This Is The Fastest Way To Get Dementia...The 6 Science-Backed Brain Fixes!

0:00 I think everybody needs to listen to this episode if they want to start 2026 properly. If there's one thing I've learned that's really stayed with me this year, it's from speaking to some of the world's leading minds about our brain, which might just be the most powerful asset that we all have. You know, if you listen to the diary of a CEO, you're probably listening because you're trying to get something, whether it's information, inspiration, maybe entertainment, all of which because you're striving towards some kind of goal. And it's dawned on me this year because I've interviewed so many incredible neuroscientists, that this all starts with having a healthy brain, because all of our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our memories, our chance of having a future start in The brain. So in this special Christmas episode, we're gonna focus on the brain. How you can have the most fundamentally healthy brain so you can live the most fundamentally meaningful life. I've been through all the episodes where we've talked about the brain and I've looked at the moments that you shared and replayed the most and the moments that added the most value to your life. And I've put all of them into this episode today.

1:03 Do you remember the first time you saw a human brain? I do. Did it change how you think about your own brain? It changed my life because I was like I wanna study that.

1:16 That is the coolest thing. That I've ever Scene. In my whole life. It was life changing.

1:23 I say that because we you know, at the start of this conversation we said that most of us don't appreciate our brain. A lot of people don't even realise it's there. But the minute I had a brain scan one day and that brain scan really changed my life because seeing my own brain for the first time. It was the push that I needed. To start caring more about how my decisions and behaviors are impacting it. So let's talk about how I can make that ball of tofu in my head super healthy. dig into exactly what you mean by exercise, because exercise I think is multifaceted in definition. What kind of exercise should I be doing to make my

2:00 Great. Yeah. Optimal. Mm-hmm. Well, all the research shows that the best kind of exercise that you can do is anything that gives you aerobic activity that is getting your heart rate up. So that that goes for, you know, power walking.

2:19 Well get your heart rate up. Soccer, so many different things. Name your activity. So many people want to say, Oh, well, w my favorite activity, will that work? And I always just say, Is it is your heart rate up when you're doing it? If the answer is yes, then yeah, that that works great. We know that that level of aerobic activity is critical because that's gonna release that growth factor maximally to get into your hippocampus uh that will grow those new brain cells. How much So um I have an answer to that. So um we did two different experiments in my lab. One in um low fit people, people that are really not exercising very much at all, less than thirty minutes um um in the last

3:01 three three weeks you you've uh moved your body and um we asked What? Could we see any behavioral improvement in your memory function from your hippocampus or your uh ability to shift and focus attention. If we ask you to move your body in an aerobic way, For two to three times a week.

3:21 And we collaborated with a spin class, so clearly very aerobic. And what we found was In those people that did successfully do two to three times a week a forty five minute aerobic activity. Their mood. Got significantly better. their memory function got better.

3:40 And their ability to shift and focus attention got significantly better. So that gives a little bit of a guideline for low fit people two to three times a week can start to give you some of those some of those cognitive changes. But You don't look low fit. So let me let me answer the question you're about to ask me with like, what about me? I I exercise pretty regularly and um how much how much do I need? So to answer that question, we went to another spin studio and we said, look, we're gonna give you free classes. You could exercise as much as you want in this in this um at this studio and uh um go up to seven times a week and the control was Just stay the same. You know, you they were they were working out twice a week at at the studio. Control was the other group that when you were testing them against. Yes. Okay. Exactly.

4:29 And so what we found was Basically every drop of sweat counted. The more you exercise, the more change in your brain we noted, both your hippocampal function, prefrontal core. function and mood.

4:44 If y you you were already getting benefit, you know, you're already going twice a week. But the more you did, the more brain changes you got. So That that doesn't give the formula that I would like, but we were heading in that direction, which is part of one of the questions that I wanna answer. But I love to leave people with the idea that every drop of sweat counts for building your brain into the big fat fluffy brain that you really want. And then in the real world Again, making it super

5:16 Um Real for people. Yeah. How how does that Change how I show up. Yeah.

5:22 If you allow it to should have a beautiful effect on your mindset. Um that Your mindset around um How often should I take wake up a an thirty minutes early and do that walk before I start my day or uh accept the the invitation to go uh walk the dog with with a neighbor. Um it's not an obligation. It is something that you're doing for yourself. It is gonna have direct benefits on that ball of tofu as you call it

5:53 in your head. It's gonna make it work better. And and I mean I think the most immediate thing that I benefit from every single day is the mood boost that you get from that serotonin, dopamine or adrenaline that gets released every time you move your body. I always think that'cause obviously I do a little podcasting and it's I'm super reliant on my brain being s attached to my mouth and sometimes I notice that it's not. You know what I mean? Like sometimes I'm not articulate. I can't get my thoughts together, whatever. Yes. And I always try I try and figure out the correlation between what I did that day when I have a good day versus a bad day. Yeah. And I've

6:26 From from you on and also I speak on stage sometimes, so I've often asked myself'cause I saw Tony Robbins the speaker one day on a trampoline before he goes up on stage. I asked myself, okay, should I be doing a workout in my green room before I go up on stage for a big talk or presentation? Mm-hmm. You think I should. Oh yeah. Absolutely. What's the basis of that in science and aeroscience? Uh it's The basis is that immediate f so there's three key effects that we know happen every time you move your body. First one is mood. You're gonna get your dopamine, your serotonin up. Um, second is focus and attention. So so

7:01 A single work out isn't going to make more synapses in your prefrontal cortex, but the prefrontal cortex uses dopamine. And so um it's clear that even a single workout can make your prefrontal cortex work better in terms of focus attention. Also very important any time you're speaking. And the third is reaction time. Your reaction time is you know, motor, you're you're you're working your motor cortex when you move your body and your response and reaction time is significantly shorter after a even a single workout compared to if you just don't work out and sit sit um alone. So Great great things to do, a great thing to do before you you stand up and speak.

7:41 What about Coffee. I I I'm trying to figure out if coffee is good for my brain. Yeah. Bad for my brain. A couple of mixed messages around The impact it might be having.

7:56 You know, caffeine is a stimulant. And uh People respond to that kind of stimulant uh in different ways. Over stimulation w with caffeine is is not good for your abil your ability to put words together. You know, this is where I turn to a a a main theme in in my book, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, with this which is self experimentation. For you

8:20 How what can you titrate? Your coffee. To see what level of coffee is best For whatever your podcast or your giving a talk.

8:31 similarly to coffee that that I've started uh and that I do every morning is um hot cold contrast showers because that cold that you sh shower on yourself after the heat um stimulates adrenaline. And you. A natural.

8:49 Adrenaline. It wakes you up. And okay, it was painful the first kind of few times I tried it, but then you get addicted to it. And I have Forgotten to do it and gotten back in the shower just to douse myself with cold water because I feel better when I do that. For for you know, first thing in the morning. So lots of different things that one can uh explore with.

9:13 Okay, on the other side of the coin then, what are some of the central behaviors that people do that Destroy that brain. Well, sedentary behavior is one of them. Um, not getting enough sleep. is critical. We haven't talked about sleep yet. Sleep is so important for normal functioning of the brain. I like to scare my students by saying that um You know, in torture situations, if you deprive a person of sleep for too long, they literally die.

9:45 They they they die. You cannot function if you are deprived of sleep for too many hours in a row. It's that critical. Yet we don't we we happily you know watch too much Netflix at night and and get only five hours of sleep when we could have had eight. So um, what's happening exactly? Why is it so important? Well, there's um there's so many different things. I'm gonna I'm gonna say two. One is that we know that in regular, um, um healthy sleep There is activity in the hippocampus that helps you strengthen the memories that you have formed in that previous day. It's called consolidation. And it's so important. If you shorten that, if you don't get enough, you are not consolidating your normal everyday memories. And second, It is uh the time during sleep when all the metabolites, all that garbage that your brain is producing, because all biological cells produce garbage, it get kind of um cleaned up um through the cerebral spinal fluid that that is flowing through your brain. And if you do not get enough sleep, you build up garbage metabolites in your brain. It's like

10:54 You have a gunky brain. And do you feel like I feel like I have gunk in my brain when I don't sleep enough That is exactly what is what is happening. What when you think about um things that we consume? You know, like food and drink and alcohol and All these kinds of things. Yeah.

11:13 Having Or not having. Yeah. Well, so um I think the most evidence is around the benefit of the Mediterranean diet, which is basically all healthy, uh um kind of organ not organic, but non processed is the word I was trying to think of. Things to eat that are very, very colorful.

11:36 There's so much evidence about how good that is generally for the brain that that is my go to. Like Wha what should I eat? Well, is it on the Mediterranean diet? If it is, then go ahead. If it's too processed. Only do it.

11:51 Just a little bit. Is it true that if we have less friends, if we have less strong relationships, if we're lonely, then our brain Will shrink. And is more prone to Dementia and Alzheimer's and things like that.

12:03 Yes, we are social creatures, and um There are uh really powerful studies that have shown the correlation between the number of social connections that we have, including just saying hello to the barista at Starbucks. It's not a close friendship that you develop over thirty years. It's is just how many people you interact with and greet and longevity. The more people you are regularly interacting with, the longer you are living. Overall longevity. But if you go into brain health, absolutely, it's also very, very healthy for you. It also

12:42 Brings happiness. So uh a friend and colleague of mine, um, Robert Wallinger, uh, studied um What makes people happy? The study started in the twenties, the nineteen twenties, in in Harvard. And after all of those many, many, many decades. The answer.

12:58 Is What brings happiness is the strength of your social connections. So it makes you happier, it makes you live longer, and and uh yes, loneliness on the on the f um flip side. Causes stress. uh long term stress that

13:13 that damages the brain and uh yeah, in the long term can can make it smaller and uh less healthy. Here's the fifth most replayed moment. When I asked you before this conversation started rolling, what you're really excited about at the moment. Your response to me was there was a few things, but one of them which lit up your face was Creating.

13:32 Yes. And it's funny because it lit up your face again. Yeah, it's it's funny because creatine has been around for I mean Ever for decades. And it's always been in my mind, it was like one of those Jim Bro things. I'm like, I don't need to be swole. Yeah, yeah. I don't need creatine to get get get swole. And you know, this is this was the thought for for many, many years.

13:54 And then over the last Five Years or so. The effects of creatine on the brain. started to really get my interest. Anything that affects the brain, I really

14:05 become interested in. And so that's kind of what did get me the most excited about About creatine. But also I started doing a lot of resistance training. And so I was like, Okay, here I am now. I'm like one of those gym guys. I'm doing I'm doing the barbells, I'm doing the you know, the squats and the deadlifts and all that. And so So why not give myself some of the creatine? Well, what is creatine, right?

14:29 Why is it important? You talked about Earlier, you know why doesn't our body just make more of these things that are so beneficial? We do make creatine. We make about

14:40 I don't know. Our liver makes about one to three grams a day of creatine. And our brain also makes creatine and those are the two organs that make it. Creatine. gets consumed by other tissues like the muscle's probably the one that's the greediest because

14:56 Creatine is stored as phosphorutine, but it's used to make energy, essentially. So it can increase muscle mass, it can increase muscle strength. in combination with resistance training, because you're able to regenerate and make energy

15:11 Faster. So for example I became interested in it after reading studies where people that supplemented with creatine that were engaged in resistance training. were able to gain more lean body mass, they were able to gain more strength. It was increasing their training volume. So

15:29 You can do one to two more reps. Right. of whatever exercise you're doing. And it seems to decrease the recovery time between those those sets as well. So you're able to increase your training volume. Well anything that's gonna incre increase your training volume Is going to then have the downstream effect of a you know increasing the adaptations like increased muscle mass or increased muscle strength.

15:52 I started supplementing with creatine about a year ago. And I started supplementing with it for that reason, for the my training. And I was doing about five grams a day because that was really what was shown to to be beneficial for muscle health in combination with resistance training. And it's important for people to realize that Supplementing with creatine.

16:13 by itself without any type of resistance training isn't gonna grow your muscle. It's not gonna make you stronger. You have to put in the effort. Because what creatine is doing, it's helping you make the energy quicker, right? And that and then being able to make that energy quicker means that you're able to then do that exercise. Better.

