt, but they also have big thighs-

Ben Greenfield 42:29 Especially with those, those knee-high neon compression socks.

Joe Rogan 42:32 Yes. Oh.

Ben Greenfield 42:33 Ooh la la.

Joe Rogan 42:33 Oh, look at you.

Ben Greenfield 42:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:34 It looks right. It fits. Like, it f- ... The ass-

Ben Greenfield 42:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:38 ... fits the thigh. When it-

Ben Greenfield 42:39 It's not entirely disproportional.

Joe Rogan 42:40 Yes. When the ass pumps out and then it goes to these little toothpick legs, you're like, "That's gross. That's weird." You know? Like-

Ben Greenfield 42:48 It's possible-

Joe Rogan 42:50 What's going on there?

Ben Greenfield 42:50 ... that-

Joe Rogan 42:50 That's a real ass. See, that's a real ass.

Ben Greenfield 42:51 ... that- in the advent of Instagram, we may be evolving as a species to find these type of things more attractive, though, because that's the whole idea with social media is you get a dopamine hit every time you click on the little blue notification button. Or you- you look at a new photo. So, maybe we're just gonna eventually develop a, a real appreciation for that type of symmetry.

Joe Rogan 43:10 No.

Ben Greenfield 43:11 We'll redefine our idea-

Joe Rogan 43:13 No. No.

Ben Greenfield 43:13 ... of what true human symmetry is.

Guest 43:14 Eh.

Joe Rogan 43:15 Incorrect.

Ben Greenfield 43:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:15 It doesn't look as good. It just doesn't look as good.

Ben Greenfield 43:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:17 It's a- it's a cheap fix-

Ben Greenfield 43:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:19 ... for squats.

Ben Greenfield 43:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:21 Get your ass to the gym, girls.

Ben Greenfield 43:23 (sighs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:23 Do some deadlifts. Run up hills.

Ben Greenfield 43:25 So, (sighs) uh, all right, so squats and muscle building, uh, did you see that Rhonda Patrick tweeted that study about mice and myonuclei and how when they, when they dope mice, they actually, they- they never actually lose the muscle's myonuclei.

Joe Rogan 43:44 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 43:44 Like, those don't actually ever disappear. Like not even just-

Joe Rogan 43:47 So-

Ben Greenfield 43:47 ... when you dope, but just when- when you lift, period, like-

Joe Rogan 43:49 Muscle memory-

Ben Greenfield 43:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:50 ... essentially-

Ben Greenfield 43:50 Yeah, you have-

Joe Rogan 43:50 ... which we've already known, right? But now-

Ben Greenfield 43:52 Built-in muscle memory, yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:53 But muscle memory's always been sort of an anecdotal idea.

Ben Greenfield 43:56 Well, muscle memory has been, in many cases, just based on, uh, motor unit recruitment. Like, meaning, like, a- like- like, my wife, she ran for University of Idaho, and when I go out running with her still, even though she doesn't train, she's just got faster leg turnover, she's got better form. Like, her body just remembers that. The same thing with a swimmer, right? I'll- I'll do a triathlon, somebody who swam in college but hasn't swam in 10 years will kick my ass just because they have that muscle memory-

Joe Rogan 44:21 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 44:22 ... in terms of which- which motor units to recruit when.

Joe Rogan 44:24 Sure.

Ben Greenfield 44:25 But this latest one was basically the idea that you retain actual myonuclei in the muscle. Like, they thought for a long time that those just disappeared and- and went away once you detrain, but it turns out that they're all still there. So as soon as you start training again, you build muscle more quickly, and furthermore, and th- and this was kind of, like, the political part of it, is if you've done some kind of, you know, illegal performance-enhancing procedure or steroids or doped or whatever, you actually would have a higher concentration of micronuclei or myonuclei available. And there- there was a study-

Joe Rogan 44:59 That makes sense.

Ben Greenfield 44:59 ... even leading up to 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.

Joe Rogan 45:55 Mm. Well, that- that has huge implications for MMA-

Ben Greenfield 45:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:59 ... '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?

