This One Mistake Could Affect Your Future Kids | Ben Greenfield & Robby Besner | DSH #1889

Summary

Digital Social Hour #1889:

"This One Mistake Could Affect Your Future Kids"

Guests: Ben Greenfield & Robby Besner
Host: Sean Kelly
Date: March 26, 2026

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Overview

In this dynamic and wide-ranging episode of Digital Social Hour, Sean Kelly sits down with renowned biohacker Ben Greenfield and wellness innovator Robby Besner for a no-holds-barred conversation. The trio explores the hidden impacts of lifestyle choices on future generations—particularly the epigenetic consequences of common habits most may overlook. They delve into biohacking trends, testosterone myths, oral health innovation, family legacy, and the importance of cultivating meaningful values. Both practical and philosophical, this episode blends cutting-edge science with deep personal reflection, offering listeners a wealth of actionable insights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Artificial Sweeteners and Epigenetic Risk

• Main Theme: The dangers of overlooked daily habits, especially the impact of artificial sweeteners on future offspring.
• Ben Greenfield references a recent study (00:00, 21:36) linking small amounts of Diet Coke (1-3 cans daily) to increased anxiety in offspring, based on rodent models.
  • Quote: “If you have a wicked Diet Coke habit, you might have kids who are more prone to anxiety.” – Ben Greenfield (00:34, 21:44)
• The group connects this to broader epigenetic findings, like the "Dutch famine effect," where ancestral trauma or deprivation rewires genes for generations.

2. Oral Health Innovation & Routine

• Tools Discussed: Red and blue light toothbrushes, oil pulling, tongue scraping.
• Ben emphasizes oral health as foundational, referencing both Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine.
  • Quote: “Scraping... keeps bacteria that you swallow from winding up in your GI tract after a night of it being in your mouth.” – Ben Greenfield (01:44)
  • Traditional Chinese diagnostics note tongue health as an indicator of gut bacteria balance.
• Robbie shares a personal anecdote about getting seven cavities despite a healthy diet, emphasizing the influence of mouth breathing and dry climates.

3. Breathing, Mouth Taping & Physical Performance

• Ben and Robbie discuss mouth taping at night to improve sleep quality (02:33).
• Ben details how nasal breathing via devices and training improves VO2 max, nitric oxide, and overall performance, citing Patrick McKeown’s work and a personal protocol for enhancing aerobic capacity (03:10–05:04).
  • Protocol: 4-6 minute maximum effort intervals with equal rest, 4–6 times, every 1–2 weeks.
  • Quote: “VO2 max, grip strength, and walking speed. Those are the three biggies [for longevity].” – Ben Greenfield (05:41)

4. Walking and Longevity

• The idea that walking is one of the best, accessible forms of movement (09:40).
  • Newer studies endorse 7,000–8,000 steps/day as the mortality risk-reducing threshold, debunking the 10,000 step myth (06:07).
  • Pace is important: "Walk a little bit faster than your brain wants you to walk.” – Ben Greenfield (06:35)
• Ben describes various biohacks (weighted vests, mouth breathing devices, syncopated music) to enhance the humble walk.

5. Biohacking for Sexual & Overall Vitality

• Ben and Robby wittily discuss the rising trend of high-tech approaches (“biohacker sex”): stem cells, PRP, “salmon sperm” facials, Botox (10:29–11:27).
  • Ben shares his experience with Botox injections for sexual enhancement (11:31–12:20).

6. Testosterone, TRT, and Youth Risks

• The hosts review the alarming trend of teenagers (like the influencer “Clavicular”) self-prescribing testosterone (TRT) for performance and appearance:
  • Key Insight: Early, unnecessary TRT carries a severe risk of infertility; once started, natural production can atrophy and recovery is long and uncertain (13:00–13:55, 17:03).
  • Alternative methods: Ben advocates for training legs, micronutrients, sleep, sunlight, and cold exposure for natural testosterone support (14:00–15:39).

7. Environmental Toxins and Global Fertility Decline

• The panel speaks to a “global extinction challenge” due to environmental disruptors lowering fertility and hormone health in both teens and adults (18:45–20:23).
  • References: Movies like Children of Men, Dr. Zach Bush’s research tying glyphosate to long-term generational damage (19:59).

8. Salt, Iodine, and Ancestral Nutrition

• Discussion on how dietary shifts (excessive sodium chloride, iodine stripped from salt) have led to new health problems—contrary to decades-old advice (23:10–24:29).

9. Family Legacy, Values, and “The Constitution”

• Ben describes building a Greenfield family “constitution”—a detailed, evolving document outlining values, traditions, rites of passage, and memorial wishes (25:19–27:29).
  • Quote: “It’s almost like this mild sense of immortality... a tiny stamp of my legacy that if I do the right things, I can actually keep on helping the world after I die.” – Ben Greenfield (25:19)
• The panel affirms the power of systematizing family values in an era of fragmentation, discussing both risks of losing tradition and the opportunities for children to forge their own paths while staying grounded (29:02–30:55).

10. Unschooling, Self-Directed Learning, and Parental Wisdom

• Ben shares his educational philosophy—homeschooling, self-actualized learning, and helping his kids start businesses—and how he synthesized lessons from successful parents into his book Boundless Parenting (31:03–34:31).
  • Quote: “I place a great deal of value on an autodidact approach to life, but also kind of like a self-actualized approach to learning.” – Ben Greenfield (31:50)

11. Accepting Human Brokenness & Chasing Perfection

• Ben reflects on the message of “Brokenness”—no matter how much you optimize, aging and entropy are inevitable. The pursuit must center on accepting imperfection and avoiding obsession with “perfection” in longevity and health (36:01–37:48).
  • Quote: “If you deny the fact that we are broken… then you’re going to be a pretty unhappy individual. ... If you accept that and you’re happy about it, and you just have the very best combination of healthspan, lifespan... I think it’s a better way to live.” – Ben Greenfield (36:01)

12. Debunking Biohacking Myths

• Plans to write a book debunking dogmatic health beliefs—everything from cold plunges, gluten, seed oils, to workout timing—emphasizing the nuance that’s missing from the “optimization” discourse (37:51–38:58).

