Muscle Is the Key to Longevity with Dr. Brad Currier

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Muscle Is the Key to Longevity”

Stronger with Don Saladino – Episode: Dr. Brad Currier
Release Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Don Saladino
Guest: Dr. Brad Currier, Clinical Trial Manager at Timeline, PhD in Muscle Physiology

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Don Saladino sits down with Dr. Brad Currier to discuss the science of muscle and its critical role in longevity. The conversation dives deep into practical tips for building and preserving muscle, the latest research on resistance training and healthspan, misconceptions around muscle, supplementation (including creatine, magnesium, and urolithin A), and the interplay between “biohacking” trends and foundational health habits. Dr. Currier offers actionable insights for beginners and seasoned athletes alike, all grounded in rigorous science and real-world application.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Misconceptions About Building Muscle

(03:44–06:27)

• Most People Overthink Training:
  • Many believe it takes a “world-class” program to build muscle, but even minimal resistance training has significant impacts, especially for those starting from zero.
  • Dr. Currier: “When you take someone from doing zero days of weightlifting or any resistance exercise to just even doing it once a week, you see a massive improvement.” (04:46)
• Building Confidence is Key:
  • Success is often found in minimal, consistent effort versus chasing extreme or social media-driven routines.
  • Don: “I have seen incredible success from taking a minimalistic approach...just by building that confidence...you will receive a big return.” (07:06)

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2. Principles of Effective Training & Progressive Overload

(07:37–11:14)

• Consistency Trumps Intensity:
  • Doing something regularly (even “five bodyweight squats a day”) and sticking with it is most important.
  • Dr. Currier: “Consistency is the most important thing...whatever you’re doing, you need to do regularly.” (08:00)
• Progressive Overload Simplified:
  • Challenge yourself a little more over time—it doesn’t have to mean always doing more weight or reps. It could be an extra rep or reduced rest.
  • Track small improvements—these compound over years.
  • Dr. Currier: “If you are leaving feeling like you challenged yourself a little bit, you’ve caused the stimulation your body needs to adapt.” (11:14)

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3. Muscle as the “Longevity Organ”

(11:25–17:54)

• Functional & Metabolic Benefits:
  • Muscle is central to physical independence with aging (e.g., rising from a chair at 80+) and is the primary site for glucose disposal.
  • Muscle mass and strength drastically lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
  • Dr. Currier: “Skeletal muscle is rightfully considered, and frequently identified as, the longevity organ...just small efforts to maintain it could have a drastic impact on aging outcomes.” (11:54)
• Maintaining Strength into Later Age:
  • Individuals staying active well into their 70s, 80s, and 90s can preserve strength and function.
  • Dr. Currier: “Healthspan is the duration of our life we spend in good health...we want to extend the amount of time you can be active and do the things you like to do.” (16:56)

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4. Biohacking vs. Foundational Health

(20:54–25:56)

• Biohacking as an “Extra Drop”:
  • Foundational lifestyle habits (exercise, diet, sleep, social connection) provide the “biggest bang for your buck” in healthspan and longevity.
  • Biohacks like sauna, cold plunges, red light, etc., are valuable but can never replace the foundational habits.
  • Dr. Currier: “...A lot of those biohacks are closer to that final drop than that first twist of the cloth.” (22:27)
• Beware Misdirected Focus:
  • Spending disproportionate time on advanced “hacks” vs. basic training and nutrition is counterproductive for most people.
  • Dr. Currier: “If you’re spending two hours training and 30 hours on some of these other things, is that the best ROI here?” (25:16)

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5. Supplements: Science-Backed Essentials

(31:15–36:47)

• “Don’s Essentials”: Creatine, Magnesium, Urolithin A (Mitopure)
  • Creatine: Universally beneficial for cellular energy, strength, and even cognitive health.
    • Dr. Currier: “Creatine doesn’t cause big bulky muscles. It improves our cellular energetics.” (33:36)
  • Magnesium: Valuable for those with dietary deficiency—primarily for sleep and cellular function.
  • Urolithin A (Mitopure): Supports mitochondrial health and function (see detail below).
• Food First Approach:
  • Supplementation should fill gaps or offer added benefit that diet can’t provide; most people don’t need an extensive supplement shelf.
  • Dr. Currier: “The role of supplementation, in my view, [is] food first, always, when possible. Supplementation is for either helping replace deficiencies... or added benefit.” (33:36)

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6. Mitochondrial Health & Urolithin A

(36:54–49:19)

• Mitochondria Basics:
  • Powerhouse of the cell, central to energy for all bodily functions, but also critical for managing metabolic health and cell signaling.
• Urolithin A (Mitopure):
  • A “postbiotic” compound naturally derived when our gut metabolizes polyphenols (from foods like pomegranate).
  • Stimulates mitophagy—the breakdown and recycling of dysfunctional mitochondria, encouraging the growth of healthy ones.
  • Research shows:
    • Improved muscle strength (12% in 8 weeks at 500mg-1g daily doses)
    • Clinically meaningful increases in 6-minute walk distance for older adults
    • Reductions in chronic inflammation and improved immune function
  • Amount needed cannot realistically be obtained from food (1.5L pomegranate juice = 500mg urolithin A).
  • Dr. Currier: “It was only on par...with caloric restriction, which is the best way to improve lifespan in these models.” (39:33)

Memorable Analogy:

“If you have a cloth and you dunk it in a bucket and you wring it out that first time you’re going to get a lot of water out. That’s exercise. If you squeeze a second time, that’s exercise prescription...Biohacks are closer to that final drop than the first twist.”
— Dr. Currier (22:27, repeated at 37:02)

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7. Peptides: Caution and Skepticism

(25:56–28:06)

• Dr. Currier sees promise but emphasizes safety and lack of long-term evidence for peptides like BPC157.
• Dr. Currier: “My first thought is make sure this is safe...then we can get into if it’s effective, which, you know, time will tell.” (27:11)

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8. The Future: Tech, Accessibility, & Education

(51:08–55:26)

• Wearables & Data:
  • Tools like Oura rings, VO2 testing, bring more awareness but aren’t yet easily actionable for most users.
  • Main challenge: translating data into meaningful, practical action steps.
  • Dr. Currier: “We can have this fantastic technology...we can translate that into actionable items the population at large can use.” (54:00)
• Education Gaps:
  • Medical professionals get little (≤2 hours) exercise prescription training in school—this needs change for broader health impact.

