3:43

In today's episode I speak with Thomas P

3:45

Seeger , who is an engineer and

3:47

associate professor of the School

3:49

of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona

3:51

State University . He is

3:53

an expert in cold water therapy and

3:55

the effects on the human body . He

3:57

is also the founder of the company Morosco

4:00

Forge , which manufactures high-quality

4:02

ice baths . This episode

4:05

is an exploration of the principles of cold

4:07

therapy , how cold influences

4:09

our physiology , using cold therapy

4:11

to reverse diabetes and metabolic

4:13

disease , as well as some fascinating anecdotes

4:16

of the effective adjunctive use

4:18

of cold therapy in certain individuals

4:20

with cancer . We also detour

4:22

down the topic of mitochondria and discuss

4:25

the work of Dr Jack Cruz as it relates

4:27

to these topics . I remind you

4:29

that this is not medical advice and to always

4:31

consult your treating condition before making

4:33

medication changes or commencing cold

4:35

therapy if you have pre-existing medical

4:38

conditions . Enjoy

4:40

the show and thank you for your support . Okay

4:44

, thomas , thank you for joining me on the Regenerative

4:46

Health podcast . It's a pleasure

4:48

. So we are arriving

4:51

at this idea of cold therapy and how we

4:53

can integrate it into our life as

4:55

one of the tools of improving our lifestyle

4:57

. So , if you can explain to us

4:59

your professional background and

5:02

your journey to basically

5:04

becoming someone who is well-versed

5:06

and practicing cold therapy

5:09

, I'm glad you asked , max , because you're

5:11

a medical doctor and I'm

5:13

a PhD .

5:15

So when I'm on campus at Arizona

5:17

State and people call me Dr Seager , there's

5:19

no confusion . But when we do podcasts

5:22

, if you were to call me doctor , people

5:24

might think I'm in medicine

5:27

and I'm an engineer . I was

5:29

educated in civil and environmental

5:31

engineering and I'm currently

5:33

a faculty member in the School of

5:35

Sustainable Engineering at Arizona

5:37

State . So it's a legit question

5:39

to say how did I come to cold

5:42

therapy and metabolism

5:44

? For me , the journey

5:46

is several decades long . It

5:48

was 2001 , when

5:50

I was a doctoral student , that

5:53

my six-year-old son was diagnosed

5:55

with type 1 diabetes . I

5:57

didn't know what was wrong with him . I

5:59

thought he had the flu . I was giving him orange

6:02

juice because that's what my mother did for me

6:04

when I was sick , and it turned out to be

6:06

totally the wrong thing . He

6:08

slipped into ketoacidosis

6:11

and our pediatrician

6:14

was also our neighbor . My

6:16

wife called him up John was

6:19

his name and described the symptoms

6:21

, and John said well , you

6:23

know , there's flu going around . This is around

6:25

Christmas time . And then when

6:27

my wife said and he's peeing the bed

6:29

all the time John

6:31

said your son has diabetes

6:34

. Meet me at the hospital , your life is going to change

6:36

. I carried him into the emergency

6:38

room . John handed me an insulin

6:41

syringe and an orange . He said

6:43

nobody leaves this hospital until you figure

6:45

these things out . This was before continuous

6:47

glucose monitoring , before insulin

6:50

pumps . Everything was done by hand

6:52

, and my son was six . So

6:54

I spent the night practicing

6:56

drawing up his H and his NPH

6:59

, blending the insulin , injecting them into this

7:01

piece of fruit while the IV-dripped

7:04

insulin into his bloodstream . Because

7:06

I'm a scientist , I took a very scientific

7:09

approach to his care . We got journals

7:11

. We wrote down everything he ate , we wrote

7:13

down all of the insulin that we injected

7:15

him with , we wrote down all of his exercise , and

7:18

so I was tracking this in

7:20

kind of a model of how to manage

7:22

his blood sugars . Well , of course

7:24

, we met with the endocrinologists and we met

7:26

with the dietitians and the nutritionists

7:28

, and they were all full of bunk Max

7:31

. They were telling me things

7:33

like protein cannot

7:35

increase blood sugar , and I

7:37

would get the journals out and I would say well , here's

7:39

where he had a cheeseburger , no bun , no

7:42

carbs , and I have to give him extra

7:44

NPH because several

7:47

hours later he will experience

7:49

an increase in blood sugar

7:51

. I had to teach myself about neoblucogenesis

7:54

. I had to teach myself everything about metabolism

7:57

and I knew nothing about cold

7:59

. Until he grew up and

8:02

I'm not in charge of his blood

8:04

sugars anymore . You know he's quite capable

8:06

, he's got much better technology

8:08

and he's doing great . But

8:10

I was neglecting

8:12

my own health . As a dad

8:15

with young kids and trying to start this

8:17

faculty career , I'd gained

8:19

40 or 50 pounds . I

8:21

wasn't taking care

8:23

of myself with the same attention

8:26

that I was paying towards

8:28

my son and I got

8:30

a lab report back . You know the standard

8:32

male health panel and

8:35

on it it said my PSA

8:37

was 7.8 . You know , whatever

8:39

the units are nanograms per deciliter

8:41

or something like that . The lab report

8:43

said that for a man my age I think I was 52

8:46

at the time a normal

8:48

or a healthy PSA would be below

8:50

four . And here I was sitting at 7.8

8:53

and it scared the hell out of me . So

8:55

I started reading online

8:57

. Now I know that the

9:00

prostate specific antigen

9:02

is a measure of inflammation , but

9:04

it's associated it's not that reliable

9:06

, but it's associated with prostate cancer

9:09

. So everything that

9:11

I read said that if I go

9:13

to a urologist they're going to want to do

9:15

a biopsy and if they do a biopsy

9:18

they might find cancer , and

9:20

if they find cancer , they're going to want

9:22

to remove my prostate . So this was a cascade

9:25

of catastrophic thinking that

9:27

was going on in my mind . I started

9:29

talking to other men and men don't talk

9:31

anywhere near enough about these issues , but

9:33

I talked to men who are older than me , men that were younger

9:35

than me . I called up my old graduate

9:38

school advisor and I said hey

9:40

, you know you . You probably

9:42

had your prostate check , right . I

9:44

heard a series of

9:46

disastrous stories of

9:48

biopsies gone bad , of prostate

9:51

ectomies that led to incontinence

9:53

and erectile dysfunction , and

9:55

I became so frightened that I

9:57

refused to go see my urologist

9:59

at all . Fortunately , I

10:02

had a former student , who is a friend

10:04

, who had kind of talked me into

10:06

doing these ice baths , which I thought

10:08

was great . Cold showers make me angry

10:10

and miserable , but ice baths I

10:12

find relaxing and invigorating

10:15

. So I'd been doing them and we had

10:17

invented the world's first

10:19

ice bath so we could

10:21

do them on a regular basis . I live in Phoenix

10:23

, arizona . It's hot , we can buy

10:25

ice from the store , but you

10:28

know , it might be 40 degrees Celsius

10:30

in the backyard , 115

10:33

Fahrenheit , anyways , typical during

10:35

the summer in Phoenix and 200 pounds

10:37

of ice melts in 15 minutes . So we invented

10:40

our own ice bath and I said

10:42

I'm not going to visit the urologist

10:44

, I'm going to do more of these ice baths . I'm

10:47

going to get myself into keto , I'm going

10:49

to do the ice baths . I did

10:51

it religiously every day , three

10:53

, four , five minutes in freezing

10:55

cold water and I

10:58

get out and I'd be cold

11:00

. So I'd exercise my steel

11:02

mace and my pull ups and my push

11:04

ups and I'd go for a walk into

11:06

campus and sure

11:09

enough , max , I brought my PSA down

11:11

from 7.8 to 0.8

11:14

. I got my labs

11:16

again . I was like relieved

11:19

to no longer have an

11:21

inflamed prostate and I don't know

11:23

if I ever had cancer , but

11:25

I mean , probably not at such an unreliable

11:27

test . But I felt healthy and I felt more

11:29

confident and I went back to my urologist

11:32

with my lab reports because I

11:34

felt like now you know he's not going to try

11:36

biopsies . I mean , look , I'm great , I kind of want that

11:38

clean bill . And he looked at

11:40

that and he didn't care

11:43

about my prostate anymore . All he saw

11:45

was my testosterone , because part

11:47

of the male health panel is , you know , you got to get

11:49

your T levels checked and my total

11:51

testosterone had jumped to 1180

11:54

nanograms per deciliter . It had a big

11:56

red exclamation mark next

11:58

to it saying too high out

12:01

of range . My urologist

12:03

thought I must be juicin Because

12:05

a lot of guys , you know , in their

12:07

mid 50s and they're not feeling

12:09

vigorous and so they'll

12:11

go to testosterone replacement therapy

12:14

or not necessarily prescribed

12:16

, you know they'll try and find something to regain

12:18

that youth . And he was about my age

12:20

. He said you know , I just

12:22

want to do one more test . And what

12:24

did I know ? I'm an engineer . He wants luteinizing

12:27

hormone . Now I found out later

12:29

luteinizing hormone is what stimulates

12:32

testosterone production in the gonads

12:34

. So he must have been thinking

12:36

if I'm natural right

12:39

, then my luteinizing hormone would be high too , but

12:41

if I'm juicin , then luteinizing

12:44

hormone would be low , t levels high

12:46

. And then he's going to scold me . Luteinizing

12:49

hormone came back 8.9 off

12:51

the charts , big red exclamation

12:53

mark . And I sent

12:56

that tomorrow my urologist , and he said

12:58

oh , okay , then he never

13:00

asked me about my prostate . He never

13:02

asked me Well , how did you get your T levels

13:04

up so high ? He wasn't curious

13:06

in the least . But it was this

13:09

regimen of ice baths

13:11

followed by exercise

13:13

, and by that time the

13:15

ice bath company was starting

13:17

to grow and I was starting

13:20

to get curious about how

13:22

cold therapy impacts

13:24

metabolism , impacts the immune

13:26

system , impacts our this is all

13:28

before COVID but impacts our overall

13:31

health . Sure enough , I found

13:33

a study in 1991

13:35

. There was a team of Japanese researchers

13:38

, and who knows what motivated them . But

13:40

they put a bunch of young men on an exercise

13:43

bike . Then they just did cold stimulation

13:45

, not even whole body immersion , but non

13:48

dominant hand immersed in ice water up

13:50

to the elbow . And sure enough , when

13:52

you use cold to recover from exercise

13:55

, in men testosterone

13:57

goes down , luteinizing hormone goes

14:00

down . But then they flipped it around . They

14:02

said Well , what if we did the cold stim

14:04

and then we did the exercise

14:06

bike ? So it's just 20 minutes on the exercise

14:08

bike . Testosterone went way

14:11

up , luteinizing hormone went

14:13

way up . So I published this article

14:15

. A few people read it . My

14:17

partner , jason , read it . You know he's

14:20

impressed . He gets his testosterone

14:22

checked . He moves from 600

14:24

up to like 990

14:26

. And he's maybe 13 , 14

14:29

years younger than me , so you would expect

14:31

him to be higher . Other

14:33

men started reading it and trying . It was sort of replicated

14:36

. This is like n equals one four different

14:38

times . But it didn't really take

14:40

off until liver King

14:43

, if you know , liver King on

14:45

Instagram . He got caught

14:47

and he'd lied about taking

14:50

testosterone supplements

14:52

and Joe Rogan had

14:55

called him out and said Look

14:57

, everybody knew that he was on

14:59

the juice anyway . Like you can't get a physique

15:02

like that . It's just ridiculous . So

15:04

, but Joe got pretty curious

15:06

about testosterone . He found my articles and

15:09

I remember it very well December 2022

15:12

. I was vacationing in Iceland

15:14

at the time and I started to get text messages

15:17

. Hey , dr Segar

15:19

, I saw you on Joe Rogan's podcast

15:21

. What are you talking about ? I haven't been

15:23

on Joe Rogan's podcast . I wasn't . David

15:25

Goggins was the guest . But Joe

15:27

Rogan pulled up my Instagram

15:29

post and he read out the text

15:32

of my story to his audience . And

15:34

I started getting messages from all over

15:36

the world for men saying Well , do you think

15:38

this can work for me ? Now this

15:40

goes back to me being an engineer

15:43

. I'm a problem solver , not

15:45

a prescriber . And so

15:47

I said I don't know what's going to work

15:49

for you . I can know what worked

15:51

for me and I know what the science says

15:54

, but the only thing you can do is try

15:56

it , max . People

15:58

have been trying it all over the world

16:00

. There's a 62 year old guy in

16:03

Massachusetts . He said I

16:05

was on testosterone replacement therapy

16:07

, I decided to try your protocol instead

16:09

. So now I go down to the lake , I

16:12

jump in in the morning and then I power

16:14

walk home . That's all he does . He doesn't like

16:17

weight lift or , you know , take supplements

16:19

or anything . He sent me his lab reports

16:21

he was over 1200 . There is

16:23

no reason any

16:26

longer that our testosterone

16:28

has to decline with

16:30

age . The way that most

16:32

doctors are telling us is

16:34

normal . I don't want to be normal

16:36

. I'm not satisfied to be normal

16:39

because in our western countries

16:41

, normal is diseased

16:43

and so , without

16:45

the qualifications

16:47

or the license to use drugs

16:50

or prescribe them , what am I going to do ? I'm

16:52

going to use coal . I'm going to use sunshine

16:55

vitamin D diet the

16:57

things that I've learned about my body

16:59

, both from managing my son's

17:01

diabetes and from the experimentation

17:04

that I've done in the last five

17:06

or six years , to find out what

17:08

works for me without drugs

17:10

.

