[0:00] What was it that they ate that day that
[0:02] impacted how they slept that night? And
[0:05] we found that higher intakes of fiber
[0:09] were associated with more deep sleep,
[0:11] higher intakes of saturated fat, less
[0:13] deep sleep, and then more refined
[0:15] carbohydrates, simple sugars, more
[0:18] arousals. You're not getting deep
[0:21] slow-wave sleep, REM sleep as much as
[0:24] you would otherwise.
[0:26] >> Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
[0:27] where we discuss science and [music]
[0:29] science-based tools for everyday life.
[0:35] I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor
[0:37] of neurobiology and ophthalmology at
[0:39] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
[0:41] today is Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, a
[0:44] professor of nutritional medicine at the
[0:46] Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia
[0:48] University School of Medicine.
[0:50] Today we discuss how you eat impacts
[0:53] your sleep, and how you sleep impacts
[0:55] what you eat, as well as how your body
[0:57] utilizes food depending on how you
[0:59] slept. Now, we've talked about food, and
[1:01] we've talked about sleep many times
[1:03] before on this podcast, but Dr.
[1:05] St-Onge's work is unique because she
[1:07] runs one of the few laboratories in the
[1:08] world to look at the bidirectional
[1:10] relationship between sleep and food. For
[1:13] instance, you'll learn how even modest
[1:14] sleep deprivation increases hunger, but
[1:17] differently in men and women. In men, it
[1:20] happens to increase the hormones that
[1:21] drive the desire to eat, whereas in
[1:23] women, it reduces naturally made
[1:24] peptides such as GLP, which suppress
[1:27] hunger. Today's discussion gets into the
[1:29] specific actionable items that you can
[1:31] do to improve your sleep and the way
[1:33] that your body handles food and hunger.
[1:35] We talk about the role of sleep in
[1:37] regulating blood sugar, cortisol levels,
[1:39] overall metabolism, and cardiometabolic
[1:42] health. Now, because Dr. St-Onge's
[1:43] research focuses on sleep and nutrition,
[1:46] but she's also spent a significant
[1:47] amount of time studying how specific
[1:49] nutrients impact overall health and not
[1:51] just sleep, we also talk about that. I'm
[1:54] certain that you'll come away from
[1:55] today's episode with a lot of new
[1:56] information you haven't heard elsewhere,
[1:58] as well as with the intention to make
[2:00] small or perhaps even large changes in
[2:02] behavior and nutritional choices that
[2:04] the science tell us can significantly
[2:06] improve your sleep, your metabolism, and
[2:08] overall health. Before we begin, I'd
[2:10] like to emphasize that this podcast is
[2:12] separate from my teaching and research
[2:13] roles at Stanford. It is, however, part
[2:15] of my desire and effort to bring
[2:17] zero-cost to consumer information about
[2:18] science and science-related tools to the
[2:21] general public. In keeping with that
[2:22] theme, today's episode does include
[2:24] sponsors. And now for my discussion with
[2:27] Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge. Dr.
[2:29] Marie-Pierre St-Onge, welcome.
[2:31] >> Thank you for having me.
[2:33] >> Sleep impacts how and what we eat and
[2:36] how and what we eat impacts sleep.
[2:39] That's a different perspective than I
[2:40] think most people take. I think most
[2:41] people are familiar, however, with
[2:44] not getting the best night's sleep,
[2:46] maybe feeling like their
[2:48] impulsivity to eat quote-unquote bad
[2:50] foods is a little higher, and then also
[2:53] hopefully familiar with
[2:55] having a great night's sleep and feeling
[2:56] like we're just kind of in control in a
[2:58] different way.
[3:00] Maybe you could just kind of share for
[3:01] us what's really going on beneath that
[3:03] experience and when subtle or
[3:06] not-so-subtle chronic sleep loss, so not
[3:10] an all-nighter necessarily, but you
[3:12] know, 45 minutes less here, 90 minutes
[3:14] less there, etc., etc., how that plays
[3:17] out in terms of our nutrition, and then
[3:19] we'll go in from the nutrition side to
[3:21] sleep.
[3:21] >> Sure. So, there's a couple of questions
[3:24] that you have in there, actually, about
[3:27] the extent of sleep loss and how that
[3:29] influences your food intake, what we see
[3:33] in the general population versus what we
[3:35] do in the lab to address causality. So,
[3:39] let me start with, you know, the
[3:40] population-based studies, right? So,
[3:43] when I started being interested in in
[3:46] sleep, it was coming from an obesity
[3:48] angle. My PhD is in nutrition. I trained
[3:51] as a postdoc in
[3:53] body composition, obesity research. And
[3:56] we were getting a lot of information
[3:58] from population-based studies that
[4:00] people who sleep too little
[4:03] have a higher body mass index than
[4:06] people who get adequate amount of sleep.
[4:09] Then it became there is a higher
[4:11] prevalence of people with obesity in
[4:14] this short sleep
[4:16] uh group.
[4:18] Then studies evaluating changes over
[4:22] time
[4:23] seeing that people who don't sleep
[4:25] enough tend to gain more weight. There
[4:28] was a famous uh Nurses' Health Study
[4:30] that I really like to cite uh when I
[4:32] give talks that was published in 2006
[4:35] where uh they tracked nurses over 14
[4:39] years and those nurses that reported
[4:42] sleeping 5-6 hours had much higher rate
[4:46] of weight gain over that 14-15 year
[4:49] period than the nurses who had reported
[4:51] sleeping 7 or 8 hours per night.
[4:54] So those are observations that we get
[4:56] from large-scale population studies,
[4:58] cohorts.
[5:00] But, you know, what they what those
[5:01] studies tell us is that things are
[5:03] happening
[5:05] at a point in time or may influence
[5:07] something that's happening over time,
[5:10] but not necessarily that one causes the
[5:13] other, right? So I started um my work in
[5:17] this field trying to uncover whether
[5:20] sleeping too little actually causes
[5:23] weight gain.
[5:25] And so in my opinion, because I was
[5:27] coming from a lab where I trained in the
[5:29] measurement of energy balance, so how
[5:31] much energy how much energy you eat
[5:33] versus how much energy you burn, I was
[5:35] like, well, if sleep leads to obesity,
[5:39] leads to weight gain, it has to impact
[5:42] this energy balance
[5:44] regulation. So it's either that we eat
[5:47] more than we should
[5:49] or that we exercise less. We burn less
[5:53] or we
[5:54] eat more or maybe it's a combination of
[5:56] the two. Let's try this out and and see.
[6:00] So my first my first study my first NIH
[6:03] grant the big R01s, you know, was to
[6:07] look at exactly at this. So we had
[6:09] people who had adequate sleep
[6:12] and we brought them in the lab and we
[6:14] asked them in a crossover design. So
[6:18] half of the participants started out
[6:20] sleeping adequately. So they we gave
[6:22] them a 9-hour time in bed opportunity
[6:25] or we asked them to sleep too little. So
[6:28] they had a 4-hour time in bed
[6:29] opportunity, very short. But we did this
[6:32] for 5 nights.
[6:34] And then we took all sorts of
[6:36] measurements in a controlled feeding
[6:38] condition. So for the first 3 days, we
[6:42] told our we had our participants eat the
[6:44] exact same thing regardless of how much
[6:47] time in bed they slept they got at
[6:48] night.
[6:49] And then we measured appetite regulating
[6:51] hormones. We did neuroimaging
[6:54] uh to really get at isolating the impact
[6:57] of sleep duration on appetite regulating
[6:59] hormones and and um
[7:02] neuronal responses to foods. And then
[7:06] on the last day, we let them self-select
[7:08] their food intake and we measured that
[7:10] in the lab. From that study, we showed
[7:14] that in men specifically, uh we saw an
[7:17] increase in ghrelin
[7:19] in response to the short sleep. So this
[7:21] hormone that triggers food intake.
[7:24] In women, we saw a reduction in GLP-1,
[7:28] interestingly enough. Glucagon-like
[7:29] peptide-1. So the satiety hormone was
[7:32] reduced as a result of short sleep in
[7:34] women. And then when we measured their
[7:37] food intake in the lab, they ate 300
[7:39] calories more in the short sleep
[7:41] condition than the
[7:43] when they got their regular adequate
[7:46] sleep of at least 7 and 1/2 hours, a
[7:48] little more than that
[7:50] per night.
[7:52] Then you were asking about, you know,
[7:54] brain responses.
[7:56] We looked at neuronal responses to food
[7:59] stimuli.
[8:00] We found upregulation in reward centers
[8:03] of the brain
[8:05] in the context of sleep restriction
[8:06] compared to the context of adequate
[8:08] sleep. So all together really building a
[8:11] case that when you don't sleep enough at
[8:13] night, you have both physiological
[8:16] signals to eat more for men or
[8:20] not stop eating in women that lead to
[8:24] greater food intake that's also could be
[8:27] impacted by
[8:29] just pleasurable centers that are
[8:31] activated to a greater extent as a
[8:33] result of insufficient sleep.
[8:35] >> Amazing. This sex-specific split in the
[8:38] data, if I have it correctly, that when
[8:40] men are sleep-deprived, so getting 4
[8:43] hours per night,
[8:44] the
[8:45] signals that drive appetitive desire to
[8:49] eat are higher. In women, it's more that
[8:51] the break
[8:52] on eating, on satiety, is reduced.
[8:55] >> Exactly.
[8:55] >> Okay. As far as I know, the GLP pathways
[8:58] are not
[8:59] divergent by by sex, but of course I'm
[9:02] not deeply versed in that literature. Is
[9:04] there any evidence that GLPs are
[9:06] functioning different in men and women
[9:08] like circadian wise or anything like
[9:10] that or this just this was just a
[9:12] fortuitous outcome or as I say a
[9:15] incidental outcome?
[9:16] >> This was an incidental outcome. We
[9:18] really didn't know what to expect. We
[9:20] didn't really know at all that
[9:22] we'd see sex differences
[9:24] >> Mhm.
[9:25] >> because there had been prior studies and
[9:28] prior studies had shown that ghrelin was
[9:31] increased as a result of sleep
[9:32] restriction. They also showed that
[9:34] leptin was reduced as a result of sleep
[9:36] restriction.
[9:38] And when we got our data, we analyzed
[9:41] our data with
[9:42] all of our participants together.
[9:46] And there was no effect.
[9:48] >> [clears throat]
[9:48] >> And that was surprising, and people
[9:50] would say, "Don't you know? Don't you
[9:51] know sleep restriction
[9:54] increases ghrelin?"
[9:56] Like,
[9:56] "Well, I guess I don't know because in
[9:58] our study it doesn't." But
[10:01] then we saw these sex-specific
[10:03] differences, and it made sense then that
[10:05] in the full sample, when we had an equal
[10:07] number of men and women, we saw no
[10:10] effect on ghrelin because there was no
[10:11] effect
[10:12] in women, but there was an effect in
[10:13] men, which was reproducing what others
[10:16] had found because all the prior studies
[10:18] had been done in men only.
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[12:39] Whenever I'm sleep deprived, though four
[12:41] or five hours of sleep I consider sleep
[12:43] deprived. I used to pull all-nighters
[12:45] years ago. Now, I avoid them at all
[12:47] costs. But, whenever I have that
[12:49] experience,
[12:50] I feel like
[12:52] my whole body to some extent is in a low
[12:54] level of pain.
[12:56] It's a kind of it's like central ache.
[12:58] Like you just And and I wonder uh
[13:00] extent to which people eat to overcome
[13:03] like to kind of quell the the pain of
[13:05] sleep deprivation. Maybe people react
[13:07] differently to sleep deprivation. Maybe
[13:09] their subjective experience of it is is
[13:10] very different. But, what do you think
[13:12] is happening in that uh in that short
[13:15] relatively short amount of sleep that's
[13:16] missing? What is getting reset? Is it
[13:19] neural? Is it endocrine? It's obviously
[13:22] all those things, but what do you think
[13:23] is the the switch that allows people to
[13:25] enter a a day in a in a much more
[13:27] healthy fashion or or a sick essentially
[13:30] in a slightly sick fashion.
[13:32] >> In our study, it was actually a 50%
[13:34] reduction in sleep because when they had
[13:36] 9 hours sleep opportunity, they slept
[13:39] around 7 and 1/2. And when they had the
[13:42] They were all people who had screened to
[13:44] sleep at least 7 measured by actigraphy.
[13:47] So, and on average they get 7 and 1/2.
[13:50] And in the sleep restricted condition,
[13:53] they got on average about 3 hours and 50
[13:56] minutes.
[13:57] >> So, it's like staying up late working on
[13:58] a deadline then trying to catch an early
[14:00] flight.
[14:00] >> Yeah.
[14:01] >> brutal.
[14:01] >> It's pretty brutal. Yeah. And that was
[14:03] maintained, you know, they had 5 nights
[14:05] of that. So, that
[14:06] >> 5 nights of that.
[14:07] >> Yeah.
[14:07] >> Were they coming unglued mentally, too?
[14:09] That I think I would feel terrible after
[14:12] that kind of stretch.
[14:14] >> That Yeah, they were done. Like there's
[14:15] no way anyone would want to keep keep
[14:17] coming for that. But they were in the
[14:19] lab. They were under supervision the
[14:20] whole time. We didn't let them go out on
[14:22] their own.
[14:23] Uh so, they were well supervised to make
[14:25] sure that nothing
[14:26] nothing would happen to them.
[14:27] >> No naps?
[14:28] >> No naps. Nope.
[14:30] Nope. Uh but so, what happens is I think
[14:33] there's some
[14:35] subconscious need to to eat more when
[14:39] you're sleep deprived. There's also, you
[14:41] know, there's a thermic effect of of
[14:43] food, right? So, it gives you a jolt of
[14:44] energy to eat something. So, people know
[14:47] that. You eat it wakes you up in a way.
[14:50] You know, neuronal signaling that that
[14:54] enhances uh pleasurable and reward
[14:57] centers of the brain where, you know, if
[14:59] when also fatigue sets in and now it's
[15:01] like do you really have want to have
[15:03] this
[15:04] conversation with yourself about what to
[15:06] choose at the buffet table?
[15:08] You know, it
[15:09] there's fatigue. And uh and others have
[15:12] shown also that sleepiness tends to
[15:15] correlate with all of this. That there's
[15:17] these
[15:18] triggers for more pleasurable food
[15:21] consumption with um with the sleep
[15:23] restriction. It's been reproduced.
[15:25] There's been so many studies
[15:27] and they all you know, agree to to the
[15:30] extent of overeating. You know, a
[15:32] meta-analysis showed 250 to 400 calories
[15:36] of overeating.
[15:37] >> Which might not sound like much, but
[15:39] when you start layering that in day
[15:40] after day and you think, you know, 3,500
[15:43] excess calories more or less for a pound
[15:45] of body weight and then you start when
[15:46] people accumulate that over time if
[15:49] they're in a night shift condition or
[15:51] new parents or tending to a sick
[15:54] relative or just final exams. Like it
[15:56] it's a real thing.
[15:57] >> It's a real thing. Naima Covassin in
[16:00] 2022 published a paper where
[16:03] they had sleep restriction about 5 hours
[16:05] per night versus 7 and 1/2 hours per
[16:08] night for 2 weeks and participants
[16:10] gained half a kilo in a 2-week period.
[16:13] So, you do nothing and you just you
[16:15] know, sleep less and gain gain almost
[16:18] a pound in 2 weeks.
[16:20] >> It strikes me that, you know, for a long
[16:22] time in the stress research, the idea
[16:24] was when people are stressed they reach
[16:26] for kind of quote unquote comfort foods,
[16:28] carbohydrate and typically starch fat,
[16:31] starch fat sugar combination foods to
[16:33] comfort them and and the the just-so
[16:35] story was always that
[16:37] okay, well, you know, cortisol's main
[16:40] role is to deploy glucose and so people
[16:42] are doing this as a way to bring excess
[16:44] energy and and it all kind of fits
[16:46] together. What is the relationship
[16:48] between these forms of sleep deprivation
[16:50] that you work on and stress? Is it
[16:52] really a way of of I'm not saying just
[16:54] inducing stress cuz I think sleep is its
[16:56] own thing, but it's stressful just to be
[17:00] less than adequately rested independent
[17:02] of the things coming at you in life,
[17:04] right? Is what you're studying stress?
[17:06] >> So, if you're thinking about
[17:07] physiological stress measured by
[17:09] cortisol levels in that study, actually
[17:11] cortisol wasn't
[17:13] changed.
