引言与问答环节预告
问题一：甘氨酸与胶原蛋白的益处
第一个问题，只补充高剂量的甘氨酸能获得胶原蛋白的益处吗？如果不能，为什么？
说到胶原蛋白，其最大的好处是帮助延缓皮肤衰老和减少皱纹的产生。甘氨酸是胶原蛋白中含量最丰富的氨基酸，占胶原蛋白的30%，并且甘氨酸有助于胶原蛋白的更新。
目前没有直接证据表明，补充甘氨酸能像胶原蛋白肽那样逆转皮肤衰老，但摄入足量的甘氨酸有助于胶原蛋白的更新，从而对皮肤抗衰老产生有益影响。
为了达到最佳的胶原蛋白更新效果，需要大约12克的甘氨酸，某些情况下甚至需要更多。我们不完全清楚甘氨酸的最佳摄入量，但可以肯定的是，为了胶原蛋白的更新，需要大量的甘氨酸，大约10到12克。
那么，能只服用甘氨酸而忽略胶原蛋白吗？答案是不能。因为胶原蛋白肽在促进胶原蛋白合成和皮肤抗衰老方面具有独特的益处，这是单纯补充甘氨酸无法获得的。2020年的一篇关于胶原蛋白补充对皮肤健康机制的系统性综述，指出了三种对皮肤抗衰老有益的作用机制。
这三种机制分别是：胶原蛋白肽对成纤维细胞（一种皮肤细胞）的直接影响；对M2样巨噬细胞（与免疫系统相关）的作用，即胶原蛋白肽通过调节免疫系统来帮助皮肤抗衰老；以及直接提供胶原蛋白合成所需的原材料和前体。
具体来说，胶原蛋白肽通过调节免疫系统和炎症，来改善皮肤健康和促进胶原蛋白合成。同时，源自胶原蛋白的片段还能抑制针对内源性胶原蛋白的自身免疫反应，这也有助于改善皮肤健康。
总的来说，胶原蛋白肽和甘氨酸在皮肤抗衰老方面具有不同的作用机制。甘氨酸更多地是促进胶原蛋白的更新和回收，维持足够的胶原蛋白周转率。而胶原蛋白肽更像是直接的前体，被分解成更小的氨基酸链，以不同的方式调节免疫系统和自身免疫反应，提供包括甘氨酸在内的原材料。
因此，它们的效果略有不同。为了达到最佳效果，既需要摄入胶原蛋白肽，也需要补充一些甘氨酸。补充甘氨酸还有其他原因，例如促进谷胱甘肽的合成、平衡甘氨酸与蛋氨酸的比例、帮助减少内脏脂肪、改善血糖反应、防止晚期糖基化终末产物的形成等。所以，无论如何，都应该摄入甘氨酸。但胶原蛋白肽也有其独特的益处，并且关于胶原蛋白肽本身的临床试验远多于甘氨酸。
在皮肤抗衰和减少皱纹方面，胶原蛋白肽比普通的胶原蛋白粉、其他蛋白质粉或单独的甘氨酸有更多的临床试验证据支持。所以理想情况下，应该两者都摄入。
问题二：血糖水平与炎症的关系
血糖水平和炎症之间有关系吗？
是的，高血糖或血糖水平升高会在体内引起炎症反应。还会对其他器官造成大量损害。
高血糖会引起糖化反应，从而损害器官功能，对皮肤抗衰产生不利影响。因此，高血糖绝对不是一件健康的事情。在流行病学研究中，可能也会发现血糖水平升高与炎症增加之间存在关联。
这可能有多种原因。血糖水平高的人往往生活方式更不健康，饮食更差，吃更多加工食品，更久坐，睡眠可能也不足等等。
他们通常代谢健康状况不佳，存在胰岛素抵抗和高血糖，这种代谢印记也与炎症水平的增加相关。即使在机理研究中，高血糖也会触发炎症反应。因此，糖尿病患者由于长期血糖水平升高，其炎症水平也高得多。
但这并不意味着需要将血糖水平完全压低。可以摄入大量的碳水，甚至数百克的碳水，同时仍然维持最佳的、正常的、甚至偏低的血糖水平和低炎症水平。以我个人为例，我的代谢健康状况非常好，HOMA-IR指数极低，空腹胰岛素和空腹血糖也非常低，而我的C反应蛋白（CRP）和其他炎症标志物也极低，接近于零。所以，这并不意味着只要一吃东西或摄入更多碳水就会本身引起炎症。
需要更全面地看待问题，要看整个代谢印记，即个人的代谢特征是什么。因为每个人的内脏脂肪量、胰岛素敏感性、能量需求、代谢率、糖原储存量都不同。所以，问题不在于某个单一因素，而在于“血液指标到底说明了什么？”
如果血糖高，有办法解决它。如果炎症水平高，也有办法解决它。最重要的因素是保持积极运动的生活方式和减轻体重，主要是减少体脂。
问题三：睡前吃奇异果
你真的每晚睡前都吃两个奇异果吗？
通常我每晚只吃一个奇异果。有些晚上我会吃第二个，但总的来说我只吃一个。我喜欢它的味道，是个不错的晚间零食。
有研究表明，奇异果确实有助于睡眠。有研究发现，睡前几小时吃两个奇异果有助于提高睡眠质量。其机制可能与血清素有关，血清素进而有助于褪黑素的产生。
必须吃奇异果吗？可能不必。或许可以从其他类型的水果中获得类似的效果，比如橙子、各种浆果、蓝莓，甚至一些健康的碳水化合物。它们都可能有类似的效果。但我个人喜欢奇异果。并且，通常在晚上吃奇异果是个不错的方式。
问题四：饮酒问题
完全不喝酒还是偶尔喝一两杯？
就我个人而言，我不喝任何酒。过去十年我都没有喝酒。原因与健康无关，我只是不那么喜欢。我更喜欢保持清醒。我也觉得我没有任何理由需要喝酒。在这十年里，我可能只喝过一两次酒。
比如在我的婚礼上，我喝了一杯葡萄酒等。所以我不是百分之百反对喝酒，我只是自己不想喝，也从未遇到过我想喝酒或最终喝了酒的情况。所以，我没有饮酒的计划。
关于酒精对健康影响的研究，结果有些复杂。当然，有一些非常著名的研究声称，每天喝一两杯葡萄酒实际上对健康更好，与较低的糖尿病率、较低的心脏病率、更长的寿命等相关。但这通常是由于其他变量的影响，比如社会经济地位、教育水平和健康状况。
那些完全戒酒的人，通常是出于某些与健康相关的原因。当然，也有像我这样只是不喝酒的人，但我们是极少数，可能不到人口的1%。我们不喝酒，也没有任何健康问题。但大多数不喝酒的人，要么是因为他们以前是酒鬼，要么是因为他们有某些代谢健康问题或肝脏问题，从医学角度讲，这些问题使他们不能喝酒。
所以，很难说完全不喝酒是否比每天喝一两杯更差。我认为情况并非如此。酒精仍然是有毒的，尤其是在大量摄入时。当然，存在“毒物兴奋效应 (hormesis)”的原则，即少量毒素可能对健康有益，这是真的。我确实认为，如果每晚喝一杯酒，可能对健康没有长期的负面影响。
前提是其他生活习惯都很好。酒精会提高肝酶和甘油三酯水平，还可能促进内脏脂肪和肝脏脂肪的积累。所以，如果是一个甘油三酯高、肝酶高、内脏脂肪较多的人，那么减少或戒掉酒精是改善这些指标最有效的方法之一。
当然，也可以非常健康，肝酶、甘油三酯、内脏脂肪都处于最佳水平，同时仍然喝一些酒，但这种情况相对少见。我认识很多健康的人，他们每周喝几杯酒，但他们的甘油三酯和内脏脂肪水平确实比我个人认为舒适的水平要略高一些。但这终究是每个人的决定。也许偶尔喝一两杯酒对你的心理健康或社交有益。
但可以肯定的是，没有必须饮酒的健康需求。我个人认为，尽可能接近零酒精摄入是最佳的。在我看来，每周最多可以喝一到两杯。
问题五：肌酸、甘氨酸与肾脏大小
，服用肌酸和甘氨酸会使肾脏增大吗？
不，绝对不会。服用肌酸不会增加肾脏大小，同样，甘氨酸也不会对肾脏大小产生任何影响。真正的问题是，如果有肾脏疾病或随着年龄增长，肾脏实际上会缩小。所以，不存在肾脏会像心脏或肝脏那样增大的问题。
肾脏会随着肾脏健康状况的下降而缩小。到了肾病五期，肾脏会萎缩得相当厉害。
同样的情况也适用于衰老。肾脏缩小会导致其功能下降，无法有效地过滤血液，最终可能导致严重的健康并发症，甚至可能因此死亡。所以，不存在肌酸会增加肾脏大小的问题，也没有任何联系表明肌酸会使肾脏缩小，即它不会在健康人身上引起肾脏损伤或肾病。
但如果已经存在肾脏疾病或肾损伤，那么不建议服用肌酸。这条不适用于甘氨酸，即使肾脏健康状况不佳，仍然可以服用甘氨酸。
问题六：每天蒸桑拿是否过度
每天蒸桑拿会过度吗？
通常不会。如果你愿意，你可以每天都蒸桑拿。研究表明，每周使用桑拿四次或更多，与心脏病死亡率、全因死亡率、痴呆症、阿尔茨海默病、高血压的显著降低以及免疫力的提升相关。
所以，如果你愿意，几乎可以每天都蒸桑拿。唯一潜在的问题可能是，如果出汗很多，会导致电解质和矿物质的流失。
如果你还结合了运动，那么你可能会出现相当严重的钠和其他矿物质缺乏。所以，如果你每天都蒸桑拿，你可能需要更关注补水和电解质，比如喝一些电解质水，补充镁。铬实际上是汗液中经常流失最多的矿物质之一。
相对而言是这样。所以，如果出汗很多，并且饮食中没有摄入大量铬，可能也需要补铬。但除此之外，如果你每天在适度的温度下蒸桑拿，不会有严重的健康并发症。70摄氏度是最佳温度。
没有必要使用比这更高的温度。实际上有研究表明，80摄氏度的桑拿与痴呆症风险轻微升高10年有关。这可能是因为过热。
所以，如果温度超高，长期来看可能会有非常微小的痴呆症风险增加。比如在我看到的一项研究中，风险增加了1%到2%。所以这不是一个严重的健康问题，但你肯定不希望大脑和身体一直处于高温过热的状态。但适度的热暴露，比如70摄氏度，是非常有益的，有助于排出许多不同的毒素。
研究表明，桑拿有助于排出微塑料、污染物和重金属。所以我喜欢把它作为一种日常的排泄方法。你应该每天都出汗，无论是通过运动还是桑拿，但每周不需要超过四次。
对于男性来说，另一个问题是精子健康。睾丸周围过热会显著降低精子的产生和数量。
但这更多地适用于直接加热，而不是高温环境。所以最糟糕的是温水浴、泡泡浴、按摩浴缸，甚至普通的浴缸热水澡。
如果每天都让睾丸直接接触过热的水几分钟，精子数量会锐减。这对男性来说不是一件健康的事。但对于普通的桑拿，除非温度非常高，否则对精子数量的影响不大。也可以通过冷却睾丸来缓解这种影响，比如使用冰袋或冷却垫。
问题七：如何平衡理想健康习惯与现实生活
在你的近乎完美的健康习惯和普通人的现实生活之间，中庸之道是什么？
首先，我不认为我有什么极其严苛或神经质的健康习惯。当然，我几乎每天都锻炼，每天都做一些特定的事情来保持健康。但对我个人主观来说，这并不困难，也不需要纪律或精神努力。
我平均每天锻炼约45分钟。我的力量训练是45分钟。二区有氧运动可能是60分钟，而高强度间歇训练（HIIT）每周只做一次，每次30分钟。所以平均下来，我每天的锻炼时间是45分钟。
普通人需要每天锻炼吗？可能不需要，但应该每周至少锻炼三到四次。混合有氧和力量训练，每周至少两次力量训练，理想情况下是三次。每周至少一次二区有氧或一次高强度间歇训练。
在我看来，任何人都能做到。每个人每天至少有45分钟的时间可以花在健康上，而就改善健康而言，锻炼是性价比最高的。如果每天只有45分钟，那么这些时间应该花在锻炼上。
至少30分钟应该用于锻炼，剩下的15分钟可以用来做其他事情，比如放松、拉伸、散步或陪伴家人等。
在饮食方面，我也没有非常神经质或严格的饮食。实际上，我对自己的饮食摄入没有任何真正的限制。当然，我不会经常吃垃圾食品和超加工食品。
但我确实会吃一些谷物、水果、浆果、豆类、豆子、肉、鱼、乳制品，但不吃种子。所以我几乎摄入了所有不同的食物类别，除了人造黄油和反式脂肪这类东西。
