These medical breakthroughs can add 5+ years to your life

High Octane Friends Podcast Episode #2 also available on YouTube 

Co-hosts Trevor McKee & Rob McMullan highlight breakthrough medical research, insights and evidence on these topics:  

• Critical thinking applied to health
  
  
• Current vaccination science
  
  
• The best sources of medical information and how to read scientific articles
  
  
• New research linking intermittent fasting to a higher incidence of heart disease
  
  
• The best nutrients & superfoods, which can improve mental and physical health, and even IQ
  
  
• New and improved exercise strategies and learnings
  
  
• Habits that are critical to health 
  
  
• AI-enabled advances in disease prevention, diagnosis and care
  
  

The High Octane Friends podcast is where Rob McMullan & Trevor McKee discuss a variety of subjects in an authentic and unvarnished way.

Rob McMullan LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/robmcmullan
Trevor McKee LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/trevordmckee
High Octane Friends website
highoctanefriends.com

Transcript

Rob McMullan: Hello again friends and welcome to the High Octane Friends podcast with Trevor McKee and I'm Rob McMullen again. today's topic is going to be a really important one. So we're really excited to to get going on that. And that is talking about medical breakthroughs that can add five years to your life or more. And we have some experience personal experience with this and of course Trevor has a has a PhD in is it bioengineering from MIT Trevor? is that basically it and has has worked from for decades in the application of AI to imaging like diagnostics and other health matters I guess particularly cancer for you has been a major focus.

00:11:10

Trevor McKee: Yes. Yep. Yes. Spent a lot of time in cancer research. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah. So that's what we're going to talk about. so thanks for those of you who have joined us today and we're just trying to get our little We're still of course working out the bugs here at High Octane Friends. So, thanks for being patient with us. We promise we will get better. but nevertheless, the information in here, I think if you find at least one gem, which I think you will, it it'll have been worth it for you and for us as well. That's our new riff, our new theme.

Trevor McKee: You know what?

Rob McMullan: it Okay, got it.

Trevor McKee: It didn't come through, Rob. Again, I think what we what we'll have to do is you know what? Hold on. Here we go. If I play it from my phone, then it should come through because I think there's some kind of uh thing happening here.

00:12:18

Trevor McKee: Let's see. Do this live. You sent it to me, right?

Rob McMullan: I did send it to you.

Trevor McKee: Oh, but it wasn't.

Rob McMullan: It might have something to do with my camera plugged in. So, let me try and unplug I mean my mic plugged in. Let me unplug that and then I'll try it again.

Trevor McKee: Sure.

Rob McMullan: And by the way, guys, guys and gals, I think this is part of what's important about your health. We're going to talk about this is your attitude. Like some people will get super stressed about these little things that the old adage of don't sweat the small stuff. We know now that that actually all adds up. you know so I'm gonna do that.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. I've got I've got it here. Let me I'm gonna Yeah.

Rob McMullan: You got it.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. So, here.

Rob McMullan: Okay, go for it.

Trevor McKee: Let's try. You tell me if you hear this. Let's see.

00:13:06

Rob McMullan: Oh, it didn't work very well. Let's try one more time.

Trevor McKee: Okay.

Rob McMullan: bear with us, ladies and gent.

Trevor McKee: Yeah, there's some there's You know what? We'll edit it in post. I guess this is one of the things we're going to have to try and figure out post post production.

Rob McMullan: Okay, post-prouction. It's too bad because it's such a good theme. I I wrote it on the guitar and I literally now well now I know how to play three songs or three riffs and that's one of them that I made up. the other two are by David Bowie and u Curt Cobain Nirvana which which probably tells you a fair bit about me although I do have eclectic tastes and I do like to w read widely and that is actually part of our theme today. So how do you actually a find the medical breakthroughs? How do you determine how do you separate the wheat from the chaff as it were? and and to be able to figure that out and to be able to determine what is misinformation and I think you know I've often thought looking back on my university days that the best the single best

00:14:09

Trevor McKee: Yep.

Rob McMullan: course I ever took at univers at university was when I was an undergrad at Waterloo and that was critical thinking. I think it should be a mandatory course for high school university students and it really opened my mind my eyes to a lot of things and how it's become more important today right because you you've got channels

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: now millions of channels the internet you've got all these competing interests that have always been there but now of course they can they can amplify their their message and which is not always a good one. 

Trevor McKee: and and yeah and and even you know like there there will be people that that will feain to have the information that you need but they'll be promoting misinformation as if you know like the the mainstream medical establishment or what have you is you know is is is holding the truth from you And I was just thinking about this this morning and like one of the things that that all of modern science is built on is the I is the concept of peer review, right?

00:15:28

Trevor McKee: So every paper that gets published has been through as so long as it's in a reputable journal has been through some form of peer review. And and the the best equivalent I can think of is think of like a jury, right? So when when you get tried, you get tried by a jury of your peers. when you submit a paper for publication they look for other scientists in your field and get them to review your papers and that's actually something I I still do is I'll sometimes be asked to review a paper for and so long as it's within my area of expertise I will contribute and it's a lot of work you got to read through it you got to understand what they're trying to do kind of make sure that there's no errors in in in either their thinking or in uh in data and it's not perfect, you know, just like juries aren't perfect, but it's the best system we have to u make sure that things are accurate and valid.

00:16:27

Trevor McKee: And I mean sometimes sometimes it's a pain because you get review comments back and it's like, oh, that's another two years of work. I've been on several of those. But but it's it's a necessary thing that does make sure that the best information kind of gets out there. on a particular topic, right?

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: So yeah,

Rob McMullan: Well, it's such an important thing right now and whether whether it's what what the veracity of of that information is and what who the sources are. Another really important thing that I learned years ago from a fellow student of mine at Harvard, I'll never forget her and a brilliant a brilliant woman and I remember very clearly her saying to me how she is always very careful about where she gets information from, who is the source and so she thinks critically about that and that's very important. And if you think about that in practical terms, that can mean, okay, is this a source that's been around long enough? Do they have the credentials?

00:17:33

Rob McMullan: Did they mention evidence? Or are they just talking off the top of their heads and never mention never point you to, you know, the actual source of this? They could say anything and say this is this is real information. But unless you delve into it, you wouldn't know that that could just be made up. Now, it could be maliciously put there or it could be just that they don't know and they think that. And the the thing that I I think about right away is stuff like you know the vaccination debate. It shouldn't really be a debate because the science is sort of overwhelmingly in favor of vaccinations today that are overwhelmingly safe and effective. Like you think of CO 19 for example and how many how many tens of millions of people did that vaccination probably save right because I think the last estimate you may have a better handle on this than than

Trevor McKee: right? Yeah.

Rob McMullan: I do Trevor but the last estimate I I seem to remember reading was something like 25 or plus million maybe it was 50 million people actually died they don't have perfect data on this actually died from CO 19

00:18:42

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: and So you have all these deniers and they think everything's a conspira conspiracy and they seem of course very anti-science. Both you and I are not anti-science. So it's difficult to bring people into the the basic belief that science if done right right is real and believable.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: But I think a lot of the the sources who are talking loudly and and casting dispersions on things like vaccinations like the co 19 vaccination they are fundamentally frankly speaking dogmatic right some of that is their religious upbringing their cultural upbringing or just like their parental upbringing and it's very hard to they're anti-science and just just rebelliously contrarian some people are like that I have been like that at times in my life too.

Trevor McKee: wanting to be crunch contrarian as well. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Like I think young people in particular, right, they like to go against the established way of thinking because it's part of kind of establishing yourself in the world.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: There's something about human biology that that we're all kind of like that.

00:19:50

Rob McMullan: But at some point you have to think critically. Who who are the sources?

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Like if you're getting I I remember being shocked and and I I highly doubt that this person would listen to this podcast. Who knows? So, I will never I will not say her name, but it's somebody I worked with in the past and and she got a job and she was the head of PR for this company. And she had graduated recently from a very good university in Canada reputationally in journalism. And I remember being quietly shocked by her saying that she got all of her news from Facebook. I was just blown away.

Trevor McKee: Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: And you know what people maybe don't realize or don't care about is that those algorithms, if you click on something, like if I clicked on something today that was like about Hitler or something horrible like that and Nazism, it's going to feed you more of that because it's, oh, they're interested in this.

00:20:50

Rob McMullan: And it's becomes a self-reinforcing narrow, you know, down that down the rabbit hole to to Yeah.

Trevor McKee: Yeah, that that that and it's it's fed by outrage, you know, like you're you're going to be a lot more attached to something that draws a strong emotional connection and so that tends to sort of feed feed it as well. But yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: So what do you so how do you in that case like let's say let's say some of the people listening now or in the future to this podcast are very skeptical against or or are downright against vaccinations

Trevor McKee: But

Rob McMullan: and think it it causes all sorts of harms and will kill them as opposed to overwhelmingly the likelihood is that will help them.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: How do you convince them otherwise? What do you do? Like if they're the type of person that's just getting their information from social media and from Fox News, I have no problems disparaging that that network.

Trevor McKee: Well, yeah. Well, I I think I think the only I'm not sure.

00:21:51

Trevor McKee: That's a that's a trickle tricky sociological question to answer which I don't have a a good answer for. But the best I can do is just to say hey look you know like there is no secret man behind the curtain that's sort of controlling everything that you know or or that whether it's that the vaccines were you know the co 19 vaccine was put in for some nefarious purpose. Listen, that was that was a mammoth effort on on behalf of like thousands of of scientists and researchers that put you know that came together used a new technology that in principle worked but in practice we hadn't I don't think we'd ever had a kind of a mRNA based vaccine before. mRNA is you know a part of every single one of your cells. Everybody has mRNA in them. it's not like it's some some uh weird thing that's external to your body. it's just that this mRNA vaccine encoded for one of the proteins and allowed your body to recognize that protein prior to being infected with CO 19. and and the challenge with CO 19 is that you know yes for the most part a vast majority of healthy people had you know had some very version of severity but not something that was life-threatening.

00:23:14

Trevor McKee: the challenge there was that the people that particularly older and less healthy people would get this very severe COVID 19 infection that would lead to them being on respirators, you know, and and just completely I mean I saw some horrific CT scans where like the entire lung was just filled with filled with fluid out in the in the media in the early days. So you know and your body just when it can't breathe when you can't breathe you can't breathe and so the the co 19 vaccine even though it was you know kind of rushed out it well rushed out is a relative term. I mean I think it took six months as opposed to kind of maybe the a year or two that a normal vaccine would take. um it still was subjected to all of the appropriate tests and I think and all of the kind of again peer-reviewed studies that I've seen since then is that the the effect of like there were some side effects that I think might have partly come from the the protein that was being expressed there but um it's it's better it's better than getting the vac getting COVID like getting COVID without having had any

00:24:29

Rob McMullan: It's better than the side effect of death. Yeah.

Trevor McKee: you know any vaccination you know like there's I mean there's a growing understanding that there's a lot of effects of long COVID and even the effects of I I was watching yesterday there was someone mentioning the effects of uh COVID on dementia you know like people that have had multiple rounds of COVID 19 have and that are kind of already being monitored for dementia like that the their se that severity worsens. So, keeping up to date with vaccines is is important not only for ourselves but also for people that we live with that aren't you know that that haven't or can't be vaccinated. You know, another thing with respect to measles, there's more and more measles outbreaks with people who've stopped taking the measles vaccine because they believe there's some correlation with autism even though the one study that that mentioned that was disproven and the you know was found that the author was a was somehow getting paid by someone that that had some method to gain for for the the vaccine not being administered or something.

00:26:01

Trevor McKee: So, you know, there's there's no there's no indication that those effects, you know, that that that there's any linkage between autism and measles, but nevertheless, the fact that that information got out there and that there's a lot of people that are promoting that just to either get their name out or what have you, leads to less people getting the measles vaccine. And the challenge there is that you know like the there's a schedule for getting measles vaccine and and young infants aren't on that schedule yet. And so even if a young infant gets measles there's there was indic an an indication that there's there going to be subject to many more diseases or or or that that that's going to have an impact on them later in life. whereas if we if we've got this herd immunity, if most of the people who can get vaccinated have been vaccinated, then that protects these vulnerable populations within our you know within within our uh communities.

Rob McMullan: I suspect, just to interject, I suspect in in in more than one case that some of these people who are skeptical about vaccines but still want to to be to to want to benefit, they want to have

00:27:06

Trevor McKee: So

Rob McMullan: the positive externality from that her immunity happening. So they want a lot of other people or enough critical mass of other people to get the vaccination, but they don't want it for themselves or their families. And so that's to me a very selfish thing beyond naive. I also wonder how much of this antivaccination sort of thinking is is quite candidly highly correlated with religiosity. And I'm not calling out any one particular religion, but I think a lot of people just think God will take care of them always. and forever no matter what. I am not a religious person for the record, but I I think any kind of dogma, whether it be inspired by religion or whatever, I I think people in this day and age where we've had science for what now, a couple hundred years, Trevor, you know, I think it behooves us all to, lend some credence to scientists, the ones I know, and you know many more.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: I think they're good people. They they care.

00:28:25

Rob McMullan: They're they do things rigorously.

Trevor McKee: And it it's not to say that scientists can't get dogmatic. You know, scientists are humans and they can they can have their own opinions and no one scientist is perfect. You know, I'm I'm I keep saying I I know more and more about less and less until I know everything about nothing. You know, as science as scientists, you get trained. Well, as you move through the system.

Rob McMullan: Well, there's a humility. It sounds like you have a humility, but some of these people who talk off the top of their heads and they talk dogmatically, they're not humble at all.

Trevor McKee: Yes.

Rob McMullan: you know, I I don't I don't want to refer directly to recent events or horrible, but you know, I think there are big influential voices out there who just talk so I don't know, it's just

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: so over the top.

Trevor McKee: perfectly.

Rob McMullan: They're not humble.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: They're arrogant and they they state everything as fact.

00:29:20

Rob McMullan: And you know I I I think religiosity is is a big is a big culprit not the only culprit in this but anyway so let's kind of tie this section up and I

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I think just just to sort of tie it up is that don't take any one person's you know opinion at face value, including my own. but if you if you want to look things up like there's um there's PubMed is an easy and free way to be able to look up scientific articles about areas of interest.

Rob McMullan: great

Trevor McKee: And you can go in there, you can read the the abstracts and the conclusions. make sure to also look at kind of like the methods, the sample size, how many patients they tested, which where the patients were. you know, and then look at conflict of interest disclosures. All modern publications will have a conflict of interest.

Rob McMullan: Yes.

Trevor McKee: you can look at them and you can see where those uh you know if there was any financial support or otherwise to those researchers and if you're not sure well look for some other contravailing uh you know uh papers and eventually when there's enough of a body of literature there's going to be review papers that that will give you a breakdown of here's all of the the different studies that

00:30:41

Trevor McKee: have that are sort of accumulated together. So you know it it it takes some work but at the same time you know it's it's it's useful and there are various aggregators and general information like the Mayo Clinic's website other you know WebMD and those sorts of places that will all again refer to the literature and you can search by topic and find the information you're you're looking for. So Mhm.

Rob McMullan: Yeah, I think that's that's good advice. Yeah, where you get it from is very important. You know, I I'm just I'm not too afraid of being blunt. Stay the hell off of Fox News. I mean, that's entertainment. Those are not credible media sources. That's entertainment. It's feeding the the finances of the Murdoch family. Like, let's get real. Okay. So, let's let's talk about you know, so that that critical thinking applied to health is very important. People should be aware, right? Not everything you're seeing is going to be correct.

00:31:36

Rob McMullan: and some of your own beliefs. You need to challenge some of your own beliefs and you know even passed down to you by your mother and grandmother and father etc. your best friends it's maybe not the best thing.

Trevor McKee: Yes.

Rob McMullan: I I want to talk about a couple of things specifically with regard to nutrients like best nutrients and superfoods. I think Trevor and I both look into this pretty pretty pretty often and some of I'm I'm just going to name a few.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: we can talk about them. like a big thing that I can say I can talk from personal experience and looking at the literature too that there seem to be strong evidence that a probiotic bacteria virtually everybody who's ever had antibiotics right which is almost everybody certainly in the western world and developed East Asia as well has had right right from the time of birth often and so you know it's a great thing antibiotics because they kill off these bad bacteria, but unfortunately they also kill off the good stuff.

00:32:38

Rob McMullan: And the the main one that seems to be missing in almost everybody in modern society now is this el l el rotary. I think it's lactobacillus rotary or rotary. I don't know how you pronounce it. Reu ti. We'll put it in the comments afterward. And and this is a a very interesting bacteria. You can you can get it in small doses. You can buy it in supplements, but it's not going to be concentrated enough really to repopulate what you're missing. So, you really need is is the order of magnitude trillions. Anyway, there there are ways to do it. and we won't belabor the point here. You can go on to YouTube, but Dr. Davis talks about this um a lot on YouTube, and I've done it myself.

Trevor McKee: You you you cultured some yogurt. did you

Rob McMullan: And so, I want to talk about my personal experience, too. you know with this is a crappy thought literally but having you know chronic constipation for many years and like I eat pretty well generally and exercise and all that it's like what how do I get over this other than the times when I was completely vegetarian and so I tried this I made my own yogurt so that it it cultured a lot of this elator bacteria and I'm telling you by the time

00:34:00

Rob McMullan: I finished that yogurt which was within about a week my constipation was gone. So I don't have that issue anymore and I think you know I need it's time for me to redo it again u soon but I I highly recommend you looking into that. and it has all sorts of other positive effects. That's the one that that really stood out for me. but Elator you know we know we know now that yes

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Well, the microbiome is is particularly important, you know, and and I think so I I think switching from, you know, like I think when when we're talking about things like vaccinations and kind of treatments for disease, that's that's one thing, but what we're talking about now is a bit more sort of like how to live a healthy life, you know, and and sometimes that's not something that there's as much information out there,

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: you know, because because the medical system is sort of tuned to kind of correcting error, you know, correcting challenges uh or or diseases that people you know have.

00:35:05

Trevor McKee: But absolutely the microbiome has increasingly become known as being something that's hugely important for for multiple areas. So certainly the gut, you know, certainly the gut and then there's even there's like a gut brain axis like most most of the serotonin like in your system is actually in your gut and and there's a

Rob McMullan: Yes.

Trevor McKee: huge nerve connection nerve connections down there and you know helping helping to move food through of course but also um you know that that affects the rest of your mood and everything else and and even things like obesity like there's I think I I saw a study where people took fecal sample like a healthy fecal like a pill that contains some fecal matter from healthy individuals that like releases at the right time in your in your system and that had a positive effect on people that were obese from receiving bacteria from kind of healthy individuals. So yeah and then actually along the same lines I don't know if we'll get to it now.

00:36:07

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: I might as well talk about it now is also al allergens. So that maybe that's something we talk about. We'll get through the nutrient stuff but we'll get back to it with respect to allergens too.

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah. Well, you touched on a lot of things there. I won't expend too much because, you know, we've only got about an hour on these podcasts, but one of the things that fascinated me in my research before I took it about the L rotary and repopulating your gut with this missing thing that we all should have is that it positively boosts your oxytocin, which is kind of the closeness hormone, like the love hormone.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: you know, when you're in love, you feel this or when you're you're held by your mother as a baby. It's very important. It calms you down. So, you know, a lot of people that have anxieties or other things that's affecting their minds can be apparently this is still pretty early, but there is evidence to suggest that this strongly and I've gone through so many comments like if you go again on Dr. Davis's podcast on YouTube, you will look at the look at the people talking about how it's affected them and it affects their mood.

00:37:25

Rob McMullan: It affects, you know, like their wives will literally say to them, "What's with you now? Like you're not angry anymore." So, you know, this can save relationships. you may have noticed for those of you who joined us on the last podcast or those who go back and and look at it, I was wearing a Nirvana shirt. I used to sing in a rock band years ago and I'm a really big fan. I used to be the number one saying I think of almost of nirvana and I've thought over the last several years as I've learned more about the microbiome. I kind of put two and two together. So for those who are very interested in Kirk Cobain know that his diet was absolute crap and of course he he he died by suicide, right? I mean, he had suffered for years with depression off and on. I'm sure not helped by the the the drugs that he he took, but I think even more so it might have been brought on or exacerbated by his terrible diet.

00:38:24

Rob McMullan: You know, he used to drink all sorts of sugary drinks and I I think his favorite or one of his favorite meals was craft dinner. Well, these are highly processed things that all the bad bacteria would would grow on and so that you know something like is it it's the case you mentioned serotonin all those happy c happiness chemicals I think all or most of them are actually made in the gut by the microbiome is that right Yeah.

Trevor McKee: I'm I'm sure that there could be I don't I don't know the details but but absolutely there there's an impact there and you know you are what you eat and and I think even just looking at you know like rates of obesity you know in in North America versus the rest of the world and then what the cheap available sort of high calorie low nutrition content foods that are available there's definitely kind of a correlation there, right? And and so, you know, being mindful about what you put into your body is is a very important thing.

00:39:25

Trevor McKee: And it doesn't mean you have to be like a complete perfect every time. It's fine to, you know, even I go to McDonald's for a for a frosty every once in a while. but you want to in general, you know, kind of try to make sure that you're eating you know, lots of lots of  vegetables to the extent that you can. And there's lots of great vegetarian recipes out there that we've gotten to, particularly one of my sons is vegetarian, and we you know, it's  you can make some stuff that's that's pretty good. Like I made a chili last night that was that was great. And Um.

Rob McMullan: Yeah. I just got I got a I got a cookbook from my brother a few years ago and like maybe it's four or five years ago now.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: And I was thinking about him recently and my son who was close to my brother unfortunately he passed away. He passed away from MS which is a term disease but my brother was a particularly good cook and he bought me this book by a chef by the name of Otangi and I can recommend this one Otangi simple and it's a terrific cookbook and they're all simple quick recipes and you know very rich in all sorts of tasty veggies because people often think oh veggies what is that it's like boiled cabbage or something like that most

00:40:44

Rob McMullan: people don't find that very appetizing so yeah you are what you eat where I was going with the the Kurt Cobain thing was like it's it's not an obsession, but I've thought multiple times it's come back to me. It's like would would Kurt Cobain and people like that still be around today had they eaten properly, right? And if they could resub we could re-up, if you will, their microbiome with Albert Terry, I'm sure we'll get some comments in there. Of course, I'd love to have him back. but let's move on to a couple of other things. I I'll I'll ask you first.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Is there a particular nutrient or supplement like whether it's in a pill form or in a food form, a whole food form or whatever that you are particularly fond of and and have some insight into how

Trevor McKee: Well, there's there's one that I I learned from someone at the at a doctor, retired doctor at one of the MIT alumni events kind of I was chatting with him once and he said he'd done a study where like the vast majority of people living in like North America or in the northern climates are all deficient in vitamin D and you know and and and it's a it's a simple thing

00:41:54

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: but you know and and and certainly getting outside and getting some sunlight is both a good for your health and b does give you some vitamin D but it's generally not enough. And so you know I think that's the one thing that I do try to make sure that I'm taking and even for my kids because either whether by itself or as part of multivitamin because you know like it's it's good for bone health, it's good for a number of different things and

Rob McMullan: I I heard recently which really impressed me. In fact, I've read in a few different places now, credible sources that say that vitamin D actually is kind of was a substrate or supports your testosterone, which goes for both both sexes, by the way, whether it's

Trevor McKee: You can see that. Mhm.

Rob McMullan: male or female, you need testosterone. So, yeah, I I take that's one of the things I take regularly. I take vitamin D. I take 10,000 international units every day. I take nattokines.

00:42:58

Rob McMullan: Have you heard of nattokineese?

Trevor McKee: No.

Rob McMullan: So nattokenise is an enzyme that's derived from fermented soybeans which the Japanese call natto, hence the name nattokenise. and so there have been a lot of studies done on this about the effects that it has on unclogging your your a arteries basically and slowing down if not in some cases actually reversing arterial sclerosis. it even is purported to have some effects on reversing erectile dysfunction. Right? Obviously, if your your your blood's flowing there better, then you're going to you're going to have less. You're going to prevent against that. I I have this it can be expensive. And so I have going through a year course of nattos. it because it kind of thins your blood and it and it I can't think of the right word but it it reverses or it breaks down the fibbrin in various different parts of your your

Trevor McKee: Hey

Rob McMullan: body and which is you know leads to inflammation and and constricted blood flow.

00:44:10

Rob McMullan: I'm on a year course of that. It's expensive. It's about was it $1,200 or $1,600 for a year supply of this stuff. I'm on it and then I have to wait I think two or three years before I go back on it again. But I'm on that and you know I highly recommend that people look into that.

Trevor McKee: Hat.

Rob McMullan: Nattokina as it's spelled N- A T O K I N A S E. And it's one of the reasons people think that the Japanese are the longest living people on average in the world. There's some other reasons like they tend not to get angry which is a big one, right? We're going to talk about mindset again.

Trevor McKee: Thank you.

Rob McMullan: and these things that that we know now sort of medical breakthroughs and they have more evidence of at least that can help you live at least five years longer. So you know there's evidence to suggest that nattokenise is part of that. also there's a there's an issue of you talked about the deficiency of vitamin D in most people.

00:45:05

Rob McMullan: There's also a deficiency in magnesium and potassium. So magnes if you look at th those electrolyte lights right like magnesium, potassium, calcium, calcium in cells tends to has have the effect, right, of kind of stiffening you up and making it harder to for things to get

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: into the cell. but magnesium kind of opens it up. And I guess potassium, as I understand it, is very important because it helps kind of regulate that a little. Anyway, those three need to be in appropriate balance. Magnesium, potassium, calcium. Most people get way too much calcium because they eat a lot of grains. They eat a lot of milk, a lot of things that are high in pota in calcium and not enough magnesium.

Trevor McKee: Right.

Rob McMullan: So, people are very tense like I I've been taking calcium or sorry, magnesium for years now. It helps with constipation. That's one of the reasons why I started taking it. It helps not as much as the al rotary did though.

00:45:59

Trevor McKee: H

Rob McMullan: But you need magnesium that's involved in all sorts of biological processes like thousands of them and potassium. So if you eat avocados, you eat lots of leafy greens, you got magnesium, potassium, there's some other really high sources. and of course you can take it in supplemental form. And the other thing of course you want to be careful about is your sodium, right? Keep your sodium low.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: So I mean that that'll really help with your health. There's a lot of information about that now increasingly. So I I just take a few supplements. I take the vitamin D. I take omega-3 fatty acids. which you know, yeah.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Omega-3 has also been shown to to have some benefits as well. For sure.

Rob McMullan: So, I do that. I don't go too crazy. I don't take a multivitamin. I'll tell you why I don't take a multivitamin. if it's not clear on YouTube,  and from my name, you know, I'm Irish background and so, so I guess at least in part you are with a name like McKe.

00:46:58

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: and so Irish people and kind of northern European and Northern European I guess in general often have iron overload deg disease. I can't remember the proper name for it now, but you we tend to absorb iron too much and too much iron is really bad for you.

Trevor McKee: too much.

Rob McMullan: Accumulates in your in your organs. So you have to be careful about how much iron. Like if you eat too much red meat, that's really problematic for for pale people like us.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: so you know that's why I don't take a multivitamin because usually it has excess iron that I don't need. So I just take a few separately. I also take this now when I can remember rosemary oil. I'm not touting this brand but it is Canadian in Canada by the way. if it if it has a health claim on it, it is actually reviewed by Health Canada unlike it's a little different in the US, right? You can't quite trust a lot of times what what the products in the US are.

00:48:03

Rob McMullan: it doesn't necessarily it won't necessarily kill you. So I think that's what the FDA is more trying to say like yeah, this is safe. it won't kill you, at least in the short term, but it doesn't necessarily speak to their assessment of the efficacy of that particular item. Whereas in Canada, if they have a health claim on there, that has to has to have been reviewed by Health Canada. So, I tend to trust the Canadian stuff a little bit more than the American stuff. But this is this is rosemary essential oil, and there's been evidence within the last couple years. There was a study done that suggests that it can help ward off to some degree dementia, I guess, Alzheimer's. It kind of makes you more alert. So, I I try and sniff this. It looks like I'm sniffing cocaine or something, which I have never done or whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of what I do. and beets. I I want to eat more beets.

00:48:58

Rob McMullan: I occasionally eat beets. I used to hate beets, but beets are very high in nitrates as you may know. And so that's been studied to they've done studies on athletes for example and and how it can increase your exercise endurance and reduce your blood pressure for regular people. So all sort things are important is it's important to keep your blood pressure low, right?

Trevor McKee: Right.

Rob McMullan: and something I started taking recently, not for bodybuilding purposes, but, although that's nice, too, because I do lift weights. You should do that. That'll help help your longevity. Of course, exercise, we haven't talked, but we will in a minute. but creatine for the purposes of increasing ATP. So something is a 20 plus percent of your energy required by your body is for ATP is is in your brain and particularly your prefrontal cortex right your judgment where you're thinking your focus comes from so a lot of people they don't understand why can't I think clearly or why is my energy so low it's actually they don't have enough ATP they don't have the brain energy and so they've done studies they give people pretty pretty high but yet apparently safe doses of creatine.

00:50:18

Rob McMullan: So I think it it you start off and and don't quote me on this. You go back and do your own research. If if you take anything from this podcast, do your research and be critical including whatever whatever I and you say. but creatine, I think it's 20 milligrams. You get up to that for a little while. Like maybe it's a couple weeks and then you bring it back down, I think, to about 10 milligrams or something a day. That's your maintenance dose. And there have been studies that Yeah.

Trevor McKee: Three to five grand. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: And and it it makes you it makes you more energetic. It but not in a jittery way like it won't affect your sleep at night which is ultra important. And this is so interesting. Not only does it make you think more clearly, you have more energy. studies have shown that it actually boosts your IQ points. So it's making you smarter.

Trevor McKee: Yep.

00:51:05

Rob McMullan: Have you heard anything about this?

Trevor McKee: Well, particularly reasoning under stress. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, there there's there's a growing number of of uh studies that that sort of show that it's useful beyond just yeah, beyond just sports science kind of for medical research as well. So, yeah. Yeah. And I mean it's naturally found in kind of meat and fish and it's also synthesized within our bodies but but it's it generally gets stored within the muscles and it's a it acts as a quick way of energy reserve like the phos the creatine gets phosphorolated to phosphor creatine and it sort of stores that that phosphate group and allows it to to regenerate the ATP in your system. So yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah. So something to look into folks. I've just started doing it in the last week so I can't I this is completely anecdotal. but my own experience has been just in the last week starting it.

00:52:04

Rob McMullan: I do I I do think my energy has been higher. I mean my you could talk to my wife if you want to see whether she thinks I'm any less dumb than normal. but that's what the studies show. So I'm hoping I'm I'm not going to be an outlier. well we we alluded to exercise and you want to talk about exercise a little bit?

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: You want to start off?

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Sure. You know, I think I think some amount of exercise is definitely beneficial. And it it doesn't have to be you know, oh, I'm going to run a marathon, you know, every week or something. Even just even just like 15 to 30 minutes of walking a day can be tremendously helpful. Not only does it again get you outside, get you off the off your desk, chair, couch, or wherever you're you're at and get you out out in the world, but it also has benefits on your joints, on your you know uh your breathing, everything else.

00:53:07

Trevor McKee: and I think I I've I've tried now to go on like at least kind of two kilometer run every morning or or when I can like if I have the option of like taking the subway downtown or biking downtown, they end up being about the same distance and I try to say well why don't I just bike downtown because it gets gets me some you know get gets me that that half hour of exercise like two three times a week that we really Yeah.

Rob McMullan: might even be faster. Wait, for those of us who for those of our listeners who don't know, we're in Toronto. And that, by the way, that is the right way to say it. It's not Toronto. we're in Toronto. And Toronto is one of the most congested cities in North America. I've also lived in I've lived in Tokyo. I've lived in Soliv, New York, amongst other places. And those are very busy places. But I can tell you Toronto is very congested now.

00:53:59

Rob McMullan: So it might even be quicker for you to bike down, right?

Trevor McKee: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that's ex I I started doing this because I was late coming home for I was going to be late and there was a emergency on the train and got stuck stopped for some indetermined amount of time and so then I just looked on the app. Thankfully, there's these little like rental bikes that you can get.  and I hopped up to the surface and and I took I mean that was an ebike, so that was kind of cheating, but but e even there you do have to pedal a little bit, but after

Rob McMullan: You can bring this.

Trevor McKee: that I'm like, yeah. Yeah. After that, I'm like, well, why don't why don't I just do this because and I mean I have been caught in the rain a few times, but that's fine. That's how it works. And it's it's very helpful you know and but I think at the same time sort of everything in moderation you know I yeah

00:54:52

Rob McMullan: Well, I want I wanted to interject on that because you talked about I want to talk about overtraining and you mentioned marathon running that how you said you don't have to do that first of all and most people wouldn't do that but there there have been studies very serious studies on marathon runners and I remember when I first read this I was was quite surprised by this because you think okay you're running 26 6 miles, what is it? 42 kilometers marathon run. And of course, you're training all this time. The people who run marathons, they actually have a higher rate of heart disease than people who don't. All other things being equal. And that is because I think you're you're you're so overtraining in that case cardio, that you're creating so much inflammation systemically, I guess, that it's really messing up your heart amongst other tissues. So, I think overtraining is very important. something that I've been learning recently. I I've been delving into some of the teachings of now some of this I think is old and frankly not even correct anymore or not.

00:55:56

Rob McMullan: And he had a magnificent physique and he Oh yes, I was just saying that in the 70s and 80s there was a bodybuilder very high level like competed with Arnold Schwarzenegger and all those Frank Zayn

Trevor McKee: Sorry, you you froze for a second. Do you mind just repeating um

Rob McMullan: by the name of Mike Menser and Mike Menser's kind of become more famous now for those of you who go and and look at things about weight training not necessarily bodybuilding, certainly not competitive bodybuilding, but he's had a resurgence recently postumously. He died about 20 25 years ago, unfortunately. but one of the things he really talked about was if you want to grow your muscles and you need your strength, right, is you don't want to overtrain because some of these guys, they just train so much and they wonder why they're not growing. you know you're you're you're you're there's a point at which you you you have diminishing returns. So I thought of that when you said marathon.

00:56:59

Rob McMullan: There's a lot of new evidence around this. What's the optimal time? Of course it's going to depend on your fitness level if you're just starting out like it's be really easy to overtrain. Some people are be so fit they can do it more often but you need recovery time and that is super important.

Trevor McKee: Mhm. Yes. Yes.

Rob McMullan: so that's some of the learnings that I I encourage listeners to delve into. You know, overtraining and how to avoid it. You don't want to undertrain. Most people undertrain, but some people overtrain. So, there is a an optimal window there clearly.

Trevor McKee: Yep. Yeah. And and then and and on the subject of rest, right? it's not only rest in terms of recovering from, let's say, if you've done a heavy arm workout one day, you don't want to stack a bunch of those on top of each other because if your muscles are still sore and you're going in, I mean, like a certain amount of soreness is okay, but like at some level, you're going to increase the risk of injury.

00:57:52

Trevor McKee: So, and and again, again, don't listen don't necessarily just listen to us.

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: but there are lots of personal trainers and people that that do this sort of thing. Even when you're in the gym, you know, like if you see someone that's that's seems like they know more of their way around, don't don't be afraid to be like, am I using this machine correctly or, you know, am I doing these squats correctly? because I think that's something that I learned quite well is for a while I was part of a CrossFit gym and CrossFit is a is an interesting you know like I think people kind of some people take it to an extreme and they're you know super super into it but for me it was actually a way of recovering from back injuries.

Rob McMullan: I'm hurt. Yeah.

Trevor McKee: So I had a slip disc in my back and I was like immobile for a couple of days or you know uh something and yeah and then part of the recovery was well I think

00:58:39

Rob McMullan: Been there. Done that.

Trevor McKee: just realizing that you know sitting down for too long is is super unhealthy and I needed to get get some sort of healthy tips and this this gym actually like they were talking about crossfit as it's just sort of like crossf functional fitness. and it it's not there's nothing fancy to it, you know, like sometimes the things you'll be doing are just you know, like to lifting something from a low place to a high place, but like in order for your body to know how to do that, well, you know, you you do these sorts of um initial e these exercises that help you to understand, you know, kind of both how to how to load your joints correctly. that you're not like bending your back, you keep your back straight and all of those sorts of things that go into, you know, the the typical exercises of like deadlifts and and these sorts of things that help you to understand, you know, how your body can adapt to those to to moving, you know, and and and so I found it very helpful to be working with you know, kind of a personal trainer as I was getting introduced to the gym that helped me to both, you know, recover from this injury and and and as well as strengthen the core muscles that would help prevent this injury

01:00:15

Trevor McKee: from happening again. So yeah, go

Rob McMullan: I I think that goes back to what we were saying before about like, you know, kind of read from and get advice from expert advice, right, from an expert. interestingly, as an aside, a guy I know pretty well because he's a former business partner of mine when I used to be an investment adviser and his name is David Sutton. Really smart guy. you know, I think he was doing convertible bond arbitrage on on the street for years before we were we hooked up together in our business in investment advice and then he went off he was a hedge fund manager. was so super smart in the financial world and just decided I don't think I'm talking out of school if David ever sees it like unfortunately his his father died relatively young from heart disease and so like I think that's probably a for many of us right we have a family member who gets really sick or passes away and we want to avoid that so he was really interested in nutrition and training so he's a personal trainer he is quite a good one he's been doing that for several years now and but yeah get get expert advice maybe we'll have him on the podcast at some point.

01:01:21

Rob McMullan: I think it'd be great to have someone like that and just talk personal story too, like how do you go from being a big head like head of a hedge fund to like a personal trainer.

Trevor McKee: for sure. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: I'm sure it's been it was at least initially a bit of a pay cut for him. but anyway, so these are all really really important things. One of the things I I I've come into I won't I won't belabor this too much. but I I I encourage people to look into it because it's relatively new information about this and there's a guy with an Irish name. I can't remember an American fellow suddenly.  this is going to bug me. Anyway, he's sort of the guru of this and he's a medical doctor and he's done quite a bit about it. So, I think he's pretty a good credible source to start and then again learn more about. sprint interval training and how this is it he maintains and I I myself want to find out more about this even though I've started doing it sprint interval training is basically like you run like a maniac for about 20 seconds and you do anywhere from I think it's four to eight times you have to work up to it because as hard as you could possibly go once you're warm you as hard as you

01:02:29

Rob McMullan: can go and and that is very very good for building your muscles. It it stimulates this thing called I guess it's a hormone called meiosin which is related to your muscles. I encourage you to look into that. And there have been is it okay and so there's there's evidence now with studies that says this is even even better for your fitness than highintensity interval training which has been a big thing recently.

Trevor McKee: Not a hormone. It's Yeah. It's part of the muscle itself. Yep. Yep.

Rob McMullan: But either way it's something to add. So, this is new and this is something I think if you do this it'll burn your belly fat really fast. So, that's something people would be interested in assuming you're not like grossly overeating everything.

Trevor McKee: Mhm.

Rob McMullan: The other thing that's come up recently I've seen some studies on is how because people think, "Oh, I don't have time for exercise or maybe they can't muster the motivation some days." It's like, well, just if if you combine little bursts, little bits of physical activity and exercise bouts throughout the day, that's basically equivalent to one solid one through the day.

01:03:28

Trevor McKee: Hey Yeah.

Rob McMullan: So, it's fine. Like, if you run up the stairs or you know, you whatever.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: I try to do that. I like even before we got on this podcast, you'll notice that like I'm going to do some deep knee bends or whatever. I think that's important. It all adds up.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. No, take take the stairs.  you know, my my wife will take the stairs at her work as opposed to taking the elevator a couple floors up, you know, and just just as a way of like squeezing that that healthy that healthy exercise in. For sure. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: and she should know too, isn't she? In the healthc care business some as well.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah, there you go.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: okay. Well, I don't know how much time we have left. Maybe we should talk about something that's a little more attuned to your expertise and people are interested in now with AI and how that is related to you know new things that have come out and maybe gives people some hope about what AI is is is going to do in terms of diagnosis improvement earlier the better right and then maybe drugs and AI and all this stuff the technology do you want to talk

01:04:38

Rob McMullan: a bit about that Trevor?

Trevor McKee: sure I can I can try to so I think well maybe maybe just to start is that we're you know one of the advantages nowadays is that there is so much more data that's available right out there for whether it's for various diseases that people have have encountered or or even you know using wearables to track various things like I've got a I've got an Apple watch many people have watches or or devices that can track your you know um health some metrics of health including both sleep and also and heartbeat and you know blood oxygen, those sorts of things. And like this information, this is additional information that can oftentimes be potentially a flag for something. You know, I think some one someone that I met literally was had had noticed some difference in the wearable that was tracking that linked to an actual health out health outcome that she was able to catch early and identify.

01:06:00

Trevor McKee: So, you know, I think just it's not that you have to use these things, but I found a wearable that tracked my sleep was something that was quite valuable to me because particularly, you know, I think at that time I was working late nights sometimes and realizing after you've kind of had a few nights of of a lack of sleep that the reason you're feeling all worn down is that well, you just haven't you haven't you're in a sleep debt, you know, and so you want to be able to make sure that you get adequate sleep on a regular basis is hugely important both for physical health, for mental health, for just making sure that that you know things are going well. And everyone's got a different you know kind of set point that they they regulate to. It's not like it has to be eight hours or whatever it is, but um you know, sleep is very important and wearables are one way of kind of tracking that.

01:07:01

Trevor McKee: yeah,

Rob McMullan: So, so let me let me interject there and ask you, okay, you became aware of perhaps how bad your sleep was. Maybe you thought it it was better than it turned out to be. What is the what is the big thing or things that you did? What's the biggest things that you you did to improve the quality of your sleep? Was it just Was it I'm imagining that's a big thing. Just suddenly being aware my sleep quality is really bad and so got to do something.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: That's step number one, knowing you have the problem. But then what did you actually do that you felt made a difference for you personally?

Trevor McKee:  that's a good question. I think maybe just making sure that making sure that I was factoring in those recoveries, you know, like like factoring in time to certainly on the weekend like I don't I don't mind um or my family doesn't mind if I sleep in a little bit, you know, um just to recover from kind of having not slept as well during the week kind of but I think it's yeah it's both it was kind of a realization that okay you know this isn't this isn't healthy and there's a lot of detriments and and even you know like pushing yourself to to stay up late and then

01:08:25

Trevor McKee: just to try and get more work done you end up being that much less efficient than if you have had a good night's sleep and you can think clearly and you know like I think I think

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: during sleep uh there's a lot going on even in your brain in terms of cells that will like kind of clear the debris and um kind of uh clean up things and those cells aren't functioning as well when you're awake. So so you know it it has multiple effects and those effects can compound when you're when you're not when you're not sleeping well. So, I think it's kind of been a recent effort of mine to make sure that, you know, I'm I get to sleep with enough time to have you know, a good night's sleep or at least enough hours of sleep to at least have gone through a couple of cycles. Even there's a a wearable that I'm using that that can monitor kind of where you are in your sleep cycle and times the wake up times the the alarm clock to sort of catch you at a time when you're sort of in the in the lighter phases of sleep as opposed to deeper because it's just less less disruptive, less jarring to to wake up.

01:09:43

Trevor McKee: And so, you know, there's a lot of cool, um, technologies that that can be utilized to kind of help you, you know, with with these sorts of things. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: I think, you know, technology can also be great in the way that it it increasingly seems to be shedding light on old school ways that people were just unaware of or, you know, like they've forgotten about or they just can't be bothered to do that having a major effect on your health. Like for example, you know, I I I've learned recently like how much the temperature of your room can make a difference to the quality of your sleep. fortunately, you know, if you're in a if you're in a sort of traditional relationship, husband, wife, you know, women and men tend to have different preferences for what they want the temperature to be. My wife's pretty small and thin, so she she likes the room to be pretty warm and like that would just make me sweat and wake me up. So I I I I look at my mother who is 97 years old and fit as a fiddle and is out in her garden every day and is independent.

01:10:50

Rob McMullan: And one of the things she's always done and I think about now is that she always has the window open. It was always cold going into my parents' room. And there's information about getting sufficient oxygen. if you're a lot of people are just not getting enough oxygen especially live say in a condominium where windows often are not not not open so you know open your window get more oxygen keep it cool I can also some other low tech things that are are useful I can attest to the ability to fall asleep you know there have been times like I work in finance and primarily in in technology and I could never get through a lot of those insurance modules that I had to study. You pick up an insurance book that'll put you to sleep in about three pages. Dullest thing ever. No offense to the insurance people out there, but most of it's pretty dull. or maybe pick up a novel. And something that I found seems to be making me fall asleep recently just because it kind of makes things better.

01:11:54

Rob McMullan: like we had a stressful incident in the family the other day and then at the end of the day it's like how we're going to get to sleep and then it's like okay my wife who's Korean originally we've taken to watching like many people now we watch Korean dramas there's this one we're watching now what is the title I'm going to mess it up it's something of Bonapetito and it's but it's a it's a it's a woman a Korean woman who was living in u Paris was it Paris I don't know something. Anyway, she's this great chef and then somehow she gets into a time slip, time warp, whatever, and goes back to the Chosan period, which is like I don't know like 14th century, 15th century Chosan period in in Korea like long ago and it's just so cute and interesting and and it's so fun. And so that just it's reducing stress, whatever works for you, you know, not what I often would look at, which would be things related to the news. That's probably a bad idea.

01:12:57

Rob McMullan: You should just in general, I think, and certainly I'm talking to myself on this, just take it easy on the political stuff. Like all the stuff that's happening, it would make your life better.

Trevor McKee: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: It would make the world's life better.

Trevor McKee: Well, well, it's it's both news in general and social media as well, you know.

Rob McMullan: We just stop it. Yeah.

Trevor McKee: I think I think the the comparing your your it's like comparing your day-to-day to everyone else's highlight reel is not something that necessarily is good for your health, you know, unless it's sort of very very precisely tuned. like for for myself I I used to use Twitter or X.com now I guess for for re for like work and so but I very specifically trained the algorithm by only following like pathologists

Rob McMullan: Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor McKee: which is like the field that I study in and you know very specifically kept away from following those political people and and everything else that it's turned into and and that that tune tuned my algorithm towards having, you know, an very specific people or a specific type of news feed that was more kind of beneficial to understanding, you know, uh and just learning from interesting people and not not getting

01:14:18

Trevor McKee: caught up in the, you know, whatevers of of the world.

Rob McMullan: Yeah, I think avoiding avoiding the tragedy dour, you know, see seeking out positivity and cuteness versus political opinions and stuff like that.

Trevor McKee: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob McMullan: I think we know we there is strong evidence to suggest that this helps you like it can also help like people you know you have to appeal to people's vanity not just you know the need for them to have better health and longevity but vanity meaning you know if you think about accumulating fat like you know belly fat for men typically and and so we know that spikes in cortisol which are kind of brought on by fight or flight like okay there's a there's a panic what do we do about it I mean you're supposed ultimately a short term, but we're constantly spiking our cortisol high that makes you store fat, right? Because it sees an emergency. It needs it for for an energy source. So, like that constant and I think it wears out your adrenal glands, too, does it not?

01:15:18

Rob McMullan: Cortisol if you're stressed all the time, Trevor.

Trevor McKee:  well, I think yeah, cortisol emerges from the adrenal glands, but yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: But it so it'll wear them out after time, too, right? You'll get all sorts of things. I think that can that can exacerbate or you know or bring on diabetes to some extent. So of course we didn't mention sugar. Yeah, avoid sugar as much as you reasonably can. Although I have read that like lots of people talk about the keto diets, ketogenic diets and like basically say like or caveman diets just just eat meat. I'm very skeptical about that, right? And you know whenever you're taking out a whole natural food group like and they'll say don't eat any fruits at all. Well, you don't eat fruit. there are studies strongly now suggest that people and of course it's correlation not necessarily causation but it does strongly suggest to me there is causation there that people who eat more fruit they have better better health and and longevity.

01:16:17

Rob McMullan: So, I'm very skeptical about this whole thing about keto and the intermittent fasting, too. I I want to figure out what's best there. I have done that myself. I have found that that has kind of reduced inflammation for me in in in in a short period. But there was a study that just came out like just within the last month.

Trevor McKee: Thank

Rob McMullan: it was the first longitudinal study really deep study that they did on the effects of fasting and the result was not what people have been talking about or would have expected and that is to that people who are engaging regularly in intermittent fasting and and longer extended fasting have a higher incidence in almost all cases of heart disease. So I don't know whether this is because you know I I know you say you fast for 20 24 hours or 48 or 72 hours in some cases for some people and then you're so you know crazy hungry that you just you you're hungry and you think ah I've been a good I've been a good person.

01:17:21

Rob McMullan: I've done this so I've earned it. I can go out and have a couple of double cheeseburgers. And so they negate the the positive effects of that. So, I don't know if there's some of that going on there or if it is the actual fasting itself. We don't know. But I would encourage people to to delve more into that. There's a guy that I followed for several years called Dr. Berg. It talks a lot. I think his two main things he talks about are both ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. And it bothers me that he talks about it in such assured terms, right? like I'd be a little skeptical and look more into the science behind that because I I I do think he has a lot of good information there, but I'm not sure he's right on the ketogenic and especially the intermittent fasting thing right now or you know I don't think they figured out how to do it exactly. So I would just say like if you're doing it now, maybe learn a little bit more about it and and whether or not you have to stop, I don't know, but maybe do it in in a better way and not not come I think how you come out of a fast is very very important too.

01:18:24

Rob McMullan: So, it goes back to that critical mindset and being skeptical, knowing that some of your beliefs now may not be right.

Trevor McKee: Mhm. Mhm.

Rob McMullan: And so, seek out better information. and know that yeah, that's it, right?

Trevor McKee: Well, or and or be willing to change your beliefs based on, you know,

Rob McMullan: You always, you know, always need to be  somewhat open-minded. And I love the little pneummonica. That's the right word in this case. Maybe not. you know throughout your life I think it's important for people to think you want to learn unlearn and relearn right so it's a dynamic process it's not just a one event you don't just go out and you know you study a lot and then that's it and forever more that's going to be truth right did you want to add anything before I think there are a lot of topics of course we haven't covered in this with regard to health and how to improve your health and your longevity but we will cover it more also be having guests on but is there one thing you want to really leave with Trevor since you're more

01:19:13

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: of the medical guy.

Trevor McKee: put me on the spot.

Rob McMullan: Not to just dump.

Trevor McKee: I I think I mean I mean that that AI thing we could probably have a whole episode in itself. I I I would I would just say that you know kind of bringing a bringing in a an air of sort of inquisitiveness and of like treating you know like like not not being too

Rob McMullan: You should Right.

Trevor McKee: down on yourself of like oh I've had a you know a bad day because like that in in in essence that makes can make things worse you know. you want you want to really have a good flexible positive mindset about you know about your health and and just make but but treat it seriously. you know, like your your your health can impact so many other areas of your life that you do want to make sure that you're taking the time to at least you know, avoid things that could be detrimental and and to the best you know to the best of your ability like try to try to optimize the way you're living your life.

01:20:24

Trevor McKee: So I think I think balance a huge part of it is balance. you know like like uh I'm also agree with Rob that you know some a diet that forces you to cut out an entire food groups maybe isn't the best approach as opposed to you know I've heard a lot about the Mediterranean diet right which is just sort of like high in high in um kind of healthy fats and other things that that can have a positive effect so you know there certainly there's no one right answer to anything and lots of people I mean I think I've had other people I've spoken to that they found that drinking keer milk was something that was quite beneficial to them and that goes again back to the beneficial bacteria. So, you know, I think,  keeping an open mind, being flexible, um, being willing to try out new things and to, find what find out what works for you. And, you know, just getting a balance of of healthy activities, whether that's walking, or or, jogging or cycling or swimming, you know, all of these are are very beneficial.

01:21:43

Trevor McKee: or even team sports are great because that's you not only get kind of the exercise, you also get some social interactions. So yeah.

Rob McMullan: Yeah, we haven't talked about social life. We will talk about that in the future.

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: Like it's increasingly hard for people to especially for younger people I think. Well, actually even older people to make friends and and and even if you have friends to maintain social like where preferably doing things in person in real life rather than virtually that's super important to your attitude and I

Trevor McKee: Yeah.

Rob McMullan: would say sense of humor too.

Trevor McKee: Mhm. Mhm.

Rob McMullan: do do things that make you feel good like you know maybe fill your when you're looking at social media for example maybe fill your feed more with like I look at my wife now and she's got a very very very difficult job she deals with a lot of really heavy heavy stuff without going into detail and it's amazing to me that at the end of the day so she looks at her feed I don't use Instagram and I just look over and I see what she's doing It's all like fun stuff like cats.

01:22:50

Rob McMullan: Like there's no serious stuff. She trains it and like she's very careful to keep it away from me. Like I think I tried to look at something. She like no that'll wreck up my feed. And she's 100% right. So like pictures of cats, pictures of cute babies, otter a shout out to the otter.

Trevor McKee: Oh yeah.

Rob McMullan: If you want to see cuteness to the power of 10, otter are super cute. All these sorts of things help with your positivity. social network, social networks, people, friends, humor, attitude. Try and start realizing and then doing pruning of some of the negative thought patterns you have and some of the negative influences you have and some of the wrong-headed  sources of information in there. Like obviously and I I I really beg you to to reconsider it for those listeners on here who are very skeptical of or anti- antivaccine anti-science to reconsider that like just just just maybe just think that maybe you're wrong. Maybe maybe you're wrong and then start from there.

01:23:52

Rob McMullan: And in general all of us can be wrong at some point and I think that's a healthy kind of skepticism. there's an unhealthy skepticism that goes into cynicism and you think everyone's out to get you and everything's a conspiracy.

Trevor McKee: Awesome.

Rob McMullan: That's messed up. And just broaden your sources of information. Start there. Be happy. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time hopefully. And maybe soon we'll have some great guests that that we happen to know. Thank you so much. And thank you Trevor. We'll talk to you later. Bye.

Trevor McKee: Sounds great.

Rob McMullan: Bye everyone.

Trevor McKee: Cheers.