WEBVTT - Is the Free Radical Theory of Aging Wrong? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.120 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.960 and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and we're all looking 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.680 vibrant and healthy and just so alive and sexy. And 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.920 that makes the stuff you should know. Jerry's coat is shining, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.120 it is. She's got that high pro glow, high pro glow. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.400 Do you remember that? I do? Uh? And you know 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:37.280 we give our dogs the um this salmon juice that 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.400 comes in a squirt bottle. Whoa, it's like, you know, 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.280 like salmon skin oil, and that makes their coat shiny 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.159 and it smells like salmon skin, which I love. That's cool. Uh. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.040 You me straight up cooks salmon with the skin on 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.520 for momo, Like that's what she has has cooked food 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.040 for dinners. Yeah, I mean I love salmon skin. It's 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.880 the best thing ever. It's so good. I just love 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.320 love um like raw salmon. Chuck, I like that too, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:11.080 Like it's smoked too. Sure, sure what else? Injectable salmon? 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.200 Stick it in my neck? You go. You end up 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.560 with kind of like a requiem for a dream thing 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.920 going on. That's right. Uh, But you know this all 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.800 dovetails and antioxidants. I think it does because I think 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.880 if you eat a lot of raw salmon, especially good stuff, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.520 you know, nothing grown in a toxic sewage dump, you're 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.320 gonna live a really, really long time. And we've known 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.160 it for a very long time that if you eat 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:43.520 healthy food, you're probably going to age a lot better 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.400 or a lot more. You're going to stay a lot 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.960 healthier as you age than say you would if you 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:50.760 just ate chunk for the whole time. It seems like 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.760 a no brainer. But along the way, a lot of 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.880 people have stopped to ask exactly why that might be. UM, 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.280 and we should say shout out to our book UM, 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.880 which has an entire chapter, chapter eight, on aging. It's 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.920 called Aging Colon Do We Gotta? And it's a pretty 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.360 good one if I do say so. I think the 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.960 first line of that chapter says, avoid sewer salmon. That's 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.200 precisely right. I mean, that's just some of the best 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.600 advice anyone could ever give anybody. It's a T shirt. 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.000 So UM. A lot of people, like I was saying, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.520 have stopped and asked, like why, why, you know, why 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.720 would food help you? And obviously we need food for fuel, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.080 But it turns out that, especially in the nineties, a 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.919 lot of food kind of hit the scene. Well, the 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.040 food was already there, but they were promoted a different 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:43.040 way thanks to some some recent findings that decided that 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.640 food that are high in antioxidants um would help you 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.639 age a lot better, possibly prolong your life, and prevent 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.720 certain kinds of age related diseases, everything from cancer to 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.600 neuro degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, just from meeting the foods 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.120 you ate, and it all seemed to have something to 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.800 do with those antioxidants, and that concept took off like 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.040 our rocket, and it's still around today. Actually. Yeah, and 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.120 this is when listeners are saying, oh God, are Josh 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.280 and Chuck gonna tell us now that science says antioxidants 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.960 aren't good too? And we well, let's just hang on 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.200 to that. You'll find out by the end of the episode. Yeah, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.720 that's the people to stick around. That's the big reveal. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.560 Let's give him some mcguffin's chuck. Uh. Yeah. Well, the 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.880 point of the whole intro here, though, is that it 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.640 was a big marketing blitz. Everything from blueberries to kale. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.680 I mean, good lord, we had kale rammed down our throat, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:47.400 like figuratively and literally for the past decade plus, um vitamins, 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.800 multi vitamins, vitamin E, vitamin C, beta caroteen, just all 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.280 of these superfoods, green tea of course, which we talked about. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.000 And we're not saying these things aren't good for you. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.720 These are all great, great things to eat, um, but 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.480 they were being touted as being high in antioxidants and 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.920 it will help you age and it will help you 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.880 combat something that everyone just heard the words free radicals 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.400 and and consumer said, well, I don't like the sound 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.840 of those. Yeah, exact, let's let's let's kill them even 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.479 though we don't understand them. Someone literally shoved kale down 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.240 your throat once. Yeah, you've never gone to that restaurant. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:33.280 No kale shove kaloe me crazy? That explains a lot, yea, 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.160 it's I mean, kale's fine, but kale chips. Don't eat 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:37.520 more than like ten of them or you'll get sick 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.120 to your stomach. Yeah, what mean? So um, the you 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.120 hit upon this whole point. It's it's not so much 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.080 that antioxidants are good for you, it's that free radicals 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.160 are bad for you. That was the premise of this 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.080 whole thing in the nineties. And this idea of free 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.400 radicals is rooted in some really deep science and and 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.640 had a lot of scientific backing for really long time. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.520 And I guess to kind of to get a little 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:11.200 bit of this out there, like science way overshot itself. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.400 There was a really good, sensible hypothesis, and the scientific 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.440 community ran with it, and then they started doing studies. 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.600 And it wasn't entirely just the scientific community. Um, it 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.640 was largely those same marketers who were making money off 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.920 these super foods, you know that they could slap a 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.599 label on there. Now. It just got overhyped before before 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.160 the data was fully in. And my for my money though, 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.880 like once the data started coming in, it got even 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.159 more interesting. But let's just go back to the beginning 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.680 of all this, because like I was saying, free radicals 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.080 formed the basis for this whole thing, And there's this 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.960 whole idea that it's called the free radical theory of aging. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.400 And it turns out that the guy who came up 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.520 with this was an m d. But he became and 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.320 he became interested in all of this when he was 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.920 a biochemist working for Shell Oil, developing things like pesticide strips. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.560 The no pest strip, very famous kind of pesticide strip 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.159 of the United States, was developed by this guy named 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.920 Dr denhim harmon Um back in the fifties. And also 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.400 in the fifties he came up with that free radical 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.320 theory of aging. Yeah, so he was working at Shell 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.480 and one of the things that he was doing at 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:27.400 the time was working on chemical additives. That would you know, 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.600 they found out that sulfur and phosphorus were getting spoiled. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.960 These compounds were breaking down in the oil and they 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:39.320 were really degrading over time because of free radical chain reactions. 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.159 And they learned back then, and this is pretty amazing 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.760 for the midnighteteen fifties, uh, that there was something called 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.040 uh free radicals, these reactive particles that would take electrons 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.240 from other atoms, and then those atoms would then say, well, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.520 wait a minute, I'm on, I'm out of whack. Now 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.159 I want to steal some electrons to get back in 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.560 balance again. So it started this chain reaction where each 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.520 neighbor was getting their electrons stolen, and then the case 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.560 of oil, this sulfur and phosphorus would just continue to 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.240 break down until it was just gross. It was basically worthless. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.680 So he's studying this stuff. He reads an article in 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.240 the Ladies Home Journal called Tomorrow you May be Younger, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.800 and he was like, wait a minute, and he was like, 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.000 I'm studying these free radicals. It's breaking down oil. We 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.280 have cells in our body. Uh. We know that that 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.040 the atomic bomb and X rays and all that kind 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.559 of radiation really increases the free radicals in your body. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.960 And you should see somebody after an atomic bomb. And 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.280 he put two and two together and he was like, 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.800 this is it. This is why we're aging. It's all 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.880 because these free radicals. Yeah, that the damage that they 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.680 do builds up over time, and once you reach a 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.440 certain point, that's your expiration date. But then along the way, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.560 your systems start breaking down before the first cat astrophic 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.760 one fails completely, say like your heart giving out, and 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.920 that is aging. Everything from you know, loose saggy skin, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.720 to um a build up of plaque in your in 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.960 your arteries, or your hardening of your arteries. That all 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.880 of this is an accumulation of the damage done by 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.720 these free radicals, which are again just simply a particle 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.400 that has an unpaired electron. So it can take someone 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.520 else's electron or can donate that electron. But either way, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.520 it makes things that are normally stable, like the lining 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.760 of cells that gives cells their structure, unstable, and bad 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.840 things can happen to that. So doctor dr um Harmon 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.440 basically figured out that he had he had stumbled upon 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.880 the reason that we age and die, and when you 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.600 do something like that, you can take steps to mitigate it. 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.040 And this kicked off at the very beginning, the free 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.520 radical theory of aging. That took a few decades for 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:00.360 people to pick up on it, though, and like an 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.120 immediate thing that took off. Huh yeah, he was like, 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.840 I'm gonna get so rich on this right. Eventually he 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.880 kept checking his watch. Uh so, maybe we should go 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.439 do a little biology class primer for everyone to make 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.480 it a little more understandable. It's really kind of simple stuff. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.960 But if you remember back in biology class, you probably 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:24.199 remember learning about the Crebs cycle capital K R, E, B, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.719 S and S salbot. Geez. Here we go cellular respiration. 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.640 And the whole thing with respiration in the cells is 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.960 the whole point is to turn glucose into energy. And 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.080 that's pretty easy. We all understand that. Uh, we turn 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.640 that sugar into working energy for the body. It's our 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.280 metabolism at work, and this CREB cycle is that metabolic 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.120 process of doing so, of turning those glucose molecules into 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:56.280 something called a DNA scene triphosphate a t P, which 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.760 is like the fuel for the cells. Um. The thing 0:09:59.880 --> 0:10:02.960 is is during this CRIB cycle, one of the one 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.640 of the by products or one of the products of it, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.920 I guess, is free radicals, which is put a pin 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.680 in that because that's important. Your body when it under 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:18.000 undertakes its most important process, which is cellular respiration, UM, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:22.600 it produces free radicals. Right. The problem is, UM, while 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.280 some of these free radicals are put to use UM, 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.720 others just kind of get away. They escape and they 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.479 start wandering around the body. And when they get away 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.960 and they're outside of the context that they're they're I 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.839 guess meant to be used for, that's when they start 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.240 to do some real damage. Yeah, that's when they go 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.120 to other molecules like oxygen and say, hey, let me 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.280 in oxygen. An oxygen is like sure, you know, I'm 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.080 down to party, And all of a sudden you have 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.199 an oxygen molecule that has an extra electron that's unpaired. 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.920 It's called the superoxide. That's it's like it would be awesome. Yeah, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.240 like superoxide sounds like a positive word, but it's not. 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.319 It's like it would get your clothes just so so white, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.559 you know, that's right. Uh, And there are other superoxides. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.360 Hydrogen peroxide is one, and these are all collectively known 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:21.920 as reactive oxygen species because they're they're reacting, they're destabilized, 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.160 and like we said before, there they want to be 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.520 whole again and they want to be stable, so they 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.360 just start robbing electrons from their neighbor, and again you 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.000 have the same chain reaction, and that's basically free radicals 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.640 at work in the body, right, and so like just 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.120 to kind of put this, uh, give a human face 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:43.880 to this whole thing, if you have a reactive oxygen species, 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.200 they respond indiscriminately to whatever cell they come up against. 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.679 It doesn't matter to them. There's not one particular type 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.120 that that they like to take um electrons from or 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.520 donate electrons to. They'll destabilize whatever. And so if they 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:03.320 come across something like fatty acid molecule that helps create 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.040 structure for a cell um over time, if it sets 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.640 off a chain reaction. It can weaken that cell, and 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.000 when the cell wall is weak, the permeability is affected, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.240 which means that all sorts of functions within the cell 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.440 can be impacted. In the cell can not only no 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.480 longer function and maybe decay and die, but it might 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.280 also produce some bad jams before it dies and screw 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.280 things up. So the proteins that it's meant to do 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.320 are still kind of trying to carry out their function, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.400 but they're not doing it correctly, and so maybe they misfold, 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.080 and then you've got a whole other set of problems 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.679 on your hands. It's just a it's a it's not 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.720 good when a free radical, especially a reactive oxygen species, 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.640 gets loose. The problem is is they get loose like constantly, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.960 there's a constant barrage of free radicals going through your body. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.559 And Chuck it has to say after researching this, During 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.719 researching this, I now can can feel them. I can 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.000 hear them reacting throughout my body. And I didn't sleep 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.559 at all last night and I probably will never sleep again. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:07.920 All right, Well, let's uh, I think we should take 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:09.440 a break. I'm gonna calm you down a little bit. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.280 That was a nice primer, and I need to plug 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.199 in my laptop, so it's a perfect time to take 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:49.000 a bauz learn stuff with Joshua. Alright, so we're back 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.839 and Chuck. I am ashamed that we did not give 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.679 a huge shout out to Dave Ruse for helping us 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.280 out with this one fine example of the Rusee work, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.760 because I mean, he did a great job. Um didn't 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.280 even so I could understand it. There was only one 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.480 part that I needed to go to a kids science website, 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.720 and it was for the Creb cycle. And I didn't 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:17.040 learn anything that I didn't already know. Uh from that data. 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.360 Did you remember the crib cycle from elementary school and 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.280 high school? Yeah? I didn't learn much about it, but 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.880 I'm always reminded of um The Adventures of Pete and 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.560 Pete because there was a company that had crib in 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.720 the name, and it always, for some reason, I always 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.040 associate the creb cycle with Pete and Pete. And it 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.600 would not be elementary school, though probably high school. No, 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.800 I don't know. I could see it in late elementaries. Yeah, middle, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.560 let's go with middle. I didn't go to middle school, though. 