52 Minutes of Health Advice You’ll Actually Use

Hey, welcome back. This is the last Q&A of the year. Let's start. First question is, is there a level of sports performance or training that you view as unhealthy? Can a longevity compatible training allow you to reach elite levels of sports performance? So, anything any sports at a professional level, I think can be unhealthy. So, you know, let's say chess or some esports or something that is not physical. I think at the elite level, you do have to sacrifice your health to a certain aspect. you know, maybe not your physical health, even just mental health, emotional health, um physical health, they can all suffer at the elite level. Uh but when it comes to physical sports specifically, then absolutely. So, let's say elite soccer players, although they are super fit, you know, they can still suffer from some chronic health conditions later down the line. Uh bodybuilding is a very good example of that. you're in elite, let's say, physical health or physical fitness, at least like sports strength performance. But, uh, bodybuilders die quite often. Obviously, that's because of abusing uh like these uh performance-enhancing drugs. But that just kind of proves the point that at the elite level, you have to do things that damage your health. Whether that be taking performance-enhancing drugs, whether that be just spending hours and hours at the gym or hours and hours training, sacrificing your sleep, abusing caffeine, abusing other kind of things that are damaging your to your health. So yes, absolutely elite sports is definitely harmful at at the most elite level. But interestingly, a lot of the studies on Olympic athletes or elite athletes do suggest that they tend to live slightly longer than the general population. So even though elite sports theoretically is harmful to your health, it doesn't really pan out in the real world or at least let's say maybe maybe the top 0.1% and top 1% of the elite athletes might sacrifice their health to a certain extent. But uh if you're more like a middle tier Olympic athlete or that you're you know super fit but you're not absolutely sacrificing everything to win the gold medal maybe in that scenario you are you're still gaining a lot of health benefits. Now personally I didn't think that um you know as um regular person like me or you or someone else watching this most people watching this they can absolutely get very fit and it's not going to harm their health. let's say a V2 max of 50 that's achievable by everyone pretty much even people in their 60s they can have a V2 max of 50 and people with a V2 max of 50 have have been seen to have uh a four-fold or 300% lower mortality risk compared to people with a much lower V2 max that's close to the disability threshold. So just because some elite athletes might die sooner at, you know, at the top absolute peak fitness, I don't think it should be an excuse for people to just not exercise at all. And it's more likely the case that exercising a bit more will be more beneficial for you than harmful. Of course, you and I, everyone watching this, isn't going to reach elite levels of sports anyway, or at least that's not our goal. you know, we have these uh other lifestyle factors that prevent us from reaching true elite fitness. You know, we don't have the time, we don't have the uh coaching, we don't have the finances or whatever the case may be, the opportunities to become super elite sports athletes. So, uh there's a like a self-limiting factor already in in our lifestyle that prevents us from reaching this super elite fitness where it might become harmful and we we will more likely just uh downregulate our training before we reach that super elite level of uh fitness. If that answers your question. So for you and I, I think generally being more fit will be better for us and it's very unlikely that we will actually reach true elite level of sports performance uh for compared to the actual athletes who spend 6 7 8 hours a day on on their sport. Next question. Let's say the theory is true that certain higher presence of amino acids do age you found in high amounts of meats like mtor and methane. How much could they take off your lifespan? Is it 1, two, five, or 10 years? So, that's a pretty loaded question. I guess the question is, you know, even if it were to be true that a higher protein intake or higher amounts of specific amino acids like leucine and methanine, even if it were to be true that they do shorten your lifespan, how much is it? And uh can you make up for it with other lifestyle factors? So based on animal research, protein restriction does extend lifespan. Specifically, restriction of leucine and methanine which are the most proteogenic amino acids meaning that they help to build muscle the most. They stimulate mtor growth pathway in the in the body the most. So uh and in animal research these are the key amino acids that are responsible for the life extension seen in protein restriction. Obviously in humans it's a lot more complicated than that. Uh first of all, mice and these other model organisms, they're not living in the free world. They're pretty much living in very isolated environments where they're safe from falls, they're safe from bacteria, they're safe from other things that could uh kill them. And uh the reason is that because you just want to control for the environment to see if it's the protein restriction or some not something else that actually ends up killing them or shortening the lifespan. So in the for humans, it's a different story. We live in a free world, you know, we we are exposed to a lot of different pathogens. If we're not eating enough protein, we're malnourished, we might die to these pathogens instead. So, it's a trade-off. And the same way with frailty, if we're eating a low protein diet, then uh we are at a higher risk of dying to hip fractures and falls. So just because uh protein restriction extends lifespan in mice or some other model organisms it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the case in humans. Now personally I do think that just eating un in enormous amounts of protein especially enor enormous amounts of protein that has leucine and methanine is you know first of all it's not needed. Why would you eat something in insane amounts if it's not going to have any additional health benefits? We know from random control trials that um you know 1.6 g per kilogram, maybe up to 2 g per kilogram of protein per body weight is pretty much all you is pretty much all you need to maximize muscle growth. So eating more than that isn't needed. Now, of course, 1.6 6 g per kilogram is considered still a high protein diet compared to what the um general dietary guidelines recommend. But that's the upper limit. That's the upper limit. If you eat less than that, you build slightly less muscle, but it's not like you couldn't build muscle or that you immediately become sarcopenic and frail. So even if you eat slightly less, you can still easily build muscle. You can still avoid sarcopenia and osteopenia. So there's no downside to eating slightly less. There's also no upside to eating more. So, it's just a common sense question in my qu in my opinion that you know why would you just if there is a potential risk why take the risk? Why take the risk of eating 2.5 grams per kilogram of protein per day like a lot of bodybuilders do or some other uh other diets would end up you doing. So I would much rather yeah lean on the on the side of caution reduce the protein to what would would be the maximal benefit. So 1.6 g per kilogram I think is the upper threshold for most people. And uh anything below that let's say 1.2 to 1.4 1.5 g per kilogram is already going to be a pretty good amount as well. You can easily build muscle with that with uh no issues. you're just you're maybe not maximizing all the benefits. Now, moving on from beyond that, you can also make up for some of the higher amounts of methylene and leucine intake by ensuring that you have adequate gly glycine. So, glycine is another amino acid and u in these my most studies they do find that glycine counteracts some of the high methane intake. So, if someone is eating a high protein diet, they're eating a lot of muscle meat or something else that has more methane and leucine, then increasing your glycine intake appears to make up for some of uh that for uh for life extension in in mice at least. And glycine has a lot of other health benefits. Helps with blood sugar, helps with advanced glycation end products. It helps lower homocyine and uh it also helps with visceral fat which uh can result from excessive methane intake. So methan restriction improves insulin sensitivity and it also improves visceral fat loss but glycine could also have glycine could be like the missing link missing link in that. So personally you know I think yeah to answer your question directly then uh is eating this very high methane high protein diet going to extra shorten your lifespan and how much would it be? Now personally I would say that if you eat something like over 2.2 g per kilogram something like 2.5 g per kilogram then possibly you could shorten your lifespan. That's just theoretical. I'm just basing it off of the animal studies and um what I personally would think. Uh there's no there's no evidence really like no hard evidence to suggest that a high protein intake would shorten lifespan in humans that much. But at least based on some of the studies out there, you could I I would suggest that maybe a few years is not going to be like decades shorter. But on the other hand, you know, it depends a lot on your environment. depends on um you know if you're living in an environment with uh where being more physically where robust is important where you being more having a stronger immune system is more important than in that environment having a slightly higher protein intake might be better and age is also quite uh relevant. So lower protein diets in younger people, so younger than 65, aren't really associated with uh shorter life expectancy and increased mortality. But in people who are older, over 65, these uh lower protein diets are associated with higher mortality. So if you're over 65, then a higher protein diet is more beneficial. If you're younger than 65, then it appears that you can get away with a lower protein diet. Maybe Maybe in this stage of life, it would be better to lean more towards the lower end. Not like a low protein diet, but not eating an insane amount of protein. Younger than 65, I think it would make sense. Over the 65, over the age of 65, um, it's safer to be eating a slightly higher protein diet, but again, not eating an enormous amount of a protein, just just a maximal amount for muscle hypertrophy. So 1.6 six grams or kilogram I think is is the optimal intake the up the absolute upper limit for most people. I want to take a quick break to let you know about my favorite wellness devices which are the bone charge red light therapy devices. You've probably seen many of your favorite longevity influencers using these red light therapy devices. But do they actually work? Yes, they do. Red light therapy has been shown to have many benefits on skin anti-aging, hormone optimization, pain management, and even exercise performance. I use my device every day for 15 minutes, especially during the winter months when there's not much sunlight. It increases my energy in the morning and makes my skin glow. Just check out the testimonials on the Bont Charge website for the before and after pictures of other people. Most REA therapides don't have the right wavelengths of light, which might mean you're not getting the claimed benefits. Bon Charge uses the exact wavelengths of light used in research, and they also have near infrared light that's beneficial to the joints. Head over to bunchcharge.com and use the code seam sim for a 15% discount. Next question. Is your goal hitting the longevity escape velocity or would you even want to live significantly longer? What's your goal in this regard? Asking this because your channel is more about supplements and lifestyle than actual medications and fighting the hallmarks of aging. Well, my goal is yeah to reach the longevity velocity. I think um I think it would be just if