Dr. Mike Israetel (3:15)

Mm.

Jordan Harbinger (3:16)

Can you speak to that a little bit? Because I think I'd love to just dive right into some of these controversial GLP1 things. One, I don't even think most people know how these work, so if you can explain in brief why that is and why you think this is good for you, we can piss off people in the first five minutes of the show. It's always a win.

Dr. Mike Israetel (3:33)

Great. Yeah. Tirzepatide is a drug that is fourth generation incretin mimetic, and that's the technical term for what it is, because it acts on two hormonal pathways. One is GLP1 and the other is gipsy. And both are incretin hormones, which are gut hormones that essentially communicate something between what's in your stomach and how that should be processed. Your intestines and the rest of your body, especially your brain and the big metabolic coordinators, these pathways. And so the third generation was semaglutide and the AKA Ozempic brand name. And so the fourth generation is one newer, and that's tirzepatide. And so semaglutide just has the GLP1 agonism. So it basically just makes it seem like there's way more GLP1 hormonal activity in your body than there would typically be. And then tirzepatide is GLP1. And also GIP, and so that actually gives it more benefits. So Tirzepatide is a drug that works to promote weight loss via one primary mechanism and that is called the anorectic effect. It just makes you less hungry and it makes you fuller for longer and so it makes you less interested in food. And the combination of GLP and GIP activity actually give tirzepatide a deeper psychological impact. When you are taking semaglutide just glp, your hunger absolutely falls, but your cravings can still be substantially high. Like your desire for food is like, oh man, that would be tasty. Even though you're not physiologically hungry, if someone gave you a bunch of chicken breast and rice, you're like, meh. But if someone gave, oh, look at this donut, you would be like, ooh. But with tirzepatide, even the donut doesn't seem as illustrious as it once was. The physiological hunger is just as low, but the psychological cravings seem to be like a qualitative leap ahead as far as lowered.

Jordan Harbinger (5:37)

You said physical hunger is just as low. Do you mean physical hunger is just as high, but the psychological hunger is.

Dr. Mike Israetel (5:42)

Lower, just as low? I mean, it has just as much of a lowering of physical hunger as semaglutide does.

Jordan Harbinger (5:48)

I see.

Dr. Mike Israetel (5:48)

But it also has a lowering of cravings as well that seems to be a little bit more deep than semaglutide gives you.

Jordan Harbinger (5:54)

Ah, okay.

Dr. Mike Israetel (5:55)

Which can be really, really helpful because now, not only so if you eat your meals, what you can do better with tirzepatite is if you go out to eat and there's some tasty food, you can even better have just a little bit of it and just be like, ah, that's good, done, done. Instead of having that super, super craving thing where you might be physiologically full, but you just want to eat more tasty treats. That definitely takes a hit on semaglutide as well. But tirzepatide hits it even harder. And the real benefits of tirzepatide for people who want to lose weight and improve their health, the major benefits come from that weight loss mediated effect. Because the absolute number one reason in the modern world why people gain excess body weight is because food tastes really good and people rake really tasty food. That's, I think the literally like almost all of the obesity epidemic just described in one causal factor. It used to be very fashionable to say that obesity was complex. That is absolutely true. But complexity doesn't necessarily mean that you can't essentially boil it down to one major factor. For example, how rockets work is profoundly complex. But if you increase the thrust coming out of the bottom of the rocket and the rocket doesn't break into pieces, the rocket goes faster and can carry more payload. So at the end of the day, the anorectic effect of these drugs is the primary modulator by which they help people. Because you don't want to eat as much, you eat less, you lose a bunch of weight and a ton of health variables improve. However, these drugs, semaglutide for sure, but especially tirzepatide, have tons of what are called non weight mediated health benefits.

Jordan Harbinger (7:19)

Okay, that's what I was gonna ask about because like, what if I'm already, I'm already in good shape. Yes, I love a little fried calamari, but like, I don't need a drug to get me off of that.

Dr. Mike Israetel (7:27)

Totally, totally. So tirzepatide has so many non weight mediated health benefits, it would be difficult to summarize all of them. But I can give you a few insights. One is it lowers blood pressure. Another one is it improves your glycemic control. It improves your blood sugar, even if there's no weight change whatsoever. Another one is it reduces neuroinflammation, which means it reduces the inflammation your brain experiences, which means that it probably is a brain health boosting drug. And that's humongous a deal. Another one is that it reduces the amount of addiction like effects across the board. So people on semaglutide for sure, and even more on tirzepatide, see, like just randomly will quit smoking. People are like, hey, do you want a drink? And they have a few drinks and they're like, I don't know, I just kind of don't want to drink anymore. So addictive behaviors go down and that's a really big deal. Another one is they improve your cholesterol numbers substantially and they improve endothelial function. What's that? So like basically like the insides of your arteries and stuff.

Jordan Harbinger (8:31)

Oh, right. I knew I'd heard that word before.

Dr. Mike Israetel (8:32)

If you have a lot of inflammation in there, that's really bad. So they also radically reduce overall systemic inflammation, which is probably one of the number one causes of aging and disease. And there are loads and loads of other benefits that these drugs have. And so just those benefits I listed by themselves mean that these drugs are functionally health enhancers. Now, they're not a panacea because they don't cure everything. That my contention is this. The average person would be healthier taking Tirzepatide than not taking Tirzepatide. And I mean that as a statement that integrates Tirzepatide's negatives and downsides and risks into that statement. So it's kind of like if you had broken your leg and you were at a really shitty hospital and they were doing like an okay job treating it, but things were not going well, would you be better off having an ambulance drive you to a much better hospital? And the downsides of that is it costs more money. The ambulance could get into a car accident and you could fucking die on the way over. Even all of that integrated in, it's probably still a better idea to drive to that much better hospital to get the most elite standard of care in this example. And just the same people who are in pretty good health without Tirzepatide could probably be in better health with Tirzepatide. There's not something, a decision you should come to yourself. You actually can't get Tirzepatide yourself. You have to get it through a doctor's prescription. But it's something to talk to your doctor about and say, hey, you know, I've heard Tirzepatide has a lot of non weight mediated health benefits. Is that something that could be appealing? Your doctor might be open minded. They might look into it and be like, actually yeah, it has big appetite reduction effects. So let's say if we start you off a very, very low dose that actually helps you save money because it's dose dependent how much you pay. And then all of a sudden you might be overall significantly healthier. And so to me, there's a lot of philosophical stuff that people always like to get into about this. A lot of myths people have in the philosophical realm. And I can talk about that till I'm blue in the face. An example really quick is people say, why would I take a drug if there's nothing wrong with me? And that hinges on a really, really, really incorrect assumption that people make about human health. I could get into if you'd like.

Jordan Harbinger (10:43)

But yes, please do so.

Dr. Mike Israetel (10:45)

The assumption that humans make is that our bodies were made in some kind of profoundly serendipitous way and are essentially if the forces of modern civilization do not act on them like junk food and television and cigarettes, that they are somehow kind of this noble savage myth perfect of flawlessly integrated with nature. You know, Gaia with her big titties and Pandora with the fucking blue people on it from Avatar. Everything's all all right in nature. And the thing is, that's actually just wrong. It's wrong in a major way. It has a grain of truth to it, which is our bodies are phenomenally complex, phenomenally integrated machines. And you just don't go in there busting shit down unless you know what the hell's going on or unless you know what effect you're going to have. But because our bodies are not perfectly integrated machines, and because we are always and everywhere hurtling towards aging and death, it is hypothetically possible that external substances can enhance your body to be better than nature allowed it to be. We do this in every other possible measure. Respect. People brush their teeth. Why do people brush their teeth?

Jordan Harbinger (11:49)

Because I'm not going to. Well, so far, I'm not going to die at 29 where my teeth have not rotted out of my face. I'm gonna live a little bit longer than that. So far, so good. And I like to keep these for at least a few more years.

Dr. Mike Israetel (12:03)

Yeah. And so toothbrushes, antibiotics, vaccines, air conditioning, modern hospitals, a complement of nutritious foods and vitamins and minerals is something that humans just typically or almost never are exposed to in a natural environment. That makes us better off. And so for a long time, it was the standard that drugs had worse side effects than main effects unless there was something really, really wrong with you, and then it was worth it. So someone could be like, hey, do you want to cut off one of your toes? You'd be like, what the fuck? Hell, no. And then they were like, hey, we have one of your children trapped. We will let go of your child forever, and we'll let you go only if you cut off one of your toes. Different calculation. So if you have a huge, huge something to lose, then you would take it. The ultimate example of this is chemo for cancer. They fuck you up in more ways than people can count. They save your ass. If you have cancer, you don't just take chemo drugs regularly. That would be your gigantic mistake. But as biotech improves and this is happening exponentially faster and in the next several years is about to happen at a much, much faster rate, with AI being involved in drug development. The reality is that at some point, probably about five or 10 years ago, some drugs came out that were like, oh, you know, if you're healthy, they probably don't hurt you on net balance. And then now, recently, we have drugs that, on the net balance, even if you're healthy, are better for you to take than not. And the world we're going to end up in, in about five or 10 years is that people who don't take the modern drugs will be, like, way, way, way less healthier than if they took the drugs. And so that mindset of I don't take drugs unless there's something wrong with me is an incredibly useful mindset in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.

Jordan Harbinger (13:47)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (13:47)

In the modern era, it is no longer a categorically useful way to think about things. And we need to start thinking more from an enhancement perspective and less from a perspective of first, do no wrong.

Jordan Harbinger (13:58)

It is so hard for. I'm 45. It is. And I know. I know you are, too, because we went to college together. I know how hard it is to unwrap my mind around the previous mindset. Like, I don't even take Tylenol when I have a headache, because I'm like, headaches happen. It's fine. Look, if I have a migraine, maybe that's different. I didn't take the codeine when I had my wisdom teeth out because it didn't hurt that bad. And I was like, I'm not gonna take this horrible thing. And also, I was kind of like, I want to see how much pain.

Dr. Mike Israetel (14:23)

I could deal with because I'm 19, my ma'. Am.