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.680 You skipped right over boy genius no, we just didn't 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.680 have it. Then. It was one through seven, eight through 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.120 twelve until oh yeah, you went to that experimental school. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.720 But experimental, they just they introduced middle school kind of 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.840 in the middle of my high school. So yeah, I 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:03.840 have to say, though, when you put together all of 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.600 your anecdotes from school, it sounds a lot like an 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.280 experimental school that you went to. They just didn't tell 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.320 you that. I think I had said this before. The 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.960 result of that was I was the My class was 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.680 the youngest class in the school in the eighth, ninth, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.560 and tenth grade. There was nobody below us because they 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.680 kept peeling off grades to go to the middle school 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.960 right behind us. Oh that's that's interesting. Wow. So they 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.640 really carved out the middle there. Huh. Literally, they carved 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.080 out middle school and finally, by the time I was 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.120 a junior, there was a sophomore class behind me, and 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.880 we beat them up so hard. Yeah, I'll bet, because 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.680 you were all really just a class of super warrior 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.440 sleeper assassin. Yeah, super bullies, and we just couldn't wait 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.440 to beat up kids younger than us. Not true, that's 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.080 a very serious thing. By the way, of course, I've 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.720 never beat anybody you're talking like a guy who grew 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.680 up in the eighties, not a person of the ties. Chuck, 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:02.000 that's right. Uh, oh, we're at antioxidants. This is where 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.120 antioxidants come into play. The wonder thing. Yeah, because it 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.359 would make sense that if your body is producing billions 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.320 and billions of free radicals every second that are getting 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.760 loose and wreaking havoc, it would have some way to 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.800 alleviate this. And as you just said, antioxidants, yeah, like 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.360 the body has these. The body produces these on their own. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.560 You don't have to eat I mean, blueberries are great. 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.600 You should eat blueberries and kale, but you don't have 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.960 to eat that stuff to get them. They just supply 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.120 you with extra We produced two main ones, uric acid 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.400 and glutath ione, and they don't actually wipe out free radicals, 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.840 but they neutralize free radicals. Because earlier you said you 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.720 can uh, you can take and you can actually give 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.840 an electron. And that's what these antioxidants do is they 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:50.720 they walk up and they're like, hey, hey, hey man, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.120 chill out. You don't need to go stealing electrons. Have 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.840 one of mine. It's like a hippie putting a daisy 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.080 in the barrel of a rifle held by national guards, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:06.199 you know, totally so, so that would be oxidative. The 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.600 other thing, taking an unpared electron, that's reductive. So the 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.680 whole process, that whole concept of a free radical being 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.640 able to do that is called redox, reductive oxidative. If 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.840 it just you know, if you want to like score 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.080 some points at your next biochem party, throw redox out there. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.600 By the way, that refu made was very ironic now 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.639 that they think about it, which the hippie one, because 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.080 the hippie would not want to neutralize the free radical. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:41.880 They are free radicals. Oh man, melted the membrane. I'm 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:43.919 like that. I feel like the guy on the poster 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.239 that says stoned again, you know what I mean, just 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:54.080 melted under the table. Uh So, like I said, vitamin's good, superfoods, 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.880 all these things can really help out our own antioxidant 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.920 production in our body and help protect you know, every 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.240 all these proteins and lipids and DNA and RNA basically 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.560 putting those daisies and all those rifles as fast as 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.520 they can, right exactly. So it is a good thing. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.160 It is beneficial when you eat those blueberries or eat 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.399 or ing a pure cocoa. Um. However you ingest it, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.320 uh like it does have that effect because you're introducing 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.320 these antioxidants to your body, and there are health benefits 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.080 to it. The thing is is you can eat blueberries 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.480 till you yourself are blue, like the poor girl from UM. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.160 We just watched that. Yeah, it's which one the new 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.560 one or the old one? No, Like a few days ago, 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.520 we introduced my daughter to the Gene Wilder version, and 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:46.479 I gotta say he's great, but the movie is not 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.280 very good. Oh really, I really, I don't know, man, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:51.840 I'm gonna take heap for this, but it's kind of 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.800 a garbage movie except for Gene Wilder. I don't wow. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.560 Go when was the last time you saw it? Like 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.960 within the last year too? You know you might like it. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.040 I'm not yuking your um. I just I didn't. I 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.399 thought it did not age well. I appreciate you not 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.240 yucky my um. Thank you. I have to say I've 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.440 actually somewhat come around on the remake. The first time 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.080 I saw it, I broke the TV. I thought was 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.480 so disappointed with it. But it's um, it actually has 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.240 somehow gotten slightly better. I'm not sure it changed somehow 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.520 or I did. I'm I'm assuming it changed. I'll have 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.919 to check it out. Yeah, I just don't hold me 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:30.160 to it if you don't like it, because I will 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.200 not be at all surprised. But anyway, you can eat 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:39.080 blueberries till you become uh bianca blueberry I think, yeah, 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.399 one of those two um, and you're probably not going 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.879 to neutralize all those free radicals in your body. And 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:51.160 so when an imbalance occurs between the number of free 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.560 radicals floating around causing havoc and the number of um 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:01.320 of antioccidents coming in and neutralizing them, you have what's 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.040 called oxidative stress And again this is what Dr Harmon 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.480 hypothesized was the basis for aging, that over time, all 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.760 this oxidative stress um is no longer able to be repaired. 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.400 There's just too many, too much damage to your systems 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.240 over time, and then slowly but surely, the clock starts 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.800 to wind down and you fall over in the middle 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:27.119 of the grocery store, ironically buying blueberries. Yeah. So Harmon 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.520 publishes a paper in nineteen fifty six called aging a 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:35.160 colon a theory based on free radical and radiation chemistry. 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:37.000 And this is where he kind of lays it all 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.560 out there and this this idea that he that he 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.520 hit upon, and he said, you know what we gotta do. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.600 We gotta ingest more of these antioxidants. He said, I've 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.080 done some studies on some mice. He said, they got 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.760 a little moderate dose of antioxidants and they live longer. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.760 So that proves everything right. And it didn't, you know, 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:57.680 it was nineteen fifty six. It wasn't like I think 0:20:57.680 --> 0:20:59.920 you mentioned earlier. It wasn't didn't make the biggest spl 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.080 ash at first. It actually took weirdly. It kind of 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.639 took decades. Are not weirdly. I guess it sort of 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.359 makes sense. When the electron microscope or the electron scanner 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.280 was introduced in the eighties, they could actually see this 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.800 stuff happening and they said, wait a minute, these free 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.239 radicals are stealing electrons. They're bad, and these antioxidants are 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.200 sticking daisies in their rifles and that's good. And so 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.520 it got a little more traction. And then in the 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.520 nineties they did a very big study that said, hey, 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:32.879 if you're eating, if you're not eating a bunch of 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.920 fruits and vegetables and you're not getting those vitamin C 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.600 and E, you have a higher risk of getting cancer, 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.639 memory loss, bone breakage, sagging skin, like just aging in 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:47.000 all the wrong ways exactly. And so the implication was, well, 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.399 then take as much vitamin C and vitamin ese you 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.920 can possibly back into your And as a matter of fact, 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.879 Dr Harmon Um, who seems to have been a pretty 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.760 good guy from all accounts that I came across, Yeah, 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.200 he took a lot of vitamin C and E every day. 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.399 I mean hundreds of hundreds of times the recommended daily allowance, 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.240 which in and of itself is kind of in an 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.639 issue worth discussing um in its own thing. But um, 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.200 he also jogged two miles a day, which, as we'll see, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.200 is very important. UM. And he lived at age and 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.639 apparently he said, uh, at some point it's important that 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.080 you accept if you're that you're going to die. We're 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:28.280 all going to die, but if you work at it 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.560 a little bit, you might just make it to a hundred. 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.080 And he came awfully close. So a lot of people 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.359 made a lot of UM, a lot of hey about 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.200 the fact that you know, he took a lot of 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.040 vitamin C and E every day and he's still you know, 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.719 he almost made it to a hundred UM and he 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.240 was he was very much alive. I mean this was 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.639 he died in two thousand fourteen. So when this really 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:53.200 finally hit in the nineties and everybody was like, this 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.120 is it. This is absolutely we have aging figured out 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.080 and we now know what to do with it or 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.240 do about it. Um, he would around to be kind 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.760 of fetted. And he was, I believe, nominated for the 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.280 Nobel Prize six times. He never won, but just being 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.959 nominated once, I mean I would love that. I'm not 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.120 saying that anybody should go out and do that necessarily, 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:17.960 but if you if you did, I would just think 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.560 it was great. Six times. I can't even imagine. Well, 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:23.840 I think after if they ever created a Nobel Prize 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:29.840