13. Solitude, Quiet, and Inner Voice

• All guests emphasize the importance of retreat, quiet, and unplugging from “cosmic dust” and digital noise to reconnect with one’s inner compass (35:59–40:23).
  • References to Napoleon Hill’s Outwitting the Devil as a vital read about the dangers of perpetual distraction (39:41).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Artificial Sweetener Study:
  “If you have a wicked Diet Coke habit, you might have kids who are more prone to anxiety.”
  – Ben Greenfield (00:34, 21:44)

• Walking & Longevity:
  “Walking seems to be one of the best things—low-hanging fruit.”
  – Ben Greenfield (09:45)

• Testosterone & Overtraining:
  “Nature doesn’t want to bring babies into the world in a time of constant running from lions.”
  – Ben Greenfield (17:52)

• Youth on TRT:
  “One of the greatest things we can do as human beings is to make little human beings. And if you’re starting with testosterone at that age, the earlier you start, the more you’re going to impact fertility.”
  – Ben Greenfield (13:00)

• Family Legacy:
  “It’s almost like this mild sense of immortality... If I do the right things, I can actually keep on helping the world after I die.”
  – Ben Greenfield (25:19)

• Brokenness & Acceptance:
  “If you deny the fact that we are broken… then you’re going to be a pretty unhappy individual… Instead, do what you can to be the best version of your broken self.”
  – Ben Greenfield (36:01)

• Solitude & Inner Voice:
  “The true essence—like best doctor—is the one, that voice inside of you. So if you’re not quiet and you don’t hear that voice, you don’t get that connection.”
  – Guest Expert (39:03)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------|------------------| | Artificial sweeteners & epigenetics | 00:00, 21:36 | | Oral health & mouth gadgets | 00:48–02:14 | | Mouth taping & nasal breathing | 02:33–03:41 | | VO2 max protocol | 04:04–05:04 | | Step count & longevity myths | 05:41–06:07 | | Walking/biohacking walking | 09:03–10:23 | | Biohacker sexual health fads | 10:29–12:20 | | Testosterone/trends, risks, fixes | 12:29–17:25 | | Environmental fertility threats | 18:45–20:23 | | Salt, iodine, and nutrition shifts | 23:10–24:29 | | Family constitution & legacy | 25:19–27:29 | | Unschooling & Boundless Parenting | 31:03–34:31 | | Accepting brokenness, new biohacking philosophy | 36:01–37:48 | | Quiet, “cosmic dust,” and the inner voice | 39:03–40:23 |

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a rapid-fire blend of biohacking truths, cultural critique, and generational wisdom. From the invisible threats in your can of soda to crafting a family legacy with intention, Ben Greenfield and Robby Besner challenge the audience to revisit not just how they live, but how those choices ripple far into the future. The dialogue is as entertaining as it is illuminating, reminding listeners that true health—and true legacy—demand both vigilance and humility.

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Transcript

[Ben Greenfield]

Diet Coke has one and Coke zero has another. But it's one in Diet Coke. And if you actually wanted to reach the levels of that artificial sweetener intake that shows some type of cancer causing or neurotoxic event, you'd have to drink like 77 cans of diet Coke. This newer study came out and this was like in the past year that showed that when you get to the equivalence of a much lower amount, it's like one to three cans. They were showing changes with parameters related to anxiety, like the ability to be able to manage stress. So basically what that means is like if you have a wicked Diet Coke habit, you might have kids who are more prone to anxiety. Holy cr.

[Podcast Host]

All right, guys, here at a 4M with Ben and Robbie.

[Robbie]

Ben, it's good to see you again man.

[Ben Greenfield]

Good to be back.

[Robbie]

It's been two and a half years. I'm sure you've done a lot since.

[Ben Greenfield]

I've done a lot. I see you have a toothbrush on the table. This is going to be like oral pair 101.

[Robbie]

It's a red light toothbrush.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah, it just came out.

[Ben Greenfield]

I. They have something like this.

[Robbie]

Oh yeah.

[Guest Expert]

Red and blue light.

[Robbie]

You always got the new gadgets, some vibration.

[Ben Greenfield]

What, what's the, what's the effect? Like better white me.

[Guest Expert]

Well, no, I think it changes your, your oral bacteria in a sense, you know. Yeah, Strips if you've got any kind of non beneficial bacteria, takes the, their biofilms, little strip back biofares and stuff like that. Increase blood flowing.

[Ben Greenfield]

Fun. Yeah, yeah. I'm a big like oil puller. Yeah. Tongue scraper. Because I've interviewed, I don't know if you interviewed any ayurvedic docs, but I love morning routine thing like drink some water and scrape your tongue and coconut oil pulling. I feel fresh and clean.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[Ben Greenfield]

I might have to start doing the tongue scraping.

[Robbie]

I don't do that one. Yeah, it's worth it.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

What do you see coming off your tongue?

[Ben Greenfield]

I don't really see much at all.

[Robbie]

Oh God.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, yeah. But, but apparently from a preventive standpoint, it keeps bacteria that you swallow from winding up in your GI tract.

[Robbie]

Got it.

[Ben Greenfield]

After a night of it being in your mouth.

[Guest Expert]

You know, in traditional Chinese medicine they'll look at your tongue for diagnostic purposes and oftentimes if you've got an overgrowth of bacteria or bad bacteria in your gut, it'll start coming up and you'll see a coating on your tongue in the back. So by, by, you know, scraping and so forth, you can keep a little bit of balance, at least in that

[Ben Greenfield]

area of your body. Yeah, I'm starting to like adult rush.

[Robbie]

I'm starting to take my oral health seriously. I had a wake up call a couple months ago. Seven cavities.

[Ben Greenfield]

Oh, geez.

[Robbie]

Yeah, I was like, what the. Because I barely eat sugar.