[17:14] >> In the short sleep.
[17:15] >> in the
[17:15] >> sleep.
[17:16] >> Tell me more about that. I'm fascinated
[17:17] by circadian rhythms and cortisol. So,
[17:19] what is it what is that what is that
[17:20] mean?
[17:21] >> There was no difference between the two
[17:22] conditions adequate sleep or short sleep
[17:25] on cortisol levels in our
[17:26] >> For 5 days of sleep restriction at
[17:28] basically 4 hours a night. So, cortisol
[17:30] still peaking in the in the morning,
[17:33] still dropping in the evening.
[17:35] >> Yeah.
[17:35] >> Wow, that's very surprising to me.
[17:37] >> I don't know. I don't know if it's the
[17:38] contacts of, you know, being in the lab
[17:42] where everything's safe, taken care of
[17:44] for them. There's nothing outside to
[17:48] aggravate
[17:49] >> Mhm.
[17:49] >> this. [clears throat]
[17:50] So, I don't know. Maybe when you're in
[17:51] the context of sleep restriction, but
[17:54] also dealing with
[17:56] your daily life
[17:58] >> Mhm.
[17:58] >> you're needing to take care of your
[17:59] kids, they're needing to get to work,
[18:01] needing to do all of the activities of
[18:03] daily living, maybe then that becomes,
[18:06] you know, the the added stressful.
[18:08] >> So, the message is if you
[18:10] suffer
[18:12] less than adequate sleep, get someone to
[18:14] take care of it.
[18:15] >> Everything else.
[18:16] >> You better be [laughter] in a spa.
[18:17] >> Exactly. Exactly.
[18:19] >> [clears throat]
[18:19] >> No, I and I'm not challenging the
[18:20] result. I just find it really
[18:21] interesting. I would have thought that
[18:22] basal cortisol levels would would go
[18:24] awry.
[18:25] >> Well, in that study also, we didn't see
[18:27] any effect on glucose or insulin.
[18:29] Nothing.
[18:30] Nothing.
[18:32] The curves were superimposable.
[18:36] >> Wild.
[18:37] >> They were eating the exact same food at
[18:39] the exact same time, exact same
[18:42] quantity. The only thing we changed was
[18:45] the amount of sleep opportunity they got
[18:47] at night. So, to me, this means that
[18:50] it's a combination of different things
[18:52] that causes the metabolic abnormalities
[18:54] that we notice in free-living
[18:57] populations. People aren't isolated,
[18:59] they're not in a box where they're not
[19:01] sleeping enough, and they're choosing to
[19:04] eat higher-fat, higher-sugar,
[19:06] higher-salt poorer diet
[19:10] that then triggers a worsening and maybe
[19:13] compounded by the lack of sleep even
[19:16] worsening of of those cardiometabolic
[19:19] outcomes because we did a follow-up
[19:22] study to this this severe sleep
[19:24] restriction study. So the reason why we
[19:25] did that was because exactly for this
[19:27] reason because we did not find any
[19:30] adverse impact on glucose or insulin or
[19:33] lipid profile.
[19:35] And we're like so what is it then? Why
[19:37] is it that in population-based studies
[19:40] we find that people who sleep too little
[19:43] have higher risk of cardiovascular
[19:46] disease, higher risk of hypertension,
[19:47] higher blood pressure, higher risk of
[19:49] type 2 diabetes. So
[19:52] because we had seen that food choices
[19:55] were different that they ate a diet that
[19:58] was higher in calories, higher
[20:00] in fat and saturated fat, we thought
[20:02] maybe if you're in a free-living
[20:05] situation
[20:06] that's when you start to see those
[20:08] cardiometabolic outcomes because it's
[20:10] compounded by
[20:12] maybe
[20:13] more sedentary behavior and
[20:16] alterations in in food choices and and
[20:19] diet.
[20:20] So the follow-up study then was to
[20:23] recruit good sleepers, people who sleep
[20:26] at least 7 hours per night verified by
[20:29] actigraphy, who answer on questionnaires
[20:31] that their sleep quality is good. And
[20:35] then to take these people and say okay
[20:37] now you're either going to continue your
[20:42] excellent sleep or
[20:45] you're going to now
[20:47] go to bed an hour and a half later so
[20:50] that you get an hour and a half
[20:51] reduction in sleep. Because when we
[20:53] screen people to sleep at least 7 hours
[20:56] per night, they sleep about 7 and a
[20:57] half.
[20:58] And reducing by an hour and a half gets
[21:01] to 6 hours which is short sleep,
[21:03] insufficient
[21:05] on average what people who don't get
[21:07] enough sleep get?
[21:09] >> They're missing a full sleep cycle.
[21:10] >> Yeah, pretty much. And
[21:13] uh and they can sustain that for
[21:15] prolonged periods because that's what
[21:17] people report in in population-based
[21:19] studies. And now, when we did that,
[21:21] we saw that insulin resistance was
[21:25] increased after 6 weeks of sleep
[21:28] restriction compared to adequate sleep.
[21:30] We saw insulin sensitivity was reduced.
[21:34] It was worse, actually, in
[21:35] postmenopausal women compared to
[21:37] premenopausal women. We saw blood
[21:39] pressure uh was increased. Uh so, those
[21:43] cardiometabolic outcomes were adversely
[21:45] impacted in free-living mild sustained
[21:48] sleep restriction for 6 weeks. 6 weeks
[21:51] was something else, also.
[21:52] >> [laughter]
[21:53] >> It was uh it was tough.
[21:54] >> I can only imagine.
[21:56] Wow, okay. Because my mind always
[22:00] goes to, all right, well, we wake up in
[22:02] the morning because of an increase in
[22:03] cortisol, that's circadian, and it's not
[22:05] related to sleep, per se, it just kind
[22:07] of overlaps with the end of the night's
[22:09] sleep. If that's independent of sleep,
[22:12] and cortisol drives glucose release, we
[22:14] know this. At least in the first study
[22:16] you described, glucose levels weren't
[22:18] altered. You said it was isocaloric, so
[22:20] people were it's not like they're eating
[22:22] more. They're the hormones that are
[22:25] driving the desire to eat more are
[22:27] elevated.
[22:28] >> But we didn't let them eat more, yeah.
[22:30] >> Right. But you didn't let them. I think
[22:31] that's a a key thing that you you
[22:33] pointed out before, but I think we want
[22:34] to uh underscore. And then, of course,
[22:36] the GLP
[22:38] uh levels in women being reduced, it's
[22:40] not that that they were able to eat, as
[22:42] we say, ad libitum, and then they happen
[22:43] to eat more, but they gained weight. So,
[22:46] what's kind of the action end of things
[22:48] that causes them to gain weight if
[22:50] they're basically in an isocaloric diet?
[22:52] And I have a I have a I have an idea
[22:54] what it might be, but I'm I'm curious
[22:56] what the answer is.
[22:57] >> Yes, I think they're they're more
[22:59] sedentary.
[23:00] >> During the day, less
[23:03] >> Right.
[23:03] >> Less spontaneous activity. Because we
[23:05] also did a study to look at energy
[23:07] expenditure. That's really difficult
[23:09] actually to measure, in my opinion,
[23:11] energy expenditure. There's multiple
[23:13] components to energy expenditure.
[23:16] Uh but we did a study where this was a
[23:19] small study. We were enrolled only women
[23:22] for that, and we have a metabolic
[23:23] chamber
[23:24] >> [snorts]
[23:24] >> at Columbia where that we were able to
[23:26] use for this. Uh so this small room in
[23:30] which we keep people, and we measure
[23:32] minute by minute oxygen consumption and
[23:34] carbon dioxide production. And we were
[23:37] able to show that energy expenditure is
[23:40] actually increased in the context of
[23:43] sleep restriction in the metabolic
[23:45] chamber.
[23:46] >> [snorts]
[23:46] >> Because
[23:48] it's more costly energetically to remain
[23:51] awake
[23:53] than to fall asleep.
[23:54] So energy expenditure when participants
[23:57] were awake was identical in both
[24:01] [clears throat] conditions, regardless
[24:02] of how much sleep they got the night
[24:03] before.
[24:04] >> So is fidgeting, movement? Cuz we've
[24:06] talked before on this podcast about the
[24:08] non-exercise thermogenesis. It's a big
[24:10] number. I mean, you people who fidget a
[24:12] lot, bounce their knee a lot. I mean,
[24:13] sometimes these people are burning 1,500
[24:16] calories more per day. And everyone
[24:17] goes, "Oh my god, how could that
[24:18] possibly be?" But I mean, that's a lot.
[24:20] That's at the extreme. But it is kind of
[24:22] interesting to observe people out in the
[24:24] world. And you sometimes see that people
[24:27] who are very, very lean, very let's just
[24:30] say thin and lean. Nowadays, who knows
[24:31] because of the GLPs, etc. But they tend
[24:34] to have a lot of spontaneous movement.
[24:35] They tend to stand up quickly. They tend
[24:37] to walk quickly. Well, you're from New
[24:38] York, so everyone there walks faster
[24:39] than out here. But it's a real thing,
[24:42] you know? Whereas some people, like me,
[24:44] are kind of more middle of the curve.
[24:45] But you know, I sit a bit more still
[24:47] unless I'm very caffeinated. These
[24:48] things add up over time in ways that I
[24:51] think most people underestimate.
[24:54] >> Yeah, so for us it was about 5% of
[24:57] energy
[24:58] increased. But it it and it it ended up
[25:02] being about 90 calories, nowhere close
[25:04] to the 300 calories that uh
[25:06] more of intake they they got over a over
[25:09] a day in the prior study. So it's still
[25:12] an imbalance towards a positive energy
[25:13] balance when we do the math.
[25:16] But there is an increase in um in energy
[25:19] expenditure.
[25:21] Again, in the confines of metabolic
[25:23] chamber, which you know, for most people
[25:25] is the equivalent of the size of their
[25:26] bathroom.
[25:27] >> Right.
[25:27] >> Right? Where you have like a bed, a
[25:29] table, and a sink, a toilet, that's it.
[25:31] So you can't can't do much in there.
[25:33] >> But you can do studies, quote unquote,
[25:36] out in the wild with um actometry or
[25:38] what or uh
[25:39] >> Yeah, digraphy, doubly labeled water.
[25:41] Yes.
[25:42] >> A little while ago I saw a study that
[25:44] said that if you are one night sleep
[25:45] deprived, like you get one or two hours
[25:47] less
[25:48] uh sleep than normally
[25:50] you would get to feel rested, that it's
[25:52] actually advantageous to exercise
[25:54] because it offsets some of the um
[25:56] increase in inflammation.
[25:57] >> Mhm.
[25:58] >> But then if you're going multiple nights
[25:59] that way, exercising on a regular basis
[26:01] when sleep deprived, it just sets up a
[26:03] um susceptibility to illness,
[26:05] susceptibility to injury, and so forth.
[26:08] How much of what you observe in the
[26:10] under the conditions of sleep
[26:11] deprivation do you think are downstream
[26:13] or upstream of this thing that we just
[26:16] call inflammation? Like is this just
[26:18] like a body wide response and there are
[26:20] a bunch of things that have gone awry
[26:21] and and so like a bunch of systems are
[26:24] dysregulated or can we pinpoint, okay,
[26:26] when you're sleep deprived,
[26:29] this is what this is what's happening.
[26:31] Cuz I think if if women knew that their
[26:33] GLPs were down when they're down on
[26:35] sleep, so that they should expect that
[26:37] they would feel less satiety. If men
[26:40] knew that their ghrelin levels were
[26:41] elevated when they're down on sleep,
[26:44] that they're going to feel hun-
[26:45] hungrier.
[26:46] And we have a pretty big prefrontal
[26:48] cortex, most people anyway, and we can
[26:50] intervene simply on the basis of
[26:52] knowledge.
[26:53] >> I think that's what's empowering. And I
[26:55] think about this sometimes, too, when
[26:57] I'm
[26:57] when I'm
[26:59] thinking about, you know,
[27:01] my my diet at times, right? I'm like,
[27:03] "I Do I really want to eat this or is it
[27:05] because I really didn't sleep last
[27:07] night?" Right? So, you can you can make
[27:08] you can ask yourself these questions.
[27:10] Take a pause and say, "Okay,
[27:13] do I really want, you know, dessert?
[27:16] Or
[27:17] is it just that I'm tired and, you know,
[27:19] I should just
[27:20] I'm fine. I don't need it."
[27:22] >> Mhm. [clears throat]
[27:23] >> So, if you if you step back and think
[27:25] that maybe part of it is because you
[27:27] didn't sleep well the night before, then
[27:29] you can
[27:30] make your appropriate choices, right?
[27:32] Say "Okay
[27:33] I probably don't need the the extra
[27:35] calories right now.
[27:37] Or or maybe you say, "You know what?
[27:39] I had a really bad night last night. And
[27:41] those extra calories,
[27:43] I don't really care because they're
[27:45] going to make me feel good and I need
[27:47] some pick-me-up."
[27:49] But, you know,
[27:51] that's it Oh, that's all the choices to
[27:53] make, right? You know, because mood
[27:55] comes into comes into play, as well. So,
[27:59] >> Well, ultimately, that brings us to the
[28:01] the other direction of the equation,
[28:03] right? How does what we eat impact our
[28:06] sleep? This is something that I think
[28:07] most people have heard about in the
[28:09] context of try not to eat too close to
[28:12] bedtime.
[28:12] >> Mhm.
[28:13] >> Um this is an active debate in many
[28:15] households, actually. Some people seem
[28:17] to be fine eating close to bedtime and
[28:19] sleeping and even if they track their
[28:21] sleep. Other people, it really disrupts
[28:23] their sleep. I'm interested in both the
[28:26] timing of food intake relative to sleep,
[28:28] but also the content of the food and how
[28:31] it impacts sleep.
[28:32] >> Mhm.
[28:32] >> What's known about that, either from
[28:33] your work or from other work?
[28:35] >> When we started this conversation, I was
[28:36] telling you about these population-based
[28:38] studies, you know, cross-sectional
[28:41] data where two things happen at the same
[28:43] time and you
[28:44] you know, you you don't really know
[28:45] causality. They happen at the same time,
[28:48] and I think early on
[28:50] in this field we started thinking about
[28:53] sleep as the promoter of food intake or
[28:58] as a sleep causing changes in diet,
[29:03] exercise,
[29:04] but didn't really think that maybe it's
[29:06] the other way around or maybe the other
[29:07] way around is just as plausible.
[29:10] So I started thinking about that and
[29:13] said, "Well, what if what if we took the
[29:15] other approach? What if we looked at
[29:17] diet and examined how diet influenced
[29:22] future sleep?"
[29:24] And my first paper in this field was
[29:27] using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study
[29:29] of Atherosclerosis. It's actually
[29:32] kind of hard to find good cohorts that
[29:34] have good nutrition data,
[29:37] good sleep data, and data over over
[29:42] years, right? So MESA, Multi-Ethnic
[29:44] Study of
[29:45] Atherosclerosis, is one of those great
[29:47] cohorts that we have in the here in the
[29:48] US that has all of the above. So I
[29:52] paired up with a colleague of mine,
[29:54] Susan Redline in Boston, and
[29:56] she's principal investigator on their
[29:58] sleep ancillary study, and we asked the
[30:01] question of diet quality and its impact
[30:04] on sleep duration, insomnia symptoms,
[30:07] and we found that having a diet that
[30:11] more closely aligns with the
[30:12] Mediterranean diet was associated with
[30:14] better
[30:16] probability of having adequate sleep and
[30:18] reduced
[30:19] insomnia symptoms in this cohort. So
[30:21] then it launched a whole
[30:23] field of study really to to keep looking
[30:26] at this, and we've looked at this in
[30:28] different studies and different cohorts.
[30:30] Actually,
[30:31] earlier this year we published data from
[30:33] the Women's Health Initiative, another
[30:35] large large cohort with good diet data
[30:38] and and sleep information. We took a
[30:41] really really nice approach in this
[30:43] longitudinal analysis. I don't know.
[30:45] Usually when we do longitudinal studies,
[30:48] we exclude people who have the condition
[30:51] at baseline, right? So if you're trying
[30:53] to see this factor at baseline, how does
[30:57] it influence hypertension 10 years
[31:00] later? You usually exclude people who
[31:03] have hypertension at baseline because
[31:04] you want to see the development of
[31:06] hypertension. In this case, we're
[31:08] looking at insomnia symptoms, but
[31:10] insomnia is one of those conditions
[31:13] that's not necessarily
[31:15] static. It resolves, right? So you can
[31:18] have insomnia and then a few years later
[31:21] not have insomnia.