我不认为存在任何适用于所有人的完美饮食。可以遵循80%天然完整食物的饮食，仅凭这一点就能获得完美的血液指标和健康。没有必要为了达到完美的健康和血液指标而去追求100%完美的天然完整食物饮食。
这绝对不是必需的。只需要优化到80%的程度。如果试图优化到100%，可能只会获得额外1%的健康益处。但这值得吗？值得投入那么多时间和额外的纪律吗？可能不值得。可以通过80%的天然完整食物饮食获得完美的健康和血液指标了。
最后我想提的一点是步行。步行也非常有益。我每天大约走1万步。最低要求是8700步。与每天只走2000步相比，这与全因死亡风险降低60%相关。实际上，8700步相当于一个半小时的步行。
这包括在房子里走动、去商店、在办公室走动。所以实际上不一定需要刻意去走一个半小时。通过日常通勤和家务可能已经积累了相当多的步数，大概6000步。只需要额外增加2000到3000步的刻意步行，这大概需要花30分钟的时间。
问题八：乳清蛋白是否被高估
乳清蛋白是否被高估了？
就我个人而言，我认为乳清蛋白没有被高估，实际上是被低估了。它是目前世界上生物利用度最高的蛋白质形式。它比真正的食物更具生物利用度，因为它是浓缩的，并与其他成分分离。所以得到的是一种超高生物利用度、为肌肉蛋白质合成而优化的成分。
30克的乳清蛋白会给你提供大约22克的蛋白质和非常高含量的所有必需氨基酸，这将最大限度地促进肌肉蛋白质的合成。而且因为它是一种乳制品，它还可以通过其他方式对免疫系统和代谢健康产生有益影响。
当然，有些人对乳制品和乳清蛋白过敏，不应该食用。但对于其他健康的人来说，如果没有任何肠道问题或过敏问题，那么乳清蛋白可以是一种非常有益的方式，来确保获得每日足够的蛋白质摄入量。
蛋白质粉是必需品吗？绝对不是。可以只吃天然完整的食物。仅仅因为乳清蛋白比牛肉或鸡蛋更具生物利用度，并不意味着必须食用它。营养学领域有一个很奇怪的误区，认为吃的食物需要一直都是超高生物利用度和超高营养密度的。
事实是，可能只需要大约500卡热量的营养密集型食物就能满足每日所有的维生素和矿物质需求。所以所有的热量摄入都不需要来自超高营养密度的食物。
但话虽如此，乳清蛋白因其加工方式，是目前生物利用度最高的蛋白质形式。但这并不意味着必须食用它，只是说，如果对乳制品或乳清蛋白没有过敏反应，它本身并没有什么害处。
问题九：面部塑形与按摩
从美容角度看，“mewing”（一种通过正确舌头姿势改善面部轮廓的方法）、面部塑形或按摩是骗局还是值得尝试？
“Mewing”是指保持正确的舌头姿势，这有助于鼻腔呼吸，据称对下颌发育有好处。
用嘴呼吸的孩子，下颌会歪斜、塌陷、发育不全等，鼻腔也发育不良。所以绝对不希望用嘴呼吸。一天中90%的时间都应该用鼻子呼吸。只有在进行某些运动、说话或非常懒散的情况下才应该用嘴呼吸。
应该刻意去做“mewing”吗？我不确定。对于那些呼吸模式不佳、下颌发育不全的人来说，“mewing”可能是一种治疗选择，可以稍微改善状况。所以它更像是一种面部理疗。
它是否是必需的？像我从没做过“mewing”，但我的下颌线很好，面部结构、骨骼结构也很好，这可能是因为我从小就用鼻子呼吸，童年时期总体上很健康。所以对我来说没必要做“mewing”，但它对某些人可能很有用。
提到的其他方法，面部塑形或面部按摩，实际上有研究表明，面部瑜伽或特定类型的面部按摩确实能改善皮肤皱纹和面部衰老。
脸部皮肤下有很多肌肉。随着年龄的增长，这些肌肉会萎缩、变弱。如果面部肌肉开始下垂，那么上面的皮肤也会随之下垂。应对这种情况的方法显然是通过面部锻炼、不同类型的按摩或面部瑜伽练习来辅助。这些练习可能有助于收紧面部肌肉，我想，还能增强面部肌肉的张力。所以这话有一定道理。而且我确实认为这些练习很有效。
对抗这种情况的一种方法，就是通过面部运动、不同类型的按摩或面部瑜伽来支撑。这些方法可能有助于收紧和调理面部肌肉。所以这是有一定道理的，我认为它们是有效的。实际上有一些研究支持这一点。当然，其他支持方法还包括微针、放射疗法、服用胶原蛋白补剂等，有一些补剂已被证明能改善皮肤衰老。所以它们都可以起到支持作用。一些面部运动可能也是一个净积极的选项。
问题十：每日不可或缺的脂肪来源
你每日不可或缺的脂肪来源是什么？
我没有任何不可或缺的脂肪来源。我想唯一不可或缺的脂肪来源是我的身体脂肪，因为那是生存所必需的。
不需要每天都摄入特定量的脂肪。身体可以在没有膳食脂肪的情况下维持相当长的时间。甚至可以几周不吃任何东西，不摄入脂肪，安然无恙，只是在这个过程中会减掉大量体脂。
身体非常有弹性。身体可以将某些营养物质转化为膳食脂肪或甘油三酯，用作能量。当然，为了达到最佳健康状态，需要像Omega-3这样的东西。
但比方说，如果我某天不摄入特定的膳食脂肪，那也完全没问题。但我确实会努力在一周的时间里，从橄榄油、牛油果等食物中获取Omega-3和单不饱和脂肪。我不是大量膳食饱和脂肪的消费者。我的大部分脂肪来自Omega-3。
牛油果、坚果种子、橄榄油。我认为这些是我最大的脂肪来源。乳制品也有一些饱和脂肪。所以我的大部分脂肪来自这些来源。我只优先考虑Omega-3，基本就是这样。如果我需要某天不服用我的Omega-3，或者几天不摄入任何膳食脂肪，我也不会有事，因为身体非常有弹性。
不需要每天都摄入它们。当然，为了最佳健康，需要定期摄入，但我没有任何绝对必须摄入的、不可或缺的脂肪。我更愿意将蛋白质视为不可或缺的。而不是脂肪。当然，你也可以几天不摄入蛋白质而没有任何问题。
问题十一：如何疗愈肾脏
如何疗愈肾脏？我没有损伤，但肌酐高，eGFR为73。
听起来你的肌酐水平高，eGFR低。73被归类为肾病的初始阶段，但问题在于eGFR是根据肌酐计算的。因为你的肌酐水平高，所以计算出的eGFR就会低。但你也可以根据胱抑素C来计算eGFR。肌酐的问题在于它对肌肉量、运动、蛋白质摄入量以及是否补充肌酸非常敏感。所有这些因素都会提高肌酐水平，从而人为地造成肾功能不佳的假象。
而如果你的胱抑素C水平正常或良好，那么你的eGFR可能就是正常的。所以，通过观察你的胱抑素C来测量eGFR要重要和准确得多。当然，肌酐水平也很重要。如果你的肌酐水平极高，超出正常范围，那也不是一件健康的事。即使你肌肉发达、服用肌酸、吃蛋白质、运动，你的肌酐水平也不应该极高。
我服用肌酸，我定期锻炼，我肌肉量很大，但我的肌酐水平仍然是正常的。即使不是极低，也处于中间水平，比如低于50百分位。所以我相对于一个肌肉量大、服用肌酸、进行剧烈运动的人来说，肌酐水平非常好。我的胱抑素C水平也很好，非常低。
所以我的eGFR因此非常高。我的eGFR大约在120、115、110之间，取决于测试。远高于100这个最佳范围。所以，首先，你需要根据胱抑素C来计算你的eGFR。如果你没测过胱抑素C，去测一下，然后你可以使用在线的免费计算器。我认为kidney.org上有一个计算器，可以根据胱抑素C计算eGFR，必要时也可以根据肌酐计算。
其次，如何疗愈肾脏？肾脏是可以改善的，除非已经到了非常晚期、严重的肾病阶段。在肾病的初始阶段，是可以改善的。
对肾脏最大的伤害来自高血压和高血糖。高血压和高血糖都会损害肾脏，导致水分潴留和其他问题。所以，修复血压，比如，如果你没有高血压，那么不一定需要限制钠的摄入。但如果你有高血压，那么减少钠的摄入绝对是短期内改善肾功能的最有效方法。
如果你有高血压，将钠摄入量降至每天1500毫克或1000毫克，在短期内会非常迅速地帮助降低血压，并因此改善肾功能。其他影响血压的因素显然是血糖水平和胰岛素敏感性。你也需要修复这个问题。改善血糖水平有多种方法，你可以进行低脂饮食，也可以进行低碳水饮食。两者都可能有效，但最重要的是利用那些多余的能量，利用那些葡萄糖分子作为燃料。
这需要增加你的能量消耗，减轻体重，改善胰岛素敏感性，帮助身体产生胰岛素将葡萄糖送入细胞。所以，运动、减重、某种形式的饮食限制（无论是脂肪还是碳水限制，理想情况下是两者都限制，这将是改善血糖和血压的最快方法），适当的睡眠，管理压力。桑拿可能也能通过排出水分和钠来帮助降压，并且它们也有胰岛素合成效应，能改善血糖水平。
问题十二：关于小肚腩的问题
我体重不超标，每公斤体重摄入2克蛋白质，我进行大重量训练，但我有个小肚腩。为什么？
我想你指的是腹部下方那个圆圆的小肚子。
首先，腹部是最后一个减掉脂肪的地方。要想练出腹肌，特别是减掉下腹部的脂肪，你的体脂率需要非常低。所以，如果你看不到腹肌，有个小肚子，那你只需要减掉更多体重。
而且，无论你运动多少，如果你没有处于热量亏空状态，你也不会减掉体脂。所以我认为最大的建议是审视你的热量摄入，花几天时间追踪，称量所有食物，记录下来，看看你实际上吃了多少热量、脂肪、碳水和蛋白质。人们认为自己吃了多少，和他们实际吃了多少之间，存在巨大的差异。
特别是超重的人，他们非常不擅长估算自己实际吃了多少热量，他们会低估好几百卡。所以他们可能以为自己吃了1500卡，但实际上吃了2000或2500卡。这非常普遍。即使是注册营养师和营养学家，也非常不擅长估算自己吃了多少热量，因为用眼睛看几乎是不可能做到的。
你需要实际称量食物，看它有多少热量和克数。花几天时间称量所有食物，计算热量并追踪，会让你大开眼界，你会意识到，原来这么多食物实际上含有这么多热量。你可能会惊讶于一份食物的实际分量在视觉上是多么小。你可能以为一份冰淇淋是这么多，但实际上只有这么多。所以你以为吃了一份，结果吃了两三份。
所以，不幸的现实是，人们非常不擅长估算热量。我们无法用视觉做得很好。我们需要追踪。除非你是超级极端的健美运动员或非常有追踪经验的人，那些人有“激光眼”。我也很擅长用视觉估算热量摄入，因为七八年前，我曾经连续几个月追踪所有东西。我因此对不同食物的不同热量和宏量营养素含量有了理解。
所以我现在已经可以估算出，我大概摄入了多少蛋白质，多少热量。不必百分之百精确，但至少要达到正负10%的准确度范围。
其次，关于蛋白质摄入，更高的蛋白质摄入有助于减肥，但前提是必须有热量限制。所以如果你一天吃500克蛋白质，你会因为消化蛋白质而消耗掉很多热量，大约30%的热量会用于消化蛋白质。但这并不意味着吃额外的蛋白质就能减脂。仍然可能因为吃太多蛋白质而摄入过多的热量从而增重，与某些人说的相反。
所以蛋白质不是“放开吃”的热量。确实在消化蛋白质上消耗了一些热量，但仍然可能因为吃太多蛋白质而摄入过多的热量。每天每公斤2克的蛋白质摄入量，对于最大限度地促进肌肉生长来说已经绰绰有余。