[Ben Greenfield]

I was going to say, like, I'm

[Robbie]

a mouth bruiser, though, so.

[Ben Greenfield]

I heard.

[Robbie]

That passes up.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yep, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's something about the, like the dry air and that moves to the mouth

[Robbie]

and we're in Vegas, so it's drier.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. Do you mouth tape? I used to, but do even mouth tape, bro.

[Podcast Host]

I. Should I start again?

[Robbie]

Is it worth it, you think? Mouth tap at night?

[Ben Greenfield]

I swear. Well, I don't swear by it. Like, I can get by without mouth tape, but I get better sleep. Really? It forces you to nasal breathe. You have to find a good strip that's not going to come off. And then if you go with something that's got too much adhesive, you got like the chapped lips, bleeding lips that in the morning. So it's. It's a fine balance. And then because. So I'm married. And so if you have like nighttime pillow talk, you have to time it right about the time when you think she's done talking and you don't have anything left to say and the tape goes on, you got to go.

[Guest Expert]

See, I'm married 45 years, so my wife does. We don't tape during the night, she tapes me during the day because she says I talk too much.

[Ben Greenfield]

So, yeah, I laugh. But that's the thing. That's like the Spartan negotia thing that they would have the young warriors do to, you know, like go on a run with a mouthful of gravel or water to force you to nasal breathe. Yeah, that's. There's a guy who's pretty popular in the respiratory space, Patrick McCown. He's a big fan of this whole minimal nasal breathing. And there's. There's a pretty good effect on VO2 max on humidification of the air, on nitric oxide production, when you force yourself to breathe through your mouth during exercise. So I have this little thing next to my air dying bike, and you put it in your mouth. I don't even know who manufactures it, but it forces you to breathe through your nose and then out through. Through a restricted device. So you're almost developing, like, more pressure and expiratory muscle training. And at the same time, like, you have no choice but to nasal breathe. Wow.

[Robbie]

Okay. I'm gonna start measuring. Yeah, I'm gonna start measuring my VO2 max. I just learned how important that is. Yeah. At this conference.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty important. And so. So my formal background is exercise physiology. And what we used to get taught was that it's like totally non modifiable, but it's, it's highly modifiable. There, there's a peak based on genetics, like Lance Armstrong for example, who didn't have the highest VO2 max is going to be tough to keep up with. But there is a proven protocol besides all of the usual things you do to support your mitochondrial health. Some of the like nasal breathing stuff we were talking about. But it's Basically, it's a 4 by 4 ish protocol and you only have to do it once every one to two weeks to increase VO2 max considerably. So it's like four minutes and you go up to six minutes as hard as you can go, but at maximum sustainable pace. So you get on a bike and it's like you hit 90 RPM and you just try and maintain 90 RPM the whole time. And then you use a one to one work to rest ratio. So you like recover for four to six minutes however long you did your burst for. And you do that four to six times through. Right. So it's like a 30, 40ish minute workout, but just once every one to two weeks. That's kind of like the proven protocol for increasing VO2 max because people throw around terms like hit training and sprint training and it varies. Like there's a big difference between a 10 second burst which just all triggering mitochondria and a 4 minute maximum sustainable pace effort, which is more VO2 max. Interesting.

[Robbie]

You training your VO2 max a little bit?

[Guest Expert]

Not as much as like I should.

[Robbie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

VO2 max grip strength and walking speed. Those are the three biggies. I remember fast. Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

The longevity.

[Robbie]

Is it for a long period of time or just like.

[Ben Greenfield]

No, it's just like, it's like it's your pace. Okay. Step count is important. The 10,000 thing was literally not based on any research at all. It's just like it came out of surreal. It was like some Japanese article or in the newspaper. I forget the whole story about it. But there's. It wasn't actually based on any kind of clinical research that people walked.

[Guest Expert]

Sounds sexy though, right?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. And newer research shows it's about 7 to 8K. Okay. Like that's, that's more achievable. You still get benefits once you go above that. But if you can hit 7 to 8k, that's where you, where you trigger the decreased all cause risk of mortality effect. Wow. And then if you fast. Right. Whether you know, training yourself with one of those like metronomes, or walking on a treadmill or doing anything that makes you walk, the way I, I think about it is like walk a little bit faster than your brain wants you to walk. Yeah. And. And it's correlated with longevity.

[Robbie]

I naturally do it because my dad wouldn't stop when we would hike when I was a kid. Yeah, he would, he wouldn't stop walking so I had to keep up with him, you know, so it was a bit of a trauma, traumatic thing.

[Ben Greenfield]

But yeah, yeah, we did the same. My wife and I both hike fast. We walk fast. And now it bites me in the butt because same thing with our kids when they were 2 or 3 years old, like, keep up. And so now when I go for a walk with my sons, it's too fast. Damn.

[Robbie]

Two is not.

[Ben Greenfield]

I'm talking like eight. But it wasn't actually based on any kind of clinical research that people who walked.

[Guest Expert]

Sounds sexy though, right?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. And newer research shows it's about 7 to 8K. Okay. Like that's, that's more achievable. You still get benefits once you go above that. But if you can hit 7 to 8k, that's where you, where you trigger the decreased all cause risk of mortality.

[Robbie]

Wow.

[Ben Greenfield]

And then if you fast. Right. Whether you know, training yourself with one of those like metronomes or walking on a treadmill or doing anything that makes you walk, the way I think about it is like walk a little bit faster than your brain wants you to walk. Yeah. And. And it's correlated with longevity.

[Robbie]

I naturally do it because my dad wouldn't stop when we would hike when I was a kid. Yeah, he wouldn't, he wouldn't stop walking, so I had to keep up with him. Yeah. You know, so it was a bit of a trauma, traumatic thing.

[Ben Greenfield]

But yeah. Yeah, we did the same thing. My wife and I both hike fast. We walk fast and now it bites me in the butt because same thing with our kids when they were 2 or 3 years old, like, keep up. And so now when I go for a walk with my sons, it's too fast.

