Joe Rogan Experience #1474 - Dr. Rhonda Patrick

Joe Rogan 0:00 (inhales) What were you saying? (laughs)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:04 (laughs) Damn you. You suck.

Joe Rogan 0:06 No, it's not that embarrassing. You just-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:09 Some-

Joe Rogan 0:09 You get... Go ahead.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:09 Like, sometimes when I get nervous, my eye will start watering, like...

Joe Rogan 0:14 I don't think that's odd. I think that's probably pretty normal. I mean, your system's fired up and, y- you know, your eyes are probably trying to clear themselves.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:22 Right? Maybe, you know... I mean, I'm just speculating, but maybe-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:25 Maybe pe- maybe people will message me after this, this podcast and be like, "That happens to me too," and I'll feel better, like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:30 I'm sure. It doesn't sound that odd. It's not... Certainly not embarrassing, so I don't know why you're embarrassed by eyes watering if you're nervous.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:37 Okay. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:38 Um, thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 0:40 I am super... Uh, always happy to come.

Joe Rogan 0:42 Well, we've been talking and we've been talking about, uh, immune systems, and this is one of the main things that I wanted to talk to you about, like what are the str- 'Cause this... All we're hearing is, "Shelter in place, wear a mask, don't touch anybody, don't go outside." But we're not hearing, what can you do to strengthen your immune system? And I think that as a public health, a public service, you know, uh, health thing, this is, uh, one of the most important things that I think you can really focus and concentrate on, and an actual thing that you can be proactive about during this weird time.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:16 Yeah. Well, definitely, I think focusing on, on, you know, lifestyle factors that you can, you know, possibly modulate your immune system and strengthen it is, is important. What's interesting is that the immune system is... You know, after doing just so much... Of course, the past, like, couple of months, I've been nothing but, like, reading about the immune system-

Joe Rogan 1:37 (laughs)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:38 ... and trying to understand, of course, this new virus, SARS-CoV-2. Um, but I've just learned so much, uh, you know, over la- the past couple of months. I'm not an immunologist, I'm not an infectious disease expert, so, um, you know, while I've had some training in, in immunology, I definitely, you know, didn't know... don't know everything there is to know. But what just... You know, doing some, some reading about, like, why are people's immune systems so different? Like, that's, that's the big thing, like when you take, like, a young population. As you get older, your immune system does decline. I mean, there's lots of changes that occur. But like, in general, like, people have different immune systems, and what's interesting is that there's been tons of, like, genetic studies done on, like, you know, identical twins and they're followed over time, and what's found is that genetics is not the major regulator of immune function. Um, it's something in the environment, and what... This is what surprised me, and, and it's not totally gonna answer your question, but w- we can totally get to that, but the main... One of the main things besides age that regulates the immune system is, like, previous exposure to viruses.

Joe Rogan 2:40 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 2:41 Like, so I th- I thought that was really interesting, and in particular, one, one virus, the cytome- megalo virus, CMV. Did you know, like, between 50 to 80% of the US population has it? Like, at least by the time they're, like, an adult?

Joe Rogan 2:54 Has it permanently or has caught it?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 2:56 Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a herpes virus, so it's-

Joe Rogan 2:58 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 2:58 ... it's a lifelong thing. And this is why it basically... So, it, it, it changes your immune system.

Joe Rogan 3:03 What are the symptoms of it?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:05 Most people that are healthy don't ever know they have it 'cause there's no symptoms.

Joe Rogan 3:07 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:08 Yeah, unless you're immunocompromised. But most people that are healthy, they don't know, you know, that they're infected with it.

Joe Rogan 3:14 Sa- wha- Say it again. What is it called?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:15 The cytomegalovirus. It's CMV.

Joe Rogan 3:18 Sounds like something Godzilla fights.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:20 There it is. So, what's so interest-

Joe Rogan 3:23 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:23 But here's the interesting thing about this virus, is that it... So, this is one of the major things. Multiple studies have be- have been looking at, like, you know, just immune variability, and it's like CMV's been identified in multiple studies. And the thing that... The reason it got me interested is 'cause I was like, "80... Almost 80%. I mean, I could have it, right?"

Joe Rogan 3:41 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 3:41 "I could totally have it." Um, and, uh, it changes the immune function. It's totally different between young and old. So, so when you're younger and if you have it, uh, it actually enhances immune function. So there... They've done studies where, like, they, they, they have, um, given people influenza vaccine, and oftentimes these vaccine studies are used to kinda test the immune response and, like, how you're... how robust your immune response is, because you're, you're given a vaccine and there's all different types of vaccines, you know, pieces of an antigen or all different types of, you know, ways that you can, you can expose someone to a, um, bacteria or virus. But, uh, you have a response to it, and the response is, uh, you know, involves your adaptive immunity. You're making what's called neutralizing antibodies that, you know, basically eventually bind to the virus and neutralize it, prevent it f- prevent it from entering the cell. So, people with, uh, have CMV that are young have a really robust response th- to the vaccine, much better. Um, but older people have the complete opposite, where it's like, you know, deleterious. And the reason for that, scientists think, is because basically y- this virus, it's, it's stuck with you lifelong and, and it kinda reactivates every few years, and like, every time it reactivates, it kind of trains your T cells, you know, which are part of your immune system, to, to become focused on that CMV. And so as you get older, your, your T cell population becomes more focused on fighting that virus and less so on other viruses that you're exposed to. So-

Joe Rogan 5:11 But this virus doesn't have any symptoms?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 5:14 Most healthy people don't have any symptoms with it.

Joe Rogan 5:16 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 5:16 I know. It's really like... It's really weird. So what I'm wondering... And the reason I'm even, like, going here, and it has nothing to do with, you know, taking vitamin C or zinc, and we can talk about all that stuff, and vitamin D, but I just thought it was so damn interesting because we, we hear all these stories in the news where, you know, some people are asymptomatic.

Joe Rogan 5:35 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 5:36 Some people are, you know... Then some people are just really getting, you know, hard hit. And, and these people, let's say they're more age-matched, right? We know that elderly people are more, um, prone to a severe form. But it just made me think, what if this, you know, previous, previous viral exposure to something like CMV is, is kind of like also kinda shaping people's immune responses in some way? Surely people are gonna be looking, looking at that, but I just thought that was a really interesting thing to come across, you know? And then-... the other sort of on the same, on the same li- along the same lines as previous, you know, previous virus exposure is, like, something that really seems to be something that is a main regulator of how people... Like, what, how your immune, you know, what your immune response is, you know? And so-

Joe Rogan 6:22 So you mean by how many times you've caught the flu, how many times you've had... Whether you've had chickenpox, measles-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 6:26 How you respond to it, how you respond to it-

Joe Rogan 6:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 6:28 ... you know? Yeah. I mean, like, you, if you catch the flu, is it gonna not... Is it, like, a three-day kind of thing, or is it gonna knock you out for two weeks kind of thing?

Joe Rogan 6:35 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 6:35 That's what I mean, right? So, um, I mean, if you, if you get a sample, like, there's been these sero surveys where they basically, um... That just means they, they, they'll s- They'll get, get a sample of plasma and look for different antibodies, viral antibodies. And they'll find at any given point, a person has, like, antibodies against 10 different viruses just randomly, you know? So you're, you're constantly being exposed to viruses, you know?

Joe Rogan 6:56 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 6:56 You're not always-

Joe Rogan 6:57 You just don't succumb to them.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 6:59 Right. You're not always getting sick. And so, um, you know, like, another really interesting kind of thing is, like, you know, there's... So the SARS-CoV-2 virus, um, is part of a family of, of coronaviruses called the beta coronaviruses. So SARS-CoV-1, th- the vir- virus that was responsible for the original SARS outbreak in 2002 or something, the MERS one in the Middle East, and then there's two different ones that are re- uh, uh, responsible for the common cold. Now, coronaviruses are only responsible between, like, 15 to 30% of common cold cases. So it's not like... The common cold is, i- is the illness you get, but there's lots of different viruses that can cause it. Uh, but what's interesting is that there's been studies showing that these two beta coronaviruses that are responsible for some of the common cold cross-react with... Um, so there's one that cross-reacts with the SARS-CoV-1, um, which has a, a very... It's very, um... The sequence is very homologous to, uh, SARS-CoV-2 virus. And, um, and it's also been shown that the SARS-CoV-1, the antibodies against the SARS-CoV-1 can neutralize the, the common cold one. So there's, like, cross-immunity happening between these other viruses, right?

Joe Rogan 8:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 8:11 And so, um, there's been some studies by the CDC, uh, on the, on SARS-CoV-2 where they found basically, uh, that people that are infected with SAR- SARS-CoV-2 also boost their antibodies against the, the common cold one. So, you know, there's, there's certainly, I think, a good hypothesis to be made that po- potentially, you know, one or two of these common cold viruses could... The antibodies you make against them could also somehow maybe c- maybe, you know, interact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, potentially neutralize it.

Joe Rogan 8:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 8:43 I mean, that's a big open question that seems possible. Um, without... We don't have any answer to that. I think we will. Like, there's large, there's large-scale, uh, sero surveys being done. I know at least three that, um... I think his name is Dr. Michael Busch, he's at UCSF. He's like... He's, he's doing, like, really large, um, surveys where they're, they're, they're gonna be analyzing sero from people from, like, you know, blood donors and stuff, and, like, following them over the course of several years to see, um, you know... To just basically understand more. So...

