Columbia Scholar St-Onge Links Mild Sleep Loss to Insulin Resistance

哥伦比亚大学学者St-Onge：轻度睡眠不足与胰岛素抵抗密切相关 在六周内每晚睡眠减少1.5小时会直接损害代谢健康，造成激素失调引发过度进食并进一步恶化睡眠质量的恶性循环。 本期节目深入探讨了睡眠质量、激素调节与代谢健康之间的生理联系。St-Onge博士解释称，即使是轻度睡眠限制也会改变具有性别特异性的食欲信号——增加男性的生长素释放肽（ghrelin）并降低女性的GLP-1——导致在现实生活中平均过量摄入300卡路里的热量。对话重点介绍了地中海饮食和DASH饮食在缓解失眠方面的益处，强调在睡前三小时停止进食以便身体实现昼夜节律性体温下降，并详细阐述了中链甘油三酯（MCT）的代谢优势。此外，双方还探讨了睡眠呼吸暂停的发生机制、行业资助研究的细微差别，以及为什么天然完整食物的效果优于合成纤维补充剂。 饮食选择会直接改变睡眠结构：摄入较高纤维可促进深度的慢波睡眠，而饱和脂肪和精制碳水化合物则会减少深度睡眠并导致夜间频繁醒来。 睡眠匮乏会导致平均过量摄入300卡路里的热量，并展现出截然相反的性别特异性激素通路：它会增加男性的饥饿激素——生长素释放肽（ghrelin），但会减少女性的饱腹肽——GLP-1。 (2:29) 受控实验室环境因人造的安全感与压力隔离掩盖了睡眠不足对代谢和皮质醇的破坏，而在自然生活状态下的人群则会因主动选择较差的饮食而加剧心脏代谢风险。 (12:39) 在自然生活环境中持续六周、每晚轻度减少1.5小时睡眠，会显著加剧胰岛素抵抗并升高血压，其中绝经后女性表现出最高的易感脆弱性。 (21:20) 尽管在代谢舱中被动保持清醒会使能量消耗小幅增加90卡路里，但这一微小的增幅完全被现实中普遍出现的过量摄入300卡路里所掩盖和压倒。 (22:58)

Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Andrew Huberman examine the bidirectional relationship between sleep and nutrition, showing that sleep restriction induces sex-specific appetite disruptions and caloric overconsumption, while daily macronutrient selection and meal timing directly govern nocturnal sleep architecture and metabolic regulation. Appetite Hormones and Metabolism Under Sleep Restriction (17:18) Controlled laboratory crossover trials conducted by Dr. St-Onge demonstrate that sleep loss alters appetite regulation through distinct hormonal pathways in men and women. Restricting sleep to roughly four hours per night for five consecutive nights elevated the hunger-stimulating hormone ghrelin in men, whereas it suppressed the satiety hormone GLP-1 in women. Despite these divergent mechanisms, both sexes overate by an average of 300 calories per day during ad libitum feeding. Inside a metabolic chamber, sleep restriction increased total energy expenditure by approximately 5%—around 90 calories—due to the energetic cost of extended wakefulness, an increase easily surpassed by the 300-calorie dietary excess. However, when participants consumed identical isocaloric meals at fixed times, short sleep produced zero alterations in basal cortisol, glucose, insulin, or lipid profiles. St-Onge notes that the metabolic abnormalities observed in epidemiological cohorts are primarily driven by fatigue-induced food choices and compounding daily stressors rather than sleep restriction in isolation. Dietary Composition and Nocturnal Sleep Architecture (37:17) Polysomnography data reveals that daytime food composition directly alters sleep architecture that very night. Higher daily fiber consumption is positively correlated with increased slow-wave deep sleep. Conversely, greater saturated fat intake correlates with reduced deep sleep, while refined carbohydrates and simple sugars trigger frequent nocturnal arousals, fragmenting rest by shifting the brain from deep to lighter sleep stages. These acute laboratory findings correspond with broad longitudinal evidence. Cohort analyses from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the Women’s Health Initiative demonstrated that diets aligning with Mediterranean or DASH patterns significantly lowered the incidence and persistence of insomnia over multi-year follow-ups. St-Onge explains that these protective associations remain robust even after rigorous statistical regression controls for socioeconomic, demographic, and lifestyle covariates. Meal Timing and Circadian Thermoregulation (71:20) Nutrient timing regulates both substrate utilization and nocturnal sleep onset. Findings from controlled chamber studies show that delaying the first meal of the day by four hours within a fixed 10-hour eating window significantly depresses fat oxidation compared to an early schedule. To optimize metabolic efficiency, St-Onge advises consuming the majority of daily calories during the first two-thirds of the waking day. Eating close to bedtime also impedes sleep architecture via the thermic effect of food. Digesting large meals raises core body temperature, conflicting with the natural circadian cooling required to initiate and sustain deep sleep; St-Onge therefore recommends maintaining a minimum three-hour buffer before bedtime. Addressing common nutritional pacing concerns, Huberman cites evidence showing the human body can assimilate up to 100 grams of protein in a single sitting, indicating individuals do not need late-night meals to meet structural amino acid requirements. Functional Lipids and Whole Food Matrices (77:20) Investigations into functional fats highlight divergent metabolic fates across lipid classes. Clinical studies by St-Onge on purified medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs with 8- and 10-carbon chains) show that unlike long-chain triglycerides, MCTs travel directly to the liver via the portal vein, significantly raising postprandial thermogenesis. Concurrently, plant-centered regimens like the Portfolio Diet—combining soy, nuts, plant sterols, and soluble fiber—demonstrated cholesterol-lowering efficacy comparable to statins in trials, though palatability and lower satiety per calorie pose challenges for widespread adherence. St-Onge cautions against replacing whole foods with isolated fiber powders like psyllium husk. Supplemental fiber isolates lack the synergistic polyphenols and micronutrients present in whole fruits and vegetables that nourish the gut microbiome. Furthermore, rapid escalations in fiber or fermented foods can trigger gastrointestinal distress or histamine reactions, requiring gradual digestive habituation. Dr. St-Onge and Huberman conclude that sleep and nutrition form a self-reinforcing feedback loop: insufficient sleep distorts hormonal appetite control and executive dietary choice, leading to high-sugar, high-saturated-fat consumption that degrades sleep architecture. Conversely, adhering to fiber-dense whole foods, observing an evening fasting buffer, and maintaining 6.5 to 8 hours of sleep per night establish an aligned, protective cycle for long-term cardiometabolic health.

哥伦比亚大学营养医学教授 Marie-Pierre St-Onge 与 Andrew Huberman 深入探讨了睡眠与营养之间的双向因果机制：睡眠剥夺会通过性别特异性的激素通路（男性饥饿素上升，女性GLP-1下降）诱发过量热量摄入，而白天的膳食构成（如高纤维与低饱和脂肪）及进食时序也会直接决定当夜的深睡眠深度与睡眠连续性。 睡眠剥夺对激素调控与能量平衡的破坏 (17:18) 在严格受控的实验室交叉试验中，研究人员将受试者的就寝时间限制在每晚4小时（连续5晚，实际平均睡眠3小时50分钟），并与每晚9小时的充足就寝组（平均睡眠7.5小时）进行对比。数据揭示了显著的性别特异性激素变化：男性的饥饿素（ghrelin）显著增加，直接刺激进食欲望；而女性体内负责传递饱腹信号的胰高血糖素样肽-1（GLP-1）则明显受抑。当随后允许受试者在自助餐中自主选择食物时，两性在睡眠剥夺状态下平均每天都会多摄入约300千卡热量。 代谢舱的连续测定表明，人在睡眠剥夺状态下的总能量消耗仅微幅上升约5%（约90千卡），完全无法抵消摄入的300千卡额外热量，从而导致正能量平衡与体重累积。值得注意的是，在维持等热量受控饮食时，受试者的皮质醇、血糖、胰岛素和血脂指标并未发生异常。这说明自由生活人群中睡眠不足导致的代谢恶化，并非单纯由生理应激激素失衡引起，更多是由于重度疲劳破坏了前额叶皮层的自控能力，促使个体主动选择高糖、高脂和高盐食物，并叠加了日常环境压力的综合结果。 膳食构成与进食时序对睡眠质量的重塑 (37:17) 反向研究证实了白天的食物质量对夜间多导睡眠监测指标的直接塑造作用。当受试者从标准化控制饮食转向自由进食时，饱和脂肪摄入量激增了33%，总热量增加约450千卡。分析表明，较高的日常膳食纤维摄入量与深层慢波睡眠（slow-wave sleep）的延长显著正相关；相反，较高的饱和脂肪摄入直接导致深睡眠减少，而精制碳水化合物与单糖的大量摄入则会引发夜间“微觉醒”（arousals）频次上升，促使大脑从深睡眠跌入浅睡眠，造成睡眠结构的严重碎片化。 大规模纵向队列研究（如多民族动脉粥样硬化研究 MESA 与妇女健康倡议 WHI）进一步印证，坚持地中海饮食或针对高血压的 DASH 饮食（富含水果、蔬菜、坚果和低脂乳制品），与失眠症状的缓解和更充足的睡眠时间呈持续正相关。此外，进食时序具有关键的热效应：睡前过晚进食会升高核心体温，直接阻碍人体入睡所需的降温生理节律；而在固定10小时进食窗口的研究中，将首餐推迟4小时（迟吃组）会显著降低白天的脂肪氧化率。专家因此建议在就寝前保持至少3小时的禁食缓冲期以优化代谢。 代谢优化中的蛋白质分配与功能性油脂 (76:01) 针对健身领域广为流传的“单餐只能吸收30克蛋白质”的观念，对话指出该论断并不成立：在运动后恢复等生理需求驱动下，人体单餐完全能够同化多达100克蛋白质。对于绝大多数非顶尖运动员群体，95%的肌蛋白合成收益仅通过两顿丰盛正餐配合适度加餐即可达成，无需为了追求苛刻的营养配比而强行在深夜加餐或过早进食。在饱腹感调控层面，根据“氨基酸蛋白质觅食假说”，高蛋白动物食品具有极高的代谢饱腹感，能有效避免因长期限制热量而诱发暴食，而坚果和精制谷物则极易因饱腹信号延迟而导致摄入过量。 在脂肪代谢领域，以辛酸（C8）和癸酸（C10）为代表的中链甘油三酯（MCT）在体内展现出独特的氧化路径。与长链脂肪酸进入外周循环并沉积于脂肪组织不同，MCT 直接通过门静脉迅速输送至肝脏氧化供能，临床试验已证实其可显著提升食物热效应。此外，针对心血管保护的组合膳食（Portfolio Diet，由大豆蛋白、坚果、植物甾醇和可溶性纤维构成）在降低低密度脂蛋白胆固醇方面展现出媲美他汀类药物的临床效果，但其在日常饮食中的推广仍面临公众接受度和依从性的挑战。 最佳睡眠区间、性别敏感度与全食物原则 (46:27) 发表于《Nature》关于生物钟与器官衰老的研究指出，睡眠时长与健康结局之间呈现明确的“U型曲线”，整体最佳生理区间位于每晚6.5至7.5或8小时之间，过长或过短的睡眠均会加速器官衰老。在性别差异方面，女性在统计学上的平均睡眠时长虽然略长于男性，但在主观评估中报告了更高比例的失眠、入睡困难与睡眠维持障碍，这与月经周期的激素波动及社会分工密切相关。此外，在较低严重度的睡眠呼吸暂停影响下，女性的血压升高反应较男性更为剧烈，显示出女性心血管系统对睡眠缺失具有更高的敏感性。 针对公众追逐新型提取物补剂的狂热，St-Onge 博士明确主张回归完整的全食物膳食，而非盲目依赖单一提取成分。例如，尽管车前子壳等提纯纤维粉在临床推荐中激增，但这类人造粉剂剥离了天然果蔬中协同共存的多酚类微量成分，而这些成分对喂养肠道菌群与全面发挥纤维效益至关重要。关于科研证据的严谨性，她结合自身针对开菲尔（kefir）胆固醇试验的无效结果（null result）呼吁，学术界与公众应客观看待无显著效应数据的发表，避免将功能性食物在社交媒体上过度神化。 对话最终总结指出，优质睡眠与合理营养构成了相互强化的自推进健康回路：充沛的睡眠巩固了前额叶对饮食冲动的神经调控，而富含纤维、低饱和脂肪的膳食与合理的禁食间隔反过来保障了慢波睡眠架构。然而，现有结论在自由生活人群中仍受到日常活动量降低、社交与职业压力等多重变量的混杂影响；未来的营养医学仍需进一步探究不同纤维类型的个体胃肠耐受差异，以及微量功能成分在真实复杂生活场景中的长期代谢机制。

Andrew Huberman: when men are sleep-deprived... the signals that drive appetitive desire to eat are higher, in women it's more that the brake on eating, on satiety, is reduced. Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: conversation with yourself about what to choose at the buffet table. [38:41] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: eating earlier is better overall for cardiometabolic health. [41:43] Andrew Huberman: every hour before midnight is worth two after [76:01] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: The whole notion that you could only assimilate like 30 grams per meal is totally false. Turns out can assimilate up to 100 gram. [101:20] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: there's no point doing research if you're not going to be able to publish. [103:13] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: If you're not an honest scientist... I don't think it matters who's sponsoring your research [103:13] Andrew Huberman: always comes out in the wash. [107:43] Andrew Huberman: steer people away from certain things. [107:43] Andrew Huberman: that mouse was sick [107:43] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: 25 is the same as 27. [110:28] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: people don't want to eat their fruits and vegetables. [113:02] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge: I talk often about a vicious cycle where you don't sleep well, you don't eat well, then that makes you not sleep so well. And really hoping for people to get into a healthful cycle, right? where you get good sleep, where you can make good food choices that then helps you get better sleep to keep propelling this uh this cycle of better health. [115:12] Andrew Huberman: Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body

[0:00] what was it that they ate that day that [0:02] impacted how they slept that night? And [0:05] we found that higher intakes of fiber [0:09] were associated with more deep sleep, [0:11] higher intakes of saturated fat, less [0:13] deep sleep, and then more refined [0:15] carbohydrates, simple sugars, more [0:18] arousals. You're not getting deep [0:21] slowwave sleep, REN sleep as much as you [0:24] would otherwise. Welcome to the Huberman [0:27] Lab podcast, where we discuss science [0:29] and [music] science-based tools for [0:30] everyday life. [0:35] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor [0:37] of neurobiology and opthalmology at [0:39] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest [0:41] today is Dr. Marie Pierre Strange, a [0:44] professor of nutritional medicine at the [0:46] Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia [0:48] University School of Medicine. Today we [0:51] discuss how you eat impacts your sleep [0:53] and how you sleep impacts what you eat [0:56] as well as how your body utilizes food [0:58] depending on how you slept. Now we've [1:01] talked about food and we've talked about [1:02] sleep many times before on this podcast. [1:04] But Dr. St. On's work is unique because [1:07] she runs one of the few laboratories in [1:08] the world to look at the birectional [1:10] relationship between sleep and food. For [1:13] instance, you'll learn how even modest [1:15] sleep deprivation increases hunger but [1:17] differently in men and women. In men, it [1:20] happens to increase the hormones that [1:21] drive the desire to eat. Whereas in [1:23] women, it reduces naturally made [1:25] peptides such as GLP, which suppress [1:27] hunger. Today's discussion gets into the [1:29] specific actionable items that you can [1:31] do to improve your sleep, and the way [1:33] that your body handles food and hunger. [1:36] We talk about the role of sleep in [1:37] regulating blood sugar, cortisol levels, [1:39] overall metabolism, and cardioabolic [1:42] health. Now, because Dr. St. Oja's [1:44] research focuses on sleep and nutrition, [1:46] but she's also spent a significant [1:47] amount of time studying how specific [1:49] nutrients impact overall health and not [1:51] just sleep. We also talk about that. I'm [1:54] certain that you'll come away from [1:55] today's episode with a lot of new [1:56] information you haven't heard elsewhere, [1:58] as well as with the intention to make [2:00] small or perhaps even large changes in [2:02] behavior and nutritional choices that [2:04] the science tell us can significantly [2:06] improve your sleep, your metabolism, and [2:08] overall health. Before we begin, I'd [2:10] like to emphasize that this podcast is [2:12] separate from my teaching and research [2:13] roles at Stanford. It is however part of [2:15] my desire and effort to bring zero cost [2:17] to consumer information about science [2:19] and science related tools to the general [2:21] public. In keeping with that theme, [2:23] today's episode does include sponsors. [2:25] And now for my discussion with Dr. Marie [2:27] Pierre St. Dr. Marie Pierre St. welcome. [2:32] >> Thank you for having me. [2:33] >> Sleep impacts how and what we eat and [2:36] how and what we eat impacts sleep. [2:39] That's a different perspective than I [2:40] think most people take. I think most [2:41] people are familiar, however, with not [2:44] getting the best night's sleep, maybe [2:46] feeling like their impulsivity to eat [2:49] quote unquote bad foods is a little [2:52] higher, and then also hopefully familiar [2:54] with having a great night's sleep and [2:56] feeling like we're just kind of in [2:58] control in a different way. Maybe you [3:00] could just kind of share for us what's [3:02] really going on beneath that experience [3:04] and when subtle or not so subtle chronic [3:09] sleep loss. So not an allnighter [3:11] necessarily but you know 45 minutes less [3:13] here 90 minutes less there etc etc how [3:17] that plays out in terms of our nutrition [3:19] and then we'll go in from the nutrition [3:20] side to sleep. [3:22] >> Sure. So there's a couple of questions [3:24] that you have in there actually about [3:27] the extent of sleep loss and how that [3:30] influences your food intake, what we see [3:33] in the general population versus what we [3:36] do in a lab to address causality. So let [3:39] me start with you know the [3:40] population-based studies right. So when [3:43] I started being interested in in sleep [3:46] it was coming from an obesity angle. My [3:50] PhD is in nutrition. I trained as a [3:52] postoc in uh body composition obesity [3:55] research and we were getting a lot of [3:57] information from population based [3:59] studies that people who sleep too little [4:03] have a higher body mass index than [4:06] people who get adequate amount of sleep. [4:09] Then it became there is a higher [4:11] prevalence of people with obesity in [4:14] this short sleep uh group. [4:18] Then studies evaluating changes over [4:22] time seeing that people who don't sleep [4:26] enough tend to gain more weight. There [4:28] was a famous uh nurses health study that [4:30] I really like to site uh when I give [4:33] talks that was published in 2006 [4:36] where uh they tracked nurses over 14 [4:39] years and those nurses that reported [4:42] sleeping five six hours had much higher [4:45] rate of weight gain over that 14 15 year [4:49] period than the nurses who had reported [4:51] sleeping seven or eight hours per night. [4:54] So those are observations that we get [4:56] from largecale population studies, [4:58] cohorts, [5:00] but you know what they what those [5:02] studies tell us is that things are [5:03] happening at a point in time or may [5:07] influence something that's happening [5:09] over time but not necessarily that one [5:13] causes the other. Right? So I started uh [5:16] my work in this field trying to uncover [5:19] whether sleeping too little actually [5:23] causes weight gain. And so in my opinion [5:27] because I was coming from a lab where I [5:29] trained in the measurement of energy [5:30] balance. So how much energ how much [5:32] energy you eat versus how much energy [5:34] you burn like well if sleep leads to [5:38] obesity leads to weight gain it has to [5:41] impact this energy balance [5:44] regulation. So it's either that we eat [5:47] more than we should or that we exercise [5:51] less we burn less or we eat more or [5:55] maybe it's a combination of the two. [5:57] Let's try this out and and see. So my [6:00] first uh my first study, my first NIH [6:04] grant, the big RO1s, you know, was to [6:07] look at exactly at this. So we had [6:09] people who had adequate sleep and we [6:12] brought them in the lab and we asked [6:15] them in a crossover design. So half of [6:18] the participants started out sleeping [6:21] adequately. So they we gave them a [6:22] 9-hour time in bed opportunity or we [6:26] asked them to sleep too little. So, they [6:28] had a 4-hour time in bed opportunity, [6:30] very short, but we did this for five [6:33] nights. [6:34] And then we took all sorts of [6:36] measurements in a controlled feeding [6:38] condition. So, for the first three days, [6:42] we told we had our participants eat the [6:44] exact same thing regardless of how much [6:47] time in bed they slept they got at [6:49] night. And then we measured appetite [6:51] regulating hormones. We did neuroiming [6:54] uh to really get at isolating the impact [6:57] of sleep duration on appetite regulating [6:59] hormones and and um neuronal responses [7:03] to foods. And then on the last day we [7:08] let them self- select their food intake [7:10] and we measured that in the lab. From [7:12] that study we showed that