[Guest Expert]

Damn.

[Robbie]

Two is not.

[Ben Greenfield]

I'm talking like eight.

[Robbie]

But okay.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah. I usually use music, the syncopation of the music to keep me in pace.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, that's a good trick.

[Guest Expert]

That's kind of cool.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

There's this device called A counter pulse. And in a hospital setting, if you had like a heart surgery or a severe cardiovascular issue, they use something called enhanced external counter pulsation. It's like this thing that you lay in almost like one of those lymph circulation suits and kind of compresses and relaxes based on the diastolic emptying phase of your heart. And this counterpulse is basically just like a heart rate strap. And then it syncs to your headphones and it gives you a little click or metronome, like sound time. Diastolic. So you actually walk and like pump your heart while you're walking, and then you kill two birds with one stone. Because it also kind of keeps you on pace. Holy crap. I owned. I owned one. Still own one somewhere in my closet. But I used it for about two years to just kind of like train myself, like to. To correlate my walking to my heart rate. And then eventually it's like training wheels. You just kind of subconscious figure it out. You could subconsciously do it. Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

You can get an intuitive pace. You start to know.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's basically timed to the emptying of your heart. So you're almost like doing a better job pumping. Pumping blood as you walk. That's crazy. Yeah.

[Robbie]

I wonder if you could do that while you run too.

[Ben Greenfield]

You could. Yeah. I'd probably help a lot, right? Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

Jeez.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. Yeah. There's all sorts of ways to just like, mod. Like I. I came from the world of Ironman triathlon, right. In marathoning and endurance sports. And now I just love walking. And there's all sorts of things you can use to walk. Like that, that mouthpiece. You can take it out on a walk. You can use the counterpulse device. You can do a ruck. You do wave vest. Like, I walk a ton.

[Robbie]

It's hard to be walking.

[Ben Greenfield]

I'm realizing walking what.

[Robbie]

Like, it's hard to beat that in terms of just health, like, walking seems

[Ben Greenfield]

to be one of the best things. Yeah. Low sing fruit. Yeah. I mean, it's not gonna. Not gonna do much for grip strength or, you know, or just overall muscle mass, but. Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

And I don't think it's that expensive to walk these days. Is it pretty?

[Ben Greenfield]

I mean, if you're a biohacker, it is because you gotta have your collagen smoothie and your, your helmet. That's amino acids in your bloodstream.

[Guest Expert]

That's the pre workout.

[Ben Greenfield]

And then your shoes that, that mush and adapt and strengthen your toes with some kind of Electrical muscle stimulation. Yeah. If you're a biohacker, it's super expensive to go on a walk, do anything, go to sleep, have sex, make a meal. It's always like three times more expensive. If you're right, you're a biohacker. Damn.

[Robbie]

What's the increase in sex like? Why is it more expensive as a biohacker?

[Ben Greenfield]

I was joking. I guess we could. We could explore that idea.

[Robbie]

I know you've gotten some stem cells.

[Ben Greenfield]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that. That actually is a big. Even here at a 4M where we're at, like, the whole sexual rejuvenation piece is a pretty big, huge. Yeah, scrolling. People are doing stem cells, prp, you know, nitric oxide precursors, pumps, you know, all sorts of fancy stuff. Yeah, there's all sorts of things.

[Robbie]

And you're. Are you still doing the salmon sperm on your face?

[Ben Greenfield]

Was I ever doing the salmon sperm on my face? That's what.

[Robbie]

Hey, I said I think you were years ago.

[Ben Greenfield]

I don't know if I was years ago. I have. I have done salmon sperm on my face at a clinic.

[Robbie]

Okay.

[Ben Greenfield]

Not because I specifically requested it. It was there and they offered.

[Robbie]

And you didn't have any injection salmon sperm?

[Ben Greenfield]

See what happens now?

[Robbie]

The ladies are doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you seen that?

[Guest Expert]

No, but it sounds interesting.

[Ben Greenfield]

Not to be confused with spermidine, which you find in a lot of oral and beauty products. It's kind of like an anti aging agent. I don't think that's derived from salmon.

[Robbie]

Yeah, the salmon sperm's hot. The botox is hot right now.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

A lot of ladies are getting those.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

What do you think of Botox?

[Ben Greenfield]

From what I understand, although I'm not really a cosmetic surgeon. You get it. And then repeated injections over time can kind of cause some reshaping of the face that almost like gaslights you into looking like a different person gradually and eventually becoming that. That stereotype of the person who's done too much work. I've gotten Botox. I mean, I didn't think we would go here, but what the heck? I've gotten Botox in my penis before.

[Robbie]

Oh, God.

[Ben Greenfield]

That's like a thing. I've heard that. Yeah. And my wife was like, super concerned that I was getting a paralytic toxin injected into my genitals. And it was. It was at a medical clinic where I was getting a different procedure. And their explanation was that it. It relaxes the muscle tissue and allows for better vascularity. Okay.

[Robbie]

Did you notice it?

[Ben Greenfield]

A little bit.

[Robbie]

So it Actually helped. Yeah. All right.

[Ben Greenfield]

Again, one of those things like salmon sperm. I didn't specifically request. They offered and just can't turn down.

[Robbie]

Have you guys seen this? I don't know. You probably haven't seen this guy, but clavicular.

[Ben Greenfield]

Clavicular.

[Robbie]

Have you seen that guy on Instagram? No.

[Ben Greenfield]

It sounds like a piece of the shoulder.

[Robbie]

Yeah, it sounds interesting. But I'll briefly explain who this kid is. He's one of the most popular influencers right now. He's a 19 year old kid. He's taken TRT ever since he was 14 and he's advocating for all these guys to just take testosterone at a young age.

[Ben Greenfield]

Well, he, he didn't have like some kind of like clinically diagnosed.

[Robbie]

No, he just wanted to live better.

[Ben Greenfield]

Like severe head injury that couldn't allow him to make testosterone. Nope, I don't like that.

