Inside Tracker | The Largest Database Of Healthy People In The World

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Morning from beautiful California.…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Morning from beautiful California. I am on my way to Quest Diagnostics to get my blood drawn. That'll then get sent off to InsideTracker, and they'll give me my results when I get out there. Not fantastic with needles, but I'll get through it for today. (instrumental music) That's my appointment just finished there. Um, they don't allow you to actually take any footage while you're inside for the safety and security, I dunno, something American. The nurse said that it wasn't a lot of blood, but it felt like a lot of blood to me. It was like ten vials, ten of those vials. So time to wait and see on what the results say. Find out in Boston next week. (instrumental music) Here's a life hack for you. If you want to make your journey through the metal detectors at an airport an awful lot longer, pack a USB condenser mic, which is essentially a huge dildo-sized, dildo-shaped magnet that comes up all colors of the rainbow when you put it through a scanner, every single time. "Hello, sir, what is this?" "It's a microphone, uh, I do podcasts and things." "Okay, we're gonna have to check it for Schedule 1 drugs and detonatable substances," and whatever else there is. But I'm through. Boston, I'm coming for you. (instrumental music) Jonathan and Carrie from InsideTracker, how are you today?

   2. CKCarrie Kolb1:34

      Good. Thanks for having us.

   3. JLJonathan Levitt1:35

      Good, thanks for having us.

   4. CKCarrie Kolb1:36

      Or thanks for being here. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:37

      Thank you for having me.

   6. CKCarrie Kolb1:38

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. JLJonathan Levitt1:39

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson1:39

      Do you know what I mean? Thank you for having me.

   9. JLJonathan Levitt1:40

      Thanks for coming.

   10. CKCarrie Kolb1:41

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson1:41

       Uh, it's awesome. So, um, can you explain to the listeners at home who you guys are and what InsideTracker is and what it does?

   12. CKCarrie Kolb1:49

       Sure. Um, so we work for InsideTracker. I handle mostly the CrossFit division and Jonathan handles endurance, but we also, um, are helping people out with their overall health or healthy aging. Um, and what InsideTracker really does is we look at, uh, biomarkers in your blood that are scientifically tied to performance, overall health, and longevity, and we create personalized recommendations for foods, supplements, and lifestyle changes, um, to help you get those biomarkers into optimized zones if they're not already in there.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:24

       Yeah, it's a serious, uh, a serious subject, isn't it? I've just come straight from Mr. David Sinclair's office at the, uh, Harvard Medical School, and it seems like longevity and, um, this more analytical assessment... I mean, I'm wearing a WHOOP band, right? Like, I've got always-on heart rate tracking, I've... Is it a trend that you can see at the moment with fitness, that people are starting to take this sort of stuff more seriously?

   14. JLJonathan Levitt2:50

       Definitely, and they're starting to care. So I've been at the company for four and a half years now, and when I started, it was all about, um, you know, we, we needed to help explain why this is something you should care about. And now it's at a point where everybody knows what it is. We have to show that we're better, and that our, our platform is more advanced, more analytical, and, and more personalized than, than anything else out there.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:13

       So the dream's already been sold?

   16. JLJonathan Levitt3:14

       Yes. (laughs)

   17. CKCarrie Kolb3:15

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson3:16

       Why do you think that's the case? Why are people more bothered now? Are they just looking for marginal gains or is it the just natural movement along with as the technology sort of continues? What do you think it is?

   19. JLJonathan Levitt3:24

       Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think there's more coming out about how you can improve longevity, what you can do to be better about yourself. Uh, there's a large group of people that are either getting older or they're seeing their parents get older, probably more likely, at least here in the States with, with Baby Boomers. And so, and so people are, are questioning their own longevity and, and looking at, like, "What can I do so that I don't get like that?" Or, "What can I do so that I can be with my kids," or, you know, something like that, um, as, as they get older and, and so people are looking for a way to, uh, make that actionable.

   20. CWChris Williamson4:05

       So I went through the process, as the viewers will be seeing throughout this episode. I went to Quest Diagnostics in Redlands in California.

