← The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
How Biohackers Use Nicotine WITHOUT Getting Addicted : 1350
00:34:28
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Smokers have a noticeably lower Parkinson's risk. And nicotine is the reason. Nicotine is a longevity drug and there are studies of cognition and aging. The MCI trials show transdermal nicotine. That's a patch improved memory in older adults. Nicotine does improve memory even in healthy younger people. Tolerance can build really fast, often within days of using it every day. But if you're keeping it to that under, you're unlikely to have that happen. On my nicotine journey, I use per day for five years straight without getting any dependence. And it was magic four hours when I did it. I want to get into some real world use templates like how would you use this? You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.
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Hey guys, quick reminder. If you're listening to this on your favorite audio podcast app and you haven't been over to my YouTube channel, check it out. Just search for the Human Upgrade or find me under Dave Asprey bpr. I post full video versions of every episode and a bunch of other cool content outside the podcast. It's a great way to go deeper into the content and connect with other biohackers like you. So leave a comment for me. Yeah, I'm actually going to read them and poke around while you're there. There is a lot of stuff specifically for you. It really helps and it means a lot to me. This is part two of the Nicotine episode of the Human Upgrade and up to this point you've kind of learned the entire landscape. So you understand what nicotine is and why nicotine is not equal to smoking. And you've learned how nicotine locks onto nicotinic receptors and how it sharpens your attention, your motivation and all the evidence behind anti inflammatory signaling pathways. And you've learned the real benefits backed by human data and how there's this inverted U curve so using too much isn't good for you and using nothing isn't really good for you. And that there are real risks. You can be addicted, especially above 10 milligrams a day, higher blood pressure, bad sleep, insulin sensitivity and why context matters. Nicotine is a powerful substance and you've learned the delivery methods you can use a spray gum, patches and why you don't want to vape and why you don't want to smoke. And you've also learned how speed of absorption drives are you going to get addicted or not? And also whether you're going to go on a little journey or not, because things like ha. Which hit very quickly, yeah, you can have a beautiful experience, but if you do it all the time, you're going to want a beautiful experience every day. So now it's time for the part that most people skip. It's how do you apply all this stuff in a way that's intelligent and useful for you? So anyone out there can try nicotine? Just put one of those little plastic laden pouches in and see what happens. You'll probably throw up. But very few people talk about how you can dose nicotine, how you can time nicotine, why you might want to stack with other compounds, why you might want to cycle it, and how to stay in control so you don't become heavily addicted. So that's what this episode's all about. First of all, just like with caffeine, there are genetics that control how fast you clear nicotine. CYP2A6 or SIP2A6 is how cool people talk about it, is a gene. And that gene controls metabolic speed of chewing through nicotine quickly. So if you're a fast metabolizer, you'll have shorter effects and you're going to want to redose. And slow metabolizers keep nicotine for longer, so they feel it harder, and they have a high risk of side effects. So depending on your genetics, 1 milligram may be really strong for you, or it may just last for a half hour and it was kind of cool. Same thing. Imagine two people drink coffee. Got my danger right here. So I can record this episode for you. Well, one feels it for an hour, the other one feels it for all day. That's your nicotine metabolism. It's your liver speed that changes everything. And if you have your genetic testing, you can look that up. There's also something called nmr, which is nicotine metabolite ratio. And this is the ratio of 3 hydroxycontin to continine. This is something you could measure in saliva or blood, which is an estimate of your CYP2A6 activity. If your ratio is high, you're a fast metabolizer. If it's slow, you're a slow metabolizer. So you could think of this NMR lab test as a speedometer for how quickly you burn through nicotine, or you could just look up your genetics and see which of those alleles you have. Or if you're like most people, you may not have your genetics. And you're not going to get a special nicotine test because, hey, life is too short to spend all your time waiting to get blood drawn, even though I'm going to be helping you with that with AXO Health. So what should you do? You could actually try nicotine at a very low dose and see how long it lasts, which is probably going to be a pretty good sign of how you're doing. But these are the mechanisms behind it. Use it earlier in the day for deep work. And just like caffeine, even if it's within eight hours of bedtime, well, you might have Some issues with it. A lot of people use it right before bed, but they're regular users and their receptors are acclimated to it. And if you're sensitive to the patch or if you have lots and lots of dreams, nicotine three hours before bed or right at bedtime could either stop you from sleeping or it could give you pretty crazy dreams. And if you