Ben Greenfield 46:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:09 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?

Ben Greenfield 46:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:19 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-

Ben Greenfield 46:31 For testosterone?

Joe Rogan 46:32 No, it's not testosterone. It's, um, what is the stuff? Turanibol? Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 46:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:37 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-

Ben Greenfield 46:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:48 ... in his system because the protocols for, um, well, their ability, rather, to detect these metabolites has increased rapidly.

Ben Greenfield 46:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:56 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-

Ben Greenfield 47:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:09 ... 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.

Ben Greenfield 47:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:23 So it's real-

Ben Greenfield 47:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:23 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-

Ben Greenfield 47:35 Rightly so.

Joe Rogan 47:35 ... especially for someone who's willingly taken something-

Ben Greenfield 47:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:38 ... there's a lot of people-

Ben Greenfield 47:39 It's- it's one of those, like-

Joe Rogan 47:40 ... that have accidental-

Ben Greenfield 47:40 ... once a doper, always a doper type of things.

Joe Rogan 47:42 There is that.

Ben Greenfield 47:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:43 But- see, the Jon Jones situation is very tricky because he's so good and he's so dominant that people just assume that he's been doing something his whole career.

Ben Greenfield 47:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:51 You know? And when you catch him, they're like, "Aha, that's the reason why he's so good."

Ben Greenfield 47:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:55 And it may be, but it also might be he's got phenomenal genetics. He has two brothers that are super athletes-

Ben Greenfield 48:00 It's like Lance Armstrong, right? He was just the- the best of the guys who were taking drugs.

Joe Rogan 48:04 That's a different situation because that's a sport where, at least in the time period where he was competing, everyone was doing something.

Ben Greenfield 48:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:10 100%. They had to go back to 18 sports-

Ben Greenfield 48:12 And you don't think the UFC is like that now.

Joe Rogan 48:14 It's not like that. It's not. It's not. It can't be. They're too strict. The USADA's knocking on doors at 6:00 in the morning-

Ben Greenfield 48:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:21 ... peeing his cup, and you- you do hear about positive tests, but the amount of positive tests versus the negative tests is overwhelming. Way more guys are not doing something. It used to be the opposite. It used to be in the '90s everyone was doing something.

Ben Greenfield 48:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Uh, we were just talking about this on the Fight Companion podcast that a big issue is grappling. Grappling competitions are overrun with steroid users because no one's testing, and these, I mean, it's, the smell test is off the fucking charts. You're looking at these guys, they're just ridiculous.

Ben Greenfield 48:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:52 Just jacked.

Ben Greenfield 48:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:53 Low body fat, super high muscle mass, and they're training jujitsu all the time too, so you would think it would be very hard for them to maintain muscle mass as well as be able-

Ben Greenfield 49:03 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:03 ... to train the way they're training with technique and drills and cardio and all those different things-

Ben Greenfield 49:07 It's- it's very difficult to maintain muscle-

Joe Rogan 49:09 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 49:09 ... under any- any concurrent strength endurance training scenario.

Joe Rogan 49:12 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 49:12 Very difficult.

Joe Rogan 49:13 Very difficult. So, there's a real issue with, uh, some of these guys competing this way and then trying to transition into MMA.

Ben Greenfield 49:22 Yeah.... now what, what's the deal with marijuana in the M- in MMA or-

Joe Rogan 49:26 It's pretty much legal now. Um, the, they don't care if-

Ben Greenfield 49:30 In-season, out-of-season?

Joe Rogan 49:32 Yes. Yeah, it's fine. They just-

Ben Greenfield 49:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:34 ... they, they've lowered the, um, acceptable level, or the, they've raised it rather, like, what you could have in your bloodstream. You basically just can't be high the day of the fight.

Ben Greenfield 49:42 Yeah. Yeah. And that's another interesting one. I mean, that acts, especially THC, acts on a lot of these mTOR pathways. You know, th- that's, that's the same thing with a lot of these anti-aging compounds, right, like rapamycin or, you know, metformin, to a lesser extent, acts on that mTOR pathway and inhibits it.