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9. European vs. U.S. Nutrition

(56:01–58:11)

• Dr. Currier shares how he’s noticed less bloating and fresher food (spoiling quicker, indicating fewer preservatives) since moving to Switzerland.
  • Dr. Currier: “You have to be eating them [strawberries] on the way home... It’s what normal food would do when you leave it out for a bit.” (57:08)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Anything is better than nothing...a 10-minute routine once or twice a week, if you’re currently doing nothing, will have dramatic impact.”
  — Dr. Currier (04:46)

• “You can’t be a hero for three days and then slack off for ten. The consistent effort is what’s needed.”
  — Dr. Currier (08:00)

• “We see that when we are losing [muscle] or losing our ability, it directly impacts our health…just the small efforts to maintain it…could have a drastic impact on those aging outcomes.”
  — Dr. Currier (13:16)

• “Health span is the duration of our life we spend in good health…not just how long we live, but how much of that life is spent in good health.”
  — Dr. Currier (16:56)

• “Squeezing a wet cloth... Exercise is the first big twist; biohacks are the last tiny drops.”
  — Dr. Currier (22:27, 37:01)

• “Creatine doesn’t cause big bulky muscles. It improves our cellular energetics.”
  — Dr. Currier (33:36)

• “Urolithin A, which is just branded as Mitopure, is the clinically now validated molecule that recycles dysfunctional mitochondria.”
  — Dr. Currier (39:59)

• “You need about a liter and a half of pomegranate juice to get the 500mg dose [of urolithin A].”
  — Dr. Currier (44:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:55 – Don welcomes Dr. Brad Currier; background and credentials
• 04:46 – The biggest misconceptions about muscle building
• 07:06 – Minimal effective dose & confidence for beginners
• 08:00 – Importance of consistency and progressive overload
• 11:25 – Muscle’s role in longevity and metabolism
• 16:56 – Defining “healthspan” vs. “lifespan”
• 22:27 – Biohacking in context: “squeezing the cloth” analogy
• 31:49 – Three essential supplements (creatine, magnesium, urolithin A)
• 36:54 – Mitochondrial health explained (basic science)
• 37:28 – What is urolithin A and its clinical research
• 44:41 – Why diet alone can’t provide enough urolithin A
• 51:08 – Future of performance: from data and wearables to action
• 56:34 – Nutrition differences experienced living in Switzerland

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Conclusion

Dr. Brad Currier reinforces that building and maintaining muscle is fundamental to both longevity and quality of life, with simple, consistent action outweighing elaborate “hacks” or extreme routines. Foundational habits—strength training, nutrition, sleep, and social connection—are the most impactful levers for healthspan, with targeted supplements (notably creatine and urolithin A) as helpful adjuncts rooted in research. Increasing access to actionable health data, continuing public education, and reframing success around long, healthy years rather than just lifespan are key to the future of well-being.

For more information on Dr. Currier and Timeline’s research:
Visit Timeline (no personal social media yet; reachable via the company’s customer science team).

Transcript

[Dr. Brad Currier]

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[Don Saladino]

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[Dr. Brad Currier]

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[Don Saladino]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to Stronger. On today's episode, I interviewed Dr. Brad Currier, a clinical trial manager over at Timeline. Dr. Currier received his PhD in muscle physiology and we really went in deep on longevity, on the science behind building muscle. Some of the things that he feels are most overlooked. Really nice conversation back and forth. We dove into nutrition, we dove into training, and we dove into a bit of supplementation. I think you're going to be a little surprised on his three favorite supplements. Hope you enjoyed as much as I did. And let's get started. First off, the Stronger podcast would not be possible if it weren't for our sponsors. I'd like to thank Timeline. Timeline is a product that I got turned onto a few years ago through Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She told me about Mitopure, which is a Urolithin A product. So I, I started taking Urolithin a several years ago. I started with 500mg. I bumped it up to 1000mg and there were just things that I saw in my body that was improving and one of them was my skin. I started noticing that those lines that were coming on pretty fast, you know, at 48 years at the time, probably 46 years old, it started slowing down and I realized it was because the Mitopure product Urlithin A attacks from a cellular level. So when we go to train, exercise, eat well, walk, all these things are helping our mitochondria. And our mitochondria are the cells of Our body that helps us with our energy and it's what keeps us feeling young and vibrant. So anything I could do to help my body repair from a cellular level, I am going to do. I've been training and eating right for a very long time. And I would say the most recent thing that I've incorporated into my routine to help from a cellular level would be Might Appear's Urolithin, a product. So super grateful for that and I've been really enjoying it. So don't let another year go by feeling less than your best. Grab 35% off. 35% off your one month subscription of mitrepure [e-mail] stronger35 that's timeline.com stronger35 while they're off for last, guys, thank you. Well, first off, thank you for joining us.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

[Don Saladino]

Dr. Brad Currier. I mean, all the way in from Switzerland.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yes, sir.

[Don Saladino]

You have an incredible background, by the way. Really interesting. So I found out about you because you're the clinical trial manager at Timeline, obviously a product that I love. But you have your PhD in muscle physiology.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yes, sir.

[Don Saladino]

You play collegiate golf.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And you've got probably over 30 to 35. How would you refer to that? As research.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Research trials, peer reviewed publications.

[Don Saladino]

Peer reviewed publications, which is impressive. That's not easy to do that. That takes a lot of time. What's the one thing people misunderstood or they misunderstand about building muscle? I mean, this is, I mean, we're hearing. And I'm so happy right now because I started as a Coach, God, maybe 27 years ago now.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Right.

[Don Saladino]

And, um, I, that was at a time where, where especially women were saying, I don't want to get bigger, I don't want to get bigger. And you're like, all right, well, we got to keep an eye on diet and, you know, the alcohol and all these other things that are going to cause you to retain water or put on body fat. What do you think now that we are evolving and now you're seeing women and people of all amazing ages are they understand the importance of being strong, whether it's to be resilient, whether it's improve your metabolism. There is no downside to this. Right. Unless you're doing such crazy powerlifting that you just keep going in for surgeries. That's the only thing I could think about. But what do you think is the one thing that people misunderstand about putting on muscle?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, it's a great question. It is amazing to See how it's getting better. I think the biggest thing people misunderstand about building muscle is that it takes a world class training program to do it. What I like to remind people is that only about 20% of people lift weights and that's by self report. In the US the vast majority of Americans are not doing any weightlifting, let alone to the recommended two days a week. One of the things we saw in what the new guidelines are starting to reflect is that anything is better than nothing. When you take someone from doing zero days of weightlifting or any resistance exercise to just even doing it once a week, you see a massive improvement. We, you know, that can be something for people if they're not training and intimidated by it. We need to help educate on accessible ways because things like doing a wall push up, 10 wall push ups a day for someone who does nothing that can improve their strength, resistance bands, body weight work, ease them in and just know that you can have meaningful impacts on your strength, your muscle size and the function of that muscle both metabolically and in your daily life by just adding a little bit of exercise. You know, a 10 minute routine once or twice a week, if you're currently doing nothing, will have dramatic impact. I think that's the one thing if we're talking, you know, we can get into talking about the, the 0.1 percenters, the elites and the groups that you work a lot with. But when we're talking about society as a whole, we need to be doing.