[31:24] Or you can
[31:25] not have insomnia now and develop
[31:27] insomnia. So what we did is we broke our
[31:30] down our participants into two groups.
[31:32] The people who had
[31:35] no insomnia at baseline
[31:38] and at 3 years follow-up,
[31:41] participants who had insomnia at
[31:43] baseline but not at 3 years follow-up.
[31:46] So they were in the healthful sleep,
[31:49] improving sleep. And then the other
[31:52] group was all those women who had
[31:54] insomnia at baseline and at 3 years, and
[31:57] no insomnia at baseline but insomnia at
[31:59] 3 years. So they were the persistent
[32:02] insomnia, progressing towards poor sleep
[32:06] group. And we found that
[32:08] the women who had a diet that was more
[32:11] closely aligned to the Mediterranean
[32:13] diet, but we also looked at
[32:15] an American type of diet profile called
[32:18] the DASH diet, the Dietary Approaches to
[32:20] Stop Hypertension. Women who had a
[32:23] dietary profile closer to those two
[32:24] types of diets, healthful diets, were
[32:27] less likely to have hypertension
[32:31] insomnia at 3 years.
[32:32] >> And the DASH diet is what?
[32:34] >> Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension
[32:36] developed to
[32:38] reduce prevent hypertension, reduce
[32:41] blood pressure in people by increasing
[32:44] intakes of fruits and vegetables, nuts
[32:45] and seeds, consuming low-fat dairy, more
[32:48] plant-based types of diet and and can be
[32:53] has been tested in a low salt or regular
[32:56] salt profile.
[32:57] >> How did those work out? I'm just
[32:58] curious. Do you recall if the low salt,
[33:00] high salt
[33:01] condition
[33:02] >> There's salt sensitivity, so there are
[33:03] some people who are very sensitive to
[33:05] salt and so having a reduced salt diet
[33:08] will really improve their blood
[33:09] pressure.
[33:10] >> Mhm.
[33:10] >> Others not so much, but the DASH diet,
[33:13] regardless of its salt content, did
[33:15] better than the equivalent non-DASH.
[33:18] Which would be your average, you know,
[33:20] American diet.
[33:21] >> Whatever that is.
[33:22] >> Yeah, higher in saturated fats and
[33:24] sugars and
[33:25] >> Which seems to be changing now because
[33:26] of the GLPs. I feel like that's, you
[33:29] know,
[33:30] maybe that's a skewed perspective, but I
[33:32] feel like the
[33:33] the typical American diet is it might
[33:35] not be changing so much in content, but
[33:37] in volume it seems like people are
[33:38] eating less. Certainly the snack food
[33:39] companies, from what I understand, are
[33:41] struggling. Alcohol companies, that's a
[33:43] different issue, but that they're
[33:45] certainly have
[33:46] sales are way, way down, but it seems
[33:49] like people's appetites are down.
[33:52] >> Well, GLP-1s will do that, right?
[33:53] >> Yeah.
[33:54] >> Yeah.
[33:54] >> And we were talking about this the other
[33:55] day here, uh
[33:57] how many Americans have tried a GLP. The
[34:00] estimates are anywhere from like one in
[34:02] seven, some people say it's it's more.
[34:05] >> Mhm.
[34:05] >> pretty incredible.
[34:06] >> pretty high.
[34:07] >> But this is interesting. So, how people
[34:09] eat impacts their sleep, I'm sure the
[34:12] listeners and I also am thinking, okay,
[34:14] but people who are eating a
[34:16] Mediterranean diet, right? Olive oils,
[34:18] fish, you know, fruits, vegetables,
[34:21] they are probably more apt to walk more,
[34:24] exercise more, socialize more, all of
[34:26] How do you separate out the variables in
[34:28] a study like that?
[34:29] >> Uh well, so So population-based studies
[34:31] we adjust for a bunch of covariates,
[34:33] right? We have all these questionnaires
[34:35] that are given out to people asking them
[34:38] about their race, occupation,
[34:40] socio-demographic,
[34:42] socioeconomic status, and then we adjust
[34:45] we adjust for um different illnesses
[34:48] that they may have, depression, uh
[34:50] physical activity level,
[34:53] uh
[34:54] So we try to take all this into into
[34:56] consideration. Obviously, we there's
[34:58] always unmeasured factors that you can't
[35:01] control for, social interactions like
[35:03] you
[35:04] um you mentioned. It's usually not
[35:07] captured very well. It's not something
[35:09] that we we can adjust for. But one thing
[35:12] that we did in my lab uh going back to
[35:14] that original study
[35:17] was to look at uh
[35:20] how diet influence sleep at night in the
[35:22] participants in our inpatient study.
[35:26] So we took
[35:28] the 9-hour time in bed opportunity
[35:31] phase, only that one.
[35:34] >> [snorts]
[35:34] >> In the 4-hour time in bed opportunity,
[35:36] participants were very efficient. There
[35:38] was not much variability in sleep
[35:40] duration in in that phase. They slept as
[35:42] much as they could in that 4-hour
[35:44] opportunity.
[35:45] But in the 9 hours, there's variability
[35:47] there. Some people got more or less. So
[35:49] we wanted to see if food intake was
[35:53] related to their sleep at night. That
[35:55] study
[35:56] we had polysomnography assessments of
[35:59] sleep every single night.
[36:01] Like I mentioned, we had uh controlled
[36:04] diet initially, and then we let them
[36:06] self-select their food intake. So we
[36:08] took a very systematic approach to
[36:10] evaluating how diet could influence
[36:12] sleep in that study.
[36:14] We said first of all
[36:17] was the diet that they chose different
[36:19] than the diet that we gave them.
[36:21] First step, right? It was. So they ate
[36:24] almost 450 calories more. They ate 33%
[36:28] more saturated fat.
[36:30] Uh little less protein, I believe, a
[36:33] little more carbohydrates. Not much, but
[36:35] it it was different. So, I was like,
[36:37] "Okay, so so there's difference between
[36:39] the diets." Okay, now,
[36:41] was their sleep at night different
[36:44] when they were eating the diet that we
[36:45] fed them compared to when they
[36:47] self-selected?
[36:50] And it did it was different. It wasn't
[36:52] different in terms of duration, but it
[36:55] was different in time it took them to
[36:57] fall asleep, which was
[36:59] almost over 70% longer to fall asleep
[37:02] when they self-selected their diet.
[37:04] And their slow wave sleep, so deep
[37:07] sleep, was shorter. I think it was about
[37:10] 23 20% shorter
[37:13] when they self-selected their diet
[37:14] compared to what we had given them.
[37:17] >> Was timing of food intake impacted
[37:19] because when I think of what impacts
[37:22] what reduces
[37:24] slow wave deep sleep, it's eating too
[37:26] close to bedtime.
[37:27] >> Mhm. So,
[37:29] we did not take that into consideration
[37:32] in that study. We didn't We didn't look
[37:34] at that. We had their
[37:36] their food intake profile and didn't
[37:39] specifically look in that
[37:41] phase when when was their last eating
[37:43] period. But it could have been different
[37:45] than
[37:46] in the controlled feeding condition
[37:48] because in the controlled feeding
[37:49] condition, they had set meals at
[37:51] specific times. But they all went to bed
[37:53] at 10:00 p.m.
[37:54] Then the other question was, "Okay,
[37:57] what was it that they ate that day that
[37:59] impacted how they slept that night?"
[38:02] And we found that higher intakes of
[38:06] fiber were associated with more deep
[38:08] sleep.
[38:10] Higher intakes of saturated fat, less
[38:12] deep sleep. And then more refined
[38:14] carbohydrates, simple sugars, more
[38:17] arousals. So, when we talk about
[38:19] arousals in the context of
[38:21] polysomnography, it doesn't necessarily
[38:23] mean full-on waking up or awakening. It
[38:26] really means going from a deeper to
[38:28] lighter stage of sleep, so you may still
[38:30] be asleep throughout the night, but
[38:33] you're not getting deep slow-wave sleep,
[38:37] REM sleep as much as you would
[38:39] uh otherwise.
[38:41] >> Do you create a buffer between your last
[38:45] bite of food and the time you go to
[38:46] sleep, you personally?
[38:48] >> Me personally? Yes.
[38:50] >> Is it an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours?
[38:52] >> I personally like to eat my last meal at
[38:55] least 3 hours before going to bed. And I
[38:57] know there's variability there.
[38:59] Different people have different uh
[39:00] tolerance. You mentioned right before
[39:02] that uh
[39:03] you know, some people may be later
[39:04] chronotypes, but you
[39:06] what we know
[39:08] is that eating earlier
[39:11] is better overall. For cardiometabolic
[39:15] health, eating earlier is better. Me
[39:17] personally, I feel I feel better by
[39:20] eating earlier. If I eat too close to
[39:22] bedtime I
[39:25] I get I get hot.
[39:26] >> Right. Yeah, it's [laughter] a it's a
[39:27] thermic effect of food.
[39:29] >> don't want to be cooling off when we go
[39:30] to sleep.
[39:31] >> Exactly. Exactly.
[39:33] >> I'd like to take a quick break and
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[40:48] coenzyme Q10 with your first AG1
[40:51] subscription.
[40:52] There seems to be something asymmetric
[40:54] about sleep
[40:56] requirements in my experience, and I
[40:59] don't think I'm alone in this.
[41:01] Whereby
[41:03] if I go to bed at
[41:05] 10:00 p.m., I get into bed at 9:30, fall
[41:07] asleep at 10:00, I need about 6 and 1/2,
[41:09] maybe 7 hours to feel completely rested.
[41:11] That's how long I'll sleep, wake up
[41:13] without an alarm, feeling great.
[41:16] If I go to bed at midnight,
[41:18] I find I could sleep till
[41:20] 9:00 and still not feel completely
[41:23] rested. So, there's some weird sleep
[41:25] inertia stuff going on there, etc.
[41:28] The old adage is every hour before
[41:30] midnight is worth two after, but is
[41:32] there any real data to support that, or
[41:34] is this just all subjective and
[41:36] conjecture?
[41:37] >> I'm not sure there's data to support
[41:39] that. I haven't seen anything. But, what
[41:41] I can say from what you're saying is
[41:44] that if you usually go to bed at 9:30,
[41:46] 10:00, and then all of a sudden you go
[41:49] to bed at midnight, now you're kind of
[41:51] out of line with your personal circadian
[41:53] system, right? And it's always harder to
[41:57] to get a good night's sleep if you're
[42:00] not going with your internal clock or
[42:03] your internal circadian
[42:05] preference.
[42:06] Um this is what happens with shift
[42:08] workers, right? For example, they they
[42:10] they're not sleeping at night, They're
[42:12] trying to sleep during the day. They're
[42:15] trying to sleep during the day where
[42:16] their melatonin is low or it should be
[42:19] when it's high. So, they're fighting
[42:21] their circadian system. So,
[42:23] yes, they should they should be getting
[42:25] 7 hours, but they're not getting 7 hours
[42:28] because the body's not designed to be
[42:31] sleeping during the daytime hours. Plus,
[42:34] then you have you know, everything else,
[42:36] right? That
[42:37] >> Right. The light, the stress.
[42:38] >> noise, the kids, the whatever life that
[42:41] that happens during the daytime when
[42:42] everybody else is awake and you're
[42:44] trying to sleep.
[42:44] >> Yeah, the only thing I can think of
[42:46] that's an advantage to being nocturnal
[42:48] is the quiet.
[42:50] >> [laughter]
[42:50] >> I used to sometimes shift to a nocturnal
[42:52] schedule during holidays in graduate
[42:54] school when everyone go home because I
[42:56] lived my my parents lived relatively
[42:59] close to where I went to graduate
[43:00] school, so I could afford to just just
[43:01] go home for Christmas, right? Just that
[43:03] day or a couple of days and everyone
[43:06] else had to travel. So, I could invert
[43:07] my schedule. It just kind of drifted
[43:09] that way.
[43:10] >> Yeah.
[43:10] >> I promise that's the only advantage of
[43:12] going to bed at 4:00 a.m. and
[43:15] sleeping until, you know, 3:00 p.m. at
[43:17] least for typical people. Your brain
[43:20] gets into a kind of weird space when
[43:22] you're inverted from the rest of the
[43:24] world.
[43:25] >> Well, the things you do when you're a
[43:26] grad student. I would be the opposite,
[43:28] right? I I'd wake up at 4:00 a.m. and
[43:30] then study because I felt like all of
[43:32] the hours of studying before the sun
[43:34] rose were like extras.
[43:37] >> Interesting.
[43:37] >> Extra time for me.
[43:38] >> extra. You felt like you were extra
[43:40] sharp at those hours?
[43:41] >> Extra sharp. I could study and then, you
[43:43] know, I got that time done and then, you
[43:45] know, breakfast, but then I crashed
[43:48] later in the afternoon.
[43:49] >> the problem. The 1:00 2:00 p.m. crash.
[43:51] Um, has your work explored napping at
[43:54] all? I'm a believer in naps and
[43:55] non-sleep deep breaths, yoga nidra type
[43:57] things, meditation. Do naps factor into
[44:00] this diet, nutrition, hunger equation?
[44:04] >> So, we I done research on napping per
[44:07] se. For me, there a lot going on with
[44:10] napping. I don't think we have very good
[44:12] data to be able to say what's
[44:14] appropriate about napping. What we do
[44:17] know is that
[44:19] you don't want to nap too close to
[44:22] bedtime because
[44:24] you want to build sleep pressure
[44:25] throughout the day. And if you're
[44:27] dissipating the sleep pressure, the
[44:29] sleep need too close to bedtime, then
[44:30] you're not going to be able to fall
[44:31] asleep when time
[44:33] time comes to go to bed at your usual
[44:35] hour.
[44:36] And then, you know, you get into this
[44:38] vicious cycle, and it's it's not
[44:40] helpful. But, you know, there are some
[44:42] studies that say, "Well, what should you
[44:44] do if you can't sleep enough at night
[44:46] and you're feeling tired?" You know,
[44:47] should you sleep?
[44:49] The
[44:50] recommendations are that you should make
[44:51] it a short nap, 30 minutes, no more than
[44:54] an hour, early enough in the day, if
[44:57] possible, so that you can have
[44:59] sufficient time to rebuild that sleep
[45:01] pressure to be able to fall back asleep
[45:04] well when time comes.
[45:06] But then there's also this this whole
[45:08] question about
[45:10] what's a nap for?
[45:12] Right? Like why are you sleepy? Of
[45:15] course, if you if you pulled an
[45:16] all-nighter, it's easy to to know. But
[45:19] if if you had sufficient sleep or
[45:22] sufficient opportunity for sleep at
[45:24] night and you're waking up and you're
[45:25] not feeling refreshed, and not feeling
[45:26] like you had good quality sleep, and
[45:28] then you're not able to maintain
[45:30] alertness throughout the day, and you
[45:32] need a nap,
[45:35] I think you should you should check to
[45:36] see like what's going on at night. Like
[45:38] why are you not getting that good good
[45:40] enough sleep?
[45:41] >> I'm chuckling because my post-doc
[45:42] advisor sparked this huge debate. It was
[45:45] a big lab. And we had a couple of people
[45:48] in the lab who liked to nap at their
[45:49] desk. These were people that could just
[45:50] like put their head down and and nap at
[45:52] their desk in the afternoon. You'd walk
[45:53] in, they'd be napping, and then they'd
[45:54] wake up and keep working. Everyone was
[45:57] working very hard. And he had this
[45:59] theory
[46:00] uh
[46:01] that if you're napping, it's because
[46:03] you're sleep deprived. That like napping
[46:05] is unhealthy, you know. And it it
[46:07] sparked a big debate. And people because
[46:10] it were a bunch of nerds, people bring
[46:11] data in like, "No, you know, at the
[46:13] sleep lab at Stanford says that naps can
[46:15] be healthy." And I think it you what you
[46:17] just described summarizes I think that
[46:19] the takeaway. I'm a believer in the
[46:21] short nap. But but I'm one of these
[46:23] people that can sleep anywhere, anytime,
[46:24] which may be reflective of sleep
[46:26] deprivation.
[46:27] >> Maybe, yeah.
[46:27] >> Do you find that like when you're going
[46:29] to design a study or when you're going
[46:31] to like really work, like this 4:00 a.m.
