 How do you optimize your brain to kick more ass or is it ass? That's the Australian for pronunciation or the accent which makes ass and ass seem a little weird doesn't it? But how do you optimize your brain brain health? How do you improve your cognitive function? We're gonna figure it out today and to help us do that. I've brought in Max Lugavere Who's joining me now from New York. How you doing max? I'm doing great. How are you James? I'm doing terrific. Thank you very much and Max is somewhat of an expert on cognitive function he works for a Yahoo health is a guy who actually interviewed me at the bulletproof conference in Pasadena in October and He interviewed me about the 30-day no alcohol challenge Which you've heard me talk about here on the podcast and on the YouTube channel And now I'm returning the favor but because Max is a very knowledgeable guy on all areas of health as you would hope that an editor Of Yahoo health would be Max, it's great to have you here mate and Where are you joining us from right now? I'm coming to you live from New York City I just got back actually yesterday last night I was in Naples, Florida and that lately my home has been a thin metal tube hurling 30,000 feet above the ground But no, but home base for me is primarily in New York City, but you're a Miami boy. Are you from Florida originally? No, no, I I've spent time there. I went to University of Miami, so I've spent a good amount of time in Miami And I lived in LA for 10 years also, which is where I know you are yes Yeah, and now and you've been working on a documentary which you were telling me about called bread head Which I assume is about the dangers of bread Is that right and how it affects our health? Well, it is about so it uses bread as a metaphor for a highly processed food masquerading as a health staple I you know when I grew up and certainly, you know up until just a few years ago. I used to consider whole grain bread something that you wanted to eat a lot of in order to be healthy and You know, I've always been a very health conscious person so I would eat a lot of it and What I realized is that your average slice of whole grain bread has a higher glycemic index and table sugar It's America's number one source of dietary sodium. It's highly processed and refined It contains gluten which affects the way our guts function and so all these sort of insights, you know, it started They started to accumulate and coalesce and then it dawned on me That it's really not something that you need to eat necessarily And so I don't single out bread as being the one instigator of brain disease or anything like that But I think that it's important to be mindful of the choices that we make as they pertain to our brain health And bread is one of those things that if you're really seeking optimal health, it's the easiest sort of Next yeah, yeah, you know, I when I got onto the paleo Lifestyle, if you like the paleo style of eating about five years ago back in 2010. I was shocked when My paleo mentor if you like a guy called Chris Aschenden who's called Chris the Kiwi Told me cut bread out of your diet mate. He literally said Cut bread out of your diet mate just like that and I was like, are you kidding me? What are you talking about and he started telling me much, you know, similar to what you just told me and I did I was hosting Sports Center on ESPN at the time and I cut it out and I also cut out White rice potatoes and soda and in seven days. I lost like ten pounds It was out of control and my mother who was watching me on the TV on ESPN at the time Actually phoned me and said James. What's wrong with you? I'm like, what do you mean? She goes you've lost so much weight in the last week. He looks so gaunt in the face I'm like, damn there must be something to this like, you know cutting out bread And and you know amongst other things seemingly has a huge effect Effect on your body and today we're gonna be talking about how it affects your brain health and You know Max, of course, you've been on the Dr. Oz show a few times and you know You've got a video vlog and and you know, this is a huge thing for you And why is brain health so personal for you just before we get into How the viewer and the listener can improve their brain functionality? Why is this a passion of yours? That's a that's a really good question so three four years ago, I Have a family member my mother who started showing signs of cognitive decline and This was in the absence of any prior family history to my knowledge of things like, you know dementia and And it was you know, it was traumatic as it would be for anybody But again as somebody who's always been really health-conscious and Has really had a you know penchant for reading science and understanding research As soon as the initial, you know trauma subsided I really started to dig in and I had the luxury of being able to do that I guess because of just my work Into the into the into the research and you know what I what I learned and At the time I focused on Alzheimer's disease because Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia It's not that my mom had Alzheimer's disease, but It's you know, the fact that it's the most common disorder means that there's gonna be a whole lot of research surrounding it and what I learned at the time was that regardless of the neurodegenerative disease that you're talking about there's all these overlapping similarities and And so I just I focused on Alzheimer's and I sort of became a bit I guess of an expert in that but really my research Is all is you know in come this is other diseases to you Parkinson's You know, I did a vlog recently on a Lewy body dementia because it was revealed that Robin Williams had it and that you know got picked up And got a ton of views So I so I became obsessed to this diet lifestyle brain health interaction because of my mom and because of you know My relentless quest to find anything that I could do or give her or you know Have her avoid that might improve her symptoms, but then also on the other hand, it's not just about my mom It's about me It's about trying to find a way now that I know that I have this family history all of a sudden from out of nowhere Optimize my own my own cognitive health I learned that changes for these kinds of diseases that we're talking about for which there really are no meaningful treatments Begin in the brain decades before the first symptom 30-40 years before the first symptom and you know if you subtract 30 for my mom's age you get me and And this is a problem that is really reaching epidemic proportions in Western society. I mean You know, so one of the things that'll become very clear if you