Joe Rogan 9:16 Now, what is the speculation, if there's any sort of uniform speculation, as to why when you hear about prisons, where a lot of these prisoners... I don't know if you've seen that there's a v- video going around where one prisoner had, uh, SAR- SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 9:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 9:32 ... whatever, and spitting into a cup and then passing it around to all these other inmates so they could all get it so that they could get released. So these... 'Cause they're releasing people, especially California, which is so wacky. They're releasing sex offenders, and there's been some really high-profile releases of these horrible people that should be in jail probably forever, and they're releasing them. It's like... It, it's really disturbing. But what would cause, other than something like that, what would cause all of these prisoners to not just be positive, that makes sense, but to all be asymptomatic? Is there any speculation as to why l- these large groups... There was another one that was a meatpacking plant where most of the people were asymptomatic as well?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 10:15 I wasn't, I wasn't aware of the meatpacking one, being asymptomatic. Um, but the... I did read about the one in prison, and it was, like, blowing my mind. Like, what's-

Joe Rogan 10:23 98%.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 10:23 Like, what's going on?

Joe Rogan 10:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 10:24 Like, that's insane. It's kind of like you read these stories... So, so this is, like, there's one thing that, uh... It's important to keep in mind when, when we say asymptomatic. Like, you know, there's asymptomatic in, like, a person that never actually gets symptoms, right? And then there's asymptomatic. So there was a study done at the CDC, I don't know, a month ago, maybe a little more, where they, they measured, like, uh... They did a, they did this nasal pharyngeal swab test in, in a nursing home, 70-something people, and, uh, 13 of them, uh, tested asymptomatic. Like, they had no symptoms, but they tested positive. But then they went back a week later, and 10 of those people had symptoms, and three were asymptomatic. So unless, like, there's another... Like, if you test someone and they're asymptomatic at that time of testing, they could be pre-symptomatic, right? In other words, like, you have to go back a week later-

Joe Rogan 11:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 11:13 ... and see if they have symptoms-

Joe Rogan 11:14 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 11:15 ... because that, that's really important. So, so let's say even, you know, f- you know, 60% were asymptomatic. Like, I don't know if they went back and tested a week later or if it was just, like, a single time-

Joe Rogan 11:24 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 11:25 ... but that's what, that's what... This is what got me thinking about this whole thing, was, you know, in, in the prisons and jails, I mean, they're in close quarters, and they're... You got one virus that someone's exposed to, and they all get it, right? So, like, what if there's... I don't know the CMV, you know, percentage there, but what if the coronaviruses are going around there? What if, what if, you know, some, some common cold coronavirus has gone around and that... You know, those antibodies that they've made to neutralize that coronavirus, beta coronavirus are somehow helping with the SARS-CoV-2? Like, I would love to see that tested, you know?

Joe Rogan 11:58 Do you know if they immunize, uh, people, th- vaccinate people when they go into jail?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 12:03 I was trying to figure that out as well, because, like, the tuberculocus, uh, tuberculosis, um, one of the ty- types of vaccines they do for TB-I think they do it in, like, Japan and some other countries where they've got a really low, um, death rate, and so they're kind of... That's a test, that's a clinical trial that's now going on where they're trying to test. But I was trying to figure out, is there a vaccination? Is there something, like-

Joe Rogan 12:24 Yeah. 'Cause I would imagine it would be simple for them to do that. You're entering into prison, they just vaccinate you just to...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 12:29 I couldn't come to an answer. I was, I was searching for that the other day.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 12:32 I was trying to figure that out. But I think that's also a really good... I mean, there's a ton of theories, right?

Joe Rogan 12:37 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 12:37 I mean, it's just, you could go on and on and on. But the whole... The thing that, that... I, I just think that I would like to see more research, and I'm just hoping, you know, that, that CDC and other people are, are investigating these, these other... the cross-immunity, right? Like, if there's oth- if there's antibodies that you're making against another coronavirus, beta coronavirus, it's in the same family as this SARS 1. No one's had SARS 1 in the United States, you know? So, like, that one doesn't... that, that's not as relevant as... But the common cold, you know, that's, that's very common, right?

Joe Rogan 13:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 13:08 So, you know, if, if 15 to 30% of the common cold is composed of coronaviruses, we know at least two of those coronavirus are, are in the same family that have been identified to make... at least in one case, there's been neutralizing antibodies, so there has been cross-immunity-

Joe Rogan 13:24 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 13:24 ... then you'd think, "Why, why not test that?" Like, let's get some animal studies started on that, you know?

Joe Rogan 13:29 Speaking of animal studies, there was an article that I was reading yesterday that was saying that they're, they're hoping that they've found some antibodies in llamas that they're hoping w- they're going to be able to... Because of... See if you can find this. Um, because of these antibodies in llamas, they, they, they're hoping they can either transfer them to people or learn something about how these antibodies are created. But llamas seem to be i-... Here it is. Llamas could be the key to fighting new coronaviruses, research says. We'll make that larger. It says, uh, it may sound bizarre to most, but llamas could be the key to fighting new coronavirus. Researchers from Belgium... Oh, remem- remember that's the big lady that I was showing you earlier? She's the health lady. And the United States (laughs) published an article this week in the journal cell that highlights the potential use of llama antibodies to prevent COVID-19 infections. Antibodies from a four-year-old Belgian llama named Winter show promise in blocking coronavirus from infecting cells, according to research from the University of Texas, Austin, the National Institutes of Health, and the Ghent... How do you say that? Ghent? G-H-E-N-T University. Studying early forms of the coronaviruses, researchers have found an antibody in Winter that effectively attached itself and neutralized spiked protein in SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. Uh, researchers believe the particular antibody, which has been found in other llamas as well, can be injected into an uninfected individual to protect them from getting infected with the new coronavirus. That's very interesting.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 15:02 Yeah. So there... I think, you know, there's, there's lots of avenues for, you know, therapeutics and, you know, in addition to, like, repurposing drugs, um, monoclonal antibodies, you know, being able to basically identify antibodies that do neutralize SARS-CoV-2 virus, whether they come from llamas or humans, you know, and basically identify the specific antibody that can bind to that spike protein that you just mentioned, which is, um, that region. It's known that the antibodies bind there and neutralize it. It's also the region that, that is used to get inside of the cell. So, um, monoclonal antibodies, I think, are a really big, um, you know, possibility for a promising therapeutic because you can then... I mean, the problem is growing, like, large-scale manufacturing them, right? So, like, if you can identify these antibodies and then manufacture them, you can inject them in people and then potentially get some protection. The problem is, is that that's not gon-... Like, it's just gonna be a short-lived protection. Like, it's gonna be... It's not like you can... It's not like a vaccine where your body's making its own antibodies and they're, and they're more longer lived, you know?

Joe Rogan 16:08 Oh, I see.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 16:08 But I-

Joe Rogan 16:09 So, in areas where people are getting exposed, perhaps you could give it to them and it would stop them from getting... But how long when you say short-lived?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 16:16 We... Well, we... I don't know. I mean, how... So it's, you know, it, it's probably enough to pre-... Like, if you're a healthcare worker, your first line, you know, health, you know, first, uh, responder, people that are definitely, like, being exposed to large doses of the virus, um, that, that could be a promising area. But also, I think even just treating patients, like, that have already been infected, you know? So that's, that's also another...

Joe Rogan 16:41 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 16:41 So, like, in combination with some of this other stuff, like remdesivir, uh, which is, you know, it's not like a, a silver bullet, but it seems like it's also promining- promising probably with combination of other, other factors as well. Um, but yeah, the mono- monoclonal antibodies is a really... I know there's, like... Regeneron's a big company. They're, um, they're, they're growing some large-scale ones. I think theirs, uh, they, uh, they isolated from humanized mice or something, but there's other companies that have isolated them from humans that have been infected. Uh, so, you know, that's, that's definitely, um, a promising area for sure. And the... A good thing about that is that, um... Have you heard of antibody-dependent enhancement? Do you know?

Joe Rogan 17:20 No.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 17:21 So that's a big concern. Um... All right. So, so basically, when you... when your body is exposed to a pathogen, like a virus, your, your innate immune system, you know, the first line of defense, like neutrophils, things like that, are making hydrogen peroxide, trying to kill the virus. But then in the background, your adaptive immune system, and I'm just totally generalizing, is tr-... you know, is, is also working in the background and, you know, part of that, uh, an adaptive immune response is, you know, to produce antibodies. So you have memory B cells that are making antibodies that are specific to bind to different regions, ep- epitopes on the virus and neutralize them, prevent them from getting inside of the cell. Um, and so, uh, that adaptive immune system usually takes about seven days after you're exposed to the virus, right? Um, the problem is, uh, antibody-dependent enhancement. So sometimes... A neutralizing antibody is an antibody that can bind to the virus and neutralize it, stop it from entering your cell, right? So your... it's doing its job. But you sometimes make antibodies that are non-neutralizing or don't...... do as good of a job, they don't bind as tight or something. And, um, then you can have what's called antibody dependent enhancement, and this was, like, a big problem for R- the RSV vaccine. Um, back in the, you know, like, most kids get RSV. It's a respiratory tract infection that most kids get it by the time they're two. Uh, like, and there's no vaccine that, that are, that's given. Uh, back in the '60s there was, um, this antibody dependent enhancement happened in some clinical studies with toddlers, and some toddlers got really, really sick and a couple died. But what happens is, basically, the antibody binds to the... There's a couple things. The antibody binds to the virus and can basically sh- change its conformation and allow the virus to get into the cell better, so then you become, like, you know, you get, like, a higher viral load and then you don't have antibodies to neutralize it and it just, you know, it could be more, it could be, it could lead to death. Um, the other thing that happens is the antibody binds to the virus, doesn't neutralize it, but it, like, makes this crazy immune complex that, like, activates your immune system to just go haywire and it causes all sorts of pathology in... That's what happened with the RSV toddlers. So, there's a few viruses that this happens with, and unfortunately coronavirus is one. Like, this has been identified with the SARS-CoV-1, um, virus, and I think MERS as well, where, um, uh, it... So this is also a problem with vaccines. So, like, people, like, giving, giving the vaccine, people's immune response, um, some people can have that antibody dependent enhancement, and that's what was shown to happen with these, with the SARS-CoV-1. There was some non-human primate studies that, that did that, um, and also, uh, animal studies as well. So, you know, mon- the thing with monoclonal antibodies is they're a little more specific 'cause you know they neutralize and you're, like, growing them up, like, you've done all that test as opposed to just letting your immune system do its thing and then p- potentially, you know, you may have this, like, non-neutralizing antibody that, um, could cause problems. But that's kind of the concern. I kn- I know that the vaccine, people that are working on vaccines are working on them. It's like they're concerned, I mean, about that and completely trying to, like, figure that all out. So-

