what was it that they ate that day that

impacted how they slept that night? And

we found that higher intakes of fiber

were associated with more deep sleep,

higher intakes of saturated fat, less

deep sleep, and then more refined

carbohydrates, simple sugars, more

arousals. You're not getting deep

slowwave sleep, REN sleep as much as you

would otherwise. Welcome to the Huberman

Lab podcast, where we discuss science

and science-based tools for everyday

life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Dr. Marie Pierre Strange, a

professor of nutritional medicine at the

Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia

University School of Medicine. Today we

discuss how you eat impacts your sleep

and how you sleep impacts what you eat

as well as how your body utilizes food

depending on how you slept. Now we've

talked about food and we've talked about

sleep many times before on this podcast.

But Dr. St. On's work is unique because

she runs one of the few laboratories in

the world to look at the birectional

relationship between sleep and food. For

instance, you'll learn how even modest

sleep deprivation increases hunger but

differently in men and women. In men, it

happens to increase the hormones that

drive the desire to eat. Whereas in

women, it reduces naturally made

peptides such as GLP, which suppress

hunger. Today's discussion gets into the

specific actionable items that you can

do to improve your sleep, and the way

that your body handles food and hunger.

We talk about the role of sleep in

regulating blood sugar, cortisol levels,

overall metabolism, and cardioabolic

health. Now, because Dr. St. Oja's

research focuses on sleep and nutrition,

but she's also spent a significant

amount of time studying how specific

nutrients impact overall health and not

just sleep. We also talk about that. I'm

certain that you'll come away from

today's episode with a lot of new

information you haven't heard elsewhere,

as well as with the intention to make

small or perhaps even large changes in

behavior and nutritional choices that

the science tell us can significantly

improve your sleep, your metabolism, and

overall health. Before we begin, I'd

like to emphasize that this podcast is

separate from my teaching and research

roles at Stanford. It is however part of

my desire and effort to bring zero cost

to consumer information about science

and science related tools to the general

public. In keeping with that theme,

today's episode does include sponsors.

And now for my discussion with Dr. Marie

Pierre St. Dr. Marie Pierre St. welcome.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Sleep impacts how and what we eat and

how and what we eat impacts sleep.

That's a different perspective than I

think most people take. I think most

people are familiar, however, with not

getting the best night's sleep, maybe

feeling like their impulsivity to eat

quote unquote bad foods is a little

higher, and then also hopefully familiar

with having a great night's sleep and

feeling like we're just kind of in

control in a different way. Maybe you

could just kind of share for us what's

really going on beneath that experience

and when subtle or not so subtle chronic

sleep loss. So not an allnighter

necessarily but you know 45 minutes less

here 90 minutes less there etc etc how

that plays out in terms of our nutrition

and then we'll go in from the nutrition

side to sleep.

>> Sure. So there's a couple of questions

that you have in there actually about

the extent of sleep loss and how that

influences your food intake, what we see

in the general population versus what we

do in a lab to address causality. So let

me start with you know the

population-based studies right. So when

I started being interested in in sleep

it was coming from an obesity angle. My

PhD is in nutrition. I trained as a

postoc in uh body composition obesity

research and we were getting a lot of

information from population based

studies that people who sleep too little

have a higher body mass index than

people who get adequate amount of sleep.

Then it became there is a higher

prevalence of people with obesity in

this short sleep uh group.

Then studies evaluating changes over

time seeing that people who don't sleep

enough tend to gain more weight. There

was a famous uh nurses health study that

I really like to site uh when I give

talks that was published in 2006

where uh they tracked nurses over 14

years and those nurses that reported

sleeping five six hours had much higher

rate of weight gain over that 14 15 year

period than the nurses who had reported

sleeping seven or eight hours per night.

So those are observations that we get

from largecale population studies,

cohorts,

but you know what they what those

studies tell us is that things are

happening at a point in time or may

influence something that's happening

over time but not necessarily that one

causes the other. Right? So I started uh

my work in this field trying to uncover

whether sleeping too little actually

causes weight gain. And so in my opinion

because I was coming from a lab where I

trained in the measurement of energy

balance. So how much energ how much

energy you eat versus how much energy

you burn like well if sleep leads to

obesity leads to weight gain it has to

impact this energy balance

regulation. So it's either that we eat

more than we should or that we exercise

less we burn less or we eat more or

maybe it's a combination of the two.

Let's try this out and and see. So my

first uh my first study, my first NIH

grant, the big RO1s, you know, was to

look at exactly at this. So we had

people who had adequate sleep and we

brought them in the lab and we asked

them in a crossover design. So half of

the participants started out sleeping

adequately. So they we gave them a

9-hour time in bed opportunity or we

asked them to sleep too little. So, they

had a 4-hour time in bed opportunity,

very short, but we did this for five

nights.

And then we took all sorts of

measurements in a controlled feeding

condition. So, for the first three days,

we told we had our participants eat the

exact same thing regardless of how much

time in bed they slept they got at

night. And then we measured appetite

regulating hormones. We did neuroiming

uh to really get at isolating the impact

of sleep duration on appetite regulating

hormones and and um neuronal responses

to foods. And then on the last day we

let them self- select their food intake

and we measured that in the lab. From

that study we showed that in men

specifically

uh we saw an increase in ghrein in

response to short sleep. So this hormone

that triggers food intake in women we

saw a reduction in GLP-1 interestingly

enough glucagon like peptide one. So the

satiety hormone was reduced as a result

of short sleep in women. And then when

uh we measured their food intake in the

lab, they ate 300 calories more in the

short sleep condition than they when

they got their regular adequate sleep of

at least 7 and 1/2 hours, a little more

than that uh per night. Then uh you were

asking about you know brain responses.

Uh we looked at neuronal responses to

food stimuli. We found upregulation in

uh reward centers of the brain in the

context of sleep restriction compared to

the context of adequate sleep. So

altogether really building a case that

when you don't sleep enough at night,

you have both physiological

signals to eat more for men or not stop

eating in women that lead to greater

food intake. that's also uh could be

impacted by just pleasurable centers

that are activated to a greater extent

as a result of uh insufficient sleep.

>> Amazing this sex specific split in the

data if I have it correctly that when

men are sleepd deprived so getting four

hours per night

>> the signals that drive a pettitive

desire to eat are higher in women it's

more that the break uh on eating on

satiety is reduced.

>> Exactly. Okay. As far as I know, the GLP

pathways are not um divergent by by sex,

but of course I'm not deeply versed in

that literature. Is there any evidence

that GLPs are functioning different in

men and women like circadian wise or

anything like that or this just this was

just a fertuitous outcome or I should

say uh incidental outcome?

>> This was an incidental outcome. We

really didn't know what to expect. We

didn't really know at all that we'd see

sex differences. Mhm.