if it's possible if there is such a thing as the longevity escape velocity which means that if you survive until you know let's say 2040 then u your likelihood of reaching the age of 150 200 300 etc is very high because of the advancements in medical technology and science. So just every year that goes by, you're able to survive for another year and beyond because of medicines and um technology that keeps you alive. Now I think that uh it's a very small likelihood that it is possible at least in this century, but I do think that just I like the idea of um figuring out what causes aging and how can we extend human lifespan. I'm not the kind of a person who just wants to be immortal or is afraid of dying. You know what I like is the science and u the the problem solving of of this because uh solving aging and uh how extending human lifespan any lifespan is uh just a very hard problem. It's uh the most difficult problem we've ever had pretty much because uh you know we we are slowly figuring out how to treat and and um cure and prevent heart disease and diabetes and obesity and all these other chronic diseases but uh we've never figured it out or never come close to um solving aging and solving life extension. So I think it's just the the most difficult problem ever in uh more like a medical field and I just like it as um yeah like the problem solving component. So I I want to yeah stay alive to figure it out. Yes, in the process it would be nice to you know live a few decades longer maybe 50 60 70 years longer you know that is theoretically possible right now. There is no hard evidence that it would happen in my lifetime but uh I just you know like like the idea of trying to figure out that problem and uh research it. And the other part of your question um I have covered this idea a little bit on my channel. The reason I'm not, you know, making every video about it is because, uh, you know, there's nothing really that would, uh, dramatically extend lifespan in this technology and, uh, more, uh, medical field at the moment. So if there would be some breakthrough, you know, let's say next week there's a study that showed we extended the mice lifespan by 150% which would be double as we've done so far. Then of course I would be talking about it because it's a massive breakthrough and a massive result. But you know there just hasn't been any major breakthroughs in the field of life extension over the last few decades. So that's the unfortunate situation and there's also the reason why I say that uh we're not even close to solving the longevity escape velocity. Now theoretically it's possible maybe it's happening in next 5 10 15 years but uh yeah as I said right now the only things we know will give you the biggest likelihood of reaching the longevity escape velocity are you know some exercise diet sleep and uh taking a few supplements for some health benefits. So yeah, right now it just comes down to the basics and there's really nothing that pro that is proven to dramatically extend your lifespan. Although you know that's the ultimate goal of any you know health intervention in my in my opinion but uh yeah rest assured when we do have some new studies about some major breakthroughs in this field then you know I'll be I'll be one of the first people to talk about it. Next question. and why they think of skin absorption for supplements like glutathione, vitamin C, etc. See, this seems to be a new thought about delivery, bypassing the gut. So, when it comes to uh skin anti-aging benefits, then uh yeah, the topical compounds uh do appear to be slightly better. So uh topical vitamin C is better for your skin than oral vitamin C and topical aexanthin might also be beneficial for the skin as opposed to oral aexanthin. But um oral aexanthin still has evidence for skin benefits and uh reducing photoagging and helping with wrinkles and um skin dryness etc. So you know both work. I think u oral there's a few oral supplements that do have benefits for skin night aging shown in randomous control trials. There's also random control trials for a few of them as topical agents you know topical vitamin C retinol topical glutathione might also have some of these skin brightening effects and uh topical asexin is slowly also becoming um more rolled out. So yes, topical topical copper peptide GHK for example works better than oral GHK for skin benefits. Uh but they uh both of them can have effects on the skin at least. The oral oral compounds like oral aisanthin you know they also have some other auxiliary effects like uh benefits on inflammation status possibly lipids as well and uh eye health. So you're not going to put a zanthan topically into your eyes but uh you can take it as a supplement and uh that has been seen to improve eyesight. So um you know probably the most optimal thing is taken both taken oral oral and orally some of these supplements and um some of them can also be taken topically. Next question. If the goal is anti-aging or longevity should we still go by the optimal range for testosterone or should we go by the normal range that's based by age? So when we're talking about any biioarker then um yes you could compare yourself to other people of your age to see how well are you doing compared to other people of your age. Now that becomes more relevant the older you get. So if you're a 70 year old man, having the testosterone levels equivalent to someone who is 30 years old is a significant um I guess um achievement because uh other 70-year-old men probably have much worse testosterone. They might have the testosterone of someone who is you know 70 years old their own age, their chronological age or even someone who is older like 80 year olds. So if you are an older individual and you have the biomarkers including the testosterone or someone who is much younger then yes you are a healthier individual than other people of your age. So uh comparing you know comparing those markers to your peers is a good idea but it's more relevant the older you get. Uh but I mean of course if you're younger and you have the you're 30 years old you have the distortion levels of a 50-year-old you know