我不是说你需要减少蛋白质摄入，但可能是那些额外的蛋白质热量阻碍了你减掉腹部脂肪。也可能是脂肪和碳水。理想情况下，需要限制所有的热量，或者稍微减少以达到热量亏空。但每天每公斤1.6克的蛋白质已经足够最大化肌肉生长了，本质上不需要更多。所以你已经可以减少一些蛋白质摄入来达到热量亏空。
而其他热量可能来自添加的脂肪。脂肪比其他食物更难察觉，因为很小，但热量密度很高。比如一汤匙橄榄油就超过100卡。
你可以轻易地在沙拉里加三四汤匙油而毫不察觉。而且如果脂肪和蔬菜或其他食物混合在一起，你用眼睛是看不到的。所以，它绝对是很多人额外热量的一大来源。
下一个建议是直接训练腹部。你可以通过将腹部训练当作另一个复合练习来雕塑腹肌。通常人们通过做几百个仰卧起坐来练腹肌。并不是在直接燃烧腹部的热量，但如果有更雕塑感的腹肌，更大的腹部肌肉，那么即使在体脂率较高的情况下，这些腹肌也会更明显。所以做一些像悬垂抬膝或悬垂抬腿，做像腹肌轮前推，或者牧师凳卷腹这类使用大重量的卷腹，而不是做几百个普通卷腹，也会有助于定义腹部肌肉，使其在较高体脂率下也更明显。
对于腹部最下方的最后一点顽固脂肪，通常需要更严格地节食并减掉更多体脂，因为那确实是最后一个减掉脂肪的地方。也有一些研究表明，将有氧运动与特定的腹部练习结合起来，可以“局部减少”腹部的脂肪。两年前有一项研究，他们做了几组腹部练习，然后进行30分钟的有氧运动。所以先用一些练习训练腹部，然后再做有氧，显然有一些局部减脂的效果，你也可以尝试一下。
问题十三：肌腱损伤的恢复
肌腱损伤恢复的常规方法。
肌腱非常棘手，因为是较小的关节，血流不佳。这就是为什么像肘部这样的肌腱需要很长时间才能恢复。
支持恢复的一种方法显然是保持活动。如果完全静止不动，比如手臂骨折打了石膏，那么肌肉会因为不使用而萎缩，这反而会使恢复时间更长。所以仍然需要使用受伤的肌腱和肢体，做一些更简单的练习。你显然不想用受伤的肌腱做大重量举重，但做一些较轻的练习，甚至只是挤压或活动手指，或者稍微挤压一下肌肉，都可以通过引导更多血流到该区域来帮助恢复。
像Katsu Bands（加压带）这样的东西在这种情况下非常有帮助。因为加压带会稍微限制血液流入肢体，或者说限制血液流出，而不是流入。这样血液就会汇集在肢体中，产生肿胀效应。使用血流限制带可以获得极好的泵感，可以在不实际过载关节的情况下，像举重一样刺激肌肉。所以加压带或血流限制带对于不同类型的损伤，如肌腱和膝盖损伤，都非常好。
你只需要戴上它们，做非常轻的练习。你甚至可以只举起你的手机或其他小球之类的东西，就能获得极好的泵感。
其次，你也可以使用一些肽类。BPC-157因其对肌腱关节损伤的显著效果而闻名。我自己也用过。
网上有成千上万的人也用过BPC来加速肌腱损伤的恢复。似乎效果非常好。而且，通常那些长期存在、反复发作的损伤，可以用一些BPC来解决。
因为BPC能刺激血管生成，即新血管的生长。它有助于不同的生长通路和恢复通路，具有抗炎作用。所以它对肌腱损伤特别有效。而可以口服，不需要注射。你可以直接服用口服酊剂或口服胶囊。口服BPC的生物利用度低于注射型，但在我看来，对于大多数不喜欢注射的人（包括我）来说，口服BPC仍然比不服用要好。胶原蛋白可以帮助肌腱损伤，但不如物理运动和BPC有效。
问题十四：更年期激素替代疗法
你推荐更年期进行HRT（激素替代疗法）吗？
显然，这是一个你需要和你的医生或其他医疗专业人士讨论的话题。但在我看来，HRT对于大多数更年期后的女性来说，将是改变生活的。原因是，更年期会完全耗尽身体自然产生的雌激素水平，这会增加身体虚弱的风险，增加阿尔茨海默病的风险，增加心脏病的风险。
所以更年期后，女性患上这些慢性病的风险会呈指数级增长。更不用说生活质量了，低雌激素状态对心理健康、身体健康、精力水平、睡眠、美学外观都有严重的负面影响，会因此看起来更老。所以我看不出有任何理由一个女性在更年期后会不想做HRT。
当然，这需要你和医生讨论，看你是否是合适。你也应该自己做研究，看看利弊，自己评估。但我的妻子可能会在更年期后做HRT，她已经决定了。如果我是更年期后的女性，我可能也会做HRT。因为女性荷尔蒙的下降是断崖式的。
对于男性来说，即使到了老年，仍然可以自然地维持相当高的睾酮水平，因为睾酮是逐渐下降的，仍然可以通过健康的生活方式维持在较高水平。而对于女性来说，真的是断崖式下跌，对此无能为力。女性在某个时候都会经历更年期。有些人晚一些，有些人早一些，但总会发生。
一旦发生，生活质量和身体健康都会下降。至于是否应该做HRT，那是她们自己的决定，需要自己评估利弊。我想人们的一个担忧是HRT会增加乳腺癌或其他类型癌症的风险。根据我的研究，情况并非如此。这个说法已经被揭穿了很长时间，从来没有一个显著增加的癌症风险，意味着女性不应该做HRT，至少根据我的研究是这样。
问题十五：面部年轻化的关键
面部年轻化的关键点是什么？
随着年龄的增长，面部和皮肤健康会发生很多变化。首先是胶原蛋白、透明质酸、弹性蛋白等维持皮肤柔软度的物质减少。还有面部肌肉的减少，即肌肉萎缩，导致皮肤因此下垂。
还有光老化，即日晒损伤。所有这些因素都会导致面部衰老、产生皱纹和看起来更老。
你不应该只关注某一个方面。你需要将它们综合起来看，因为它们都以不同的方式导致皮肤衰老。可能最显著的影响是光老化。如果看一个90岁的人，几十年的日晒使他们的皮肤比一个只暴露在阳光下10、20年的20岁年轻人皱纹更多、光损伤更严重。
所以，几十年来，紫外线辐射是内在皮肤衰老的最大的因素。它会因为紫外线辐射造成的DNA损伤而增加皮肤中的衰老细胞负担，还会分解胶原蛋白，使皮肤变得非常厚实、粗糙。
当然，阳光对健康有益，你不想完全避免阳光，我绝对不推荐那样做。你需要获得健康的阳光照射量。但如果纯粹从美学和皮肤抗衰老的角度来看，过度的日晒是皮肤衰老的最大的原因。
当然有办法规避，你可以注意你的日晒量，必要时可以在不同场景下使用防晒霜。我认为最重要的是不要在阳光下暴晒数小时，尤其是在中午太阳最热、紫外线指数最高的时候。对皮肤健康和昼夜节律来说，最健康的日晒时间是早上和晚上。
你需要早上的昼夜节律信号来开始新的一天，晚上你需要信号来结束一天并准备睡觉。中午你主要获得维生素D的好处，但30分钟已经足够满足每日的维生素D需求了。所以没有必要为了晒黑而在阳光下呆数小时。但晒黑也会加速皮肤衰老。
还有像虾青素和其他类胡萝卜素可以帮助保护皮肤。像绿茶中的EGCG，咖啡中的绿原酸，维生素C，维生素E，都像内部防晒霜一样，帮助皮肤抵御阳光。所以如果服用虾青素，12毫克，甚至24毫克，那会增加皮肤对紫外线辐射的耐受性，减少晒伤的风险，也减少紫外线辐射对皮肤的衰老影响。
Edit:2025.07.02
我并不惧怕死亡。活到80岁、100岁，甚至120岁，对我来说都可以接受。关键在于生活质量，我不想在衰老和虚弱中度过余生。 我对寿命没有设定一个明确的数字上限，虽然活到150岁、180岁甚至200岁听起来也很不错，但350岁、500岁就有点过了。
长寿并非终极目标，生活质量才是核心。 我关注的重点是如何保持健康，拥有高质量的生活，而不是单纯地追求长寿。 这几年，我一直在探索和实践各种方法来优化我的健康指标，并从中总结经验。
改善健康的关键转变：间歇性禁食
大约十年前，我开始尝试间歇性禁食，也就是时间限制性饮食。虽然临床试验主要针对超重或患有糖尿病等人群，但我的个人经验表明，即使没有这些问题，间歇性禁食也能对健康产生积极影响，或许能带来5%-10%的改善。 这体现在改善胆固醇、脂质、血糖、血压等指标上，并且我认为它有助于延缓生物衰老。
我如何判断健康指标的“最佳”状态？
我并没有固定的医生，而是自己进行研究和干预。 判断健康指标的最佳状态，需要综合考虑大量研究，评估研究质量、方法论和效应大小。 对于一些已被广泛证实有害的因素，例如肥胖、高血压和糖尿病，我们可以有很高的信心去避免。而对于一些尚缺乏足够人类数据支持的指标，则需要保持谨慎态度。
关于健康指标的误区：肌酐并非完美的肾脏健康指标
很多人关注肌酐水平，但肌酐容易受到肌肉质量、运动和服用肌酸等因素的影响。 因此，一个更可靠的肾脏健康指标是胱抑素C，它可以更准确地反映肾脏功能。
未来长寿科技的展望
我对未来长寿科技的发展持乐观态度。 未来五年，干细胞、外泌体、肽类、激素等疗法将得到更广泛的应用。十年内，我们有望研发出更有效的延缓衰老药物，例如改进版的雷帕霉素或GLP-1激动剂。十五年后，基因编辑技术或许能带来更显著的突破。 但需要注意的是，这些技术可能只能延长健康寿命数年，而非实现大幅度的寿命延长。
我的健康检测和追踪
我每年在健康检测上的花费大约在1万到1.5万美元之间，这包括补充剂、血液检测和健身房会员费等。 我追踪的指标包括睾酮、性激素、血脂、血糖等基础指标，以及一些更具体的指标，例如同型半胱氨酸、氧化型低密度脂蛋白和肿瘤坏死因子-α等。 我更倾向于关注那些与健康风险直接相关的指标。
我做过哪些“有害”的实验？
我曾经做过一个极端的实验：连续100天进行多相睡眠（每天只睡4小时）。虽然保持了认知能力，但体力和运动能力受到了严重影响。 如果能回到过去，我会告诉自己不要这么做。
我还做过一个五天禁食加马拉松的实验，结果导致皮质醇水平飙升，睾酮水平骤降，对健康造成了负面影响。 虽然我并不害怕暂时的生理变化，但下次我会更好地规划，避免在身体状态不佳时进行社交活动。
关于营养和饮食的建议
我个人饮食比较灵活，但始终保持足够的动物蛋白摄入。 对于预算有限的人，我建议选择价格相对低廉的健康食物，例如牛肉、鸡蛋、红薯等，并补充一些蔬菜和水果。 不必追求昂贵的“超级食物”，因为人体对营养物质的需求量是有限的。
营养建议的经验法则：返璞归真
对于营养知识有限的人，我建议参考旧石器时代人类的饮食结构作为参考：以肉类、块茎、鱼类、浆果等为主。 简单来说，尽量选择未经加工的天然食物。 当然，有机食品和非有机食品的选择也需要根据具体情况而定。
蛋白质与长寿：并非简单的正负关系
关于蛋白质与长寿的关系，存在不同的观点。 虽然高蛋白饮食可能在短期内促进肌肉生长，但长期高蛋白饮食也可能增加某些健康风险。 我个人认为，老年人可能需要更多蛋白质来对抗肌肉流失，而年轻人的蛋白质摄入量则可以相对较低。 更重要的是关注IGF-1等指标，而不是单纯关注蛋白质摄入量。
关于促智药物和认知增强
除了咖啡因，少量尼古丁（例如尼古丁贴片）也有一定的促智作用，但需要注意长期使用可能带来的风险。 L-茶氨酸可以减轻咖啡因的副作用，并提高专注力。 此外，适量补充盐分可以缓解咖啡因和尼古丁带来的焦虑感。 间歇性禁食也能提高我的工作效率。 至于莫达非尼，效果因人而异。