16:32 um harder, more of it, right? So Um, it's sort of supercharging your exercise routine. I had already been aware of the effects on the brain. I thought maybe the five grams a day would do that. So what are the effects on the brain? Well, your brain also consumes a lot of energy, you know, needs a lot of energy. So it does make its own creatine. But it turns out

16:53 If you can if you can give your brain more of that creatine. Particularly under a period of anything that's causing stress. So Let's say lack of sleep.

17:05 Or Лец ему психологіч. Or in my case high cognitive load. Where you're just every day learning concepts, complex things, you're trying to remember them, you're putting ideas together and coming up with new hypotheses and you know, you're just you're just you're studying a lot and it's very

17:29 And it's not a It's a type of stress on your brain. That's like my life, right? Um Under this condition of Stress. Depression's another one. That's a stress on your brain. Or

17:41 Neurodegenerative disease. That's a stress on your brain. So Any kind of stressful condition. That's where creatine shines. In the brain. I would argue that

17:51 All of us who who has the perfect amount of sleep never has stress. Nobody, right? There's always some sort of stress in the background. So um that's when I was like, Okay, so If you're the perfect person, you have no stress, you get the perfect amount of sleep every night, your brain makes enough creatine to kind of Do what it needs to do.

18:11 I know that I'm constantly under stress. So um I'm like okay, well I think I need a boost. And this is where a lot of very interesting studies have come out of many different labs. Um, some out of Germany that looked at the dose of creatine. And how it increases creatine levels in the brain.

18:29 And this is why I now supplement with ten grams a day. So the study out of Germany found that five grams a day of creatine, if you're supplementing with five grams a day, your muscles are greedily consuming it, particularly if you're working out. They want it. They want it. After about five grams a day, especially over a few months, like you're you're saturating your muscle and that's enough, right?

18:50 Anything above that. kind of spills over to the brain. And so they've what this German study is. Found was that ten grams of creatine. increased creatine levels in several different regions of the brain. And that was probably the most exciting

19:03 you know, I would say evidence that supplementing higher than five grams a day was actually doing something in terms of getting creating the brain. There have now been a variety of studies that have looked at different outcomes, right? So if you supplement with

19:17 10 cr grams of creatine or even go higher than that, like 20 grams of creatine, how does that affect cognitive function, right? And so um some of these studies have been been done by uh Dr. Darren Kandau. He's um at the University of Regina in Canada. And it's looked they've looked at things like sleep deprivation. And it's been found that if you take someone And you sleep deprived them for

19:41 Twenty one hours. And give them about twenty five to thirty grams of creatine. It completely negates the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation. Actually, not only does it negate the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation, Yeah.

19:57 makes people function better Then If they were well rested. That's where I was like. Wait a minute.

20:06 There's many times when I'm traveling, I'm jet lagged. Uh, lots of times when I'm sleep deprived and I have to be doing a podcast or a presentation, whatever. And In those situations I go up from my ten grams to more like twenty grams, like today. For example. I wasn't really

20:24 sleep deprived, but you know, there's a lot of high cognitive demand. This is a long podcast. There's all that stuff. And so I went up to twenty grams today on my creatine. And I well I will say even at the ten grams For me? We were talking about this with respect to being in ketosis. I don't feel that.

20:43 Mid afternoon crash. when I have the creatine. Not being on a ketogenic diet, not being in ketosis. It's very clear for me, and I've done this where sometimes I only do five grams. And then

20:55 If I do that, I'll notice I'm like, why am I tired right now? So there's something interesting and maybe it's placebo. I'm gonna throw that out there, very possible. But I don't know, maybe the creatine is again, it's able to regenerate that energy. Good.

21:09 And so that's also beneficial for the brain. And now I I would say all these creatine researchers, a lot of them are shifting to the brain. It used to be all muscle focused. And now people are super interested in what creatine is doing to the brain, especially if you're supplementing with more of it. And you know, this is important for people that are under a stressful situation.

21:29 But also for vegans, because creatine is found in food, mostly in animal products like meat and poultry and fish, dairy. a lot of vegans don't eat that. And I've had so many of my vegan friends I've got them on the creatine and it's changed their lives. I mean they're like This is like

21:47 Incredible. You know, can you imagine someone who's not getting any creatine from their diet'cause they eat no meat. And all of a sudden they start supplementing with five, ten grams of creatine. And it's like they have energy. Some people say they they require less sleep, which is kind of interesting. That's kind of a comment I've heard many, many times from people is that It's like they're

22:06 brain doesn't need as much sleep. They have more energy. So um I've been a big fan of the creatine, um, not only for the muscle, especially because, you know, working out is something that's very important, but for the brain as well. I always thought of creatine as something that you you took and you kinda had to load up on and then over a couple of weeks or months the effects would kick in. But you're telling me that if I had creatine in the morning that same day I would experience potentially improved cognition if I have a big enough dose.

22:35 Yes, so um Great question. A lot of studies that have been done that you're referring to have been done in the context of exercise and muscular performance. And

22:47 The reason why people have to load up on like they do a loading phase, let's say twenty grams. And then they go down to this sort of maintenance phase of five grams. is because it takes I don't know, but I think it's about a month or so before you can saturate your muscular stores of creatine. And then you're what does that mean?

23:07 It means that um the creatine, which is actually stored in your muscles as phospho creatine, is there and ready to be used to make energy. I so it so it takes Again, it takes a a uh uh about a month or so to do that. unless you are really giving your muscles a high dose. Right. So the five grams a day, it only it it can only do it for so many days and then finally you get saturated. When you do this loading phase, you kind of just accelerate that whole process. And so that's why when people are doing these experiments where they want to test the effects of creatine, they want they want the participants to have really high levels of creatine in their muscles quick because they don't want to do a month long experiment, right? They want the experiment to be like

23:46 A couple of weeks or a week. So that was kind of the whole concept behind this loading phase. If you're not someone who's Going to some kind of competition. You know, like your CrossFit games or something. you don't really need to do that loading phase if you've already been supplementing with five grams a day for like a month.

24:03 When it comes to the brain What's happening if you get above that five grams, that's Pretty much all consumed by the muscle. You're having some left over in circulation. And the brain takes it up.

