Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease might actually begin as a metabolic problem in
Speaker 1: the brain, and metabolism is essentially the cell's ability to
Speaker 1: create energy out of raw materials, and so that's why
Speaker 1: some researchers have actually begun calling Alzheimer's disease type three diabetes.
Speaker 1: And what this suggests is that we might have agency
Speaker 1: when it comes to preventing Alzheimer's disease through that lens.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind of brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor
Speaker 1: Scott Barrkaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: we live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse of
Speaker 1: the human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have Max Lugevira on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Max the filmmaker, health and science journalist, and brain food expert.
Speaker 1: He's also the director of the upcoming film Bredhead, the
Speaker 1: first ever documentary about dementia prevention through diet and lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and he's co author with doctor Paul Gruhle of the
Speaker 1: just released book Genius Foods. Hey, man, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for being on the Psychology Podcast. Dude, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. This is a long time in the making
Speaker 1: because I've been obviously a friend and fan of yours
Speaker 1: for such a long time. Actually, before we were friends,
Speaker 1: I was a fan of yours. I'm saying that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I read an article that you wrote on the
Speaker 1: many facets of the performing mind, and I was just
Speaker 1: obsessed with your work. And then you and Jason Silva. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well it's been quite a road and I couldn't be
Speaker 1: more proud of you. You know, your book is coming out,
Speaker 1: probably your book will be out by the time that
Speaker 1: this podcast is released. And man, you really deserve this.
Speaker 1: You know, you've put so much like blood, sweat and
Speaker 1: tears out of this thing, right Like, man, yeah, if
Speaker 1: anyone deserves this moment, it's going to be like wow,
Speaker 1: like you really care about the science, you care about
Speaker 1: getting the details right. But I'd like to just start
Speaker 1: off with we won't, by the way, do it? I
Speaker 1: said we could, we could. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to focus. I'm going to try to focus, but
Speaker 1: I want to start off, you know what got you
Speaker 1: interested in this project. I know that you know a
Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with what you're seeing
Speaker 1: with your mother, and I thought you could talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit. Yeah. Absolutely. So my background, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a more generalist journalist for about five years.
Speaker 1: I was living in Los Angeles working for Al Gore.
Speaker 1: He had a TV network called Current TV. So you know,
Speaker 1: my tools were very much mass media. I wasn't so much.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have considered myself a writer back then, but
Speaker 1: I was given this incredible opportunity to use traditional media
Speaker 1: in the form of television as a means of talking
Speaker 1: about things that I was interested in, and my passions
Speaker 1: really always kind of were pulled in the direction of
Speaker 1: social impact, health technology, things like that, and that lasted
Speaker 1: for about five six years. I got to sort of
Speaker 1: hone my journalistic skills with some of the best of
Speaker 1: the best in the business Peabody Award winning journalists. And
Speaker 1: then when I left Current TV to try to figure
Speaker 1: out where I was going to go with my career,
Speaker 1: I dabbled in different creative mediums, but I ultimately began
Speaker 1: spending more and more time in New York City around
Speaker 1: my mother and I noticed that she started to display
Speaker 1: symptoms of memory loss. It seemed as if her brain's
Speaker 1: processing speed had sort of downshifted, and for somebody like
Speaker 1: my mom, who was a high performer her entire life,
Speaker 1: it was very noticeable to me and my brothers. We
Speaker 1: also noticed a change in her gait, which is the
Speaker 1: way that she walked. She's a New Yorker born and bred,
Speaker 1: and you know, and anybody that's ever spent time in
Speaker 1: New York knows that New Yorkers walk pretty fast. While
Speaker 1: my mom suddenly her stride had shortened to almost like
Speaker 1: a shuffle, and it was very subtle, but nonetheless it
Speaker 1: led to me really trying to figure out what the
Speaker 1: hell was going on with my mom, and that led
Speaker 1: to me going with my mom to various neurology departments
Speaker 1: around the country, and in every instance what I experienced
Speaker 1: I've come to call diagnose and audios. Essentially, a physician
Speaker 1: would spend about fifteen minutes with my mom run a
Speaker 1: battery of strange cognitive tests and physical tests, and ultimately,
Speaker 1: in the end at the Cleveland clinic, she was prescribed
Speaker 1: to drugs which I only later found out were for
Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, and I became essentially after
Speaker 1: I habituated to the initial trauma that I experienced when
Speaker 1: I first googled those drugs. It sent me down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole to try to figure out anything I possibly
Speaker 1: could through the lens of diet and lifestyle that might
Speaker 1: be useful in terms of helping my mom. But also
Speaker 1: I stumbled upon the fact that was very shocking to
Speaker 1: me that dementia most often begins in the brain decades
Speaker 1: before the first symptom, thirty to forty year and maybe
Speaker 1: even earlier according to some research, before the first symptom.