watch Or listen to any of my talks or read any of my articles is that I'm I'm very interested in this connection between Metabolism and the brain so the link between for example insulin resistance and the brain and You know the recent estimates the most the latest estimates Suggest that 50% of US adults are either diabetic or pre-diabetic That a yeah, exactly being diabetic I Just act I get just to interrupt you for a second I had a friend of mine tell me she came over to my house a couple nights ago and told me that she's been Todd told that she's pre-diabetic or she's in I'm not sure if that's a phrase Pre-diabetic, but she's in the the early she's showing signs of having diabetes or she's got like a very low-form diabetes I'm not sure the exact terminology, but she was tremendously upset and so she should have been because she's she's overweight like and has been For some time. It's a mental issue with her like she has a mental association with food and eating for comfort and things like that But I mean I I guess I was shocked, but at the same time you telling me that half of the US population Yeah, is either diabetic or heading towards diabetes is insanity to me Yeah, those are those are the you know latest estimates, and I mean it's it's hard to believe Statistic like that living in Los Angeles because you look around and everybody's you know It's in and beautiful and in New York, you know, it's but like I travel a lot And you know I get off the plane at any you know airport in the US You just see that people are people are fat, and it's and and I don't blame them necessarily There's a there's a there's an educational issue here that that needs to be addressed There's an access issue for sure But you know I think about that in the context of all the brain research that I'm doing and being diabetic Doubles your risk for Alzheimer's disease, you know, yeah There's a study done by Suzanne Kraft down at Wake Forest University where insulin resistance insulin resistance is the hallmark of type 2 Diabetes so when I say that somebody is diabetic it means that their body their cells have become deaf to the hormone insulin Which feeds their cells essentially and they found that insulin resistance in the periphery meaning in the body is a good predictor For this amyloid plaque build-up in the brain that characterizes Alzheimer's disease and is also present in Parkinson's disease So essentially what they're doing is they're accelerating, you know by being diabetic or even pre-diabetic Certainly pre-diabetic of course, you know because this this insulin resistance is really a continuum They're accelerating this this aggregation of this plaque in their brain. That's the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease I mean, it's like really terrifying and sad and horrible, and I'm you know That's that's kind of the basis for what I'm preaching Let me let me let me break it down very simply what it means is this what it means is this The fatter you get the dumber you get yeah, yeah In fact, there's an in a perfect inverse correlation between the size of your waist and your total brain volume and When it comes to the brain size matters, so I mean I I saw I saw you being interviewed On a on a show once and you were saying that they were showing there's a part of the human brain that gets smarter Or is activated with the more exercise that you do yeah And so the people who exercise more I'm not only happier and not only less stressed But they're also smarter because it activate which part of the brain is it is it the the Amygdala is it the amygdala? Is that what it's called? Well the hippocampus so Okay, well the well, I mean exercise as you just said, you know has a broad range of effects on the body It's it's literally extra exercise is medicine A lot of people say food is medicine food is medicine, but so is exercise and You know exercise is one of those things that has been proven to grow new neurons in the hippocampus Which is the memory center of the brain. It's the first structure to be damaged in Alzheimer's disease You know, it's really the the hub of everything that makes us us, you know Exercise has been shown to grow new neurons in that part of the brain. Yes You could be 80 years old and do exercise and and doing you know and that that helps You know bolster the volume of that of that very sort of vulnerable part of the brain in a way that there's not a single pharmaceutical drug on the market Can do exercises better for your brain than any currently known pharmaceutical drug and you're not going to see ads for exercise You know on the local news Unfortunately, but it's really it's really potent There's a new TED talk that came out recently And and she this woman I think her name is Sandrine something or I'm just going to google it right here now so I can get this correct And she's saying that they've proven now here. It is Sandrine Thuray or it might be Tourette You can grow new brain cells Here's how and she's a neuroscientist called Sandrine Thuray and she says that we can Improve our mood increase our memory formation and prevent the decline associated with aging all along the way and one of the ways that she Says you can do that is through exercise and good nutrition so you can take someone who's depressed Who's been on drugs who's been given medication to to help them with their depression for many years and through a combination of Good exercise good nutrition some mental exercises if you like you can literally create new Neurons in your brain to come out of your seemingly depressed state and into a much more positive state And I think that I think she also said I don't want to I don't want to say this It's fact because I'd want to go back and look at the TED talk again But I think she was also suggesting that the neurons that we have in our early adulthood Are completely gone and have been replaced some years later like 20 years later So if you were if you had depressed neurons back when you were in adolescence or early adulthood If you can train your train your brain over the course of years By the age of 40 or 50 you you might have You know seemingly very happy neurons and you're like the complete opposite of that It's not so like oh you're born with this. It's a chemical imbalance now Trust me. I've had this argument with people before and I'm no neuroscientist. I'm no medical expert I just am a disseminator of what the experts say, but It's pretty fascinating science max and as we talk about brain health here It's really exciting isn't it because you someone might be listening or watching right now and thinking well I'm just depressed. I've been told all my life that I'm depressed and I've been on medication all my life Well, actually the latest science is showing that you can get out of that without drugs by just simply Good nutrition good exercise. Is that your understanding as well max? Absolutely. Absolutely I mean, I think that a lot of people feel, you know, helpless when they're in the thick Of depression and you know, there are peaks and valleys to the human experience, you know, certainly Um, there's a term for it that I've learned recently called emo diversity You know, like certainly we need we need to have a bit of variation in our mood, you know, because without Feeling a bit bored sometimes. I mean feeling really elated loses its its sheen I guess, you know, so so there's a little bit of that day to day, but but actual clinical depression I mean, it's been linked very recently By numerous studies to inflammation and inflammation is something that, you know, as as you're well aware You can easily modulate with your choices in life through exercise through, you know, the diet and things like that Um, so you can actually like make choices to muscle your way through this depression Um, you know, and if it's very severe, obviously you should you should see somebody, you know I don't want to supplant the role of right of a psychiatrist for you know for sure, but But it is incredibly undervalued the role that that diet and lifestyle have In our mood and and I think that that should be the the first line Um, that people really sort of explore when trying to overcome problems with their mood They should go out and exercise more because exercise can reduce inflammation in the body They should go and look at, you know, they're they're gut health. I mean, it's it's crazy to conceive of your stomach You know playing a role in your mood, but I say this all the time your gut controls the dial on inflammation in your body And now having all this research coming out that really, you know links Depression with inflammation And the fact that we can keep our fingers on that dial of inflammation by by nurturing the health of our gut I mean, that's massive. Can you take a pro is our probiotics the new pro's act? I mean, they might be for some people I mean, I I ever since I realized that sauerkraut was a huge form of probiotics I've been just smashing sauerkraut. I mean and I'll tell you something interesting. I was in I was in Was it stocky? I was in Stockholm, Sweden in September and I developed started to develop a cold, right? I had a cold coming on. I started to sniff I'm like, oh no, I've come over here for to celebrate my 40th birthday and now I'm going to be sick This is a nightmare And I had remembered that my friend mark dama who's a hollywood personal trainer here and health expert had told me You know, like that Uh, sauerkraut was a huge form of probiotics Which can really help you get over sickness or reduce the amount of time So I I walked around Stockholm city center for about an hour trying to find a Supermarket that sold sauerkraut and finally I found it I don't know kind of what it was called. It was called something else in swedish But so it was a little bit difficult trying to find it But I found it I went back to my hotel and I ate the whole tub over an hour Now it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience because sauerkraut is nice as an addition to a meal not to eat as a meal itself But I forced myself to do it and this was probably about Oh, maybe just after lunchtime Anyway, I had the cold for the rest of the day and the night. I went to sleep I woke up the next morning gone Completely gone. Now. I can't say with absolute authority that it was the sauerkraut. Maybe I just had a 24-hour cold But I like to think it was I like to think that I put in a whole bunch of probiotics Probiotics which fought off that cold and as it worked, you know over the course of almost, you know 24 hours Let's say 18 hours It it fought off the cold. It killed all the bad bacteria by putting in the good Bacteria and I felt better. So That's my story. Anyway, I'm sticking to it with probiotics. I don't know if you've had a similar experience for that max me Well, I certainly I certainly, you know feet when I you know, I've Definitely up regulated my consumption of probiotics and and you know, I definitely feel good like my mood is is very Good and I've in the past, you know had had dips But I think this is really a paradigm shift in the way we think about these sorts of products I mean if you turn on the evening news, you know, you're bound to see an ad for For a probiotic supplement that you know really exploits the idea that They really are something to facilitate digestion and to ease symptoms of of gi distress and things like that But what a paradigm shift in in in this idea that probiotics can actually, you know, have an immunomodulatory effect They can boost our immune system. They can affect our mood. So this is not just about digestion I mean, this is about like way broader reaching um physiological Things that we're talking about which I think it's just it's so cool We're talking to max lugavere. Does that pronounce it right? Yeah, good job. Okay max lugavere yahoo health editor and the creator contributor and the uh creator of the upcoming documentary breadhead And today we're talking about improving your cognitive function how to optimize your brain to kick more ass I'm about to turn on periscope If you're listening or watching and you're not following me on periscope Please do download the app periscope and follow me at james swanick And uh, you'll be able to watch me live and ask me questions live. I'm about to turn it on now. Here we go I'm a I've called it. Uh, ask us anything on health as I interview max lugavere from yahoo health about Brain health. There we go. So I'm going to start the broadcast now And so we'll answer a few questions from some people As they they bring in the questions. I'm going to take my headphones off here so people can hear us or hear you rather Um, okay. So let me just put this here. There we go So max, let's do a few little tips here as we wait for some Periscope followers to come in and ask us some questions. Um Just give us a few tips on how we can improve our brain Health how we can kick ass with our brain give us like three or four tips that you've got What you've you know to work? Um, and what the listener or viewer can implement into his or her life Definitely, uh, so one thing that you can do is eat more green leafy vegetables So vegetables are a brain health superfood particularly dark leafy greens which are replete with magnesium Um magnesium is a brain health superstar Um, in fact magnesium has recently been correlated with it's an interesting link magnesium was was correlated even more so than protein with leg strength and leg strength Was found to be a good predictor for brain volume And reduced brain aging which is crazy. So Um, you know magnesium has a number of important roles in the body 60 of americans don't need enough of it So I would say uh, go for the dark leafy greens. They boost your brain and function in real time incredible Um, I think a brain an underrated brain health superfood is also green tea So this is number two green tea has been found in studies to boost working memory It's also replete in a new ootropic called theanine Which is said to boost feelings of relaxation without having a sedative effect. I actually use theanine When I'm sort of in the creative zone. I'm a songwriter. I've actually taken theanine and I've gotten some good songs out of that Um, it's probably one of the reasons why green tea is the world's most popular beverage Next to coffee. Um, so green tea is very valuable. Of course, there's caffeine. Um, I love it Exercise uh exercise would be number three exercise has a number of brain benefits It increases insulin sensitivity insulin is the hormone that makes sure that all of your cells gets fed from your toes up to your brain Uh, it also floods your brain with feel good. Um hormones Um, it's so it's the one thing that you could do more so than any pharmaceutical on the planet to grow new brain cells Which is you know, really important, you know where the brain is concerned. Like I said size matters they've taken adults and Put them through mild to moderate exercise and they've found that it grew The size of the hippocampus by two percent whereas normally When you age, yeah, you lose one to two percent of mass per year with exercise you can you can potentially reverse that decline in volume in hippocampus and um And also a study just you know over the past two weeks Uh found that exercise boosted total brain volume as well, which is really interesting. Um, especially in the outer layer of the brain Okay And just before you go on there if you're watching this on periscope live now Just let me know that you are here. I'm going to show you on the screen We're we're on periscope right now say hello to max and uh Make sure that you ask max Some questions now max lugavere from who's a yahoo health contributor and a health expert and a documentary maker So if you've got a question on brain health Uh, uh, please ask it now. In fact, here comes shawn mwt says should you care about calorie restriction? That's an amazing question and uh, the answer is yes, you should care about color restriction calorie restriction is one of those things that has been shown uh, definitely in animals and it's been it's been Suggested in humans to have life extending benefits. Um, it induces something called autophage Which is the body's sort of natural mechanism by which it cleans house in the cellular sense Um, and you can sort of activate that by either restricting your calories or by intermittent fasting, which I'm a big fan of um So that's that's huge. That's a great question. I've been doing intermittent fasting this week In fact, I've been following the protocol called kino body of a friend of mine called grego gallagher He's a canadian fellow And uh, I I met him he came to my he he crashed my 40th birthday party actually back in september He's a friend. He was a friend of a friend. I never met him before and uh I didn't really talk to him that night because I was talking to the people that I knew but uh later on I realized you know what he did and I reached out to him and he very graciously gave me his time Anyway, long story short. I've been on this kino body diet now for one week Which essentially is I I only eat in an eight hour window and I only eat two meals So for example, I've been waking up at like 6 30 or 7 and not eating until after 1 1 30 I have a meal and then I don't eat again until night time 7 38 I eat a big meal and then I actually have a packet of pop Pop chips, you know those pop chips. He says Um, which makes me feel like I'm eating crap Which makes me feel really happy because I like the feeling that I get from it. Um, but he says yeah go for it. Eat those things because it's all about, you know, number of calories Essentially and also putting your body into that state where you're in a fasted state where it's burning Anyway, cut a long story short. I've been doing it for seven days. I've lost exactly seven pounds. That's amazing I mean, it's pretty amazing. My pants are starting to fall off around my Around my hip in just in just a week now. I'm sure that that decrease in weight will start to slow down It always goes very quickly initially as you're kind of like shocking the system But it works like fasting and here's the thing I am I do I do get hungry before that first meal before I break my fast So it's a little bit uncomfortable so far But then when I eat the meal between that meal and dinner time It's very easy and then when I have my huge meal at night, I'm so satisfied like I'm like, oh, that's so good I feel I feel really good. I've also noticed an increase in energy I haven't my energy levels haven't gone down if anything they've gone up Even with the disc the slight discomfort of being in the fasted state Anyway, the idea is not just fat loss here. It's also muscle growth. I've been lifting heavier in the gym The idea is that, you know, when you put yourself in an extended fasted state It increases your growth hormone. So I'm hoping that that, you know, will make my muscles bigger Obviously as I work out at work out in the gym. All right on periscope if you're joining us I see zeki 81834 just joined us. We're talking to max luga there contributed yahu health and health expert If you have a question, please type your question in right now He is answering questions and just as the questions come through max Maybe you could just tell us a few more tips on how we can increase out our brain health We've got eating leafy vegetables. We've got drinking green tea. We've got exercise. Yeah, we had Yeah, so what else have we got here green tea exercise Eating lots and lots of vegetables eating healthy fat. Um, you know, I'm a huge fan of coconut oil It's important to remember that you know, we're humans We like to cook and the most stable oils to cook with are saturated fats And we've been told for a long time not to eat those instead You know millions and millions and millions of people worldwide switched from cooking with saturated fats to cooking with polyunsaturated fats which easily oxidize very unhealthy for the brain But it turns out that you know that that cooking with oils that are stable