[Don Saladino]

Anything that's typically more of the people. Because I've taken my business, went from working with a lot of these people that are notables to offering programs online to everyone. So what I loved about it was I was able to connect with so many different people, we were able to move the needle. And the one piece of feedback that I would receive from a lot of them was, oh my God, I can't believe like this is I was chasing this or I was doing too much or I think what happens is there's so much information out there and we're looking at that person on social media saying, well, that's what they do, it's what I have to do.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And I really have seen incredible success from taking a minimalistic approach with people like you hate training for 20 minutes, I'll create for you the best 18 minute workout you've ever done. And it's like, and just by building that confidence, I, I feel like you will receive a big return off of your effort.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And having people make that shift from doing nothing to something is the best thing we can do to try to improve muscle health. And really, I would argue health span.

[Don Saladino]

In our society, if there's a principle you would never tell someone to skip. Yeah, right. And what are you. I know it's very broad, but like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to be general. I want people to leave here today being like, oh, if you're listening to this and you incorporate one thing out of this podcast in your life that you haven't been doing, like, we, we scored a hat trick today. Like, this was fantastic.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

So, yeah, and I think just from talking briefly, we're on the same page where consistency is the most important thing. Doing something regularly will be the most, you know, that's the most surefire way to results. You can't be a hero for three days and then slack off for 10. The consistent effort is what's needed. So with that kind of, I would flag it with that is that whatever you're doing, you need to do regularly. And that might be for some people, the five body weight squats a day, if they're starting up, you know, whatever it is, but do it every day or commit to that consistent practice. What I would say is the most important training principle that could be applied broadly is progressive overload. I don't want people to get concerned and think that means you need to be always doing more and more. What I would say is that you need to be doing something that challenges you just a little bit, that's okay. But if your training is at a place where, okay, I'm just starting to resistance train or cycle for the first time, you know, when you go and train consistently, leave feeling like, you know what? I, I push myself a little bit. If that's on a scale of 10. If. And those three body weight squats make you feel like that's a seven or eight out of 10 for me. Awesome.

[Don Saladino]

Yeah, pretty good.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

If you are a college athlete, if you are a weekend warrior, leave that practice, that session feeling like, I pushed myself today. I did something that was a little uncomfortable, a little difficult. And of course, when you get into the, you know, the, again, the 0.1 percentage where you're dialing in training loads or whatever it is for when performance, not improvement is the, the objective that can change a little bit in deloads or whatnot. But for 99% of people, leave these regular sessions feeling like you challenged yourself a little bit. And at whatever level you are, four plates, four squats, that's the One.

[Don Saladino]

It's funny, too, because how to quantify that it's not as hard as people think. It doesn't have to be where every exercise improves by a REP or by £5. It could be like, the other day, I remember I was hitting three sets of something, and I keep a. I keep a journal. And set number one, set number two were the exact numbers I did last week. And I was like, you know what? I don't feel like I have it in me, but, like, I can't go heavier. Can I squeeze out another rep? Yeah, than what I. What I did last week. And I did. And when I looked at the numbers, it was like the week earlier was 7, 7, 7, and then this week was 7, 7, and I got an eighth. Awesome, right? And I was probably within, you know, two to three reps in reserve. The first two sets. The last set was probably a failure.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

But I looked at myself and I said, wow. Like, that was. That's. That was the goal. Like, amazing on a day where I didn't have my best hand.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Coming in. And just a little bit more. And it could just be one set for someone. It could be just doing an extra rep or, you know, maybe decreasing your rest intervals a little bit. If that's a way that you're quantifying in the program. There's so many different ways to quantify success, but I think we always think about progressing as, like, Well, I bench 225 last week for 10, and now I have to do it 2, 30. Like, it doesn't always work that way.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

100%. If you are leaving feeling like you challenge yourself a little bit, you've caused the stimulation that your body needs to adapt. Over time, you will get closer to your goals.

[Don Saladino]

Let's pivot for a second. So we've been talking about muscle from, you know, a body composition standpoint, from a body armor standpoint, but it really is the muscle of longevity. Right.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

We really have found out over the last, you know, decade that this is, you know, when we use those terms anti aging or, you know, I mean, I hate that term, but yeah, because we're not going to anti age, but we're going to. We could slow the process down. Do you find that being. One of the most important things is. Is.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Skeletal muscle. And. And.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Absolutely, absolutely. I love to see it. I think skeletal muscle is rightfully, you know, considered and frequently identified as the longevity organ. Certainly there's a lot in our physiology we need to take care of, but muscle is central, and I think it's easy to obviously muscle we need for movement, easy to recognize. That movement, of course, goes down with age. We need to have sufficient muscle and strength to just operate in our society when we are whatever, 75, 85 years old, to be able to get up off a toilet, to walk around our community, we need strength for that. But I would also say the metabolic part is starting to get discussed a little more, which is great. Certainly muscle, it's the biggest contributor to our resting metabolic rate. How many calories are we burning just on the daily? If we have more muscle, we burn more. Biggest site of glucose or blood sugar disposal. So if we have more muscle, we have a better sink that we can store blood sugar in and use for that movement. But I think the data around how muscle strength and particularly function is critical to other factors that are often the stopper of longevity, if we call it health span, that impact our healthy aging. There was a great publication a few years ago in ACSM's journal actually, where they looked at thousands of individuals and they looked at the hazard ratio. So the risk increase of dying from certain conditions based on just participating in either weightlifting, aerobic exercise or a combination in all these cases, the risk of dying from Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, all cause mortality reduced with any participation in either exercise. When you combine them, it's even greater. And we're not talking about a couple percent. By having our muscles tested, we're seeing 10, 20, 30, 40% lower risks of mortality from participating in these exercises. I mean, that, that figure right there, I can send you the link if you want to see it, but I'll show it, I'll send you the link so you can see the figure. But that to me is just so stark of not only is muscle important, we see that when we are losing it or losing our ability, it directly impacts our health and metabolism, but just the small efforts to maintain it and could have a drastic impact on those aging outcomes.

[Don Saladino]

So we, we always hear about, well, you're going to be losing muscle and you're going to be losing strength as you age. Yet I am seeing people out there that are in their 50s, 60s and 70s that are doing a really good job and at least maintaining it.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Like amazing.

[Don Saladino]

I've seen people take their shirts off and you're like, wow, like this guy's how old? Like they're in incredible shape. So what have you has research point you in a direction to even look at someone who might be a little bit more hardcore than the average person that's training, you know, One to two days a week. Because we know that that's good and we know that that's going to get you in a good place. What about the person that stayed in shape? I trained with Jack Elaine when he was alive.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And his 90th birth. Right around his 90th birthday, I worked out with him for some special that Gold's Gym was doing. This guy was 90 years old. He was inclined, pressing, I think 60 pound dumbbells. He was in incredible shape. Low body fat. I think, I think pneumonia is what got him in his mid-90s. But this guy wasn't losing a step. And at 90 years old, this is someone that dedicated their life to it.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

What are you finding in your findings? Someone who's really committing because I want to, I want to encourage people.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Don Saladino]

Double down.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

It's worth it, don't worry.

