How to Lose Fat & Gain Muscle With Nutrition | Alan Aragon

Andrew Huberman Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science, and science-based tools for everyday life.

Andrew Huberman I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

Andrew Huberman My guest today is Alan Aragon. Alan Aragon is one of the most influential and respected figures in the fields of fitness and nutrition. The reason for that is because of his strict reliance on evidence-based information, and because he's co-authored some of the most highly cited and respected studies and reviews on nutrition and fitness. His expertise covers nutrition and training for women and for men, and for anyone who's seeking better health, fat loss, muscle and strength gain, or all of the above. And in today's episode, we cover all of that, and much more. Alan clarifies the myths, and the facts around things like seed oils, whether or not it's better to do your workouts fasted for sake of fat burning, low calorie and artificial sweeteners, sugar, alcohol, collagen, and more. Alan also explains how to determine your actual protein needs. Despite all the discussion nowadays about protein, there's still a lot of confusion about this actually. He covers the real science on meal timing, protein and carbohydrate intake relative to your training, how women's hormone cycles impact their training and nutrition needs, and eating and training for body composition changes for anyone.

Andrew Huberman There is just so much advice and information online, but also in the peer reviewed literature on nutrition and fitness nowadays, which makes it very challenging for anyone seeking to understand and implement what really matters toward their fitness and body composition goals. If ever there was a voice of practical reason who is grounded in the peer review data, but who is also willing to acknowledge individual differences and preferences when it comes to fitness and nutrition, it's Alan Aragon. And today, he shares that information with us, and he also makes it clear and actionable as to what really works. Thanks to Alan, by the end of today's episode, you will be armed with the latest and best knowledge on nutrition and fitness that you can apply.

Andrew Huberman Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Alan Aragon.

Andrew Huberman Alan Aragon, welcome.

Alan Aragon Andrew, it is awesome to be here. Literally awesome. It's no exaggeration. I'm super stoked, man. Thank you for having me on the show.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Well, I've learned a ton from you through our online correspondence, and we've met once before in person. Let's get down to some important topics that are very actionable, because this is what I love so much about your work. It clarifies so much of the confusion that exists out there. I think this is really one of the signatures of your work, is that it clarifies. Let's start off with something that many people have heard, which is that we can only assimilate 30 grams of protein per meal.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Andrew Huberman And the simple question is, what constitutes a meal? If I eat 30 grams of protein, and an hour later, I eat 30 grams of protein, did I just eat two meals? Can I assimilate 30 grams in each? And can I assimilate more than 30 grams of protein under certain circumstances? What's the deal with this protein assimilation thing?

Alan Aragon Okay. Well, you elucidated one of the issues right in the question. Are we talking about isolated, quickly digesting protein, or are we talking about a slower digesting protein, or are we talking about any one of those within the context of a mixed macro-nutrient meal with carbohydrate, fat, fiber? All of those conditions alter the behavior of what happens physiologically.

Alan Aragon And so the origin of the whole 25 grams of protein max is all you can use, is the confusion of two separate concepts. There is digestion and utilization at the kind of entire body level, where protein has various metabolic fates for various systems, and just various homeostatic needs of the body. And then there is the specific phenomenon of the muscle anabolic response, or muscle protein synthesis. So, we have to separate digestion and absorption in general, or muscle protein synthesis. So, the 25, 30 gram cut off, it's usually listed at, some people say 20, that refers specifically to muscle protein synthesis, where there seems to be a plateau at 25-ish, 30-ish grams. And we thought this all the way from the late '90s, early 2000s, all the way up until 2016-ish or so.

Alan Aragon 2016, when McNaughton and colleagues compared 20 grams of protein, versus 40 grams of protein, but instead of doing what previous researchers did with the training routes being very low volume, like 8 to 12 sets, a couple different leg exercises, leg extensions, leg presses, 8 to 12 sets total. And then you assess the muscle protein synthetic response to the protein dose. What McNaughton and colleagues did, they hit the subjects with a 24-ish set regimen, full body. So, it was a little bit more ecologically valid, in the sense that they tried to mirror what goes on in the real-world with training regimens, with people who are trying to build muscle and really elicit this anabolic response. So, when they ran this experiment and they compared 20 versus 40 grams of protein, the 40 grams of protein actually had a greater muscle protein synthesis response than the 20 grams. And it took us all the way to 2016 to figure that out. And then, a series of studies just kind of progressed from there and proceeded to kind of debunk this idea that muscle protein synthesis plateaus at 20, 25 grams. And there's some interesting recent studies on that as well.

Andrew Huberman Up to 100 grams, as I recall.

Alan Aragon That's exactly the study I was going to bring up. That's by Jorn Trommelen and colleagues, where they compared a 25-gram dose with a 100-gram dose, post-exercise. They used a slow digesting protein. They used milk protein, which is 80% casein, which is a slow digesting 20% whey, which is fast. So, mostly a slow digesting protein. And there was significantly greater muscle protein synthesis with the 100-gram dose, compared to the 25-gram dose. But my big issue with that study is they really needed to include an intermediate dose, to see whether there would have been a plateau in MPS with something like, let's say, 40 or 50 grams. And that's because there's a lot of other research seeing that plateau somewhere between 30 and 50 grams. So, I wish Jorn et al. included an intermediate dose with that.

Andrew Huberman Maybe a future study. Let me just pause you for a second and ask a couple questions.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman If you can give an across-the-board recommendation of how much protein people should consume post-resistance training. Let's just leave cardiovascular training separately for the moment. Post-resistance training, what would that number be? Would it be 20, 30, 50, or 100? Should it scale with body weight? And how long after training should one consume that protein, if the goal is muscle protein synthesis?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon To maximize muscle protein synthesis, regardless of whether it's post exercise, and MPS will be larger with the protein dosing post-exercise, than at resting or fasting. To maximize MPS, we really haven't seen doses beyond 50-ish grams, 30 or so, to 50. My colleague, Brad Schoenfeld, and I, we scoured the literature, and we wrote this paper on 'What is the maximal anabolic dose of protein per meal for the goal of muscle building?' And we boiled it down to somewhere between 0.4 to roughly 0.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. And so, in freedom units, we're talking 0.2 to 0.25 grams per pound, and that is what appears to max out muscle protein synthesis.

Andrew Huberman 0.2 to 0.5 grams per pound.

Alan Aragon 0.2 to 0.25.

Andrew Huberman 0.25?

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon Yeah, so like about a quarter of your body weight in pounds, if you're looking at grams of protein, to maximize muscle protein synthesis.

Andrew Huberman Per meal?

Alan Aragon Yes, per meal.

Andrew Huberman Okay, sorry, because I think many people, including myself, are going to say, "Okay, but this is only in the meal post-workout?" I wake up in the morning and I try to work out before I eat, because I like to do that. Sometimes I'll have a little bit of protein. But let's assume two conditions, just for simplicity.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman Somebody did resistance training in the previous two hours. And they're trying to evaluate how much protein to eat at that meal in order to maximize muscle protein synthesis. Or they're eating a meal separate, on a day they're not resistance training.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Right?

Alan Aragon Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Huberman And then, as just kind of a generic example of a meal that doesn't follow resistance training in the window of two hours or so, how much protein should be consumed at these two different meals?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon The answer to that is so weird, Andrew, honestly.

Andrew Huberman Really? Why does it have to be so weird?

Alan Aragon It's freaking weird, and it's complicated.

Andrew Huberman Oh.

Alan Aragon Okay. So, if we go all the way back to 2003, 2004, and then we walk forward 20 years.

Alan Aragon So, John Ivy and Robert Portman put out this book called, 'Nutrient Timing', and they focused on this narrow post-exercise window of opportunity, they called it. So, the anabolic window. The concept was you needed to consume protein, and quickly digesting carbs. So, a fast-digesting protein, lightning fast, highly glycemic, highly insulinemic carb source, together within 30 to 60 minutes post-exercise, in order to maximize the anabolic response, maximize recovery, and then maximize your muscle gain. So, that was their hypothesis. This was all based on subjects who were training after an overnight fast. And so, what happens when you consume a meal pre-exercise, or at any point, let's say, and a regular old mixed meal, medium size, the anabolic/anticatabolic effect of that meal is going to last anywhere from three to six hours, depending on the size of the meal.

Alan Aragon So, when you're somebody whose goal it is, above all the other goals, is to gain muscle at the quickest rate possible, you're almost never going to train fasted. You're going to have a pre-exercise meal at some point, at least a couple hours pre-exercise. And so, when you're training, you actually still have these substrates in circulation through the exercise bout. And oftentimes, if somebody has a meal an hour pre-exercise, they're still absorbing that pre-exercised meal, post-exercise. We looked at this whole post-exercise period as something that just doesn't necessarily have any external validity. It doesn't have relevance to real-world training conditions, where people are not training fasted. And so, what we did was a couple of things. First, we wrote a narrative review criticizing the post-exercise anabolic window. And this was in 2013. We kind of p***ed off all the researchers who did the seminal work in that area.

Andrew Huberman Mm.

Andrew Huberman I'm sensing a theme here. Just teasing.

Alan Aragon And we did a meta-analysis of the existing literature looking at the anabolic window thing. For the listeners, a meta-analysis is a study of the studies. You collect all of the studies on a given question, and then you look at effect sizes, and you sort of see where the evidence leans, whether there's a significant or meaningful effect or not. And so, we did this meta-analysis, and we collected studies that compared a protein timing condition, where protein was timed within an hour, either pre- or post-exercise. And then the control group of the study would have to have protein, a minimum of two hours of nutrient neglect on both sides of the training bout. So, we collected all the studies that compared these conditions. We had a brilliant stats guy, James Krieger. He ran the regression analysis. And essentially, we found that as long as the total daily protein was about 1.66, 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, so about 0.7 grams per pound, as long as total daily protein was at that or more, then the timing relative to the training bout didn't make a difference.

Andrew Huberman This is important for people to hear, because what this translates to in my ears is a very simple takeaway, which is that you don't need to obsess about the post-training anabolic window, especially if you're eating prior to training.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Because you have nutrients circulating. Now, if you eat your last bite of food at 8:00 PM, and you wake up at 7:00 AM, and you're training at 10:00 AM, then perhaps by the time you finish your leg workout, or whatever resistance training workout, you would want to prioritize getting some protein and other nutrients into your system. What you're saying, basically, it's so logical now that I hear it, which is that you have nutrients circulating in your body and stored in your glycogen, and so you're pulling from a reservoir. If fasted doesn't necessarily mean starving.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon General rule of thumb, if you're burping your pre-exercise meal towards the end of your workout, then you don't need to run towards this-

Andrew Huberman Oh, this is why I don't like to ingest anything prior to training.

Alan Aragon Okay.

Andrew Huberman Besides caffeine, electrolytes, and water.

Alan Aragon The reason why there's a weird and complex answer with this is a single resistance training bout causes this interesting cascade of things where muscle protein synthesis will peak 24 hours after the resistance training bout. And it will take as long as 48 to 72 hours to come down to baseline levels to where you had not done the resistance training bout. So, the anabolic window is actually not hours, but days. So, it's more a matter of making sure you are consuming. Well, the first in the order of importance is total daily protein. So, there's this hierarchy of importance. If you get total daily protein right, then the timing of the constituent doses of the total are just a distant secondary concern.

Andrew Huberman Hm.

Andrew Huberman Even if it's only distributed across two meals? Like let's say, I train in the morning, maybe I have some caffeine, and a scoop of protein shake before, with some whey protein, maybe a few almonds to slow digestion down or whatever. Train, and then I don't get to eat until 3:00 PM. And I only train for an hour, let's say. And then at 3:00 PM I have a little bit of a chicken breast and a salad, maybe a slice of bread because I'm on the fly. And then that night I get home and I'm hungry, and I eat two rib-eye steaks. I'm exaggerating here. I wouldn't do that. I'd like to, but I don't.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Andrew Huberman Those two rib-eye steaks probably give you 75 or even 100 grams of protein and a bunch of other things too. Can you use all of that for muscle protein synthesis?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon The short answer is yes. The nuanced answer is, let me tell you about a couple studies.

Andrew Huberman Okay. Well, as you do that, but, let me ask it a little differently. Not to shut down the emphasis on studies, because that's why you're here. But is there anything wrong with consuming a high, or very high protein meal every once in a while? Especially if you're not eating much or consuming much protein throughout the day. And the reason I ask, this is for practical reasons. Many people find it difficult to distribute their protein evenly through the day. Many people also find it difficult to get enough protein in the middle of the day meals, or the morning meals. It can be done, and I know people will say, "Well, you have some eggs and some protein." There are ways to do it, sure. But, at least in this country, most people tend to emphasize dinner as their largest meal, for better or worse. And you can usually order high quality, high protein foods in a restaurant, like a steak, chicken breast, fish, et cetera. So, a lot of people stack their protein heavily towards the end of the day. Assuming caloric load is appropriate, et cetera, is there anything fundamentally wrong or bad about doing that, from the perspective of body composition, and health?

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon I would say no. And then there's levels to it. What population are we looking at? Are we looking at guys who are trying to win a national competition in bodybuilding, for example? Or professionally, or-

Andrew Huberman No.