Jordan Harbinger (14:25)

But there's just some part of me that has grown up my whole life with being like, don't take a GLP one. Don't take tirzepatide, even though it has all these benefits, because there's gotta be negatives that we just don't know about, and they're gonna be worse. Or since there's nothing wrong with me, my body is something, something. Evolution, nature. Or if you're religious, God made you in a certain way, and you don't wanna screw with that. But then it's like, I look at all these other things that I do, and I'm like, well, my testosterone went down, so I take vitamins and minerals that help my testes make more of it. Some of those are pharmaceutical. I don't take testosterone because I don't need it. The reason I got introduced to you originally is because you did a video about don't take TRT unless you actually need it. And you don't need it. And I didn't need it. The doctor was like, no, you don't need it, but you can take these few things. And then my Testosterone went from 250 to 1200 without supplementing.

Dr. Mike Israetel (15:17)

That's incredible. So testosterone is a perfect example where within the normal range of testosterone production, everything is really hunky. Dory. And if you're outside or on the low end of that normal range, TRT is a great idea. But if you double your testosterone way above the normal production, then it's just not a great idea. If you say, hey, what are the non hypogonadism benefits of trt? The doctors will be like, the Takarna aren't none. They're taking way more tests than you need. It's just nonsense because it literally, empirically is shown to make you probably worse in your health. You take a lot more now your steroid addict and it's way worse for your health. But almost everyone who takes tirzepatide, not everyone, almost everyone is going to see better overall systemic health in a variety of organ systems than someone who does not take tirzepatide. That is a big deal. That is a difference. It's not the usual paradigm. And then if it's not the usual paradigm but it's staring us in the face, I say it's time for us to sit and think about should we consider doing this? Remember in that post on Instagram that got lots of virality, I didn't say people should be taking it, I said people should consider taking it. And that's a huge, huge difference. But considering taking something is the beginning of the road to like, oh, well, now maybe I don't need it and the doctor agrees. Or it's like, you know what, maybe I do need it. And here's the thing, you can try it for a few months, get your blood work, get your markers of systemic inflammation and see. And if it's like, dude, holy shit, this is way better, I mean, why not continue to take it? And the typical retort is, we don't know what the long term downsides would be. There are two arguments against that. One argument against that is medications like tirzepatite, for example, semaglutide, and a few of the other GLP1s, liraglutide, et cetera, exenatide, they've been around for 20 years. People have been taking them for 20 years in diabetic populations. So long term side effects have already been figured out for this class of drugs. Not every single drug. And the new ones like tirzepatide could have bad health effects, but it's not like we just don't know anything about them. The other thing, and this is a big philosophical point, you know that without taking these drugs over the course of your life and over the aging process, your health gets worse and worse and then you die. The default is not safety. The default is you're fucked. And so if you want to be less fucked, then you can take these drugs. You are calculating risk against risk. One of the probably most useful in some contexts phrase, but is philosophically a non starter in most cases at a deep level is better safe than sorry. There is no such thing as safe. Let's say you're in a tent, your radio to communicate to your base camp is 50ft away and you're in the African desert and there's lions around. Do you stay in the tent and go better safe than sorry? Maybe when there's lions right outside. But if you don't see any lions for a little while, you might take a little sprint to get that radio because you are not safe. You're safe for a little while. Eventually you're going to have not enough water and you will fucking starve. And you need that radio to radio to camp for them to come get your dumb ass. And so the assumption that everything's hunky dory and just don't fuck with it is an incorrect assumption on philosophical grounds. It's true. If the rudimentary medicines of the 20th century are what you have, then, yeah, their fucking side effects are all over the place. You don't want to take them because they're net negatives unless there's something really wrong with you. That is absolutely no longer the case. And we have to be open to that because tirzepatide is just like one of the first medications of its kind. There are medications right now in multiple phases of FDA clinical trials that are called exercise mimetics. They trigger your body to have a response that's very similar to what it would with exercise. That means they make your entire body healthier in like 10 different ways, burn more fat, it's better for your cognitive performance, it's better for longevity, it reduces cardiovascular risk. It's better for your kidneys. By the way, another benefit of tirzepatid is it improves kidney function. But again, I could just be here all day saying all the benefits of it. And so with these drugs, exercise mimetics, it is almost certainly going to be true that almost everyone would be better off taking them than not. So that idea that we shouldn't take drugs unless we need to is slowly but surely not so slowly in the next few years, but very surely becoming a poor heuristic on which to base. It's kind of like saying, imagine in the mid-90s, someone's like, you should get AOL you know, America Online, It'll be great. The Internet's great that you could be like, yeah, I've done super well without the Internet. Fuck it, right? You could say that about the cell phone. In the mid-90s, everyone has a landline. You'll get me when you get me. Can you imagine in 2025, someone be like, I don't, I don't want a cell phone. You'd be like, how are you going to deal with society? You don't understand. This thing is a map, It's a note taker. It has AI on it. Now saying, well, I don't need a cell phone would just be baffling at this point and everyone would laugh at you. And so I think that's the direction of the pharmaceutical interventions that we can have in humans is that at first they were very not good idea. Imagine this. What about medicine, like pre industrial times, Pre Scientific Medicine, 1700s Bloodletting. Bloodletting. You're like, no, hell no. Then, you know, later on it was like blood pressure meds. Like, well, if you have high blood pressure, great. If you don't, there's just all kinds of side effects for no reason. And now we're entering that flip of the switch, that era where it's like, no, some drugs are actually better off that you take them than not. And that's a big deal.

Jordan Harbinger (20:32)

That's actually a really big deal. I think the challenge is going to be old farts like me in their 40s who are like, I don't know, my whole life I went this way. And that's what you see with older folks, right? Like my parents. And you're like, hey, you should really look into getting. You should have your blood work done, dad. And you should take something that helps your Testosterone because you're 80 and you play sports every day. And he's like, I don't want to get involved in that. And it's like, I understand. Because when he was younger, you didn't want to get involved in anything like that because the only guys taking TRT were bodybuilders that died by age 40 from crazy heart shit from like 1960 in the 50s.

Dr. Mike Israetel (21:06)

Taking 10 times the dose.

Jordan Harbinger (21:07)

Yes. Soviet Union power lifters. Like, yeah, you don't want to get involved in that.

Dr. Mike Israetel (21:11)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (21:11)

But you're 80 years old. You can take a pharmaceutical therapeutic dose and you will feel better. My buddy's dad is a doctor. He's very familiar with all these things. He refused TRT for three years. Finally, my buddy was like, do it for A couple of months and see how you feel. And his dad, who's 80, is like, this is the best thing that I've ever done for my health. In memory.

Dr. Mike Israetel (21:32)

Almost everyone says that.

Jordan Harbinger (21:33)

And he's a doctor and he was resisting it, right? Because he's like, I don't want to get involved in that. So it's amazing. Like you can be an actual MD and you still can't unwrap your mind around the past 30 years of societal programming that says maybe don't take drugs without being sick.

Dr. Mike Israetel (21:48)

Yes, it's really tough and it's good programming back when it was around. I mean, rules can be totally true for a while and then they're wrong. And a big part of cognitive flexibility and just being as smart as you can be is to just not stick to rules that don't work anymore. You know what I mean? Imagine from 1939 to 1945 thinking that Germans are swell people. They're fucking homicidal maniacs. Fuck em, kill em all. Imagine after 1945 thinking Germans are evil. They're fucking great. Germans are amazing people. They're peaceful, they're awesome, they're productive, they're like, so what happened? Like, well we killed Hitler and the Nazis stopped having power. Like right, okay, so one rule was totally true for six years and then totally wrong after that. That's like a real thing. And there's a trillion examples of things where you have to update your rules. Yeah, there's a problem that human cognitive architecture has a lot of biases built in. And one of them is called the status quo bias. And the status quo bias is just everywhere. And status quo bias is what mostly feeds the idea of better safe than sorry. The status quo is basically like shit, just been like this. So this is how we do shit, this is how we're going to do shit. And the bias means that you're like nah, you know, this is how we've done things. That's probably good. And then we're going to resist change. And the thing is, on a purely logical grounds, any change you introduce should be examined on the evidence and on reasoning. And be like wait, hold on, is this actually an improvement? I mean, can you imagine if microchip companies had status quo bias? Be like, dude, we have two nanometer nodes. We can make microchips 10 times faster and cheaper. And you're like nah, nah, we've been making them like this for years. Like you just wouldn't be in business after two years. It's insane to think of in any Field in which shit actually matters. But people have this illusion against a very, very important point. I'm fine, and you are fine. And you don't ever have to take Tirzepatide. But whether or not you're fine in 10 years or 20 years can really be altered by if you take these drugs now or not. And everyone always says, and everyone's always correct, preventative medicine is the best kind of medicine. Well, fuck, man, we got pills and injections that make you less sick in 5, 10, or 20 years. Probably a good idea not to take it, but to think about taking it. To consult your doctor about taking it.

Jordan Harbinger (23:44)

That's right. Not medical advice. It's funny. Your story reminded me of my ex girlfriend back in college. She was an exchange student in Japan, and they were like, I met her grandfather at a family party. She was back visiting, and they were like, don't mention Japan. I was like, okay. And later on I was like, so why couldn't you mention Japan around your grandfather? Well, he was in World War II and he went to Japan, and let's just say it wasn't a vacation. And then when he found out later that she went to Japan, he was like, you were around all those people? They're a bunch of murderous psychopaths. And it's like, japan?

Dr. Mike Israetel (24:12)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (24:13)

What? But yeah, like World War II. Different Japan.

Dr. Mike Israetel (24:15)

Different Japan.

Jordan Harbinger (24:16)

Kind of a different situation.

Dr. Mike Israetel (24:17)

Yep.