>> Because there had been prior studies and

prior studies had shown that ghrein was

increased as a result of sleep

restriction. They also showed that

leptin was reduced as a result of sleep

restriction. And when we got our data,

if we analyzed our data with all of our

participants together

>> and there was no effect.

>> Mhm.

>> And that was surprising. And people

would say, "Don't you know? Don't you

know sleep restriction

increases grein?" Like, well, I guess I

don't know because in our study it

doesn't. But then we saw these sex

specific differences. Then it made sense

then that in the full sample when we had

an equal number of men and women we saw

no effect on ghrein because there was no

effect in women but there was an effect

in men which was reproducing what others

had found because all the prior studies

had been done in men only.

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Whenever I'm sleepd deprived, so four or

five hours of sleep I consider sleep

deprived. I used to pull allnighters

years ago. Now I avoid them at all

costs. But whenever I have that

experience, I feel like my whole body to

some extent is in a low level of pain.

It's like kind of like central ache like

you just and and I wonder a extent to

which people eat to overcome like to

kind of quell the the pain of sleep

deprivation. Maybe people react

differently to sleep deprivation. Maybe

their subjective experience of it is is

very different. But what do you think is

happening in that uh in that short

relatively short amount of sleep that's

missing? What is getting reset? Is it

neural? Is it endocrine? It's obviously

all those things, but what do you think

is the the switch that allows people to

enter a a day in a in a much more

healthy fashion or or a sick essentially

in a slightly sick fashion? In our

study, it was actually a 50% reduction

in sleep because when they had 9 hours

sleep opportunity, they slept around 7

and 1/2 and when they had the they were

all people who we had screened to sleep

at least seven measured by ectography.

So, and on average they get 7 and 1/2.

And in the sleep restricted condition,

they got on average about 3 hours and 50

minutes.

>> So, it's like staying up late working on

a deadline then trying to catch an early

flight. Yeah,

>> it's pretty brutal.

>> It's pretty brutal. And that was

maintained, you know, they had five

nights of that. So that

>> five nights of that. Were they coming

unglued mentally, too? That I think I

would feel terrible after that kind of

stretch

>> that the end they were done. Like there

was no way anyone would want to keep

keep coming for that. But they were in

the lab. They were under supervision the

whole time. We didn't let them go out on

their own. Uh so they were well

supervised. Make sure that nothing uh

nothing would happen to them.

>> No naps.

>> No naps. No. No. Uh but so what happens

is I think there's some subconscious

need to to eat more when you're

sleepdeprived. There's also you know

there's a thermic effect of of food,

right? So it gives you a jolt of energy

to eat something. People know that you

eat it wakes you up in a way. You know,

neuronal signaling that that enhances uh

pleasurable and reward centers of the

brain where you know when also fatigue

sits in and now it's like do you really

want to have this conversation with

yourself about what to choose at the

buffet table? you know, there's fatigue

>> and uh and others have shown also that

sleepiness tends to correlate with all

of this that there's these triggers for

more pleasurable food consumption with

um with sleep restriction and it's been

reproduced. There's been so many studies

uh and they all you know agree to to the

extent of overeating you know a meta

analysis showed 250 to 400 calories of

overeating which might not sound like

much but when you start layering that in

day after day and you think you know

3500 excess calories more or less for a

pound of body weight and then you start

when people accumulate that over time

>> if they're in a night shift condition or

new parents or

>> tending to a sick relative were just

final exams like it it's a real thing.

>> It's a real thing. Uh Neymar Kovven in

uh 2022 published a paper where uh they

had sleep restriction about 5 hours per

night versus 7 and 1 half hours per

night for two weeks and participants

gained half a kilo in a twoe period. So

you do nothing and you just you know

sleep less and gain gain almost a pound

in two weeks. It strikes me that, you

know, for a long time in the stress

research, the idea was when people are

stressed, they reach for kind of quote

unquote comfort foods, carbohydrate, and

typically starch fat, starched fat,

sugar combination foods to comfort them.

And and the the just so story was always

that uh okay, well, you know, cortisol's

main role is to deploy glucose, and so

people are doing this as a way to bring

excess energy and and it all kind of

fits together. What is the relationship

between these forms of sleep deprivation

that you work on and stress? Is it

really a way of of I'm not saying just

inducing stress because I think sleep is

its own thing, but it's stressful

>> just to be less than adequately rested

independent of the things coming at you

in life,

>> right? Is what you're studying stress.

>> So if you're thinking about

physiological stress measured by

cortisol levels in that study actually

cortisol wasn't changed

>> in the short sleep.

>> In the short sleep. Tell me more about

that. I'm fascinated by circadian

rhythms and cortisol. So what does what

does that what does that mean?

>> There was no difference between the two

conditions. The adequate sleep or short

sleep on cortisol levels

>> for 5 days of sleep restriction at

basically 4 hours a night.

>> So cortisol is still peaking in the in

the morning, still dropping in the

evening.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow. That's very surprising to me.

>> I don't know. I don't know if it's the

context of you know being in a lab where

everything's safe taken care of for

them. there is nothing outside to

aggravate

>> this. So I don't know maybe when you're

in the context of sleep restriction but

also dealing with your daily life

>> you needing to take care of your kids

needing to get to work needing to do all

the activities of daily living maybe

then that becomes you know the the added

stressful. So the message is if you

suffer less than adequate sleep, get

someone to take care of everything else.

You better be in a spa. Exactly.

Exactly. No, I and I'm not challenging

the result. I just find it really

interesting. I would have thought that

basil cortisol levels would would go

ary.

>> Well, in that study also, we didn't see

any effect on glucose or insulin.

Nothing. Nothing. The curves were

superimposable.

while

>> they were eating the exact same food at

the exact same time, exact same

quantity. The only thing we changed was

the amount of sleep opportunity they got

at night. So to me, this means that it's

a combination of different things that

causes the metabolic abnormalities that

we notice in free living populations.

People aren't isolated. They're not in a

box where they're not sleeping enough

and they're choosing to eat higher fat,

higher sugar, higher salt, poor diet

that then triggers a worsening and may

be compounded by the lack of sleep, even

worsening of of those cardioabolic

outcomes because we did a follow-up

study to this uh this severe sleep

restriction study. So the reason why we

did that was because exactly for this

reason because we did not find any

adverse impact on glucose or insulin or

lipid profile. And we're like so what is

it then? Why is it that in population

based studies we find that people who

sleep too little have higher risk of

cardiovascular disease, higher risk of

hypertension, higher blood pressure,

higher uh risk of type two diabetes. So,

because we had seen that food choices

were different, that they ate a diet

that was higher in calories, higher uh

in fat and saturated fat, we thought

maybe if you're in a free living

situation,

that's when you start to see those

cardio metabolic outcomes because it's

compounded by maybe uh more sedentary

behavior and

alterations in in uh food choices and

and diet. So the follow-up study then

was to recruit good sleepers, people who

sleep at least seven hours per night,

verified by ectography, who answer on

questionnaires that their sleep quality

is good. And then to take these people

and say, "Okay, now you're either going

to continue your excellent sleep or

you're going to now go to bed an hour

and a half later." So that you get an

hour and a half reduction in sleep.

