Professional Grade Supplements for WiseAthletes

Food as medicine is an old idea...it's the original idea on how to be a healthy person dating back more than 2000 years, but can food be the way to achieve athletic longevity? Can wise athletes target certain foods to target faster recovery, better health, and longer life? Can it be done without extreme or highly restrictive diets?

Today on episode 145, I am joined by Dr William Li...a physician, scientist and author of "eat to beat disease" and "eat to beat your diet" to discuss his research on using plant and animal based foods to boost our 5 body defense systems to fend off the chronic diseases associated with aging. And, in particular, I asked Dr Li to talk about combating chronic inflammation and activating stem cells to rebuild our body.

All right, let's talk to Dr Li .

• William W. Li, MD, is a physician, scientist and author of the New York Times bestsellers “Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself” and “Eat to Beat Your Diet: Burn Fat, Heal Your Metabolism, and Live Longer.” His research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact care for more than 70 diseases including diabetes, blindness, heart disease and obesity. His TED Talk, “Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?” has been viewed more than 11 million times. He is President and Medical Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and he is leading global initiatives on food as medicine.

• Science shows many foods can prevent, halt or even reverse cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other life-threatening chronic diseases.
• Over the past decade, the Angiogenesis Foundation has discovered and gathered evidence that fruits, vegetables, herbs, seafood, tea, coffee, and even chocolate contain natural substances — bioactives — that can prevent and intercept disease by influencing angiogenesis and other defense systems in the body.
• What we eat and drink is enormously impactful when it comes to preventing disease.

• Each of these systems is influenced by diet. When you know what to eat, to support each system, you can then use your diet to maintain health and beat disease. The five defense systems are angiogenesis, regeneration, microbiome, DNA protection, and immunity.
• Angiogenesis: The process by which blood vessels are formed. Angiogenesis keeps the sixty thousand miles of blood vessels found in your body working to support health and fight disease. This is the common component in cancer tumors. Barley and mushrooms are good for growing blood vessels where you need them.
• Regeneration: The process of creating and renewing 750,000 stem cells that power our bodies. Stem cells maintain, repair and regenerate our bodies. Avoid too much salt, saturated fat, alcohol, smoking. Do eat dark chocolate, barley, mushrooms, fruit skins (apple, pear, peach, strawberry...also anti-inflammatory)...to get stem cells to come out to heal the body.
• Microbiome: The bacteria that is found within our bodies that act to defend our health.
• DNA Protection: This is our genetic blueprint. Foods can help repair damaged DNA caused by daily living, but can also help lengthen our telomeres, which protect DNA and slow aging.
• Immunity: Our immunity defends our health. Too much or too little of each of the above d...

Professional Grade Supplements for WiseAthletes

Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell....yes, but what does that mean? What can we do, as Wise Athletes, to have enough healthy mitochondria in our muscles and everywhere else powering our bodily functions for optimal brain power, energy levels, we well as muscle power and endurance?

These questions and more are addressed by Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, neurologist, mitochondrial researcher, lifelong elite athlete. Mark is the real deal who knows both sides of the story....the science and the practice of building muscle and VO2Max for performance today and a long stay on the planet as a strong athlete.

All right, let's talk to Dr Tarnopolsky about the single best way to stay healthy and strong as we get older....exercise.

• Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, CEO and CSO, Exerkine Corporation,
• Director of Neuromuscular and Neurometabolic Clinic,
• McMaster University Medical Center

