Transcript of Podcast #15

Are Artificial Sweeteners Safe? With James Krieger

The Bulletproof Executive

Cool Fact

Dave Asprey: Today‟s cool fact of the day is that your body can store several weeks‟ worth of

vitamin D at a time, so if you are going on a trip and you don‟t want to carry around a little bottle

of vitamin D supplements, you can take several times your normal dose and be set for a few

days. It‟s perfectly safe to take 50,000 IUs of vitamin D once a week instead of taking it every

day.

Overview

Dave Asprey: You are listening to episode fifteen of Upgraded Self Radio with Dave and Armi

from the Bulletproof Executive Blog. Today we have James Krieger with us. He runs a blog

debunking health myths called the Health Sleuth. He has a master‟s degree in nutrition from the

University of Florida and a second master‟s degree in exercise science from Washington State.

He‟s a former research director for the corporate weight management program that treated over

400 people per year with an average weight loss of 40 pounds in three months. His former

weight loss clients include the founder of Sullivan Learning Centers and The Little Gym, the

vice-president from Costco, and a former vice-president of MSN, which is Microsoft‟s online

arm. He has given over 75 lectures on weight lost related topics to physicians, dieticians, and

other professionals. In addition, he has authored five peer-reviewed studies for the American

Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Applied Physiology. He joins us today on

Upgraded Self Radio specifically to talk about artificial sweeteners, colorings and preservatives,

and how they may or may not be affecting your health.

We also have an awesome listener Q&A where we are going to discuss L-glutamine, Saw

Palmetto and hair loss, nicotine for brain performance, the differences between the Bulletproof

diet and paleo, tips for healthy babies, heart rate variability, smart drugs for improved athletic

performance in ADHD, the dangers of multivitamins, and the best cookware to choose.

As usual, we will close with our biohacker report. This time you will hear a summary of three

new pieces of research that will help you live longer with better sleep, improve your health by

avoiding the wrong foods, and enhancing your cognitive function with polyphenols.

You can also find us on Twitter @bulletproofexec, or we have a Facebook page at

facebook.com/bulletproofexecutive.

Updates

Dave Asprey: Let‟s getting going. Armi, tell us what biohacks you have been working on this

week?

Armi Legge: I‟ve been eating a lot of pumpkin this year since it‟s around fall season here in

Virginia, and I‟ve been saving the pumpkin seeds. Unfortunately, one of the batches got really

moldy and when I was throwing it out, I breathed in a lot of the spores from the mold and for

about the next hour or two, my brain was just fried. I couldn‟t focus. I wasn‟t disoriented but I

definitely felt like I had slept two hours that night. I was pretty antsy and I‟m beginning to

become a lot more in tune with how mycotoxins affect me. Before I would just figure it was

some random occurrence that just happens but now, since I have been doing more research on

this and reading more of the articles and figuring this stuff out, I actually think the mold from the

pumpkin seeds screwed my brain.

Dave Asprey: It wouldn‟t surprise me at all. That‟s an awesome observation. It turns out that

certain molds, not all of them, for certain people actually cause a constriction in the micro

capillaries in your prefrontal cortex and you can feel pretty awful when that happens. I‟ve heard

that with lots of people that I coach or just anecdotal things where people say “I had a whole

evening where I felt pretty bad” and if you know where mycotoxins live, you just have to look at

what you did before that. There is a correlation even if you don‟t know about it yet.

I‟ve had a pretty interesting week as well. I‟ve been dealing with the really, really long nights up

here outside Victoria, where I live, and last year, it got pretty dim and maybe a little bit

depressing because it‟s not that rainy here but it‟s definitely is darker than it is in Nevada or

California where I used to live. I decided after some research that I didn‟t want to buy one of

those fluorescent sun lamps because fluorescent lights aren‟t that comfortable on the eyes. In

fact, I think fluorescent lights are not particularly healthy for people for a variety of reasons

mostly data about sickness and health of people who are underneath them on a regular basis. So,

it looks like the volume of light is most important and I put in 500 watt halogen work lights in

the dining room. They are not as attractive as the chandelier is but the difference in my kids and

my whole family and myself in terms of alertness and cognitive function is amazing. I say sitting

in semi-darkness using compact fluorescent or weak incandescent bulbs versus having a really

bright light source in winter, man, it‟s not so good.

Armi Legge: I agree. One of the things I think is probably the unhealthiest thing about school is

the lighting they use in the buildings. It‟s literally like living in a cave. It‟s pretty bad.

Dave Asprey: You are totally right and people don‟t know this but when you take fluorescent

lights out and replace them with halogens or with natural spectrum lighting, the number of sick

days goes down dramatically for kids and their test scores go up. If you are in a position to help

your kid‟s school out, make a donation to say turn off the overhead lights, turn on these other

light bulbs that we‟ll buy. You‟ll actually find that your kids are sick less. It‟s that obvious and

the percentages are pretty understandable if you just Google around for “health effects of

fluorescent lights”. There are cognitive effects, there are ADHD effects, and there are other

things. For me, they weren‟t an option but the bright halogen has really transformed the energy

of everyone in the house.

Armi Legge: That‟s really cool and speaking of taking care of your health and your kids‟ health,

we are going to move to our exclusive interview with James Krieger about artificial sweeteners,

preservatives, and colorings.

Interview

Dave Asprey: We are really excited to have James Krieger here for this interview and part of the

Bulletproof Executive philosophy is to look at the science side of what works and also look at

the biohacking or self-experimenting side of what works. We invited James on to the show. He‟s

definitely a nutrition expert, very well credentialed and he runs Weightology, LLC and has a

weekly publication and consulting service providing non-biased health information and weight

loss advice. He‟s also one of those guys who‟s a relative supporter of artificial sweeteners so

you‟ll hear some counterpoints to the advice that I believe is most optimal around healthy

sweeteners and unhealthy sweeteners. James has done some medical research looking at some

existing reports for artificial sweeteners and looks at determining their safety. We discuss them

at length and I think you‟ll hear during the report that there are some that are at higher risk than

others and in James‟ case, he believes most of these sweeteners are not harmful. I think he and I

are going to agree to disagree on this but I think you‟ll learn some things from this interview and

I‟m very excited that he was on the show.

So how did you get interested in fat loss and nutrition in the first place?

James Krieger: It actually started quite a long time ago. I had started school at the University of

Washington and I was actually planning on going into computer science. I started weight training

because I was a pretty skinny guy in high school and I really got fascinated by how my body was

transforming so I really started, at the time, getting into the science of building muscle. My

interest grew more and more then it turned out I wasn‟t able to get into the computer science

department at University of Washington. It‟s pretty hard to get in. They only took about 30 out

of 120 people at the time. So I transferred to Washington State University and I had a friend who

was in the exercise science department at WSU but I first went into computer science over at

WSU. I was losing interest in the computer science field and gaining more interested in the

exercise field. My friend noticed how passionate I was about it and he thought I should do

exercise science. At the time I thought I would stick with my path, not knowing what I would do

with exercise science.

As time went on, I just disliked computer science more and more and I decided if I was going to

make a change, I should do it now. I only had a year left on my computer science degree but I

ended up changing my major to life science. I got more and more interested in the fat loss

perspective. I got my degree at WSU then I went down to University of Florida and got my

degree down there and when I came back, I started working for a program called 20/20

Lifestyles. I was a PhD student down in Florida. It wasn‟t really working out for me down there

so I actually finished with my master‟s degree and moved back up here and I decided I would

work for a year, reestablish my residency in the state, and finish my PhD at the University of

Washington in nutrition. I took a job just as a personal trainer at one of the largest sports clubs in

the world, Pro Sports. Most of their clientele are Microsoft employees because Microsoft

subsidizes membership. I started off as a personal trainer but the CEO took notice of me and my

background and he told me about the weight loss program 20/20 Lifestyles and he wanted a

person who would do research. They hired me into that position and I did that for four or five

years. Then I really got into the weight loss aspect of it because that was my job. I did literature

reviews for the staff because we had physicians and dieticians on the staff. I would look at the

data on our own clients. Half of my job was digging up PubMed research and reading research. I

actually never went back to finish my PhD because I was basically doing what I wanted to do. So

that‟s how I really got into the weight loss aspect of things.

Dave Asprey: It‟s kind of funny that the background was computer science and cutting over. I

call myself a biohacker and I did the computer science and the computer information thing and at

the same time I weighed 300 pounds. I thought if I could hack really complex internet

architecture and figure out how things worked on multiple levels, I needed to do this for myself

because my doctor sure as heck wasn‟t. This was 15 years ago but the amount of research and

system thinking that goes into it and all of a sudden it was kind of fun and more interesting than

some computer science problems by a long shot. It‟s neat to hear that you did three-quarters of a

computer science program to learn the system thinking which I think goes really great with

things like PubMed which lets you look at how biology works.