Jordan Harbinger (24:17)

You ever notice how you plateau in the gym, then you go on vacation, you eat croissants, you drink wine, you do nothing. Somehow you look better in the mirror. That's not science. That is witchcraft. Fortunately, supporting the show and saving some cash at the same time does not require witchcraft. It just requires a couple of promo codes. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Saily. Have you ever landed in a new country and had to spend a frigging hour hunting down a SIM card? Getting it all set up. Instead of getting stuck trying to connect to sketchy WI Fi or paying ridiculous roaming fees, now I use Saily. It's so much easier for people like me who travel international often. Saily's a new ESIM app from the folks behind NordVPN. So you know it's legit. You install it once, you're covered in over 190 countries. No swapping out SIM cards, no airport kiosks and lines at the phone store. You just open your phone and you're connected. The plans are actually affordable. Way cheaper than roaming. And you get extra perks like ad blocking, web protection, even Virtual location changes for privacy. Plus, their support team is available 247 because you know time zones and if your phone doesn't support esim, they'll refund you, no problem. So don't worry about whether or not it's going to work with your phone. Bottom line, whether you're hopping across Europe or you want to back up for that next trip, Saily makes staying connected simple and hassle free. Get an exclusive 15% discount on SAILY data plans. Use code jordanharvenger at checkout. Download the SAILY app or go to saily.com jordanharbinger today that's S A-I L-Y.com jordanharbinger this episode is also sponsored by Drip Drop. So I've got this reputation at home. I'm basically always hydrating, which means, yeah, I'm also running to the bathroom all the time. Jen makes fun of me, but being hydrated makes everything better. Energy, mood, my skin workouts. And what I've learned is this. It's not just about drinking water. It's about getting the right electrolytes in the mix. That's why I'm always stocked up on Drip Drop. Most electrolyte powders either taste terrible. They don't really do much. Drip Drop is different. It's doctor developed proven fast hydration. It actually tastes good. So you get three times the electrolytes and half the sugar of leading sports drinks. And I'll tell you, my favorite flavor lately has been rotating through the eight zero sugar options. It's not just me. Drip Drop is trusted by firefighters. I actually donated some to my local fire department. Medical pros. Over 90% of top pro in college sports teams. Bottom line. Yeah, I pee a lot. All right, who's. What's it to you? But it's just proof that my hydration game is on point and Drip Drop is what makes it work. Right now, Drip Drop is offering podcast listeners 20% off. Your first order, go to dripdrop.com and use promo code jordan. That's dripdrop.com promo code jordan for 20% off. Stock up now before the heat hits hard. Dripdrop.com and use promo code Jordan. Now if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers and creators every single week, it is because of my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself for free. You're probably not booking for a podcast, but it doesn't matter. You need this stuff in your career. You need this Stuff if you're retired. You need this stuff. If you can't even find a job. In fact, that's usually how people do find jobs. The course is about improving your relationship building skills in a very non cringy, down to earth way. No awkward strategies, no cheesy tactics. It's very practical. It'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend and a better person all around. No, that's a bit of a stretch. A better peer. In any case, six minutes a day is all it takes. It's a light lift and many of the guests on our show subscribe and contribute to that course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course. Again, no shenanigans. I don't need your credit card number. None of that nonsense. It's free@sixminutenetworking.com. now back to Dr. Mike. All right, I'm curious about the steroids and roid rage stuff because last time we talked about, I mentioned droid rage and something like that, and you were saying the earlier you take steroids, the more it messes with your brain. And I wanted to ask about. Maybe damage isn't quite the right word, but the changes it makes in your brain. And you always hear like, oh, steroids amplify your personality. But that doesn't really make sense to me because like, if I'm a curious, naturally curious person who's really empathetic, are steroids gonna make me more like that or does it only work if you're an asshole? Like what. What exactly are people talking about here?

Dr. Mike Israetel (28:18)

This is exactly the point. I mean, you made half my point for me. I love it. Steroids amplify the male part of your personality and males and females have different personality trends on average. There are many exceptions. And so if you take more and more androgens, more and more steroids, you begin to think and act more male. Like so, for example, you are more likely to become less verbally communicative. You are, you know, the strong silent type. Like, meh, See? Get away from me, right? Like, why won't you talk to me? You know, shit like that, right?

Jordan Harbinger (28:51)

What'd you do this weekend? Chilled?

Dr. Mike Israetel (28:54)

I was with a boy. See, none of your business. But like, oh, he's so manly, which he is. But you know, the strong silent type is a male characteristic, right? Another one is proneness to egotistical aggressive responses. If someone butts up to you and you're female, you're like, ah, I'm Just going to talk shit about this bitch later. If someone butts up to you and you're male, shit might get into fighting territory real goddamn quick. Because that extreme maleness means like, you don't take shit from people and your ego is a little bit more fragile than normal. You take things as kind of assaults on your identity more often and a bit more of a hair trigger. So that definitely happens. The aggression in general goes up at extreme doses, irritability goes up because testosterone gets you super fucking wired. And you're always kind of like, and you know, like, imagine having the sensation of being ready to go wrestle someone in competition, but like half of that all the time, yeah, shit gets real old. And your way of interacting with the world is like just no longer appropriate for most pursuits. And so when people say, oh, you know, steroids amplify your characteristics, they amplify your masculine characteristics and they reduce oftentimes your feminine characteristics. Your ability for example, to be compassionate is reduced. When you're on lots of steroids, your ability to be empathetic, to see someone else's point of view, your ability to communicate your own emotions and understand other people's emotions go down. Remember, Autism spectrum disorder is not totally, but a predominantly male disorder, affects way more males than females. It is almost the extreme male brain personified. And so if you're on enough steroids, you begin to exhibit more autism like traits, which means that you no longer really know as much about what people likely feel and think in their heads. And it makes you more difficult to interact with in society. It is not an enhancement of your ability to do this. And if you take steroids early, like you're still a teenager and you take them in high doses until you're in your 20s or something, you can permanently lock your brain in to more egotistical, more aggressive, more sexualized. By the way, it's another thing as androgens make you way more sexual, but sexual in a risk taking and physical way, not sexual necessarily in a compassionate, touching, loving, super emotional way. And so yes, steroids do kind of make you more of an asshole, or they make you more confident and more expressive and more vibrant. But you take enough of them, eventually they make you an asshole. Because at extreme doses everyone becomes a dick on steroids. So it's one of those things exactly to your point, they do accentuate characteristics, not all of them male like characteristics. And every characteristic at its extreme becomes toxic. And so when you take lots of steroids, you're literally multiplying your normal testosterone or testosterone Equivalent other molecules that act like that, you know, Diana ball and things like that. You're multiplying them by two, five or ten times the normal amount. Imagine someone who was so compassionate that they were being bit by mosquitoes and they wouldn't use bug spray because they will. Mosquitoes need food and who am I to, you know, like get them off of their food supply? Like, dude, you're going to get fucking malaria out here. And they're like, well good, you know, it's the least I have coming. Like at some point even compassion becomes toxic when it's so extreme it biases you into irrational behavior. So that's what steroids do it to people at the extremes.

Jordan Harbinger (32:04)

There's a religion I think somewhat based, I don't know if this is like Buddhism offshoot or something where they sweep ahead of them when they walk because they don't want to crush little insects or whatever. I mean that is mental illness codified into a religion 100%.

Dr. Mike Israetel (32:20)

And I love the vibes. Like it's such a great intention, but it makes working through the world and solving even bigger problems and eventually saving every single insect by, you know, uploading them into the fucking simulated cloud for AI. Much less likely if you just don't have your priorities straight. You know, you got to eat food, you got to walk around and trade offs have to be made at extreme emotional valences. You're no longer able to make rational trade offs. Which is definitely true with steroids. It's like road rage for example. Normally road rage, someone's like, you're a piece of shit and they cut you off and you're like, ah, that guy must be having a bad day. And on steroids you're like, that guy thinks he can challenge me. I wonder how scared he would get if I got out of my car. Let's fuck around and find out. That's not good. Because one of several things can happen. One is you win that interaction and that person pisses their pants. And then you just humiliated a human being and you gave them trauma. Good job, you piece of shit. The other way. That's the best thing that can happen.

Jordan Harbinger (33:14)

That's the best outcome. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (33:15)

The second worst outcome is the police get involved and you go to jail for physically intimidating someone. Or at least go to court for a few months and spend a shitload of money. And the worst thing that can happen is that guy also has an attitude and a fucking license to carry and then you're dead.

Jordan Harbinger (33:28)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (33:28)

So you know, like that kind of thinking on extreme doses of steroids can get you in real deep shit.

Jordan Harbinger (33:33)

Yeah, it's scary to think about. And I see a lot of younger and younger people using. Well, actually, maybe that's just a bias. Do you see a lot of younger and younger people using steroids? I feel like I do now. Because of Instagram, or is that just. I'm seeing it more because of Instagram.

Dr. Mike Israetel (33:48)

You're a very sharp individual and it's great that you're preempting most of these questions with your own hypotheses, which tend to be correct. I love it. Makes my job easier. So awesome.

Jordan Harbinger (33:56)

Thank you.

Dr. Mike Israetel (33:56)