[Don Saladino]

Yeah, I want to, I want, I want to encourage them to do that.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. So I guess two things I would say on that one is on muscle power and then what the latter years of our life look like. An area that I. My appreciation has evolved and grown is the importance of what we would call muscle power. So not just how strong you are, meaning how much force can you generate, but how much time does it take you to generate that force. If we can generate the same amount of force in less time, we're more powerful. And even just this year. But really in the recent years, the ability to be powerful for muscle power is showing a better indication with fall risk. Things that we often would if they go awry would have problems for aging. Like you think if someone is falling, they break their hip, they're admitted to the hospital. There's a 50% chance that this time next year that person is no longer with us. If you are tripping and falling, does that matter how strong you are? No, it's actually more of a power movement in that we have to move quickly and forcefully to catch our body weight. So the importance of muscle power is one that I appreciate more. And I think when we look at health span, I prefer that to looking at longevity or lifespan where exactly like you're saying when you're training. Right around his 90th birthday, he's looking great. Passed away in mid-90s, I think.

[Don Saladino]

I think it was around that.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

If I'm correct, to me that's a perfect example of great healthspan. And health span is the duration of our life we spend in good health. So it's not just how long we live, but it's how much of that life is spent in good health. Right now, our lifespan is increasing, but the age that people are burdened by disease and immobility, it hasn't changed that much. So, yeah, it's great. We're living to 82 instead of 68, but we're still getting sick and immobile at 65. So instead of having three years of poor functioning, we've got 17. That's not healthy aging in my mind. We want to extend that amount of time that you can be active, you can be involved with your community and your family and do the things you like to do. So I think when it comes to looking at what does healthy aging look like from a muscle perspective, that health span is really the key.

[Don Saladino]

So if you were to define healthy aging or if you were to have a conversation with someone, say, this is how I define healthy aging. Just to sum it up, it's being able to live as long as possible, but while maintaining that quality of movement in life.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, we can do what we want independently for as long as possible.

[Don Saladino]

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[Dr. Brad Currier]

All right?

[Don Saladino]

Buy four cartons and get the fifth free when you go to davidprotein.com stronger. That's davidprotein.com stronger. Thanks, everyone. So now it kind of gets in the discussion with a lot of these biohackers, right? And I'll be upfront, like, I know some of them, and they're nice people, and then there's others that I think are just trying to biohack their way into living a longer life. And I understand it's what they're into and it's what. It's how they're making their money. But, you know, that doesn't mean just because you're doing all these different biohacking modalities, and I. And I use them like I use the sauna. Incredible credible research on that. I love the sauna, though.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Thank Finland.

[Don Saladino]

Thank you. Thank you for everything. There are as many saunas as there are homes in Finland, right?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

You know, the cold plunge gets its pros and cons, and people are kind of battling that red light. All these things, compression, you can go on and on. But that's just. What's your. What's your opinion on their Approach to very general question. Yeah, but do you think they're putting too much value into that stuff or do you think this is just part of the sundae that they're making?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

No. Well, I think that you know, the biohacking crowd in their ways on a frontier of how do we extend lifespan as well as we can, you know, similar to how bodybuilders throughout time, if you ask bodybuilders 20, 30 years ago, a couple of these exercise principles that we only talk about in the last 10, 15 years, they were on to something. There was a lot that they were not on to and that was wrong.

[Don Saladino]

Sure. But what were some of the stuff that they were on to?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

I think some of the stuff that they were on to volume is an easy one. Sure, that, that, you know, it seems self explanatory now, but really the research showing how important volume of work is for building muscle mass and likewise how important the intensity or the load, how our relative load that we're training with is for maximizing strength, you know, that's one where if you go back to the, the origins of bodybuilding, whatnot, that people who are actively exercising, they, you know, they weren't really weightlifting but when it came to building maximum strength, we didn't have the research to support what they were already doing. So on the biohacking side, I would preface it with one. My objective would be improving that health span, not just the lifespan. Right. The amount of time that we're living in good health. What I would encourage everyone to think about is the low hanging fruit. You know, great if there's a peptide or some intervention that, you know, we think is the next longevity biohack. But if you're not exercising, if you're not eating well, just a balanced food first diet. If you're not having good quality time with family and friends, if you're not sleeping well. Yeah, those are the pillars that if you are going to have the biggest impact on your health span and well being, you've got to clean those up, you know, to, to cop or not copy. But to repeat an analogy that a lot of people use, particularly some of my former mentors was, you know, squeezing a wet cloth. If you have a cloth and you dunk it in a bucket and you wring it out that first time you're going to get a lot of water out. That's exercise. If you squeeze a second time, that's exercise prescription. You keep going. You have to squeeze so hard and so many times to get the benefits. Get that last drop of Water out of the cloth. Certainly. I think a lot of those biohacks are closer to that final drop than that first twist of the clock.

[Don Saladino]

Kind of ironic, right, that they all talk about this stuff and. But then when it comes down to, you know, resistance training, I think Dave Asprey says, you know, I train twice a week. And yeah, you kind of like, okay, like, I would hate training twice a week. Training is the one. It's the one trigger for me that I can bring myself back to this place of like, wow, I'm in a great spot. Like, it's as much for me or maybe even more for me, mental and physical. So, yeah, I do it five, six days a week. Love it. I have to make sure I'm not overdoing it at times. I don't know why, you know, this makes me happy. Why would I do it twice a week? So that's where I kind of argue it, almost like, okay, you're getting benefit out of twice a week. I get it. But, you know.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Exactly. It's the. It certainly. It's what works best for an individual.

[Don Saladino]

Sure.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

But there is the component of if you're spending two hours training and 30 hours on some of these other things, you know, is that the best ROI here on how we're spending our time? I think, regardless. So the conversation with anyone, any crowd or they're listening here, going to visit their. Their family for the holidays or biohacking, whatever it is, the conversation just needs to start with recognizing we all have the same objective. We are all trying to improve how well we can age and the quality of life we can have. So I think we've got the same objective and certainly we can have some good discussions and ultimately find that solution together.

[Don Saladino]

Have you done much research on peptides yet or no?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Well, it depends how you define peptide, because there's a lot of peptides that are maybe in mainstream buzz culture right now, but, you know, peptide, just a collection of a few amino acids, like creatine, is technically a peptide.

[Don Saladino]

I'm referring more to like BP157 or specific things that are more towards the healing process. I'm not talking about a lot of the, you know, the ozempics, and we're not going to go there. Or I'm more concerned with staying towards muscle.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. Personally, no, I have not actually actively done any research in that area. So it is one that I haven't firsthand been involved with. It is one that has crossed my radar more and more in recent times. And I would say I'M very much getting up to speed with what people are thinking or saying in that place.

[Don Saladino]

But nothing's conclusive yet.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

No.