One of you areas of interest is artificial sweeteners and it‟s one of mine as well. Are they as bad

as many people think?

James Krieger: I am of the opinion no and the reason is if you really look at the science on them

because if you go on the internet, there are all kinds of scare stories about artificial sweeteners.

The problem with those stories is anecdotes are not necessarily reliable scientific evidence

because let‟s say I eat a food with an artificial sweetener and I get sick. You can‟t necessarily

attribute that to the artificial sweetener cause correlation does not equal causation and it could be

a myriad of other things. That‟s why we have experimental research to determine what types of

things are actually causal. There‟s a vast amount of data on artificial sweeteners, both animal

data and human data, and when you really look at the research as a whole when they are

consumed in amounts that are basically under what is called the “adequate daily intake” (ADI),

as long as you do not exceed the ADI, they are perfectly safe for the mass majority of people.

There may be very, very small percentages of people who may be sensitive under certain

circumstances but when you look at the vast majority of people and as long as you consume it

under the ADI, the mass majority of evidence says they are safe.

Another thing about the ADI a lot of people don‟t realize about the ADI is there‟s actually a 100-

fold safety factor built into the ADI so the way they establish the ADI for any type of substance

whether it‟s an artificial sweetener or anything else, any type of thing that‟s put in food.

Basically what they do is take the maximum dose that has been found to not cause any side

effects in animals and that‟s call the “no observed adverse effect level” (NOAEL). They take that

amount and divide it by 100 and that‟s what they establish as what the maximum for humans

would be that would be considered safe. Obviously there‟s a 100-fold safety factor built into that.

That ADI is basically if you were to consume that maximum amount, every day for the rest of

your life, which most people don‟t do.

When you look at observational data on the intake of artificial sweeteners for most people, most

people don‟t even come close to exceeding the ADI. There have been a few papers that have

suggested under certain circumstances in some countries a few people might exceed the ADI, but

most people don‟t even come close. I actually wrote in an article, I gave the number of cans of

diet soda you would have to drink to exceed the ADI for certain sweeteners. I don‟t remember

the numbers off the top of my head but you would have to drink 20 or 30 cans of diet soda a day

which a few people do. In the weight management program that we had, most of our clients were

Microsoft employees and one of the things Microsoft does is they give out free soda and drinks

to their employees. There‟s basically in every building, just down there hallway, there‟ll be a

soda refrigerator you can pull cans out. My wife did a contract job at Microsoft for three months

and these things were everywhere so sometimes we would have a few clients that would come

into our program and they were drinking 20 cans of soda a day. There are people who do that,

but that‟s an exception rather than a rule. Most people don‟t go to that excess.

So that‟s my long winded answer to your question.

Dave Asprey: Alright, thanks. Armi, you were going to ask a question?

Armi Legge: Why do you think artificial sweeteners have gotten such a horrible reputation? Is it

stories on the internet or anecdotal accounts that look like a personal vendetta against these

compounds?

James Krieger: I think it‟s more the stories on the internet and it‟s not just artificial sweeteners.

A lot of people have this whole idea of something that is artificial or a chemical in a sense.

Everything is a chemical, all foods are chemicals. Someone people have this mentality that

somehow things that are natural are better for you and that anything that is “artificial” must have

some type of adverse health effect simply because it‟s man made. I think it can be an emotional

gut reaction that some people have. It may even be that some people just have a world view that

natural is better. I think it plays along those lines and I think it also has to do with wanting

something to blame. I think given the prevalence of artificial sweeteners in foods, I think they

can make a really good scapegoat and people want to point the finger. There are documented

sensitivities to certain sweeteners but again they are very rare. For example, there have been

some case reports of headaches with aspartame.

Dave Asprey: I was going to ask you a quick question about that. Aspartame is one of those

things where 75% of adverse effects to food additives that get reported to the FDA are from

aspartame and headaches is the number one symptom of that.

James Krieger: Here‟s the problem with that. Anyone can report anything to the FDA but the

thing is you can‟t attribute it to the actual sweetener. If someone eats something and they get a

headache, the FDA doesn‟t investigate it further. They‟ve actually done controlled studies on

aspartame and headaches. One study was actually a well designed study. It was a double blind

study and they recruited people who claimed that they got headaches from aspartame and it was

double blind and they either gave them aspartame or a placebo and the people reported

headaches just as much from the placebo as they did from the aspartame. It wasn‟t necessarily

aspartame causing the headaches.

Now there have been a few case reports in the literature where people reported headaches from

aspartame use and when they eliminated it from their diets, the headaches went away. There‟s

still a little bit of evidence there. It‟s not very strong evidence that it causes headaches but if it

does cause headaches, it‟s in a small minority of people and in most people it‟s not going to be

an issue. The problem with using the FDA‟s complaint registration is that it‟s not controlled data

and there was a study done where they did investigate some of the complaints to the FDA. I

actually wrote about it on my site. What they did is they took people who had registered

complaints to the FDA and then they looked at these people‟s behaviors and what they found is

that some of the people who reported the headaches from aspartame, it turned out that the

headache triggers were from something else and it wasn‟t aspartame. That‟s again why the FDA

registration data is not very reliable. It brings about ideas of things that should be investigated

but it‟s not reliable data in and of itself.

Dave Asprey: I‟m really one of those guys who is sensitive to it and I didn‟t know it because

back when I was 20, I probably ate 15 pieces of Nutrasweet gum and drank a couple diet sodas to

try to lose weight when I weighed 300 pounds but one time I had one of those 42 ounce sodas of

straight diet Coke by itself for breakfast. I sat in class all day long and I swear it was like I was

on a hallucinogen. I‟ve never felt that bad. I ended up waking in a pool of my own drool on the

desk in front of me and thinking I haven‟t felt this bad in my entire life. It was the only variable I

had changed that morning so I started paying attention to it and it gets to the point where I don‟t

tough the stuff and if I do, without even thinking it‟s in my food, I get exactly the same

symptoms every time. I would like to ask you for your thoughts.

James Krieger: And again, I‟m not saying that nobody is sensitive to Nutrasweet or aspartame.

Here‟s the thing with scientific trials. Given the sample sizes, if there is an extremely rare effect,

it may not necessarily show up in scientific trials because there is not enough people to actually

detect it. Whenever you‟re comparing a placebo and anything like aspartame, you‟re looking for

really significant differences between groups but if you don‟t have really large sample sizes, if

there‟s a difference that‟s really rare, you won‟t be able to detect it. It‟s very possible that there‟s

a really small percentage of people, and you may be in that group, that are very sensitive to it. I

even wrote in my article that “There is some data that may suggest it could be a migraine trigger

in a small percentage of people but the data here remains inconsistent.” I‟m certainly not saying

it‟s not going to cause effects in anybody because when you‟re looking at scientific data and

you‟re dealing with small sample sizes, there may be rare effects that you might not be able to

detect in a small number of people. Obviously, you are not going to hurt anything to eliminate

aspartame from your diet so if you eliminate it and it seems the effects go away, then that‟s great.

Dave Asprey: What do you think about the idea of just testing yourself? It‟s not double blind

obviously, though you could make it double blinded it, but drink the soda and see how you do

that morning. I think most people would feel worse on diet Coke for breakfast compared to a

glass of water for breakfast.

James Krieger: There‟s nothing wrong with doing that. As you pointed out, you are introducing

some psychological expectations that may actually influence how you feel. Let‟s say it‟s just a

placebo effect. It‟s like so what? If it‟s just a placebo effect, if you feel better not taking it, then

you feel better not taking it. It‟s not like a dichotomous situation where “Oh, aspartame is safe,

therefore you should have it.” What I try to fight against is scare mongering or fear mongering.

I‟m very evidence based. The way I right my articles on my site is I‟m very level headed and say

“Here is what the scientific evidence says. There may be some people who may be sensitive to

aspartame. If you feel you‟re sensitive, you don‟t have to consume it.” And there‟s nothing

wrong with if you eliminate it from your diet and you feel better then great! There‟s certainly

nothing wrong with doing that.

Dave Asprey: Have you seen any studies on working memory or cognitive performance or

athletic performance associated with any of the sweeteners that you have written about?

James Kreiger: Actually yes. There have been aspartame studies on mood, cognition, and

behavior.

Dave Asprey: When did they show up? I am not familiar with those studies. I‟m thinking there

are a lot of people who are listening to this who actually do use Nutrasweet, so I would love to

hear, if you remember off the top of your head, what was found in those studies.

James Kreiger: There were some double blind studies on children including those thought to be

sugar sensitive or with ADD and they looked at behavior, mood, learning and also plasma amino

acids and neurotransmitters and they didn‟t find any effects there. There‟s also research on adults

using doses of up to 75 mg per kilogram for six month that did not find any adverse effects on

mood or learning. There was a double blind crossover study on depressed patients. Now in that

study they reported an adverse increase in the patients receiving aspartame, however the study

was flawed because the researchers incorrectly combined unrelated adverse effects, which is

basically a no-no in terms of statistics. Also, the lead author of that study was a person who

misrepresented a large body of aspartame research. He actually lied about some aspartame

studies and I actually wrote about it in one of my articles. That was one study that I was really

iffy about because who the lead author was.

They‟ve also done studies on people with phenylketonuria. PKU is a genetic disorder where you

have trouble metabolizing phenylalanine and you‟ll probably know this because whenever you

see a product that has aspartame, at least in the US, there will be a warning label that says “For

individuals with PKU, this product contains phenylalanine.” So phenylalanine is a natural

occurring amino acid but people with the rare genetic disorder, they have trouble metabolizing

that amino acid. Since aspartame contains phenylalanine, any product that has aspartame has to

have that warning label on it. They actually did a study on the brain electrical activity and plasma

amino acids in people with PKU and they found no adverse effects at all and these were people

with a genetic disorder where they actually have trouble metabolizing phenylalanines.

So if you look at the vast majority of research, there does not appear to be an effect on mood,

cognition, or behavior. Again though, as I stated before, you can‟t rule out a very rare effect

given the sample sizes of these studies. There could be some very, very rare effect that happens

in a very small percentage of people that these studies can‟t detect because of the limitations of

statistics.

Dave Asprey: Yeah, that‟s a concern of mine with a lot of the studies. Some of them aren‟t long

enough and just because some of the effects, if they take a while, then you are not going to cover

a 10 year chronic usage effect in a typical study. No one is going to fund that and it‟s not really

doable so you just have to resort epidemiological evidence. Then there‟s the whole “I‟m not as

high performance, not as well as I would have been if I didn‟t do this kind of thing” and my

particular fetish there is around how do I maximize cognitive performance and memory and

personal performance on multiple levels so you can have the energy to do what you want

whether it‟s go walking in the Himalayas or extra time with the kids after a long day at work.

I‟ll tell you, I‟m still very skeptical that Nutrasweet is a healthy food and I think that the risks of

taking it are actually higher than the risks of not taking it, because there‟s no risk for not taking

it. I do know there‟s a lot of controversy from it and from a personal biohacking perspective, I

encourage any person listening to this show to give it a try. If you think it‟s really bad or you

think it‟s really good, eliminate every other variable you can, have a large dose and see how you

do than have some another day with just water or have a friend do it with just regular Coke

versus diet Coke. See what the difference is. You might be surprised, you might not be surprised.

Tell us the history of some of the other common sweeteners other than Nutrasweet, which we

kind of zoomed in on, or aspartame like neotame or sucralose. What‟s your take there?

James Krieger: My take is they are safe for the vast majority of people. Neotame is very similar

to aspartame. It‟s made up of two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid. It‟s just that the

bond between the two is stronger than aspartame. That‟s why it‟s better for baked goods because

it won‟t break down like aspartame will. Other than that, neotame is practically identical to

aspartame for the most part. Sucralose is an isomer of sugar. Your body can‟t metabolize it so

what happens to sucralose is it just passes right through you unmetabolized. All these products

have ADIs and the vast majority of evidence claims that sucralose is safe in the vast majority of

people. But again, you can‟t rule out that there might be a small percentage of people who may

have a sensitivity.

Then there‟s saccharin, which was the big sweetener of the 1970‟s and it kind of got a bad rep

because there were some studies done on rats and a few of the studies found an increased risk of

bladder cancer. So all of a sudden all these products that contained saccharin would carry a

warning label that said “Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product

contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animal.” What

actually happened is the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences put saccharin on

its potential carcinogen list, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer also labeled

saccharin as potentially carcinogenic. However, the NIEHS reversed its view on saccharin and

actually removed it from the potential carcinogen list and these labels were removed and the

reason was it was discovered that the cancer causing mechanism in rats did not apply to humans.

That was the first reason. The second reason was they needed an extremely high dose to see an

effect in rats, a dose much higher than a human would ever actually consume. It‟s also been

found that vitamin C, when feed at similar doses, will cause bladder cancer in rats. What it really

comes down to is rodents are very susceptible to bladder cancer when you have any type of

sodium whether it‟s sodium ascorbate, which is vitamin C, or sodium saccharin. You give them a

high enough dose and they get bladder cancer because it actually has to do with the sodium salts

themselves.

In 1999, the IARC downgraded saccharin from possibly carcinogenic in humans to not

classifiable as a carcinogen in humans. In 2000, the requirement for warning labels was removed

in the US. Actually, in Europe, saccharin has never been prohibited and it was never required to

have warning labels. Canada is considering lifting its ban on saccharin as a food additive.

Dave Asprey: I can tell you I would choose saccharin over a lot of the more modern sweeteners

just in terms of health risks but I would probably choose xylitol or erythritol which have far

fewer risks and probably more health benefits than anything that is on the list here. What do you

think of those?

James Krieger: The only issue with the sugar alcohols is if you consume too much you can get

diarrhea because they can attract water into your intestine. There are reported side effects above

a certain dose. It‟s funny that you brought up sugar alcohols because I did an entire presentation

on sugar alcohols when I worked for 20/20 Lifestyles because the dieticians wanted research on

sugar alcohols. I did this real long literature review and went through research on sugar alcohols

and sugar alcohols are perfectly safe. Again, you get above a certain threshold dose for some of

them and you can have GI effects like diarrhea.

Dave Asprey: Most definitely. I have to warn my wife occasionally because we mostly use

xylitol and erthyritol. Once you‟re acclimated, your body learns to make the enzymes that break

them down and you don‟t have that problem anymore. But if you bake a bunch of xylitol

cupcakes and you don‟t warn people who eat them, there will be a line at the bathroom and that‟s

not so nice. It‟s a question on dosage for sure for people who‟ve never had it.

Let‟s talk a little bit about acesulfame potassium, which is in my mind, the most realistic tasting

fake sweetener I‟ve ever found. I use to eat a lot of this stuff when I was working on losing

weight before I figure out a different path. I actually got diagnosed with having benign thyroid

growths by a physician in the Bay Area and I did some looking around and found that this

sweetener appears to be tied to this. I dug in on that and there‟s a whole bunch of pretty high end,

government science people who are saying there are a lot of serious flaws in the design and

conduct of the tests surrounding acesulfame potassium and this was a physician who was a

former director of the IARC in the WHO. There were some cancer concerns. Did you not find

this when you looked as acesulfame potassium?

James Krieger: Actually I did address those issues. There were some cancer studies done in the

1970‟s to determine whether acesulfame potassium could cause cancer and those studies were

criticized. Some of criticisms included that the randomization of test groups were not carried out

properly, the mice were held on tests for 81 weeks, not the 104 weeks which is characteristic of

National Toxicology studies. There were also claims that the monitoring of animals was very

poor, that there were high disease rates, extensive cell destruction of tissues.

Now there has been disagreement over that. The European Scientific Committee on Food

disagreed with those criticisms. They stated that all of the 1970‟s studies other than one were

adequate to be used for safety evaluations. That one study was ultimately dismissed by both the

FDA and SCF did a 104 week study. In that study they observed a higher death rate in rats fed

Ace K as opposed to the controlled group. Higher death rates were reported in males fed a diet of

1-3 percent ace K, females 3 percent Ace K. However, the death rates were within the normal

range for the rat strain and the death rate in the control group was abnormally low. The incidence

of lung tumors was high in the group that had the highest dose and there was some evidence that

the tumors appeared early but the tumor was a common cause of death in this particular rat

strain. The frequency of tumors was common and the results were likely caused by a respiratory

disease rather than the Ace K. That‟s why the FDA and SCF basically ended up dismissing that

study. Of the studies they did find adequate, they found no increase in mortality or tumor

incidence.

Now the National Toxicology Program did follow up with a study with genetically modified

mice in 2005. These were mice that are more susceptible to getting cancer cause they possess

genes that predispose them to getting cancer. They also lack genes that suppress tumors. There

was actually no cancer seen in this study despite the animals were more susceptible to getting

cancer. Again there has been some criticism there because that transgenic model system hasn‟t

been validated yet for a lone cancer study. Ace K was twice nominated in 1996 and 2006 for the

National Toxicology standard cancer study but NTP rejected both nominations. So I do address

the criticisms of some of the Ace K data and my summary was that the vast majority of evidence

indicates that it‟s safe when consumed at levels below the ADI. If you‟re consuming very high

amounts of this stuff, which you might be if you‟re someone who goes on a diet and you‟re

consuming diet products all day. They might be consuming more than the ADI but if you‟re

consumption is lower than the ADI, majority of studies indicate it‟s safe. There have been

questions of the long term quality of the cancer studies but the bulk of studies say it‟s safe.

Because Ace K has not been on the market as long as sweeteners like aspartame, there are no

epidemiological data to confirm the lack of cancer causing effects in humans, overall though, the

risk in Ace K inducing cancer is negligible based on current data.