were to, say, drink a big thing of danger coffee and take some nicotine here, how about I do a lozenge While we're talking 1.5 milligrams, it's going to melt over the next maybe half hour. If you do something like that, it's going to make you really focused. But if I drink three coffees and I use 6 milligrams of nicotine, I'd probably get a bit edgy. But the combination of caffeine and nicotine is one of the most potent cognitive enhancers you could ever experience. If you want to write, I don't know, nine major books, including four New York Times bestsellers and a bunch of other bestseller list things, maybe nicotine and caffeine are something you should consider. At least it worked for me. Here are some things that you could take with nicotine that could change your experience and enhance your experience. Remember, we're using nicotine as a stimulant and as a cognitive enhancer and as a nootropic and possibly as an exercise enhancer. So you could take theanine, same as you might with coffee, 1-200mg. It's going to smooth out stimulation. If you just get too wired from nicotine or coffee, you can take something called C choline. Cdp. Choline is another name for it or alpha gpc. And that's something I'm less a fan of, but I'm, I use it just at very low doses. That'd be about 150 milligrams. These things support acetylcholine. So if nicotine gives you a headache or brain fog, you probably need more choline. If you're working under a heavy workload. And like me, I've just been on more constantly for the last six months than I ever have been in my life. It's just been constant productivity, not anxiety. Just go, go, go, go, go. And getting a lot done. So to do that, Rhodiola 1 or 200 milligrams, which is a part of the Motivation 101 supplement from Sup Grade Labs that gives you stress resilience under workload, which stacks well with nicotine. So if you're using danger coffee and nicotine and you're saying, okay, I'm a little bit wired and I have 12 hours of work today and I have jet lag, well, that would be a good thing for rhodiola. Take rhodiola in the morning, maybe at lunch, not at bedtime, and magnesium glycinate at nighttime. If you use nicotine, that day can help with sleep disruption. Now, if you're into nootropics like me, and you have some advanced compounds like galantamine or huperzine A, these are things that boost acetylcholine, but they do it by blocking your body's ability to break it down. Don't do that with nicotine unless you're very highly experienced and you go very slowly because insecticides work. Have you ever seen someone spray a roach with bug killer and it turns on its back and it starts twitching? That's acetylcholine out of control. Too much acetylcholine equals muscle tension, and you just don't want that. So don't block your body's ability to break down acetylcholine. Just give it more acetylcholine precursors like cdp, choline. Acetylcholine is an important neurotransmitter because it's how your brain pays attention and gets energy. So a small boost of acetylcholine sharpens you. But if you turn it, all of it on, it's like every light in the house is on at once. It's overwhelming, it's messy, and it can cause really bad jaw tension, usually first calf cramps or low back pain. Just. Just your whole body is, like, tight. Too much acetylcholine is also a source of nausea. It can make you sweat and have brain fog and irritability. If you do that on nicotine, it's just gonna be even worse. So start slow on your nicotine and use these things to smooth it out. And sometimes 1 milligram is all it takes. On my nicotine journey, I used 1 milligram per day for 5 years straight without getting any dependence. And it was a magic four hours when I did it. In fact, you're probably better off using, as I've said earlier, 5 milligrams or less on a normal day and on an intense day, under 10 milligrams. If you always religiously keep it there, I don't think you're likely to have any sort of physiological dependence. You might get some psychological. You go above 10, especially on a regular basis and if you want to stop it, you're going to get some pretty interesting side effects. We'll talk about now. Let's talk about nicotine tolerance and dependence and control. Because I see a lot of people who are just sucking on Zen all day long and I don't think that's good for you. And I've gone through phases where I probably overuse nicotine, especially when I'm traveling really heavily because I really like nicotine. So understand sometimes I may have gone way too far on that for brief periods of time because, well, I did. Tolerance can build really fast, often within days of using it every day. But if you're keeping it to that, under 5 milligrams, you're unlikely to have that happen. It's only when you start taking, you know, 6 milligrams or 12 milligrams at a time. That's not really going to work because your brain starts making more receptors over several days. Think of it like nicotine's a loud co worker and the first time you notice everything that they say, you hear them every day and eventually they're just always talking, just kind of tune them out. And that's why cycling nicotine matters. Like maybe you take off a day, but you don't go to these high days. Maybe you have a high day and a low day. And if you've started using it every day, especially above 10 milligrams, listen to this. This is important. Step down the dose and frequency. You can use a nicotine patch for a little while to smooth your landing. Make sure you get extra sleep, extra hydration. Nicotine has a physiological period of about two to three days, same as caffeine. If you quit coffee cold turkey, you get headaches for a couple days and then you're fine. Problem with nicotine is it actually is really psychologically addictive. So you just, you want it cuz it actually feels good and it works really well and it, it helps your mitochondria. So you might still have thoughts about it, but the physical symptoms will peak after three days if you've been on low dose. If you're on very high dose and you go cold turkey, you are likely to have whole body intense muscle cramping, like really intense. And it can stay on sometimes for months. I had a friend whose whole abdominal cavities is rock hard all the time because he got tension there. I went from guess, 40 milligrams a day a done cold turkey a few years ago and I was figuring this stuff out. I have never had muscle cramps in my life like that. I don't normally get strong muscle cramps, at least I did when I was a kid. And I didn't know about magnesium, but holy crap, this was 10 out of 10 pain. And I've had my bone marrow taken out. So if you want to go cold turkey, get some batches, it's not that big of a deal. Just ramp down and you'll be fine. Do not go cold turkey for a high dose. I did mention if you have your last dose maybe before 4:00', clock, well, you're going to be tempted to have one after dinner because, well, nicotine's really great. And every movie made from the 80s and before people smoke after sex, that's just how you do it. Because the combination of nicotine and oxytocin, that's a really good feeling. So there will be times when you do it at night, but it might affect your sleep. And so you should do it in the early afternoon, but you might not. And if you're a burning man, you're probably going to do more, more of it. Just don't keep doing more of it. So keep your uses at each time to 0.5 to 2 milligrams per dose. And if you feel like you need more per dose, something's off. Look at your sleep, look at your nutrition, look at all these other episodes, look at your stress levels. If you do 2 milligrams, you wait a half hour, do 2 milligrams, wait a half hour, do 2mg, you're going to have a really good time if you don't get nauseous from it. But after that you're at 6 milligrams, you're probably done for the day, so just keep that in mind. If you're using lozenges, what you can do is you just put the number of lozenges you're allowing yourself that day into your pocket and that's all you've got. And you can take the 6 milligrams, you can break them into three pieces. They're going to be about 2 milligrams a piece of. So that'd be one or maybe two lozenges a day, wouldn't you? Just never use nicotine. If you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant, don't do it. The good news is, unless you're already on nicotine, your body probably won't let you use nicotine. A friend who didn't know that she was pregnant had 1mg and threw up for the next two hours. Because mother's bodies love to get rid of toxins as fast as possible by throwing up. So this is really serious. No nicotine if you're trying to conceive. And thank you if you are trying to conceive because the world could use some more healthy babies right now. You listen to the show, you're probably getting healthier. One of the reasons that nicotine feels good, especially for men after sex, is that when men ejaculate, our prolactin levels go up and prolactin makes you tired and kind of apathetic. And nicotine has the effect of suppressing that. It's not the best way to suppress it, but. But it is something that just feels good after sex. That's probably why that men at least are drawn to it. Women don't have that same effect. Now if you're a guy and you're looking at fertility, nicotine is a double edged sword. That's because short term or low dose nicotine, like 1 or 2 milligrams a day, it has pretty much no effect or maybe even a positive effect by stimulating libido and it doesn't harm sperm. But if you're doing greater than 10 milligrams a day, and this is, you know, a Zen or two, you get increases in oxidative stress and you can have testosterone reduction. So if you're someone who's sucking on Zen all the time, you can actually meaningful like 20% lower your testosterone. So high dose nicotine is not really good for us, even though it might feel really good. And again, smoking is bad for fertility at any dose. If you've had a recent heart attack, if you have serious arrhythmias or you have blood pressure that's out of control, you need to get that under control. Now you nicotine can be really good for you metabolically, but not under those conditions. Because the stimulation after a recent heart attack, you obviously don't want that. If your heart's already twitchy because of arrhythmias, you don't want that. If you have severe reflux, nicotine, especially oral, could be really bad for you. Or if you have active GI ulcers, however, a patch might work. And anyone with cancer or undergoing cancer treatment should talk to your oncology team first. This is because nicotine has the very beneficial effect of increasing angiogenesis. This is your body growing new blood vessels where it needs it. You want to put on more muscle. Well, you need more blood flow. You want to make your brain work better. You might want to grow some blood vessels. However, if your cancer treatment is trying to starve cancer cells by cutting off the creation of new blood vessels, you wouldn't want to do it. So if you have cancer, talk to your cancer team who's treating it about which mechanism you're using. On the other hand, nicotine does increase PGC1 Alpha and it's good for your metabolism at low doses, so it could be beneficial. But this is a double edged sword and I wouldn't want to go that one alone.