that's also not a good thing. So it works the other way around as well. So yes, comparing it to your peers is a good way to gauge how well are you doing compared to other people of your age. But it doesn't really yet tell you if it is the optimal range because yes, if you're a 70-year-old man, you have the testosterone levels of a 50-year-old. A 50-year-old doesn't have the most optimal testosterone levels. The average 50-year-old doesn't have the most optimal testosterone levels for lowest mortality risk and greatest longevity. So there's always Yeah. like what's the normal reference range, what's the normal reference range for your age, and what is the optimal range. The optimal range should be uh agnostic to your chronological age, if you if you get what I mean. The uh most optimal testosterone level probably is the equivalent of someone who is, you know, in their 20s. So, um even if you are a 70-year-old who has the testosterone level of a 40 or 50y old, you know, that's a amazing achievement. you're healthier than other 70 year olds, but it's not the most absolute optimal range for testosterone for lowest mortality risk, if that makes sense. Now, it doesn't mean that you're, you know, at a higher mortality risk than um than uh other people, but it just means that, you know, it's just the nature of aging. If you're a 70-year-old, then it's going to be very hard for you to maintain or achieve a testosterone level of someone who is 20 uh which would be the natural peak of testosterone production and what would be also generally speaking the optimal range for testosterone. Now to give you some specific numbers then um based on a lot of um these observational studies then um a testosterone above 700 is associated with a lower mortality risk. So it's not insanely high. Um it's u achievable for someone who is 70 year old. It's normal for a 20 or 30 year old to have a testosterone or over 700. It's normal for 40 year olds or 50 year olds as well to have that. Uh but there's no evidence that um a testosterone of a,000 or over a,000 or even 900 would be somehow more optimal for mortality risk. So um yeah, that's just one single biomarker. You can't, you know, base your entire health status on a single biomarker. You know, you could have insanely good testosterone, but you have also high blood pressure or low V2 max or whatever the case is. So you have to look at all of these bio biomarkers as many as possible and prioritize like a more balanced set of biomarkers rather than um focusing on only single biomarkers and thinking that it's the end of the world like the end all be all. Yes, testosterone is uh important but uh you know you can still get heart disease with normal and optimal testosterone. You can still have diabetes with optimal testosterone levels. So uh yeah you just need to look at all other biomarkers as well. Next question. Can you explain periodization/cycling of the supplements in more details? Should we take a pause in some? So, personally, I don't think you necessarily need to cycle at least most supplements. So, let's say something like asexanthin or omega-3s or glycine. I think these supplements you can pretty much take year round without any breaks. They uh they work better if you stay consistent with their intake. For example, omega-3s. If you stop taking omega-3s for even there was a recent study that showed that if you stop taking omega-3s, then your omega-3 index, which reflects the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in your red blood cells, it dropped quite significantly already within a few weeks of not supplementing omega-3s. So, u omega-3s are something that you pretty much want to keep taking on a regular basis and rarely take breaks from from them. Aexanthin the same way aexanthin is carotenoid it can protect your skin against the UV radiation. It has benefits also for just protecting your eyes against blue light for example protecting your skin against the sun damage and just uh improving your inflammation status making your cells more resilient against inflammation. So this is another thing that I think would be worthwhile to take year round without breaks. Uh creatine al although is something that you might want to take breaks from. First of all, you don't need to take creatine the same way you need to take omega-3s to maintain the benefits. Uh creatine saturate once you reach creatine saturation in your muscles then you can stop taking creatine even for a few weeks and maintain all the benefits because your muscles are already fully saturated with creatine. So if you're going on a vacation, you don't want to take tubs of creatine with you, then you can easily skip it. Whereas it might be better to take your aexanthin and omega-3s with you to your vacation. Yeah, you you don't necessarily need to take the creatine powder. You can stop taking it for few weeks even and maintain all the benefits. Um and uh with creatine there's also the thing that um it appears to u reduce some of the benefits you get from V2 max training. So if your goal is to absolutely maximize your VO to max then for the time period of that you should stop taking creatine because it makes it harder for you to increase V2 max. Now creatine is absolutely goated and amazing for muscle strength and power. So in a strength building phase in a mass building phase creatine is uh absolutely amazing but in a phase where you're trying to increase your V2 max or cardio then um you should stop taking it. Uh other examples are some of these antioxidants like NAC, even melatonin, uh vitamin C, vitamin E. So uh these supplements I think should also be not cycled but just not taken every day, not taken all the time. Uh because uh you know first of all a lot of these antioxidants can interfere with uh some exercise adaptations, muscle growth specifically. So if you again if your goal is to build muscle then don't take antioxidants around the training especially bourberine is also example of that if you don't have some lipid or blood sugar issues then uh taking bourberine around training around resistance to exercise could result in lower muscle growth as well because it in