True Patriot Love - November 10, 2026


[Best of TPL] Which Supplements Actually Work—and Which Are Hype？ ft. Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky

He Summited Everest—Then His Oxygen Failed ft. Alan Mallory Carney’s 2026 Budget： The $62B Deficit & The Revenue Gamble ｜ Part 2⧸4

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

191.18

Word count

2,050

Sentence count

59

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 hey dr mark how you doing well thank you yeah hey so thanks for coming back you know i loved
00:00:11.580 our show on creatine and i really wanted to um you know i really wanted to pick your brain
00:00:16.920 about something that's been a challenge for me most of my life and is as i went through my 40s
00:00:22.740 50s and now i'm just entered the 60s um is figuring out which supplements to take and you
00:00:29.860 You know, and Shara, who was here with me last time, my wife, she's the same issue. 0.62
00:00:34.260 You know, she's always, you know, doing research on what to take.
00:00:38.120 But it's so hard.
00:00:39.820 And I call it the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to supplements, because, you know, you start down one path and then you get to another path and you're trying to figure out what to do.
00:00:49.620 I need a little advice from you and some counsel on sort of what's worked for you and your background.
00:00:56.480 Yeah, it's a really challenging issue for many people because, you know, every couple of weeks,
00:01:01.640 influencers are saying this supplement is the best and this supplement is the best. So,
00:01:05.940 you know, do you change every two to three years? You know, there are things that are tried and true
00:01:11.080 that can work. But at the end of the day, the first thing people need to realize is the number
00:01:16.280 one and likely the only thing proven ever to extend our lifespan is endurance exercise.
00:01:22.700 You know, we just won't have the time left in our lives, maybe my grandchildren will,
00:01:28.680 where any given supplement or strategy is going to extend lifespan other than what we know,
00:01:33.580 which is endurance exercise, which regular exercise gives you about four years lifespan extension.
00:01:38.980 So that's one thing that people need to realize.
00:01:41.320 And therefore, you know, that needs to be the core, I think, of what most people do.
00:01:44.740 So when you think about supplementation, you're really just trying to further emphasize the benefits of exercise
00:01:51.200 or not to inhibit those benefits.
00:01:54.300 And what I mean by that is that very high-quality studies have shown
00:01:57.360 that you can blunt some of the adaptive benefits of exercise with certain antioxidants.
00:02:03.180 So on the one hand, people say there's oxidative stress with aging.
00:02:05.940 Let's just take antioxidants.
00:02:07.680 But oxidative stress actually comes in pulses when we exercise,
00:02:11.080 and it causes our body to produce more mitochondria, to increase our own antioxidants.
00:02:16.920 So we have to be very, very careful when we take supplements
00:02:19.640 make sure they're not blunting the one and only known proven lifespan extensor extender which is
00:02:25.320 endurance exercise and then the second thing just to put into context is health span and certainly
00:02:32.360 many of us in the last 10 years of our lives if we're not exercising we get high blood pressure
00:02:37.400 you know a sore back you know a knee replacement and it impacts our function in daily activities
00:02:43.400 getting off a toilet going upstairs and we don't want to spend the last 10 years of our life in
00:02:47.960 disability and you know having to go to a nursing home for example what we want
00:02:52.400 is to compress aging and what we mean by that is to be healthy right up until
00:02:55.880 the day you die and one of the best strategies for that is resistance
00:03:00.380 exercise training so I used to race internationally in sports I've
00:03:04.400 represented Canada at a few sports and you know only did endurance exercise and
00:03:08.360 when I got into my 40s and 50s I realized you know what we've studied and
00:03:12.860 what the world knows and that is supplements that can promote or enhance
00:03:16.880 the adaptive benefits of exercise training. Both endurance and resistance are important.
00:03:22.420 So that's why, you know, I studied creatine for the last 30 some odd years, both in patients and
00:03:27.060 older adults and even young people trying to improve their muscle. A very quick favor before
00:03:31.480 we continue. A large percentage of you who watch or listen to TPL media every week aren't subscribed
00:03:38.340 yet. Our simple commitment to you is that if you find value there, if these discussions make you
00:03:44.620 think. If you want our uncensored debates, deeper dives, and extended sit-downs, head over to
00:03:50.760 tplmedia.ca and subscribe there directly. It takes just five seconds, costs nothing,
00:03:57.380 keeps you informed. So thank you. Now back to the show. So creatine definitely has stood the test
00:04:03.380 of time. I think the other thing that we need to think about before we get into specifics
00:04:08.520 is what's the evidence? Most of what people read are influencers, and even some of the folks that
00:04:14.540 MDs. Many of them haven't published a paper in their life. I won't say who, but there's a number
00:04:19.000 of very prominent people who are like that, and they bounce from supplement to supplement every
00:04:23.100 year, and then when the supplement they promoted was discredited, they go on to the next supplement,
00:04:27.980 and usually they don't declare, as I do, their conflict of interest, and they just move on and
00:04:32.760 sell something else. So there's a few things that, you know, we can talk about that I think really
00:04:38.860 will help to you know emphasize our health span and hopefully our lifespan and there are a few
00:04:45.340 things too that even without exercise are probably beneficial for us as we get older we've talked
00:04:50.300 about creatine and today we'll talk about a few other supplements those like you say the good the
00:04:55.900 bad and the ugly yeah yeah no it definitely and it's confusing before we get off the exercise for
00:05:02.460 minute because this is interesting yeah i grew up in an era where people were trying to you know go
00:05:09.100 to the gym for prolonged periods of time so they were you know and never loved that idea from day
00:05:16.860 one so quite frankly for me to get in and out of the gym in 40 minutes or 30 minutes was always my
00:05:22.780 preference since i've been a kid but there were you know people i know worked out for prolonged
00:05:27.980 periods and and and did a lot of things and then as i got older um to your point i i knew that i
00:05:34.800 had to do more uh you know aerobic exercise so then you know i adventure raced i did a few
00:05:40.940 triathlons i did a lot of that stuff you know in my 40s 50s as as i'm getting older i'm kind of
00:05:47.220 peeling back on that but i'm still still doing some biking and a lot of walking and things like
00:05:52.540 that. But now they're kind of telling you that, quite frankly, you should do short bursts of
00:05:58.780 training for shorter periods of time. And I wanted to get your opinion on that, because when you were
00:06:05.040 mentioning about, you know, prolonging your life, there's a, I guess, the new theory or the hot new
00:06:13.840 theory of the day is, you know, you can cut back your workout time, but increase your intensity.
00:06:19.600 Yeah, and, you know, we've been involved in those studies, actually.
00:06:22.980 Marty Gabala, who's a good friend and colleague, my lab did, well, I personally did the muscle
00:06:28.020 biopsies for much of his studies, and, you know, a lot of the mitochondrial analysis
00:06:32.400 were done in my laboratory, so I'm very familiar with that concept.
00:06:35.880 Now, we knew about this, you know, back when in the late 70s, you know, when we trained
00:06:40.820 heavily, we would do long-duration activity, and we'd do high-intensity intervals.
00:06:45.960 So we knew that you had to do the high-intensity intervals,
00:06:48.300 and that would bump up the proportion of the VO2 that you could use.
00:06:51.760 We call that your anaerobic threshold.
00:06:53.760 And, you know, Marty was one of the first, Marty Gabala,
00:06:56.160 to show that you can increase your mitochondria,
00:06:59.320 which is the powerhouse of your cell,
00:07:00.840 which traditionally goes up with endurance exercise.
00:07:03.820 But, you know, what he showed, and, you know, my lab was involved in these,
00:07:06.900 to show that the mitochondria can go up also with this HIIT or high-intensity training.
00:07:11.280 But, again, bottom line is that, yes,
00:07:13.500 high intensity training can give you some mitochondrial adaptations. We know that the best
00:07:17.960 evidence for lifelong extension by four years and for many of the benefits in terms of lower risk of
00:07:25.260 diabetes and heart disease, it comes from endurance exercise. So by extension, yes, we are likely to
00:07:30.880 show that the high intensity will work. However, I hate doing high intensity stuff. I just went out
00:07:35.700 and did my hill repeats today, but it was like putting a gun against my head, whereas to go for
00:07:39.800 two-hour run in the fall is beautiful so my point i think for everyone is look if somebody tells you
00:07:45.320 this is the only type of exercise they're full of crap you need to find what works for you and
00:07:51.000 there's so many possible things that somebody could do from an endurance exercise perspective 0.91
00:07:54.920 or high intensity i hate lifting weights but i now do it three times a week but i found the
00:08:00.520 things that work for me i fit it also into my schedule by setting things up at home because
00:08:06.760 you pointed out going to the gym and that's great for some people socialization and everything but
00:08:11.800 you know it's an extra half an hour to 40 minutes just to get there and back so you know when we had
00:08:16.440 young kids we set up a gym at home so that my wife could run with her friends and i'd stay at home
00:08:20.600 with the kids and vice versa so i think adapting exercise into your life is easy people say they
00:08:27.400 don't have time but that's garbage do more high intensity stuff find what you like and therefore
00:08:32.760 it makes it not a chore but something that you enjoy time to clear your mind you know that's when
00:08:37.880 i talk to all my friends and we you know most of our social life is around exercise so i think if
00:08:42.520 you make it fun and enjoyable but you know don't listen to people that say you've got to do this
00:08:46.840 or you've got to do that um you've got to find something that you can do that you enjoy and
00:08:51.400 generally you know as we get older if we could do three bouts for half an hour of endurance type
00:08:57.240 activity and you could shorten that a bit if it's a higher intensity lengthen if it's longer
00:09:01.560 duration whatever you enjoy doing and then you know minimum two but probably three times a week
00:09:07.240 of more resistance type training and if it's plyometrics or you know fixed weights or free
00:09:12.440 weights or resistance bands doesn't matter as long as you're doing more of that resistance type
00:09:17.400 activity to increase strength right right well and you know you know as a male i guess um you
00:09:24.600 know as i get older uh the issue the issue of testosterone levels and the issue all that stuff
00:09:31.560 You know, that all plays into your muscle growth, and, you know, a little advice on that, Doc, as we go through it.
00:09:40.760 Is there anything that you're recommending to people right now?
00:09:44.300 Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, with all the hype about peptides, you'll be very, very, very careful.
00:09:49.840 Some of them look sexy.
00:09:51.020 They sound sexy from preclinical studies, and extrapolation makes them seem reasonable, but they're not without side effects.
00:09:57.140 So we know that high-dose testosterone in younger people can be associated with, you know, increased breast growth, shrinking your testicles, bleeding into your liver, abnormalities of your blood lipids.
00:10:08.720 So if you want to die early, take high-dose testosterone.
00:10:11.340 A very quick favor before we continue.
00:10:13.940 A large percentage of you who watch or listen to TPL Media every week aren't subscribed yet.
00:10:20.260 Our simple commitment to you is that if you find value there, if these discussions make you think, if you want our uncensored debates, deeper dives, and extended sit-downs, head over to tplmedia.ca and subscribe there directly.
00:10:36.740 It takes just five seconds, costs nothing, keeps you informed.
00:10:41.220 So thank you. Now back to the show.