Joe Rogan 20:27 It's such a strange virus. It d- it d- it almost seems like there's multiple viruses.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 20:32 There are. Yeah, so I mean, there's... And it's funny that 'cause it's kind of connected to this antibody dependent enhancement, there's, there's been quite a few different, like, forms, like mutations, that have been identified, um, but two particular in that spike protein region. That's like an important region because antibodies bind there and because that's the region, like, that, you know, the virus uses to get into the cell. Um, and so, uh, there's been, there's been two, uh, major, like, um, strains that have been identified, and one of 'em... So it's in a, in the spike region and it's an aspartate to gly- glycine mutation, and basically, uh, in, in Asia and China, um, it, the, the predominate form is the, the aspartate, the, like, original, quote-unquote, form. Um, and then in Europe and also in North America, this other f- this other form, the glycine mutant, I- is predominant. And there's been studies that have shown, um, looking at, like, okay, looking in parts of Europe, different countries in Europe that have this predominant form, um, that they're basically, there's a higher mortality rate. But they didn't actually measure th- infected patients, so, you know, it's kinda like correlation. But, um, what's interesting is that there's, there's actually been a genetic link to this mu- this mutant. So, um, there's studies, there's been some large-scale degentics- genetic studies that have found that Asians, about 20% of Asians have a, a, a basically a l- a se- um, a nucleotide change in a ge- in a gene that encodes for a protease that's involved in this, you know, basically in allowing this virus to get into the cell, but that basically prevents them from having this mut- mutant that's predominant in Europe and also in New York, um, and in North America in general. Uh-

Joe Rogan 22:12 That's interesting because my friend, Michael, who got it, his mom who got it, who's in her 70s, is Asian, and she-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 22:19 That is-

Joe Rogan 22:20 She kicked it in a day.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 22:21 That is interesting. So there's something... So there, there... I wonder if she has that SNP. So we, w- we, we're, uh, our genetic report that we have, like, we- we've got one that's, like, a new viral report, it's a free one, where we're kind of, like, putting some of these interesting SNPs, which don't mean anything. I mean, like, you know, it's just information that, you know, is interesting. There's a lot of researchers out there trying to, like, figure out if genetics is involved in this. But the thing that's so interesting about that mutation is that, um, the, it's in that spike region and it's where the antibody binds and peop- and there's a, there's like a theory going around because that specific region, it's been shown in SARS-CoV-1 to cause antibody dependent enhancement. So there's a theory that potentially that mutation is causing peoples' immune system to hyper-activate and basically become more active and it can be, lead to a more severe COVID-19 illness. That's not been shown. Like, it's not been shown at all. So, um, but it's interesting, right? It's interesting how in Asia and China particularly, I mean, about 1% of the population, it's like less than 1% has the other mutation. The m- the glycine mutation, that's in New York, it's in, um, you know, in, in most of the United States, but, um, that, that in- less than 1% of the population in China has that form.

Joe Rogan 23:33 It's so weird. A- and Japan has a very low mortality rate, correct?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 23:37 Yeah. They do. Um, I know that that, the, I was mentioning that TB vaccine, that's one thing that they're investigating. I mean, there's all sorts of differences in handling the whole, you know, from the beginning, just how you, how you handle-

Joe Rogan 23:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 23:51 ... the virus. I mean, I, like, there's, there's too many factors to, like, say one thing, but, you know, there's, there's lots of, there's lots of possibilities and I think that, that, I think that eventually there's gonna be therapeutics that are, um, identified, you know, that m- multiple ones maybe, and I, I think vitamin D is gonna potentially play a role there. Um, but I mean, just like, things like remdesivir and, you know, monoclonal antibodies and then you eventually, like, uh, you know, a vaccine will, you know, eventually, you know, be, be available. But I think until that ti- uh, until that point, I do think that things will be identified that just k- kind of help us, like...... deal with this, like, better, you know?

Joe Rogan 24:33 (laughs) What is th- going on with blood types? W- One of the things we talked about earlier, y- you asked my blood type, and I, I said, "O positive."

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 24:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:39 Now, why, why is O positive better?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 24:41 Well... There's, um, there's been some data... And this was also with- s- identified with SARS-CoV-1, um, that people with type O blood, they, um, they make antibodies. They make type A antibodies, whereas people with type A blood, um, they make, um, antibodies against... like, they make an- a- against the B antigen. And so, um, the type A antibodies were identified. So, there's been studies looking at people with type O blood or type, um, type A blood, and also type B. In type O blood, there's, like, less, less frequency of getting COVID-19. So, um, as, as opposed to having a severe form, it's just, like, you're less likely to contract it, even.

Joe Rogan 25:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 25:27 Um, and it's thought because the type A antibodies that people with type O blood make, uh, neutralize the... They basically bind to that region, that spike region, and neutralize the antibody and prevent it from, the virus from entering the cell. So, that's... At least, that was the mechanism that was shown with SARS-CoV-1. So, it's thought, "Oh, well, the same... We're seeing the same, um, you know, pattern, where people with type O are protected from SARS-CoV-2, possibly that's, that's also why." But another really interesting thing is that people with type O blood, you've... We were also talking about these, like, blood clots. And like, I mean, there's all kinds of crazy things you read. I mean, I'm reading all these publications. It's just... And then the other thing is all these publications are being uploaded on, you know, before they're peer-reviewed, and I mean, some of them are just a mess.

Joe Rogan 26:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 26:14 And it's just... Anyways, but you know, you kinda just take it with a grain of salt. Um, where these clots are like, you know, there's clots in people that are healthy and young, certainly people that have severe cases, people like older people, people that are, um, preexisting conditions and stuff. And, um, the type O blood, people have lower levels of this von Willebrand factor, which basically is involved in clotting. And it's been shown that that von Willebrand factor also, um, is inv- like, is higher, it's higher in people with SARS-CoV-2. It was shown also to be that with SARS-CoV-1. And it's involved with clotting, so having lower levels may somehow even help protect against. That's a theory. It hasn't been shown. But, uh, what is known is that people with type O blood are, are less susceptible to contracting, um, COVID-19. That's, that's definitely known. Um, but I mean, I think there's so many things. There's just... There's so many factors that-

Joe Rogan 27:15 A lot of data that needs to be parsed out, right?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 27:17 For sure. I mean, a lot of data that needs to be parsed out, a lot of data that needs to be generated. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:22 (laughs)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 27:22 And, and, you know, we need higher quality data. We need, you know, you know, people to repeat stuff. I mean, like, look what's happened with this hydroxychloroquine stuff, right? I mean, I mean, it's just kind of a mess, where it, initially it seemed like it could be helpful, and, and then just more and more studies came out where it was not, not only not helpful, it was, you know, toxic. It was causing people to have dangerous arrhythmias and stuff.

Joe Rogan 27:49 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 27:49 Um, you know, so that's, that's kind of the, the reason to kind of be cautious when, when you have something new and a small, one small study, you know?

Joe Rogan 27:57 Th- It just seems like, in the beginning at least, they're trying to figure out what the correct treatment was for these people, as they were just showing up en masse in the emergency rooms, and they didn't really know. And doctors, uh, they varied in how they approached it. My friend, Michael, his doctor didn't put him on a ventilator. And he said, "If I put him on a ventilator, he's probably going to die."

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 28:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:17 Because he said, "His body's gonna stop working, 'cause it's, it's gonna let the ventilator do the breathing for him, and it's gonna give up." And what he was talking about, uh, after the fact, what Michael was talking about was how that is proven to be correct in New York, and that some monstrous number, like 80% of the people-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 28:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:36 ... that put on m- ventilators wind up dying.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 28:37 Not just New York. I, like, uh, I've had friends, uh, that are physicians that have, like, you know, in, uh, New Orleans, I mean, the same thing, where it's like e-... You know, uh, I... There was, uh, someone on my team. We were loo- we were doing some research on this, and I, and I didn't sort of dive into the whole thing, but he was, he was telling me that, um, ventilators do actually, like, cause more damage to the lungs. And like, like, he'd been reading some studies to, like, confirm that, and he was pretty certain that, that ventilators actually cause damage and actually could, uh, like, induce damage, where it's like-

Joe Rogan 29:09 It's hard.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:09 ... making it worse. So-

Joe Rogan 29:11 That's so horrible.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:11 But I don't know. I don't know all the specifics of that. All I know is that it, i- looking at the statistics, like, if you go on a ventilator, I mean, surely it seems like the outcome's not very... It doesn't seem like it's gonna be very good.

Joe Rogan 29:22 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:22 You know?

Joe Rogan 29:23 But it's hard to say is that the cause of it, or is it...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:26 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:26 You know?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:27 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:27 Is it just that they're so fucked up by the time they get on a ven- no- ventilator, they just wind up dying?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 29:31 Right. Well, here, like, the, the, there's been some really interesting data looking at, like, in the f- There's one in the Philippines, um, and Indonesia. Where else? In New Or- I think New Orleans as well. Um, they've looked at patients that have died and their vitamin D levels. And in b- And basically, like, in the Philippines, you know, people that, for like, every standard deviation increase in vitamin D levels, serum vitamin D levels, you know, the people had like an 8%, or were eight-fold, eight times less likely to have a severe form of COVID-19. And if they had... And they were 20 times less likely to have critical, like, criti- critical, um, form of COVID-19.