[46:33] time, that it's a time of calm or are
[46:35] you like a lazy Are you Do you feel like
[46:37] your mind is moving fast or you're kind
[46:39] of in this like flow zone or whatever
[46:41] you want to call it?
[46:42] >> I'm very focused.
[46:44] >> Mhm.
[46:45] >> Uh, very efficient.
[46:48] So, I try to be really attentive at my
[46:51] task. I try to take take breaks once in
[46:55] a while, but uh
[46:57] most of the time it's it's very
[46:59] efficient.
[47:01] Get to the task and get it done.
[47:03] >> Earlier you were talking about biking in
[47:05] the work. You strike me as somebody who
[47:06] I always think of people who I'm always
[47:08] impressed by colleagues like this that
[47:09] their life is kind of like a step
[47:10] function. They wake up and it's like
[47:12] they're into the day and then it's down,
[47:14] right? Yeah. Interesting. I think some
[47:16] of us are more like this.
[47:17] >> But I think it's important to have a
[47:19] little bit of both though. I think it's
[47:21] important to have downtime,
[47:24] you know,
[47:25] speed time,
[47:27] to to not just be go go go go go. Like
[47:30] you were asking about
[47:32] my personal you know,
[47:35] actions. And
[47:37] at one point
[47:39] I was running a lot for exercise.
[47:42] And uh
[47:43] I felt like my whole life was just
[47:46] running all the time.
[47:47] >> Your brain, too?
[47:48] >> Yeah, yeah. Run to get my kids to
[47:49] school, run to work, get work done, run
[47:52] to then run for fun. Run, run, run. And
[47:55] then I thought, "Okay, I got to need to
[47:58] >> [snorts]
[47:59] >> I think I need a breather. And so I
[48:01] started incorporating yoga into my uh
[48:04] my exercise routine. I think that's I
[48:07] think that's good. Actually, when I was
[48:08] a grad student, I thought yoga was
[48:10] stressful because I couldn't [laughter]
[48:12] stand in those poses.
[48:14] >> Exactly.
[48:15] >> Yeah.
[48:15] >> Yeah.
[48:15] >> But I think yoga evolved. I think the
[48:17] yoga that I do now, it's not as static
[48:20] >> Mhm.
[48:21] >> as the yoga I was doing when I was a
[48:23] grad student. I think it evolved to be a
[48:24] little more active than uh than back
[48:27] then. I see the benefit to having, you
[48:30] know the
[48:31] both types of uh exercise.
[48:34] >> Thanks for being willing to explore
[48:36] that. You know, the I'm not an Ayurvedic
[48:38] practitioner, but the Ayurvedic folks,
[48:40] they'll talk about people like more
[48:41] fire, more more earth, where, you know,
[48:43] and and I think it's just a different
[48:45] lens and nomenclature on
[48:48] there's a kind of array of phenotypes.
[48:50] But when we talk about this thing,
[48:51] sleep, it becomes very prescriptive,
[48:53] right? It's like we all need 6 to 8
[48:56] hours. I mean, I actually, from what
[48:58] you're saying today, six sounds like
[49:00] insufficient is what I'm hearing. I'm
[49:01] probably a little sleep deprived is what
[49:03] kind of hearing.
[49:04] >> So, you know, a colleague of mine just
[49:05] published a paper in nature about
[49:07] biological clocks and aging in different
[49:10] organs. And the sweet spot really was 6
[49:13] and 1/2 to about 7 and 1/2 8 hours for
[49:18] optimal
[49:19] aging. Once you get to below that, it's
[49:22] basically U-shaped, right? So, too much
[49:24] of one thing is not good, too too little
[49:26] is is not good. You want to be in the
[49:28] sweet spot most most organs for uh
[49:32] optimal aging was in this 6 and 1/2 to
[49:34] 7.8. And it differed a little bit by men
[49:37] and women, depending on which organs he
[49:38] was looking at. Uh a little longer for
[49:41] women. Um some of the curves were
[49:44] different, where, you know, some are
[49:46] more pronounced U-shapes in in men than
[49:48] women in different organs. So,
[49:51] uh very interesting paper.
[49:52] >> Mhm. Came out last week or 2 weeks ago.
[49:54] >> I'll have to check it out. Um, what
[49:56] other uh sex differences uh are known to
[49:59] exist in sleep requirements, sleep
[50:01] dynamics that from your work or from
[50:03] other work? This is not something we've
[50:04] really covered on the podcast.
[50:06] >> No.
[50:07] >> No, I mean, well, not in in any
[50:09] sufficient amount of detail.
[50:10] >> Yeah.
[50:10] >> Yeah.
[50:11] >> So, women tend to sleep a little longer
[50:13] than men across lifespan. Although, you
[50:16] know, if you ask women about their
[50:17] sleep,
[50:18] they don't rate their sleep as very
[50:20] good. Um, more women than men report
[50:22] having difficulties with sleep,
[50:24] insomnia, for example, insomnia
[50:26] symptoms. More women than men say they
[50:29] have difficulty falling asleep,
[50:31] difficulty maintaining sleep uh across
[50:34] the adult lifespan.
[50:35] >> Why do you think that is?
[50:36] >> There could be some physiological
[50:37] effects, right? Some hormonal effects.
[50:39] Women uh don't sleep the same across the
[50:41] menstrual cycle.
[50:43] Uh there's discomfort at different
[50:45] times.
[50:46] Uh and then there's different
[50:47] responsibilities, different social roles
[50:49] that come into play uh that may
[50:51] influence women differently than men.
[50:54] But, you know, we were working on a on a
[50:57] review paper actually about hypertension
[50:59] and and sleep and sex differences. And,
[51:02] you know,
[51:03] women are more sensitive to the impact
[51:06] of poor sleep on different metabolic
[51:08] outcomes than men. So, for blood
[51:10] pressure, at lower sleep apnea, for
[51:13] example, at lower thresholds of sleep
[51:16] apnea, their blood pressure would be
[51:17] higher
[51:18] uh than men. So, I think that there
[51:21] needs to be uh for sure a lot more
[51:23] research in this area to be able to
[51:24] uncover, you know, these these
[51:27] differences. And then, you know, knowing
[51:29] that there are these differences to
[51:30] start
[51:32] probing uh women about their sleep. Last
[51:35] year, we published um a scientific
[51:37] statement for the American Heart
[51:38] Association about multidimensional sleep
[51:40] health. And we concluded by uh
[51:42] recommending clinicians that they
[51:45] actually ask their patients about sleep.
[51:47] And not ask a question a targeted
[51:49] question, just ask their patients,
[51:51] "How's your sleep?" Because if you start
[51:53] asking about, "Oh, how much sleep do you
[51:56] usually get at night?" Then you tell the
[51:59] person that the only thing that matters
[52:00] is how many hours of sleep you got at
[52:02] night. That's not all sleep is about,
[52:05] right? Sleep is not just about the
[52:08] number of hours that you got, but it's
[52:10] also about
[52:12] the regularity, the quality, your
[52:14] satisfaction with it. Uh you're There's
[52:17] nighttime experiences, there's daytime
[52:19] experiences from sleep. When you wake up
[52:21] from sleep, are you feeling refreshed?
[52:24] Are you feeling like you had Are you
[52:26] satisfied with how much the sleep you
[52:27] got the night before? During the day,
[52:30] are you staying alert? Are you vigilant
[52:33] during the daytime hours
[52:35] uh from your past sleep experience. So,
[52:37] having this open-ended question, maybe
[52:40] maybe clinicians uh won't have time for
[52:43] for uh for the answer, but, you know, it
[52:46] allows the their patient to actually
[52:48] tell them what's bothering them about
[52:50] their sleep.
[52:51] >> Mhm.
[52:52] >> Then you can get to something like, you
[52:53] know, my my spouse keeps kicking me
[52:56] because I'm snoring too loud. Then, "Oh,
[52:58] well, maybe we should test you for sleep
[53:00] apnea."
[53:00] >> Does apnea always include snoring? Yes.
[53:04] So, are there some people who don't
[53:05] snore who have apnea?
[53:07] >> I don't think so. You stop breathing,
[53:09] and then there's this gasping
[53:11] sound that
[53:13] people make when they uh they awaken
[53:15] from that.
[53:16] Or they get aroused from from this
[53:19] breathing interruption.
[53:20] >> I feel like so many people have apnea
[53:22] and don't realize it. Not because I'm
[53:23] sneaking into their rooms at night and
[53:24] listening to if they snore, but it is
[53:27] just remarkable how many people I speak
[53:29] to who say, "Yeah, I found out I had
[53:31] apnea because I saw that I was snoring
[53:33] because they started monitoring their
[53:35] sleep." And there's generally a snoring
[53:37] index on these. Or now there are free
[53:39] apps that can just record you while you
[53:40] sleep. So, I know a lot of people are I
[53:43] don't mouth tape uh when I sleep, but I
[53:46] I did I do uh sometimes use one of these
[53:48] nose strips that kind of pulls the
[53:50] nostrils out a bit. That certainly it's
[53:53] reduced the amount of snoring
[53:55] >> That will reduce the amount of snoring,
[53:57] but the sleep apnea is from the throat,
[54:01] right? So, the closure in the throat
[54:03] that it uh that uh obstructs
[54:06] the trachea and that's what then prompts
[54:10] the awakening and breathing and then the
[54:12] sound that comes from there. Actually,
[54:14] weight loss is typically like the first
[54:17] line treatment if someone has excess
[54:19] weight to start losing weight, that
[54:20] might help with the uh with sleep apnea.
[54:24] And then there's CPAP which yes, people
[54:26] don't like, but if they are at a lower
[54:28] weight where the apnea is milder, the
[54:31] pressure may be
[54:33] not as uh
[54:34] not as high, so that might be helpful
[54:37] for comfort.
[54:39] I have a colleague of mine who does uh
[54:41] sleep apnea surgeries. So, implantables
[54:43] are also
[54:44] >> Oh.
[54:44] >> If people think they might have apnea,
[54:46] is it just get a CPAP, pop that thing
[54:48] on? Is that the best line of of entry?
[54:50] >> I think they should uh they should get
[54:52] tested.
[54:53] >> So, how do we How does one do that? Cuz
[54:55] that's the problem.
[54:56] >> if you're
[54:58] suspecting that you may have sleep apnea
[55:00] because you've been told that you snore,
[55:02] because you wake up and you're not
[55:04] feeling refreshed, and you're feeling
[55:05] sleepy during the day, I think you
[55:07] should talk to your doctor about this
[55:09] and definitely, we have polysomnography
[55:12] is the first line you know,
[55:14] is what we use to detect um sleep apnea.
[55:17] But, there's in-home sleep testing that
[55:19] can be done, so you don't have to stay
[55:21] overnight in a lab for for uh to get
[55:24] tested for this, and uh and your doctor
[55:26] can prescribe that test very easily.
[55:29] >> How come we can't just go buy a CPAP on
[55:31] Amazon?
[55:32] >> Because you need to have the the the
[55:34] pressure
[55:36] determined for you, right? So, you need
[55:37] to know what kind of pressure to apply
[55:39] and you know, how to set it up. Uh it's
[55:42] not as as simple as just you know
[55:44] >> Okay. All right, fair.
[55:46] >> You need it it needs to have the proper
[55:47] settings and someone needs to tell you
[55:49] which setting to use because then that's
[55:50] where you run to the trouble of having
[55:52] the wrong settings and and not being
[55:54] effective.
[55:55] >> Yeah, I just know from having done this
[55:56] podcast long a while that like if people
[55:59] think, "Okay, I got to go to my doctor.
[56:01] I got to find out or convince them that
[56:03] I have apnea. Then they have to like
[56:06] write me a script for a CPAP. Then I got
[56:07] to buy a CPAP which I'm guessing is not
[56:09] cheap."
[56:10] >> I'm not sure.
[56:11] >> I I don't think they're very
[56:12] inexpensive. They might The price might
[56:13] have come down. And I got to sleep with
[56:15] this thing on my face like looking like
[56:17] Darth Vader so I don't sound like Darth
[56:19] Vader.
[56:20] I just think very few people are going
[56:22] to do it. So, somebody out there should
[56:23] like come up with an at-home solution to
[56:25] this. Something like apnea seems
[56:27] important enough to daytime wakefulness,
[56:29] cognitive function, longevity, metabolic
[56:31] like it works out to so many things that
[56:34] I feel like it
[56:35] >> If you use
[56:36] >> it deserves a like a public health
[56:37] messaging.
[56:38] >> Yeah, if you use it well and you feel
[56:40] better during the day, that's a that's
[56:42] reinforcing, right? To keep using it.
[56:45] And and get treated for it.
[56:46] >> Let's talk about food and nutrients.
[56:48] You've done a substantial amount of work
[56:50] here in this area and I have a bunch of
[56:52] questions. But first I want to talk
[56:53] about kefir.
[56:54] >> Yeah.
[56:55] >> I love Bulgarian full-fat plain yogurt,
[56:59] but it's right next to the kefir.
[57:01] >> Uh-huh.
[57:01] >> And I'm always like, "Do I get the
[57:02] kefir?" Well, I don't know. I love the
[57:03] Bulgarian full-fat plain yogurt. So, I
[57:05] haven't tried the kefir yet. What's
[57:07] special about kefir and why are why did
[57:09] you study kefir?
[57:10] >> Kefir we we studied because it was a
[57:13] fermented dairy product, uh probiotics.
[57:16] We figured, you know, maybe it will
[57:18] improve uh cholesterol synthesis based
[57:21] on its impact on short-chain fatty
[57:23] acids. So, that was a the the subject of
[57:25] my uh master's thesis.
[57:28] Over that study,
[57:29] uh that was when I was at McGill. We
[57:32] were recruited men that had mildly
[57:34] elevated cholesterol levels. We gave
[57:36] them two cups per day
[57:39] versus just regular milk for a month.
[57:42] >> So, two cups like two mugs like this?
[57:44] >> Two cups like the measuring cup.
[57:46] >> Okay.
[57:46] >> Yeah.
[57:47] >> Okay.
[57:47] >> Um like 500 ml.
[57:49] >> Okay.
[57:50] >> And uh
[57:52] and we measured their
[57:54] the amount of cholesterol they they
[57:56] produced at baseline and point in both
[57:59] phases and there was no effect. It was a
[58:02] null study. It was one of those.
[58:04] It was hard to get published.
[58:07] >> Mhm.
[58:07] >> Kept at it and and we got it published,
[58:10] but yeah.
[58:10] >> So, these fermented yogurts and things
[58:13] they don't do anything for
[58:15] for cholesterol levels.
[58:16] >> At least in our study, in this
[58:18] population, at this level, with this
[58:20] comparison
[58:21] >> Mhm.
[58:22] >> didn't have any effect.
[58:23] >> What's your general thought about uh low
[58:25] sugar fermented foods? I don't know if
[58:26] kefir uh qualifies as low sugar, but
[58:29] based on Justin Sonnenburg's work at
[58:30] Stanford and others I've been I've been
[58:32] a really bullish on this idea of
[58:35] sauerkraut kimchi uh
[58:38] full-fat Bulgarian yogurt. Fermented
[58:40] foods are are interesting.
[58:42] >> Yeah.
[58:42] >> Are you a proponent in general?
[58:44] >> I'm a proponent. Yeah, absolutely. I
[58:46] think it's important to feed your gut. I
[58:48] think that uh the gut microbiome is uh
[58:50] getting a lot of attention for all sorts
[58:52] of, you know, uh
[58:54] health benefits.
[58:56] So, I think that that's something that's
[58:58] uh that's is important. So, also
[59:00] it's important to
[59:01] also consider that, you know, for that
[59:04] study, right? Our main outcome was
[59:06] cholesterol synthesis, but there's so
[59:08] many other things we could have looked
[59:10] at that we didn't look at, right? And
[59:13] maybe it didn't have any impact for
[59:15] cholesterol synthesis, but maybe
[59:20] glycemic control might be better or for
[59:25] gut inflammation it would be better.
[59:27] But, you know, you you pick your
[59:29] outcomes, right? You study something and
[59:31] the
[59:31] >> This is the challenge of doing
[59:32] controlled science.
[59:33] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[59:34] >> So, the opposite end of the like
[59:37] X, what used to be called Twitter,
[59:38] science, where like people just like
[59:40] report anecdotes, but
[59:42] actually anecdotes of that sort have
[59:44] become very powerful now in the public
[59:45] health space, for better or worse. Like
[59:47] people, you know, because
[59:49] I
[59:50] we can look at any study and say, "Well,
[59:51] that's a very artificial circumstance."