inhibits mtor signaling slightly so so um yeah just don't take it around the training for example but otherwise you know you could theoretically take bourberine year round as long as you're just not taking around the exercise. So it kind of naturally will end up you taking the bourberine not 100% of the year but around 70% of the year if you just don't take it after your resistance training exercise and a not after or not around the phases where you're trying to build muscle mass. Melatonin again is generally safe. It's not going to inhibit natural melatonin production. So, you could take it every day, every night. I personally just think that it might be better to not take it all the time because you could develop more like a psychological dependence on melatonin. You think that you need it to fall asleep, but in reality, you don't. So, the psychology around sleep is very powerful. You could think that you're going to sleep worse and sleep worse, and you can think that you need the melatonin to fall asleep or to get good sleep. So just for the psychological dependence it's better to not take it um every night in my opinion. Next question. How did you manage to stick with your routine in your 20s? I find it very difficult especially when doing things to stick to my diet. Now the reason I was um following a very generally healthy lifestyle already in my 20s was because I was I was like pretty much just starting my online presence in my early 20s already. So it was kind of um I had like skin in the game in the sense I was uh I had a blog about you know this health optimization and uh different different kind of articles about these various supplements or exercise and diets etc. So that's where you know you have skin and the game you're more accountable for actually following it yourself. And of course I was just naturally interested in it. I started to um get into uh diet, exercise, etc. after high school when uh I was starting to lift weights, etc. So, you just learn about nutrition and some supplements, how do you maximize the training, how do you maximize muscle growth and strength, etc. I think that's just what people will end up doing if they're interested in it. The same way if you, you know, start a business or something, you learn about the business, you get better at it and you get better results. The same way with you know dating or u you know yeah building muscle exercise all those things you just get interested in it and you try to get better results. So uh yeah I I I started to I guess build a business around health and uh that's why I was able to stick to it more easily. I will add more skin in the game. And when I started my YouTube as well, you know, that just made it um made it more serious in a sense that uh things are more serious now. It's like a legitimate uh business. So, uh yeah, I just, you know, it paid off in a sense. Uh it paid off to be healthy and u it kept motivating me to continue doing that. And of course, I would just naturally wanted to be healthy as well. I just I didn't do it just because of uh turning it into like a a business but I I did it also because learning about the longevity scale velocity as we talked about you know if you stay healthy right now you can gain additional years of life in a few decades but you need to reach let's say 2040 2050 2060 whatever the year is you need to stay healthy until that age to reap the benefits of additional years of life down the line. So it's like the ultimate marshmallow test. You know, you can um stay healthy right now in your 20s and gain you sacrifice 10 years of life right now in hopes of getting 50 years of extra life later, 50 years of quality life later when um medicine and science um advances. So that's one way of looking at it as well. Of course, it's a combination of many things. Personally being interested in being healthy and getting better results with exercise, you know, you just feel good as well with exercise. Um I didn't have any social pressure I guess uh to you know drink or something. I gave up drinking quite early in my early 20s and I'd never felt like any social pressure to do it uh to uphold any social norms or something like that. And u yeah turning it into business which has it uh I guess you need to actually be healthy as well if you have a health business. And the last thing would be um learning about the longevity escape velocity and just investing in your future health by being healthier already in your youth. Next question. You said you shouldn't do multiple red light therapy sessions per day. Do you mean the same area? Here's my situation. I do four sessions a day, but each time on different area. So I don't recall saying that you you shouldn't do more than one session of red light therapy per day. You know, depends a lot on how powerful is your device. If you have just this, you know, handheld red light therapy device, then you it's not nearly as powerful as a full panel or a red light bed. So, it depends a lot on the intensity of the device. How far away are you from it? Is it immediately touching your skin? Is it 1 m away? All those things um affect how long is safe for you to do it. But let's say a standard situation, you have like a regular panel, red light panel. Uh you do it 30 cm or 40 cm away. 10 to 15 minutes a day is completely safe. You could do it even longer than that. 30 minutes I've done in the beginning of uh when using regular therapy I used to do it for 30 minutes a day twice a day usually like 15 minutes in morning 15 minutes in the evening. It's kind of a new thing. Then you're like really interested and excited about it. So uh I didn't have any side effects or any problems with it. Nowadays I might do it for yeah 10 15 minutes uh once a day. So uh in your situation covering it yeah in different body parts that's perfectly fine and you're not really overdosing it or overdoing it. So um if you start to feel that some sort of u redness of the skin or some um some reaction some rash or something like that then that would be a sign that you're doing too much. But other than that uh so the bigger problem is yeah if you just have the panel super