Because when we screen people to sleep

at least seven hours per night, they

sleep about seven and a half. And

reducing by an hour and a half gets to 6

hours, which is short sleep,

insufficient

on average what people who don't get

enough sleep get.

>> They're missing a full sleep cycle.

>> Yeah, pretty much. and uh and they can

sustain that for prolonged periods

because that's what people report in in

population based studies. And now when

we did that, we saw that insulin

resistance was increased after 6 weeks

of sleep restriction compared to

adequate sleep. We saw insulin

sensitivity was reduced. It was worse

actually in post-menopausal women

compared to premenopausal women. We saw

blood pressure uh was increased. Uh so

those cardio metatabolic outcomes were

adversely impacted in free living mild

sustained sleep restriction for 6 weeks.

6 weeks was something else also. It was

it was tough.

>> I can only imagine. Wow. Okay. Because

my mind always goes to all right. Well,

we wake up in the morning because of an

increase in cortisol. That's circadian.

It's not related to sleep per se. It

just kind of overlaps with the end of

the night's sleep. If that's independent

of sleep and cortisol drives glucose

release, we know this.

>> At least in the first study you

described, glucose levels weren't

altered. You said it was isocaloric, so

people were it's not like they're eating

more. No,

>> they're the the hormones that are

driving the desire to eat more are

elevated.

>> The didn't let them eat more,

>> but you didn't let them. I think that's

a a key thing that you you pointed out

before, but I think we want to

underscore. And then of course the GLP

uh levels in women being reduced. It's

not that then they were able to eat as

we say ad libidum and then they happen

to eat more but they gained weight. So

what's kind of the action end of things

that causes them to gain weight if

they're basically in an isocchloric

diet? And I have a I have a I have an

idea what it might be but I'm curious

what the answer is.

>> Yes. I think they're they're more

sedentary

>> during the day. Less spontaneous

activity.

>> Right. less spontaneous activity because

we also did a study to look at energy

expenditure that's really difficult

actually to measure in my opinion energy

expenditure there's multiple components

to energy expenditure

uh but we did a study where this was a

small study we enrolled only women for

that and we have a metabolic chamber at

Colombia that we were able to use for

this uh so this small room in which we

keep people and we measure minuteby at

oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide

production. And we were able to show

that energy expenditure is actually

increased in the context of sleep

restriction in the metabolic chamber

because it's more costly energetically

to remain awake than to fall asleep. So

energy expenditure when participants

were awake was identical in both

conditions regardless of how much sleep

they got the night before.

>> So it's fidgeting movement because we've

talked before in this podcast about the

non-ex exercise induced thermogenesis.

It's a big number. I mean you people who

fidget a lot bounce their knee a lot. I

mean sometimes these people are burning

1500 calories more per day and everyone

goes oh my god how could that possibly

be? But I mean that's a lot. That's at

the extreme. But it is kind of

interesting to observe people out in the

world and you sometimes see that people

who are very very lean, very let's just

say thin and lean nowadays, who knows

because of the GLPS etc. But they tend

to have a lot of spontaneous movement.

They tend to stand up quickly. They tend

to walk quickly. Well, you're from New

York, so everyone there walks faster

than out here. But it's a real thing,

you know, whereas some people like me

are kind of more middle of the curve,

but you know, I sit a bit more still

unless I'm very caffeinated. These

things add up over time in ways that I

think most people underestimate.

>> Yeah. So for us it was about 5% of

energy

>> increased, but it it and it ended up

being about 90 calories, nowhere close

to the 300 calories that uh

>> more of intake they got over over a day

in the prior study. So it's still an

imbalance towards a positive energy

balance when we do the math but there is

an increase in um in energy expenditure

again in the confines of a metabolic

chamber which you know for most people

is equivalent of the size of their

bathroom. Right.

>> Right. You have like a bed, a table and

a sink, a toilet. That's it. So you

can't can't do much in there.

>> But you can do studies quote unquote out

in the wild with um acttometry or what?

Yeah,

excuse me. Yeah.

>> Yes.

>> A little while ago, I saw a study that

said that if you are one night sleepd

deprived, like you get one or two hours

less uh sleep than normally you would

get to feel rested that it's actually

advantageous to exercise because it

offsets some of the um increase in

inflammation.

>> But then if you're going multiple nights

that way, exercising on a regular basis

when sleep deprived, it just sets up a

um susceptibility to illness,

susceptibility to injury and so forth.

How much of what you observe in the

under the conditions of sleep

deprivation do you think are downstream

or upstream of this thing that we just

call inflammation? like is this just

like a bodywide response and there are a

bunch of things that have gone ary and

and so like a bunch of systems are

disregulated or can we pinpoint okay

when you're sleepd deprived

this is what this is what's happening

because I think if if women knew that

their GLPs were down

>> when they're down on sleep so that they

should expect that they would feel less

satiety if men knew that their ghrein

levels were elevated when they're down

on sleep that they're going to feel hung

hungrier I mean we have pretty big

prefrontal cortex most people anyway and

we can intervene simply on the basis of

knowledge. I think that's what's

empowering and I think about this

sometimes too when I'm when I'm thinking

about you know my my diet at times right

I'm like I do I really want to eat this

or is it because I really didn't sleep

last night right so you can you can make

you can ask yourself these questions

take a pause and say okay do I really

want you know dessert or is it just that

I'm tired and you know I should just I'm

fine I don't need it Mhm.

>> So if you if you step back and think

that maybe part of it is because you

didn't sleep well the night before, then

you can make your appropriate choices,

right? Say, "Okay, I probably don't need

the the extra calories right now." Or or

maybe you say, "You know what? I had a

really bad night last night and those

extra calories, I don't really care

because they're going to make me feel

good and I need some pickme up." But you

know

>> that's that's all the choices to make

right you know because mood comes into

comes into play as well. So

>> well ultimately that brings us to the

the other direction of the equation

right how does what we eat impact our

sleep. This is something that I think

most people have heard about in the

context of try not to eat too close to

bedtime.

>> Um this is an active debate in many

households actually. Some people seem to

be fine eating close to bedtime and

sleeping and even if they track their

sleep. Other people it really disrupts

their sleep. I'm interested in both the

timing of food intake relative to sleep

but also the content of the food and how

it impacts sleep. What's known about

that either from your work or from other

work? When we started this conversation,

I was telling you about these population

based studies, you know, cross-sectional

data where two things happen at the same

time and you, you know, you you don't

really know causality, they happen at

the same time. And I think early on uh

in this field we started thinking about

sleep as the promoter of food intake or

as a sleepcausing

changes in diet exercise but didn't

really think that maybe it's the other

way around or maybe the other way around

is just as plausible.

So I started thinking about that and

said well what what if we took the other

approach? What if we looked at diet and

examined how diet influenced future

sleep?

And my first paper in this field was

using data from the multi-ethnic study

of atheroscerosis. It's actually kind of

hard to find good cohorts that have good

nutrition data, good sleep data, and

data over over years. Right? So MESA

multi-thnics of study of atherosclerosis

is one of those great cohorts that we

have in here in the US that has all of

the above. So I paired up with a

colleague of mine, Susan Redline in

Boston and uh she's a principal

investigator on their sleep ancillary

study and we asked the question of diet

quality and its impact on sleep

duration, insomnia symptoms and we found

that having a diet that more closely

aligns with the Mediterranean diet was

associated with better uh probability of

having adequate sleep and reduced um

insomnia symptoms in this cohort. So

then it launched a whole field of study

really to to keep looking at this and

we've looked at this in different

studies and different cohorts actually

uh earlier this year we published data

from the women's health initiative

another large large cohort with good

diet data and and sleep information. We

took a really really nice approach in

this uh longitudinal analysis. I don't

know. Usually when we do longitunal

studies, we exclude people who have the

condition at baseline, right? So if

you're trying to see this factor at

baseline, how does it influence

hypertension 10 years later, you usually

exclude people who have hypertension at

baseline? Because you want to see the

development of hypertension. In this

case, we're looking at insomnia

symptoms. But insomnia is one of those

conditions that's not necessarily

static. It resolves, right? So you can

have insomnia and then a few years later

not have insomnia

or you can not have insomnia now and

develop insomnia. So what we did is we

broke our down our participants into two

groups. the people who had no insomnia

at baseline and at three years followup

participants who had insomnia at

baseline but not at 3 years followup. So

they were in the healthful sleep

improving sleep and then the other group

was all those women who had insomnia at

baseline and at 3 years and no insomnia

at baseline but insomnia at 3 years. So

they were the persistent insomnia

progressing towards poor sleep group.

And we found that the women who had a

diet that was more closely aligned to

the Mediterranean diet. But we also

looked at uh an American type of diet

profile called the DASH diet. The

dietary approaches to stop hypertension.

Women who had a dietary profile closer

to those two types of diets, healthful

diets were less likely to have

hypertension uh insomnia at three years.

And the DASH diet is what?

>> Dietary approaches to stop hypert

hypertension was developed to uh reduce

prevent hypertension, reduce blood

pressure in people by increasing intakes

of fruits and vegetables, nuts and

seeds, consuming low-fat dairy, more

plant-based types of uh diet and and can

be has been tested in a low salt or

regular salt profile.

>> How did those work out? I'm just

curious. Do you recall if the low salt

high salt um condition

>> there is salt sensitivity so there are

some people who are very sensitive to

salt and so having a reduced salt diet

will really improve their blood pressure

>> others not so much but the DASH diet

regardless of its salt content did

better than the equivalent non-dash

>> which would be your average you know

American diet whatever that is yeah

higher in saturated fat and sugars

>> which seems to be changing now because

of the GLPS I I feel Like that's, you

know, uh maybe that's a skewed

perspective, but I feel like the the

typical American diet is it might not be

changing so much in content, but in

volume it seems like people are eating

less. Certainly the snack food

companies, from what I understand, are

struggling. Alcohol companies, that's a

different issue, but there certainly

have uh sales are way way down,

>> but it just seems like people's

appetites are down.

>> Well, GLP1s will do that, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And we were talking about this the

other day here. uh how many Americans

have tried a GLP? The estimates are

anywhere from like one in seven. Some

people say it's it's more

>> which is pretty incredible.

>> Yeah, it's pretty high.

>> But this is interesting. So how people

eat impacts their sleep, I'm sure the

listeners and I also am thinking okay

but people who are eating a

Mediterranean diet, right? olive oils,

fish, you know, fruits, vegetables, they

are probably more apt to walk more,

exercise more, socialize more, all the

how do you separate out the variables in

a study like that?

>> Uh well, so in population based studies,

we adjust for a bunch of coariants,

right? We have all these questionnaires

that uh that are given out to people

asking them about their race,

occupation, sociodemographic

stat, socioeconomic status, and then we

adjust. We adjust for um different

illnesses that they may have,

depression,

physical activity level. Um so we try to

take all this in into consideration.

Obviously we there's always unmeasured

factors that you can't control for

social interactions like you um you

mentioned. It's usually not captured

very well. It's not something that we uh

we can adjust for. But one thing that we

did in my lab uh going back to that

original study was to look at uh how

diet influenced sleep at night in the

participants in our inpatient study. So

we took the 9-hour time in bed

opportunity phase only that one. In the

4-hour time in bed opportunity

participants were very efficient. There

was not much variability in sleep

duration in that phase. They slept as

much as they could in that 4-hour

opportunity, but in the nine hours,

there was variability there. Some people

got more or less. So, we wanted to see

if food intake was related to their

sleep at night. That study, we had

polynography assessments of sleep every

single night. Like I mentioned, we had

uh control diet initially and then we

let them self- select their food

intakes. So we took a very systematic

approach to evaluating how diet could

influence sleep in that study. We said

first of all,

was the diet that they chose different

than the diet that we gave them? First

step, right? It was. So they ate almost

450 calories more. They ate 33% more

saturated fat.

uh little less protein I believe a

little more carbohydrates not much but

it it was different

>> so like okay so so there's difference

between the diets okay now

>> was their sleep at night different when

they were eating the diet that we fed

them compared to what they self-

selected

and it they it was different it wasn't

different in terms of duration but it

was different in time it took them to

fall asleep which was

over 70% longer to fall asleep when they

self- selected their diet and their

slowwave sleep. So deep sleep was

shorter. I think it was about 23 20%

shorter uh when they self- selected

their diet compared to what we had given

them.

>> Was timing of food intake impacted?

Because when I think of what impacts

what reduces um slowwave deep sleep,

it's eating too close to bedtime. Mhm.

So

we did not take that into consideration

in that study. We didn't uh we didn't

look at that. We had their their food

intake profile and didn't specifically

look in that phase when's when was their

last eating period. But it could have

been different than in the controlled

feeding condition because in the

controlled feeding condition they had

set meals at specific times. But they

all went to bed at 10 p.m. Then the

other question was, okay, what was it

that they ate that day that impacted how

they slept that night? And we found that

higher intakes of fiber were associated

with more deep sleep,

higher intakes of saturated fat, less

deep sleep, and then more refined

carbohydrates, simple sugars, more

arousals. So when we talk about arousals

in the context of polyynography, it

doesn't necessarily mean full-on waking

up or awakening, it really means going

from a deeper to lighter stage of sleep.

So you may still be asleep throughout

the night, but you're not getting deep

slow wave sleep, REN sleep as much as

you would uh otherwise.

>> Do you create a buffer between your last

bite of food and the time you go to

sleep? You personally?

>> Me personally, yes.

>> Is it an hour, two hours, three hours?

>> I personally like to eat my last meal at

least three hours before going to bed.

And I know there's variability there.

Different people have different uh

tolerance. You mentioned right before

that uh

>> you know some people may be later

chronotypes, but what we know is that

eating earlier

is better overall for cardio metabolic

health. Eating earlier is better. Me

personally, I feel I feel better by

eating earlier. If I eat too close to

bedtime, I

I get hot.

>> Right. Yeah. It's it's a thermic

effective food thermic effective. We

want to be cooling off when we go to

sleep.

>> Exactly. Exactly.

>> I'd like to take a quick break and

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co-enzyme Q10 with your first AG1

subscription. There seems to be

something asymmetric about sleep

requirements in my experience, and I

don't think I'm alone in this, whereby

if I go to bed at 1000 p.m., I get into

bed at 9:30, fall asleep at 10:00, I

need about 6 and 1 half, maybe 7 hours

to feel completely rested. That's how

long I'll sleep. Wake up without an

alarm, feeling great.

If I go to bed at midnight, I find I

could sleep till 9 and still not feel

completely rested. So, there's some

weird sleep inertia stuff going on

there, etc. The old adage is every hour

before midnight is worth two after. But

is there any real data to support that

or is this just all subjective and

conjecture?

>> I'm not sure there's data to support

that. I haven't seen anything. But what

I can say from what you're saying is

that if you usually go to bed at 9:30,

10:00, and then all of a sudden you go

to bed at midnight, now you're kind of

out of line with your personal circadian

system, right? And it's always harder to

to get a good night's sleep if you're

not going with your internal clock or

your internal circadian

>> preference. Um, this is what happens

with shift workers, right? for example,

they they they're not sleeping at night.

They're trying to sleep during the day.

They're trying to sleep during the day

where their melatonin is low or it

should be when it's high. So, they're

fighting their circadian system. So,

yes, they should they should be getting

seven hours, but they're not getting

seven hours because their body is not

designed to be sleeping during the

daytime hours. Plus, then you have, you

know, everything else, right? Right. The

light, the

>> lights, the noise, the kids, the

whatever life that that happens during

the daytime when everybody else is awake

and you're trying to sleep.

>> Yeah. The only thing I can think of

that's an advantage to being nocturnal

is the quiet.

>> I used to sometimes shift to a nocturnal

schedule during holidays in graduate

school when everyone would go home

because I lived my my parents lived

relatively close to where I went to

graduate school. So, I could afford to

just just go home for Christmas, right?

Just that day

>> or a couple of days. and everyone else

had to travel, so I could invert my

schedule. It just kind of drifted that

way.

>> Yeah,

>> I promise that's the only advantage of

going to bed at 4:00 a.m. and uh

sleeping until, you know, 3:00 p.m. At

least for typical people, it you your

brain gets into a kind of weird space

when you're inverted from the rest of

the world.

>> Well, the things you do when you're a

grad student, I would be the opposite,

right? I'd wake up at 4:00 a.m. and then

study because I felt like all of the

hours of studying before the sun rose

were like extras.

>> Interesting.

>> Extra time for me.

>> It was definitely extra. But you felt

like you were extra sharp at those

hours.

>> Extra sharp. I could study and then you

know I got that time done and then you

know breakfast but then I crash later in

the afternoon.

>> Yeah, that's the problem. The one 2 PM

crash. Um has your work explored napping

at all? I'm a believer in naps and

non-sleep deep breaths, yoga nidra type

things, meditation. Do naps factor into

this diet, nutrition, hunger equation.

>> So, we haven't done research on napping

per se. For me, there there's a lot

going on with napping. I don't think we

have very good data to be able to say

what's appropriate about napping. What

we do know is that you don't want to nap

too close to bedtime because you want to

build sleep pressure throughout the day.

And if you're dissipating the sleep

pressure, the sleep need too close to

bedtime, then you're not going to be

able to fall asleep when time comes to

go to bed at your usual hour. And then,

you know, you get into this vicious

cycle and it's it's not helpful. But,

you know, there are some studies that

say, well, what should you do if you

can't sleep enough at night? and you're

feeling tired, you know, should you

sleep? Should recommendations are that

you should make it a short nap, 30

minutes, no more than an hour, early

enough in the day if possible, so that

you can have sufficient time to rebuild

that sleep pressure to be able to fall

back asleep well when time comes. But

then there's also this this whole

question about what's an app for, right?

Like why are you sleepy? Of course, if

you if you've pulled an alada, it's easy

to to know. But if if you had sufficient

sleep or sufficient opportunity for

sleep at night and you're waking up and

you're not feeling refreshed, you're not

feeling like you had good quality sleep

and then you're not able to maintain

alertness throughout the day and you

need a nap.

I think it's you should check to see

like what's going on at night like why

are you not getting that good good

enough sleep? I'm chuckling because my

posttock advisor sparked this huge

debate. It was a big lab and uh we had a

couple of people in lab who like to nap

at their desk. These were people that

could just like put their head down and

nap at their desk in the afternoon. He'd

walk in, they'd be napping and then they

wake up and keep working. Everyone

everyone was working very hard. and he

had this theory uh that if you're

napping it's because you're sleepd

deprived that like napping is unhealthy

you know and it it sparked a big debate

and people because it we're a bunch of

nerds people bring data in like no you

know at the sleep lab at Stanford says

that naps can be healthy and I think it

what you just described summarizes I

think that the takeaway I'm a believer

in the short nap but but I'm one of

these people that can sleep anywhere

anytime which may be reflective of sleep

deprivation

>> maybe yeah

>> do Do you find that like when you're

going to design a study or when you're

going to like really work like this 4:00

a.m. time that it's a time of calm or

are you like a laz are you do you feel

like your mind is moving fast or you're

kind of in this like flow zone or

whatever you want to call it?

>> I'm very focused.

>> Mhm.

>> Uh very efficient.

So I try to be really attentive at my

task. I try to take take breaks once in

a while, but uh most of the time it's uh

it's very efficient. Get to the task and

get it done.

>> Earlier you were talking about biking

into work. You strike me as somebody I

always think of people who I'm always

impressed by colleagues like this that

their life is kind of like a step

function. They wake up and it's like

they're into the day and then it's down,

right? Yeah. Interesting. I think some

of us are more like this.

