← Stronger with Don Saladino
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's me.
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B
Shakeable, breakable, unmistakable clapjack.
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A
But don't break me, break free in Borderlands 4, the newest, fastest looter shooter. You can play with friends. Everything's better with friends. And I would totally know. Pre order Borderlands 4 now. Rated mature. What if buying a new appliance felt like a win for your home and your wallet? Save up to 50% plus up to an extra $600 on select major appliances at the Best Buy Appliances Labor Day sale. Learn more@bestbuy.com, best Buy. Imagine that. Blind Nil Audio. The cool thing about resistance training combined with endurance training is that being able to have some sort of aerobic activity will push that biological age backwards probably much faster than anything else.
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B
What I love about this conversation right now is that we're discussing biological age and we're discussing being healthier. And we haven't even yet brought up the saunas or the cold plunges or the red lights, which we're putting our discussion into the things that are going to give us the most bang for our buck.
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A
The icing on the cake are all.
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B
Those modalities you just named the sprinkles on the icing. We need to focus on eating enough high quality foods and exercise. You do that on top of getting good sleep, you're going to be pretty close to that finish line.
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A
Hey, how do I reverse my age? And it's like, well, play like a kid and eat like you did in the 70s.
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B
Welcome to Stronger. Today, I'm excited to introduce Dr. Duane Jackson, a world class health scientist with expertise across exercise physiology, medicine and nutritional biochemistry. In this episode, we're diving into the science of anti aging and how cutting edge research is shaping the future of health and performance. I'm Don Saladino. Let's get stronger with Dr. Dwayne Jackson. So first off, five hour flight just landed over at the gym across the street. Little workout in little sweat, reinvigorate you a bit. Some passport issues, flying in from Vancouver. You're supposed to be in Sunday night. I thought we're gonna have this whole week. I feel terrible now because you, because you landed this morning, which is Wednesday and you're gonna be back out Saturday morning, which it's a little bit of time, but welcome to New York, man.
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A
Thanks, man. It's always nice to be in New York, especially visiting you.
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B
Appreciate that. And I can't believe it's been a year. You know, it's funny that that's the weird thing about FaceTime. I FaceTime 3 four times a week. So I'm always seeing you. We're always talking, going through anything about life. You said a year. I'm like, really?
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A
Well, that's. I figure it was about a year. Yeah, because. Yeah, because I think last time we were out, I think you want. I think it was around October when we took your boat out.
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B
Oh, my God.
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A
Yeah. Yes.
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B
That was like, right at the end of the season.
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A
Yeah, it was like the last. Last ride.
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B
You got to run it tonight or tomorrow, Friday or something, like go to dinner over Connecticut or something. But a topic I really want to lead off with you today. Everyone's trying to biohack life, right? They're just trying to hack their way into living, you know, a longer life, which I think is a great goal to have.
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A
Right.
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B
If you want to live a high quality of life, that's fantastic. But I think there's so many people out there that are confused because there's individuals that are coming in at such a high level who have, you know, disposable incomes. You're looking at this guy, Brian Johnson now, who actually did watch his documentary, and people just rip into him all the time. I'll tell you why I respect him is because he turned around and he kind of owns it like, this is what he wants to do. This is how he wants to live. And, you know, I think a lot of people might look at the way that you and I live and might find that strange. Well, why don't you just eat what you want all the time? Well, we enjoy what we eat, and we enjoy waking up and training and. Why would you get underweight? It's painful. Like, it's. Why would you go run? It's painful. Like, people can't understand what we receive out of these things that we do in our life. But I did have a level of respect for him because he took ownership on it. Now, do I think things that he's doing are very extreme? Yes. Do I think, you know, what? I want to do all these things? No, but there are things that he does that I do. I can understand the red light first thing in the morning and, you know, and the training piece of it and, you know, so many modalities that we can dive into. But reversing your biological age, in a way is what he's trying to do. I mean, you're not going to reverse your age because we're going to. We're going to age. We're. It's like a bottle of wine on the shelf. You can't reverse it's inevitable, but revers your biological age. Let's start out real low level to explain to most people because I think most scientists, and you are a scientist, are losing people in the first sentence. And then I'd like to build on that today and I'd like to give people some comfort in telling them you don't have to do all these things, but maybe implementing certain things is going to help you live a higher quality of life where you'll live longer years and you'll be happier and you'll be healthier.
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A
Yes. So biological age, so it's kind of a funny term now because it's come about with the latest fitness craze that we've had going through, which is great for people like us, so we can talk about these things. So chronological versus biological age really comes down to the biological part is in a total nutshell. Are you healthy?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because most people actually their health declines as they age.
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B
Right.
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A
And a lot of people out there now who have found, you know, at working out, eating whole food, certain supplements, they've found that they feel younger and behave younger at in their 50s, 60s, even 70s than they once did in their like 20s and 30s.
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B
Right.
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A
So it boils down to cellular health when we talk about science. Right. And, and, and so that's measured by a number of different biometrics and some of those can be measured with, you know, your aura ring, your apple watch, a wearable of some sort.
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B
And these are showing trends. Right. I think we'd all agree that the data might be a bit different, but I think we're really needing to pay more attention to the trends. Correct.
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Absolutely. And those are things like resting heart rate.
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B
Sure.
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HRV over time, which I think are.
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B
Very easy things to improve, by the way.
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Absolutely.
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B
These are not hard things to improve.