Andrew Huberman No. We're talking about men and women, teens up to 75 years old, who are trying to be fit by doing a combination of resistance training, and hopefully some cardiovascular training as well. Trying to get their steps in. We're talking about the general population, not somebody who's trying to win a physique competition, or run a marathon or ultra.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon Okay. So, generally, no. And I want to qualify that a little bit. So, my colleagues and I did a study testing out this anabolic window thing. This was 2014, where we tested immediate pre-exercise, 25 grams of whey protein versus immediate post-exercise, 25 grams of whey protein. We ran the experiment for 10 weeks. 8 or 10, probably 10. And there was no significant advantage of either condition. And our thinking was, look, everybody's harping about this post-exercise anabolic window, so if there is this opportunity to consume nutrients at prime time to feed the hungry muscles, then you would want to focus on availability of nutrients in circulation, and not when you actually consume the nutrients, because there's this time course for the nutrients to peak in circulation. It's usually somewhere between one and two hours after you ingest the stuff. So, how about we consume protein immediately pre, and then it'll be peaking in the blood an hour-ish later, and then you'll be right in the anabolic window. So, we didn't see any advantage to the immediate pre-protein versus the immediate post-protein. That was in 2014.

Alan Aragon So, fast forward to 2024-ish, '23, '24. One of my colleagues, Yassin Lak, he took our pre-post model, and he ran his own randomized control trial version of it, but he wanted to kind of exploit the possibility of further protein neglect on both sides of the training bout. So, he compared an immediate pre and post 25 grams of protein, sandwiching the resistance training bout, with a group that neglected all nutrients for three hours on both sides of the resistance training bout. Total daily protein was optimized close to a gram per pound, two-ish grams per kilogram of body weight. No significant difference. No meaningful difference in muscle size and strength gains at the end of the, I believe it was a 10 or 12-week study.

Andrew Huberman That's very reassuring to me, because I have a busy schedule, as do many people, and sometimes I'm a little hungry before I train and I'll want a scoop of protein powder, and I'll think, "Oh, is it better?" We'll talk about whether or not it's better to train fasted, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes people don't like to train fasted. Sometimes people don't like to eat immediately after they train. Sometimes you have to shower up and head to dinner after you train, or shower up and head to a meeting, and you don't have the opportunity to ingest in the "anabolic window."

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman So, what I'm hearing through all these answers, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there's tremendous flexibility as to when you consume the protein that we all need, but the overall protein requirement seems to center somewhere around 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight, somewhere in there, total per day. If the amount in a given meal is a bit higher than 20 or 30 grams, you're fine. If it's a bit lower, you're probably fine. But the thing that also I believe needs highlighting, that most people don't talk about is distinguishing between what's in circulation, versus when one ingests something. We love to think that we drink 30 grams of protein, or eat the chicken breast, or the piece of steak, or have the eggs, and suddenly those amino acids are available. And it makes so much more rational sense now that you describe it, that eating first makes those amino acids available for the muscles a couple hours later. And we just don't learn about it that way. So, I'm very grateful that you're bringing it up that way.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Yeah

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It appears. Right

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman I realize we could probably drill into protein requirements ad nauseum, but yeah.

Alan Aragon Think about it this way. The way I like to put it is, total daily protein is the cake. The specific timing of protein relative to the training bout, that is the icing on the cake, and it's a very thin layer of icing on the cake.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

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Andrew Huberman Let's talk about fasted training.

Alan Aragon Okay.

Andrew Huberman And whether or not it indeed burns more body fat.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And here, let's expand the conversation to include cardiovascular training, and, of course, that's a vast space. Could be long slow distance, could be high-intensity interval training. Anything that gets your heart rate elevated deliberately for 12 minutes or more, is kind of how I'd put it. So, let's be broad with what we're calling training. Could be resistance training, circuit training, whole body, body part split, whatever. Let's take all that, and let's define the fast as not having eaten either for four hours during the middle of the day, or for 8 hours to 12 hours, including sleep the night before, right? Because people then say, "Wait, but I'm fasted because I don't eat lunch, and then I tr-" Okay. It gets really murky and then we could spend 26 hours here and we don't want to do that.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman So, assuming that one trains fasted, does one burn more stored body fat, in particular, or just more dietary fat, if there's dietary fat circulating and available? Let's just say lipids. I think when we hear the word "fat," people think body fat but there's also dietary fat. So, could you please discriminate between those two?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Okay. So, picture this. Picture two people eating the exact same diet, identical diet. By the end of the day, same macronutrition, same food selection, everything is identical. Let's say we're running a study, okay? One of the groups trains in a genuinely post-absorptive fasted state, eight to 10 hours-ish, eating nothing. They will burn more fat during the training bout.

Andrew Huberman Body fat?

Alan Aragon Yes. They will burn more body fat. They will burn more intramuscular fat. Their net fat oxidation will be higher than the group that has a breakfast. And the group that has the breakfast will essentially be burning their breakfast during the training. So, yes, during the training, there is greater fat burning in the fasted group. But once again, we're looking at two groups who are consuming the exact same diet. So, the group who consumed their breakfast is going to consume less stuff, less food, one less meal in the later part of the day. So, their fat oxidation is going to be higher in the later part of the day. And so, it all comes out even by the end of the day. So that is the kind of the big issue and the big principle with fasted training. Yes, it does burn more fat during training, but you're looking at a snapshot of time within the course of the day. You're not looking at the course of the day.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon But you know what? This was a huge idea that persisted throughout the late '80s and early '90s. And even into the 2000s when Bill Phillips came out with 'Body For Life' and stuff, he was big on the fasted cardio and stuff. This kind of lore is really cool, if you know scientists who are able to rope you in and help you investigate this stuff.

Alan Aragon So, once again, I got to give Brad Schoenfeld a lot of credit. He wanted to test this hypothesis out, and so we took college-age subjects, women, and we compared fasted cardio with fed cardio. And the predominant lore at the time was the fat burning zone. So, we're talking low, moderate intensity cardio, which they carried out for little less than an hour. And we compared an immediate pre cardio meal, which was standardized. It was a meal replacement type of thing. With the same meal consumed post-cardio. And then we measured body composition over- People criticized the study for being four weeks, but look-

Andrew Huberman It's hard to run human studies. I've done it. I've done a clinical trial in humans. It's very hard to run long-term studies, especially in humans, especially when it involves nutrition and training.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman It's brutal. So, hat tip to you for tackling it at all. You're not going to catch any heat from me on the four-week thing.

Alan Aragon Good, good.

Andrew Huberman But I appreciate that you mentioned the duration of the study because, in thoroughness, which you're characterized for, people should know it.

Alan Aragon Yep. Yep.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Okay.

Alan Aragon So, this is one of the only existing studies that looked at this question and controlled hypocaloric conditions. I actually put together all the studies by hand for each of the subjects, kind of customizing it to their needs and making sure things were hypocaloric, making sure protein was optimized. Interestingly, there was no resistance training involved with this study. They were just doing their cardio. Subjects in both groups maintained their lean body mass, but both groups lost a significant amount of body fat. No difference in body fat reduction between groups by the end of the study, whether they did their cardio fed, or whether they did it fasted. And that's because we equated the total nutrition between the groups. And-

Andrew Huberman And you said, again, the subjects were college-age women.

Alan Aragon College-age women, yes.

Andrew Huberman And what was the cardio? What was the workout? And the reason I'm asking is that it's impressive that they all lost body fat, as long as they ate the appropriate amount of calories, didn't matter when they distributed those calories relative to the exercise, and they maintained lean body mass. And if they weren't doing resistance training, I'm impressed that the cardiovascular training was sufficient to allow them to maintain lean body mass. What was the cardiovascular workout?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It was low-moderate intensity, what might be called zone two type of cardio, where you can still hold a conversation but, it's not necessarily a waltz. And so, the whole idea was to be in the fat burning zone. We wanted to exploit the whole fat burning zone concept, to keep the intensity low-moderate, so we can give the fasted cardio condition a chance to show whatever magic it might have. And so, we didn't see that magic by the end of the trial.

Alan Aragon The practical takeaway from that is, number one, we didn't see a bunch of lean mass loss in the fasted cardio group, because there's this lore saying that, "Hey, you better not train fasted no matter what. You better not do cardio fasted because you're going to lose muscle." Well, they didn't lose any lean body mass. And when you form practical takeaways from the findings, we can say that if you prefer to train fasted, and you just feel better, doing your cardio in a fasted state, great. Do it fasted. If you can't stand doing fasted cardio and you'd rather have a breakfast beforehand, then go ahead and do that. Just know that that's not going to necessarily hinder your fat loss efforts, as long as you're net hypocaloric by the end of the day, or the end of the week.

Alan Aragon Those recommendations can change with the type of cardio you do, especially higher intensity stuff, or certainly competitive types of sports that involve endurance performance elements and stuff. But that's the takeaway from our study, that fasted versus fed cardio doesn't matter. Do it based on personal preference.

Andrew Huberman I love it. After so many years of trends coming through, train fasted, don't train fasted, it seems like as with protein, what I'm learning from you is that there's a lot more flexibility in time than we might have once thought. But that the absolute calories, of course, matter. Prioritizing protein matters. And you still have to train. You got to do something.

Alan Aragon And can I add this? Because I know you'll appreciate this. I'm not going to cherry-pick our study and say that this is the end-all result that is gospel. So, there's actually a later meta-analysis a few years later by, I think it's Hagstrom and Hackett, who looked at fasted versus fed training, and they overall found no significant differences or significant advantages in terms of body comp improvement, fat loss in the fasted versus the fed conditions, as long as total nutrition is equated between the groups.

Andrew Huberman Love it. This is music to my ears, and I'm sure it's going to be music to everybody's ears because it just says there's flexibility. And life is complicated, so more flexibility is good.

Alan Aragon But it's disappointing though, too. If you're looking for magic, if you're looking for that special little thing you can do that ugh.

Andrew Huberman Well, maybe the magic is in the training consistently, the nutrition, including protein, and the knowledge that there's flexibility. I have this saying in my mind lately that the things that make 90% of the difference, so sleep, exercise, nutrition, light, stress management, relationships, et cetera, in our health, are the things we have to do 90% of the days of our lives. And that's why there can continue to be so much discussion around them. This is why it isn't just like, "Here are the basics. Okay, you're done." It's because the things that we have to do every day, we often have to be reminded to do every day.

Andrew Huberman But along those lines, why is it, in your opinion, that protein is so critical? That protein be treated as the cornerstone of good nutrition, especially if one is attempting to consume calories to maintain, or perhaps even lose a little bit of body fat, maybe simultaneously maintaining or gaining muscle. But let's set aside muscle gain for the moment, and let's just say maintain muscle, but many people want to lose a few percentages of body fat.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Why is it that protein is so critical to that process? Why is it that indeed calories in versus calories out reigns true, law of thermodynamics, but that protein is so crucial?

Alan Aragon It's mainly just a couple of things to keep in mind, and potentially a third little thing. So, the big thing about protein and body comp is, number one, protein directly supports lean body mass. It directly supports all the lean tissues in the body, skeletal muscle especially. And skeletal muscle is basically our metabolic engine that we can control. It manages our body's fuel use, and so it's super critical to support skeletal muscle. Protein does that directly. And protein is more satiating than carbohydrate and fat, and so it's the most satiating macronutrient. The third little detail, well, it's got the highest cost of metabolism, or cost of processing within the body. So, it's the most energetically or calorically expensive macronutrient to process within the body. So, it has a higher so-called thermic effect.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Those are basically the three main reasons why protein is so critical to things like body comp improvement, high-quality weight loss, fat loss. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Those are great reasons.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And what about the hierarchy of protein quality? I think of protein quality in terms of quality of protein, meaning the type and ratios of amino acids, the availability of those amino acids relative to the amount of calories one has to ingest to get them. Because frankly, I've grown tired and slightly irritated at the, "Oh, these plant-based foods have a ton of quality protein in them." And I go, "Really? You have to consume 2,000 calories of that plant or grain in order to get the equivalent amino acid profile from a four-ounce piece of steak, for instance." And this is not an argument that animal proteins are better ethically. I'm just saying at a quality, as a function of calories ingested, I feel like animal proteins are superior. But tell me what the data says.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Sure, sure. Man, this is a lightning rod of a topic here, this-

Andrew Huberman We have a strong audience. They can handle it.

Alan Aragon They can handle it? All right, guys, buckle up. Brace yourselves, please.

Andrew Huberman They can handle it.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Alan Aragon So, gram for gram, as a group, animal proteins are higher quality. They're more anabolic. They have a higher proportion of essential amino acids. They have a higher amount and proportion of the most anabolic-driving amino acids, the branched-chain amino acids, leucine specifically. And, in the majority of the literature, when you compare animal versus plant proteins head-to-head, you see greater muscle protein synthesis. Now, with muscle protein synthesis being sort of the short-term indicator of what might indicate a growth trajectory over time, we have to see if we can corroborate that with these longitudinal trials. Where you drag the experiment out for weeks and months to see if there's any superiority with the animal versus the plant protein, for kind of where the rubber meets the road, which is increasing muscle mass and/or strength.