Joe Rogan 49:59 Mm.

Ben Greenfield 49:59 Right? But again, it's, it's short term with something like marijuana and you also get this painkilling effect. And there was... (sighs) I, I forget if this was a study or if it was, if it was, uh, like anecdotal, but it's almost like a higher thrill-seeking effect. Like, the endocannabinoid system, when stimulated, shuts down some of your, your, your sense of fear when it comes to experiencing a new adventure.

Joe Rogan 50:24 Really? That's interesting.

Ben Greenfield 50:25 And so you actually, you actually go adventure seeking more. And when you look at, like, ultra-runners, um, anybody who's competing in a, a non, uh, complex activity in which they might have already developed the ability to be able to be in the zone, right? They've put in their 10,000 hours of practice and they're able to just kind of check out and go into automatic mode. When you combine that with the pain-quelling effects of something like a, you know, in most cases, like a THC-CBD combo is what a lot of, of ultra-runners are using. I'm not sure what, what they'd use in, in MMA right now. But ultimately, you get a good effect, but, but the loss of reaction time and the loss of the ability to be able to perform complex tasks, which they've proven in, like, flight simulation studies, dictates that it's still not that great of a drug if you're gonna be doing complex tasks.

Joe Rogan 51:15 Here's the question though. When they're talking about reaction studies-

Ben Greenfield 51:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:19 ... are they talking about reaction studies for people that are acclimated to taking marijuana-

Ben Greenfield 51:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:24 ... or are they talking about it with people where they take someone who's a sober person and they introduce them to marijuana and there's this overwhelming effect of it?

Ben Greenfield 51:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:32 Because one of the things that happens-

Ben Greenfield 51:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:33 ... to people that aren't accustomed to THC is the freakout effect-

Ben Greenfield 51:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:37 ... where they're just like o- they're not comfortable with the experience. After a while, the way it's described, and again, this is all anecdotal, but by people that are accustomed to it, they say you just get good at being high. And see, the reaction time thing, I don't buy, because a lot of strikers, a lot of, uh, kickboxers, they train w- while they're on marijuana. It's very common. A lot of boxers-

Ben Greenfield 52:00 I believe it. I mean, well, a study on reaction time was done on pilots.

Joe Rogan 52:04 And see, I just don't-

Ben Greenfield 52:04 And there's a f- there's a few more blinky lights in the cockpit than, than a mat, so-

Joe Rogan 52:08 Sure, sure.

Ben Greenfield 52:08 ... there might've been more going on.

Joe Rogan 52:09 Sure, but, uh, that's the... The question is are they experienced stoners? Or-

Ben Greenfield 52:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:14 ... are these people that are freaking out-

Ben Greenfield 52:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:15 ... and maybe their reaction time is they're spacing out and they don't know what the fuck this experience is like and they're... They might have anxiety because of it. You know, there's a lot of, uh, really overwhelming sensations that come with that marijuana high, and a lot of 'em, you know, you, you call paranoia or over-sensitivity, and sometimes you get paralysis by analysis when you're-

Ben Greenfield 52:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:35 ... under the influence of those things, where all these-

Ben Greenfield 52:37 Yeah. It's the acute versus chronic effect, but...

Joe Rogan 52:39 But with jujitsu, personally, my personal experience with jujitsu and marijuana is it's an enhancer.

Ben Greenfield 52:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:44 And I, I've argued this, that I think it's a performance-enhancing drug.

Ben Greenfield 52:47 With, with CBD?

Joe Rogan 52:48 No.

Ben Greenfield 52:48 Do you combine it with CBD?

Joe Rogan 52:49 No.

Ben Greenfield 52:49 'Cause-

Joe Rogan 52:50 Just, just marijuana.

Ben Greenfield 52:51 Yeah. That, that's what, that's what a lot of endurance athletes are... You know, like, like folks in the ultra-running communities.

Joe Rogan 52:55 Right.