Joe Rogan 30:13 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 30:14 Um, in the f- in the... So, that was the Philippines. In the, Indonesia was a really interesting study where, like, they measured vitamin D, and this was measured in the patients. There's been some vitamin D studies also where they're, like, looking at, you know, countries that have been affected the worst, and they all, like, have low vitamin D, and it's like, okay. Well, anyways, that's correlation, but... Well, so is this, but, um, a little, it's a little stronger data. The, in the, in Indonesia, um-... patients that died, 90, ab- almost 100%, it was like 98 point something percent of patients that died with COVID-19 were vitamin D deficient. 4% of patients that died from COVID-19 were vitamin D suffici- or s- 4%, only 4%, uh, were fi- vitamin D sufficient. So basically, they were all vitamin D deficient, all the ones that are dying.

Joe Rogan 31:03 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:04 Crazy, right? And like New Orleans had some craz- crazy number.

Joe Rogan 31:06 And what would be the mechanism that would cause that?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:08 So, I think there's... All right. Can we t- can we get into vitamin D? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:11 Please do.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:12 It's a big... I really think-

Joe Rogan 31:13 Well, because of you, I take, uh, 5,000 IUs a day.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:18 Awesome. Um, right now I'm taking 5,000 IUs a day.

Joe Rogan 31:20 Mm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:21 Um, you know, 70% of the US population has insufficient vitamin D levels, which is considered less than, um, blood levels less than 30 milligrams, nanograms per milliliter. Um-

Joe Rogan 31:32 And this is something that you c- your body can generate naturally if you're exposed to the sun on a daily basis.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:36 Yes.

Joe Rogan 31:37 That's the best way to get it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:38 It is. But the problem is, is that we don't go outside anymore. And, you know-

Joe Rogan 31:44 Especially now-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:44 Yeah. Especially now.

Joe Rogan 31:45 ... with this lockdown.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:46 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 31:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:47 Uh, now more than ever. But even-

Joe Rogan 31:48 And what a terrible recipe, right? Y- y- vitamin D deficiency is what makes it worse. And then you're staying inside, so you're not getting any vitamin D.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:55 Yeah. You're becoming even more deficient. You know?

Joe Rogan 31:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 31:58 Like thir- like someone, like 28% of the US population is actually deficient, like less than 20 nanograms per mil. You know, like that's defined deficiency. So, there's a lot of people in the United States. Um, as you mentioned, you make it from the sun, so particularly UVB radiation. There's a reason why I wanna talk about this. Uh, you make it from UVB radiation exposure. You know, basically your s- it's made in the skin. And, um, but, you know, there's certain times of the year, depending on where you live, in a more northern latitude where that UVB isn't even hitting the atmosphere-

Joe Rogan 32:27 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 32:27 ... so you're not making vitamin D. Also, if you have darker skin, melanin protects you, like the whole... You know, people with darker skin, people, um, from maybe Africa or India or South Asia, they're more equatorial regions. They're closer, you know, closer to, to, to, to the equator, and there's more UVB radiation throughout the year. And so, as a protective mechanism to not get burned, you have melanin, which protects you, right? The problem is, is that melanin also blocks your, your ability to produce vitamin D. But if you're out in the sun all the time, you know, in a place where you're getting UVB radiation, it's not a problem.

Joe Rogan 33:05 Well, this is the very reason why people in places like Scotland and England have such pale skin-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:10 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 33:11 ... because it's cloudy all the time. So your body sort of develops its own ability to absorb more vitamin D.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:16 Exactly. So what happens when you take some... What, what happens when you take a person from, from South Asia, from India, from Africa, and you put them in Sweden or in Minnesota or in the UK, and a r- a place where UVB radiation doesn't hit most of the year, and you don't give them a supplement? What happens is they become severely vitamin D deficient.

Joe Rogan 33:37 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:37 Severely. And what happens when you take... I mean, I mean you can throw this on the, on... You can flip, flip this over and say, okay, what happens when you take the guy from the UK, the Brit, and put him in Australia, like without any sunscreen or without a hat or no-

Joe Rogan 33:49 They get cancer. Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:49 They're gonna... Yeah. So I mean-

Joe Rogan 33:51 Do you think that this could be a factor in why so many African Americans are getting hit so hard?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:55 Yes. So here's the thing.

Joe Rogan 33:56 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 33:57 So African Americans are... There's lots of... All right. (laughs) African Americans are, are, are... In, in, in the U.S., United States, there's been studies, um, African Americans are severely deficient. They're 28 times more deficient in vitamin D than, than Caucasians.

Joe Rogan 34:11 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 34:12 Yeah. And it's, it's, it's because, it's because they have darker skin. And, you know, if-

Joe Rogan 34:16 And they're not getting enough sun.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 34:18 They're not getting enough sun because people stay inside more. People stay inside.

Joe Rogan 34:22 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 34:22 You know, it's not, it's not like the old days when we were out hunter-gatherer and out in the sun all the time.

Joe Rogan 34:27 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 34:27 We're in our, like, we're inside all the time. We're in school, we're, we're, we're at work, in our office, in our cubicle. Um, so the CDC... You know, obviously there's been studies showing that African Americans are more hit, but they didn't really correct for tons of like other factors. 'Cause socioeconomic status is important. Uh, he- other health factors, you know. And, um, but there was a big study just released not long ago from, from like the National Office of Statistics in Britain or something like that. I don't know what their official name was, but they released, um, some statistics from England and Wales. And the, um... I don't know what the correct name to say. I mean, the, the, the Blacks there basically living in England and in Wales are four times more likely to die of COVID-19 than, than whites.

Joe Rogan 35:14 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 35:14 When they, when they adjusted all that data for socioeconomic status and for other health factors, they were two times more likely to die. So clearly, socioeconomic status and other health factors are playing a role, but there's something else unidentified, and I think it's vitamin D. I think that... You know, so, you know, the vitamin D, like it hasn't... Look, vitamin D, I'm not saying that vitamin D is gonna prevent you from getting COVID-19 or it's a treatment, although I am involved in a, a clinical study where we're gonna be testing, a very small open arm study we can talk about. But, you know, I'm not a, a physician, I'm not a medical doctor. I've never intubated anyone. Uh, so don't think I'm saying that. I don't want people to think I'm saying it's a treatment. I just wanna... It's a hypothesis that needs to be tested. And thankfully there are clinical trials, randomized control trials that are now ongoing and there are some that are recruiting. But-

Joe Rogan 36:01 But just the statistics that you've already listed about vitamin D and the people that have had COVID-19, those are insane.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 36:08 It's insane. And also in Sweden, there's a huge population of Somalis that have migrated to Sweden. And they have been identified as being severely vitamin D deficient because a lot of the Somalis have al- they also like, like autism rates are really high there. And there's this link between... I published a link also between vitamin D and autism. But, so there's been studies looking at vitamin D levels in the Somali population. I mean, they are so deficient because you're taking s- again, you're taking someone who's supposed to be... who's, you know, evolved to be getting a lot of sun, um, but not burn from it, and then, and then putting 'em in a place where they, they can't get any vitamin D from the sun. And if they don't get a supplement-... like, they're gonna be deficient-

Joe Rogan 36:51 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 36:51 ... you know? And they're so much more likely... Th- they're like... It- it's, it's wreaking havoc in Sweden on the Somali population.

Joe Rogan 36:56 That is so logical.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 36:58 Yeah. It's, it's, it... And then, okay-

Joe Rogan 37:00 Number-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 37:00 ... so elderly, elderly are, like, insanely more deficient. I forgot the exact number. Obese also, obese people are like three times more likely to be di- vitamin D deficient in the United States.

Joe Rogan 37:10 Why is that?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 37:11 Because vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin.

Joe Rogan 37:13 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 37:13 And it's less... It's, it's been shown to be 50% less bioavailable. So you have to re-... After you make it in your skin, it's stored in fat and, you know, it's released when, you know, basically into the bloodstream and then it can... gets converted into a hormone. This hormone regulates 5%, more than 5% of the human protein-encoded human genome. That's a lot of g-... That's a wh-... It's a hormone. Like, can you imagine just walking around without testosterone? You're a man, that's a hormone. I mean, like... 'Cause there's a lot of people that are deficient in vitamin D and this... It's a steroid hormone, it gets converted into a hormone.

Joe Rogan 37:46 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 37:46 Like, this isn't just a vitamin, you know? It, it's important, it's really important. Um, so I went off on a tangent, but anyways, uh...

Joe Rogan 37:56 What... Can I ask you this while we're off on this tangent?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 37:59 Yes.