at high temperatures Actually confers a health benefit In that you're not consuming oxidized oils in the process But aside from that coconut oil is very high in a kind of fat called a medium change triglyceride which provides ketones to the brain which are a very clean burning fuel source to the brain and It's thought that they can actually provide not only a clean a cleaner burning fuel source to the brain But an alternate fuel source to brains that are sort of metabolically ailing which is what they see actually in Um neurodegenerative disease So coconut oil is actually it's quite a medicinal food Yeah, I use a lot of coconut oil. I'll tell you what other use I I have for coconut oil I use it as a moisturizer on my face it's funny I And by the way, we just had another question here from From puke. I think it was who says I have hepatitis c What foods should I not eat? But just before we get to that just back on coconut oil um Yeah, ben greenfield from ben greenfield fitness Actually, he's a good friend of mine. We're in an entrepreneurial group together and um, you know, we I actually he actually interviewed me on his podcast about me not drinking about the 30 day alcohol challenge And it had such a high response or you know, people were so interested in it that he actually did a 30 day test with one of His listeners who was a sort of like a guinea pig and a guinea pig. They took his blood work Before he stopped drinking with 30 days and then afterwards and it was insane how his health improved so dramatically just from cutting alcohol Out of his diet to 30 days. But anyway, ben greenfield told me um Uh, don't put these these mainstream moisturizers on your on your face like neutrogena and like You know, whatever all those big brands are because they're full of chemicals and full of parabens And I had a look and he was right. It was like, oh my god And his rule was never put on your body what you wouldn't put in your mouth Because when you put it in your body, it's going in your bloodstream anyway So unless you want to just like sit down and drink a bottle of moisturizer Why would you rub it on onto your skin? And so he said use extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil And just dab it on your face and use that as a natural moisturizer Big big mistake initially because I put too much coconut oil on my face and I went out to a party I was in san francisco in particular that night and people were all looking at me weird going What's that shit on your face, babe? What the hell is that? I like, oh, I put too much on So now you just have to put just a little dabble Stick it on and that's I'm good to go and now people like women, especially you're like, oh, you smell nice. What's that? I'm like, yeah, I got a bit of coconut oil on me That's amazing. That's so funny And then yeah, I was I have a story similar like embarrassing things that we do and we're health junkies like one of those stories Um, I have you I don't know if you've ever done a niacin flush. Are you familiar with niacin? So if you take a high dose of niacin it it's basically a really potent vasodilator So it basically opens up all the capillaries in your body most of the the the niacin that you get in multivitamins It's usually niacinamide which doesn't have this effect. But there's another form of niacin called nicotinic acid And if you take it you get you get what's called the niacin flush You go red it just opens up all the capillaries in your body and you become like a lobster It also makes your your mucous membranes Uh start functioning and then your nose starts running. It's really uh, it could be unpleasant But it's actually quite cleansing because all the oxygen is going to your skin. It's very it's sort of very cleansing I think someone told me that niacin can stop stop you for alcohol You keep going and and I think I've got niacin that I was given niacin on my 40th birthday party as something to stop People drinking I'm going to look for it for a second. You keep talking Yeah, so niacin, um, you know, it's prescribed for people with um high cholesterol It basically opens up all of the capillaries in your body Um, very noticeable. Uh, it's a rush Yeah, so is that the flush free? Nice and I have it. Yeah, beautiful So you want to look you want to look and make sure that it's not the flush free version because only only I think it's nicotinic acid that that has that flushing effect It says it says niacin vitamin b3 100 milligrams cardiovascular support promotes energy metabolism uh And Nicotinic acid or the niacin diesel D calcium phosphate Micro-stallion cellulose vegetable Steric acid vegetable cellulose vegetable Magnesium steroid free of gluten wheat dairy saw yeast sugar sodium artificial flavor uh Yeah, does that answer your question or no? Yeah. Well, I mean It's really great to take um, and there's like a 20 minute sort of window where nothing happens And then all of a sudden you you just become you feel the heat Everywhere you become bright red and it becomes it looks splotchy. It's really You know, unpleasant if you're not aware of the sounds wonderful Let me no wonder I haven't left it in my pantry and I haven't popped any of these pills yet But it's good because think about all that that increased blood flow. So oxygen, you know blood nutrients I actually take it with a cocktail of other supplements. And so I Hypothesize that by opening up all those capillaries and taking it with all these other supplements. You're basically Uh, just the bioavailability is increasing. You're you know extending the the reach of where all these nutrients and things go um But anyway, I um, so like your coconut oil story I took it once and I forgot that I had taken it and I had a meeting a really important meeting It was in la it was like with an agent or something like that And uh, I go to the meeting and then like 10 minutes into the meeting I start feeling the heat And I'm like, you know, I start turning bright red. I just know my nose is gonna start running And I'm literally in this meeting like trying to be serious and have a serious conversation with his agent I'm trying to impress or something like that And uh, it was one of the most embarrassing Moments of my la life where like I start, you know undergoing this like nice and flush in the midst of a meeting And I had to explain that like I took nice in I'm a bit of a health junkie. I do kind of You know a bit of a guinea pig It was hilarious But anyway, um that uh I love yeah, I look weird because I'm a human guinea pig Yeah Yeah, it's self. It's self experimentation, you know So just before we answer a couple of the questions that came that came in just to be clear on nice and