[59:53] You say, "Well, intentionally, because
[59:54] we're trying to isolate variables."
[59:56] >> Right, right, right, exactly.
[59:57] >> People get frustrated. "Oh, that's an
[59:58] observational study." Well,
[60:01] uh I'm going to continue to eat
[60:02] low-sugar fermented foods every day. I I
[60:04] I do think in a study like the one you
[60:07] described, occasionally there's just
[60:09] there's
[60:10] Let me state this differently.
[60:11] Historically, in science, there's been a
[60:14] lot of interesting discoveries that have
[60:16] come from
[60:17] researchers designing a study to look at
[60:19] one thing and then kind of noticing,
[60:21] "Oh, like all the subjects feel better
[60:23] or sleep better or their skin they
[60:25] they're reporting things that then lead
[60:27] to an another another line line of
[60:29] inquiry, but you moved on from kefir.
[60:32] Tell me about this um this paper. I was
[60:34] intrigued by this when I looked over
[60:36] your CV. The uh a weight-loss diet that
[60:38] includes a coffee beverage enriched in,
[60:41] let me try this, mannan
[60:43] oligosaccharides.
[60:44] >> Yeah.
[60:44] >> Okay. All right, long word. Leads to a
[60:46] greater loss of adipose fat tissue than
[60:49] placebo beverage in overweight men.
[60:51] >> Yeah.
[60:52] >> Tell me about this study and what these
[60:54] mannan oligosaccharides are and if
[60:57] somebody wants to lose weight, should
[60:58] they be including this in their coffee?
[61:00] >> So, this was industry-sponsored research
[61:03] that I did. Um they wanted to replicate
[61:05] a study that had been done in a
[61:08] different country
[61:09] >> [snorts]
[61:09] >> because they wanted to replicate the
[61:10] findings. So, we did this study. Uh it
[61:13] was basically a placebo-controlled
[61:15] study. We got we were provided um
[61:19] coffee mannan oligosaccharides. So,
[61:20] these are extracted from spent coffee
[61:23] grounds. So, it was basically sachets,
[61:25] right? So, a white packet. One had the
[61:29] coffee mannan oligosaccharides, the
[61:30] other one didn't. We gave it to our
[61:33] study participants. We measured their
[61:34] body composition. We found an effect on
[61:38] body composition in men, not in women.
[61:40] >> Hm.
[61:41] >> And so, that was the end of that
[61:42] product.
[61:43] >> Really? They wouldn't market it just
[61:44] because [clears throat] it only had an
[61:45] effect in men?
[61:46] >> Yeah. Yeah, they were like
[61:47] >> I assure you there are many men who
[61:48] would love to drink a coffee drink and
[61:49] lose weight as a consequence.
[61:51] >> to be our market, you know.
[61:53] >> But, do we know what the ingredients
[61:54] were?
[61:54] >> It was
[61:55] mannan oligosaccharides. Just the
[61:57] extracted Yeah, so it was just basically
[62:01] a product that was
[62:02] tasted like coffee, strong coffee.
[62:05] But, it didn't have the caffeine or
[62:07] anything like that. It just had this
[62:09] this mannan oligosaccharide that was
[62:10] extracted from coffee.
[62:12] >> So, this substance comes from coffee
[62:15] ordinarily, but coffee is very low low
[62:18] calorie.
[62:18] >> Right. But, it's from the spent grounds.
[62:20] So, you No one really
[62:22] consumes this really because you know,
[62:25] when you brew your coffee, you're
[62:28] you're not getting it to know.
[62:29] >> Can you buy it? Can people get it?
[62:32] >> I don't think so. I'm not sure.
[62:34] >> So, what What do you First of all, how
[62:35] much weight did they lose relative to
[62:37] the
[62:37] >> It was statistically significant. Yeah.
[62:39] >> Hm.
[62:40] Okay. I was intrigued by it cuz I
[62:41] thought there's there's something that I
[62:43] mean, you studied It's interesting you
[62:45] say kefir
[62:46] mannan oligosaccharides from coffee.
[62:48] >> Yeah.
[62:48] >> Now, I'm going to ask you about ginger.
[62:50] >> Well, when I was in a graduate student,
[62:52] I was interested in functional foods.
[62:54] >> Mhm.
[62:55] >> And I was interested in those foods that
[62:57] provide health benefits beyond their
[62:59] nutritional value.
[63:01] >> Mhm.
[63:01] >> Right. So, kefir
[63:03] is a fermented dairy product. It would
[63:06] We were studying it for its a functional
[63:09] benefit on cholesterol synthesis.
[63:12] That's not
[63:14] a
[63:14] uh that's not a function of dairy,
[63:17] right? Dairy is you consume it for bone
[63:20] health, right? So, it's the basically
[63:22] when we talk about different claims that
[63:24] foods have, you know, there is those
[63:26] structure function claims, like
[63:28] consuming dairy contains calcium that's
[63:30] good for your bones, and then there is
[63:33] um functional
[63:34] claims. Those functional claims are
[63:36] health claims, we call them, that say,
[63:38] "Okay, well, health claim there's a
[63:40] health claim for oats, for example,
[63:41] right? So, consuming fiber from oats
[63:45] uh reduces cholesterol levels."
[63:46] >> That's been demonstrated.
[63:47] >> Yes. So, that's that's a health claim.
[63:49] That's an approved health claim. That's
[63:52] why you see the hearts on some boxes of
[63:54] cereal,
[63:55] but that's different than
[63:57] fiber
[63:59] is good for maintaining regularity,
[64:01] right? So, anyways, I was interested in
[64:03] in functional foods for health benefits
[64:05] beyond their their nutritional content.
[64:08] And so,
[64:10] uh we we study kefir for I study kefir
[64:13] for my master's degree, and then for my
[64:15] PhD, studied uh medium-chain
[64:17] triglycerides,
[64:19] um and then um
[64:21] ginger, that was uh that was something
[64:24] that I that I uh offered to a grad
[64:27] student at Columbia. It was interesting
[64:29] because uh the McCormick company
[64:33] had an advertisement in uh one of the
[64:35] nutrition journals, and they were going
[64:37] to donate
[64:38] um spices for research.
[64:41] So, I was like, "Okay." They had a list
[64:42] of different herbs and spices that they
[64:44] were going to donate for research, and I
[64:46] had a grad student, and I said, "Take a
[64:48] look at this list,
[64:50] come back to me, see if there's
[64:52] something in there that we should
[64:55] test in the lab
[64:56] based on the things that I do. Don't
[64:58] come to me with something that's, you
[64:59] know, that I don't study, but and then
[65:02] he did some research, and came back, and
[65:05] he said, "I think we should study
[65:06] ginger." And I was like, "Okay, and to
[65:07] do what?" He was like, "I think, you
[65:09] know, for energy expenditure,
[65:11] look at thermic effect of food. So, it's
[65:14] like "Okay."
[65:15] So, so we did this study. I had some
[65:17] some funds that I could use for him to
[65:19] do that and uh
[65:20] >> What did the study look like?
[65:21] >> A study where we looked at the thermic
[65:22] effect of food.
[65:23] >> Like, so people ate ginger root with the
[65:26] spice in their food. What was
[65:27] >> We dissolved ginger powder in warm
[65:30] water.
[65:32] And so, that was one beverage and then
[65:34] uh in the crossover, again, crossover
[65:36] design. So, next time when they came, it
[65:38] was just hot water.
[65:39] >> And how many times a day are they
[65:40] drinking it?
[65:41] >> This was a one-time one-time uh
[65:44] consumption period. And we looked at the
[65:46] thermic effect of food over a 6-hour
[65:48] period. So, again, they're they're under
[65:50] this um
[65:52] we call it metabolic hood, right? So, a
[65:54] little bubble. And we measure their uh
[65:56] oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide
[65:58] production for I think it was 4 or 5
[66:01] hours.
[66:01] >> significantly elevated.
[66:03] >> Mhm.
[66:03] >> With ginger.
[66:04] >> With ginger.
[66:05] Yeah.
[66:06] >> Wow.
[66:06] >> So, we think through the capsaicin
[66:08] receptor, there's an increase in the
[66:10] thermic effect of food. So, yeah. So, I
[66:12] was interested to see are there little
[66:15] things that we could do, little changes
[66:17] we can make to our diet to boost energy
[66:20] expenditure relative to intake, you
[66:22] know, just to tip the scale because
[66:25] many adults over the course of their
[66:27] life lifetime gain weight.
[66:29] And it's not a big imbalance in calories
[66:33] on a daily basis that leads to
[66:37] 10 lbs of weight gain over 10, 15 years,
[66:40] right?
[66:41] >> more. Now, again, the GLP's are coming
[66:42] in and adjusting with Yeah, I'm very
[66:44] interested also in foods that have
[66:48] impact beyond their, you know, known
[66:51] known roles. I mean, the the problem is
[66:54] in this area, in the functional foods
[66:55] area, not the problem with your work,
[66:57] but the is that there are a lot of wild
[66:59] claims that go unchecked. Like, oh, you
[67:02] know, walnuts are shaped like a brain
[67:04] and therefore they're good for your
[67:05] brain or, you know, which is I'm they
[67:07] have certain things in them which are
[67:09] brain beneficial, but it's not related
[67:11] to the shape of the food. So, you get
[67:13] there's a that area I feel of nutrition
[67:16] has been
[67:17] um marginalized on the basis of the kind
[67:20] of like
[67:21] quackery associated with it. But, of
[67:23] course, there are interesting things in
[67:25] different [clears throat] foods. I do
[67:26] think that the
[67:28] the Sonnenburg and colleagues work on
[67:29] low-sugar fermented foods has been very
[67:31] informative for lowering the
[67:33] inflammatome even more than fiber.
[67:36] I mean, actually in that study, this is
[67:38] kind of the like even Justin will kind
[67:39] of downplay this a little bit. He's a
[67:41] colleague, so I can say he
[67:42] in the fiber group, when they compared
[67:44] to low-sugar fermented foods, and then
[67:45] they measured the inflammatome, they did
[67:47] a crossover design also. Within the
[67:49] fiber group, there was a fair number of
[67:51] people who their inflammation went way,
[67:53] way up when they consumed more fiber.
[67:56] But, in the low-sugar fermented group,
[67:58] or when they were in that group, it was
[67:59] it was
[68:00] always on average reduced.
[68:03] Some people who increase their fiber
[68:05] intake their
[68:06] inflammatome decreases. For a lot of
[68:08] people, it increases. Which is not to
[68:10] say that fiber is bad, but I think now
[68:11] we're starting to think about like
[68:12] different types of fibers.
[68:14] >> I was going to ask.
[68:15] >> Yeah. They didn't control for that. They
[68:16] just said increase the number of
[68:18] servings each day. And and I know a lot
[68:20] of people don't like to eat fibrous
[68:22] foods because they don't feel good after
[68:24] they eat them. It's like it's not that
[68:26] they don't taste good, and I think
[68:27] there's this whole like histamine story
[68:29] that needs exploration. I think foods
[68:32] and the healthy foods needs better
[68:34] parsing.
[68:35] >> Yeah.
[68:35] >> In my in my opinion.
[68:36] >> Yeah, I I mean, there was also
[68:38] habituation. You don't go from consuming
[68:42] 6 g of fiber per day to 25.
[68:44] >> them up, but but I have to say they
[68:46] ramped them up pretty high. Like, even
[68:47] the low-sugar fermented foods, I think
[68:48] they got them up to like four servings
[68:50] per day. It's a lot of kimchi. You're
[68:52] not familiar with it. Like, it can be a
[68:54] little hard on the gut.
[68:56] >> Yeah.
[68:56] >> I actually take an enzyme. I think it's
[68:58] called DAO.
[69:00] Very inexpensive. A little It's like a
[69:02] tiny tiny pill that
[69:04] that for digesting histamines.
[69:06] >> Mhm.
[69:06] >> Cuz I noticed after I had whey protein
[69:08] or I had broccoli or something I would I
[69:10] would get kind of sleepy. I was like,
[69:11] "What is this?" And I
[69:13] a colleague at Stanford, Sean Mackey,
[69:15] who's our head of our pain center, said
[69:17] that he had gut pain at one point. He's
[69:19] a pain doctor, directs the pain center,
[69:21] and he figured out by
[69:24] elimination and trial and error that it
[69:26] was onions and other
[69:27] histamine-containing foods because it
[69:28] avoids histamine-containing foods. I'm
[69:30] not about to give up the things I just
[69:32] described. Onions I can do without, but
[69:34] So, I think that there's a there is food
[69:36] to have real effect.
[69:38] >> Mhm.
[69:38] >> So, kefir, these manno-oligosaccharides,
[69:41] I have to confess I'm a little
[69:42] disappointed cuz like here it looks like
[69:44] it has like a cool effect, but they
[69:45] didn't they didn't want Now can't get
[69:47] them. I'm not going to eat coffee
[69:48] grounds.
[69:49] I'd like to take a quick break and
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[71:23] In your work or in your observation or
[71:25] in your curiosity, what other foods are
[71:26] kind of intriguing to you?
[71:28] >> Someone had a really
[71:30] great question for me at the Obesity
[71:33] Society meeting a couple of years ago. I
[71:36] was showing data that we had just
[71:38] obtained in the lab that showed that if
[71:40] you eat foods later in the day, your fat
[71:44] oxidation is reduced. So, this is a
[71:47] study that we're doing. We had
[71:49] participants on a controlled diet, and
[71:52] they started eating 1 hour after waking
[71:54] up, and they had a 10-hour eating
[71:56] window, or they started eating 5 hours
[71:59] after waking up, so 4-hour delay
[72:01] relative to the other condition. Again,
[72:04] same thing for a a 10-hour window
[72:06] 10-hour window.
[72:07] We gave our participants the exact same
[72:09] foods. Same foods, same quantity, same
[72:13] timing between meals. And this was done
[72:15] in a metabolic chamber.
[72:18] And the meals, especially the meals
[72:21] later in the day,
[72:23] that were consumed late relative to the
[72:25] earlier version of those meals, led to
[72:28] less fat oxidation.
[72:31] And someone in the audience
[72:33] stood up and said, "So, would you then
[72:37] recommend that people eat medium-chain
[72:39] triglycerides
[72:41] in their evening meal as opposed to, you
[72:44] know,
[72:45] a different type of of fat?"
[72:48] And my eyes just went like this because,
[72:51] you know, my
[72:52] the my time studying medium-chain
[72:54] triglycerides was, you know, 15 to 20
[72:57] years ago. I was like, "Wow, this person
[72:59] knows my that work that I've done and
[73:02] now is applying it to this work that I'm
[73:04] doing currently." And I thought that was
[73:05] fascinating and I think that, you know,
[73:07] timing of intake of different foods and
[73:09] how it influences metabolism is
[73:12] something that's uh that's fascinating
[73:14] to me.
[73:15] >> I confess, I'm a like first bite of food
[73:18] around 11:00 a.m. person. I'm trying to
[73:20] eat breakfast these days and then kind
[73:22] of shift things earlier. All it's really
[73:24] done is added a meal cuz I I take my
[73:26] last bite of food usually around 8:00
[73:27] p.m. I just can't seem to get
[73:30] much earlier.
[73:32] But,
[73:34] I and many other people have wondered
[73:36] whether it's best to eat more towards
[73:38] early day or whether or not it's just
[73:39] overall caloric load. You're saying that
[73:42] it does indeed make a difference.
[73:43] >> It makes a difference, yeah.
[73:44] >> You want to shift most of your caloric
[73:46] intake to the first like two-thirds of
[73:48] your waking day.
[73:49] >> Roughly.
[73:50] >> Mhm. Yeah.
[73:51] >> As opposed to the last two-thirds.
[73:53] >> Yes.
[73:53] >> Mhm. Yeah.
[73:54] >> [clears throat]
[73:54] >> So, in that study, 1 hour after waking
[73:57] up, so let's say basically 8:00 a.m. to
[73:59] 6:00 p.m. is our eating window. I mean,
[74:01] this is a 10-hour eating window. It's
[74:03] short. It's not, you know, our typical.
[74:04] So, it could be
[74:06] 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
[74:07] >> That seems pretty
[74:08] >> That's reasonable.
[74:09] >> Yeah. Yeah, versus
[74:11] >> 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
[74:14] >> The New York schedule.
[74:15] >> Yeah, the New York schedule.