[Robbie]

Yeah, he just wants to look better. He's also doing bone smashing.

[Ben Greenfield]

And I mean, you know, the, the biggest reason why is it's like one of the greatest things we can do as a human being is to make little human beings. And if you're starting with testosterone at that age, I mean the earlier you start, the more you're going to impact fertility. And there are things that guys who want to increase testosterone will take at the same time to maintain fertility, like ganaderellin or ACG or enclomiphene. And that allows them to both take less testosterone and maintain a little bit of a sperm count. Yeah, the, the Leydig cells and the testes can still operate a little bit. But if you're that young, I mean, no matter what you're taking at the same time, you're significantly impact both fertility and your own production.

[Guest Expert]

I don't know if you're tricking your body to not to make it because you're seconding a different way in certain hormonal generations. Actually the, it'll, it'll kind of create a sort of an atrophy in your body's ability to make that hormone, you know?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, there's a feedback loop and the way, the way I think about it is. So I would hope you wouldn't be thinking about this when you're 14, because you should be a little testosterone producing factory when you're 14, unless there's something significantly wrong. But if you were thinking about getting on testosterone because whatever, you're kind of borderline low but not clinically diagnosed by a doctor to be able to get a prescription for it or you want to recover a little faster, put A little bit extra muscle. First of all, there's a lot of precursors for you to make your own testosterone building blocks. And those are super simple to find. Boron, creatine, zinc, omega 3 fatty acids, magnesium, vitamin D. Those would be like the biggies. And that's just like basic micronutrient and vitamin intake. And then this is interesting. The, the largest concentration of androgen receptors is in your legs. Right. So if you're like the toothpick, like guy at the gym, only do an upper body that's not so great for testosterone. Leg press, lunges, squats, deadlifts, landmine, you know, anything that's taxing on the legs, that's another one. Yeah. Sleep low, sus, good relationship, sunshine. All that factors in. This is anecdotal, but there's a lot of people that swear by thermal stress. Like cold bath.

[Robbie]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

Like avoiding heat and then getting cold specifically for the balls. And then if at that point you're doing all of those things and you literally have testosterone levels that are super low, you know, then you could think about some kind of testosterone therapy. But if you're doing all of those things, you shouldn't have to think about that until you're at least past 40 years old. Wow.

[Robbie]

Yeah, I don't think most people are

[Ben Greenfield]

taking out of teenager.

[Robbie]

Yeah. Right now they're just calling the guy getting our TRT prescription.

[Ben Greenfield]

Oh yeah. There's so many pill mills out there. Yeah. I mean you literally fill out a form that may or may not be true. And if it's a good company, they will take up. They're legally supposed to test you, but it's pretty easy to get testosterone without even getting a blast. Very simple panel. Crazy. And yeah, like it's a, it's kind of a cash cow because what guy doesn't want. Yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Ben Greenfield]

want to not get sand kicked in his face at the beach and be the skinny guy. Yeah. So it's, it's a great selling point. But yeah, there's a lot of downstream implications. The biggest one being the fertility. And then especially if you're young, once you're on it, you're, you're on. Yeah. Yes, you can get off, but it's, it's a good bike. Six months to 12 months of just kind of like fighting an uphill battle. Holy crap. Or feeling like you felt when you were on it. That's crazy.

[Robbie]

What are your T levels at these days?

[Ben Greenfield]

Well, I supplement now, so I'm 43. I use scrotal cream like in the morning. In the evening, I'm about 800. Okay. Not, not like super physiological, but when I was doing Ironman triathlon and just like eating barely anything and writing, I mean, when I say barely anything, I mean not eating as much as I was burning. Maintaining like 169, 170 pounds. I'm 200 right now. So it was super skinny.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

You know, doing chronic endurance training. And I didn't mention that with the training piece, but that's like running from a lion all day. Right. So nature doesn't want to bring babies into the world in a, in a time of constant running from lions. So you see a downregulation of fertil body and testosterone in that environment. And so when I finished, like 20 years of just masochistic endurance racing, I was in the upper 200s, low three hundreds. Whoa.

[Guest Expert]

Wow, that's low.

[Robbie]

Yeah, I thought you were going to say the opposite.

[Ben Greenfield]

Night and day difference.

[Guest Expert]

No, it's a nice thing.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, you'd think like, yeah, out there, you know, doing the David Goggins thing and just like pounding the pavement, maybe that's, you know, going to increase your virility and your testosterone, but yeah, it wears you down.

[Robbie]

So my testosterone is higher than David Goggins. Let's go.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, well, I don't know how's that, but I mean, you look at a picture of an endurance athlete and a sprinter. I mean, which one looks like they have more testosterone? True. Which one looks more anabolic? So there's a trade off.

[Robbie]

Damn.

[Ben Greenfield]

That's gonna have a high VO2 max, though.

[Robbie]

Yeah, I guess VO2 max is important too.

[Guest Expert]

But, you know, the bigger question I see or challenge we have environmentally now, like epigenetic, environmental, is that when you have low T symptomatic for guys under 18, and we're seeing this in clinic, and women, young women in 14, 15, 16, that have fertility challenges, it's really like an extinction challenge, like global extinction challenge. And that they don't talk about is the populations are shrinking now across. Across the globe.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

And where is it coming from?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. What was that movie back in the early 2000s with Clive Owen? Children of Men. The Children of Men. I think that was new, but it's basically like global infertility event. Like, all of a sudden, like, grow women could have babies. That's the premise of the movie. I won't spoiler alert, but it's like, it's worth watching just to see what they predicted back in. I'm guessing it was like 2007, 2008, and what actually happened. Yeah, like, damn. Oh, all the way down to, like the bill. If you watch closely, like, the billboards in the city are, you know, they're advertising things like injections to maintain youthfulness and longevity and like, you know, like the forever young promises. That's crazy. Paired with infertility, it's like, it's like a lot of the stuff that we're seeing right now.

[Guest Expert]

I know, it's scary, right?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

Zach Bush, Dr. Zach Bush, talks about this extinction, like we're in the sixth extinction phase and it takes five generations for us to actually see the results. And he ties it back to glyphosate because that whole chemical change. But we're just starting to see now the effects of things that happened three or four generations ago.

[Ben Greenfield]

Wow.

[Guest Expert]

It's pretty crazy.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

So if this continues, we're going to lose population.

[Guest Expert]

Well, we have to. You know, it's funny, but I. I believe maybe it's just because I'm an optimist that, you know, the world has a way of. And nature has a way of correcting itself. So with all the problems we're seeing, I think there'll be solutions.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. Hopefully. It's not like a mass extinction event, though. It is interesting, like how. How little we, I think, do a good job of wrapping our heads around the lifestyle choices that we make affecting our offspring.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

There was even like a recent Diet Coke study. Did you see this one? No. So it was the equivalent of drinking. Because what I used to say up Until I saw this was. If you look at the carcinogenicity of the. Which one is it in Diet Coke? Is it acesulfamine or aspartame? So it's one of the artificial sweeteners. Diet Coke has one and Coke zero has another. I forget which has. Which was the one in Diet Coke. And if you actually wanted to reach the levels of that artificial sweetener intake that shows some type of cancer causing or neurotoxic event, you'd have to drink like 77 cans of diet Coke. And you know, I might have like, you know, a can when I'm going through the airport or a bottle when I'm going through the airport is like a treat, you know, once every two weeks or whatever because I like the taste of it, honestly.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

And then this newer study came out and this was like in the past year that showed that when you get to the equivalence of a much lower amount, it's like one to three cans. They were showing changes in the offspring. And this was in like rodent models with parameters related to anxiety, like the ability to be able to manage stress. So basically what that means is like if you have a wicked Diet Coke habit, you might, you know, have kids who are more prone to anxiety. Holy crap. Who knows how many other things like we do on a daily basis that have those kind of effects. I mean everybody knows about like the, the Dutch famine type of effect where like if you're, if your grandparents or great grandparents went through a time of starvation and lack of access to foods, you know, maybe born with like a calorie conservation genetic pathway that predisposes you to obesity because your, your great grandparents had to just like stock away everything.

[Robbie]

Yep. I feel like I have that one because my.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Robbie]

Grandparents were in Ireland.

[Ben Greenfield]

Right.

[Robbie]

There was a lot of that over there.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. And in an era of 24, 7 access to hyper palatable foods, that doesn't really do you many favors. Dudnam. I used to struggle to put on weight, man. Yeah, it was an issue.

[Robbie]

People couldn't relate with me at all. They have the opposite issue usually.

[Ben Greenfield]

But yeah. Sucked. Yeah. Yeah, it does. I mean like it's, it's kind of brutal, but it's almost like life isn't fair. Right. Those are the choices your parents made and so will you inherit. There's so many things to be grateful for. But yeah, it is kind of interesting. It's just like this is the choices my parents made. So this, this is what I got to deal with.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah. Back in the day, like this Is like post, like the 40s. My parents, like, they didn't have a lot of the food preservatives then they basically just put a lot of salt in canned foods. And so I grew up in an era where you didn't salt anything because the foods were basically just, you know, pre salted. And then, you know, so. And then all the studies about hypertension came out about salted foods. And now we're discovering that, you know, good salts are so important. Right. In order for you to have the proper balance and.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

Mostly cellular hydration.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. But it's when you have those, like, robust sodium conservation pathways because your, your ancestors didn't have as much access to salts. And then you get like isolated sodium chlorid, what you're going to find in table salt or processed foods, you get the blood pressure effect. And it's kind of sad because I love salt, like good mineral, rich salt, like whatever red me salt or Kima salt or Celtic salt or whatever. And salt's kind of gotten a bad rap when in fact it's just the isolated sodium chloride that's the issue.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah. And also they decoupled the iodine and that was a big thing too. So now the table salts will actually pull iodine out of the body.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. Which is kind of a myth. People like, oh, it's iodine iodized. At least I'm getting my iodine. Do my thyroid a favor. And it's kind of like the opposite.

[Guest Expert]

Exactly. Right now.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

And so we're seeing a lot of iodine deficient and. Which has thyroid condition ramifications and Hashimoto's. And we're seeing a lot more of that in clinics now.

[Ben Greenfield]

Wow.

[Guest Expert]

Simply because of the depletion of iodine through normal body activity. But clearly in the foods that we're eating are pulling that stuff out of you.

[Robbie]

Really makes you wonder all the stuff we're doing now how it affects our kids. Like you said, though. Yeah. Like even just drinking tap water, like, affect your kid.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. If you do that every day.

[Guest Expert]

But you know, the thing is, that's important.

[Ben Greenfield]

Dragging your neighbor's birth control pills.

[Guest Expert]

But you know, to your point, like, you're. You're an example, like you're modeling your children are growing up in your household where, you know, you may have all the hacks around, but you're creating a higher level of consciousness. So in a sense, you're reversing that trend that what you've just discussed you can carry and can make this a whole positive experience for the next Generation.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah. Yeah. And that. That's, like. I think the coolest part about having kids is you don't necessarily want to, like, live vicariously through them and have your children fulfill the dreams that you never accomplished. But at the same time, it's. It's almost like this mild sense of immortality. It's like, this is a young human being who I can equip to go and make the world a better place. And this is like a tiny stamp of my legacy that if I do the right things, I can actually keep on helping the world after I die based on how I impress this young individual or what I impress upon them. And so I think. And I remember if we talked about this last time, Sean, but, like, the idea of systematizing, that is such an important concept, meaning we have, like, a Greenfield family constitution, and it's got. It's got the full list of our family values in it. And then we use those family values to. In the same way that, like, a business might create a business branded mission statement, a Greenfield family mission statement that just, like, weaves in all these core values, like radical transparency and honesty or contentedness, no matter our circumstances. And so we have this list of values, and then that's in the mission statement, and so those are in the constitution. But then we have the family logo, the family crests. Every member of the family has their unique spirit animals, their hex cards.