Alan Aragon So, there have been a lot of studies comparing animal versus plant proteins. Okay, so the animal proteins do have the edge in that department, and that's been reported in a couple meta-analyses now. One of them compared whey and soy, and didn't find a staggering difference between the two, anabolically. So, we can call soy actually a high-quality protein. But when you look at the individual studies, whey still has an edge, because meta-analyses just take the data and cram it all together into a single conclusion.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It's also important to look at the individual studies too. So, here’s where the story gets interesting. There are 2 studies now, that compared a- And this is what's been missing from the literature. Usually, we take two groups of omnivores, and we supplement them with, let's say, whey protein, and then we supplement the other group with some sort of a plant protein.

Andrew Huberman Like pea protein or something.

Alan Aragon Yeah, pea protein, and interesting thing about pea protein, it actually outperformed whey in one study.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon So in this 2015 study where pea protein supplementation outperformed whey, for increasing muscle thickness. I was really sad to see that because I was weighing it up, and I was like, "Oh, God, yeah. What are we doing here?"

Andrew Huberman Oh, it is what it is.

Alan Aragon That study has not been replicated. But, okay, so the interesting part. We finally have studies where we're looking at completely vegan regimen. A group who's totally vegan, no animal products at all in the diet, versus an omnivore group. And put them on a resistance training regimen, 12 weeks. This was done by Lorraine and colleagues. This was a few years back. And so they optimized protein, or at least made it at the bottom of optimal, at 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, in both groups, okay? But the unique thing about this study, it was the first time ever we're comparing vegans with omnivores. So, there were no significant differences between groups in muscle size and strength gains by the end of the 12 weeks, where they were put on a progressive resistance training program.

Andrew Huberman It was isocaloric? So both groups-

Alan Aragon Isocaloric. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Meaning, for those that don't know what that means, is total number of calories ingested per day, same in the vegan versus omnivore group.

Alan Aragon Yes, that's right, isocaloric. Iso macronutritional, isoproteic. Everything is equated between the groups, macronutrition-wise. No significant differences in the size and strength gains. Oh, and by the way, the vegan group, their protein intake was boosted up to 1.6 grams per kilo or 0.7 grams per pound. It was boosted up by soy protein supplementation. So apparently, we're beginning to see that at a dose, a total daily protein at 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight, the totally vegan group was able to hang in there against the omnivore group for muscle size and strength gains, at least within the conditions of the study, and at least for those 12 weeks, and at least for the subjects that were used, who weren't necessarily these high-level athletes or whatever.

Andrew Huberman So, if you construct it properly, you can follow a vegan diet, as long as you get 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.

Alan Aragon Grams per pound

Alan Aragon And the weird thing, man, is the vegan diet overall had significantly less essential amino acid content.

Andrew Huberman Hmm.

Alan Aragon And significantly less branch chain amino acid content. But apparently, the resistance training stimulus is robust enough to make protein effects almost secondary.

Andrew Huberman Interesting.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Getting right back to exercise probably being the major lever in everything. Oh, well, sleep I would argue is the major lever over time.

Alan Aragon I would agree, man.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Yeah. But I will say this, because then people think if they get one bad night's sleep to not train. I don't know if you're familiar with these recent studies showing that you can offset the inflammation that arrives from getting five or fewer hours of sleep the previous night.

Alan Aragon With training?

Andrew Huberman With exercise.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman You just don't want to get into a habit of it. But if you're on the-

Alan Aragon Easier said than done.

Andrew Huberman I know. If you're on the fence about whether or not to train because you're sleep-deprived, train, but don't do that more than one to two days per week ideally. And even better would be to get great sleep and train. But-

Alan Aragon I know you're gearing up to hit the next thing. I want to mention that this study I just talked about was not a one-off. A couple years later, Montien and colleagues did the same thing, but they used mycoprotein for the vegan group.

Andrew Huberman Mycoprotein?

Alan Aragon It's a fungus-based protein.

Alan Aragon So, you've seen that. I think it's on- Is it on Netflix or HBO, 'The Last of Us', where that fungus makes people anabolic?

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I haven't seen that. That's what this is? It's based on this?

Alan Aragon I'm doing a joke about a fictional show. Some of the audience will chuckle or just think I just busted the most terrible dad joke ever. But it's a fungus-based protein. Commercially, it's called Quorn, so Q-U-O-R-N.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon It's one of these weird types of products that is unfortunately expensive.

Andrew Huberman Hmm.

Alan Aragon And so, the plant-based, or the animal-free group, their protein intake was boosted with this mycoprotein. And then they were compared against omnivores with mixed protein sources. And by the end of the study, I believe it was a 12-week study, no significant differences in increases in muscle size and strength. And progressive resistance training regimen. And once again, not necessarily highly trained people, but we basically saw the same thing. As long as total daily protein is where it needs to be, then apparently, the animal-free group can hang with the omnivores at least for the conditions of that study. So, I always look at these things skeptically.

Alan Aragon But the mycoprotein also outperformed milk protein for muscle protein synthesis in this acute study that preceded this longitudinal study. And so there's some weird stuff that we can look at aside from animal protein that could be just as anabolic. So yeah, that's the story with animal versus plant and/or fungus-based protein. So yeah, I just had to throw in the Montien study.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman No, it's very interesting.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman I think when people hear soy, there has been this kind of assault on soy for years. And I've avoided it not for any specific reason, but because I prefer other sources of calories. I like meat and berries and eggs, and this kind of thing. But it's interesting that some of these engineered proteins, and soy protein, and pea protein, when you really put them to the test under the right conditions, gram for gram, they seem to perform just as well as the animal proteins.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman You did mention, however, that satiety is a key factor. So, I'd be curious in this study, I don't know if they measured this, whether the people in the vegan group felt that they were happy with what they were eating, as compared to the animal protein group. At the end of the day, are they still craving more food? Do they feel like they desperately want a rib eye steak? In order to follow a fairly strict diet of any kind, but in particular plant-based, one has to have a good reason.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman I think that otherwise, you just kind of fall into the availability issue. It's a lot easier to eat an omnivore diet.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't measured in either of the studies.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon And I always look at these things skeptically when you use essentially untrained subjects. Because untrained subjects are always going to kind of incur this newbie gains effect for the training regimen, where the gains that you get from the resistance training alone are going to just mask any potential advantage of either protein type. Stu Phillips will argue with me on that all day long. We did a two-day-long Twitter argument about that, and-

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman You spent two days on an argument on X?

Alan Aragon Yeah. Stu is a fricking legend, man. He is a legend in the protein research area, but he will argue with two to three days on Twitter. And so, we always end up at the same spot where, look, we need more research to see whether- And this wasn't about plant versus animal proteins, this was about just total daily protein intake, period. We just need more research on highly resistance-trained subjects to see whether in fact, a completely plant-based protein regimen that's optimized calorically and total daily protein amount-wise, can really run with the animal-based stuff, like the high-quality animal-based proteins.

Alan Aragon And so, it almost depends on where you want to place your bets and where you want to take your risks. So, if gold is on the line, if first place at a professional or national level is on the line, yeah, I don't know if I would. But everybody's ideology is what it is, and some people are just kind of governed by what they want to stick to. So, it really depends on the population and what the goal is.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

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Andrew Huberman I'd like to talk a little bit about body recomposition. Simple question to start off. Is it possible to "Gain muscle while at the same time losing fat?"

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Great. That will be reassuring to people.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Does it require a caloric deficit?

Alan Aragon This is the weird part. No. No, and just super interesting, man. My friend and colleague, Chris Barakat, he collected all the studies that witnessed this recomposition phenomenon with a recomposition, we call it recomp, a simultaneous gain in lean mass and loss in fat mass. So, he collected all the studies. He collected 10 studies, and this review was put out 5 years ago. So, you can imagine there's probably a few more studies that have shown recomp now. So, we can say about at least a dozen studies have shown this phenomenon, which we didn't necessarily think was possible 10 years ago. We thought, "Okay, you need a caloric surplus to gain muscle," and "Oh, you need a caloric deficit to lose fat." But what happened in these studies is the recomposition phenomenon, I think 7 out of the 10 studies was a lean mass gain dominant recomposition.

Alan Aragon So, in other words, more lean mass was gained than fat was lost. So, there were net gains in body mass by the end of these trials, which would at least very strongly imply that fat was lost in a caloric surplus.

Andrew Huberman If you were going to suggest to somebody the best way to approach this. Let's say somebody, loosely speaking, this is not a competitive athlete. This could be man or a woman, assuming that the same advice would pertain to both. Is willing to do resistance training three to four times per week. Let's say three times per week. Do some cardio three times per week, for about an hour each session for those. And they are willing to eat maintenance calories or slightly over, and their goal is to gain some muscle and lose some fat. Where would you set the calories relative to their needs? Would it be an extra two to 500 calories? I realize that's hard to say because we should talk in percentages. But let's just keep it broad for sake of a broad audience.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Sure, sure.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman How much more than maintenance should somebody ingest? And let's assume that when they go in the gym, they know what they're doing. They warm up for 5, 10 minutes, and then they train hard. They take the sets close to failure. They're doing three to six sets per body part. They're training with meaningful effort. And when they do their cardio, they're somewhere between zone two, and maybe they throw in a max heart rate workout once a week. They do some sprints in the middle of their zone two and go back to... This, I think, is pretty typical of what a lot of people are willing to do or are currently doing.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I would say, sort of the simple and direct answer is you try to keep the caloric surplus pretty judicious. So, 10% ish above maintenance conditions, which could be for somewhere between 200, possibly 300 calories above what you see as maintenance. And the common thread amongst these recomposition studies was that protein was very high. Protein was somewhere between a gram to a gram and a half per pound of body weight.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Interesting. So now we've upped the protein intake.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Could we even say that the caloric, this 10% above maintenance, should come from quality protein?

Alan Aragon Exactly. Yes. Yes. And there's a series of studies done by Joey Antonio and colleagues, where they fed the subjects four to 800 calories above and beyond their habitual intakes, just in protein. And either recomposition happened, or no significant change in body composition happened. The pro-

Andrew Huberman Were they training?

Alan Aragon They were resistance training. And so what protein apparently does when you consume very high amounts of it, up to a gram, a gram and a half per pound of body weight, is it just sort of spontaneously does some magical things. It'll drive down your intake of the other macros. It will potentially increase your exercise energy expenditure and/or your non-exercise energy expenditure. It will do odd things. I talked to Joey Antonio when he got some feedback from the subjects on his very high protein study, where he subjected them to two grams per pound for an eight-week period. And he had subjects coming to him saying, "Hey, I'm sweating while I'm sleeping."

Andrew Huberman When you say two grams of protein per pound of body weight, are we talking about increasing total caloric intake, or just using more of one's daily caloric needs, devoting more of that to quality protein?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon See, that's the super interesting and kind of mysterious part. They're literally saying, "Okay, maintain your usual dietary habits, and then just add 50 to 100 grams of protein on top."

Andrew Huberman So, you're eating an extra chicken breast and a couple scoops of whey protein, or maybe some eggs as well and- So you're just adding more quality protein, on top of what you're already eating.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Adding more quality protein.

Alan Aragon On top of what you already eat.

Andrew Huberman And we already learned that we can distribute that pretty much wherever we want.

Alan Aragon Right. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Just do what's most comfortable for you, relative to your training and other needs.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman And you're saying then, "But they're sweating in their sleep."

Alan Aragon They're sweating in their sleep. An extra 80 to 100 grams of protein, just add it. Look, it's a free-living study, so we're not surveilling people in a metabolic ward. So, the increase in protein could have translated to greater energy expenditure through a number of pathways, non-exercise pathways or exercise pathways. It could put more power to the ground during their training. There could have been some sort of some magic thermic stuff going on. Who knows? And also, we can't discount the fact that, when you're telling people to add, let's say, 80 or 100 grams of protein to their habitual intake, the weird thing about subject self-reporting is they tend to over-report the healthy stuff that you assign them, and under-report the unhealthy stuff.

Andrew Huberman The thermic effect.

Andrew Huberman The good pupil phenomenon.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Exactly. And so, there could be some misreporting going on there. But over a series of five-ish studies now, just stack the protein on top, nobody gains fat, and some people lose fat.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Awesome.

Alan Aragon Yeah, it is pretty freaking awesome. Now, here's the thing that needs to be said. There was a metabolic ward study done in 2013-ish by Bray and colleagues, where they subjected the participants to escalating amounts of protein. And it was a protein overfeeding study. There were three levels of protein intakes. There was a 5% protein diet, a 15% protein diet, and a 30-ish% protein diet. The total calories escalated too. There was no exercise involved with this metabolic ward study. And the subjects gained both lean mass and fat mass with the escalating protein amounts. So, there's different stuff going on.

Alan Aragon When you lock people up in a metabolic ward and they can't train, and then you're escalating their protein intakes and calories, they will gain fat and lean mass. But, in free living conditions with resistance training, if you just over-protein the subjects, they actually have a tendency to lose fat. And it's a really interesting phenomenon, because it's been seen repeatedly.

Andrew Huberman With men and women?

Alan Aragon With men and women, yes.

Andrew Huberman The message I'm getting is, if you're going to add calories, add quality protein.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Make sure you're resistance training. Here, I'm building on the previous things we talked about. The distribution of the protein probably doesn't matter as much, as just getting the total protein, correct?

Alan Aragon Yep.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman And I find it very reassuring that I can train fasted or not fasted, mostly because very few of us have total control of our schedule. So, sometimes we need to train first thing in the morning, then we got to catch a flight or head to work, and sometimes people only have time in the evening, this kind of thing. I want to make sure that we talk about some of the other macronutrients.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman Because carbohydrates do exist.

Andrew Huberman We won't talk about fiber just now. Can we actually put fiber onto the shelf quickly by saying, fiber's good, right?

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Okay. Fiber's good. Get fiber.

Alan Aragon The short answer is it's good.

Andrew Huberman Get fiber, and get it through fruits and vegetables. And if you're not doing that, get it through some supplement, but ideally through fruits and vegetables, right?

Alan Aragon Fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains. Grains are a double-edged sword.

Andrew Huberman Right. Because they're high calorie.

Alan Aragon You got the refined grains, the flour foods, and then you have the whole grains. But even some of the whole grains, there's such thing as whole grain goldfish crackers. A bit of a treacherous little area there for people who are trying to economize on the junk, and the calories that they consume. You could still have a whole grain diet that has just a bunch of crap.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Right. So, fruits, vegetables, but get your fiber. Fiber's key. But when we talk about carbohydrates, let's divide them crudely into starchy carbohydrates, so stuff that basically will melt in your mouth. That's the way I think about it, right? A piece of cooked potato, a piece of cooked yam. Yes, if you put a piece of cooked pasta in your mouth long enough, or even uncooked pasta, it'll eventually dissolve as opposed to-

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Get fiber.

Alan Aragon Sure

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Okay. Yeah.

Alan Aragon Or you just inhale it.

Andrew Huberman Right. Or it- Well, don't do that. Or a piece of broccoli, which most of it is not going to melt in your mouth. You'll be waiting several weeks. It's because there's a lot of fiber there. So, this is the crude way of distinguishing between fibers and non-fibers. So starchy and non-starchy carbohydrates. Starches in some sense are a great fuel. They put glycogen in our liver and muscles. They can fuel things like resistance training. They can help us think. All the ketogenic folks are being like, "I think best fasted," or "I think best keto," but brain likes glucose. What is your take on carbohydrates with respect to maintaining or losing body fat? Meaning, do carbohydrates make it harder to do that if one is doing everything else equally?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman ... meaning you're getting exercise, and you're not exceeding your daily caloric intake. Are starches inherently bad?

Alan Aragon That's a great question. I defer to the evidence, and of course, evidence is its own thing. You've got research here, and then you have observations and anecdotes here. Right?

Andrew Huberman Well, let's talk primarily about research. Anecdotes are great.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But it generally tends to circle around to what people find has worked best for them.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And I'm happy to talk about that. I'm sure you're happy to talk about that.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But I think what I like to emphasize on this podcast, and what you do so beautifully is to talk about, what does the best possible set of controlled studies say when kind of lumped together?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Unless there's one study that kind of rises above the rest because it was done so well.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I think it's so hard to do quality studies in humans, so we have to have that caveat.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman The more you control, the less natural the conditions are. Right? The more natural the conditions are, the less can be controlled.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman This is why there will always be jobs for people in nutrition and fitness because ultimately, you bring people into a metabolic ward, it's very unnatural.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman You let them free range and just tell you what they ate.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman They lie, or they forget, and they cheat.

Alan Aragon Absolutely.

Andrew Huberman They sneak some Starburst, and they don't tell you about it.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, that's just life.

Alan Aragon Even clients who are paying you a lot of money, you can't necessarily trust 100% of what they're reporting to you, much less a group of subjects in a study. So, yeah. The carbohydrate thing, whether it's starches, whether it's sugars, either one. So, the body of research on carbohydrate and fat loss, you can distill it down like this. As long as you have equated total calories and you've equated protein intake between the two groups, then body fat reduction by the end of every well-controlled trial in existence basically, shows no significant difference in fat loss between the groups. So, protein is kind of the great equalizer, as well as total calories.

Alan Aragon Now here's the little wrinkle to that answer. If you take somebody who's on a standard Western diet, and you put them on a ketogenic diet, or if you control the experiment with kind of a high carb, low fat type of regular, run-of-the-mill controlled diet versus a ketogenic diet, and you don't equate protein, then the ketogenic diet will beat the crap out of the control diet every time with fat loss and weight loss because it has more protein.

Andrew Huberman Mm.

Alan Aragon And in some cases, if you go as extreme as a carnivore-type diet and stuff like that, then you're looking at a narrowing of your options. So, the reduction in variety and possibilities also leads to less total caloric intake. So, with ketogenic diets, there routinely is, when it is an ad libitum ketogenic diet that you put the subjects on-

Andrew Huberman Can you maybe explain 'ad libitum' to people whose Latin is lacking or haven't worked in a lab, yeah.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Okay. No, thanks for that. So, ad libitum means that you are not consciously calculating or restricting, you are just eating as desired.

Andrew Huberman What you want?

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And so, when you assign somebody a ketogenic diet where you say, "Hey, avoid this, and that carb food, avoid carbs, and you can eat as much as you feel like with the proteins and the fats. Go do it." What happens when you assign somebody that, is they spontaneously eat across the range of studies, somewhere between 400 and all the way to 900 calories less per day compared to their habitual intakes or compared to the control diet intakes. That's just what happens.

Andrew Huberman That's interesting, right? Because they could eat more if they want; they're not being restricted.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman I think this speaks to how satiating protein is.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And especially how satiating protein and fats are in combination. If I'm hungry on a long drive, and I can only eat one thing, I'm assuming I have water, which I would want with me... If I'm out on the road on Interstate 5, I've got no food with me, everything's closed because it's Christmas Day, but there's an In-N-Out Burger, (they're probably closed too), and I can get two hamburger patties, that's my pick. Not the French fries. Even though calorie for calorie out, they are probably landing about the same place, more or less, because there's just something so inherently satiating about protein.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, that makes sense, the keto diet makes sense. The issue I have with the keto diet is that until pretty recently, it was tougher to remain in the general social context of life. You can't have a cracker.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I don't like crackers, but you can't have a piece of sourdough bread.

Alan Aragon That's rough.

Andrew Huberman That's rough, right?

Alan Aragon We love sourdough around here.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. And then, people struggle a lot with holidays. Right? I think keto is tough for people around the holidays. As long as we're in this category of discussion, what are your thoughts about inflammation?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman And here's why I ask, and I ask it this way.

Alan Aragon Right.

Andrew Huberman I know many people who struggled with their weight for a very long time.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman A lot of male friends, some female friends, who, when they adopt a diet of the following things: meat, fish, eggs, Parmesan cheese as the only category of dairy...

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So hard cheese, fruit and vegetables, olive oil, butter, coffee and tea fine, but no sodas or anything except diet sodas... They lose significant amounts of body fat.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Probably some water too. So, they're not eating any starches: no rice, no oatmeal, no bread, no pizza, nothing. This is anecdotal, but they've all managed to lose anywhere from 25 to 50 or even 60 pounds. They're exercising typically.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Sometimes just cardio. So, significant amounts of body weight and they keep it off. And a number of their health challenges seem to resolve themselves, perhaps secondarily to the weight loss. But I often wonder whether or not this, what some people call a "low inflammation diet," because there are so few processed and highly processed foods in this regimen, has additional benefits that start to synergize with the fat loss.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And it's remarkable how much better they look, how much better they feel, and they can maintain that pretty well. Because you can say, "You know, I'll pass on the bread and the pie, but you know, I'm going to have double servings of turkey and Brussels sprouts." It's kind of remarkable what can be accomplished with what I just described, and yet I don't know a name for that diet.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And it's not what I follow.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I eat starches. But what are your thoughts on inflammation and how certain macronutrient profiles, perhaps, are pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory, or something people rarely talk about, which is inflammatory neutral, which kind of keeps you in a neither high nor low inflammation state but just kind of normal fluctuations in inflammation?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Long question, but I feel like it's one I've wanted to ask for a while, and you're the guy to ask.

Alan Aragon Okay. So, I'm going to speculate a little bit. I think that any diet that facilitates substantial fat loss is going to lower the amount of inflammatory cytokines circulating and emanating from the adipose tissue. And so, if you can get that body fat down, then you can get chronic low-grade inflammation down. If that body fat is reduced from everywhere, the subcutaneous space, especially the visceral space, then you're going to do a lot of good things for long-term health. The reason why the diet that you described is so effective at this, is because it lacks hyper-palatability. And so, the way that you create hyper-palatability... Hyper-palatability is basically the tendency for food to be very flavorful, very delicious, and very easy to passively overconsume.

Alan Aragon And so the formula for hyper-palatability is basically refined carbs, fat, mixed together, salt it and/or make it sweet. And there's your formula for food that is easily passively overconsumed. And the diet that you described doesn't have these ultra-processed, highly engineered refined carb and fat combo foods that we are just kind of driven to just inhale down.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And so, I think that my view could possibly be a little bit too simplistic, but I think the inflammation issue is really tied to an excess body fat issue.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. I'm very grateful for that answer. And again, I've seen so many friends that lose significant amounts of body fat and stick with this diet. It's also one that if one were to have a slice of cake or a piece of pizza, you're not really deviating that far from the total contour of the nutritional plan. It's not like you're suddenly out of keto or something.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And they don't tend to cascade into binges and things of that sort.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I will say that most of these people also quit drinking alcohol at the same time, which probably has its own benefits.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman We'll return to alcohol a little bit later.

Alan Aragon And there are some nutrients that are directly anti-inflammatory, like Omega-3 fatty acids.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Alan Aragon Huge literature on their anti-inflammatory effects.

Andrew Huberman Do you supplement with those personally?

Alan Aragon I do.

Andrew Huberman You take fish oil?

Alan Aragon I do. And I know that there's some controversy and some infighting with the idea of supplementing with fish oil. Now people are afraid of atrial fibrillation and things like that. But, eh, I've been doing it, and if you look at the literature, especially the randomized control trials, it is mostly good stuff, man. You could find negative literature on almost anything that you do.

Andrew Huberman Sure.

Alan Aragon But on balance, I am still comfortable with supplementing with fish oil at this point in time, regardless of the mounting evidence that, "Oh, it might not do anything," or "Oh, it might have this or that potentially adverse effect." I kind of think it's a no-brainer if you're not somebody who eats fatty fish regularly through the week.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. Yeah. The high-quality sources of fatty fish tend to be very expensive.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And they're harder and harder to find. And talk about controversy, you get into this debate about whether different sources of salmon... It gets really messy. I'm sure there are great sources out there, but that's a whole discussion unto itself. I take fish oil; I also have for many years. I plan to continue doing it, and so I'm grateful to hear that you do as well, because you're the expert.

Alan Aragon Yeah. We're both on that train. We're rebels.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. So, the anti-inflammation effect, if nothing else, seems to warrant that. I'd like to talk about sugar.

Alan Aragon Hmm?

Andrew Huberman I've had people on this podcast sit where you're sitting and basically paint a picture of sugar that it is not quite as bad as crack cocaine and meth, but not too far from that.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Kind of exaggerating. And I've had people who land in the more, kind of tempered response to sugar. But let's define sugar.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman When I say sugar, I'm not talking about fructose in fruit, because in fruit you've got fructose, but you've got fiber and there's a high-water content and sure, some fruits have higher fructose content than others. Mangoes versus apples, for instance, or something of that sort. But when I'm talking about sugar, I'm talking about if one looks at a package or a label and sees added sugars. How bad are added sugars? Because those are really the ones that tend to fall into this bin of "bad sugar" in a lot of people's minds.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Okay. So, they dilute the nutritive value of the diet, and they contribute to hyper-palatability, if you're talking about extrinsic sugars added to the diet. Really, only two sources of intrinsic sugars are in fruit and in milk. Everything else, you're just pretty much adding it, with the exception of maybe agave. But that's kind of a rare, esoteric thing. But added sugars to the diet should be consumed judiciously. The working recommendation is to try to limit added sugars to the diet to 10% of total calories.

Alan Aragon So, if you're somebody who likes to put maple syrup on whatever you might do, or somebody who likes to put honey on whatever you might do, then you may want to limit that to a typical, let's say, 2,000 calorie diet, and you might want to limit it to a maximum of 40 to 50 grams a day.

Andrew Huberman That still seems high.

Alan Aragon It does.

Andrew Huberman 40 to 50 grams? Who's eating that much sugar?

Alan Aragon Me.

Andrew Huberman Oh, really? You have a sweet tooth?

Alan Aragon No. I love honey, and I love maple syrup.

Andrew Huberman Ah. See, I have a savory tooth. I have to try and not eat the entire block of Parmesan cheese.

Alan Aragon I have both, man. I always joke that I have an inner fat boy within me, but I actually have been technically obese by BMI standards, around 10 years back.

Andrew Huberman You're how old now?

Alan Aragon 53.

Andrew Huberman Great. Well, you seem to be in great shape.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman No hormone augmentation. We clarified that earlier, I asked. This is what guys ask each other nowadays, "Are you doing any hormone augmentation?" "No." So, Alan says, "No," and I believe him completely. But yeah, you're in great shape at 53.

Alan Aragon Thank you.

Andrew Huberman And you have a sweet tooth and a savory tooth. So, how do you contend with it?

Alan Aragon I do, man.

Alan Aragon Oh, okay, so that's a great question because I can dish out something practical here. Protein powder. Protein powder satisfies the heck out of my sweet tooth. And I actually don't have the full 50 grams of added sugar. I might add a tablespoon of maple syrup to my coffee.

Andrew Huberman To your coffee?

Alan Aragon In the day, yeah.

Andrew Huberman Sorry, I'm just laughing-

Alan Aragon Dude... Okay, so you know those moka pot thingies?

Andrew Huberman Oh, moka pot? Sorry.

Alan Aragon It's called moka pot. It's like some...

Andrew Huberman It's a piece of hardware?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Oh, okay.

Alan Aragon It's the thing where you... It's this odd, hourglass steel thing.

Andrew Huberman Oh, right, it's like an hourglass-shaped coffee pot.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Okay.

Alan Aragon So, I have that. And what I'm trying to do, is I'm trying to duplicate the Thai coffee. Is it Thai?

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon What is it? It's really freaking good coffee that either-

Andrew Huberman Thai iced tea?

Andrew Huberman Oh, Vietnamese-

Alan Aragon Vietnamese. Vietnamese coffee.

Andrew Huberman Vietnamese coffee?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Yeah, I love Vietnamese food. I don't drink the Vietnamese coffee. It's too sweet for me.

Alan Aragon Dude.

Andrew Huberman But-

Alan Aragon I'm trying to do a version of that with the moka pot, and if I put maple syrup in that, a tablespoon, it's freaking awesome. And I have that with half-and-half. It's really good.

Andrew Huberman So, you got a fat-sugar combination, plus caffeine.

Alan Aragon Right.

Andrew Huberman You do this in the morning before you train?

Alan Aragon I've been doing it. I go through these phases.

Andrew Huberman Mm.

Alan Aragon But I have that. And so, the extent of added sugar in my diet is that tablespoon of maple syrup. So, I do agree with you, 50 grams could be a little bit up there.

Andrew Huberman Oh, listen, I'm not here to judge. Like I said, if I had a sweet tooth... What's interesting, I used to have one. I lost it over the course of about a decade.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Andrew Huberman I used to love Sour Patch gummies and gummies, and I love fruity tastes and that kind of thing. I lost it by doing something that probably has no scientific basis.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But I heard years ago that if I took a teaspoon of L-glutamine, and put it in high fat, in half-and-half, in cream basically, and took a shot of that twice a day, that it would kill my sugar cravings.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Hmm.

Andrew Huberman And I did that, and it weaned me off sugar. And then I increased my protein intake. So, it could've been any combination of things, or it could be total placebo. So, I want to acknowledge that. Although, I've recommended this to some self-professed sugar addicts.

Alan Aragon Mm, okay.

Andrew Huberman And they say, "Yeah, it kills the sugar craving," but then they always add the, "But I still miss my..." whatever. They long for the sugary thing. I don't any longer.

Alan Aragon See, this is where I headed off the sweet stuff. I make protein smoothies, and they're artificially sweetened, so it satisfies that dessert craving, if you will.

Andrew Huberman Well, along the lines of artificial sweeteners, if you want something sweet, why wouldn't you just replace the honey with Stevia?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Because it doesn't create the same satiety that the maple syrup does for you?

Alan Aragon Oh, man. Okay, so maple syrup aside... You get caloric savings if your protein powder is artificially sweetened, let's say, with Stevia, or sucralose, or monkfruit, or whatever is being used in the product. You get caloric savings and you just kind of get the macro savings, if you will, as well. And so, protein powders are, in my opinion, just such a breakthrough because they significantly augment the protein requirements, and they take care of essentially having something that is the experience of a dessert, to me anyway. I make some really good fruit smoothies. I use frozen fruit, protein powder. Sometimes I do a mocha type of smoothie. Sometimes I do a tropical fruit type of smoothie.

Andrew Huberman It's like a milkshake.

Alan Aragon Yeah. It is like a milkshake, right.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman So, you mentioned artificial sweeteners.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman So, let's double click there.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman I've seen some literature that points to the possibility that they might be, "bad for the gut microbiome." Those are animal data. There are some human data.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But I think nowadays, saying 'artificial sweeteners' is too broad.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman As we say in science, there are lumpers and splitters, and I think we need to split that, because there are low-calorie sweeteners like stevia, right, that are not artificial. They're sort of technically plant-derived.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman And then there are artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, saccharin.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And my understanding is that sucralose and saccharin have some bad properties if consumed in excess. What is the deal with artificial sweeteners? So, we're talking aspartame, sucralose, saccharin.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Let's just focus on those.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman And let's leave aside monkfruit, Stevia, et cetera, for the time being.

Alan Aragon Okay. You can pretty much simplify it by saying out of all the sweeteners that we study, whether they're the natural kind or whether they're the artificial kind, it's saccharin that is showing a lot of the adverse potential. So, for example, the negative effects on gut microbiome that have led to impaired glucose tolerance in humans over a short period of time... Of course, the dose is debatable that they're flooding these humans with. But nevertheless, it's saccharin that showed these effects. With even body weight gain, comparing saccharin, sucralose, and I believe it could have been one of the others, aspartame, for the saccharin group, apparently maybe appetite was dysregulated, and actually gained weight.

Alan Aragon And so, there is something about saccharin that is not great as far as the range of low-calorie sweeteners go. But thankfully, saccharin is almost commercially extinct. It's hard to find saccharin unless you go to a Denny's, or some sort of greasy spoon place and you get those little pink packets. So, now we've got this other range of low-calorie sweeteners to choose from, and it's a little bit of a mystery of which of these low-calorie sweeteners has the best health and body comp proposition to it. But they're all pretty much in the same boat. You can find a bunch of good stuff with Stevia. Like the dirt on artificial sweeteners, you can find a bunch of potential dirt on aspartame. You can find a bunch of potential dirt on sucralose. Stevia, it's a little bit harder to.

Andrew Huberman Maybe even some benefits of stevia.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Right?

Alan Aragon Yes, benefits too.

Andrew Huberman Improved glucose tolerance and things of that sort. So, I'm not afraid of Stevia.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman I always called it 'STEE-vee-uh', but now it's 'STEV-ee-uh.'

Alan Aragon That's me. 'STEV-ee-uh' is a me thing.

Andrew Huberman Okay. So, I'll call it 'STEV-ee-uh' for this conversation.

Alan Aragon Thank you.

Andrew Huberman So, tomato, tomato. I've heard it's potentially good for us.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman No good evidence that it's bad for us.

Alan Aragon Right.

Andrew Huberman So, if you don't mind the taste, and I happen to like the taste, Stevia seems like a perfectly fine thing to include in one's diet.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah. I tend to be amenable to all artificial sweeteners, honestly, even aspartame. The sheer amounts that you would have to consume of these things, even hypothetically, to incur negative health outcomes are just absurd amounts.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It's probably more dangerous to step outside and breathe in the LA air than engage in some aspartame or sucralose on a regular basis, that one or two cans a day.

Andrew Huberman Certainly now.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I don't think that can affect people in the course of a lifetime.

Andrew Huberman Thank you for that clarification.

Alan Aragon Very hard to study though. It's not like you can find out definitively.

Andrew Huberman Right.

Andrew Huberman Although my read of the literature, of people that drink artificially sweetened soda or stevia sweetened soda as an augment to their efforts to consume fewer than needed calories per day in order to lose body weight, body fat in particular, is that diet sodas can actually be a great assistance to people.

Alan Aragon Yes.

Andrew Huberman And I went back and forth on this literature because I thought, "No, water would be better." But they compared water, two liters a day or a liter or more per day of diet soda, and it seems like it's a pretty good weight loss tool for people that would otherwise be drinking soda, or would otherwise be drinking just water, which really surprised me. I'd love to say, "Water's the best," but for weight loss, maybe diet sodas actually provide an important role for people.

Alan Aragon Yeah. That was an interesting finding. I do think that most, if not all of the controlled intervention trials show positive effects of artificially sweetened or low-calorie sweetened beverages on weight loss and all of the metabolic consequences of what happens with weight loss, and they're all positive. There's some observational literature that casts some doubt on whether diet sodas are a good thing or not, but then we have the issue of, "reverse causality," where people who are in poor health are sort of seeking out these diet sodas rather than the diet sodas causing the poor health.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon So, on balance, artificially sweetened beverages tend to be a net positive for health. But I know that a lot of people have a lot of issues with that because people have just sort of this natural hippie streak within them that would want to preach only water. And you know what? I think it's a good idea to practice drinking plain water to get that experience of it being a positive thing. And I encourage it, but sort of the vilifying of artificially sweetened beverages is just not necessarily founded in especially the controlled intervention literature.

Andrew Huberman I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics, and tests for PFASs or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are experts in the relevant areas.

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Andrew Huberman Is there any evidence that coffee or other caffeinated drinks have a thermic effect that allows you to burn more fat? I'm a yerba mate fan, so if I drink cold brew yerba mate or hot brew yerba mate before working out, let's forget fasting, I happen to do it fasted, and then train, am I going to mobilize more body fat by ingesting a stimulant like caffeine prior to working out?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yes. And yeah, it's a pretty consistent finding. The issue is whether the amount that occurs is something meaningful, that would be durable enough over time for us to be able to say, "Hey, we can use coffee and/or caffeine as an agent to enhance fat loss." I'm not sure if we're there yet, but the literature on balance shows a modest effect, a modest advantage on fat loss with caffeinated beverages like tea and coffee.

Andrew Huberman Great. I don't think that's discussed very often these days. That was kind of more in the '90s, but I think it's a great thing for people to hear because 90% of adults worldwide consume caffeine every single day. It's the most widely used drug in the world.

Alan Aragon Man, I just looked at this huge umbrella review on coffee and health effects. It's net positive. I was very happy to see that.

Andrew Huberman On what sorts of metrics?

Alan Aragon A range of clinical outcomes: cardiovascular health, different effects on sort of intermediate markers. Mortality, even.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon So, almost everything that we can think of that most people generally care about, coffee either has a neutral or positive effect on it, but the threshold of benefits sort of cuts off at three to four cups a day. So, much more than that, or after that threshold, then we're looking at a potential detriment.

Andrew Huberman I suppose the only thing is to remind people to not consume caffeine too close to bedtime, because even if you can fall asleep, it's going to disrupt the architecture of your sleep.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Alan Aragon Agreed.

Andrew Huberman But I, and I am sure so many people are so relieved, even delighted to hear that coffee and other forms of caffeine are healthy for us, maybe even pro-longevity.

Alan Aragon Coffee and tea, yes. Sure.

Andrew Huberman Whereas it's been debated, and it continues to be debated whether alcohol is good or bad for longevity. Last week, another study was saying that champagne was good for longevity, I think it was, but plenty of studies are recently showing that alcohol increases cancer risk so much that the federal government now is talking about putting this on the label of any alcohol-containing drink.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I have an issue with that.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. About putting that on the label?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Please share.

Alan Aragon So, we can't lump alcoholic beverages into this single bucket. The literature on red wine specifically, man, you would be hard-pressed to find carcinogenic effects from red wine, either epidemiologically, or interventionally, and even down to the mechanistic in vitro stuff, like tumorigenesis, anything like that. It actually has anti-cancer effects. And even the brain-shrinking threat of alcohol intake, red wine consumers actually, in at least one controlled trial, showed improvements in neuropsychological tests. And so I don't think we can say alcohol as a group.

Alan Aragon We have to sort of look at the individual drinks, because I'm sure there are differences between red wine versus some other alcoholic beverage. But people study the crap out of red wine, and there's almost nothing but good stuff that comes out of the red wine literature. Who knows how biased it might be, commercially or otherwise?

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon But that's another thing. I don't like to dismiss studies based on funding source, but the red wine literature is almost all positive.

Andrew Huberman I feel like I have to push on this a little bit. Assuming everything about those studies is intact and not biased, et cetera, I do think that when people are consuming alcohol and thinking about the potential longevity effects of red wine that there are some questions that come to mind.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Okay.

Andrew Huberman First of all, what is the caloric trade-off? So, if you're drinking a glass of wine, you're consuming calories. Perhaps not a problem?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Perhaps that's taking up room for quality nutrients that could come from other sources. I have a theory, which is that the controversies around the alcohol literature and longevity, in my mind, could boil down to something as simple as sleep disruption. For instance, drinkers have more inflammation. But in those particular studies, perhaps, I'm speculating here, they are drinking with dinner, and we know that disrupts sleep architecture, reduces REM sleep, deep sleep. This has just been shown over and over again. And chronically, over time, especially on a backdrop of a high-stress lifestyle, perhaps leads to more systemic inflammation and poorer health outcomes.

Andrew Huberman In another culture, maybe in Sardinia or something, or in one of these, dare I say, blue zones, people perhaps are eating, and drinking, and living longer, and have lower inflammation, because they might drink just as close to sleep, but they have a smoother, lower stress entrance into the next day. And so, the disruption of sleep might not be a problem. There's an afternoon nap in many of those cultures. So, when I look at sleep as kind of the foundation of mental health and physical health, which it's clear that it's at least one of the layers of the foundation, I then wonder whether or not the alcohol studies can be evaluated just strictly on the basis of the measures that are being taken.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And that if we start to think about the context in which alcohol consumption is occurring, social context, sleep hours, stress and lifestyle, genetic predisposition to cancers, et cetera, high-processed food, and on and on, I wonder whether or not some of this is going to shake out in the noise, as we say.

