Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

[music] where we revisit past episodes

for the most potent and actionable

science-based tools for mental health,

physical health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Dr. Lane Norton. Dr.

Norton, thank you so much for being

here. This is a long time coming and I

have to say as a fellow PhD scientist, I

feel a great kinship with you. I know

you have tremendous experience in in

fitness and nutrition in a number of

areas. I'd like to start um with

something that's rather basic and yet

can be pretty complex and that's this

issue of energy balance and energy

utilization. What happens when we eat

food of any kind and how is that

actually converted into energy as a way

of framing up the discussion around

weight loss, weight maintenance, weight

gain and body composition? It's a great

question and like you said this is one

of those things where you know people

use the term calories in calories out

and they say well that's way too

simplistic and I'm like if you look at

what actually makes up calories in

calories out it's actually very

complicated. So a calorie just refers to

a unit of energy of heat specifically.

Really what you're talking about is the

potential chemical energy that is in the

bonds of the macronutrients of food,

right? And by digesting, assimilating

and metabolizing those nutrients, we are

able to create energy. The inroduct of

that mostly is ATP, adenazin

triphosphate, which is your body's

energy currency. So a lot of metabolism

is simply creating ATP. Protein's a

little bit different because protein uh

gets converted to amino acids which can

be used for muscle protein synthesis or

protein synthesis in other tissues. Uh

but it also can be converted through

glucanogenesis to glucose and there also

are some ketogenic amino acids as well.

Then you have fatty acids which are able

to create energy through what's called

beta oxidation where essentially you're

taking these fatty acids and you're

lpping them off two carbons at a time to

produce acetal coa which again can go

into the KB cycle produce those hydrogen

ions that can then power the production

of ATP. So that's kind of like at the

cellular level of how this stuff works.

But stepping back and taking it back out

like what does that have to do with

weight loss or weight gain, right? When

you think about the balance of energy in

versus energy out, sounds very simple.

But let's look at what actually makes up

energy in versus energy out. First of

all, you've got to realize that the

energy inside of the equation is more

difficult to track than people think.

So, one, food labels, which we like to

think is being, you know, like from upon

high, uh, can have up to a 20% error in

them.

>> Really?

>> Oh, yeah. The second aspect is there's

what's called your energy but then

there's also metabolizable energy right

so if you have uh food stuff with say a

lot of insoluble fiber typically

insoluble fiber uh is not really

digestible and so you could have you

know quite a bit of carbohydrate but if

you can't extract the energy from it and

typically this is because insoluble

fiber from like plant material

the carbohydrate or and even some of the

protein is bound up in the uh plant

structure which makes makes it

inaccessible to digestive enzymes. And

so this is what like adds bulk to your

school stool and whatnot, but again

reduces the metabolizable energy in

there. And there's some evidence that

based on people's individual gut

microbiome that some people may actually

be better at extracting energy out of

fiber compared to other people. So just

starting off right there, okay, there's

there's quite a bit of play in the

energy inside of things. Now, one of the

things people will say is, "Well, see,

that's why you shouldn't worry about

tracking calories, cuz you know, if the

food labels can be 20% off and what I'll

say is, okay, I understand where you're

coming from, but typically if it's off,

it's going to be consistently off." And

if you're consistent with how you track

it, eventually you'll be able to know

kind of what you're taking in. So, now

let's look at the energy out side of the

equation, which is actually way more

complicated, right? And so, your energy

out is a few different uh buckets. The

first one and the biggest one is your

resting metabolic rate. So your arm rar

that for most people is anywhere from 50

to 70% of your total daily energy

expenditure. Sedentary people will be on

the higher end of that. So it'll be a

bigger proportion. Whereas people who

are more active it'll be a little bit

lower. Not because their metabolic rate

is lower but because they're expending a

greater percentage of their calories

from physical activity. Then you have

something called the thermic effect of

food which is a relatively small

percentage of your total daily energy

expenditure. It's about 5 to 10%. Very

difficult to measure. And usually what

researchers do when they're kind of

looking at this stuff is they just kind

of make an assumption about it. They use

a constant. And that refers to the

amount of energy it takes to extract the

energy out of food. You can't just eat

food and then you know it just appears

in your cells and you start doing stuff.