Joe Rogan 37:59 What is ha-... When you s-... What is happening to people when they are vitamin D? Like, what's happening in the, uh, vitamin D deficient, what is happening in the body that's causing their immune system... this, this hormone deficiency, not having this vitamin D, whether it's through sun exposure or diet-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 38:14 S- s-... So there's lots of things. I mean, it plays a cr-... There's vitamin D receptors on, like, your immune cells and, and the reason for that is because when the hormone, vitamin D hormone binds to the receptor, it activates all these genes and that... The genes do stuff that are, you know, regulate immune function. You know, there's, there are studies that have shown people... and I love these studies because, because they basically take away people's complaints about... You know, there's lots of epidemiological studies showing that low vitamin D is associated with disease X, Y, or Z. And everyone's like, "Well, you know, they're out in the s-... They're not in the sun as much, so they're not as healthy, they're not as physically active, they're not..." Whatever, even though k-... those confounding factors are usually corrected for. It's all, at the end of the day, it's a, it's an association, right? And everyone's like, "Correlation's not causation." Which is true, but sometimes you gotta, like, look at the full body of data, you know? Um, there are genetic polymorphisms, so, so there are people that have variations in genes that cause them to genetically have lower vitamin D. And so this, this is called Mendelian randomization, when you can take a person that's... that has a genetically... like, it's g-... they're genetically low vitamin D, so you're not categorizing them based on their vitamin D levels, you're categorizing them based on their gene, and those people are more likely to die from respiratory infections just based on that gene alone. So-

Joe Rogan 39:32 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 39:33 Yeah, that gene that... it's known to lower... It lowers vitamin D, it leads to lower vitamin D levels. And so, like, those people are more likely to die from respiratory infections than people that don't have that, which... It's a great way of kind of randomizing people by their genes as opposed to doing a randomized control trial. Those have been done as well. There was a study that was over 25 randomized control trials, people that were given a vitamin D supplement, varying doses, either weekly or daily, monthly didn't work. Um, the, uh, the people with low baseline vitamin D levels, so people that were, like, deficient, they were 50% less likely to have a respiratory tract infection if they were taking the vitamin D supplement. Over 50%, actually. And people that had already normal levels still had a protective effect, they were still 10% less likely. So even people that were already considered normal, taking a vita- vitamin D supplement helped prevent the respiratory tract infections.

Joe Rogan 40:24 Can you take too much vitamin D?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 40:25 Yes, you can. You can. So-

Joe Rogan 40:27 Like, what's too much?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 40:28 So, right. So the, the upper, the tolerable upper intake has been set by, um, the Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine to be 4,000 IUs a day. Um, but there's been studies that have shown that, um, you can... I mean, p-... People that have taken, you know, 10,000 IUs a day for, for multiple years haven't had any hypercalcemia or had, you know, um, problems, but too much vitamin D can be toxic. It's not good to, to take that. Um, i- it's best to, like, get a vitamin D blood test and I think that... Personally, um, there has been a trend, so people that have blood levels higher than 60 may have just a little bit higher calcium level, but not much, not, like... it's not, like, anything to be hugely concerned about. But there are studies also showing that either vitamin K1... So there's been, uh, a meta-analysis looking at, of, uh, 12 different studies, I think, where vitamin K1 or vitamin K2 were given, and both of those improved bone mineral density and prevented any hypercalcemia. 'Cause when you take vitamin D, you absorb calcium better, like something crazy, like 40% more dietary calcium is being absorbed.

Joe Rogan 41:38 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 41:38 So, so the problem is, is that calcium can easily form a precipitate in, in, in general, and particularly when phosphorus is around. And phosphorous is another thing vitamin D does increase the absorption of. Um, but again, like I said, you know, it's re-... Like, it's really hard to find any studies where vitamin D is causing, you know, hypercalcemia unless it's, like, really, really high dose for, for a while. Um, I personally think taking the, the vitamin K... And what's interesting about the vitamin K1 versus vitamin K2 with- without going into too much of a tangent is basically, um, the, the vitamin K1, normally it goes to your liver and it's involved in blood coagulation, but when there's enough vitamin K1 around, it stays in the periphery and it moves calcium, periphery being the bloodstream, it moves calcium out of the bloodstream and takes it to places where it's supposed to go, like the bones and the muscle. Um, vitamin K2 usually stays around in the periphery, n-... do- doesn't really go to the liver, so it usually... that's usually what it's just doing is, you know, moving calcium out and bringing it to the bones. And so I take, uh... I actually have K1 in my multi that I take, but I also take a K2 supplement, MK4. I take it, like, a couple of times a week.

Joe Rogan 42:47 And what, what dose are you taking for K1?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 42:48 I... Well, the K1's in my multi, so I don't... K-... Vitamin K1 is, um, really, it's found in dark leafy greens, so I get a lot of those as well, I get a lot, so I- I'm getting a lot of K1. Um-Vitamin K2 is not as- it's not as readily found in, like, the Western... I mean, it's like the- the food that's highest in it is that fermented soybean natto.

Joe Rogan 43:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 43:09 Um, but it's, like, small quantities in, like, cheese.

Joe Rogan 43:11 Do you ever get concerned from the high volume of leafy greens? Do you ever get concerned of oxalates or getting kidney stones or anything along- along those lines?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 43:20 No.

Joe Rogan 43:20 No?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 43:20 I- I- I... Like, the few studies that I've seen is in people that are, like, doing insane juicing-

Joe Rogan 43:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 43:26 ... and they're already, like, messed up, you know, so I- I'm not concerned at all. Like, even, like, the oxalates, so oxalates actually... I don't wanna go into this, but... (laughs) So yeah, no, I don't concer- concerned. I want... The vitamin D thing is so important to me.

Joe Rogan 43:39 Okay.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 43:39 Like, the- the, um... The reason, there's a big reason I think that vitamin D is so important. Um, it's for the lung function and the respiratory func- function. But what's really interesting is that, you know, the- the very receptor that this SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to to gain entry into the cell, it's called ACE2, um, that very receptor plays a really important role in preventing lung damage and- and basically- and preventing acute lung injury, preventing acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS. And what's been shown with co- um, SARS-CoV-1 is that... 'Cause SARS-CoV-1 also binds to that receptor, ACE2 it's called, and it... That's how it gets into the cell, just like the SARS-CoV-2. When- when it binds to the receptor, it, like, it attaches and, like, through this, like, weird endocytosis mechanism, it takes the receptor in and decreases the receptor, what's called downregulates. Downregulates the receptors so you end up having less ACE2, which causes, like, d- can cause severe lung injury, not having the ACE2. It plays a big role in protecting. That's been shown in multiple studies. Like, so the SARS-CoV-1 virus does that. It's thought the SARS-CoV-2 also does it 'cause it goes through the same- enters through the same receptor. Um, and it's been shown that, like, if you, for example, if you give mice, um, lipo polysaccharide or something that's gonna cause lung injury and then you give them vitamin D... So the lung injury itself also causes the ACE2 receptor to decrease. And it... So i- it's like this vicious cycle of, like, making the damage worse. But if you give mice vitamin D before that happens, the ACE2 receptor increases and it protects them from the lung injury.

Joe Rogan 45:18 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 45:19 But you give the vitamin D to control mice that don't have the lung injury, it doesn't do anything to the ACE2 receptor levels. So it's not like full stop... It's not like... You know, drugs, the way drugs are designed is they, like, they target a certain molecule and they, boom, they, like, do their thing. They either increase it or decrease it. A lot of times with, like, hormones, you know, vitamins, things like that, they're h- they- they maintain homeostasis.

Joe Rogan 45:42 Mm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 45:42 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 45:43 Yes.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 45:43 Like, so when- when shit goes wrong, they fix it. They're not just like, boom, full stop, gonna, like, increase something when everything's normal.

Joe Rogan 45:52 Mm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 45:52 So... And that's important because there have been some concern about taking vitamin D increasing the ACE2 receptor. And there's another study that was with hypertensive rats where the hypertension caused ACE2 to go down and that, like, makes lung... It makes all sorts of problems. It also causes, like, kidney problems and all sorts of things, right? Um, but- but the vitamin D increased the ACE2, but only in the hypertensive rats, not in the normal control rats again.

Joe Rogan 46:16 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 46:17 So, you know... And then there was another study that was, like, some other messed up diabetic animal model where the vitamin D actually, um, didn't increase the ACE2 receptor, but it increased what's called soluble ACE2, which is in, like... It's in the periphery, and that actually potentially could bind SARS-CoV-2 virus and prevent it from... It's like sequestering it, preventing it from entering the cell. That's actually being explored as a potential therapeutic. So, m- the bottom line here is that sometimes you'll hear this ACE2 receptor and that's how the virus gets in and it's like, "I don't want that. I don't want... I want less of that 'cause that's how the virus gets in." But, like... Like, biology is always way more complicated than just a simple taking it out of a big p- picture, right?

Joe Rogan 47:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 47:00 You know, so, like, the ACE2 receptor, the ACE2 is part of the renin-angiotensin sym- system. It plays a huge role in inflammation. It's also like when you- when you decrease ACE2 all these signal- signaling cascades happen and it- it's like... ACE2 is important for producing proinflammatory cytokines at the end of the day without getting into all the stuff, you know, specifics. So, it causes massive inflammation to have a decrease. It- it- it basically causes acute lung injury. It exacerbates it. I mean, it's crazy. So, um, I really... I just... I- I really... Could you imagine if vitamin D really did help? Like, if it... If there was something that could be given along with the other stuff, remdesivir, whatever, whatever it's gonna be, the stuff that we identify, but like, vitamin D is so- so cheap, it's so easy, and so many people are deficient and insufficient, you know? Like... So yes, as you mentioned, there is... You know, you don't wanna take too much vitamin D. You don't wanna, like, you know, overdose on it. But I think in the short term, uh, you know, particularly, like, in the short term and- and particularly in patient, par- people that have already been infected, you know, it may be wise to- to- to try giving your patient, like, if you're a physician, um, you know, dealing with this, it may- it may be wise to try and- and see their vitamin D levels and perhaps give them some, you know?