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Every time you reach for a healthy snack, you could be sabotaging your energy, focus and long term health. That's because even if you think it's healthy, it probably contains seed oils which make up 20% of the average person's daily calories. And recent studies show seed oils can cause metabolic issues and inflammation in your body. Masa decided to do something about it. They created a delicious tortilla chip with just three organic nixtamalized corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow and no seed oils. This is one of the few times I'll eat corn because this corn is nixtamalized, which is a process that removes mycotoxins and and anti nutrients. Masa chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff, they taste incredible too. Snacking on Masa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. They're crunchier, tastier and sturdier than other chips, so they won't break in your guac. With Masa, you feel satisfied, light and energetic with no crash, bloat or gross sluggishness afterwards. And an added bonus is that the beef tallow makes the chips much more satiating, so you won't find yourself uncontrollably binging and still feeling hungry afterwards. Ready to give Masa a try? Go to masachips.com daveasprey and use code daveasprey for 25% off your first order. That's M A S A chips.com daveasprey & use code daveasprey.
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You're gonna love these chips. Everybody wants less wrinkles, better hair, stronger immune system, and to recover from anything life brings your way. Well, we all want it. And the answer lies in your gut. Your gut's health affects everything, including your immune system, your metabolic function, your mood, even how your skin looks invisible. Toxins from your environment or even from your body can silently ruin your health. Amara Colostrum is here to help. It contains over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at the cellular level to help rebuild your gut health Strengthen your immune function and just turn your metabolism back on. Armor and colostrum supports your entire gut wall system and your microbiome. That can help your gut be more resistant to irritants that can trigger symptoms like bloating, constipation and inflammation. Armor also has growth factors, vitamins and regenerative peptides that help your hair grow strong and your skin glow from the inside out. And you can see it. In fact, 60% of people taking armor and colostrum notice less wrinkles and 79% notice thicker hair after 12 weeks. Weeks. And if you're an athlete, check this out. Studies show that colostrum can improve fitness endurance by only 20%. That's big. Decrease recovery time by over 50% after intense exercise and it improves stamina and builds lean muscle mass. So it doesn't make a difference whether you're training for a race or just working to have better health or you just want to feel really good. Armor helps you operate at your highest level. And armor's worked out. A special offer for listeners of the human upgrade. Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armor.comdave or enter dave to get 30% off your first subscription Order. That's a R M R A dot com dave. Now if you're a professional athlete, that means over the counter nicotine replacement therapies are legal for you and they're legal in many countries. And nicotine is not prohibited by wada and it is on the monitoring program so agencies watch for misuse. And of course WADA is thinking about banning it because it works. And just a shout out here to wada. I want to thank you guys for creating a list of everything that increases human performance and oftentimes longevity. The fact you're banning it for our professional athletes is evil and wrong and I think you're going to go to hell for that. So let's stop with all of this stuff. Next, I want to get into some real world use templates. Like how would you use this stuff? First, first of all, many nicotine products contain artificial sweeteners or microplastics, especially artificial sweeteners. I am not a fan of those. I've been opposed to those for a very long time. You don't want NutraSweet, you don't want sucralose, you don't want acyl sulfate and potassium because all of them have documented problems. If you did use something that had a very trace amount of sucralose, it's probably not the end of the world. But I really don't think you want to use any of that if you can avoid it. I'm not a fan of just uncontrolled nicotine. I just think that throwing the baby out with the bathwater would not be in your interest. And certainly it's been really beneficial for my brain and my metabolism and it's just worth talking about. So don't take a bunch of poison in with your bubble gum flavored nicotine. You want something that's more natural and we'll get into that eventually. This is not a sponsored episode or anything like that. Now, if you want to get a microdose, focus, and this is most people who might consider nicotine as a longevity or performance enhancing substance, not interested in heavy use. For that, you're talking 0.5 milligrams to 1 milligrams. You can do with an oral spray in much of the world, but not the U.S. the oral spray is more addictive because it hits more quickly, but at least you feel it. Or you can take like half of a 2 milligram gum or just a full 2 milligram gum. You chew it a couple times and then you tuck it in your mouth. If you chew gum that has nicotine in it