close to you it does emit some uh radiation in very small amounts similar like the sun would emit a radiation. So if you're just you know hugging it uh very closely for one two hours a day then yeah that could be causing some um potential health issues but even then we we really don't have any data about that. So I would just stick to 10 15 minutes a day. If you use it in different body parts, so you do the front, you do the back, then that should be fine. Next question. What are your thoughts on the role and mechanism of stress in the aging process? Specifically, where's the line between stress we should avoid and stress that might be beneficial? How can we effectively manage stress and build stress resilience through practices like meditation and others? So uh stress yes by definition is harmful but uh there's different types of stress. So there's um ustress that is beneficial and there's d-stress that's harmful and usually the difference between them is a dose. So um going running up the stairs for 1 minute is a positive stressor because it improves your cardiovascular health. It prevents you from spending too much time sitting. It improves your blood flow. It has all all of these health benefits for the brain etc. You feel more energized. Increases NAD recycling. But going for an ultramarathon arguably is d-stress. You know going for 110 kilometer run is uh very excessive and theoretically is also harmful for you. Now, of course, some people are able to pull it off without any adverse health effects, but eventually, if you do it every day, for example, you're not going to be able to pull it off, and you will suffer from some side effects such as uh sleep problems. You potentially can have high blood sugar, high blood pressure, other health issues, joint issues, etc. if you just overdo it. So, there's always the dose that determines whether or not something is harmful. water, oxygen, food. In moderate amounts, they're essential. You need them. In very large amounts, they're harmful. In very small amounts, they can also be harmful. You can, you know, starve to death or you can uh die to uh lack of oxygen, etc. So, there's always a sweet spot. So, what is the sweet spot for things like exercise, saunas, you know, bit of fasting, sun exposure, etc. That all depends a lot on the particular individual. So with exercise you do see that um if you exercise more regular your stress resilience increases. And how do you know that? You can see that from things like your HRV, your immunity, your resting heart rate, your blood pressure, your insulin sensitivity, all those things improve if you do moderate amounts of exercise on a regular basis. If you're just completely sedentary, you uh tend to have worse metabolic health, worse blood pressure, worse HRV, uh higher resting heart rate, which is bad, and uh you're just in a worse health objectively speaking based on biomarkers. Whereas, if you exercise a few times a week, uh you are not overtraining, you're not over like just killing yourself at the gym, then uh you see the opposite. You see improvements in all these biomarkers. So it's important to you know track some of these core biomarkers to see if anything that you're doing is uh more beneficial for you or more harmful. Uh so let's say HRV is a good metric of your nervous system balance, your autonomic nervous system balance and cardiac function. If you see that your HRV is trending downwards from whatever is your baseline, then that is a sign that you're overdoing it. HIV usually drops if you're getting sick, if you're overtraining, if you're under too much stress, psychological or physical stress or just uh you know some environmental factors as well, you're um exposed to a lot of heavy metals or some other pollution or something like that that can also lower your HV. So uh just looking at that simple metric, you can get a pretty good o estimate of whether or not something is too harmful for you. If you do too much sauna, your HIV might drop. If you do a moderate amount of sun, it can actually increase. If you um are sleepd deprived, you sleep five six hours, your HIV is usually lower. If you sleep 7 8 hours, your HIV is usually higher. So um you know that you can just use this single marker, the most easiest marker to track on everyday basis. But other markers as well will be um relevant here. Things like your blood pressure, your blood sugar, your inflammation status. If you exercise a lot, exercise insane amounts, many hours a day, then uh you can have higher blood sugar, higher blood pressure, higher inflammation, worse joint function. You feel that joints hurt more. So these are just signs of overtraining and you're doing too much. Um but the moderate amount of exercise tends to uh avoid that. And the same way with cold exposure. If you're doing a lot of ice baths, for example, every once in a while, some ice baths are good for your immunity. They can lower inflammation, especially muscle soreness. They uh can raise your HRV. They can u increase your mood. But if you do ice bath every day for tens of minutes, then uh you can see a drop in your thyroid functioning. You just feel low energy and tired all the time because you're just exposed to so much cold. your immunity can drop as well because your body is just under so much of this environmental stress. So the dose makes the poison. With saunas, if you do too much saunas, you can lose a lot of electrolytes which can result in muscle cramps. You can disrupt your sleep. But if you do more of sauna based on research four times a week for 20 minutes each session at 70° C, then uh you see the opposite. you see much lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of Alzheimer's, lower rates of hyper hyper retention, lower rates of mortality and just overall better health outcomes. So um you know there's no simple answer to this. It all depends on a dose and what's the optimal dose depends a lot on the individual. Uh how do you manage that stress? Yes, there are ways to u manage that stress with things like mindfulness. Sleep is you know very important. If you are doing a lot of exercise, you also need more sleep. If