There is some data that suggests that some children may approach the ADI under certain

circumstances so caution is warranted there. My final sentence in my article on Ace K was “As I

constantly preach in my article, an approach at moderation is best when it comes to sweeteners

like Ace K.” Again, there‟s nothing wrong with eliminating it, if it‟s of concern but I would say

take a very level headed look at what the evidence says. Most evidence says it‟s safe but there‟s

some question about the data.

Armi Legge: One of the other common sweeteners is Stevia and I know a lot of people say it is

better because it‟s natural. Is it really as good as people say? Is it safe? What is your opinion on

Stevia?

James Krieger: Same with Stevia. Most of the evidence claims it is safe. There were some

question marks about Stevia originally because there wasn‟t a lot of data on it and there was

some concern based on a few studies that it could cause reproductive toxicity in male fertility.

Those early studies were problematic but when you look at the better and more recent studies,

they don‟t show any adverse reproductive effects of Stevia. Stevia definitely seems to be okay.

There‟s no evidence of genotoxic effects. The only issue where Stevia might be a problem, just

like the other artificial sweeteners, there may be a small percentage of people who are sensitive.

There are documented cases of allergies to Stevia. There have been case reports of people getting

atopic eczema -- basically scaly, itchy rashes on the skin. There have been some reports of

people going into anaphylactic shock.

Dave Asprey: So, Stevia versus Nutrasweet versus aspartame, which one do you think is a better

choice?

James Krieger: I don‟t think one is any better than the other. I think it just comes down to the

individual. For me personally, I would do either one. If somebody has allergies, there are some

case reports of people with nasal allergies and there was one where 16 percent of infants with

nasal allergies were found to be allergic to Stevia, 34 percent of infants with bronchial asthma

were found to be allergic to Stevia, and 64 percent of infants with atopic eczema were found to

be allergic to Stevia. If you are a person with asthma or nasal allergies, you might be better off

with aspartame versus Stevia. Then again, it comes down to you just have to try it and see. Since

there have been reports of anaphylactic shock with Stevia, you need to be careful.

Dave Asprey: There‟s the point that Stevia, to a lot of people, tastes kind of like socks. It‟s one

of my less favorite sweeteners to be honest.

James Krieger: I‟m not even sure if I‟ve ever had a product with Stevia in it so I‟m not familiar

with the taste. The regulatory status of it varies dramatically from one country to the next.

Currently in the US, Stevia extracts are available as a dietary supplement but it is not approved

as a food additive or sweetener. Only Rebaudioside A, which is a component of Stevia, is

approved for use as a sweetener. Basically, Rebaudioside A has been given GRAS status by the

FDA. What GRAS status means is it‟s generally regarded as safe, so it has not gone through the

stringent testing that things like aspartame have gone through. When you look in Europe, the

European Union actually does not approve Stevia as a sweetener, although it was expected to do

it sometime this year. I haven‟t followed up on that so I don‟t know if they actually did

eventually approve it or what‟s been going on with Stevia in Europe. It‟s been approved in some

other countries. France temporarily approved Rebaudioside A. The two year test is currently

ongoing. There are places that have banned Stevia -- Hong Kong, Singapore, Norway. Most

evidence shows it‟s safe but with most sweeteners there may be a small percentage of people

who may be sensitive or have allergies to it.

This is really true with any type of food whether it‟s artificial or naturally occurring. There are

foods that people have sensitivities too. It doesn‟t matter if it‟s natural or not. It still comes down

to an individual decision on what‟s going to work best for you. That‟s why I don‟t like to make

blanket statements about any type of products whether it‟s an artificial sweetener or natural

sweetener like Stevia because it might be fine for most people.

Dave Asprey: I couldn‟t agree more. If you want to know how Stevia works, use it as your

sweetener and look for how you feel and how you‟re doing. The other question there that is

along the lines of Stevia is Lo Han. Have you come across that?

James Krieger: No. I‟ve never even heard of Lo Han. That‟s new to me.

Dave Asprey: It‟s the new, Chinese fruit extract that‟s 300 times sweeter than almost anything

else out there but it‟s also solvent extracted just like Stevia and I‟m a little skeptical of it but I‟ve

been getting a few questions about it from people and I tend to say if it‟s been extracted by using

xylene or toluene you probably ought not to eat it as a general neural practice. But who knows. I

haven‟t seen a lot of studies on that.

In terms of health benefits, for any of these artificial sweeteners, are there documented things

where people who eat them do better than people who don‟t eat it or is it they probably don‟t kill

you?

James Krieger: While Stevia is not an artificial sweetener, there have been some results for

Stevia that it actually helps people with diabetes and their blood sugar control. As far as

improving anything or showing a health benefit, the only benefit would be if a diabetic is able to

reduce sugar in their diet. But there‟s no evidence of having an additional health benefit. If you

look at aspartame, all it is, is basically two amino acids linked together: aspartic acid and

phenylalanine, which are naturally occurring amino acids in foods, then there‟s methanol which

is a wood alcohol. Your body breaks down aspartame into those three components. Some people

raise concern about the methanol because it‟s toxic in very high amounts. The thing is you

actually get more methanol from fruit juice. We all have methanol in our diets because methanol

occurs naturally in fruits and fruit juices. You get more methanol from fruit than you would ever

get from aspartame. In small amounts, your body can handle methanol no problem. You need

really high doses of methanol for it to be toxic. Compared to a placebo, aspartame is not going to

lower your cholesterol or reduce you blood pressure.

Dave Asprey: Got it. That was kind of my general assumption. I think that there‟s no reason to

eat artificial sweeteners whatsoever when you can just eat food that doesn‟t taste sweet and have

positive effects from the food. I look at it this way. You‟re adding another variable that isn‟t

shown to have a positive effect and could potentially have a negative effect in terms of simplicity

and all. Cutting that out is not a bad idea but if you think you‟re going to die if it doesn‟t taste

sweet, maybe you need to do it for your stress. I eventually eliminated all artificial sweeteners

and just went with sugar alcohols or straight dextrose in my diet if I‟m looking for a little

cognitive boost just from getting my glycogen levels up because I couldn‟t find a reason to drink

a diet soda versus a Pellegrino. There was no possible positive thing I could determine there.

Let‟s move on to another area of passion for me. I‟m really interested in bacon as religion

actually. Ok, maybe not quite that far but I know that you‟ve done some work on preservatives

and particularly looking at nitrates. What‟s your take on bacon, on the level of nitrates or nitrites

in it, and where do you land on the bacon spectrum?

James Krieger: I don‟t know how much nitrates or nitrites are in bacon but what people don‟t

realize is nitrates and nitrites are found naturally in vegetables. There have been some concerns

that they could cause cancer and really where the concerns come from, these substances can be

converted to what is called N-nitrosyl compounds or nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are definitely

carcinogenic. Some people thought about whether the nitrates/nitrites were responsible for

possibly causing cancer. When you look at the nitrate in vegetables, you‟re also getting

antioxidants in vegetables and the antioxidants prevent the nitrosamines from forming. You‟re

not comparing apples to oranges when you compare nitrates in bacon and vegetables.

Dave Asprey: Actually, you kind of are because in the US the requirements for bacon are 60 mg

of ascorbic acid per kilo in order to block the effect of nitrosamine formation.

James Krieger: That‟s true. What it comes to is where the issue comes from. It‟s not really the

nitrates and the nitrites themselves. Where the problem can come from is actually when it comes

down to more red meats. What‟s been found is that the thing that makes red meat red in the heme

iron that‟s in it. The thing about heme iron is it increases N-nitrosyl formation so when you eat

red meat, especially a processed red meat like salami or pepperoni, you get a big elevation of

nitrosamine because of the heme iron that is in the meat. They found that when people eat red

meat or red processed meat, nitrosamine in the feces can increase by up to three times which is

similar to the observed increase with smoking. When you switch to white meat, it reduces fecal

nitrosamine levels.

When you look at epidemiological data, you see this association between red and processed meat

intake and colon cancer. The big thing that‟s really going on there is it‟s probably because of the

heme iron that‟s in the red and cured meats. It reacts with the nitrates and increases N-nitrosyl

compounds.

Dave Asprey: I have a question about that. Those turkey sliced weird things or reconstituted

chicken like what you would find in a chicken mcnugget, those are essentially cured chicken

products. Are those the sorts of things that are also going to cause this problem because you‟re

applying the same chemical processes to white meat or is cured white meat okay to the research

you‟re talking about?

James Krieger: I would say cured white meat is definitely better than red meats. As you

mentioned before, the bacon at least has the ascorbate in them but some other white meats may

not have those antioxidants in them. It‟s a tough question there with the cured white meats

because when you look at epidemiological data, you can look at red meat and processed meats

but when you try to break it down into different processed meats, it become hairy statistically.