My best answer is there is no statistically rigorous way we have yet devised to be able to tell if steroids use in younger populations is increasing as a fraction of the population. Like, in absolute terms, there's just 300 million people in America. And then the 80s there was 200 million people. Got to come from, like, a new people, you know, your absolute levels of steroids are going to go up, but as far as fractions, I don't know. You're completely correct in diagnosing the asymmetry there. With social media, our view into other people's lives is like many, many, many times greater than it was ever before. Yeah, like, if you wanted to see how someone was doing in a suburb of Kansas City in 1988, you would have to travel there and follow them around. Nobody talked about regular people in the news. You just would never see it. Never in a million years. Now people voluntarily post a huge fraction of their lives on social media. And so people are like, oh, XYZ problem is so terrible. You're like, maybe it was terrible this whole time. They just started talking about it now. In the 1980s, for example, mid-80s in Detroit, and actually all around the nation, violent crime was like, so much worse than today. It's difficult to express. You just didn't see it. Because if you weren't in downtown Detroit, inner city Detroit, you could just like, avoid it. You were just somewhere else. Now you have police body cam, YouTube channels that show you tons of crime. And you could very easily think, oh, my God, this is the worst thing ever. Crime is at a huge increase, so on and so forth. So with steroids, I just don't know. If I had to put my gear to the street, I would say to me, like, on just pure vibes, the problem doesn't seem any worse than ever because there's lots of TikTok teens that will click, like, and share and joke about steroids. The number of teens I know who's actually tried steroids is profoundly low. Most TikTok teens are like, lol tren. I'm like, oh, cool. How much trend are you running? They're like, I wouldn't even know where to get it. And you're like, exactly. Steroids are very difficult to get. I still have to get my steroids in wacky ways I can't discuss for legal reasons. And so, like, you know, if you're 16, you're like, I want to buy steroids. All right, kid, hit it. Do it. They're like, the Internet, like, I don't know. That's not gonna work. Good luck. What is steroids.com? that doesn't fucking work. And so all of a sudden, I don't know if kids are using more. I suspect the answer is probably not much. Maybe there's an increase in use. And if there is, that's definitely a bad thing. I just don't think it's like a cataclysmic, like, oh, my God, we've lost our children to steroids. Highly, highly unlikely. And also, kids get two views of things. They get the positive views from the tech talk teens that are flexing their muscles, but then they get, like, the views of, like, guy with 100 pimples per square inch on his back. They see Liver King going through his arc. And a lot of teens are like, dude, fuck that, not taking steroids. This shit is insane. It used to be, like, in the 90s and the 2000s, the only exposure you got for steroids really was baseball players would use them in the news to get really good at baseball. Bodybuilders use them to go look amazing on bodybuilding magazines. Now on social media, you get, like, the whole spectrum. So if you want to be like, what are the downsides of steroids from real humans? Oh, my God, you can go down a rabbit hole after two hours. I ain't never fucking taking steroids again. That information was only available from the government back in the day, and the government would do that really convincing thing. You and I are both children of drug education in the 80s and 90s, no doubt. Like, yeah, just say no. And you're like, why do people use drugs at all? Yeah, you know, like, don't do marijuana. Like, is it fun? No, it's not fun. It's terrible. It causes hallucinations.

Jordan Harbinger (37:05)

And you look at the reefer madness that makes you die.

Dr. Mike Israetel (37:08)

You just get, like, addicted to it and then you can't stop it. It was never an amazing time and nowadays people are like, yeah, like, steroids are awesome in 50 ways and they're terrible in 50 ways.

Jordan Harbinger (37:16)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (37:16)

And when you're a teen, you're like, fuck, man, I don't know. And it's kind and it should be kind of scary.

Jordan Harbinger (37:21)

I remember a middle school science teacher asking us all why people did drugs. And it was like, because they're bad, because they're stupid. And then he was like, guys, it's because they're fun.

Dr. Mike Israetel (37:32)

Did he get fired after?

Jordan Harbinger (37:33)

Like, I remember being like, like, Mr. O' Donnell has something to say. And he was like, the other day when I said drugs are fun, I was speaking hyperbolically because the administration was just like, what? You know how many calls we got from parents that were like, Mr. O' Donnell said drugs are fun.

Dr. Mike Israetel (37:49)

I personally really like to talk to about things that have trade offs because I have like, maybe, I don't know, a knack for keeping shit real as fuck. I can swear I don't care. No one is going to fire me.

Jordan Harbinger (37:58)

Right?

Dr. Mike Israetel (37:58)

And I think when you talk to younger people about things and you go, they're bad and there's no tradeoffs. And when they try these things by themselves and they experience basically none of the side effects, they're going to be like, wow, people lied to me.

Jordan Harbinger (38:08)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (38:08)

They said these things were bad and I'm just not going to listen to them and I'm going to do drugs. The thing is, you have to cut people the real deal. So you go, listen, kids, a lot of drugs are really fun. Super fucking fun, bro. When some people can do them and they just really don't have huge downsides, then they stop doing them. They go on with their lives and it's great. But for a lot of people that do drugs, they're really fun. And they come with hideous, hideous fucking consequences. And they're like, well, like, what? Like, you ever seen a meth head before? And they're like, no. So you drive them over to a fucking part of the trailer park where there's meth heads and they're like, what happened to that guy's mouth? Like methamphetamines happened to his mouth. They're like, ugh. I always say, like, the best drug education ever would be to show some, like a class of seventh graders the movie Trainspotting.

Jordan Harbinger (38:45)

Oh, yeah, bro.

Dr. Mike Israetel (38:47)

Jordan, could you imagine watching sitting after that movie and ever trying heroin again? I saw that when I was like 19 and I was like, I don't ever fuck with that ever. Yeah, like the babies Crawling on the ceiling and their own baby dies of AIDS or whatever. You're like, nope, yeah, that was categorically not horrific. Like, real drug stories are fucked up. And that also means different drugs get different takes. So you're like, alcohol is really fun, but you're very likely to get in legal trouble. You're going to be emotionally dysregulated, you're going to get into fistfights, you might die of alcohol poisoning. There's real serious risks. Marijuana, way less risk, but you can get addicted to it. And not psych, like, not physiologically, but psychologically. And then your sleep gets weird. It's not super healthy for you. It's not great for developing brains. It's more nuanced, you know, do it responsibly, do it a little less than you think you might want to. Maybe you're good to go. Caffeine's a drug, you know. Sleep loss is a bad idea. You can be so, you know, wired on caffeine that you're actually danger to yourself and others on the road. But you have no idea because you've been awake for a day and a half, that sort of thing. And all the way to like, you know, what about crack cocaine? You'd be like, crack cocaine is going to fuck up your life. Okay, any other questions? Like, no. What about regular coke? Like China white at a party? Like, some people have a lot of fun with it, but it gets really addictive really fast. It's expensive as fuck. You never really know if it's cocaine and you can just OD on some crazy ass pink cocaine that's not even cocaine anymore. They're like, okay, so this is kind of risky? Like, yes, correct. So if you give people the real deal like that and you really layer in the real life, gnarly downsides and the upsides, then people can make an informed decision, even if they're teens. Because you just, you don't want to tell people half the story. When they find out you're lying, they're going to believe the other half. Yeah, that would be a real bad idea.

Jordan Harbinger (40:20)

Yeah, the whole, like, just say no thing blew up in our face. Right. It just didn't work. Speaking of drugs, there's so many angles I could go with this, but I'm curious. Why can't, why can't I just do lines of cocaine instead of cardio? If both get my heart rate up, one is way more fun until you die than running. But like, why do I need to do the running part?

Dr. Mike Israetel (40:41)

Yeah, so when you do cocaine, your energy expenditure goes up a little bit, but not a ton. So you feel wired, but you're not actually moving around. And so the moving around is what burns the calories, which draws the fat cells down in size, which gives you all those health benefits. So if you do cocaine or you do caffeine, you do get a little bit of a thermogenic effect, but not a ton of. And so that basically running the system really fast without reducing substrate is going to lead to a lot of health problems. Whereas if you run the system a ton and you physically move around, then it is wildly good for your health. That being said, modern exercise mimetic drugs do jack up your cellular activity, they don't jack up your heart rate, and they actually do burn fat and make you way healthier. And so drugs that do much of what exercise does are just a few years away in a pill.

Jordan Harbinger (41:34)

That's really, well, awesome. Crazy to think about because in fact, this is maybe like a. As a bodybuilder you might just disagree with this take and that's why you're here. But people work out a ton. But the real results that I think that the average person wants from working out, if they're honest, most of that comes from being leaner, not from having much bigger muscles. A little bit bigger, yeah. But like, most of us don't really actually want to be that big. We just want to be lean enough that we look muscular. Does that distinction make sense? I'm not explaining it super well.

Dr. Mike Israetel (42:07)

It makes perfect sense. I agree with you completely.

Jordan Harbinger (42:10)

Okay, well, good. I was not sure where that was going to your earlier point here. Those drugs are incredible because now instead of trying to get like really giant and then do a diet and lean down and all that stuff, a lot of us could just take whatever helps us get lean and do cardio if we wanted to. If you are into that kind of.

Dr. Mike Israetel (42:27)

Thing, which no one is. And there are drugs already in testing that do both. So there are drugs like a Zelloprag, for example, which is an exercise mimetic, which slightly increases your muscle size almost completely, prevents losing muscle when you're in a fat loss phase, and increases your daily caloric expenditure and repartitions your fat down. And this is like one drug that can make you substantially leaner, substantially healthier, and you lose zero muscle doing it or even gain a little bit. That idea of gaining a little bit of muscle and getting way leaner and healthier means that the potential market for a drug like this is insanely high.

Jordan Harbinger (43:00)

It's like, everyone.

Dr. Mike Israetel (43:01)

It should be insanely high. It's like damn near everyone. That's right. That's right.

Jordan Harbinger (43:05)

Wow. When can I get that? Asking for a friend. That's incredible. How far away is stuff like that?

Dr. Mike Israetel (43:11)

So, like, there are dozens of drugs like this already in various stages of development.

Jordan Harbinger (43:15)

Oh, my God.

Dr. Mike Israetel (43:16)

A ton of them have already passed animal trials. A ton of them have already passed several human trials. In the next several years, a couple of these are going to be coming out. Imagine reading the Tirzepatide literature a few years ago, before it was out. Be like, this shit's really coming. Like, mm, it has all these benefits.

Jordan Harbinger (43:31)

Mm.