[Don Saladino]

And I like everyone's talking about this like it's the fountain of youth and I've never taken any.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Me neither.

[Don Saladino]

I know friends who have taken it. They swear by it. I know friends that have taken it and have not felt or seen or noticed anything.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, same.

[Don Saladino]

And every time I read up on it, I'm hearing, well, we don't know what it's going to truly do long term. So I have a difficult time, you.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Know, and I think that is the, the, a great example where when people ask about, oh, the new hot molecule that's here, the first thing I always say is like, safety, do no harm here. Make sure that they're, you know, I'm not saying this about BP 157 necessarily.

[Don Saladino]

I just threw it out. Yeah.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

But you know, anytime there's that new hot product, my first thought is make sure this is safe. Okay. Then we can get into if it's effective, which, you know, time will tell with a lot of these peptides or other agents. But that is one where I don't, I haven't personally used them. Same thing the anecdotally, because that's all we really have in a lot of these cases. There's, there's not clinical evidence. And from many of these touted actives, I personally haven't done much research there. And we'll follow it closely to make sure that anything that is worthwhile is, is taken into account.

[Don Saladino]

Can you talk about the mitochondria that. Yeah, of course. You don't mind me because this is, again, it's not a buzzword.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yes.

[Don Saladino]

You know, you know, we all have mitochondria, but you're, you're hearing it spoken about so much more over the last decade than I remember hearing when I started in this business back in 2000. I didn't hear 1999 actually, I didn't hear anyone talking about mitochondrial health.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

So can you just give us a little like, you know, third grade introduction to it and.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it. Ask a high school biology student, what's the mitochondria? It's powerhouse of the cell. And yes, it is. So the mitochondria is where we produce a lot of the energy that our cells need to function from muscle to brain to immune skin. You know, all of our cells except red blood cells have mitochondria. And what the mitochondria do is we eat Food, we digest it, we break it down into its key parts. So amino acid, glucose, you know, a lipid. Those go through the mitochondria to get converted into the cellular energy, adenosine triphosphate or ATP, that we can use for all of the reactions and processes that that cell needs to function maybe in muscle. That's muscle contraction. There's millions, but that's what the mitochondria does. The food we eat goes through there to create the energy for the cells, processes. But the energy producing component of the mitochondria is only part of the story. Certainly that's what it's known for, it is an essential role. But the mitochondria are implicated and are involved in many other cellular processes. So things like calcium handling, reactive oxygen species, kind of Ross redox balance, which is, it's like a, an energy, you know, kind of nuclear factory. If things go wrong, we're going to have these reactive oxygen species being emitted from the mitochondria. And I think you can really see the importance of the mitochondria not just from an energy producing perspective, but when things start going wrong. So there's a, there's a great researcher out of Yale, Gerald Schulman, who's got some really nice work showing, you know, kind of, or figures, I should say, for people to look at. And how does a dysfunctional mitochondria lead to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease? And in some of those cases it's those reactive oxygen species that come from a dysfunctional mitochondria impact the insulin signaling access and all of a sudden we're developing insulin resistance. So the mitochondria is not just about producing energy but also maintaining that environment within our cells for good functioning.

[Don Saladino]

But how do we improve mitochondrial function? Right. We're talking about again, exercise, nutrition.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yep, definitely.

[Don Saladino]

Sleep.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yes.

[Don Saladino]

Avoiding poor nutrition, alcohol, all these things. So definitely these are all the, all the things that we're telling people to do or we've been told that. Yeah, it's, it's. And that's the biggest bang for your buck in reference to mitochondrial health. But there are other things. Now there are supplements.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Right.

[Don Saladino]

And I definitely, I want to be very clear on supplements. I never push supplements, but there are supplements and I'm a big, you know, blood work person where I wouldn't analyze it because I'm not a doctor. But I have a team of doctors. I work with friends and I always recommend getting your labs done and seeing if you're deficient in areas or what you can do to help improve Areas that you might be lacking in. There are three supplements that have been in my regimen where if I were, and this is my way of putting it, there's nothing scientific about this, but if I was to name them, like Don's Essentials.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

I would, I would list three of them. I would list creatine because I feel like pretty much everyone can be on and should be on it. Magnesium. I want to get your opinion on that, whether you agree or disagree. But if you ask me, my goal with everything, it's just to improve my sleep and I want better.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

That's my first question. What's the purpose? Why are we doing this?

[Don Saladino]

I want to. I want to take mag. I want to get better sleep so my day is more productive, so my training is better, so my recovery is better, so my energy is better. Plain, simple. So I'll do what I have to do, whatever I can to improve sleep. And now there's this urolithin, a supplement timeline, supplement mitopure. And that's because that helps with mitochondrial function, correct?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. And so we, we can get into all those. But I'm.

[Don Saladino]

Well, tell me if you disagree with me, any of those, because I'm learning from you here.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Well, and so maybe I. I just would be curious. So I. Full same thing. My supplement shelf is very short. The role of supplementation, in my view, food first, always, when possible. Supplementation is for either helping replace deficiencies. So if you aren't getting enough of something, like if. Or if you're, say, a vegan. I'm not, but if you are, you should be looking at B12 supplement, you know, so it's replacing things that you can't get from your diet or that you're not getting enough of. The second is added benefit. There are very, very few, but supplements that when we add and we increase what we would normally have from a diet, we get tremendous benefit. And the best example, of course, is creatine. Right. That is one where when we supplement our intramuscular creatine, 95% of creatine is in our muscles. The other 5% is between brain and testes in case of males, but 95% of it's in muscle. And when we supplement with creatine, our intramuscular creatine levels go up about 20%. And that's what allows us to have the extra benefits, really. Creatine is actually an energy supplement in a way. It. It is its role, along with phosphocreatine and the enzyme creatine kinase is shuttling Energy from the mitochondria to the part of the cell that needs it. So creatine, it doesn't cause big bulky muscles. It improves our cellular energetics. Where in the case of a bodybuilder, yeah, that allows them to train a little bit harder, but it's not because creatine inherently makes your muscles big. Creatine allows a bodybuilder to train a bit harder, but it also allows whatever you're doing in that cell to function a bit better. So I'm all on board with that same thing. Mitopure. For me, it's mitopure, creatine. And a multivitamin. And a multivitamin.

[Don Saladino]

Okay.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

With the magnesium. So sleep, that's my first question.

[Don Saladino]

And some people might, and some people might have enough magnesium through diet, obviously. Right. So again, it falls in that example I gave earlier. Earlier when we were talking outside about vitamin D. Do you have enough of it in. So I guess, yeah, I guess that would be one that I could remove.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Well, no, no, no, not at all.