It has to be systematically broken down

and put into forms that can actually

produce energy. A lot of times people

will say something like, well, not all

calories are created equal. That's not

true because calories is just a unit of

measurement, right? That would be like

saying not all seconds on a clock are

created equal. Yes, they are. All

sources of calories may have

differential effects on energy

expenditure and appetite. So if we look

at something like fat for example, the

TEF of fat is about 0 to 3%. Meaning if

you eat 100 calories from fat, your net

will be about 97 to 100. So the process

of breaking down that fat essentially

subtracts some of the the calories away

because you used it in creating energy

correct by breaking those chemical bonds

to create ATP.

>> Correct. Okay. Correct. Fat is actually

the easiest thing to convert into

energy.

>> Then you have carbohydrate which has a

TF of like 5 to 10%. So you eat 100

calories from carbohydrate and obviously

like the fiber content makes a big

difference on this. But if you eat 100

calories you'll net 90 to 95. protein is

about a 20 to 30% TEF. So if you eat 100

calories from protein, you're only

netting 70 to 80. Now you're still net,

you know, people say, well, you can't

eat too much protein. Well, you know,

people will ask, well, can protein be

stored as fat? The carbons from protein,

it's unlikely it's going to wind up in

atapost tissue, but if you're eating a

lot of protein overall as part of a lot

of calories, it has to be oxidized and

it can provide a calorie cushion for

other things to be stored in fat. But

protein itself does provide you know a

net positive for calories but less so

than carbohydrate or fat and tends to be

more satiating. So again when people

talk about you know are all calories

created equal yes but all sources of

calories may have differential effects

on energy expenditure and appetite. So

that's the TEF bucket and the BMR

bucket. Then we go to physical activity.

And physical activity is essentially two

parts. There's exercise which is kind of

your purposeful movements like you go

out for a walk, you do a training

session, I mean whatever any purposeful

activity and then you have what's called

NEAt which is non-ex exercise activity

thermogenesis. So for example if I when

I'm talking if I'm waving around my

hands if I'm tapping my feet if I'm

whatever that's NEAt the calorie burn

from NEAT is actually pretty

significant. We're not talking about 100

calories or 200 calories per day. We're

talking about in some cases hundreds of

thousands, excuse me, hundreds to maybe

even close to a thousand calories per

day.

>> And what's very interesting about NEAt

is that seems to be the most modifiable

of, you know, BMR, TEF, and NEAt. NEAt

seems to be far more modifiable. The

next thing is a lot of people weigh very

sporadically. And I'll tell people like

if you're going to make intentional

weight loss a goal and again this can be

different for different people but

typically I tell people weigh in first

thing in the morning right after you go

to the bathroom do it every day and take

the average of that for the week and

then compare that to the next week's

average as somebody who weighs

themselves pretty pretty regularly. I

mean my weight will fluctuate you know

five six pounds and not seemingly

changing much you know and that's just

you know those short-term changes are

fluid. So, if you're somebody who just

randomly is weighing in and you're

eating at a calorie deficit and you just

weigh in one day where you just whatever

reason holding some more fluid, then you

go, "Oh, see this isn't working." When

in reality, your average might be

dropping. Weight fluctuations are

actually identified as a major reason

why people get discouraged from weight

loss. It kind of stops the buy in, you

know, when they have a fluctuation up.

So, that's one of the reasons one of the

reasons early on that low carb diets

tend to work really well is because

people lose a lot of water weight.

really quickly and they get that buy in.

So, oh, this is working. People think

about I'm going to do a diet and I'm

going to lose this weight and they do

not give any thought to what happens

afterwards. Think about if you have some

kind of chronic disease or a diabetic,

right? You you can't just take insulin

once and that's it, right? You got to

take it continuously otherwise you're

going to have problems. You can't create

a new version of yourself while dragging

your old habits and behaviors behind

you. So, what I'll tell people is

because people say, "Well, I'm doing a

carnivore diet or I'm doing this diet or

that diet." And I'll say, "That's fine.

