YouSaid · the spoken record

Sam Kass

lines on the record: 141
first: 2025-07-23
most recent: 2025-07-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Minute type of fast like an 168 where you're fasting for 16 hours that's really not a long long fast there's not a lot of concern with losing muscle mass if you're you know resistance training now a more prolonged type of fast you're talking about 14 days That's a long fast and definitely you're going to be losing some muscle mass no matter what. Now how much you lose depends on how I guess if you can resist and train lightly while you're fasting that would be huge because you would be then activating muscle protein synthesis through another signal which is not protein it's mechanical force right so that I think would be really important for preventing the loss of a lot of muscle mass but what is interesting is that you do lose lean body mass a lot of it when you are doing a prolonged fast like that and looking at you know the old literature and some of the literature that's been done a lot of water”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great. I mean, yeah, so true, this low wave sleep does activate the lymphatic system, which is cleaning out the amyloid beta aggregates as well. And the last thing I kind of want to mention is you were talking about the intermittent fasting and more prolonged fasting and the muscle mass loss, or lean body mass, which people equate with muscle mass, which it's not. There's a lot of things going on. So the thing is when people are doing intermittent fasting, I mentioned they eat fewer calories, which means they're eating less meals. They're eating fewer meals. They're not eating as many meals. And so what ends up happening is people lower their protein intake. And that's an important signal for maintaining muscle mass and certainly growing muscle mass as well. So it increases muscle protein synthesis, which is important. If people are engaged in resistance training and doing intermittent fasting, they're not losing muscle mass. And in fact, they can even gain muscle mass a little bit, not much, but they can gain it too. So I think the key here is that if you're doing an”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. I think what we do know in humans from like some of these old studies is that you do see some signal of autophagy activation after 24, 48 hours in humans. Now, does that mean that that is the only amount of time it takes to activate autophagy? No. So most humans are probably doing anywhere between a 12 to 16 hour nightly fast, right? There's a period of time when we're not eating, and that is when we're sleeping a little bit before bed, right? Atophaji still happens in people. We just aren't measuring it because we don't have sensitive tools yet. And so it's not that I don't think a 16-hour fast doesn't act. I believe it does in humans. I believe there's some autophagy going on. It's probably not that much. But if you go into that, you know, 48-hour fast, then you're really starting to get more robust activation of autophagy.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not only does a Tafuji play a role in preventing Parkinson's disease, but also Alzheimer's disease as well. Again, this has been shown in many animal studies. We know that autophagy plays a role in clearing away the amyloid beta plaques that are involved in Alzheimer's disease. And yes, there are some people that have amyloid beta plaques that don't get Alzheimer's disease. They may be the more resilient non-APOE4 type of person. But we do know that many, many people do get Alzheimer's disease with amyloid plexus. And in fact, people that have, again, the SNPs in what's called the amyloid precursor protein APP that leads to amyloid beta plaque buildup, they get early onset Alzheimer's disease. So autophagy plays an important role in clearing away those plaques. And I will say what we don't have a lot of evidence on is, what's the minimal effect of fasting dose to activate autophagy? Right.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cleans out even damaged little what are called organelles, so mitochondria or organelle. And our organelles get damaged. So you want to be able to repair that damage. And this process of autophagy is the process that does that. And, you know, there's lots of different types of autophagy. So if it's a mitochondria repairing damage to itself, it's my topagy. But for all this stuff to be active, you have to be in that more catabolic state, which can be induced by not eating, can also be induced by like heavy endurance exercise as well. Okay, so talking about those sort of outcomes that people are interested in, those different endpoints that people are interested in achieving, I think something that you're specifically interested in is the metabolic effects of intermittent fasting, as well as the repair processes, like the autophagy.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think even over the last few years, intermittent fasting has kind of gotten a bad rap because people now equate it with, oh, loss of muscle mass. I'm going to be catabolic. Well, in order to be in a repair mode, you actually do need to be in a catabolic sort of mode. These repair systems are so important for cleaning up all the garbage that's inside of our cells. And that can be things like protein aggregates. These are things that lead to aggregation, you know, like alpha-sic nuclei and which is involved in Parkinson's, amyloid beta.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fasting. And then another main reason, and there's many others, I'm not going to like touch on everything, but the other main reason is it activates repair processes. And what I mean by repair processes is to be in repair mode, you have to be in more of a catabolic state. And we were talking about this earlier. People get so freaked out by the word catabolism.