Dr. Mike Israetel (43:32)

And now that people take it, we see like, oh, shit, it really works. And a ton of people are on it and they think it's fucking great. And so in a few years, more and more of these drugs will trickle out. But there's something really, really big happening in the pharmaceutical space that bears mention, and it is the AI revolution. So with artificial intelligence, here's how drug discovery works. Chemists and drug scientists sit around and they come up based on how much they know about the body and receptors and types of activity. They come up with hypotheses about what drug could we make that could have these beneficial effects and low side effects. They come up with some candidates. They have to test them directly in animals. A lot of the times the animal testing the animals croak, or the animals have bad outcomes, or the outcomes are good, but they're really small and the drug is too expensive to make. And so it ends up costing years and years and millions and millions and sometimes billions of dollars and gets you sometimes somewhere, but a lot of times nowhere nowadays. And I mean literally today and as of several years ago and now, this is better than ever. You can get artificial intelligence to model out these drugs, model out the receptor class you're targeting, and go through hundreds and hundreds of thousands of drugs, changing them a little bit by bit to see which one would hypothetically work best to have the best positive effects and the fewest side effects. This is done entirely on computer chip. And so by the time you have candidates that you're going to test in animal trials, you are already 99% of the way to the truth. And so the five candidate drugs you train your test in, rats or mice, are not just like your five best guesses from a team of scientists. They're your five best guesses after having deleted out 500,000 other really good guesses. This is like, instead of taking smart people and Having them learn a subject. You take smart people, you push them 500,000 of the smartest people through grad school and your top five scorers and most best scientists, those are the people you go through and teach that new subject. They're going to be way better at it than just regular smart people. And so this AI drug revolution is just starting to create candidate drugs today that are starting to enter animal trials today. Which means that in 2027 when they start to enter human trials, you're going to get instant blockbuster drugs that are like 10 times more beneficial than any drug we've ever made with 10 times fewer side effects. We already have drugs in the pipeline now, the Regeneron drug I was talking about, Trivagramab, Gorettosmab, the ones that increase your muscle mass, reduce your fat mass, Azeliprag, those are drugs that were developed without AI, they're already killers compared to today's drugs that there's going to be a leap to that next level. And here's how it works. Drugs come in certain different types from way difficult to make and administer and really expensive all the way to profoundly easy. Some of the drugs that are the most promising right now are called biologics. They're like incredibly, incredibly fragile. A lot of times you have to get them infused into you in a hospital. You can't even administer them yourself. They cost like $10,000 per dose. Fuck every single part of that. No, I'm good. I guess you have life threatening disease, it's worth it. Anything other than that, you're like, hell no. Then there are drugs that are injectable and they're peptides for example, and like you have to store them in a refrigerator and you have to inject them with a needle and you have to inject once a week. They're really effective, but they're a little expensive, they're tough to get. And then there are drugs called small molecule drugs, oral small molecule drugs, which means they're incredibly stable. You put them in a pill, the pill's good for two years. You put the pill in a fucking container in your cupboards and then you just like take one a day and it does everything that the biologic does, but let like $0.01 per day and it doesn't go bad. And so as we have these biologic drugs being researched, a lot of them will never even see the light of day because the same company that researches the biologic drugs and paid a shitload of money to have them go through trials, they are already some of these companies have small molecule drugs that are oral, that are. As soon as they start getting tested, they're going to blow through everything. That's the drug you'll see in the market in 2028, 2029. So my prediction is in the late 2000s, the spigot of unbelievable drugs to make you leaner, to give you every benefit of exercise, or almost every benefit, to make you sharper cognitively, to give you more daily energy and to make you more muscular, is going to open up into a fire hose. And at that point, the world will start to change. Another way to see this is look at the app space. What is there not an app for on your phone? There's a fucking app for everything. Fifteen years ago, there was an app basically for nothing. And the drug space today is. There's not a whole lot of apps. The drug space in five years will be like, what do you need? We got drugs for that, and they're damn good, and you're better off taking them than not. Where this is going is eventually a lot of people are going to be on five or six drugs daily or weekly or monthly. And these drugs are just going to make you, in every conceivable way, better than you would be without them. And then the people who don't take drugs, they'll be kind of like the equivalent of Amish people today, where you're like, oh, you don't have electricity. That's kind of weird. Okay, cool.

Jordan Harbinger (48:22)

There's going to be an interesting gap for 10 or possibly even 20 years between people who have like a telehealth doctor. That's going to be like, Jordan, you need. You want tritiazepatide? Sure. I saw your last blood work. All right, cool. Mail it to him. And then, you know, the people who can afford that, because it's going to be like $800 a month or something. I don't know what it costs, but, you know, telehealth, they mark it up because it's kind of like wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I'm making sure you don't die on the thing. But do you need it? Need it? No insurance is going to cover that. And then there's going to be like this whole 10 or again, 20 years where people are like, oh, I don't know about that. It's not mainstream enough for me to take it. My doctor doesn't know anything about it because he went to medical school in 1997, and he hasn't really learned much since then. That whole sort of like, curve of early adopters. Then we'll see like Denmark prescribes it to everyone in the whole country because. And then it's like, well, this is America. We're not doing that because your insurance company has to pay for it and they don't want to do that. Yeah, it's going to take like 30 years for us to get there.

Dr. Mike Israetel (49:20)

Yeah, I don't think it'll take that long. I think your concern is very valid. On principle it'll take longer than it should. But I think in about 10 years almost everyone will be taking advanced drugs.

Jordan Harbinger (49:31)

Wow.

Dr. Mike Israetel (49:32)

Actually, in 10 years I think the landscape could be substantially more different. So so far we covered that there's biologics which are really, really difficult to make and administer super expensive peptide drugs which are somewhere in between small oral, small molecule drugs which are super easy. There's one step further you can take and that's DNA modification. If we're giving you a drug that is a certain molecule that makes one of your proteins express higher and that gives you all these benefits, we say, okay, why is a protein expressed lower? And the answer is like your DNA just codes in to make only so much of this protein. You can ask the next question. What if we change the DNA to make more of the protein? That's an interesting question. It's like replacing the drug with your body makes the drug now instead of you having it in oral form. And so eventually DNA modification will probably replace almost all pharmaceutical intervention.

Jordan Harbinger (50:18)

Wow.

Dr. Mike Israetel (50:19)

So like you just get the DNA modification once and all of a sudden you're in several months way leaner and you stay leaner indefinitely or you're more jacked or you have more daily energy or you're a little bit sharper cognitively. The other thing, why I think resisting these drugs is going to be very, very short sighted or short sighted. Short temporal phenomenon is that vanity wins against every opponent. As soon as you have drugs and DNA modifications for age reversal and skin quality enhancement and hair line enhancement, so many people are going to take them that all of a sudden it's going to be the status quo bias that we were talking earlier is going to shift to. Yeah, of course you take them and then status quo bias fights for us and not against us. Because someone's like, well I'm not taking them. Be like, why not, idiot. Do you like being bald? For example, there's a drug currently finishing trials. You put it in a cream and you rub it on your skull. It like re wakes your senescent hair cells. It's phenomenally effective. And it's local only, doesn't enter your whole system. Wow. You got to be real careful about where you put it, because wherever you put it, you're going to get really awesome hair growth, like, for years and years and years thereafter.

Jordan Harbinger (51:25)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (51:26)

This drug, no doubt the second and third generation of this drug in the next few years is just going to straight up solve hair loss. The guy means solve hair loss. And then at some point, you'll have a guy at your work who's bald, like me. And you'll be like, dude, why have you fucking taken the cream? And when the cream is $900 and it's risky and no one knows if it works, maybe he. There's good reason. When the cream is $35 and available by prescription, and all you do is go to your doctor, be like, I don't want to be bald. He's like, yeah, no problem. Let's get the fucking cream. I mean, imagine going to your dermatologist right now and you're like, hey, I've got this thing on my face, like this discoloration. He's like, yeah, we have cream for that. Be like, are you sure I could have it? He'd be like, yeah, this cream has been around for fucking 15 years. Of course you can have it. That same thing is going to be there for baldness, for low energy levels, for not enough muscle mass, for too much body fat, and all the way down the line. And at some point, when people are like, wait a minute, you just take these things and they just make you better. Enough humans in. Here's another one. Jordan. When people are in your real life experiencing these benefits, it hits different. When you talk to your best friend's dad, and he's 75, but he looks 55, and he's leaner than you, and his face looks kind of younger than yours. You're kind of like, what the fuck's going on? He's like, yeah, I'm on all these drugs. You're like, aren't you worried? Like, worried about what, motherfucker? Look at me. And you're like, right, yeah. No. Okay. And then you go home, you're like, am I the last person I have one? Remember when the iPhone first came out, it was just for rich people and tech people.

Jordan Harbinger (52:41)

Yes.

Dr. Mike Israetel (52:41)

And then two years later, it was for literally everyone. Because everyone's like, why the fuck don't I have one of those? Yeah, that is going to happen with drugs. People worried about pharmaceutical companies pushing these drugs. Nobody needs to push the shit on you. And I Personally, I'm a politically like pretty close to a libertarian. I could give. Please, for the love of God, don't ever take anything you don't want to. I just think people are going to want to because who the fuck doesn't want to look younger, be healthier, look leaner and all that stuff. It's just like an open and shut case.

Jordan Harbinger (53:05)

All right? Steroids and cocaine bad. Okay, kids, invest your money in something else, such as the fine products and services that support this show.

Dr. Mike Israetel (53:12)

We'll be right back.

Jordan Harbinger (53:16)

This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. When you run a business, you don't get to clock out at 5 o'. Clock. Your business is on your mind all the time.

Dr. Mike Israetel (53:23)

You.

Jordan Harbinger (53:23)

And when it comes to hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. And that's LinkedIn jobs. Here's why I like LinkedIn. They make it easy to hire you post your job. LinkedIn helps you write the description and they put it in front of the right people. You can post for free. You can pay to promote your job, which gets you about three times more qualified applicants. And that's the key. Quality. 72% of small businesses say LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates. You can also share the job with your LinkedIn network, even add a little hashtag hiringframe to your profile picture, which doubles the number of qualified candidates that you get. It's a small move and it makes a big difference. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn jobs. Post your job for free@LinkedIn.com Jordan that's LinkedIn.com Jordan to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is also sponsored by Quince. Cooler temps are rolling in and like every year, we turn to quints for the stuff that actually lasts. They're fall staples, cashmere and denim. They hold up season after season. The prices blow us away. Get 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. The denim and real leather jackets give you that clean, classic edge without the premium markup. Jen always books our holiday family photo shoot this time of year. You know, the matching outfits, the whole deal. Quints is perfect for that. High quality pieces but not crazy expensive. So everybody looks sharp without us breaking the bank. And what makes Quint's different is they partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you're getting top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at about half the price of similar brands. So if you're refreshing your wardrobe or getting the family photo ready to Quince has you covered with great quality at a price that makes sense. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from Quince. Go to Quince.com Jordan for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Jordan free shipping and three 65 day returns. Quince.com Jordan this episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Years ago we tried finding therapists the old fashioned way before and it was always a hassle. The scheduling, the back and forth and half the time it wasn't the right fit. It got really frustrating. We could never really stick with it consistently. BetterHelp has been the solution for us. The matching process makes it easy to find the right therapist. If it's not a good fit, you switch anytime. And because it's all online, scheduling is not a nightmare. You can actually keep it up week after week. And for us that's been the difference. Therapy has been a constant part of our routine. We're genuinely grateful for that. And BetterHelp has been doing this for over 10 years. 30,000 licensed therapists who've helped over 5 million people worldwide. They got a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million reviews. And from our experience, it's really clear why we all run into challenges in life and in relationships. BetterHelp makes it possible to face those challenges with real support week after week. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Jordan that's better. H-E-L-P.com Jordan if you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. They make this show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the website@jordanharbinger.com deals if you can't find a code, you're not sure if the code exists. Feel free to email us. I'm jordanjordanharbinger.com we're happy to surface codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Dr. Mike Israel, people will say, yeah, but Jordan said, people who can afford it, man, you're going to figure Out a way. You ever meet a broke person who has like an iPhone 16 and you're like, I'm still on the 50s.