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Not at all. In fact, in fact, one of the, probably one of the biggest missed, I think missed opportunities when people think about decreasing their biological age is utilizing aerobic style exercise to push the limits of their mitochondria, of their cellular respiration in the mitochondria and then accompanying that with a really high quality anti inflammatory whole food diet that's got lots of variety and everything else in it. Most people who have ever started running notice that especially when they're like 30 plus, that their performance increases very quickly with running, you know, just being consistent three days a week. In fact, if I had a, you know, dollar for every person that said to me, yeah, I started out walking quickly and then all of a sudden I was kind of jogging. And the next thing you know, I was qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
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B
Right.
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A
And that's purely because they've increased that mitochondrial capacity to be able to extract oxygen and turn that into ATP, which is the energy that we need, that we all want to feel when we're this, you know, or aging.
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B
Now, mitochondria talk about this because I know a lot of people out there a bit confused on what its role is and why, you know, and you got to admit, over the last. Maybe not in your world, but in the last five to 10 years, I'd probably say even more like five years, you're hearing this as a term thrown around. A lot more people are suddenly. It's funny how things go through in. In ebbs and flows, right. It trends, you know, suddenly you're. You're hearing people talk more about mitochondrial health and cellular energy and how this can actually help, you know, maybe reverse your biological age.
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A
Yeah. So. So the mitochondria are, you know, as we learn in probably grade seven or eight grade school anyway, that they're the cell and they truly are, because our energy currency is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. And ATP is a really, really potent energy source for activation of muscle, activation of different, you know, organ tissues and everything else. So when we focus on improving mitochondrial function, which is generally hard because you have to work and you have to work for, you know, relatively long times, the duration is a long time. So that's why runners and whatnot generally have really good mitochondrial health. But the idea is that if you train your mitochondria by aerobic exercise, then you'll increase the density of those mitochondria. And then by doing so, that means you have greater numbers in your skeletal muscle and your heart and, you know, everywhere where we need to have ATP, which is, you know, 90% of our cells. So when we are able to push the mitochondria, then that's when we are training the mitochondria. And as we feel like runners, for example, are, you know, our split times get better or our duration gets better, anything else, that's what we're seeing is an improvement in mitochondrial function. So people who train mitochondria on a regular basis through running and whatnot, end up with greater mitochondrial density.
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B
When you're saying running, you just mean aerobic activity.
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A
I mean aerobic activity in general.
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B
I just want to be clear that, like most people out there, listen, well, I don't run. I do the air bike or I like.
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A
Yeah, aerobic activity in general. And the reason why I use running is because. Because running's hard.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And when you, when you run, and I'm not a runner, but when you run and you run a distance, you got to get back.
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B
Sure.
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And so, you know, people will notice much greater when they're using outdoor activity in order to push those mitochondria because they'll be, you know, a distance from where they were before, and it's highly measurable. But you can do any sort of aerobic training to improve mitochondrial health.
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B
Yeah. And that's where I would almost argue with people years ago, or even sports scientists who would say, you know, what we, you know, aerobic activity is a little bit more of the side dish in the sense of its level of importance. And I, I do like that line. I will quote my friend Ben Bruno where he would say, you know, I, I would consider resistance training as the entree and cardio as a side dish, but he's not neglecting cardiovascular training. And when people were discussing the importance of putting on muscle, which we all understand the importance of that. Right. I will quote Dr. Lyon by saying, you know, the muscle is the longevity. And.
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A
Absolutely.
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I absolutely love that line. But, you know, well, if you're trying to put muscle on aerobic activity, stupid. It's dumb. But I would argue it, because if your mitochondria health is improving, isn't that going to help improve everything?
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A
Yes. So, so where, you know, cardio exercise kind of got a. Got hit was when everybody started thinking it was for fat burning and fat burning only. But really when we do cardiovascular exercise, especially even at low intensity stuff, what you're doing is you're creating a higher capacity for slow twitch muscle to be able to take on lactate from the training sessions, which then allows you to push harder in your training sessions because your lactate threshold will go up because you have a lactate sink and all of that, really the buzzword now is mitochondrial health. But at the end of the day, you know, being able to have some sort of aerobic activity on a daily basis is great. Will push that, you know, biological age backwards probably much faster than anything else. Now, the cool thing about resistance training combined with endurance training is that, one, you'll still build muscle, but two, you build muscle that's actually more adapted. So with heavy resistance training, you actually put your muscle through a process called mitophagy. And mitophagy is simply taking the mitochondria that have become defunct, not working very well as we age, and throwing them in the trash, and then the nice part is when we go out and do the aerobic activity, we increase mitochondrial density. And then if we want to work those mitochondria real hard, that's when we do our HIIT training. So there's a place for all training modalities in, you know, in trying to improve biological age.
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B
How would you break down, in your opinion, through what you've studied and let's say an entry level to a high level individual who wants to train mitochondrial health. What would you maybe assign to them in reference to a training volume frequency standpoint?
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A
Yeah, so it really depends on what the, the individual is looking for and where they start. The beauty of this type of, you know, approach that we're talking about is that the people with the least capacity get the biggest results for their buck. Right, Right.
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B
I call it the honeymoon phase. Like you almost do anything and it's going to happen.