17:12

That is a very , very interesting story , thomas . Thank

17:15

you for sharing that journey

17:17

. I have reflected

17:19

, or I've seen prostate

17:21

PSA levels and , as

17:24

you mentioned , it's not the best reliable

17:26

marker for screening of

17:28

prostate cancer and it is fraught

17:30

with a whole bunch of basically

17:33

cascade of interventions , so there's

17:36

a lot of nuance around the topic . But

17:38

essentially , psa is expected

17:41

to go up year on year . That is what

17:43

clinically is expected

17:46

from a conventional medicine point of

17:48

view . So to be able to take your PSA

17:51

from over seven down below one

17:53

using lifestyle intervention that is not

17:55

something that is recognized by urology

17:58

in general and then to see

18:00

a level , a testosterone level , that

18:03

high and without exogenous

18:05

supplementation , it is again incredibly

18:08

, incredibly impressive . And

18:11

I guess it's another whole

18:13

rabbit hole to go down , which is the testosterone

18:16

levels of men in society today

18:18

, and I think a big contributing factor

18:20

is metabolic dysfunction and insulin

18:22

resistance as well as things like endocrine

18:25

disrupting compounds . But what

18:27

you showed is how powerful that

18:29

protocol of cold exposure followed by

18:32

exercise is . Maybe

18:35

to really lay

18:37

a solid foundation for people who are

18:40

really wanting to get into this , maybe

18:42

we could define the terms , because

18:44

there's things called liquefied therapy , there's

18:47

cold thermogenesis , there's the

18:49

cold exposure Maybe explain to us

18:51

the differences and nuances around the terms

18:53

.

18:54

There's a phenomenon in science

18:57

, you know , I've published hundreds of journal articles

18:59

and they've been cited thousands of times

19:01

and there's the phenomenon when you invent

19:04

a term and people cite

19:06

it and it sort of catches on , it raises

19:09

your reputation

19:11

, your prestige among your colleagues

19:13

, and so there's always pressure to come

19:16

up with the new catch phrase

19:18

. And what I've learned is that this happens

19:21

in marketing too . So someone

19:23

might say , oh , biohacking . And then

19:25

you know , dave Ashbury say , well , I invented

19:27

that . You know , if you say biohacking then you've

19:29

got to cite me . Everyone

19:33

at this point has a little

19:35

bit different way of phrasing it . So

19:38

Andrew Huberman , as far as I know

19:40

, coined this phrase deliberate cold

19:42

exposure , and what I really like about

19:44

it is it emphasized the deliberate

19:46

part . Accidental cold exposure

19:49

, chronic cold exposure , these are not good

19:51

for you . But deliberate with

19:53

intention . And it could be

19:55

cold air or it could be cold

19:57

water . So it's encompassing and it emphasizes

20:00

the deliberate component . So I've

20:02

quoted , andrew , you

20:05

know , copiously in my writing I use

20:07

this term deliberate cold exposure . But

20:10

cryotherapy , which could

20:12

be cold water or could be cold air , has

20:15

become associated with

20:17

the cryo chambers that use liquid

20:20

nitrogen or supercooled

20:22

air . It can go down to like 100

20:24

, negative 140

20:27

Fahrenheit . I'm trying to do the translation . I

20:29

mean the two scales had negative 40 Fahrenheit

20:31

and negative 40 Celsius . They sort of cross and

20:34

then I've lost track of how

20:36

you would measure it . But it is bitter cold

20:38

and there's a risk of frostbite . So

20:41

when people say cryotherapy , it's almost

20:43

always associated with this frigid

20:46

, cold air . Cold

20:48

water therapy is the term that

20:50

I'm using more and more because I

20:54

favor the cold water compared to

20:56

the frigid air . I think it's safer

20:58

. I think it comes with other benefits like grounding

21:00

, and I would rather narrow

21:03

down when I'm communicating

21:05

my protocols and my expertise

21:07

that I'm really talking about cold water

21:09

. Cold thermogenesis

21:11

is a term that Ben Greenfield

21:14

uses and he's really

21:16

talking about the body's reaction to

21:18

the cold activation of

21:20

muscle shivering , which can clear glucose

21:22

from the blood stream . Activation of the brown

21:25

fat , which is going to improve your

21:27

insulin sensitivity . So

21:29

we do have a myriad of terms , whether

21:31

it's deliberate cold exposure

21:33

from Huberman emphasizing the intention

21:36

, no matter how you're getting cold , or

21:38

cryotherapy , which is more of a medical

21:41

term but become associated with those cryo

21:43

chambers , cold water therapy

21:46

, which I'm increasingly going to reference when

21:48

I write , and Ben Greenfield's

21:50

cold thermogenesis , which says

21:53

this is the state in

21:55

which you want to put your body . On

21:58

some level they're interchangeable , but

22:00

at the level that I'm trying

22:03

to work , I want

22:05

to be specific about these details

22:07

so that people don't get the wrong idea

22:09

.

22:11

Yeah , it's important to be specific

22:13

and thanks for that breakdown . That is very helpful

22:15

when we're understanding these

22:17

concepts . So maybe let's talk about what

22:19

the effects are physiologically

22:22

on the body when we essentially

22:24

lower the core temperature , because that

22:26

, essentially , is what the goal is and

22:29

for the listeners , obviously our bodies , we're

22:32

so-called endothermic mammals we're regulating

22:34

our body temperature at a very defined set point

22:36

. What is the effect when

22:38

we deliberately lower that body

22:41

temperature ?

22:42

The first thing that happens is the thermal

22:45

receptors on your skin activate

22:48

your brain , so it's the hypothalamus

22:50

in particular . They send the signals

22:52

up to your brain that says , hey , wait a second , what

22:55

are you doing ? The thermal receptors

22:57

, they can't distinguish between hot and

22:59

cold . All they do is signal

23:01

the brain that temperature of your environment

23:03

is out of whack and our language

23:06

reflects it . It's why we have terms like icy

23:08

hot or burning cold

23:10

, because our nervous

23:12

system is activated in the same

23:15

way whether it's cold or hot

23:17

, and this is to alert our

23:19

body and our brain that we

23:21

got to get the heck out of here . So the first thing

23:23

that happens is you enter

23:26

a fight or flight like emergency

23:29

response state . Your central

23:31

nervous system , in particular the

23:33

sympathetic division of your central

23:36

nervous system , becomes activated

23:38

to prepare you for whether

23:40

it's battle or running or

23:42

whatever the emergency is . Your

23:45

liver typically will dump glycogen

23:47

into your bloodstream , because glycogen

23:50

is stored in energy and there

23:52

isn't a lot of it in your body , but it's the fastest

23:54

way to get your muscles moving and

23:57

every cell inside

23:59

is trying to . You know your body is trying

24:01

to communicate to your brain get

24:04

us out of here . So right away

24:06

your heart rate might go up . You experience

24:08

the gas reflex when you get in the bath because

24:10

you're a mammal and

24:12

this huge sympathetic activation

24:15

creates , for most people

24:17

, an anxiety response . If

24:20

you can get through the first 15

24:22

seconds and structure

24:24

your breathing , a whole bunch

24:26

of counterintuitive things begin

24:29

to happen . Your heart rate goes

24:31

back down . Typically , your

24:33

oxygen demand goes back

24:35

down . This is called the dive reflex

24:38

. If you don't just jump out

24:40

of the ice bath right away , your

24:42

body will , without you ordering

24:44

it to prepare yourself

24:46

for a dive . It will conserve

24:48

the metabolic energy . Your brain waves

24:50

will go and descend into

24:53

a deeper meditative state

24:55

because some part

24:57

of your brain thinks you must be going

24:59

to I don't know collect the shellfish

25:01

from the bottom of the ocean . Or maybe you're

25:03

going to go spearfishing or whatever it

25:05

is that our ancient ancestors

25:07

used to do in the cold water . Your

25:10

body is still prepared to do it

25:12

. The blood glucose

25:14

spike . It is cleared

25:16

by either muscle shivering or brown fat

25:19

and it's almost immediately . We measure this

25:21

with continuous glucose monitoring

25:23

. It's using the

25:25

energy in the glucose for

25:27

thermogenesis , that is , to generate

25:30

heat and defend your core body

25:32

temperature . Basal constriction

25:34

will cut off

25:37

the circulation . By shrinking your micro-brut

25:39

vessels . It cuts off the circulation

25:42

to your limbs . It moves the

25:44

blood into your core and into your head

25:46

, because if your head is above water then it's

25:48

not cold , and that's to defend

25:50

your core body temperature . It's

25:52

actually a very healthy thing to exercise

25:55

the smooth muscle tissues that

25:57

control vasoconstriction

25:59

. And so , both by insulating

26:02

the body to reduce the heat extraction

26:04

or to reduce the heat loss , and

26:06

by generating more heat , your

26:08

body is attempting homeostasis

26:10

. The glucose doesn't last very

26:12

long . So almost right

26:14

away , your white fat cells

26:16

that is to distinguish them from brown

26:19

. These are the cells that store lipids

26:21

. They release these lipids

26:23

into your bloodstream , which travel

26:25

to your brown fat and are metabolized

26:27

, converted by your mitochondria into

26:30

heat again to keep your body

26:32

temperature warm . You don't actually

26:35

have to bring your core body

26:37

temperature down . Your skin temperature

26:39

and below the skin , your

26:41

muscle temperature , can come down and

26:43

activate all of these nervous system and

26:45

metabolic benefits without your core

26:48

temperature dropping very far at all . Hypothermia

26:51

even in like a one-degree

26:54

sea where there are chunks of ice

26:56

floating in the water , hypothermia

26:58

actually takes a long time because

27:00

if we define it as a drop in core

27:02

body temperature of something like two degrees

27:04

Celsius , that's actually

27:06

a really big drop , given that your

27:08

body has all of these mechanisms to

27:10

defend core temperature . But

27:13

there is a phenomenon when you get out called

27:15

after drop , in

27:17

after drop , vasoconstriction

27:20

relaxes , the circulation

27:22

returns to your fingers and to your limbs

27:24

. But because your skin is cold

27:26

and because the

27:29

outer layers of your muscles are cold , as

27:31

the blood reenters those

27:33

tissues , of course the blood gets

27:35

cold . When

27:37

it comes back into the core it cools

27:39

down all the organs in your body that were previously

27:42

being defended . So the core

27:44

body temperature can keep going

27:47

down , even after you're done

27:49

with six or seven or however many

27:51

minutes of cold exposure . It is

27:53

, and so , if you're . I've

27:55

never used a rectal thermometer . I don't have the

27:57

guts for it , but if you're monitoring

28:00

a patient's core body temperature , it

28:02

isn't necessary to leave them

28:04

in the cold bath or the

28:06

ice bath long enough to

28:08

drop them down a degree , a degree and

28:10

a half Celsius . They will continue

28:13

to drop . If you have

28:15

got a gas reflex in a patient

28:17

, you know you're cold enough to activate the nervous

28:20

system . If you've got shivering

28:22

response in a patient , you

28:24

know that their brown fat is activated

28:27

. Their thermogenesis has been activated

28:29

and they are getting metabolic benefits

28:31

.