you do less exercise, you need less sleep. If you're eating a bad diet, then that tips the scale in the wrong direction or you need more recovery as well to recover from the bad diet. So uh the healthier your diet you follow, the more you sleep, um the more just time you take for recovery, going for walks, just uh letting your mind relax, those things can um help you to recover from whatever stress you're um encountering. But just yeah, tracking your HIV for example is a very useful easy metric to see whether or not you are doing too much or you're doing just enough. Next question. What to do against smoke? where I work, there's terrible air quality outside and I need to spend 15 minutes every day right next to the eight line highway full of cars while I'm waiting for transport. What can I do to prevent the harm? So, yes, air pollution can be a significant factor in worsening health over time. So, it will take many years and decades for you to actually, you know, have a significant impact on your health. just the 15 minutes of acute exposure alone isn't enough to uh really cause serious harm. But over the course of decades, um you know, it might. Now, how do you mitigate the harm? Well, just outside of those 15 minutes, you follow a healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet that will help you to mitigate a lot of the harm. So the healthier person you are, the stronger your immune system, the stronger your baseline cardiovascular health and VMX, the better you're equipped to also deal with the smoke or the fewer side effects you'll encounter from uh breathing in smog and air pollution because uh if you're already someone who has poor health, you have poor respiratory function, you have poor cardiovascular function, then the smog will just make it you will start to experience the side effects from the smog much faster if that makes sense. because your baseline is lower. Whereas if your baseline is higher, it'll take you a lot longer for you to actually get any side effects uh from that. So just optimize that. Um now specifically of dealing with it than some larger amounts of antioxidants like NAC, vitamin C before exposure to those um smog air pollution, other environmental toxins is going to be useful. So if you have if you've loaded up on antioxidants before then your body will be able to um deal with the inflammation and uh things of that that ensues. NAC actually has also been seen to benefit respiratory conditions. So breathing related conditions. So this is actually the perfect supplement option for smoke or air pollution specifically. Now mel with melatonin, there was a interesting study that men who got 100 milligrams of melatonin before exposure to uh radiation, so the the equivalent of few x-rays, they exhibited much lower DNA damage. So about 30% lower DNA damage from the 100 milligrams of melatonin. Now air pollution doesn't work the same way as uh X-ray radiation, but you can apply the same principle. For example, okay, if you're traveling with airplane or you're about to get an X-ray, some for example, you could take larger amounts of melatonin before that to mitigate some of the harm. Now, I haven't seen specific studies on melatonin and air pollution and smoke, but I would, you know, presume pretty um pretty confidently that uh it would have similar effects that maybe not taking melatonin in the morning when you're waking the car, but melatonin the night before. Uh so, taking 5 10 milligs melatonin the night before uh would also mitigate some of the damage. uh because melatonin even if it doesn't protect you against the smoking in the morning, it can help you to recover from the smoking in the evening while you're sleeping. So all of the detox or um repairing processes happen in your sleep and melatonin is one of the key hormones that regulates that. Melatonin regulates your lymphatic system that flushes out a lot of these toxins and including microplastics from your brain in your sleep. So, uh, arguably it could also work in, um, you know, helping with smoke or air pollution, uh, to, um, clean your body from, you know, heavy metals. And as a last dish effort, so like more immediate effects, a face mask, I think it is pretty reasonable. Of course, it's not going to protect all of the pollution, but at least it will um, mitigate some of the smog. So yeah, just wearing a face mask at this N95 face mask for example while you're waiting for the 15 minutes I think it will you know not 100% prevention of exposure but a pretty reasonable amount I would uh I would presume. Next question. What are your thoughts on prioritizing fast which muscle fibers instead of lifting heavy weights? So yes fast twitch muscle fibers are the principal types of muscle fibers that decline with age. So they drop the most and uh the fastest and the earliest when it comes to other compared to other muscle fibers. So fast reach muscle fibers this kind of explosive speed uh muscle fibers. Now um I do think that uh well first of all lifting weights does recruit fast twitch muscle fibers. So if you're doing heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, heavy pull-ups, you are using fast twitch muscle fibers. So you're, you know, not not utilizing fast switch muscle fibers if you're lifting if heavy. So if you're lifting something that's, you know, let's say 20, 30, 40 reps, then maybe you're not using fast twitch muscle fibers. But if you stay around five reps, three, five, up to eight reps, you are using fast twitch muscle fibers. And there is research that yeah, elderly people who do resistance training, they have more fast twitch muscle fibers than people who don't do resistance training. So resistance training and lifting weights absolutely will help you to maintain more of these fast twitch muscle fibers. But I do think that um you know there's more than that the actual speed compon. So why is there this association between um people with fast reach muscle fibers and lower rates of falling or lower rates of um hip fractures. It's because if you have more fast twitch muscle fibers, you're able to uh you know, if you're falling off the stairs, you're able to