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A
Right. So, so it's, you know, it really, the, the training modalities are going to depend on, on the individual. But when we're talking about people that are, you know, say bodybuilders, for example. I work with a lot of bodybuilders, I talk about it in terms of conditioning because, you know, you see a lot of these guys that have a lot of muscle, but they're very inefficient. The, you hear them walking up the stairs and like breathing super heavy and you know, they're, it's laborious to watch them move. And then you see other bodybuilders that are still £300, but they're doing flips and splits and everything else. Like, look at Juju Mufu, he's a big one for that. And so he trains aerobically a lot. And that's so that he can sustain the amount of work that he does in his weight training, in his, I don't know what you call it, circus work. Where he's doing flips and stuff. Yeah, no, with big massive barbells, like feats of strength. But these are feats of strength that are long duration. And so when we have conditioning, then we have mitochondrial health and we can't have one without the other.
- [14:55]
B
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A
I'd absolutely. Well, if they're starting at ground zero, yes. I would just give them the old 10,000 steps a day thing and hope that they get five because they're probably doing 300. And over time, what they'll notice is 5,000 steps was difficult this week and now 6,500 feels a little bit easier than 5,000 did. And anybody who's listening who's done this will realize that all of a sudden they get to 10,000 steps, which is a pretty good, you know, walk. Right. If you have to go do it on one time.
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B
Yeah, one time, three miles or something.
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A
But the improvements happen real quick. Now. One thing I would tell them though, the most important part of being able to, you know, take advantage of your cardiovascular sessions that you're just starting out at is to, to feed your cardio. So in other words, make sure you're eating, you know, high quality mixed meals that have a relatively good carbohydrate component because at the end of the day when we're talking about biological health, mitochondrial function and everything else, and aerobics, it's glucose that gets chewed up and every carbohydrate that we eat ends up becoming glucose. In the blood. And glucose is the energy currency for the ATP to become the energy currency. So we really need to make sure that people are eating. And that's one thing I've noticed in my practice, and I'm sure you've seen in yours, we've had lots of conversations about this, is that most people find the, the work they need to do to push the mitochondria too difficult because they're not eating the substrates they need to do it.
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B
David Perlmutter disagreed with me years ago on a podcast. I think most people are just undernourished. And I think they're under eating because, no, we're in a fat society because people are overeating and they're eating too much processed foods. I'm like, I get that. But you have to look at the patterns. Most people who are trying and want to want it right are waking up and what are they doing for breakfast? A Greek yogurt, some fruit. I had a good first meal. Or a couple of eggs and some fruit. Or maybe a grain bread, A grain, grain toast. You know, mid morning, maybe it's a shake and suddenly we're jumping into afternoon. And what are they having? A salad with some fish on it, whatever it might be. So you might be getting some foods that are micronutrient dense, but the reality is, think about those three meals and add up the amount of calories that you just consumed. Is that going to get the car to its destination? And the answer is no. And what I find is blood sugar level. That becomes a massive problem. The evening rolls around, people are at home, they're undernourished, and then they're binge eating because they have a stressful day and their blood sugar level's off. And my line is always, if I cook for you for a day, I can almost guarantee you you're not to be eating chips or ice cream at night. In your experience, do you find this consistent where people are just afraid of calories and by not getting enough calories they underperform. And this can affect their biological ages, could affect their mitochondrial health?
- [19:37]
A
Absolutely. The. Because we have to work to get the health right. And the food is actually one of the integral components. When we, when we talk about biological age, eating whole food mixed diet is part of that process. It's highly anti inflammatory, especially if you follow a Mediterranean style diet. I, I usually recommend that, but with higher protein because it's a very low protein diet.
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B
Great diet. It's probably one of my favorites in all, in all fairness, and I mean.
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A
It'S still, it's the only one actually, where all the science, like, it's like, hey, for heart disease, here's what we do. Let's call it the Dash diet. Or, you know, for kidney disease, let's call it some other diet. But it's actually all Mediterranean.
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B
Mediterranean, yeah. Comical how people just want to make stuff up, by the way, it's. It's all packaging.
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A
Oh, yeah, it really is. It's like it's something new, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because when you introduce an abundance of high quality whole foods, number one, people all of a sudden realize their plates are a lot more full. And so the volume of these foods is much higher. So their propensity to be able to eat it all is going to be, you know, much lower until they get themselves into eating these foods. And you've probably noticed that when you start eating, you know, a lot of salad and a lot of rice or potatoes or sweet potatoes or these kind of things, nuts and everything else, like you look at your plate, at first, it's a little daunting. So when you show someone that, who's been brainwashed that low calorie diets are the way to roll and get the physique they want, there's a big ambivalent disconnect between those two. And you got to build a bridge. And so one of the best things to do is get a. Get a. You know, any person out there that's listening to this is to start with a diet that has, you know, you have your starches on your plate. You've got some, you know, some. Maybe some salad on there. You've got two or three different vegetables. Maybe carrots, broccoli, and some cauliflower or something.
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B
Nothing fancy.
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A
Nothing fancy.
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B
Right?
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A
And then, and then a nice piece of protein just called that.
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B
This is your traditional plate. Like, this is what it looked like.
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A
When I grew up.
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B
Yeah. This is when you're, you know, watching TV back, you know, put on those TV shows 50, 60 years ago, and suddenly you're looking at the family eating their plate. It's. It's their protein, it's their starch, and it's their veg.
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A
Yep.
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B
There are no tricks here.