28:33

Yeah , thanks , thomas , for that physiology lesson

28:35

and thanks for correcting me , because , as

28:37

you mentioned , these physiological

28:39

adaptions or responses

28:41

that the body has , that we've evolved over a

28:44

very , very long time , defend

28:46

that set point of body

28:48

temperature and they keeping our body temperature

28:50

at that 37 degrees , despite

28:53

the frigid temperature

28:55

of the water and the environment

28:57

that we're in . It's

29:00

interesting how the body has

29:02

developed all these different kind of mechanisms . And

29:04

let's talk about this distinction between

29:06

shivering and non shivering thermogenesis

29:09

because , as

29:11

you alluded to with regard to the brown fat

29:13

, that could be a key tool

29:15

in helping us make

29:17

progress on the metabolic

29:19

health epidemic

29:21

that we're dealing with . So what's the distinction between

29:24

those two forms of thermogenesis

29:26

?

29:27

To understand the distinction

29:29

between muscle shivering thermogenesis

29:32

and non shivering thermogenesis , we

29:34

should probably go back to birth

29:36

, because babies human

29:38

babies are born without

29:40

the muscle development necessary

29:43

to generate enough heat to defend their

29:45

core body temperature in the cold

29:47

. Instead , they have brown

29:49

fat . It is the brown fat that

29:52

keeps the baby warm and I remember when

29:54

my children were born my son

29:56

particularly in late October

29:58

. I was worried about him being

30:01

warm enough . We swaddle our babies up and

30:03

his parents were sort of paranoid

30:05

about it because we can no longer

30:08

relate to what it was like for

30:10

us as children . If

30:12

you think about it , I mean my kids . When they were

30:14

little , they would play in the snow like they were at the beach

30:16

, you know . And me and my wife would

30:18

be like , oh , put on your mittens and put

30:21

on your hat and wear a scarf , you'll catch

30:23

the death of cold . No , they've

30:25

got so much brown fat . Their bodies

30:27

know what to do . You

30:29

know they'll come inside and say , mom

30:32

, my fingers are freezing , will you make me some hot chocolate

30:34

or something like kids know

30:36

, and they are better equipped with brown

30:38

fat to be

30:41

exposed in the cold than that

30:43

you and I are adults are . So we

30:45

kind of forget . The reason we forget

30:47

is because we lose that brown fat as

30:50

the muscles develop , particularly during

30:52

puberty , they become larger

30:54

, more dense and they can handle more

30:57

of the thermogenesis . But

30:59

what also happens is we lose the

31:01

brown fat because we're not using it , because

31:03

we don't get regular cold

31:05

exposure . The brown fat in

31:08

our bodies , it shrinks up and eventually

31:10

it can disappear . There was a study

31:12

of PET scans at the

31:14

Sloan Kettering Institute in New York

31:17

and they went back and looked at all of these

31:19

scans to see if they could find brown

31:21

fat . And by the age of 45

31:23

, fewer than 5%

31:25

of the patient's scan had any detectable

31:28

brown fat at all . That's because in our

31:30

Western industrialized world we're

31:32

always comfortable . We're either

31:34

air conditioned in the summer or we've

31:36

got our heated leather seats

31:38

in our SUVs so that we never

31:40

have to feel the discomfort that

31:43

our grandparents probably put

31:45

up with . But as a consequence our

31:47

bodies enter a state of

31:49

disease . Cold is

31:51

a lot like exercise If you don't get enough

31:54

of it , then your body atrophies

31:56

. It's a lot like sunshine If

31:58

you don't get too much , not

32:00

good . But if you don't get enough , then your

32:02

metabolism and your vitamin D and your immune

32:05

system drops . Cold is an

32:07

essential environmental exposure

32:10

because brown fat is an

32:12

essential organ . It's

32:14

not just for thermogenesis , it's

32:16

also a secretory organ . It

32:18

produces more thyroid hormone than the

32:20

thyroid gland does . It produces

32:23

brain-derived neuroprotective

32:25

factor . It produces hormones

32:27

that will protect the brain both

32:29

against metabolic injury and

32:32

against cold exposure . So

32:34

when you don't have brown fat , it's

32:36

no wonder that you lapse into a

32:38

state of disease . The

32:40

principal distinction between

32:43

the muscle shivering and the non-shivering

32:45

thermogenesis is the presence

32:48

of brown fat . Without

32:50

it , then the only thing you've got is

32:52

muscle shivering . We've probably

32:54

all experienced this . It

32:57

takes about seven to 10 days of

32:59

regular cold exposure to

33:01

recruit new brown fat to

33:04

restore these adaptive

33:07

mechanisms inside your body that will

33:09

defend your core body

33:11

temperature during cold exposure

33:13

. When you're going to see insulin sensitivity

33:16

go way up , you're going

33:18

to see the

33:20

risk of type 2 diabetes or

33:22

insulin resistance and other metabolic disorders

33:25

go way down when

33:27

you restore cold exposure to

33:29

your regime .

33:32

Yeah , and the way I think about a

33:34

brown fat and I'll quickly lay

33:36

it out for my listeners , because I've talked about visceral

33:38

fat a lot in the past with Dr

33:40

Sean Omara and a

33:42

quick recap is that our white

33:45

fat is the fat that is the physiological

33:47

energy storage and that is living

33:49

mostly under our skin and is

33:51

an endocrine organ as well

33:53

. So it's secreting beneficial factors and

33:55

storing energy and

33:58

what Thomas is talking about . With regard to

34:00

brown fat , I think about it as

34:02

incredibly active

34:04

. It's almost like a furnace . It

34:07

is a furnace that is burning energy

34:09

, so it's not storing that . As

34:11

for storage , it's burning it for heat

34:13

. So you had a furnace in your body that you're

34:15

shoving different types of fuel in , whether that's

34:17

glucose or fat , or

34:20

you're using it to generate

34:22

heat . And the point that you made about

34:24

the role of brown fat throughout

34:26

life is really interesting , because babies

34:29

, as you mentioned , use this mechanism to

34:31

maintain their body temperature after

34:34

they've come out of the womb . But

34:36

it's lost and it was thought

34:38

to be lost until those PET

34:40

scans were done , and I read

34:42

a couple of the original papers with regard

34:44

to those PET scans . So PET is a form

34:46

of nuclear imaging which uses

34:48

a radioactive isotope to

34:50

look at the uptake of radioactive

34:53

glucose throughout the body and it's used to

34:55

diagnose and stage various types of

34:57

cancers , lymphomas and these

34:59

types of things . And the original papers

35:01

Thomas showed that they

35:03

essentially said we have shown uptake

35:06

of radio tracer , so the PET tracer

35:08

in the clavicle area of these healthy

35:10

men . This

35:12

is a warning to radiologists this

35:15

is not pathological , this

35:17

is physiological brown adipose

35:19

tissue that is playing a role in

35:22

body temperature homeostasis . So

35:24

fascinating how we had to basically rediscover

35:26

that even recently . From

35:29

a bottom medical point of view , maybe

35:32

talk a bit about this idea

35:34

of the mitochondrial effects

35:36

of brown fat , because

35:38

mitochondria is something that I've delved

35:40

in deeply and I think that

35:42

it helps us understand maybe the

35:45

different types of people , different mitochondrial haplotypes

35:47

, so different propensities to burning

35:50

fat in brown adipose tissue .

35:54

This is controversial but unconvinced

35:56

that there is a

35:59

broad misconception

36:01

about gene therapy , whether

36:03

it's CRISPR and the role of DNA

36:05

in our health . Everyone's

36:07

looking in the nucleus , where

36:09

you have one copy of your

36:11

nucleic DNA and we all understand

36:14

. You know high school biology . Your

36:16

father donates one strand

36:18

, your mother donates another strand . It comes to

36:20

make a new version of a human

36:22

being and this is the DNA

36:24

that defines you . We are taught . But

36:27

there is another set of

36:29

DNA inside your cells

36:31

on which your body depends . Mitochondria

36:35

have their own DNA and

36:37

nobody in my freshman

36:39

biology class bothered to mention

36:41

it at all . It's inherited

36:43

exclusively from your mother

36:46

. So in theory , you

36:48

and I as human beings

36:50

have the same mitochondrial

36:52

DNA as Eve

36:55

, you know , in the Garden of Eden , whomever

36:57

the first Homo sapien mother

36:59

is . Now this isn't exactly true , because

37:01

there are mutations , there are irregularities

37:04

that cause , as you say , these different haplotypes

37:07

referring to mitochondrial DNA

37:09

. But that's not the important thing . The important

37:12

thing is the realization that

37:14

the DNA in your nucleus , compared

37:17

to how active your mitochondrial DNA

37:19

, we might as well think about it as inert . Now

37:21

I'm exaggerating , but it is

37:23

the mitochondrial DNA that

37:25

are doing the hard work of metabolism

37:28

. They are converting the food that

37:30

you eat into the energy that you need

37:32

for wound repair , for growth

37:34

, for everything

37:36

for exercise , for maintaining

37:39

your ordinary bodily functions and

37:41

the mitochondrial DNA have been

37:43

overlooked as far as

37:45

their role in health . Brown

37:47

fat is packed with mitochondria

37:50

. The brown fat need the mitochondria

37:52

because one of their principal jobs is

37:55

thermogenesis , to convert

37:57

glucose and fatty acids into

37:59

the heat that your body needs when

38:01

you're cold . The fastest

38:04

way to stimulate what's

38:06

called mitobiogenesis , that is

38:08

, to grow new mitochondria

38:10

, is cold exposure . What

38:13

happens is your body learns to

38:15

select to the mitochondria that

38:17

are defective and eliminate

38:19

them , and then use sorry , the

38:21

mitochondrial DNA that is defective

38:24

your body doesn't need and it has

38:26

mechanisms to select that which

38:28

is more perfect

38:30

I'm struggling for the right term but

38:32

the copies of mitochondrial

38:35

DNA that have greater

38:37

integrity , because mitochondria don't

38:39

just have one copy . They

38:41

have a gazillion copies of DNA

38:44

even inside a single mitochondrial

38:46

cell , and so when your body makes new

38:48

mitochondria , it uses the best

38:50

of the mitochondrial DNA available

38:53

to replicate . When

38:55

you get cold and you stimulate this

38:57

mitobiogenesis , it's like

38:59

doing a mitochondrial therapy

39:01

, upgrading the quality and

39:03

quantity of mitochondria

39:05

in yourselves . Well , that sounds

39:08

nice , but why is that important ? When

39:11

we look at theories of aging

39:13

and there's some people out there

39:15

who have gotten a lot of attention on

39:17

social media for spending a lot of money

39:19

trying to reverse their biological

39:21

age , reduce their mortality , kind of

39:23

turn back the clock on

39:25

aging when we look at these theories

39:27

, most people are looking at things like

39:29

DNA methylation and they're

39:31

talking about nucleic DNA . They're looking

39:34

at telomere length , they're looking at everything

39:36

in the nucleus and I think that's

39:38

a krakahooie . I think that's a garbage

39:41

theory . I think they should be looking at mitochondrial

39:43

DNA , because life is

39:46

energy . This is something that Jack

39:48

Cruz talks about . That's very difficult to understand

39:51

. I did my PhD in environmental thermodynamics

39:53

and I used to wake up in the middle of the night

39:55

with these nightmares about entropy until

39:58

I got this worked out . Life

40:00

is a struggle against entropy

40:03

. Life is a thermodynamic process

40:05

and the mitochondria are the

40:07

key to you maintaining

40:09

yourself , your life , as a thermodynamic

40:12

flowing organism . When

40:14

the mitochondria decay

40:17

, that is when their DNA accumulate

40:19

defects that impair their function

40:21

. That is aging . Compared

40:24

to telomere length or DNA methylation

40:27

, which are important for other reasons , mitochondria

40:31

dominate aging . When

40:34

your mitochondria are healthy , then your body has the energy

40:36

that it needs to create new

40:38

cells to repair

40:40

whatever the defects in the nucleic

40:43

DNA might be detected . There

40:45

is no reason that we should age in

40:48

the way that we have come to

40:50

accept as ordinary

40:52

, because we can extend the life

40:54

and the quality of our mitochondria for

40:56

several more decades than most

40:59

people think is normal .