Speaker 1: And so it became a very strong call to action
Speaker 1: to me to do what I could to prevent this
Speaker 1: from ever happening to myself. And ultimately it became about
Speaker 1: communication to try to get this information out there to others.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you mentioned, science, communication is difficult, and
Speaker 1: not everybody who's in the health and fitness space really
Speaker 1: tries to communicate science responsibly and accurately. And so having
Speaker 1: this unique background in journalism and communication and really getting
Speaker 1: to work with the best of the best communicators in
Speaker 1: the world, it was almost like a perfect storm for
Speaker 1: me to really get out there and to stand up
Speaker 1: and to try to do what I can to help
Speaker 1: change the cognitive health destiny for other people. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Were you able to help your mom at all? Like
Speaker 1: how she doing now? Not great? You know, Initially when
Speaker 1: I first started reading about this topic, I tried to
Speaker 1: do everything I could to teach my mom and to
Speaker 1: ultimately influence her diet. But as anybody who has spent
Speaker 1: any time around a person with cognitive impairment knows, especially
Speaker 1: for any caregivers out there, they know that, you know,
Speaker 1: at an older age, it's just very difficult to really
Speaker 1: kind of cause a dramatic change in that person's diet
Speaker 1: and lifestyle, and especially you know, as rigorously as one
Speaker 1: would need to in order to have any measurable impact
Speaker 1: on the disease. There's pilot level evidence now that you know,
Speaker 1: for people at various stages of cognitive impairment, if you
Speaker 1: take a sort of all hands on deck approach, you
Speaker 1: might be able to improve symptoms. Certainly, there is some
Speaker 1: research involving ketogenic diets, which is basically a diet that
Speaker 1: allows an alternate fuel to enter the brain so that
Speaker 1: it may sort of circumvent the metabolic shortcomings that occur
Speaker 1: in Alzheimer's disease, But a ketogenic diet is a very
Speaker 1: hard diet to adhere to. So I tried to teach,
Speaker 1: and at a certain point I decided that I really
Speaker 1: needed to step back because I didn't want it to
Speaker 1: interfere with the time that I spend with my mom,
Speaker 1: and I certainly didn't want it to emotionally make me
Speaker 1: upset whenever I would go to my mom's house and
Speaker 1: notice an open bag of chips or snacks, for example.
Speaker 1: So she's changed a little bit, and her trajectory I
Speaker 1: believe has stabilized to some degree. But yeah, I uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I stepped back, and I try to kind
Speaker 1: of teach more gently these days, fair enough. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, a big part of what you're doing now
Speaker 1: is you want to help a lot of people before
Speaker 1: it reaches that stage, Like you really you want to
Speaker 1: go as young as possible and have people you know,
Speaker 1: read your book and read learn all the latest principles
Speaker 1: and start making changes in their lives you know, today,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it'll influence and forestall kind of inevitable in
Speaker 1: all of us. I mean, if you don't live long enough,
Speaker 1: like you know, like if you're going to live like
Speaker 1: one hundred, even if you lived one hundred and fifty, like,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a point where it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, definitely. I mean a
Speaker 1: you know, ingenious foods and and my work. I think
Speaker 1: it's about really kind of bringing this issue, you know,
Speaker 1: down to a much younger audience. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that I have an advantage because I'm not a
Speaker 1: medical doctor necessarily, because I think that young people generally
Speaker 1: speaking don't care about dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and they
Speaker 1: certainly aren't about to go and get cognitive baselines that
Speaker 1: they're neurologists, you know, when they're young. So for me,
Speaker 1: it's really about using the language of performance about mental health,
Speaker 1: which so many people obviously suffer with, and trying to
Speaker 1: make it something that is trying to really bring prevention
Speaker 1: into the fold. You know, when people actually, again Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: disease develops in the brain far earlier than the presentation
Speaker 1: of symptoms, and when a person is already symptomatic, what
Speaker 1: happens in Alzheimer's disease is that there's a shift in
Speaker 1: food preference, so it becomes even more difficult for a
Speaker 1: person with Alzheimer's disease to actually change their diets. Whereas
Speaker 1: when you're young and healthy and your fitness focused, that's
Speaker 1: when I think we really can have the largest impact
Speaker 1: on our brain health. And that's you know, all of
Speaker 1: those Yeah, principles are outlined in my book. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're doing a lot yourself. You do some self experimentation,
Speaker 1: and you do a lot of you try to walk
Speaker 1: the talk, right. Yeah, So I saw one blog post
Speaker 1: where you had your telomeres telemeres test, that's right, and
Speaker 1: it said that your actual age is like, is like
Speaker 1: four years old? Four years old? Yeah, exactly. Actually you're
Speaker 1: actually you're actually just four. Yeah. Well emotionally that's definitely true.
Speaker 1: When you freak out if like you got your teles
Speaker 1: tested and it's like you are pre needle development, you geus,
Speaker 1: that would be shocking to say the least. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but you're like ten years younger than you really are,
Speaker 1: right or something like that. Right, Yeah, according to my
Speaker 1: average telomere length, and this is not something that's you know,
Speaker 1: been clinically validated but there's a company out there that
Speaker 1: measures telemeres. Yeah, and they compare it to you know,
Speaker 1: their data set. And I'm chronologically thirty five years old,
Speaker 1: but my telomere were more akin to those of a
Speaker 1: twenty seven year old. And yeah, well you're doing something right,
Speaker 1: You're doing something right. Yeah, I mean I think you know,
Speaker 1: we have a say in the rate at which we age.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this is a There are very
Speaker 1: few bio markers associated with aging, but telomeres are one
Speaker 1: of the few proposed biomarkers. And I had mind tested too,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, we have a say over
Speaker 1: the rate at which we age, and telomeres are one
Speaker 1: of the few proposed bio markers of aging. So how
Speaker 1: old are you? Biological? So I had mind tested because
Speaker 1: I was inspired by your post and I was curious,
Speaker 1: and so tell me, I'll tell you the result. To me, honestly,
Speaker 1: it might is good. You know, it is a good.
Speaker 1: So I'm thirty eight according to my birth certificate, but
Speaker 1: according to my telomeres, I'm thirty two. That's very good.
Speaker 1: Is that good? It's not as good as you're not,
Speaker 1: like ten years younger, but it's something, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: very good. Okay, Cool, it's had like ninety ninth percentime
Speaker 1: thing like you said, I was like seven or something
Speaker 1: like that. But that's still good, right, that's very good.
Speaker 1: That's very good. Cool. Yeah, I do you know, I
Speaker 1: think that we have a say telomeres. We can look
Speaker 1: at longitudinal studies and look at what are called super agers.
Speaker 1: You know, aging doesn't necessarily need to coincide with disease. Today,
Speaker 1: we're seeing people live longer thanks to the wonders of
Speaker 1: modern medicine, but they're living sicker. So you know, what
Speaker 1: I think is most important is extending one's health span.
Speaker 1: And having shorter telomeres seems to be related to a
Speaker 1: longer health span. Yeah, and related to the diet, exercise,
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely. So these are real changes that you
Speaker 1: can make in your life. Like maybe if I work
Speaker 1: out even more, like maybe my next result, I'll even
Speaker 1: go farther back in time. I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's kind of like a time machine or something. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: there's things that we know that are associated with longer telomeres.
Speaker 1: And just to define telomeres for your audience, for people
Speaker 1: that don't know, they're considered to be like the shoelace
Speaker 1: caps at the end of your chromosomes. So a shoelace
Speaker 1: cap protects your shoelace from coming on done and fraying,
Speaker 1: but the shoelace cap actually keeps it all together. So too,
Speaker 1: in your you know, for your chromosomes, these telomeres seem
Speaker 1: to be the end tips, and they're just a repeating
Speaker 1: sequence of genes that seems to shorten with age. But
Speaker 1: longer telomeres is associated with, you know, more positive aging.
Speaker 1: And there are various lifestyle factors that we know are
Speaker 1: also associated with healthy aging that are associated with longer telomeres.
Speaker 1: And then finally, there's an enzyme called telomerase which has
Speaker 1: been shown to actually lengthen telomeres, and we can actually
Speaker 1: boost telomerase with things like meditation, and so when it
Speaker 1: comes to having longer, healthier telomeres, coffee consumption has been
Speaker 1: related to longer telomeres, Consuming a multi vitamin longer telomeres,
Speaker 1: exercise can lengthen telomeres, things like that. So these are
Speaker 1: all things that we know are part of a healthy
Speaker 1: diet and life. See that's so interesting because you read
Speaker 1: conflicting things about coffee, right you read you know that
Speaker 1: it's bad and then it's good. There's so tell me
Speaker 1: things that confuse the heck out of me. You know,
Speaker 1: if you just read the internet, you know, like what
Speaker 1: is really Let's really dive in for the rest of
Speaker 1: our chat today. I want to pick specific topics that
Speaker 1: tell me what is the real truth of the matter,
Speaker 1: what is the weight of the evidence? Say about these
Speaker 1: things because sometimes if you google it's coffee bad for
Speaker 1: you, you you get a million articles coffee bad for you?
Speaker 1: If you google is coffee good for you? You You get
Speaker 1: a million Say, but there is a truth out there, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, let's talk about fats. Yes, okay, I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to tell the audience a difference between
Speaker 1: poly unsaturated and mono unsaturated fats. Just describe the difference
Speaker 1: between the two and why that matters. Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Poly unsaturated fats are predominantly found in well, in nature,
Speaker 1: they're found in the fat of animals, so they're found
Speaker 1: in trace amounts in or actually I would say not
Speaker 1: so trace amounts in the fat of fetty fish, so
Speaker 1: wild salmon, some deans harrying, things like that, and poly
Speaker 1: unsaturated fats really constitute in very large part our brains.
Speaker 1: The problem is these fats are highly delicate and prone
Speaker 1: to oxidation, which is one of the reasons why the
Speaker 1: human brain is so delicate and prone to excessive amounts
Speaker 1: of oxidative stress. Today. In the modern food supply, polyon
Speaker 1: saturated fats are also they make up a huge percentage
Speaker 1: of our chloric intake because they're found in grain and
Speaker 1: seed oils that are used to create processed packaged foods,
Speaker 1: so oils like canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, things
Speaker 1: like that. These oils, as I mentioned, are very delicate
Speaker 1: and when they're processed and extracted from their whole food
Speaker 1: sources and used to create these oils, usually they're damaged
Speaker 1: by the time that we consume them, and this makes
Speaker 1: them actually one of the worst offenders in the modern
Speaker 1: food supply. They're also very high in Omega six fatty acids,
Speaker 1: which provide the precursors to our body's inflammation pathways, and
Speaker 1: the deodorization process, which is essential to help make these
Speaker 1: oils tasteless and scentless, actually creates trans fats. So that's
Speaker 1: why in my book I highlight these oils again, corn, canola,
Speaker 1: soybean oil, grape seed, oil as some of the most
Speaker 1: vile health offenders in the modern food supply. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, monoensaturated fat, which is found in extra virgin
Speaker 1: olive oil. It makes up about eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: the fatty acid content of extra virgin olive oil. Fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the fat found in grass fed beef and
Speaker 1: wild salmon is monoensaturated fat, and unlike saturated fat and
Speaker 1: polyunsaturated fat, it seems that monoensaturated fat is the healthiest
Speaker 1: type of fat for an animal to consume in high quantities.