Joe Rogan 48:18 Is this being explored pub- I mean, is this something that people are talking about publicly? 'Cause I... All I'm hearing is drugs and possible drug remedies, potential vaccine that they're working on in the future. I'm not hearing anything about methods, nutrition that boosts your immune system. This is one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk to you right now.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 48:39 Yeah, let's definitely talk more. There are... Yes, it is. So there are clinical studies, unfortunately not a ton of them in the United States, that are looking, randomized control trials, looking at vitamin D, the effects of vitamin D on already, you know, patients with COVID-19. Which what would be great is, like, giving them to, like, first responders or healthcare workers-

Joe Rogan 48:59 Yes.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 48:59 ... and seeing, like, how does it...... how does it... what does- what role does it play in prevention? 'Cause that's really the easiest thing, right? Um, I'm involved... a- a friend of mine, Dr. Eric Gordon, he, he's, um, put together... so I kind of, with, um, his help, I've helped him design a- a- a open arm trial, very small, 40 patients, where we're, um... where he is going to be giving them 50,000 IUs every five days of vitamin D. So it's like a weekly dose, um, because a lot of times these people are severely deficient and so you wanna give them a higher dose, you know. And, and for, you know, doing... doing 50,000 IUs weekly isn't, you know, something that's necessarily gonna be toxic or anything like that. Um, and then we're gonna... you know, we're doing some other things, vitamin C, um, three grams, uh, three times a day, and then, um, vitamin B1. We could talk about that, thiamine as well. But, so yeah, there are... I think there's, like, open label trial-... open label trials are just kind of a start. It's like if you, if you see something... plus we're doing, like, kitchen sink, right? We got this, this, and this, and this. So I think vitamin D really is the... is the star, you know? I think that e- e-... potentially, you know, I think it really should be explored. Um, I think it has huge potential. It has to be shown. Like, this isn't something that people can just, you know, take it home and think, "I'm protected." Like, that is not the case. We don't know that. You know, there has... there's no data f- showing that. But I think it has huge potential, um, you know? So-

Joe Rogan 50:20 How would one do a randomized control study on vitamin D in people that have COVID-19?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:27 So-

Joe Rogan 50:27 Like, it seems like-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:28 Well, they're gonna do it-

Joe Rogan 50:29 ... it would be a real issue.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:29 ... in addition to... they're gonna-

Joe Rogan 50:30 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:30 ... in addition to standard of care.

Joe Rogan 50:32 Okay.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:32 So it's basically whatever the standard of care is, and that's, that's what, you know, is happening at the, the Hunterdon Hospital in, in New Jersey. But-

Joe Rogan 50:38 But as you said, it seems like what's really critical is getting it to people before they get it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:43 Yeah. I would love to see that (laughs) study done.

Joe Rogan 50:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:46 If anyone can do that study, amazing. (laughs) That would be... 'cause that would be like, to me-

Joe Rogan 50:53 Get i- get it to nurses, get it to first responders-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:55 ... EMT workers.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:56 Yeah. Get... just... or even-

Joe Rogan 50:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:56 ... just get the information out there-

Joe Rogan 50:58 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 50:58 ... and, and have nurs- or nurses and first responders take it. I mean, you know, vitamin D is something, again, like, 70% of the US population has insufficient levels. You know, it's-

Joe Rogan 51:08 That is such a crazy number.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:09 It is. And it's generally safe to take, like, like, 4,000 IUs a day. It is-

Joe Rogan 51:13 But you're taking five.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:14 I am, but 4,000's the, uh, the to-... the, the... what they, they indicated as the tolerable upper intake.

Joe Rogan 51:20 So why do you take five?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:21 I'm just taking 5,000 right now because that's, like, the... I could buy the five th-... (laughs) It was like I didn't wanna take two pills of the 2,000.

Joe Rogan 51:27 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:28 Well, that's me too. I got one pill, it's 5,000.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:30 Right. And-

Joe Rogan 51:31 I'm like, "Well..."

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 51:32 So I had my me-... my levels measured literally, like I w-... I d-... went to la-... to Quest, um, Qu- Quest Labs, like, a month before all this lockdown happened. So I got my data back pretty, pretty recent, and I still hover around 50 nanograms per ml, even though before I was taking 4,000. It didn't... generally speaking, 1,000 IUs will raise your blood levels by about five n- nanograms per ml. And there are people with different variations in genes that a-... are related to vitamin D metabolism where they have lower levels and they need a higher dose.

Joe Rogan 52:03 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 52:03 The only way you're gonna know that is by, of course, measuring your vitamin D levels multiple times and then potentially even doing, like, a, a genetic analysis, you know, as well. But you have to measure your levels. Like, that's the only way to know. Um, of course right now it's like you can't go to a lab. (laughs) It's, like, hard to do any of that.

Joe Rogan 52:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 52:19 I mean, the, the things that are, like, normally-

Joe Rogan 52:21 Ironic. Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 52:23 Yeah. But-

Joe Rogan 52:23 The... right now when you need it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 52:24 But the vitamin D, I mean, I'm just so, like... I just... I have so much... I have high hopes for it, you know? And maybe, maybe I'm a bit of a enthusiast with it, you know? I do... like, I've studied vitamin D so much I've got two publications on it. I certainly, like, you know... so, so you d-... you know, there... take that with a grain of salt as well.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Well, um-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 52:42 But I just think the data's strong. I really think the data's... I think it's mounting data, and I think that eventually something will come out and it's gonna... just like the randomized control trials, uh, showing that it protects against respiratory tract infections. Of course everyone wants randomized control trials. Like, no one wants to believe anything until it's a randomized control trial. (laughs) So-

Joe Rogan 53:00 Yeah. I'm just... I'm amazed that... the numbers of people that are deficient. It's so stunning. And when you, you point out the number of people that are deficient that actually wind up having severe COVID-19 problems-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:11 Right. Yeah. I know.

Joe Rogan 53:12 It's crazy.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:13 It's stunning, like s- some, some of those numbers.

Joe Rogan 53:14 It's like the missing link. It's like it's right there.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:17 I think that's a really good hypothesis. I do.

Joe Rogan 53:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:19 I think it's a really good hypothesis. I wanna believe it because it's easy, it's safe, and I think people need vitamin D anyways. I mean-

Joe Rogan 53:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:28 ... you know? So, so of course I wanna believe it, you know. Um, but, like... oh, there was this interesting study where African Americans who are very deficient in vitamin D, they were given a vitamin D supplement for like a month, and it, it decreased their epigenetic age by, like, two years. I mean-

Joe Rogan 53:47 Whoa.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:47 Yeah. So that's a, a marker of-

Joe Rogan 53:48 For a month?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:49 Something like a month I think. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:51 In a month they decreased their epigenetic age by two years?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:54 I... okay, don't hold me to the month. May-... give me some month or two months, (laughs) but I think it was a month. Most-

Joe Rogan 53:58 That's-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 53:58 Most of these medical studies-

Joe Rogan 53:59 Even if it's three months, that's crazy.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:00 Most of these studies are about a month. Yeah. So it... yeah, by 1.8 years.

Joe Rogan 54:04 So wha-... it's in-... indicative of their suffering from this vitamin D deficiency. This alleviates that suffering-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:10 It's-

Joe Rogan 54:10 ... and it puts the body in homeostasis.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:12 It's a hormone.

Joe Rogan 54:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:13 It's a hormone. It's changing 5% of the human genome. That's a lot.

Joe Rogan 54:18 That's a lot.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:18 That's a lot. Yeah. I mean-

Joe Rogan 54:20 That's a crazy number when you think about it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:22 It is. And people-

Joe Rogan 54:22 One vitamin doing that?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:22 It's not... it's not just a vitamin though.

Joe Rogan 54:24 Right. Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:25 A fucking hormone.

Joe Rogan 54:26 Super vitamin.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:27 Can you imagine? It's like-

Joe Rogan 54:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:28 ... what happens when you go into menopause? Well, you're not making your estrogen. I mean, stuff goes wrong. I mean, it's a hormone. Like, estro-... estrogen's a hormone.

Joe Rogan 54:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:35 You know? Testosterone's a hormone.

Joe Rogan 54:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:37 It's a hormone, you know? It's-

Joe Rogan 54:39 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:39 ... it's, it's, it's important. So, you know-

Joe Rogan 54:43 So that's the... if you have... the Dr. Rhonda Patrick pyramid of supplementation for p- preventative symptoms of COVID-19, or preventative measures dealing with COVID-19, that's your base.... that's number one.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 54:59 Um, I take vitamin D. I certainly don't know if it's gonna prevent COVID-19, but-

Joe Rogan 55:02 No, I'm not saying that.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:02 ... I'm hoping it does. Yes.

Joe Rogan 55:03 I'm not saying that.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:04 I take it hoping it will. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:05 Yes. But I'm not even saying preventative. I mean, like-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:07 Yes.

Joe Rogan 55:07 ... keeping your body healthy if you get COVID-19.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:09 (clears throat) Totally. I, I mean, my mom...

Joe Rogan 55:11 That's the f- that's the foundation.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:11 I've got my mom on it, I've got my dad, I've got my whole family, everyone's on the, the routine.

Joe Rogan 55:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:14 You know, that vitamin D is, like, the most important.

Joe Rogan 55:16 So, that's the foundation, is vitamin D?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:18 F- right now, yeah. I mean, it's, it... I'm always trying to get them to have that. But, like, it's easier to convince when people are scared. It... People are more likely to make change when... Like...

Joe Rogan 55:28 Yes.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:28 ... you can't, like... If something... They have to be motivated to make the change themself.

Joe Rogan 55:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:32 It just... Otherwise, it doesn't work, you know?

Joe Rogan 55:33 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:34 So, I think that, in this case, um, people are motivated, espe- especially people in my parents' generation that are older, because they're, they're more scared. They're more scared that they could be affected by a severe, you know, case of this, right?

Joe Rogan 55:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 55:48 So, so I think that's the... certainly, m- you know, the issue. Um, yeah. I, I mentioned I'm drinking my vitamin C water. Um, it's funny because I've probably got, like, a thousand questions about vitamin C (laughs) in the past month to... month and a half, or whatever. Um, and I... S- we kind of, like, my team and I just dove in and put together an article, released a podcast on it, uh, a video where it would just... kind of covered everything. I mean, I can't believe how many studies are right on vitamin... 190 references in our article, the 28-page article on, on our website. Um, but vitamin C is interesting, too. I mean, I don't... I certainly... Th- the interesting thing about vitamin C is, you know, there, there, there's oral and then there's intravenous vitamin C. And the intravenous vitamin C is what's, what's... seems to be really relevant right now. Um, but, uh, I think the most interesting thing that I learned really had to do with the, the pharmacokinetics, which is basically, like, how much vitamin C raises your plasma levels and, like, is, you know, is there a, a saturation point where you can eat, you know, 20 grams of vitamin C but still only get to this certain point, you know? And then, versus what you do if you, like... in your... you know, inject it into your veins, right? Intravenously. So, um, what's interesting is that most people that are just, like, eating... Let's say that people are just eating, like, five... somewhere between five to nine servings of vegetables or fruits a day. Those people have anywhere between, like, 70 to 80 micromole, micromoles of vitamin C, like, per liter. So, it's micromoles per liter, um, in their blood. If you take, like, a 200 milligram supplement, you only raise your levels to, like, 90. So, it's not much over that, like, baseline. Most, most people that aren't eating that many, that cert- many servings probably have around 50, which is... can... still considered normal. Uh, 50 micromoles, or micromolar. Um, and then what's interesting is that, like... But those levels you take, if you take 200, 200 milligrams, it's... that doesn't do much. If you take a gram, it can raise you up to, like, 130 or something. If you take three grams, it can raise you to 220, and that's, like, the maximum level you can get from oral supplementation. 220 micromoles. That's big... That's a big difference, 220 versus, like, 50. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:12 So, three grams?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 58:14 Three grams. But here's the other interesting thing is that if you don't take it multiple times throughout the day, if you only take it once, you'll peak at around five hours after. I think I... There's, like, a really nice graph on, on my website, on the topic page, that shows this. Like, you'll peak, like, five, five hours after, but then you go down steadily and over 24 hours, you're back to normal. Your baseline. But if you take it, like, you know, four times a day, you can stay at 220, th- like...

Joe Rogan 58:42 Mm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 58:42 ... all... the whole time. And, and the reason that's important is because a lot of studies looking at oral vitamin C consumption and, like, for ex- for instance, the common cold, incidence of the common cold, really depend... Like, there's huge variations in the results, and it all really seems to come down to dose. Like, it really does. And when you know the dose and how that's changing your blood levels, like if you're only taking 200 milligrams, which some studies are doing, it's barely doing anything over your baseline, you know? So, um, I found that really interesting. And then the intravenous vitamin C, you can, you can m- you can ma-... I mean, so far, like, the maximum I've seen measured is, like, 70 times that. Your blood can get 70 times 200. So yeah, so it's like-

Joe Rogan 59:23 Wow.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 59:23 ... 18,000 or 17,000 or something like that.

Joe Rogan 59:26 So, IV is far more effective?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 59:28 Oh, it, it totally overcomes all those, like, saturatable mechanisms. It's... And it's not only more effective, it's a completely different game-

Joe Rogan 59:37 So when-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 59:38 ... because-

Joe Rogan 59:38 What... Can I pause you there?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 59:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:39 What, what dose do you recommend for, uh, intravenous vitamin C?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 59:44 Hmm. Yeah, for inter-... Jamie, um, can you pull up foundmyfitness.com? And there's a vitamin C topic page, so that way I can answer that question better. 'Cause there's a... just pull... there's a graph. If you just, like, scroll to the graph, there's, like, a graph.

Joe Rogan 59:55 And all this is on your website, we should tell everybody. Foundmyfitness.com. Um, vitamin C, oral...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:01 Oh, that's the episode page.

Joe Rogan 1:00:02 ... intravenous-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:02 That's the podcast, but scroll back up to the, to the main home... Yeah. So, Topics. Click on Topics. There we go. Vitamin C is somewhere at the bottom. There we go.

Joe Rogan 1:00:13 All right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:14 Okay. Sc- there's a... just, just look for the figure. Scroll, you'll see it. Okay, great, there it goes. Is there any way you can make that... Yeah. The bottom one is the one I wanna see. That's the intravenous. Okay, so there we go. So, this is intravenous dose. So, you can... I... T- you wanna get at least 10 grams. So, you can see 10 grams is like...

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 And 10 grams is 10,000 milligrams?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:36 Yeah. 10 grams is 10,000 milligrams. So that's, that's about 10 grams. That's what I've done in the past. Um, but what's interesting is when you get above... Most-

Joe Rogan 1:00:45 Oh, you... Got us with the pop-up.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 (laughs)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:48 Newsletter... My newsletter is great. I mean, I, I-

Joe Rogan 1:00:50 I'm sure it's amazing.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:50 I do lots of announcements there as the... Like...

Joe Rogan 1:00:52 (laughs)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:52 I give commentary, you know, stuff I'm scared to, like, publish on the website, 'cause I don't wanna hear all the crap.

Joe Rogan 1:00:56 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:00:56 But anyways, um...

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Like, what are you scared of hearing about-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:01:00 Oh. Oh, no, I'm just, like... You know, there's... I'm not scared. I guess that's the wrong word. I just don't wanna deal with it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:01:06 You know? That's, that's the thing. I just don't wanna deal with it. Um, the intravenous vitamin C is a completely different game because it literally generates hydrogen peroxide. Like, when you get, like, doses above... You know, when you start to max out over that, you know, plasma level, um, 220 micromole, the, the vitamin C itself... So, vitamin C kind of cycles between being, uh, oxidized and reduced. It's called dehydroascorbic acid, dehydroascorbate, and then ascorbic acid or ascorbate. Dehydroascorbic acid is the oxidized form, and, um, hydrogen peroxide's generated, which is really interesting because it's one of the mechanisms by which, um, at least it's thought, that intravenous vitamin C kills cancer cells. Um, it also has been shown to, like, um, kill viruses and stuff in, in a variety of different studies. But that's interesting because your neutrophils... Your neutrophils generate hydrogen peroxide, so the, the intravenous vitamin C is, like, generating hydrogen peroxide. At the same time, it's also, um, acting as an antioxidant for, uh, for your own neutrophils, and that's been shown to people, um, y- you know, in clinical studies. But also, it's been shown that the hydrogen peroxide does not damage the normal cells, like normal h-... In northe-... Normal, healthy people, um, given intravenous vitamin C, it's generating hydrogen peroxide, but there's no oxidative damage happening in people's, like, lymphocytes and stuff. So, it's not, like, damaging your own cells.

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 And w-... How often would you do this if you could, uh, have your-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:02:34 Well, in study, the studies have... You know, it depends on, on what virus you're looking at, like, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 But I mean, for you personally, for just, for health benefits-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:02:41 I, I was-

Joe Rogan 1:02:41 ... how often would you take it? If you just had access to it every day, how often would you take intravenous vitamin C?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:02:47 I... You know, it's something... Because if you, if you look at the graph, it's kind of a trans-... Intravenous vitamin C is transient, so it's like, it's having... It's not something that, like, necessarily needs to be done all the time. It's something... Like, I was, I was interested in doing it. Like, my mom was... My mom had just gotten sick and, um, like, common cold, you know, she had, like, a runny nose and stuff. And so, I took her. We went to get the, the IV C, and they did... It was 10, 10 grams that we did. And, um, I took it 'cause I was like, "Well, she's sick, and I've been around her and, like, I don't wanna get sick." So, you know, I thought, "Why not try it?" And, um, you know, so, so... You know, the intravenous vitamin C maybe, maybe there's, like, a, a reason to do it, but it's not something that I'm, I'm certain that p- people need to do on a, a daily basis. It's different than, like, vitamin C, you know, normal vitamin C, you do need. You need to get it from your diet. It's important. Like, it's important for normal immune cells, um, your normal immune function. That's been shown. Um, but I, but I don't-

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 Do you believe it's... I'm sorry to interrupt you, but do you believe it's important to take it orally as well as IV?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:03:49 Hmm. Well, the IV is, is... It, it's, it's totally... The IV is totally different. Um, the IV's really being used as a therapeutic treatment. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's a therapeutic treatment more, you know, the, the, the IV C, where it's been shown to help with, like, for example, it's, it's... At least in S-... The hospitals in San Diego, it's routinely used for sepsis. Um, like, friends of mine, you know, use it, use it for treating sepsis. And there's been large randomized control trials showing that it dramatically reduces mortality with sepsis. Um, so, like, that's a... And, and especially in combination with thiamine as well. Like, huge differences in, in mortal-... People dying from sepsis, which is obviously very relevant now, but it hasn't been shown. I mean, there are clinical studies that are, are ongoing right now, some in China and some in the United States, looking at IV C potentially to help treat, um, COVID-19-associated pneumonia. You know, the... It'll be interesting to see the data from those trials. Whether or not there's gonna be an effect, it's not known. But, um, the fact that it has been shown to, to treat... to improve sepsis outcomes in, in multiple, you know, studies. It's also been shown... Obviously, cancer is, like, a big one. Like, that was like... You know, Linus Pauling was, like, deemed a nut. Like, you know, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who basically is the vitamin C guy. Like, he, back in the '70s, was like, championing intravenous vitamin C for, for cancer patients 'cause he was claiming it was like, you know, curing them, quote-unquote, "curing" them. I-... It wasn't quite doing that, but it was, like, improving the outcomes of cancer patients. And there's all these studies from the Mayo Clinic came out, and they were like, "Nope, doesn't do that." Turned out they were using oral vitamin C, which is like comparing apples to oranges.

Joe Rogan 1:05:29 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:30 You know? So... But now, there's been so many studies, a lot, you know, Mar-

Joe Rogan 1:05:33 How does the Mayo Clinic fuck that up?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:35 I don't know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 That's a-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:37 They did. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 That's so crazy.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:38 They did, yeah. Yeah, they were doing-

Joe Rogan 1:05:41 But that's, but that's who you would depend upon when you wanted to know, "Well, is this accurate? Let's look at the Mayo Cl-"

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:45 I mean, this was decades ago. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 Oh.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:47 Maybe they've, like... They've, they've definitely, like, gotten their... gotten more on game since then.

