The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2516 - Rowan Jacobsen

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:09.000 Yep.

00:00:10.000 All right.

00:00:14.000 Very nice to meet you, man.

00:00:15.000 You too.

00:00:15.000 Thank you.

00:00:15.000 Thanks for having me.

00:00:16.000 And thanks for doing this work because you want to talk about a subject that's confused so many people.

00:00:21.000 Is the sun good for you?

00:00:23.000 Is the sun killing you?

00:00:24.000 Why does it give you vitamin D if it's bad for you?

00:00:27.000 Why do people get skin cancer if it's good for you?

00:00:30.000 Yeah, it's super complicated, and the messaging has not.

00:00:34.000 Sort of admitted that, and that was, yeah, a big impetus for the book.

00:00:37.000 When, what was your opinion of sun exposure before you started writing this?

00:00:43.000 So I had, you know, I had inherited the conventional wisdom from the institutions that it was really bad.

00:00:50.000 At the same time, I will admit that my instincts were that maybe it wasn't as bad as they were leading me to believe, because whenever I was in the sun, I felt good.

00:01:01.000 And I live in Vermont.

00:01:02.000 By the time winter was reaching like month six, I felt bad, right?

00:01:07.000 So it's like there's more here than we're being told.

00:01:07.000 Right.

00:01:10.000 Yeah, that was my wife's opinion.

00:01:12.000 She's like, the sun can't be bad.

00:01:14.000 It always feels good when you go out there.

00:01:15.000 I'm like, oh, well, it's a little more complicated than that, but that is the instinct.

00:01:21.000 Like, it feels great when you're in the sun.

00:01:22.000 Like, ah, it's like your body wants it.

00:01:25.000 Your body wants it.

00:01:26.000 I mean, we now know that it literally triggers the release of opiates in the brain, sunlight.

00:01:31.000 So, yeah, your body wants it and your body rewards you when you get it.

00:01:35.000 So, what is the issue?

00:01:36.000 Well, let's go back to the beginning.

00:01:37.000 So, you had this idea that Sun exposure is probably giving people cancer, and sunscreen is good.

00:01:44.000 You need to wear sunscreen, stay out of the sun.

00:01:47.000 So, when you started going into the research, what made you shift your opinion?

00:01:52.000 So, it really started for me like seven or eight years ago.

00:01:54.000 I was on this science journalism fellowship, so I was just doing research.

00:01:59.000 And some of those studies hit the one about opiate release in the brain, and other studies showing that when light hits skin, cognition actually improves.

00:02:09.000 Like, your metabolism cranks up a little bit.

00:02:13.000 When the body feels sunlight coming in.

00:02:15.000 And I thought, that's interesting.

00:02:18.000 That's all good stuff.

00:02:19.000 Then I came across a couple other studies that seemed to indicate that sunlight could lower blood pressure, which was really interesting.

00:02:27.000 So then I still had the sense sunlight bad, right?

00:02:31.000 So then I remember just like Googling, like, so how much does sunlight shorten your lifespan?

00:02:37.000 And like the punchline is sunlight seems to extend your lifespan.

00:02:42.000 So when I hit that, I was like, why are we not hearing this?

00:02:45.000 So that was the beginning.

00:02:46.000 And so, what is the problem?

00:02:50.000 Like, what is the issue with sunlight?

00:02:52.000 Like, when you think about skin cancer, what are the confounding factors that lead to skin cancer?

00:02:58.000 Are we completely aware of that?

00:03:00.000 It's more complicated than we thought.

00:03:02.000 So, sunlight does increase your risk of skin cancer.

00:03:06.000 But, depending on the type of skin cancer you're talking about, it's not necessarily like a linear relationship.

00:03:13.000 So, yes, in general, Too much sun increases your risk of skin cancer.

00:03:19.000 But yeah, the question is what are the confounding factors?

00:03:22.000 How important is skin cancer compared to these other things?

00:03:24.000 If sunlight reduces your risk of other diseases, how does that weigh against the risk of skin cancer?

00:03:31.000 So it's not the type of thing that can be done in a 30 second PSA.

00:03:42.000 Right.

00:03:43.000 So sun exposure that does cause skin cancer, what is causing it?

00:03:47.000 Why is it happening?

00:03:49.000 So, ultraviolet light, which is the most energy intense part of the solar spectrum, when those photons of light hit your skin, they go inside, right?

00:03:59.000 We absorb all wavelengths of light to a greater or lesser degree.

00:04:04.000 And that super high energy ultraviolet light, if it hits a DNA molecule, it can mess up the DNA molecule.

00:04:11.000 And then that can lead to mutations and skin cancer.

00:04:14.000 Then it can also indirectly cause skin cancer by creating what are called reactive oxygen species, which are free radicals basically.

00:04:23.000 So it energizes these atoms that start to steal electrons from other atoms.

00:04:30.000 Causes a little chain reaction, which is what a free radical is.

00:04:33.000 So, ultraviolet light can increase your free radicals and it can directly damage DNA.

00:04:40.000 So, that's why it could cause skin cancer.

00:04:41.000 So, it was basically that learning that one fact back in like the 40s and 50s that made scientists start to say, uh oh, light skin cancer, maybe we should think about how much sun we're getting.

00:04:54.000 But this wasn't universally accepted, right?

00:04:58.000 There were some people that.

00:05:00.000 Even back then, we thought that sun exposure was very healthy for you.

00:05:03.000 Like, when did we figure out that sun causes the body to produce vitamin D?

00:05:08.000 Yeah, that was an important part.

00:05:09.000 And it's a big part of the story, I think, because that was really back in the 20s that we figured that out.

00:05:13.000 And then even a little earlier, we realized that sunlight could prevent rickets.

00:05:19.000 Rickets?

00:05:20.000 Yeah, so rickets is a soft bone disease.

00:05:22.000 Like, if you don't get enough calcium in your bones when you're a kid, when you're a baby, you get soft bones, you get rickets.

00:05:31.000 Really bad disease.

00:05:33.000 And it was in the Industrial Revolution, kids started getting rickets.

00:05:38.000 Farm kids never got rickets.

00:05:39.000 Then suddenly, kids are working in factories.

00:05:42.000 They're living in cities that are choked with coal smog.

00:05:46.000 They're living in tenement buildings.

00:05:48.000 They're never seeing the sun, and they all start getting rickets.

00:05:50.000 Late 1800s.

00:05:52.000 Is nutrition a factor in that?

00:05:54.000 Vitamin D.

00:05:54.000 It was all vitamin D. At first, they thought maybe it was vitamin A, but it turned out that was how vitamin D was discovered some doctors figured out that.

00:06:05.000 It could solve rickets in kids.

00:06:07.000 And then they figured out that if sun hits skin, that's how we made vitamin D.

00:06:12.000 Then they figured out.

00:06:13.000 How did they figure that out?

00:06:15.000 They tested some tests on dogs.

00:06:22.000 Actually, one of the guys who figured it out, he had a hunch that that's what it was.

00:06:27.000 Like, they noticed that kids in the country wouldn't get rickets and kids in the city did get rickets.

00:06:31.000 So, like, I wonder if it's sunlight.

00:06:34.000 So then a guy took.

00:06:36.000 Dogs, and this is, I think, Scotland, stuck them in a.

00:06:44.000 They actually thought it was dietary.

00:06:45.000 He stuck them inside in this little warehouse and fed them oatmeal, which is what everyone in Scotland ate at the time.

00:06:52.000 And the dogs got rickets.

00:06:54.000 And he thought it was the oatmeal.

00:06:55.000 He's like, okay, so something about diet.

00:06:58.000 But then he got lucky because he had deprived the dogs of sunlight.

00:07:03.000 And that's why they got rickets.

00:07:05.000 So then eventually they realized that.

00:07:10.000 Light hitting cholesterol molecules in the skin actually converts the molecules to vitamin D.

00:07:18.000 So, vitamin D is like downstream of cholesterol, but it takes that same ultraviolet light that can screw up your DNA.

00:07:25.000 It actually breaks a bond in the cholesterol molecule, which allows it to give it some movement and it flips around into a new form that's vitamin D.

00:07:35.000 So, once they figure that out, then they're like, sun's really good for you.

00:07:39.000 So, we had this era in like the 20s, 30s, and into the 40s when everyone thought sun would cure everything.

00:07:45.000 And they like went after it hard.

00:07:48.000 Really?

00:07:49.000 Yeah.

00:07:50.000 Like, parents would send their kids up into the Alps in like the 20s to institutes for heliotherapy.

00:07:57.000 Kids would ski around in their underwear, take classes in their underwear.

00:07:59.000 There's awesome photos from this era.

00:08:02.000 Like the instructors are in their underwear in the mountains outside in Switzerland teaching the kids, and everyone looks really healthy, right?

00:08:10.000 So there's kind of like this idea that you couldn't get too much light.

00:08:14.000 So people are literally burning themselves on purpose for health.

00:08:17.000 Is that the issue?

00:08:18.000 Is burning a giant part of the issue?

00:08:20.000 Yeah.

00:08:21.000 So to give it away, now it looks like for melanoma, which is the most dangerous type of skin cancer, it's.

00:08:28.000 Associated with burning strongly, but not with like gentle, moderate, everyday sun exposure.

00:08:36.000 So, how much of a factor is skin type?

00:08:39.000 Like people that are pale or have freckles and red hair and blonde hair.

00:08:45.000 Like, how much of a factor is that in skin cancer?

00:08:48.000 And can they mitigate that by like gentle, slow exposure?

00:08:54.000 Like a little bit of here, a little bit there, and slowly build up.

00:08:57.000 Yeah, huge. 0.99

00:08:58.000 Like, Skin type is kind of everything.

00:09:00.000 People who have really dark skin basically don't get sun induced skin cancer, almost never.

00:09:06.000 And the authorities don't tend to talk about that because they want things to be, they want to have like these one size fits all recommendations. 0.64

00:09:15.000 But those recommendations to basically always avoid the sun are written for the super fair people, especially if you have red hair, orange freckles.

00:09:25.000 Then you actually have a mutation in your melanin gene that makes you super susceptible to skin cancer from sunlight. 0.99

00:09:33.000 So, if you've got that phenotype, lots of moles, red hair, freckles, you do have to be really careful.

00:09:42.000 And you can only do so much.

00:09:43.000 Like, you're not going to tan that much anyway.

00:09:47.000 Your melanin's just different.

00:09:49.000 Everybody else, yeah, you're much less susceptible, and you can make more melanin pretty easily through tanning.

00:09:59.000 I wonder what, if any, effect, have you ever heard of that?

00:10:03.000 I can't remember the name of the peptide.

00:10:05.000 But there's a peptide that people are taking now that causes their body to generate melanin and they get really dark.

00:10:13.000 Yeah.

00:10:14.000 It's really weird.

00:10:14.000 Yeah.

00:10:16.000 Yeah.

00:10:17.000 And I don't know what's going on there exactly.

00:10:20.000 It seems like that peptide is maybe making you.

00:10:22.000 There's things called photosensitizers that make your skin super sensitive, like you just absorb solar radiation really well then, but not necessarily in a good way.

00:10:34.000 And that can make you make tons of melanin to try to compensate.

00:10:37.000 So I wonder, that peptide might be triggering.

00:10:41.000 Like melanin as a compensation mechanism for extra protection from sunlight, or maybe it's just making melanin happen like independently of sunlight.

00:10:50.000 Did you put it into perplexity?

00:10:54.000 All right, here it is.

00:10:58.000 Melanotan, synthetic peptide analog of the naturally occurring hormone A melanocyte, stimulating hormone, stimulates the body's melanocytes to produce melanin, resulting in a dark tan.

00:11:12.000 It's largely unrelevant.

00:11:15.000 Excuse me, unregulated, illegal in many regions for cosmetic purposes, and carry significant health risks.

00:11:22.000 All right, what's the risks?

00:11:24.000 It's not approved by the FDA for cosmetic use.

00:11:27.000 An unregulated market means purity.

00:11:29.000 Okay, but that's unregulated.

00:11:31.000 Notable risks include dermatological issues, rapid and uneven darkening of existing moles, the emergence of new moles, and hyperpigmentation.

00:11:40.000 Concerns that could mask or accelerate the development of melanoma.

00:11:44.000 What is this?

00:11:45.000 Potentially damaging erections.

00:11:48.000 What?

00:11:49.000 Raging erections. 0.97

00:11:50.000 Oh, that's right. 0.99

00:11:51.000 This apparently gives people raging erections. 0.99

00:11:53.000 Why? 0.75

00:11:54.000 Prolonged, painful, and potentially damaging erection. 1.00

00:11:58.000 Imagine you get an erection that goes so hard you redline the penis. 1.00

00:11:58.000 Damaging. 1.00

00:12:06.000 Medical and dermatological organizations strongly advise against the use of melanitan because it's unapproved.

00:12:15.000 There are no clinically established safe dosages.

00:12:18.000 Well, weird because that, so alpha MSH, the thing that it is mimicking, is that's how your body makes.

00:12:26.000 That's how everybody's supposed to do it.

00:12:26.000 Melanin.

00:12:28.000 You got to see the before and afters because they're kind of bonkers.

00:12:31.000 I've seen some people get super.

00:12:33.000 Well, the problem is it's Instagram.

00:12:35.000 You never know what's real.

00:12:36.000 That guy got a little tan.

00:12:38.000 Let's see if there's any.

00:12:40.000 Okay, look how pale that.

00:12:42.000 See, but that's not.

00:12:43.000 How do we know if that's real?

00:12:44.000 It's just like there's like a light on him.

00:12:46.000 Right. 0.99

00:12:47.000 And then he's in a fucking dark closet in the last picture. 0.98

00:12:50.000 That's the first before and after photos I've seen. 0.98

00:12:52.000 Is there.

00:12:52.000 That one right there.

00:12:53.000 The low.

00:12:54.000 No, the one.

00:12:55.000 Yeah, that one. 0.68

00:12:56.000 Look at that guy.

00:12:59.000 Well.

00:12:59.000 You know, it's a look.

00:13:00.000 It's an interesting look.

00:13:01.000 He injected himself with unregulated tanning peptide, melanotan 2.

00:13:07.000 Click on that.

00:13:08.000 That seems like a joke.

00:13:10.000 No, no, this guy, this is the guy that I saw online.

00:13:13.000 This guy's, he's the test rabbit.

00:13:16.000 This dude went hard. 0.99

00:13:18.000 Did he get an erection too? 0.99

00:13:20.000 Yeah, he died from that. 0.99

00:13:21.000 I don't know.

00:13:24.000 So his before and afters.

00:13:26.000 So let's see what his, he just, okay.

00:13:31.000 Yeah, he just got darker and darker and darker.

00:13:34.000 But I wonder if, like, if I understand that it's unregulated, but if it was regulated and this is something they're trying to work with right now with peptides and make them regular, see, that's the photo's dark though.

00:13:47.000 I mean, that's like a shitty iPhone 1 camera.

00:13:51.000 That's crazy. 0.97

00:13:52.000 If that's like, this is nuts.

00:13:55.000 There's something going on there.

00:13:56.000 Like, you know what it looks like?

00:13:58.000 It looks like those bodybuilder guys who use that.

00:14:02.000 That ink, that dye on their skin to make themselves darker so their muscles pop out more.

00:14:06.000 So, here's better tanning log photos.

00:14:09.000 These are better photos.

00:14:10.000 That's crazy.

00:14:12.000 But I wonder if that offers skin protection.

00:14:14.000 It would definitely offer skin protection.

00:14:16.000 I mean, if it's melanin, it's definitely, I mean, that guy can probably be outside all day.

00:14:23.000 Yeah, so that's the question.

00:14:25.000 Is that available to someone who's pale?

00:14:28.000 And if someone is pale, see if you can find an example of someone who's pale who took it.

00:14:36.000 Because you would think, like, oh, well, maybe that, maybe just we need to do studies and figure out what the dosage is and figure out how to activate that aspect of it.

00:14:45.000 Melanin clearly protects you from skin cancer.

00:14:48.000 Like, if you have super dark skin, like, you know, African ancestry, you're blocking, like, your melanin is absorbing like 97, 98% of the UV rays.

00:14:59.000 It's super effective.

00:15:00.000 But didn't Bob Marley die from skin cancer?

00:15:03.000 He did.

00:15:04.000 That's pretty crazy.

00:15:05.000 Okay, this is one.

00:15:06.000 Wow.

00:15:08.000 It looks like the same person.

00:15:10.000 Hard to tell. 1.00

00:15:11.000 Same molt.

00:15:12.000 Yeah, it looks like the same mole. 0.63

00:15:14.000 That looks pretty good.

00:15:17.000 But I would just also, wouldn't, if you were trying to sell some of this stuff in maybe nefarious ways, this would be an easy one to market.

00:15:25.000 Tough and, you know.

00:15:28.000 Definitely.

00:15:29.000 Look, this is part of the unregulated market problem we don't know.

00:15:33.000 And also, you know, you're getting 99% bro science on this stuff.

00:15:37.000 You know, like, who screams bro science?

00:15:41.000 It screams it from the top of the hills.

00:15:45.000 What legitimate scientist is out there injecting himself with melanotan?

00:15:50.000 But the other thing is, if you do it naturally, right, if you just get a little sun every day and slowly build up, you're not just making melanin, you're also increasing your body's damage repair system.

00:16:00.000 Like you have all these, like nucleotide excision repair, things that fix your DNA and fix cells that have gotten screwed up.

00:16:08.000 And that will also ramp up every day.

00:16:12.000 And it's not just sunlight, like, Exercise, same thing.

00:16:16.000 Like anything that, that like stresses the body a little bit.

00:16:20.000 It's like hormesis, right?

00:16:21.000 So all those things are going to cause your damage repair system to crank up and be ready.

00:16:26.000 So you could probably want those to, like the melanin and the damage repair to, to like go up together.

00:16:33.000 So you would want to, if, if, let's say studies were done, let's say we found what the effective and safe dose is and how to administer it, you would want to do it along with sun exposure slowly to try to ramp up your body's.

00:16:33.000 Right.

00:16:47.000 Ability.

00:16:48.000 Added note on this, this happened 14 years ago.

00:16:52.000 Which is strange.

00:16:52.000 Whoa.

00:16:54.000 Here's some of the side effects he said, but he also said he's pretty much impervious to UV at this point.

00:16:58.000 Increased libido.

00:17:00.000 Didn't see that one much either.

00:17:01.000 He said he didn't get it.

00:17:03.000 Okay, sides are decreased appetite, very mild nausea, more for some, none for me.

00:17:08.000 Decreased libido.

00:17:09.000 Increased libido.

00:17:10.000 He said it didn't see that one much either.

00:17:13.000 Some get facial flushing like a niacin dose.

00:17:16.000 Never got that either.

00:17:17.000 And the most strange thing is that it feels really good to stretch, like when you first wake up.

00:17:22.000 Interesting.

00:17:24.000 Huh. 0.97

00:17:27.000 Did you do it for the skin coloring? 0.97

00:17:28.000 Yes, I did it for the skin coloring.

00:17:29.000 I'm pretty much impervious to UV at this point.

00:17:32.000 I have faded about 25% since returning from Florida January 31st.

00:17:37.000 We'll be dosing again probably in March.

00:17:39.000 Is this guy still alive?

00:17:40.000 That's my question.

00:17:41.000 It's 14 years.

00:17:42.000 20 years.

00:17:42.000 Click on that link where his profile is.

00:17:42.000 What is that?

00:17:46.000 Let's see if Homeboy's alive.

00:17:48.000 This is where this takes us to the next post on the podcast.

00:17:50.000 He's not.

00:17:51.000 Is this Reddit?

00:17:52.000 I see a year ago he's commenting.

00:17:54.000 I never did it subtle.

00:17:56.000 Okay, so a year ago he's still alive, or someone has taken over his account.

00:18:02.000 In theory, you could use an old school quartz tanning lamp.

00:18:05.000 Okay, so you could tan with it.

00:18:07.000 And he's in a weird reddit there, so we've got to stop looking.

00:18:10.000 Why?

00:18:11.000 I mean, this is not for the show, but he's in a weird.

00:18:14.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:16.000 Okay.

00:18:16.000 That's why I was afraid to go that way.

00:18:17.000 That's a problem. 0.57

00:18:19.000 Well, only crazy people are willing to try something like that.

00:18:22.000 Like, do you remember that there was a guy, God, I think it was on Oprah or one of those shows, where he was taking.

00:18:29.000 Was it silver?

00:18:31.000 Yeah, colloidal silver.

00:18:32.000 That's right, colloidal silver.

00:18:34.000 And his whole skin turned blue permanently.

00:18:37.000 Like a smurf. 0.97

00:18:37.000 Yeah. 0.97

00:18:38.000 Poor guy.

00:18:38.000 Yeah.

00:18:39.000 Yeah.

00:18:39.000 And he wound up dying.

00:18:41.000 Yeah.

00:18:42.000 And how did it kill him?

00:18:43.000 I don't know if it killed him, but he's, I believe he died young.

00:18:48.000 That's homeboy.

00:18:49.000 Not good.

00:18:50.000 Yeah.

00:18:51.000 That's just not a good liquid.

00:18:52.000 You would think you'd start turning a little blue and you'd go, hey, maybe I need to back off this colloidal silver.

00:18:58.000 Papa Smurf dies.

00:19:00.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:19:01.000 I mean, what the fuck, dude? 1.00

00:19:04.000 That guy, I mean, maybe he could have gotten some melanotan and evened that out. 1.00

00:19:08.000 It just been a nice chocolate.

00:19:11.000 You know, like a bluish chocolate.

00:19:14.000 I mean, he looks delicious.

00:19:15.000 I'll say that. 0.67

00:19:16.000 Yeah, this is Argria.

00:19:20.000 Argria?

00:19:21.000 Argria, the rare disease that turns people blue, caused by a buildup of silver in the body which discolors the skin.

00:19:28.000 Wow.

00:19:30.000 2013.

00:19:32.000 He died from unrelated causes.

00:19:35.000 Whatever that means.

00:19:37.000 I mean, anybody's taken that much colloidal silver, you probably make a lot of other mistakes.

00:19:40.000 I mean, yeah, like.

00:19:42.000 You're a risky dude.

00:19:45.000 So many options.

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00:21:00.000 Back to Bob Marley.

00:21:01.000 He did die of skin cancer, and that confuses a lot of people.

00:21:01.000 Yes.

00:21:05.000 So, he had melanoma on his toe.

00:21:07.000 Right.

00:21:08.000 And that was a kind of melanoma that's not caused by the sun.

00:21:14.000 And everybody gets it, no matter what race you are, everybody gets it at the same rate, which is quite uncommon.

00:21:22.000 They know it's not caused by the sun, but it complicates things for people because people are like, I got melanoma in my toe?

00:21:32.000 And they think it's from the sun.

00:21:33.000 And they're like, how did that happen?

00:21:37.000 What's melanoma doing down there?

00:21:40.000 Not all melanomas are caused by the sun.

00:21:46.000 Most probably are, but it gets really weird with melanoma.

00:21:52.000 Associated with burning, with like intermittent sun exposure, like you work in an office all year and then you go to Cancun and get fried.

00:22:00.000 That's a pretty good recipe for melanoma.

00:22:03.000 History of sunburns also will double your risk.

00:22:06.000 Chronic exposure, where you have an outdoor job every day, lower than average risk of melanoma.

00:22:12.000 Really?

00:22:12.000 Yeah, so it gets weird.

00:22:13.000 Like landscapers or something.

00:22:15.000 Outdoor workers have a lower incidence of melanoma than office workers.

00:22:23.000 Wow.

00:22:24.000 And we don't hear that.

00:22:25.000 No.

00:22:26.000 No, I mean, I was looking at Instagram the other day, and some poor guy had this.

00:22:33.000 I don't know what happened to his face, but he had some sort of skin cancer, and they had to take a graft, and it was on his nose.

00:22:41.000 So it was like a flap of skin was almost covering over his eye.

00:22:46.000 And his message was, Wear sunscreen.

00:22:48.000 This is what happened to me.

00:22:49.000 Yeah, well, so I mean, yeah, so I don't want to downplay skin cancer because it sucks when you get it.

00:22:55.000 They have to cut off a hunk of your ear or something.

00:22:57.000 That definitely sucks, even if it's not life threatening. 0.95

00:23:00.000 Yeah. 0.85

00:23:01.000 So, but, and so, yeah, like, but that's generally from overexposure.

00:23:06.000 Like burning.

00:23:08.000 Burning.

00:23:09.000 All the experts I've spoken with said, don't burn.

00:23:11.000 Right.

00:23:11.000 Burning is the one that people always say that it's not just burning, it's burning causes damage that starts to appear years later.

00:23:20.000 And there's, there's dialing in on that more and more.

00:23:20.000 Yeah.

00:23:23.000 It can start much, like, burns during childhood is actually the highest association for melanoma. 0.97

00:23:29.000 Don't burn when you're a kid, so we're all screwed. 0.85

00:23:29.000 Really? 0.85

00:23:31.000 Oh, that sucks. 1.00

00:23:33.000 That sucks because I, Fucking cook myself as a kid. 1.00

00:23:36.000 I grew up in Florida, fried, you know. 1.00

00:23:36.000 Same here. 1.00

00:23:38.000 Well, when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, you know, you wanted to get a tan, especially when I lived in Boston. 0.93

00:23:45.000 It was cold as shit in the winter. 0.95

00:23:47.000 When it got warm, you know, you're a Vermont guy. 0.99

00:23:49.000 You got out there, you're like, ah, put baby oil on.

00:23:52.000 Totally.

00:23:52.000 We fried.

00:23:53.000 I was just looking at some of those Johnson baby oil ads from like the 60s and 70s.

00:23:58.000 Oh, my God.

00:23:59.000 Yeah, it was basically cooking lube.

00:23:59.000 Yeah.

00:24:01.000 Totally.

00:24:02.000 Yeah, it just helped you cook better.

00:24:04.000 But you remember, you know, George Hamilton, like the actor, Mr. Tan?

00:24:08.000 Yeah.

00:24:09.000 He was all about that.

00:24:11.000 Just the other day, I was like, How's he doing?

00:24:13.000 87 and ridiculously healthy right now.

00:24:16.000 Yeah, he's going strong.

00:24:16.000 Really?

00:24:17.000 Yeah, I met that guy.

00:24:18.000 He did an episode of News Radio once. 1.00

00:24:21.000 Yeah, he was tan as fuck. 0.99

00:24:23.000 Yeah, that was his thing. 0.99

00:24:25.000 It became, yeah, what he was known for.

00:24:25.000 That was his thing.

00:24:27.000 And he's still going.

00:24:29.000 So he's still tan?

00:24:30.000 Yeah, you should see him.

00:24:31.000 What do you look like?

00:24:31.000 He looks great.

00:24:32.000 Pull a photo of George Hamilton.

00:24:34.000 I mean, great for an 87 year old.

00:24:35.000 Yeah, look at him.

00:24:36.000 Still tan.

00:24:38.000 His tan is shiny.

00:24:40.000 What a weird thing to be known for.

00:24:43.000 He's the guy who gets tan.

00:24:44.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:24:47.000 I mean, try to remember a role that he played.

00:24:51.000 That's true.

00:24:51.000 I think he was Dracula in some bad 1970s comedy.

00:24:56.000 That's a tan right there.

00:24:56.000 Look at that.

00:24:57.000 So, how was he getting it, though?

00:24:57.000 Right.

00:24:59.000 Like, I remember when I was a kid in Boston, a lot of people use tanning beds, especially in the wintertime.

00:25:05.000 And they still do.

00:25:07.000 Those are actually on the rise.

00:25:09.000 And they do, they seem to raise your risk of melanoma for sure.

00:25:11.000 There you go.

00:25:12.000 That's how we did it.

00:25:13.000 Ah, look, he's got a reflect a tan thing.

00:25:16.000 So he's just out there getting sunlight all the time.

00:25:19.000 And he didn't look bad.

00:25:21.000 That's, you know, that's a weird one, right?

00:25:26.000 He claims he's never had skin cancer, I think.

00:25:28.000 Well, he probably was doing it so often that his body was prepared for it, right?

00:25:34.000 Look at that photo of him with that lady in the corner.

00:25:36.000 Yeah, look at that. 0.99

00:25:38.000 That's nuts.

00:25:40.000 I think, like, if you're getting that regular dosage, your body is producing all of these compounds.

00:25:40.000 See, that's the thing.

00:25:49.000 Whose entire job is to make sure your cells don't turn cancerous?

00:25:53.000 Because, you know, living things have been working on this for 500 million years.

00:25:59.000 Like, they've been hammered by the sun every day and they got to deal with it.

00:26:02.000 Right.

00:26:03.000 So it's when, it seems like when your skin is totally unprepared and you shock it with a massive dose that it's not ready for, then you're in trouble.

00:26:16.000 Like, that's the kind of thing that triggers trouble.

00:26:18.000 Was there any pushback on this research?

00:26:21.000 Like, when you first started.

00:26:24.000 Examining this and realizing that sun exposure has a lot of benefits.

00:26:28.000 Were any dermatologists saying, hey, this is dangerous information?

00:26:32.000 You shouldn't say this?

00:26:33.000 Hell yeah.

00:26:34.000 I've been denounced multiple times by the American Academy of Dermatology, like officially.

00:26:39.000 They send an official letter when I write an article and they say, nobody should be getting any sun exposure.

00:26:45.000 That's their opinion?

00:26:47.000 No one should be getting any sun exposure, regardless of the benefits, the vitamin D, the.

00:26:53.000 No sun exposure without protection from either sunscreen or.

00:26:57.000 You know, clothing.

00:26:58.000 Wow.

00:26:59.000 And if that makes you vitamin D deficient, take a pill.

00:27:03.000 So that's what needs to change because those pills haven't panned out in tests.

00:27:06.000 They don't work like natural D does for whatever reason.

00:27:09.000 Really?

00:27:10.000 Yeah, they don't work at all.

00:27:11.000 What do you mean?

00:27:12.000 So everyone thought, like back in the 80s, 90s, everyone started noticing, scientists started noticing that people who naturally had lower amounts of vitamin D in their blood had higher rates of all like the classic chronic diseases.

00:27:30.000 So I started thinking okay, vitamin D, it's like a magic pill almost.

00:27:34.000 It'll cure, it'll reduce everyone's risk of all these diseases if we raise their rates of D.

00:27:39.000 So they started recommending vitamin D pills, which I think are still like the number one supplement in the world.

00:27:44.000 I take it.

00:27:46.000 So then they did all these clinical trials to prove that it would help.

00:27:50.000 Huge, huge clinical trials.

00:27:52.000 Tens of thousands of people, follow ups that went for many years.

00:27:56.000 None of them showed a benefit.

00:27:59.000 No benefit in terms of your immune response?

00:28:01.000 No benefit for any condition.

00:28:03.000 Now, did they take vitamin D along with vitamin K?

00:28:08.000 And with magnesium, because that's what's recommended.

00:28:11.000 So, I don't, I mean, there are a bunch of different.

00:28:13.000 Apparently, vitamin D by itself is not effective.

00:28:16.000 That you need vitamin D with K2 and magnesium, and I think there might be another one.

00:28:22.000 Well, see, put that into perplexity, please.

00:28:25.000 See what it says like, what are the benefits of vitamin D and what should it be taken with?

00:28:30.000 Because I think magnesium and K2 are the big ones, and that together they have a sort of a synergistic effect.

00:28:37.000 Yeah.

00:28:38.000 Like, yeah, I'd be curious.

00:28:38.000 That could be.

00:28:39.000 Yeah, I think vitamin D by itself, the body has a problem absorbing it.

00:28:44.000 It's like there's a lot of things like that.

00:28:45.000 Like, zinc is like that.

00:28:47.000 You need an ionophore to absorb zinc, so you take it with quercetin.

00:28:51.000 Yeah.

00:28:52.000 Well, one thing, D, you know, the way you're naturally comes in through the skin, and it comes in with a whole bunch of related compounds.

00:28:58.000 Right.

00:28:59.000 And so, yeah, I do think there's sort of a synergistic effect when it's combined with the right things.

00:29:02.000 But D from the sun has always been known as the best way to get it.

00:29:06.000 Like, the best way to get vitamin D, the most effective, the healthiest way is through sun exposure.

00:29:11.000 Yeah.

00:29:11.000 Like, that's how the design's supposed to work.

00:29:13.000 Perplexity says vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, build strong bones and teeth, support muscles and nerves, plays a key role in immune function.

00:29:19.000 It's best absorbed when taken with a meal or a snack that contains some fat and offered paired with calcium for bone health.

00:29:28.000 So, please put in what are the benefits of vitamin D taken with K2 and magnesium?

00:29:36.000 See if it says that.

00:29:38.000 Because this is what my doctor, who is a vitamin specialist, recommends.

00:29:45.000 Benefits when taken with K2 and magnesium.

00:29:55.000 Okay.

00:29:56.000 Taking vitamin D together with vitamin K2 and magnesium can make each of them work more effectively, especially for bones and heart, as long as the doses are appropriate for you.

00:30:05.000 The trio mainly improves how your body handles calcium.

00:30:08.000 Interesting.

00:30:09.000 D helps you absorb it, magnesium helps activate D, and K2 helps send calcium into bones instead of arteries.

00:30:18.000 D increases calcium absorption from your gut and supports bone, muscle, and immune function.

00:30:24.000 Magnesium required to activate vitamin D. Low magnesium can blunt vitamin D's effect and also directly support bone structure and many enzymes.

00:30:32.000 K2 activates proteins that move calcium into bones and teeth and keep it out of the arteries and soft tissues, helping bone and cardiovascular health.

00:30:43.000 Potential benefits of the combo better bone support, heart and artery protection, more efficient vitamin D use.

00:30:51.000 Okay.

00:30:52.000 So, the doctor is correct.

00:30:55.000 So, maybe that's the problem is that these people were taking it with low magnesium, low calcium, didn't have K2.

00:31:03.000 Yeah.

00:31:05.000 I'd be curious if there was an effect on disease incidence for that combination.

00:31:13.000 I don't know.

00:31:13.000 Because the D on its own, yeah, it didn't show any effect.

00:31:17.000 But sun exposure.

00:31:18.000 Let's put that in.

00:31:19.000 Does vitamin D taken on its own have any health benefits?

00:31:25.000 Let's see what it says to that.

00:31:26.000 Because I'd never heard that D on its own was not effective at all.

00:31:30.000 I've just heard that it was minimally effective, that you had to take it with other.

00:31:34.000 It seems like it only helps people who are really deficient.

00:31:38.000 Like, if you're super low, like below, like, 16 nanograms per milliliter, then probably it's a good idea.

00:31:45.000 But, like, for people who already had, like, at least 20 nanograms per milliliter, it didn't seem to have any of these benefits that they were seeing in people who naturally had high rates through sun exposure.

00:31:56.000 It says yes, vitamin D on its own has several well proven health benefits, especially for bones, muscles, and immunity.

00:32:01.000 Just like a general answer.

00:32:03.000 Huh.

00:32:04.000 Bone strength and fracture prevention, muscle function, adequate.

00:32:08.000 I didn't add own, sorry.

00:32:10.000 What's that?

00:32:11.000 I missed the word own taken on it.

00:32:13.000 On its own.

00:32:15.000 I'll try why the answer was weird.

00:32:17.000 So let's see.

00:32:19.000 Yes, it's clear proven benefits, especially for bones, muscles, and correcting deficiency.

00:32:25.000 Yeah, so that's going to be for people who have super low levels.

00:32:27.000 Mm hmm.

00:32:29.000 There it is.

00:32:29.000 Preventing rickets.

00:32:30.000 Yeah.

00:32:31.000 So they had thought that it might reduce the incidence of all these other diseases.

00:32:36.000 Based on what they're seeing for people who naturally had high levels through sun exposure, and it didn't.

00:32:42.000 Wait a minute, people who had high levels through sun exposure.

00:32:42.000 So then.

00:32:45.000 Yeah, because your natural level of vitamin D is sort of a direct meter of how much.

00:32:51.000 Right, but this is natural level.

00:32:53.000 You're not talking about supplementation anymore.

00:32:54.000 Right, right.

00:32:55.000 So that was why people who had high levels of D without supplementation have lower rates of all, like every disease you can think of.

00:32:55.000 Okay.

00:33:02.000 Right.

00:33:03.000 So the hope was that raising everyone's D to those levels would.

00:33:08.000 Would have the same effect, and it didn't.

00:33:10.000 Like, the New England Journal of Medicine did a actually did an editorial in 2022 saying stop prescribing D, it doesn't work, which is sad.

00:33:21.000 God, that seems incorrect, though, because if you're taking it with magnesium and K2, it seems that they do work synergistically, and there seems to be proven health benefits.

00:33:31.000 That one of the problems I think is like I think people generally want to avoid recommending supplementation for some reason.

00:33:40.000 Mm hmm.

00:33:43.000 It's kind of a weird thing.

00:33:45.000 Like, they want to dismiss it.

00:33:46.000 Like, I had a doctor once who told me, don't bother taking vitamins.

00:33:51.000 Just eat a balanced diet.

00:33:52.000 And I was like, look at you. 1.00

00:33:54.000 The guy looked like shit. 1.00

00:33:56.000 He didn't look as good as you, right? 1.00

00:33:57.000 He looked terrible.

00:33:58.000 Yeah, I'm amazed how poor health they generally seem to explain.

00:34:03.000 I can't take it seriously.

00:34:05.000 I mean, it's so hard to take seriously a guy with a gut when, well, just he looked terrible.

00:34:11.000 And he was telling me that I just need a healthy diet.

00:34:13.000 And I'm like, okay, I do have a healthy diet, but also I feel different when I take vitamins, and my blood work reflects that.

00:34:22.000 I noticed that when I started going to all the conferences of the Sun researchers, and they're all in the basements of hotels, and those guys all are as pacey as it gets.

00:34:22.000 Yeah.

00:34:33.000 Do none of you guys practice what you preach?

00:34:36.000 Really?

00:34:36.000 How strange is it that human beings, with all of our knowledge, with obviously there's much more to learn, we're still confused about how we interact with our environment?

00:34:48.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:34:49.000 100%.

00:34:50.000 With sun, which seems to me like it's there.

00:34:53.000 It's everywhere.

00:34:54.000 It's like you're always in the sun in the normal world environment outside of cities and all that stuff.

00:35:02.000 It seems like we would have an understanding of what happens when you're interacting with sun.

00:35:07.000 Yeah, and light, period.

00:35:08.000 Like light of all kinds.

00:35:09.000 Like it seems like there's the sense in biology that light didn't matter.

00:35:13.000 It's like just ephemeral, which, you know, the quantum physicist 100 years ago.

00:35:20.000 Understood that light and matter are just like two halves of the same coin, right?

00:35:24.000 And that light totally affects the behavior of molecules.

00:35:27.000 We're made of molecules, light's gonna matter.

00:35:29.000 So, I actually think that's where I eventually got to with the book.

00:35:32.000 I was like, we need to think about our light diets and our lightscapes that we're surrounding ourselves with more seriously than we have.

00:35:40.000 Well, it seems like your work is based entirely on the data.

00:35:44.000 So, what did these dermatologists have to say about the data if they're denouncing you and they're saying that this guy should not be listened to, the things you're saying are dangerous?

00:35:55.000 But you're talking about data.

00:35:58.000 So, I don't understand how they can just make those flat statements like that.

00:36:01.000 Right.

00:36:02.000 And I think we just need to have a conversation about the data.

00:36:05.000 And, you know, there's no, like, right answer ahead of time.

00:36:08.000 But they don't, like, their job is to prevent skin cancer.

00:36:11.000 So if that's your only job, you're going to tell people stay out of the sunlight forever.

00:36:17.000 Forever.

00:36:18.000 And no one can call you on that.

00:36:18.000 Right.

00:36:20.000 No one can say, hey, like, I got skin cancer.

00:36:22.000 It's your fault.

00:36:23.000 But doesn't sun exposure improve cardiovascular health and lower blood pressure?

00:36:23.000 Right.

00:36:28.000 And isn't cardiovascular disease a far more dangerous problem?

00:36:32.000 Than skin cancer in terms of numbers?

00:36:35.000 It's number one, 20 million deaths a year, cardia.

00:36:38.000 So anything that moves the needle on that is awesome, you know?

00:36:42.000 And it does.

00:36:44.000 And it seems to.

00:36:45.000 Like all the studies show it does.

00:36:46.000 But they're all observational studies, right?

00:36:50.000 You look at populations, you're like, oh, these people have more sun exposure, lower blood pressure, lower rates of cardiovascular disease.

00:36:56.000 But then, you know, the other side will say, you know, correlation does not prove causation.

00:37:02.000 Like, prove, show us that it's, you know, do your giant clinical study.

00:37:07.000 Where you stick half the people in the sunlight and they live longer, which is not going to happen.

00:37:11.000 Right.

00:37:12.000 Yeah.

00:37:13.000 But it's like, are they willing to have a conversation with you?

00:37:17.000 They're not willing to, they don't want to look outside of the sun and skin cancer question.

00:37:26.000 Like, they're not willing to entertain any of the other benefits that are outside of their field.

00:37:31.000 So there's got to be somebody out there who can be the generalist who can, like, think about it holistically. 0.97

00:37:36.000 That seems so ignorant. 0.98

00:37:38.000 It's this. 0.92

00:37:40.000 Data science now?

00:37:42.000 Like, the science is, you know, like a field of micro specialties.

00:37:46.000 Would you like some coffee?

00:37:47.000 Yeah, I'll take a little.

00:37:48.000 That looks good when you're pouring it.

00:37:49.000 It's also a very shiny press you've got there.

00:37:54.000 Cheers, sir.

00:37:55.000 Is coffee good for you?

00:37:55.000 Cheers.

00:37:58.000 Coffee is awesome.

00:37:59.000 Coffee is shockingly good for you.

00:38:01.000 Let's go.

00:38:01.000 Talk to me.

00:38:02.000 It is fucking crazy how good coffee is for you. 0.96

00:38:06.000 I've been, like, startled by the power of the evidence. 0.98

00:38:12.000 Yeah.

00:38:13.000 I've read both.

00:38:14.000 I read It's Bad for You, and I dismissed it because I'm biased.

00:38:19.000 And I love coffee.

00:38:22.000 And I just, it just tastes too good.

00:38:27.000 It feels too good.

00:38:28.000 I like it.

00:38:30.000 But I've read a lot of benefits about it.

00:38:32.000 I think it's the best possible supplement.

00:38:33.000 Really?

00:38:34.000 You think of it as a supplement?

00:38:35.000 It's the best.

00:38:36.000 And I think it's all due to mitochondrial function.

00:38:38.000 I think it makes your mitochondria just spin, you know?

00:38:43.000 And is it particularly because of caffeine or coffee itself?

00:38:48.000 Is the coffee bean?

00:38:50.000 You know, I mean, caffeine, I think it's caffeine, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's other stuff in coffee that's contributing because, you know, like tea doesn't seem to quite like deliver the goods like coffee does.

00:39:01.000 But caffeine is actually, the plants are making it to kill bugs.

00:39:01.000 No.

00:39:06.000 Right.

00:39:07.000 Because it makes the bugs' mitochondria run out of control and they basically like blow up.

00:39:07.000 Right?

00:39:12.000 It does that to us, but we have these other like governors that come in and slow down that.

00:39:19.000 Ramp up, so we get the nice ramp up without the explosion.

00:39:21.000 So it's good.

00:39:23.000 Good.

00:39:24.000 So it makes, you know, we produce energy more efficiently with less wear and tear.

00:39:31.000 That's all I need to hear.

00:39:32.000 I'm in.

00:39:34.000 I just love coffee.

00:39:35.000 I'm not giving it up.

00:39:36.000 But I've heard many people say that Michael Pollan had a really interesting anecdote.

00:39:41.000 He laid off coffee for, I think, three or four months as an experiment.

00:39:46.000 And then he had a cup of coffee and he said, it was like taking a psychedelic.

00:39:50.000 He said, I just felt so amazing.

00:39:53.000 The effect was so profound.

00:39:54.000 He said, I really wanted to do it only that way.

00:39:57.000 Where I only take it very rarely, but then I fell right back into my own.

00:40:02.000 He went right back.

00:40:03.000 Yeah.

00:40:03.000 I remember that article.

00:40:04.000 It was great.

00:40:05.000 And also, you said none of the caffeine researchers touched the stuff.

00:40:11.000 I'm like, that's not good.

00:40:12.000 But yeah, he went right back to it.

00:40:15.000 And I think he's a proud coffee drinker.

00:40:18.000 Yeah, he is.

00:40:19.000 He went right back to it.

00:40:22.000 So have you had any conversations with these dermatologists that are denouncing you?

00:40:27.000 No, but I'd like to, actually.

00:40:29.000 Are they willing or have they avoided them?

00:40:32.000 They have so far really avoided.

00:40:34.000 Like, they just say, you know, we're not ready to look at any of that research.

00:40:39.000 God, that's so weird.

00:40:41.000 I think actually, like I said, I think light medicine is actually going to become very important in the next 10, 20 years.

00:40:41.000 I think it's going to change.

00:40:50.000 And dermatologists are kind of positioned to be like the leaders on that stuff because, like, skin is the primary interface with light for our bodies.

00:41:00.000 And, you know, they should be experts on all this.

00:41:03.000 You know, red light therapy is a big thing now.

00:41:06.000 And dermatologists are doing that, even though the evidence isn't great for that.

00:41:10.000 But I think there's probably something there.

00:41:12.000 But they should basically, I think they need to be thinking more about all these different wavelengths of light as healing modalities and how to work them into regular programs.

00:41:25.000 I've talked about this before, so I apologize to anybody listening.

00:41:28.000 But I've essentially completely stopped my macular degeneration with red light therapy.

00:41:34.000 Yeah.

00:41:34.000 Wow.

00:41:35.000 Not just stopped it, but reversed it.

00:41:37.000 Like, I don't need reading glasses anymore.

00:41:39.000 I've been using a red light bed for about two years now.

00:41:42.000 And from the time I started using it, within about a month, I started seeing benefits.

00:41:47.000 And so Gary Breco was on the podcast and explained it to me.

00:41:50.000 And so I went out and bought one of these really expensive ones, it's like a tanning bed, this thing you lie in.

00:41:55.000 And I do it three times a week for 20 minutes.

00:41:56.000 So all over?

00:41:57.000 Yep.

00:41:58.000 Naked. 0.77

00:41:59.000 Just lie down in there.

00:42:00.000 And I keep my eyes open.

00:42:02.000 And I went to a tanning bed once, not a tanning bed, a red light bed once at a health clinic.

00:42:07.000 And they were like, got to wear these goggles.

00:42:09.000 And Make sure you close your eyes before the light goes on.

00:42:11.000 I was like, okay, I did all that.

00:42:13.000 And apparently, there's some benefit that even when blindfolded, it increases your vision.

00:42:18.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:42:20.000 And again, I think mitochondria are part of that answer.

00:42:22.000 There's a guy at University College London, Glenn Jeffrey, who this is his whole field optometry and red light.

00:42:30.000 And he has shown in multiple different animals, including humans, that red light improves mitochondrial function and improves vision. 0.98

00:42:41.000 Yeah, I mean, I'm 58, and for me to be 56 and saying I'm fucked, I had these fucking things everywhere. 0.96

00:42:50.000 I had these reading glasses, I had them all over my house. 0.98

00:42:54.000 I'd gotten up to 3X.

00:42:55.000 These are the cheap Amazon ones.

00:42:57.000 I had a nice pair, but I keep losing them, so I just went up and bought cheap ones.

00:43:01.000 And it was just fine for looking at a computer, reading my emails, reading my phone.

00:43:01.000 They seemed to work.

00:43:07.000 And I needed them to read my phone.

00:43:09.000 I don't need them anymore, like at all.

00:43:11.000 I don't use them anymore.

00:43:12.000 My vision's not perfect.

00:43:14.000 It's not as good as it was when I was 20, but it is way better than it was when I was 56.

00:43:20.000 And I, yeah, I think so.

00:43:25.000 The mitochondria in the eyes have to fire faster than any mitochondria anywhere else in the body.

00:43:30.000 The eyes burn through energy like no other cells because it's like, you know, it's kind of the toughest task.

00:43:37.000 It's like they got to go super fast.

00:43:40.000 So they, yeah, those mitochondria need to be on top of their game.

00:43:44.000 And it seems like red light benefits that in particular.

00:43:48.000 What seems so closed minded.

00:43:51.000 That these dermatologists aren't willing to say, maybe we're looking at just an insufficient amount of data, maybe we're looking at this wrong, maybe the whole thing is much more nuanced, and maybe there's benefits if it's done correctly.

00:44:05.000 I just don't understand why they're not.

00:44:07.000 If there's all this data, which clearly you show in your book that there's a tremendous amount of data, why?

00:44:13.000 You know, like, so there's this saying attributed to Max Planck, who's this quantum physicist science advances one funeral at a time, right?

00:44:23.000 I think we got to let the old guard die off a little bit, but I guarantee there's a young generation coming in who's going to be really interested in light and how they can use it.

00:44:32.000 Oh, certainly.

00:44:33.000 Well, I think there are so many conversations available online now from actual researchers and people that have put in the time and put in the work and explored things from this position that, like, hey, maybe the old guard are not correct.

00:44:47.000 And the data seems to show that that's true.

00:44:50.000 Yeah, and it's fun.

00:44:51.000 I mean, playing with light, it's super fun.

00:44:53.000 So, like, this is a way you can make your.

00:44:57.000 World a little bit richer is starting to think about this stuff.

00:45:00.000 Well, it's also like, don't you want to be informed?

00:45:03.000 And if we do understand that it has an effect on mitochondria and there is all this evidence that red light seems to have some benefits, I just don't understand how someone could be an expert in skin and ignore that.

00:45:17.000 Well, I think that, and they won't object to the red.

00:45:19.000 Some of them are using red light therapy because there's no risk of skin cancer from red.

00:45:23.000 It's only the UV and maybe a little bit of the blue that contributes to skin cancer.

00:45:29.000 So, it's the UV where they get a little wigged out.

00:45:33.000 Yeah.

00:45:35.000 But even that, it seems like there's a tremendous amount of data.

00:45:40.000 There's health benefits to it.

00:45:41.000 So, I just don't understand.

00:45:43.000 And that data is coming from all different other fields like immunology, cardiology.

00:45:50.000 And scientists are increasingly hesitant to trespass on their other domains.

00:45:57.000 They're not going to walk across campus to the.

00:46:00.000 The other building anymore.

00:46:03.000 Yeah.

00:46:03.000 But that needs to change, you know?

00:46:05.000 Yeah, we've had those discussions too with scientists that are super frustrated, especially when they try to get interdisciplinary groups together to study one particular thing and everyone's resisting because they have their own work that they're working on and they don't want to get involved.

00:46:18.000 And it's just like, guys, this is what you're here for.

00:46:23.000 There's not a lot of scientists.

00:46:25.000 You got to do your job because, like, you're the only ones that are doing it. 1.00

00:46:30.000 Without you guys, we're fucked. 0.96

00:46:31.000 And if you're out there relying on old, insufficient data, or you have this very small data set that shows that there's negative outcomes to sunlight, and so you just throw the baby out with the bathwater, like you're doing the whole field a massive disservice. 0.99

00:46:50.000 And the other part of it is that science, it's sort of very self reinforcing.

00:46:54.000 It's all grant based, essentially.

00:46:56.000 Like if you're a scientist, you want to do a study, you have to apply for a grant to get the money to do the study.

00:47:01.000 There's generally a handful of entities that are like handing out the grant money, and it's the old guys waiting to die who are going to approve what they think is the truth.

00:47:12.000 They're going to fund the study that fits with what they already know about the world.

00:47:16.000 So it's this kind of crazy system where the only way you can get money to do a study is if you're already telling them what they know.

00:47:22.000 Right.

00:47:23.000 So it's very difficult to get funded to do something that goes against the grain, increasingly so.

00:47:28.000 And so much of it is dependent upon the ego of the people that are at the top of the organization.

00:47:28.000 And that's a problem.

00:47:33.000 Ego is definitely part of it.

00:47:35.000 It's a giant part of it because if they've based their entire career on telling you one thing that turns out to be incorrect, they're very reluctant to correct themselves.

00:47:43.000 It's very rare to find the individual who's well known in the field and is eager to self correct, you know.

00:47:52.000 So, have you had any conversations with any of these dermatologists?

00:47:55.000 No, but I'd love to.

00:47:58.000 Not one?

00:47:58.000 That seems crazy.

00:48:00.000 Have you reached out to any of them?

00:48:02.000 I've reached out and I get the boilerplate.

00:48:02.000 I have.

00:48:04.000 Like, we don't want anyone in the sun.

00:48:08.000 Take your D pills.

00:48:09.000 Doesn't matter.

00:48:10.000 Well, and the one that really, that I think has got to change is the skin color question. 0.84

00:48:16.000 Because Fine to go with the recommendations for avoiding sun for people with fair skin.

00:48:24.000 But for people with dark skin who have almost no risk from sun induced skin cancer and can benefit hugely from things that will lower blood pressure and lower cardiovascular disease, it seems like you're not being fair to those people.

00:48:41.000 Not only that, it makes you feel better, which is very important just for sanity.

00:48:45.000 I think that gets underplayed.

00:48:47.000 And happiness is kind of the whole deal, right?

00:48:52.000 Yeah.

00:48:52.000 And there's just no question that sun exposure makes you happier.

00:48:56.000 I spent a week with my friend Brian Callan and Steve Ranella in Alaska and Prince Edward's Island.

00:49:03.000 And it rains there like 350 days a year.

00:49:08.000 And we got rained on for the entire week.

00:49:10.000 And then when I came back to LA, I was driving around and the sun was magnificent.

00:49:17.000 Felt so good.

00:49:19.000 I stood outside, I closed my eyes, I like stretched my arms wide, like I was just taking it all in.

00:49:25.000 And I called my friend Steve up and I said, Dude, because we were in the rain for like a week, I go, I'm in LA right now in the sun and it feels amazing.

00:49:33.000 I never felt the sun like this before.

00:49:37.000 It's just like my body was saying, You didn't get enough of this for a week.

00:49:42.000 Now take it in and we're going to reward you with all these amazing endorphins and good feelings.

00:49:47.000 Like if that was a drug, that drug that I took, like if depressed people, Could take whatever I felt when I was out in the sun after a week in the rain, they would take it every day.

00:49:58.000 They would change the world.

00:49:59.000 You'd like, I could feel like this all the time, and it went away.

00:50:02.000 You know, it went away because LA, it's sunny all day long, every day.

00:50:05.000 So eventually I got accustomed to it.

00:50:08.000 But that feeling that I get, that I got after the week in the rain and coming back, just be like, ah, it was incredible.

00:50:17.000 It was like a drug, an amazing drug, a happy drug.

00:50:21.000 Yeah, it's an awesome drug.

00:50:22.000 I've felt it for sure.

00:50:24.000 You know, I. Especially like early spring.

00:50:27.000 If I leave Vermont and I have something in LA, I'm just like, why is everyone not just dancing on the streets?

00:50:34.000 This feels so good.

00:50:35.000 But the problem is, Los Angeles, they're so used to it. 0.55

00:50:38.000 They're so spoiled.

00:50:40.000 Everyone there is so spoiled weather wise.

00:50:42.000 It's the perfect weather on earth, it's incredible.

00:50:45.000 Especially if you live in Malibu where it barely even gets hot.

00:50:49.000 So you're dealing with that cool ocean breeze and it's sunny every day.

00:50:53.000 You know, like, oh.

00:50:54.000 But how about here?

00:50:54.000 Yeah.

00:50:56.000 Do you end up spending a lot of time outside here?

00:50:57.000 Oh, yeah.

00:50:58.000 Oh, yeah, I do.

00:50:59.000 But I'm outdoors all the time.

00:51:01.000 I work out outside.

00:51:02.000 I do a lot of farmers' carries outside.

00:51:04.000 I practice archery, so I shoot my bow outside every day.

00:51:08.000 And I love it.

00:51:10.000 I love it.

00:51:11.000 I feel better.

00:51:12.000 Even when it's hot out, I don't mind because I'm really kind of accustomed to it because of sauna use.

00:51:18.000 I use the sauna every day and I'm pretty religious about it.

00:51:22.000 So my body's really acclimated to heat.

00:51:26.000 So it doesn't really bother me that much.

00:51:27.000 I just bring a big jug, a 64 ounce jug of water with ice and electrolytes, and I just drink that while I'm out there.

00:51:34.000 So I shoot my bow for an hour and a half, two hours, and 105 degrees, and I'm fine.

00:51:39.000 I love it.

00:51:41.000 It's good too.

00:51:41.000 Yeah.

00:51:42.000 Like as a kid in Florida, we'd play basketball after school for hours or in summer, it would be 105 degrees.

00:51:49.000 And then you just kind of turn the hose, you stick it in your mouth for quite a long time.

00:51:53.000 Yeah.

00:51:55.000 I mean, it feels great.

00:51:56.000 It's just you have to make sure you're not dehydrated and you have to make sure you don't burn.

00:52:01.000 That's kind of all it is.

00:52:02.000 Yeah.

00:52:03.000 It's all it seems to be.

00:52:03.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:52:05.000 But we do see like truckers that have you ever seen those?

00:52:09.000 You're talking about that famous photo.

00:52:11.000 Yeah.

00:52:12.000 That is a Crazy photo.

00:52:14.000 So, what we're referring to is there's a photo of this trucker, and the left side of his face from the sun coming in from the window looks like he's 20 years older on his left side than it is on his right side.

00:52:14.000 Crazy photo.

00:52:27.000 It's like special effects.

00:52:29.000 Somebody melted the left side of his face.

00:52:31.000 What's that all about?

00:52:32.000 Yeah, there's the guy.

00:52:33.000 There he is.

00:52:33.000 That's literally nuts.

00:52:36.000 Yeah, that's literally nuts.

00:52:37.000 Like, left side is just sloping off, basically.

00:52:40.000 His left side looks like a hundred year old man truck driver face.

00:52:45.000 Years behind the wheel driving a truck.

00:52:47.000 Damage typically limited to the left side of the face.

00:52:49.000 So it's literally called truck driver face.

00:52:52.000 Yeah.

00:52:53.000 Now, so this photo and that study got used to scare the shit out of a lot of people, try to keep them out of the sun. 0.99

00:53:00.000 Especially people that are vain and don't want that fucked up, wrinkly face. 0.99

00:53:04.000 This episode is brought to you by Paleo Valley. 0.99

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00:54:10.000 Whoa, that's crazy.

00:54:11.000 Look at the difference between.

00:54:12.000 Wow, that's literally bananas.

00:54:15.000 So, what they're showing back and forth is they're just taking the skin from the left side of the face and switching sides so you can see how much damage he's.

00:54:25.000 Received on that side, the driver's side.

00:54:28.000 And so there's a couple of interesting things there.

00:54:28.000 Yeah.

00:54:29.000 One, that is shocking.

00:54:31.000 But the question to ask is why doesn't every trucker look like that, right?

00:54:35.000 Like, if that's the problem, why does, why did, why him?

00:54:38.000 Like, because I've been driving in a car for 45 years and, you know, my face is the same on the left as it is on the right.

00:54:47.000 Kind of hanging in there.

00:54:47.000 Yeah.

00:54:48.000 But, but the other thing is window glass, I think, is actually a really interesting problem to talk about.

00:54:54.000 Yeah.

00:54:55.000 Because window glass blocks UVB but not UVA.

00:55:00.000 And there's two different wavelengths of UV.

00:55:03.000 The UVB is the super high energy one.

00:55:06.000 UVA is a little bit lower.

00:55:07.000 It's kind of on the way to blue.

00:55:10.000 And they used to think back in the day that UVB was the only one that caused skin cancer.

00:55:15.000 And those old sunscreens that we used in the 70s and 80s only blocked UVB.

00:55:20.000 Window glass blocks UVB, blocks only part of the UVA.

00:55:26.000 So anytime you're driving or you're hanging out in a window in your house, you're getting a bunch of UVA.

00:55:32.000 You're not going to burn because UVB is the one that causes burning.

00:55:36.000 But you're still going to get a bunch of UVA, which they figured out, like in the 90s, does cause skin cancer.

00:55:42.000 Oh, wow.

00:55:44.000 So, sun through the windows is not as good as sun outside.

00:55:49.000 It blocks the UVB, but the UVA comes through, but you'll never have a burn reaction because of it.

00:55:56.000 But you might be getting damaged.

00:55:58.000 Yeah.

00:55:59.000 And so, like in the U.S., people get slightly higher rates of skin cancer on the left side of their body.

00:56:08.000 In the UK, they get slightly higher rates of skin cancer on the right side of the road.

00:56:13.000 Because they drive on the opposite side of the road.

00:56:13.000 Aha.

00:56:15.000 Yeah.

00:56:16.000 So window glass is slightly.

00:56:19.000 It's like 52, 48.

00:56:19.000 Slightly.

00:56:21.000 It's not huge.

00:56:22.000 Okay, but it's statistically significant.

00:56:24.000 Statistically significant, yeah.

00:56:25.000 Huh.

00:56:26.000 So do you think it's this guy's particular genes?

00:56:29.000 There must be something weird about that guy.

00:56:31.000 Right.

00:56:32.000 Well, how many instances of truck driver face do they have?

00:56:35.000 I just Googled the condition, and it's only him.

00:56:39.000 Coming up in the photos.

00:56:40.000 So, this is the thing. 0.99

00:56:41.000 There's one lady, but she clearly doesn't seem to have the same issue. 1.00

00:56:44.000 There's a lot of truck riders that have been doing it for 50 years.

00:56:47.000 That's not the same thing.

00:56:48.000 Oh, that's not real.

00:56:49.000 It's a different thing.

00:56:49.000 Is that real?

00:56:50.000 She's got something wrong with her jaw.

00:56:53.000 Oh.

00:56:53.000 But it's coming up as the same condition unilateral dermatota.

00:56:57.000 I can't say that.

00:56:59.000 Oh, so she had some sort of cancer that made its way into her jaw?

00:57:03.000 I would have assumed that more cases would pop up, but it's literally just him.

00:57:03.000 But I can't.

00:57:07.000 So, that's the thing.

00:57:08.000 The real question is.

00:57:10.000 What's up with that dude?

00:57:11.000 Yeah, interesting.

00:57:12.000 Different truck.

00:57:13.000 That's not the same guy.

00:57:16.000 No, it doesn't seem like the same person, but might be.

00:57:20.000 It's hard to say because of different lighting.

00:57:22.000 But so the thing is, those sunscreens that were acting kind of like window glass in the 70s and 80s and even into the 90s before we got the broad spectrum sunscreens, they're blocking the UVB, so you weren't going to ever burn.

00:57:36.000 And that's what SPF actually measures is how many more times you can be out in the sun without burning.

00:57:42.000 But it's based totally on UVB.

00:57:45.000 So, if you've got SPF 30, in theory, you can spend 30 times as long outside before you start to burn.

00:57:51.000 That's a long time, right?

00:57:53.000 But all that time, UVA is just pouring into you.

00:57:57.000 And they now know that UVA is the one that probably is most likely to cause melanoma.

00:58:02.000 Oh, that's crazy.

00:58:04.000 Wow.

00:58:05.000 So, sunscreen.

00:58:07.000 Now, I use a natural sunscreen when I use it at all.

00:58:10.000 It's this stuff that's like beef tallow based and has zinc in it, it's very white and obvious.

00:58:15.000 You know, it's the spray stuff goes on clear.

00:58:19.000 You can't even tell you have it on, but it's very effective.

00:58:21.000 But I'm always like super hesitant.

00:58:24.000 I'm like, what's in that stuff that we're going to find out 15, 20 years from now?

00:58:28.000 Like, if it can block the sun, so it's a chemical, and you're spraying this chemical on an organ, which is your skin.

00:58:35.000 So your skin's absorbing it.

00:58:37.000 I'm like, what's going on there?

00:58:39.000 And they used to say, oh, no, no, it's not absorbed very much.

00:58:42.000 And then the FDA, CDC did studies a few years ago and discovered that.

00:58:49.000 It's absorbed at very large amounts.

00:58:51.000 Yes.

00:58:51.000 It turns up at high doses or higher doses than they would like it to in blood, breast milk, urine, you name it.

00:59:00.000 And what specifically turns up and what's dangerous about it?

00:59:03.000 So they're suspected to be hormone disruptors, all those classic chemical filters like oxybenzone.

00:59:13.000 There isn't much proof that they're dangerous in the amounts used, but they definitely are absorbed at much higher rates than we thought.

00:59:22.000 And the FDA has refused to approve them as safe, pending more testing.

00:59:29.000 And nobody's done the testing.

00:59:31.000 Oh.

00:59:32.000 But they're about to get phased out anyway.

00:59:33.000 Like, just as of a couple months ago, the government changed the rules and is going to let in, for the first time in 30 years, new ingredients, which they've been using in Europe and Asia and Australia for decades.

00:59:51.000 And the sensory companies have been asking to use them and haven't been allowed to, but now they're finally going to get to use one of the main ones.

00:59:59.000 And one of these ingredients.

01:00:00.000 So it's called like Bemotrizanol or something.

01:00:04.000 And there's another one that you see in Europe called like Maxaril 400, but they're way better.

01:00:10.000 Like, basically, U.S. sunscreens are a generation behind everyone else because in the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as over the counter drugs.

01:00:17.000 Bemotrizanol, yeah.

01:00:19.000 Bemotrizanol, highly effective broad spectrum UV filtered blocks both UVA and UVB, approved by FDA as an over the counter sunscreen ingredient in June of 2026.

01:00:28.000 Oh, wow.

01:00:29.000 So this month.

01:00:30.000 Yeah.

01:00:30.000 That just happened.

01:00:31.000 Celebrated for being highly photo stable, doesn't break down the sun, transparent on the skin without leaving a white cast, and gentle on sensitive skin.

01:00:39.000 So, this is RFK Jr. stuff.

01:00:41.000 Yeah, this one looks really good.

01:00:44.000 So, this other stuff that has been in there, why didn't it get examined if Europe and Asia and all these other places were using these different safer versions?

01:00:55.000 Yeah, they all bailed on it long ago because it was all we had.

01:00:59.000 Examine it.

01:01:00.000 That drives me crazy.

01:01:02.000 Yeah.

01:01:03.000 So, FDA, so in the US, sunscreens are regulated as drugs, counter drugs.

01:01:09.000 Safety testing if you want to get a new ingredient in.

01:01:12.000 Everywhere else, they're just cosmetics, so you can use kind of whatever you want with more minimal safety testing.

01:01:18.000 So the companies wanted to use this stuff in the US forever, but the FDA said, sure, just do the testing.

01:01:25.000 But they didn't want to do it, it was too expensive to do the testing.

01:01:29.000 They would have to test it on animals.

01:01:30.000 They didn't want to get the blowback on that.

01:01:32.000 There are a bunch of reasons that they weren't willing to do it.

01:01:35.000 Also, I think they're a little scared what they might find.

01:01:38.000 So, anyway, so our sunscreens have.

01:01:41.000 Not been nearly as good as what's used elsewhere, both in terms of performance and maybe safety suspicions.

01:01:50.000 So that's going to change by the end of this year.

01:01:52.000 It's going to get better.

01:01:52.000 Well, that's good.

01:01:54.000 With the traditional sunscreen ingredients that we used to use, is there any negative health consequences of using them that they've shown?

01:02:01.000 Is there any diseases that occur more readily or more frequently?

01:02:06.000 Not that have been proven.

01:02:08.000 Toxicologists are a little suspicious about some of them.

01:02:11.000 They've definitely been shown to.

01:02:13.000 To mess up coral, right?

01:02:15.000 Like people.

01:02:15.000 Coral reefs, right?

01:02:17.000 Yeah.

01:02:17.000 That's one of the things they found after COVID, right?

01:02:21.000 They used to think that it was the warming of the environment.

01:02:23.000 This was one of the things that climate change people used to say.

01:02:26.000 The climate change was destroying the coral reefs.

01:02:29.000 And then it turns out, actually, it's all these people that have sunscreen all over their body and they jump in the ocean and they're essentially poisoning the reef.

01:02:37.000 I mean, it's all of the above, I'm pretty sure.

01:02:37.000 Yeah.

01:02:39.000 But yeah, the sunscreen at that kind of concentration, if you've got a bazillion snorkelers in the water, Can definitely mess up the car pretty badly.

01:02:48.000 Wasn't there some sort of a study that examined what happened to the reef after COVID?

01:02:53.000 There was one particular reef that was in a highly visited area where people would jump in.

01:03:01.000 And they showed a massive increase in the reef after COVID.

01:03:06.000 Yeah.

01:03:07.000 Well, Hawaii banned use of those sunscreens.

01:03:10.000 A bunch of places banned that style of sunscreen.

01:03:18.000 But they don't really check your bags, though.

01:03:20.000 Yeah, right.

01:03:21.000 When they say banned, people are going to take it anyway.

01:03:21.000 You know what I mean?

01:03:24.000 But it doesn't look like, I don't think it has much impact on us unless you're using a ton of it, which of course now some people are.

01:03:32.000 So it's not great for you, but it's not the worst.

01:03:35.000 Yeah, there's been a bunch of studies that just looked at lifespan, and sunscreen doesn't seem to have any impact whatsoever, like positive or negative on lifespan.

01:03:44.000 So it just might have some sort of an impact on hormonal function?

01:03:49.000 Yeah, it could well.

01:03:51.000 Endocrine disruption?

01:03:52.000 Endocrine disruption.

01:03:53.000 There's a guy named Graham Peasley at Notre Dame who.

01:03:58.000 Found that many, many cosmetic products of all kinds are actually contaminated with forever chemicals.

01:04:09.000 And even if they don't have it on the ingredients, like anything that's water resistant or super smooth is quite possibly going to have forever chemicals in it.

01:04:20.000 And some of it is actually coming from the plastic containers because those get, they basically get.

01:04:28.000 Like fluorinated with this, like fluorine gas before they get anything in them, which is supposed to make them like a little smoother, the inside of the containers.

01:04:38.000 But it turns out that actually leaks forever chemicals into the product, whatever's in there.

01:04:44.000 Yeah, that makes sense.

01:04:44.000 That's what he found.

01:04:46.000 I mean, this is a problem with hot coffee when you're drinking it out of a paper cup.

01:04:50.000 Very similar, yeah.

01:04:51.000 Yeah.

01:04:51.000 People don't realize like the paper cup is not capable of keeping that liquid.

01:04:56.000 It would turn to mush.

01:04:58.000 And the reason why it doesn't turn to mush is because there's essentially a condom.

01:05:02.000 Like around the inside of the coffee cup.

01:05:05.000 And, you know, Paul Saladino broke a coffee cup down to show what it looks like on the inside.

01:05:10.000 And you're like, oh no, you're pouring hot liquid into plastic, which you're never supposed to do.

01:05:16.000 And it's also like most coffee machines.

01:05:19.000 Like a giant percentage of coffee machines have just plastic everywhere.

01:05:22.000 I got rid of mine.

01:05:23.000 That's why we use French press at the studio.

01:05:25.000 And I use that at home too.

01:05:27.000 And I have one of those little arrow presses to make an individual cup of coffee.

01:05:31.000 Yeah.

01:05:31.000 It's like the plastic.

01:05:33.000 Is a real problem and heating it is terrible.

01:05:35.000 We know that about water bottles.

01:05:37.000 Like, you're never supposed to drink out of a water bottle that you leave in the hot sun in your car.

01:05:40.000 So now, picture that bottle of sunscreen that's sitting in your car, right?

01:05:43.000 Cooking and leaching into the material.

01:05:50.000 Yeah, not good.

01:05:50.000 Yuck.

01:05:52.000 People don't think of the skin as an organ. 0.99

01:05:54.000 And I was explaining to a friend of mine the other day, he was using hand wash, that fucking hand sanitizer stuff. 0.99

01:06:02.000 And I'm like, man, I don't think that's good for you. 0.99

01:06:04.000 I think if you want to wash your hands, you should just use soap and water.

01:06:08.000 And then I read this article about it.

01:06:10.000 Like, oh, yeah, that's a toxic chemical.

01:06:12.000 Like, hand sanitizer, when you're using it every day, you're essentially exposing your skin, your organ, to this.

01:06:20.000 Like, what exactly is in hand sanitizer, and is it bad for you?

01:06:26.000 Because I remember this article, but I just went over the headline and briefly started reading it, and then I had to do something, and I put a bookmark to it that was going to go back to it later, and I never did.

01:06:36.000 Okay.

01:06:36.000 I thought you were going to say something happened to the bookmark.

01:06:39.000 No, I just never went back to it.

01:06:42.000 But I remember during the COVID times, everybody was just like hand sanitizer everywhere.

01:06:46.000 I'm like, I just don't think that can be good for you.

01:06:50.000 I mean, anything that's antibiotic, right?

01:06:52.000 Anything that's killing biological life, probably you want to be at least a little bit hesitant with.

01:06:58.000 Mostly alcohol.

01:06:59.000 Mostly alcohol.

01:07:00.000 Well, even alcohol going through your skin like that.

01:07:04.000 Isopropyl alcohol, sometimes used instead of or with ethanol, similar levels.

01:07:10.000 And then this word, benzalkanonium chloride in many alcohol free products.

01:07:19.000 All right.

01:07:20.000 But see if you can find articles on the dangers of using hand sanitizer because this is what I had read briefly.

01:07:33.000 Just say, overuse it, you're going to fuck up your skin biome, but I don't.

01:07:36.000 Yeah, that's what it's saying. 0.99

01:07:37.000 Overuse.

01:07:38.000 I just know that.

01:07:39.000 I know a guy's got OCD and he's, you know, a hypochondriac a little bit and he uses hand sanitizer all the time.

01:07:47.000 It's kind of crazy.

01:07:49.000 And a friend of mine, without knowing, went to look at his house because his house was.

01:07:54.000 For sale.

01:07:55.000 And he's looking at the house.

01:07:56.000 He's like, this is a very nice house.

01:07:58.000 And he opens up a closet, and one of the closets was filled with hand sanitizer.

01:08:03.000 And he got so freaked out, he didn't want to live in the house anymore.

01:08:05.000 He's like, I don't want to buy this house. 0.97

01:08:07.000 Like, this guy, like, whatever weird thing he's possessed with that he needs 50,000 fucking bottles of hand sanitizer. 0.92

01:08:13.000 The main issues are just overuse, and then don't not use it on your hands, obviously. 0.94

01:08:18.000 Don't breathe it, don't drink it.

01:08:20.000 Right.

01:08:20.000 Only use it on your hands.

01:08:22.000 Yeah.

01:08:22.000 But Jamie's right on the skin biome.

01:08:24.000 Skin biome is turning out to be really important.

01:08:26.000 Like, there's, you know, they call it the gut skin axis, where your skin microbiome and your gut microbiome are like chatting all the time.

01:08:35.000 And you can change the composition of your skin microbiome based on all kinds of stuff like products, sun exposure, you know, everything you do.

01:08:47.000 Probiotics.

01:08:48.000 Probiotics.

01:08:49.000 Yeah.

01:08:50.000 Well, in the jujitsu world, in the early 2000s, people started really getting into probiotics.

01:08:57.000 They started really getting into acidophilus.

01:09:00.000 Yogurt, kimchi, fermented vegetables, and stuff like that just to prevent skin issues.

01:09:06.000 Because jujitsu, because you're getting scratched up and you're rolling around, and there's a lot of infections.

01:09:13.000 And a lot of people get not just infections like staph infection, but they also get ringworm and a bunch of stuff like that.

01:09:19.000 And so some people started using antibacterial soap.

01:09:24.000 And the problem with that is it just nukes all the good flora of your skin.

01:09:28.000 So then there's a company called Defense Soap. 0.72

01:09:30.000 And they developed a soap specifically for grapplers.

01:09:34.000 And this soap has tea tree oil and eucalyptus, and it's very healthy for the skin.

01:09:39.000 So it promotes healthy gut flora, but it does kill all the cooties.

01:09:44.000 It kills all the matte cooties.

01:09:46.000 Yeah.

01:09:47.000 Yeah.

01:09:47.000 I think that's basically what you want.

01:09:49.000 Like that microbiome, it can take a lot of natural abuse.

01:09:53.000 It's there.

01:09:54.000 It naturally lives on skin.

01:09:56.000 So it's usually getting roughed up by the world.

01:09:59.000 But yeah, chemicals that are too strong.

01:10:02.000 Can take it out.

01:10:03.000 And the gut flora is important as well.

01:10:06.000 It's like you got to think of the whole thing as one sort of ecosystem.

01:10:12.000 Your whole body, it all works together. 0.69

01:10:14.000 And if your gut biome is all fucked up and you don't have healthy gut flora, it can affect all sorts of different issues. 0.57

01:10:21.000 And yeah, it shows up on the skin for sure. 0.86

01:10:24.000 That's well known.

01:10:26.000 So when you first started getting pushback against this, were you surprised?

01:10:33.000 Did it upset you?

01:10:34.000 Like, what did it feel like to get attacked by dermatologists?

01:10:37.000 I am naturally conflict averse, right?

01:10:39.000 So I was kind of like, do I even want to talk about this?

01:10:41.000 But it was such interesting information I thought was important.

01:10:44.000 So I wanted to.

01:10:45.000 It started, I wrote an article for Outside back in 2018, and I titled it, Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

01:10:52.000 Right?

01:10:53.000 Ooh.

01:10:55.000 So, right there, that's pushing buttons.

01:10:57.000 Yeah.

01:10:58.000 I probably, you know, in retrospect, I don't push as many buttons today.

01:11:01.000 I just point to the data.

01:11:03.000 You just didn't like it?

01:11:03.000 Didn't like the response?

01:11:05.000 Well, I mean, it got a massive response.

01:11:07.000 It went truly viral, as they used to say.

01:11:10.000 But it actually detracted.

01:11:15.000 Like now, I think those old sunscreens really were like margarine detrimental, like the ones that only blocked UVB.

01:11:22.000 So I think I kind of got it right, but also it's like the title detracted from the information in the article in a sense.

01:11:29.000 But why? 0.94

01:11:30.000 Because margarine sucks. 1.00

01:11:31.000 Margarine sucks. 1.00

01:11:32.000 Those old sunscreens did suck. 1.00

01:11:33.000 The new sunscreens are fine. 0.98

01:11:35.000 So it's a good comparison.

01:11:37.000 It turns out to have been, yeah.

01:11:38.000 Like the more we learn about those old sunscreens, the more it looks like a sort of like a catastrophic mistake that then got fixed.

01:11:46.000 But Yeah, so that, like, so now the books are out, suddenly I've got all these, like, beauty magazines contacting me.

01:11:56.000 And they have this image of me as, like, you know, the Unabomber, like, hanging out in my cabin and firing off these missives.

01:12:08.000 Yeah.

01:12:08.000 Really?

01:12:09.000 From beauty magazines.

01:12:10.000 They were nervous to talk to me because they thought I was going to be, you know, a kook.

01:12:14.000 A kook.

01:12:15.000 Yeah.

01:12:16.000 Wow.

01:12:17.000 Yeah.

01:12:18.000 So, the first are so those is sunscreen the new margarine?

01:12:21.000 So, that was the first one.

01:12:22.000 And what was the response to that?

01:12:26.000 So, like, what do you remember the first, like, really negative response and how you felt about it?

01:12:31.000 So, yeah.

01:12:31.000 So, there was an official letter from the AAD.

01:12:35.000 Like, you know, we and you know, they're very polite, but they're like, here, we think this is misrepresenting, you know, the information.

01:12:45.000 And we think this is dangerous.

01:12:47.000 If you're telling people that they might benefit from more sunlight, that's dangerous.

01:12:53.000 So that's probably, and then, you know, when that came in, I was like, so that needs to change.

01:12:58.000 If we have in our heads that exposure to any sunshine is dangerous, we, you know, we're not seeing the forest for the trees.

01:13:05.000 We've lost the thread on this one.

01:13:08.000 So then, so I did a bunch of other articles.

01:13:09.000 I did one, an article that focused specifically on the skin color issue.

01:13:14.000 Like, do people of color, do we need to stop telling people of color that they need to protect themselves from the sun?

01:13:22.000 And then I did a couple more recently.

01:13:25.000 For the Atlantic, just on like what should recommendations be?

01:13:31.000 How do we can we do recommendations that are not one size fits all?

01:13:34.000 Well, skin color in particular is one of the best signs of adaptation to environment.

01:13:40.000 I mean, that's how human beings were able to get vitamin D from the sun in a place like Scotland. 0.99

01:13:47.000 When people moved there, they got pale as shit. 1.00

01:13:50.000 100%. 0.99

01:13:51.000 Completely makes sense.

01:13:52.000 Yeah, and you can track it.

01:13:53.000 It's like the gradations of lightning go with that move northward.

01:13:58.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:13:58.000 So you can tell, like, white skin is like a desperate attempt to get enough light in a, you know, screwy northern environment. 1.00

01:14:06.000 Right. 0.99

01:14:06.000 But when those people that have ancestors from that screwy northern environment move to California or Arizona or Australia. 0.99

01:14:14.000 Yeah.

01:14:15.000 And Australia is real bad, right?

01:14:17.000 Because there's all the people that use hairspray in the 80s. 0.99

01:14:21.000 They cause a fucking giant hole in the ozone layer over Australia. 0.97

01:14:24.000 Well, yeah, essentially. 0.99

01:14:26.000 Yeah.

01:14:26.000 Australia, when I was there, they have these signs on buses.

01:14:31.000 Like these warnings that show skin cancer, like these horrible lesions on people's faces and stuff.

01:14:37.000 And it's just this warning to wear sunscreen and protect yourself.

01:14:41.000 They're right.

01:14:42.000 That's the textbook case where you've got a horrible mismatch between the population and the place. 1.00

01:14:48.000 Super, super high levels of sunshine in Australia, weak ozone, redheads from Scotland who are trying to deal. 0.97

01:14:59.000 Their skin cancer rates are literally two or three times what they are anywhere else in the world. 1.00

01:15:03.000 Now, how much of that is because of the skin color of the general Australian population other than the indigenous people? 0.69

01:15:03.000 Wow. 0.69

01:15:10.000 And how much of it is because of the ozone?

01:15:14.000 The ozone is healing itself slowly.

01:15:16.000 We're getting there.

01:15:17.000 So that's probably less of an issue now.

01:15:19.000 It's really a fairly fair skinned population in a super bright, intense environment. 1.00

01:15:27.000 So they do need to worry about it. 1.00

01:15:28.000 But the problem is, the rest of the world has kind of set its rules about sun exposure based on Australia.

01:15:34.000 What's interesting also about Australia is I wonder how long it takes for human adaptation to start to show itself.

01:15:44.000 Do you think in a.

01:15:45.000 100,000 years from now, people that live in Australia will be dark.

01:15:49.000 Well, David Reich did that great episode with you, right?

01:15:53.000 Did you have David Reich on?

01:15:58.000 David Reich.

01:15:59.000 He's the Harvard ancient DNA guy.

01:16:04.000 Did we?

01:16:05.000 No?

01:16:06.000 So he just came out with a new study.

01:16:07.000 We had so many people on, I can't remember who I had on.

01:16:10.000 I can't either.

01:16:11.000 I feel like if I didn't hear it here, what I hear.

01:16:13.000 Anyway.

01:16:13.000 It might be Lex.

01:16:15.000 Or Superman?

01:16:16.000 It just.

01:16:18.000 That movement started a few thousand years ago. 0.98

01:16:22.000 Suddenly, like, that pale redhead gene came out of nowhere and, like, skyrocketed. 0.90

01:16:27.000 So it can change pretty quickly when the environmental factors change. 0.93

01:16:31.000 Really?

01:16:32.000 That's only a few thousand years old? 1.00

01:16:35.000 The redheaded gene, yeah. 1.00

01:16:37.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:16:37.000 I mean, it was kind of lingering quietly in the background. 0.99

01:16:41.000 And then, like, maybe that's why gingers get so much hate because they're just brand new.

01:16:48.000 They are, like, the next new thing, kind of.

01:16:50.000 But yeah, four or 5,000 years ago, it suddenly explodes in popularity, but in a very particular place in Northern Europe.

01:16:57.000 Oh, and most likely as a result to the environment.

01:17:00.000 Yeah, for 100%.

01:17:02.000 Wow.

01:17:03.000 So I wonder how long it's going to take. 0.93

01:17:05.000 I wonder if we could go into the future if the same population lives in Australia now.

01:17:11.000 Well, except here's the weird thing.

01:17:14.000 So Australians versus UK, right?

01:17:17.000 Similar genetics.

01:17:20.000 Australia.

01:17:21.000 Super high rates of skin cancer because of that sunny environment, but also way better lifespan than in the UK.

01:17:28.000 Really?

01:17:28.000 So, skin cancer is a factor, but that sunlight is actually benefiting Australians more than it's hurting them compared to the UK.

01:17:38.000 I wonder if that's a healthy user bias as well, because one of the things about Australia is a lot of outdoor activities, a lot of people are doing stuff outside.

01:17:47.000 Yeah.

01:17:48.000 A lot of activity, period.

01:17:50.000 And that could be a factor.

01:17:51.000 And actually, that's one thing I come.

01:17:53.000 You know, come down to in the book is it's really hard to disentangle all of these factors, but what's really obvious is just outside good, too much inside bad.

01:18:04.000 Yeah.

01:18:05.000 So, whatever, like, you don't even have to like break it down too much.

01:18:10.000 More outside, covered up, whatever you want is probably going to be good for you.

01:18:13.000 One of the things a friend of mine who's a doctor said that he, when he was working in New York City in the wintertime, he would find people with undetectable levels of vitamin D. 0.95

01:18:23.000 And he said it was a particular problem with people with darker skin.

01:18:23.000 Yeah.

01:18:26.000 Because if you have darker skin, you're going to get less vitamin D from the sun for whatever exposure you do get.

01:18:32.000 And then these people are all indoors all the time.

01:18:35.000 Yeah, that's a really bad formula.

01:18:37.000 Like, yeah, if you have dark skin, you need five to ten times as much sunlight to make the same amount of vitamin D. 0.77

01:18:46.000 So, you're really, if you have really dark skin, you're kind of designed for a very bright, you know, tropical environment where you're outside all the time.

01:18:53.000 Outside all the time, you can handle 12 hours a day of sunshine.

01:18:57.000 And in fact, you're going to benefit from it.

01:18:59.000 You get moved to a really dark environment, that's not going to be good for you.

01:19:04.000 So, you probably need to compensate in other ways.

01:19:07.000 It's going to be very interesting.

01:19:09.000 When genetic engineering reaches a level where we can turn those things on and off in people? 0.51

01:19:16.000 And how do people react to fair skinned people all of a sudden getting dark? 0.94

01:19:24.000 Like, you know, like.

01:19:26.000 Well, we are one race.

01:19:28.000 We are the human race.

01:19:30.000 There's a bunch of different ancestors where people came from different areas where they adapted to different environments.

01:19:36.000 But the reality is, we're just human beings.

01:19:39.000 And we all started in Ethiopia and we spread out.

01:19:42.000 And that's just what we are.

01:19:43.000 We are the result of whatever environment our ancestors evolved in.

01:19:49.000 Yeah, totally.

01:19:49.000 And with skin tone, it's clearly like very, very specific reactions to that environment and trying to figure out what's best in each situation.

01:19:57.000 But there's so much racial identity that's tied to these characteristics of your appearance and where your ancestors are from. 0.81

01:20:06.000 And it's going to be very weird if all of a sudden you could, like, people get like dark, thick. 0.98

01:20:12.000 Curly hair, and there used to be gingers.

01:20:16.000 I wonder how people are going to react to that. 1.00

01:20:19.000 I mean, it's coming, right?

01:20:20.000 Right, it's coming.

01:20:21.000 And bets are off.

01:20:23.000 Yeah, I just wonder how many people are going to be claiming cultural or racial appropriation with people just deciding to have a healthier skin tone that protects them from the sun more.

01:20:34.000 I see where you're going.

01:20:35.000 Yeah, well, yeah.

01:20:37.000 Like that guy with the melanotan, I wonder if anybody got mad at him.

01:20:44.000 Right, right?

01:20:44.000 Like, what are you supposed to look like?

01:20:47.000 Yeah, what are you supposed to look like?

01:20:48.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:20:50.000 There was a lady that was on a television show once that was turning herself black. 1.00

01:20:53.000 It was in the UK. 1.00

01:20:55.000 And this lady looked like she had other issues. 1.00

01:20:58.000 She had giant breast implants. 1.00

01:21:00.000 She looked like a kook, a bunch of plastic surgery. 1.00

01:21:02.000 But she was dark as a date. 1.00

01:21:07.000 Like that lady. 1.00

01:21:08.000 That's a white lady. 1.00

01:21:11.000 So that's what she used to look like. 1.00

01:21:13.000 And she's getting her boobs bigger and bigger. 1.00

01:21:15.000 She wants them bigger. 1.00

01:21:16.000 And so, look, she keeps getting.

01:21:17.000 That's a little too far, maybe.

01:21:19.000 Maybe.

01:21:19.000 Wow, that's her?

01:21:20.000 That's her.

01:21:22.000 So, what did she do via intense use of tanning injections? 0.98

01:21:26.000 Yeah, so she's the ultimate melanotan hero.

01:21:31.000 Wow. 1.00

01:21:32.000 I mean, that lady got like Cameroon dark. 1.00

01:21:37.000 Like, look at that photo again. 1.00

01:21:38.000 Go back to that video.

01:21:41.000 Like, that's crazy.

01:21:42.000 That is crazy.

01:21:43.000 That's crazy.

01:21:44.000 I don't know.

01:21:45.000 Maybe if you're in Australia, it works for you.

01:21:48.000 Maybe. 0.85

01:21:49.000 Well, it would, right?

01:21:50.000 It would protect because it is melanin.

01:21:53.000 But obviously, she's got other things going on.

01:21:57.000 Yeah, at some point, you might have too much melanin.

01:22:00.000 Well, so here's the funny thing about melanin as well.

01:22:03.000 So it's made by our melanocytes, which are what can become melanoma if they get screwed up.

01:22:08.000 And those are in the very bottom of the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin.

01:22:13.000 And it's an incredibly good absorber of UV, better than anything we've come up with.

01:22:18.000 It's almost perfect at it.

01:22:21.000 But When your skin gets hit with sunlight, that melanin that's just been produced is at the bottom of the epidermis where the melanocytes are.

01:22:30.000 So it has to migrate to the surface and then it kind of acts like little umbrellas.

01:22:35.000 It'll cover the nucleus of the cell and protect it.

01:22:38.000 So, you get these little umbrellas, a line of umbrellas on the very top of your epidermis, but it has to migrate up because of sunlight.

01:22:47.000 If melanin is lower in your skin, then it's going to absorb all that radiation farther down, and actually, it can cause more free radicals deeper in the skin.

01:22:57.000 And what would cause it to be lower?

01:22:59.000 So, it starts lower, and it only goes up in response to sunlight.

01:23:03.000 So, if you're never, ever in the sun, and you suddenly go out and get hit.

01:23:10.000 By a bunch of sunlight, your melon's going to be down too low and can actually create free.

01:23:16.000 It can exacerbate the problem. 1.00

01:23:18.000 So, this lady might be exacerbating the problem if she's just getting the melanin that way. 1.00

01:23:23.000 So, yeah, I don't know because I don't know about this specifically, but you probably, yeah, you don't want to just be like messing around with melanin, like to the extent that she is. 0.99

01:23:34.000 Oh, boy.

01:23:35.000 That's interesting because, like, the melanotan stuff, I have heard about it before and I never really looked into it, but.

01:23:43.000 The idea kind of makes sense that if you can make your body produce more melanin, that would protect itself.

01:23:49.000 But I didn't realize that it has to be melanin from sun exposure.

01:23:53.000 You want it in the right place.

01:23:55.000 Yeah.

01:23:56.000 Could both things work?

01:23:58.000 Could you do it that way and with sun exposure, increase both?

01:24:03.000 And would it give some sort of a benefit to have a higher level of melanin that could eventually get to the surface of the skin?

01:24:10.000 Does that make any sense?

01:24:12.000 You're above my pay grade now.

01:24:13.000 I think you might be above everybody's pay grade.

01:24:16.000 I don't know if anyone has looked at that.

01:24:18.000 It seems like something to look into, though, if we know that there's a benefit to having melanin.

01:24:21.000 Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting.

01:24:23.000 I think this stuff's new enough that there probably hasn't been a ton of research on it.

01:24:27.000 So, what does a pale person do? 1.00

01:24:30.000 What does the old pasty white do? 1.00

01:24:33.000 Yeah.

01:24:34.000 So, full pasty white, like really pale?

01:24:36.000 Yeah.

01:24:37.000 I have a friend, my daughter said, he's white.

01:24:40.000 And I said, she was really little.

01:24:42.000 She goes, no, no, he's white like paper.

01:24:42.000 And I go, yeah.

01:24:46.000 So, if you're white like paper, yeah.

01:24:49.000 You do have to be really careful.

01:24:51.000 You're not going to tan that much.

01:24:51.000 Yeah.

01:24:53.000 You just don't make that much melanin.

01:24:56.000 Can that change over time?

01:24:57.000 Can they like slowly expose themselves to the sunlight, like five minutes a day, and just ramp it up?

01:25:06.000 Depends on your genetics.

01:25:09.000 If you're like a full on ginger, like true redhead, then you have a type of melanin called theomelanin, not eumelanin, which is what everybody else has. 0.65

01:25:20.000 And theomelanin just does not do a good job of absorbing sunlight. 0.84

01:25:23.000 Oh, no. 1.00

01:25:24.000 So, there's no hope for gingers?

01:25:26.000 There's no hope for gingers in terms of sun exposure. 1.00

01:25:28.000 Damn. 0.99

01:25:30.000 The hope is just avoid that midday sun that's high in UV. 0.99

01:25:34.000 Get the morning and the sunrise and sunset stuff that doesn't have the UV in it.

01:25:39.000 Okay, so they can benefit from sun exposure, but they can't have full on outdoor sun exposure.

01:25:47.000 Yeah, they're the ones who need to be really careful.

01:25:49.000 So, for those people, sunscreen is recommended.

01:25:52.000 Yeah, or just cover up, even, I think, better.

01:25:57.000 How many other people are working on this stuff?

01:26:00.000 And is everybody sort of in agreement with the data, the people that are examining it?

01:26:06.000 I mean, there's a ton of science coming out, but it's early days for sure.

01:26:11.000 Doesn't it seem crazy that sun and our reaction to sun is unknown or at least poorly studied?

01:26:20.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:26:22.000 But yeah, but it's amazing how many things in medicine, you know, you dive into the research and you dig down a little.

01:26:29.000 And you realize that we're just kind of guessing still on many levels.

01:26:35.000 Like, it's early days for a lot of this stuff.

01:26:37.000 Well, certainly for like stuff that they use for antidepressants.

01:26:42.000 But that's.

01:26:42.000 Yeah.

01:26:45.000 Sun exposure is competitive with antidepressants in terms of lifting depression.

01:26:49.000 Isn't that nuts?

01:26:50.000 And you know what's way better?

01:26:52.000 Exercise.

01:26:54.000 Yeah.

01:26:54.000 Many times better than any known antidepressants, regular exercise.

01:26:59.000 I mean, exercise is number one for everything across the board.

01:27:02.000 Ginger people with melatonin.

01:27:03.000 The peptide here.

01:27:05.000 Seeing a few posts about it changing their hair color.

01:27:07.000 Interesting.

01:27:08.000 And this must be permanently.

01:27:09.000 What?

01:27:10.000 Yeah.

01:27:11.000 Click on that.

01:27:11.000 Well, that makes sense.

01:27:13.000 I guess this just takes it to the Reddit.

01:27:14.000 It's just going to show a YouTube video here, but there's multiple.

01:27:17.000 Change this hair color.

01:27:19.000 Other posts about it.

01:27:20.000 Whoa.

01:27:22.000 And there's a.

01:27:22.000 I was just seeing.

01:27:23.000 What if that would work with people that are old, that have like white hair? 0.96

01:27:27.000 I wonder what that would do.

01:27:31.000 Like a Melody 9 2 page says like how it can affect hair color.

01:27:35.000 No, I read through it real quick.

01:27:37.000 This is not the best website.

01:27:38.000 Isn't it weird that women with red hair are hot and men with red hair are not?

01:27:45.000 It's very weird because women with red hair are considered very attractive.

01:27:51.000 Yeah, this guy's got a spray tan.

01:27:54.000 But the people that take it, that one guy, is he like a one of one where it changes hair color?

01:27:54.000 Okay.

01:28:02.000 Like I said, so this website is.

01:28:04.000 Click on the video.

01:28:05.000 Let's watch it for a couple seconds.

01:28:06.000 See what this guy's showing.

01:28:09.000 So, this is him before, and this is him now.

01:28:12.000 His eyebrow and his beard colors changed.

01:28:15.000 Also, we clicked on the video.

01:28:16.000 It might not even be him.

01:28:17.000 He could be reporting the video about someone else, too.

01:28:23.000 He looks pretty good.

01:28:26.000 Yeah.

01:28:27.000 Gray.

01:28:28.000 I actually used to be ginger.

01:28:30.000 Now, I was bullied a lot as a kid because I was ginger, I was weird, and I was chubby. 0.98

01:28:36.000 That's the winning trio for being directions from this.

01:28:39.000 Going through a lot of changes.

01:28:41.000 Up here, down there, you know, the stuff that happens during purity.

01:28:45.000 So I didn't immediately notice that my hair had gotten much darker.

01:28:49.000 It was actually other people asking me what the hell I had done to my hairline, you know.

01:28:54.000 On this picture, it's probably much clearer.

01:28:57.000 That's a picture of me and my brother.

01:28:59.000 We have the same genetics in regards to skin color and the color of our hair.

01:29:03.000 And as you can see, my hair is now completely different from his.

01:29:07.000 We used to have the same skin and the same hair, especially the color.

01:29:11.000 Now, this is only from using one vial of melanotan II in the Span of a year, even more than a year, and it was at low dosages.

01:29:20.000 But with our genetics of big, tall, white ginger, Belgian gingers, it completely changed the color of my hair and my skin, and the effects were very strong.

01:29:32.000 So the effects are permanent, so he still has dark hair.

01:29:35.000 But what's interesting is that in the beginning, he had gray hair.

01:29:38.000 He seems older, obviously, right?

01:29:40.000 Right, but he had gray hair.

01:29:41.000 He was showing, and his hair's not gray anymore.

01:29:46.000 Right.

01:29:47.000 I mean, gray, gray, yeah.

01:29:48.000 Gray and ginger.

01:29:49.000 Gray is a loss of melanin.

01:29:51.000 Like, melanin is what makes your hair dark as well as your skin dark.

01:29:54.000 So he's resupplied his melanin for his hair as well, it seems like.

01:29:58.000 That seems kind of nuts.

01:30:00.000 He said one vial for a year?

01:30:03.000 Oh, and he said even all over a year.

01:30:04.000 Right.

01:30:05.000 So for a year, so his skin has gotten pale again, but his hair is permanently dark.

01:30:10.000 So that's what he used to look like.

01:30:11.000 He had red hair, he had a red beard, and he had gray hair.

01:30:16.000 His hair had gone gray, and now his hair is dark. 1.00

01:30:18.000 I gotta know if this guy's full of shit. 1.00

01:30:20.000 Yeah, that's one that's again, it's like there's only one person saying that. 1.00

01:30:23.000 Yeah, that's the problem.

01:30:24.000 It's like you don't know what you're looking at.

01:30:27.000 But that's crazy.

01:30:28.000 But it is, yeah.

01:30:29.000 Melon is the pigment for all of it.

01:30:31.000 Put that in.

01:30:38.000 Does melatonin have an effect on hair color?

01:30:40.000 Put that into perplexity.

01:30:41.000 See what they say.

01:30:43.000 Yeah.

01:30:45.000 What does it say?

01:30:49.000 Because I know a lot of people with gray hair that bums them out. 0.99

01:30:53.000 And they dye it and shit, and that can't be good for you. 1.00

01:30:55.000 You're putting fucking dye in your hair. 1.00

01:30:57.000 I know. 1.00

01:30:57.000 This stuff makes me hesitant. 1.00

01:30:58.000 I'm stuck with the gray hair, I think.

01:31:00.000 Well, mine would be gray if I had hair.

01:31:02.000 It's all gray in my beard now.

01:31:03.000 It's gray in my.

01:31:05.000 I'm going to try it.

01:31:06.000 I'm going to try some melatonin and see if I get dangerous boners.

01:31:11.000 Melanotan does not have good human evidence of changing scalp or body hair color.

01:31:17.000 Its main effect is on skin tanning and freckling, not on turning hair darker or lighter.

01:31:21.000 But how's that guy?

01:31:23.000 Maybe he's just a weird case.

01:31:27.000 Yeah, I've just got to be a hormone dependent. 1.00

01:31:32.000 What about the lady with the giant boobs? 1.00

01:31:34.000 She had dark hair too. 0.99

01:31:36.000 She's saying, when I was looking through her thing, it was said she went through a permanent tanning process.

01:31:40.000 So I don't know.

01:31:41.000 She would have been taking extreme dosages.

01:31:44.000 She'll show her Instagram account is a mess.

01:31:48.000 If it's even hers, it's the one that Google showed me. 0.79

01:31:52.000 What's the erection connection?

01:31:53.000 I don't understand how making more melanin.

01:31:57.000 What's the melanotan erection connection?

01:32:00.000 I have heard that though.

01:32:01.000 Actually, Brigham from Ways to Well, the local wellness clinic, was telling me about that. 0.72

01:32:06.000 Some people have crazy erections.

01:32:07.000 Because of melanotan.

01:32:09.000 Yeah, like what?

01:32:10.000 How?

01:32:11.000 And some people don't.

01:32:12.000 Like that one guy that had taken it, he said it didn't affect him that way.

01:32:16.000 But maybe he's broken.

01:32:22.000 Does it say anything about why melanotan causes boners?

01:32:27.000 Okay, it can increase libido and trigger erections in some men, but it's not approved for.

01:32:33.000 Well, I know it's not approved.

01:32:35.000 How does it affect it?

01:32:36.000 Stimulates melanocytosis.

01:32:40.000 Melanocortin receptors in the brain, which are involved in sexual arousal and erection control, not just tanning.

01:32:48.000 Controlled tiles, controlled.

01:32:50.000 Jeez, I can't talk today.

01:32:52.000 Subcutaneous melanotan 2 caused erections in most men with erectile dysfunction, often without sexual stimulation.

01:33:00.000 Same studies found increased sexual desire in a majority of doses compared with placebo.

01:33:06.000 Hmm.

01:33:08.000 Interesting.

01:33:10.000 I wonder what the connection is.

01:33:12.000 It's the melanocortin.

01:33:13.000 Like you said, the MC4R up there.

01:33:17.000 So, yeah, MC1R is the gene that determines whether you've got the red hair or not.

01:33:27.000 Look at this.

01:33:28.000 Common side effects were yawning, nausea, yawning, and stretching, flushing with decreased appetite.

01:33:36.000 Some participants had severe nausea at higher dosage.

01:33:40.000 Yeah, that's weird.

01:33:43.000 Yeah, I'm really horny, but I'm too tired to do anything about it. 1.00

01:33:47.000 Hypoactive sexual desire for premenopausal women. 0.99

01:33:52.000 Interesting. 0.91

01:33:54.000 Interesting.

01:33:55.000 Also shows erectogenic effects in men with ED, including those who fail PDE5 inhibitors.

01:34:09.000 What is a PDE5 inhibitor?

01:34:14.000 Interesting.

01:34:17.000 Someone should, someone out there with gray hair should give it a go.

01:34:20.000 Find out.

01:34:21.000 Find out what's up.

01:34:22.000 Doesn't sound like other than dealing with boners, doesn't seem like there's any real problems. 0.74

01:34:28.000 I keep going back to this you getting attacked thing, and I don't understand how someone could attack you with the data that you're showing because you're not making any dangerous or any claims or any.

01:34:46.000 You're not advising people to do anything that's reckless.

01:34:50.000 Yeah, no, I mean, I purposefully have.

01:34:52.000 Sort of, well, I really haven't.

01:34:55.000 I basically tell people to figure it out for themselves, right?

01:34:58.000 But it's only small amounts of sun exposure that seem to be necessary to get most of the benefits.

01:35:04.000 Like the jump isn't going from zero to some.

01:35:09.000 You don't need it a lot.

01:35:11.000 Nobody really needs a lot. 1.00

01:35:11.000 Unless you have really dark skin, then you can probably get away with a lot. 1.00

01:35:15.000 So yeah, just a little bit of sun exposure doesn't seem like a crazy recommendation.

01:35:20.000 But it's just because the messaging has been sort of so extreme and unyielding.

01:35:27.000 Like they've worked for so hard to sort of scare people away from any sun exposure that I think backing that up a little bit is sort of uncomfortable, you know?

01:35:42.000 I understand, but I mean, isn't history filled with new discoveries and changing courses?

01:35:50.000 Yeah, and I think it'll change, but one funeral at a time.

01:35:55.000 It's going to be ugly all the way.

01:35:57.000 When you do this kind of work, have you discovered any other things that people thought were unhealthy that turned out to actually probably be good for you, at least if used correctly?

01:36:08.000 Yeah, that's a good question.

01:36:09.000 So, the one, like the metaphor that I think we're all familiar with and that I think maps pretty perfectly here is diet and fat, right?

01:36:20.000 Like, 25 years ago, Gary Taubes does that article in the New York Times Magazine What if Fat doesn't make you fat?

01:36:28.000 And we were still back in that era of.

01:36:31.000 You know, carbs cut all the fat out of your diet.

01:36:34.000 Carbs are good for you.

01:36:36.000 Margarine, right?

01:36:37.000 The margarine era.

01:36:39.000 The top experts got it 100% wrong back then.

01:36:42.000 And when they got called on it by, like, you know, Taubs and others, Nina Teichels, you guys have had Nina on.

01:36:48.000 I've had Taubs on as well.

01:36:49.000 Oh, yeah.

01:36:50.000 Okay.

01:36:52.000 You know, they fought hard and they were totally wrong.

01:36:56.000 And we now, you know, we flipped, but it took a long time and, you know, there was a little blood in the water.

01:37:02.000 During that process, oh, yeah, I was in the early days of that, and people were just warning me about my cholesterol.

01:37:09.000 What about your cholesterol?

01:37:11.000 Yeah, what's really interesting is during the heart of that, um, when I eat a lot of meat, my diet's mostly meat.

01:37:18.000 I went to the doctor and I got all my levels checked, and he said, Are you on some anti cholesterol medication?

01:37:24.000 I said, No, why?

01:37:26.000 And he goes, You're very low cholesterol, it's weird.

01:37:30.000 And I go, Dude, if you saw my diet, my diet's like mostly meat and eggs and bacon.

01:37:36.000 That's like a giant percentage of my diet.

01:37:38.000 I thought that was really interesting.

01:37:41.000 I think, I mean, yeah, I think the evidence is pretty good.

01:37:45.000 Like for keto, I think it's pretty strong.

01:37:47.000 Saladino, I think, is pretty much spot on on a lot of this stuff.

01:37:51.000 But so, yeah, so that, like, the ultimate experts all said that was going to kill you.

01:37:58.000 Right.

01:37:58.000 You know, Atkins back in the day, and they were all completely wrong.

01:38:03.000 So there's a long track record of the pros being wrong, I think, on a lot of things.

01:38:09.000 But that's a really good example.

01:38:10.000 And people can wrap their heads around that one because we now, I think a lot of people understand that low carb really works well for them.

01:38:16.000 I mean, they completely flipped the food pyramid.

01:38:19.000 Right, which was a beautiful thing to do.

01:38:21.000 I can't believe it happened so fast.

01:38:22.000 Yeah.

01:38:23.000 Well, also with very little pushback.

01:38:25.000 It's kind of interesting.

01:38:26.000 Because the evidence had already compounded to the fact that, listen, for sure, margarine is not a good thing.

01:38:26.000 Seriously.

01:38:33.000 It's not a good substitute.

01:38:34.000 But also that all these healthy fats that you're getting from milk, that you're getting from eggs, eggs in particular, we've been told eggs are bad for you, the cholesterol in eggs.

01:38:44.000 Eggs, you could live off just eggs.

01:38:46.000 Yeah.

01:38:46.000 Probably the perfect food.

01:38:47.000 Yeah.

01:38:48.000 Like eggs are fantastic.

01:38:49.000 I always tell my friends that are vegans, I was like, listen, man, just get some chickens.

01:38:54.000 And they're your pets and they give you free food.

01:38:56.000 It's like I have 16 chickens now and I get eggs every day, and these chickens are pets.

01:39:03.000 Like I go, hey, ladies. 1.00

01:39:05.000 You know, I feed them, I throw the worms down.

01:39:07.000 They're not afraid of me, they listen to me.

01:39:10.000 When I open the door, they come running out and they wander around the yard.

01:39:14.000 It's like a great relationship.

01:39:16.000 You get free food, you take care of them, you feed them, and they eat all the bugs in your yard and you get these delicious, healthy eggs from them.

01:39:25.000 Beautiful orangey eyes.

01:39:26.000 Yeah.

01:39:26.000 So if you're worried about it, if it's an ethical thing, you don't want animal cruelty, and good for you, that's a wonderful way to live.

01:39:34.000 But you are sacrificing your health by not eating pasture raised eggs. 0.98

01:39:39.000 Just get the real ones, not the bullshit ones, the real ones. 0.99

01:39:43.000 Unfortunately, they're tricking people now. 0.99

01:39:46.000 Some companies have been exposed for feeding their chickens turmeric.

01:39:52.000 They feed them curcumin and turmeric because it makes their eggs a dark.

01:39:59.000 More attractive yolk.

01:40:01.000 I know, right?

01:40:03.000 It's so screwy, so bizarrely backwards.

01:40:07.000 It is, but isn't turmeric good for you?

01:40:09.000 And wouldn't turmeric that you're getting from those eggs also be good for you?

01:40:13.000 It's like.

01:40:14.000 Yeah, it can't hurt.

01:40:15.000 Right?

01:40:15.000 I mean.

01:40:16.000 So it's not like they're giving them food dye.

01:40:18.000 You know what I mean?

01:40:19.000 So it's like, yeah, you're getting these darker eggs because people like that, and the darker eggs come from turmeric, but still, you're getting turmeric then.

01:40:30.000 Aren't you?

01:40:31.000 Isn't that how it works?

01:40:33.000 But I think the chicken, I think it's the bugs that sometimes help turn them around.

01:40:33.000 I mean, that's fine.

01:40:38.000 We get eggs from our neighbor.

01:40:40.000 Like in Vermont, everybody raised, there's chickens running around the road everywhere.

01:40:45.000 And yeah, they're delicious.

01:40:47.000 Yeah, you can tell that they're getting it from the bugs and the greens.

01:40:52.000 And it's super healthy.

01:40:54.000 But that color of things is also why they dye farm raised salmon, which is really gross.

01:41:01.000 So salmon are getting that from bugs in particular.

01:41:04.000 Yeah.

01:41:05.000 Exactly.

01:41:05.000 Little arthropods.

01:41:07.000 Like miniature shrimp, kind of.

01:41:07.000 Yeah.

01:41:09.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:41:09.000 That's why they have that wonderful looking pink skin. 1.00

01:41:12.000 That orangey pink skin.

01:41:14.000 So, in that case, the dye is maybe a little more suspect. 0.98

01:41:17.000 Well, the dye is very suspect because it's like, you know, these farm raised salmon, they have pale skin because they're eating bullshit. 0.99

01:41:17.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:41:24.000 Yeah.

01:41:24.000 You know?

01:41:26.000 Are there any other things that you've stumbled across that turned out to be good for you that people were averse to?

01:41:33.000 I'm still curious about alcohol.

01:41:35.000 You know how everything is flipped on alcohol?

01:41:36.000 Like.

01:41:37.000 First, it was like a drink or two a day is good for you.

01:41:39.000 And then suddenly they flip like a year or two ago and say, any amount of alcohol is bad for you.

01:41:46.000 I looked into those studies.

01:41:49.000 And it seems like the takeaway really should have been you know, moderate drinking doesn't do much of anything to you.

01:41:57.000 Like maybe it is slightly good for you or slightly bad for you.

01:42:00.000 But for like a drink a day or like one to two a day, it didn't seem to have a whole lot of impact on mortality at all.

01:42:11.000 And also, probably reduces a little bit of stress, relieves a little bit of social anxiety.

01:42:17.000 And that alone is really beneficial.

01:42:21.000 Like, how do you feel?

01:42:22.000 Like, are you happy or are you stressed out? 1.00

01:42:24.000 Sometimes a drink or two, you're like, ah, fuck it. 1.00

01:42:27.000 We're fine. 1.00

01:42:28.000 Everything's good.

01:42:29.000 Like, that alone has benefits.

01:42:31.000 Like, what it does to your mood, that it's a social lubricant.

01:42:35.000 It'll allow you to, like, maybe laugh a little bit more, have a little bit more fun.

01:42:39.000 Which is why I can't give it up.

01:42:39.000 Totally.

01:42:40.000 Like, that social environment.

01:42:42.000 Is a really nice environment to be in, you know, and if you know a couple beers helps make that happen, it's a good thing.

01:42:48.000 I gave it up for about eight months.

01:42:50.000 I completely, I problem is, I own a comedy club and I was there a lot, and so everybody's like, Have a drink, have a drink, let's do shots.

01:42:58.000 And then next thing you know, you look, I was in the gym the next day feeling like I got tired of doing that to myself, and so I said, I'm just gonna stop drinking.

01:43:06.000 Not because I'm an alcoholic, it wasn't hard to stop, it was super easy.

01:43:09.000 I just stopped, and then I started feeling way better.

01:43:11.000 I was like, God, why was I drinking for so long?

01:43:14.000 This is so bad, and then uh, I Out to dinner with my wife, had a margarita like eight months later.

01:43:19.000 I'm like, let's have a drink.

01:43:20.000 She wasn't drinking either.

01:43:21.000 I'm like, let's have a drink.

01:43:22.000 And like, this is nice.

01:43:23.000 I like it.

01:43:24.000 So now I limit myself.

01:43:26.000 I just, I won't have more than like two drinks.

01:43:28.000 Two drinks is kind of my, but two drinks is right.

01:43:31.000 Two drinks is like, wee.

01:43:32.000 As long as you don't have to drive, you're not going anywhere.

01:43:35.000 You know, if I go to the club, I'm there for hours.

01:43:37.000 Yeah.

01:43:38.000 Completely sober after it's all over.

01:43:40.000 It's like, I wake up in the morning. 0.98

01:43:41.000 I don't feel like shit. 0.92

01:43:42.000 It doesn't seem to be affecting my workouts. 0.95

01:43:45.000 However, if you wear a whoop, Or an aura ring or one of those tracking devices, you will notice in your sleep, in your recovery.

01:43:54.000 You're not sleeping as well.

01:43:55.000 You don't sleep as well.

01:43:56.000 You don't get the same deep sleep.

01:43:58.000 I can tell. 0.99

01:43:59.000 Yeah, just one glass of wine can fuck you up a little bit. 1.00

01:44:02.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.94

01:44:03.000 And for me, that hit in middle age.

01:44:04.000 Like before that wasn't a problem.

01:44:07.000 But now, yeah, like two drinks, two does seem to be the cutoff where life functions normally still.

01:44:13.000 Yeah.

01:44:14.000 But yeah, the sleep's not as restorative somehow.

01:44:17.000 Somehow.

01:44:18.000 But I wonder if it's the timing of when you're drinking.

01:44:21.000 So, I wonder if you have like a glass of wine at dinner at like 6 o'clock, but you don't go to bed till midnight.

01:44:27.000 I wonder if then your body has a chance to process it and then you're okay.

01:44:32.000 Well, that Italian style, right?

01:44:33.000 Like, I feel like the Mediterranean lifestyle, they got this pretty much nailed down like 2,000 years ago.

01:44:40.000 It seems to work pretty well.

01:44:40.000 Right.

01:44:42.000 Which also brings us back to food, right?

01:44:44.000 Because the way they eat is so interesting how thin they are, and yet they eat mostly carbs.

01:44:51.000 I know.

01:44:52.000 I know.

01:44:53.000 Something's different there.

01:44:54.000 A lot's different.

01:44:55.000 And we know what it is now.

01:44:56.000 We know that there's a lot of additives and preservatives.

01:44:59.000 And it's also like they don't use glyphosate.

01:45:02.000 And they have heirloom wheat.

01:45:04.000 So they have wheat that hasn't been optimized to have a higher yield.

01:45:07.000 So it doesn't have as much complex wheat glutens.

01:45:10.000 And there's a lot of issues with our food, unfortunately. 0.98

01:45:14.000 And if you eat American bread, you know, the bromine, all the different additives, all the shit that we put in our food, that's so disturbing. 0.99

01:45:21.000 Whenever I go to Italy, I'm so angry. 0.99

01:45:24.000 That when I come back home, I can't have food like this.

01:45:27.000 Like, you have to seek it out.

01:45:28.000 You have to go to like certain restaurants that only use like Italian flour.

01:45:33.000 Yeah.

01:45:34.000 Yeah.

01:45:34.000 But yeah, you look at those Mediterranean cultures and it just works for them.

01:45:40.000 And yeah, like you say, you can't explain it in terms of like macronutrients or anything like that.

01:45:45.000 Like, it's something, there's something like synergistic about that lifestyle.

01:45:51.000 I do actually think light is part of it too.

01:45:53.000 Like, they got great light there.

01:45:54.000 Yep.

01:45:54.000 They have great light, especially like Malfi Coast, those people.

01:45:57.000 Yeah.

01:45:58.000 But the other thing is also less stress.

01:46:01.000 They're not as career focused.

01:46:03.000 They're more family oriented, very tight knit family groups.

01:46:07.000 They eat dinner together.

01:46:08.000 There's a lot of laughing, a lot of drinking wine.

01:46:11.000 A lot of them smoke cigarettes.

01:46:13.000 You go over there, like, cigarettes never went out of style over there.

01:46:15.000 They're all smoking cigarettes. 0.96

01:46:17.000 And you're like, how are you guys so fucking healthy? 0.93

01:46:19.000 This is weird. 0.92

01:46:21.000 Yeah.

01:46:23.000 It'll be interesting on cigarettes if it turns out that in a certain context, they're not that damaging.

01:46:29.000 And then out of that context, they're super damaging.

01:46:33.000 I have heard that with polyphenols.

01:46:35.000 I've heard that, and this is a, I think, Controversial as well, but it's cigarettes taken along with olive oil, and that a lot of these people have high olive oil rich diets, and that cigarettes along with olive oil that the olive oil tends to balance out whatever damage that the cigarettes are doing.

01:46:56.000 That is super interesting.

01:46:57.000 Yeah, which kind of makes sense.

01:46:59.000 And it's going to be like everything is going to be something like that where it's bad in a certain context and then it seems to have been okay for people in a different context.

01:47:08.000 Yeah.

01:47:09.000 Yeah.

01:47:10.000 Are there any other things that you've noticed?

01:47:12.000 Like, I know you've done work on chocolate, right?

01:47:15.000 A lot of work on chocolate.

01:47:17.000 Yeah. 0.85

01:47:17.000 I've, like, my first sort of big magazine story, Outside Magazine, sent me to the Amazon on this, like, crazy hunt to, like, with this German guy. 0.85

01:47:28.000 It was basically Apocalypse Now with chocolate.

01:47:30.000 This German guy was going upriver into the Amazon to try to find this wild cacao, like, to work with some of the indigenous groups to harvest wild cacao and make, like, the world's first wild chocolate.

01:47:42.000 So I went with him.

01:47:44.000 Crazy, crazy trip.

01:47:46.000 But yeah, I sort of fell in love with cacao on that trip.

01:47:51.000 But it was like we landed, we took a small plane and we were going to land on this river and meet a canoe that was going to take us upriver to meet with these indigenous groups.

01:48:00.000 So we found a runway, right?

01:48:02.000 This is in the Bolivian Amazon.

01:48:05.000 But I've been in the Amazon all of like four minutes, right?

01:48:08.000 The plane drops us off on this flooded runway where it was a crazy landing.

01:48:12.000 We hop out of the plane.

01:48:14.000 I'm glad to be alive.

01:48:17.000 And then these four guys with guns come out of this little cabin and were like, This is actually a landing strip that our Colombian boss owns, and we're guarding it for him. 0.72

01:48:30.000 And what are you two white dudes doing here? 0.71

01:48:32.000 So, all the cocaine traffic comes through this part of the Amazon. 0.92

01:48:37.000 And we had just done what people actually have been killed for, which is if a couple of white guys drop in there, they assume you're DEA or something.

01:48:46.000 So, they're super suspicious.

01:48:48.000 And I didn't, you know, they were speaking Spanish, so I was like catching every fourth word or something.

01:48:52.000 I'm like, this can't be good because of the guns.

01:48:55.000 But anyway, the guy I was with, the German guy, he negotiated with them.

01:48:58.000 And finally, they're like, okay, just give us a landing fee.

01:49:01.000 So we're like, sure.

01:49:04.000 But yeah, so that was the beginning of my chocolate journey.

01:49:09.000 So, what part of the Amazon were you?

01:49:10.000 Where are you?

01:49:12.000 Bolivia, which, you know, Bolivia, you think of like mountains, La Paz, but they have these lowlands, which are like straight up like tropical rainforest.

01:49:21.000 It's called the Beni.

01:49:22.000 And it's like a truly lawless area, like huge swaths of jungle, a bunch of cattle ranching as well.

01:49:29.000 And all the drug traffic comes through there from the Andes.

01:49:33.000 So, and you went in there as just as a journalist, yeah.

01:49:37.000 So, this guy, this German guy, he'd been living there for 20 years and he was trying to get this uh cacao.

01:49:43.000 He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna go meet with these groups.

01:49:46.000 Do you want to come?

01:49:48.000 And outside had just come to me and they'd liked something else I'd written, and they're like, Hey, we're outside magazine.

01:49:53.000 What's the like freakiest thing you ever wanted to do?

01:49:56.000 Well, you know.

01:49:57.000 We'll send you there.

01:49:59.000 And I had like a little kid at the time.

01:50:00.000 So, I was like, you know, I'm not going to be going off a 200 foot waterfall in a kayak for you guys.

01:50:05.000 But then this, this like, you know, heart of dark chocolate thing came up.

01:50:10.000 And I was like, I could do that.

01:50:11.000 I could be like the comic guy for them.

01:50:13.000 So, it was this like ridiculous journey where like everything went wrong.

01:50:17.000 But we did get some really good, good chocolate at the end of it eventually.

01:50:19.000 So, what is the benefit of wild cacao?

01:50:24.000 It tastes really, really good, like better than the industrial varieties of cacao that most chocolates made with.

01:50:30.000 And it's just like kind of a cool story.

01:50:33.000 And it can be used to support those indigenous groups so that the forest doesn't get cut down and turned into more like cattle ranch.

01:50:39.000 Because cacao grows in the understory of the rainforest.

01:50:44.000 So it's kind of a way to monetize the full rainforest and keep the canopy intact.

01:50:50.000 Exactly.

01:50:51.000 What are the benefits of cacao, like health wise?

01:50:55.000 It's right there with coffee.

01:50:57.000 You know, tons of polyphenols, a little bit of caffeine.

01:51:01.000 It seems to, you know, be anti inflammatory, gives you a little boost, makes you happy.

01:51:07.000 Some of the same reasons, and maybe some different ones as well.

01:51:10.000 And when you say it tastes better, like in what way, like when you try it?

01:51:14.000 A lot more like aromatics and less bitterness.

01:51:18.000 Like basically, what happened with cacao is when it became a global product, the Europeans selected varieties that were high yielding.

01:51:28.000 Same thing that happened with tomatoes and everything else.

01:51:31.000 They were high yielding, but they lost some of the great aromatic qualities that the old Maya cacao had had.

01:51:38.000 And that's what gets grown all over the world.

01:51:40.000 Most cacao comes from Africa now.

01:51:42.000 And it's more bitter, less interesting, but way cheaper.

01:51:48.000 So then there's this movement that started like 10, 15 years ago of people trying to go back to Latin America to find the like ancient heirloom varieties that had this great flavor and make like better chocolate than had ever been made before.

01:52:03.000 Sort of the most ancient is the stuff in the Amazon, which is where cacao originated, still growing wild.

01:52:10.000 So it's kind of cool if you can go back to the primordial days and make chocolate.

01:52:16.000 I mean, the example of tomatoes is a perfect example because heirloom tomatoes are sensational.

01:52:21.000 They're so delicious.

01:52:22.000 So much better.

01:52:23.000 They're so much better. 0.99

01:52:24.000 And then you have one of those bullshit McDonald's tomatoes that looks like a piece of paper. 0.99

01:52:29.000 Yeah, is that cacao? 0.99

01:52:30.000 That's what it looks like?

01:52:31.000 Yeah, so it's these pods, and you open up the pod.

01:52:35.000 It's kind of like the size of a little Nerf football or something.

01:52:38.000 Oh, wow.

01:52:40.000 I had no idea.

01:52:41.000 And so chocolate is made from the seeds.

01:52:44.000 You got to ferment them and then roast them, and then you grind them into chocolate.

01:52:48.000 Where can one get heirloom chocolate made from this ancient cacao?

01:52:55.000 Is there a company?

01:52:56.000 So the place I send people is Caputo's, which is an online site.

01:52:56.000 Yeah.

01:53:01.000 They're like the main importer of specialty chocolate.

01:53:04.000 There they are.

01:53:04.000 Is that the people?

01:53:05.000 Yeah.

01:53:06.000 So Caputo's has most of the great wild cacaos available on their website.

01:53:11.000 It's just like retail.

01:53:13.000 Caputo's.

01:53:14.000 So, is it Caputo's.com?

01:53:16.000 Yeah.

01:53:17.000 It's from Salt Lake City?

01:53:17.000 Yeah.

01:53:19.000 Yeah, they've got a cool shop in Salt Lake.

01:53:22.000 Oh, interesting.

01:53:24.000 Preserve Bolivian rainforests.

01:53:26.000 Yeah, there you go.

01:53:27.000 Ritual chocolate.

01:53:27.000 All right.

01:53:29.000 Yeah, I've heard of people like ritual cacao ceremonies.

01:53:32.000 I'm like, what are you doing?

01:53:34.000 So, that.

01:53:35.000 What are you doing? 1.00

01:53:40.000 That's a gringo thing. 1.00

01:53:42.000 Everyone thinks it goes back to something like we're referencing some ancient Maya ceremony. 1.00

01:53:46.000 Of course it is.

01:53:48.000 It was a.

01:53:49.000 A white dude in Guatemala named Sif.

01:53:52.000 Yeah, there you go.

01:53:52.000 Look at these people.

01:53:54.000 It's kind of like ayahuasca with trading wheels.

01:53:57.000 They do cacao.

01:53:58.000 But, like, what can come out of a ritual where you take cacao?

01:54:03.000 I mean, you know, same thing that can come out of a ritual where you do anything else.

01:54:06.000 Like, you're focusing, you know, and some mindfulness.

01:54:10.000 You get a little, you know, you get a little boost from the cacao, but not much.

01:54:14.000 Yeah, it's more about the ritual.

01:54:17.000 Why is cacao, what is a cacao ceremony?

01:54:20.000 Why are they suddenly showing up all over LA?

01:54:23.000 Yeah, you can answer that one on your own.

01:54:25.000 So, I mean, Jamie, if you can call up Keith's cacao, there's this guy named Keith.

01:54:29.000 I think he died recently. 0.90

01:54:30.000 He's like the classic gringo guru with a big white beard who would have people in Guatemala. 1.00

01:54:36.000 And he's just invented this cacao ceremony thing. 1.00

01:54:39.000 Oh, white people. 1.00

01:54:40.000 Damn it, white people. 1.00

01:54:42.000 And then everyone else sort of took it from him. 1.00

01:54:44.000 There he is.

01:54:45.000 Well, he looks like the type of guy.

01:54:47.000 Look at him. 1.00

01:54:47.000 Big old fucking dirty pot of cacao. 1.00

01:54:49.000 Dunk it in a costume. 1.00

01:54:51.000 So he started it.

01:54:57.000 Okay.

01:54:58.000 Poor Keith. 0.99

01:55:00.000 These silly people. 0.99

01:55:01.000 So. 0.99

01:55:03.000 But there's like antioxidants in it.

01:55:06.000 Like there's other.

01:55:06.000 A ton, yeah.

01:55:08.000 It's totally good for you.

01:55:08.000 It's good for you.

01:55:10.000 It, yeah, it, you know, gets your heart beating a little faster.

01:55:14.000 There's some happy drugs in there.

01:55:16.000 It's got a tiny bit of cannabinoids in it.

01:55:20.000 But, and it tastes great.

01:55:22.000 So, you know, what's not to like?

01:55:25.000 Anything else?

01:55:26.000 Any other foods or substances or different things that you found out that were beneficial?

01:55:31.000 Well, how do you feel about oysters?

01:55:33.000 I wrote a book about oysters, too.

01:55:34.000 I eat them all the time.

01:55:35.000 Are you a fan?

01:55:36.000 Yeah, I like them.

01:55:37.000 Are they okay?

01:55:38.000 I mean, they're great.

01:55:40.000 But?

01:55:40.000 No, there's no but.

01:55:42.000 They're great.

01:55:43.000 But I think we haven't figured out why.

01:55:45.000 You're eating like a little living being.

01:55:47.000 So I think there's some chi factor there where the reason people get so excited and feel so good when they eat oysters, it's not because of the nutrients.

01:55:57.000 It's like there's something else that's in there.

01:56:01.000 Well, isn't there zinc in oysters?

01:56:03.000 And they're supposed to have an aphrodisiac effect, right?

01:56:03.000 There's definitely zinc in oysters.

01:56:06.000 So I think that aphrodisiac thing is.

01:56:06.000 Yeah.

01:56:08.000 Like, it's more about the chi, like this living force that you're ingesting than the.

01:56:13.000 This sounds like hippie talk.

01:56:15.000 I said it does sound a little, you know, like chi's going to get justified scientifically.

01:56:22.000 Yeah.

01:56:22.000 You think?

01:56:24.000 So, you think you're getting.

01:56:25.000 What's interesting, there's another friend of mine who made an argument for vegans to eat shellfish.

01:56:31.000 He said, like, if you're eating clams and oysters, they're so primitive, they're more primitive than plants.

01:56:37.000 He said, there's more evidence that plants are conscious than there is that these.

01:56:41.000 Shellfish are conscious.

01:56:43.000 I mean, I think, yeah, plants are pretty damn smart.

01:56:43.000 Yeah.

01:56:45.000 So, yeah, weirdly so.

01:56:48.000 Yeah.

01:56:48.000 And mussels and clams and oysters, they're not.

01:56:53.000 They're sort of alive, but they don't feel pain.

01:56:57.000 Yeah.

01:56:58.000 And they just move.

01:56:59.000 And because they move, they open and close.

01:57:01.000 We've decided that they're animals.

01:57:03.000 And with oysters, that's literally the only thing they can do.

01:57:06.000 Like clams, at least, can, you know, they get the tongue.

01:57:06.000 Yeah.

01:57:08.000 Yeah.

01:57:09.000 Oysters, they're stuck.

01:57:10.000 They just open and close. 1.00

01:57:12.000 There's not a whole lot going on there for sure.

01:57:14.000 Right.

01:57:15.000 But, Healthy for you.

01:57:17.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:57:18.000 Unless you get a bad batch and then you die.

01:57:20.000 They are definitely a source of food poisoning.

01:57:23.000 Yeah, I've heard people dying.

01:57:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:57:25.000 They kill a few people every year.

01:57:26.000 You know, it's interesting.

01:57:27.000 My wife got food poisoning from oysters once when we were on vacation.

01:57:31.000 We were in Hawaii and she ate oysters and somehow or another she got it and I didn't.

01:57:36.000 But then my daughter, who didn't eat oysters, also got the food poisoning because food poisoning apparently can spread through the air.

01:57:45.000 Interesting.

01:57:46.000 And so it's contagious.

01:57:47.000 Yeah. 0.92

01:57:48.000 I guess if you're like Ralphing hard enough, you're flowing it through the air. 1.00

01:57:52.000 I guess. 0.98

01:57:53.000 But it was really weird.

01:57:55.000 And that's how we found out that food poisoning is contagious.

01:57:59.000 And that's one of the reasons why they isolate people when they're on boats when they have food poisoning.

01:58:02.000 Yeah.

01:58:03.000 Because those people could actually spread whatever that is through the air. 0.99

01:58:08.000 Fucking weird. 0.99

01:58:09.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:58:10.000 Yeah.

01:58:11.000 But I do love oysters, but I do get nervous when I eat them because every now and then you hear like Houston man dies from food poisoning from oysters.

01:58:20.000 Cold water.

01:58:20.000 Cold water is very dangerous.

01:58:22.000 So this food poisoning itself is not directly contagious as it refers to an illness caused by eating or drinking contaminated food.

01:58:28.000 However, the specific virus is.

01:58:29.000 Or bacteria responsible for the contamination are highly contagious and can easily spread from person to person through poor hygiene or shared surfaces.

01:58:38.000 Yeah, so it's contagious.

01:58:40.000 So the viruses that come from food poisoning are contagious.

01:58:43.000 It's not like through the air.

01:58:45.000 Oh, through surface contact.

01:58:47.000 Is that what it is?

01:58:47.000 Yeah.

01:58:48.000 Oh, I see.

01:58:50.000 So coughing and stuff, injecting.

01:58:52.000 Yeah.

01:58:52.000 And so you may be interesting.

01:58:54.000 The airborne confusion.

01:58:57.000 They confuse food poisoning with highly contagious stomach bugs like norovirus.

01:59:04.000 Where the viruses are not airborne, they're highly contagious, can spread through the air in tiny droplets when someone vomits.

01:59:11.000 There it is, leading to contaminated surfaces or breathing in aerosolized particles.

01:59:16.000 So that's what it is.

01:59:17.000 It's the coughs.

01:59:19.000 Yeah.

01:59:22.000 Okay.

01:59:22.000 I think we covered it.

01:59:24.000 You think?

01:59:24.000 Yeah.

01:59:27.000 I think you're going to get a lot of interesting responses.

01:59:30.000 So, guess what?

01:59:31.000 I don't read them.

01:59:32.000 So, good luck to all those haters shouting into the void.

01:59:37.000 I've long suspected that sun exposure is probably good for you, and then it's really just a matter of how much and mitigating the damage that you could get if you get burnt.

01:59:47.000 Turns out you're right.

01:59:48.000 Yeah.

01:59:50.000 It just doesn't make sense that your body produces vitamin D through it.

01:59:54.000 It makes you feel so good, and yet somehow or another it's bad.

01:59:56.000 I think it's like many things, very nuanced.

02:00:00.000 And so I'm really happy that you did so much work on it.

02:00:02.000 Thanks.

02:00:03.000 And I'm happy you rode the storm, too.

02:00:05.000 Well, the storm's just coming.

02:00:07.000 I'm sure, especially after this show.

02:00:09.000 But thank you very much.

02:00:10.000 And tell everybody where your book is and how they can get it.

02:00:14.000 Yeah, so whatever their favorite online place, in defense of sunlight, Amazon, anywhere else.

02:00:20.000 And did you do an audio version of it?

02:00:21.000 Yeah, they let me read it.

02:00:23.000 We'll see if that was good news or not.

02:00:23.000 Yes.

02:00:24.000 Nice.

02:00:25.000 I love it when someone reads their own book.

02:00:27.000 It's very important, I think.

02:00:28.000 Me too.

02:00:29.000 Yeah.

02:00:29.000 All right.

02:00:30.000 Well, thank you very much.

02:00:32.000 Bye.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 18, 2026

Joe Rogan Experience #2516 - Rowan Jacobsen

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