Do you see yourself doing that for the

rest of your life?" And if the answer is

no, you probably need to rethink what

your approach is going to be. Could you

briefly talk about how macronutrients,

including protein, impact satiety from

the standpoint of somebody who, for

instance, would like to quote unquote

lose a few pounds, right? probably would

be happy to gain a little bit of lean

body mass provided it was in a

particular location on their body. That

seems to be a a thing now, directed

hypertrophy, if you will. And how much

they should focus on protein as a core

component of creating this diet. And are

animal sources of protein indeed more

bioavailable? That's a tricky word for

sake of muscle building, but also for

sake of somebody who just would like to

lose body fat. They don't want to lose

muscle and they'd like to bring their

weight down a few pounds. of the

macronutrients, protein is definitely

the biggest lever that you can pull

because even if you know it doesn't take

a ton of protein to get a lot of the

muscle building benefits. I mean, I

think the benefits really start to

plateau out around 1.6 g per kilogram of

body weight. There's some evidence that

maybe even up to like 2.4 or 2.8 g per

kilo may give like a little bit more

benefit. I think it probably looks

something like an asmtope in terms of a

curve where as you put more into the

system you always get a little bit more

but it just gets to the point where it's

so infantessimally small benefit that

it's for all intents of purposes no

benefit. There doesn't seem to be really

downsides to it even like up to very

high levels of protein. in Jose Antonio

did a study that was a year-long

randomized control trial and again it's

just one year but they were looking at

all sorts of different biioarkers and

basically even up to like four grams per

kilogram of protein they couldn't really

find any negative health outcomes from

it other than people were just so

satiated they ended up eating less

calories. So protein is a big lever

because one, it has a higher thermic

effect of food. So you're getting a

little bit more calorie burn per day,

even though it's not a ton because TEF

is a pretty small percentage of your

overall energy expenditure, but still a

benefit. You're getting the effects on

lean body mass. It's going to, if you're

in a diet, it's going to help preserve

lean body mass. If you're at

maintenance, it's going to help build or

preserve lean body mass. And if you're

in a surplus, it's going to help build

or preserve lean body mass. If I'm going

to eat, let's say, two grams um per

kilogram of body weight protein and I'm

not eating multiple meals per maybe I'm

eating two or three meals per day, I'm

certainly going to be eating more than

the 30 gram threshold that was thrown

around for a long time that we can only

assimilate 30 grams of protein per meal.

Should I just not worry about that? Some

of it is going to go towards the thermic

uh effect of food. Uh some of that might

be converted into glucose of all things

through gluconioenesis. So, should I

worry about this 30 gram cut off?

Because I think balancing the the 1.6

gram per kilogram body weight threshold

with number of meals with the need to

exercise and work and live my life and

sleep, etc. Pretty soon you you you run

into bottlenecks where you just can't do

it all or you're spending so much time

trying to focus on all

>> you can't optimize all the things at the

same time.

>> You lose your mind and your body. Most

Americans get about 65 to 70% of their

protein at dinner, right? Breakfast

tends to be pretty minimal protein. So

to answer your question, I do think that

timing and frequency matters a little.

Not so much frequency, but distribution

more so, but it's a it's a much smaller

lever than just getting enough total

protein in. And then as far as like

animal versus plant, I used to be in the

camp of there's no way somebody can

build as much muscle on a plant-based

diet. And now I think I've come back to

you can. It just requires a little bit

more planning. And I don't want to say

always, but it's very difficult to do

without an isolated source of protein.

So unless you're going to supplement

with an isolated plant source of

protein, it's very difficult to get

enough without going over on total

calories because you can figure that

especially like take somebody who may be

calorically restricted trying to get

enough protein from whole intact plant

sources. So you've got a few different

things working against you. One, the

sources of protein you're consuming also

have carbohydrate and or fat. Two, it's

a less bioavailable form of protein. And

three, it's a lower quality of protein

in terms of it has typically less

lucine, less branching amino acids, and

less essential amino acids.