24:16 And it takes it up, right? when it re when it really shines is under that stressful condition, which again for me I feel like every day is is is is like cognitively demanding for me'cause I'm constantly you know, learning new material or learning new information or working on things, right? And so there's a lot of cognitive stress on my brain. And so I feel like I'm constantly under that stress. And that's where getting the creatine in your brain helps you make that energy quicker. And so that's why like I've done I've had, you know, been jet lagged and have have to give a talk at you know, you know, like five AM in the morning my my biological time after not getting sleep and

24:51 I've done like twenty five grams of creatine. Yeah. It's insane how much it helps me. Again, it could be placebo because I'm anticipating that effect, which is fine. Placebo is a real thing. It's great. I'm all about it. But there's some evidence also

25:05 that this works, right? That the creatine is helping with under that sleep deprivation and that stressful condition. I was reading about a study in two thousand twenty five where they Uh gave creatine to people that had Depressive symptoms alongside CBT training. And the people that had creatine and the cognitive behavioral therapy training.

25:24 experienced a greater improvement in their depression symptoms than those who just received the cognitive behavioral therapy. Which is which is Incredible. It's fascinating. I mean, depression is a type of brain stress, right? I mean We know inflammation plays a role in in depression. We know oxidative stress is plays a role in depression.

25:45 And There have now been some Animal studies that have shown creatine is somehow having an anti inflammatory effect. I that hasn't all been worked out. So I don't know if it's all just the energy.

25:56 component of it. It could also be this other sort of newly identified role that creatine's playing in sort of having an anti inflammatory effect. And I don't know a much enough about that. I don't know that there's enough even known about that, but I do know that it exists and it's fascinating p because again I think

26:14 where creatine really shines in the brain. And it's been shown study after study is under some kind of stressful condition, depression or sleep deprivation. Or there's a new study that came out. It was published I don't know, a month ago or so. showing that it was a very small pilot study, and I want to caveat this. There was no placebo control. But

26:34 It did show that giving People with Alzheimer's disease, creatine. I believe it was twenty grams a day. did improve their cognition.

26:43 And so again, it's this a whole new field where now we're looking at creatine in the brain, not just the gym bro bros and not just the muscular effects, but in the brain and how it's affecting the brain and being beneficial for cognition, for Brain aging. For depression.

27:01 Here's the fourth most replayed moment. One of the most inspiring and I think liberating things that I've heard in your work is this idea of neuroplasticity because If you're If the brain can physiologically change. Based on what I'm doing.

27:15 Then it means that who I am now, my identity, that sixty that nineteen year old who's sleeping in the mummy thing with the ferret isn't who I always have to be. I can literally change. Um, we've spoken a little bit around like what causes the motivation to actually change, but knowing that there's a my brain will actually change, those two things are really inspiring for me because it means that whatever rut I'm stuck in isn't necessarily a permanent one. Now you said that the motivation to change comes from fear.

27:41 Well, in my case it took a a fear circumstance. Fear of becoming a permanent failure to motivate immense change. And um Uh that was that circumstance. I I do believe, however, that the

27:56 Best work. Our most creative and best work comes from a a love of craft. But sometimes in order to find what you truly love. You have to be scared into setting off on a path to find it. So

28:09 Neuroplasticity. Is absolutely real. Can A person change? Can you learn new things? Can you unlearn patterns? Can you overcome traumas?

28:22 At any age the answer is Absolutely. Categorically. Yes. How?

28:29 Well, it's very clear that as a child Until About age twenty five, more or less. Just passive experience will shape the brain, for better or worse. After about age twenty five, and again, these are not strict cutoffs.

28:43 We can change our brain, but what's required is a marked shift in the neurochemical environment under which Something happens. So one of the reasons why any traumatic event Will forever be remembered. Although by the way, you can remove some of the emotional load of that. Trauma does not have to be traumatic forever.

29:02 Is because when we see or experience something very intense of a fearful nature. There's the release of certain what we call Neuromodulators, things like epinephrine, adrenaline. and other neuromodulators that cause a state shift in our bro body and brain.

29:20 And The nervous system recognizes this as unusual, and as a consequence, in the subsequent days, there's reordering of the connections. So that the brain can prepare for that event should it happen again. This is why we have what's called one trial learning. You go to a certain location, something terrible happens there. You will forever associate that location with something terrible.

29:42 But there are tools therapy and other tools. that can allow the emotional load to be removed from that so that you could go to that location and feel Come on. No fear whatsoever.

29:53 The good news is you can also learn anything you want to learn. Provided there's a shift in this neurochemical environment. This is why when we are very interested and focused on something. Two of the main requirements for neuroplasticity: we have to be alert and we have to be focused. We can't learn passively as adults. We can't just play um you know uh a a lecture about A I and large language models or neuroscience in the room and then it just

30:19 The knowledge doesn't just sink in by osmosis. But if we pay attention and we're alert when we pay attention. There's a shift in the neurochemicals associated with that attention. what we call the catecholamines, it's three molecules, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, all which cause an increase in alertness. all which cause an increase in focus, a tighten of our visual field and our auditory field, so like cones of attention is one way to think about it.

30:45 And then it sets in motion a bunch of biological processes such that If we get adequate sleep that night. Maybe the next night as well. There's reordering of neural connections so that that knowledge, that new experience is consolidated in your brain. You are forever changed as a consequence of that experience.

31:03 So when we hear that the brain is constantly changing. Everything that we encounter changes our brain. That's not true. Why would the brain change unless it needed to? Right, as a child, the brain is basically a template for change. It's it's trying to understand the environment and make predictions and so that's True, neuroplasticity is is

31:22 Just think about the music you listened to when you were a teen. No other music will ever have as much significance. And that's because as a teen your body is flooded with hormones and neuromodulators that the amount of meaning that Comes from now seemingly trivial events when you're a teenager or adolescent is immense. That song meant so much, and it's because of the neurochemical milieu it creates in you. But as an adult, it takes a stronger stimulus, as we say. The nervous system is very

31:53 Um efficient. in that way. It doesn't change unless it has to. And it always changes if it needs to in order to keep you safe. This is why there's an asymmetric influence of fear as opposed to um just interest in terms of what will shift our brain.

32:09 But It's Nice to know that love and excitement and appreciation are Are very strong stimuli for sh changing the brain. From everything we know about neuroscience. It's clear that

32:23 Doesn't matter if you're ninety years old. Seventy years old, fifty years old, if you want to learn, you can learn. And that learning occurs through neuroplasticity, which is the reordering of neuron, strengthening of certain connections, weakening of others, and in some rare cases the addition of new neurons. You absolutely can change your brain, but you have to Pay attention. To the thing you want?