[Don Saladino]

If, if, if my levels, if someone's levels are, are good.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Absolutely. And I'm not, I'm not saying necessarily to remove it. I'm just genuinely curious. So that's exactly what you outlined, why I personally don't use a magnesium supplement. Just all, all kind of tickety boo. It's all good. Magnesium is a cofactor in over 300 cellular reactions in muscle particularly. So that just means it helps all these processes in our muscle function a bit better. And of course it's, you know, it's an essential, essential mineral. So it has roles in all of our cells. And you know, my, my fiance takes it for, to help with sleep too. Personally, I didn't notice a difference trying it, but absolutely no problem. If you want to take a good quality magnesium supplement, I'm curious, you take, you know, offhand if it's like a 3 and 8 bisglycinate. Bisclycinate, yeah, that's, that's the one that you can get the highest quality. They say there's some benefits of different ones, but the bis glycinates I've done.

[Don Saladino]

I've experimented with magnesium loading also in the past and yeah, you know, found when I got to the high levels, I didn't notice any benefit from it. And yeah, you know, I just, I consume about 300 milligrams.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. Perfect a night.

[Don Saladino]

I think that's kind of like my safe area.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

I'm curious, how do you take it? Just because magnesium, if anyone hasn't Tried it. Tastes awfully.

[Don Saladino]

So with a glycine and I want to say L. Theanine. I kind of make this little cocktail at night using thorn supplements.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And awesome stuff. I just kind of. Yeah. I just. I mix it up and I just. I power it back and I'm done. So.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. Get it over with. Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

It's just like. It's. It's like routine. It's something very easy. Even creatine in the morning. I make it with my morning. I call it my morning cocktail, where it's just a big glass of water. You know, I salt it. I might, you know, maybe a hydration drink, like quench or.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And then I'll throw my. My glutamine and creatine in there and I get that down first thing. And then I start prepping breakfast and.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Perfect.

[Don Saladino]

Going through my routine. So it's just like. It's easy times of the day for me to take it where I don't forget.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

So good cocktails to bookend your day with.

[Don Saladino]

Those are the good cocktails. That's right. Getting into urolithinase. So talking about this.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Because again, you. I mean, I. I'm going to steal your analogy. I'll give you credit always. But no, it's not mine.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

It's not mine. That is your.

[Don Saladino]

It's phenomenal.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

It's phenomenal.

[Don Saladino]

But, you know, when you squeeze out that first amount of water and that shirt or that towel that's been sitting in the water, lot's going to come out. That's your exercise, your nutrition, your sleep URL A. Is that something that you feel like is giving a very. I mean, there's no way it's going to give the type of return that exercise is going to get. But you guys are probably seeing pretty significant data from what it's actually doing for mitochondrial function.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Mitochondrial health. What's the best way to put it? Private? Mitochondrial.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, I think just mitochondrial health is a good way to put it. And I'll get into why. We talk about function or biogenesis and stuff a little bit differently. But maybe just to set the scene. Urolithin A is what we call a postbiotic. And how it was originally discovered was looking at foods that had health benefits, namely the pomegranate. Right. So it was about 20 years ago, if you think then the pomegranate rightfully was having its kind of a good time. It was.

[Don Saladino]

I remember that.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, the pomegranate phase. And what people were looking at was, you know, what is it in the pomegranate that has these health benefits, why is it so beneficial? Why do we see, you know, in. I can't recall the exact studies offhand, to be honest, but, you know, I think it was things like lower cardiovascular disease, things related to reactive oxygen species or oxidative stress, that people who seem to have more of these polyphenols that are in pomegranates and other foods, there seemed to be less of an issue. There was beneficial parts of some of these diets. So you're looking okay, well, what in a pomegranate actually has health benefits when you break it down to its constituent parts? There's a polyphenol in pomegranates called ellagic acid or ell tannins. And when we digest these polyphenols, our gut microbiome converts them into urlithin A. So a postbiotic, it's not a prebiotic, it's not a probiotic. It's not something that we give to improve the diversity of our gut. It's not feeding the gut. Afterwards, our gut metabolizes it into our food into these postbiotics, a main one of which is urolithin A. And so this was originally thought to be a waste product, but over, you know, the 10 years of looking at it in pre clinical research, they saw the incredible results of improving, you know, lifespan in these preclinical models, which just means animals, not humans yet, but increasing lifespan, like 48%, improving strength, 20%, numbers that were, you know, double and triple what a lot of these other agents that are tested really was only on par. The only thing it was on par with was caloric restriction, which is the best way to improve lifespan in these models. So we've seen the benefits in these models and really what it was doing is breaking down dysfunctional mitochondria. So urolithin A, which is just branded as mitopure, is the clinically now validated molecule that recycles dysfunctional mitochondria. And when we talked about what happens when the mitochondria get unhealthy, how that can have so many negative impacts, not just on the amount of energy we can produce in our cell when we need to get rid of that healthy mitochondria because that'll stimulate the creation of new healthy ones. And that process is called mitophagy.

[Don Saladino]

So getting rid of the unhealthy mitochondria.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Exactly. People might have heard of autophagy, and that just means in Latin it means self eating, but really it's Autophagy is a process in our cells that degrades the organelles and parts within our body when they need to be broken down and recycled. Things are always getting made, things are always getting broken down. And it's a cycle, this turnover. So mitophagy is just the selective breakdown of the mitochondria. And that's what urolithinate are the good.

[Don Saladino]

Cells kind of eating the bad cells or the bad cells just breaking down?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yes.

[Don Saladino]

Not that simple.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

No, no, it's a. It's a great way to think about it. So autophagy is just a process. It'd be like saying, muscle protein synthesis. Right? Like we're building, we're. We're doing something. In the case of autophagy, we have something called a lysosome in our cell, and that's like the. The garbage center where when something needs to be broken down, lysosome will come over, engulf it, it degrades it down. So if it's a protein, it'll degrade it down to individual amino acids. Those amino acids are then free to be incorporated into new, healthier proteins and whatever tissue we're looking at. I think an example people may be able to think of is if you have, say, a. Like a little burn or something on your. On your skin or sunburn or whatever it may be, that's a damaged cell that you can visibly see where, you know, that discoloration or whatnot over time that, you know, burns may be a bad example in terms of how long it takes. But just the idea of that, you're going to eventually break that down and renew it with a healthier version that happens to every component of every cell. And so mitophagy is just the process by which we can break down these unhealthy mitochondria. And that's what urolith and a. That's its mechanism of action. It stimulates mitophagy.

[Don Saladino]

So the URL Ethnic is coming in, breaking down the bad cells and then.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, the bad mitochondria.

[Don Saladino]

The bad mitochondria, Then the good mitochondria. Does it just produce more of itself?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, so there's actually a bit of a feedback loop there where by stimulating mitophagy, you know, mitochondrial biogenesis or the creation of new mitochondria will follow. So.