结论：
健康长寿是一个复杂的问题，没有放之四海而皆准的答案。 我分享的只是我个人的经验和思考，希望能够为读者提供一些参考。 最终，每个人都需要根据自身情况，找到适合自己的健康生活方式。 这不仅仅关乎长寿，更关乎生活质量和幸福感。
Edit:2025.07.02
00:00
There is a certain switch or like a shift around the age of like 65 that they see that a low protein diet actually increases mortality risk. Whereas yeah, if you're younger, you can get away with lower protein. Whether or not it's optimal, you know, that's a different question. In 10 years, we hopefully will have some zero protective drugs. But I'll start with our, I would say, kind of landmark question when it comes to your vitalism. How long do you want to live?
00:25
I don't have any fear of death. I would be fine to live to 80, 100, 120. Like they all sound fine to me. No one would really want to die, you know, in their 60s or 70s. I think the statistics say like the average answer would be something like 80 for most people. But I wouldn't mind to live like 150, 180, 200 either. Like so I didn't really have like a hard cap
00:46
on the number. I don't want to live to the age of 350, 500 or something like that. At least I don't set my goal to that. Right, right. And you don't want to be decrepit, that's for sure. Yeah. I guess, yeah, it's the quality of life matters. Like, are you, you know, how good is your quality of life? Awesome. All right. So one thing I was wondering about is, you know, you have so many measures that you're aware of, you track, etc.,
01:11
What was the change, if any, that created a lot of positive value in your mind that you couldn't measure well or that there wasn't a good measure for that you could point to? Is there any change like that? So I guess my tracking…
01:27
of these blood markers began something like six years ago, so I had something like six years before that I didn't track that regularly. So I don't know if certain interventions that I was already doing, how big an effect they had on my blood markers. But I think a few things that I personally think that improved or have contributed to my health are intermittent fasting, so like time-restricted eating. So there's obviously
01:56
clinical trials on intermittent fasting improving a lot of different blood markers like cholesterol, lipids, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. But they're mostly done on people who have problems with them to begin with. So like people who are slightly overweight or who have diabetes or something like that. I never had that, but I've been doing intermittent fasting for like 10 years. So it would be interesting to see how they could have impacted some of my blood markers. But I personally think that
02:25
it does contribute to slower biological aging and better blood work, even though the clinical trials suggest that if the calories are the same, then there's no difference in those things. But I personally think that there might be, from my own experience, maybe like 5-10% difference. Awesome.
02:46
So, a lot of people here are probably interested in improving their health and longevity, but one thing that people find difficult is finding good providers. So, doctors, specialists, etc. Who is your doctor? Do you have a doctor? And who are the providers or specialists that you consult with? And also, how has that changed now that you're a more known person and probably have more access than just an average person?
03:14
I don't have a doctor, actually. I think I'm my own doctor. I do all my own research and interventions.
03:26
I mean, I do think there are a lot of doctors out there with a lot of knowledge from the States. There's also someone called Anil Bajnath, who's like the president of the American Board of Precision Medicine. So he takes it a bit step further that he also, you know, looks at your genetics. He looks at all these other multiomics things.
03:47
data to come up with your specific program for your health so he would be someone I would use if I really wanted to go through all my genetics go through all my family history and all my blood work history and come up with what are things I need to work on he would be the person I would trust with that kind of task
04:10
Awesome. Now, one question is around optimal indicators. So I've done some of the things that you've done, but to, let's say, less intense level. And one of the problems I ran into was that there wasn't good evidence about what is optimal, because often that hasn't been researched. We live in a kind of sick care orientation from the medical establishment perspective for all sorts of reasons, many of which are not nefarious in any way. It's just kind of how things evolved.