Alan Aragon I need to qualify... I agree with all of that. And here's the thing, like my statements on alcohol mainly had to do with red wine and cancer.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon So, if we look at what would be considered a moderate amount of drinking, one to two glasses a day for little people, and then let's say, two to three glasses a day for larger people. That is sort of the moderation models for those two. Regardless of whether it's red wine or not, or something else, there is a degree of disinhibition that occurs with drinking, that can make you say, "Ah, screw it," and potentially have you just wipe out the entire pasta plate, for example. And so, there's the disinhibition piece, and there's also the inherent calories piece, to where, I don't know a whole lot of guys who I am aspiring to become like body comp-wise, who are regular, significant drinkers. Most of them barely drink. Okay, so that's sort of the observational side of things.

Alan Aragon And then there's the addiction side of things, where you read the stats on the percentage of the general population that has some degree of alcohol use disorder. It's a staggering percent: 10%. So, in a room of 10 people, chances are one of them is going to have alcohol use disorder. That's gnarly.

Andrew Huberman Well, it's the easiest addiction to mask, because alcohol is so freely available. It's everywhere, and people don't-

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It's glamorized.

Andrew Huberman Alcohol intake, at least until recently... Things are changing. It's the one drug, because alcohol is a drug, then again, caffeine's a drug... It's the one drug that if you don't consume it as an adult, people often are put off by that.

Alan Aragon Do you get shamed?

Andrew Huberman Right? They say, "Hey, what's wrong with you?" kind of thing. Or "I thought real men drink," or something like that. So, I quit drinking a long time ago, and I didn't have alcohol use disorder, but I didn't like it, because I wouldn't sleep well, and I like to train in the morning. So, when people would say, "You don't drink, what's wrong with you?" I would say, "No, I train in the morning while you're sleeping, and then let's check in at..." In my 30s, I was kind of cocky, so at meetings, they'd say, "Oh, you're going home at 9:00 PM on the first night?" I'd say, "Yeah, but let's check in on Wednesday of this five-day meeting, let's look at how you're hanging in there versus how I'm hanging in there."

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And so I was always interested in the long arc of things.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman How I could maintain eight or nine out of 10 performance, maybe even 10 out of 10 performance, day after day. Not necessarily a healthy mentality, but this is what happens if you have my mentality, and I think it's typical of many people.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, for me, drinking was a hindrance to life performance.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I think for many people, alcohol is the way that they mesh with the people around them, and I respect the fact that that exists.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman That it's hard to be the odd person out. It can be socially isolating, and social connection is important.

Alan Aragon Here's what I found with quitting alcohol, a couple of funny things. Number one, I did get shamed. I was in the Dominican Republic, at the dinner table, and I like pina coladas. Virgin pina coladas. So, I ordered a virgin pina colada, and the server just cracked up, and laughed at me, and made fun of me for doing a virgin drink. So, I actually have gotten shamed for ordering a virgin pina colada. But one of the reasons that I was afraid to quit is because I thought that events would lose their fun. I felt like I would sort of lose my ability to be social, and have fun, and have the same degree of... It's a weird thing. You don't know until you quit drinking that things are just as fun. Obviously, you're lucid.

Alan Aragon And you take a lot more in, and you can enjoy everything moment-to-moment. There are no lost patches of time. And the interesting and positive thing about quitting drinking for me, and I haven't drank not one drink in almost seven years now, come August, is that it taught me how to sit in my feelings, and cope with the stress, and come up with solutions. Whereas prior to that, "Oh, I know the solution. Put the alcohol Band-Aid on it." But I think that that impairs character building. It impairs problem-solving capabilities. It impairs coping capabilities, and I think those are super important for just basically being an adult.

Alan Aragon And so those were kind of the hidden benefits that I experienced from quitting alcohol, on top of having better training sessions, having better training recovery, consuming almost a thousand calories less per day, improvements in body composition, and just mental health. All departments of life just kicked up and improved after I quit drinking. But see, I was one of those one in 10 who got into the drinking routine. And I'm one of those guys, if I like something, I'll have it every day. I'll do it every day. I'm probably going to have either coffee and/or eggs every day for the rest of my life. Same thing happened with alcohol. But the thing with alcohol is that you have to try to maintain the buzz, which increases overtime because of tolerance, as you know. So that was the issue, with me and alcohol.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Well, thanks for sharing that. Again, we're not here to ram anything down anyone's throat. But I think there are many-

Alan Aragon And I think that many people can do alcohol in moderation.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I just was one of them who was much better off quitting.

Andrew Huberman Great. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, very much so.

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman Let's talk about seed oils. The dreaded seed oil debate. Should we fear them or not fear them? Let's assume somebody is going to maintain calories. They're not adding seed oils as a source of additional calories above what they would normally be taking in. But let's say they have the choice. They can consume a seed oil like canola oil or soybean oil, or they can consume olive oil in place of it. And let's just compare, which one is better, if either? And is there anything inherently bad about seed oils? And I want to make sure that we talk about the processing, because people will say, "Ah, the seed oils aren't bad if they come from a quality source." But most of the seed oils are through this high pressure, high temperature refinement process, and that's the problem. So, what's the deal with seed oils?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Okay. The big picture is that people over-vilify seed oils. One side over-vilifies seed oils, just like the other side over-vilifies, let's say, your standard land animal fats, like beef tallow, butter, lard. But when you compare those two, like seed oils versus the butter, beef tallow, lard, and you compare the evidence base of those two things, you can find more dirt as far as adverse health outcomes from the land animal fats compared to the seed oils. And that is the reality of the matter. It's really weird that seed oils are being vilified right now, because that's not the scientific consensus. People who have their nose in the literature are just kind of scratching their heads at the whole seed oil scare thing.

Alan Aragon And there are some people on the fringe who laser in on their philosophies and ideologies about seed oils. But then all you need to do is ask a short set of questions. Okay. And you specified the seed oils in the question, which is great. You're ahead of everybody else. So, what seed oil are we talking about? What kind of dosage are we talking about? And what health outcome are you concerned with? And then what trial do you find most compelling that supports your fear of the seed oil? And so, everybody, or around nine out of ten people, immediately will say, "Ah, okay, you want to know what seed oil? Canola oil." Okay, great. Let's look at the canola oil literature. And one of the hardest things to do is find dirt on canola oil amidst all of the positive effects.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It's in almost every trial of canola oil. There is even a meta-analysis comparing directly the effect of canola oil versus olive oil on blood lipid profile. And maybe, unsurprisingly to some, but surprisingly to most, canola oil outperforms olive oil for improving blood lipids, in the sense of lowering LDL cholesterol.

Andrew Huberman That's surprising to me, because I assumed that olive oil can do no wrong.

Alan Aragon You know what? I was taken aback by that, too. I would have been just fine with seeing there's no damn difference, one of these anti-climactic results. But when you take a look at canola oil's composition, it has kind of an extraordinarily high proportion of omega-3 fatty acids compared to olive oil, and compared to the rest of the seed oils, for that matter.

Andrew Huberman Omega-3? I thought it was high in omega-6.

Alan Aragon It does contain omega-6.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And that is the predominant fatty acid in canola. But it has a high omega-3 content as well. It has a high proportion of omega-3. I don't know the exact proportion of omega-3, but what makes canola kind of special, as far as the vegetable oils go, is its omega-3 content. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Wow. Okay. That's going to surprise a number of people, including me.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman My sense is that any ill effects to come from seed oils are because of who seed oils hang out with.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Right? This is sort of the old, if you're old enough like me to remember, I'm 49, turning 50 in September, so I'm not quite 53, but we're of the same generation, and there was this-

Alan Aragon We grew up without the internet.

Andrew Huberman Right. Well, there was a discussion around cannabis, for instance. We've done several episodes about it.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman We didn't paint it as good or bad, although I do believe that young people, especially young males, smoking high THC cannabis can predispose to psychosis.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman There is a bunch of debate around this. But back in the day, it was, "If you use cannabis, soon you'll be using crack cocaine." That was kind of like the argument, right? And over time, people realized that cannabis has its own potential benefits, and its own potential risks.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Right? Depending on a number of things. It seems that people who consume a lot of seed oils, consume them in conjunction with a lot of starches, and perhaps with added sugars as well. And when you lump those together, you end up with a pro-inflammatory, often hypercaloric set of conditions, and people aren't getting enough quality protein. And then we know what that picture looks like.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman It looks like the United States of America.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Right? Or most of the United States of America.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And so I do think that there's something about who olive oil, and grass-fed butter hang out with, that has the opposite effect.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman People who go, "Oh, this is really high-quality olive oil," generally in my mind, are the sort of people who are thinking about the quality of the salad ingredients. They're thinking about the sourdough bread, as opposed to maybe a more refined sugar containing bread. And the people who talk about grass-fed butter are thinking about the quality of the meat sources, and they're not eating other protein sources that are laden with other preservatives.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, to me, I think a lot of this, "seed oil debate," will be resolved when we start pulling apart the individual components.

Alan Aragon Sure. They're riding in the wrong vehicle.

Andrew Huberman Right. And I think that from a cost perspective... This hadn't occurred to me until I started voicing a little bit of this online, in which case you learn a lot, quickly.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And what I learned was that there were a number of people who said, "Yeah, I'm hearing all this great stuff about grass-fed butter and olive oil," but there are people for whom the cost margins are just too high to consume all organic or olive oil. And you have to listen to that, and say, "Okay, well, for people needing to feed an entire family, perhaps some of these other fat sources are more affordable, and therefore, what are the real health risks with those?"

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, anyway, I did a bit of editorializing there, but I have a feeling some of this is going to shake out in the fine parsing of these different diets.

Alan Aragon I think people oversimplify it. What people do with seed oils, is what people do with dairy. They say 'dairy' as if it's some monolithic thing. With dairy, you've got the hard cheeses. You've got butter. You've got yogurt. You've got milk of varying fat levels. You're kind of hard pressed to find negative stuff on yogurt. You'd be kind of hard pressed actually to find negative stuff on hard cheeses. Of all the range of dairy foods, butter is the one that you can find the dirt on. It's a similar story with seed oils. Try to find some negative stuff on flaxseed, chia seed, sesame seed. You can't. Yeah, if you dig hard enough you can. Try to find some negative stuff on canola. It's very tough, too. Even things like soybean oil and corn oil. You can look at the literature, and it doesn't paint this sinister picture either.

Alan Aragon And so I think people are missing the forest for the trees in general, when they're focused on, honestly, the cooking oils. You shouldn't be drowning or deep-frying your stuff on a regular basis anyway. So, yeah, and beyond that, when you look at the effects of seed oil that are examined in the literature for various outcomes, everything from the intermediate outcomes like biomarker effects, all the way to the “hard endpoints," like mortality, heart attack, cardiac events, and heart disease. So, the hard endpoints, as well as the intermediate or soft endpoints, they're all superior with the seed oils, compared to butter, lard, beef tallow, on the whole.

Alan Aragon So, there is a severe misunderstanding, and falsely founded scaremongering with respect to seed oils, to the point where I just think it's incredibly silly. People just have to get ahold of themselves and focus on the overall quality of the diet and not really get into these absolute death matches over what oils they use to cook their foods. I am a huge extra virgin olive oil fan. That is my go-to. That's what I love. Honestly, I could do shots of the stuff. I love it that much.

Andrew Huberman It's delicious. Yeah.

Alan Aragon And I love sesame oil. Sesame is a seed oil. Sesame oil has been consumed by very healthy populations throughout Asia for the last 5,000 years. And so I don't necessarily like canola oil, as far as sort of the stickiness and the oddness about it, but I'll still acknowledge that the literature shows overwhelmingly positive stuff about it in the majority of trials. But I prefer olive oil. And I would almost feel more comfortable recommending that if you like olive oil, then that should be your go-to, rather than oils that are, I guess, maybe Frankensteined or engineered to a degree. And you mentioned the whole idea of how these oils are produced. One of the concerns is hexane use to extract the oils from the seed cakes and stuff like that.

Alan Aragon So, the use of solvents to get these oils out of their native source. There's some interesting literature showing higher hexane levels in olive oil, than in, I forget, it was some other seed oil, whether it was canola or sunflower... But nevertheless, the hexane amounts were well below established safe thresholds. And so I really do think that people are getting sort of lost in the weeds and kind of missing the forest for the trees, focusing on the little grains of sand and missing the big boulders.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. Thank you for that. I think it's going to clarify a number of things for a number of people. I also love olive oil. Over the years, I've tried to consume less butter. I love the taste of butter.