[Don Saladino]

So with like, less bad around, more good is going to be produced type of thing?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, both from just a standpoint of how when we break down mitochondria, there are cellular mechanisms that'll tell the cell to hey, start making mitochondria. We're, we're getting rid of them, even though it's intentional. But also. Yeah, so there's a cellular mechanism that, that will cause that. But also when we think about that bad mitochondria and how it can send negative signals to other parts of the cell, those could be inhibiting the creation of new mitochondria. So we're not only given the signal to make more healthy ones, but we're removing any inhibition that was being caused by the bad one.

[Don Saladino]

But again, like, this stuff needs to be consumed. Or like if we're talking about urolith and a. In conjunction with a training plan and a healthy diet, like, I'm sure there'll be benefits. I'm sure if you gave it to someone that was unhealthy, I'm sure you'd find some benefits in there. Right?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

But absolutely.

[Don Saladino]

So.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

And maybe that's, that's a lot of the, the kind of preclinical mechanism, what happened at the end of the day timeline, of course, who, you know, I'm, I now work for. But they, their objective was when they saw this promise was to see if it works in humans. Because at the end of the day, who cares if you can make a. Mice live longer? We're here about making people's lives better. So over the last 10 years, the, the team there at Timeline has really been taking the rigorous, almost pharmaceutical like approach to testing this food supplement. So that started with, okay, first, is it safe? Is it bioavailability? Is it bioavailable? What's the best dose to see the improvement in this mitochondrial signature in our muscle and our cells when it did that, find that the 500 milligrams to 1 gram dose is where you were seeing that kind of peak and plateau.

[Don Saladino]

Kind of sweet spot there. Anything beyond that, you didn't see a significant difference?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

No, it didn't continue to add benefit. So that was the, that, that was the first study. But then the second one goes to our question about food first or our discussion there, which is can we just eat a lot of pomegranates and. Right. Because it's a good question.

[Don Saladino]

Right, right.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Could you.

[Don Saladino]

But you're also, are you also getting a lot of sugar with that? Like, I don't, I don't really know.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Like, how would you, how much would you need? And that's exactly the question that our chief medical Officer Anurag Singh. Dr. Anurag Singh asked. And so they did a study with at first 100 people in the Chicago area and since done it all over the world. But looking at if we give someone a cup of pomegranate juice because that's very concentrated in those polyphenols versus a dose of mito pure, how does the level of urolith and a compare? And essentially you would need to get the 500 milligram dose, you would need to drink a liter and a half of pomegranate juice. So and that's just a 500 milligram dose. Right. We see the added benefits plateau at the 1 gram level. So we're talking here about really a unique case in that supplementation is something that we need to get access to something we couldn't get through diet. And really over the last 10 years it's been about actually looking at the effectiveness. So running the double blind randomized placebo controlled trial, just kicked off the 25th trial on Mitopure in humans. Looking at its effect on different, on different outcomes. And originally it was muscle because muscle is critical for longevity. Seen that, you know, in two months there's the 12 improvement in strength. Clinically meaningful benefits for things like our six minute walk or VO2. You know, those were ones that at the 500 milligram and then even more so at the one gram that it was initially established and now the, it's expanding where it's, it's really cool to see that most of the research on urolithin A might appear. It's not actually done by timeline anymore. There's, There was over 100 publications last year and I think the group at timeline might have been involved in 10. And it's really neat to see the, the amazing clinical results not only validated but expanded where whether it be elite athletes or looking at indications that we wouldn't have the ability to like the, the paper that was just published in Nature Aging on how it kind of revives an aging immune system in these humans. All those things that we wouldn't be able to. We just don't have the capacity to.

[Don Saladino]

Study all ourselves or some of the other things. Like if someone's going to take a supplement like this.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Creatine. You know, people will say well I feel like I have a better output or better endurance or some people. There's a lot of cognitive benefits to it now that some people are claiming they feel. Do I, I don't. From the cognitive standpoint, the strength standpoint. Yes. What are some of the benefits you think or you've seen people will feel?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Besides the data and what data? Have you seen that? That.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. So the data initially was a series of trials primarily in the middle age older adults. So this is people who are 40 to 90 years old. Each trial had, you know, about 30 people who are randomized to different groups. So the main trial was 90 people randomized to either 1 gram, 500 milligrams or placebo. The main finding there was that There was this 12% improvement in strength after the eight weeks of supplementation in both the 500 milligram and the 1 gram dose. It was followed up by a study that was published in JAMA that has the clinical meaningful difference in 6 minute walk tests. So these were older people, you know, 70, 80 years old. And it's really just how far can they walk in six minutes? And in that there was a clinically meaningful improvement in that outcome there. Through it all we started to see a reduction or regularly reliably see reductions in inflammatory markers. So things like C reactive protein IL6, these kind of staple markers of inflammation. And that led to most recent study that was published just last week on how on an aging immune system we lose the ability to respond to novel or, you know, unseen toxins. So if you think of older adults, they don't always respond as well to vaccines because those stem cell like things in the immune system that we need to recognize and remember a new pathogen, we lose those, that part of our immune system and we have this chronic low grade inflammation that increases. So what they did in this study was look at these individuals supplemented with mitopura placebo and they saw a really nice improvement in both the ability, the increase in those CD8T cells they're called, but the naive CD8T cells that can respond to foreign toxins, but also a reduction in that low grade inflammation that you know, really happens across the board with aging. That's, that's a bit of a tangent. Sorry.

[Don Saladino]

But no, it's very, very helpful.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

So to your point about what do people feel one of the, outside of the clinical data? Because now that's like I said, we just started the 25th clinical trial on MITO pure. So there's more and more coming. But what do people feel outside of the data? Anecdotally, one of the most common things I hear people talk about is their recovery, reduce brain, improved recovery, reduce brain fog and improve sleep. So those are all things where when we hear stuff that people are seeing regularly, obviously those are anecdotes and we're going to be, but we're going to be led by the science and so we now we're following those up in some clinical trials. We just had a. An awesome collaboration with Dr. Louise Burke, who's down in Australia. Jamie Whitfield, with her postdoc, let us study looking at their elite middle distance runners going into, I think it was the most, the last, second, last Olympic cycle, but showing, you know, some improved markers of muscle recovery. There was less muscle damage after these people had supplemented with a gram for a month. And we're doing time trials throughout. So start I. We're going to definitely keep looking at how this might be impacting things like muscle recovery, but with the improved sleep. But looking at the brain fog we were currently running, what which I think is the largest clinical study ever on a nutrition product for cognitive like brain health. We've got 650 people randomized to this mito pure product or a placebo for two months and we're looking at things like executive function, sleep quality. So those are things that we're investigating now. We want to see if they're, you know, how the data stand up. Because at the end of the day, we're scientists at heart, we're going to be led by the science.