• "We all are suffering from the mitochondrial disease called aging"
• "An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure"...Muscle loss prevention is ideal but it’s never too late to restart exercising; benefits accrue to everyone who starts exercising at any age.
• Aerobic training is very good, but we also need weight training. Exercise provides a modest 4-year lifespan extension but a 10-year healthspan extension as it lengthens the time in life we can be mobile and take care of ourselves.
• Do at least 30 minutes of exercise everyday
• VO2Max is a function of and delivery of oxygen (heart stroke volume and heart rate) and extraction of oxygen (capillarization of blood vessels into muscle and mitochondrial volume to use oxygen)
• Vo2max:
• At rest: 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kg of body weight per minute
• Min. to live without assistance: 12 ml/kg/min
• Mark's VO2Max at his athletic peak: 88.2 ml/kg/min
• VO2Max falls from 25/30 yo but older athletes have higher vo2max than sedentary young people
• But VO2Max isn’t enough for longevity. We need 3x/week of endurance training for VO2Max and 2-3x week of resistance training to build and maintain muscle mass.
• Longevity metrics: VO2Max, leg strength, waist-to-hip circumference
• Elite athletes need 2x the protein of sedentary people
• Don’t train with futility: Get enough high quality protein (aim for 1.2g/kg), don’t be deficient in Vit D (take a supplement), get sufficient calcium in diet. Milk and egg whites are the best quality proteins. Collagen is low quality protein (used as the no-protein control in experiments)
• Running or cycling at 65% of VO2Max (approx. lactate threshold; top of zone 2) 3-5x per week for 30-60 minutes a day will increase mitochondria.
• Interval training will increase the pace and HR possible at a zone 2 (“all day pace” of work) by increasing the lactate threshold. Once lactate starts to accumulate, it is only a matter of time before exhaustion sets in.
• Weight training in untrained older people does build mitochondria, and there is a spill over into VO2Max development
• Weight training for endurance athletes is about building muscle mass for strength and healthspan
• Fast vs. Slow twitch:
• Slow are the endurance fibers that are full of mitochondria, can go all day without fatigue, can burn every fuel we have with oxygen, but are smaller (to allow better oxygen delivery) and slower to turn fuel into energy. These fibers and their mitochondria come from a demand (cons...

Professional Grade Supplements for WiseAthletes

We all want a healthy heart, lungs, and brain. Can you guess at the single behavior that connects the dots on solving: the ability to run or ride at the same speed using 25% less breathing, reducing the occurrence of the so called exercise induced asthma or bronchoconstriction (EIB), eliminating side stitches while running, avoiding frequent sinus infections and bronchitis, and even dodging aFib and dementia?...and what if it cost you nothing but your attention? Well, listen to this: The latest science is showing us that while breathing with an open mouth allows for an increase in ventilation, increases work capacity (think: vo2max), and actually feels more comfortable and normal, doing so also predisposes us to a variety of potential health problems over time. Right, today we are going to talk about nasal breathing.

while nasal breathing may have fallen off the internet talk circuit as a popular biohack, wise athletes should always pick the low hanging fruit.

so coming back to our show on episode 143, the one and only Dr George Dallam walks us through his personal benefits from adapting to nasal breathing nearly 20 years ago, and the latest research into the health and physical performance benefits available to us all...without ingesting any chemicals, or changing our diet, or buying a single thing. All you have to do is breath through your nose. Its a simple prescription; ....if only it was easy to learn.... i say since i have failed to fully adapt in the two years since i first spoke with dr dallam...

All right, let's talk to George Dallam, author of the just published book, the-nasal-breathing-paradox-during-exercise

George Dallam PhD

Dr. Dallam holds the rank of Distinguished Professor in the School of Health Science and Human Movement at Colorado State University - Pueblo (CSUP). Dr. Dallam has been involved in numerous research studies examining various aspects of triathlon performance and training, diabetes risk factor modification, and the effects of functional movement improvement on running. His primary research interest recently is focused on the capability of human beings to adapt to nasal only breathing during exercise as a way to improve both health and performance.

Dr. Dallam has received both the United States Olympic Committee's Doc Counsilman Science in Coaching award (2004) and the National Elite Coach of the Year award (2005) for triathlon. Finally, Dr. Dallam has been continuously training and competing in triathlon since 1981.

• Better filtering of particles and viruses (less nasal infection, bronchitis). Filtering becomes even more important when exercising because we take in so much more air.
• Less water lost though breathing
• Less energy spent on breathing (more energy for locomotion); higher O2 extracted per breath (higher efficiency)
• Recovery from “EIB” exercise induced bronchoconstriction (exercise induced asthma)
• Provides a powerful training stimulus to improve fitness…make you faster even if you go back to mouth breathing in high intensity efforts, such as races
• Improved stress management
• Better sleep, and overall improved recovery from exercise (lower stress, avoidance of snoring)
• Better posture and movement ability with improved diaphragm activity
• Functional movement benefits —diaphragm is a major core muscle that is u...