41:01

Yeah , and thank you for bringing that up and

41:03

I'm really glad you have , because what you describe

41:06

is this concept of mitochondrial heteroplasmid

41:08

. Again , go back to listen to

41:10

my audience , listen to my

41:12

Jack Cruise series where we talk more about it . But

41:15

essentially , when your cells and the mitochondria

41:17

in your cells accumulate enough

41:19

mutations , their ability to

41:21

make the proteins of the electron transport chain

41:23

become defective , Then

41:26

slowly , bio-energetically , the

41:28

cell fails because some proportion

41:30

of its mitochondria aren't working . Therefore

41:32

the cells roll , whether that's a neuron

41:34

or a cardiomyocyte

41:36

or a heart cell that stops working . Then

41:38

eventually you develop a disease

41:40

in that organ , whether that's heart

41:42

failure , whether that's Alzheimer's

41:44

disease . That's a really key

41:47

distinction and thanks for bringing that up . The

41:50

fascinating thing that I've thought about

41:52

when it comes to mitochondria and

41:54

cold exposure is this evidence that mutations

41:57

, but beneficial mutations in mitochondrial

41:59

DNA were basically the thing

42:02

that allowed us to move out of Africa

42:04

into Europe , into Siberia

42:06

, across the Bering land bridge . It

42:08

allowed us to colonize the planet was

42:10

because we developed these mitochondrial

42:13

adaptations that , as you've

42:15

described , thomas , allow

42:17

us to burn energy in these furnaces

42:19

of our mitochondria in the

42:22

brown adipose tissue . The

42:24

other point I'll make and we talked briefly about Dr

42:26

Cruz before we came online is that the

42:29

benefits of mitochondria

42:31

, or getting cold , and extend

42:33

to that electron transport

42:36

level , so much so that I believe

42:38

the chief mechanism is that it actually brings

42:40

those respiratory proteins closer

42:42

together on that electron transport chain , which

42:44

makes the tunneling more efficient

42:47

. It's incredible , I mean you

42:49

can tell me and I can say , having done

42:51

cold exposure , is that when

42:53

you get out you feel like a million bucks , you feel

42:56

like you could rip

42:58

the head of , you could kill a lion with your bare

43:00

hands . That to me , speaking

43:02

about the efficiency of the energy production

43:05

in mitochondria and essentially the whole

43:08

organism , is humming and the

43:10

thermodynamic efficiency which you've just talked about

43:12

is optimized by the

43:15

practice . The last

43:17

point I'll make and I'm really

43:19

glad that you brought up this

43:21

idea of improving mitochondrial function

43:23

with cold , because it's just

43:26

coming into the mainstream lifestyle

43:28

medicine narrative

43:31

of using mitochondrial-based lifestyle

43:33

therapies to help things like neurodegenerative disease

43:35

. Dr Matthew

43:37

Phillips is doing exciting work in this area

43:39

, but as far as he's

43:42

using , it's mainly restricted to fasting

43:44

and ketogenic diets which

43:46

, as we both know , are very effective . I

43:48

feel like , unless we're using

43:51

all the tools in our toolbox , we're missing the whole

43:53

picture here . One of the tools is

43:55

sunlight and infrared

43:57

light , and that's another topic . But one of the tools

43:59

is cold .

44:03

You've touched on a number of things . I'm

44:05

going to try and go through them as

44:07

I remember them . The

44:09

first one is the evolutionary biology

44:12

or the anthropology of

44:14

metabolism . This is something

44:16

that I think is

44:18

misunderstood , because we find

44:20

human beings all over the world , all different

44:23

kinds of climates . We say , well

44:25

, we're mammalian , we're warm-blooded

44:27

, we're adaptive . We forget

44:29

that there

44:32

was a time during the Ice

44:34

Age when Homo sapiens , when

44:36

humans , were down to maybe fewer

44:38

than 10,000 total population

44:40

. We're now at billions , but

44:42

there was a time when Homo

44:45

sapiens were confined to this narrow

44:47

strip between the glaciers of East

44:49

Africa and the ocean . We

44:52

think of East Africa , and I think these are

44:54

where the oldest Homo sapien fossils

44:56

have been found . We think of East Africa

44:58

because it's equatorial . Oh , it must be hot . Why

45:01

would we have to have cold ? The fact is

45:03

, wim Hof takes his trainees up Mount Kilimanjaro

45:06

, and that's a glacier

45:08

. There are four active glaciers

45:10

in the mountains of East Africa . During

45:13

the Ice Age , the habitat

45:15

for our ancient ancestors

45:18

was in these strips

45:21

of land next to the water . They

45:23

needed the water . They needed it for

45:25

fishing , they needed it for forage , they

45:28

needed it for shelter . It is the

45:30

DHA and other omega-3

45:32

fatty acids that feed our brain

45:35

and allow us to be so intelligent

45:37

, and that water was cold

45:40

because it was coming down from

45:42

the mountains during the Ice Age

45:44

. We are evolutionarily adapted

45:47

. All of us I don't care if you're Caribbean

45:50

or whether you're Scandinavian

45:52

. All of us have in our mitochondrial

45:54

roots this adaptation

45:56

for cold exposure

45:58

. How

46:01

did those mitochondria work ? It

46:03

was Lynn Margolis , who was married

46:05

to Carl Sagan at the time , who

46:07

put forth this preposterous theory

46:10

that mitochondria were at one

46:12

point , their own organisms

46:14

that had become subsumed

46:16

by the eukaryotic , more complex

46:18

organisms , the organisms that had DNA

46:21

in their nucleus and the prokaryotes

46:23

don't . They entered this mutualistic

46:26

relationship in which what

46:28

used to be a separate cell now

46:31

lived inside a more complex

46:33

cell . I think this was the early

46:36

70s , in which she was ridiculed

46:38

for such a preposterous evolutionary

46:40

idea and is now accepted

46:43

as fact . The mitochondria

46:45

exist within us to do a job

46:48

that our own eukaryotic

46:50

cells would never be able to

46:52

do by themselves . It is their

46:55

energy production that allows

46:57

us to be these complex and intelligent

46:59

organisms that

47:02

we are . When they

47:04

do that job , they

47:06

create what are called reactive

47:08

oxygen species , that is , they're

47:10

converting one form of chemical

47:12

energy into another , because

47:14

this is a redox reaction . Electrons

47:16

are flying all over the place . Some of those

47:19

electrons where they wind up where they don't belong

47:21

, they create reactive oxygen species

47:23

. And those ROS , because

47:26

they're so active , can damage other tissues

47:28

inside the mitochondria . One

47:31

of the tissues that they damage is DNA . The

47:34

mitochondria can accumulate

47:36

this damage from their own function

47:39

. That degrades their ability

47:41

, their longevity , to continue

47:44

to produce this energy . They

47:47

have developed defense mechanisms against reactive

47:49

oxygen species . When ROS gets

47:51

too high , it stimulates myobiotensis . Either

47:55

mitochondrial DNA can be repaired or replaced

47:57

, but when the

48:00

defense mechanisms are

48:02

exceeded , then your

48:04

mitochondria become overwhelmed and they

48:07

need time . They need time to

48:09

recover . This is a conversation

48:11

I had with Joe Merkola . Joe

48:14

doesn't care about cold water therapy , he's

48:16

skeptical . He lives in Florida , he

48:19

walks on the beach and he has these phone

48:21

calls and he'll go to a

48:23

biohacking conference and say that cold

48:25

tub stuff is all overblown . He

48:28

didn't want to talk to me about ice baths . He

48:30

said Tom , do you know that mitochondria

48:32

make their own melatonin ? Well

48:35

, joe , I did not . He

48:37

sent me a paper it

48:39

said will scavenge reactive

48:42

oxygen species to protect

48:44

mitochondrial DNA . And

48:47

I had no idea until

48:49

this guy who doesn't even get into ice

48:51

baths told me about it . And

48:53

so what is this telling us ? There

48:56

are three principal routes

48:58

to mitochondrial injury

49:00

. One of them is

49:02

your light hygiene isn't

49:04

right because the melatonin

49:07

that is produced inside

49:09

your brain it's insufficient

49:12

for your mitochondria . I mean , we all know

49:14

about this , but the mitochondria produce

49:16

their own melatonin , and if

49:18

your light hygiene isn't right , then

49:21

your mitochondria are more vulnerable

49:23

. So that's one . The one that

49:25

everybody does know is too many carbs

49:27

, not enough exercise , so this carbohydrate

49:30

overload . Your mitochondria

49:32

are then called upon to convert the glucose

49:34

in your bloodstream into fats that

49:36

can be stored in your white fat . And when

49:39

you give your mitochondria too many carbohydrates

49:41

without them having a time to recover

49:44

, then mitochondrial damage

49:46

ensues . When you fast or when you go

49:48

keto , that gives your

49:50

mitochondria the time to repair the DNA

49:52

and recover . The third one

49:54

, which isn't well-known

49:56

at all , are an excess

49:59

of seed oils , that is , too much

50:01

omega-6 fatty

50:03

acids Fatty

50:05

acids we think of as energy . You

50:07

know you eat the oil , you have the butter

50:10

or the animal fat , and of course , we

50:12

know that it has a high caloric density

50:15

. But what most people don't understand

50:17

, it is also an important building block . It

50:19

is a material in your body and

50:21

we use these fats to

50:23

make cell membranes , including mitochondrial

50:26

membranes . When the omega-6

50:28

to omega-3 fatty acid

50:31

ratio is out of whack , then

50:33

your body has no choice but to construct

50:35

these membranes out of I'm gonna

50:38

say this is an exaggeration but of the wrong

50:40

type of fat molecule . This

50:43

impairs the function of

50:45

the cell membrane for transport

50:47

of nutrients across the cell

50:49

wall and that can impair

50:51

the function of the mitochondria . So

50:53

these three things get you a light right

50:56

. Get you carbohydrates right , spend

50:58

some time in ketosis

51:00

and get your fatty

51:02

acid intake . Get your diet right

51:05

. So what is the quickest

51:07

way to stimulate endogenous

51:09

ketone production inside your body ? well

51:12

, that's cold exposure so

51:14

it's a way of sort of accelerating

51:17

your fasting .

51:18

Yeah , and let's talk about that and

51:20

I'll quickly put a

51:22

couple of bookmarks for

51:24

the listeners . So what you talked about

51:27

in terms of melatonin being made inside

51:29

the mitochondria , and that was such a great explanation

51:31

. So I talked to Scott Zimmerman

51:33

, who was the optics engineer who wrote

51:35

the paper that you are , I believe , you're referring

51:37

to , which is called melatonin and the optics

51:40

of the human body and , as you mentioned

51:42

, essentially the exposure to infrared

51:45

light . So what we're getting in the morning , what we're getting

51:47

later in the day , is penetrating

51:49

up to 10 centimeters through our body and

51:52

even through clothing and stimulating

51:54

those mitochondria to make melatonin

51:56

. And melatonin is such an old

51:59

, ancient , efficient antioxidant

52:01

that it essentially has antioxidant

52:03

capability and then its metabolites

52:05

have antioxidant capability . So it's an incredible

52:08

, elegantly

52:10

designed system that

52:12

makes us very . It makes it important to be

52:14

to be getting outside during the day and

52:17

getting that infrared light . And I

52:19

also like your description of the

52:21

excess linoleic acid and seed oils

52:23

in the diet , because Taco Goodrich and

52:26

I would invite listeners to go back and listen to

52:28

that my second episode with Taco Goodrich because

52:30

he describes how excess linoleic acid

52:32

from corn oil , soy oil , vegetable

52:35

oil , sunflower canola

52:37

can lead to oxidation

52:39

of some key mitochondrial enzymes

52:42

called cardiolipin . So

52:44

maybe the only other point that I would

52:47

make on that and I'm not sure , have you looked into

52:49

deuterium and how it's affecting mitochondrial

52:51

function ? And we don't have to go deeply into

52:53

that topic because I want to keep going on about the

52:55

metabolic stuff but are you

52:57

up to or have you looked into deuterium

52:59

?