32:45 to incorporate into your brain. You have to be alert while you do that and then you absolutely have to go get some rest because it's during sleep and during meditative states and during Rest? that the actual rewiring of the brain occurs. You know, every once in a while you come across a product that has such a huge impact on your life that you'd probably describe it as

33:06 A game changer. And I would say For about thirty five to forty percent of my team. They would currently describe this product that I have in front of me called KetoneIQ, which you can get at ketone.com. as a game changer. But the reason I became a co owner of this company and the reason why they they now are a sponsor of this podcast is because One day when I came to work, there was a box of this stuff sat on my desk. I had no idea what it was. Lily and my team says that this company have been in touch. So I went upstairs, tried it, and quite frankly, the rest is history. In terms of my focus, my energy levels, how I feel, how I work, how productive I am, game changer.

33:43 So if you want to give it a try, visit ketone.com slash Steven for thirty percent off. You'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. And now you can find Keetone IQ at target stores across the United States, where your first shot Is completely free of charge. All I had to do was brain dump. Imagine if you had someone with you at all times that could take the ideas you have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more grammatically correct and write them down for you. This is exactly what Whisperflow is in my life. It is this thought partner that helps me explain what I want to say. And it now means that on the go, when I'm alone in my office, when I'm out and about. I can respond to emails and Slack messages and WhatsApp and everything across all of my devices just by speaking. I love this tool, and I started talking about this in my behind the scenes channel a couple of months back, and then the founder reached out to me and said

34:33 We're seeing a lot of people come to our tool because of you. So we'd love to be a sponsor. We'd love you to be an investor in a company. And so I signed up for both of those offers, and I'm now an investor and a huge partner in a company called Whisperflow. You have to check it out. Whisperflow is four times faster than typing. So if you want to give it a try, head over to whisperflow. A I slash D O A C to get started for free. And you can find that link. To Whisperflow in the description below. There are a few sports that I make time for. No matter where I am in the world. And one of them is, of course, football. The other is MMA, but watching that abroad usually requires a VPN. I spend

35:08 So much time traveling. I've just spent the last two and a half months traveling through Asia and Europe and now back here in the United States. And as I'm traveling, there are so many different shows that I want to watch on TV or on some streaming websites. So when I was traveling through Asia and I was in Kualumpur one day, then the next day I was in Hong Kong and the next day I was in Indonesia. All of those countries had a different streaming provider, a different broadcaster. And so in most of those countries they had to rely on express VPN who are a sponsor of this podcast. Their tool is private and secure and v it's very, very simple how it works. When you're in that country And you want to watch a show that you love in the UK, all you do is you go on there and you click the button UK, and it means that you can gain access to content in the UK. If you're after a similar solution in your life and you've experienced that problem too, visit expressvpn.com slash doac to find out how you can access ExpressVPN for an extra four months at no cost. Yeah.

35:58 Here is the third most replayed moment. For those people who have just clicked. To listen to this conversation. Can you tell them The mission you're on.

36:07 And why it's so important. Yeah. Well thanks so much for having this conversation with me. I think that illustrates the problem. Right, someone as informed as you don't know anything, or never heard of nitric oxide. So It's important for us to just make a distinction between Um N like nitrate gas that people

36:23 You know, inhale and that you th you if you played like uh some of those racing car games, you press a button and the car goes really fast if you're nitrous. Nitrous. These are two separate things. So this isn't not nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide Is I mean in medicine it's a dental anesthetic. Right. It's a gas, it's called laughing gas. That's N two O. It's the chemical formula.

36:46 What we're talking about is nitric oxide. Or N O one nitrogen. One oxygen. This molecule is is foundational for human health and longevity.

36:55 So nitric oxide is a gas. It's a naturally produced molecule. It's a signaling molecule in the human body. So it's it regulates things like blood flow and oxygen delivery and it mobilizes our own stem cells to help us recover and repair and replace dysfunctional Cells that uh improves energy production inside the cell. And it regulates blood flow. So nitric oxide is a gas. It's produced in the endothelium. So the endothelium is the single layer of cells that line every blood vessel throughout the body.

37:23 So the function of these endothelial cells is to regulate vascular tone. And to regulate you know, solute exchange and extravization or transport of molecules across that in the thetal layer. And so when your endothelial cells can no longer make nitric oxide gas.

37:40 They no longer dilate. So the blood vessels become constricted. You start to get inflammation. You get stiff arteries played. Deposition.

37:49 That's what starts. Cardiovascular disease, rather sclerosis. So let me get this straight. I'll repeat back to you what I think I understand about nitric oxide, and you tell me if it's accurate. So this nitric oxide is a Chemical. That is in all the blood cells of my body.

38:04 And it allows my blood cells to Basically expand, open up so blood can flow through there. It dilates it dilates the smooth muscle. But it's not affecting.

38:15 That feels per se, but it's dilating the smooth muscle that surrounds the blood vessels that leads to relaxation and dilation. Fine. So my blood cells would then expand. Your blood vs. And more blood would go through there. But if I'm deficient that mechanism doesn't work and my blood cells wouldn't Expand. ultimately expand through the relaxation of the muscles. That's right.

38:35 And therefore I would have higher blood pressure, which can lead to a a series of Down diseases and consequences. the graph that I showed a second ago where we're seeing for anyone that can't see this graph because you're listening on audio. We're singing. Yeah.

38:52 Nitric oxide levels in young people up to the age of roughly around twenty. are optimal. And then from about thirty to seventy there's this tremendous sort of eighty, ninety percent drop. In terms of chronic disease, that is downstream from me losing nitric oxide level, can you give me a bit of a menu of chronic disease that is associated with this nitric oxide deficiency.

39:15 Yep. We've touched on them. So erectile dysfunction. So when erections in both men and women are dependent upon Dilation of the blood vessels. And we call that the canary in the coal mine.

39:31 Because for years people thought it was a lifestyle disorder. Well erectile dysfunction. Yeah. But now it's recognized that it's a symptom. of loss of nitric oxide. in really an accelerated form of cardiovascular disease. High blood pressure.

39:45 Metabolic disease and diabetes. And then the other one is uh obviously Alzheimer's. 'Cause Alzheimer's is a vascular disease. And nitric oxide corrects every single thing we know about Alzheimer's. It improves blood flow to the brain.