Alan Aragon Can I interrupt and let you know that I'm not anti-butter at all.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon When you look at the evidence, if you butter everything up in your diet and you really pound like the... You're just eating sticks of butter, then you're hedging your bets in the direction of increased cardiovascular risk.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And there's even a really interesting study comparing cream with butter, on blood lipids. And so cream actually had a neutral effect on blood lipids, whereas butter kind of skewed things in an adverse direction. Usually, it's typically an increase in LDL. The reason why cream had this neutral effect, what they're figuring, and this is based on other studies as well, is that it's got this component called milk fat globule membrane, MFGM, which gets churned out of butter. And so even within the dairy category, you have very differently behaving types of foods. And once again, I'm not anti-butter, but we have to acknowledge that some foods within a given food category are a little bit riskier, and you should be a little bit more careful about just the sheer amounts you consume of it over a lifetime.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. Years ago when first starting the podcast, when I wasn't aware of frankly how big the podcast was going to grow to, I made a joke about, "I eat slabs of butter to increase my cholesterol, so I have higher testosterone." And man, did I pay for that one.

Alan Aragon That's pure gold.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. I've always tried to get a little bit of saturated fat in my daily diet, either through red meat, or through eggs, or through a tablespoon or two maybe of butter, depending on how hard I'm training and what my caloric needs are.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, I don't like to drop my saturated fat to zero, because I find that my skin gets dry, I don't feel as well, and my blood profiles actually suffer a little bit. So, that's just me.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But I just want to re-emphasize that I don't think people should consciously try and increase their butter intake. But between butter and olive oil, and the fats naturally occurring in nuts, and eggs, and red meat, consuming some omega-3s through fish oil, or through some fatty fish intake, you can get a pretty nice contour of the different lipids that include a bunch of micronutrients too, right?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I feel like the idea of just emphasizing tallow, and butter, and red meat to the exclusion of every plant-based fat or nuts, to me, seems nuts.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And I'm friends with Paul Saladino, and I'll say that.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman I also think that if you eat a diet that's very low in saturated fat, like very, very low in saturated fat, most of the people that I know who've done that, and certainly myself, it leads to drier skin, brittle hair, and achy joints. I do think there's really something to including some saturated fat in one's diet in, I would say, low moderation, right?

Alan Aragon Sure.

Andrew Huberman Especially as one gets older.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And I know that all of the carnivore folks have probably left the conversation by now.

Alan Aragon The Mediterranean keto model is legit.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon It's got nothing but positive effects that have been seen in the literature. So, if you wanted to go keto, but instead of eating a bunch of lard, or butter, or beef fat, you swap it out with nuts, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, some extra virgin coconut oil, then you have a much better cardiovascular risk profile. And you can still be on keto, and you can still consume the range of protein sources, and you're sort of getting kind of a win-win there. Oddly, the U.S. government used to recommend, and they used to dish out this recommendation, of your fat intake, a third of it... So, the government has always been into low fat, so 30% fat. 10% should be saturated. 10% should be monounsaturated. 10% should be polyunsaturated. And so, they kind of had the right idea there with kind of getting a variety of the fat types in there.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And I'm familiar with the literature on saturated fat, and cholesterol, and testosterone levels. And as somebody who is not on exogenous testosterone, dude, I'm going to be grabbing for whatever dietary advantage I can get, as far as keeping my testosterone levels up. And so, I personally would not engage a zero saturated fat diet either.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. I think that's great for people to hear. Are you aware of any female-specific nutrition advice, aside from adjusting for body weight? On average, women tend to be lower body weight than men.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Not always, but... And so on, lower lean mass, et cetera. Not always. Is there anything specific about some of the topics that we've discussed thus far, from your experience, and I know your wife is extremely skilled in the department of training and nutrition, et cetera, for clients, that is truly female-specific?

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Something that they really benefit from doing certain things, or not doing certain things that men can get away with, or don't have to pay attention to?

Alan Aragon There's very little in that direction. Almost nothing. Almost no meaningful differences that you can sort of universalize about, "Women need to eat this way. Men need to eat that way." The only thing that I would concede to, is that if you have somebody with the goal of... You know what? Forget about the goal. If somebody is of childbearing age, she's going to have a monthly menstrual cycle, and during that monthly cycle, for about a week out of the month, her cravings are going to go through the roof. She might have lethargy at the same time, and just feel generally like crap. And even emotionally, things will be kind of dysregulated. During that time, I don't think women should totally fight their cravings, especially if somebody is on a weight loss diet.

Alan Aragon So, there's a tactic that we can use with clients called diet breaks. So, if you're endeavoring weight loss, then you can go hard for three weeks, and then on the week of the menstrual cycle, kind of take it easy. And then give into your cravings, so to speak, for that week. And I'm not saying to use that week to undo the progress you made in the previous three weeks. But I think that if you're going to diet in a cyclical fashion, and this works quite well with women observationally, then your week off, or your higher calorie week, or your maintenance week, just coincide it with the menstrual cycle. And that way, you're not fighting mother nature. You're kind of riding with mother nature, and you can have potentially an easier time improving body composition that way.

Alan Aragon As far as the other claims that float around about the perimenopausal period, or the menopausal transition, and, "Women have to eat this way, they have to avoid this and that," and eating... There are all kinds of claims being made. They should be framed as speculations, honestly. And with the menopausal transition... Menopause is a really hot thing right now amongst the influencers, and things like that. And there is some research showing that there is fat mass that's gained during the menopausal transition, and lean mass that's lost at a general population level. But there's a lot of scaremongering around that as well. And there's a study that was done, it's called the SWAN Study. It's the longest, and largest study on this topic.

Alan Aragon And they looked at the four to eight-year menopausal transition, and that usually occurs in women from their mid-40s to mid-50s. And they looked at early menopause, mid-menopause, post-menopause, and they looked at the effects on body composition, or the relationship, at least, with menopausal transition and body composition. During a concentrated three-and-a-half-year period where most of the changes took place, the average body fat gained was 1.6 kilograms, so that's three and a half pounds. The average amount of lean mass lost was .2 kilograms, so about half a pound of lean mass lost. So, yes, these things occur, but the magnitude of which they occur... And this is in the general population. This isn't in fitness people who are really meticulous about high enough protein, resistance training, et cetera. I don't think the scaremongering is warranted.

Alan Aragon I know that there are very real symptoms associated with the menopausal transition that make adhering to a fitness program, or a diet program very tough. The hot flashes, the lethargy, joint pain, changes in sexual function. The combination of those things, how they affect sleep. Poor sleep affects everything negatively. And so, when you work with somebody, as a practitioner, who is going through the menopausal transition, I would grant that maybe you set their expectations at maybe 50% of the amount that you would with somebody who was not in the menopausal transition. So, whereas you would maybe set somebody to expect around a pound a week loss if they're trying to lose body fat, then you should maybe set somebody in the perimenopausal period to be okay with around half of that.

Andrew Huberman Because of the other changes that are occurring that make the rest and recovery more difficult.

Alan Aragon Oh, yeah. Yep.

Alan Aragon Absolutely.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. Thank you for that answer.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I know it's a topic that, as you mentioned, is more frequent these days. I think it's important that it is; it's been a topic that hasn't received a lot of attention until fairly recently. I think because, A, the Women's Health Initiative studies weren't completed. A lot of them were completed in recent years. And so the data, "were in." I think also the effects on brain, like the relationship between estrogen, testosterone, and brain function in males and females, is something that we're just now starting to really understand with modern imaging tools and so on.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman So, this is an area, of course, that's going to evolve quickly in the upcoming years. Collagen. I've had a dermo-oncologist-

Alan Aragon Another death match fight.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. I've had a dermo-oncologist on this podcast, we talked about collagen. My read of the data on collagen is that the amino acid profile in collagen, which typically comes from fish, I believe, most collagen sources are fish-based, or bovine.

Alan Aragon Fish or bovine.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman The amino acid profile is not terrific, from the perspective of muscle protein synthesis. Low in leucine and other branch chain amino acids, higher in other amino acids.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But the amino acids that it is high in, comprise a significant fraction of what skin and other soft tissues are made of.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, ingesting 15 to 30 grams of collagen per day might be beneficial, independent and separate from dietary protein for the sake of muscle protein synthesis. It also so happens, if you don't mind me saying, you have very nice skin. So, do you take collagen?

Alan Aragon Thank you, sir.

Andrew Huberman He's 53 years old; you've got nice skin. Do you take collagen? And what are your thoughts about people who want to take collagen, specifically to improve skin appearance and for no other reason?

Alan Aragon Okay, so I want to start off by saying that fitness professionals in the “evidence-based community," they have almost a pathologically minimalist approach to supplementation. So, it's almost like if you can avoid a supplement, and dismiss it, and poo-poo it... Hey, great, we won. I'm not like that with a few supplements, and collagen is one of them. And for one thing, of all the proteins in the body, collagen is the single most abundant. And collagen comprises about, gosh, 20 to 40% of the proteins in the body. It comprises a significant amount of bone tissue, and not just the joints, and ligaments, and tendons.

Alan Aragon And so from a very kind of, no-brainer, troglodytic level, what is everybody's issue with providing the raw materials to the body that it can use to build these tissues? And the pushback on that is the idea that the body takes any protein, breaks it down into its constituent amino acids, and the amino acids get shuttled to where they need to go depending on the homeostatic need of the body, or whatever need the body has at the moment. Okay. Well, if we go with that logic, then we would say, "Okay, so then there's really no such thing as better proteins than others, as long as we have sort of a basic amount of the essential amino acids." No, that's just not true.

Alan Aragon And then beyond that, the interesting thing about collagen, and this is debated as well, is its resistance to full hydrolysis where you've got these collagen fragments that can float through circulation, and into the target tissues. These di- and tri-peptides, right? They've been observed through isotopic tracer technology, and they make it into the chondrocytes or the joint cells, and they increase the activity in the chondrocytes. That has been documented and published. But beyond that, nobody balks about consuming enough dietary calcium to maintain the integrity of the skeletal system. But hey, you talk about consuming enough collagen to maintain the integrity of connective tissues throughout the body, including skin.

Alan Aragon Skin is 80% collagen by dry weight, then people lose their crap. I kind of think it's a no-brainer to at least be optimistic about collagen supplementation if you're somebody who never eats the cartilage of the meat, the bone, the connective tissue parts. If you don't eat your animal foods nose to tail, and you're just eating muscle meats, I think the guy who does that but takes collagen as a supplement is going to have an edge on you throughout the life course. And on a related note, I think that's one of the disadvantages that vegans might have until they find a genius way to manufacture a non-animal collagen molecule.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon There are multiple systematic reviews showing the benefits of collagen on various skin outcomes, which are debated, of course. Whey protein always seems to kick collagen's ass for muscle-related outcomes, but that's not what we're taking collagen for. So, back to your original question, yeah, I do take collagen.

Andrew Huberman How much do you take?

Alan Aragon About 15 grams a day.

Andrew Huberman Mm.

Alan Aragon To me, it's kind of a no-brainer, just like getting enough... You're providing the raw materials that the body is going to use and need anyway, and the debate is whether or not the bioavailability is meaningful. Ah, you know what? I'm willing to just do the first world thing, and take that chance and take the collagen supplement. The downsides are basically nonexistent.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm. Great. What other supplements do you take? Maybe we can establish a hierarchy of supplements or clusters.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Instead of the top one, let's talk which ones by disposable budget.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman I think this is a real-world perspective.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, let's agree that the main thing is to get enough sleep, exercise, eat well. To eat well, you want to emphasize what you talked about, and to try and get the best quality sources that you can afford. Let's assume that somebody has the amount of disposable income to be able to buy one or two supplements to take on an ongoing basis.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And let's set aside food supplements, like whey protein from vitamins and performance supplements, and just kind of put them all out there.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Okay, let's say I've got... It's just going to differ by country, but let's say, I've got $150 of disposable income. I could get one or two supplements that I can take ongoing.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman What would you place into that category?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman If the goal is to keep lean tissue the same, or increase lean tissue, and keep body fat where it is, or lose some body fat, overall vigor, overall health, longevity.

Alan Aragon Okay. Got it.

Andrew Huberman Yeah, the big picture. Yeah.

Alan Aragon Okay, so my answer to this is going to be very bro-scientific, because it is so hard to study those outcomes, that we almost are just placing our bets when we do the supplement thing, beyond having a diet that is diverse across and within the food groups, and provides all the essential macro and micro nutrients, which it often doesn't, especially if we're dieting, especially if we're training, or a combination of both. Especially if we're caught out and not eating an optimal diet, traveling all over the place, which we often are. So, I personally see a multivitamin, and mineral as a no-brainer, a no-fricking-brainer.

Alan Aragon Who do you know that eats this pristine diet that just nails all of the micronutrients in optimal amounts? That's a very rare person, and that person would have to be covering the food groups, and eating a whole lot of calories across and within the different groups. So, this is the bro-science part of me... I take two multivitamins.

Andrew Huberman A double dose of the same one, or two different ones?

Alan Aragon Two different ones. One of them does not have iron.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon One of them does.

Andrew Huberman You take them with meals?

Alan Aragon I take it with meals, yes.

Andrew Huberman In the early part of the day, presumably?

Alan Aragon I take it with dinner.

Andrew Huberman Hmm. Okay.

Alan Aragon That's usually my largest meal. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Andrew Huberman Okay. So, a good quality multivitamin?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon I do that. Usually with multivitamins, it would have to be an absolute horse pill to get enough vitamin D, or vitamin D3 in that. So, I do take extra vitamin D3.

Andrew Huberman How many IU per day?