Dr. Mike Israetel (56:58)

Every single broke person.

Jordan Harbinger (57:01)

You go to the gym and you see that gal who's got like a Birkin bag and like a Dolce Gabbana onesie and you're like, man, she must be a lawyer. And you talk to her and she like doesn't have a job, she's just dating a rich. Or like doesn't even date a rich guy. You're just like, what do you do again? And it's like, I spend all of my money on these things because I want them. And no, I can't afford rent, I live with my parents. You know, it's like you're gonna find people who bag groceries and are like 19 and they're gonna be on these DNA modification things because it's way more important for them to be jacked and have abs than it is for them to like move out of their parents basement or go to college.

Dr. Mike Israetel (57:33)

Yes, There are two vectors that work to enhance that. One is the vector of competition. There is not one pharmaceutical company, there are many. And when one pharmaceutical company has a blockbuster drug that costs $150 a month, every other pharmaceutical company is like, how can we attack that same receptor site but at 50 bucks a month? And there's one company that's like what about 10 bucks a month? Because if you sell something for 10 bucks a month and your competitors sell it for 50, you instantly have market dominance, but the next fucking day and no one even bothers to buy the shit afterwards. Imagine if someone tried to sell you a Toyota Corolla for $150,000. You'd be like, are you out of your fucking mind? Yeah, like it's just a non starter. And so competition is a big deal. Another big deal is that when we see from whatever our healthcare system is going to be like at this point, if it's AI assisted healthcare system, this is gonna be solved because AI is smart and not biased like us. We have a stupid healthcare system, but even if we don't, at some point it's gonna be obvious that like, okay, if we have people on these drugs, it saves us like 10x the medical expenses over the next 10 years. And so insurance companies would be like, it's free, give it to everyone because they save a fuckload of money. Remember insurance companies, health insurance companies are more on your side than you are because they really give a fuck if you get unhealthy later because they have to pay for it. They don't want to pay for it. They're greedy people. And so what they want to do is be like, oh, hold on. If we have this person approved to go on super cheap drug that saves us $100,000 heart surgery in 10 years, why you fucking God. Give it.

Jordan Harbinger (58:57)

We're going to figure out how to make you take this thing. Like, we're going to try and lobby for laws where you have to quit smoking with this drug.

Dr. Mike Israetel (59:04)

Yes, it'll be like any. We don't even have to do that. But here's how it might work. You might apply to an insurance, a medical insurance. Let's say we have a free market insurance companies, which I think would be a really good idea. Have one policy, you could do another company. Do another policy. When you look, you scroll through, you have, you know, chatgpt help you pick a policy and you're like, dude, wait, this policy is like full spectrum health insurance for $100 a month. And you're like, huh? How does it work? Like, well, they'll do your blood work for you and they'll ask you what medications you're on and if you get onto certain variables, awesome. Approved medications. And your doctor says it's okay. Every single medication you get on, they charge you less money, like a lot less money every month. And if you get on all of them, you could be paying 50 bucks a month. And you're like, wait, so but they're making me take these medications? Like, no, you could just not buy the insurance. But if you get the insurance and you demonstrate you are taking the medications and your blood work is good. When you have car insurance nowadays, if you have a Tesla, the safer you drive, the lower your insurance premiums are.

Jordan Harbinger (59:56)

I did not know that.

Dr. Mike Israetel (59:56)

Because they're like, why the fuck would we charge you a lot of money if you're not going to cost us any money? We're going to save you money, so you stay with us and keep putting money into the bank. That same thing can happen with drugs interventions where at some point you absolutely will be able to buy insurance. Having taken zero drugs, you're like, why is this insurance? $500 a month? Because they know you're going to die, you dumb motherfucker. And they're going to have to spend a fucking hundred thousand dollars per treating diabetes and cancer and heart disease, which no one else gets anymore is you insist on taking no drugs. You have to pay the cost to be the boss. You have to pay your way, one way or another. And insurance companies, if they see drugs that really are beneficial for long term, they desperately want to help you pay for them so that you save yourself and then yourself a fuckload of problems and yourself and them a lot of money down the line.

Jordan Harbinger (60:35)

Yeah, that'll be interesting. A free market approach would actually. I'm sure there's downsides that people will email in about, but that would be so interesting to see because you're right. Then they would finally have an interest in keeping you healthy.

Dr. Mike Israetel (60:47)

They do have an interest in keeping you healthy. They already have an interest in keeping you healthy. It's just really hard to keep people healthy. People say, well, preventative medicine is good. Like, all right, you got any good ideas? Or eating healthy. Like, how the hell is an insurance company going to make you eat healthy?

Jordan Harbinger (61:00)

Yeah, they can't.

Dr. Mike Israetel (61:00)

And they also know you're probably not going to do it. She's like, fuck that. Like, all right, what about, like, working out? How the hell are they going to make you work out? How are they going to enforce that? It's already true that for many insurance companies, like, if you have insurance through work, the insurance company will pay for a gym in your office so that you go work out. But they also know that most people won't use it.

Jordan Harbinger (61:19)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (61:19)

So you're like, oh, I save $10 a month if I work out. Like, yeah. It's because most people don't do it. And most people lie about working out. They have no way to verify that you're doing that. But if you taking medications and your blood work is good, insurance companies absolutely will save you a shitload of money.

Jordan Harbinger (61:31)

Yeah. Because they could verify. Well, what does his blood work say? It says he's taking the drugs. All right, then. Well, or he's working out like crazy and he has the same benefits of taking the drugs.

Dr. Mike Israetel (61:39)

Yeah. If you continue to demonstrate really good health, the insurance companies have every reason to charge you very low money. There's actually, in Michigan, there's a policy called My YoungBlue, which is for people under the age of 26. And it's like a full spectrum health insurance. It costs very little money. Why? Because people under 26 typically don't get into really expensive health shit because their bodies aren't falling apart yet. Yeah. If you're taking drugs that make you as likely to get into health Trouble at age 45 as you were at age 25, everyone's health insurance goes down.

Jordan Harbinger (62:06)

That's fascinating. And this is all just a few years away. I mean, AI just. It's crazy. You have ChatGPT 5. It's so much better than 4. It's insane.

Dr. Mike Israetel (62:13)

Yes, it is a wisdom generator.

Jordan Harbinger (62:15)

It is. It's crazy to me. And yet everyone's like, oh, the energy cost and oh, it has like false negatives or whatever because people don't. You know, I got, yeah, I got so much pushback because I said, put all the supplements and all the medications you're taking into chat GPT5 and ask it if there's any interactions or if you're taking it at the right time of day or if you should change something. Because I did that with all my supplements, all my medications for me and my mom. And it was like, hey, your mom's not taking these two drugs together, is she? And I was like, mom, are you taking these two drugs together? And she's like, I don't know, I just take a handful of these drugs. And it's like, ask your doctor if you can take these two together. And the doctor was like, no, you can't. And my dad was like, you could have told us that. And he's like, oh, I must have. And it's like, well, it's not written on any of the things. Oops, you negligent a hole. And for me it was like, oh, you're taking fiber with this. Are you drinking milk or fat with this? Because you need this. It's fat soluble. And I was like, nah, I'm fasted when I do that. And it's like, oh, well, you're probably absorbing like 30% of this instead of all of it because it's fat soluble. And I was like, crap. So I had to change up what I drank in the morning and people were like, well, ChatGPT can give you a false negative and say that something is safe when it's really not. And it's like, but before, you were literally not checking this at all.

Dr. Mike Israetel (63:21)

Yes.

Jordan Harbinger (63:22)

So what the hell.

Dr. Mike Israetel (63:24)

Yeah, it's not perfect, but it reduces your risk substantially and it enhances your benefits substantially. Also, there are ways to reduce your risk way, way more. Here's what you do. You parse your medication situation with ChatGPT. Tell it your medications are taking. Tell it your supplements are taking. Ask for a recommendation of how to modify. It'll give you one. The next prompt you enter because it has a huge context window, it remembers everything you talked about in the whole thread. You go, hey, I'm skeptical. Can you red team? Red team is like a. Basically like looking at something from the most critical perspective you can. Can you red Team your own analysis to find holes in it. It'll do that. You do it once you go, can you red team that analysis to find even more holes? It'll do that at some point. Five red teams later, it'll be like, this is all pretty solid. Now you have the most powerful thing ever created, the most intelligent machine ever made, the most intelligent entity ever made. 5x checking its fucking logic for you at the end of that, which is like literally five prompts. I mean, it's 10 minutes of your time at the end of that process. You don't have to wor hallucination that much because holy crap, the thing checked itself a ton. And every time it checks itself, it runs new logic loops, so it's fresh every time. By the way, this thing is inherently unbiased in a way that humans absolutely are not. Right? And GPT5 erases the best doctors on overall medical knowledge and diagnostic criteria. It's not even close. It's just smarter than your doctor. It just is. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That sounds rude. It's smarter than me, it's smarter than everybody else. And so does it make mistakes? Fuck, yeah. Is it good to keep a human in the loop? Absolutely. Should you ever take anything ChatGPT tells you that you can parse through your doctor? Absolutely not. But is it a great way to catch what your doctor might be missing and come back to them? God, yes. Why wouldn't you want excellent advice from an expert?

Jordan Harbinger (65:03)

I know, I just. I thought it was comical that they were like, it's going to give you a false negative and it's really bad. And all these doctor organizations or pharmaceutical organizations recommend not using it. And I was like, oh, the people that recommended the drugs to you that it says you shouldn't take together because it might kill you? Those people say you shouldn't be using ChatGPT to check their their work and that you should just rely on them. I'm gonna get a second opinion from a machine and maybe another human because that person almost killed my mom. Thank you, though, for the recommendation to not use this because it might find a mistake that you made.

Dr. Mike Israetel (65:32)

Dude, here's another thing. These machines have done a lot more research than your doctor. I'll tell you how. How many medical textbooks has your doctor read cover to cover and remembered with almost 100% fidelity? One, maybe. How many has it read? I mean, every publicly available medical textbook? At the same time, there's no human doctor that's ever done that. The other thing is, like, how many Variables simultaneously. Can your doctor juggle in his head? The answer is roughly 3 to 7, depending on how smart your doctor is. What about ChatGPT? Like 50 at the same time. That's a qualitatively super intelligent machine. It's insane. It'll spot things. You're like, no one's ever spotted this. And by the way, there's stories all the time of, like, I told ChatGPT what was wrong with my dog and my dog, and it said, like, you need this now. And it saved my dog's life because none of the veterinarians even knew that was a diagnosis because none of them had ever read that weird thing about ticks in suburban Missouri that we have a species of tick, but here's another one really quick. How many case reports of various medical conditions being resolved and misdiagnosed undiagnosed has a doctor read? I mean, a bunch dozens in medical school and their history. How many is ChatGPT read in its training arc? Oh, my God, literally millions. Like, it knows so, so deeply what we barely know at all, that at least needs to be our teammate in figuring out how the world works. I'm not saying just give your whole life away to this thing. That's crazy. If you ask ChatGPT, it'd be like, the last thing you want to do is trust me 100%. But do you want a super, super wise advisor in your ear when you make shit like happen in your life, or do you not want a super wise advisor? No one said perfect advisor. You know, can you imagine being like, all right, I'm going to play, like, the shoot em up game. Do I want a Navy SEAL to tell me how real combat works so I don't get killed in this game? Or do I want to just shut them out completely? Like, well, because the Navy SEALs not perfect, right? The Navy seals have had missions go wrong. They've lost guys. Okay, but is it better than nothing? Like, well, of course it's better than nothing. That's that whole, like, oh, don't trust ChatGPT because it makes mistakes. If your standard of reference is perfection, you'll never use anything ever again because there are no perfect systems. If your standard of reference is better than what we have now, oh, my God. AI is an immense tool that you should be using if you're a logical person.

Jordan Harbinger (67:38)

It just reminds me of when people said, we don't want to get rid of elevator operators because what if something goes wrong in the elevator? And it's like, oh, you got a call button in there, and then people can come get you out, and there's a box downstairs, you can shut it off and they can open the doors and it's like, nah, I want a guy in there with me. I don't feel like this is safe. Nobody would argue that in 2025, if you have an elevator operator, it's like a tourist attraction. Because it's so weird, right?

Dr. Mike Israetel (68:01)

Yes.

Jordan Harbinger (68:02)

But when they got rid of elev operators for computerized elevators, people lost their fucking minds. They lost their minds. They couldn't believe that you would do that.

Dr. Mike Israetel (68:12)

You would let me into an elevator all by myself to operate this machine that could kill me by snapping off the cable.

Jordan Harbinger (68:17)

Unbelievable. There was a point over a period of years. My friend did a whole podcast about this. There was a period of years where they had elevator operators just pushing the buttons in an automatic elevator because people were, like, scared to use the computer. Yeah, that was it.

Dr. Mike Israetel (68:31)

100%. Which in retrospect is absurd.

Jordan Harbinger (68:34)

It is.

Dr. Mike Israetel (68:34)

And we have to have transitional phases like this. But let me put you onto some shit now that you started this conversation. Right now, it's mostly your doctor, and a little bit, with the help of AI, in a few years, your doctor is going to be going to AI for almost everything. They're going to be a team. A few years later, something else is going to happen. Because remember, AI is exponentially improving its intelligence. Humans improve their intelligence at a very low linear rate as society gets better about nutrition and education. And if you already have good education, good nutrition, your intelligence just follows this normal curve during life, and it doesn't really change much. AI is multiplying by 10 and its intelligence every, like, I don't know, six months or some stupid right now, like some totally absurd. So by the late 2000s, you'll have a thing that's already been seen in some of the literature. There are some studies now that, for example, in diagnostic imaging, you show AI a bunch of images of medical. And you're like, what's wrong? And you show a human doctor what's wrong. Now, the AI has been beating human doctors at medical imaging for, like, years now. But what's been happening is AI plus human team has been beating everything until recently. A few studies came out recently that shows the AI actually beats an AI plus human. Why? Because the human will say, nah, I don't think you're right here. And the human's a lot dumber than the AI now, and he'll just get it wrong more often. Like, imagine that in order to do Your job, your co podcaster was someone with an IQ of 65, like, could not graduate high school level of intelligence. And he just generally agreed with you. But you're like, hey, if a gain on my mic is off, he's like, no, it's fine. You're like, but it's not. He's like, no, I get the final decision. It's fine. You're like, this guy's made a fucking mistake. Why the hell am I listening to this person? I'm so much smarter than them. I'm right, this person is wrong. That's where AI is headed. And we don't need to somehow religiously worship AI and be like, oh my God. Like, you have to believe everything it says. But I'll tell you this, Jordan, this is how I think about it. If an AI system is roughly as smart as a human doctor, I want it in the room. I want it part of the conversation. If an AI system is 10 times smarter than a human doctor, I want the doctor to have to sign off on life and death things and be fucking uninvolved. Otherwise. If an AI system is a hundred times smarter than a human doctor, I don't want any biasing by a human doctor. I want only what the fucking AI says. If an AI is 1000 times smarter than a human doctor, I have no idea why we'd ever consult a human like you would maybe consult your dog for if you need a surgery tomorrow. That same level of intelligence difference, the exponential growth of intelligence through artificial systems is something that's going to change society more in the next five or 10 years than anything ever has by factors of 10 and factors of 10 and factors of 10. And that's going to lead to wacky stuff. Currently we're asking the question of do we trust these systems? And the answer is incrementally more. Oh yeah, actually they're really good. In a few years, the question will be like, we need to be pulling humans out of a lot of shit because we don't need them around. Here's an example right now, my wife and I just got a Tesla, first time ever, and we have full self driving.

Jordan Harbinger (71:19)

Oh, it's so fun, right?

Dr. Mike Israetel (71:20)

Right, bro, it's categorically more safe than you for two reasons. One, statistically it's been demonstrated to be more safe, and two, it's just better at navigating the world. For example, the Tesla pulled up to a T intersection with my wife and I were in the car pulled up to a T intersection. So it pulled up and there's like cars this way, cars that way. Right. Going both ways. How do humans parse that? They look this way, they look that way. And when they look one way or the other, they update their mental model to be like, no cars here for a few seconds. No cars here right now. That means I turn. And everything they remember about what's happening on that side when they're not looking is mental modeling. And a car could have turned or accelerated. And that's not in your mental model. You're not literally aware of it because you have binocular vision that has one focal point, very small focal point, I might add. Guess what? Tesla's camera system sees everything. It's a 360 degree view of perfect awareness. 100% of the time. It sees it all. And so you can't beat it at driving. It's just not going to happen. There are edge cases it can't do. Those are falling exponentially. And so here, let me ask you a question. In five years, with the acceleration of AI self driving systems, why the fuck would you let humans drive a car? They're death machines.

Jordan Harbinger (72:27)

From your lips to God's ears, man. I have been saying for years self driving cars because look how many people die from car accidents.

Dr. Mike Israetel (72:34)

50,000 people a year.

Jordan Harbinger (72:36)

And it's insane. And you look at insurance rates and it's like people doing risky stuff all the time and in X number of years. And I've said this before so many times and it always pisses everyone off.

Dr. Mike Israetel (72:45)

It does.

Jordan Harbinger (72:46)

The people who are like those libertarian, like hardcore libertarians who are like, I should be able to have a bazooka and a tank in my backyard. And you're like, okay bro, whatever, go back to bed, grandpa. Those people, the 2045 version of them, are going to be the people that are like, I can drive better than any goddarn machine. And you're like, no, you can't. You also used to say you drove better drunk than sober. And we know that's not right because you have three DUIs and you just got out of prison.

Dr. Mike Israetel (73:10)

I love that. I've literally been told that by people. I had a guy tell me that he drove better drunk because when he was sober he took things for granted. But when he was drunk he was extra focused.

Jordan Harbinger (73:20)

Yeah, like I'm actually careful when I'm drunk.

Dr. Mike Israetel (73:22)

Sure.

Jordan Harbinger (73:22)

Your reaction time is 30 seconds lower than. Yeah, just delusional. And it's like, oh my God, you're driving. You're just walking around the world with that level of cognitive bias. All the time.

Dr. Mike Israetel (73:33)

All the time.

Jordan Harbinger (73:33)

Please don't ever drive anywhere near me.

Dr. Mike Israetel (73:35)

Don't vote. Please don't vote.

Jordan Harbinger (73:37)

Yeah, don't vote.

Dr. Mike Israetel (73:38)

Exactly. Yeah. I guess my best way to kind of summarize the gist of what I'm kind of trying to get across and you and I are sort of vibing on is this. Don't just assume science and tech are amazing and there's all the answers. Never fucking do that. That's stupid as shit. You're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. But when we have tools like advanced drugs in the future, gene editing, self driving, AI assisted doctor stuff, ask yourself like, am I better using these tools a little bit than not? And the answer is typically yes. But don't just carte blanche, trust them. Have a human in the loop as these tools become better and better and better. Just continue to be open minded and go, hey, like, I think like more and more these things are really awesome to use. And then eventually you're just using all the good stuff that you're supposed to be and giving yourself all the best advantages. I mean, imagine someone in the 1980s. Shit. Imagine someone today having like an opportunity to use immune mediated cancer drugs. And someone's like, okay, so I have cancer, like, right? No other treatment is working. Right. There's this new immune centered therapy that has 90% hit rate for this kind of cancer. I probably live. Okay. How many years has it been tested on human? None. It's two months in. You're one of the first people to use it.