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 They just didn't understand the difference.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:05:53 But... Yeah, who knows back then? I... You know, the pharmacokinetic studies that I'm referring to, I mean, those aren't... Those are re-... Mark Levine at the NIH, he's real... Like, he gets credit. Like, he is really, uh, p-... really involved in putting that out there. Like, the difference between intravenous vitamin C and oral are apples and oranges, completely different. Like, and so until that was known, I guess, maybe the Mayo Clinic, they just thought, "Oh, vitamin C is vitamin C. You just can-

Joe Rogan 1:06:19 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:06:19 ... take it orally," and until, like, some of that data started coming out, the pharmacokinetic data where it was like, "No, it's not the same thing. Like, you're talking about 70 times higher vitamin C levels in the plasma. Like, you could never do that from oral. Like, it's not the same at all." Um, uh, before that was known, I guess, maybe that... That's why, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:06:38 I've even heard people dismiss vitamin C, saying that your body only absorbs a certain amount, and it's wasted if you take more than that.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:06:45 Well, you do... So, here's the thing. Like, so, so maximum bioavailability does occur at 200 milligrams. And once you go above that, like, when you s-... If you take 500 milligrams of vitamin C orally, you start to excrete a lot in urine, but that doesn't...If you look at the plasma levels, you're still increasing them much higher. You're excreting more too, but you're, you're increasing your plasma levels more.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:06 So, you, so, you take 200 milligrams, you get your plasma levels of vitamin C up to 90. You take 500, you may get it a little bit more. You take 3 grams, you get it to 220. Yeah, you're gonna be peeing a lot out-

Joe Rogan 1:07:17 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:17 ... but you got to 220.

Joe Rogan 1:07:18 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:18 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:19 I see.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:19 And so, if you look at these, these common cold studies, there's like randomized meta-analysi- randomized controlled trials, meta-analysis of, um, they've shown that, like, you know, w- two grams is better than one gram for per- for, like, um, reducing the duration of the common cold. Uh, two grams is better than one, and, uh, children ha- are more, have a more robust effect than adults. So, like, adults, like, it reduces the common cold. S- like, two grams can do something like 20 pers- reduce the duration by, like, 20% or something, and children are-

Joe Rogan 1:07:47 That's kinda, like, Emergen-C. That company got a lot of shit for their claims, and the, the claims-

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:52 But two grams. I said two grams.

Joe Rogan 1:07:53 Yeah, Emergen-C doesn't have nothing like that.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:55 Right. So, so, then you ke-

Joe Rogan 1:07:56 It's, like, 200 milligrams or something.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:07:57 There you go. So, you keep looking down, there's more meta-analysis.

Joe Rogan 1:08:00 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:08:00 There's another meta-analysis that looked at, um, 200 milligrams up to, like, 200 milligrams up to two grams. And that study kinda just lumped everything together rather than the other study, like, "Okay, what happens at two grams and one?" And they did all these sub-analyses. And that was great because they, like, got to the bottom of it. Dose matters. The other study, it was like, oh, it, it, it reduces the duration by, like, 4%.

Joe Rogan 1:08:22 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:08:23 You know, basically nothing. So, so, there was, like, all this con- there was all these conclusions, "It doesn't do anything." Well, yeah. 200 milligrams, look at that graph. It does- it doesn't do shit (laughs) to your plasma levels.

Joe Rogan 1:08:32 Right.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:08:32 Like, you're still at baseline. So, I think that people designing clinical studies, like, they need, like, that needs to be in their mind before they design their trial. Okay, what am I trying to measure here? Like, I wanna get, I need to, like, I need a measurable, like, I need something to measure. I need that to change, right? To get an outcome.

Joe Rogan 1:08:50 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:08:51 Like, if you want, you're trying to, like, see what effect vitamin C has on whatever outcome, you're gonna wanna ra- raise someone's plasma levels, right? So, I guess it's good at the end of the day to know that 200 milligrams doesn't do anything, because then you go, "Okay, well, 200 milligrams doesn't do anything." But it's also good to know that, oh, wait, if I take a higher dose, there is an effect. So, you know, making this general statement that, "Oh, vitamin C supplementation doesn't do anything," is not nece- it's accurate in some respects. Yeah, at 200 milligrams it doesn't do much for the common cold. But when you take two grams, um, it, it can help. And also, other studies have shown that prophylactically is i- uh, slightly better than, like, therapeutic. So, like, after the onset of symptoms. So, if you do it, like, before symptoms, like, there's a better, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:09:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:09:34 ... outcome as well. So, I mean, that's all kinds of interesting.

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 So, for you personally, if you had the option, would you do it once a week? IV?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:09:44 Um, it's, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. I've, I've, like, I was doing it. I was actually doing it once a week, uh, before shelter in place.

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 You think that that's enough? Once a week is enough?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:09:53 Totally. I bet, I, I don't even know if it's necessary honestly. On- to, to be honest, because again, it's a therapeutic, you know, treatment.

Joe Rogan 1:09:58 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:09:59 I will say this, like, my, m- one of my friends, she's a, she's an MD and she has reactive airways. There's interesting studies that have shown, you know, like, that, that intravenous vitamin C is, like, dramatically reducing inflammation as well. It's doing all kinds of crazy things. But her cough ... and it was very transient. It only happened, like, while the IV, while the vitamin C was high in her plasma. She's got this crazy co- I mean, you'd think she'd had COVID, (laughs) 'cause it's like, it's just, like, a n- constant nagging cough, you know, that it completely, 100% went away. I noticed it, and she, like, my friend is a little bit, you know, she's a little bit of a skeptic when it comes to the, like, vitamins or anything like that, you know. So, I wasn't gonna say anything, 'cause her and I have gotten in so many, so many debates about it. So, um, but she said something, and I was just like, you know, "I'm so glad." And so, she, now she's wanting to do it, like, she's wanting to do it, like, you know, once a month at least, so ...

Joe Rogan 1:10:54 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:10:54 So, I thought that was, you know, interesting, uh. Again, I don't know that the intravenous vitamin C is necessary. There's also interesting effects on, like, um, fat oxidation. Like, it, it affects fat oxidation because it's important for carnitine, which is n- n- necessary for oxidizing fat. Like, there's been clinical studies where people are, like, burning more fat when they're exercising if they have vitamin C, and if they have low vitamin C levels, they're not, like, burning as much fat.

Joe Rogan 1:11:19 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:11:19 And I think it's 'cause it's the carnitine. I thought that was really interesting. I didn't know anything about that.

Joe Rogan 1:11:23 So, we've been doing intravenous vitamin C and glutathione and a bunch of other stuff, zinc, uh, once a week. That's what we've been doing.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:11:31 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:11:32 Zinc's another one that's really, you know, important for immune function as well. Um, and elderly people are more ... Zinc deficiency's not really common in the US. Most, you know, zinc is found in, in, it's really high in oysters, but not a lot of people eat oysters. It ... Red meat, poultry, you know, if you, if you eat enough of that you should be getting enough zinc.

Joe Rogan 1:11:50 What about vegetarians?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:11:51 Vegetarians do, um, they, they are more prone to a zinc deficiency, and in fact, um, because the zinc is bound to phytate, it's less bioavailable and they need to, like, eat, like, up to three times more ... The RDA needs to be, like, almost three times as high for them. Or they can just supplement, which I know a lot of vegetarians do. But yeah, but zinc, zinc's really important for immune function. Like, there's been s- studies where they've, like, depleted healthy people of their zinc, just transiently, and, um, like, T-cell function, like, is all messed up, so it, like, totally messes the immune system up. Uh, randomized control trials showing that zinc, zinc acetate or zinc gluconate, like lozenges, um, they can, um, dramatically lower the duration of common cold. So ...

Joe Rogan 1:12:37 Is acetate or g- w- gluconate, which one's superior?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:12:39 So, there was, (sighs) it's, like, it was trending that acetate was better. Trending meaning it was non-significant. Um, although it was, like, 40% versus 28%. I don't, like, I, to me, lowering, lowering the duration of the common cold by 40% versus lowering it by 28%, I guess it was non-significant for whatever reason. So, they're say- it's, the study concluded that they're both the same, but it seems as though acetate may be slightly better.

Joe Rogan 1:13:03 Hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:13:04 May be slightly better. Um-Uh, but you know. The, I am taking zinc. Zinc is also a positive ion, so you need a zinc ionophore to help it get into cells. Um, so like quars- flavonoids like quercetin. Quercetin's found in like apples, onions, buckwheat tea, which is what I drink. But you can supplement with it, which I also supplement with it.

Joe Rogan 1:13:24 Yeah. I supplement with it as well.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:13:25 It's um ... Quercetin's interesting because it's a zinc ionophore. It's also been identified to have, um, activity against SARS-CoV 1, um, antiviral activity against SARS-CoV 1.

Joe Rogan 1:13:36 Doesn't it have nootropic properties as well?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:13:39 I don't know. That-

Joe Rogan 1:13:40 Am, am I wrong about that?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:13:41 It, it has ... I don't know. Um, it-

Joe Rogan 1:13:43 It might be confusing with something else.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick 1:13:44 It's, it's got senolytic properties, which means it can ... It's been shown, it's been identified as a possible, uh, compound that can clear out sen- um, uh, senescent cells, which are those cells that are, you know, ha- they accumulate with age and they're basically like ... They're not dead, but they're just like not really functioning and they're secreting, they're secreting cytokines and things that age nearby cells. I always like to think of like ... I was mentioning to Jamie that, um, I'm gonna be 42 next month and so, yeah, I have some gray hairs (laughs) . Hey, gray hairs. And it's funny how like you'll get one gray hair