>> But I think it's important to have a

little bit of both though. I think it's

important to have downtime,

you know, speed time, uh

>> to to not just be go go go go go like

you were asking about uh my personal,

you know, uh actions and at one point I

was running a lot for exercise and uh I

felt like my whole life was just running

all the time.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Run to get my kids to

school. run to work, get work done, run

to then run for fun. Run, run, run. And

then I thought, okay, I kind of need to

>> I think I need a breather. And so I

started incorporating yoga into my uh my

exercise routine. I think that's I think

that's good. Actually, when I was a grad

student, I thought yoga was stressful

because I couldn't stand in those poses.

>> Exactly.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> But I think yoga evolved. I think the

yoga I do now, it's not as static

>> as the yoga I was doing when I was a

grad student. I think it evolved to be a

little more active than uh than back

then. I see the benefit to having, you

know, the

>> both types of uh exercise.

>> Thanks for being willing to explore

that. you know the I'm not an Ayurvedic

practitioner but the Ayurvedic folks

they'll talk about people like more fire

more more earth where you know and and I

think it's just a different lens in

nomenclature on there's a kind of array

of phenotypes but when we talk about

this thing sleep it becomes very

prescriptive right it's like we all need

6 to 8 hours I mean actually from what

you're saying today six sounds like

insufficient is what I'm hearing I'm

probably a little sleepd deprived is

what I'm kind of hearing

>> so you know a colleague of mine just

published a paper in nature about the

biological clocks and aging in different

organs. And the sweet spot really was 6

and 1 half to about 7 and 1 half 8 hours

for optimal aging. Once you get to below

that, it's basically you shaped, right?

So too much of one thing is not good.

Too too little is is not good. You want

to be in the sweet spot. Most most

organs for optimal aging was in the 6

and 1 half to 7.8. And it differed a

little bit by men and women depending on

which organs he was looking at. Uh a

little longer for women. Um some of the

curves were different where you know

some are more pronounced u shapes in in

men than women and different organs. So

>> uh very interesting paper

>> came out last week or two weeks ago.

I'll

>> have to check it out. Um what other uh

sex differences uh are known to exist in

sleep requirements, sleep dynamics that

from your work or from other work? This

is not something we've really covered on

the podcast.

>> No.

>> No. I mean, well, not in in any

sufficient amount of detail.

>> Yeah.

>> So, women tend to sleep a little longer

than men across lifespan. Although, you

know, if you ask women about their

sleep, they don't rate their sleep as

very good. Um, more women than men

report having difficulties with sleep.

Insomnia for example, insomnia symptoms.

More women than men say they have

difficulty falling asleep, difficulty

maintaining sleep uh across the adult

lifespan.

>> Why do you think that is?

>> There could be some physiological

effects, right? Some hormonal effects.

Women uh don't sleep the same across a

menstrual cycle. Uh there's discomfort

at different times. Uh and then there's

different responsibilities, different

social roles that come into play uh that

may influence women differently than

men. But you know, we were working on a

on a review paper actually about

hypertension and and sleep and sex

differences. And you know, women are

more sensitive to the impact of poor

sleep on different metabolic outcomes

than men. So for blood pressure at lower

sleep apnea for example at lower

thresholds of sleep apnnea their blood

pressure would be higher uh than men. So

I think that there needs to be for sure

a lot more research in this area to be

able to uncover you know these these

differences and then you know knowing

that there are these differences to

start probing uh women about their

sleep. Last year we published um a

scientific statement for the American

Heart Association about

multi-dimensional sleep health and we

concluded by uh recommending clinicians

that they actually ask their patients

about sleep and not ask a question a

targeted question just ask their

patients how's your sleep because if you

start asking about oh how much sleep do

you usually get at night then you tell

the person that the only thing that

matters is how many hours of sleep you

got at night That's not all sleep is

about, right? Sleep is not just about

the number of hours that you got, but

it's also about the regularity, the

quality, your satisfaction with it. Your

there's nighttime experiences, there's

daytime experiences from sleep. When you

wake up from sleep, are you feeling

refreshed? Are you feeling like you had

are you satisfied with how the sleep you

got the night before? During the day,

are you staying alert? are you vigilant

during the daytime hours uh from your

past sleep experience? So having this

open-ended question maybe maybe

clinicians uh won't have time for for a

for the answer but you know allows the

their patient to actually tell them

what's bothering them about their sleep.

>> Then you can get something like you know

my my spouse keeps kicking me because

I'm snoring too loud. Then oh well maybe

we should test you for sleep apnnea.

Does apnea always include snoring?

>> Yes.

>> So, are there some people who don't

snore who have apnea?

>> I don't think so. You stop breathing and

then there's this gasping

sound that people make when they uh they

awaken from that or they get aroused

from from this breathing interruption.

>> I feel like so many people have apnea

and don't realize it. Not because I'm

sneaking into their rooms at night and

listening to if they snore, but it is

just remarkable how many people I speak

to who say, "Yeah, I found out I had

apnea because I saw that I was snoring

because they started monitoring their

sleep." And there's generally a snoring

index on these. Or now there are free

apps that can just record you while you

sleep.

>> So, I know a lot of people are I don't

mouth tape when I sleep, but I did I do

uh sometimes use one of these nose

strips that kind of pulls the nostrils

out a bit. That certainly it's reduced

the amount of snoring for me

>> that would reduce the amount of snoring

but the sleep apnea is from the throat

right so this closure in the throat that

that obstructs the trachea and that's

what then prompts the awakening and

breathing and then the sound that comes

from there actually weight loss is

typically like the first line treatment

if someone has excess weight to start

losing weight that might help with the

uh with sleep apnnea then there's sepat

which yes people don't like but if they

are at a lower weight where the apnea is

milder the pressure may be not as uh not

as high so that might be helpful for

comfort have a colleague of mine who

does uh sleep apnnea surgeries so

implantables are also

>> if people think they might have apnea is

it just get a cap pop that thing on is

that the best line of of entry

>> I I think they should uh they should get

tested.

>> How do we how does one do that? Cuz

that's the problem.

>> If you're suspecting that you may have

sleep apnnea because you've been told

that you snore because you wake up and

you're not feeling refreshed and you're

feeling sleepy during the day. I think

you should talk to your doctor about

this. And definitely we have

polyenography is the first line, you

know, is what we use to detect um sleep

apnnea. But there's inhome sleep testing

that can be done. So you don't have to

stay overnight in a lab for for uh to

get tested for this and uh and your

doctor can prescribe that test very

easily.

>> How come we can't just go buy a CPAP on

Amazon?

>> Because you need to have the the the

pressure

determined for you, right? So you need

to know what kind of pressure to apply

and you know how to set it up. Uh it's

not as as simple as just

>> All right, fair. You need it. It needs

to have the proper settings and someone

needs to tell you which setting to use

because then that's where you run into

the trouble of having the wrong settings

and and not being effective.

>> Yeah. I just know from having done this

podcast long a while that like if people

think, okay, I got to go to my doctor. I

got to find out or convince them that I

have apnea. Then they have to like write

me a script for a CPAP. Then I got to

buy a CPAP, which I'm guessing is not

cheap.