53:00

This is part of what Jack

53:02

Cruz knows that I don't

53:04

understand , and he would probably chastise

53:07

me vehemently for failing to pour

53:09

over the literature and , you know , get

53:11

some approximation of his understanding

53:14

. And yet there's only so much I can do

53:16

, jack , and so I

53:19

follow him on Twitter and I'm trying

53:21

to pick up what he's trying to teach , and

53:23

, as a first approximation

53:26

, I know nothing about deuterium .

53:28

Yeah , and we won't make it the topic

53:30

of this , of this conversation , and

53:32

there's some very exciting work being done by Dr

53:34

Lazuli Boros , who has got

53:36

some really good presentations on deuterium

53:39

that I'm gonna get talk to him hopefully get

53:41

him on the podcast soon . But let's talk about

53:43

metabolic disease and what you've previewed

53:45

for us , thomas , is all

53:47

these mechanisms by which we can use

53:50

cold to essentially reverse

53:52

metabolic syndrome , type

53:54

2 diabetes , obesity , fatty liver disease

53:56

and , at its basically

53:59

core of what is going

54:01

on . So talk to us about the evidence

54:03

and kind of what you know about the mechanisms

54:05

of how and this is having such

54:07

an amazing effect in in metabolic disease

54:09

.

54:11

Some people have been looking

54:13

at cold exposure as

54:15

a way to lose weight and

54:17

I think they're wrong . There are no

54:20

you know miraculous before

54:22

after pictures of someone who is

54:24

obese and the only thing they changed

54:26

was cold exposure . And then look

54:28

at how ripped they are . And I'm a

54:30

case study . I'm in my ice bath every

54:33

day and I'm still a fat guy in my 50s

54:35

. You know it is not . Cold is

54:37

not , despite its caloric requirements

54:39

of thermogenesis . It's not how you're gonna lose

54:41

weight , it is how you're gonna fix your

54:43

metabolism and the distinction is

54:46

really difficult for people to understand

54:48

because the association between

54:50

metabolic disorder and obesity

54:53

in our modern sort of Western

54:55

industrialized countries is

54:57

so strong that people think

54:59

they're synonymous . Cold will

55:01

remodel the distribution

55:04

of fat in your body . So

55:06

Sean O'Mara is great . I've never had one

55:08

of the scans . You know that he puts on the

55:10

difference between subcutaneous and

55:12

visceral fat and how dangerous visceral

55:14

fat is . And then there's another type of fat , liver

55:17

fat , which is deadly , and

55:19

what you notice in the cold

55:21

is that visceral fat

55:23

goes down and subcutaneous

55:25

fat goes up , which is part of

55:28

your body's adaptations to the

55:30

cold . The health outcomes are wonderful

55:32

insulin resistance goes down

55:34

because you're repairing mitochondrial

55:37

injury and this is what I'm gonna

55:39

go way out on a limb . I

55:41

got to share this with Ben Bickman , who's taught me

55:43

several things , but a conversation

55:46

with him about this next topic might

55:48

either reinforce

55:50

my conviction or tell me that I'm full

55:53

of who we which comes first , the

55:55

mitochondrial injury or the insulin

55:57

resistance ? The way that we understand it

55:59

in the literature , the convention

56:02

, is that the two are associated

56:04

with one another and that the mitochondrial

56:06

injury comes after . And I'm

56:08

saying I think that's wrong

56:11

. I think insulin resistance is

56:13

the ways that the body defends

56:15

the mitochondria against

56:17

that injury , that the injury

56:19

to the mitochondria happens first and

56:21

insulin resistance is an

56:23

adaptation intended

56:26

to protect the mitochondria from

56:28

further injury . So when

56:30

you stimulate mytobiogenesis , when

56:32

you do this mitochondrial therapy that upgrades

56:35

the quantity and the quality the

56:37

body , let's go of that insulin

56:39

resistance , because the mitochondria no

56:42

longer need to be protected against

56:44

the overload of the blood

56:47

glucose spike . Now

56:49

here I'm highly speculative . I should

56:51

probably put my own journal article

56:53

together and wait for that to get rejected

56:55

by every , you know , respectable medical

56:58

journal . But perhaps you

57:00

know , if Ben thinks this is

57:02

promising , he'll run with it . This

57:05

order of operations in my

57:07

mind , is based upon mitochondrial

57:10

injury first , insulin resistance

57:12

second . And so there was a study

57:15

it wasn't for weight loss , but there was a study in Germany

57:17

where they took type 2 diabetic

57:20

. So this is insulin resistant middle-aged

57:22

men and they said we're gonna keep

57:24

them cold for 10 days . And they kind

57:26

of worked up to it . Not cold water , just

57:28

cold air . First it was an hour , then

57:30

it was two hours , then they worked up to four

57:33

hours and it wasn't even that cold

57:35

. I forget high

57:37

teens Celsius , maybe 60 degrees

57:39

Fahrenheit , just chilly . You know , they

57:42

did not allow these men to exercise because

57:45

they didn't want to mess up their study and

57:47

they didn't want them to change their

57:49

eating habits . So you got to imagine you're

57:51

only allowed to wear a t-shirt and shorts

57:54

and it's , let's say

57:56

, 16 degrees C

57:58

, you're hanging out with your buddies eating

58:00

your snacks and not extra . You know , in

58:03

America we call that a tailgate party , like

58:05

they're just watching me shivering

58:07

in the fall weather

58:09

. Dang , if

58:12

they didn't notice a 60%

58:14

increase in insulin sensitivity

58:16

, such that some of the subjects no

58:19

longer met the diagnostic criteria

58:21

of type 2 diabetes after

58:23

10 days max . Well

58:26

, what would happen if I got them in the cold water

58:28

? I mean , they didn't even report

58:31

being uncomfortable

58:33

, just their subjective report

58:35

. They said well , occasionally maybe I felt a little

58:37

shiver , but it wasn't that bad . This

58:40

is how powerful a

58:42

little bit of cold is for your metabolism

58:45

, because when you fix your

58:47

mitochondria , everything else

58:49

in your metabolism gets better

58:51

. As your fat begins to redistribute

58:54

fat , liver

58:56

fat goes down , visceral fat goes

58:58

down , but subcutaneous fat

59:00

, the kind of fat that you know jiggles

59:03

underneath you , I've got plenty of it . I'm not going to take my

59:05

shirt off and show you , but you can

59:07

sort of take my word for it . This

59:09

fat is is

59:11

less unhealthy

59:13

than the , the belly

59:15

fat or the liver fat that

59:17

your body will accumulate when

59:19

you're metabolically dysregulated

59:22

.

59:23

Yeah , and I'll really echo

59:25

those and what you said , thomas . And

59:27

this is a really key distinction , because

59:29

the point at which we start

59:31

spilling out of our white

59:34

adipose tissue storage into

59:36

places where we shouldn't have fat , that

59:39

is the threshold upon

59:41

which we start developing metabolic dysfunction

59:43

and insulin resistance . So I think

59:45

about it , as we have these storage

59:48

mechanisms and they exist

59:50

in our white adipose , under our skin , and , for

59:52

whatever reason whether that's circadian

59:55

disruption and I've talked about that before whether

59:57

that's stress , whether that's ingesting

1:00:00

seed oils and processed carbs , we

1:00:03

essentially either exceed or

1:00:05

start bypassing that physiological

1:00:07

white adipose

1:00:09

storage of fat and we start

1:00:11

getting fat in the wrong place . And

1:00:14

that can include , as you've mentioned , in

1:00:16

organs like within the muscle , which is called myosteatosis

1:00:19

, within the liver , which is called herpataesthetosis

1:00:21

, or even in white adipose

1:00:23

depose that shouldn't be there , and I've

1:00:26

talked to Dr Amar about this . And there's

1:00:28

fat in , obviously , in the visceral

1:00:30

cavity around the

1:00:32

organs , which is the visceral fat . There's

1:00:34

fat even in the retro

1:00:37

bulb area , there's fat in the

1:00:39

tongue and fat in the upper airway

1:00:41

that can be contributing to obstructive

1:00:44

sleep apnea . So identifying

1:00:46

metabolic dysfunction is key because

1:00:48

, as you said , this

1:00:50

is the problem that we need to address

1:00:52

and I agree with you , thomas

1:00:55

, that I think the mitochondrial dysfunction happens

1:00:57

first and then , when you get enough

1:00:59

mitochondrial dysfunction perhaps in

1:01:03

addition to this energy overload that we've

1:01:05

talked about then the insulin resistance

1:01:07

manifests and then the ectopic fat starts depositing

1:01:09

. And if you go far along down the road

1:01:11

then you start getting an organ specific

1:01:13

manifestation , whether that's type

1:01:16

2 diabetes or fatty liver , etc

1:01:18

. So that's a

1:01:20

really good point that you've made and I

1:01:23

think we've really put a good case

1:01:25

for people to consider adding

1:01:27

cold if they have metabolic

1:01:30

disease , and it sounds like this can

1:01:32

reverse pretty quickly with a regular

1:01:34

cold protocol .

1:01:39

The work that Susanna Soberg has done on

1:01:41

her PET scans show

1:01:43

that winter swimmers

1:01:46

who get like 11 minutes

1:01:48

a day and she just surveyed them On average they said

1:01:50

, yeah , I'm in 11 minutes . Sorry , a week

1:01:52

, not a day , but 11 minutes

1:01:54

a week was sufficient for them to

1:01:56

maintain active brown fat

1:01:58

. So sometimes we

1:02:00

have it in our heads , you know no pain , no gain

1:02:03

that if the benefits are

1:02:05

this extraordinary , they must be very

1:02:07

difficult to achieve . No

1:02:09

, they're not . It takes a

1:02:12

few minutes . I do it . You know , two to

1:02:14

three minutes a day and for

1:02:16

15 seconds it's miserable

1:02:18

, because I'll look down at my morose cone , I'll

1:02:20

see the ice floating and you know , all these

1:02:22

things start coming out of my head like , um

1:02:24

, I could probably skip today . You

1:02:26

know , I'm not going to put it on Instagram , Nobody would

1:02:28

ever know I can . You know , I'll just pick it up tomorrow

1:02:31

. That's all crap

1:02:33

. I just get in 15

1:02:36

seconds of misery and

1:02:38

then I'm like , oh , what was I

1:02:41

afraid of ? You know , I relax my breathing

1:02:43

, I calm down and I remember

1:02:45

why I do this and how good

1:02:48

it feels . The cold will

1:02:50

create the same neurotransmitters

1:02:53

that are associated with love

1:02:56

. I get a big testosterone

1:02:58

boost . I get a dopamine boost , I

1:03:00

get norepinephrine . It will also stimulate

1:03:02

production of vasopressin and

1:03:04

oxytocin , and it will

1:03:06

modulate cortisol . There's a

1:03:08

lot of misconceptions here about whether

1:03:10

it increases cortisol or decreases cortisol

1:03:13

, but when you decode the papers

1:03:15

it looks like if your cortisol

1:03:18

is too high , it'll bring it down , and if your cortisol

1:03:20

is too low , it'll bring it up , and

1:03:22

so your cortisol levels will be moderated

1:03:25

by the cold rather than elevated

1:03:28

or depressed . I've

1:03:30

never had a nice bath . That I regretted , max

1:03:32

.

1:03:34

That I have a personal rule , thomas

1:03:36

, and when I go camping , if

1:03:38

there's a body of water , I have

1:03:41

to get in it . And exactly what you

1:03:43

describe . There's every narrative

1:03:45

and every internal voice that is like oh no

1:03:47

, just don't go in . Next time You'll

1:03:50

do it , tomorrow you'll do it . It's this little voice

1:03:52

in your head that is making you , giving you an excuse

1:03:54

, but without fail . Every time when

1:03:56

you push past that voice , you ignore that voice and you

1:03:58

hop in that cold water you're like , oh

1:04:00

, this is , I'm so glad I did it . So

1:04:03

I really echo that call

1:04:05

and I encourage people to do it

1:04:07

. The

1:04:09

interesting point that you're making about

1:04:11

the synthesis of these neurotransmitters and the mood

1:04:14

and hormonal stabilizing effect

1:04:16

of cold water again reminds

1:04:18

me of something that Dr Cruz said , which is when

1:04:21

we migrated to these northern latitudes

1:04:23

and the UV light yield lessened

1:04:26

because we were further away from the equator , we

1:04:28

evolved these mechanisms to get

1:04:30

the same benefits that we would have got

1:04:33

from UV light from cold

1:04:35

. And he talks about that

1:04:37

is related to internal UV light production

1:04:39

from the mitochondria and that gets very technical

1:04:42

and from a biophysics point of view , but it's

1:04:44

amazing how elegant that is

1:04:46

if we can basically mimic those mood

1:04:48

beneficial effects which

1:04:50

you get from warning sunlight and

1:04:52

to mimic the appetite

1:04:55

regulating effect and everything . It's

1:04:57

a very , very elegant kind of system . I

1:05:00

want to really get your thoughts next now

1:05:02

on a topic that I haven't talked about on my podcast

1:05:05

at all , really , which is cancer , and

1:05:08

I know that you have

1:05:10

used cold therapy and with

1:05:12

in the setting of cancer and malignancies

1:05:15

with some benefit

1:05:17

. Can you give us an overview of what

1:05:20

the context was and what were the improvements were

1:05:22

and yeah go

1:05:24

from there .