Jordan Harbinger (74:42)

Why?

Dr. Mike Israetel (74:43)

I don't want to take the risk. What risk, motherfucker? You're going to die of cancer. Like, right, okay, let me try it. And so 10 years later, when the doctor says this is a standard of care, that's because it was new at one point and risky. Everything that you do today, status quo bias used to be risky and new, but you do it all the time, dude. Jordan, can you think about why people get into cars at all? Imagine going back to the year 1900 and telling someone like, yeah, it's like a housewife, like a suburban housewife is going to be able to get behind the wheel of a machine in the year 2005 that has the equivalent. Because it's really difficult to explain how this works, but we took 200 horses and we condensed them into this machine that's the size of like, kind of like a person. We put it inside of a chariot and then you just have this wheel that you operate it with and you tell the horses where to go, and they pull you anywhere you want to go. And somebody. So what if the horses run really fast? Like, oh, dude, they can go like, 100 miles an hour. Like, when they get you killed, like, oh, yeah, I can get you killed. Okay, so what's going on? Like, oh, yeah. In the 1920s, it's going to be legal for everyone to have one of these. They'd be like, what the fuck? Why would you ever do that? And, of course, they miss the benefits of driving completely. And they miss the idea that a statistical risk driving is actually really, really, really, really safe. And it's highly unlikely. It's also a lot of it's in your hands. You don't have to go 100 miles an hour. You can go 20 miles an hour and just get to the store on time. So every time new shit comes up, people get this reflex of like, oh, new stuff's bad. Everything was new at one point, and a lot of it ended up being good. So don't carelessly run into shit and just start using it. Be mindful, be conservative. But if something seems like it's doing really well, it's got research behind it. The actual data means that it's doing really good stuff. Hey, man, give it a shot. You don't want to be the last guy with a fucking smartphone. You could be, but not for health, right? You know, like, smartphone or not, you're still good. That if they're. You know, if you get a cancer diagnosis when you're 55 and it turns out that you could have never had the cancer had you taken the drugs that are already available five years ago, you're gonna feel real fucking stupid about it.

Jordan Harbinger (76:34)

Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a Steve Jobs situation, right? Hey, we can treat this. No, I'm just gonna eat fruit. Oh, well, that didn't work out too well, did it?

Dr. Mike Israetel (76:41)

It's fucked up.

Jordan Harbinger (76:42)

Yeah, it's super sad. And I'm not trying to make light of that. I mean, it's a real.

Dr. Mike Israetel (76:45)

No, no, no. It's.

Jordan Harbinger (76:46)

It's a real and sad example of somebody who, like, overthought this and is dead now because of it.

Dr. Mike Israetel (76:51)

Yep.

Jordan Harbinger (76:51)

I know we're running out of time. I'm curious if you can solve this mystery I've had for my whole life in the next five minutes, but explain what is happening when I diet and I plateau and then I'm like. I'm frustrated, and then I go on vacation and I stop working out, and I eat whatever the hell I want, and then I come back, and I'm like, I have lost fat and look better in the mirror. It's been 10 days. What is happening? Why is that happening?

Dr. Mike Israetel (77:16)

The number one explanation is that as you diet and you diet extremely and for long periods of time, your level of stress hormones goes up substantially. Cortisol, for example, skyrockets. And stress hormones have a tendency to keep your body water high. And so you're bloated all the time. And body water is real difficult to tell apart from fat. It typically goes to the same areas as your fat stores. So for weeks and weeks and weeks, it could look like you're losing no weight on the scale. But because you have a calorie deficit and you're training really hard, you're actually losing fat all the time. The fat looks like it's not going anywhere because it's really just being replaced with water. And you still look jiggly and like, shit. Really demotivating. Fuck it. You go on vacation, you eat normally, you get a lot of rest, you eat lots of food, your stress hormone levels drop precipitously. During the time that you're on vacation, you gain 2 pounds of fat, but during the time that you had your Diet, you lost 12 pounds of fat, but it looked like you lost six pounds of fat because it was like the last six of them were completely blurred out by the body water problem. And so if you gain 2 pounds of fat on your vacation, but you completely delete out all your extra body water, then it looks like you are four pounds down in fat from when you started your vacation, which is why you look way leaner and you feel amazing because you're not super tired and stressed out anymore. That's why that's a thing. Fatigue management, the ability to reduce your diet fatigue intelligently, every now and again, take a week of much more food. Eating to reduce body water can be amazing for physical results and also emotionally amazing because you don't have to get demotivated all the time looking like and grinding through at the end of the diet, that's a big deal.

Jordan Harbinger (78:46)

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. The stress hormone thing makes a lot of sense. I'd be in college, I'd be at Michigan, right? And I would be like, eating in the dining hall. And I'd be working out every day, sometimes twice. And I'd go home and my mom would be like, I bought Cheetos. And I'm like, great. I'm eat a bag of those every day, sometimes two. Not move from this couch at all for seven entire days. And Then I'm like, oh, man, this is gonna be bad. And I get back on the scale at the ccrb and I'm like, how did I lose three pounds? What is happening? I'm tightening my belt.

Dr. Mike Israetel (79:15)

Yep, body water reduction. Huge deal, man. Huge deal. Now, that doesn't mean you need to go eat Cheetos. After a diet, you can just return to mostly healthy eating with a few snacks, keep lifting weights.

Jordan Harbinger (79:24)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (79:25)

And then after about a week, you won't lose four pounds, you lose six or seven pounds of body water, and you won't gain any body fat. That's the real unlock. And we've been preaching those kinds of maintenance phase and fatigue reduction phases at RP for like, literally 10 years at this point. It's really, really sharp. I think a lot of people just try to, like, gung ho everything they can. Like, yeah, I'm on a tough diet. Let's make it even tougher and really needlessly difficult. And then they end up looking a little bit like shit. They get off the diet, then they get much better results and they think, oh, man, it's something mysterious here. And this mystery resolved. So going forward, it's a good idea that when you're really, really stressed out and you've been dieting for weeks and weeks and weeks, it's a good idea to reduce the caloric deficit. Eliminate it. Actually mostly healthy foods, but eat at a maintenance level. Over the next several days, you'll see your body water drop, your energy levels will come back up, your sleep will get better. That's another thing that's a big deal. Sleep changes body water a ton, but it also literally, like, keeps your muscle mass up and burns fat like crazy. If you get worse and worse sleep as you go through a diet, because as soon as you get into a caloric deficit for long enough, your sleep goes to hell, which means you start losing muscle and you stop losing your fat. If you fix your sleep with a good diet, you reverse that process and you're like, oh, my God, I'm fucking rejuvenated. Because you are pushing, your body is really good until you push it so far that it starts to malfunction. Push it that far, stop, get out of the deficit, treat yourself right, then get back into it later. To lose more fat, things have to happen in sequence. I mean, the same thing is true about almost every other process. Imagine you had a big project for, work you had to do. If you're awake for four to six hours, you can do amazing work. Take two hours of break do another four, six hours of work, have dinner, go to sleep, wake up. That's a great work schedule. Dude, if you were like, fuck, I had to keep going. 36 hours of work later, straight with no sleep and no rest. Dude, you're fucking making nonsense instead of like discoveries or whatever that you do at work.

Jordan Harbinger (81:08)

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Israetel (81:08)

And then it's just really bad. And then after a day off, tons of sleep and tons of food, you're going to come back and you're like, oh my God, I have like a miraculous mind. I figured out eight problems in an hour that I had at work. That's because you were pushing the system too hard. There is understandable and good element in our culture of like, valor. Like, I'm going to fucking succeed. I don't give a fuck how hard it is. The grind. And the grind is cool until the grind grinds you down. Remember, you need your body to be in tip top performance and tip top shape. So push it recede, push it recede, push it recede. Instead of push, push, push, push. Three giant question marks about what the hell is going on? Completely get off the diet for months and never see any of those results to begin with.

Jordan Harbinger (81:46)

Mike Israel, thank you so much, man. Always super fascinating, interesting, varied conversation. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Mike Israetel (81:52)

I love being on your show. Thank you so much for having me.

Jordan Harbinger (81:57)

Want to master the art of communication? Charles Duhigg, author of Super Communicators reveals key strategies for enhancing your connections and conversations in this enlightening podcast episode.

Dr. Mike Israetel (82:06)

Why do some people manage to connect with everyone else so effortlessly? And then there's times when I talk to my wife and like, we cannot connect with each other. And it turns out it's just a.

Jordan Harbinger (82:16)

Set of skills, right?

Dr. Mike Israetel (82:17)

Like, it's just literally a set of skills that super Communicators know and that any of us can learn and become super communicators ourselves. Looping for understanding and has three steps. The first is ask a question, preferably a deep question. Secondly, repeat back what you just heard the person say in your own words. And thirdly, and this is the one everyone always forgets, ask if you got it right. The reason why this is so powerful is because it proves that I'm listening to you. It's really easy to stop thinking about how, how we're communicating. It's really easy to stop thinking about what's going on until we get in the habit of it. Communication isn't something that happens just one to one. Sometimes it's one to many. But the same principles still hold up you're still having practical or emotional or social conversations. Laughter is actually one of the non linguistic ways that we connect with other people. There's been studies that show that in about 80% of the time when we laugh, it is not in response to something funny. It's because we're basically in a conversation and we're saying to someone, I want to connect with you. Nobody is born a super communicator. That's what feels tiring, is when you feel like you want to connect and you can't, right? This isn't a behavior, this isn't a personality type. This is a tool that once we learn, we can use when we want to use it.

Jordan Harbinger (83:35)

Learn how to categorize conversations, improve active listening, and overcome communication barriers to build stronger relationships. Tune in and transform your interactions into meaningful connections on episode 963 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Dr. Mike Second round, third episode, maybe, I don't know. Certainly not the last one. The guy's super fun to talk to. All things Dr. Mike will be in the show. Notes@jordanharbinger.com, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show all@jordanharbinger.com deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also our newsletter, we Bit Wiser. The idea behind it is to give you something specific and practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships. In under two minutes, just about every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in health, fitness, steroids, GLP1 drugs, whatever it might be, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.