   21. JLJonathan Levitt4:13

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson4:13

       Uh, and out the other side of that I, uh, I got my blood drawn. Uh, they got sent off to your lab and then within a few days I had a bunch of data that I waited for you to, uh, interpret-

   23. CKCarrie Kolb4:25

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson4:26

       ... on, on my behalf because I didn't, I didn't quite understand what everything was. Um, but it, it does seem mad to me that out of a... It was quite a lot of blood. It was like ten vials.

   25. CKCarrie Kolb4:35

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson4:35

       Well, not that much.

   27. CKCarrie Kolb4:36

       I mean, it was six.

   28. CWChris Williamson4:37

       Yeah.

   29. CKCarrie Kolb4:37

       Felt like ten. (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson4:38

       Felt like, felt like pints.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      be something crazy complex out the other side of it, um, but having spoken to, uh, one of your colleagues, what I discovered was that between sleep, training, diet, and supplementation, those are the only inputs that we need to be looking at to manipulate everything that's going on with regards to our blood work.

   2. JLJonathan Levitt15:21

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:22

      I don't know what I thought I was gonna expect to see.

   4. JLJonathan Levitt15:25

      Like-

   5. CWChris Williamson15:25

      It was, it was som- I don't know, I don't know what I was expecting.

   6. JLJonathan Levitt15:28

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson15:28

      Like just something crazy complex that was totally out of the realm of-

   8. JLJonathan Levitt15:32

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson15:32

      ... oh, well, y- your iron's out so you need to do this ridiculous thing.

   10. CKCarrie Kolb15:36

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:36

       But it's not. It's d- everything's within your control.

   12. JLJonathan Levitt15:39

       Yeah, so adoption is, it, like, the whole program is worthless if you can't take the data and make meaning of it. So there, there's a lot of, you look at pro sports, there's a lot of, of meaningless tracking that's going on. And, and-

   13. CWChris Williamson15:52

       What, what like?

   14. JLJonathan Levitt15:54

       People are, people are tracking GPS, people are tracking sleep, people are tracking power, people are tracking all these things that, that pro athletes are having tracked, but it's just sitting in a, in a portfolio somewhere.

   15. CWChris Williamson16:07

       Excel sheets or something, yeah.

   16. JLJonathan Levitt16:07

       Yeah, exactly. And, and I was at the National Strength and Conditioning Association conference a couple years ago and, and one of the presenters was basically saying, "Stop tracking just to tell your boss you're tracking this."

   17. CWChris Williamson16:20

       (laughs)

   18. JLJonathan Levitt16:21

       It's a waste of your athlete's time and it's a waste of your time if you're not doing anything with it. And, and so our, our goal is to, to make everything that we ask of you and everything that we take from you, literally your blood-

   19. CWChris Williamson16:36

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JLJonathan Levitt16:36

       ... meaningful. And so you may have noticed that there are a lot of questions on the registration process.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:41

       Yes.

   22. JLJonathan Levitt16:41

       We don't ask anything that we don't use anywhere, none of it's just for fun.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:45

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JLJonathan Levitt16:45

       Um, none of it's for statistical-

   25. CWChris Williamson16:48

       Yeah.

   26. JLJonathan Levitt16:48

       ... purposes on our end.

   27. CWChris Williamson16:50

       Yeah.

   28. JLJonathan Levitt16:50

       Everything that we ask on that registration process is used in a recommendation somewhere.

   29. CWChris Williamson16:55

       Mm-hmm. One of the things that the, uh, dietician that I was speaking to earlier on mentioned was that if she had the choice, she would've, uh, actually had like a, a 120, uh, question questionnaire. Apparently there's 16 major food groups-

   30. JLJonathan Levitt17:11

       Yep.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CKCarrie Kolb30:00

      A lot of people who come to us, their cortisol is way off and, and it's because they're not getting enough sleep. Um, so our biggest recommendations are just cut the screen time, shut your phone off a half hour before, um, you actually go to sleep so that when you are sleeping, it's eight quality hours and not, you know-... off and on, and you're-

   2. CWChris Williamson30:23

      Yeah.

   3. CKCarrie Kolb30:23

      ... not in a good rhythm. So, I would say that that's a big one, um, that we do see a lot of and then just something easy that you can implement into your daily life.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:31

      Everyone's already doing it, right? Um, what else? Is there anything else that you see t- that tends to be, um, reflected in terms of diet? Is anyone eating or eating too much of something or not eating enough of stuff?

   5. JLJonathan Levitt30:41

      Yeah. So we see 82% of Americans with elevated glucose and the best-

   6. CWChris Williamson30:46

      82%?

   7. JLJonathan Levitt30:47

      82%. So for the majority of people, adding oatmeal into their diet is the best possible thing that they can do.

   8. CWChris Williamson30:54

      Really?

   9. JLJonathan Levitt30:56

      We-

   10. CWChris Williamson30:56

       For elevated glucose, oatmeal?

   11. JLJonathan Levitt30:58

       Oatmeal. We looked at, we published a paper on, uh, the impact of algorithm based recommendations, so the personalized nutrition model that we follow. And we were able to look at, uh, recommendations, interventions, and improvement. And so we could see that, that some things worked better than others in terms of compliance. Like another one we found was that the only thing that will improve low vitamin... Low enough vitamin D levels is taking a vitamin D supplement, which-

   12. CWChris Williamson31:30

       Right.

   13. JLJonathan Levitt31:30

       ... sounds like it makes sense, but-

   14. CWChris Williamson31:31

       Yeah.

   15. JLJonathan Levitt31:32

       ... oh, stand outside for 20 minutes a day. Didn't do it, didn't work.

   16. CWChris Williamson31:35

       Yeah.

   17. JLJonathan Levitt31:35

       Eat more fatty fish, didn't work.

   18. CWChris Williamson31:37

       Okay.

   19. JLJonathan Levitt31:37

       Eat more mushrooms, didn't work. So, um, so yeah, back to the glucose thing. So if you do nothing else, eat more oatmeal. We looked at, um, what are some of the best interventions across the board for men based on biomarkers.

   20. CWChris Williamson31:55

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JLJonathan Levitt31:55

       Um, eating nuts on a daily basis is-

   22. CWChris Williamson31:58

       Any specific c- type of nuts?

   23. JLJonathan Levitt32:00

       Whatever, whatever y'all, you know, whatever you want really.

   24. CWChris Williamson32:03

       Yeah.

   25. JLJonathan Levitt32:03

       Almonds, walnuts, et cetera.

   26. CWChris Williamson32:06

       Walnuts.

   27. JLJonathan Levitt32:06

       Um, that improves glucose, lipids, uh, testosterone, liver enzyme, inflammation, um, and most of those metrics make up our InnerAge score as well, uh, with glucose having the highest weight. So if you're looking at one specific food that can address the, the bulk of the metrics that impact male longevity the most-

   28. CWChris Williamson32:33

       Yeah.

   29. JLJonathan Levitt32:34

       ... nuts.

   30. CWChris Williamson32:35

       Nuts?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. JLJonathan Levitt45:00

      are all at the top, and, and they're all role models of people who are like, "Oh, I'm gonna be just like this person." And, and you can aspire to do some things that are similar, but, like, if it's not in your, if it's not in your nature to, like, not need that-

   2. CWChris Williamson45:16

      Mm.

   3. JLJonathan Levitt45:16

      ... which it is for the majority of us-

   4. CWChris Williamson45:18

      Mm.

   5. JLJonathan Levitt45:20

      ... um, you're gonna burn out, and you're gonna get injured, and you're not gonna enjoy what you're doing.

   6. CWChris Williamson45:25

      And you're gonna fall behind. Did a podcast recently with James Clear-

   7. JLJonathan Levitt45:27

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson45:28

      ... the guy that wrote Atomic Habits, and he was talking about how, um, our genetics, they do not predetermine, but they do predispose.

   9. JLJonathan Levitt45:39

      Right.

   10. CWChris Williamson45:40

       And I think that that is a little, uh, guiding, uh, influence-

   11. JLJonathan Levitt45:47

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson45:47

       ... towards what people do in their lives.

   13. JLJonathan Levitt45:48

       Right.

   14. CWChris Williamson45:49

       Like, if you struggle to put on muscle, trying to become a power lifter's probably a bad idea.

   15. JLJonathan Levitt45:52

       Right. You might enjoy it, but you're not gonna get to the top.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:54

       You're not gonna become the best in the field. Yeah, exactly. And I suppose that, um, you know, your guy, like, if, if he was, I don't know, uh, say, a long distance truck driver, he's probably wasted in that industry-

   17. JLJonathan Levitt46:09

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson46:09

       ... like where you-

   19. JLJonathan Levitt46:10

       Right. (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson46:10

       ... you're on a ticker timer and you gotta be off the clock for 10 hours-

   21. JLJonathan Levitt46:13

       Right.

   22. CWChris Williamson46:13

       ... or eight hours or whatever it might be. Like, this guy doesn't need it.

   23. JLJonathan Levitt46:15

       Right.

   24. CWChris Williamson46:15

       Like, he's the guy that can go.

   25. JLJonathan Levitt46:17

       Right.

   26. CWChris Williamson46:17

       So he's found himself an industry-

   27. JLJonathan Levitt46:18

       Right.

   28. CWChris Williamson46:19

       ... within which he can find that. So moving forward, what do you see the future of this industry looking like? Uh, have you guys got any new markers in the pipeline that you want to use? And then on top of that, what do you think, um, in terms of technology and, and stuff like that? Is there anything that the, the super nerds have told you about-

   29. JLJonathan Levitt46:40

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson46:40

       ... that's kinda coming up?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:04:36

   Beanless foods. (laughs) …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      It kind of leads the UK with this. We're lagging behind. Like people are still eating like mince pies and stuff.

   2. JLJonathan Levitt1:00:06

      Beanless foods. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:06

      Beanless foods. They're eat-

   4. GUGuest1:00:07

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:07

      Beanless foods is like... But honestly, like, like, you know, the wedges of oranges as a like half-time for rugby just is, is still a thing. Like, so, uh-

   6. JLJonathan Levitt1:00:17

      Those are my best memories of, uh, third grade.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:20

      Wedges of, of orange-

   8. JLJonathan Levitt1:00:21

      Soccer. Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:00:21

      Yeah, fair enough. Well, I mean, we've, we've adopted you at least.

   10. JLJonathan Levitt1:00:24

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson1:00:25

       But, um, yeah, I, I genuinely do hope that this is going to make people think with more care about what they're doing, because in the same way as the mechanism that makes, uh, mobility work for a lot of people effective-Um, foam rolling and, and passive stretching and massage therapy. Uh, Professor Quinn Hennick, uh, Doctor of Physical Therapy for Juggernaut Training Systems, on Episode 13 I want to say, said that the mechanism that those things are working on isn't what people think. But if it makes them think about their recovery, then it is enough.

   12. JLJonathan Levitt1:01:01

       Right.

   13. GUGuest1:01:01

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:01:02

       And that's kind of almost what we're talking about here, that maybe even the blood work... So, for, for me potentially, with all of the markers, I might not have known that these things were gonna be out of whack. But it was probably pretty likely that I was gonna have low free testosterone because I'm, uh, over-training. Probably, like, fairly common that the oatmeal and, and the beans, et cetera, et cetera. But because I wasn't thinking about it-

   15. JLJonathan Levitt1:01:25

       Right.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:01:25

       ... it wasn't something that needed to-

   17. JLJonathan Levitt1:01:27

       You don't know what you don't know.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:01:29

       There we go. Um, so guys, I'm really excited to go and have a look at the unit, which is next door. So, throughout this episode, everyone will have been seeing all of the footage from behind the scenes. Can you very briefly take us through what your facility is, and what we'll be, what we'll be looking at?

   19. GUGuest1:01:47

       Sure. Um, so it is a sh- it's a shared workspace.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:01:51

       Yep.

   21. GUGuest1:01:51

       Um, we are in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Boston, or, uh-

   22. JLJonathan Levitt1:01:56

       Nerd central of the world.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:01:57

       Is this nerd central?

   24. GUGuest1:01:58

       Yeah.

   25. JLJonathan Levitt1:01:59

       Nerd center of the world.

   26. GUGuest1:01:59

       This is where MIT and Harvard and all of the smarties, the smartest of the smart live.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:02:04

       Just Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, but for, for four square miles.

   28. JLJonathan Levitt1:02:07

       (laughs)

   29. GUGuest1:02:07

       (laughs)

   30. JLJonathan Levitt1:02:08

       No seriously, this is, um, you're looking at MIT right over there.

Episode duration: 1:04:36