over and over, then you're going to get a lot of nicotine at once and you'll get nauseous. And Nicorette doesn't make anything that has safe sweeteners in it. All their products, especially their gum, are things I would not put in my body. Unfortunately, even though they're the largest global player, there is no excuse for Nicorette using all these artificial chemicals and something like that. If you were to take this, call it 1-2mg at the start of a deep work block or before you go into a really important meeting where you want to be dialed in, or maybe an exam, you need to test yourself to see what dose puts you in flow. And using that and very likely some danger coffee and maybe 1 or 200 milligrams of theanine, you're going to have a different experience. Now you're going to want to redose maybe after 60 to 90 minutes if you still need it. So your total Daily intake is 2-4mg for an on day. If you do this, you have a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, you'll have more PGC1 Alpha, you'll have had a really productive day, and you have a very low risk of dependence. If you were to do that and not do it every single day. The benefits far outweigh the risks. And this is the best way to use this. And I did it this way or 1 milligram per day most of the time for 5 years with no addiction whatsoever, keeping it low. And it was after that that I got into some problems because I thought my brain really likes it. I'm just going to use it more. If you're going to have a big presentation or a long podcast today I have seven long podcasts. And yes, I can do that because I do my nicotine and I do my danger coffee and a whole bunch of other nootropics I've covered in other episodes. So my cognitive resilience ability to focus is so relaxing. It's just, it's always there. And I did not have this in my 20s or 30s. And it's not just from nicotine, it's not just from coffee, it's from optimizing mitochondrial function and neurochemistry. But oh my God, what a gift. So if you're gonna do that long presentation, you're gonna be going for like 90 minutes straight. You need to be fully focused, fully engaged. I like to do 1 milligram of spray cause it hits quickly. I'll do that 10 minutes before I start. Or I could chew a, a little bit of toxin free gum and just tuck it in, let it soak in and then you want to keep some nearby. So if you in the middle of it, you're going, oh man, I'm starting to feel less focused. I'm having a hard time just being in flow. Do one more. If you're having a hard time sleeping, you don't really want to do this after lunch. So it's kind of the same protocol, but it's that you might a half hour in, say I need a little bit more and oh my gosh, maybe you didn't sleep last night. So you have 3 milligrams or 4 milligrams during that time. That's totally fine. Fast entry to the system works better. Now, I've kind of mentioned pouches a few times. Don't use the pouches because of the plastic that's in them. If you're into biohacking, you're also into longevity. And that means that putting microplastics in your system will drop your testosterone, your other sex hormones, and it's just not good for your brain. So I'm really concerned about that. It's the fabric that's in those things that's the issue. Now let's say that you are traveling over the Atlantic and you know you're going to have jet lag. As a matter of fact, I owe you an episode on jet lag because I have mastered it. I don't get jet lag anymore and it's so cool. And anyway, let's say you don't know how to do that yet. Let's just say you have a really like crappy day, you didn't sleep last night, you're jet lagged, whatever. You can get a 14 milligram nicotine patch and you can put it on when you wake up. Now that's 14 milligrams that enters your body over a 24 hour period. I usually put it here on my shoulder and that works pretty well. But you take it off by mid afternoon, which means you had 14 milligrams, you had it on for 25% of the day, you got 25% of the dose. And if you're still flagging after that, maybe you do a little bit of nicotine gum or nicotine lozenge and just stop at 3 o'. Clock. So you get some sleep that night. And let's say like most people, you've drifted to doing it daily and you're saying, all right, I'm doing a little too much, I want to back off. So you stop doing oral and you move to the patch and you put the 7 or 14 milligram patch on. Usually start with 14 and you do that for three to five days and you don't use anything oral. If you want to be really fancy about it, get a locking time lock safe. They have ones that are cheap and you just set it for seven days and throw your nicotine in there. It'll be locked up and then you just have to think about it. If it's not locked up, you'll probably think about it and you might even use it. They tell you on all the patches, do not cut the patch. That's because they make more money when you buy small patches. I take the 14 milligram patch and I cut it in half and now I have a 7 milligram patch. So first week I'm going to use 14 milligrams. Second week I'm going to use 7 milligrams. And on that week you need to focus heavily on on creatine and you go to daveas.com creatine for my favorite creatine and make sure you hydrate the crap out of yourself. Dave aspry.com electrolyte for my favorite electrolyte, of course I put discount codes in there for you. That way you can just always find it and you don't need to go lift heavy and destroy yourself in the gym. You probably won't want to. So go for a walk