>> You answered the question that I almost

interrupted you to ask, which was does

it boil down to the leucine content? And

um it sounds like that is one of the

components and that uh a lot of the

vegan and vegetarian sources of

excellent protein that excellent protein

vegetarian or vegan source is

co-packaged with calories from

carbohydrates and or fat that make it

hard to stay stay under the caloric

threshold whereas a steak is I'm not and

obviously for people might want to avoid

that for ethical reasons but that's a

different matter entirely but a steak or

a piece of chicken or an egg is well an

egg you know has a yolk which is there's

fat there, but is almost a pure protein

fat source. There's no carbohydrate

along for the ride.

>> You know, you can do it. Takes a little

more planning and you're almost always

if you're a vegan especially, you're

going to be better off like

supplementing with some isolated form of

protein or vegan form of protein. Now,

this is where it gets into people say,

well, what about the limiting amino

acids and those sorts of things? It's a

consideration. Some of the better forms

of vegan protein in terms of amino acid

content are like soy. Now I can

everybody hear everybody screaming

online about their testosterone levels

in terms of actual outcomes and looking

at testosterone. There was a recent meta

analysis looking at soy and I think if

it's your only source of protein then

maybe the dosage is high enough to cause

some weird effects but if you're just

using it like once or twice a day

doesn't seem to have an effect on

testosterone or estrogen. So that can be

a decent source of protein because it is

a complete protein source. Um it does

have a pity cause of one which picaus is

basically a uh a measure of

protein quality based on does it provide

enough of all the amino acids so that

none are limiting and so soy is one of

the only vegan sources that does that.

Interestingly potato protein isolate

actually has a similar essential amino

acid content to whey. So isolated potato

protein it's just really hard to find.

Another reason using an isolated protein

can be helpful is because it's more

bioavailable as well when it's been

isolated out. When it's the protein

bound up in the actual plant material,

it tends to be less bioavailable. Now,

cooking can help increase the

bioavailability because it breaks some

of those bonds and and whatnot. The

other thing to consider with the vegan

sources of protein is the lucine

content. So one of the studies we did

was we looked at wheat, soy, egg and

whey is nitrogenous meaning we equated

protein between the groups isocoric. We

equated calories and we looked at muscle

protein synthesis and I think this was

the meals were 15% of total energy from

protein. So like a like your food guide

pyramid level of protein. uh and we saw

that in the wheat and soy group uh they

did not increase muscle protein

synthesis but the egg and whey group

increased muscle protein synthesis. Now

what's really interesting is we went

back and we took wheat and added free

leucine to it to match the leucine

content of whey and the protein

synthetic response was identical.

>> So again I I don't like to simplify

things too much but leucine appears to

really be driving this ship. a few

different options for the vegan folks

out there. You can use an isolated

source of of protein. And again, like

there's going to be good options coming

because this plant-based way is going to

be a great option for folks. You can add

free lucine to it to whatever your

source of protein is.

>> Just buy supplemented lucine. Now, it

tastes horrible. It's completely

non-polar. Does not dissolve in anything

capsules.

>> Gross. It can't be put into capsules.

Yeah. So, you could take a capsule. For

example, if you're eating your normal

meal, you could just take a capsule of

like one gram of lucine. It's probably

going to bump you up, bump you up enough

that you're going to be good to go.

There's options like blends, especially

with corn. Corn is actually very high in

lucine as a percentage of its protein.

Now, you got to remember like you go eat

corn on a cob and you're getting like

two grams of total protein. So, it's not

that much leucine. But if you isolate

out the protein, put it into a powder,

well now you know when you're getting

like 80 90% of the weight is now

protein. Corn is actually about 12%

leucine in terms of the protein. So a

great source of leucine. It is like

almost frank deficient in some other

amino acids, but you can blend it with a

few other sources of protein like you

could blend it with a soy, a pea, and

you can create these complimentary

blends that would actually have quite a

bit of leucine but also some of the

other essential amino acids. So, there

are options out there for plant-based

folks. And I mean, we have seen people

who are plant-based build impressive

amounts of muscle. There's quite a few

bodybuilders that are plant-based. Can

we come up with a relatively short

summary of the following? Tell me if

this is um correct or not. That most of

us should be focused on ingesting

non-processed and minimally processed

foods.