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A
There's no tricks. And. But the trick is that what's happened over time is people have been, you know, Ms. Fed Information or fed misinformation on, you know, what it takes to perform as a human and not performing as an athlete, performing as a human. And so there's a massive biopsychosocial context within this. So we have our biology and that's, you know, what we got. And that's kind of what we're trying to push with this biological age thing. So, you know, we got our genes and we got our blood work and we got all those fancy things, you know, that we measure. But then we've got the whole psychosocial components and those are becoming more and more apparent that they play a much bigger role in biological age and health and everything else. Because the peer groups you hang around, the, you know, types of news and whatever it is, social media that you listen to and your overall psychology, they're all overlapping. And so all of the, both, both the psychological features and social features of being a human actually play a massive role in our biology. We saw this during COVID during lockdowns. So when we are, you know, receiving information based on pretty much fallacy about, you know, how to eat to become healthier in your old age, this is where the problem is. Because like you said, I had a Greek yogurt and fruit in the morning. Like, why am I, why don't have any energy? And it's like, well, let's start with the fundamentals. Calories are a measurement of energy. And when you're eating 300 calories for breakfast and then trying to push yourself for 800 calories, it's going to be tough. And when you do that, it's going to, over time, not be sustainable. And so that's one of my goals, is to get people eating again. Because when we get people eating, they perform better. And when they perform better, they feel better. And then the social context gets better because they start looking good, feeling good, maybe going out a little more and hanging out with their friends. And all of a sudden now they're joining the triathlon group and they're heading out to the Ironman in Hawaii, you know, four years later. So it's, you know, the focus, the focus on the plate has been a big problem, you know, in terms of making it as small as possible. And that's kind of transpired into all this other stuff which has led to now, hey, how do I reverse my age? And it's like, well, play like a kid and eat like you did in the 70s.
- [24:22]
B
Well, what I love about this conversation right now is that we're, we're discussing biological age and we're discussing healthy being healthier. And we haven't even yet brought up the saunas or the cold plunges or the red lights, which again, we're putting our discussion into the things that are going to give us the most bang for our buck. And it is, and it's ironic that people want to nitpick. All those modalities that I just named, I own those. I have them at my house. You and I will use them. It's fun. It's nice to sit in the sauna with you and get a sweat and talk or jump in the plunge for a couple seconds and feel good and lay in the red light bed a few mornings a week. Like it's, it's fun to do those things, but when you're, when you're ranking them in order of importance, I mean, it's like they're not even close in my opinion. Like, I don't even know. We make such a big deal about these things where the reality is we need to focus on eating enough high quality foods and exercise. You do that on top of getting good sleep, I believe you're gonna be pretty close to that finish line.
- [25:33]
A
The icing on the cake are all those modalities you just named and, and.
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B
The sprinkles on the icing, it's like those, these are like.
- [25:40]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:40]
B
It's not even, it's not.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah. And it's funny. The biggest problem right now is that people are seeking modalities and easy ways to hack, hack their biological age. And without having a foundation of just turning on those mitochondria by movement, you are not going to achieve what you think. Doesn't matter what peptides you use, doesn't matter what modality issue with, you know, if you have metabolic syndrome.
- [26:10]
B
Can you explain that, please?
- [26:11]
A
Yeah, so, so if you, you know, if you're, if you're overweight, you know, you know, by 30, 40 pounds and you're, you have high blood glucose and you have hyperinsulinemia or high insulin levels. So basically what happens is your skeletal muscle is no longer responsive to blood glucose despite it actually possibly having low glycogen, which is the sugar that's in our muscles. This sugar just circulates and when that happens, then those mitochondria don't get to do that whole oxidative phosphorylation and all that fancy stuff where they've created a lot of ATP and that's why people then feel exhausted when they walk from their car to the, you know, the local Kroger's or whatever they're going to shop. It's because we're not getting the substrates that we take in into the cells that take and make the energy that make us Move and you can do red light therapy all day long. But if you have, you know, high blood glucose, which would indicate that you're not getting to go to the right places, then you're not going to make any changes in your mitochondrial health, biological age, or any of that stuff. The biggest predictor of biological age, you'll see it on your Apple watch or whatever you use is going to be that VO2 calculation that it does on there. And that's just strictly because what that's saying is, like, how well can I take the stuff I put in my mouth and turn it into heat and movement? That's all it says. And when someone has a high VO2 max, they can take a piece of food and turn it into movement and a little heat. And so that's where the essence of this whole thing comes from. Once you got that foundation, play around. Yeah, like, red light therapy works great for the skin because you have lots of mitochondria in the skin and everything else. But if you're under high oxidative stress all the time from, you know, not moving in stressful environments, you had a stressful marriage, and, you know, you're eating like high density, low micronutrient foods, high calorie density and low micronutrient density, which are fast foods general, you're going to be driving inflammation and oxidative stress and all those things that actually uncouple mitochondria from doing their job.
- [28:25]
B
Now, someone comes to you and this may, this might sound like I'm getting off topic, but I'm not. Someone comes to you and they're consuming 12 to 1300 calories a day, and they need to be consuming, you know, 22 to 2300 calories a day. Talk about what this can do to their health and talk about your process and getting them to consume more calories and how on top of improving their overall health, this might very well improve their body composition. Yet most people think, well, I want to lose weight, I have to just drop calories more. You can't go from 1300 calories to 1100 calories if your body stalled out and expect to lose more weight. Like, I just, I don't believe, I think you're just going to move less and get less healthy. So can you talk to me in simplest terms about your process? Because I want people to listen to this who are under caloried and start asking themselves, maybe I'm not getting good enough nutrition or enough nutrition. And you know, what, can you tell them to help?