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Activates as well. So it's doing all these beneficial things, right? And the other thing that it's doing is it's getting into the brain. It's being used as a very great source of energy. And so you have this sort of, you know, bypass for glucose where the glucose can then be shunted to be used to make glutathione, that very important antioxidant I talked about earlier, that sulfuraphane activates. Well, it turns out when you give your body ketones or your body's making ketones, your brain actually consumes a lot of that. There have been tracer studies that have looked at that. And what happens is because neurons are now using the beta hydroxybutyrate as energy, glucose is no longer needed. And so that glucose that is there is then used to make NADPH, which is a precursor to make glutathione. And so it's called glucose sparing. You get this glucose sparing effect. And so that's another reason why people are interested in intermittent”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. That was the next point I was going to make is that it's called a signaling molecule. So your body knows that it's in this stress mode, okay? There's no food, it's food scarcity time, right? And this is something that it's evolutionarily tapped into our system, into our DNA, where times of food scarcity where we're not eating, our body switches into ketosis, beta hydroxybutyrates produce, and it signals to these other genes to basically make more of something beneficial. So it's been shown to reduce inflammation. It depresses something called the inflammosome, which causes inflammation. It's an HDAC inhibitor, so it's a histone deacetylase inhibitor. So it's globally affecting gene expression in such a way that it reduces genes that are involved in making oxidative stress. It actually activates brain-derived neurotrophic factor. That's the beneficial neurotrophic compound that's made in the brain that exercise also acts.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's a big range here, right? But for a standard person on a normal diet, they're going to take around 12 hours before they start to deplete their liver glycogen and then start to immobilize fatty acids from their adipose tissue and use that as energy. And when you start to do that, then you start to get into ketosis. Your body starts to then make beta hydroxybutyrate, the major circulating ketone. Why do people want that in their system? Because it's not just a very energetically favorable source of energy. What I mean by that is that it takes less energy to use beta hydroxybutyrate to make energy than it does to use glucose, for example. It takes more energy to actually use glucose. So it's more energetically favorable.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People get with a more of a longer type of intermittent fasting, so they're fasting more like 18 hours and eating their food within like a six hour window. That's another benefit. Now you go even further, and I know this is something you're very interested in. So beyond, you know, metabolic benefits and people want to get then, they want to get into what's called ketosis. So they want to have, they want to be making ketones, these, you know, things that we're talking about earlier with respect to taking an exogenous ketone ester. Well, you make something naturally when you start to actually burn fat as energy, you start to make something called beta hydroxybutyrate. But it takes about 12 hours or so, which depends on the person. It depends on how heavy of a carb diet they eat or how physically active they are. It can be a range, right? So if someone's doing more ketogenic type of diet, they can actually deplete their liver glycogen quicker than 12 hours. It might even cut it down to like eight. If they're physically active on top of that, you might go down to like even six or something.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Within a 10 hour period, and then they'll fast for 14 hours. If they do that, they end up actually eating 200 fewer calories. And so they end up performing what's called caloric restriction, which we know can lead to weight loss. And so a lot of the weight loss actually comes from reducing calorie intake. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everything that's beneficial from intermittent fasting comes down to calories because it doesn't. But the weight loss definitely seems to come down to the calories because if you keep calories the same and then have people do intermittent fasting or not intermittent fasting, they won't lose the weight, but they will have a whole host of metabolic benefits. You mentioned glucose regulation improvements. I mean, you know, fasting glucose, post-pernial glucose, HBA1C, which is a long-term marker of glucose regulation. Lipids are more favorable. And then they have improvements in blood pressure, for example. That's another big one.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are a few things that happen, and there are a few reasons why people like to do intermittent fasting. First and foremost, I think most people like doing intermittent fasting is because they want to actually lose weight. And the weight that they want to lose is not necessarily their lean body mass. They actually want to lose their fat mass, right? So they want to lose fat. And that's a big reason why people do intermittent fasting. Well, it turns out that intermittent fasting is more of a tool for weight loss. And what I mean by that is that there have been multiple studies now that have looked at different types of intermittent fasting in sort of a community dwelling aspect where people are just kind of free to eat the way they're going to eat, but they're supposed to be practicing intermittent fasting. And it's been discovered is that naturally people end up eating about 200 fewer calories per day when they're doing some form of intermittent fasting. So if they're eating all their food within an eight or 10 hour period, for example, usually they'll eat their”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, let's show one bit of time and zoom out for a minute and talk about this interminate fasting concept and why do people want to do intermittent fasting? What are the benefits that they're looking for? Now you mentioned some metabolic benefits that you had noticed after doing your intermittent fasting. So there's lots of different types of intermittent fasting. You've talked about, you mentioned the 16.8. So essentially you're talking about not eating food for a period of time. And that period of time can either be 16 hours, it can be 24 hours, it can be longer, in which case it would not be an intermittent fast. It would be a more prolonged fast, which you also talked about. But with respect to the intermittent fasting,”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's commentary, but we can get into that if you want to go dive into the why the ketone esters are beneficial and why the exercise is beneficial. We can go into that because I love talking about it.