grab hold of something or you're able to jump or you know, whatever the case may be where you need to use these fast muscle fibers. And the absolute most important principle of any sports training is uh specificity. So if you want to be fast, you need to train fast. If you want to, you know, run a fast marathon, you need to run the marathon. If you want to jump high, you need to train jumping high. Yes, doing squats can increase your jump height. And a lot of NBA players and you know other um Olympic athletes, they do train squats in their training. It's not the priority in their training, but they absolutely do train heavy squats. But if you want to actually jump higher, you need to train jumping higher. And the same way with any other plyometric or any other kind of explosive movement. So I think it's valuable for people to train speed and power just because of the sports specificity component. So you actually learn how to do these movements. The same way it's important to actually learn some balance exercises as you get older. Because a balance, you know, you could be strong, but you can lack balance not because you're unhealthy or unfit, but because you just didn't train it right. So uh training speed, balance, coordination, propriception, moving through the space in different uh ways in unexpected ways, you know, um that's why like team sports is such a good thing for health and longevity. Not at the elite level necessarily, but you know, just just playing basketball, playing soccer, whatever, tennis, those are sports where you're doing unexpected movements. They're very chaotic. tennis, you know, every swing, every uh serve, they're all in different different positions, in different angles. So, you actually need to learn how to be also um responsive to unpredictable movements and unpredictable scenarios. So, I think that actually more beneficial for your long-term health to be doing something like tennis, soccer, basketball, baseball, whatever the sports you like, rather than just to lift weights or rather than just to run on the track, if that makes sense. because uh just running on the track or just running on on the treadmill or just lifting weights, it's a very um linear linear uh type of activity. You need more chaos. You need more kind of randomness as well in the movements to uh because of the sport specificity element. You get better at random movements and unexpected movements. But you need both. If you're just doing these chaotic movements and you're not lifting weights, then you're not better off than just doing lifting weights, right? You need both. You need to be lifting weights, you need to be doing balance exercises, you need to be doing slow, steady state zone 2 cardio by just yeah, running down the track, but you also need to be doing unexpected types of cardio like tennis and u soccer or something like that. And you also need to be doing some sort of sprinting, some sort of plyometric type of exercise where you're jumping different directions, etc. So they you need to be doing all of it. Last question is if you were to go all out, what would be your supplement medication stack? So going all out I presume is uh you know if I have unlimited budget, if I'm just I'm going to take everything that is out there that I think is going to be beneficial. I would I think that's the question. So well a lot of the things I'm already taking, it's not going to be um dramatically different list. It's going to be asexanthin, glycine, uh, omega-3s. You know, I would use NAC at some times of the year, not all the time, sometimes of the week, maybe a micro dose every day. I would use melatonin every once in a while. In a lot of cases, I would use creatine every once in a while. I would use lutein and zanthin, uh, torine. I would uh use hyaluronic acid, collagen peptides, use uh copper GHK at least topically at least. I would use um astroandanda maybe every once in a while, mostly for sleep. I would um possibly use glucosamine because there's some interesting research for joints and it is associated with lower heart disease and mortality, but it wouldn't be like my big priority. But I would if I had just unlimited stack, I would use that. Um the same with MSM and uh chondroitin. There are some evidence for joint health. But the actually the more more optimistic reason I would use them is because they have some skin benefits. So yeah, I think the these joint supplements actually might be better for skin than for the actual joints in my opinion. And uh yeah, there's a few other supplements out there that I would probably add into like a unlimited stack. Now, the reason I'm not taking all of these supplements that I mentioned is because of mostly convenience. I don't want to start popping 20 pills a day. It's just it will take too much time. It's a hassle to keep buying them again. And um you know, the cost as well if you just buy all these different 20 different brands, it's going to add up. So, uh, but I am aware of the research about a lot of these supplements and, uh, I've made a lot of videos about them, such as, you know, ranking my 100 supplements from worst to best. There's videos about my ultimate supplement stack if I were to have this magic pill, just a single pill, what would that pill contain? I have a video about that where I go through the research on a lot of these supplements that I mentioned here and uh, others as well. So yeah, you can check out that video for more details. But yeah, that will be it. You know, right now I'm taking asexanthin, glycine, magnesium occasionally, and um what else? Uh lutein, zexanthin. I've experimented recently as well, NAC occasionally, melatonin occasionally, creatine on and off. So uh yeah, it's not really it's a much shorter list that I'm actually taking. But if there were to be a magic pill of single pill or a single powder, then um it would contain a lot more supplements currently in my stack. And the reason I'm not taking them right now is because of mostly convenience and uh just just cost. All right, that's it for this Q&A. Thanks for watching this video. You can check out my video about ranking the 100 supplements