1:05:26

When I was catastrophizing

1:05:30

my PSA , I

1:05:32

got really curious about cancer and

1:05:35

there's a man in Oregon

1:05:37

who reached out to me because

1:05:40

he was looking for some ice bath

1:05:42

therapy , cold water therapy , with a remarkable

1:05:44

story . This is Dean Hall . Dean

1:05:47

Hall was diagnosed with two forms

1:05:49

of inoperable , incurable cancer

1:05:51

. One of them was leukemia and

1:05:53

one of them was lymphoma , and

1:05:56

he decided that

1:05:58

he wanted to do something to

1:06:01

inspire other cancer

1:06:03

patients . He'd already lost his wife

1:06:05

to brain cancer and he was

1:06:07

scared and he knew

1:06:09

that it was eventually going to kill him and

1:06:12

he wanted to sort of go out with

1:06:14

a bank , make a difference for

1:06:16

his daughter and for the people in general

1:06:18

. He decided he was going to swim the

1:06:20

entire length of the Willamette

1:06:22

River , which is 188 miles

1:06:24

long in Oregon , and his

1:06:26

doctor told him Dean , you couldn't

1:06:28

so much as step in the public

1:06:31

pool with your immune system . The way

1:06:33

it is . It's going to kill you . And

1:06:35

Dean told his doctor and

1:06:37

I guess I don't have anything to lose so

1:06:40

he gets in the river . It takes him

1:06:42

three weeks and it wasn't like he just plunged

1:06:44

in the next day . He trains up

1:06:46

for this . It takes him three weeks

1:06:48

to swim the Willamette and , as you can imagine

1:06:51

, it's cold . He goes in

1:06:53

and out of hypothermia . His

1:06:55

doctor flies out on day 14

1:06:58

to monitor him See check upon

1:07:00

how is he doing and he estimated

1:07:02

that Dean was down to 3% body

1:07:04

fat . He implored Dean

1:07:06

to take a weekend off before

1:07:08

he's going to do the last week , which

1:07:11

Dean did , and I think he gave

1:07:13

his mitochondria the break that they needed

1:07:15

to recover so he could go back in the river

1:07:18

, finish the swim , max . He

1:07:20

went into that river with leukemia

1:07:22

and he came out of that river without

1:07:24

it . He flew down to a specialist

1:07:26

in San Diego you know to do

1:07:28

like all right , how am I doing , doc

1:07:30

? That specialist said

1:07:33

if I had not done your initial

1:07:35

diagnosis myself , I would

1:07:37

swear that you were misdiagnosed because there

1:07:40

is no trace of leukemia left

1:07:42

in your body . The lymphoma did

1:07:44

not get resolved right away . He

1:07:46

had to do a process of porous bathing

1:07:48

to allow the lymphoma

1:07:51

to resolve itself , but the leukemia

1:07:53

completely reversed

1:07:55

. So this got me curious

1:07:57

, because I'm not going to deny a man's experience

1:08:00

. This is what happened . But you know I'm

1:08:02

a skeptic and I'm like . You know

1:08:04

, come on , sounds

1:08:07

like what an incredible coincidence

1:08:10

. So I started reading . I

1:08:12

was reading Thomas Seyfried's work

1:08:15

I think he's at Boston College and he's

1:08:17

written about metabolic

1:08:19

approaches to cancer . In

1:08:21

Seyfried's mind , the damage

1:08:24

to the nucleic DNA that's not

1:08:26

the source of cancer , that's a consequence

1:08:28

of cancer that the real damage happens

1:08:31

in the mitochondria . He says cancer

1:08:34

is a metabolic disorder

1:08:36

and it is true that 80%

1:08:38

of these tumor cells can

1:08:41

metabolize only glucose

1:08:43

and so and they don't do

1:08:45

it through the mitochondria , they do it through

1:08:47

a different metabolic pathway , because

1:08:49

the mitochondria are already so dysfunctional

1:08:51

that they can't produce

1:08:54

the energy necessary for proliferation

1:08:56

of the tumor cells . So Seyfried's really

1:08:58

good on this and he has administered

1:09:01

exogenous ketones

1:09:03

to mice and to

1:09:05

rats in which he's implanted cancer

1:09:08

cells , and he's observed that ketones

1:09:10

they don't even have to be produced endogenously

1:09:13

, but ketones will inhibit the growth of tumor

1:09:15

cells . That's interesting

1:09:17

, so I started to think

1:09:19

that Dean Hall is really on to something

1:09:21

. Then a paper came

1:09:23

out from Sweden

1:09:25

and I think this is 2022 , secchi et

1:09:28

al and they used

1:09:30

cold exposure not cold

1:09:32

water , but cold exposure to

1:09:34

starve cancer cells . Because when

1:09:36

you activate the brown fat , it

1:09:38

will preferentially clear

1:09:41

glucose , take up glucose out of the bloodstream

1:09:43

so that it's no longer

1:09:45

available for the tumor cells and

1:09:48

in mice in which they had implanted

1:09:50

tumors . They noticed greater

1:09:53

longevity , slower tumor growth

1:09:55

in these mice that were bred that were

1:09:57

designed to die of cancer

1:09:59

. So they said , well , that's really fascinating

1:10:01

, can we do this in a human being ? They

1:10:03

took a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patient

1:10:05

, been

1:10:07

through like three or four rounds of chemo , still

1:10:10

had active tumor tissue

1:10:12

, and they used cold to do

1:10:14

the same thing and they noticed the

1:10:16

same preferential uptake of glucose

1:10:19

. Then the University

1:10:21

of Rochester did another study completely

1:10:24

unrelated to Seafreed and Secchi . They

1:10:27

were interested in the question of the longevity

1:10:29

of the bowhead whale . According

1:10:31

to genetic theories of cancer

1:10:33

, a bowhead whale would be

1:10:36

riddled with tumors by the time

1:10:38

they were 70 years old . They lived to 200

1:10:40

and they're cancer free Because the

1:10:42

genetic theory says that mutations

1:10:45

accumulate in the nucleus that

1:10:47

result in these sort of defective

1:10:49

cells that then proliferate . And

1:10:52

a bowhead whale has so many cells and

1:10:54

it lives so long that the genetic

1:10:57

theory says cancer is inevitable

1:10:59

. So the University of Rochester said

1:11:01

, well , what mechanisms

1:11:03

prevent this sort of emergence

1:11:05

of cancer in the bowhead ? And

1:11:07

they decided it was cold shock proteins

1:11:09

, because the expression of cold

1:11:12

shock proteins repair

1:11:14

defects in the DNA in

1:11:16

the experiments that they ramped . So these are

1:11:18

now three mechanisms by

1:11:21

which cold water therapy

1:11:23

will inhibit tumor

1:11:25

growth Production of

1:11:28

ketones within the bloodstream , starvation

1:11:31

of those tumor cells that

1:11:33

depend upon glucose as

1:11:35

their substrate , and production of

1:11:37

cold shock proteins that

1:11:39

can repair defects in DNA

1:11:41

. That is some pretty powerful

1:11:44

science behind the mechanism

1:11:46

. They sort of explains the mechanisms . That

1:11:48

might be what happened to Dean Hall

1:11:50

, but I had another experience

1:11:53

that was more personal and more moving

1:11:55

. This was a woman that I

1:11:57

was dating , who called me when I was in

1:11:59

Texas and she said

1:12:01

I'm in acute abdominal pain

1:12:03

. I don't know , maybe I've got an ovarian

1:12:05

cyst or something . I said will you get yourself

1:12:07

to the hospital ? You should not be suffering

1:12:10

through this . She's in

1:12:12

the emergency room . I

1:12:14

fly back to Phoenix . She's

1:12:16

got four daughters . She's a single

1:12:19

mother and they're all teenagers , are

1:12:21

under and the

1:12:23

doctors won't say what's wrong

1:12:25

with her . Blood work scans everything

1:12:27

. So the next day , after

1:12:30

they've evaluated all

1:12:32

of these tests , they

1:12:34

say you've got a tumor

1:12:36

on your liver . It's four centimeters

1:12:39

across . We cannot

1:12:41

remove it because the liver is full of blood vessels

1:12:43

. You have a history of a bleeding disorder

1:12:46

and just the operate , just

1:12:48

a biopsy , could cause you to bleed

1:12:50

out on the operating bullet and kill you . We

1:12:52

cannot treat it with chemotherapy and

1:12:54

we cannot get it with radiation . And

1:12:57

she said well , what can you do ? They said watchful

1:13:00

waiting . Watchful

1:13:02

waiting is this medical term , for

1:13:04

you're going to die , because one

1:13:07

thing that spontaneous liver tumors

1:13:09

don't do is just go away

1:13:11

by themselves . And so she thought

1:13:13

that she was going to be leaving her

1:13:15

children motherless . She said , tom , what am I

1:13:17

going to do ? I said are

1:13:20

you going to do the same thing I did ? You're going to do the

1:13:22

same thing Dean Hall did . You're going to go on

1:13:24

a ketogenic diet , you're going to take your carbs down

1:13:26

as close to zero as you can get them and you're going

1:13:28

to get in the ice bath . She said

1:13:30

okay , six months later

1:13:32

, this is what you do with watchful waiting . You have to have another

1:13:34

scan and I'll be damn max

1:13:37

. That tumor shrunk a centimeter

1:13:39

. She has not

1:13:41

gone back to soda or

1:13:43

fruit juice or refined carbohydrates

1:13:46

and all the things that you know . All the

1:13:48

. She'll eat some processed foods , she'll

1:13:50

have some carbs , but she will not have those concentrated

1:13:53

liquid carbs . She won't eat the bread , she won't

1:13:55

have the rice , she won't have the things

1:13:57

that she's convinced , fed

1:14:00

that tumor and she's not going back

1:14:02

to the hospital either , because

1:14:04

yeah incredible . Yeah

1:14:07

, because she says

1:14:09

I know what works for me . I

1:14:12

don't need a medical study , I don't need

1:14:14

a medical doctor to tell me

1:14:16

that the thing happening to me

1:14:18

is really happening to me

1:14:20

. I'm going to keep going with

1:14:22

what is keeping me alive .

1:14:25

It's such an amazing discovery

1:14:27

and protocol because the

1:14:29

beauty is that we don't need it doesn't need to

1:14:31

be this or that , and the beauty

1:14:34

of what those three interventions that you talked

1:14:36

about , the fasting , low

1:14:38

carbohydrate , ketogenic diet and cold exposure these

1:14:41

all can be done at the same time as conventional

1:14:44

oncological treatment . So it's

1:14:46

amazing how we don't need to

1:14:48

forego one . And people are

1:14:50

very when they get a diagnosis

1:14:52

of cancer . One

1:14:55

question they ask is why ? But another question they ask

1:14:57

is what can I do ? And it's so empowering

1:14:59

to be able to offer something to

1:15:01

them that can potentially

1:15:04

make a massive difference . And I

1:15:06

followed the work of Dr Seafreed and , yes , I

1:15:08

think he provides such strong evidence that

1:15:11

cancer is this mitochondrial

1:15:13

metabolic problem and what

1:15:15

he's shown with

1:15:18

his experiments , as you mentioned , and

1:15:20

he's put mitochondria into disease cells

1:15:22

and vice versa and shown that it

1:15:24

was the broken mitochondria that

1:15:27

made the difference . And for those who

1:15:29

follow my podcast , they know that , to go

1:15:31

back to the person , the pope of this was

1:15:33

Dr Doug Wallace , because he was

1:15:36

doing the original research

1:15:39

that showed how critical mitochondria

1:15:41

are and the whole mitochondrial bio-energetic

1:15:43

etiology

1:15:46

of disease . I think

1:15:48

that's a great transition to talking

1:15:50

about the protocols , of how we can implement

1:15:52

cold therapy and

1:15:55

how maybe we can

1:15:58

talk about who would benefit from

1:16:01

a protocol , who has metabolic

1:16:03

disease versus cancer , versus just health optimization

1:16:05

. So if you could

1:16:07

let us know what you think about that , thomas .