Speaker 1: There's really interesting animal research and then also randomized control
Speaker 1: trials in humans that have been pretty successful in terms
Speaker 1: of preserving brain function longitudinally and also improving cardiometabolic risk
Speaker 1: factors when subjects are given high amounts of extra virgin
Speaker 1: olive oil to consume. So the main oil that I
Speaker 1: use in my diet and large is extravergent olive oil,
Speaker 1: which is predominantly monol and saturated fat. Monol and saturated
Speaker 1: fat is also much more resistant to oxidation. So it's
Speaker 1: the safest oil to buy, certainly, and it's the safest
Speaker 1: oil to consume, and it seems to have a number
Speaker 1: of health benefits. As well, good, good, good. So the
Speaker 1: general blanket statement fat is bad for you is not
Speaker 1: a very telling statement, is what you're saying, Like, we
Speaker 1: have to look at the nuance of this situation. You
Speaker 1: absolutely do. Yeah, it's definitely not useful as a term
Speaker 1: when studying diet at the population level, because you know,
Speaker 1: this is why relating fat to health outcomes makes no sense,
Speaker 1: because there's so many different types of fats, and each
Speaker 1: one has a different impact on your body. And the
Speaker 1: impact that certain that various fats have on you is
Speaker 1: likely different from the impact that those same fats will
Speaker 1: have on your neighbor, because everybody's different. There's no such
Speaker 1: thing as a one size fits all diet. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so I would say, by and large, fat is not
Speaker 1: bad for you. And then when you get more granular,
Speaker 1: it's really important to look at the types of fats.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that consuming excessive polyunsaturated well it's
Speaker 1: not even opinion, but consuming excessive polyunsaturated fats is not
Speaker 1: good for you. I don't think that consuming excessive saturated
Speaker 1: fat is good for you either, So in my recommendations
Speaker 1: are to consume saturated fats when they're and polyunsaturated fats
Speaker 1: when they're contained in whole foods, not isolated extracted oils.
Speaker 1: The only oil that you should use is extra virgin
Speaker 1: olive oil, and then perhaps saturated fats when you're cooking
Speaker 1: at high temperatures, because actually saturated fats are the most
Speaker 1: stable and particularly at high temperatures. Isn't avocado oil a
Speaker 1: good thing too. Avocado oil is a good thing. It's
Speaker 1: predominantly monohnsaturated. But I don't recommend trading extra virgin olive
Speaker 1: oil for avocado oil because actually the most valuable compounds
Speaker 1: in extra virgin olive oil have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: its fatty acids, but instead plant compounds called polyphenol. An
Speaker 1: extra virgin olive oils, that is, the oil with the
Speaker 1: most abundant polyphenols in it, and these plant chemicals seem
Speaker 1: to have a broad range of very positive effects on
Speaker 1: the body. They're anti inflammatory on par with like low
Speaker 1: dose ibuprofen, without any of the potential negative side effects.
Speaker 1: And this is not actually due to the fat in
Speaker 1: extra virgin oil, but the polyphenols. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people are proponents of a vegetarian diet. You know polyphenols,
Speaker 1: but you know there's a kind of a skull goan
Speaker 1: to like just eat plants, you know, is you know
Speaker 1: they're sorted. That's the answer. That's the best diet. The
Speaker 1: thing that I find frustrating is that there are so
Speaker 1: many different Okay, so we got the Mediterranean, we got
Speaker 1: the key tone body diets, we got the Paleo, we
Speaker 1: got the vegetarian, the vegan. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: dare say Mediterranean. I think I probably did. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's just okay, let's just deal with all those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the situations like there's like there's no one
Speaker 1: size fits all. You get to find the one that's
Speaker 1: But what does the science say if you want to
Speaker 1: live a healthy, long life, Like, is there an optimal thing?
Speaker 1: Is there a truth? Well, most researchers and doctors will
Speaker 1: cite the Mediterranean dietary pattern as having the most evidence.
Speaker 1: But this is a dietary pattern that really has been
Speaker 1: pinpointed via like population level evidence. So I think we
Speaker 1: can do better than that, because population level evidence can
Speaker 1: only tease out correlations. You can't make the causal assumption
Speaker 1: when you're looking at a dietary pattern at the population level.
Speaker 1: So it seems that people that live in the Mediterranean,
Speaker 1: they have reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, of neurological disease
Speaker 1: and things like that. But that doesn't mean that everything
Speaker 1: that they're eating and every you know, all of their
Speaker 1: lifestyle patterns in the Mediterranean are necessarily helpful. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's more important to look at a broad range of research,
Speaker 1: ranging from you know, animal studies to trials and even
Speaker 1: spanning disciplines. So, I mean, when it comes to the brain,
Speaker 1: brain health is reliant on the metabolic health of the body,
Speaker 1: and so to me, that's where research into type two
Speaker 1: diabetes and obesity comes into play. Even though you know,
Speaker 1: medicine is such a vast field and there's so many silos,
Speaker 1: I think really to get a good sense of a
Speaker 1: proper human diet, you really have to look at the
Speaker 1: breadth of all of the evidence. And so yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think that there are aspects of the Mediterranean diet
Speaker 1: that are certainly you know, beneficial. The reliance and the
Speaker 1: sort of the favoritism of extra virgin olive oil. I
Speaker 1: think that's great. But you know, most researchers will say
Speaker 1: that the Mediterranean diet includes grains and so therefore grains
Speaker 1: have to be a healthy part of the diet. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: when you look at randomized control trials, there's no good
Speaker 1: evidence that grains improve health. And this was according to Cochrane,
Speaker 1: which is an organization that is known for their systematic
Speaker 1: and unbiased reviews of medical literature. They found no evidence
Speaker 1: when looking at randomized control trials that grains improve health. So,
Speaker 1: I mean that's where I would argue that the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: day it is healthy in spite of grains, not because
Speaker 1: of them. Es. Yeah, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, nutrition science is very difficult to do. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: our nutritional guidelines are based on population level evidence, which
Speaker 1: is really unfortunate because they're making the causal assumption, which
Speaker 1: you know, any scientist knows. You know, they're making that
Speaker 1: fatal flaw of attributing causality when only correlation can be
Speaker 1: teased out for sure. And then then some people, the
Speaker 1: vegetarians are very adamant that if you want to have
Speaker 1: a long life, like a food I have a longevity,
Speaker 1: reduce your consumption of animal foods. Yeah right, well, I
Speaker 1: think I think many people, especially today, consume not only
Speaker 1: too much meat relative to other things that they're eating,
Speaker 1: but they eat very low quality meat. So I actually
Speaker 1: argue that grass fed beef is actually a health food,
Speaker 1: even though red meat sort of gets not talked about
Speaker 1: very kindly, especially obviously by vegetarians and especially vegans. But
Speaker 1: from an evolutionary standpoint, we absolutely consumed animal products during
Speaker 1: the time in which our brains evolved, and you know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point in our evolutionary past, about ten
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, we turned our backs on that diet
Speaker 1: and became slaves to the few crops that we could domesticate,
Speaker 1: and actually, over time that contributed to the fact that
Speaker 1: our brains shrank since then. So to me, it doesn't
Speaker 1: there's no good evidence that meat is unhealthy. There's links
Speaker 1: that can be drawn, but again, most people consume very
Speaker 1: unhealthy meat and are not consuming the other things that
Speaker 1: they need to consume to be healthy. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, when looking at a plate,
Speaker 1: half to three quarters should be dedicated to vegetables like
Speaker 1: dark leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, things like that. But then
Speaker 1: I absolutely think that there's a place for grass fed meat.