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So with my dad, he is now taking the Zymogen brand, which is also very good. And the reason for that is because it's higher DHA, which is what I wanted. My mom is taking the one. Both those brands, by the way, are great. They've both been third-party tested and have very high quality fish oil, and I don't have affiliation with either of them.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A very different type of atmosphere than your usual CrossFit class would be, right? You're aware that these are seniors and so they're not doing barbell like squatting like heavy weights and stuff. They start out with wall squats and then they're squatting with just like a really light bar and it's really great.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For it and get her in it, it would be huge. And she's been doing it now for a couple of months, maybe like three or four months. And she goes three times a week and she loves it. She loves it. She's made friends there. Sometimes the coaches take videos and she sends them to me. She sends them to her friends. She's so proud. You know, she's doing kettlebell swings. She's doing wall squats. I mean, it's amazing.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. Yeah. And she takes two of their advanced formula. She's taking that. She's taking the multivitamin, the vitamin D, and she's also taking the omega-3. She's doing great. What's funny is that I was able to then get her into CrossFit. And I don't know if it's because her tremors, I think her tremors have lessened a bit. And so she's been more active and wanting to be more active. Like she's out dancing more. My mom likes to dance. And I mentioned how I really wanted to get her into a seniors CrossFit class. And she sees me do it. I have a coach come to my house and do, we do CrossFit training at my house. My mom has seen me doing it. And she's been interested in it. And I told her that there's a great seniors class and I would be willing to, you know.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not long. It was actually, I think, within a week or so, maybe two. It was very quick. It was very quick. And she's religious about it. I mean, she comes, I buy it for her and I give her, you know, these bottles and she takes two a day and she takes a certain brand called AvmaCall. I don't have any affiliation with them. They're a brand that, again, 12 different published studies using their supplement.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Living in a polluted place. I tell all my friends in LA, I'm like, you have to be taking sulfurophrane. Like, it's just like, it's a non-negotiable, right? So I told her to take the sulfurophane because I wanted her to detoxify BPA because she does eat a lot of processed foods and stuff which are found in plastic. Anyway, so she started taking it and she came back to me and told me that it was helping her tremors and that she wanted more.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I'm using sulfurophane for because that NRF2 pathway does activate what are called phase two detoxification enzymes. And it's been shown to detoxify, even if you're living in like a city like New York or LA, where there's a lot of air pollution, it's been shown to detoxify benzene within 24 hours people start excreting 60% more benzene from their body. Now benzene is something that is found in air pollution, it's also in cigarettes”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I obviously would want my dad to be taking sulfurophane. And there's a supplement out there that I use that has been used in many, like 12 or so different studies. And so it's been shown to be beneficial across the board. And that is something that I do give my mom. The reason I gave it to my mom, well, I was kind of hoping my mom, interestingly, has two other types of sort of brain dysfunction problems, but they're not neurodegenerative in the sense of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are. It's kind of like a something going wrong in the brain and it affects her motor control. So she has tremor. She has essential tremor and she has orthostatic tremor. And I have secretly wanted the increase in glutathione to affect those tremors. But when I gave the sulfur thing to my mom, because I knew the placebo effect, I did tell her that we were using it to detoxify, you know, these chemicals that are associated with plastic, like BPA, because that is also something.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The main pathways that it's activating is increasing glutathione production. And it's been shown in a couple different human studies that it increases glutathione in both plasma but also in the brain. Glutathione was the major antioxidant that we have in our body, and it's very important in the brain, super important for not only preventing brain aging, but also for dealing with dysfunction in the case of acute injury”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah. So essentially, we're talking about what sometimes called Eustress or Good Stress. It's these small doses of stress where your body's responding to that stress by activating all these beneficial pathways that deal with stress, whether we're talking about antioxidant pathways, anti-inflammatory pathways, pathways involved in clearing out damaged stuff from your cells like autopagy, just all sorts of beneficial stuff, right? Those pathways are activated for a longer period of time than the acute stress that you're giving it. So in this case, the sulfurophane is a little bit of an acute stress, like polyphenols in general are. So, you know, the amount of time that you're ingesting that polyphenol is very small in digesting in. And then the reality is that it's activating these stress response pathways that last, you know, on the orders of like 24 to 48 hours, sometimes longer. So you're having this beneficial effect, that's overall beneficial from that little bit of stress. And so sulfurophane activates NRF2.