[Don Saladino]

So what do you see as the future of human performance? You know, recently there's been this massive buzz around Peter Attia going on that 60 minute special.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And you know when I. Sometimes you get a bit disappointed because you go and watch these things and you're like, this isn't new, this is just something that they're covering now. Like Dexa scans have been around forever and now you're hearing all about pernuvo scans and VO2 max testing. Like we were doing VO2 max testing, you know, 30 years ago. And yeah, so these are things that have existed, you know, 60 Minutes is featuring it like this is the way of the future, though. We've been doing this now for decades. Is there anything besides the technology piece, the data piece, what seems to be giving us so much information? I still find that a lot of people don't know how to use that information.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

What are you seeing?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, well, that's a. That's a loaded question. That's one. I love it though, because that's ultimately where rubber is going to hit the road. How, what is the future of performance, I think, is the way you framed it. How do we frame that? I think certainly there's a lot of work that needs to be done in helping people sift through the noise of just everything that's out there. Social media is certainly a culprit but even like you've got your ring on there like whatever we get data from, you know, whether it's any form of wearable, that can be overwhelming certainly for someone obviously we've studied and worked with it. It's no problem. But continuing to make those accessible will be key for people. And what are those new biomarkers if you will? I mean for me saying Things like a VO2 or a measure of your muscle strength. Those are just as important as things like your blood pressure or you know what might be what it were so clearly tied to our well being and giving people accessible ways that they can measure that and then strategies to improve those things.

[Don Saladino]

That's where I think we're, that's where, that's where we're not there yet.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Agreed.

[Don Saladino]

Because you are finding. And I am. Listen, I'm. I gotta be upfront. Like I'm an investor in Aura from years ago and I and I work with them and I love them. I think they're fantastic there I went and got a VO2 test.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

And my, it's very close to my VO2 on my ring. Like they're getting close like Apple watch now. Getting close.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

With a lot of this stuff.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Super.

[Don Saladino]

What I'm not where I think a lot of the companies aren't there yet is like here this is what you need to do according to your stress levels or your sleep or your activity.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

They're going to get there.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

But they're not agreed. I agreed. And I think then obviously the, the, the tech is incredible how far it's come and it is a bit awakening when you see some of that data. I know for me I learned a lot about my sleep with my wearable. But what I think the next step then is we can have these and we already do have. But this fantastic technology that's extremely informative. We can translate that into actionable items that the population at large can use. We also need to make those actionable items and the technology accessible if that's going to be the route that we go. You know little things where you can get a great VO2 from a wearable. Here's a two minute step test protocol that you can use. If you can just measure your pulse or what have a five dollar heart rate monitor, you can get a great estimate of your VO2 max. Those couple things, adding those to the, the toolbox that not just individuals but also healthcare practitioners in various fields have. I think that'll be the way and for me it's a lot of it. Will start with education as we build the evidence around. Not these, just these exercise programs and nutrition applications and importance, certainly the targeted supplementation the average physician right now is getting between, like U.S. and Canada. It's a. About an hour and a half to two and a half hours of exercise information in the course of med school. And this is something we talk about, the impact it has. You get one lecture on it. I'm sure it differs a little bit, school to school, but talking about buddies who have gone through that, you know, from California, Missouri, Canada, Europe, you get about two hours on exercise.

[Don Saladino]

But what I mean, doctor Medical school's got to be rigorous enough. What doctor's going to bar at and say, all right, no, start throwing this in for me, I get it. But I think it's their responsibility to surround themselves with a team that can at least, you know, give their clients or their, call it, their patients access. You know, and I, and I've had these conversations. Who's your. You're injured. Who's your physical therapist?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

You know, you have a poor diet. Is there a nutritionist or is there a program you can recommend? Even though even if you're not well versed in it, you at least have a team of people that you can kick off. All right, one last question.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Yeah, if you don't mind. You know, you just moved across the. The pond without getting your home address. You're living in Switzerland now, which is beautiful. And I get the. I've had the privilege of being there, I think, the last five years at least, going through Zurich.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah.

[Don Saladino]

Have you noticed anything in reference to your daily routine? Nutritionally, the food you're consuming is different. The vegetables, the eggs, everything that you're having, it's just different. Have you, have you noticed any type of benefit from the foods you're eating and the access that you have, or have you not noticed any difference?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah, good question. You know, certainly nutrition is something try to focus on. But in terms of benefits, I've noticed anecdotally, I don't get the bloating I would after a lot of meals. And what's funny, the thing that comes to my mind first, actually, we talk about the differences in. You would know this from your travels around to how fast food goes off is hilariously different here. You know, I remember living in Canada, US I could buy strawberries at certain places, and they'd be good for a week in the fridge. Strawberries, you have to be eating them on the way home that I buy there, because they are.

[Don Saladino]

I'm Not.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

I'm not kidding. Multiple times. We were shocked. We did it. We ran a little experiment because we, we brought strawberries home and the next morning they were too bad. They're molly and okay. That we must have been end of the batch. But it just, I mean it's what normal food would do when you leave it out for a bit.

[Don Saladino]

And does that scare you a bit though, of what we have, what we have access to?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

I don't know. Yeah. It just made me think be like, I guess there is a little bit of a difference here. Same thing with the bread. You leave bread on the counter, it's. It's croutons the next day, but it's so fresh. And yeah it. There. There's something different that's keeping things even.

[Don Saladino]

When I'm, even when I'm over there and I'm. I'm eating and I'm having a little bit of fun, I feel weight, I feel different. It's just, you know, I'm shockingly I really good pizza in, in. In Switzerland.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

I don't know.

[Don Saladino]

I'm sorry. In Austria, I'm like, how is this possible? And I felt fine. Normally I would feel like amazing. Felt fine. Felt amazing. And it just had to be from the ingredients and where things were sourced from. Thank you for your time, by the way.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Greatly, greatly been amazing.

[Don Saladino]

Are you on social media?

[Dr. Brad Currier]

So personally not yet.

[Don Saladino]

Okay. If people need to want to learn more about you, what's the. What's the best ways their website is just going to time.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Yeah. So through timeline, of course, our, our science team, myself and everyone else, they're very active in terms of getting back to consumers when the customers, when they have questions or people who are just wanting to know a little bit more. You know, at the end of the day, we're working to develop what we think is a really meaningful product. But we want to make people live better lives. We want to help them do that. And Mito Pure is a part, but it's not the only part. We are at your disposal through timeline. I'll keep you posted as any personal socials for me. Kind of come.

[Don Saladino]

Yeah, let me, let me know and we'll market it for you. But I think you're like a wealth of knowledge. You should share that with everyone. It's. It's really, it's really amazing to see and it was an honor having you in here and I'm very.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Thank you enough.

[Don Saladino]

No, I'm very, very grateful. And guys, again want to thank Christian Ponder and the team over at the post.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Thank you.

[Don Saladino]

What an amazing. What an amazing place. It's an amazing episode and until next time, guys, thanks.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Thanks.

[Don Saladino]

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.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

Now Audio nor Magnolia it's okay not to be perfect with finances Experian is your big financial friend and here to help.

[Don Saladino]

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[Dr. Brad Currier]

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[Don Saladino]

Protecting your identity is an important step.

[Dr. Brad Currier]

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