[74:16] >> that Yeah, well, I I sort of chuckle cuz
[74:18] when I go to New York, like it's like if
[74:19] you go to dinner at
[74:21] 5:30, 6:00, you're kind of alone in the
[74:23] restaurant.
[74:24] >> Yeah, the early bird special.
[74:26] >> Yeah, depends on time of year. In In
[74:28] California, it's it's kind of in it's
[74:30] the early shifted.
[74:32] >> Yes.
[74:32] >> But, that's just more reflective of
[74:33] culture, I think. In Europe, they they
[74:36] eat very late often. Depends on where.
[74:38] >> I I I was saying before we we started, I
[74:42] was on a Fulbright uh program last year
[74:45] in in Spain. And uh I would joke with my
[74:48] with my colleagues there because they
[74:50] eat very late. And even the children eat
[74:52] very late. And I was like, "Okay, well,
[74:55] you feed me, then you feed the children.
[74:57] >> Right. [laughter] Right.
[74:58] >> Then you have your dinner because they
[74:59] can have dinner at 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
[75:01] and the children ate 9:00 p.m. and I was
[75:03] like,
[75:04] >> Can't be good.
[75:06] If you my dad's from Argentina, if you
[75:08] go to a restaurant in Buenos Aires at
[75:11] 9:00 p.m.,
[75:12] you're not going to see many people. At
[75:14] 11:00 p.m., you'll see people in their
[75:15] 70s and 80s and they're up early the
[75:17] next day. They nap in the afternoon.
[75:19] >> Yeah.
[75:20] >> I don't know how healthy they are as a
[75:21] country on average, but haven't looked
[75:23] at the data, but very, very late shifted
[75:26] culture.
[75:26] >> Well, there has been studies in Spain
[75:28] that have looked at timing of eating and
[75:29] their impact on weight management. I'm
[75:32] thinking of work by Marta Garaulet,
[75:35] where she showed that in her
[75:37] weight loss program, the participants
[75:40] who have lunch, so their big bigger meal
[75:42] is is lunch, who have their lunch
[75:44] earlier in the day, have better weight
[75:47] loss than those who have their lunch
[75:49] later in the day.
[75:50] So, you know, even in those cultures
[75:53] where they have they tend to eat late,
[75:55] they still find that eating earlier
[75:58] tends to be better for you.
[75:59] >> I was very, very relieved when
[76:02] Alan Aragon, who's a I consider one of
[76:05] the best public educators on the topic
[76:07] of protein and nutrition, body
[76:08] recomposition, he's formally trained in
[76:11] this, reassured me that, you know,
[76:14] nowadays there's a lot of interest in
[76:15] getting like protein rations. It's
[76:16] probably over done a little bit, but the
[76:18] people are striving to get more
[76:19] high-quality protein, but that
[76:22] except in rare circumstances where
[76:24] people are really trying to optimize
[76:26] every bit of muscle protein synthesis,
[76:28] 95% of the effect
[76:31] of getting enough protein can be
[76:32] accomplished by having like two meals.
[76:34] >> Mhm.
[76:35] >> Maybe a little snack. That you don't
[76:36] have And they can be
[76:38] evenly distributed or unevenly
[76:39] distributed. You know, I think a lot of
[76:41] people are feeling this protein pressure
[76:43] and like, "Oh, I got to eat another meal
[76:45] late in the day or I have to force
[76:46] myself to eat breakfast in order to get
[76:48] their protein ration." It turns out the
[76:50] whole notion that you could only
[76:52] assimilate like 30 g per meal is is
[76:54] totally false. It turns out you can
[76:56] assimilate up to 100 g. Now, there are
[76:58] conditions that set that up like
[77:00] exercise etc. but I find that very
[77:03] liberating. Like you could have
[77:04] breakfast and an early dinner
[77:06] >> Mhm.
[77:06] >> with a snack in the middle. You could
[77:08] miss breakfast, have lunch and an early
[77:10] dinner. What I'm hearing from you,
[77:11] however, is that you really want to
[77:13] avoid the
[77:14] the the big even or just late dinner.
[77:17] You just don't want to eat too close to
[77:18] bedtime.
[77:19] >> Correct.
[77:19] >> Okay.
[77:20] >> Yeah.
[77:20] >> What about these
[77:22] MCTs, medium chain triglycerides? These
[77:24] were very popular in the health and kind
[77:25] of biohacking space a few years ago, the
[77:28] um the whole bulletproof coffee notion,
[77:30] MCTs, butter coffee and that's more or
[77:33] less faded away. I don't see a lot of
[77:36] people
[77:38] putting oil in their coffee these days
[77:40] or coconut. What are some of the known
[77:42] benefits of MCTs? Where do you find them
[77:45] and what what brought you to them as a
[77:48] research topic?
[77:49] >> This was a topic for my PhD
[77:51] dissertation. So, my PI got a grant
[77:55] looking at the medium chain
[77:56] triglycerides. He had done prior work on
[77:59] this
[78:00] but what we did was use purified MCT
[78:03] oil. So, this is only
[78:07] liquid oil that contains eight carbon
[78:10] and 10 carbon chain fatty acids.
[78:13] Those are not very common in our general
[78:16] food source. So, it was purified
[78:19] extracted oil that we then
[78:22] gave our participants. We had created
[78:24] this functional oil
[78:27] that contained flaxseed oil also to be
[78:29] able to get some more some omega-3 fatty
[78:31] acids in there.
[78:33] We had added plant sterols because that
[78:35] was a big
[78:36] big focus of my lab at McGill plant
[78:39] sterols for cholesterol reduction and
[78:42] reduce risk of cardiovascular disease.
[78:45] And
[78:46] but the idea was to evaluate the impact
[78:49] on energy expenditure because the way we
[78:53] process medium chain triglycerides is
[78:55] different than how we process long chain
[78:58] triglycerides. So the
[79:01] 12 14 16 and up carbon chains. So the
[79:05] medium chain triglycerides they travel
[79:07] directly to the liver they get
[79:08] metabolized we burn them off more
[79:11] readily than the long chain
[79:13] triglycerides that travel across the
[79:15] peripheral circulation get deposited in
[79:17] adipose tissue and the sort.
[79:20] And so what we did what we found we did
[79:22] two separate studies in men and women in
[79:25] both men and women there was an increase
[79:27] in thermic effect of food so you burned
[79:29] slightly more calories
[79:31] from the the meal that contained medium
[79:33] chain triglycerides compared to the meal
[79:35] that contained your standard fat. For my
[79:37] PhD the first study we did we did in
[79:40] women.
[79:42] And we were trying to match the
[79:43] saturated fat content of the diets
[79:46] because
[79:47] medium chain fatty acids are by default
[79:51] saturated or
[79:53] C80 100.
[79:55] So I said okay we're going to try to
[79:58] compare that to a
[80:00] saturated fat matched control comparison
[80:04] and we used beef tallow.
[80:06] It was a lot of beef tallow.
[80:08] Uh [gasps]
[80:10] participants were not happy with that
[80:12] diet.
[80:12] >> eat it direct like spoonfuls of beef
[80:14] tallow?
[80:15] >> put it on to mashed potatoes. You know
[80:18] when you're when you're doing studies
[80:19] like this where you're trying to control
[80:21] the diet and you want to isolate one
[80:23] aspect of it right and we gave real
[80:25] foods half of the total fat of the diet
[80:28] came from
[80:30] the
[80:31] the medium chain containing versus and
[80:33] the beef tallow so it's like 20% of your
[80:36] fat from
[80:37] one of the two. So you have to pour it
[80:39] mask it somehow.
[80:41] And
[80:42] there's also this issue about laxative
[80:44] effect of MCT oil that that we had a few
[80:46] participants who initially felt a lot of
[80:49] gargling
[80:51] when like just gargling from their
[80:53] stomach from from consuming MCT because
[80:56] it was a lot early on. It resolved.
[80:59] >> Mhm.
[80:59] >> So after a few days it was fine. It was
[81:01] a one week one month I mean four week
[81:03] study. So
[81:05] after a few days no one dropped out for
[81:08] you know any GI issues.
[81:10] >> Okay, that's reassuring.
[81:11] >> Yeah. So beef tallow it was initially
[81:15] beef tallow because it has a lot of
[81:19] saturated fat is solid at room
[81:21] temperature.
[81:23] So as soon as your food started to
[81:25] get a little colder it would kind of gel
[81:29] on your plate.
[81:30] >> Mhm. Yeah, it's sort of like if you
[81:31] bring french fries home from a
[81:33] restaurant that used tallow and then you
[81:34] like put it in the fridge cuz you
[81:35] thought you wanted them as leftovers the
[81:37] next day they're sort of like in this
[81:39] like stuck to bottom of container
[81:41] configuration. Yeah, it's not very
[81:42] appetizing.
[81:43] >> Not a feeling. No, there's like it's
[81:45] white all underneath that.
[81:46] >> always goes into the trash.
[81:47] >> Yeah. A couple of women felt it gave
[81:50] them headache just the smell of it you
[81:53] know.
[81:53] >> So with the MCT's big significant
[81:56] increase in thermic effect of food?
[81:57] >> That was statistically significant.
[81:58] Yeah.
[81:59] It was about
[82:01] 45 to 50 60 calories.
[82:04] >> Oh, I thought you were going to say
[82:05] percent increase.
[82:06] >> No, no, no. So it's it's a small change
[82:08] but it was
[82:11] if you're going to use this versus that
[82:13] you're getting a little boost here if
[82:14] you repeat this a few times in a day
[82:17] because when we measured the thermic
[82:19] effect of food we measured it only after
[82:21] over one meal but repeated over three
[82:25] meals per day over a certain period of
[82:27] time, we did find changes in body
[82:29] composition, improvements in
[82:31] in weight status with medium-chain
[82:33] triglyceride consumption.
[82:35] >> Lean mass to to fat mass ratio.
[82:37] >> Interesting.
[82:38] >> And then we did follow-up study of a
[82:41] weight loss study with medium-chain
[82:43] triglyceride. This time around it was
[82:44] just purified MCT oil, not added with
[82:47] other types, versus olive oil,
[82:50] which is much more acceptable, and found
[82:52] greater weight loss with MCT.
[82:54] >> Based on what you're saying, it's
[82:55] reasonable if somebody wants to improve
[82:58] weight loss. I'm hearing a sort of a
[83:00] constellation of things. Shift your meal
[83:02] timing to in the first two thirds or so
[83:04] of your day,
[83:05] which sounds like it will also improve
[83:07] sleep, which will also improve
[83:09] uh
[83:10] >> Your your ability
[83:11] >> appetite and food regular satiety and
[83:13] hunger signals. What is it like a
[83:15] tablespoon or two of MCT per day? Is
[83:18] that kind of what this looks like for
[83:19] the typical person?
[83:21] >> Yeah, about that.
[83:22] >> Okay.
[83:22] >> Yeah.
[83:22] >> In place of some other oil, not in
[83:25] addition.
[83:25] >> Not in addition, correct.
[83:27] >> Okay. Some ginger.
[83:28] >> Yeah.
[83:29] >> Are they additive? Are they synergistic?
[83:31] >> I think they could probably be additive
[83:33] because I think that the impact is
[83:34] through different mechanisms. Obviously,
[83:37] no one's tested that
[83:39] you know, it's interesting
[83:40] you bring it up this way cuz it makes me
[83:42] think of
[83:43] David Jenkins and the portfolio diet. It
[83:45] actually made the New York Times uh
[83:47] I think it was
[83:48] in December or November.
[83:50] >> The portfolio diet was a diet he
[83:52] designed for maximal cholesterol
[83:55] reduction.
[83:56] >> Mhm.
[83:57] >> So it was initially designed to have
[84:00] four specific foods. So it was high in
[84:02] soy protein, nuts, plant sterols, and
[84:05] soluble fiber.
[84:07] >> Yeah, it's going to be a tough one to
[84:08] get past most of the American public.
[84:09] I'll tell you as a as a public health
[84:11] educator, I don't care if it comes out
[84:13] in the New York Times or Wall Street
[84:15] Journal, the New Yorker, and everything
[84:17] in between. People hear soy.
[84:19] >> Yeah.
[84:20] >> Nuts they like, but easy to overeat.
[84:22] >> Mhm.
[84:22] >> They hear plant sterols and like they're
[84:25] they're
[84:26] they're someplace else.
[84:27] >> This diet was went on a head-to-head
[84:29] comparison with lipid-lowering
[84:32] agent, right? Like a
[84:34] >> Like a statin.
[84:35] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the same
[84:37] uh cholesterol reduction as a statin.
[84:40] >> As a statin.
[84:40] >> Yeah.
[84:40] >> The portfolio.
[84:42] Interesting name. People are definitely
[84:45] unhealthy in this country and if you if
[84:47] they can lower blood lipids
[84:50] >> Yeah. They've expanded it to uh
[84:52] to be more flexible. So, it's not just
[84:55] soy protein now, it also includes
[84:57] legumes. They've added monounsaturated
[84:59] fats, so olive oil.
[85:01] >> You know, when I look at a diet like the
[85:03] portfolio diet, which I you just I only
[85:05] know what you just told me about it. I
[85:07] think about the the current food
[85:10] uh
[85:11] uh suggestions by by the FDA, which are
[85:14] you know, we could call it kind of um
[85:17] it emphasizes um
[85:19] unprocessed minimally processed food.
[85:21] So, I think that's a step in the right
[85:23] direction, certainly. We look at these.
[85:26] The issue that always comes up for me is
[85:28] I think, okay, in in a more plant-based
[85:30] um grain-heavy nut diet, it's very easy
[85:33] for people to overeat calories based on
[85:36] this whole like amino acid protein
[85:38] foraging hypothesis. This idea that we
[85:40] eat until we get enough of the amino
[85:42] acids we want. Like a like a
[85:44] a chicken breast or something and a
[85:46] couple eggs or or or four eggs or
[85:49] something is very satiating.
[85:51] >> Mhm.
[85:51] >> Whereas we can eat a lot of grains and
[85:53] nuts before we kind of go, okay, that's
[85:55] enough. There seems to be this issue
[85:57] like how do how do you
[85:58] ensure cardiometabolic health
[86:00] >> Mhm.
[86:01] >> while quelling hunger.
[86:02] >> Mhm.
[86:03] >> You can't have people walking around
[86:04] hungry all the time. And the GLP's help
[86:06] with that. And it does get down to sort
[86:08] of like do you include animal-based
[86:09] foods or not often?
[86:11] >> So, how do you think just from a public
[86:13] health perspective that we can reconcile
[86:16] this? Cuz clearly the highly processed
[86:18] food diet is not going to work. The
[86:19] standard American diet that I think that
[86:21] is fading away. But now there's this
[86:23] kind of polarization of like are we
[86:24] going to go mostly plants, grains, nuts,
[86:26] and kind of think low saturated fat,
[86:28] blood lipids improving, or we going to
[86:30] think like
[86:32] you know, more
[86:33] protein satiety.
[86:35] Do you see where I'm getting at here?
[86:37] Like I feel like this is this is the
[86:38] contour of things.
[86:39] >> Yeah. Well, I I think that
[86:42] there's there's no reason to pit one
[86:44] another against the other, right? So
[86:46] like this one on one. But what's
[86:48] important is that also having a diet
[86:52] that's more plant-based, is higher
[86:54] volume, that's filling. It's hard to eat
[86:59] a lot of food. So if your
[87:01] food volume is high, but does not
[87:04] provide as much calories, you'll get
[87:07] that
[87:08] satiety from the food volume, and then
[87:10] you
[87:10] you put in some some nuts, helps to
[87:14] prolong the satiety because then you get
[87:16] some protein, some healthful fats. And
[87:19] so I think that's important. I'm not
[87:21] saying animal products are bad. I think
[87:24] they're they're important for a diet. I
[87:27] think they're important for health. It's
[87:28] just a matter of portion size and making
[87:31] sure that
[87:33] there's not over emphasis on animal
[87:36] products over plant-based products
[87:37] because we know that plant-based
[87:38] products are so much healthier in terms
[87:41] of heart health,
[87:43] reduction of
[87:45] >> type 2 diabetes, cancer risk, another
[87:48] metabolic diseases.
[87:49] >> Yeah. Well, I'm right there with you. I
[87:50] love fruits and vegetables. I'm a huge
[87:52] fan of
[87:53] I do eat meat. Half Argentine, I mean,
[87:55] you know, but and chicken and I'm not a
[87:57] big fan of fish. I keep working on this,
[87:59] but I can't seem to quite get there, but
[88:01] but I I don't eat them in excess.