>> I'm not sure.

>> I I don't think they're very

inexpensive. They the price might have

come down. and I got to sleep with this

thing on my face like looking like Darth

Vader so I don't sound like Darth Vader.

>> I just think very few people are going

to do it. So somebody out there should

like come up with an at home solution to

this. Something like apnea seems

important enough to daytime wakefulness,

cognitive function, longevity, metabolic

like it wicks out to so many things that

I feel like it

>> it deserves it deserves like a public

health messaging.

>> Yeah. If you use it well and you feel

better during the day, that's a that's

reinforcing, right? To keep using it

>> and and get treated for it.

>> Let's talk about food and nutrients.

You've done a substantial amount of work

here in this area, and I have a bunch of

questions, but first I want to talk

about kefir.

>> Yeah.

>> I love Bulgarian full fat plain yogurt,

but it's right next to the kefir.

>> Uhhuh.

>> And I'm always like, do I get the kefir?

Well, I don't know. I love the Bulgarian

full fat plain yogurt, so I haven't

tried the kefir yet. What's special

about kefir and why why did you study

kefir?

>> Kefir we we studied because it was a

fermented dairy product uh probiotics we

figured you know maybe it will improve

uh cholesterol synthesis based on its

impact on short- chain fatty acids. So

that was the the subject of my master's

thesis

for that study uh that was when I was at

McGill. We recruited men that had mildly

elevated cholesterol levels. We gave

them two cups per day versus just

regular milk for a month.

>> So two cups like two mugs like this.

>> Two cups like the measuring cup.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Um like 500 mls.

>> Okay.

>> And uh and we measured their the amount

of cholesterol they they produced at

baseline endpoint in both phases and

there was no effect. It was a null

study. It was one of those. It was hard

to get published.

>> Kept at it and and we got it published.

But yeah,

>> so these fermented yogurts and things,

they don't do anything for for

cholesterol levels.

>> At least in our study in this population

at this level with this comparison

>> didn't have any effect.

>> What's your general thought about uh low

sugar fermented foods? I don't know if

kefir uh qualifies as low sugar, but

based on Justin Sonnenberg's work at

Stanford and others, I've been I've been

really bullish on this idea of

>> sauerkraut, kimchi,

uh full fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented

foods are are interesting.

>> Yeah.

>> Are you a proponent in general?

>> I'm a proponent. Yeah, absolutely. I

think it's important to feed your gut. I

think that uh the gut microbiome is uh

getting a lot of attention for all sorts

of, you know, uh health benefits.

So I think that that's something that's

uh that's is important. So also it's

important to also consider that you know

for that study right our main outcome

was cholesterol synthesis but there's so

many other things we could have looked

at that we didn't look at right and

maybe it didn't have any impact for

cholesterol synthesis but maybe

glycemic control might be better or for

gut inflammation it would be better but

you know You pick your outcomes, right?

You study something.

>> This is the challenge of doing

controlled science. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of

the opposite end of the like X what used

to be called Twitter science where like

people just like report anecdotes but

>> actually anecdotes of that sort of

become very powerful now in the public

health space for better or worse like

people you know because

>> I we can look at any study and say well

that's a very artificial circumstance.

You say, "Well, intentionally, because

we're trying to isolate variables like

people get frustrated." Oh, that's an

observational study. Well, I'm going to

continue to eat low sugar fermented

foods every day. I I I do think in a

study like the one you described.

Occasionally, there's just there's, let

me state this differently. Historically

in science, there have been a lot of

interesting discoveries that have come

from researchers designing a study to

look at one thing and then kind of

noticing, oh, like all the subjects feel

better or sleep better, their skin, they

they're reporting things that then lead

to another

>> another line line of inquiry. But you

moved on from kefir. Tell me about this

um this paper. I was intrigued by this

when I looked over your CV.

uh a weight loss diet that includes a

coffee beverage enriched in let me try

this menolosaccharides.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Long word leads to a greater loss

of atapose fat tissue than placebo

beverage in overweight men.

>> Yep.

>> Tell me about this study and what these

men oligosaccharides are. And if

somebody wants to lose weight, should

they be including this in their coffee?

>> So this was industry sponsored research

that I did. um they wanted to replicate

a study that had been done in a

different country because they wanted to

replicate the findings. So we did this

study uh it was basically a placeboc

controlled study. We got we were

provided um coffee manual

oligosaccharides. So these are extracted

from spent coffee grounds. So it was

basically satchets right? So a white

packet one had the cap coffee

manualsaccharides the other one didn't.

We gave it to our study participants. We

measured their body composition. We

found an effect on body composition in

men, not in women.

>> And so that was the end of that product.

>> Really? They wouldn't market it just

because it only had an effect in men.

>> Yeah.

>> I assure you there are many men who

would love to drink a coffee drink and

lose more weight as a consequence.

>> It's not going to be our market, you

know.

>> But do we know what the ingredients

were?

>> It was manualsaccharides

extracted. Yeah. So it was just uh

basically uh a product that was tasted

like coffee, strong coffee, but it

didn't have the caffeine or anything

like that. It just had this this

manualaccharide that was extracted from

coffee.

>> So this substance comes from coffee

ordinarily,

>> but coffee is very low low calorie on

it,

>> but it's from the spent ground. So you

no one really consumes this really

because you know when you brew your

coffee you're

>> not getting it. No.

>> Can you buy it? Can people get it?

>> I don't think so.

>> So

what what do you First of all, how much

weight did they lose relative to the

>> It was statistically significant. Yeah.

>> Okay. I was intrigued by it because I

thought there there's something that I

mean you studied it's interesting. You

studied kefir metolosaccharides from

coffee. Yeah. Now I'm going to ask you

about ginger.

>> Well, when I was a graduate student, I

was interested in functional foods.

>> And I was interested in those foods that

provide health benefits beyond their

nutritional value.

>> Right? So kefir is a fermented dairy

product. It would we were studying it

for its a functional benefit on

cholesterol synthesis. That's not a uh

that's not a function of dairy, right?

Dairy is you consume it for bone health,

right? So it's basically when we talk

about different claims that foods have,

you know, there's those structure

function claims like consuming dairy

contains calcium that's good for your

bones and then there's um functional

claims. Those functional claims or

health claims we call them that say okay

well health claim there's a health claim

for oats for example, right? So

consuming fiber from oats uh reduces

cholesterol levels. That's been

demonstrated.

>> Yes. So that's that's a health claim.

That's an approved health claim. That's

why you see the hearts on some boxes of

cereal, but that's different than fiber

is good for maintaining regularity,

right? So anyways, I was interested in

in functional foods for health benefits

beyond their their nutritional content.

And so uh we we studied kefir for I

studied kefir for my master's degree and

then for my PhD studied uh mediumchain

triglycerides

um and then um ginger that was uh that

was something that I that I uh offered

to a grad student at Colombia. It was

interesting because uh the McCormick

company

had an advertisement in uh one of the

nutrition journals and they were going

to donate um spices for research. I was

like, "Okay." They had a list of

different herbs and spices that they

were going to donate for research. And I

had a grad student and I said, "Take a

look at this list, come back to me, say

if there's something in there that we

should test in the lab based on the

things that I do, don't come to me with

something that's, you know, that I don't

study." But and then he did some

research and he came back and he said,

"I think we should study ginger." I'm

like, "Okay, to do what?" like I think

you know for energy expenditure

looking at thermic effect of food it's

like okay so so we did this study I had

some some funds that I could use for him

to do that and uh

>> what did the study look like

>> a study where we looked at the thermic

effect of food

>> like so people ate ginger root spicing

their food

>> we dissolved ginger powder in warm water

>> and so that was one beverage and then uh

in the crossover again crossover design

so the next time when they came it It

was just hot water.

>> And how many times a day are they

drinking it?

>> This was a one time one time uh

consumption period. And we looked at the

thermic effect of food over a 6-hour

period. So again, they're they're under

this um we call it a metabolic hood,

right? So a little bubble and we measure

their uh oxygen consumption, carbon

dioxide production for I think it was

four or five hours

>> and it's significantly elevated.

>> Mhm.

>> With ginger.

>> With ginger.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow. So we think through the capsain

receptor there's an increase in the

thermic effect of food. So yeah, so I

was interested to see are there little

things that we could do, little changes

we can make to our diet to boost energy

expenditure relative to intake, you

know, just to tip the scale because many

adults over the course of their life

lifetime gain weight. And it's not a big

imbalance in calories on a daily basis

that leads to

10 pounds of weight gain over 10, 15

years, right? Now again the GLPs are

coming in and adjusting but yeah I'm

very interested also in foods that have

impact beyond their you know known

>> known roles. I mean the the problem is

in this area in the functional foods

area not the problems with your work but

the is that there are a lot of wild

claims that go unchecked like oh you

know walnuts are shaped like a brain and

therefore they're good for your brain or

you know which is they have certain

things in them which are brain

beneficial but it's not related to the

shape of the food so you get there's a

that area I feel of nutrition has been

um marginalized on the basis of the kind

of like quackery associ with it. But of

course there are interesting things in

different foods. I I do think that the

>> the Sonnenberg and colleagues work on

low sugar fermented foods has been very

informative for lowering the

inflammatome even more than fiber. I

mean actually in that study this is kind

of the like even Justin will kind of

downplay this a little bit. He's a

colleague so I can say in the fiber

group when they compared to low sugar

fermented foods and then they measured

the inflammatome they did a crossover

design. Within the fiber group, there

was a fair number of people who their

inflammation went way way up when they

consumed more fiber.

>> But in the low sugar fermented group or

when they were in that group, it was it

was uh always on average reduced.

>> Some people who increase their fiber

intake, their inflamm decreases. For a

lot of people, it increases, which is

not to say that fiber is bad, but I

think now we're starting to think about

like different types of fibers.

>> I was going to ask.

>> Yeah, they didn't control for that. They

just said increase the number of

servings each day. And and I know a lot

of people don't like to eat fibrous

foods because they don't feel good after

they eat them. It's like it's not that

they don't taste good. And I think

there's this whole like histamine story

that needs exploration. I I think food

and the healthy foods needs better

parsing.

>> Yeah.

>> In in my opinion.

>> Yeah. I I mean there was also

habituation. You don't go from consuming

six grams of fiber per day to 25.

>> They ramped them up. But but I have to

say they ramped them up pretty high.

Like even the low sugar fermented foods,

I think they got them up to like four

servings per day. It's a lot of kimchi.

You're not familiar with it. Like it can

be a little hard on the gut.

>> Yeah.

>> I actually take an enzyme. I think it's

called DAO.

>> Very inexpensive little it's like a tiny

tiny pill that uh that for digesting

histamines

>> because I noticed after I had whey

protein or I had broccoli or I would I

would get kind of sleepy. I was like

what is this? and a a a colleague at

Stanford, Sean Mackey, who's our head of

our pain center, said that he had gut

pain at one point, he's a pain doctor,

directs the pain center, and he figured

out by elimination and trial and error

that it was onions and other histamine

containing foods. He avoids histamine

containing foods. I'm not about to give

up the things I just described. Onions I

can do without, but so I think that

there's a there is foods have real

effect. M. So kefir, these men

olosaccharides, I have to confess I'm a

little disappointed cuz like here it

looks like it has like a cool effect,

but they didn't they didn't want now

can't get them. I'm not going to eat

coffee grounds. I'd like to take a quick

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to get up to 27% off in your work or in

your observation or in your curiosity.

What other foods are kind of intriguing

to you? Someone had a really um great

question for me at the obesity society

meeting a couple of years ago. I was

showing data that we had just obtained

in the lab that showed that if you eat

foods later in the day, your fat

oxidation is reduced. So this is a study

that we're doing. We had uh participants

on a controlled diet and they started

eating 1 hour after waking up and they

had a 10-hour eating window or they

started eating 5 hours after waking up.

So 4-hour delay relative to the other

condition. Again, same thing for a

10-hour window, 10-hour window. We gave

our participants the exact same foods,

same foods, same quantity, same timing

between meals. And this was done in a

metabolic chamber.

And the meals, especially the meals

later in the day that were consumed late

relative to the earlier version of those

meals led to less fat oxidation.

and someone in the audience stood up and

said, "So, would you then recommend that

people eat mediumchain triglycerides

in their evening meal as opposed to, you

know, a a different type of of fat?" And

my eyes just went like this because, you

know, my the my time studying medium

chain triglycerides was, you know, 15 to

20 years ago. I was like, "Wow, this

person knows my that work that I've done

and now is applying it to this work that

I'm doing currently." And I thought that

was fascinating. And I think that, you

know, timing of intake of different

foods and how it influences metabolism

is something that's uh that's

fascinating to me.

>> I confess I'm a like first bite of food

around 11:00 a.m. person. I'm trying to

eat breakfast these days and then kind

of shift things earlier. All it's really

done is added a meal because I I take my

last bite of food usually around 8:00

PM. I just can't seem to get much

earlier.

But

I and many other people have wondered

whether it's best to eat more towards

early day or whether or not it's just

overall caloric load. You're saying that

>> it does indeed make a difference.

>> It makes a difference. Yeah.

>> You want to shift most of your caloric

intake to the first like twothirds of

your waking day

>> roughly.

>> Mhm. Yeah.

>> As opposed to the last 2/3. Yes.

>> Yeah. So, in that study, 1 hour after

waking up. So, let's say basically 8:00