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a transcription factor that activates a lot of different genes inside of our body. It activates genes that are involved in stress. Basically, it activates a lot of what are called stress response genes. And these are the kind of things that are activated when you're doing stress, stressful things like exercise or if you're fasting. So you really want this pathway to be active.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm off the shelf now. I used to. I used to. It's work. It's not that much work, but it is work. But you also have to be very fastidious about not having it contaminated. And that's where the real work comes in. But I like it because there are people that can't afford the supplement. And this gives them another way to basically get it, yeah, for cheap. The reason I really like sulfur or phane and why I want both my parents on it and my mom, it has been taking it. We can talk about that in a minute is because it is the most potent dietary activator of this system that we have called NRF2, which is this major system.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would also give him sulfurophane. Definitely tried. He doesn't want to take more pills. So sulfurophane is a compound that is formed when you eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, for example. And it's formed from something inside of it called glucaphonin. When you break the plant tissue, when you bite it or, you know, chop it up or whatever, it forms sulfurophane. So fufane is not necessarily in the plant itself. It just gets formed when you break the plant tissue. That's a technical thing. So I'm just going to talk about sulfurophane and call it sulfurophane as if it's part of the plant, but it's not, just so you know. So sulfuropane is, it's something that's formed in these cruciferous vegetables, broccoli sprouts, the young young sprout of broccoli, actually is the best source of it. It has a hundred times more of that active precursor, glucophonin, than mature broccoli. So that's the best dietary source of it.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Progressed very, very slowly. So it's been nine years, almost ten years, and he's really essentially had this Parkinson's disease limited to one tremor in his hand. So that's great. All I can say is great news. And you never really know at the end of the day what. Is the reason for that, but he's convinced, I'm convinced, his doctor's convinced that he should keep doing what he's doing and that it seems to be beneficial. My dad is one of those guys that doesn't like to take a lot of pills. If he would take more, I would give him more.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there's a lot of evidence that omega-3 can help with dopaminergic transmission, can help with a lot of brain function, particularly as it relates to Parkinson's disease as well as Alzheimer's disease. So that was the second supplement that he's taking. And then the last one that I could really get him to take was ubiquitol, which is a reduced form of co-q10. Now, coenzyme Q10 is actually something that we have inside of our cells, and it's involved in mitochondrial health. So having a depleted CoQ10 can lead to mitochondrial toxicity. So taking Coq10, there's actually been some early studies with even Parkinson's disease patients showing that supplementing with CoQ10 can be beneficial. And he's actually taken those supplements for many, many years now and very, I would say surprisingly, but also I'm thankful that his Parkinson's disease has”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2017. That's an important context to consider what sort of supplements I'm giving my dad, and also the fact that you have to think about compliance, like what were your parents. I do have a parent that'll take a lot of vitamins or a few vitamins, right? So with my dad, knowing his disease, with Parkinson's disease, multivitamin was in there because that's already like so important just to cover a lot of bases. You're getting a lot of different vitamins and minerals. And then it was omega-3. And in fact, it was a high DHA. And he's getting about two grams a day.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess I'll kind of zoom out and talk about, you know, I think you listen to a podcast I did with Dr. Mark Mattson several years ago. And I mentioned that my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're getting more phospholipid form exactly. Now, if you are taking your supplement oils, you can actually make phospholipid form, but you have to get to that like two gram dose range. Phospholipid concentration of omega-3 fatty acids. And you might go why phospholipid form? Well, it turns out the way your brain, you actually get omega-3 into the brain. There's two ways. The first way doesn't require phospholipid form. It's just this omega-3 is sort of in a free fatty acid form and it diffuses across the membrane and gets into the brain that way. The second way actually is through a transport mechanism. And that is phospholipid form. And that's why it seems as though people with APOE4 Their free fatty acid form isn't going into the brain as well because they have breakdown of the blood brain barrier early, early on. APOE4 tends to lead to early breakdown of the blood brain barrier. And when your blood brain barrier breaks down, it's hard for things to kind of just passively diffuse as well. I know that is counterintuitive, but without getting into all the crazy molecular and biochemistry involved to take my word on that for the two different forms.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had. There was this big question in the field as to why that is. And it's still not entirely known, although I will say what my take on that is, and in fact I've talked to some of the experts in the field as well, is that you have to have a higher dose of fish oil for one. And it's better if it's in phospholipid form. So fish, if you're eating fish, it's in phospholipid form. It's in triglyceride form as well.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say vitamin D there hasn't really been any effect that I'm aware of in terms of having an APOE4 allele, as you mentioned, and for people listening or watching APOE4 allele, if you have one of those, it can double your risk of Alzheimer's disease. If you have two of them, you can go up to a tenfold increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. When it comes to fish oil, particularly fish oil, There does seem to be, and this is where my publication came from, but also there's a lot of evidence that has shown people with APOE4 alleles, they don't tend to have as much DHA getting into their brains as people without the alleles. And on top of that, in trials, people with mild cognitive decline, for example, if they supplemented with fish oil and they had APOE4, they didn't have the cognitive benefits that the people that were not APOE.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going outside, they're either wearing sunscreen or just the fact that they're older affects their skin's ability to make vitamin D3 from the sun, from UVB radiation from the sun. And so there's much less efficient at it. In fact, a 70-year-old makes about four times less vitamin D than their former 20-year-old self. So vitamin D supplement is a low-hanging fruit. It's super easy to bring someone up to level.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the kind of memory that's involved in remembering events that happen in your life? And so that's a big effect five years of reduced episodic memory brain aging. And so I think that anyone that's concerned about their parents, one of the easiest things that you can do in terms of improving cognition. Now, I should mention these were older adults, yes, but they weren't older adults with neurodegenerative disease. So these were older adults that otherwise didn't have any sort of neurodegenerative disease. That's also important because once you get to a pathological state, you kind of have to do more things to help improve cognition than just a multivitamin. So I have my mom and my dad on a multivitamin. That's the easiest thing. Vitamin D is also another no-brainer. I mean, 70% of the U.S. population has insufficient levels of vitamin D. Older adults are even higher than that. So, you know, almost the majority of all older adults are vitamin D deficient. I mean, most people aren't going outside. And even if they are.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was the vitamin that you would go. That's the one vitamin that's not going to have any effect. But actually, it turns out it's got over 40 essential nutrients in it, and it's also got some other non-vitamins, so things that are like polyphenols, like lutein, zexanthin. These are actually really important for eye health, but also the brain. And these three randomized control trials were two years long. And what they showed was that taking a multivitamin for two years had pretty enormous effects on cognitive aging. These were in older adults. These were adults were 65 years of age or older. That's where my parents are. And after two years of taking the multivitamin, they had improved cognition on a battery of different tests that equated to like reducing global cognitive aging by about two years. And on top of that, they reduced their episodic aging by five years, almost five years. It was 4.8 years. Episodic memory.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are comparing this intervention, which in this case was a multivitamin, to a placebo, because people taking anything are obviously going to want a positive effect, and many people do anticipate that. And they can actually change their biology. Placebo is a real thing. So three trials came out looking at the effect of multivitamins on cognition. And I'm talking that multivitamin that was used was the standard run-of-the-mill. It was centrum silver. I mean, it was the thing that...”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is where both of my parents are taking a multivitamin. And you might go, well, multivitamin really, what's that going to do? And I'll tell you, we've come full circle 10 years ago. There was a huge splash that was made in the media. A big article came out and it was called Enough Is Enough. Multivitamins are not only useless, they may be harmful. And it was a study that looked at a variety of different studies. It's called a meta-analysis that basically said, well, you know, all these vitamins that you're taking are useless. And in some cases, they can be harmful because they can allow cancer to grow faster. And I sort of debunked that, you know, 10 years ago. But over the course of those 10 years, and as you mentioned in the intro here, you know, science is always changing and revisions are made. We learn new things. And in that 10 year frame, three different randomized controlled trials have come out. And randomized controlled trials are really key because”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm one of those people that my parents, neither of them are really physically active. My dad for many years was physically active in the sense that he played a team sport. He was a baseball player. And he did it for many, many years all the way into his early 60s. And then he kind of just couldn't do it anymore. So my mother never really got into any sports and she wasn't the kind of person that would go out to the gym or go for runs or anything like that. And so physical activity really wasn't part of the equation. And neither is really a healthy diet. But as I started to do a lot of research into these sort of what I think are interventions that are low-hanging fruits, things that are easy for people to do that can have a pretty big outcome in terms of, you know, the size effect is greater than what you have to put in. So examples of that would obviously be something like a supplement that you could take, right? That's the easiest thing you can do is kind of swallow a pill and hope that it has a great effect.”
2025-07-23 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #819: Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D. — Protocols for Fasting, Lowering Dementia Risk, Reversing Heart Aging, Using Sauna for Longevity (Hotter is Not Better), and a Few Supplements That Might Actually Matter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT