My Response to Rhonda Patrick on Joe Rogan Sauna Benefits
00:00Rhonda Patrick was on Joe Rogan's podcast there were some interesting stuff that made it into these clips that floated around YouTube and unfortunately these clips leave a lot to be desired she touches on some things and it gets us excited about using Asana but it doesn't really give us the Exquisite detail that we need so the purpose of this video is not to bash or do anything it's to expand upon some already amazing things that Rhonda touched on I really like Rhonda Patrick I think she does a lot of amazing work so nothing but positive vibes and words towards her so this is just to expand on that detail so let's go ahead and dive into the true undoubted benefits of Asana after today's video there is a link down below for Thrive market now that is going to get you 30 off your entire grocery order okay so if you are doing paleo maybe you're doing keto maybe you're intermittent fasting you're trying different things out I wish there were grocery stores that were dedicated for what kind of diet you were doing right well Thrive Market is like that
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02:00time per week now with this they also found that people that use Asana two to three times per week had a 23 percent less chance of dying from a cardiovascular disease but they found that people that sat in Asana four to seven times per week that risk decreased to 48 percent so significantly less risk the more times you're sitting in a sauna but with all cause mortality that's not just related to cardiovascular disease two to three times per week 24 less risk of all cause mortality four to seven times sitting in a sauna per week 40 percent less risk in all cause mortality okay but what about sitting in Asana for a longer period of time see that's what we don't get a chance to hear in this clip if you sit in Asana for longer even with less frequency you can still get similar benefits so what this study demonstrated was that subjects that sat in Asana for 11 to 19 minutes compared to less than 11 minutes had a seven
03:00percent less risk of all cause mortality okay now increase that people that sat in Asana for 19 minutes or longer had a 52 percent less risk in all-cause mortality so the length in time it looks like sitting in a sauna for 19 minutes might be where you want to go 19 plus now we need to talk heat shock proteins okay because she talks about this towards the latter part of the video but this is the good stuff this is the part that I'm really into and where I think you really need to listen so she talks a little bit about how they're what are called chaperone proteins and how they help with protein folding and cell structure but really what's Happening Here is when you're exposed to high heat or you're exposed to any kind of like real stress like hypoxia from extreme exercise or even altitude or nutrient scarcity with fasting or serious caloric restriction or of course heat stress or even cold stress you have increases in these chaperone proteins now at rest in a normal situation we have a basal level of heat shock proteins that means like
04:00our cells are always going through like folding and unfolding of proteins there's always like this restructuring and when we get exposed to different stressors it speeds up the rate at which they're they're going through these changes okay so when we are under stress our body produces these chaperone proteins and just like the name implies they hold the hand of the protein they chaperone them they say hey we want to make sure that you fold and unfold and go through your structural changes properly because without heat shock proteins they would misfold and everything would be really wacky and the cell might ultimately die so whenever the environment changes it sort of triggers this and heat just like the name implies heat shock protein is probably the biggest driver of this there was a study that was published that showed that sitting in a sauna for 30 minutes at 163 degrees which is not very hot to be honest increased heat shock protein 72 HSP 72 by 48 okay that is a huge increase in heat shot proteins
05:00for really not a lot of heat so if you're sitting in a sauna that is hotter and for longer you could arguably get even more of this now if you don't have a sauna there was a study that was published in the Journal of Applied physiology that took a look at subjects that were exercising in the heat in this case it was like 108 degrees so it's hot so I don't necessarily think you should go out and do that immediately but if you're exercising the heat they notice that on a 10 day stent of continually exercising in the heat heat shock protein 72 increased continually each day so it didn't just occur in the beginning it continued to stack up on top of each other meaning the acclimation continues to get better and better I'm sure there is a line of diminishing return at some point but it tells you that you're going to acclimate even more and get better it's not like you get a big benefit from the beginning of Asana like newbie gains and then it goes away it actually gets better and better and better probably arguably up to a certain point now unfortunately she doesn't get to talk about one of the most important things and she's mentioned this in other Clips before but not on this one it's so important it's
06:00something about foxo3 fox03 Fox 03 is what is called a transcription factor which means it helps regulate genes and kind of Corral genes in the right way now in this particular case the fox group of transcription factors really regulate genes that have to do with sort of like DNA damage lipid peroxidation stem cell breakdown things like that so really associated with longevity and aging now fox03 is very much so sort of the resiliency one it is associated with stressors and adapting to a stressor so cold exposure extreme exercise heat things like that what happens is foxo3 forms a complex with what is called Sir two in one which people are now familiar with sir two and one because Dr David Sinclair talks so much about him but anyway it forms this complex with sirtuins and essentially the sirtuins make foxo3 much more geared towards helping a cell become resilient now what do I mean by this ordinarily fox03's job is to help a cell sort of die its energy
07:00is really directed towards cell apoptosis meaning like if a cell is not doing good it needs to die it's just like focused on that okay but under stress it changes when it's under stress and it's formed a bond with sirtuins it changes its focus towards resilience so instead of being pessimistic and wanting to kill cells all the time it shifts gears and says I'm going to make these cells stronger and this only happens when there is a stressor to trigger it now there's another transcription Factor called Nrf2 so when you sit in a sauna you increase these transcription factors now Nrf2 is largely associated with antioxidants anti-inflammatory effects really you know combating oxidative stressors within the body when you sit in a sauna it increases something that is called heme oxygenase which breaks down heme which is something that would be a stressor and a powerful oxidant it breaks it down into something more benign called carbon monoxide which can actually be an
08:00anti-inflammatory as well and then also breaks it down into bilirubin so much more benign things in the body that aren't powerful oxidants so Nrf2 upregulating basically the body when you sit in a sauna it ends up making it so the body has more ability to deal with these oxidants reactive oxygen species all of these have a very strong correlation with cardiovascular disease risk so when we can upregulate Nrf2 we see line item correlations with genes that are associated with better cardiovascular health and overall outcomes now as an exercise mimicker this is touched on a tiny bit and kind of alluded to but I wish this was what they focused on because everyone's looking for a hack right sitting in a high heat sauna might give you the same benefits as aerobic exercise your heart rate goes up your blood pressure increases you get similar endorphin response similar obvious heat shock protein responses but there's a study that was published in the Journal of Medicine and Science and sports and this is really interesting they found that 30 minutes in a sauna two times a week for
09:00three weeks led to significant improvements in time to exhaustion in this case there was a 32 percent increase in time to exhaustion they went 32 percent further with a seven and a half percent increase in blood plasma volume and a three and a half percent increase in red blood cells so you combine increase in red blood cells with more plasma volume with more blood flow you're delivering more oxygen it makes sense that you would see a 32 Improvement that is wild wild stuff it really is an exercise mimicker the only thing that's missing is you're not actually move moving the body right so I'm sure that plays a role there was also a study that took a look at heat acclimation and it found that as people got more acclimated to heat whether from sauna or exercising in heat it actually decreased the amount of glycogen that was needed by 40 percent so basically because there's more blood flow going to a muscle you're able to grab more glucose out of the muscle out of the muscle glycogen without having to dump
10:00all of it in it became more sparing and more efficient at the glucose it pulled out which spares glycogen which means that you can go further longer faster and harder because you're sparing your glycogen rather than just dumping it all out and exhausting it you've become more efficient because of that blood flow and therefore you're more stable with how you pull glucose out of the cell or out of the tissue in this case this is just a brief breakdown we can go deeper and deeper and deeper into the benefits of utilizing a sauna and I just wanted to do everyone a service by expanding on what was already a great minute clip I'll see you tomorrow