>> I would 100% agree with what you said

that trying to focus on minimally

processed foods is very important. The

one caveat I would say is I think it's

important to understand why processed

food just gets people to spontaneously

eat more. Uh Kevin Hull showed this in

his study that was I mean very I mean he

designed some of the most elegant

studies in nutrition. They basically

took people from a minimally processed

food diet and then gave them access to

ultrarocessed foods very few

instructions just eat till you feel

satisfied and they spontaneously

increase their calorie intake by 500

calories a day. That's massive. Now,

that being said, it depends on the

individual and their goals. If your goal

is to, for example, build muscle or

maintain a high body weight for a sport,

for example, like an NFL offensive

lineman or or something of that nature,

your protein, your fiber, your

micronutrients, these are your

responsibilities. But those become much

easier to hit when you have higher

calories. If you're eating 4,000

calories a day for whatever goal you

have, you're probably going to have some

left over. And like good luck eating

4,000 calories from minimally processed

foods. You quite frankly you'll be

miserable because you're you're going to

have such gut fill that you're going to

feel like you can't even move. And so

that's why I'm so pedantic and a

stickler about saying, "Okay, yes, it's

a good idea to eat a minimally processed

food and try to avoid processed foods,

but not because processed foods are bad

per se, but what the outcome tends to be

from a lot of processed food

consumption, which is over consuming

calories and then therefore, you know,

energy toxicity negatively contributing

to your health." This I think is a

perfect segue for something that

>> first brought us together [laughter]

which was you know which was this this

thing about artificial sweeteners.

Artificial sweeteners are many things.

So I'd like to talk about their effects

on blood sugar

>> in the acute sense and then the gut

microbiome data I think are interesting

enough to discuss. I have changed my

view on artificial sweeteners based on

what you've taught me. So, this is a

case where I've completely changed my

view, which is that I don't have any

problem with them whatsoever based on

the current data, which is not to say

that I'm, you know, gulping down cupfuls

of sucralose, but I feel okay ingesting

some stevia and some aspartame and I'm

not too worried about it.

>> We have to think about again the

hierarchy of importance, right? And what

are you replacing with? There is no

situation where it is not a net positive

to take somebody who drinks sugar

sweetened beverages and have them drink

an artificially sweetened beverage. like

the in the meta analysis there was

actually a recent network meta analysis

looking at like markers of ataposity

um you know HBA1C a bunch of different

health markers and when you substitute

you know uh uh we'll call it

non-nutritive sweeteners since stevia is

not artificial but so when you

substitute N&S

for the sugar sweetened beverages you

see improvements in a lot of different

things and whenever I post about

non-nutritive sweeteners in the comments

there's There's always one or two or

three people who say, "All I did was cut

out soda and I drank diet soda instead

and I lost 50 pounds or I lost 75

pounds. I even had one person say I lost

100 pounds. That's the only thing I

did."

>> Wow.

>> I mean, that's a pretty massive lever to

pull if you consider somebody who might

be having like I mean five or six cokes

a day. We're talking a serious amount of

calories. Is that obese person who lost

100 pounds by doing that, do I really

care about maybe a small alteration to

their gut microbiome? No. because their

gut microbiome is actually much more

healthy now by them having lost all that

excess atapost tissue. So I think it's

one of those things that again it

depends on the situation right like if

somebody's obese and they said well this

is going to help me you know eliminate

sugar sweetened beverage like why would

you want to take that tool away from

them like that's a a great lever to pull

I mean if somebody can lose literally

100 pounds from just one change in

lifestyle that's not even really that

inconvenient of a change that is

powerful but again is it the most

healthy thing they could do and I think

that's kind of like what tends to get

asked we don't know is it healthier than

water

probably not maybe as healthy as it who

knows but I really make all those

caveats because you don't want to have

people who could use this as a tool

think well no I can't do this because

it's actually bad for me

>> right

>> if it helps you lose 50 lbs or 75 pounds

or whatever it is trust me it's not bad

for you

>> seed oils there are a number of folks

out there who are arguing that seed oils

are the source of you know the obesity

epidemic everything. And then there are

those that would argue just the opposite

um that you know meat is the source of

all problems etc. And I think we've

appropriately framed things that it's

never that black and white. It's simply

not. Are there any data on seed oils?