Dave Asprey: The variable that very few people look at, one that is almost impossible to do

from a broad population perspective, is the formation of mycotoxins during curing and also in

what the animals ate. That‟s one of the things that makes it really tough because this batch of

bacon, depending on where it was cured and what the animal ate, may have very different levels

of things that formed in the curing process that are not nitrate related. Some of those molecules

we only learned how to identify in 1985. These are parts per million effective things. I‟ve got a

lecture on the side about that. I‟m very skeptical of all cured meats and I even tell people who are

going to eat bacon, which I consider to be healthy, don‟t burn it and make sure it was cured with

vitamin C and came from a healthy animal. It‟s kind of a high bar to pass but if you can do that

then you can eat bacon and feel really good and even experience cognitive benefits from it. I‟m

with you there, most cured meats, no matter what color they are, I wouldn‟t tough them with a

ten foot pole.

James Krieger: One thing I recommend to people, when you do consume meats, consume them

with fruits and vegetables because at least you‟re getting the antioxidants from them. That can

help reduce the nitrosamine formation.

Dave Asprey: It‟s good advice. I would also say if you are going to eat meat, take an antioxidant

capsule with it. The other trick that I‟ve seen and I wanted to get your take on this is that some of

the more organic, hippy bacon companies are saying it‟s nitrate free and instead they‟re using

celery powder, celery being the highest nitrite form that we know of. They are essentially taking

powdered nitrite that came from celery and saying it‟s nitrate free. Do you see any harm in that

practice using nitrite from celery instead of nitrate?

James Krieger: I don‟t see why that would be harmful.

Dave Asprey: I don‟t think so either. I think it‟s kind of misleading but it seems safe to me. I put

nitrate curing salts on the bacon that I make. I‟m okay with nitrates. The other thing that I‟m

curious if you‟ve come across is the role of probiotic in the gut on the formation of nitrosamines

inside the digest process.

James Krieger: When I wrote my article on that I really didn‟t look into the effects of the

bacteria in the gut.

Dave Asprey: It turns out there‟s pretty good research on that. Enough that I recommend take

your probiotics to have healthy gut flora and the formation of nitrosamines in the gut goes down

dramatically. Or you can do your trick where you eat things rich in antioxidants when you‟re are

going to eat things that may potentially form those harmful compounds. I know a lot of the paleo

crowd follows this podcast because the Bulletproof diet is paleo-compliant but it tries to reduce

toxins like mycotoxins and like nitrosamines through the recommended nutritional practices

there.

Armi Legge: One other question is about other preservatives as well and colorings and dyes.

What do you think about those? Are they similar to the artificial sweeteners we‟ve talking about?

I know there‟s some research linking some dyes and colors to ADHD and developmental

disorders. Do you have any evidence on that?

James Krieger: I haven‟t done enough reading into research about that area so I‟m not real

knowledgeable about the studies in that area. But you just gave me a great idea for what topic to

look into to write about on my site. Typically, just like with artificial sweeteners, there‟s going to

be an ADI where there has been no observed adverse effects to a certain dose. As far as the

studies linking to ADHD, I haven‟t read any of those studies so I can‟t offer an opinion to them.

Dave Asprey: We‟re running up on the end of our hour long, in depth, interview. It‟s been a

really good conversation with you. I appreciate it, James. I think I probably disagree that people

should take artificial sweeteners because there‟s no benefit from them and if there are risks, there

are no benefits, so they would fall on the “Why do it?” side of the Bulletproof program, but I do

like your science based, sane, non-hysterical approach to evaluating them. I appreciate that and

that‟s one of the reasons why we wanted you on the show to avoid picking a side and presenting

information that we believe to be right. That would be less scientific and we want to avoid that.

We‟re trying to get all of listeners to have the knowledge they need to make decisions and to

look at the effects of things like sweeteners, colorings or nitrates and evaluate for themselves if

it‟s the right choice.

Can you tell everyone where they can learn more about you? Tell us things you do in terms of

services for people and we will include links to everything you say on the show notes and we‟ll

have a full transcript of this up online shortly after we post the podcast.

James Krieger: My website is weightology.net. You can find everything there. I have a

subscription part of the site called Weightology Weekly where I review one to two journal

articles per week that mainly deal with weight loss and weight maintenance but occasionally I

cover other topics like artificial sweeteners. I try to take a very evidence based approach. I gather

all the studies I can on a topic, if it‟s a broad topic like artificial sweeteners or I‟ll go over one

study and I‟ll talk about what the researchers did, how you can take the results of that study and

apply them to your own life, what the limitations of the study are. So it‟s basically a weekly

research review and that‟s a subscription part of the site. I also have blog posts on there although

I haven‟t written one in a while but I done have some blog posts I eventually want to write. I also

do online weight loss and weight management consulting and I‟m also available to give lectures

and talks as well. I do want to thank you so much for the opportunity to interview and I really

appreciate you taking the time to interview me and discuss all these topics because obviously we

are all very passionate about it.

Dave Asprey: Thanks a ton for your time on the show today and I really look forward to hearing

more from you in the future.

Listener Q&A

Dave Asprey: Now we will start with the Upgraded Self Listener Q&A.

Armi Legge: The first question comes from @CriticalMAS on twitter. “Can you go into more

details on L-Glutamine? Who should take it, how much, when, etc. thanks.”

Dave Asprey: The best time to take L-glutamine is usually in the morning or the afternoon or if

you‟ve just gone on the Bulletproof diet, you may feel some food cravings. Any time you have a

food craving taking several grams of L-glutamine can help. It‟s available in capsules and it‟s

available in powder. Unless you‟re traveling, powder is way more convenient. L-glutamine has

almost no flavor. You can just mix it in a glass of plain water and it doesn‟t taste particularly like

anything. It also mixes quickly and easily. You can take as little as a gram and as much as up to

80 grams per day.

One of the things that I‟ve found that works is something that came out of 4-Hour Body which

was the idea of taking 80 grams of L-glutamine per day. I‟ve been taking it for about 17 years

now and anytime you have a headache, you‟re feeling down, you have low energy or you‟re

having a food craving, you can take some L-glutamine. It‟s the most common amino acid in the

body so when you take it by itself without any other proteins present it makes you feel really

good. It wakes your brain up and it can actually support your immune system and it gives you

energy. Some people take it before bed and if you take it before bed it can raise your growth

hormone levels at night, according to some research I‟ve read. However, if you take it before bed

and you have a hard time sleeping, it might be too stimulating for you. I usually have a scoop in

the morning, three times a week. The rest of the time I don‟t necessarily need it but generally I

look at it as a way to keep my gut healthy and to keep my brain in top shape.

Armi Legge: The next question comes from Clay. “What are your thoughts on Saw Palmetto

and health, particularly for hair loss? You all mentioned in a recent podcast that niacin is in

coffee. What are your thoughts on supplementing with nicotine gum for focus?”

Dave Asprey: Saw Palmetto works absolutely for prostate inflammation so if you‟re a guy who

has to pee a lot, you should take Saw Palmetto. It will help you. A lot of men over 40 do feel

good on Saw Palmetto. I actually needed to take that stuff about 10 years ago because I hadn‟t

gotten my health to where it is now and I had more chronic inflammation including prostate

inflammation so I had to go the bathroom more than I liked. Saw Palmetto actually fixed it

within a month.

In terms of it working for hair loss, I‟m a little skeptical there. I‟ve seen some research. It

seemed a little bit sketchy but it was research that basically said it had something to do with

blocking DHT which is one of the testosterone metabolites. I don‟t want to say it doesn‟t work

but I haven‟t seen enough that would make me want to go out and buy it.

In terms of niacin being in coffee, yeah that‟s an interesting little side note there. In terms of

supplementing with nicotine gum for focus, I think it‟s a bad idea. It‟s not that I have a problem

with nicotine; it‟s that I have a problem with the crap they put in there to make it taste good.

Every nicotine gum I‟ve found has Nutrasweet or other additives in it that are particularly not

healthy for you. Aspartame, despite what you heard on the show today, I think that there is

plenty of evidence that there is no benefit to taking aspartame and I also believe that there are

some substantial dangers to doing it. Why you would choose to supplement with nicotine for

focus while adding something that can have a cognitive effect that doesn‟t help with focus – not

a good call.

What I use for mental focus, maybe once or twice a month, is the patch. I go out and buy the

nicotine patch and I also think that e-cigarettes would be healthier for you than chewing the gum.

The e-cigs, if you by the right flavor, have only have propylene glycol and nicotine in them. I

don‟t think propylene glycol burned is probably that good for you but it‟s probably better for you

than the additives to the gums. I also don‟t think you should do this every day and get addicted

but providing some extra niacin and some extra nicotine for the nicotinic receptors in your brain

does help with creativity. That‟s why you see so many famous artists and writers sit back, relax,

and take a puff. They are doing something to hack their brains. They are self medicating and I

don‟t see anything wrong with doing this. Nicotine without all the crap that‟s in cigarette smoke

doesn‟t appear to be that bad for you. There is some conflicting evidence there but frankly I‟d

rather have nicotine than aspartame any day of the week.