- [29:24]
A
Yeah, so, so when we, when we eat a very low calorie diet over time. So say we start at 1700 calories and then we take out, you know, 10 or 20% of the calories and keep reducing and reducing over time. Weight loss is coming really well, depending on how aggressive we are with those, those calorie drops and how long those are sustained for. Our body undergoes a process called metabolic adaptation or adaptive thermogenesis. And what that simply means is the body's gonna defend its body mass and it will do that real well. And so it first starts with actually decreasing the amount we move subconsciously. So that's called non exercise activity thermogenesis. And the subconscious movements are like fidgeting, like, you know, you know, we both fidget.
- [30:14]
B
That's my heat right there. Yeah.
- [30:16]
A
Get up, get down, go to the water cooler, come back, back, talk to Dave. Right. All of a sudden now you're sitting in your office and you're not getting up to do anything because you're fasting for, you know, 24 hours. That, that's the first kind of adaptation that really, people don't notice that they lose. And that's, that, that actually makes up, that's a lot. The biggest portion beyond our basal metabolic rate, it makes it the biggest portion of our calorie burn of the day. It's not your exercise, it's not, it's not anything else. Not the thermic effect of food. It's the non exercise activity thermometer just.
- [30:46]
B
To, just to educate people a little bit. He's talking about bmr. So bmr, basically it's the amount of calories you're burning at rest. So if you were to just sit here, if you were to sit here all day long and not move, you still have this baseline amount of calories that you guys are going to burn. Now you throw on activity and you start creating this total daily energy expenditure, which is how much fuel do you need to be successful throughout a day?
- [31:10]
A
Yeah, yeah. And, and that, that adapts and so does the bmr. Because what happens over time, and it doesn't take long, this could take four weeks or so. In a very low calorie diet. We, you know, when we should be eating 2000 calories and we do drop it down to 1200, the other adaptations that occur are, one of them is that we start seeing drops in testosterone and estradiol and everything else. So we start seeing hormonal problems. Women would, any woman that is, you know, dieted for a long period of time at real low calories, probably didn't have, you know, didn't. Didn't have menstruation for months.
- [31:42]
B
Months.
- [31:42]
A
Months. About years. So in that adaptation, we also have, when we talk about mitochondria, we have mitochondrial coupling, because what usually happens with mitochondria when we eat protein is it puts off more heat than it does work. And when we start to go into a phase of what the body would perceive as starvation, those mitochondria, we actually become more efficient at utilizing the energy, which is kind of counterintuitive. And then with that, we also have changes in hormones that make us feel full. Satiety hormones, things like GLP1, which is a big one right now, that actually start the satiety hormones go down and then the hormones that make us feel hungry, like ghrelin and these other ones, they go up. So the body's doing everything in its power to reverse the process of fat loss, weight loss, or whatever it is that's going on at that time. So the key to this, and I do this, actually every one of my clients I do this with and I teach a course on this, is when people report to you that they've been eating 1400 calories and, you know, they're stuck. And that's generally when people come to me and probably most people, most coaches. What you need to do is do what I call calorie finding, where you actually calculate their basal metabolic rate and their total daily energy expenditure, which is just easy. Online, you can find a calculator for TDEE if they want to search.
- [33:06]
B
And you can use like a Mifflin calculator.
- [33:08]
A
Absolutely, yeah. You put. You put your body weight and your.
- [33:10]
B
Sex and your age, it's gonna get you in order. This won't. May not be exact, but it's going to get you into a pretty good range.
- [33:16]
A
Well, it's gonna. It's gonna. It's gonna tell you. It's gonna tell you that you're probably not eating enough. And then you're gonna say, well, that calculator didn't work. And, and so. But it's. What's neat about it is that, you know, that's a starting point. And so if someone's coming to you and you're pretty convinced they've been eating 12, 1400 calories a day, but they're, you know, 5 foot 11 and they're weighing in at 196 pounds, which happens a lot. I know that just by taking their calculation of what they should be eating right from their total Daily energy expenditure and just knocking say 10 or 20% of the calories down on that. And that usually take them out from carbs and fat. I know that they will recover from that metabolic adaptation. And so what usually happens is that you give them the diet, they're like, oh, there's no way I could eat this. Last time I ate 1700 calories was, you know, back when I was 15. And they say, well, just give it a whirl. And at first they're having trouble finishing the meals and everything else. And by the end of the week they feel so good. Their physical performance has gone up, their work performance has gone up, their sleep has, you know, increased greatly in terms of quality. Their sex life is returning. And so now all of a sudden that psychosocial stuff starts to come into context. And when you meet with them the next time they'll say to you like, man, I haven't had this much energy in forever. It's like, well, because energy is calories, right? And our, you know, our currency is ATP. And ATP requires substrates like glucose in order to deal with it. And if it doesn't have glucose or not enough glucose, then it'll burn fat. And if fat's not fast enough and glucose is going down, then it starts taking your muscle cortisol's gone up, breaks down your muscle amino acids then go to liver and become glucose.
- [35:07]
B
Big, big problem.
- [35:08]
A
So it's all, it's all tied together and there's no weight. It's not separate, they're, they're individual energy systems but they're all overlapping and they're all doing their thing all the time.
- [35:17]
B
Ironic how, you know, we started discussing reversing your biological age and getting healthier and what do we immediately start talking about? Movement, exercise, we start talking about nutrition, know, you know, the importance of a balanced plate protein, slow burning carbohydrates and your, and your vegetable. It sounds like that in reference to where to start. Most people, I mean we're all starting at such different spots. So I think just getting out and walking going to be very beneficial. That's what we're reiterating there. Starting to do some, maybe some longer cardiovascular sessions that you're not used to. Whether it's 20, 30 minutes. Is that the best thing? It might be the best thing for you. Choosing a modality where you're going to be successful with. So maybe running is not good for you, maybe it's good for me. Doesn't make me any better than you. It's just what works for our Bodies according to maybe past injuries or how we're moving or what our bodies are allowing us to do. Resistance training, you're also saying incredibly important.
- [36:15]
A
Absolutely.
- [36:15]
B
Where would you start someone from a resistance training standpoint, days a week, they haven't picked up a weight, how many days a week would you like them to get in and for maybe for what duration? And obviously programs are so many different approaches, we're not even going to get into that. But just to give them a little bit of food for thought.
- [36:30]
A
Yeah. I'd start with three days a week, perfect full body workouts and 30 minutes each.
- [36:36]
B
I absolutely love it.
- [36:38]
A
And I mean there's lots of data to show that those, those three day a week, 30 minute full body workouts, I love it. They're sustainable, they're challenging enough at the front end that they keep you engaged and they work.
- [36:50]
B
And I don't want people to feel inadequate if their friend is going five days or six days. I have trained six days, five days, four days. And I can tell you that I don't, for me, I don't know what's better. I think it depends on the time of the year. If my body allows me the flex a little bit more time and I'm not playing a lot of hockey and doing a lot of other things, maybe I can get away with six days, four days. I find my body recovers a lot better because I like to push during the session. So I just, I don't want people to think that three days isn't enough. Three days is plenty for someone getting started, mixing in maybe some steady state work, starting them. Where would you start them with steady after the steps piece, the 10,000 steps. If they want to start training their cardiovascular system a little bit more intensely, where would you start them from a steady state standpoint and from a, a higher intensity training standpoint.
- [37:42]
A
Yeah. So in the most generic terms, I would say if, you know, if you kept your heart rate somewhere in the mid to high 120s, maybe dip into the 130s, you're just getting started out, that's probably going to be pretty safe. Probably going to be safe and intense enough.
- [37:57]
B
Yeah.
- [37:57]
A
For those people. And as you progress and you start to notice that you're, you know, on the treadmill or bicycle, whatever it is you're on, that you're kind of every now and then trying to break into a jog or, you know, trying to put a little more elevation or you know, resistance on the training, then I would have them start to break out into hiit training Depending on, you know, where, where they sit for their fitness. Because hit training is a really neat one because it really pushes the mitochondria hard and it's kind of the next step in my eyes to having that base aerobic capacity.
- [38:31]
B
Right. So when someone is reading an article and they, they hear hit training is the best and. But they haven't even started with slower steady state cardio. Start with the slower state cardio, lay that aerobic base down, build some confidence and then in time. I always recommend choosing a modality like I like for beginners. I like it's probably one of the harder ones. But the Airdyne bike, I think it's very low skill, very easy on their joints. Anyone can get on. It's not like sprinting, which I think is a high level skill and a high level of risk reward for someone who is not used to throwing in that modality. So I think that's a great place to start. Supplementation, we gotta dive in on a little bit. I mean, creatine now being one of the high, most highly researched supplement on the planet. Something that probably most human beings are starting to take now where 10, 15 years ago. I don't want to get bigger, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Urolithin A other supplements I know might appear. One of my partners, they've been a great partner. How do you utilize that in your regimen in reference to reversing biological age?
- [39:30]
A
Yeah. So some of the ones I really like, one that's kind of really underestimated is glynac or glycine and NAC. So N acetylcysteine and if you're taking, you know, 1 to 2 grams of glycine, L glycine and amino acid, and 1 to 2 grams of N acetylcysteine, which is a precursor to glutathione, which is a master antioxidant in the body. There are great data showing that that one will help a lot with, you know, longevity, biological age. However, we want to kind of pitch this right. So that's one of them. The other would be creatine. Definitely is a, it's a wonderful supplement, especially for people, well, all ages. But now in, in the aging category where people are starting to be concerned with biological age, it's something that people should be using women, you know, for muscle preservation, brain health, everything else. You know, this was once reserved for bodybuilders. Now it's, you know, a lot, a lot of people that weren't taking this stuff are taking it now and in.
- [40:35]
B
Their Older age, you almost feel like everyone should be taking it, right?
- [40:37]
A
Absolutely. Yep. Now you have your NMNs and your NAD pluses and you know, your Lithium A. They're all great products to utilize. But the key, the real key to this is to make sure that you have a foundation of biological health first.
- [40:55]
B
Right.
- [40:56]
A
Or you're going to spend a lot of money to get very little bang for your buck right now. For those that actually have, you know, taken care of their oxidative stress and taking care of all their inflammation in their body and everything else, these products can be very, very effective in pushing the envelope for, for, you know, the biological age or biological health, mitochondrial health spectrum.
- [41:17]
B
I want to dive into oxidative stress because we're talking about so many things that are good for us. But I also want to talk about how we can push that biological age to move in the wrong direction. You know, and I think the best example that I give is you look at that 60 year old rock star that looks like they're 85 because they were drinking and on the road and lacking sleep and smoking cigarettes and okay, so now their biological age probably moved in the wrong direction. It probably moved worse than where their actual age really is. So can you talk about some of the things that people should think about?
- [41:51]
A
Absolutely. It's oxidative stress and inflammatory stress kind of work hand and foot. And most disease is actually develops from an inflammatory insult and an oxidative insult because the, the immune system kind of talks to each other through, through these different mechanisms. And so if you know, and you hit the nail on the head by the way, we're saying, you know, you're taking things backwards with a lot of these things. So yeah, if you're drinking, if you're drinking alcohol on a regular basis, then there is going to be an elevated level of oxidative stress in your body. And if you're not getting in an abundance of antioxidants in your diet, then you're not going to be buffering any of that oxidative stress. And this is why people who you know, eat very, very high meat diets, which I am a meat eater big time, we'll probably go eat some big mistakes soon. 100 but they, but they don't fortify it with antioxidant style foods like our fruits, vegetables, berries.
- [42:51]
B
A big problem with the carnivore diet, right?
- [42:53]
A
Absolutely. Then we end up with inflammatory stress mounted on top of oxidative stress. And that's going to be, that is kind of the nail in the coffin. For people that are aging. And so getting that under control is highly important. Yeah, you can take antioxidants as supplements and everything else. Vitamin C is a very potent one, for example. But the, the key is to actually get it in your diet because your diet is the chronic condition. Like we should be constantly feeding that engine. And when you're always feeding the engine and you're feeding it with the right stuff, then it, your oxidative, your antioxidant status goes way up in the body, so your oxidative status goes down. And the mitochondria are actually very susceptible to oxidative stress. In fact, creating ATP through this process called the electron transport chain puts off piles of reactive oxygen species which are oxidative, heavy oxidative stress. So if you're pushing yourself now in the gym and then you're going to out drinking after the gym and then not sleeping that night, you're actually doing the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. That workout isn't benefiting you. It's likely causing more oxidative stress.
- [44:06]
B
It's stress on stress. And then, you know, you'll look at individuals that think that might be eating a very macronutrient dense diet, but it's not heavy in micro. And then that becomes a problem because if they're just eating chicken and rice, well, you're getting some good protein, carbs, a little bit of fats in there. Like to most sounds like a nutritious meal, but there's no micronutrients. This is a problem that I think most people are having just in general, they'll look at things and they ask a general question like is, is having two glasses of wine a week bad? Or is having a dessert once a week bad? We're at 2. Or is having a poor night's sleep once a week bad? That's three. You know, is maybe having a cheat meal once a week bad? That's four. You start taking these things that we should be able to get away with. You would admit it, right? One night sleep bad night's sleep a week, fine going. If you ate a beautiful diet and out of nowhere you went and you crushed some five guys on a Saturday night, is that going to ruin you? Sounds delicious. Is it going to ruin you? No know, it's the accumulation of all these things. Then you start looking at your diet and you start looking at the fact that what you think you're eating is healthy. It's just not enough or it's just not rich enough in nutrition. Think about that. Word nutrition. You want, you want what you're consuming to be powerful so your body can be powerful. Right? And I think this is where most people are getting hurt because they're trying to justify their behavior with it's just two glasses of wine a week. And to me, honestly, doesn't sound like the biggest deal if you're nailing everything else. But if you couple that with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 things, a stressful lifestyle, a bad relationship, a poor work environment, this starts becoming catastrophic. And this is why people are consistently sick. They're aging. They might look aging faster than they should be. Those lines and bags under their eyes are starting to appear after a rough week. Exactly.
- [46:11]
A
Having a rough flight. You, you nailed it. And, and that's the. Well, if you look at. So if we look at the Mediterraneans, right? If you look at the Europeans and the Mediterranean countries, they, they drink wine, but there's some of the, they have some of the best biological clocks out there. I know there's lots that don't. But the reason why, you know, you can have the glass of wine and it actually can promote some health benefits through, you know, some, some phytonutrition or I guess whatnot from it, some resveratrol and these kind of things. But the, the, the key here is, is that it's, it's in a social context. A lot of times they eat very socially Europeans. It's also in a context where the meals are heavily mixed. They have olives and they have nuts and there's high quality starches and fish and lots of fish oil and fresh. Yeah, fresh oil and, and, and that's where it's like, you know, yes, this is the Mediterranean diet. And they actually show, when they show a Mediterranean diagnosis has wine with it. I don't know how many clients of mine have said, oh, so I can drink wine. That's all they solver.
- [47:21]
B
That's why, that's why it becomes a very difficult question for a coach to answer. Because you're like, can I have this? And you're like, I almost want to say, I don't know, because there's so many other factors in your life that I need to understand. Like if you're, if you're eating the way you and I eat and you want to go out on a Saturday night and have a bowl of pasta and a couple meatballs and two glasses of red wine, like, okay. Like it's. I'm almost, in a way. Well, if your blood markers are good and you. It's making you happy and you're getting a good night's sleep and you're hydrating after that wine, then I would do it every Saturday night if I were you then. But when all these other things add up, I think that's when it becomes a massive problem.
- [47:58]
A
Yeah. And, and at the end of the day, if you're feeling inflamed and you're feeling low in energy and you have lethargy and your sleep's bad and everything else, start cleaning up those variables first. And generally that'll start with a really high quality diet. And then when you start getting those cleaned up, then, you know, you'll start to know, you start to read the benefits of this whole like reversing your biological age.