04:38
But what is your process for identifying what is optimal and how do you get confidence about what that is? We definitely don't have the optimal answer for blood work and not to mention the entire longevity field. We can only be like at level of confidence with certain things. We can be pretty confident that obesity is bad.
04:58
and we can be pretty confident that hypertension is bad and diabetes is bad for your longevity. So it's all like a degree of confidence that you have.
05:08
Low confidence would be something like mechanistic data that is never proven in humans and is speculative, like theories. Yes, they're interesting and we can discuss about them, but if there's not a lot of human data, then we can't make any conclusions about them. Whereas with something like high blood sugar, insulin resistance and hypertension, there's hundreds of studies…
05:35
correlating worse health outcomes with these conditions so we can be pretty sure that we want to avoid, let's say, these major comorbidities, for example.
05:47
And is there, so let's say you're looking at a new indicator that you haven't dug deep into before. What's your process? Do you go through a lot of papers? Do you have any team members who help you do that? How do you reach that level of confidence and decide where it is on the spectrum? Yeah, it just comes down to looking at the available studies out there and assessing the quality of that study. So you need to like read it, analyze,
06:14
analyze the methodology and look at the effect sizes. Maybe like a few, yeah, like with these biological age clocks, for example, that's a good example that they have studies that do correlate higher biological age scores with higher mortality risk
06:29
like a five-year mortality risk. But so far, it's like a single population or some sort of isolated population because there's also a lot of noise with them. So the counterbalance is those findings. So you have some of these findings that
06:45
this biological age score changes throughout the day, that it's higher in the morning, lower in the evening, for example, and especially that the biological age rises after you've been infected with coronavirus or just a regular flu even. If you get sick, then your biological age score goes very high, and if you test at that exact moment, then you're going to get a worse result, then you're going to freak out, for example.
07:05
So that creates a lot of noise that then jeopardizes their confidence in these other studies because it could be just noise and randomness. So that's why it's hard to say that exactly this biological age score would be
07:19
actually any worth it, right? Yeah, that's great. If you had $100 million to deploy to try to investigate what is more optimal among, let's say, three indicators or two indicators where the jury is more out, how would you deploy it? Or which indicators would you choose to try to find out better? And is there any particular study you'd love to see run? Right. I guess the issue with human clinical trials is that
07:49
We live, relatively speaking, so long that it's hard to see
07:54
whether or not it will actually make you live longer, a certain intervention or blood marker range. So it would have to be a very long clinical trial, which is almost impossible to do and costs a lot of money. Probably this 100 million would go to a single study, almost if you want to do a lifelong study. So the ideal study is that you have genetically identical twins, they follow different programs from birth, and then you follow them until they die. That would be the ideal study to see
08:22
the effects of different diets or different blood marker ranges on their longevity. But yeah, it's like a very difficult and impossible study to do. One thing I've been thinking is maybe you can like simulate it in some sort of with AI or in some sort of a simulation. You know, you can do those studies in bacteria and yeast and mice, et cetera, but
08:43
If you could somehow mimic that or simulate it on humans inside a simulation somehow, I don't know how it would be possible, but if you could do some sort of simulation study, you can accelerate the timeline until their death and you can maybe see some effects.