[Guest Expert]

Awesome.

[Ben Greenfield]

We've all got our end of life memorial wishes and our obituaries in there. We've got what we do on Thanksgiving, what we do on Christmas, what we do on Easter, like, all of the different holiday traditions. And then we even have the rites of passage in there. Like, what's a young Greenfield man do for the rite of passage from youth hood into adolescence and from adolescence into adulthood? And when they're 16, they got to leave the house for three months without any money from mom and dad and just go find their way, you know, whatever, road trip, traveling internationally, whatever. And this is all packaged into a book that's a little over 100 pages long. And we build upon it every year. Like, we'll come back, we'll add some things, we'll take some things out, but then I can give this book to my kids, my sons, when they start their family, and then they can keep on building upon.

[Guest Expert]

Fantastic.

[Ben Greenfield]

And it's cool for the kids, too, because, like, they get this almost, like, sense of pride and, like, what it means to. And our case, there'd be a Greenfield and, like, oh, we don't complain. Not because, you know, dad said shut up and don't complain, but because that's like on the wall on the mission statement. Like this is what it means to be a greenfield. Like we're just content no matter what happens, or we're able to be radically transparent and honest with each other and feel like it's a, it's a danger free zone to be able to do so. And those are just like built in to the constitution. And so it's, it's kind of cool because they, they, they like know what they stand for.

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[Guest Expert]

Yeah, it used to be we got that in maybe religious applications and in family cultures, but things are so fragmented now that. And isolated in a way and we, I think it got exaggerated through the whole Covid experience when we were all broken apart.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

So I love what you're doing because that's. I wish there was more of that.

[Robbie]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

And you know, it's not taught in school, it's not taught in religion pretty much anymore. And so if you don't bring it back and centralize it from your, you know, from you and your wife and that experience, then where does it go? Just gets lost.

[Ben Greenfield]

We live in an era where you could be anything you want. Like, like, you know, several generations ago. If your, if your great granddad was a blacksmith and your granddad was a blacksmith, your dad was a blacksmith. You don't have any blacksmith. You're horseshoes. You build fences or whatever. And now you can, you know, thanks to YouTube and online education and the rapid transmission of information and a whole lot of other variables, you could be whatever you want to be, but it also can create that disconnect you were talking about, Robbie, where, like, it's pretty easy to just, like, carve out your own path in life and almost leave behind not only the stuff that might have held you back from former generations, but also the stuff that could have served you. So, like, my sons are like, they have a card game business.

[Guest Expert]

Right.

[Ben Greenfield]

I'm in health and fitness and biohacking, and all of a sudden my son's doing card games. Right. But they're doing card games and still hanging on to a lot of the values that we as human beings, like, as Greenfield human beings have. So I think that helps in this era where, you know, kids are probably going to wind up going off and doing something that might be starkly different than what your career is, but you can still pass on a lot of values.

[Guest Expert]

There's two parts to it, too. You're shattering, limiting beliefs. So they're actually able to look within and create that sense of esteem. And I think that it gives them an opportunity to actually find their true passion, their purpose in life.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah.

[Guest Expert]

So it's just a huge gift you're getting your family.

[Robbie]

I think having those values is important. You know, I grew up in a broken family. We didn't have something like that. So it's easy to get misguided in the wrong direction with certain friends you hang out with growing up, you know?

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Guest Expert]

That pure. That peer influence is important too, who you hang out with.

[Ben Greenfield]

Oh, yeah.

[Robbie]

I mean, I definitely spent many years just lost, like, trying to find myself bouncing friend groups. And if I had a set of values, I think it would help a lot.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robbie]

So well done, man. How'd you come up with that?

[Ben Greenfield]

Not my own. So I don't even talk about this that much on podcasts because it's like, outside my niche. I even wrote a book about this and, like, all the publishers were like, we're not going to publish that because you're not supposed to, like, publish a book if you're a health and fitness guy. That's not in the health and fitness category. So I even self published the book I wrote about this called Boundless Parenting. But a big part of it was like, I was homeschool K through 12. I place a great deal of value

[Guest Expert]

on

[Ben Greenfield]

an autodidact approach to life, but also kind of like a self actualized approach to learning, which is what I experienced. Right. I could study a lot of the things that I was passionate about, and I didn't necessarily have to learn at the same pace as the rest of the classroom. And I had a great deal of free time to, in a spirit of curiosity, like, exploring the things that I was truly interested in. And now that's even more called like, unschooling than homeschooling. And the idea of just like an experiential education where maybe you're not taking geometry and math, but you're like building a tree for, and learning woodworking and angles and arithmetic and whatever, doing that. Or you know, like in the case of my sons, rather than taking a formal course on logic or rhetoric or conflict resolution, like, you're going to design a card game where a lot of those things are woven into the game. And my interest in this led to me interviewing a bunch of parents just like, as my sons were going through their formative years of life, all these cool entrepreneurs I knew with impactful children, many of whom were like proven successful models because the kids had grown up and they started their own companies. So I did like the Tim Ferriss tools of Titans type of thing. And I sent all these parents the identical list of like 30 questions, like, how did you discipline? What did you do when, when the spouses disagreed on something related to a child's upbringing and how did you educate? And if you did public education, like, did you customize that in any way that allowed your kids to, to do some other things? And you know, what kept you awake at night? And so that became like this anthology. And I learned a ton writing that book. And then I learned about the legacy piece. Not the stereotype, but the, like, we went down to Utah because it turns out like the LDS Church and the Mormons are really good, like genealogy and like passing on values and like, I know Mormons like know names of their great, great, great, great grandfathers. And there's this, there was this foundation called the Legato Family foundation down there. And the guy who runs it, his name is Rich Christensen, we spent like three days in his cabin and he was just like feeding us through the fire hose. Like all the things that they did build legacy and how they created these constitutions all the way down to just like the financial piece of it, like you know, starting a whole life health insurance policy on each member of the family and then doing paid up additions to that. So you have like a family bank that you can borrow money against and, and pass on financial wealth and you know, when you start the, the Roth IRA for the kids and just like all of these different pieces of the puzzle. So between Writing the book and then learning from this Legato Foundation. That's kind of like how a lot of that came. Yeah, yeah.