39:58 It improves glucose uptake. So it overcomes the metabolic Aspect of Alzheimer's. It reduces inflammation. In fact, a number of my patents are on a method of reducing inflammation. Yeah.

40:08 Inhibits the oxidative stress we see in in Alzheimer's neurological disease. And it prevents the immune dysfunction. And when you do that, when you restore blood flow and you get nutrients and oxygen in and you take out the metabolic waste products There's no misfolding of protein. So you don't get the amyloid plaque, you don't get the tail tangles.

40:25 So this simple molecule nitric oxide gas I'm absolutely convinced will eradicate and cure Alzheimer's. Really? 'Cause it it it addresses every physiological root cause.

40:38 If you can get it. Administered therapeutically. To patients. Early enough. No, I think that's a very key because it's not a good thing.

40:46 The success or failure of any clinical trial Any drug in any clinical trial is dependent upon the design of the clinical trial. in what patients, at what stage of disease that you enroll these patients. So what are the inclusion criteria and what are the exclusion criteria? And there's a stage in every disease.

41:04 Whether it's heart disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer's. Where you've reached a point of no return. There's really no medical therapy that's gonna reverse. that disease because it's progressed to a state that's irreversible. So I think what we try to do is take

41:19 Take patients early in the process, what we call vaster dementia, mild cognitive impairment. early Alzheimer's. Because what I want to be able to demonstrate is two things. Number one, can we stop the progression of disease? Once it's started, can we stop the progression?

41:35 And then number two is We want to enroll patients far enough along to where We can show regression. So can you move can you move the needle back? So that's a very

41:46 kind of a specific and finite patient population. When you design a clinical study, number one At the at at the absolute worst, we want to stop progression. At the absolute best, we want to show that we can regress disease. And that's the goal of therapy is that you understand the mechanism of disease

42:03 To the extent that you can treat it. He can prevent it. You can reverse it and you can cure it. Wan I wanna think about the role that food plays in my nitric oxide production. What should I be eating?

42:17 to increase um my nitric oxide levels or to keep them at a healthy level. I think it The same answer. It's for that too. It's it it's not so much what we should be eating, it's what we should not be eating. Okay.

42:30 So we'll we'll we'll cover those step by step. Number one, you have to avoid sugar. And high glycemic index foods. Because sugar is a toxin, it's a poison. And let's think about what sugar is. So

42:43 When we eat Sugar or drink sugar. Beverages. Right, whether it's sucrose, whether it's fructose, whether it's high fructose corn strip. The end result inside the human is we see an increase in glucose.

42:56 So Elevation in blood sugar or blood glucose. Is Diabetes. Right.

43:02 And now there's continuous glucose monitors that you can get. Anywhere. Everybody does this. So if you eat something and it causes an increase in your blood sugar. Blood glucose. Then you should avoid that.

43:13 'Cause glucose, as the name applies, is gluten. Right. It's sticky. And if we if if you have a soda and you spill it on your countertop, you come back the next day, it's sticky. Right. Well, that's what happens inside the body. That sugar sticks to everything. It sticks to proteins. It sticks to enzymes.

43:29 And it lowers nitric oxide production. Absolutely. That's why diabetics Ten time higher incidence of heart attack, stroke, all cause mortality. Mortality.

43:39 That's why they develop neural neurological or peripheral neuropathy. That's why they have non healing wounds. There's no nitric oxide. That's why they're developing diabetic retinopathy. Micro degeneration.

43:50 Pancreatitis. I mean all that can be Because the sugar stuck to the enzyme. The sugar destroys the oral microbiome. It completely changes the the ecology of the bacteria and completely shuts down nitric oxide production.

44:06 Right. To answer your question, what should we be eating? I think you've gotta eat a balanced diet in moderation. You know, Americans are overfed. All you gotta do is walk around and see the Yeah. Epidemic of obesity.

44:19 Good high quality protein. Good quality fat. And little or no carbs. And it's Really that simple.

44:27 Here's the second most replayed moment. When you think about it behaviors and habits that are popular and trendy at the moment. Are there any that stand out to you as being particularly good for the brain or particularly bad for the brain? Because I had a couple come to mind.

44:42 that I wanted to throw at you. I mean one of them that's exploding in the UK at the moment. Is Puddle. Which is kind of I think you call it pickleball here.

44:52 Good for my brain, bad for my brain. It's so good for your brain. Because It's working. Your cerebellum and I told you that because yours was sleepy.

45:05 And is you activate this and you do that with coordination exercises. It then activates your frontal lobes. Does that mean that people that are uncoordinated have A therabom issue. Yes. Oh really? Okay.

45:21 The better coordination You develop. And that's why coordination exercises for kids. So we talked about kids. Is You want to do that with them.

45:34 Gorling. play sports, but not sports where they're gonna get a head injury, right? I mean we have to be smarter. than we are. Um But

45:45 When I was young, my mother Who's now ninety three. was the Ping pong champion. In the neighborhood.

45:55 And she was really good and she never let us beat her until we could. Um But she was always encouraging. I've got um I was looking then as you were speaking about

46:09 different trends at the moment that are either good or bad for the brain. And one big trend at the moment is neuroplasticity training. Lots of people are doing games and using other things to like there's apps you can get that are neuroplasticity training apps. Does any of that stuff work?

46:24 Some of them. Some of it won't expect it. If you're so for example, if you're doing memorization games, do them while you're on The bike. No. Not in the street.

46:37 But if you're on a stationary bike. And you're doing those games. It's been found. That

46:46 Ексорсайсь Increases blood flow. To the hippocampus. Meaning you're more likely to remember it. and you're strengthening your brain in the process. So exercise with new learning.

47:03 Stunner. If I wanna learn something I should do it while walking or moving in motion. Right. So if you're listening to a language app

47:13 For example. Do it while you're walking. Mindfulness and meditation, good or bad for the brain. Great. I published three studies. on a Kundalini Yoga form of meditation called kirtenkriya.

47:25 It's a twelve minute. Meditation. I always say it's the perfect A D D. Meditation because it's only twelve minutes. And for twelve minutes you do this. Sa ta na.

47:35 Uh. Saw ta na So. It's two minutes out loud, two minutes whispering. Four minutes silently to yourself.