[88:04] The things that I feel are very very
[88:06] easy for people to overeat are starch
[88:07] fat or starch sugar fat combinations.
[88:11] >> Mhm.
[88:12] >> It's just like the the brain and gut
[88:14] respond with
[88:16] signals that scream more. You just It's
[88:18] very hard for people to do like a slice
[88:20] of pizza. I I love pizza. It can be
[88:22] done, but it's just very hard for people
[88:24] to do. It's like it it the the stop
[88:26] signals just are all pushed down and the
[88:29] go signals are are all go.
[88:31] >> So, are we reducing white foods as much
[88:32] as possible as well?
[88:34] >> White foods?
[88:34] >> Yeah. So, the
[88:36] white flour, white rice, white pasta,
[88:38] white, you know, things that
[88:39] >> Mhm.
[88:39] >> [clears throat]
[88:40] >> not as colorful. You know, if you're
[88:42] eating a slice of bread and it just
[88:43] dissolves in your mouth.
[88:45] >> It's sugar.
[88:46] >> Not so good.
[88:46] >> This is more of a editorial reflection
[88:48] again, but it's also I was looking at
[88:49] the history of nutrition in this
[88:51] country. Oh, you're Canadian by birth,
[88:52] right? I detected that, right?
[88:55] And [snorts]
[88:56] I don't know what the the sort of
[88:57] traditional fare is in Canada, but if
[88:59] you look at the history of food in the
[89:02] United States, it's never been
[89:04] particularly healthy. The foods that we
[89:06] consider like American foods, like
[89:09] hamburgers, hot dogs, with french fries,
[89:11] corn dogs, fried chicken, donuts. Like
[89:13] we've never been healthy about food.
[89:15] People probably just moved a lot, ate
[89:17] less, smoked a lot more, which is an
[89:19] appetite suppressant, but gives you
[89:20] cancer, kills you. We've never been
[89:24] that healthy with respect to food. Maybe
[89:26] food volume was more in check. But if
[89:28] you look at traditional food in
[89:32] you know, in Europe, probably in I mean,
[89:34] Canada, what what sort of the are the
[89:36] foods nourishing and healthy? I think
[89:38] we're sort of in this like delusion that
[89:40] like we were once healthy about food in
[89:42] this country. We were never healthy
[89:43] about food. The food was always pretty
[89:46] weak in terms of nutritional status
[89:47] except for fruits, vegetables, and some
[89:50] animal parts.
[89:51] >> Yeah.
[89:51] I think portion size
[89:53] has a lot to do with it, too. So, I know
[89:56] um
[89:57] moving from Canada to the US, you know,
[89:59] all the go to restaurant, the portion
[90:01] sizes are so big. Uh it would never have
[90:03] occurred to me to
[90:05] take home doggy bag with for
[90:08] at a restaurant ever.
[90:10] And then here it's like kind of have to
[90:12] or else
[90:13] you know, you're throwing away half your
[90:14] plate or unless you're finishing the
[90:16] whole thing. So, portion size I think is
[90:17] a big one. And also the foods are
[90:19] different in a way. We're talking about
[90:21] yogurt.
[90:22] >> [snorts]
[90:23] >> So, there are two things. When I moved
[90:25] to the US, the first thing the dietitian
[90:27] at my work told me was
[90:29] do not buy bagged bread.
[90:33] I was like, "Okay. What does that mean?
[90:35] Don't buy bagged bread? Like I That's
[90:36] what I always do." No, she says, "You go
[90:38] to the grocery store, you go to the
[90:40] bakery section, they'll cut it up for
[90:41] you, you ask what you want. Don't buy
[90:43] bagged bread." I was like, "Okay. I'm
[90:45] not going to buy bagged bread." So,
[90:46] apparently she was talking about like
[90:48] too many additives, too many too much
[90:50] sugar whatever.
[90:52] Okay.
[90:53] We're talking about like the bread that
[90:54] just melts in your mouth. It's
[90:56] So, and then the other thing was uh
[90:59] yogurt. I used I ate yogurt quite a bit.
[91:02] And then the yogurt in the here in the
[91:04] US
[91:05] tasted sweeter to me. The same thing,
[91:08] the same yogurt.
[91:11] Canada, here are the same name, the same
[91:13] everything.
[91:15] It was sweeter.
[91:16] And I didn't know why, but then it
[91:19] occurred to me that, you know, foods are
[91:22] formulated in different ways in
[91:24] different countries to appeal to the
[91:26] population of that country. So, yogurt
[91:28] was one where it's a little less sweet
[91:30] in Canada than in US and it was less
[91:33] sweet even than
[91:35] in in Europe than Canada and US. So,
[91:38] there's things like that that don't
[91:40] necessarily help.
[91:41] >> Yeah. Yeah, we we love our um sugars and
[91:44] fats
[91:45] in the United States. And and I think we
[91:47] paid a substantial health debt as a
[91:50] consequence. I mean, now
[91:52] again, I don't have the numbers on this,
[91:53] but with Wegovy and Ozempic and the
[91:54] other GLP-1s, I've never tried them, but
[91:57] a lot of people are finding it
[91:59] much easier, if not easy, to lose weight
[92:01] that they just couldn't before they just
[92:03] could not control their appetite.
[92:04] >> Mhm. And they're just not as interested
[92:06] in these foods. There's this argument
[92:07] that maybe they're not as interested as
[92:09] in everything in life and that's a
[92:11] important question that needs to be
[92:12] resolved.
[92:13] >> do things that think that things are
[92:14] changing. I think we're finding a lot
[92:16] more, you know, for example, the yogurt,
[92:18] right? There was a lot more plain yogurt
[92:19] options than there were,
[92:21] you know, when I first moved to the US.
[92:23] So, there's, you know,
[92:25] >> Things are changing. It's been There's
[92:26] been a lot of resistance and I think
[92:28] that the the resistance has been um
[92:33] sociological
[92:35] in the sense that um
[92:37] you know, there there's been a
[92:38] resistance to people being healthy.
[92:41] There really has, you know, that there's
[92:42] this idea that like if you're eating
[92:44] clean, you have an eating disorder. I
[92:46] did an episode about eating disorders. I
[92:48] talked to a lot of experts in this
[92:50] including the group at Columbia Med that
[92:52] works on eating disorders. You know, the
[92:54] frequency of anorexia, the most deadly
[92:56] psychiatric illness of all the
[92:57] psychiatric illnesses, hadn't realized
[92:59] that, is not increasing as a function of
[93:01] social media or magazines or anything.
[93:03] It's been very steady for maybe hundreds
[93:05] of years. It's a real neurological
[93:06] issue.
[93:08] There's obviously social pressures and
[93:09] things like that, but what I discovered
[93:12] in in like talking to experts like
[93:14] Joanna Steinberg at
[93:16] Columbia and others is that you know,
[93:19] like
[93:20] there is this So, that was about
[93:21] anorexia, but what I'm about to say is
[93:23] separate. There's this notion that if
[93:24] you're going to be thoughtful about what
[93:26] you eat, you know, or maybe you're not
[93:27] going to eat too late, or you're going
[93:28] to skip dessert. Or until a few years
[93:31] ago, like if you're not going to drink
[93:32] alcohol, like there's something wrong
[93:34] with you. Like that that you're being
[93:35] restrictive somehow. I think again it's
[93:38] kind of like the parallels to
[93:40] Europe are kind of interesting that were
[93:41] that the contrasts to Europe are
[93:43] interesting where there's a lot of
[93:45] social convention built up around food
[93:47] that was healthy.
[93:49] And I think in the United States the
[93:50] social conventions built up around food
[93:52] and alcohol were pretty unhealthy. It
[93:54] was like everyone does this. Like
[93:55] everyone eats hot dogs at the game. Like
[93:57] and hot dogs at a baseball game are a
[93:59] great thing. It's like a nothing is
[94:00] as American as that except maybe apple
[94:02] pie, right? But there's this when people
[94:05] start making choices in in the direction
[94:07] of their health it was and to some
[94:09] extent it still is a there's this
[94:11] quieter undercurrent of well like are
[94:14] you being restrictive? Like are you
[94:16] really going to live like that? But then
[94:18] you look at the the health outcomes. And
[94:20] culturally until a few years ago it was
[94:22] considered very not okay to say that
[94:24] obesity obesity was a health risk.
[94:26] >> Mhm.
[94:27] >> And now the open discussion about
[94:28] obesity and metabolic health as as like
[94:30] a real health risk.
[94:32] >> Mhm.
[94:32] >> I think now we're kind of like in the
[94:34] actual discussion that for a long time
[94:35] it was like
[94:38] Speaking of which and um kind of things
[94:39] outside the box uh there's a paper on
[94:41] your CV that I could not help but ask
[94:44] about. Snack chips fried in corn oil
[94:47] alleviate
[94:48] >> Mhm.
[94:49] >> cardiovascular risk factors when
[94:51] substituted for low-fat and high-fat
[94:53] snacks.
[94:53] >> Yep.
[94:54] >> What?
[94:54] >> Mhm.
[94:55] >> What?
[94:56] >> Yes.
[94:56] >> Tell me the data. I believe you. I'm
[94:58] just like what
[94:59] This is wild.
[95:00] >> This was funded by Frito-Lay. At that
[95:03] time they had changed the oil that they
[95:06] were using to fry their corn chips. So
[95:10] this was Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, and
[95:13] Tostitos. It's all the to- to- to-
[95:16] >> all the e- e-
[95:16] >> All the e- e-
[95:17] And so they had changed to corn oil. And
[95:19] I'm like this is an oil that's higher in
[95:21] polyunsaturated fats than what we
[95:23] usually have.
[95:24] >> they using before?
[95:26] >> I'm not sure. I forget.
[95:27] >> But it wasn't tallow.
[95:29] >> I don't think so. Like does it make a
[95:30] difference? Is it going to improve
[95:33] health if people choose those
[95:36] snacks compared to other snacks?
[95:38] So we had three arms in that study.
[95:41] Uh each person went through each of the
[95:44] three arms. It was for 25 days. The
[95:48] question was
[95:49] okay, let's say you have a choice for a
[95:51] snack today. And you're going to go to
[95:54] the vending machine
[95:55] and you have your option. Do you eat a
[95:58] low-fat, high-carbohydrate snack, a
[96:02] high-fat,
[96:03] high-monounsaturated high-saturated
[96:05] snack, or those chips?
[96:09] So, you just pick one and that's that.
[96:11] So, I think we gave It was two snacks
[96:13] today
[96:15] for for 25 days. It was a rotation, so
[96:17] they had four Yeah, they had four
[96:19] different uh chips. So, it's two one
[96:21] day, two the next day, like that for 25
[96:24] days and then the controls.
[96:26] And yeah, the the the better lipid
[96:29] profile
[96:30] was the one with
[96:32] was the one from the the corn chips.
[96:35] They had the better lipid. Yeah. And
[96:37] they had less uh lipoprotein little A,
[96:40] which is another you know, factor
[96:42] cardiometabolic risk factor.
[96:44] >> Data or data?
[96:45] >> Data or data.
[96:46] >> Well, I know that in the head-to-head
[96:47] comparison of seed oils, of which corn
[96:49] is,
[96:50] >> Right?
[96:50] >> with saturated fat, this is where it
[96:53] kind of the contention starts to
[96:55] erupt. Where
[96:57] there are many studies now, I think,
[97:00] showing that when you substitute
[97:01] saturated fat with seed oils, that
[97:04] cardiometabolic
[97:05] risk factors go down and this is true,
[97:08] right? Well, by the way, I'm just going
[97:09] to say I I I avoid seed oils actively
[97:12] cuz I like olive oil and butter.
[97:14] >> Mhm.
[97:14] >> Mostly olive oil.
[97:16] I avoid seed oils. I don't like the way
[97:17] they taste. I love olive oil.
[97:19] >> Okay.
[97:19] >> And there's some health effects of olive
[97:21] oil and I eat small amounts of butter
[97:23] and
[97:23] I so I just like duck the whole
[97:26] controversy, right? And uh you have to
[97:28] make sure you're getting real olive oil,
[97:30] but that can be done.
[97:31] When you look at the studies that
[97:32] compare saturated fat to seed oils, you
[97:35] do see
[97:36] uh better outcomes for seed oils. But
[97:38] then there's this crowd that comes in
[97:40] and says, "But that's on a backdrop of
[97:43] reasonably high carbohydrate intake.
[97:46] When you start replacing some of those
[97:47] carbohydrates with lower carbohydrate
[97:50] diet and increasing protein intake so
[97:52] not keto but kind of like lower-ish
[97:54] starch and sugar then maybe that
[97:56] balances out okay. But the big
[97:58] contention seems to be around the
[97:59] processing of these seed oils. This idea
[98:02] that when especially when you make
[98:03] things like chips that when you take
[98:06] fats and you combine them with
[98:07] carbohydrate and you heat them up a lot
[98:09] that you create factors that
[98:11] are not good for the body. What is the
[98:13] evidence for against that?
[98:15] >> Also different oils have different smoke
[98:17] points, right? So each oil should be
[98:20] used for its appropriate usage, right?
[98:22] So cooking process.
[98:25] So
[98:26] I think that's that's where, you know,
[98:28] people think that they should be using
[98:30] one type of oil for everything that they
[98:32] do.
[98:33] But some oil like you wouldn't put
[98:36] flaxseed oil for example and and heat it
[98:38] up to very high
[98:41] uh temperature.
[98:42] >> Are you a fan of flaxseed oil?
[98:44] >> I'm a fan of every liquid oil. I use
[98:46] I've no no personal
[98:49] >> You seem very healthy.
[98:50] >> restriction on the
[98:52] on the types of oils. I think that, you
[98:54] know, oils are that remain liquid at
[98:56] room temperature
[98:58] that should be your your your barometer
[99:01] for what's better to use. I'm also not
[99:04] saying that people should avoid butter
[99:07] like the plague, right? So all in
[99:09] moderation is is okay.
[99:12] >> Is there any reason to
[99:15] I just can't find the argument for why
[99:17] anyone would replace olive oil with a
[99:21] seed oil.
[99:23] >> Olive oil has a lower smoke point than
[99:25] than other seed oils. So peanut oil for
[99:28] example has a higher smoke point. So you
[99:29] can fry in peanut oil. You wouldn't fry
[99:32] anything in olive oil.
[99:33] >> I wouldn't eat anything fried.
[99:34] >> Well
[99:35] >> Yeah.
[99:35] >> So that's that's a different
[99:38] reason. But like, you know, so depending
[99:40] on how you want to use your oil then,
[99:42] you know, also some people find, you
[99:44] know, olive oil in baked goods might
[99:45] impart stronger taste. So, depending on
[99:48] the type. So, some of them are more
[99:50] flavorful, right? And so, they're more
[99:52] fragile, let's say, and they'll impart
[99:55] flavors to different different foods
[99:57] where they're not supposed to be.
[99:59] >> So, you're you're not seed oil averse,
[100:01] nor are you
[100:03] pro seed oil, is what I'm hearing.
[100:05] >> Personally?
[100:05] >> Yeah.
[100:06] >> No.
[100:06] >> Cuz I think that the um the seed oil
[100:09] debate has been very contaminated by the
[100:11] issues that I mentioned before, but also
[100:12] because many, many processed foods
[100:14] contain seed oil. They're much less
[100:17] expensive than using
[100:19] you know, grass-fed butter or or olive
[100:21] oil or even just ordinary butter. So,
[100:24] >> It's important to be
[100:26] nutrition facts literate.
[100:28] So, when you're talking about uh
[100:30] processed foods,
[100:31] so
[100:32] as much as possible, cooking at home,
[100:34] but that's something that a lot of
[100:36] people don't really know how to do, feel
[100:38] they don't have the time for.
[100:39] >> People aren't going to start doing that.
[100:40] >> And then
[100:41] >> I I'll tell you, they're not going to
[100:42] start doing that. I wish they would, but
[100:44] they they're not going to.
[100:45] >> At the grocery store to to look at the
[100:46] nutrition facts panel and be like, okay,
[100:48] what's in here, what's in there, and
[100:50] comparing products to one another,
[100:52] right? And and also, what's more
[100:54] important for your own health.
[100:56] >> Mhm.
[100:56] >> Right? What's relevant for my health may
[100:58] not be what's relevant for your health.
[101:00] You know, some people are we're talking
[101:03] about salt sensitivity. Some people are
[101:05] very salt sensitive. Some people are
[101:07] very active and need to replace salt,
[101:09] and so salt is not an issue for them.
[101:11] But, so being able to know
[101:14] uh where to what to pay attention to,
[101:16] because otherwise, it just gets
[101:18] overwhelming.
[101:19] >> Mhm.
[101:20] You mentioned uh the study was paid for
[101:22] by a company, and earlier you mentioned
[101:24] companies. I think this is an important
[101:25] issue that we've never really direct
[101:27] directly addressed on this podcast. I
[101:29] mean, anytime I've covered a paper and
[101:31] uh sometimes I do these solo episodes,
[101:33] I'll get back to them soon. I used to do
[101:34] a lot more of them, but I would always
[101:36] look, like are there financial conflicts
[101:38] of interest?
[101:40] What's the difference between a company
[101:42] funding a study
[101:44] and a financial conflict of interest, if
[101:46] any? Like it Like to me, a financial
[101:47] conflict of interest is if the
[101:50] investigators, the scientists running
[101:52] the study, um are have stakes in you
[101:54] know, they have uh shares in the company
[101:56] or they're being paid to do the study,
[101:57] obviously. But, when a company funds
[102:00] research on like this uh
[102:03] the snack chips study that you did,
[102:06] I think everyone would like to assume
[102:08] that they don't have any You're not
[102:09] feeling any There's no explicit nor
[102:12] implicit pressure for a particular
[102:14] outcome.
[102:14] >> Right.
[102:15] >> Could you like how do How does this
[102:17] stuff come about?
[102:18] >> So, I'm glad you're asking that question
[102:19] because that's something that people
[102:21] often have this knee-jerk reaction to
[102:23] industry-sponsored studies. And there
[102:25] are I know there are people who are very
[102:27] very vocal against industry
[102:30] uh sponsored research. But, as
[102:31] scientists,
[102:32] we do research. We do research to the
[102:34] best of our abilities, and we provide we
[102:38] we draft the research question, you get
[102:40] the data, you analyze it, you publish
[102:42] it. Some of the studies that I haven't
[102:44] been able to publish have been funded by
[102:46] industry that have had null results.
[102:49] >> Null results?
[102:50] >> Null results. So, so we did a we did a
[102:52] study. It was sponsored by industry. We
[102:55] didn't find any significant effect of
[102:57] the test product compared to the
[102:59] control.
[103:00] >> And you can't publish it.
[103:01] >> We wrote the paper. We wrote the report.
[103:04] We provided it to our sponsor.
[103:07] Just
[103:08] out of uh
[103:10] you know, courtesy. So, this is the
[103:11] paper. We're going to submit it to for
[103:12] publication.
[103:15] Do what you need to do.
[103:16] >> So, they've given you the green light to
[103:17] submit it. So, the companies aren't
[103:19] short-circuiting you.
[103:20] >> No, never. That's in the contract,
[103:21] right? Your right to publish. Because
[103:24] otherwise, why did you do research?
[103:26] There's no point [clears throat] in
[103:27] doing research if you're not going to be
[103:28] able to publish your research.
[103:30] So,
[103:32] you basically
[103:34] it's courtesy to show that the paper
[103:36] that you're going to be submitting for
[103:37] publication,
[103:39] that one paper that I'm
[103:41] referring to, I must have tried five
[103:44] different journals.
[103:46] But,
[103:48] the findings are not exciting. They're
[103:50] showing that there's no effect on our
[103:52] outcomes,
[103:53] and it got rejected, rejected, rejected,
[103:55] rejected. And I'm pretty persistent.
[103:59] I ran out of steam. So, if I run out of
[104:01] steam, I can imagine so many other
[104:03] people, other scientists who have no
[104:05] results have run out of steam much
[104:07] quicker than me.
[104:08] >> So, that's a no result issue. It's not
[104:10] necessarily unique to industry-funded
[104:12] studies.
[104:13] >> No, that's not unique. So,
[104:15] industry-sponsored studies, you know, I
[104:17] often also say they're
[104:19] we get um
[104:21] NIH reports of scientific misconduct.
[104:24] So, reports of scientific misconduct
[104:26] conducts can be found from NIH-sponsored
[104:28] studies where they find that the
[104:31] principal investigator falsified data
[104:33] that have been published in a specific
[104:35] paper.
[104:36] So, to me,
[104:38] if you're not going to if you're not an
[104:40] honest scientist,
[104:43] obviously, I don't think it matters
[104:44] who's sponsoring your research because
[104:46] the NIH finds misconduct.
[104:49] >> Right. I mean,
[104:50] doing science
[104:52] for any other reason than trying to find
[104:54] real answers is just insane. Like, I
[104:56] mean, these people are who do this are
[104:58] like legitimately sick. Like, you know,
[105:01] like yeah.
[105:02] >> It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.
[105:04] >> well, do they really think they
[105:05] discovered something if they made it up?
[105:06] It's like it's like it doesn't it's not
[105:08] it doesn't it doesn't compute. It
[105:10] doesn't compute. Well, it never ends
[105:11] well. And then, you know, we could spend
[105:13] hours talking about the case these
[105:14] things always it always comes out in the
[105:16] wash. So, I'm hearing that negative
[105:18] outcomes are hard to publish.
[105:20] When you
[105:21] take on funding from a company to to
[105:25] address a particular question about a
[105:27] product that they sell. You it sounds to
[105:29] me, I'm trying to I want to be careful
[105:31] I'm not like leading the witness here,
[105:32] but that you you don't it doesn't sound
[105:35] like you feel any pressure to give them
[105:37] a particular answer.
[105:39] >> No.
[105:39] >> So, what's their interest in doing this?
[105:42] Like like why are they why are they
[105:43] funding studies? I mean companies are
[105:45] selfish and they should be. They are
[105:46] shareholders and they need to um some of
[105:48] them are public companies and so the
[105:49] shareholders are the public and so why
[105:51] are they funding research? I mean plenty
[105:53] of people eat chips.
[105:54] >> Yeah.
[105:54] >> Why are they funding research?
[105:57] >> They wanted to know if it had a health
[105:58] benefit.
[105:59] >> So, they could market a health benefit.
[106:01] >> Probably. Market a health benefit at
[106:03] some point. That could be. And then if
[106:05] they don't find a health benefit,
[106:07] maybe they could switch it to something
[106:09] else, right? I don't know.
[106:11] >> I'm very uh
[106:13] sympathetic to the reality that there
[106:16] isn't a lot of research funding coming
[106:18] through NIH and NSF these days, but but
[106:22] always it's been you know, uh it's been
[106:25] low. I know cuz I sat on study sections
[106:27] which dole out grants. I
[106:29] got grants, but I it's very very very
[106:31] competitive. Are you taking money from
[106:34] companies to do this work because it's a
[106:37] it's a great way to fund studies. Like
[106:39] in other words, if if if NIH had more
[106:42] money to study nutrition,
[106:43] >> Mhm.
[106:44] >> I could imagine a world where you would
[106:45] just take money from NIH to do it. Like
[106:47] you wouldn't need the money from
[106:49] companies.
[106:50] >> are better from NIH funding than from uh
[106:53] from industry funding for nutrition
[106:55] research.
[106:56] But if you're if you could get an NIH
[106:58] grant, that's that's the ultimate goal,
[107:01] right? Or USDA or other governmental
[107:04] grant.
[107:05] That's the goal.
[107:06] >> Mhm.
[107:07] >> But sometimes also there's specific
[107:09] foods, specific products that would be
[107:12] kind of hard to study without industry
[107:15] support cuz you need to get access to
[107:18] the specific food
[107:21] or product.
[107:22] >> Well, I
[107:22] >> what the status of it is right now, but
[107:25] um my
[107:27] fairly frequent um kind of check-in on
[107:29] what
[107:30] the at least stated goals of the
[107:33] now being revised NIH are include um
[107:37] creating a forum
[107:38] even some incentive for publishing
[107:40] negative results or null results, I
[107:42] should say. Uh you know, Jay
[107:44] Bhattacharya who's been on this podcast
[107:46] I just put that out publicly. We need to
[107:48] we need those results that are
[107:49] important. They steer people away from
[107:51] certain things that need to be steered
[107:53] away from and also uh it seems at least
[107:58] from the whole food pyramid revision et
[108:01] cetera that there seems to be more and
[108:02] more interest in nutrition
[108:04] as a research topic and something to
[108:06] really understand. So, obviously it's
[108:09] really important. I mean, people are
[108:11] eating every day.
[108:12] Um they're making these choices. So,
[108:14] there should be more federal funding for
[108:15] these things. And then there's no
[108:17] chance of bias.
[108:18] >> Right.
[108:19] >> Right? Yeah, I think that people assume
[108:21] that if if industry funded a study that
[108:23] um especially on food that like
[108:26] something's not to be trusted in there.
[108:28] >> I don't know why for food in particular,
[108:30] right? So, if you think about it
[108:32] >> Food and drugs. Food and drug companies.
[108:34] >> But drug companies, they do research on
[108:36] their own product all the time.
[108:38] >> the R&D for drug companies is definitely
[108:40] done in-house. That's also part of the
[108:42] scary part about it. We don't see the
[108:44] null results. I actually would
[108:46] prefer if it
[108:48] took on a different shape. I don't know
[108:49] exactly what it would look like. I mean,
[108:50] drug comp we don't see a lot of the
[108:53] negative outcomes that might exist. So,
[108:55] I I don't think there's a lot
[108:56] >> they just die out before they make it to
[108:58] next step and
[108:59] >> Yeah, I think outright scientific fraud,
[109:02] people making stuff up is pretty rare.
[109:04] >> Very rare.
[109:05] >> But I do think there's a lot of
[109:07] questions about people because of the
[109:09] incentives to need to publish to as you
[109:11] described it's hard to publish null
[109:12] results. We will never know and And is
[109:15] when you run a lab as you know, you you
[109:16] want to create a culture where graduate
[109:18] students and post docs feel very
[109:19] comfortable saying there's nothing here.
[109:21] >> Right.
[109:21] >> Because the stuff that didn't work out
[109:24] you always you you know, it's just a
[109:26] question that you always have like what
[109:28] what stuff do we never hear about
[109:30] because the negative results like they
[109:32] say, "Well, that mouse was sick." Or
[109:34] this you know, there's a lot of
[109:35] the brain is a crazy
[109:37] >> Yeah.
[109:37] >> thing.
[109:38] >> That's why you need to teach the
[109:39] students well, right? You have a student
[109:41] who comes to you and says,
[109:43] "Hey this
[109:45] this is lower this is better than this."
[109:47] And you look at you look at the numbers
[109:49] and you say, "Well,
[109:50] it's 25 versus 27 and the standard
[109:53] deviation is 10." Like, "No, 25 is the
[109:57] same as 27, right?" So, you have to make
[109:59] sure you you teach well to
[110:02] know that you know, even numerically
[110:05] different effects may not be
[110:08] statistically significantly different
[110:10] and that's just
[110:11] part of the you know, the curve, right?
[110:14] >> Yeah, the ideal situation is when the
[110:15] student or post doc doesn't believe
[110:17] their own results. They're like, "It's
[110:18] not real." [laughter] And then you have
[110:19] to convince them, "Actually, you have
[110:21] something interesting." That's a good
[110:22] situation.
[110:23] >> situation.
[110:23] >> That's a good situation. And then
[110:24] eventually they're like, "Oh, okay, you
[110:26] know." That's the ideal situation, but I
[110:29] think this whole field of nutrition is
[110:31] is is contentious
[110:33] uh for some of the right reasons. It's
[110:35] so very important and I think it's
[110:36] contentious also for a lot of
[110:39] unfortunate and unnecessary reasons.
[110:41] Among the students and post docs and
[110:44] general public when you interact, what
[110:45] what are people
[110:47] most interested in with respect to
[110:49] nutrition? Like when people ask you, is
[110:51] it like, "What should I eat? What
[110:53] shouldn't I eat?" Like what what are
[110:54] what are what what's coming Like what
[110:56] are your antennae picking up when when
[110:58] you're out there?
[110:59] >> I think what should I eat or you know,
[111:01] or have you heard about XYZ fad? That's
[111:05] also one. Have you heard that whatever
[111:09] product cures everything in the world?
[111:11] >> Mhm.
[111:12] >> No, I haven't heard that.
[111:14] >> Peptides are like very peptides right
[111:17] now peptides are really big.
[111:18] >> It's always something else.
[111:19] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[111:20] >> So it's it's it's very specific to a
[111:22] product.
[111:22] >> Yeah, often very specific to a product.
[111:24] Yeah.
[111:25] >> You won't be held responsible for your
[111:26] answer but
[111:28] do you supplement your diet with with
[111:31] minerals like magnesium or anything like
[111:33] that or you just completely careful food
[111:35] choices?
[111:36] >> I prefer careful food choices. I think
[111:39] it's more pleasurable to eat a
[111:42] complete food
[111:43] diet. That said, I think that there are
[111:45] some people who may need to supplement
[111:47] their diets, but I think people should
[111:50] strive to
[111:52] to get their nutrients from
[111:56] from whole foods.
[111:57] >> Fiber recommendations are really
[111:59] growing. I I looked into this and many
[112:01] many people's doctors are now telling
[112:03] them you should take
[112:04] a little bit of psyllium husk. I always
[112:06] thought by the way psyllium husk was
[112:08] like the husks like you had to like
[112:09] they're like you're going to eat like
[112:10] the seed husk. It's actually ground into
[112:12] a powder or something like that. I'm
[112:14] still afraid to take it, but I should I
[112:16] should take a little bit of it, but
[112:17] doctors now are prescribing
[112:20] supplemental fiber
[112:22] and in a pretty high rate from what I
[112:24] understand.
[112:25] >> Oh, that's interesting.
[112:26] >> Yeah, people don't want to eat
[112:27] [clears throat] their fruits and
[112:27] vegetables.
[112:28] >> But they bring so much more, right? So
[112:32] yes, there is fiber in fruits and
[112:34] vegetables, but there's also all sorts
[112:37] of polyphenols, right? All sorts of
[112:39] non-nutrient components that themselves
[112:42] may have benefits for health that we
[112:46] don't fully understand yet that
[112:48] feed your gut that are maybe just as
[112:50] relevant that may
[112:52] enhance
[112:54] fiber's impact on health.
[112:56] >> Yeah, listen, I
[112:57] >> So you know
[112:58] >> preaching to the choir.
[112:59] I I love fruits and vegetables.
[113:02] Well,
[113:03] thank you so much for taking time out of
[113:04] your schedule. You have a very unique
[113:06] research program. You know, I have to
[113:08] say very few people can work on as many
[113:11] different things and find their points
[113:13] of intersection and
[113:14] I'm so grateful that you're exploring
[113:16] these things. I appreciate your
[113:18] openness about industry-funded research.
[113:20] This is something that I think people
[113:23] need to know about. I certainly learned
[113:25] about that from you today and based on
[113:27] your work, I think it's fair to say that
[113:29] we shouldn't just be encouraging people
[113:30] to get great sleep. We should be
[113:32] encouraging people to eat
[113:35] at times and foods that allow them to
[113:38] get great sleep, which will allow them
[113:39] to
[113:40] get better make better food choices
[113:43] >> Yes.
[113:43] >> and so forth.
[113:44] >> Yeah. So, you know, I talk often about a
[113:46] vicious cycle where you don't sleep
[113:48] well, you don't eat well, then that
[113:51] makes you not sleep so well and really
[113:55] hoping for people to get into a helpful
[113:57] cycle, right? Where you get good sleep,
[113:59] where you can make
[114:00] good food choices that then helps you
[114:03] get better sleep to keep propelling this
[114:06] this cycle of better health.
[114:08] >> I love it. It's a true integrative
[114:10] medicine and science. I also can attest
[114:13] that when you sleep well, you make
[114:14] better food choices. When you eat well,
[114:16] you sleep better. So, thank you so much
[114:18] for coming, for taking time out of your
[114:20] schedule. Really appreciate it and I've
[114:22] learned a ton. Thank you.
[114:24] >> Thank you.
[114:25] >> Thank you for joining me for today's
[114:26] discussion with Dr. Marie-Pierre
[114:28] St-Onge. To learn more about her
[114:30] laboratory's research and to find a link
[114:32] to her book Eat Better, Sleep Better,
[114:35] please see the links in the show note
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[116:47] Thank you once again for joining me for
[116:49] today's discussion with Dr. Marie-Pierre
[116:51] St-Onge. And last, but certainly not
[116:53] least, [music] thank you for your
[116:54] interest in science.
[116:59] >> [music]