[Guest Expert]

Pretty cool.

[Robbie]

That's impressive, man. You got a next book you're working on now or.

[Ben Greenfield]

No? Well, toying with ideas. So I just finished updating Boundless, which is like the Bible biohacking like six months ago. And so I just took like a six day retreat. Nice. No work, which is awesome. I already scheduled my next retreat next year. I haven't talked about this on a podcast before because I just finished it, but I think I'm going to do this the rest of my life. I mean, you hear about Bill Gates, for better or worse. I know he's controversial, but he would like disappear. I think for him it was annual with his big stack of books that he wanted to get through in his journal and stuff that he wanted to work through. And I have not taken more than like two days off work since I was 14 years old.

[Guest Expert]

Wow.

[Ben Greenfield]

I just love to work. I love what I do and I'm hyper productive and I love it. But I decided to take a retreat that I finished like 10 days ago. And it was just six days at home. It was some books I wanted to catch up on and my journal and some time with God and in thought and writing, both on the computer and in my notebook. And I sat down with my whole family and I told Jess and the boys, I'm like, you guys, you all need to sit down and identify a time next year. And this will probably wind up in our constitution. These are the kind of things that wind up in the constitution. And choose like a three to six day time span where you're inaccessible, you're not scheduling anything, no phone calls and no work. Because it was one of the best things I've done for myself. Wow. Really long time.

[Guest Expert]

Yeah.

[Ben Greenfield]

And as a part of that, I kind of mapped out a couple of ideas for books. One on the idea of like, I, guilty as charged, have kind of preached the message of like, you know, become boundless. Right. Which I think in the whole human optimization world can often mean. Oh, like be perfect. Right. Like have your five hour morning routine where you're, you know, huddled up inside your hyperbaric chamber and, and you know, checking all the boxes and doing all the things, you're back to the biohacking being expensive. But I think if you deny the fact that we are broken, right, that at the end of the day we're going to have porous bones and, and muscles will become sarcopenic and look like beef jerky, and we're going to have plaqued brains. Like, that will happen no matter how healthy you live. Like, at some point, unless you, you know, you pass away by getting hit by a bus, like, your body will degrade. And if you try to just, like, deny the fact that you're broken and you just keep piling all the Botox and the biohacks and all the things on top of your, like, fear of being broken, then you're going to be a pretty unhappy individual. Like, you will always be just, like, running away from dying. But if you turn and embrace the brokenness and instead do what you can to be the best version of your broken self, then I think it's. It's a much happier way to live. It sounds like it could be a depressing way to live. Like, oh, broken, I'm sick. But you are like. Like, face it, they're. They're like, you will always be fighting chaos and entropy from the minute you get out of bed in the morning. And it will get worse and worse as you age. But if you accept that and you're happy about it, back to contentedness, and you just have the very best combination of health span, a lifespan that you can achieve, I think it's a better way to live. And so that's my idea for one book called something like Broken.

[Robbie]

That's profound. Brian Johnson, by the way.

[Ben Greenfield]

Yeah, and then the other book I want to do is just about all the myths in the health world. Like, all the things that are highly dogmatic but have way more nuances to them. Like, do you cold plunge after a workout or do you not? Well, it depends. If you were in there 20 minutes, the research says. No, for one minute, the research says it's fine. And gluten. There was a recent study on gluten that showed that people who thought they had a gluten intolerance and then were fed gluten but not told that they were fed gluten, they were just fine. As soon as you find out that you're a fed gluten, you're, like, all of a sudden, like, getting gas and bloating because you're convinced mentally that you're gluten intolerant. It's actually in your head. And yes, some people actually do have, like, celiac disease and gluten intolerance. So does that. And seed oils and, you know, working out and VO2 max. Like, there's all of these things that have nuances, and I think that'd be a fascinating book to write. You know, just like from an in the trenches experiential standpoint, like how do we cut through the confusion and actually make a decision based not just on dogmatism or how do we monetize a certain belief pattern, but what does the research actually say and where is the nuance in the research?

[Robbie]

Yeah, Ben, it's been fun, man. You've inspired me to take some time off next year.

[Ben Greenfield]

So do it. I'll take it now.

[Guest Expert]

You got to get quiet. You know, Elaine Glass wrote that book, Getting quiet or get quiet. Michael's. Michael's. They got married. So. Yeah, I love that. I think her whole journey through the labyrinth and finding that quiet still point. And I think that's what we're forgetting because mostly for the kids now because they're just so used to swiping up left and right that they forget that there's an inner voice inside of them. And you know, for me, I've always said that no matter how good you are in your own path, the true essence, like best doctor is the one, that voice inside of you. And so if you're not quiet and you don't hear that voice, then you really don't get that connection.

[Ben Greenfield]

Classic. Classic. I don't know if you call it a self improvement book, but I'm going to book by Napoleon Hill called Outwitting the Devil gets into that. It's a good one. Like the nautic trance is how the devil keeps you from becoming the most impactful person that you can be because you basically get caught up in all the distractions. That's the daily hypnotic trance. How you live your days, how you live your life. And eventually, before you know it, yeah, you're, you're fulfilling one of the definitions of hell, which is meeting the person that you, you could have been.

[Guest Expert]

I call that noise or cosmic dust. Yeah, but I, I, I see the world through contrast. So I actually need that noise to get really zero focus. Yeah, but you have to recognize that it's noise. That's the thing.

[Robbie]

Well said. It's been fun, man. Thanks for having me.

[Ben Greenfield]

Thanks, man.

[Robbie]

Yeah, great chat. Hey, see you guys. I need to brush our teeth.

[Ben Greenfield]

Next time, guys. Thanks for watching all the way to the end, guys.

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[Ben Greenfield]

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