Ben Greenfield 52:55 And now, like, they'll use, like, a trace amount of THC combined with CBD. Like a four-to-one to a 10-to-one-

Joe Rogan 53:01 Yes.

Ben Greenfield 53:01 ... CBD to THC ratio. And I think, you know, now with the Farm Bill and increasing legality, I think this idea of developing sports performance supplements for athletes, you know, who aren't competing in sports-

Joe Rogan 53:11 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 53:11 ... where that is banned, are gonna be steered in the direction of, like, high CBD and then some of these other novel molecules, right? Like CBG or CBN or some of these-

Joe Rogan 53:20 I'm not aware of those. What are those?

Ben Greenfield 53:21 Yeah, there's, there's all these different... I mean-

Joe Rogan 53:23 Cannabinoids?

Ben Greenfield 53:23 Not just terpenes. Yeah, CBG, CBN are cannabinoids. THC-8 is an anti-inflammatory that's totally different than THC-9. I mean, like...

Joe Rogan 53:32 And are these from orally ingesting it or from smoking it or vaporizing it?

Ben Greenfield 53:35 No, they, they actually are now isolating these in labs almost like-

Joe Rogan 53:38 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 53:38 ... organic chemistry. And you, you, you can take hemp or marijuana and, and you can actually isolate specific compounds and then combine them.

Joe Rogan 53:47 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 53:47 So you could take, like, you could take, like, CBG, CBD, combine that with other terpenes from, like, whatever, let's say, lavender and valerian and, and chamomile and make, like, a, like, a de-stress/relaxation type of compound.

Joe Rogan 54:01 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 54:02 Or you could do, like, a, like, a THC, but a THC-8 instead of a THC-9 and combine that with, like, cinnamon and peppermint, maybe some caffeine or creatine or something like that to make, like, more of a pick-me-up type of compound. But I think that's, that's the wave of the future when it comes to a lot of these, these marijuana companies that are developing stuff for specific goals.

Joe Rogan 54:24 I know a lot of folks that are trying the CBD that use it for inflammation, especially athletes-

Ben Greenfield 54:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:28 ... like it with a little bit of THC. They seem to think it's more effective. You know, there's some sort of a combined effect of the THC with the CBD.

Ben Greenfield 54:36 Yeah. Yeah, they call that the, uh, the entourage effect.

Joe Rogan 54:39 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 54:39 You know, when you have all the different terpenes and the endocannabinoids playing together.

Joe Rogan 54:42 Which one's turtle?

Ben Greenfield 54:43 Yeah, which one's turtle? I have no clue. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:46 (laughs) So, um, there's hundreds of different s- different cannabinoids, right?

Ben Greenfield 54:51 I don't think there's hundreds.

Joe Rogan 54:52 What-

Ben Greenfield 54:52 I think there's at least dozens. I don't know about hundreds.

Joe Rogan 54:55 How many of 'em? Let's find out.

Ben Greenfield 54:56 I mean, if, if you, if you look at a chart of the different endocannabinoids they've actually discovered if you were to just Google... I don't know.

Guest 55:04 113.

Ben Greenfield 55:04 113.

Joe Rogan 55:05 113. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 55:05 Yeah. So it's a lot.

Joe Rogan 55:06 It's a lot of fucking cannabinoids.

Ben Greenfield 55:08 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:08 I wonder, yeah, I wonder if they'll be able to, like, design something that gives you the high without the paranoia or gives you the, you know, the various effects-

Ben Greenfield 55:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:17 ... without spacing out.

Ben Greenfield 55:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:19 You know?

Ben Greenfield 55:19 I think that's, that's where supplementation is going in general, right?

Joe Rogan 55:22 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 55:22 It's just like we were talking about with diet, how based on your genetics, based on your blood work, based on your biomarkers-

Joe Rogan 55:28 Yeah.