Speaker 1: It contains you know, it's the most bioavailable source of
Speaker 1: many very important nutrients that people are not consuming adequate
Speaker 1: amounts of, including vitamin B twelve, an underappreciated nutrient called creatine,
Speaker 1: which is very important for proper brain health and brain function. Coline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well creatine is is I take that in my pre
Speaker 1: workout supplement. Oh nice, you were looking kind of like
Speaker 1: a little bit more jacked blood. Yeah, No one else
Speaker 1: can see that, but you I know they'll have to,
Speaker 1: you know, but no, no, but I use I have
Speaker 1: in my pre workout stack. It involves creatine. Is that cretines?
Speaker 1: I mean, if your brain became suddenly deficient in creatine,
Speaker 1: you would not be able to think properly. Creatinees vitally
Speaker 1: important for brain energy, metabolism, and in studies involving vegans
Speaker 1: and vegetarians that don't consume creatine because it's found predominantly
Speaker 1: in meat, by supplementing with creatine actually showed a significant
Speaker 1: improvement in their cognitive function. And this wasn't the case
Speaker 1: with omnivores, which suggests that there's a saturation point in
Speaker 1: the brain, but that just by simply eating some meat
Speaker 1: you are able to hit that point and supply your
Speaker 1: brain with the creating it needs. To function at its best. Cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so very important. Well, this is good. So your book
Speaker 1: is not like this is the logo of your diet.
Speaker 1: Instead you have a list of genius foods that are
Speaker 1: backed by science. I mean, that's a very rare to see. Again,
Speaker 1: it's rare to see that kind of book right in
Speaker 1: this market because people are obsessed with marketing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more about marketing in your field, I think, on the
Speaker 1: whole than you're right about getting the science right. So
Speaker 1: can you go through the rest of am and name
Speaker 1: some of these genius foods that, like, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: no matter what your diet is, like, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a good thing for you to have more
Speaker 1: of in your diet. Absolutely well, I mean in the
Speaker 1: book there is a plan. There is, you know, a
Speaker 1: way to make it really sort of digestible, denended for
Speaker 1: people to put, you know, these ideas and foods into
Speaker 1: practice in their own lives. But yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think you know, avocados are a perfect genius food. They
Speaker 1: are rich in healthy fats, They've got an abundance of carotenoids,
Speaker 1: which have been shown by University of Georgia researchers to
Speaker 1: really boost the speed at which your brain is able
Speaker 1: to process information. I talk about dark leafy greens. A
Speaker 1: Rush University study has shown that people that consume one
Speaker 1: and a third cups of darklyafed greens every single day
Speaker 1: have brains that look on scans about eleven years younger.
Speaker 1: Does that called string beans? String beans are not a
Speaker 1: dark leafig ground string beans, but stringale kale yes, kale kalees,
Speaker 1: the crucifer's vegetable. But you're about to say string beans
Speaker 1: aren't bad though, No, they're not bad. They're good. They're good,
Speaker 1: they're good, They're just not I mean, I can't think
Speaker 1: of any research on string beans and brain function, but
Speaker 1: that would be an interesting study to do. Wait, okay,
Speaker 1: so so tell me some more of these darkly that
Speaker 1: follow in that categor So, kale, spinach, spinach, Yeah, pop
Speaker 1: Eye was onto something. Spinach source. Beats are not a
Speaker 1: dark la too green. No, it's like it's totally different,
Speaker 1: even greed. But beats are great though. They're a top
Speaker 1: source of dietary nitrate, which is very important. Yes, and
Speaker 1: arugola too. So arugula is actually a great source of
Speaker 1: dietary nitrate as well. And this is really important for
Speaker 1: the healthy functioning of your blood vessels, so super key.
Speaker 1: What is your vitamin supplementation regime. I'm not a you know,
Speaker 1: I definitely take a few supplements, but I'm mostly a
Speaker 1: fan of getting my nutrients from food. You know, we've
Speaker 1: co evolved with our food, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the way. One of the major mistakes that many
Speaker 1: nutrition scientists make is that they try to break food
Speaker 1: apart into single nutrients. Michael Pollen called this nutritionism, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of compounds in foods that really work
Speaker 1: synergistically to boost our health. And so that's why even
Speaker 1: for vegans, when I say things like, you know, you
Speaker 1: should get more creatine, I'm more trying to promote the
Speaker 1: consumption of foods that contain creatine rather than the supplementation
Speaker 1: of creatine, because, for example, creatine just happens to be
Speaker 1: one of the nutrients that some research or somewhere was
Speaker 1: able to find the money to study. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I do so, but yeah, I do. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of taking a fish oil supplement.
Speaker 1: To a high quality fish oil supplement for vegans and vegetarians,
Speaker 1: algae oils is sufficient. I also supplement with vitamin D
Speaker 1: three on days that I'm not in the sun. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of vitamin K two. I don't always
Speaker 1: have access to the foods that contain high amounts of
Speaker 1: vitamin K two, and so you know, I'll usually supplement
Speaker 1: with that. I take a collagen protein supplement. Collagen contains
Speaker 1: amino acids that are relatively rare in the modern diet,
Speaker 1: and that seem to be important for a myriad of function.
Speaker 1: Do you take collagen? Nice? Oh, look at that collagen peptides. Wow, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm very good. I'm very impressed. Well, look, here's a
Speaker 1: little admission. I was diagnosed with celiac disease two years ago.
Speaker 1: Since like the last time we hung out, and so
Speaker 1: I've had I've completely changed my whole diet and exercise routine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, wow. I talk about that quite a bit
Speaker 1: in the book. I talk about autoimmunity, the gut brain axis.
Speaker 1: Coeliac disease seems to be this mediator of a broad
Speaker 1: range of autoimmune conditions that on the surface don't seem
Speaker 1: to have much in common with one another, but seem
Speaker 1: to be mediated by gut health. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about gut health. It's such a hot topic these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are various microbial signatures that researchers can study and
Speaker 1: relate to various phenotypes, you know, people that are these
Speaker 1: people that are tempty diabetic. But it's unclear at this
Speaker 1: point as too, if these microbial communities are influencing the
Speaker 1: health of the hoe or merely reflective of the health
Speaker 1: of the host. But nonetheless, it's a very exciting area
Speaker 1: of research. And the gut seems to play a major
Speaker 1: role in our predilection for autoimmune conditions, proper brain function
Speaker 1: and things like that. And this is actually, I think
Speaker 1: in part because the gut serves as the sort of
Speaker 1: boot camp for our bodies immune systems. I mean, most
Speaker 1: the vast majority of our immune systems are trained to
Speaker 1: focus on what's happening in the gut. So by keeping
Speaker 1: your gut healthy, by keeping a diverse gut bacterial community,
Speaker 1: by you know, eating a diverse array of dietary fibers,
Speaker 1: not using antibiotic drugs unless absolutely necessary, or if they
Speaker 1: are trying to go for narrow spectrum as opposed to
Speaker 1: broad spectrum, not taking PPI drugs for sid reflux. You know,
Speaker 1: things like that not being overly sterile, especially when bogun
Speaker 1: earlier in life, can really help to promote seem to
Speaker 1: be able to promote a better gut health piotic and
Speaker 1: again eating a diverse array of plant fibers can also help.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by being overly sterile? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean this is like the hygiene hypothesis, which basically
Speaker 1: argues that as we've become more sterile as a society,
Speaker 1: you know, we wash our produce to the point that there,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no bacteria on it. In fact, unattractive
Speaker 1: produce gets thrown out in supermarkets these days. We love
Speaker 1: to use things like hand sanitizers, we are rinsing with
Speaker 1: anti bacterial mouth washes, We you know, use antibacterial soaps.
Speaker 1: We've basically eliminated some of the more beneficial interactions that
Speaker 1: we might have had with bacteria that seem to have
Speaker 1: promoted a more for the majority of our of our evolution,
Speaker 1: a more robust immune system that today in a way
Speaker 1: has become sort of anemic because of because of the
Speaker 1: fact that we've become so sterile, and many of these
Speaker 1: more beneficial interactions have been essentially lost. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: to close the loop, the hygien hypothesis stipulates that this
Speaker 1: is why we're seeing such an such an increase in
Speaker 1: rates of autoimmunity, celiac disease and things like that. That
Speaker 1: is super interesting. So I'll try to get my OCD
Speaker 1: under control. Then my bigest thing. I mean, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a it's very interesting. I talk about it a little
Speaker 1: bit in the book, but it's you know, it's out
Speaker 1: there for anybody to research. It's a hypothesis. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll never know for sure, but I definitely think what
Speaker 1: that implies is that just being a little bit less
Speaker 1: sterile in your life, and it's a safe recommendation. It
Speaker 1: might help, can't hurt, and so cool, Thank you. Let's
Speaker 1: move on to sugar. Yeah, another hot topic. Now, I
Speaker 1: have protein, I have shakes. I have I put lots
Speaker 1: of fruit and fruit you know, in a blender. It's
Speaker 1: called a shake. I can't talk all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: but should I be worried concerned about that because that's
Speaker 1: a lot of sugar content or you're talking about processed sugar.
Speaker 1: I'd be more concerned if you re juicing the fruit,
Speaker 1: basically extracting the fiber from that fruit. I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan of eating an excessive amount of sweet fruit
Speaker 1: because our fruit today is cultivated to contain more sugar
Speaker 1: than ever before in human history. So for most people
Speaker 1: that are either diabetic or pre diabetic, eating a modern
Speaker 1: banana is the equivalent of sending off a glucose bomb
Speaker 1: into one system. So that's not you know, especially in
Speaker 1: today's world where people are more sedentary than ever before.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a good strategy for health. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, low sugar fruits are among the most
Speaker 1: nutrient dense, and these include cacao, avocado, coconuts, berries, things
Speaker 1: like that, And those are the only fruits that I recommend. Blueberries,
Speaker 1: you like blue blueberries? I love blueberries. Yeah. What about
Speaker 1: assails Asaii bowls? You know, I was in Brazil recently
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with a good asai e bowl.