09:01
To give some sort of an answer, I would say that we would want to do more clinical trials, even like short-term clinical trials on different diets, different blood markers, etc. Even like two-year clinical trials are pretty good.
09:15
Is there one indicator that you think people are following that is kind of a red herring or a particular waste of time from your perspective that you feel a lot of people are kind of falling to tracking or spending too much attention on? Kidney markers, there's an issue with the creatinine. So if you have higher muscle mass, you…
09:40
eat more protein, you exercise, or you take creatine, for example, then your creatinine levels might be slightly elevated, but it's not indicative of kidney damage or kidney dysfunction. And, you know, usually they calculate EGFR, which is the estimated global role filtration rate, so that's a marker of kidney health.
10:00
And they calculate usually from creatinine. So if you have more muscle, you exercise, you take creatine, then your kidney health on paper would show off as worse. But in reality, it's because of this higher creatinine that is skewed by your exercise or muscle mass or whatever it is. So a better kidney marker is a Cystaxe. So that one isn't affected by muscle mass and exercise.
10:23
And you can also calculate EGFR from cystatin C. So rather than looking at creatinine, people will want to look at more cystatin C and calculate EGFR from that. Awesome. Thank you. And one last compound question. So when you think about advances in aging…
10:43
and treating aging and understanding aging with science and technology. What is your mental model of the world in the next five years, 10 years? I mean, here in the Bay Area, some people think we'll all be AI pets in five years, so there are different mental models you're probably aware of.
10:58
But how do you think, what's your mental model right now for how things are likely going to be in terms of our science and technology to address aging in 5, 10, 20 years? And which technologies, if any, are you excited about? Yeah, I think in 5 years we'll be…
11:12
more utilizing things like stem cells, exosomes, peptides, hormones, and things we already kind of know that can work deployed in a larger scale. In 10 years, we hopefully will have some geroprotective drugs. You know, rapamycin is a candidate, but I think we'll probably develop better ones. And, you know, GLP-1 agonists or something along those lines, like that not necessary for weight loss, but I don't know, for…
11:41
or blood sugar or something else that goes wrong with age. So we have like a GLP-1 analog for hypertension or something like that. Or immune decline, for example. Yeah, yeah. So something like that, similar technology. And in 15 years, maybe something with gene editing. Because yeah, like the peptides, yeah, they're going to be great for improving your joint function and maybe aesthetic aging and those things, but they're not going to make you live to 150 or something like that.
12:12
And the same to GFP1 agonists or these other zero protective drugs. They can maybe add 10, 20 years to a healthy lifespan, but they're not like this dramatic breakthrough in life extension that people are hoping for. Like for that, we probably need something with gene editing or something, you know.
12:32
whole body replacement that you're talking about. Okay, great. There are so many questions and I thought having Seem and Joseph here together would be a very interesting conversation. But I'll just start with something I'm curious about. This is just kind of a very simple question.
12:50
which maybe others wonder about too. So how much do you estimate you spent on tests last year? And if you didn't spend them, I mean, maybe you get some freebies, you know, because you're content creators, et cetera. Just estimate what the cost of them would be. Do you have a sense? So I did like an analysis of my protocol and stuff that I do like two years ago. And it was something like,
13:18
10 to 15k per year. So it's not like a massive amount that would include supplements plus blood tests, gym membership and those kind of things excluding food. But since then I've done a lot more so to say and added a few more tests but it wouldn't be exponentially more for me at least. And it depends where you do it as well. Like in the US it's obviously a lot more expensive but
13:50
I have like a retreat in India where we do it very cheap with a clinic there. So, you know, we could cover the entire body analysis with only like a few thousand, whereas in these states it would be like 20,000. So, you know, it's hard to say like how much it would cost in that sense. But yeah, regular blood work, I would say it's going to be at least a few thousand per year. But yeah. Cool. Thank you.
14:17
Yeah, it sounds like Sim is a lot more thorough than me. I'd say about $4,000 last year. And of those things that you do track, what do you track most frequently? So tests that you pay for that are done frequently. And what is the frequency? Hmm.
14:41
Last year I tracked my homocysteine, so it was a bit higher than I would like. And I also did some things to lower it, like took a trimethylglycine and did hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And it lowered it to the optimal range. And I did maybe three, four tests within a few months for that. It's not the one that I would like to test the most frequently.
15:07
Most frequently, I would test just regular… For me, I like to look at testosterone and sex hormones and lipid panel and blood sugar. I think those very basic ones are what I find quite practical. And there's a few individual ones like homocysteine or oxidized LDL or TNF-alpha or something like that that sometimes is more curious. Yeah, I don't get…
15:38
Too much into, let's say, the more obscure biomarkers. I have tested testosterone like eight times last year. So I was trying to see how different things would affect it. And if there was one that I had to say I tested the most, it would probably be that one. Okay, great.
15:56
So both of you have done quite a lot of experimentation. You have shared your protocols with the world in ways that I think have created a lot of value for people. And some of these experiments could be risky or could cause harm. And what I was wondering about is for each of you to name an experiment that you did, a self-experiment that caused harm.
16:21
and if you could go back in time and tell yourself something about it before you did it, what would it be? Would you do it again? Would you have done it again? So yeah, please. - You wanna go first? - Well, I did it like 10 years ago or something. I did, oh not 10, nine years ago, I did polyphysics sleeping. So that's like I slept four hours
16:50
or no, I slept three hours per night, then I wake up for a few hours, took a 20-minute nap, and did it like three times, so in total I slept like four hours in a 24-hour period. I did it for 100 days, and, you know,
17:04
I did it for just curiosity. I wasn't thinking of, hey, can I get away with less sleep? Can I function the same way? I managed to maintain equal cognition, although I had to consume caffeine to maintain it. But the biggest reason I stopped was that it impeded physical performance and gym was much harder.
17:28
or like you plateau at the gym and I think yeah like long term it's obviously not gonna be very good so you know I would say doing very kind of extreme polyphysics sleeping or like depriving yourself from sleep is definitely not worth it in the long term you might you know gain a few hours for productivity but yeah like if you live you know shorter because of that reason then it's not worth it did that crush your mood? um
17:57
I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to my mood back then. But I think you definitely are a bit more… I mean, it's kind of interesting. You do feel a bit lucid or something like…
18:10
Because I think if anyone ever remembers being sleep deprived, then it's, yeah, you feel tired, but you also feel like kind of funny or kind of lucid a little bit. So you just feel like semi-drunk a little bit all the time. There's actually, I came across this one particular study finding that sleep deprivation could potentially be a way to treat depression. Hmm.
18:32
For some reason, because I've done a lot of all-nighters and I have definitely experienced that on more than one occasion. Like I'm almost giddy if I go past a certain length. It's kind of like in the Wolf of Wall Street. They say you have to get past the sleepiness of the quaalute to get high. So with this, it's like you have to extend the sleep deprivation long enough and then after all, I'm kind of…
18:55
really happy, to be totally honest. Yeah, it increases BDNF a little bit, so it's like, you're like, wow. But yeah, long term, you'll probably do more harm. Which, by the way, there is possibly going to be an observational study run at Vitalis Bay on BDNF, which is a peptide which was just mentioned. So if somebody is using it and wants to participate in the observational study or has some other interest in this, please reach out to me.
19:24
Just a quick comment on this sleep point. I know that when you do polyphasic sleep, there's the sense, I'd only done it for maybe like a week. I'm by no means as committed in that way. I didn't try. It felt like it was a continuous stream of consciousness, like there was less of a reset. Did you find that to be the case for the 100 days, that you were like in a continuous like one long day?
19:51
Well, it definitely merges the days into more like some block, because you take their sleep so frequently, it doesn't feel like night and day that much, and you're awake in the middle of the night, etc. I did feel like sleep paralysis once, as well, I was like in the bed, I was like, I can't wake up, I can't wake up, and I saw some sort of a ghost or something, but yeah. Yeah.
20:15
All right, cool. Yeah, Joseph, experiment that caused harm. And what would you do if you could go? Would you do it again? Would you go back and tell yourself something about it? Yeah, so the five-day fast plus marathon, that was easily the…
20:32
I mean, it just messed everything up. There's no benefit. Like, I guess my triglycerides and insulin were low, which is technically good, better to have. But my cortisol was double the top of the reference range. So I think the top of the reference range was 20. Mine was 40. And then, so I guess what I would do, I might do it again because I'm not super afraid of like temporary changes.
20:57
destruction of my physiology because i feel like it'll bounce back sufficiently one thing i would have done differently is not scheduling to meet my friends who are traveling from texas like two days afterward so i was like trying to be a good host while i was like dying mentally inside and i was super anxious due to all these crazy changes um i feel like there was another one that
21:20
There's testosterone dropped dramatically. Cortisol rose dramatically. I think there's one other one that looked really bad and I can't remember which one, but maybe I would train for the marathon more. I really wasn't like properly trained for a marathon and I just kind of winged it because it was my birthday had just come up and I thought I need to do something crazy because I'm 35 and that's what I did. So I might do it again.
21:49
Cool. Yeah, thank you. Quick backup to the question of costs. I know some people, they look at tests. They also look at nutrition. You mentioned that you didn't count the nutrition and the costs, and that triggered a little light for me, and I was thinking, okay,
22:04
Sometimes it feels like it's expensive to eat very healthfully or maximally beneficially to optimize whatever the strategy is. Have you guys found that at all in terms of cost of nutrition as you've gone through your experimentation, that there are certain strategies that may be positive but they cost a lot more? Yeah.
22:26
Yeah, well, in Estonia, it's much cheaper, the food, than in the States, for example. I do think that there are certain foods that are very hyped, but they don't have that much value, and they're very expensive. I mean, some examples would be some sort of sprouts or something, right? Yes, they're a good source of sulfurophane and…
22:56
help with antioxidant defense, et cetera, but you have to consume quite a lot of them as well, and per kilogram, they're quite expensive. So yeah, it's hard to say if it's worth it or not. How much are you getting from just, if you buy,
23:11
this box of the sprouts and then it's much easier actually to grow them like if you i mean it's much cheaper to grow them yourself so if you someone is interested in like sprouting or something like that then they should you know do it themselves and the same probably with fermented foods you know fermented foods and drinks can be quite expensive but you can also make them at home for you know pretty much cheap or free so uh yeah just like certain certain superfoods can be uh
23:39
priced quite high. And the same can be applied to meat. Like, how much meat do you need to eat to be healthy and get all the vitamins and minerals? Theoretically, you can get all the nutrition from a few hundred grams of meat already, so you don't need to eat two, three kilograms of meat every day, which can be more expensive. So you can cover all the B vitamins and other iron and all the other stuff from just a few hundred grams. And the rest of the food can be, quote, cheaper food.
24:09
So you can go both ways. You can pay a lot for a lot of expensive superfoods, but you can also pay a lot for salmon or beef. If you eat two kilograms of salmon a day, that can be quite expensive.
24:23
Totally. Joseph, and maybe if both of you guys could give a sense, like, is the factor like 2x the price or like 3x the price in terms of what it costs to, in your mind, eat optimally versus eat like, you know, a person who's not aware of this stuff? You mean as opposed to, say, standard American diet or someone who's just kind of winging it? Somebody who wants to eat healthfully but is, let's say, a poor college student. You know what I mean?
24:52
Like, they want to eat healthfully, but they look at that price of whatever meat. And maybe, by the way, this is also a good segue into another topic. So maybe when you give your answer, Joseph, you could also have a comment on that about how do you know what's good, right? We look at different sources of information. I know you're going to give a whole talk about this in some vector, but…
25:13
like organic this, organic that, the prices can go up like two, three X. And it's hard to know what's what, these fermented foods, et cetera, boutique companies that are producing this. So anyway, any thoughts on this entire topic?
25:30
Yeah, that's really tricky because there's just so much to touch upon. Um, I, my diet changes quite a bit. I don't, I'm not really like the one, maybe people see my videos about the ketogenic diet or about the carnivore diet or about this or that diet. And they might think, Oh, he's like the carnivore diet guy. But, um, my diet changes quite a bit. Uh,
25:51
Over the year. And I would say the through line is that I am getting a significant amount of animal protein, usually beef and then eggs. And then if I'm eating a lot of carbs, it's usually probably going to be sweet potatoes. Well, like Japanese sweet potatoes. And I feel like as a base, that's relatively cheap and doesn't I wouldn't say it makes my pattern of eating worse.
26:15
more expensive than the average person. Maybe it's even cheaper since I eat at home a fair bit when I can. I guess it comes down to like how high quality meat you want to do. At some point, I stopped worrying about grass-fed. So the grain-fed stuff tastes better anyways. And most of, it seems like one of the bigger benefits of grass-fed is that you get, for example, higher concentrations of certain fat-soluble vitamins in the fat
26:47
So, yeah, price-wise, I guess it depends on how many obscure supplements and obscure superfoods you want to take, like Sim was hinting at. So I don't do too many supplements, and I try and keep it pretty simple and just go with fish, beef, maybe some potatoes, and then eggs and vegetables.
27:08
you know, like seaweed here and there are some Japanese staples and it's like pretty cheap. I wouldn't say it's necessarily more expensive than the average person, at least in Japan. Yeah. And like, you know, there's a certain amount of nutrients and vitamins and minerals your body needs and overdosing on them by eating a ton of these very nutritious foods doesn't give you more benefits. So like I said, you only need like a few hundred grams of
27:33
meat even like 100 200 grams and you'll pretty much cover all your b vitamins and iron for the day and you know you need certain amounts of fiber optimally so you can cover them with you know broccoli beans or carrots or whatever like those kind of things and healthy fats so you can take omega-3 supplement like that would be like very easy to cover your daily omega-3s you don't even need to eat fish theoretically speaking and you know there's stuff that can come from
28:01
sweet potatoes, fruits or something like that. So there's a certain foods that are like filler foods to get your calories like rice and sweet potatoes and other things. And there's a certain nutritious foods which would make up like a minority and you don't need like extra more if you're on a budget. Yeah, like the liver king approach of like overdosing on copper with liver doesn't really make sense. It's not necessary. Yeah.
28:29
So going from that to dig on, dig a little bit deeper on how to trust, what to trust. Do you have any rules of thumb that are worth noting for other people? You know, they're going to buy food or, you know, try to make decisions about what to consume. What's your rule of thumb or how do you make decisions and how deeply do you research stuff?
28:56
So as a rule of thumb, I guess it depends on where the person is in terms of their knowledge of nutrition. So I might, if I'm talking to someone and then they want some nutritional advice, then I would try and feel out where they are in terms of, you know, do they know, are they interested in nutrition at all before this point? So do they have any sort of frame of reference? But a kind of rule of thumb that I think is easy to understand but also make use of is
29:29
I got into this stuff through the Paleolithic diet, and I thought I really like the concept of it's just, okay, go back 20,000 years. What did we have available? Paleolithic humans were really robust, actually. They're
29:45
Bone densities were higher. They appeared to be more fertile and they were just like physically very robust. They had better skull structure. They have better dental arches, so they would have less sleep apnea and snoring and all these kind of things. So then you look at what were they eating and it was just whatever was available, which is probably meat and tubers, maybe some honey.
30:09
and fish and then some berries, fruits, things like that. So it's kind of if you just need a rule of thumb of, okay, how can I judge whether this is healthy or not? And you don't want to get too much into the weeds and the details and all the studies, then I think it's a fair enough rule of thumb. And I think that's why the paleo diet sort of took off when it did because it was just a really simple concept.
30:33
Yeah, like an easy rule of thumb is to, if it's packaged and it's processed, then it's less likely to be healthy. Although, you know, some processed foods can be healthy as well. But if, yeah, if it doesn't have a package, like it's a whole food, meat, fish, potatoes, rice, fruits and stuff, then, you know, it's harder to go wrong with that. And…
30:55
Other things like organic versus non-organic. So the issue with organic is that there's also organic pesticides and stuff like that. So you're not really getting quote-unquote chemical-free food even with organic food. It just costs more. And there's ways certain foods are better to be consumed organic. So the ones that you eat the flesh with or the skin with like
31:19
strawberries and grapes and those kind of things. The others like tubers, underground, they're kind of safer to be consumed and non-organic. But anyway, you would want to still wash the things that you eat and soak them ideally. You can technically remove a lot of dirt and bacteria. You do that with everything you eat? I mean, with berries and apples, for example, not if I'm traveling, I don't have like
31:47
baking soda or apple cider vinegar when I'm traveling. But at home, if I buy some strawberries, you can soak them in there for a little bit. And at least that helps with a lot of the dirt and stuff as well. Cool. Yeah, two more questions and then we'll wrap because we have another…
32:05
more stuff coming on. One question is about protein. So there are different perspectives on this, a lot of research. One of the trade-offs seems to be from the short to the long term, that if you consume more protein in the short term, and maybe this actually also kind of coincides with Paleolithic studies
32:22
you can become more robust, you can build more muscle, etc. But there are some who argue that if you, or some evidence that if you consume a lot of protein, and some people are recommending quite high doses, like 2 gram per kilo or something like that, that that would really actually have deleterious effects longevity-wise. Because it creates more burden on your body metabolically, and you're ramping up mTOR and other things like that. Do you guys have an opinion about this?