in men [7:15] specifically [7:17] uh we saw an increase in ghrein in [7:20] response to short sleep. So this hormone [7:22] that triggers food intake in women we [7:25] saw a reduction in GLP-1 interestingly [7:28] enough glucagon like peptide one. So the [7:31] satiety hormone was reduced as a result [7:34] of short sleep in women. And then when [7:36] uh we measured their food intake in the [7:38] lab, they ate 300 calories more in the [7:41] short sleep condition than they when [7:44] they got their regular adequate sleep of [7:47] at least 7 and 1/2 hours, a little more [7:49] than that uh per night. Then uh you were [7:53] asking about you know brain responses. [7:56] Uh we looked at neuronal responses to [7:59] food stimuli. We found upregulation in [8:02] uh reward centers of the brain in the [8:05] context of sleep restriction compared to [8:07] the context of adequate sleep. So [8:09] altogether really building a case that [8:12] when you don't sleep enough at night, [8:14] you have both physiological [8:17] signals to eat more for men or not stop [8:21] eating in women that lead to greater [8:25] food intake. that's also uh could be [8:28] impacted by just pleasurable centers [8:31] that are activated to a greater extent [8:33] as a result of uh insufficient sleep. [8:35] >> Amazing this sex specific split in the [8:38] data if I have it correctly that when [8:40] men are sleepd deprived so getting four [8:43] hours per night [8:44] >> the signals that drive a pettitive [8:48] desire to eat are higher in women it's [8:51] more that the break uh on eating on [8:53] satiety is reduced. [8:55] >> Exactly. Okay. As far as I know, the GLP [8:57] pathways are not um divergent by by sex, [9:02] but of course I'm not deeply versed in [9:04] that literature. Is there any evidence [9:05] that GLPs are functioning different in [9:07] men and women like circadian wise or [9:09] anything like that or this just this was [9:11] just a fertuitous outcome or I should [9:14] say uh incidental outcome? [9:16] >> This was an incidental outcome. We [9:18] really didn't know what to expect. We [9:20] didn't really know at all that we'd see [9:23] sex differences. Mhm. [9:25] >> Because there had been prior studies and [9:28] prior studies had shown that ghrein was [9:31] increased as a result of sleep [9:33] restriction. They also showed that [9:34] leptin was reduced as a result of sleep [9:36] restriction. And when we got our data, [9:40] if we analyzed our data with all of our [9:43] participants together [9:46] >> and there was no effect. [9:47] >> Mhm. [clears throat] [9:48] >> And that was surprising. And people [9:50] would say, "Don't you know? Don't you [9:52] know sleep restriction [9:54] increases grein?" Like, well, I guess I [9:57] don't know because in our study it [9:59] doesn't. But then we saw these sex [10:02] specific differences. Then it made sense [10:04] then that in the full sample when we had [10:07] an equal number of men and women we saw [10:10] no effect on ghrein because there was no [10:11] effect in women but there was an effect [10:13] in men which was reproducing what others [10:16] had found because all the prior studies [10:18] had been done in men only. [10:20] >> I'd like to take a quick break to [10:22] acknowledge one of our sponsors David. [10:24] David makes protein bars unlike any [10:26] other. Their newest bar, the Bronze Bar, [10:29] has 20 grams of protein, only 150 [10:32] calories, and zero grams of sugar. I [10:34] have to say, these are the best tasting [10:36] protein bars I've ever had, and I've [10:39] tried a lot of protein bars over the [10:40] years. These New David bars have a [10:42] marshmallow base and they're covered in [10:44] chocolate coating and they're absolutely [10:47] incredible. I of course eat regular [10:49] whole foods. 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You can also [11:30] find David on Amazon or in stores such [11:32] as Target, Walmart, and Kroger. Again, [11:34] to get the fifth carton for free, go to [11:36] davidproin.com/huberman. [11:39] Today's episode is also brought to us by [11:41] BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers [11:43] professional therapy with a licensed [11:44] therapist carried out entirely online. [11:47] Now, I've been doing therapy for a very [11:49] long time, and I can tell you that it's [11:50] a lot like physical workouts. There are [11:52] days when I want to do it, and there are [11:53] days when I don't want to do it. But [11:55] when I finish a therapy session, every [11:57] single time I come away feeling better [11:59] and knowing that the time was well [12:00] spent. There's just so many benefits [12:02] that come through effective therapy. [12:04] Now, with BetterHel, they make it very [12:06] easy to find an expert therapist who can [12:08] help provide the benefits that come from [12:09] effective therapy. You fill out a short [12:11] questionnaire to match you to a [12:12] therapist. And while BetterHelp has an [12:14] industry-leading match rate, if you [12:16] aren't happy with your match, you can [12:17] switch to a different therapist at any [12:19] time. And it works. BetterHelp has an [12:22] average rating of 4.9 out of five for [12:24] its live sessions based on over 1.7 [12:27] million client reviews. If you would [12:29] like to try BetterHelp, go to [12:31] betterhelp.com/huberman [12:33] to get 10% off your first month. Again, [12:35] that's betterhelp.com/huberman. [12:39] Whenever I'm sleepd deprived, so four or [12:42] five hours of sleep I consider sleep [12:44] deprived. I used to pull allnighters [12:45] years ago. Now I avoid them at all [12:47] costs. But whenever I have that [12:49] experience, I feel like my whole body to [12:53] some extent is in a low level of pain. [12:56] It's like kind of like central ache like [12:58] you just and and I wonder a extent to [13:01] which people eat to overcome like to [13:03] kind of quell the the pain of sleep [13:05] deprivation. Maybe people react [13:07] differently to sleep deprivation. Maybe [13:09] their subjective experience of it is is [13:10] very different. But what do you think is [13:12] happening in that uh in that short [13:15] relatively short amount of sleep that's [13:17] missing? What is getting reset? Is it [13:20] neural? Is it endocrine? It's obviously [13:22] all those things, but what do you think [13:23] is the the switch that allows people to [13:25] enter a a day in a in a much more [13:27] healthy fashion or or a sick essentially [13:30] in a slightly sick fashion? In our [13:32] study, it was actually a 50% reduction [13:34] in sleep because when they had 9 hours [13:37] sleep opportunity, they slept around 7 [13:40] and 1/2 and when they had the they were [13:43] all people who we had screened to sleep [13:45] at least seven measured by ectography. [13:48] So, and on average they get 7 and 1/2. [13:50] And in the sleep restricted condition, [13:53] they got on average about 3 hours and 50 [13:56] minutes. [13:57] >> So, it's like staying up late working on [13:59] a deadline then trying to catch an early [14:00] flight. Yeah, [14:01] >> it's pretty brutal. [14:02] >> It's pretty brutal. And that was [14:03] maintained, you know, they had five [14:05] nights of that. So that [14:06] >> five nights of that. Were they coming [14:08] unglued mentally, too? That I think I [14:10] would feel terrible after that kind of [14:13] stretch [14:14] >> that the end they were done. Like there [14:15] was no way anyone would want to keep [14:17] keep coming for that. But they were in [14:19] the lab. They were under supervision the [14:20] whole time. We didn't let them go out on [14:22] their own. Uh so they were well [14:24] supervised. Make sure that nothing uh [14:26] nothing would happen to them. [14:28] >> No naps. [14:28] >> No naps. No. No. Uh but so what happens [14:32] is I think there's some subconscious [14:36] need to to eat more when you're [14:39] sleepdeprived. There's also you know [14:41] there's a thermic effect of of food, [14:43] right? So it gives you a jolt of energy [14:45] to eat something. People know that you [14:48] eat it wakes you up in a way. You know, [14:51] neuronal signaling that that enhances uh [14:55] pleasurable and reward centers of the [14:58] brain where you know when also fatigue [15:00] sits in and now it's like do you really [15:02] want to have this conversation with [15:05] yourself about what to choose at the [15:06] buffet table? you know, there's fatigue [15:11] >> and uh and others have shown also that [15:13] sleepiness tends to correlate with all [15:16] of this that there's these triggers for [15:19] more pleasurable food consumption with [15:22] um with sleep restriction and it's been [15:24] reproduced. There's been so many studies [15:27] uh and they all you know agree to to the [15:31] extent of overeating you know a meta [15:33] analysis showed 250 to 400 calories of [15:36] overeating which might not sound like [15:38] much but when you start layering that in [15:40] day after day and you think you know [15:42] 3500 excess calories more or less for a [15:45] pound of body weight and then you start [15:46] when people accumulate that over time [15:48] >> if they're in a night shift condition or [15:51] new parents or [15:53] >> tending to a sick relative were just [15:55] final exams like it it's a real thing. [15:57] >> It's a real thing. Uh Neymar Kovven in [16:00] uh 2022 published a paper where uh they [16:03] had sleep restriction about 5 hours per [16:06] night versus 7 and 1 half hours per [16:08] night for two weeks and participants [16:10] gained half a kilo in a twoe period. So [16:13] you do nothing and you just you know [16:16] sleep less and gain gain almost a pound [16:19] in two weeks. It strikes me that, you [16:22] know, for a long time in the stress [16:23] research, the idea was when people are [16:25] stressed, they reach for kind of quote [16:27] unquote comfort foods, carbohydrate, and [16:29] typically starch fat, starched fat, [16:32] sugar combination foods to comfort them. [16:34] And and the the just so story was always [16:36] that uh okay, well, you know, cortisol's [16:40] main role is to deploy glucose, and so [16:42] people are doing this as a way to bring [16:44] excess energy and and it all kind of [16:46] fits together. What is the relationship [16:48] between these forms of sleep deprivation [16:50] that you work on and stress? Is it [16:52] really a way of of I'm not saying just [16:54] inducing stress because I think sleep is [16:56] its own thing, but it's stressful [16:59] >> just to be less than adequately rested [17:02] independent of the things coming at you [17:03] in life, [17:04] >> right? Is what you're studying stress. [17:06] >> So if you're thinking about [17:07] physiological stress measured by [17:09] cortisol levels in that study actually [17:11] cortisol wasn't changed [17:14] >> in the short sleep. [17:15] >> In the short sleep. Tell me more about [17:16] that. I'm fascinated by circadian [17:18] rhythms and cortisol. So what does what [17:20] does that what does that mean? [17:21] >> There was no difference between the two [17:23] conditions. The adequate sleep or short [17:25] sleep on cortisol levels [17:26] >> for 5 days of sleep restriction at [17:28] basically 4 hours a night. [17:30] >> So cortisol is still peaking in the in [17:32] the morning, still dropping in the [17:34] evening. [17:35] >> Yeah. [17:35] >> Wow. That's very surprising to me. [17:37] >> I don't know. I don't know if it's the [17:39] context of you know being in a lab where [17:42] everything's safe taken care of for [17:45] them. there is nothing outside to [17:48] aggravate [17:49] >> this. [clears throat] [17:50] So I don't know maybe when you're in the [17:52] context of sleep restriction but also [17:55] dealing with your daily life [17:58] >> you needing to take care of your kids [18:00] needing to get to work needing to do all [18:03] the activities of daily living maybe [18:04] then that becomes you know the the added [18:07] stressful. So the message is if you [18:10] suffer less than adequate sleep, get [18:14] someone to take care of everything else. [18:16] You better [laughter] be in a spa. [18:17] Exactly. Exactly. [clears throat] No, I [18:19] and I'm not challenging the result. I [18:21] just find it really interesting. I would [18:22] have thought that basil cortisol levels [18:23] would would go ary. [18:25] >> Well, in that study also, we didn't see [18:27] any effect on glucose or insulin. [18:29] Nothing. Nothing. The curves were [18:34] superimposable. [18:36] while [18:37] >> they were eating the exact same food at [18:40] the exact same time, exact same [18:42] quantity. The only thing we changed was [18:45] the amount of sleep opportunity they got [18:47] at night. So to me, this means that it's [18:50] a combination of different things that [18:52] causes the metabolic abnormalities that [18:55] we notice in free living populations. [18:58] People aren't isolated. They're not in a [19:00] box where they're not sleeping enough [19:02] and they're choosing to eat higher fat, [19:06] higher sugar, higher salt, poor diet [19:10] that then triggers a worsening and may [19:13] be compounded by the lack of sleep, even [19:16] worsening of of those cardioabolic [19:19] outcomes because we did a follow-up [19:22] study to this uh this severe sleep [19:24] restriction study. So the reason why we [19:25] did that was because exactly for this [19:27] reason because we did not find any [19:30] adverse impact on glucose or insulin or [19:33] lipid profile. And we're like so what is [19:36] it then? Why is it that in population [19:39] based studies we find that people who [19:41] sleep too little have higher risk of [19:45] cardiovascular disease, higher risk of [19:47] hypertension, higher blood pressure, [19:48] higher uh risk of type two diabetes. So, [19:53] because we had seen that food choices [19:55] were different, that they ate a diet [19:58] that was higher in calories, higher uh [20:00] in fat and saturated fat, we thought [20:02] maybe if you're in a free living [20:05] situation, [20:06] that's when you start to see those [20:08] cardio metabolic outcomes because it's [20:10] compounded by maybe uh more sedentary [20:14] behavior and [20:16] alterations in in uh food choices and [20:19] and diet. So the follow-up study then [20:22] was to recruit good sleepers, people who [20:26] sleep at least seven hours per night, [20:28] verified by ectography, who answer on [20:31] questionnaires that their sleep quality [20:33] is good. And then to take these people [20:37] and say, "Okay, now you're either going [20:40] to continue your excellent sleep or [20:45] you're going to now go to bed an hour [20:48] and a half later." So that you get an [20:50] hour and a half reduction in sleep. [20:52] Because when we screen people to sleep [20:55] at least seven hours per night, they [20:56] sleep about seven and a half. And [20:59] reducing by an hour and a half gets to 6 [21:01] hours, which is short sleep, [21:04] insufficient [21:05] on average what people who don't get [21:07] enough sleep get. [21:09] >> They're missing a full sleep cycle. [21:10] >> Yeah, pretty much. and uh and they can [21:13] sustain that for prolonged periods [21:16] because that's what people report in in [21:18] population based studies. And now when [21:20] we did that, we saw that insulin [21:23] resistance was increased after 6 weeks [21:28] of sleep restriction compared to [21:29] adequate sleep. We saw insulin [21:32] sensitivity was reduced. It was worse [21:35] actually in post-menopausal women [21:37] compared to premenopausal women. We saw [21:39] blood pressure uh was increased. Uh so [21:43] those cardio metatabolic outcomes were [21:44] adversely impacted in free living mild [21:48] sustained sleep restriction for 6 weeks. [21:51] 6 weeks was something else also. [21:52] [laughter] [21:53] It was it was tough. [21:54] >> I can only imagine. Wow. Okay. Because [21:58] my mind always goes to all right. Well, [22:01] we wake up in the morning because of an [22:03] increase in cortisol. That's circadian. [22:05] It's not related to sleep per se. It [22:07] just kind of overlaps with the end of [22:08] the night's sleep. If that's independent [22:11] of sleep and cortisol drives glucose [22:14] release, we know this. [22:15] >> At least in the first study you [22:17] described, glucose levels weren't [22:18] altered. You said it was isocaloric, so [22:21] people were it's not like they're eating [22:22] more. No, [22:23] >> they're the the hormones that are [22:25] driving the desire to eat more are [22:27] elevated. [22:28] >> The didn't let them eat more, [22:30] >> but you didn't let them. I think that's [22:31] a a key thing that you you pointed out [22:33] before, but I think we want to [22:35] underscore. And then of course the GLP [22:38] uh levels in women being reduced. It's [22:40] not that then they were able to eat as [22:42] we say ad libidum and then they happen [22:43] to eat more but they gained weight. So [22:46] what's kind of the action end of things [22:48] that causes them to gain weight if [22:50] they're basically in an isocchloric [22:52] diet? And I have a I have a I have an [22:54] idea what it might be but I'm curious [22:56] what the answer is. [22:58] >> Yes. I think they're they're more [22:59] sedentary [23:01] >> during the day. Less spontaneous [23:02] activity. [23:03] >> Right. less spontaneous activity because [23:05] we also did a study to look at energy [23:07] expenditure that's really difficult [23:09] actually to measure in my opinion energy [23:12] expenditure there's multiple components [23:14] to energy expenditure [23:16] uh but we did a study where