Speaker 1: You got to say sem shut ope and sem azukar,
Speaker 1: which means no syrup, no sugar. If you're ever if
Speaker 1: you ever happen to find yourself in Brazil, you want
Speaker 1: to get an si e bowl because they add lots
Speaker 1: of sugar to their sae. Good good. Yeah, I'm going
Speaker 1: to remember that. Okay, heart, let's talk about the heart,
Speaker 1: healthy heart, healthy brain. This is a quote from Max Hugevier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: healthy heart, healthy brain. So what is the diet heart debacle?
Speaker 1: The diet heart debacle, oh man, So that began about
Speaker 1: fifty sixty years ago, now, when our nation was looking
Speaker 1: for a solution to what seemed to be an epidemic
Speaker 1: of heart disease. And the diet heart hypothesis basically states
Speaker 1: that cholesterol in and of itself causes heart disease, and
Speaker 1: that by having high cholesterol levels, you're putting yourself at
Speaker 1: risk for heart disease because cholesterol clogs your arteries. Saturated fat,
Speaker 1: because saturated fat raises levels of cholesterol in the blood,
Speaker 1: that also increases your risk for heart disease. But what
Speaker 1: the latest research really seems to Sugg is that cholesterol
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily a causative player in heart disease, but more
Speaker 1: sort of an innocent bystander there at the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime when heart attacks occur, but not the bad
Speaker 1: guy itself. Yeah. So, you know, for decades we were
Speaker 1: told not to eat dietary cholesterol, not to you know,
Speaker 1: to limit consumption. Yeah, which is I mean, cholesterol is
Speaker 1: no longer on the FDA's Nutrients of Concern lists for Americans. So,
Speaker 1: I mean it's been debunked for most people. You know,
Speaker 1: in biology, there are always exceptions to rule. Dietary cholesterol,
Speaker 1: you know, which is found in things like foods like
Speaker 1: eggs and shellfish, does not increase levels of blood cholesterol.
Speaker 1: In fact, your liver, on average, creates about four egg
Speaker 1: yolks worth of cholesterol daily, So most of the circulating
Speaker 1: cholesterol that you have in your body is created by
Speaker 1: your liver. Interesting, I didn't know it was that much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite a bit, because cholesterol is vital to the
Speaker 1: health of the brain and body. Without cholesterol, you would die.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's kind of strange that for so
Speaker 1: long we have demonized this important nutrient. So I don't
Speaker 1: need to freak out if I have, like I order
Speaker 1: some meals sometimes and it says one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: miligrams of cholesterol on the nutritional label, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to immediately freak out, right, No, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: you definitely there's no need to chase it as a nutrient.
Speaker 1: But you should feel free to eat cholesterol, Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: when it's found in foods like eggs. Which are by
Speaker 1: and large very very healthy. Cool. So what is the
Speaker 1: rise of the cycle biotic? What is that the rise
Speaker 1: of the psycho biotic. Well, it's essentially, you know, as
Speaker 1: we go further down the rabbit hole of the gut
Speaker 1: brain axis, it's become clear that gut bacteria can influence
Speaker 1: our thoughts and our mental states. We can't make any
Speaker 1: recommendations yet based on this insight, but it seems pretty
Speaker 1: clear that the gut communicates with the brain in a
Speaker 1: pretty profound way via the vegus mirth. And so so
Speaker 1: what I talk about is that in the future we
Speaker 1: might have probiotic cocktails to treat things like depression, anxiety,
Speaker 1: OCD and stuff like that. I mean, it's it's almost
Speaker 1: a given that we will eventually get to that point,
Speaker 1: but it's very premature and there's really nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: prescriptive that we can say about it today. But I
Speaker 1: just kind of talk about it in the book because
Speaker 1: I think it's very interesting. It's super interesting, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep my eye on that science for sure.
Speaker 1: You know. Lastly, I would like, you know, to talk
Speaker 1: about ways of optimizing stress sleep. Well, you don't optimize stress,
Speaker 1: you want to reducing stress, optimizing sleep, and getting the
Speaker 1: most out of your exercise. You know, the kind of
Speaker 1: the things that really interact with diet. Yeah, definitely. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: stress you bring up. I mean, it's an important distinction
Speaker 1: that there are two kinds of stress. One is the
Speaker 1: sort of you know, chronic psychological stress that we're seeing
Speaker 1: so many people coping with today, and that's bad. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of stress that you experience when you're stuck
Speaker 1: in a job that you don't lie, you're in a
Speaker 1: relationship that's gone sour, the military duty, medical school. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are all things that are extremely stressful PhD student stuff.
Speaker 1: But actually the brain benefits from acute bouts of intermittent stress.
Speaker 1: So when we go to a gym and we have
Speaker 1: a good workout, those workouts are beneficial in part because
Speaker 1: they're stressors on the body. And so in the book,
Speaker 1: actually I talk about the various types of stress that
Speaker 1: you actually should have more of in your life, everything
Speaker 1: from thermal stress to the physical stress that you endure
Speaker 1: when you do high intensity exercise. This seems to have
Speaker 1: a number of wide ranging benefits on the body, everything
Speaker 1: from promoting metabolic health to burning more calories to increasing
Speaker 1: insulin sensitivity, which is very important for your overall metabolic health.
Speaker 1: When it comes to sleep, sleep is also a very
Speaker 1: important part of the equation because it's now been demonstrated
Speaker 1: that when we sleep, our brains clear themselves of toxic
Speaker 1: proteins that build up over the course of the day.