32:52
Yeah, I'd be curious to hear where Sim's coming from because my perspective is basically, yeah, there's some theoretical reasons why you should restrict protein to live longer, mainly through the mTOR signaling like you're talking about. But all these, there are many other things that are either have been found to be neutral for longevity or positive for longevity that actually upregulate mTOR. Like exercise, most of the…
33:17
benefits you're getting from exercise is through the mTOR pathway, through stimulating the mTOR pathway. And then another one, I think if you eat carbohydrates, that also stimulates mTOR. So, you know, if you're not supposed to eat protein, you're not supposed to eat carbohydrate, like you're just going to eat like beef towel all the time or avocado oil or something like that. The other thing is, so sarcopenia is actually a really big issue for the
33:47
aging person. And as you get older, you hold on, it's harder to hold on to muscle. So you're going to need more instances of muscle protein synthesis. And there's two ways to stimulate muscle protein synthesis is through protein and exercise. And, you know, it gets harder to exercise while you're, when you get older too, but you need to maintain your muscle, not just for metabolic health, but for, you know, you have,
34:08
better ability to navigate yourself and you can walk more and get more of the benefits from, from low level activity, but you, um, also need to not fall. So you need some muscle mass, so you have better coordination and you're not going to get a hip fracture or something like that. So I, I,
34:25
Yeah, I just don't, if anything, I might even argue that these higher doses of protein might actually be appropriate for the elderly because for example, um, it becomes harder for them to digest protein as they age. Their digestive processes that are liberating the protein and making it available are less efficient. And so you might actually need more bioavailable protein, which would be animal protein. Um,
34:54
So yeah, for those reasons, due to the sarcopenia and how protein helps and muscle mass helps with metabolic health and longevity, I don't think it's – I wouldn't worry about protein as reducing longevity. Same. Yeah, like it's very – there's a lot of pros and cons to that approach.
35:17
One obvious thing is, yeah, like if you eat a very low protein diet, you'll potentially have low muscle mass and bone density, which we know predicts mortality in elderly people. And there is like with protein intake, there is a certain switch or like a shift around the age of like 65 that they see that a low protein diet actually increases mortality risk in those people older than 65, probably because of the sarcopenia and frailty risk there.
35:42
Whereas, yeah, if you're younger, you can get away with lower protein. Whether or not it's optimal, that's a different question because that's the best time to build the muscle and the bone density is when you're kind of younger before it's harder later in life. So with protein, there's certain biomarkers I would much rather look at rather than think about the protein itself, things like IGF-1 biomarkers.
36:07
So it's one of the theoretical reasons why protein shortens lifespan, so it increases IGF-1 and that increases risk of cancer and heart disease. But with IGF-1, it's a U-shaped curve. Low IGF-1 levels are also associated with increased mortality as these high levels. So something like 115 to 130 nanograms per milliliter, I think, is the sweet spot. So if it's below that, then you're
36:33
risk of sarcopenia and frailty is higher if it's over 300 or something then it's uh you know higher risk of cancer but yeah it's not only protein that because i eat i don't eat like um crazy high protein diet but eat more than is like uh average i would say um but my igf1 levels are still in the normal range it's like 100 and in this kind of sweet spot um and i also eat carbs so it's not only like
37:04
what you eat, but, you know, how you eat and what else you do. Because diabetes and high blood sugar levels, they also stimulate mTOR. So this chronic mTOR activation in diabetes and IGF-1 as well. So you're actually not only because of what you eat or like it's not the protein or the carbs necessary. It's just that you have diabetes, for example. Um,
37:28
But yeah, you have to measure things to see how particular food affects your risk. Like carbohydrates, I eat like 300 grams of carbs a day. I have very normal and low blood sugar levels. Whereas someone who has diabetes, if they eat 300 grams, they might have persistent hyperglycemia and insulin resistance. So it depends a lot on the person who is eating the food when it comes to the macros.
37:51
Awesome. Awesome answers. All right. Last question as we wrap up. So neurotropics and cognitive performance. I know a lot of people here are basically doing work with their minds primarily. That's how they succeed in life and so forth.
38:09
maybe in the Bay Area as much or more than anywhere else in the world. What are one or two of your preferred neuro-enhancing protocols or behaviors that may not be obvious? We all know about caffeine, or maybe there's some way to consume caffeine that we don't know about, but I'll hand it to you guys. Yeah, I mean, the second one after caffeine is probably nicotine.
38:36
So like nicotine gum or patches, they're like in small doses, they can have some nootropic effects. The problem with nicotine is that chronic use can cause vasoconstriction. So like tightening of the blood vessels, I think it's like something like eight milligrams a day. So that can increase risk of heart disease or hypertension. Like I wouldn't use nicotine in large doses all the time, but the small doses like one milligram, two milligrams per day is pretty good.
39:10
Yeah, so in terms of what to combine with caffeine, L-theanine seems to work pretty well. It's supposed to reduce the jitters of coffee. And there's studies finding that people have better focus with caffeine plus L-theanine. I do a couple different things. So I'm balancing caffeine and nicotine together.
39:32
and salt and not eating. So basically, if you're not eating and you're having caffeine and nicotine, then you're going to be more anxious. And so then to kind of reduce that all…
39:42
add some salt. So salt has this weird effect that I want to dive more into the mechanism to see exactly why this works. But it seems to be that when your cortisol is higher, you release more salt, you excrete more salt. So if you replace it, you're going to feel a little better. So actually, before my talk, I was a little nervous. So I had some, I just put some salt and water, drank that, and I actually felt way better. And so I came up and started talking
40:07
But yeah, so you're doing too much stimulation, but then if you get too anxious, you can't really work appropriately or creatively enough. And actually, yeah, not eating anything is the best for me to stay alert. Specifically, I'll avoid eating a high-carbohydrate meal if I have a lot of work in a particular day. But then if you're not eating anything, then you're more susceptible to the stimulants and you'll get more jittery and more anxious and then I'll –
40:35
I'll throw in some salt. So it's kind of a balancing act. Sometimes I'll just eat some carbs if I feel like the caffeine or nicotine is too much because that also blunts some of the effect of the caffeine and nicotine if I've like overshot with it. So those different things is what I go for. But the biggest one like in terms of actually moving the needle even though maybe I don't because like you feel awesome when you drink caffeine. It's like you're working but you also feel like, oh, I'm so productive and I feel great and you're really confident about it.
41:03
But you might not necessarily actually be more productive. You just feel like it. With fasting, I feel objectively like I'm just getting more done. So that's me. Yeah. With nootropics, it's differences in people's neurotransmitter profiles. So yeah, like some people get very anxious from smaller amounts of caffeine. They metabolize it slower and they're more sensitive to it. And others are more like…
41:27
I guess more dollar or more carbonergic and so they need more stimulation so this is very individual like some people love caffeine they work great with it others feel worse with it the same with nicotine and you know other like no tropic agents as well so there's no universal no tropic profile it's a protocol that's like everyone has has to find what works for them but one one cool I guess ingredient is paroxanthine which
41:54
Suppose that it gives you the same effects as caffeine, but it doesn't stimulate you that much. I think there's one drink that has it. It's quite new. It's been maybe for one or two years out. Cool. Well, follow up on that. Because I haven't heard about it. I don't know. How many people have heard of that? Raise your hand. Few? Okay, few if none. And one follow up on this for me. Last follow up. What's your take on modafinil? I've never used it, so… I hear you. Um…
42:26
When I had other aspects of my health not so dialed in, it was kind of magical. It was like I would just take it and I didn't really feel like I was overstimulated, say with something like too much caffeine or Adderall or something like that. With those, I just felt bad. Modafinil, it was like I would take it and then I would get all this work done without even thinking about it. It would just magically happen and then I would look back and be like, whoa, I was so productive.
42:55
But then exactly as Sim is saying about the different, you know, you're like neurotransmitter profiles. My friend took it and he's like, I just got a headache and I had to take a nap. I hate that stuff. And he tried it like three times and it just was terrible each time. But for me, it was kind of magical. Now it feels actually a little overstimulating. Oh, interesting. All right. Well, thanks a lot, guys. This was amazing. And they're going to be here. So chat with them.
43:18
And let's go. Thank you. All right, give it up. All right, that's it for this episode. Make sure you check out my new book, The Longevity Leap on Amazon. I'd also appreciate if you share this episode with a friend or family member. Other than that, my name is Seem. Stay tuned for the next episode. Stay empowered.
Edit:2025.07.02