The first thing I'll say is seed oils

have have negatively contributed to our

overall health because people in the

last you know 20 30 years what they have

tend to add into their diet that has

increase the overall calorie load is oil

mostly from seed oils but when we look

at like onetoone replacement with other

fats and so I if you look at the

epidemiology yeah you can find some

epidemiology showing people who consume

more seed oil have more negative health

outcomes comes problem is again tied up

with a multitude of other behaviors.

And then you can find mechanisms and the

the idea is well they're polyunsaturated

which means in the fatty acid chain

there's multiple double bonds which

those double bonds can be oxidized uh

when they're exposed to heat and some

other things. And so the idea is well

when you cook with these things and they

may get oxidized and that's going to

cause inflammation in your body. That's

a a plausible mechanism. So, as always,

I defer to the human randomized control

trials. What you tend to find when you

substitute saturated fats for

polyunsaturated fats, inflammation is

basically neutral. There there's some

studies that show a positive effect of

doing polyunsaturated fats, but it

probably depends on the individual

polyunsaturated fat. And that's the

other thing I don't really is difficult

because you're you're categorizing like

everything in this one bucket and there

are some differences between individual

fatty acids. Even with saturated fat

like for example steic acid doesn't tend

to raise LDL cholesterol whereas you

know saturated fat as a whole tends to

raise LDL cholesterol but there are some

saturated fats that don't. So again it's

like we're putting things in buckets and

it's a little more nuanced than that. Uh

then if you look at the effects of know

polyunsaturated fats on markers of

cardiovascular disease again tends to

either be a neutral or positive effect

when you substitute saturated fat for

polyunsaturated fat. Now if you want to

get into like monounsaturated versus

polyunsaturated there's quite a bit of

disagreement between the studies. What I

would say based on the human randomized

control trials is that you're probably

better off consuming monounsaturated and

polyunsaturated in place of saturated

fat. But again, if the idea is, well,

that means polyunsaturated are good for

me. So, I'm just going to dump a bunch

of oil on everything and now you're

upping your calories. Well, that's

that's that's a negative now, right?

Because you have to deal with the bigger

problem of overall energy toxicity. So,

I'm not somebody who likes to demonize

individual nutrients. I just haven't

seen really compelling evidence that

seed oils are the root cause of the

problems that are being suggested. And I

think this is a good example of kind of

like whenever there's a something that

pops up in the fitness industry, there's

always like the opposite thing that pops

up and is like the reactionary, you

know, extreme reaction to whatever this

thing was over here. And I think that's

what we're seeing with some of the seed

oil stuff. It's mostly people who are

trying to kind of expose the virtues of

saturated fat. I think it's fine to

consume sims saturated fat, but I think

limiting it to seven to 10% of your

daily calorie intake is probably wise

again based on the consensus of the

evidence I've seen. And so once again,

like we're we're struggling with this.

Okay, we've got this epidemiology and

these mechanisms that sound good, but

then what actually happens when we we do

some human randomized control trials and

and so far I just haven't seen the

evidence to suggest that seed oils are

independently bad for you independent of

the calories they contain. I think we

all have this idea that there's this one

iconic diet out there that is going to

be the best diet for building muscle and

burning fat and uh preventing cancer and

heart disease. And the reality is like

there's overall healthy dietary patterns

that we see that are good for those

things. But when we get down into the

weeds, there's probably some push and

pull here as well. I'd

>> like to ask you about supplements for a

moment. one that I'm very familiar with

which is creatine monohydrate not just

for muscle building but maybe any other

purposes for it.

>> It is the most tested safe and effective

sport supplement we have. I mean it's

just there are thousands of studies on

creatin monohydrate now. I would say

very clearly too if you're using any

other form of creatin I think you're

wasting your money. Creatine

hydrochloride has some hype around it.

It's in it's apparently it's a little

more soluble. Um the claim is that you

need less but there's only a couple

studies on it and it's more expensive.

So I tell people just take creatine

monohydrate. It is tried and true. It's

been shown to saturate the muscle cells

100% with phosphocreatin and that's what

you want. So creatin uh works through a

few different methodologies. One through

increasing phosphocreatin content which

helps improve exercise performance. It

appears to improve recovery and it

increases lean mass

a lot of which is through bringing water

into the muscle cells but that is I mean

muscle cells are mostly water. So when

people say well it's just water that's

what muscle cells mostly are and it also

increases strength and some other

metrics. Now it also has been shown in

studies that people tend to get a

decrease in body fat percentage. Now,

that's probably because they're getting

an increase in lean mass. And so, the

relative is a decrease in body fat

percentage. But there are a few studies

that show a decrease in fat mass as

well. I don't think that creatin is a

fat burner. I think that people are able

to train harder, build more lean tissue,

and so that's probably having an effect

on fat mass. Then, they've actually

shown more recently some cognitive

benefits to creatin, which I find really

interesting as well. But the only knock

on creatin that anybody's been able to

come up with because they've they've

debunked the kidney stuff. They've

debunked the liver stuff. It there's no

evidence that it harms healthy kidney or

liver is hair loss. So what about hair

loss? Because there was one study in

2009 that showed that creatin increased

DHT. But they didn't really show an

effect on any other sex hormone. So it's

kind of strange like you would think if

there was an increase in DHT there would

be like something else that changes as

well. And it's only one study and again

didn't directly measure hair loss

measured DHT which we know is involved

in the loss of the follicule the

follicle.

So what I would say is that I am not

convinced it's only one study never been

replicated to my knowledge and it was

looking at a mechanism rather than an

outcome. Do you emp emphasize the

classic loading of creatine? Taking it a

bunch of times per day and then backing

off or just taking it consistently at

the I think five grams per day is kind

of the typical um dose that people take.

>> So again, no solutions, only trade-offs.

You can load it and you will saturate

your phosphocreatin stores faster, like

usually within a week. Uh if you just

take five grams per day, it'll take two,

three, four weeks. uh but you will get

to the same place and you're probably

going to have a much lower risk of GI

issues. Some people creatin can be a gut

irritant. If it is for some folks, I

would recommend splitting it into

multiple doses. So maybe like multiple

two one or two gram doses per day and

definitely don't load it if you're

somebody who has GI issues from it. The

more into the weeds people tend to get,

and again this is just my own anecdote

and observation, the more into the weeds

they tend to get, the less hard I see

them train. And so one of the things I

really like that Mike Israel said who's

got a PhD and is a bodybuilder himself,

he said, "You can't outscience

hard training." If you're looking to

build muscle and you're looking to

improve your body composition, that the

main thing is just doing the work over

time. And I think a lot of that is

getting the confidence of doing

something hard that there's a payoff at

the end. I get asked a lot in my Q&A,

how do I get more confident? How do I

become more confident? I'll tell people

you have to do you have there there's no

hack you can't read about you got to get

in the arena and I don't mean like

compete in sports necessarily but like

doing a PhD or doing something just

something hard where you're putting

yourself out there and you're saying

this is my goal and I'm going to go for

it you just learn so much by doing that

about yourself

>> I must say this conversation for me has

been tremendously rewarding the amount

of knowledge that you contain inside you

is is astonishing and

>> there's a lot of stuff rattle around up

there.

>> Well, and and we all benefit because

your ability to pull from the

mechanistic side, again, I think in not

limited to but related to your

background in biochemistry all the way

through to the um the impact in humans,

animal studies, being able to understand

where those sit relative to one another.

And then you're obviously a practitioner

of you practice what you preach and what

you talk about pertains to men, to

women, younger people, older people,

people who are vegan, keto, carnivore,

you really are able to net a tremendous

number of ideas while staying really

nuanced and data driven. And so just

want to say for myself and on behalf of

the listeners, really appreciate you

coming in here today and sharing with us

your knowledge. So thank you so much for

your time. Oh, thank you. I appreciate

the opportunity. I I really enjoyed it.