this was a [23:19] small study we enrolled only women for [23:22] that and we have a metabolic chamber [23:24] [snorts] at Colombia that we were able [23:26] to use for this uh so this small room in [23:30] which we keep people and we measure [23:32] minuteby at oxygen consumption and [23:34] carbon dioxide production. And we were [23:37] able to show that energy expenditure is [23:40] actually increased in the context of [23:43] sleep restriction in the metabolic [23:45] chamber [snorts] because it's more [23:49] costly energetically to remain awake [23:53] than to fall asleep. So energy [23:56] expenditure when participants were awake [23:59] was identical in both [clears throat] [24:01] conditions regardless of how much sleep [24:03] they got the night before. [24:04] >> So it's fidgeting movement because we've [24:06] talked before in this podcast about the [24:08] non-ex exercise induced thermogenesis. [24:10] It's a big number. I mean you people who [24:12] fidget a lot bounce their knee a lot. I [24:13] mean sometimes these people are burning [24:15] 1500 calories more per day and everyone [24:17] goes oh my god how could that possibly [24:18] be? But I mean that's a lot. That's at [24:20] the extreme. But it is kind of [24:22] interesting to observe people out in the [24:24] world and you sometimes see that people [24:27] who are very very lean, very let's just [24:30] say thin and lean nowadays, who knows [24:32] because of the GLPS etc. But they tend [24:34] to have a lot of spontaneous movement. [24:35] They tend to stand up quickly. They tend [24:37] to walk quickly. Well, you're from New [24:38] York, so everyone there walks faster [24:40] than out here. But it's a real thing, [24:42] you know, whereas some people like me [24:44] are kind of more middle of the curve, [24:45] but you know, I sit a bit more still [24:47] unless I'm very caffeinated. These [24:48] things add up over time in ways that I [24:51] think most people underestimate. [24:54] >> Yeah. So for us it was about 5% of [24:57] energy [24:59] >> increased, but it it and it ended up [25:02] being about 90 calories, nowhere close [25:04] to the 300 calories that uh [25:06] >> more of intake they got over over a day [25:10] in the prior study. So it's still an [25:12] imbalance towards a positive energy [25:14] balance when we do the math but there is [25:17] an increase in um in energy expenditure [25:21] again in the confines of a metabolic [25:23] chamber which you know for most people [25:25] is equivalent of the size of their [25:27] bathroom. Right. [25:27] >> Right. You have like a bed, a table and [25:29] a sink, a toilet. That's it. So you [25:31] can't can't do much in there. [25:33] >> But you can do studies quote unquote out [25:36] in the wild with um acttometry or what? [25:39] Yeah, [25:41] excuse me. Yeah. [25:42] >> Yes. [25:42] >> A little while ago, I saw a study that [25:44] said that if you are one night sleepd [25:45] deprived, like you get one or two hours [25:48] less uh sleep than normally you would [25:51] get to feel rested that it's actually [25:53] advantageous to exercise because it [25:55] offsets some of the um increase in [25:56] inflammation. [25:58] >> But then if you're going multiple nights [25:59] that way, exercising on a regular basis [26:01] when sleep deprived, it just sets up a [26:04] um susceptibility to illness, [26:05] susceptibility to injury and so forth. [26:08] How much of what you observe in the [26:10] under the conditions of sleep [26:11] deprivation do you think are downstream [26:13] or upstream of this thing that we just [26:16] call inflammation? like is this just [26:18] like a bodywide response and there are a [26:20] bunch of things that have gone ary and [26:22] and so like a bunch of systems are [26:24] disregulated or can we pinpoint okay [26:26] when you're sleepd deprived [26:29] this is what this is what's happening [26:31] because I think if if women knew that [26:32] their GLPs were down [26:34] >> when they're down on sleep so that they [26:37] should expect that they would feel less [26:39] satiety if men knew that their ghrein [26:41] levels were elevated when they're down [26:43] on sleep that they're going to feel hung [26:45] hungrier I mean we have pretty big [26:47] prefrontal cortex most people anyway and [26:50] we can intervene simply on the basis of [26:52] knowledge. I think that's what's [26:54] empowering and I think about this [26:56] sometimes too when I'm when I'm thinking [26:59] about you know my my diet at times right [27:03] I'm like I do I really want to eat this [27:05] or is it because I really didn't sleep [27:07] last night right so you can you can make [27:09] you can ask yourself these questions [27:11] take a pause and say okay do I really [27:14] want you know dessert or is it just that [27:18] I'm tired and you know I should just I'm [27:21] fine I don't need it Mhm. [27:22] [clears throat] [27:23] >> So if you if you step back and think [27:25] that maybe part of it is because you [27:27] didn't sleep well the night before, then [27:29] you can make your appropriate choices, [27:32] right? Say, "Okay, I probably don't need [27:34] the the extra calories right now." Or or [27:38] maybe you say, "You know what? I had a [27:40] really bad night last night and those [27:42] extra calories, I don't really care [27:45] because they're going to make me feel [27:46] good and I need some pickme up." But you [27:50] know [27:51] >> that's that's all the choices to make [27:53] right you know because mood comes into [27:56] comes into play as well. So [27:59] >> well ultimately that brings us to the [28:01] the other direction of the equation [28:04] right how does what we eat impact our [28:06] sleep. This is something that I think [28:08] most people have heard about in the [28:10] context of try not to eat too close to [28:12] bedtime. [28:13] >> Um this is an active debate in many [28:15] households actually. Some people seem to [28:17] be fine eating close to bedtime and [28:19] sleeping and even if they track their [28:21] sleep. Other people it really disrupts [28:23] their sleep. I'm interested in both the [28:26] timing of food intake relative to sleep [28:28] but also the content of the food and how [28:31] it impacts sleep. What's known about [28:33] that either from your work or from other [28:34] work? When we started this conversation, [28:36] I was telling you about these population [28:38] based studies, you know, cross-sectional [28:41] data where two things happen at the same [28:43] time and you, you know, you you don't [28:45] really know causality, they happen at [28:47] the same time. And I think early on uh [28:50] in this field we started thinking about [28:53] sleep as the promoter of food intake or [28:59] as a sleepcausing [29:01] changes in diet exercise but didn't [29:05] really think that maybe it's the other [29:06] way around or maybe the other way around [29:08] is just as plausible. [29:10] So I started thinking about that and [29:13] said well what what if we took the other [29:15] approach? What if we looked at diet and [29:20] examined how diet influenced future [29:22] sleep? [29:24] And my first paper in this field was [29:27] using data from the multi-ethnic study [29:29] of atheroscerosis. It's actually kind of [29:32] hard to find good cohorts that have good [29:36] nutrition data, good sleep data, and [29:40] data over over years. Right? So MESA [29:44] multi-thnics of study of atherosclerosis [29:46] is one of those great cohorts that we [29:48] have in here in the US that has all of [29:51] the above. So I paired up with a [29:53] colleague of mine, Susan Redline in [29:55] Boston and uh she's a principal [29:58] investigator on their sleep ancillary [30:00] study and we asked the question of diet [30:03] quality and its impact on sleep [30:05] duration, insomnia symptoms and we found [30:08] that having a diet that more closely [30:11] aligns with the Mediterranean diet was [30:13] associated with better uh probability of [30:17] having adequate sleep and reduced um [30:19] insomnia symptoms in this cohort. So [30:21] then it launched a whole field of study [30:24] really to to keep looking at this and [30:27] we've looked at this in different [30:28] studies and different cohorts actually [30:31] uh earlier this year we published data [30:33] from the women's health initiative [30:35] another large large cohort with good [30:37] diet data and and sleep information. We [30:40] took a really really nice approach in [30:42] this uh longitudinal analysis. I don't [30:44] know. Usually when we do longitunal [30:48] studies, we exclude people who have the [30:51] condition at baseline, right? So if [30:53] you're trying to see this factor at [30:56] baseline, how does it influence [30:59] hypertension 10 years later, you usually [31:02] exclude people who have hypertension at [31:04] baseline? Because you want to see the [31:05] development of hypertension. In this [31:08] case, we're looking at insomnia [31:09] symptoms. But insomnia is one of those [31:12] conditions that's not necessarily [31:15] static. It resolves, right? So you can [31:18] have insomnia and then a few years later [31:22] not have insomnia [31:24] or you can not have insomnia now and [31:27] develop insomnia. So what we did is we [31:30] broke our down our participants into two [31:32] groups. the people who had no insomnia [31:36] at baseline and at three years followup [31:41] participants who had insomnia at [31:43] baseline but not at 3 years followup. So [31:46] they were in the healthful sleep [31:50] improving sleep and then the other group [31:52] was all those women who had insomnia at [31:55] baseline and at 3 years and no insomnia [31:58] at baseline but insomnia at 3 years. So [32:00] they were the persistent insomnia [32:03] progressing towards poor sleep group. [32:06] And we found that the women who had a [32:10] diet that was more closely aligned to [32:12] the Mediterranean diet. But we also [32:14] looked at uh an American type of diet [32:17] profile called the DASH diet. The [32:19] dietary approaches to stop hypertension. [32:22] Women who had a dietary profile closer [32:24] to those two types of diets, healthful [32:26] diets were less likely to have [32:29] hypertension uh insomnia at three years. [32:32] And the DASH diet is what? [32:34] >> Dietary approaches to stop hypert [32:36] hypertension was developed to uh reduce [32:39] prevent hypertension, reduce blood [32:41] pressure in people by increasing intakes [32:44] of fruits and vegetables, nuts and [32:46] seeds, consuming low-fat dairy, more [32:49] plant-based types of uh diet and and can [32:52] be has been tested in a low salt or [32:56] regular salt profile. [32:57] >> How did those work out? I'm just [32:58] curious. Do you recall if the low salt [33:00] high salt um condition [33:02] >> there is salt sensitivity so there are [33:03] some people who are very sensitive to [33:05] salt and so having a reduced salt diet [33:08] will really improve their blood pressure [33:10] >> others not so much but the DASH diet [33:13] regardless of its salt content did [33:16] better than the equivalent non-dash [33:19] >> which would be your average you know [33:20] American diet whatever that is yeah [33:22] higher in saturated fat and sugars [33:25] >> which seems to be changing now because [33:26] of the GLPS I I feel Like that's, you [33:29] know, uh maybe that's a skewed [33:31] perspective, but I feel like the the [33:33] typical American diet is it might not be [33:35] changing so much in content, but in [33:37] volume it seems like people are eating [33:38] less. Certainly the snack food [33:40] companies, from what I understand, are [33:42] struggling. Alcohol companies, that's a [33:43] different issue, but there certainly [33:45] have uh sales are way way down, [33:48] >> but it just seems like people's [33:50] appetites are down. [33:52] >> Well, GLP1s will do that, right? [33:53] >> Yeah. [33:54] >> Yeah. And we were talking about this the [33:56] other day here. uh how many Americans [33:59] have tried a GLP? The estimates are [34:01] anywhere from like one in seven. Some [34:03] people say it's it's more [34:05] >> which is pretty incredible. [34:06] >> Yeah, it's pretty high. [34:07] >> But this is interesting. So how people [34:09] eat impacts their sleep, I'm sure the [34:12] listeners and I also am thinking okay [34:14] but people who are eating a [34:16] Mediterranean diet, right? olive oils, [34:18] fish, you know, fruits, vegetables, they [34:21] are probably more apt to walk more, [34:25] exercise more, socialize more, all the [34:27] how do you separate out the variables in [34:28] a study like that? [34:29] >> Uh well, so in population based studies, [34:31] we adjust for a bunch of coariants, [34:33] right? We have all these questionnaires [34:35] that uh that are given out to people [34:37] asking them about their race, [34:40] occupation, sociodemographic [34:42] stat, socioeconomic status, and then we [34:44] adjust. We adjust for um different [34:47] illnesses that they may have, [34:49] depression, [34:50] physical activity level. Um so we try to [34:55] take all this in into consideration. [34:57] Obviously we there's always unmeasured [34:59] factors that you can't control for [35:02] social interactions like you um you [35:05] mentioned. It's usually not captured [35:08] very well. It's not something that we uh [35:09] we can adjust for. But one thing that we [35:12] did in my lab uh going back to that [35:15] original study was to look at uh how [35:20] diet influenced sleep at night in the [35:23] participants in our inpatient study. So [35:27] we took the 9-hour time in bed [35:31] opportunity phase only that one. [35:34] [snorts] In the 4-hour time in bed [35:35] opportunity participants were very [35:37] efficient. There was not much [35:39] variability in sleep duration in that [35:41] phase. They slept as much as they could [35:43] in that 4-hour opportunity, but in the [35:46] nine hours, there was variability there. [35:48] Some people got more or less. So, we [35:50] wanted to see if food intake was related [35:53] to their sleep at night. That study, we [35:56] had polynography assessments of sleep [36:00] every single night. Like I mentioned, we [36:03] had uh control diet initially and then [36:06] we let them self- select their food [36:07] intakes. So we took a very systematic [36:10] approach to evaluating how diet could [36:12] influence sleep in that study. We said [36:15] first of all, [36:17] was the diet that they chose different [36:19] than the diet that we gave them? First [36:22] step, right? It was. So they ate almost [36:24] 450 calories more. They ate 33% more [36:28] saturated fat. [36:30] uh little less protein I believe a [36:33] little more carbohydrates not much but [36:35] it it was different [36:37] >> so like okay so so there's difference [36:39] between the diets okay now [36:41] >> was their sleep at night different when [36:44] they were eating the diet that we fed [36:46] them compared to what they self- [36:48] selected [36:50] and it they it was different it wasn't [36:52] different in terms of duration but it [36:55] was different in time it took them to [36:57] fall asleep which was [37:00] over 70% longer to fall asleep when they [37:02] self- selected their diet and their [37:05] slowwave sleep. So deep sleep was [37:08] shorter. I think it was about 23 20% [37:12] shorter uh when they self- selected [37:14] their diet compared to what we had given [37:16] them. [37:17] >> Was timing of food intake impacted? [37:19] Because when I think of what impacts [37:22] what reduces um slowwave deep sleep, [37:25] it's eating too close to bedtime. Mhm. [37:28] So [37:29] we did not take that into consideration [37:32] in that study. We didn't uh we didn't [37:34] look at that. We had their their food [37:37] intake profile and didn't specifically [37:39] look in that phase when's when was their [37:43] last eating period. But it could have [37:45] been different than in the controlled [37:47] feeding condition because in the [37:48] controlled feeding condition they had [37:50] set meals at specific times. But they [37:52] all went to bed at 10 p.m. Then the [37:55] other question was, okay, what was it [37:57] that they ate that day that impacted how [38:01] they slept that night? And we found that [38:04] higher intakes of fiber were associated [38:08] with more deep sleep, [38:10] higher intakes of saturated fat, less [38:12] deep sleep, and then more refined [38:14] carbohydrates, simple sugars, more [38:17] arousals. So when we talk about arousals [38:20] in the context of polyynography, it [38:22] doesn't necessarily mean full-on waking [38:24] up or awakening, it really means going [38:27] from a deeper to lighter stage of sleep. [38:30] So you may still be asleep throughout [38:32] the night, but you're not getting deep [38:36] slow wave sleep, REN sleep as much as [38:38] you would uh otherwise. [38:41] >> Do you create a buffer between your last [38:45] bite of food and the time you go to [38:47] sleep? You personally? [38:48] >> Me personally, yes. [38:49] >> Is it an hour, two hours, three hours? [38:52] >> I personally like to eat my last meal at [38:55] least three hours before going to bed. [38:57] And I know there's variability there. [38:59] Different people have different uh [39:00] tolerance. You mentioned right before [39:02] that uh [39:03] >> you know some people may be later [39:04] chronotypes, but what we know is that [39:09] eating earlier [39:11] is better overall for cardio metabolic [39:15] health. Eating earlier is better. Me [39:17] personally, I feel I feel better by [39:20] eating earlier. If I eat too close to [39:22] bedtime, I [39:25] I get hot. [39:26] >> Right. Yeah. It's [laughter] it's a [39:27] thermic effective food thermic [39:29] effective. We want to be cooling off [39:30] when we go to sleep. [39:31] >> Exactly. Exactly. [39:33] >> I'd like to take a quick break and [39:34] acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is a [39:38] vitamin mineral probiotic drink that [39:40] also includes prebiotics and adaptogens. [39:42] I discovered AG1 way back in 2012, long [39:46] before I ever had a podcast, and I've [39:48] been taking it every day since. 