or something, get in the sun, get some sleep. You're really going to feel most symptoms when you withdraw from nicotine in the first three days. After that, it's like I kind of wanted that. But you aren't feeling like you're a zombie, so you manage that with a patch. And here's some things you can do with your biohacking lifestyle stuff that multiply the effect of nicotine. Try 1 milligram of nicotine when you're fasting in the morning or you have a low carb morning. So say you put some butter, maybe some MCT oil in your danger coffee and you put that 1 milligram, 2 milligrams of nicotine orally and wow, that is just a morning to remember. You can do it with red or near infrared light in the morning. Anchors your circadian rhythm. You got that acceleration in the morning and that means you're less likely to use it in the evening. And you can do normal things like, you know, moving every hour and things like that. And look at your heart rate variability from your fitness tracker and look at what happens with your sleep if you're using nicotine that day or not using it, and try it in the evening and look at what happens. The same thing. You drink a glass of wine, you can see what happens to your sleep. Take nicotine before bed. If you can fall asleep, then you know you're probably addicted. And if you do fall asleep, your sleep won't be as good. Here's why nicotine is a longevity drug. I did my first podcast with Dr. Nicotine from Vanderbilt University something like a decade ago, and I wrote about this in the New York Times bestselling book Headstrong about cognitive function. And I looked at all the research on neurodegeneration and. And the idea is do things that stop neurodegeneration and lower your risk so you don't die of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or something like that. And smokers have a noticeably lower Parkinson's risk and nicotine is the reason. And receptor stimulation protects dopamine neurons in preclinical data. Now these are smokers, so they're getting all the oxidative stress, all the bad things, and nicotine don't smoke. But if your family is at risk of Parkinson's, there is definitely an argument that you should at least wear a 7 milligram patch or do some oral nicotine. There are studies of cognition and aging. The MCI trial showed transdermal nicotine. That's a patch improved memory in older adults. And this is probably because as you get older, you drop in acetylcholine levels. Problem is, we need to replicate that study for everyone to believe it. But that's how it works mechanistically. And nicotine does improve memory, even in healthy, younger people. So there's a case for memory if you have brain fog from a mitochondrial perspective, and if you've been listening for a while, you know that I'm a mitochondrial fetishist. And I think mitochondria are really at the core of a lot of our consciousness, our ego, behavior, and our willpower and our energy. Some mitochondrial rich tissues benefit from nicotine stimulation, and others can get stressed with high doses, like your heart muscle. So nicotine can either charge your cells with more energy via something called PGC1 Alpha, or it can drain them. Depends on the tissue type and the dose. This is why 10mg or less on a regular basis is a really good idea and why going into these heavier doses is not a good idea, even though, yes, I have done it. Now, this is where it gets controversial. So many people hear nicotine, and in their brain they think tobacco and smoking, and they smell the cigarettes and they get a revulsion to it. Guys in your consciousness separate nicotine from smoking. They're simply not the same thing. Smoke is full of bad stuff. There's a thousand chemicals in smoke that are not in pure nicotine. Nicotine is not a DNA mutating carcinogen, but smoke is. But as I mentioned earlier, nicotinic receptors promote blood vessel formation. And if you have tumors that are relying on growing new blood vessels, that can be a problem, at least in some models. So if you have cancer, you should be tracking yourself with whole body MRI or other testing things and working with your oncologist. And if you've had cancer, you should get an annual whole body MRI. You go to daveasprey.com MRI and I'll send you a link to save you some money on how you can get one of these tests because they're really important for longevity. And if you haven't had cancer, you should still do it every couple of years because it tracks changes. Now, here's where it gets really interesting. At the cutting edge of research on pure nicotine, not smoking, schizophrenia, nicotine patches have improved something called sensory gating. In some studies. And that could be helpful for schizophrenia. I think if you have schizophrenia, you ought to be under medical care and you don't want to just self medicate all willy nilly. But watch your circadian rhythm and ask your doctor about nicotine because the studies are interesting. You'll also find that there are a lot of schizophrenics who smoke. In fact, a lot of people who smoke are self medicating for something else that is present and it's adhd. ADHD is so common and some trials, they're pretty small, suggest attention benefits and at least some ADHD types. I think you have adhd, nicotine will probably feel really, really good for you. It's very likely, but you're also at higher risk of overusing it. And this whole episode is about how to use it without falling into the levels that can be actually not good for you. Now, if you have IBD and autoimmune issues, interesting. Alpha 7 receptor agonists can calm gut inflammation. And what do you think nicotine is? Hmm. So it turns out that in some models, low doses of nicotine could calm gut inflammation and help with autoimmunity. Right now, in the world of Parkinson's research, they're looking at selective nicotinic agents. So these are basically subtypes of nicotine that could support dopamines in the part of the brain that fails first in Parkinson's. So there's some very interesting things to pay attention to here. Now this is interesting because if you have IBD and you have gerd, would oral nicotine be good for you? Probably not, but the patch might be. And when it comes to Alzheimer's, here's what's happening now. The National Institute of Aging has funded a multi center study called Mind that's coordinated by Dr. Paul Newhouse at Vanderbilt, who first proposed the mechanism in 1986 that nicotine, not smoking, helps Alzheimer's because he observed that and then tested it for many years. And he's never used nicotine himself because he doesn't want to make the study biased, which is kind of cool. This is a large two year double blind trial testing daily nicotine patches and mild cognitive impairment, which is the first stage of Alzheimer's, to determine their functional benefit. It's underway right now, so let's see what happens with that. But I would absolutely say if you have Alzheimer's or a relative with Alzheimer's, if you put a 7 or 14 milligram patch on their arm and then they suddenly become lucid and you can talk to them again, that's pretty good evidence that it's doing something. And if you were to stack that with some ketones, go to daveasbury.comketone and and I'll tell you my favorite one to get you a discount code and all that. But the combination of ketones and nicotine on someone with Alzheimer's can be profound. And before my grandmother passed at 101, when she had a little bit of nicotine and some ketones, we could talk about her work as a PhD nuclear engineer instead of watching infomercials together. It was a very, very big difference. So an hour or two of lucidity could be yours if your loved one is willing to do these two things. So there you go. Nicotine is not the same as smoking. And I know so many people are triggered, the comments are going to be full of people saying, guys, don't smoke, okay? But nicotine, it is addictive. It is not free of risk. But the benefits of low dose, under 10mg, ideally around 5mg, far outweigh the risks. And smoking causes disease because of the stuff in the smoke, not because of nicotine. And we need to separate those two in our mind. And if you're going to leave an angry comment below, I'm going to just going to think you didn't listen to the whole episode because this is how it is. The reason nicotine works is it sharpens your attention because it activates nicotinic receptors, it gently bumps up your dopamine and it turns inflammation down in the body, which is kind of cool. So benefits are real and they are dose dependent. And respect that inverted U curve. That means doing too much gets you lower benefits and doing none at all or not enough gets you lower benefits. It's going to be personal to you based on your detox pathways. Time it well. And if you have lab tests on the nicotine metabolite ratio, that'll tell you something. But it's okay if you don't keep doses very small. Skip days every now and then so you don't get too addicted. And at 5mg you're probably not gonna get very addicted. And keep your sleep protected by not doing it before bed, at least not most nights. And for sure try a little nicotine right after sex. You'll thank me later. That's it for today's Nicotine masterclass. This has been a part of my Biohacking Cognitive Enhancement longevity stack for a very long time. And it's controversial. It's controversial as all hell, but it shouldn't be. We're just talking about science, we're talking about data, we're talking about pathways. And this is very real. And people do it wrong. They do it wrong all the time. People do fasting wrong. I had to write a second book on fasting because people didn't read the first one apparently, and they were over fasting. I had to write another book about keto because my first book said you need to do clean, cyclical keto and people stop doing cyclical. So doing it well and doing it with elegance and doing it with knowledge is how you would make nicotine work for you instead of accidentally against you. It's a powerful nootropic. Time it right and share this with a friend who smokes so they'll quit smoking and use oral nicotine. And share this with a friend who shames you because you use an occasional low dose nicotine. Your friend is wrong. The evidence is so good and you will like your life better on a very, very low dose of nicotine that does not contain artificial sweeteners and does not contain smoke, does not contain tobacco and all that other crap. So if you want to master this as a nootropic, it's relatively affordable at these low doses. It's very potent, as potent as coffee. And if I didn't know that tattoos are actually bad for you, I would match the caffeine tattoo on my bicep here with another nicotine one on the other bicep. But one tattoo's enough for me. See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.
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A Human Upgrade formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully, read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.