Ben Greenfield 55:28 ... that's how you would choose your diet. I mean, like, you know, like, the carnivore diet. If you're...... if you're, let's say like Subsaharan African or Southeast Asian, you have high levels of, you know, there are genes for salivary amylase. There's one called the AMY1 gene. There are genes responsible for you having a higher inflammatory response to saturated fat or a ketogenic diet, right? Like there's, there's one called the APOE gene-

Joe Rogan 55:52 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 55:53 ... where, you know, APOE3/4, which I have, dictates that even though I personally eat a, kinda like a higher fat, low carbohydrate diet, the majority of my fats come from Mediterranean fat sources, you know-

Joe Rogan 56:03 Doesn't-

Ben Greenfield 56:03 ... a lot of olive oils, a lot of avocado oil, a lot of fish. And I do that because my genetics dictate that, you know, my macronutrient ratio, my diet is gonna, is gonna be best suited to that specific ratio of fats. But you could say the same thing with supplements. You know, I, I think with supplements now with, with all these different places that will self-quantify, you know, like, like WellnessFX and InsideTracker and 23andMe, you know, and you can, you can take all this data, put it together, and actually determine, you know, whatever my... Everybody's saying we're supposed to take 2,000 international units of vitamin D a day. If your vitamin D levels are at like 80 or 90, then that could cause arterial calcification if you're taking excess vitamin D. Um, I had both myself and my kids tested for our, for our genetics. Like, none of us boys in the Greenfield family actually have the gene that allows us to generate appreciable amounts of vitamin D from sunlight. So we all now supplement with vitamin D-

Joe Rogan 57:06 Really? That's interesting.

Ben Greenfield 57:06 ... and vitamin K. My boys, neither of them possess the enzyme or the, or the, um... I guess it is an enzyme, superoxide dismutase. It's a, it's a gene that allows for, for increased expression of this enzyme that allows for glutathione production, right? So they take glutathione now. Um, they have the one that results in a lower than normal level of BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. The stuff that's like Miracle-Gro for the brain, so they use lion's mane extract now before school.

Joe Rogan 57:35 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 57:36 So I, I like the idea of doing a genetic test and doing a blood test and looking at what your ancestors would have eaten if you happen to, to have, I, I guess kind of like a clean enough to interpret ancestral profile to be able to say, "Well here's, you know, I'm mostly Northern European, so this is what I'm gonna do well on." You combine all that stuff, I think, you know, returning to your question about the carnivore diet, that's the way to eat.

Joe Rogan 58:00 This APOE4 is also, leaves you predisposed to CTE, correct?

Ben Greenfield 58:04 Yeah, yeah, or, or at-

Joe Rogan 58:05 So do you have that?

Ben Greenfield 58:06 ... at higher risk. No, I've got the APOE-

Joe Rogan 58:08 3N4?

Ben Greenfield 58:09 ... 3/4.

Joe Rogan 58:10 3/4. It's different?

Ben Greenfield 58:10 The APOE4/4 is the one that's more concerning for that.

Joe Rogan 58:13 Oh, okay.

Ben Greenfield 58:14 Yeah. And you get a very deleterious response in many cases to, to fats. You know, it's like an inflammatory response to fats.

Joe Rogan 58:21 That's interesting.

Ben Greenfield 58:22 Very similar, very similar like if you had familial hypercholesterolemia, you know, and, and you get on like a, a ketogenic diet, for example, and your cholesterol goes up to 500. I mean, it d- it's something that just doesn't agree with a lot of people. Um...

Joe Rogan 58:35 Yeah, that's what's really important to discuss, right? That everybody's body really does respond differently to all sorts of different diets, and-

Ben Greenfield 58:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:42 ... it's so difficult for people, especially if they don't have a lot of research in the field, if they don't ha- you know, they don't, they haven't read a lot about it, to try to determine what's the best diet for them.

Ben Greenfield 58:53 Yeah, there, there are, there are specific characteristics though that regardless of macronutrient ratios and regardless of food composition, you see over and over again in centenarians or in people who are living in a Blue Zone or people who have the absence of a lot of, of disease risk factors or, or high risk of mortality. Like, we see regular periods of caloric restriction, like at some point, either compressed feeding window or intermittent fasting, or like, you know, the Mediterranean diet. Everybody talks about goat cheese and olive oil and fish and eggs, but not a lot of people talk about the religious aspect of that that includes certain periods of time where you fast, certain periods of time where you don't eat meat, certain days where, where you aren't drowning all your food in olive oil, right? And so, um, you know, it's, it's, uh, i- i- in terms of, of other characteristics that you see, um, glycemic variability, right? You see very low periods of glucose fluctuations occurring throughout the day because of a high intake of either 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-

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 Can I pause you there?

Ben Greenfield 1:00:19 ... more healthy. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 I'm not aware of that. What are, what are the issues with lectins and gut-

Ben Greenfield 1:00:22 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?

Joe Rogan 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:00:52 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-

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 Stop. Hold on. So there-

Ben Greenfield 1:01:50 ... gamey flavor and blah, blah, blah. But-

Joe Rogan 1:01:52 Stop. Stop. Stop.

Ben Greenfield 1:01:53 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:01:53 Hold on. I got, I gotta do this to you.

Ben Greenfield 1:01:54 Okay. All right.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 Otherwise, I'm gonna forget. Coffee rubs. What does it ... How does it de- dec- decrease the amount of carcinogens?

Ben Greenfield 1:01:59 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?

Joe Rogan 1:02:30 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:02:30 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.

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 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-

Ben Greenfield 1:03:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 ... 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?

Ben Greenfield 1:04:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 And then you just go to Shaun Baker's Instagram every day and you hashtag meat heals and you're like, "Yes-"

Ben Greenfield 1:04:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 "... meat's healing me." And you start believing it.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:17 Well, it's a tribe, right? It's a tribe.

Joe Rogan 1:04:17 Yes. It's-

Ben Greenfield 1:04:18 It's like a church. It's a religion.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 It's the exact-

Ben Greenfield 1:04:20 Uh, nutrition is highly religious and dogmatic.

Joe Rogan 1:04:22 Well, the, the carnivore diet people are the exact opposite of the vegan people. They are the same but different.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:28 They're, they're all just preaching that you should only eat meat and meat's the thing and, you know-

Ben Greenfield 1:04:32 Right. And the, and-

Joe Rogan 1:04:32 ... and they, they're mocking vegans.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:34 And the vegans are mocking the c- ... or d- you know, saying disparaging things about people who eat meat. It's really similar.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:41 The issue is the same thing though. It's the fact that when you start on a highly restrictive diet that tends to be dogmatic too, like, "I'm gonna only eat meat."

Joe Rogan 1:04:50 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:50 Or, "I'm not gonna have meat, and I'm gonna only eat vegetables," you feel pretty good. Like, you feel a difference.

Joe Rogan 1:04:57 Right.

Ben Greenfield 1:04:57 It's impossible not to feel a difference once you go, go completely myopic on your diet and have a very limited number of food choices. But we know that vegans build up deficits in creatine, in taurine, in, you know, unless they're eating algae and stuff like that, in DHA, in EPA, uh, in fatty acids, in amino acids, long-term deficits in cortisol which affects your cell membranes. You can definitely do it right. I mean, there's dudes like, you know, fricking Rich Roll, right? Like-

Joe Rogan 1:05:22 Right.

Ben Greenfield 1:05:22 ... great guy and he ... and, and he's into like the, you know, fermentation, soaking and sprouting and superfoods, and you know, it's, it's honestly kind of expensive and time-consuming to do a vegan diet the right way. But you could do it. A lot of people don't. But if you're not careful, you build up deficits long term even though you feel really good short term. It's the same thing with, with something like a carnivore diet.

Joe Rogan 1:05:42 Mm-hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:05:42 Like, you're probably gonna build up some kind of microbiome bacterial deficiencies unless you're eating the intestines of ruminants or I suppose supplementing with some kind of really good probiotic. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 Well, it's just fascinating because they, they find these people that have been doing it for 20 years. They, they pull these folks out of the woods. Like, "Look."

Ben Greenfield 1:05:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:58 "We got this one guy. He's been doing it for 18 years."

Ben Greenfield 1:06:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:00 "Look how healthy they are." They show-

Ben Greenfield 1:06:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:02 ... show someone doing chin-ups. But the reality is y- y- you don't really hear about that diet or you didn't really hear about that diet until like three or four years ago.

Ben Greenfield 1:06:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:06:10 And much more so over the last two years probably because of me accidentally-

Ben Greenfield 1:06:14 Mm-hmm. Oops.

Joe Rogan 1:06:15 ... you know, having all these people on and talking about it. And it's i- and, you know, the people like Jordan that have had ... Look, it's impossible to deny the benefits that he's got, and the guy looks fantastic.

Ben Greenfield 1:06:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:23 He lost a tremendous amount of weight. And, but to your point, that is most likely because of an elimination diet and whatever was fucking with him before. And I think, you know, most people that start off with a poor diet and then switch to a restricted diet, they're just gonna be better because they don't have the, the stuff that's poor.

Ben Greenfield 1:06:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:41 They don't have the trans fats. They don't have all the sugar. They don't have all the nonsense that's probably causing a good deal of the inflammation in the first place. So by eliminating all those bad things from their diet and then concentrating on the one thing that they on- ... the only one thing that they're eating, you think the one thing they're eating is causing all the benefits when-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:07:00 ... it's probably the lack of the bad things.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:02 Exactly. It's an ... It's a fancy elimination diet, so.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 But it's a delicious one.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:07 It is. Speaking of delicious, are you, are you hunting at all this year?

Joe Rogan 1:07:11 Yes, yes. Um, I, I-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:12 What's, what's your hunt?

Joe Rogan 1:07:12 Well, I mean, I'm going through the two elk that I've given away a lot of it to-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 ... that I shot last year. Every year, I schedule two elk hunts and, uh, assume I'm gonna strike out. And, uh, the last two years, I've been very lucky, and I got two elk each year, so.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:27 Yeah, that's breaking the rules of The Secret in Think and Grow Rich, you know, to assume you're gonna strike out.

Joe Rogan 1:07:32 Well, I, uh, I, but I-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:33 You're supposed to, you're supposed to sit cross-legged in your sauna and manifest that shit.

Joe Rogan 1:07:35 Yeah, those ... I don't ... Yeah, I work hard.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:38 But I-... assume. It's a hard thing to do-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 ... to fucking-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:42 It is.

Joe Rogan 1:07:43 ... kill an elk.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:43 And people don't realize.

Joe Rogan 1:07:44 No, they don't. And you, you look at a clip-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:46 ... like, there's clips of me online and the clip is, like, a minute long and it seems like, "Oh, look, look how easy."

Ben Greenfield 1:07:51 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 You don't see stalking in for hours.

Ben Greenfield 1:07:54 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 You don't see the hundreds of hours of shooting arrows, the coaching from John Dudley-

Ben Greenfield 1:07:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:59 ... all the reading archery articles, and understanding-

Ben Greenfield 1:08:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:03 ... what, and, um, keeping your mindset clear, in the moment. It's a lot of difficulty.

Ben Greenfield 1:08:07 It's a long haul. My boys have their first hunt in three months.

Joe Rogan 1:08:11 What, what kind?

Ben Greenfield 1:08:12 And, and we've been prepping for seven months. They're doing bow hunt in Kona.

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Really?

Ben Greenfield 1:08:15 For pig.

Joe Rogan 1:08:16 Oh, wow.

Ben Greenfield 1:08:16 Yeah, my, my wife, she's going after sheep.

Joe Rogan 1:08:18 How old are your kids?

Ben Greenfield 1:08:18 The boys are going after pig. They're 10, so...

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 So, are you getting them a crossbow?

Ben Greenfield 1:08:22 No, no. They're, right now, they're shooting a Hoyt Ignite.

Joe Rogan 1:08:26 Hmm.

Ben Greenfield 1:08:26 Um, they're shooting at about 25 yards.