47:45 Two minutes whispering, two minutes out loud, you're done. Satana. Mm-hmm. Earth. Life.

47:52 Death, reborn, birth, life, death. But The one we studied is Sa Ta na No.

48:00 And So if they look it up Kirtan Crea. Um activates your cerebellum. activates your frontal lobes.

48:10 Calms down your emotional. Right. People who did that for twelve minutes. For eight weeks. Their resting frontal lobe function was stronger.

48:25 So simple. What the hell is going on there? I think it's the focused attention plus You're doing a coordination meditation, sa no. Loving your job.

48:42 Good or back of brain. Absolutely great for your brain. Yeah. You're learning new things. People who are in a job.

48:52 That does not require new learning have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease. So if you're stagnant in your work, you have a higher risk of assignments. And like If I just read brain scans all day.

49:05 Well, I know how to do it. I'm not learning anything. No. So I do that. But I also

49:14 am writing about something I don't know about. Um, or I'm learning something new. What if you're working with ourselves? I'm sorry. I love the job, but I'm working with arsehole. Bad for your brain. Chronic stress.

49:30 Increases cortisol. And I think everybody should sort of know their baseline cortisol level. And cortisol Shrinks. The hippocampus.

49:42 And puts fat on your belly. So that's two very bad things for your brain. Breathwork. That's a big track. Excellent. Excellent. You want to break a panic attack? The fifteen second breath.

49:56 Four seconds in. Hold it for a second and a half. Eight seconds out. Hold it. For a second and a half.

50:05 You just do that. Or five times. Your whole nervous system. Will calm down. And the research shows. Take twice as long to breathe.

50:16 Oh. As you breathe in. That's why four seconds in. Eight seconds out. It shifts your nervous system, doesn't it? Yes.

50:25 It increases something called vagal tone. Okay, some bad things then. Social media usage, chronic social media usage. Good for the brain, bad for the brain. Because you're constantly comparing yourself to people who aren't real. What about workaholism?

50:39 And hustle culture. So I love My work. Am I addicted to it?

50:49 I don't know. But I love it. When they say people are workaholics and it's bad for the brain It's their Working

51:02 With assholes. Or doing something they don't. Like Or doing it for the money but without Other purpose.

51:13 Microplastics. That's a big trick. For the brand. One of the major causes of hormone disruption and cancer. Thank you for not giving me a plastic water bottle. Imagine if imagine if we did that and we spend a lot a lot of time these days talking about the microplastics and other environmental toxins that I think people are becoming more aware of now, which is

51:38 Good. Noise pollution. Bad for the brain. And if if it hurts your hearing. Hearing loss.

51:47 is actually one of the risk factors for Alzheimer's. Why is that? I did a I did a Because you're not getting input. Right. And if you're not getting appropriate input. Your brain starts to

52:00 Atrophy. And If you don't hear what other people are saying and you have a lot of ants, you have a high negativity bias, is you can actually begin to get a bit paranoid. And fill in the empty spaces with negativity.

52:19 I just bought some new Apple AirPods. And when I connected them to my phone, it said, You want to do a hearing test? So I did the hearing test. And then I asked my girlfriend, I said, You should do the hearing test as well, because I needed something to compare it to. And I was a little bit Shocked.

52:33 Um it's that I hadn't lost any hearing yet. But my hearing was significantly Not as good as has. And I remember thinking, gosh. You know, this is but I didn't have any idea that it was linked to Alzheimer's at all.

52:46 So now I've turned down the volume. For the first time in my life. Because I think your hearing declines regardless really of what you do with age anyway. Um, but as you said earlier, like starting from a better baseline when you're talking about the Brain reserves.

52:59 Is really the game. I think with aging. My last point is uh My last question is a bit of a seems to be uncorrelated, but the world is heading towards a a world that's driven by artificial intelligence.

53:13 It's like all the all the rage at the moment if you log on in the internet. People talking about they're gonna lose their jobs. all of these new tools that allow us to optimize our lives in a variety of different ways. When you think about the world of AI

53:25 That we're heading into. There's so many ways that I I imagine it's gonna make your job easier. As someone who's doing scans of brains and so on. But do you think artificial intelligence is gonna be good or bad for our brains? I think in the short run it's gonna be bad.

53:43 Because Your brain is gonna do less. And that's bad. For the brand. I th I think it's fascinating to watch what's

53:54 Yeah. And ultimately, in the words of my friend Byron Cady. Argue with reality. Welcome to hell. We need to figure out

54:06 How to use it. To enhance our lives rather than to steal Brain development. Here's the first most replayed moment. There was a study done in two thousand and

54:17 Seven that showed Can't even say it. That shows Cumin upregates. Anti

54:26 Oxidant defenses and dam regulates oxidative stress. There's a study done in two thousand and sixteen, which is a meta analysis of random control trials found curcuminum comparable to Ivy Proofin in terms of pain relief. Yeah, there there's a lot of work on Kirkman and Termerick. As I say, a lot of people get confused because they think the air it only works if you absorb it into the blood.

54:50 And I'm saying that actually you don't Work with a microbiome to make it useful. And there's early preclinical studies taking place.

55:00 around the impact it can have with cancers and there's promising but early studies showing the impact that curcumin that comes from tumor it can have on brain health. to the brain. What we call the vascular. Effects.

55:18 on the brain. And there's something we used to call the blood brain barrier. which you've probably heard of, which is seen to be the place where uh the barrier that stops a lot of stuff. Entering the brain and potentially upsetting it. We now know this blood brain barrier is a very Dynamic.

55:35 interesting interface between The Brains, tissue, and the rest of us. is now called the neurovascular unit. And it is so exciting.

55:48 And the more we look at it So far the more we find that the things that help the Neurovascular unit of the blood brain barrier. And

56:00 We have green tea. And you know, we can uh if he really wants to help Um Um Brain health, regular drinking of green tea.

56:10 You know. Not that rather than the supplement, by the way. Right. So we can make it. So

56:25 As you make that, can you explain to me? why green tea is a good idea. Because it contains a number of And polyphenols are those. These colours. These colours, yeah. In this case it's green, obviously. And member green tea is just the smoked unprocessed

56:43 It's a plant called Camellia. Um

56:53 So this is a nice Japanese Tea pot, that's the sort of thing you'd have green tea in. And these are the mugs, but we've filled these off already with uh uh ginger and cinnamon. So Let's let's leave it for a moment.