Armi Legge: The research that I‟ve seen shows that almost all the mutagenic and carcinogenic

effects of tobacco are in the tobacco plant itself and that nicotine if fairly benign. As you said, I

don‟t think it‟s a good idea to take it every day but I think the dangers of taking it are a little

overhyped in a lot of circles.

Dave Asprey: It totally is and there‟s also a problem where the fuzz on tobacco leaves pick up a

radioactive element from the soil that gets concentrated there. But nicotine itself doesn‟t appear

to be the bad guy compared to smoke from burning moldy leaves because the curing process for

tobacco is one of basically fermentation. There‟s a lot of bizarre stuff in a smoke that is not

present in nicotine.

Armi Legge: The next question comes from Ron. “How does the Bulletproof Diet differ from

paleo?”

Dave Asprey: They are compliant so if you eat the Bulletproof diet you are mostly paleo

although some paleo purists will say butter doesn‟t belong on the paleo diet. Most paleo guys

will tolerate the saturated fat in butter. The difference here is that the Bulletproof diet is carefully

designed to avoid a bunch of common food toxins. The belief for the paleo diet people is that we

can predict or at least guest what our ancestors ate and with some anthropological evidence, we

can do that. Then we should eat like our ancestors ate. I generally kind of agree with that.

There‟s only one problem. Our ancestors didn‟t have mass spectrometers, test tubes, and genetic

tests. We do and to ignore those things would be unevolved.

What the Bulletproof diet did is we started from scratch and thought “What are the optimal

things to eat whether cavemen ate them or astronauts ate them?” It doesn‟t matter. What brings

about the best health and the best lifelong longevity and we went there. It turns out what I built

with the Bulletproof diet over the years was very close to paleo but the role of mycotoxins and a

few other toxins isn‟t accounted for in paleo. Also, more recently, you‟ve seen the paleo diets

talk about oxidized oils as being a bigger deal but you don‟t hear nearly as much about denatured

protein and about some of the heterocyclic amines. What I did is I went through the world of

toxins that‟s in our food, how they form, how they get there and then helped people in that one

infographic for the Bulletproof diet to choose foods which naturally have the least occurring

toxins and then chose cooking techniques that introduce less toxins so at the end of the day, it‟s

an anti-inflammatory diet that has about six or seven other ways it works that are different than

paleo. It‟s complimentary. You can be on the Bulletproof diet and still go to a paleo conference

and not hang your head in shame. I believe based on my own experience that you‟ll out perform

a paleo purist with the Bulletproof diet because you‟ll be getting less toxins in your food.

Armi Legge: Dave and I were just talking about this yesterday about how the paleo diet doesn‟t

really control cooking methods in a lot of ways. You‟ll hear some talk about using butter or

coconut oil to fry your eggs but it‟s better not to cook them at all. That‟s just one of many things.

The Bulletproof diet is probably 80% the same as paleo but there‟s that 20% that is very

different.

Dave Asprey: It‟s kind of funny because the majority of weight gain, way more than people

believe, comes from parts per million level exposure to mycotoxins. Some of the mycotoxins we

cut out of the Bulletproof diet are effective at parts per million and they are a thousand times

stronger than our naturally occurring estrogens. So if you‟re getting xenoestrogens, the kind we

use to fatten cattle, you‟re getting those through eating a certain food that‟s “on the paleo diet”

but is full of toxins, you will not achieve the results you‟re looking for whether it‟s cognitive

performance, stable mood or just to be lean and have muscles without spending two hours a day

in the gym. All of those things, it just matters there. Over time I‟ve said here‟s this diet. It

actually took six weeks just to create the infographic to try and bring all these datapoints in and

just to be able to guide people to say “Look, instead of trying to be perfect, this food is better

than this food because it has more nutrients and has less toxins.” Then at least you know when

you put something on your plate where it lies on the spectrum of “Good god, don‟t eat that!” to

“This is a perfect food” and you can just choose foods that are slightly more perfect that the bad

foods and you‟re already on your way to improving your healthy.

Armi Legge: If you‟re on the fence, just know this. The Bulletproof diet allows you to eat lots of

chocolate and drink lots of coffee, if it‟s the right kind of chocolate and coffee, and the paleo diet

always has those things in the moderation category. So if you‟re on the fence and you like

chocolate, the Bulletproof diet is for you.

The next question comes from Anthony. “I recently started adopting a few of the lifestyle and

diet changes you recommend and could not be more pleased with the results – I feel like a

different person. I would like to ask you a question about your Better Baby Book. Do you have

an update of when it will be available (I live in the UK)? I have a 5 month old baby boy who we

are soon to start introducing solids to and would love your advice on what would be best to give

him – or any other advice while we wait for the book!”

Dave Asprey: First the book is coming out probably mid next year from Wiley & Sons.

Interestingly, it was Gary Taubes who introduced me to his agent at ICM so the reason that we

ended up selling out book there was because Gary gave us a hand. It looks like it‟s going to be

middle of next year. We have the manuscript in, we‟re doing a final edit to the second revision of

it, then it‟s up to them about when they publish it because they purchase the rights to it. We‟re

pushing to have it sooner than later.

The Better Baby Book covers what to do before and during pregnancy, basically up to and

including birth and it kind of stops there. So the question here “What do you do for babies

already born to improve their health?” is pretty important. First thing, breastfeed. That would be

one of my topic five baby hacks, if you want to call it that. When you‟re breastfeeding, eat the

Bulletproof diet. I cannot express in stronger terms. Those toxins we just talked about, they get

passed through breast milk so if you‟re a mom or you‟re married to a mom and you have a young

baby that‟s breastfeeding, what mommy eats is terribly important. There‟s no excuse for eating

Doritos and breasting feeding. It‟s just not okay. A lot of moms make this mistake. They have

their baby then they have wine and nachos or a donut. Those nutrients go right into the kid and

you‟ll actually notice colic-behavior and your baby screams all night long. You want to eat the

lowest toxin diet you can get and in my mind that‟s the Bulletproof diet.

That would be number one. In terms of introducing solids, the first solids that we did was egg

yolks. Very, very lightly cooked egg yolks but essentially runny egg yolks. It‟s full of stuff that‟s

really good for kids and they actually really like it believe it or not. They can be a little bit messy

but that was something positive. Egg whites are more allergenic and you want to wait for the first

year there.

There other thing that turns out to be terribly important for little kids is being held a lot and this

is really frustrating as a parent and you just want to go to sleep. It turns out that just physical

contact for that first year is one of those things that creates babies who have better nervous

systems later on in life. As long as they‟re feeling safe and cuddled and just close to human

beings, their autonomic nervous system gets calmer and you get epigenetic effects that cause the

baby, what we call in the book, growth mood, which basically it‟s working on flourishing rather

than fear mood where it‟s more protecting and defending itself. It‟s kind of strange but it actually

has a genetic level effect. Kids who feel really comfortable and safe even more than we would

like to provide as new parents, will perform better later in life. I‟m absolutely convinced of that.

Armi Legge: What about MCT oil? Did you ever give that to your kids when they were little?

Dave Asprey: You know, absolutely. In fact, one of the things that we gave our kids, we mixed

it in water so it wasn‟t quite solid, was MCT oil and predigest hydrolyzed collagen. It‟s an

extremely building block for the body. It‟s one of the more common proteins. Your bone matrix

is actually made out of collagen as well as the lining for all of your organs, your skin, your hair,

so our kids always get collagen. They have it most days, sometimes we skip. When they were

young, they both got it every single day. When they wake up, we gave them some collagen and

water. That‟s one of those things where it‟s very unlikely to cause a problem and because it‟s

predigest already before you take it, the body can take it up relatively quickly. Some MCT oil

but not enough to cause the runs, and coconut oil and butter were early on the diet for sure.

White rice is also low in toxins and kids do need some carbs. They need more carbs than adults

but not too many carbs all the time because you blunt their ability to make ketones that they need

in order to add fat to their brain. Until you‟re seven, you only get fat into your brain by making

ketones.

Armi Legge: The next question is from Lydia. “Could I use the HRV monitor on my Garmin

405 to achieve „coherence‟ instead of buying the emWave2? After listening to your podcast with

Tim Noakes about the Central Governor Model of fatigue, I‟m curious if it would make sense to

take cognitive enhancers during a hard workout in addition to the usual carbohydrate

supplementation to fight fatigue during endurance events?”