1:16:10

If you're just starting out and you're not cold

1:16:13

acclimated , this is the only protocol

1:16:15

that you need to know Go cold

1:16:17

enough to gas and long enough to shiver

1:16:19

. Your observation

1:16:22

of your own physiological response

1:16:24

to the cold is the best indication

1:16:27

of sort of whether it's working . There

1:16:30

is no standardized scientific

1:16:32

instrument for measuring cold

1:16:35

dose , and it's not because the army hasn't tried

1:16:37

. I mean , the armies of the world

1:16:39

are very interested in how

1:16:41

does the human body respond to

1:16:43

cold , because in the

1:16:45

Arctic , in these areas

1:16:47

that could be militarily contested , these

1:16:50

military organizations need to

1:16:52

know . But the thing is that we have

1:16:54

different levels of cold adaptation

1:16:57

and because of the vasoconstriction

1:16:59

, because of the thermogenesis , there's

1:17:01

no standard instrument that says this is

1:17:03

how much cold you're getting . Go cold enough

1:17:05

to gas , long enough to shiver . After

1:17:08

you become acclimated to the cold metabolically

1:17:11

, those rules of thumb , they're not

1:17:13

quite so important anymore

1:17:15

. The Soberg

1:17:17

study that says well , do 11

1:17:19

minutes a day . These are sorry

1:17:22

. A week , 11 minutes a week is

1:17:24

sufficient . Those are all in cold

1:17:26

acclimated people and so they

1:17:28

don't really apply to beginners

1:17:30

. I was going back

1:17:32

and forth with a woman on Instagram

1:17:35

. She said that she's gone through four

1:17:37

rounds of chemotherapy for the

1:17:39

ovarian cancer she's 63

1:17:42

years old that she's suffering from . She

1:17:44

said do you

1:17:46

think cold water therapy

1:17:49

would help me ? And I said I can't tell you that . You

1:17:51

know , I'm not a medical doctor . I can only

1:17:53

tell you what happened to Dean Hall and what happened

1:17:56

to the woman I was dating , these other people . I can tell

1:17:58

you what Seafreed says , but I can't tell you what's

1:18:00

going to work for you . She said well

1:18:02

, how would I find out ? I

1:18:04

said you don't have to buy a $15,000

1:18:06

morasco . Just go down to the Atlantic

1:18:08

Ocean , get yourself in the water

1:18:10

. She said how long

1:18:13

should I stay ? I said you don't . 15

1:18:16

seconds , you know . Just allow

1:18:18

yourself to feel it to see if

1:18:20

this is something , a kind of a stimulation

1:18:22

, that works for you . I got a text

1:18:24

a few days later . I did 15

1:18:27

seconds at the beach . It felt

1:18:29

wonderful . She

1:18:31

texts me every day because

1:18:34

she did buy a moroscope . She says

1:18:36

I'm at 45 degrees Fahrenheit

1:18:38

. I'm doing two minutes in the morning and I'm doing

1:18:40

two minutes in the evening . She says I

1:18:42

am not going back to chemo . If

1:18:45

I'm going to die , I'm going to die in

1:18:47

this ice bath , not in that hospital

1:18:49

. So she asks me do

1:18:51

I have to go colder . I will if

1:18:53

you tell me . Look , geez

1:18:56

, max , I'm an engineer Like

1:18:58

you , probably have conversations like

1:19:00

this all the time . But this is ripping

1:19:02

my heart out . And I say 45

1:19:05

is fine because she's

1:19:07

getting the metabolic benefits . You

1:19:10

can get these even at 50 degrees

1:19:12

. When you're starting out you know you're going to feel

1:19:15

the . So

1:19:17

45 is fine . But

1:19:19

then you listen to Joe Rogan . Gary

1:19:22

Brecca was on the Joe Rogan podcast

1:19:24

and they get around to talking about cold water and

1:19:28

Brecca goes . You know , I don't

1:19:30

see a lot of evidence that there's any benefits to go in colder

1:19:32

. So why do you bother , joe ? And

1:19:36

Joe says because it sucks more . And

1:19:40

Gary says well , there's a lot

1:19:42

of evidence that it sucks more . You know

1:19:44

, joe says because it's hard . It's

1:19:47

the psychological benefits

1:19:49

that really kick in under 40 degrees . Scott Carney

1:19:52

, you know he wrote the Wim Hof

1:19:54

book . He's

1:19:56

got a moroseco and we talk about this sometimes at 39

1:19:58

. It feels like

1:20:00

bathwater to us , but at

1:20:02

34 , it still

1:20:05

scares the crap out of us . So

1:20:07

if what you're going for is metabolism stay in the

1:20:09

40s , it's really not a problem . But

1:20:13

after you become cold , acclimated to the 40s , the 40s isn't

1:20:15

going to scare you . If

1:20:17

what you're really looking for is heart rate variability

1:20:19

and psychological resilience , then

1:20:22

go down into the 30s , because

1:20:25

that's what's going to give

1:20:27

you that anticipatory anxiety . Oh

1:20:30

, you know that voice in your head that says you know

1:20:32

, I really have to do that . It's

1:20:35

overcoming that fear response

1:20:37

that in me builds

1:20:39

this feeling that nothing bad can happen to me . Today . I

1:20:43

just did two minutes in my moroseco . My day is

1:20:45

only going to get better . For

1:20:48

me it's 34

1:20:51

degrees , two to four minutes every day , unless

1:20:53

I'm shooting a video , in which case it'll wind up

1:20:55

like seven or eight minutes because

1:20:59

I got to do three takes or something . And then

1:21:01

I'm fricking , freezing and it takes me an hour to rewarm . And

1:21:06

we should mention that it's possible to cold

1:21:08

overdose and generally

1:21:10

it's okay . But do not operate heavy machinery

1:21:12

. Don't

1:21:15

try and drive your car while you're shivering . Allow

1:21:19

yourself sufficient time

1:21:21

to rewarm after you've done your cold exposure . The

1:21:24

rule of thumb for me is twice as long as however long I was

1:21:26

in there . So

1:21:29

if I did a 22 minute lecture

1:21:31

on mitochondria with Brian , call one

1:21:33

time and Brian can talk like

1:21:35

he just won't shut up about mitochondria

1:21:37

and I'm freezing 22 minutes . The

1:21:41

rule of thumb is it's going to take 45 minutes

1:21:43

of light exercise for me to rewarm , but

1:21:46

if I'm only doing two or three minutes , then

1:21:49

I can do five or six minutes of light exercise , whether it's

1:21:51

squats or my steel mace or something like that

1:21:53

, and generally I'm fine

1:21:55

Couple

1:21:58

of other precautionary protocols Never

1:22:02

hyperventilate in or near the water . This

1:22:05

is something that Vim Hof has

1:22:08

been too careless about , because he teaches the breath work and

1:22:10

then he teaches the cold , and it's very natural for people to combine

1:22:12

these things . But there's a phenomenon

1:22:14

called shallow water blackout . The

1:22:19

hyperventilation will clear

1:22:21

your bloodstream of CO2 and

1:22:23

is the CO2 that gives you the urge to breathe . So if

1:22:25

your CO2 levels are low and you don't feel

1:22:27

that urge to breathe , you

1:22:31

could run out of oxygen long before the CO2 says

1:22:33

hey , get yourself out of here . People

1:22:36

have passed out while they're in the water

1:22:38

and drowned because they combine the breath work with the cold

1:22:40

. So let's not do that . Always

1:22:44

breathe when you're in the cold water . Other

1:22:48

than that , I like to go in

1:22:50

feet first , never face first . I've seen some people do it , and

1:22:55

then Dave Ashbury has this video where he says

1:22:57

ah , you don't need an ice bath , just stick

1:22:59

your face in a bucket of ice water and

1:23:01

I don't know what the hell he's talking about . I

1:23:04

always start from the presumption that Jack

1:23:06

Cruz is correct and I don't understand him , and

1:23:08

that doesn't apply to Dave Ashbury

1:23:10

. I think he's just wrong . Go in

1:23:13

feet first , because

1:23:15

you're going to experience the gas reflex

1:23:17

first , then allow the

1:23:19

dive reflex to come second

1:23:21

. If you go in face first , both

1:23:23

the gasp and the dive may be coincident

1:23:26

. And there's a guy , mike Tipton

1:23:28

, in the United Kingdom . He has a whole

1:23:31

lab outfitted where he can study cold

1:23:33

water therapy in human beings . He says it's great

1:23:35

for treating depression . If you've got a

1:23:37

major depression that is resistant to talk therapy

1:23:40

and drugs , he's reversed

1:23:42

that by using cold water therapy

1:23:44

. He always puts his people in feet

1:23:46

first because he's afraid of the gasp

1:23:49

and the dive reflex happening coincidentally and

1:23:51

creating something called autonomic conflict

1:23:54

. Another precautionary

1:23:56

, a contraindication

1:23:59

is hypertension . Cold

1:24:01

will induce the vasoconstriction

1:24:04

that will put more pressure

1:24:06

on your blood by reducing

1:24:08

the volume for blood in your limbs . So

1:24:11

you're going to get a blood pressure spike and

1:24:13

that can be a hormetic stress because

1:24:16

cold exposure is great for your circulation . But

1:24:18

if your blood pressure is already high

1:24:21

. You got to be careful . It's

1:24:23

a contraindication for cold exposure . Start

1:24:25

warmer . If you're

1:24:28

on blood pressure medication , you got to make sure

1:24:30

that's up to date . The

1:24:32

hypertension is one of the most important

1:24:35

contraindications . And then the

1:24:37

last precautionary protocol

1:24:39

is ice bath sober

1:24:41

, and it's amazing that I have to say

1:24:43

this , but people

1:24:46

drown in tubs and I don't want that

1:24:48

on my conscience . And they

1:24:50

drown because they

1:24:52

lose consciousness , they have

1:24:54

face slips under the water and there's

1:24:56

no one there to rescue them . So

1:24:59

I guess that's a summary . My protocols

1:25:01

are emphasizing safety

1:25:04

and the potential dangers , because

1:25:06

the benefits come so easy and

1:25:08

I don't want anybody to slip into

1:25:11

a condition that might harm them .

1:25:14

Yeah , that's very wise advice that

1:25:16

you've offered there . I like

1:25:18

the idea that for people

1:25:20

who are not yet ready to invest in an

1:25:23

actual ice bath or a cold plunge pool

1:25:25

, they can use natural

1:25:28

bodies of water , and that's

1:25:30

something I advocate for strongly . And

1:25:34

when I'm in Aubrey , I swim in the

1:25:36

local Murray River and

1:25:38

it's amazing because you're also getting the benefit

1:25:41

of grounding , as you mentioned . You're getting

1:25:43

all those free electrons that are

1:25:45

having similar beneficial effects

1:25:48

in a range of ways , and

1:25:50

it's so elegant when we combine

1:25:52

these modalities . And

1:25:55

we keep talking about Dr Jack Cruz , but his basic

1:25:58

, simple recipe is get sunlight

1:26:01

in the cold and get grounded

1:26:03

at the same time . So you can imagine

1:26:05

that when you're stacking all these interventions

1:26:09

, you're in a cold temperature

1:26:11

, you're getting

1:26:13

a degree of UV light , maybe

1:26:15

you're at higher latitude , then this is just

1:26:17

. It's turbocharging , mitochondrial

1:26:20

function and healing , and

1:26:22

it's no surprise to me why

1:26:24

all these diseases seem to the

1:26:26

modern diseases seem to disappear when

1:26:29

we're putting us back into this natural environment . The

1:26:31

only question I had about the facial plunge

1:26:34

I've heard some people recommended

1:26:36

in terms of acclimatizing or getting

1:26:38

called acclimatized . So you're doing

1:26:40

either wrist plungers or facial plungers in

1:26:42

a bowl of water , maybe particularly for women . Do

1:26:45

you have any thoughts on that specifically

1:26:48

?

1:26:50

There's something called the cold presser

1:26:52

test , which is a standardized psychological

1:26:55

instrument to measure your body's

1:26:57

resilience . It says to measure your response to

1:26:59

stress , and they plunge your non-dominant

1:27:01

hand into a bowl of ice

1:27:04

water . It used to be that

1:27:06

the standardized length of time

1:27:08

was five minutes , and then the psychologist

1:27:10

decided that was too long . People couldn't

1:27:12

stand it . They were torturing their patients

1:27:15

. They cut it down to like two to three minutes

1:27:17

and then they measure your

1:27:19

blood pressure , they measure your breathing rate , they

1:27:21

measure perspiration on your dry hand

1:27:24

, just to see how your body responds

1:27:26

to stress . The

1:27:29

cold presser test

1:27:31

has been used by

1:27:34

Hans Seely , who is deceased

1:27:36

but practically invented this modern

1:27:39

concept of stress Because he

1:27:41

recognized that we have a generalized

1:27:43

physiological response , no matter what it is

1:27:46

. Inflammation is one . You

1:27:48

have an infection , you have an injury , you have too

1:27:50

much exercise . The inflammation is this

1:27:52

generalized response , and so this concept

1:27:55

of stress was

1:27:58

meant to describe that generalized

1:28:00

response . I don't know whether

1:28:02

it helps with cold

1:28:04

acclimation from the standpoint

1:28:07

of metabolism , but I do know that

1:28:09

it helps from the standpoint of psychology

1:28:11

, because

1:28:14

it's exposure therapy . You

1:28:16

become desensitized

1:28:19

to an experience that you

1:28:21

have more confidence in . As

1:28:23

you gain experience , nothing bad has

1:28:25

happened to you , then your confidence

1:28:28

increases and you learn to take control

1:28:30

of the parasympathetic

1:28:32

nervous system . You can improve your vagal

1:28:34

tone with hermetic stress

1:28:37

, so just plunging a hand

1:28:39

or the feet into the water is a

1:28:41

really good way to activate the nervous

1:28:43

system . Practice the structured breathing

1:28:46

, whether it's box breathing or something else that you're

1:28:48

doing . Calm yourself down

1:28:50

into that meditative state

1:28:52

. There is however

1:28:54

a difference between

1:28:57

partial body and whole

1:29:00

body . And this is coming out of Finland . There's

1:29:02

a university up near the Arctic Circle

1:29:04

that I can't pronounce . It's like ooo-loo

1:29:07

I forget how they say it , I'm

1:29:09

not Finnish and there are vowel sounds that my tongue

1:29:11

can no longer make , but

1:29:14

O-U-L-O or something like this

1:29:16

. And they do great work on cold

1:29:19

science . They compared

1:29:21

partial body to whole

1:29:24

body . They noticed that partial body

1:29:26

activates the whole system

1:29:28

and it doesn't come down . So blood

1:29:30

pressure goes up , heart rate goes up , but whole

1:29:32

body will activate and then

1:29:34

calm . And this explains why

1:29:37

I hate cold showers , because cold

1:29:39

showers make me angry and

1:29:41

I don't want to do them anymore . So

1:29:44

I mean , I started out that

1:29:46

way , but it's kind of like Joe

1:29:48

Rogan said , it's just like a stream of

1:29:50

curse words coming out of my mouth when

1:29:52

I was in the cold shower and that was the way

1:29:54

I managed all those feelings . Ice

1:29:57

bath totally different . So

1:29:59

I would love to sell you an ice bath

1:30:02

, max , and it would cost you a fortune

1:30:04

to ship it down to Australia . But you

1:30:06

don't need that . I really like what you said

1:30:08

about getting into the natural bodies

1:30:10

of water . It's only until you decide

1:30:12

I want this every day

1:30:14

and I want it at my house

1:30:16

where I can do it , you know , as

1:30:18

part of my routine . For me it's first thing in the morning

1:30:21

, I get the dawn , like Huberman

1:30:23

says , I'm supposed to get into my eyes and I

1:30:25

get in the ice water , and I guess Jack Cruz

1:30:27

would approve . Once you

1:30:29

want to do it every day , the

1:30:31

investment . It doesn't seem

1:30:33

so extraordinary anymore

1:30:36

. You're reversing your type two diabetes

1:30:38

, you're taking care of your brain

1:30:41

. Even Alzheimer's

1:30:43

has been reversed through metabolic therapies

1:30:46

. When you consider the benefits

1:30:48

to longevity and health , the

1:30:51

$15,000 doesn't seem

1:30:53

so bad .

1:30:56

Yeah , a couple points on the

1:30:58

box breathing . I think , just for the listener

1:31:00

, that's a practice of essentially

1:31:03

inhaling for four seconds or whatever

1:31:05

, however many seconds , holding for

1:31:07

four and exhaling for four , holding

1:31:10

for four , and that's a . I think it was developed

1:31:12

, or I mean who knows who developed it

1:31:14

, but it was popularized by Navy , seals and

1:31:17

other forms of special forces , military

1:31:19

to help them with extreme

1:31:22

environments , and it's one I use whenever

1:31:24

I'm getting into cold water and for me

1:31:26

I've found that regulating breathing

1:31:28

and not hyperventilating , as you mentioned

1:31:30

, but regulating breathing and

1:31:32

focusing on breath is a

1:31:35

really effective way of

1:31:37

allowing myself and regulating the body . I'll

1:31:41

just make a quick point about women

1:31:43

and I talked to Sarah Kleiner , who has

1:31:46

used cold therapy to optimize fertility

1:31:48

and obviously through its mitochondrial optimizing

1:31:51

effect , and she made a

1:31:53

couple of nuanced points in the interview that I did

1:31:55

with her , which is that the first part

1:31:57

of the menstrual cycle is

1:31:59

a better time to expose ourselves to these hormetic

1:32:02

stresses , whether that's exercise or

1:32:04

time restriction or fasting or

1:32:06

cold exposure . So the first part of the cycle

1:32:09

rather than that second part . And

1:32:11

she uses the wrist plunges and

1:32:13

the facial plunges in some , so

1:32:16

it's probably worth . I mean it costs nothing . So

1:32:18

it could be a good thing to try for people

1:32:20

, maybe before they want to do full

1:32:22

body immersion and before

1:32:24

I'll get your final

1:32:26

thoughts , thomas . But I just had a thought that I wanted

1:32:29

to make , and that is to someone

1:32:31

who is using cold therapy to reverse their

1:32:33

metabolic disease . And

1:32:36

it speaks to the point that you made , which is we

1:32:38

get a remodeling or a redistribution

1:32:41

of our fat tissue and it's going to be nuking

1:32:44

or vaporizing ectopic fat

1:32:46

, visceral fat , fat in the liver , in the

1:32:48

muscle , fat in the wrong places and

1:32:50

redistributing it to subcutaneous

1:32:53

fat . And this makes so much sense because you're

1:32:56

obviously going to need physiological

1:32:58

fat stores . So don't be disinherent

1:33:01

if you don't see changes

1:33:03

in your body composition but your HBA1C

1:33:06

diabetic markers gone down , your

1:33:08

fasting insulin's gone down , all the other

1:33:10

markers are improved . Just

1:33:12

keep that in mind . And when

1:33:15

I talked to Jack Cruz , he made the point that the

1:33:17

study of super centenarians by a

1:33:19

researcher called Niels Baselai in New

1:33:21

York and essentially these

1:33:23

guys that are living beyond 100 , all

1:33:26

of them had subcutaneous

1:33:29

but not visceral fat . So

1:33:31

they didn't necessarily look like a Donus

1:33:33

or Arnold Schwarzenegger . They

1:33:35

had what you've described yourself

1:33:38

, thomas . They've got subcutaneous stores . So

1:33:40

that hints to the idea that there

1:33:42

is a protective effect of

1:33:44

having subcutaneous fat into

1:33:46

the advancing age . But

1:33:49

the distinction here is that most people

1:33:51

don't know what type of fat they've got unless

1:33:53

they do an abdominal MRI

1:33:55

and get a look at those

1:33:58

fat compartments or they've measured

1:34:00

things like a fasting insulin level and

1:34:02

they're known to be insulin sensitive . So

1:34:04

I'll just add that nuance . But

1:34:08

wrap this up for us , thomas , and thank

1:34:10

you so much for your time and for exploring

1:34:12

so many of these fascinating topics with me . Do

1:34:14

you have any final comments and maybe

1:34:16

where people can find you and

1:34:19

your business ?

1:34:22

morosecoforgecom M-O-R-O-Z-K-O-F-O-R-G-Ecom

1:34:29

. This is where we make the ice baths , but

1:34:32

I publish a lot of articles . I've

1:34:34

got like 130,000 words

1:34:36

of science and experience published in these

1:34:39

articles in Moroseco Forge . A number

1:34:41

of people have said you should really put that together

1:34:43

in a book . So I am . It's

1:34:45

not going to come out until 2024

1:34:48

because I had no idea

1:34:50

how much work it is to put together

1:34:52

a book . But we're in the

1:34:55

editing stage and I got like one more

1:34:57

chapter to write . It's going to be called

1:34:59

Uncommon Cold and then the

1:35:02

idea here is to blend science and experience

1:35:04

. It will be the definitive

1:35:07

work on cold water therapy

1:35:09

. But without the personal stories

1:35:11

it just doesn't resonate , and

1:35:14

so you'll hear my story of testosterone

1:35:17

in there . You'll hear stories

1:35:19

on couples' cold

1:35:22

plunging and all these neurotransmitters

1:35:24

. You know experience together , the way

1:35:26

that it bonds the couple together

1:35:28

. You're going to hear Dean Hall's story

1:35:30

on cancer . There's

1:35:33

a chapter on autoimmune diseases and

1:35:35

you alluded to this earlier when

1:35:37

you were citing cruise . This

1:35:39

is one of those things a few people appreciate

1:35:42

on which he is absolutely right . There

1:35:44

is an interaction between

1:35:47

UV light exposure , cold

1:35:50

and the immune system , and you think

1:35:52

about it in the northern latitudes

1:35:54

, when there's no UVB

1:35:56

light to be had . Cold

1:35:58

can compensate for the lack

1:36:00

of UVB exposure

1:36:03

and this makes so much

1:36:05

sense evolutionarily and it can

1:36:07

restore the strength to the immune

1:36:09

system that would ordinarily be

1:36:12

drawn from higher levels of vitamin

1:36:14

D . And so there's a chapter on

1:36:16

the origins of

1:36:18

all these different autoimmune disorders , whether

1:36:21

it's Parkinson's or rheumatoid arthritis

1:36:23

, or my son's type 1 diabetes or

1:36:26

multiple sclerosis or fibromyalgia

1:36:29

that all relate to the immune system

1:36:31

in surprising ways and how

1:36:33

they originate in disorders

1:36:35

of either light exposure vitamin

1:36:37

D specifically or cold . You

1:36:40

can read all about this when the book comes

1:36:42

out , and I'll send you a copy

1:36:44

, max , except I feel so damn guilty

1:36:46

about not having finished it yet .

1:36:49

No worries , that sounds very exciting and

1:36:51

we're really bringing

1:36:54

together what I believe is a

1:36:56

decentralized approach to solving

1:36:58

these modern health problems . And

1:37:01

if centralized

1:37:03

science and medicine is good at

1:37:05

diagnosis , when

1:37:08

it comes to autoimmune disease , metabolic disease

1:37:10

, cancer , neurodegeneration , it has

1:37:12

no real answers for reversal

1:37:14

or for treatment . And that is where these

1:37:16

decentralized strategies

1:37:20

, which focus on mitochondrial health

1:37:22

and mitochondrial function , are kind of giving

1:37:24

us relief and giving patients

1:37:26

and our clients and our

1:37:29

patients hope . So , on

1:37:31

that note , thank you so much , thomas

1:37:33

, for your time . I've really enjoyed

1:37:35

this conversation . I'm very much going to look forward

1:37:38

to pushing it out to my audience . So thank

1:37:40

you and have a great day .

1:37:42

It's been a delight you too .