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For a limited [40:28] time, AG1 is giving away a free bottle [40:30] of their new Omega-3 co-enzyme Q10 [40:32] product. Omega-3 and co-enzyme Q10 are [40:35] known to support cardiovascular health, [40:37] cellular health and energy, generally, [40:39] brain health, and much more. I [40:41] personally take them both every day. [40:43] Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman [40:47] to get a free bottle of the new Omega-3 [40:49] co-enzyme Q10 with your first AG1 [40:51] subscription. There seems to be [40:53] something asymmetric about sleep [40:56] requirements in my experience, and I [40:59] don't think I'm alone in this, whereby [41:03] if I go to bed at 1000 p.m., I get into [41:06] bed at 9:30, fall asleep at 10:00, I [41:08] need about 6 and 1 half, maybe 7 hours [41:10] to feel completely rested. That's how [41:12] long I'll sleep. Wake up without an [41:14] alarm, feeling great. [41:16] If I go to bed at midnight, I find I [41:19] could sleep till 9 and still not feel [41:22] completely rested. So, there's some [41:24] weird sleep inertia stuff going on [41:26] there, etc. The old adage is every hour [41:30] before midnight is worth two after. But [41:32] is there any real data to support that [41:34] or is this just all subjective and [41:36] conjecture? [41:37] >> I'm not sure there's data to support [41:39] that. I haven't seen anything. But what [41:41] I can say from what you're saying is [41:44] that if you usually go to bed at 9:30, [41:46] 10:00, and then all of a sudden you go [41:49] to bed at midnight, now you're kind of [41:51] out of line with your personal circadian [41:54] system, right? And it's always harder to [41:57] to get a good night's sleep if you're [42:00] not going with your internal clock or [42:03] your internal circadian [42:05] >> preference. Um, this is what happens [42:07] with shift workers, right? for example, [42:10] they they they're not sleeping at night. [42:12] They're trying to sleep during the day. [42:15] They're trying to sleep during the day [42:16] where their melatonin is low or it [42:18] should be when it's high. So, they're [42:20] fighting their circadian system. So, [42:23] yes, they should they should be getting [42:25] seven hours, but they're not getting [42:27] seven hours because their body is not [42:30] designed to be sleeping during the [42:32] daytime hours. Plus, then you have, you [42:35] know, everything else, right? Right. The [42:37] light, the [42:38] >> lights, the noise, the kids, the [42:39] whatever life that that happens during [42:41] the daytime when everybody else is awake [42:43] and you're trying to sleep. [42:45] >> Yeah. The only thing I can think of [42:46] that's an advantage to being nocturnal [42:48] is the quiet. [laughter] [42:50] >> I used to sometimes shift to a nocturnal [42:52] schedule during holidays in graduate [42:54] school when everyone would go home [42:55] because I lived my my parents lived [42:58] relatively close to where I went to [42:59] graduate school. So, I could afford to [43:01] just just go home for Christmas, right? [43:03] Just that day [43:04] >> or a couple of days. and everyone else [43:06] had to travel, so I could invert my [43:08] schedule. It just kind of drifted that [43:09] way. [43:10] >> Yeah, [43:10] >> I promise that's the only advantage of [43:13] going to bed at 4:00 a.m. and uh [43:15] sleeping until, you know, 3:00 p.m. At [43:17] least for typical people, it you your [43:20] brain gets into a kind of weird space [43:22] when you're inverted from the rest of [43:24] the world. [43:25] >> Well, the things you do when you're a [43:26] grad student, I would be the opposite, [43:28] right? I'd wake up at 4:00 a.m. and then [43:31] study because I felt like all of the [43:32] hours of studying before the sun rose [43:35] were like extras. [43:37] >> Interesting. [43:37] >> Extra time for me. [43:38] >> It was definitely extra. But you felt [43:39] like you were extra sharp at those [43:41] hours. [43:41] >> Extra sharp. I could study and then you [43:44] know I got that time done and then you [43:46] know breakfast but then I crash later in [43:48] the afternoon. [43:49] >> Yeah, that's the problem. The one 2 PM [43:51] crash. Um has your work explored napping [43:54] at all? I'm a believer in naps and [43:55] non-sleep deep breaths, yoga nidra type [43:57] things, meditation. Do naps factor into [44:00] this diet, nutrition, hunger equation. [44:04] >> So, we haven't done research on napping [44:07] per se. For me, there there's a lot [44:10] going on with napping. I don't think we [44:12] have very good data to be able to say [44:14] what's appropriate about napping. What [44:16] we do know is that you don't want to nap [44:21] too close to bedtime because you want to [44:24] build sleep pressure throughout the day. [44:26] And if you're dissipating the sleep [44:28] pressure, the sleep need too close to [44:30] bedtime, then you're not going to be [44:31] able to fall asleep when time comes to [44:34] go to bed at your usual hour. And then, [44:37] you know, you get into this vicious [44:39] cycle and it's it's not helpful. But, [44:42] you know, there are some studies that [44:43] say, well, what should you do if you [44:44] can't sleep enough at night? and you're [44:46] feeling tired, you know, should you [44:48] sleep? Should recommendations are that [44:51] you should make it a short nap, 30 [44:53] minutes, no more than an hour, early [44:55] enough in the day if possible, so that [44:58] you can have sufficient time to rebuild [45:01] that sleep pressure to be able to fall [45:03] back asleep well when time comes. But [45:06] then there's also this this whole [45:08] question about what's an app for, right? [45:12] Like why are you sleepy? Of course, if [45:15] you if you've pulled an alada, it's easy [45:17] to to know. But if if you had sufficient [45:21] sleep or sufficient opportunity for [45:23] sleep at night and you're waking up and [45:25] you're not feeling refreshed, you're not [45:26] feeling like you had good quality sleep [45:28] and then you're not able to maintain [45:31] alertness throughout the day and you [45:32] need a nap. [45:35] I think it's you should check to see [45:37] like what's going on at night like why [45:38] are you not getting that good good [45:40] enough sleep? I'm chuckling because my [45:42] posttock advisor sparked this huge [45:44] debate. It was a big lab and uh we had a [45:47] couple of people in lab who like to nap [45:49] at their desk. These were people that [45:50] could just like put their head down and [45:52] nap at their desk in the afternoon. He'd [45:53] walk in, they'd be napping and then they [45:54] wake up and keep working. Everyone [45:56] everyone was working very hard. and he [45:59] had this theory uh that if you're [46:02] napping it's because you're sleepd [46:04] deprived that like napping is unhealthy [46:06] you know and it it sparked a big debate [46:09] and people because it we're a bunch of [46:10] nerds people bring data in like no you [46:13] know at the sleep lab at Stanford says [46:15] that naps can be healthy and I think it [46:17] what you just described summarizes I [46:19] think that the takeaway I'm a believer [46:21] in the short nap but but I'm one of [46:23] these people that can sleep anywhere [46:24] anytime which may be reflective of sleep [46:26] deprivation [46:27] >> maybe yeah [46:27] >> do Do you find that like when you're [46:29] going to design a study or when you're [46:31] going to like really work like this 4:00 [46:32] a.m. time that it's a time of calm or [46:35] are you like a laz are you do you feel [46:37] like your mind is moving fast or you're [46:39] kind of in this like flow zone or [46:41] whatever you want to call it? [46:43] >> I'm very focused. [46:45] >> Mhm. [46:45] >> Uh very efficient. [46:48] So I try to be really attentive at my [46:52] task. I try to take take breaks once in [46:55] a while, but uh most of the time it's uh [46:59] it's very efficient. Get to the task and [47:02] get it done. [47:03] >> Earlier you were talking about biking [47:05] into work. You strike me as somebody I [47:06] always think of people who I'm always [47:08] impressed by colleagues like this that [47:09] their life is kind of like a step [47:11] function. They wake up and it's like [47:12] they're into the day and then it's down, [47:14] right? Yeah. Interesting. I think some [47:16] of us are more like this. [47:18] >> But I think it's important to have a [47:19] little bit of both though. I think it's [47:21] important to have downtime, [47:24] you know, speed time, uh [47:27] >> to to not just be go go go go go like [47:30] you were asking about uh my personal, [47:33] you know, uh actions and at one point I [47:39] was running a lot for exercise and uh I [47:44] felt like my whole life was just running [47:46] all the time. [47:48] >> Yeah. Yeah. Run to get my kids to [47:49] school. run to work, get work done, run [47:52] to then run for fun. Run, run, run. And [47:56] then I thought, okay, I kind of need to [47:58] [snorts] [47:59] >> I think I need a breather. And so I [48:01] started incorporating yoga into my uh my [48:05] exercise routine. I think that's I think [48:07] that's good. Actually, when I was a grad [48:09] student, I thought yoga was stressful [48:11] because I [laughter] couldn't stand in [48:13] those poses. [48:14] >> Exactly. [48:15] >> Yeah. Yeah. [48:15] >> But I think yoga evolved. I think the [48:17] yoga I do now, it's not as static [48:21] >> as the yoga I was doing when I was a [48:23] grad student. I think it evolved to be a [48:25] little more active than uh than back [48:27] then. I see the benefit to having, you [48:30] know, the [48:31] >> both types of uh exercise. [48:34] >> Thanks for being willing to explore [48:36] that. you know the I'm not an Ayurvedic [48:38] practitioner but the Ayurvedic folks [48:40] they'll talk about people like more fire [48:42] more more earth where you know and and I [48:44] think it's just a different lens in [48:46] nomenclature on there's a kind of array [48:49] of phenotypes but when we talk about [48:50] this thing sleep it becomes very [48:53] prescriptive right it's like we all need [48:56] 6 to 8 hours I mean actually from what [48:58] you're saying today six sounds like [49:00] insufficient is what I'm hearing I'm [49:01] probably a little sleepd deprived is [49:03] what I'm kind of hearing [49:04] >> so you know a colleague of mine just [49:06] published a paper in nature about the [49:08] biological clocks and aging in different [49:10] organs. And the sweet spot really was 6 [49:14] and 1 half to about 7 and 1 half 8 hours [49:17] for optimal aging. Once you get to below [49:22] that, it's basically you shaped, right? [49:23] So too much of one thing is not good. [49:25] Too too little is is not good. You want [49:28] to be in the sweet spot. Most most [49:30] organs for optimal aging was in the 6 [49:33] and 1 half to 7.8. And it differed a [49:36] little bit by men and women depending on [49:38] which organs he was looking at. Uh a [49:40] little longer for women. Um some of the [49:43] curves were different where you know [49:46] some are more pronounced u shapes in in [49:48] men than women and different organs. So [49:51] >> uh very interesting paper [49:53] >> came out last week or two weeks ago. [49:54] I'll [49:55] >> have to check it out. Um what other uh [49:57] sex differences uh are known to exist in [50:00] sleep requirements, sleep dynamics that [50:02] from your work or from other work? This [50:04] is not something we've really covered on [50:05] the podcast. [50:06] >> No. [50:07] >> No. I mean, well, not in in any [50:09] sufficient amount of detail. [50:10] >> Yeah. [50:11] >> So, women tend to sleep a little longer [50:13] than men across lifespan. Although, you [50:16] know, if you ask women about their [50:17] sleep, they don't rate their sleep as [50:20] very good. Um, more women than men [50:22] report having difficulties with sleep. [50:24] Insomnia for example, insomnia symptoms. [50:28] More women than men say they have [50:29] difficulty falling asleep, difficulty [50:31] maintaining sleep uh across the adult [50:34] lifespan. [50:35] >> Why do you think that is? [50:36] >> There could be some physiological [50:37] effects, right? Some hormonal effects. [50:39] Women uh don't sleep the same across a [50:41] menstrual cycle. Uh there's discomfort [50:44] at different times. Uh and then there's [50:47] different responsibilities, different [50:48] social roles that come into play uh that [50:51] may influence women differently than [50:53] men. But you know, we were working on a [50:56] on a review paper actually about [50:58] hypertension and and sleep and sex [51:01] differences. And you know, women are [51:04] more sensitive to the impact of poor [51:07] sleep on different metabolic outcomes [51:09] than men. So for blood pressure at lower [51:12] sleep apnea for example at lower [51:15] thresholds of sleep apnnea their blood [51:17] pressure would be higher uh than men. So [51:20] I think that there needs to be for sure [51:22] a lot more research in this area to be [51:24] able to uncover you know these these [51:27] differences and then you know knowing [51:29] that there are these differences to [51:30] start probing uh women about their [51:34] sleep. Last year we published um a [51:37] scientific statement for the American [51:38] Heart Association about [51:39] multi-dimensional sleep health and we [51:41] concluded by uh recommending clinicians [51:44] that they actually ask their patients [51:46] about sleep and not ask a question a [51:49] targeted question just ask their [51:51] patients how's your sleep because if you [51:53] start asking about oh how much sleep do [51:56] you usually get at night then you tell [51:59] the person that the only thing that [52:00] matters is how many hours of sleep you [52:02] got at night That's not all sleep is [52:05] about, right? Sleep is not just about [52:08] the number of hours that you got, but [52:10] it's also about the regularity, the [52:13] quality, your satisfaction with it. Your [52:17] there's nighttime experiences, there's [52:19] daytime experiences from sleep. When you [52:21] wake up from sleep, are you feeling [52:23] refreshed? Are you feeling like you had [52:25] are you satisfied with how the sleep you [52:28] got the night before? During the day, [52:30] are you staying alert? are you vigilant [52:33] during the daytime hours uh from your [52:36] past sleep experience? So having this [52:38] open-ended question maybe maybe [52:40] clinicians uh won't have time for for a [52:44] for the answer but you know allows the [52:47] their patient to actually tell them [52:49] what's bothering them about their sleep. [52:52] >> Then you can get something like you know [52:54] my my spouse keeps kicking me because [52:56] I'm snoring too loud. Then oh well maybe [52:59] we should test you for sleep apnnea. [53:00] Does apnea always include snoring? [53:03] >> Yes. [53:04] >> So, are there some people who don't [53:05] snore who have apnea? [53:07] >> I don't think so. You stop breathing and [53:09] then there's this gasping [53:11] sound that people make when they uh they [53:14] awaken from that or they get aroused [53:17] from from this breathing interruption. [53:20] >> I feel like so many people have apnea [53:22] and don't realize it. Not because I'm [53:23] sneaking into their rooms at night and [53:25] listening to if they snore, but it is [53:27] just remarkable how many people I speak [53:29] to who say, "Yeah, I found out I had [53:31] apnea because I saw that I was snoring [53:33] because they started monitoring their [53:35] sleep." And there's generally a snoring [53:37] index on these. Or now there are free [53:39] apps that can just record you while you [53:41] sleep. [53:41] >> So, I know a lot of people are I don't [53:44] mouth tape when I sleep, but I did I do [53:47] uh sometimes use one of these nose [53:48] strips that kind of pulls the nostrils [53:50] out a bit. That certainly it's reduced [53:53] the amount of snoring for me [53:55] >> that would reduce the amount of snoring [53:57] but the sleep apnea is from the throat [54:01] right so this closure in the throat that [54:05] that obstructs the trachea and that's [54:07] what then prompts the awakening and [54:11] breathing and then the sound that comes [54:13] from there actually weight loss is [54:15] typically like the first line treatment [54:18] if someone has excess weight to start [54:20] losing weight that might help with the [54:22] uh with sleep apnnea then there's sepat [54:25] which yes people don't like but if they [54:27] are at a lower weight where the apnea is [54:30] milder the pressure may be not as uh not [54:35] as high so that might be helpful for [54:37] comfort have a colleague of mine who [54:40] does uh sleep apnnea surgeries so [54:42] implantables are also [54:44] >> if people think they might have apnea is [54:46] it just get a cap pop that thing on is [54:48] that the best line of of entry [54:50] >> I I think they should uh they should get [54:52] tested. [54:53] >> How do we how does one do that? Cuz [54:55] that's the problem. [54:56] >> If you're suspecting that you may have [55:00] sleep apnnea because you've been told [55:01] that you snore because you wake up and [55:04] you're not feeling refreshed and you're [55:05] feeling sleepy during the day. I think [55:07] you should talk to your doctor about [55:09] this. And definitely we have [55:11] polyenography is the first line, you [55:13] know, is what we use to detect um sleep [55:16] apnnea. But there's inhome sleep testing [55:19] that can be done. So you don't have to [55:21] stay overnight in a lab for for uh to [55:24] get tested for this and uh and your [55:26] doctor can prescribe that test very [55:29] easily. [55:29] >> How come we can't just go buy a CPAP on [55:31] Amazon? [55:32] >> Because you need to have the the the [55:34] pressure [55:36] determined for you, right? So you need [55:38] to know what kind of pressure to apply [55:39] and you know how to set it up. Uh it's [55:42] not as as simple as just [55:45] >> All right, fair. You need it. It needs [55:47] to have the proper settings and someone [55:48] needs to tell you which setting to use [55:50] because then that's where you run into [55:51] the trouble of having the wrong settings [55:53] and and not being effective. [55:55] >> Yeah. I just know from having done this [55:56] podcast long a while that like if people [55:59] think, okay, I got to go to my doctor. I [56:01] got to find out or convince them that I [56:04] have apnea. Then they have to like write [56:06] me a script for a CPAP. Then I got to [56:08] buy a CPAP, which I'm guessing is not [56:09] cheap. [56:10] >> I'm not sure. [56:11] >> I I don't think they're very [56:12] inexpensive. They the price might have [56:14] come down. and I got to sleep with this [56:15] thing on my face like looking like Darth [56:17] Vader so I don't sound like Darth Vader. [56:20] >> I just think very few people are going [56:22] to do it. So somebody out there should [56:23] like come up with an at home solution to [56:25] this. Something like apnea seems [56:27] important enough to daytime wakefulness, [56:29] cognitive function, longevity, metabolic [56:32] like it wicks out to so many things that [56:34] I feel like it [56:36] >> it deserves it deserves like a public [56:37] health messaging. [56:38] >> Yeah. If you use it well and you feel [56:40] better during the day, that's a that's [56:42] reinforcing, right? To keep using it [56:45] >> and and get treated for it. [56:46] >> Let's talk about food and nutrients. [56:48] You've done a substantial amount of work [56:50] here in this area, and I have a bunch of [56:52] questions, but first I want to talk [56:54] about kefir. [56:54] >> Yeah. [56:55] >> I love Bulgarian full fat plain yogurt, [56:59] but it's right next to the kefir. [57:01] >> Uhhuh. [57:01] >> And I'm always like, do I get the kefir? [57:03] Well, I don't know. I love the Bulgarian [57:04] full fat plain yogurt, so I haven't [57:06] tried the kefir yet. What's special [57:07] about kefir and why why did you study [57:09] kefir? [57:10] >> Kefir we we studied because it was a [57:13] fermented dairy product uh probiotics we [57:16] figured you know maybe it will improve [57:19] uh cholesterol synthesis based on its [57:22] impact on short- chain fatty acids. So [57:24] that was the the subject of my master's [57:26] thesis [57:28] for that study uh that was when I was at [57:30] McGill. We recruited men that had mildly [57:34] elevated cholesterol levels. We gave [57:36] them two cups per day versus just [57:39] regular milk for a month. [57:42] >> So two cups like two mugs like this. [57:44] >> Two cups like the measuring cup. [57:46] >> Okay. [57:46] >> Yeah. [57:47] >> Okay. [57:47] >> Um like 500 mls. [57:49] >> Okay. [57:50] >> And uh and we measured their the amount [57:54] of cholesterol they they produced at [57:57] baseline endpoint in both phases and [58:01] there was no effect. It was a null [58:03] study. It was one of those. It was hard [58:05] to get published. [58:07] >> Kept at it and and we got it published. [58:10] But yeah, [58:11] >> so these fermented yogurts and things, [58:13] they don't do anything for for [58:15] cholesterol levels. [58:16] >> At least in our study in this population [58:19] at this level with this comparison [58:22] >> didn't have any effect. [58:23] >> What's your general thought about uh low [58:25] sugar fermented foods? I don't know if [58:26] kefir uh qualifies as low sugar, but [58:29] based on Justin Sonnenberg's work at [58:31] Stanford and others, I've been I've been [58:33] really bullish on this idea of [58:35] >> sauerkraut, kimchi, [58:37] uh full fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented [58:40] foods are are interesting. [58:42] >> Yeah. [58:42] >> Are you a proponent in general? [58:44] >> I'm a proponent. Yeah, absolutely. I [58:46] think it's important to feed your gut. I [58:48] think that uh the gut microbiome is uh [58:50] getting a lot of attention for all sorts [58:52] of, you know, uh health benefits. [58:56] So I think that that's something that's [58:58] uh that's is important. So also it's [59:00] important to also consider that you know [59:03] for that study right our main outcome [59:06] was cholesterol synthesis but there's so [59:09] many other things we could have looked [59:11] at that we didn't look at right and [59:13] maybe it didn't have any impact for [59:15] cholesterol synthesis but maybe [59:20] glycemic control might be better or for [59:25] gut inflammation it would be better but [59:28] you know You pick your outcomes, right? [59:30] You study something. [59:31] >> This is the challenge of doing [59:32] controlled science. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of [59:34] the opposite end of the like X what used [59:38] to be called Twitter science where like [59:39] people just like report anecdotes but [59:42] >> actually anecdotes of that sort of [59:44] become very powerful now in the public [59:46] health space for better or worse like [59:47] people you know because [59:49] >> I we can look at any study and say well [59:51] that's a very artificial circumstance. [59:53] You say, "Well, intentionally, because [59:54] we're trying to isolate variables like [59:57] people get frustrated." Oh, that's an [59:59] observational study. Well, I'm going to [60:02] continue to eat low sugar fermented [60:03] foods every day. I I I do think in a [60:06] study like the one you described. [60:07] Occasionally, there's just there's, let [60:10] me state this differently. Historically [60:13] in science, there have been a lot of [60:15] interesting discoveries that have come [60:16] from researchers designing a study to [60:19] look at one thing and then kind of [60:20] noticing, oh, like all the subjects feel [60:23] better or sleep better, their skin, they [60:25] they're reporting things that then lead [60:27] to another [60:28] >> another line line of inquiry. But you [60:31] moved on from kefir. Tell me about this [60:33] um this paper. I was intrigued by this [60:35] when I looked over your CV. [60:37] uh a weight loss diet that includes a [60:39] coffee beverage enriched in let me try [60:42] this menolosaccharides. [60:44] >> Yeah. [60:44] >> Okay. Long word leads to a greater loss [60:47] of atapose fat tissue than placebo [60:50] beverage in overweight men. [60:52] >> Yep. [60:52] >> Tell me about this study and what these [60:54] men oligosaccharides are. And if [60:57] somebody wants to lose weight, should [60:59] they be including this in their coffee? [61:01] >> So this was industry sponsored research [61:03] that I did. um they wanted to replicate [61:05] a study that had been done in a [61:08] different country [snorts] because they [61:10] wanted to replicate the findings. So we [61:12] did this study uh it was basically a [61:14] placeboc controlled study. We got we [61:17] were provided um coffee manual [61:19] oligosaccharides. So these are extracted [61:22] from spent coffee grounds. So it was [61:24] basically satchets right? So a white [61:26] packet one had the cap coffee [61:29] manualsaccharides the other one didn't. [61:32] We gave it to our study participants. We [61:34] measured their body composition. We [61:36] found an effect on body composition in [61:39] men, not in women. [61:41] >> And so that was the end of that product. [61:43] >> Really? They wouldn't market it just [61:44] [clears throat] because it only had an [61:45] effect in men. [61:46] >> Yeah. [61:47] >> I assure you there are many men who [61:48] would love to drink a coffee drink and [61:49] lose more weight as a consequence. [61:50] >> It's not going to be our market, you [61:52] know. [61:53] >> But do we know what the ingredients [61:54] were? [61:55] >> It was manualsaccharides [61:57] extracted. Yeah. So it was just uh [61:59] basically uh a product that was tasted [62:03] like coffee, strong coffee, but it [62:06] didn't have the caffeine or anything [62:07] like that. It just had this this [62:09] manualaccharide that was extracted from [62:11] coffee. [62:12] >> So this substance comes from coffee [62:15] ordinarily, [62:16] >> but coffee is very low low calorie on [62:19] it, [62:19] >> but it's from the spent ground. So you [62:21] no one really consumes this really [62:24] because you know when you brew your [62:26] coffee you're [62:28] >> not getting it. No. [62:29] >> Can you buy it? Can people get it? [62:32] >> I don't think so. [62:33] >> So [62:34] what what do you First of all, how much [62:36] weight did they lose relative to the [62:37] >> It was statistically significant. Yeah. [62:40] >> Okay. I was intrigued by it because I [62:41] thought there there's something that I [62:43] mean you studied it's interesting. You [62:45] studied kefir metolosaccharides from [62:48] coffee. Yeah. Now I'm going to ask you [62:49] about ginger. [62:50] >> Well, when I was a graduate student, I [62:52] was interested in functional foods. [62:55] >> And I was interested in those foods that [62:57] provide health benefits beyond their [63:00] nutritional value. [63:01] >> Right? So kefir is a fermented dairy [63:05] product. It would we were studying it [63:08] for its a functional benefit on [63:10] cholesterol synthesis. That's not a uh [63:15] that's not a function of dairy, right? [63:17] Dairy is you consume it for bone health, [63:21] right? So it's basically when we talk [63:23] about different claims that foods have, [63:25] you know, there's those structure [63:26] function claims like consuming dairy [63:29] contains calcium that's good for your [63:31] bones and then there's um functional [63:34] claims. Those functional claims or [63:36] health claims we call them that say okay [63:38] well health claim there's a health claim [63:40] for oats for example, right? So [63:42] consuming fiber from oats uh reduces [63:45] cholesterol levels. That's been [63:47] demonstrated. [63:48] >> Yes. So that's that's a health claim. [63:50] That's an approved health claim. That's [63:52] why you see the hearts on some boxes of [63:54] cereal, but that's different than fiber [63:59] is good for maintaining regularity, [64:02] right? So anyways, I was interested in [64:03] in functional foods for health benefits [64:05] beyond their their nutritional content. [64:09] And so uh we we studied kefir for I [64:12] studied kefir for my master's degree and [64:14] then for my PhD studied uh mediumchain [64:18] triglycerides [64:19] um and then um ginger that was uh that [64:24] was something that I that I uh offered [64:26] to a grad student at Colombia. It was [64:29] interesting because uh the McCormick [64:31] company [64:33] had an advertisement in uh one of the [64:35] nutrition journals and they were going [64:37] to donate um spices for research. I was [64:41] like, "Okay." They had a list of [64:43] different herbs and spices that they [64:44] were going to donate for research. And I [64:46] had a grad student and I said, "Take a [64:49] look at this list, come back to me, say [64:52] if there's something in there that we [64:54] should test in the lab based on the [64:57] things that I do, don't come to me with [64:58] something that's, you know, that I don't [65:00] study." But and then he did some [65:03] research and he came back and he said, [65:05] "I think we should study ginger." I'm [65:07] like, "Okay, to do what?" like I think [65:09] you know for energy expenditure [65:11] looking at thermic effect of food it's [65:14] like okay so so we did this study I had [65:17] some some funds that I could use for him [65:19] to do that and uh [65:20] >> what did the study look like [65:21] >> a study where we looked at the thermic [65:22] effect of food [65:23] >> like so people ate ginger root spicing [65:26] their food [65:27] >> we dissolved ginger powder in warm water [65:32] >> and so that was one beverage and then uh [65:34] in the crossover again crossover design [65:37] so the next time when they came it It [65:38] was just hot water. [65:39] >> And how many times a day are they [65:40] drinking it? [65:41] >> This was a one time one time uh [65:44] consumption period. And we looked at the [65:46] thermic effect of food over a 6-hour [65:48] period. So again, they're they're under [65:50] this um we call it a metabolic hood, [65:53] right? So a little bubble and we measure [65:56] their uh oxygen consumption, carbon [65:58] dioxide production for I think it was [66:00] four or five hours [66:01] >> and it's significantly elevated. [66:03] >> Mhm. [66:03] >> With ginger. [66:04] >> With ginger. [66:05] >> Yeah. [66:06] >> Wow. So we think through the capsain [66:08] receptor there's an increase in the [66:10] thermic effect of food. So yeah, so I [66:12] was interested to see are there little [66:15] things that we could do, little changes [66:17] we can make to our diet to boost energy [66:20] expenditure relative to intake, you [66:22] know, just to tip the scale because many [66:26] adults over the course of their life [66:27] lifetime gain weight. And it's not a big [66:32] imbalance in calories on a daily basis [66:34] that leads to [66:37] 10 pounds of weight gain over 10, 15 [66:40] years, right? Now again the GLPs are [66:42] coming in and adjusting but yeah I'm [66:44] very interested also in foods that have [66:48] impact beyond their you know known [66:51] >> known roles. I mean the the problem is [66:54] in this area in the functional foods [66:56] area not the problems with your work but [66:58] the is that there are a lot of wild [67:00] claims that go unchecked like oh you [67:02] know walnuts are shaped like a brain and [67:04] therefore they're good for your brain or [67:06] you know which is they have certain [67:08] things in them which are brain [67:10] beneficial but it's not related to the [67:12] shape of the food so you get there's a [67:14] that area I feel of nutrition has been [67:18] um marginalized on the basis of the kind [67:20] of like quackery associ with it. But of [67:23] course there are interesting things in [67:25] different [clears throat] foods. I I do [67:27] think that the [67:27] >> the Sonnenberg and colleagues work on [67:29] low sugar fermented foods has been very [67:32] informative for lowering the [67:33] inflammatome even more than fiber. I [67:36] mean actually in that study this is kind [67:38] of the like even Justin will kind of [67:39] downplay this a little bit. He's a [67:41] colleague so I can say in the fiber [67:43] group when they compared to low sugar [67:45] fermented foods and then they measured [67:46] the inflammatome they did a crossover [67:48] design. Within the fiber group, there [67:50] was a fair number of people who their [67:52] inflammation went way way up when they [67:54] consumed more fiber. [67:56] >> But in the low sugar fermented group or [67:58] when they were in that group, it was it [68:00] was uh always on average reduced. [68:03] >> Some people who increase their fiber [68:05] intake, their inflamm decreases. For a [68:08] lot of people, it increases, which is [68:10] not to say that fiber is bad, but I [68:11] think now we're starting to think about [68:12] like different types of fibers. [68:14] >> I was going to ask. [68:15] >> Yeah, they didn't control for that. They [68:17] just said increase the number of [68:18] servings each day. And and I know a lot [68:20] of people don't like to eat fibrous [68:22] foods because they don't feel good after [68:24] they eat them. It's like it's not that [68:26] they don't taste good. And I think [68:27] there's this whole like histamine story [68:29] that needs exploration. I I think food [68:32] and the healthy foods needs better [68:34] parsing. [68:35] >> Yeah. [68:35] >> In in my opinion. [68:36] >> Yeah. I I mean there was also [68:38] habituation. You don't go from consuming [68:42] six grams of fiber per day to 25. [68:44] >> They ramped them up. But but I have to [68:45] say they ramped them up pretty high. [68:47] Like even the low sugar fermented foods, [68:48] I think they got them up to like four [68:50] servings per day. It's a lot of kimchi. [68:52] You're not familiar with it. Like it can [68:54] be a little hard on the gut. [68:56] >> Yeah. [68:56] >> I actually take an enzyme. I think it's [68:58] called DAO. [69:00] >> Very inexpensive little it's like a tiny [69:03] tiny pill that uh that for digesting [69:05] histamines [69:06] >> because I noticed after I had whey [69:08] protein or I had broccoli or I would I [69:10] would get kind of sleepy. I was like [69:12] what is this? and a a a colleague at [69:14] Stanford, Sean Mackey, who's our head of [69:16] our pain center, said that he had gut [69:18] pain at one point, he's a pain doctor, [69:20] directs the pain center, and he figured [69:23] out by elimination and trial and error [69:26] that it was onions and other histamine [69:28] containing foods. He avoids histamine [69:29] containing foods. I'm not about to give [69:31] up the things I just described. Onions I [69:33] can do without, but so I think that [69:35] there's a there is foods have real [69:37] effect. M. So kefir, these men [69:41] olosaccharides, I have to confess I'm a [69:42] little disappointed cuz like here it [69:44] looks like it has like a cool effect, [69:45] but they didn't they didn't want now [69:46] can't get them. I'm not going to eat [69:48] coffee grounds. I'd like to take a quick [69:50] break and acknowledge our sponsor, Helix [69:53] Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and [69:55] pillows that are customized to your [69:57] unique sleep needs. Now, I've spoken [69:59] many times before on this and on other [70:01] podcasts about the fact that getting a [70:03] great night's sleep is the foundation of [70:05] mental health, physical health, and [70:07] performance. When we aren't getting [70:08] great sleep on a consistent basis, [70:10] everything suffers. 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I was [71:36] showing data that we had just obtained [71:38] in the lab that showed that if you eat [71:41] foods later in the day, your fat [71:44] oxidation is reduced. So this is a study [71:47] that we're doing. We had uh participants [71:50] on a controlled diet and they started [71:52] eating 1 hour after waking up and they [71:55] had a 10-hour eating window or they [71:57] started eating 5 hours after waking up. [72:00] So 4-hour delay relative to the other [72:02] condition. Again, same thing for a [72:05] 10-hour window, 10-hour window. We gave [72:07] our participants the exact same foods, [72:10] same foods, same quantity, same timing [72:13] between meals. And this was done in a [72:16] metabolic chamber. [72:18] And the meals, especially the meals [72:21] later in the day that were consumed late [72:25] relative to the earlier version of those [72:27] meals led to less fat oxidation. [72:31] and someone in the audience stood up and [72:34] said, "So, would you then recommend that [72:38] people eat mediumchain triglycerides [72:41] in their evening meal as opposed to, you [72:45] know, a a different type of of fat?" And [72:49] my eyes just went like this because, you [72:51] know, my the my time studying medium [72:54] chain triglycerides was, you know, 15 to [72:57] 20 years ago. I was like, "Wow, this [72:59] person knows my that work that I've done [73:01] and now is applying it to this work that [73:04] I'm doing currently." And I thought that [73:05] was fascinating. And I think that, you [73:07] know, timing of intake of different [73:09] foods and how it influences metabolism [73:12] is something that's uh that's [73:14] fascinating to me. [73:15] >> I confess I'm a like first bite of food [73:18] around 11:00 a.m. person. I'm trying to [73:20] eat breakfast these days and then kind [73:22] of shift things earlier. All it's really [73:24] done is added a meal because I I take my [73:26] last bite of food usually around 8:00 [73:28] PM. I just can't seem to get much [73:30] earlier. [73:32] But [73:34] I and many other people have wondered [73:36] whether it's best to eat more towards [73:38] early day or whether or not it's just [73:40] overall caloric load. You're saying that [73:42] >> it does indeed make a difference. [73:43] >> It makes a difference. Yeah. [73:44] >> You want to shift most of your caloric [73:46] intake to the first like twothirds of [73:48] your waking day [73:49] >> roughly. [73:50] >> Mhm. Yeah. [73:51] >> As opposed to the last 2/3. Yes. [73:54] >> Yeah. [clears throat] So, in that study, [73:56] 1 hour after waking up. So, let's say [73:58] basically 8:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. is our [74:00] eating window. [74:01] >> I mean, this is a 10-hour eating window. [74:03] It's short. It's not, you know, typical. [74:04] So, it could be 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. [74:07] >> That seems pretty [74:08] >> That's reasonable. Yeah. Versus 12:00 [74:12] p.m. to 10:00 p.m. [74:14] >> The New York schedule. [74:15] >> Yeah. The New York schedule. [74:16] >> Yeah. Well, I I sort of chuckle because [74:18] when I go to New York, like it's like if [74:20] you go to dinner at 5:36, you're kind of [74:23] alone in the restaurant. [74:24] >> Depends on time of year. [74:25] >> Early bird special. [74:26] >> Yeah, it depends on time of year. And in [74:28] California, it's it's kind of in it's [74:30] the early shifted. [74:32] >> Yes. [74:32] >> But that's just more reflective of [74:34] culture. I think in Europe they they eat [74:36] very late often. Depends on where. I I I [74:39] was saying before we we started I was on [74:42] a fullbrite uh program last year in in [74:45] Spain and uh I would joke with my with [74:48] my colleagues there because they eat [74:50] very late and even the children eat very [74:53] late and I was like okay well [74:55] >> you feed me then you feed the children [74:57] >> right [laughter] [74:58] >> then you have your dinner because they [75:00] could have dinner at 10 11 p.m. and the [75:02] children 8 900 p.m. And I'm like, [75:04] >> can't be good. If you uh my dad's from [75:07] Argentina, if you go to a restaurant in [75:10] Buenos Cyrus at 9:00 p.m., you're not [75:13] going to see many people at 11:00 p.m. [75:14] You'll see people in their 70s and 80s [75:16] and they're up early the next day. They [75:18] nap in the afternoon. [75:19] >> Yeah. [75:20] >> I don't know how healthy they are as a [75:21] country on average, but haven't looked [75:23] at the data, but very very late shifted [75:26] culture. [75:26] >> Well, there's been studies in Spain that [75:28] have looked at timing of eating and [75:30] their impact on weight management. I'm [75:32] thinking of work by Marta Garullet where [75:35] she showed that in her um weight loss [75:38] program the participants who have lunch [75:41] so their big bigger meal is is lunch who [75:44] have their lunch earlier in the day have [75:46] better weight loss than those who have [75:48] their lunch later in the day. So you [75:51] know even in those cultures where they [75:53] have they tend to eat late they still [75:56] find that eating earlier is tends to be [75:58] better for you. I was very very relieved [76:01] when um Alan Aragon who's a I consider [76:05] one of the best public educators on the [76:06] topic of protein and nutrition body [76:08] recomposition he's formerly trained in [76:11] this reassured me that you know nowadays [76:14] there's a lot of interest in getting [76:15] like protein ration it's probably [76:17] overdone a little bit but people are [76:18] striving to get more high quality [76:20] protein but that [76:22] except in rare circumstances where [76:24] people are really trying to optimize [76:26] every bit of muscle protein synthesis [76:29] 95% of the effect of getting enough [76:32] protein can be accomplished by having [76:33] like two meals. [76:34] >> Mhm. [76:35] >> Maybe a little snack that you don't and [76:37] it can be evenly distributed or unevenly [76:40] distributed. You know, I think a lot of [76:41] people are feeling this protein pressure [76:43] and like, oh, I got to eat another meal [76:45] late in the day or I have to force [76:46] myself to eat breakfast in order to get [76:48] their protein ration. But it turns out [76:50] >> the whole notion that you could only [76:52] assimilate like 30 grams per meal is [76:54] totally false. turns out can assimilate [76:56] up to 100 gram. Now there are conditions [76:58] that set that up like exercise etc. But [77:02] I find that very liberating like you [77:04] could have breakfast and an early dinner [77:06] >> with a snack in the middle. You could [77:08] miss breakfast, have lunch and an early [77:10] dinner. What I'm hearing from you, [77:11] however, is that you really want to [77:13] avoid the the big even or just late [77:17] dinner. You just don't want to eat too [77:18] close to bedtime. [77:19] >> Correct. [77:19] >> Okay. [77:20] >> Yeah. [77:20] >> What about these MCTs, medium chain [77:23] triglycerides? These were very popular [77:24] in the health and kind of biohacking [77:26] space a few years ago. The [77:28] >> um the whole bulletproof coffee notion, [77:30] MCTs, butter coffee, and that's more or [77:33] less faded away. I don't see a lot of [77:37] people [77:38] >> putting oil in their coffee these days [77:40] or coconut. What are some of the known [77:42] benefits of MCTs? Where do you find them [77:45] and what what brought you to them as a [77:48] research topic? [77:49] >> This was a topic for my uh PhD [77:51] dissertation. So my PI got a grant [77:55] looking at the medium chain [77:56] triglycerides. He had done prior work on [77:59] this. Uh but what we did was use [78:02] purified MCT oil. So this is only uh [78:07] liquid oil that contains 8 carbon and 10 [78:11] carbon chain fatty acids. Those are not [78:14] very common in our general food source. [78:17] So it was purified extracted oil that we [78:21] then gave our participants. We had [78:24] created this functional oil um that [78:27] contained flax seed oil also to be able [78:29] to get some more some omega-3 fatty [78:31] acids in there. Uh we had added plant [78:34] steriles because that was a big um big [78:36] focus of my lab uh at McGill. Plant [78:39] steriles for cholesterol reduction and [78:42] uh reduced uh risk of cardiovascular [78:44] disease. [78:45] And uh but the idea was to evaluate the [78:49] impact on energy expenditure because the [78:52] way we process mediumchain triglycerides [78:55] is different than how we process [78:57] longchain triglycerides. So the [79:01] 12 14 16 and up uh carbon chains. So the [79:05] medium chain triglycerides they travel [79:07] directly to the liver they get [79:09] metabolized. we burn them off more [79:11] readily than the longchain triglycerides [79:14] that travel across in peripheral [79:16] circulation get deposited in atapost [79:18] tissue and a sort. And so what we did [79:21] what we found we did two separate [79:23] studies in men and women in both men and [79:25] women there was an increase in thermic [79:28] effect of food. So you burned slightly [79:29] more calories from the meal that [79:32] contained medium chain triglycerides [79:34] compared to the meal that contained your [79:36] standard fat. for my PhD. The first [79:38] study we did, we did in women and we [79:42] were trying to match the saturated fat [79:44] content of the diets because uh [79:47] mediumchain fatty acids are by default [79:51] saturated. They're [79:53] 80 10. So I said, okay, we're going to [79:57] try to compare that to a uh a saturated [80:00] fat matched control comparison. And we [80:04] used beef tallow. [80:06] Uh it was a lot of beef tallow. Uh [80:09] [gasps] [80:10] participants were not happy with that [80:12] diet. [80:12] >> Eat it. Eat it direct like spoonfuls of [80:14] >> beef. We put it on to mashed potatoes. [80:17] You know, when you're when you're doing [80:19] studies like this where you're trying to [80:21] control the diet and you want to isolate [80:23] one aspect of it, right? We gave real [80:25] foods. half of the total fat of the diet [80:28] came from the the medium chain [80:32] containing versus and the beef tallow. [80:34] So it's like 20% of your fat from [80:37] >> one of the two. So you have to pour it [80:40] mask it somehow and [80:41] >> MCT. There's also this issue about [80:43] laxative effect of MCT oil that that [80:46] >> we had a few participants who initially [80:49] felt a lot of gargling [80:51] >> when like just gargling from their [80:53] stomach uh from from consuming MCT cuz [80:56] it was a lot early on it resolved. So [81:00] after a few days it was fine. It was a [81:01] one week one month I mean four week [81:04] study. So [81:05] >> after a few days no one dropped out for [81:08] >> you know any GI issues. [81:10] >> Okay. That's reassuring. Yeah. So, beef [81:13] tallow it was initially [81:15] uh beef tallow because it has a lot of [81:19] saturated fat is solid at room [81:21] temperature. So, as soon as your food [81:24] started to get a little colder, it would [81:28] kind of gel on your plate. [81:30] >> Yeah. That's sort of like if you bring [81:32] French fries home from a restaurant, [81:33] they use tallow and then you like put in [81:35] the fridge cuz you thought you wanted [81:36] them as leftovers and the next day [81:38] they're sort of like in this like stuck [81:39] to bottom of container configuration. [81:42] Yeah. It's not very appetizing. [81:43] >> Not appealing. No, there's like it's [81:45] white all underneath. [81:46] >> Yeah. It almost always goes into the [81:47] trash. [81:48] >> A couple of women felt it gave them a [81:50] headache. [81:51] >> Just the smell of it, you know. [81:53] >> So with the MCTs big significant [81:56] increase in thermic effect of food [81:57] >> that was statistically signing. Yeah. It [81:59] was about 45 to 50 60 calories. [82:04] >> Oh, I thought you were going to say [82:05] percent increase. Oh, [82:06] >> no. So, it's it's a small change, but it [82:10] was if you're going to use this versus [82:12] that, [82:13] >> you're getting a little boost here. If [82:15] you repeat this a few times in a day, [82:17] because when we measured the thermic [82:19] effect of food, we measured it only [82:21] after over one meal, but repeated over [82:24] three meals per day over a certain [82:27] period of time. We did find changes in [82:29] body composition, improvements in um in [82:32] weight status with medium chain [82:33] triglyceride consumption, [82:35] >> lean mass to to fat mass. Interesting. [82:38] >> And then we did follow-up study of a [82:41] weight loss study with medium chain [82:43] triglyceride. This time around it was [82:44] just purified MCT oil, not added with [82:47] other types versus olive oil, uh, which [82:50] is much more acceptable and found [82:52] greater weight loss with MCT. [82:54] >> Based on what you're saying, it's [82:55] reasonable if somebody wants to improve [82:58] weight loss. I'm hearing a sort of a [83:00] constellation of things. shift your meal [83:02] timing to in the first twothirds or so [83:04] of your day, which sounds like it will [83:07] also improve sleep, which will also [83:08] improve uh [83:11] >> appetite and food regul satiety and [83:13] hunger signals. What is it like a [83:16] tablespoon or two of MCT per day? Is [83:18] that kind of what this looks like for [83:19] the typical person? [83:21] >> Yeah, about that. [83:22] >> Okay. [83:22] >> Yeah. [83:23] >> In place of some other oil, not in [83:25] addition. [83:25] >> Not in addition. Correct. [83:27] >> Okay. Some ginger. [83:28] >> Yeah. [83:29] >> Are they additive? Are they synergistic? [83:31] I think they could probably be additive [83:33] because I think that the impact is [83:34] through different mechanisms. Obviously, [83:37] no one's tested that. Um, you know, it's [83:39] interesting you bring it up this way [83:41] because it makes me think of um David [83:44] Jenkins and the portfolio diet. It [83:45] actually made the New York Times uh I [83:48] think last in December. [83:50] The portfolio diet uh was a diet he [83:53] designed for maximal cholesterol [83:55] reduction. So, it was initially designed [83:58] to have uh four specific foods. So, it [84:02] was high in soy protein, nuts, plant [84:05] steriles, and soluble fiber. [84:07] >> Yeah, it's going to be a tough one to [84:08] get past most of the American public. [84:09] I'll tell you, as a as a public health [84:12] educator, I don't care if it comes out [84:13] in the New York Times, the Wall Street [84:15] Journal, the New Yorker, and everything [84:17] in between. People hear soy. [84:19] >> Yeah. [84:20] >> Nuts they like but easy to overeat. Mhm. [84:22] >> They hear plant steroids and like [84:25] they're they're they're someplace else. [84:27] >> This diet was went on a head-to-head [84:29] comparison with lipid lowering [84:33] >> agent, right? Like a statin. [84:35] >> Yeah. Yeah. They had the same [84:38] >> uh cholesterol reduction as a statin. [84:40] >> As a statin. Yeah. The portfolio. [84:42] >> Interesting name. People are definitely [84:45] >> unhealthy in this country. And if if [84:48] they can lower blood lipids [84:50] >> Yeah. They've expanded it to u to be [84:53] more flexible. So it's not just soy [84:56] protein now. It also includes legumes. [84:58] They've added monounsaturated fats. So [85:00] olive oil. You know, when I look at a [85:03] diet like the portfolio diet, which you [85:05] just I only know what you just told me [85:06] about it. Or I think about the the [85:08] current food uh [85:11] uh suggestions by by the FDA which are [85:14] you know we could call it kind of um it [85:18] emphasizes um unprocessed and minim [85:20] minimally processed food. So I think [85:22] that's a step in the right direction. [85:23] Certainly, we look at these. The issue [85:26] that always comes up for me is I think, [85:28] okay, in a more plant-based um [85:30] grainheavy nut diet, it's very easy for [85:34] people to overeat calories based on this [85:36] whole like amino acid protein foraging [85:39] hypothesis. This idea that we eat until [85:41] we get enough of the amino acids we [85:42] want. Like a like a an a chicken breast [85:45] or something and a couple eggs or or or [85:48] four eggs or something is very [85:50] satiating. M [85:51] >> whereas we can eat a lot of grains and [85:54] nuts before we kind of go okay that's [85:55] enough. There seems to be this issue [85:57] like how do how do you ensure [85:59] cardometabolic health [86:01] >> while quelling hunger [86:02] >> and we can't have people walking around [86:04] hungry all the time and the GLP's help [86:06] with that [86:07] >> and it does get down to sort of like do [86:08] you include animal-based foods or not [86:10] often. [86:11] >> So how do you think just from a public [86:13] health perspective that we can reconcile [86:16] this because clearly the highly [86:18] processed food diet is not going to [86:19] work. the standard American diet that I [86:21] think that is fading away. But now [86:22] there's this kind of polarization of [86:24] like are we going to go mostly plants, [86:25] grains, nuts, and I think low saturated [86:28] fat, blood lipids improving, or are we [86:30] going to think like, you know, more [86:33] protein satiety? Do you see where I'm [86:36] getting at here? Like I feel like this [86:38] this is the contour of things. [86:39] >> Yeah. Well, I I think that there's [86:42] there's no reason to pit one another [86:45] against the other, right? So like this [86:46] oneonone, but what's important is that [86:50] also having a diet that's more [86:53] plant-based, has higher volume, that's [86:56] filling. It's hard to eat a lot of food. [87:00] So if your food volume is high but does [87:04] not provide as much calories, you'll get [87:07] that satiety from the food volume. And [87:10] then you take you put in some some nuts [87:13] helps to prolong the satiety because [87:16] then you get some protein, some [87:17] healthful fats. And so I think that's [87:20] important. I'm not saying animal [87:22] products are bad. I think they're [87:24] they're important for a diet. I think [87:27] they're important for health. It's just [87:29] a matter of uh portion size and making [87:31] sure that uh there's not overemphasis on [87:36] animal products over plant-based [87:37] products because we know that [87:38] plant-based products are so much [87:40] healthier in terms of heart health, uh [87:43] reduction of type two diabetes, cancer [87:46] risk, and other u metabolic diseases. [87:49] >> Yeah. Well, I'm right there with you. I [87:50] love fruits and vegetables. I'm a huge [87:52] fan of uh I do eat meat half Argentine. [87:55] I mean, you know, but and chicken and [87:57] I'm not a big fan of fish. I keep [87:58] working on this, but um can't seem to [88:00] quite get there, but but I I don't eat [88:02] them in excess. [88:04] >> Mhm. [88:04] >> The things that I feel are very very [88:06] easy for people to overeat are starch [88:08] fat or starch, sugar, fat combinations. [88:12] >> It's just like it the brain and gut [88:14] respond with signals that scream more. [88:18] You just It's very hard for people to do [88:19] like a slice of pizza. I I love pizza. [88:22] It can be done, but it's just very hard [88:24] for people to do. It's like it it the [88:26] the stop signals just are all pushed [88:28] down and the go signals are are all go. [88:31] >> So reducing white foods as much as [88:33] possible is what foods. [88:34] >> Yeah. So the white flour, white rice, [88:37] white pasta, white, you know, things are [88:39] [clears throat] [88:40] >> not as colorful. You know, if you're [88:42] eating a slice of bread and it just [88:43] dissolves in your mouth, it's not so [88:46] good. [88:46] >> This is more of a editorial reflection [88:48] again, but it's also I was looking at [88:50] the history of nutrition in this [88:51] country. Oh, you're Canadian by birth, [88:53] right? I detected that. And [snorts] [88:56] I don't know what the the sort of [88:57] traditional fair is in Canada, but if [89:00] you look at the history of food in the [89:02] United States, it's never been [89:04] particularly healthy. The foods that we [89:06] consider like American foods, [89:09] hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, corn [89:11] dogs, fried chicken, donuts. Like, we've [89:14] never been healthy about food. People [89:16] probably just moved a lot, ate less, [89:18] smoked a lot more, which is an appetite [89:19] suppressant, but gives you cancer, kills [89:21] you. We've never been that healthy with [89:25] respect to food. Maybe food volume was [89:27] more in check, but if you look at [89:29] traditional food in, [89:32] you know, in Europe, probably in I mean, [89:34] in Canada, what what sort of the are the [89:36] foods nourishing and healthy? I think [89:38] we're sort of in this like delusion that [89:40] like we were once healthy about food in [89:42] this country, we were never healthy [89:43] about food. The food was always pretty [89:46] weak in terms of nutritional status [89:48] except for fruits, vegetables, and some [89:50] animal products. [89:51] >> Yeah, I think portion size has a lot to [89:54] do with it too. So, I know um moving [89:57] from Canada to US, you know, the go to a [90:00] restaurant, the portion sizes are so [90:02] big. Uh it would never have occurred to [90:04] me to take home doggy bag for at a [90:08] restaurant ever. And then here it's like [90:11] kind of have to or else you know you're [90:13] throwing away half your plate or unless [90:15] you're finishing the whole thing. So [90:16] portion size I think is a big one. And [90:18] also the foods are different in a way. [90:21] We were talking about yogurt. [snorts] [90:23] So there are two things when I moved to [90:25] the US. The first thing the dietician at [90:28] my work told me was do not buy bagged [90:31] bread. [90:33] I like okay what does that mean? Don't [90:35] buy bagged bread. Like I that's what I [90:37] always do. No, she says, "You go to the [90:39] grocery store, you go to the bakery [90:40] section, they'll cut it up for you. You [90:42] ask what you want. Don't buy bad bread." [90:44] Like, "Okay, I'm not gonna buy bad [90:46] bread." So, apparently, she was talking [90:48] about like too many additives, too, too [90:50] much sugar, whatever. [90:52] >> Okay. We're talking about like the bread [90:54] that just melts in your mouth. So, and [90:57] then the other thing was uh yogurt. I [91:00] used I eat yogurt quite a bit. And then [91:02] the yogurt in the here in the US tasted [91:06] sweeter to me. the same thing, the same [91:10] yogurt, [91:11] Canada here, the same name, the same [91:13] everything. [91:15] It was sweeter. And I didn't know why, [91:17] but then it occurred to me that, you [91:20] know, foods are formulated in different [91:23] ways in different countries to appeal to [91:26] the population of that country. So [91:28] yogurt was one where it's a little less [91:30] sweet in Canada than in US and it was [91:32] less sweet even than in in Europe than [91:36] Canada and US. So there's things like [91:39] that that don't necessarily help. [91:41] >> Yeah. Yeah. We we love our um sugars and [91:44] fats in the United States and and I [91:47] think we paid a substantial health debt [91:49] as a consequence. I mean, now again, I [91:52] don't have the numbers on this, but with [91:53] Redat True Tide and the other GLPS, I've [91:56] never tried them, but a lot of people [91:57] are finding it much easier, if not easy, [92:01] to lose weight that they just couldn't [92:02] before. They just could not control [92:03] their appetite [92:04] >> and they're just not as interested in [92:06] these foods. There's this argument that [92:08] maybe they're not as interested as in [92:09] everything in life. And that's a [92:11] important question that needs to be [92:12] resolved. [92:12] >> But I do think that think that things [92:14] are changing. I think we're finding a [92:16] lot more, you know, for example, the [92:17] yogurt, right? there was a lot more [92:19] plain yogurt options than there were, [92:21] >> you know, when I first moved to the US. [92:23] So, there's, you know, [92:25] >> things are changing. It's been there's [92:26] been a lot of resistance. And I think [92:28] that the the resistance has been um [92:34] sociological in the sense that um you [92:38] know, there's been a resistance to [92:39] people being healthy. There really has. [92:42] You know, there's this idea that like if [92:44] you're eating clean, you have an eating [92:45] disorder. I did an episode about eating [92:48] disorders. I talked to a lot of experts [92:49] and this including the group at Colombia [92:52] Med that works on eating disorders. You [92:54] know, the frequency of anorexia, the [92:55] most deadly psychiatric illness of all [92:57] the psychiatric illnesses, hadn't [92:59] realized that is not increasing as a [93:01] function of social media or magazines or [93:02] anything. It's been very steady for [93:04] maybe hundreds of years. This is a real [93:06] neurological issue. There's obviously [93:08] social pressures and things like that. [93:10] But what I discovered in in like talking [93:13] to experts like uh Joanna Steinberg at [93:15] um at Colombia and others is that you [93:19] know like there is this so that was [93:21] about anorexia but what I'm about to say [93:23] is separate. There's this notion that if [93:24] you're going to be thoughtful about what [93:26] you eat you know or maybe you're not [93:27] going to eat too late or you're going to [93:29] skip dessert or until a few years ago [93:31] like if you're not going to drink [93:32] alcohol like there's something wrong [93:34] with you like that that you're being [93:35] restrictive somehow. I think again it's [93:38] kind of like the parallels to uh Europe [93:41] are kind of interesting that or the the [93:42] contrast to Europe are interesting where [93:44] there's a lot of social convention built [93:46] up around food that was healthy and I [93:49] think in the United States the social [93:51] conventions built up around food and [93:52] alcohol were pretty unhealthy. It was [93:54] like everyone does this like everyone [93:56] eats hot dogs at the game like and hot [93:58] dogs at a baseball game are a great [93:59] thing. It's like nothing is as American [94:01] as that except maybe apple pie, right? [94:03] But there's this when people start [94:05] making choices in in the direction of [94:07] their health, it was and to some extent [94:10] it still is a there's this quieter [94:12] undercurrent of well like are you being [94:15] restrictive? Like are you really going [94:16] to live like that? But then you look at [94:18] the the health outcomes and culturally [94:21] until a few years ago it was considered [94:22] very not okay to say that obesity was a [94:25] health risk. [94:27] >> And now the open discussion about [94:28] obesity and metabolic health as as like [94:30] a real health risk. I think now we're [94:33] kind of like in the actual discussion [94:35] that for a long time it was like [94:38] speaking of which and um kind of things [94:40] outside the box. There's a paper on your [94:42] CV that I could not help but ask about. [94:45] Snack chips fried in corn oil alleviate [94:49] >> cardiovascular risk factors when [94:51] substituted for lowfat and highfat [94:53] snacks. Yep. [94:54] >> What? [94:54] >> Mhm. [94:55] >> What? [94:56] >> Yes. [94:56] >> Tell me the data. I believe you. I'm [94:58] just like this is wild. This was funded [95:02] by Fritoite. At that time they had [95:04] changed the oil that they were using to [95:07] fry their corn chips. So this was [95:11] Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, and just [95:13] Titos. All the all the [95:16] >> all the U. And so they had changed to [95:19] corn oil. They're like this is an oil [95:21] that's higher in polyunsaturated fats [95:22] than what we usually have. [95:24] >> What were they using before? [95:26] >> I'm not sure. I forget. [95:27] >> But it wasn't tallow. [95:29] >> I don't think so. like does it make a [95:31] difference? Is it going to improve [95:33] health if people choose those [95:36] snacks compared to other snacks? So, we [95:39] had three arms in that study. Uh each [95:42] person went through each of the three [95:45] arms. It was for 25 days. The question [95:48] was, okay, let's say you have a choice [95:51] for a snack today and you're going to go [95:54] to the vending machine and you have your [95:56] option. Do you eat a lowfat high [96:00] carbohydrate snack, a highfat, [96:03] high more highsaturated snack or those [96:07] chips? So, you just pick one and that's [96:11] that. So, I think we gave it was two [96:13] snacks a day for for 25 days. It was a [96:17] rotation. So, they had four Yeah, they [96:18] had four different uh chips. So, it was [96:21] two one day, two the next day like that [96:23] for 25 days. And then the controls and [96:27] yeah the the better lipid profile was [96:31] the one with was the one from the the [96:34] corn chips. They had the better lipid. [96:37] Yeah. And they had less uh lipoprotein [96:39] little a which is another you know [96:41] factor card metabolic risk factor. [96:44] >> Data or data [96:45] >> data or data. Well, I know that in the [96:47] head-to-head comparison of seed oils, of [96:49] which corn is, right, with saturated [96:51] fat, this is where kind of the [96:53] contention starts to [96:56] erupt, where there are many studies now, [96:59] I think, showing that when you [97:01] substitute saturated fat with seed oils [97:04] that cardabolic risk factors go down. [97:07] And this is true, right? Well, I by the [97:09] way, I'm just going to say I I I avoid [97:11] seed oils actively cuz I like olive oil [97:13] and butter. [97:14] >> Mhm. [97:14] >> Mostly olive oil. I avoid seed oils. I [97:17] don't like the way they taste. I love [97:19] olive oil. [97:19] >> Okay. [97:19] >> And there's some health effects of olive [97:21] oil and I eat small amounts of butter [97:23] and [97:23] >> I So, I just like duck the whole [97:26] controversy, right? And you have to make [97:28] sure you're getting real olive oil, but [97:30] that can be done. When you look at the [97:32] studies that compare saturated fat to [97:34] seed oils, you do see uh better outcomes [97:37] for seed oils. But then there's this [97:40] crowd that comes in and says, but that's [97:43] on a backdrop of reasonably high [97:44] carbohydrate intake. When you start [97:46] replacing some of those carbohydrates [97:48] with lower carbohydrate diet, increasing [97:51] protein intake, so not keto, but kind of [97:53] like lowerish starch and sugar, then [97:56] maybe that balances out. Okay. But the [97:58] big contention seems to be around the [98:00] processing of these seed oils. This idea [98:02] that when especially when you make [98:04] things like chips that when you take [98:06] fats and you combine them with [98:07] carbohydrate and you heat them up a lot [98:09] that you create factors that are not [98:12] good for the body. What is the evidence [98:14] for or against that? [98:15] >> Well, so different oils have different [98:17] smoke points, right? So each oil should [98:20] be used for its appropriate usage, [98:22] right? So cooking uh process. So I think [98:27] that's that's where you know people [98:28] think that they should be using one type [98:30] of oil for everything that they do but [98:34] some oil like you wouldn't put flax seed [98:36] oil for example and and heat it up to [98:39] very high uh temperature. [98:42] >> Are you a fan of flax seed oil? [98:44] >> I'm a fan of every liquid oil. I use I [98:46] have no no uh personal [98:49] >> you seem very healthy restriction on the [98:52] >> on the types of oils. I think that you [98:54] know oils are that remain liquid at room [98:56] temperature that should be your your [98:59] your barometer for what's better to use. [99:03] I'm also not saying that people should [99:06] avoid butter like the plague, right? So [99:09] all in moderation is is okay. Is there [99:13] any reason to [99:15] I just can't find the argument for why [99:17] anyone would replace olive oil with a [99:21] seed oil. [99:23] Olive oil has a lower smoke point than [99:25] uh than other seed oils. So peanut oil, [99:28] for example, has a higher smoke point. [99:29] So you can fry in peanut oil. You [99:31] wouldn't fry anything in olive oil. [99:33] >> I wouldn't eat anything fried. [99:34] >> Well, [99:35] >> yeah. [99:36] >> So that's that's a different question, [99:39] you know. So depending on how you want [99:40] to use your oil and you know, also some [99:43] people find, you know, olive oil and [99:45] baked goods might impart stronger taste. [99:48] So depending on the type. So some of [99:49] them are more flavorful, right? And so [99:52] they're more fragile, let's say, and [99:54] they'll impart flavors to different uh [99:56] different foods where they're not [99:58] supposed to be. [99:59] >> So you you're not seed oil averse, nor [100:02] are you pro-se [100:05] >> personally? [100:05] >> Yeah. [100:06] >> No, [100:06] >> cuz I think that the um the seed oil [100:09] debate has been very contaminated by the [100:11] issues that I mentioned before, but also [100:13] because many many processed foods [100:15] contain seed oil. they're much less [100:17] expensive than using, you know, [100:19] grass-fed butter or or olive oil or even [100:22] just ordinary butter. So, [100:24] >> it's important to be [100:26] nutrition facts literate. So, when [100:28] you're talking about uh processed foods, [100:31] so as much as possible, cooking at home, [100:34] but that's something that a lot of [100:36] people don't really know how to do, feel [100:38] they don't have the time for, [100:39] >> people aren't going to start doing that. [100:41] >> I'll tell you, they're not going to [100:42] start doing that. I wish they would, but [100:44] they they're not going to. the grocery [100:46] store to to look at the nutrition facts [100:47] panel and being like, "Okay, what's in [100:49] here? What's in there?" And comparing [100:51] products to one another, right? And and [100:53] also what's more important for your own [100:55] health, [100:56] >> right? What's relevant for my health may [100:58] not be what's relevant for your health. [101:01] You know, some people are we're talking [101:03] about salt sensitivity. Some people are [101:05] very salt sensitive. Some people are [101:07] very active and need to replace salt and [101:09] so salt is not an issue for them. But so [101:12] being able to know uh where to what to [101:16] pay attention to because otherwise it [101:18] just gets overwhelming. [101:20] >> You mentioned uh the study was p paid [101:22] for by a company and earlier you [101:24] mentioned companies. I think this is an [101:25] important issue that we've never really [101:27] direct um directly addressed on this [101:29] podcast. I mean anytime I've covered a [101:31] paper in a sometimes I do these solo [101:32] episodes. I'll get back to them soon. I [101:34] used to do a lot more of them. But I [101:36] would always look like are there [101:37] financial conflicts of interest? [101:40] What's the difference between a company [101:42] funding a study and a financial conflict [101:45] of interest if any? Like like to me a [101:47] financial conflict of interest is if the [101:50] investigators, the scientists running [101:52] the study um have stakes and you know [101:54] they have shares in the company or [101:56] they're being paid to do the study [101:58] obviously. But when a company funds [102:00] research on like this uh the snack chips [102:04] study that you did, [102:06] >> I think everyone would like to assume [102:08] that they don't have any you're not [102:10] feeling any there's no explicit nor [102:12] implicit pressure for a particular [102:14] outcome, [102:14] >> right? [102:15] >> Could you like how did how does this [102:17] stuff come about? So, I'm glad you're [102:18] asking that question because that's [102:20] something that people often have this [102:22] knee-jerk reaction to industry sponsored [102:24] studies and there I know there are [102:26] people who are very very vocal against [102:29] industry uh sponsored research but as [102:31] scientists we do research we do research [102:34] to the best of our abilities and we [102:37] provide we draft the research question [102:40] you get the data you analyze it you [102:42] publish it some of the studies that I [102:44] haven't been able to publish have been [102:45] funded by industry that have had null [102:48] results. [102:49] >> Null. [102:50] >> Null results. So, so we did a we did a [102:52] study. It was sponsored by industry. We [102:55] didn't find any significant effect of [102:57] the test product compared to the [103:00] control. [103:00] >> And you can't publish it. [103:02] >> We wrote the paper. We wrote the report. [103:04] We provided it to our sponsor [103:07] just out of uh you know courtesy. So [103:11] this is the paper. We're going to submit [103:12] it for publication. [103:15] Do what you need to do. So they've given [103:17] you the green light to submit. So the [103:18] companies aren't short circuiting this. [103:20] >> No, never. That's in the contract, [103:22] right? Your [103:23] >> right to publish because otherwise why' [103:25] you do research? There's no point [103:26] [clears throat] [103:27] doing research if you're not going to be [103:28] able to publish your research. [103:30] >> So [103:32] basically, it's courtesy to show that [103:36] the paper that you're going to be [103:37] submitting for publication. That one [103:40] paper that I'm referring to, I must have [103:43] tried five different journals. [103:46] But the findings are not exciting. [103:50] They're showing that there's no effect [103:52] on our outcomes. And it got rejected, [103:55] rejected, rejected, rejected. And I'm [103:57] pretty persistent. [103:59] I ran out of steam. So if I run out of [104:01] steam, I can imagine so many other [104:03] people, other scientists who have no [104:05] results have run out of steam much [104:07] quicker than me. [104:08] >> So that's a no result issue. It's not [104:11] necessarily unique to industry funded [104:13] studies. No, [104:14] >> that's not unique. Yeah. So, industry [104:15] sponsored studies, you know, I often [104:17] also say there we get um NIH reports of [104:23] scientific misconduct. So, reports of [104:24] scientific misconduct condonducts can be [104:27] found from NIH sponsored studies where [104:29] they find that the principal [104:31] investigator falsified data that have [104:33] been published in a specific paper. [104:36] So to me, if you're not going to if [104:39] you're not an honest scientist, [104:43] obviously I don't think it matters who's [104:45] sponsoring your research because the NIH [104:47] finds misconduct, [104:49] >> right? I mean, doing science for any [104:52] other reason than trying to find real [104:54] answers is just insane. Like I mean, [104:57] these people are who do this are like [104:59] legitimately sick, right? You know, like [105:01] Yeah, [105:02] >> it's a lot of work. [105:03] >> Yeah. I mean I mean well do they really [105:05] think they discovered something if they [105:06] made it it's like it's like it doesn't [105:08] it's not it doesn't it doesn't it [105:10] doesn't compute well it never ends well [105:11] and you know we could spend hours [105:13] talking about the cases these things [105:15] always it always comes out in the wash [105:17] >> so I'm hearing that negative outcomes [105:18] are hard to publish [105:20] >> when you take on funding from a company [105:24] to to address a particular question [105:26] about a product that they sell you it [105:29] sounds to me I'm trying to I want to be [105:31] careful I'm not like leading the witness [105:32] here [105:33] that you don't feel any pressure. [105:42] Like why are they why are they funding [105:43] studies? I mean companies are selfish [105:45] and they should be. They have [105:46] shareholders and they need to um some of [105:48] them are public companies and so the [105:49] shareholders are the public and so why [105:52] are they funding research? I mean plenty [105:53] of people eat chips. Yeah. [105:54] >> Why are they funding research? [105:57] >> They wanted to know if it had a health [105:58] benefit [105:59] >> so they could market a health benefit. [106:01] probably market a health benefit at some [106:03] point. That could be. And then if they [106:06] don't find a health benefit, maybe they [106:08] could switch it to something else, [106:10] right? I don't know. [106:11] >> I'm very uh sympathetic to the reality [106:16] that there isn't a lot of research [106:18] funding coming through NIH and NSF these [106:21] days, but but always it's been, you [106:24] know, uh it's been low. I know because I [106:26] sat on study sections which [106:28] >> dole out grants. uh got grants, but it's [106:31] very very very competitive. Are you [106:33] taking money from companies to do this [106:35] work because it's a it's a great way to [106:37] fund studies. Like in other words, I if [106:41] if NIH had more money to study [106:43] nutrition, [106:44] >> I could imagine a world where you would [106:46] just take money from NIH to do it. Like [106:48] you wouldn't need the money from because [106:49] the budgets are better from NIH funding [106:52] than from uh from industry funding for [106:54] nutrition research. [106:56] But [106:57] >> if you if you could get an NIH grant, [106:59] that's that's the ultimate goal, right? [107:02] Or USDA or other governmental grant. [107:06] >> That's the goal. [107:07] >> But sometimes also there's specific [107:10] foods, specific products that would be [107:12] kind of hard to study without industry [107:16] support because you need to get access [107:18] to this specific food [107:21] >> or product. Well, I don't know what the [107:23] status of it is right now, but um my [107:27] fairly frequent um kind of check-in on [107:29] what the at least stated goals of the [107:33] now being revised NIH are include um [107:37] creating a forum [107:38] >> even some incentive for publishing [107:40] negative results or null results I [107:42] should say. [107:43] >> You know, Jay Bacharia who's been on [107:45] this podcast has put that out publicly. [107:48] We need to we need those results. [107:49] They're important. they steer people [107:51] away from certain things that need to be [107:53] steered away from. And also uh it seems [107:58] at least from the whole food pyramid [108:01] revision etc that there seems to be more [108:02] and more interest in nutrition [108:04] >> as a research topic and something to [108:07] really understand. So obviously it's [108:09] really important. [108:10] >> I mean people are eating every day. [108:12] >> Yeah. [108:12] >> Um they're making these choices. So [108:14] there should be more federal funding for [108:15] these things and then there's no chance [108:17] of bias. [108:18] >> Right. [108:19] >> Right. Yeah. I think that people assume [108:21] that if if industry funded a study that [108:23] um especially on food [108:25] >> that like something's not to be trusted [108:27] in there. [108:28] >> I don't know why for food in particular, [108:30] right? So if you think about it, [108:32] >> food and drugs, food and drug companies, [108:34] >> but drug companies, they do research on [108:36] their own products all [108:38] >> most of the R&D for drug companies is [108:40] definitely done inhouse. That's also [108:42] part of the scary part about it. We [108:43] don't see the null results. I actually [108:45] would prefer if it took on a different [108:48] shape. I don't know exactly what it [108:50] would look like. I mean, drug, we don't [108:51] see a lot of the negative outcomes that [108:54] might exist. So, I I don't think there's [108:56] >> probably they just die out before they [108:57] make it to next step. And [108:59] >> yeah, I think outright scientific fraud, [109:02] people making stuff up is pretty rare. [109:04] >> Very rare. [109:05] >> But I do think there's a lot of [109:07] questions about people because of the [109:09] incentives to need to publish to as you [109:11] described it's hard to publish no [109:13] results. We will never know and this is [109:15] when you run a lab is you know you want [109:16] to create a culture where graduate [109:18] students and postocs feel very [109:19] comfortable saying there's nothing here [109:21] right [109:21] >> because the stuff that didn't work out [109:24] >> you always you know it's just a question [109:26] that you always have like what what [109:28] stuff do we never hear about [109:30] >> because the negative results like they [109:32] say well that mouse was sick or this you [109:34] know there's a lot of the brain is a [109:36] crazy [109:37] >> thing that's you need to teach the [109:39] students well right you have a student [109:41] who comes to you and says [109:43] Hey, this this is lower. This is better [109:47] than this. And you look at you look at [109:48] the numbers and you say, well, it's 25 [109:51] versus 27 and the standard deviation is [109:55] 10. Like, no, 25 is the same as 27, [109:59] right? So, you have to make sure you you [110:01] teach well to know that, [110:03] >> you know, even numerically different [110:06] effects may not be statistically [110:09] significantly different. And that's just [110:11] part of the you know the curve right. [110:14] >> Yeah. The ideal situation is when the [110:15] student or postto doesn't believe their [110:17] own results. They're like it's not [110:18] [laughter] really and then you have to [110:19] convince them actually you have [110:21] something interesting. That's a good [110:22] situation. That's a good situation. [110:23] >> That's a good situation. And then [110:24] eventually they're like oh okay you know [110:27] that's the ideal situation. But I think [110:29] this whole field of nutrition is is is [110:31] contentious uh for some of the right [110:34] reasons. It's so very important. And I [110:36] think it's contentious also for a lot of [110:39] unfortunate and unnecessary reasons [110:41] among the students and postocs and [110:44] general public when you interact what [110:45] what are people most interested in with [110:48] respect to nutrition like when people [110:50] ask you is it like what should I eat [110:53] what shouldn't I eat like what what do [110:54] what what's coming like what are your [110:56] antenna picking up when when you're out [110:58] there [110:59] >> I think what should I eat or you know or [111:02] have you heard about XYZ fad that's also [111:05] One, have you heard that whatever [111:09] product cures everything in the world? [111:12] >> No, I haven't heard that. [111:14] >> Peptides or is it like very peptide [111:16] right now? Peptides are really big. [111:18] >> It's always something else. Yeah. Yeah. [111:20] Yeah. [111:20] >> So, it's it's it's very specific to a [111:22] product. [111:22] >> Yeah. Often very specific to a product. [111:24] Yeah. [111:25] >> You won't be held responsible for your [111:26] answer. But um do you supplement your [111:29] diet with with minerals like magnesium [111:32] or anything like that or you just [111:33] completely careful food choices? [111:36] >> I prefer careful food choices. I think [111:39] it's more pleasurable to eat a complete [111:42] food uh diet. That said, I think that [111:45] there are some people who may need to [111:47] supplement their diets, but I think [111:50] people should strive to to get their [111:53] nutrients from uh from whole foods. [111:57] >> Fiber recommendations are really [111:59] growing. I I looked into this and many [112:01] many people's doctors are now telling [112:03] them you should take uh a little bit of [112:05] celium husk. I always thought, by the [112:07] way, celium husk was like the husks like [112:09] you had like they're like you're going [112:10] to eat like the seed husks. It's [112:12] actually ground into a powder or [112:13] something like that. Yeah, [112:14] >> I'm still afraid to take it, but uh I [112:16] should take a little bit of it. But [112:17] doctors now are prescribing um [112:20] supplemental fiber [112:22] >> in a pretty high rate from what I [112:24] understand. [112:25] >> Oh, that's interesting. [112:26] >> Yeah, people don't want to [112:27] [clears throat] eat their fruits and [112:27] vegetables, [112:28] >> but there brings so much more, right? [112:31] So, yes, there's fiber in fruits and [112:34] vegetables, but there's also all sorts [112:37] of polyphenols, right? all sorts of [112:39] non-nutrient components that themselves [112:42] may have benefits for health that we [112:46] don't fully understand yet that feed [112:49] your gut that are maybe just as relevant [112:51] that may enhance fiber's impact on [112:55] health. [112:56] >> Listen, I [112:58] >> preaching to the choir. I I I love [113:00] fruits and vegetables. [113:02] >> Well, thank you so much for taking time [113:04] out of your schedule. You have a very uh [113:06] unique research program. you know, I [113:08] have to say very few people uh can work [113:10] on as many different things and find [113:12] their points of intersection and um so [113:15] I'm grateful that you're exploring these [113:16] things. I appreciate your openness about [113:19] industry funded research. This is [113:21] something that I think people uh need to [113:23] know about. I I certainly learned about [113:26] that from you today and based on your [113:27] work, I think it's fair to say that we [113:29] shouldn't just be encouraging people to [113:31] get great sleep. We should be [113:32] encouraging people to eat [113:35] at times and foods that allow them to [113:38] get great sleep, which will allow them [113:39] to get better make better food choices. [113:43] >> Yes. [113:44] >> And so forth. [113:44] >> Yeah. So, you know, I talk often about a [113:46] vicious cycle where you don't sleep [113:49] well, you don't eat well, then that [113:51] makes you not sleep so well. And really [113:55] hoping for people to get into a [113:57] healthful cycle, right? where you get [113:58] good sleep, where you can make good food [114:01] choices that then helps you get better [114:04] sleep to keep propelling this uh this [114:06] cycle of better health. [114:08] >> I love it. It's a true integrative [114:10] medicine and science. I also can attest [114:13] that uh when you sleep well, you make [114:15] better food choices. When you eat well, [114:16] >> you sleep better. So, thank you so much [114:19] for coming, for taking time out of your [114:20] schedule. Really appreciate it. And I've [114:22] learned a ton. Thank you. [114:24] >> Thank you. [114:25] >> Thank you for joining me for today's [114:26] discussion with Dr. from Marie Pierre [114:28] Strange. To learn more about her [114:30] laboratory's research and to find a link [114:32] to her book, Eat Better, Sleep Better, [114:35] please see the links in the show note [114:36] captions. If you're learning from and or [114:38] enjoying this podcast, please subscribe [114:40] to our YouTube channel. That's a [114:41] terrific zerocost way to support us. In [114:44] addition, please follow the podcast by [114:46] clicking the follow button on both [114:47] Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify [114:49] and Apple, you can leave us up to a [114:51] fivestar review. And you can now leave [114:53] us comments at both Spotify and Apple. [114:55] Please also check out the sponsors [114:57] mentioned at the beginning and [114:58] throughout today's episode. That's the [114:59] best way to support this podcast. 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