Speaker 1: This is a newly discovered system called glymphatic system that
Speaker 1: when we sleep switches on and basically swooshes cerebrospinal fluid
Speaker 1: around our brains to clear out amyloid precursor protein, which
Speaker 1: is what it's the protein that aggregates and misfolds and
Speaker 1: clumps and forms the plaques that characterize Alzheimer's disease. So
Speaker 1: by sleeping more and also sleeping better seems to you know,
Speaker 1: one of the more important recommendations when it comes to
Speaker 1: brain health. And it's been shown actually that even low
Speaker 1: so when I talk about optimizing sleep, we want to
Speaker 1: sleep in a room that's cooler. The body likes to
Speaker 1: sleep in cooler temperatures, the body temperature. Body temperature actually
Speaker 1: drops when we sleep and begins to raise when we're
Speaker 1: about to wake. And also even low level light seems
Speaker 1: to be to the detriment of our cognitive function. And
Speaker 1: a recent study was just published showing a pretty strong
Speaker 1: association in older adults between exposure to very low level
Speaker 1: light like even can't like you know, the amount of
Speaker 1: light that would be produced by a candle, and depression.
Speaker 1: So we're meant to sleep in the dark, and I
Speaker 1: think today with our smartphones being by our beds, alarm
Speaker 1: clocks and are just overexposure to blue light at night
Speaker 1: really seems to influence our cognition. I'm also a big
Speaker 1: fan of wearing blue light blocking glasses before bed because
Speaker 1: again just going back to blue light that seems to
Speaker 1: send a signal to our brains that is daytime which
Speaker 1: might interfere or which actually does interfere with the brains
Speaker 1: winding down. Well, if people go to my website and
Speaker 1: join my newsletter, one of the first things that I
Speaker 1: give you in the welcoming newsletter is a link to
Speaker 1: the blue light blocking glasses that I wear. They're very helpful.
Speaker 1: They're actually one of the top sleep packs that I've
Speaker 1: discovered just in terms of improving the way that I sleep,
Speaker 1: in the way that I feel the next morning cool.
Speaker 1: So do you start that like an hour before we
Speaker 1: go to bed, when does your winding down routine start?
Speaker 1: I try two to three hours before I go to bed,
Speaker 1: when I want to watch TV, or if I'm at
Speaker 1: my computer doing work. Cool last question, I found it
Speaker 1: fascinating you said that you like to view Alzheimer's as
Speaker 1: a metabolic disorder in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody knows what causes Alzheimer's disease, but there
Speaker 1: are a few prevailing hypotheses. But the central guiding hypothesis
Speaker 1: over the past couple of decades was called the amyloid hypothesis.
Speaker 1: And this is because for a long time, the only
Speaker 1: way that Alzheimer's disease could be diagnosed was on death.
Speaker 1: They would open up the brain of a dementia sufferer
Speaker 1: and notice the plaques that aggregate and cause Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker 1: So it was believed that these plaques almost like cholesterol
Speaker 1: actually very similar story, was the causative force in the disease.
Speaker 1: But actually, now with new scanning technologies, we can, and
Speaker 1: especially in an effort to try to come to some
Speaker 1: sort of consensus as to how we might prevent the disease,
Speaker 1: researchers have been looking at earlier developments in the cascade
Speaker 1: that ultimately will lead to Alzheimer's disease. And it seems
Speaker 1: that from very early on, the first measurable feature that
Speaker 1: we can see in the brains of people that are
Speaker 1: at risk for Alzheimer's disease is an impairedive ability to
Speaker 1: create atp out of glucose in the brain. So what
Speaker 1: this suggests, I think pretty strongly, is that Alzheimer's disease
Speaker 1: might actually begin as a metabolic problem in the brain.
Speaker 1: And metabolism is essentially the cell's ability to create energy
Speaker 1: out of raw materials. And so yeah, and so that's
Speaker 1: why some researchers have actually begun calling Alzheimer's disease type
Speaker 1: three diabetes. And this is all that's clever. Clever, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very clever, but also scary, but also empowering because yeah,
Speaker 1: but also very empowering because you know, type two diabetes,
Speaker 1: which we're seeing skyrocket in you know, in the Western world,
Speaker 1: is essentially a lifestyle disease brought about by a myriad
Speaker 1: of factors. But what this suggests is that we might
Speaker 1: have agency when it comes to preventing Alzheimer's disease through
Speaker 1: that lens yeah, so I go into detail on this
Speaker 1: in the book, but essentially what it is, you know,
Speaker 1: is about really facilitating metabolic health in the body, which
Speaker 1: is related to brain metabolism. And you know, all of
Speaker 1: the many ways that you can do that from eating
Speaker 1: healthier fats, cutting out the unhealthy fats, eating a lower
Speaker 1: carbohydrate diet, reducing consumption of processed foods, destressing, exercising more.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are all the ways that we can
Speaker 1: really promote metabolic health in the body, which is strongly
Speaker 1: related to the brain's metabolic health as well. Cool man, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for chatting with me today, Max, I
Speaker 1: don't know was there anything else you wanted to cover today,
Speaker 1: just that you know, you're the man, and I'm super
Speaker 1: excited to have gotten to chat with you and I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And oh and also that you know, in
Speaker 1: many ways my journey was kicked off by you and
Speaker 1: you got me that Psychology Today blog. How's that doing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't really blog on there very often, but it
Speaker 1: was a really great platform for me very early on
Speaker 1: to get to interview some of the researchers that I
Speaker 1: was interested in reaching out to over the course of
Speaker 1: my you know, my journey and my research in writing
Speaker 1: this book. Good I'm so quite here that well. It's
Speaker 1: a phenomenal book and you deserve the successes that come
Speaker 1: to you. So good luck. Thank you so much. As
Speaker 1: now now the media blitz starts, right I got in early,
Speaker 1: early adopter, but yeah, good luck Max, and thanks again
Speaker 1: for being on the show. Thanks so much. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: If you like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. Also, please add a rating and review of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast on iTunes. Thanks for being such a
Speaker 1: great supporter of the podcast, and tune in next time
Speaker 1: for more on the mind of brain, behavior and creativity.