Alan Aragon Oh, that's where I get real bro-scientific on you, man. I take quite a bit. The literature cuts off with benefits below a thousand IUs. I take 4000 IUs.

Andrew Huberman I don't think that's exceedingly high.

Alan Aragon Yeah, well, you don't... You're a bro too.

Andrew Huberman Yeah... Listen, I have female family members who were having some health struggles, that for whom the only change was 5000 IU of vitamin D3 per day, and it made a significant positive effect on a number of different subjective metrics, and some objective metrics. And these were people that were getting their sunlight, and eating very high-quality food, and really putting time and effort into it.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, I'm a believer in D3.

Alan Aragon D3 is getting "PubMeded" right now in a similar way that fish oil is getting "PubMeded."

Andrew Huberman I like that. We verbed PubMed. Yeah.

Alan Aragon We did.

Alan Aragon So, it's now a controversial thing to take vitamin D3. You have position statements rolling out, "Oh, well, we thought you need... Now you don't really... Ah."

Andrew Huberman Mm.

Andrew Huberman Okay, so a good multivitamin with iron, especially for women who menstruate, right?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Especially you'll need that. Vitamin D, D3?

Alan Aragon I take vitamin D3. I take fish oil.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I take three grams of fish oil. Not three grams combined EPA/DHA, but three grams in three one-gram capsules.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman That's a good amount, I would say. Does that get you over the one gram per day of EPA?

Alan Aragon It's right around there.

Alan Aragon Yeah, it is.

Andrew Huberman Yeah, that's what I shoot for, too. It's one gram per day of EPA, which means taking about three grams total.

Alan Aragon Yeah, it's about one gram a day of combined EPA/DHA, and the atrial fib literature is showing that anything much above that, okay, then you're incurring this risk. But you know what, man? I don't believe everything I read. Even in the peer-reviewed literature.

Andrew Huberman You've been a scientist too long to believe everything you read.

Alan Aragon Yeah, dude.

Andrew Huberman Right. That's how it works, yeah.

Alan Aragon There are just certain things you just take with a grain of salt. You recognize the literature evidence base, and then you make the judgment call. It's based on your own sensibilities, and how you respond individually.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon The regular hierarchy of evidence is one way, but I think at the very tip is, how do you respond individually to protocol? So, yeah. And so, Fish oil, I do take that. Another thing that would blow up the size of a multivitamin, is getting enough magnesium to show benefits, so I take magnesium.

Andrew Huberman Which form of magnesium do you emphasize?

Alan Aragon Magnesium citrate.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon I'm cool with pretty much anything except magnesium oxide.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon Oxide is the low bioavailability form.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon But yeah, magnesium citrate. And I do take creatine, about five grams a day. And I do take... Another bro-science maneuver which, boy, I'm really incriminating myself here. I take vitamin C. Extra vitamin C, a gram a day.

Andrew Huberman What effect are you seeking with the vitamin C?

Alan Aragon Effects on immunity, plus kind of a potential synergy with the collagen.

Andrew Huberman Oh, right, and there are some data on this. I realize that you're framing all of this very cautiously under the umbrella of bro-science, but-

Alan Aragon And this is just me. I wouldn't tell everybody to do this. You asked me what I'm taking.

Andrew Huberman Right. But I think there are good data on vitamin D, on D3, and combining 15 grams of collagen with vitamin C, at least in the studies looking at skin elasticity.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman So, you're not that far out on a limb. I'm realizing, and the audience is certainly realizing just how cautious and conservative you are with your words, which I believe everyone appreciates.

Alan Aragon Mm.

Andrew Huberman So, the five grams of creatine, some vitamin C.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Anything more esoteric than that?

Alan Aragon No, nothing beyond the multivitamin, D, fish oil, vitamin C, creatine, magnesium.

Andrew Huberman How many days per week are you resistance training?

Alan Aragon About four to five.

Andrew Huberman And do you do cardio regularly?

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Okay, so here's the thing that a lot of people would ding me on, is that I try to make my resistance training cardio-y.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon So, my cardio, if you can call it cardio, would consist of just walks around the neighborhood on occasion, or just really light hikes on occasion, and maybe pacing around between sets. I enjoy resistance training. I make it fun. Everybody wants to wait two to three minutes between sets to move the maximal amount of loads. But you know what? You can do progressive resistance training, you can do progressive overload, even within a short rest paradigm. As long as it's trending up, your net tonnage moved is trending up over time, it won't move up as quickly as if you were to freaking rest two to three minutes between sets. But I love short rests. I love high rep.

Andrew Huberman You and I are not training together. I like to lift heavy and slow, like three to five minutes between sets.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Now I'm in a two to five repetition range. Anything more than six feels like cardio. But I like to run, and I do other forms of cardio for cardio. But we should make sure that at some point, you and Cameron Hanes train together, because he does his run-lift-shoot thing that he does every day. He shoots arrows to practice his archery, he runs often 10 to 20 miles a day, but he lifts every day, and he does this circuit-style lifting training that I've done with him.

Alan Aragon Awesome.

Andrew Huberman And for a guy like me, it's murder.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman It is so hard. I've never been so sore, I've never been so exhausted. But it sounds like it's very well-tuned to what you thrive on.

Alan Aragon I've been messing around with cluster sets, and I want you to try this, okay?

Andrew Huberman Can you explain for people what a cluster set is?

Alan Aragon A cluster set is where you're basically breaking up a set with rest periods that range anywhere from, gosh, five to around 20 seconds, within a single set, or within a set of sets.

Andrew Huberman So, like leg extension, leg press, and then squat as-

Alan Aragon That would be more like a super set or a giant set.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon So, a cluster set is like a single... I'll explain it. I want you to try this, I think you'll find it fun. Okay? So, with a given lift, let's imagine... What's your favorite... I'm talking to you as if you're a bodybuilder. What's your favorite body part to train?

Andrew Huberman I like to run, and I lift to stay strong enough and stable enough to run. What do I like to train the most?

Alan Aragon Yep. As far as just muscle groups.

Andrew Huberman These days, I've been doing a lot... I love leg day. I'm a huge fan of leg day, so I go very heavy on hack squats, or belt squats.

Alan Aragon Okay.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Are you a leg extension person?

Andrew Huberman Yep, I do those, too.

Alan Aragon Okay. So, let's imagine that you pick a weight for leg extensions that you can do. Your first work set, after however you might warm up...

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon Your first work set, pick a load that will enable you to fail out at about, let's say, 16 reps, okay?

Andrew Huberman I don't think I've ever done more than 10.

Alan Aragon Or how about this?

Alan Aragon We'll do 12 reps.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Alan Aragon 12 reps, okay?

Andrew Huberman Fair enough. Yep.

Alan Aragon Take it to failure.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon My colleagues would say, "Oh, okay, well, leave one rep in reserve and..." I like to train to failure all the freaking time. It's more fun. I've been training for a long time. I don't hurt myself with training to failure, and I wouldn't train to failure with a fricking bench press, or a squat. But you can choose the exercises that you can take to failure. Leg extension is one of them that you can take to failure, you can take to partials. So, leg extensions. Choose a weight that you can do for 12 reps, take it to failure, and do five slow breaths. That's one. And take that five times and then go right back into the set. Don't change the weight. Try to do half the amount of reps you did. And you'll usually hit it, but sometimes you won't. If you breathe fast enough, you kind of won't hit it. But if your five slow breaths are slow enough, you'll hit the six reps in this case. Okay. After that, 10 slow breaths.

Alan Aragon Try to beat your previous set. If you can do six, great. If you can do seven, great. And that's a cluster set with failure built into it a couple times.

Andrew Huberman And how many cluster sets would you do per body part? Two?

Alan Aragon Yeah-

Andrew Huberman Because it's multiple sets.

Alan Aragon Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman This seems like a great thing to do if one is low on time.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman And perhaps, if one has a nagging injury that you need to work around by avoiding heavy weights. I hope to never be in the position to have to do this workout.

Alan Aragon And you can add a drop set to the second exercise.

Andrew Huberman Okay.

Andrew Huberman Yeah.

Alan Aragon Cut the weight down by 25-ish% and go right into it and drop set. So, kind of the point of that, and how I'm sort of defending my non-love for formal cardio, is with a lot of my resistance training, I sort of try to gamify it in that sense, and it ends up stimulating cardiorespiratory pathways to a greater degree than your typical resistance training. I would never deny the benefit of formal cardio. But it's just how I navigate my training and stick with what I enjoy. I do enough volume through the week to where, I would say that, look, whoever loves endurance adaptations, increases in VO2 max, pushing that in, great, good for you.

Alan Aragon I just think that there's a limit to how much that will benefit cardiovascular health and/or longevity compared to just staying physically active, keeping good body composition, and just being consistent with that. And of course, the other lifestyle factors too. So, yeah. Different conversation, I guess.

Andrew Huberman Yeah. But I think it weaves very nicely into what we've been talking about up until now, which is a real-world scenario.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman This is what works for you. I touched on what works for me, but this is what works for you, and you're able to kind of merge cardio and resistance training in a way that sounds very time efficient.

Alan Aragon Well, I don't always do the cluster set thing. I love doing supersets. So, if I'm at a station where I can super set chest and back work, I'll super set with minimal rest, between sets.

Andrew Huberman Also very time efficient.

Alan Aragon Or bicep versus tricep work, or anything that you can do, sort of super-setting antagonistic muscles, I take advantage of that.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon I don't necessarily always do the cluster set thing.

Andrew Huberman You mentioned that your wife is a trainer.

Alan Aragon Yeah.

Andrew Huberman Does she train her female clients this way? And do you train your female clients this way? The reason I ask, is that in my experience, I realize this is a generalization, but I've had female training partners before. Some of the best training partners I've had, by the way, are female training partners. They worked hard, and they were also great athletes.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman They tended to view resistance training, at least at first, as something to limit the rest periods between sets. They felt that if their heart rate wasn't up continuously, it wasn't exercise.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman Those people often were pleasantly surprised by doing lower repetition, longer rest work.

Alan Aragon Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman But in general, do you recommend what you just described more for your male or female training clients?

Alan Aragon Being perfectly honest, it's just what I enjoy doing, and it is probably not the most efficient way to make muscle gains. But I just find it fun.

Andrew Huberman Mm-hmm.

Alan Aragon And I enjoy it. When I was training folks for the specific goal of hypertrophy, I would put them through kind of a standard, "Let's rest between sets, move the maximum amount of load, let's cover a spectrum of loading zones." I'm sort of with Brad Schoenfeld. I think Brad has done the best work in the hypertrophy realm. And training for hypertrophy is one of the best ways to train for, I guess, optimizing metabolic health. So, there should be some hypertrophy training included in any program, in my opinion. So, yeah, it's just what I enjoy, man. And I realize that it does go against a lot of the typical consensus.

Andrew Huberman Well, thank you for sharing that. I think it highlights, if nothing else, that doing what one enjoys in the realm of fitness and nutrition, is equally important to what's best. Because if you don't enjoy it, you're unlikely to stick to things.

Alan Aragon Big time.

Andrew Huberman So, find what you enjoy. Listen, I want to extend a huge thank you for coming here today. This was a long time coming. I always knew from our first in-person meeting that we would do this at some point. And I'm so glad we're doing this now. I must say, you have an absolutely, staggeringly impressive command of the literature.

Alan Aragon Thank you.

Andrew Huberman Anyone that's listened to this realizes that you don't just say stuff. You always precede your statements with the origin of the information that you're about to convey. Whether or not it's your own personal experience and preference, whether it's from a meta-analysis, whether or not it's from a particular study... And as an academic, I especially appreciate that you always credit the authors of the study. I know people heard this, but I want to underscore the scholarly nature with which you present evidence and attribution to the original authors of the work. And it's so clear that you've got your mind wrapped around these massive topics that are of immense confusion to the general public, and importance. And to take us back to something I said at the beginning, when I think of Alan Aragon, I think of immense amounts of knowledge shared, and this immense property of clarifying things for people.

Andrew Huberman Today, you've taught us that protein is extremely important. What qualities of protein exist in different domains of the different food groups, timing of protein intake, timing relative to exercise, timing of exercise, type of exercise. We talked about collagen, we talked about calorie surplus, deficit. Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. And you make this information not just clear, but extremely practical. So, thank you for the immense amount of information you've provided us today, and that you continue to provide online and elsewhere. We, of course, will provide links to where people can learn more about you and from you. And I just want to say, keep going. I value you as a colleague and a friend, and I'm so grateful that you came out here today, and that I said the wrong thing on social media so that we had the opportunity to meet.

Alan Aragon It goes right back to you, Andrew. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here, and I really think that this will bring a lot of value and just thank you for everything.

Andrew Huberman Well, you're most welcome. It's been a true pleasure. We'll have you back again.

Andrew Huberman Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Alan Aragon. To learn more about Alan's work, and to find links to his articles, and various other resources, please see the show note captions. If you're learning from, and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review, and you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me, or comments about the podcast, or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience.

Andrew Huberman And it covers protocols for everything from sleep, to exercise, to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre-sale at ProtocolsBook.com. There, you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. So, that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

Andrew Huberman And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries, as well as what we call protocols, in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training, and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You simply go to HubermanLab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to Newsletter, and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Alan Aragon. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.