- [48:20]
B
Energy level improves.
- [48:22]
A
That's right.
- [48:22]
B
Body composition, ironically, I find in the first maybe week or two, maybe you put on a pound or two from eating more, you know, more food and then your body starts leveling off. And then, I mean, nine and a half out of 10 times from, I hear from people, oh my God, my, I'm down two belt sizes. Oh my God, my steps are up. Oh my God, my sleep quality has improved. All these incredible benefits. I just find it's very difficult for most to believe and trust in the process and then stick it out the first week or two. Chris, we're going to take some questions now. Thanks. Thanks D.J. this is fantastic.
- [48:57]
A
All right, so I have a question.
- [48:58]
B
From Frank and Frank is from New York. So here's Frank.
- [49:04]
A
Hey, Don. And Dr. Jackson. My name is Frank Decorado from Comac New York. My question is regarding stem cell therapy for injury and pain. What's the overall efficacy? Who might benefit, who might not. And we see a lot of fighters, celebrities, heading down to Panama, for example, for therapy. What is the future for stem cell therapy here in the U.S. thanks for the opportunity, Frank.
- [49:29]
B
Thank you. And comac. It's kind of not too far from from where I'm from. So my neighbor over there. So that's. That's a great question. I'm going to kick that over to you.
- [49:39]
A
Yeah. Stem cells. So here's the thing. So stem cells, yeah. So you can go to Dubai, you can go down to Cabo, you can go, you know, to Costa Rica on these places. Nice place to visit. Exactly. These medically related, you know, trips, medical vacations. And the biggest issue with stem cells is stem cell treatments is there's multiple different types of stem cells and they haven't been really proven to improve injury, kidney disease, any of these things to the efficacy that they're being promoted to do. And there's a reason why we don't actually have them in, in, you know, the US Or Canada for that matter, in terms of like, you know, being a regular treatment. And that's because the clinical trials just don't show the huge efficacy that's being purported in the, in the industry. The big one, the big one that, that really got me was, you know, there are people that are going to these places to have their kidney function improved with stem cells. And I, I, that's near and dear to my heart because I have a kidney transplant. And the, the, the, the advertising is, hey, if you do these stem cell treatments in your kidney, then we can reverse kidney disease. And I'll tell you, if that was the case, then we would solve a multi, multi, multi, multi, trillion dollar problem in the world. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of hope. Stem cells has been around a long time. I was working with stem cells way back, you know, in 2006, 2007, in the university, looking at cancer treatments. But right now there's a few issues. One is how do we keep them alive and, and viable? Number two is, you know, these localized treatments that we see a lot of times in joints and everything else, are we truly getting them localized or are they going systemic? Highly likely they're systemic. And then for the systemic treatments, they're being kind of reported to home in and find the area that needs to be repaired. And that's a little bit, a little bit, you know, misleading, I believe.
- [51:54]
B
And I, I have heard and I've imagined, I would imagine that, you know, it's, it's worked on some, it's worked on a few people. Right. And I think that's where it gets confusing. Right. Because someone might get a good response from it. Do you think it's all right? Well, it just depends on how you respond to it. And we're seeing it respond on less people than more and there's a massive cost and travel. I think what, what I always feel like with stem cells, it's like it's, it's the last resort.
- [52:21]
A
Absolutely. It's, it's, yeah, it's like, it's like, you know, a phase one clinical trial where like, you're like, okay, I've tried.
- [52:27]
B
I gotta try this.
- [52:27]
A
At this point, it's the last thing I got. Absolutely. And there have been people that have had success whether or not it's directly related to the stem cell treatment or not likely. Maybe when you look at Other treatments that are kind of similar. So we look at, you know, platelet rich plasma injections in the shoulders and, you know, when we have issues with torn labor labrums and stuff like that. It works for some and it doesn't for others. But really that's because you're at the discretion of the physician that's treating it, trying to pinpoint exactly where the problem is. And that can be difficult sometimes. So right now, it's a mixed bag. Some people do well with them and they say, hey, this is the best thing since sliced bread. Other people say, like, I just wasted 30 grand.
- [53:09]
B
I almost feel like more people say the latter.
- [53:11]
A
Not at first, though. Yeah, not at first because they're stoked to go to. Oh, yeah.
- [53:16]
B
So do you feel like it's almost a placebo in the beginning?
- [53:20]
A
Well, it's funny for some, yes. For the kidney folks, no, because you measure, you measure, you measure egfr, right? Of course, of course. But what ends up happening is it's a transient effect. All you're doing is dilating the renal arterial arteriole, which makes the blood flow faster into the kidney. And then it looks like you have.
- [53:36]
B
More this improved function.
- [53:37]
A
Yeah.
- [53:38]
B
Very Good. First off, Dr. Jackson, thank you. All right, you're. Thank you. You're about to become my first repeat person. So because I'm bringing you back in really quickly and I just want to thank the team over at the post here. I think this place is incredible. Amazing. Yeah. Christian Ponder did a great job. Ex NFL quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. Kind of started his own. We work for athletes. So it's been a pleasure to be here and listen. Thanks again.
- [54:00]
A
Thank you for having me. The views, information or opinions expressed in the series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Chip and Joanna Gaines by Nail Audio, nor Magnolia.