the the main point of that Is what you take it for what what's the sole purpose? It's a vitamin So it's uh, you you need to take it and we get it from food sources and you know It's in I don't take a multivitamin, but it's in it's found in multivitamins and things like that Um, it's actually prescribed for people with high cholesterol. I don't have a cholesterol problem But one of the things that it does in the body is it acts as a vasodilator and it's very cleansing I feel so should I take it on in a fasted state and and what what what I expect if I'm like If I take it right right now in 20 minutes, what should I expect to happen on an empty stomach? It's a ride. It's you're gonna you're gonna start flushing all over your body Um, you're gonna feel really hot and warm Okay, and your nose is gonna start running And that's gonna last for about a half an hour and then it goes away and you feel great afterwards Okay, so you want to put yourself through pain in order to feel better later. Is that what it is? Yes Yeah, it might have what's called a hormetic Mechanism, you know hormesis is this is this term that I really love. It's a it's a term that describes the benefit of mild stress So it might put your body through just just the right amount of of stress that activates protective and reparative mechanisms This is also one of the mechanisms by which intermittent fasting is said to confer its benefits Um, why sauna use is beneficial calorie restriction is beneficial. Okay Hormesis and so I think that uh, there might be a little bit of that going on with niacin But overall the reason why I take it is because I think it feels really It feels uncomfortable But then it feels really good and and you feel it feels like it's having a bio like a bioactive effect that I think is um You know, I just I I enjoy it. Okay. You don't have to take it I'm not gonna suggest everybody take it and certainly, you know If you if you're not in good health, you might want to check with your doctor before doing that But um, but I I enjoy it. Okay, I'll give it a shot. So we had a let's answer. Um, the initial question was, uh He or she had um Hepatitis c What foods should they not take? Are you familiar enough with hepatitis c max? I'm not I would think that you would be though giving your interest in the liver and alcohol and things like that But I'm not and you know, I should state that I'm not a doctor I'm just I'm very interested in in this health stuff, but hepatitis c I don't know anything about We had a question to come in. Is there what's the proper dosage of niacin that's come in here from, uh, R. O. N. I. B. On periscope I would start with 100 milligrams. Yeah, that's one of those pills. Yeah, one of that's what I take But there are again, there are two kinds of niacin. There's the flushing kind and the non flushing kind as you can imagine Most people would be caught very off-guard if they took a multivitamin and started flushing So most of the niacin that's out there promises uh To confer no flush, but what I'm saying is that you actually want the flush And I think it's nicotinic acid that has that effect. So you just I think it's very it's as easy as looking on the label I actually have a bottle in my room I've got a question here from Sean Mwt who says what's your daily supplement cocktail? Craig question. I take a very, um potent fish oil supplement and I usually pop about three of those per day Uh, you know, fish oil is replete in omega-3 fatty acids dha epa Um, so I take a high quality fish oil supplement every day Um, I also supplement with 5000 ius of vitamin d3 um, I don't Uh always get to spend time in the sun. So on days that I'm not in the sun I take 5000 ius of vitamin d3 which I omit from my cocktail if I'm Say traveling and I'm in the sun a lot. I'm on vacation whatever. I don't take the supplement I also take a uh vitamin b complex um you know, I uh I Vitamin b has been found, uh, you know, when you take it in the in the complex form to reduce levels of homocysteine in the body Um and prevent brain atrophy and improve brain function Um, and so this is very important. I take that Uh, and then that's about it. I do supplement sometimes I would say most most times with astaxanthin, which is a carotenoid um Very potent free radical scavenger very potent antioxidants anti-inflammatory. It's uh found usually in krill krill oil So krill oil is another one of those supplements that um, I think is probably quite beneficial But I'm I'm similar to you I take fish oil and I take vitamin d On times when I'm not getting enough sun. So I have vitamin d and fish oil in my pantry at all times. Yeah, um I also now obviously now that I've created these blue blocking glasses. This is not a supplement obviously, but Um, I'll wear these blue blocking glasses. It's called swanis. Uh by swanik. It's the new those are awesome And uh, what these do is they block the dangerous, uh, blue light that that are emitted from our cell phones from laptops from TV screens at nighttime And so I'll put them on an hour and a half couple of hours before I go to sleep And what it does is it starts quieting down the brain. It starts blocking that blue light The body starts to naturally think oh look, it's not it's nighttime because when we're in this all this artificial light The body still thinks it's daytime So when you put these on your body can then go, oh, okay The circadian rhythm your internal body clock is starting to go. All right. It's nighttime start to create Time to start creating melatonin now So then eventually when you when you turn the light off and you take these things off You can then fall asleep faster and go into a deeper sleep Because your body's had that hour and a half or two hours to prepare for for its natural sleep cycle Um I think it's brilliant. I yeah, though. That's that's amazing Remember that song I wear my sunglasses at night Let me tell you You've just set me up that is I love that because in there I love this song. There was a there was a compilation album that came out in 1985 in australia called choose 1985 and it was a pink cover and it had um Agadu on it. It had Tina Turner. What's love got to do with it? It had ghostbusters on it. It was one of the first tapes. I ever got right I was 10 years old and one of the songs was And then it builds up to the course like My song So I can so I can The greatest song ever So yeah, yeah, the right idea, you know I mean, this was decades before the we knew about, you know, how blue light affects the brain particularly I mean, this was way even before smartphones, you know, I'm sure we knew about blue light back then But this is before the epidemic of nighttime blue light thanks to our, you know technology that we have today um But what a what a great song that is and and you know in retrospect thinking about just how how profound an impact Blocking blue light can be by wearing, you know sunglasses like yours Maybe I should make that part of the marketing like I wear my sunglasses at night And like just make a little joke about it and play it as a tune or something like that just to try and hit home It would be silly not to it would be silly not to And if you're listening and watching you don't know what we're talking about because maybe it's a little bit before your time Just go on a youtube and type in I wear my sunglasses at night and watch the 1985 video It's hilarious and it's such a great song And it just bring you look how excited I am talking about it because it just brings back these childhood memories, you know of listening to the Choose 1985 compilation tape Well, the thing is what I love about the you know about your sunglasses, for example Is that like I would totally wear them at night and then people would probably think that I was a douche For wearing sunglasses at night, but I'd be like no, this is like why you should be wearing, you know You need to be blocking blue light at night. You're disrupting your melatonin production Melatonin controls the expression of hundreds of genes, blah blah So I think it's a really good way to actually make an impact On people it gives you an opportunity to talk about why you're wearing the glasses and to actually help people Thank you. Yeah Well, we're trying to actually get away from calling them sunglasses that you wear at night Even though that song would be a good fit because what they essentially are night glasses And I'll just to give you a little bit of context You can you can get blue blocking glasses. You can buy them right, but they are as ugly as sin I mean, they're terrible They're like these big kind of like safety goggles that you see workmen Using when they're they're mowing lawns or they're doing construction and to protect themselves from flying stones and debris Right, so you can actually wear those and they're pretty effective You know, I had a pair here that I used for several months But I could never go out and dine with friends at a restaurant I could never go out in a social situation and wear these things because people are like Why are you wearing your sunglasses at night and why are you wearing those? But ugly safety goggles. So I was like, how can I actually wear? Blue blocking glasses at night time and and it'd be socially acceptable It was actually playing more in my vanity than it was really on the health Health benefits max. I was like, how the hell can I look cool? In a social setting with girls around and you know my mates and everything and so You know, I've spent a good 10 months almost a year now Playing around with putting um these orange frames in these orange lenses rather into some stylish frames And this is the pair that I that I've come up with I'll put it up on the video if you're listening on the audio. I'm just showing Max now on the video at the brand there with they're called swanis Uh swanis by swanwick. In fact, if you want to just check out a little bit more about this You can go to swanwick sleep comm swanwick sleep comm And they're available on amazon now as well. You can you can grab a pair on amazon, but Yeah, so now I've got this stylish pair so you can wear them and hardly anyone asked me about I mean and if they asked me about it, they go, oh, they're cool. Tell me about those Rather than you look like a douche What are you doing? And so now my sleep has improved dramatically ever since I started using blue blocking glasses at night time I'll tell you when I started doing it It was exactly a year ago And I was obsessed with watching madmen and I'd never watched the tv show of madmen Up until like, you know a year ago And so my way of relaxing at the end of a night was to come home and sit in bed and watch madmen And so for the first week I did this I was just looking at my screen This blue light was coming out at me I didn't have the protective glasses on and then I would Put in the laptop down at the end of an episode and I'd struggle to get to sleep and I'd wake up in the morning Just kind of like That wasn't a great night's sleep And then a week later my friend mark told me about the power of you know blocking blue light I put on these butt ugly safety goggles and I watched the next month of madmen Wearing these goggles and I was found myself falling asleep halfway through the damn episodes as compelling As the episodes were and even when I did watch them I closed the screen I take off the glasses and then I would fall asleep almost You know almost right away and then I'd wake up feeling much refreshed Much refreshed in the morning. Have you had any similar experiences to that max? Or does that sound about right to you based on you know your understanding of of blocking blue light? Well, I so I use an app on my laptop called flux, which is great Flux is amazing which filters out the blue light from my laptop, but that doesn't exist for my iPhone Or at least it doesn't without me having to gel break my iPhone And I do use my smartphone a lot I'm a you know knowledge junkie and so like It could be two in the morning, and I'm out and something peaks my curiosity. I'm I'm on google so So the blue light emitted from my smartphone is a problem and I do look at my smartphone up until the minute I go to bed Which I know I shouldn't But but yeah anything that I could do to filter that out, you know as you mentioned TV is also a big problem I have a pretty large TV, so I mean it's a lot of blue light at night and you know just to just to Sort of highlight the potential brain benefits of filtering this blue light aside from the melatonin production Being suboptimal, you know as a result of this sort of epidemic of blue light as you mentioned Sleep is when your brain Cleans itself out of this plaque that I mentioned earlier in the show That accumulates in alzheimer's disease. So clearance is a major Protective mechanism against these diseases again, which you know, there are no meaningful treatments for them And so we really want to optimize our sleep because this is when this clearance process happens It's also when we are consolidating our memories Which is you know everything that we've encountered during the day all the thoughts that we've had all the things that we've attempted to learn Those those ideas are stored in our short term and over the course of the night they get sort of consolidated and stored Saved on the hard drive so to speak of the hippo campus And this all happens during these phases of sleep, which we know are altered As a result of blue light Use before bed. I mean there was a study that I read actually because it was it was posted on the blog of flux where just the use of a Tablet for 10 minutes before bed dramatically lessened the amount of time spent in REM sleep And it made it take longer for the subject the study participants to fall asleep So I mean right there it's affecting our sleep. Yeah, it's it's sleep is also, you know with that with just you know a tiny Deficit of sleep, you know, we become less insulin sensitive so going back to the role of insulin in the body and just how important that is I mean sleep is just one of the most healing things and um, and I think that we have yet to really appreciate the damage that Uh smartphone use is having on our sleeping. We've only had smartphones for what eight ten years Yeah, yeah 2007. I think that I the first iphone came out. Yeah I mean, I'm I'm shocked at how much I use my phone even though. I'm you know I'm quite health conscious and you know trying to be as anti technology as possible. I mean This iphone that I'm now look at the power of it like like it's a spaceship this thing I mean I'm I'm recording periscope. I can record video from a 30 day no alcohol challenge I can check my email. I can be up to date on my social media. I can I've got an I've got a whole library in my fingertips I can book flights. I can do banking. I mean everything that I need in life is in this damn damn phone now Which is a great thing, right? It's an amazing tool But it is coming at at a high cost and that is is that that blue light is is disrupting asleep And if you have disrupted sleep your hormones are not Functioning the way they're supposed to you're keeping fat around your waist You're tired and lethargic the next day that that being tired and being lethargic affects your mood And when that affects your mood it affects your relationships and when your relationships are affected It affects your ability to be productive and when you're not productive You don't make as much money and when you don't make as much money You become sadder and more depressed and when you're sadder and more depressed it affects your Relationships and it's just they're all linked and all intertwined highly self-perpetuating vicious cycle That's yeah that literally can be Exacerbated by getting bad sleep. Yeah All right. Well max we should start to roll this off. I reckon you and I could talk for about three hours on this On this on this topic, um, but thank you so much. Let's just go over when we're talking about We were talking about brain health, obviously Sorry, um, yeah brain health and how to optimize your brain to kick more arse So food wise max was talking about eating leafy greens. You can drink green tea Make sure you get lots of exercise eat lots of good coconut coconut oil good fats like coconut oil Also, uh, you know grab yourself a pair of of blue blocking glasses To block out the dangerous blue light which is going to help your sleep Even if you don't do that just turn off your electronics an hour and a half before you go to sleep That'll quieten down your brain try to get as much sunlight as you can during the day as well That's also going to help with your circadian rhythm because when you like when you wake up in the morning Please go outside. Let the skin Senses feel the sunlight because that's basically telling your brain and your circadian rhythm that it's daytime that it's that it's the morning Fast forward tonight Then your brain or your body will will know it's time to go to sleep But if you're not getting sunlight in the morning or you're sitting or you're getting a little bit of sunlight And then you're sitting under fluorescent lights all day That's just slowly killing you your cortisol levels are going up your brain Your body doesn't isn't getting natural sunlight. That's affecting your sleep. That's affecting your brain Later on at night. It's all or all intertwined Um Max, uh, how do we follow you on social media? How do we check out your documentary? Just tell the listener and the viewer now where we can find more about you. Yeah, so we are um We're in production on the documentary now and we're still raising money You can contribute whatever you want to breadhead and movie.com also join the mailing list Whatever you whatever however you choose to engage. I'm super grateful and um, you know and it all helps I'm primarily I use facebook The most frequently facebook.com slash max lugavir. You can find me Also on twitter instagram And you can also subscribe to my youtube channel where I post Regular vlogs weekly. So i'm out there. I'm you know on all the social media Channels and if you're watching and listening right now and you've come this far because we've been talking about an hour Send a tweet right now to at max lugavir and at james swanik and just what what was the Number one takeaway from this interview from this this discussion max would love to hear from you I'm sure he will retweet you make sure you follow him on social media and check out breadhead movie Dot com that sounds amazing. I can't wait to see that Thank you very much for those people on periscope give max lots of hearts right now I'm going to just show you up on the video here. We've got some hearts coming for you max You can see the hearts there. Yeah, lots of hearts lots of hearts the robert 227 just joined we're just finishing Robert sorry about that mate, but um if you've got any final comments that you want to give to uh to max Just give us a shout out right now as we start to wrap this up We've got tom c z uk has just joined got a few more people joining right at the end max. Oh, man parting is such a sweet sorrow, but um I mean, but we could keep this conversation going for another two hours at least For at least another two hours on uh, we didn't even get into alcohol, which I know, you know That's the whole other rabbit hole that we can go down. Yeah, we've got uh r o n i b says thanks max So thank you. Thank you very much for your excellent questions Thank you so much to shorn for asking questions as well. So we'll wrap this up now Max great talking to you as always really appreciate really appreciate that you've been very informative today and look forward to catching up with you Soon and let's do again Absolutely and to the viewer and the listener make sure you follow me on periscope. You can if you're watching this on youtube Go to the james wonick show podcast and itunes download it subscribe Send out at least a couple episodes every week And uh, yeah, make sure you tweet us out now. Thanks so much and i'll catch you on the next one