Dave Asprey: The first question. No you can‟t. The signal rate isn‟t high enough and the

algorithms aren‟t there. In order to look at HRV, you need to look at how fast did this heartbeat

happen versus the one before it. What you can get from the heart rate monitor, you can say

“What‟s my average beats per minute now?” but they‟re not doing the beat to beat change and

graphing that out. It‟s a different data set and also when you‟re moving a lot, it affects your HRV

measurement so if you‟re jogging, doing HRV is very difficult to do. You need to hold still for a

minute to get your actually variability. Moving around changes that quite a lot.

As to whether it makes sense to take cognitive enhancers during a hard workout, heck yeah! I

believe I read somewhere that one organizing body has looked at piracetam or aniracetam, which

is what we have on the site, but just looked that those as a performance enhancing substance. I

believe it‟s allowed in most sports but I would actually check on that. One effect of piracetam

and the other racetams is to increase oxygen in the brain without increasing blood flow. If you

believe in the Central Governor Theory that we talked about in the other podcast with Tim

Noakes, it seems that having more oxygen in your brain in a time when your body might be

really working hard to get enough oxygen might be a good idea. I‟d certainly do it. I recently

started working out for a couple minutes a day, ending my two year exercising fast. I take

aniracetam everyday and I noticed it makes a different especially at high altitudes and stuff like

mountaineering. I would never go a near a mountain without aniracetam.

Armi Legge: That makes perfect sense. I would definitely urge people to make sure it‟s legit in

any sport you‟re competing in. The International Olympic Committee actually outlawed caffeine

a few years ago. It was banned for five or ten years so it‟s definitely worth checking on because

you don‟t want to get pulled out from a race.

Dave Asprey: That‟s also a really good reason to not be a professional athlete. If I had to choose

between going to the Olympics and having Bulletproof coffee, I don‟t think it‟s really that much

of a choice for me. What about you, Armi?

Armi Legge: I don‟t know. It‟s tough but if it was Beijing, I probably wouldn‟t go because I‟m

kind of phobic about the air quality over there. But it depends, I don‟t know. I‟m kinda of OCD

that way.

Dave Asprey: Yeah, I was actually over in Beijing three weeks ago and I don‟t know what color

the sky was but it definitely wasn‟t blue.

There‟s one other thing to mention about aniracetam. When you fly it‟s a really good thing to

take. I highly recommend that because you‟re in a low oxygen environment then. If you want to

laid and feel good when you land whether it‟s because you‟re an athlete or an executive flying

internationally. And there‟s another little thing that people often times don‟t know about

aniracetam and its relatives, is that it actually helps mitochondrial function around the body.

Getting a boost in your mitochondrial function is a very big thing for people whether they are

athletes, entrepreneurs, moms and dads. It doesn‟t matter. Having your power plants work better

– good choice.

Armi Legge: That‟s actually a great segway into the next question and this is from me. “Does

piracetam help with ADHD symptoms?”

Dave Asprey: This is one of those things where you have to rely on your own biohacking.

There‟s so many things that help with ADD including the Bulletproof diet. That will really

change your focus just because you get rid of some of those toxins that do weird things to your

brain but my experience as someone who was formerly diagnosed ADD as well as a bunch of

Asperger‟s related things. Yeah, it was one of the first smart drugs I tried was piracetam. That

was before I knew about aniracetam being a newer analog that was more powerful, but I found it

helped me concentrate quite a lot at work. At the time I started taking this I had just become an

executive at a high flying internet company. We were the top performing stock on the NASDAQ

in 1998. I was working really, really hard and I really don‟t know if I could have done what I did

if I hadn‟t taken piracetam on a daily basis because I just felt like I couldn‟t focus without it.

Now I don‟t need it to focus because my brain is trained, my health is back, and my diet is right

but piracetam is a total booster and for people with ADD or ADHD, I think it‟s a really smart

thing to take. It‟s not expensive. It‟s much safer than Adderall or things like that.

Armi Legge: Yeah, those things have some nasty side effects.

Dave Asprey: I took a stack of smart drugs when I got my MBA at Wharton when I was

working fulltime at a startup which ended up selling for almost $600 million. Working fulltime

and getting a fulltime MBA, this was an executive program but the same number of hours as a

fulltime MBA. It‟s takes a lot out of you. It‟s really tough. I found that piracetam was

particularly helpful during that time.

Armi Legge: The next question is from Eric. “What are your thoughts on multi-vitamins? Do

you also take a multi? Is it worth it to take one?”

Dave Asprey: Well, this is a tough call. The one-a-day multivitamins, not say what that one-a-

day brand is, the ones that say “You just need this and you‟ll feel better”, it mostly marketing.

There simply isn‟t enough room in a multivitamin, even for the magnesium your body needs.

Magnesium is a big molecule. I take a fancy form of magnesium and I take five of those pills

because magnesium is a big molecule. If you believe you need to supplement calcium, it‟s also a

big molecule. Although I think most people shouldn‟t be taking calcium. You get too much in

your diet. I don‟t take any calcium but I have high blood levels of it and in truth, I take two rare

forms of calcium that are detoxing things but I don‟t take any supplemental calcium like the ones

I hear people pounding drums about for big bone growth. It doesn‟t work.

So those are the two biggest molecule but the rest of the stuff that is in those vitamins often times

there‟s not enough of it to put those things in. There are multivitamins that work and most of the

time you need between seven and nine pills a day and sometimes up to 16 depending on how

complete the multivitamin is so those work. But if you‟re going to be taking 16 pills a day, you

might want to consider specializing and taking “This is my vitamin B pill. This is my calcium or

this is my magnesium, this is my amino acid” because if you mix and match, you can actually

tell what‟s working and you can actually make changes. If you‟re just taking the same

multivitamins a day and one ingredient disagrees with you, you‟ll never know. Over the course

of the last 20 years of what I would call relatively aggressive supplementation, I‟ve steered

away, especially in the last five years, from taking a multivitamin but I take a mixed mineral pill.

I actually take two mixed mineral pills. They give me all of the minerals I need including trace

minerals and more common minerals. Then I take three different vitamin B pills but none of

them are B complex because B complexes aren‟t that well designed, and you‟re often times

going to get too much B6.

I would say for people taking no vitamins, get a high quality multivitamin that has at least has

seven pills recommended per day that will probably have enough stuff in it to be helpful for you

but the ideal biohacker way to do this is to figure out what vitamins you want, buy those

vitamins, and mix them yourself. Basically take two out of this bottle, one out of this bottle. A

little more work but the effects on your body and cognition will be things that you can test and

you‟ll be able to feel a difference and one the day when you have ton of carbs you shouldn‟t

have you can actually up your antioxidants, up your alpha lipoic acid and you can basically do

things that can help you absorb your nutrition better based on what you eat. Those are

advantages of using vitamins but multivitamins prevent you from ever learning that.

Armi Legge: As a general rule, I pretty much say you shouldn‟t take multivitamins just because

the majority of people who ask if they should take a multivitamin are the ones who are going to

go out and buy the regular, generic brand from Costco or GNC, and a lot of times what people

don‟t know is that not only are they useless. A lot of times they have versions of these

supplements that are bad for you like sodium selenite or folic acid. You‟re body doesn‟t actually

need folic acid. It‟s not very good for your and it actually increased your risk of colon cancer.

Dave Asprey: It‟s actually a little more complicated then not needing folic acid. Folinic acid,

which is the activated form of folic acid is something you need when you‟re drinking green tea.

Green tea, especially for pregnant women, depletes the levels of folic and folinic acid in your

body and all of the folates that are related to it. Supplementing there actually does make sense for

preventing neural tube defects. There are some studies that are against folic acid and I actually

don‟t think taking folic, in the unactivated form, in a good idea but folinic and other mixed folate

supplements are probably a good idea.

Armi Legge: Completely agree. Folate in itself or tetrahydrofolate, the technical name, is

absolutely necessary. It‟s one of the B vitamins but taking the form of folic acid that‟s in the

general multivitamin is probably not a good idea.

Dave Asprey: There‟s another thing too and I actually started a vitamin company once and I‟m

in the middle of formulating some things now and I do work with anti-aging researchers in the

nonprofit space. I have a good amount of experience here and there‟s always this temptation

when you‟re making a supplement to say “People have heard that this expensive thing is good

for you so since this is a mixed pill and it has 20 things in it, I‟m going to include lutein or I‟m

going to include some other sexy sounding thing, but I‟ll just put one microgram” instead of one

milligram which would be the recommended dose. And most people are never going to notice so

you can put on the label “Contains Coenzyme Q10” or contains something that is relatively

pricey. Most multivitamins have poor quality binders, they‟re coated in stuff that ought not to be

in the body like titanium dioxide, and it‟s just a bad idea. If you‟re going to do it, you‟re

probably going to spend north of $50 a month on a good quality multivitamin and it‟s going to

have a whole bunch of stuff and you‟ll have to take more pills then you‟d probably like to

swallow.

Steer clear of the Costco multivitamin pack and Walgreens and all the other sort of common over

the counter things. Quality matters even more in supplements than it does in food and it‟s really

important in both places. Don‟t mess around. Don‟t short change yourself by buying the cheap

stuff. Buy the good stuff.

Armi Legge: Right. As a general rule, we do like people to supplement individually with exactly

what they need but we will include a pretty good multivitamin to the show notes of this episode.

The next question is from Rich. “What your recommendations for the best cookware? Should I

use cast iron, stainless steel, porcelain, etc.”

Dave Asprey: This is something I‟ve worked on for years and it‟s not as obvious as you think.

You definitely do not want to be using straight stainless steel. Unfortunately restaurants are

required to use stainless steel even though you will get nickel in your food from it because

stainless steel contains nickel and nickel is one of the metals you don‟t really want in your body

especially if you are cooking tomato sauce or anything with acid. That just kind of happens when

you go out to eat. At home, you don‟t need to do that to yourself. Case iron, I don‟t recommend

because it puts a lot of iron in your food and the iron is actually very pro-oxidative in the body

unless you have anemia which you shouldn‟t have when you‟re on the Bulletproof diet. You

don‟t really need to eat things done in cast iron. Not a good idea. So that leaves us with what

kinds of cookware isn‟t going to leave your food picking up stuff you don‟t want in it. Clearly,

Teflon is out. At or above 400 degrees, Teflon does emit gas. There‟s some fluorine effects and I

know it‟s really convenient to cook with this stuff but we know for a fact that on an electric or

gas stove some part of the pan rich higher than 450 degrees even if the whole pan doesn‟t. I don‟t

like it but that‟s the way it is.

So what‟s left? You can go with a porcelain or you can go with a Pyrex pan or you can go with

some ceramics. Those are your choices. Ceramics are nice in that they are relatively light weight

but like the Pyrex or the glass pans, they hold a ton of heat. So what I did is I went out and

bought myself a set of Le Creuset, the cool looking, heavy duty, basically cast iron with a heavy

enamel inside them. I bought those because I was thinking it will keep my family from getting

stuff from cookware and since we cook a lot at home, this matters. There‟s just one problem. If

you have Pyrex or you have Le Creuset or you have ceramic, they hold so much heat that you‟re

going to burn your food. You are going to oxidize the oils and denature the proteins cause when

you pull it off the burner, it keep cooking for maybe five to ten minutes just as the heat radiates

from the pan.

Now, if you look at the cooking section of the Bulletproof diet on the inforgraphic, lightly

cooked protein and fat is much better than well done. I found that a relatively qualified chef in

the kitchen, I could not control temperature well enough in my food. I have the sous-vide set up

where I can have one degree increments in food. Heavy duty metal pans will destroy the quality

of your cooking and they make your food less healthy. I finally settled on relatively thin pans

that are coated with enamel on the inside so they are basically white enameled pans on the inside

and they are makes by a company called Tivoli. If I can find them, we‟ll put a link there. I

actually just bought them at a local department store. So relatively thin enameled pans are the

way to go.

Armi Legge: That‟s going to finish it for the listener Q&A section of this podcast. If you have

questions for the podcast, you can contact us on Twitter, find us on facebook, or you can leave a

question to the show notes to this episode. The show notes will be displays on

bulletproofexec.com along with links to everything we talked about.

Dave Asprey: If I could just break in for a moment, Armi. I am really stoked. We have so many

great comments. People have been emailing in and posting on the commenting system on the

blog that finally we made the investment to launch a forum and people are already asking a lot of

questions. Andrew and Armi and I are working hard to answer questions there. We‟ll do our

best. Sometimes it takes a few days and often times if you know the answer to a question

someone has asked, please answer it for them and we can get some community involvement just

to get people to perform better. I‟m super stoked on this and I‟m thankful to everyone who takes

the time to come visit the forum and ask questions.

Biohacker Report

Dave Asprey: Now it‟s time for the biohacker report which is the part of the show where we

bring you some of the latest research that has caught our attention.

The first study we saw comes out of the University of Pittsburg and was published in the Journal

of American Psychosomatic Society. They found in “Healthy Older Adults‟ Sleep Predicts All-

Cause Mortality at 4 to 19 Years of Follow-Up”. They took a look at healthy older adults and

said “How do they sleep and what‟s going to happen to them almost 20 years later?” This is an

observational study and what they found when they looked at this population is that the better the

quality of your sleep, the longer you live. They came to that conclusion based on research from

184 men and women and they were looking at age groups 58-91 and the average time they

looked at these people was 13 years. If you think about, things like artificial light, television, the

internet which causes you to stare at a brightly lit screen, all of those mean the quality of our

sleep is probably worse. One of the effects of that is that your healthy can suffer. Sleep

researchers are “pretty sure about this”. If you don‟t get enough sleep, it reduces your maximal

oxygen uptake, it stimulates weight gains, and it lowers testosterone levels. Now you might say

“But Dave, you‟re a biohacker and you usually sleep five hours a night or less and sometimes as

little as two hours” which is totally true. This is one of the reasons why eating a high energy, low

toxin diet and doing other things that stimulate your body to heal itself and take up oxygen and to

not gain weight. You need to counter that. If you‟re not going to get enough sleep, you need to

improve the quality of sleep you do get and you need to make sure you take care of your body. It

is doable but it‟s work.

The next study was on “The effect of particle size of whole-grain flour on plasma glucose,

insulin, glucagon and thyroid-stimulating hormone in humans.” This comes out of the Beltsville

Human Nutrition Research Center from the US Department of Agriculture and it got published in

the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. What this study found was that whole grains

cause a much higher insulin load than even pure glucose regardless of the whole grain content.

So the idea that you need whole grains or that they‟re good for you is a myth. I think that‟s been

very well established and people who started repeating that myth often times are misinformed or

they really want to stick to it because they love their grains. Unfortunately, those grains are not

doing favors for the human body. You‟re better off eating white flour versus whole grains

because you get less anti-nutrients in white flour. Or you could just eat the Bulletproof diet

which means that you don‟t need any flour at all and you‟ll still do better and I think that it‟s

hilarious that pure glucose, something that I would use for cognitive stimulation on rare

occasions. A couple teaspoons of glucose in Bulletproof coffee before a test will help your brain

function and you‟ll feel good. It can also help with athletic performance. That is actually better

for you than flour. The fact that it‟s published by the Department of Agriculture is pretty

important. It is kind of hard to dispute that you need grains to live.

The final thing here was a study on “Concord grape juice supplementation improves memory

function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.” This was published in a really

reputable journal, The British Journal of Nutrition, and came out of the Department of Psychiatry

at the University of Cincinnati. They looked at plain, boring Concord grape juice, which is a

pretty common form of grape juice, and they said it contains polyphenols which have antioxidant

and anti-inflammatory properties and are actually good for influencing neuronal signaling.

Concord grape juice has been shown in their study to reduce inflammation, to lower blood

pressure, and to improve vascular pathology in individuals who have heart attacks or disease in

the cardiovascular region. They found that if you have flavonoids, like you find in grape juice,

that it reduces your risk for dementia. So they are basically saying polyphenols and flavonoids

are good for your brain and good for your heart. Unfortunately, they found that the people who

drank this juice had higher fasting insulin so it looks to me that this is one of those studies where

here are a few things that are good so take the good things but along with it take a whole bunch

of fructose which comes with grape juice as well as take a whole bunch of other toxins that come

from moldy grapes that get squeezed into the grape juice. I‟m a little skeptical that the best way

to get your flavonoids and polyphenols is grape juice. We have these other two amazing drinks

called green tea and coffee which are full of polyphenols and antioxidants that also affect

cognitive function that are much better for you than grape juice.

You could also take something I‟ve been a fan of for a very long time and that‟s an antioxidant

called grape seed extract. It has those same flavonoids and polyphenols in it. They‟re probably

different flavonoids and polyphenols to be honest but it‟s affect on oxidation and even

cardiovascular health is pretty darn amazing. Earlier in my life, probably the first half of my life

when I was obese, I used to have very bad, chronic nosebleeds. It turns out this was because I

lived in a house that had toxic mold and it did damage to the collagen in my body. Every day my

nose would bleed at least once or five or six times depending on what I did that day. This was

really not cool. You go on a date and say “I‟ll be right back. There‟s blood pouring down my

face.” It was that bad. So what fixed it? Grape seed extract. It is an amazing antioxidant and I can

tell you flat out taking one grape seed extract pill a day versus a glass of grape juice, there‟s no

question in terms of health benefits which one is better for you. There‟s no anti-nutrients in the

grape seed extract but there are in the grape juice.

Conclusion

Dave Asprey: If you enjoyed this, you can help by leaving a positive ranking on iTunes. To

learn more about biohacking you can also follow us on Twitter @bulletproofexec or you can

check the blog at bulletproofexec.com and again, please visit our forum. We‟d love to have your

comments and questions and your thoughts there.