57:10 polyphenols and green tea that seem to be particularly Effective. in modulating that barrier we talked about the neurovascular unit between the brain and the rest of us. And um Uh there's all sorts of reasons why regular consumption of green tea seems to be linked to less of this. Sort of trouble.

57:30 W what sort of trouble? Do they find that in cultures where they drink a lot of green tea they have less dementia? Yeah, but that doesn't mean there's a cause and effect. So you need a few other things to establish that. What we're finding is that other plants have very likely powerful effects in this area. And I mentioned the rosemary. No all you need to do to

57:54 Appreciate rosemary is to press it and sniff. Oh smell so good. Mm. Really nice. That's not just nice because what you're doing there is you're inhaling volatile oils. The things that give the smell.

58:09 And when you're inhaling. They're literally going into your brain. Because Actually

58:16 It's called the olfactory lobe. And when you inhale something, it literally moves into the brain. And from there into the limbic system. Remember there's a f line in the Shakespeare play called H Hamlet, Felia.

58:34 Rose me. That's for remembrance. Because everyone knew that this improved cognitive functions. And when I was in working on a campus in Maryland, we actually did a clinical trial with Rosemary in people with struggling with their crosswords, you know, as they get older and found that although it wasn't a conclusive study, there were pointers to it improving cognitive or

58:58 phones. in those people. And there's been other studies since that re is that reinforce that. I would say that Rosemary is one of the ones to watch. In terms of long term brain health. There's another remedy called Ginkgo. that a lot of people know about which that's used as a prescription medicine in

59:16 Europe uh for cardiovascular problems. And that's been shown To be likely useful and using the same sort of mechanisms as as we've seen here. And with the green tea. I'll s check it here.

59:30 Yeah, that looks all right. You see it's more yellow than green. But uh And uh this is flavored with a little bit of mint to make it a little more

59:44 Agreeable. Sometimes people find green tea is not their favourite taste, but Green tea is rich in polyphenols. Um which are linked to benefits ranging from heart and brain health to fat loss and cancer prevention. It's got nice.

1:00:01 Minty flavour. Yeah. Can live with that, couldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend again, she she's all over this stuff. She's always bloody right.

1:00:09 Yeah. Well you know that or learn that lesson a long time ago. I know, right? Like I say it all the time on this podcast, but she's always like Two three years ahead. of what then someone really really smart comes and tells me. And I spend those two or three years in denial. I'm like, what the fuck is she like But can we start on Kacao if you start talking to me about cacao. No. She's been telling me I'm gonna nail this because there's a lot of people listening who will want to hear this. Coco. Yeah.

1:00:35 Chocolate. Stark chocolate. is a medicine. One of the best medicines.

1:00:43 Around. Seventy five percent or more. Dark chocolate. Do you know what I've just realized my girlfriend, she's gonna live till she's hundred and fifty. Because

1:00:54 She oh she Ninety percent or something, some eighty percent. Dark chocolate. She drinks green tea all day. She has

1:01:04 The ginger and cinnamon drinks all day. She eats the f the full rainbow. She should be sipping in for you. I know, I I know exactly. No cocoa. Seriously. Yeah. Brain health as well.

1:01:19 Cardiovascular health. I mean they just they do studies where they've But Coco into the f volunteers that means students usually. Um you know, so young

1:01:30 Kids. And they were able to show changes in the Within Minutes.

1:01:37 Certainly within an hour. Oh. Eating cocoa. They call it the heart.

1:01:44 Medicine. Yeah. Arts, circulation, brain. Uh sh so she's um my girlfriend's very spiritual. She runs a business called Barley Breathwork. Um Hashtag ad if I have to say that. But in her business, one of the things she does at the very start of the session with women all over the world that come to her retreats is she makes Account for them. And

1:02:05 You notice instantly how people change when they've had a hot cup of cacao. It's all and and she says it like almost brings out their heart. And I guess that's because of the circulation reasons, is it. But it also, of course, we know it contains a few other beneficial stimulat stimulating things. Sort of similar the effects of the coffee, which incidentally, as I've already said, is a medicine as well. Uh but cocoa and c chocolate

1:02:31 does have a uplifting effect, which is why we love it so. And we have to be clear here, we're not talking about Hot chocolate that comes from a packet or something necessarily. Okay. Uh the less sugar, the less fat. Um so uh will you talk about seventy five percent cocoa solids?

1:02:50 Yeah, so it's dark chocolate. And it tastes a bit more medicinal, doesn't it? It's not as sweet. Um but I'm saying to many of my patients take fifty grams a day. As a medicine. Mm.

1:03:02 Bam. She's right. My fridge is full of dark chocolate. I tend to avoid it, but the drawer of my fridge has all of her dark chocolate in and it's she she likes it ninety percent. If she can get it ninety percent, she'll take it. Yeah, ninety percent is quite now. Yeah.

1:03:17 Yeah. Having a look at the Green tea. There was a study done in two thousand and eight which supports how it improved cognitive function, memory attention, accuracy and um long term consumption associ is associated with lower risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease, according to the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in two thousand and eleven.

1:03:40 Nice to have somebody else just say what you said. I didn't realise that I didn't I had no idea. I had no idea. All those times I turned it down when she offered it to me. Mm.

1:03:54 Can't say sorry. I've literally literally I've got a Wow, heart health, brain function. Fat burning and metabolism. And some pre prevention early evidence.

1:04:05 Blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. Got an oral health. Uh If there's anything we need, it is Connection, especially in the world we're living in today. And that is exactly why we created these conversation cards, because on this show, when I sit here with my guests and have those deep, intimate conversations, this remarkable thing happens time and time again. We feel

1:04:28 Deeply connected to each other. At the end of every episode, the guest I'm interviewing leaves a question for the next guest, and we've turned them into these. Conversation cards. And we've added these twist cards to make your conversations even more interesting. And there are so many more twists along the way with the conversation cards. This is the brand new addition, and for the first time ever, I've added to the pack this gold card, which is an exclusive question from me, but I'm only putting the gold cards in the first. Run of conversation cards. So get yours now before the limited edition gold cards are all gone. Head to the link in the description below.

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