The Peter Attia Drive - #153 - AMA #21： Deep dive into olive oil, high-intensity exercise, book update, and more

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, ask me anything or AMA episode of the drive podcast.

00:00:16.500 I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can

00:00:20.460 access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created,

00:00:25.440 or you can learn more now by going to peteratiyahmd.com forward slash subscribe.

00:00:31.140 So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the ask me anything episode.

00:00:39.200 Hey everyone, welcome to ask me anything episode 21. I'm once again joined by the one and only Bob

00:00:47.200 the Cap Kaplan. In today's episode, we do a super deep dive into all things olive oil,

00:00:54.660 which starts from a very simple question. I think the question was something to the effect of

00:00:59.400 what's the best kind of olive oil to buy, or how do you know how to source good olive oil,

00:01:04.480 and then gets into sort of a tour de force explanation around what it means to be extra

00:01:09.940 virgin. And basically we get into all types of oils and the differences between things that

00:01:16.840 are high in saturated fat versus things that are not in the polyunsaturated components and all these

00:01:20.980 other things. So if you've ever really had a question about vegetable oils, lard, tallow,

00:01:27.160 certainly olive oil, it's probably going to be answered here. And we do of course really double

00:01:31.560 down on the olive oil issues specifically. So how do you know you're not getting robbed? How do you

00:01:37.240 check that you're buying the right stuff? What should you be looking for on the label? And of course,

00:01:41.080 what should it taste like, smell like, et cetera? We took so much time on that,

00:01:46.160 that we spent the small remainder of our time together doing a rapid fire Q and A from some

00:01:53.880 quote unquote, simple questions, questions about what's going on with my book. We talk about zone

00:01:59.720 five training, which was a great thing to get into because we're normally talking so deep about zone

00:02:03.980 two, but we get into zone five. We talk about massage guns and foam rollers and professional

00:02:08.060 massage, standing desk versus sitting desk, lactate meters, and a little bit around electrolyte

00:02:15.320 supplementation and ketosis. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA number 21.

00:02:28.220 Hello, Peter.

00:02:29.600 Hey, Bob.

00:02:31.300 You ready for an exciting AMA?

00:02:33.360 I sure am, man.

00:02:34.760 Yeah, I think we have a couple of really good topics here to get going. We got a couple of really

00:02:42.040 interesting questions around olive oil and nicotine.

00:02:47.100 Together?

00:02:47.840 Yeah. Well, no, not together.

00:02:50.660 Dipping your cigarettes in the olive oil?

00:02:51.520 We'll see. After we talk about it, maybe we might do some infusions here.

00:02:56.240 On the olive oil front, I think we got a couple of questions just around, you know, we always hear

00:03:01.960 that olive oil is really healthy for us. It's heart protective. They wanted to know why is that?

00:03:08.540 And is it true? Is it cardioprotective? So curious about your take on olive oil, Peter.

00:03:14.380 This is one of those topics, I think, like many others, where at the surface, it's pretty

00:03:18.940 straightforward. But as is generally the theme of our podcast, the further you get from shore,

00:03:25.780 the deeper the water gets. And I think it's difficult to have a discussion like this in total

00:03:31.000 isolation from the broader discussion of fatty acids, period. But to take your question, where

00:03:39.520 does this perceived benefit of olive oil come from? And I say perceived, not because we're going to

00:03:43.600 necessarily refute that, but I just, I don't want to take anything for granted and I'd like to sort of

00:03:47.720 march down the path. So it really stems primarily from first and foremost, the observational data of

00:03:55.760 the Mediterranean diet. Now this goes back quite a ways. So I think for many folks listening to this,

00:04:01.600 the name Ancel Keys will ring a bell, right? Ancel Keys became one of the first people to

00:04:07.560 utilize and incorporate an assay for measuring serum blood cholesterol. So again, something we totally

00:04:15.600 take for granted today is something that in the 1950s, the early 1950s, if my memory serves me

00:04:21.340 correctly, it was sort of 51, 52, 53, Keys and his wife traveled abroad and began observing societies

00:04:30.200 and asking a very simple question, which was, does the total serum cholesterol, which is the only thing

00:04:37.460 that could be measured at that time. So that means you would take a tube of blood and you would spin it

00:04:44.020 down, fractionate it such that at the time they didn't know that there were various lipoproteins,

00:04:48.680 but you were sort of breaking all the lipoproteins open and you would have the total amount of

00:04:53.180 cholesterol that was being carried by those lipoproteins. And that number, when people talk

00:04:58.500 about my total cholesterol today is 200 milligrams per deciliter, that's what Keys was measuring in the

00:05:03.460 early 50s. And he was asking a question, which was, does that number correlate with heart disease?

00:05:08.840 And the answer was, yes, it did. It wasn't the strongest correlation on earth. And obviously as time

00:05:13.880 would go on and we would learn that there were different fractions of cholesterol, the LDL cholesterol,

00:05:17.700 the HDL cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol, et cetera, we could refine that thinking. But at the

00:05:24.160 simplest level, when you took the bottom five percentile of people's total cholesterol and the

00:05:30.320 top five percentiles people with total cholesterol, that clearly created a wide enough degree that you

00:05:35.980 could predict those with higher cholesterol had more heart disease, et cetera. So the idea that what

00:05:42.920 you ate could influence that became the next and obvious thing to look at. And it was really Ancel Keys

00:05:49.320 observation. I shouldn't say observation. I think this is getting a little off topic, but the way he

00:05:55.800 presented his data would suggest that the more saturated fat that was in the diet, the higher the

00:06:01.620 cholesterol, the higher the incidence of heart disease. And there's a zeroth order truth to that,

00:06:07.140 but it turns out the devil's in the details. And maybe we can save that for another podcast.

00:06:12.600 Let's fast forward a little bit. Ancel Keys by the 1970s was really coming to an observation that

00:06:22.960 a diet that was high in a different type of fat from a saturated fat called a monounsaturated fat

00:06:29.080 would actually be more heart healthy. So he believed that fats or food sources that were

00:06:36.020 high in saturated fats were the problem. Whereas those that were high in polyunsaturated and

00:06:41.300 monounsaturated fats were going to be cardio protective. So you could say about 50 years ago

00:06:47.280 is when this idea started. And I guess maybe Bob, before we go further, I know we've had a couple of

00:06:53.520 podcasts recently that talk about what those fats are, but do you want to talk about the difference

00:06:58.880 between those three broad categories of fat or did we get any questions about that or should we just

00:07:03.440 keep marching along the MUFA olive oil story? No, I think it makes sense to just stop and talk

00:07:09.560 about the, at least the three main, you've got the saturated fats, the monounsaturated fats,

00:07:17.340 and polyunsaturated fats. And when we, you know, we say saturated fats, you think like saturated with

00:07:23.120 what it's, you know, it's, it's, it's hydrogens, I guess is, so you've got, you know, a long chain

00:07:28.960 fatty acid is just, it's a string of carbon atoms. At least that's one part of it. And depending on the

00:07:36.760 number of carbons, that's, that's, that's in part how we classify it in terms of whether it's, we'll get

00:07:41.320 into this a little later, but palmitic acid, let's say versus stearic acid, which are both saturated

00:07:46.180 fats, but all those carbon to carbon bonds are single bonds. And if you have single bonds on

00:07:52.900 those carbons, then you're going to have, if you know your chemistry, you're going to have hydrogen

00:07:57.360 sticking off of, of each one of those carbon atoms as well. And then when you get into something like

00:08:03.300 a monounsaturated fat, it means mono, which is one, and it is an unsaturated fat, which means more or

00:08:09.180 less it's less saturated with hydrogens. And so when you have that carbon to carbon, if you have a double

00:08:15.000 bond, you're actually, you're going to be removing a hydrogen there because you're adding the carbon

00:08:20.320 to carbon bond. And then with the polyunsaturated fats, you've got more than one double bond.

00:08:27.180 So if you have more than one double bond, you're going to have even, it's going to be more unsaturated

00:08:32.040 than a monounsaturated fat. And I don't know if we're going to get into this, but that also changes

00:08:36.520 the configuration or the structure of those atoms as well, where you have a, if you look at a saturated

00:08:41.820 fat, normally it's, it's relatively, the chain would be straighter. Monounsaturated fat kind of

00:08:46.980 has like a little crank and where the double bond is. And then PUFAs have the same thing going on,

00:08:51.920 but if they have multiple double bonds, you're going to get multiple little crinks in the, in that chain.

00:08:58.660 Yeah. And the nomenclature is not trivial. So you, you mentioned a saturated fat a moment ago,

00:09:06.000 palmitic acid. And in sort of chemistry speak, we would reference that with two numbers. So

00:09:13.840 we would say, well, we wouldn't expect people to remember the structure of palmitic acid. So we

00:09:18.400 would denote it 16, zero or 16 colon zero. And what that tells you is, ah, it's got 16 carbons in it

00:09:26.740 and it has zero double bonds. And therefore, you know, it's a saturated fat. And you also mentioned,

00:09:33.700 I believe, stearic acid, which is also a saturated fat. But if you couldn't remember that, if you

00:09:38.620 could remember that it was 18, zero, you would know that it's got 18 carbons and zero double bonds.

00:09:44.300 Now let's contrast that with oleic acid. Oleic acid now has another designation. It's 18, one. So it's

00:09:54.220 18 carbons, one double bond, but you have to add an additional piece of information,

00:09:59.980 which is where is that double bond. And it's denoted N9, which means that it's the ninth carbon.

00:10:07.400 And I'm sure the astute listener is saying, well, which side are you counting from? Because the ninth

00:10:13.500 and the 10th carbons, even though right next to each other, would, could each be considered the

00:10:18.000 ninth carbon, depending on which side you count from. And you always count from the carboxylic side.

00:10:23.580 Now I realized as I, that was coming out of my mouth, I'm going to have to explain what the

00:10:27.700 carboxylic side is. I'm not going to, for the sake of time, just suffice it to say, there's a clear

00:10:33.700 nomenclature for which side you begin the counting. And therefore you can have an 18, one N seven and

00:10:42.060 an 18, one N nine that are both monounsaturated fats of the same length, but they're going to have

00:10:47.740 different properties because the double bond is in a different place. And to your point,

00:10:51.380 that might mean that they kink a slightly different way, et cetera. So let's go back to 0.80

00:10:57.900 olive oil. What is olive oil, Bob? What makes up olive oil? Thank you for listening to today's

00:11:04.500 sneak peek AMA episode of the drive. If you're interested in hearing the complete version of

00:11:09.260 this AMA, you'll want to become a member. We created the membership program to bring you more

00:11:14.540 in-depth exclusive content without relying on paid ads. Membership benefits are many and beyond the

00:11:20.920 complete episodes of the AMA each month. They include the following ridiculously comprehensive

00:11:26.340 podcast show notes that detail every topic, paper, person, and thing we discuss on each episode of the

00:11:32.280 drive access to our private podcast feed, the qualies, which were a super short podcast, typically less

00:11:39.000 than five minutes released every Tuesday through Friday, which highlight the best questions, topics,

00:11:44.000 and tactics discussed on previous episodes of the drive. This is particularly important for those of you

00:11:49.760 who haven't heard all of the backup episodes. It becomes a great way to go back and filter and

00:11:54.800 decide which ones you want to listen to in detail. Really steep discount codes for products I use and

00:12:00.020 believe in, but for which I don't get paid to endorse and benefits that we continue to add over time.

00:12:05.960 If you want to learn more and access these member-only benefits, head over to

00:12:09.640 peteratiamd.com forward slash subscribe. Lastly, if you're already a member, but you're hearing this,

00:12:16.600 it means you haven't downloaded our member-only podcast feed where you can get the full access

00:12:20.820 to the AMA and you don't have to listen to this. You can download that at peteratiamd.com forward slash

00:12:27.860 members. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all with the ID peteratiamd. You can also

00:12:35.800 leave us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast player you listen on. This podcast is for

00:12:41.640 general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing,

00:12:46.100 or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor

00:12:52.000 patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and the materials linked to this

00:12:56.700 podcast is at the user's own risk. The content on this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for

00:13:03.100 professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay

00:13:09.540 in obtaining medical advice from any medical condition they have, and they should seek the

00:13:14.560 assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. Finally, I take conflicts of

00:13:20.280 interest very seriously. For all of my disclosures and the companies I invest in or advise, please visit

00:13:26.580 peteratiamd.com forward slash about where I keep an up-to-date and active list of such companies.

00:13:56.580 Thank you.

The Peter Attia Drive - March 15, 2021

#153 - AMA #21： Deep dive into olive oil, high-intensity exercise, book update, and more

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript