Experts Fasting Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss · 13 episodes · 226 sourced insights

What Tim Ferriss says about fasting

Everything Tim Ferriss and guests said about fasting across 13 episodes — each point linked to the exact second on YouTube. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

In their own words

A ketogenic diet quiets the brain by lowering glutamate and elevating GABA, a calming neurotransmitter, which underlies its rapidly expanding use in metabolic psychiatry for depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, and anorexia.
00:02:38Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Lyme disease spirochetes (Borrelia) are essentially 100% glycolytic, so limiting glucose starves the microbe, and elevated beta-hydroxybutyrate stimulates the adaptive immune response, possibly explaining why ketosis resolved Tim's tick-borne cognitive symptoms.
00:11:25Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Tim's very low blood ketone readings (0.1 to 0.4 mmol) despite feeling sharp are likely a false negative caused by very high ketone utilization and insulin sensitivity, meaning his tissues consume ketones before they show up in the blood.
00:32:42Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
You can get about 80% of the benefits with a low-carb diet (around 100g carbs/day) and periodically, roughly one week per month, drop into deeper ketosis, since higher ketones are not better and a sweet spot of 1 to 2 mmol is therapeutic.
01:07:00Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
1,3-butanediol and 1,3-butanediol-based ketone esters can cause chronic liver toxicity (depleting NAD and ATP, causing inflammation and fatty liver), and animals showed scary liver damage even when blood liver enzymes stayed normal.
01:31:54Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
1,3-butanediol is metabolized like ethanol, creates dependence and alcohol-like withdrawal, and is sold as an alcohol replacement, making these supplements dangerous for the elderly dementia population some companies target.
01:50:39Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
On a ketogenic diet, roughly 34 to 40% of the ketone in the heart is L-beta-hydroxybutyrate, which appears to improve cardiac output and increase blood flow to the brain by reducing peripheral vascular resistance.
01:22:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Metabolic memory is real: like muscle memory, the more you stay in ketosis the faster your body re-adapts, driven by increased mitochondrial number and capacity plus epigenetic gene programs.
00:17:40Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
There are 160 or more registered clinical trials on exogenous ketones listed on clinicaltrials.gov.
00:05:14Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
About 80% of cancers are highly glycolytic, and while a ketogenic diet does not cure cancer it can slow tumor growth and augment standard care like radiation and chemo.
00:14:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Tim's staple keto meal is two cans of chub mackerel with about 30ml of MCT oil plus apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper, costing around three dollars.
00:23:59Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Breath ketones (acetone) can be a more accurate indicator of ketosis than blood ketones during a caloric deficit, when blood ketone disposal into tissues is very high.
00:33:43Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
A B12 deficiency can cause brain atrophy and present as flat-out Alzheimer's disease, but can be reversed by correcting the deficiency.
00:59:42Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (HSCRP) inflammation is now considered probably more atherogenic than LDL cholesterol.
01:00:13Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
To calculate the glucose-ketone index (GKI), divide blood glucose by ketone level; US glucose readings in mg/dL must first be divided by 18 to convert to mmol/L.
01:16:20Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
The only long-term human data on 1,3-butanediol is a single case report (Mary Newport's husband Steve) and a 28-day study using 25 grams per day.
01:35:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
The ketone ester traces back to Dr. Richard Veech, a student of Hans Krebs of the Krebs cycle; the work was funded in part by DARPA and developed at Oxford.
01:55:52Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Ketones above the 2 to 5 mmol range create energy toxicity and reductive stress, so higher is not better for general therapeutic ketosis.
01:57:55Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Tim had surgery for lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), repairing an injury from a jiu-jitsu accident 20+ years ago where a black belt hyperextended his elbow; he's about a week and a half post-op with near-full extension.
00:04:07Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He's using a Marc Pro device for decongestion and lymphatic drainage, lymphatic massage, peptides like BPC-157, collagen plus vitamin C (per Keith Baras), and blood flow restriction (BFR) training recommended by Kelly Starrett.
00:06:42Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
His AI medical workflow: Consensus.app for scoring published literature (red/yellow/green conviction ratings), cross-referenced with ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, then sends the key paragraph to his surgeon for expert verification.
00:14:35Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Tim carries the APOE 3/4 genotype, which raises his Alzheimer's risk roughly 2.5x versus APOE 3/3, influencing his interest in DORA-class sleep meds that may help clear amyloid plaque and tau.
00:17:41Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He changed his mind about intermittent fasting; after a strict keto phase plus a 16:8 fasting window, he recorded his best blood work in over a decade, including very high testosterone.
00:31:43Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
The 4-Hour Chef was boycotted by Barnes & Noble, Costco, and other retailers because it launched Amazon Publishing; its failure pushed Tim to launch his podcast as a test of 6-10 episodes, now 800+ episodes over a decade later.
00:37:35Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Behind the scenes, Tim has spent 5+ years investing in fusion and nuclear clean energy, algae feed additives to cut cattle methane, and meat alternatives, despite being an avid meat eater and major Maui Nui venison investor.
01:01:39Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He wants to create an AI-generated movie trailer for his Vorlatta/Cockpunch world as a low-cost proof of concept, casting Tom Hardy and a younger Timothee Chalamet-type as a father-son pair.
00:48:38Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
The Coyote card game by Exploding Kittens is now in roughly 8,000 retail locations and is their first game sold on a hang tag.
00:01:33Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Tim takes prescriptions including Uloric (febuxostat) for uric acid/gout and Nexlizet (ezetimibe + bempedoic acid) for lipid management, since male relatives on both sides tend to die of cardiovascular complications.
00:20:19Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He takes famotidine (Pepcid) for possible anti-COVID applications and as a possible mild vagal tone improver.
00:21:22Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He takes maca root extract, which acts like a mild androgen and may benefit reproductive health, plus THC and CBN at night for elbow pain while being 100% off opioids.
00:22:55Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
His supplement roll call includes Pure Encapsulations fish oil (tested pure by Kevin Rose and Rhonda Patrick) and AREDS2 by Bausch + Lomb for ocular health.
00:24:27Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Tim argues the myth that you can't absorb more than 30g of protein per sitting isn't supported by literature, and older adults may absorb protein more effectively in fewer sittings.
00:33:15Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
He has a 40-page English printout describing a Soviet psychiatrist's center that fasted thousands of schizophrenia and psychiatric patients for 30+ days.
00:43:53Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Tim names Taiwan as a favorite place he wishes he'd returned to sooner, praising its preserved culture, food, and nature within an hour's drive of Taipei.
01:03:47Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
For competitive chess as a mental sport, Tim emphasizes stabilizing glucose metabolism via intermittent fasting and moderating caffeine, which spikes insulin and can spike glucose.
00:57:30Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Tim records his podcast with a hard-wired Audio-Technica headset plus AirPods as backup audio via QuickTime, following his 'two is one and one is none' principle.
01:10:32Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Sep 2025
Ferriss estimates 50 to 70 percent of his early-stage startup investments go to zero, framing everything through risk mitigation, bankroll and bet sizing.
00:01:19Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
His most notable marketing contribution was designing Shopify's Build a Business competition with Tobi and Harley, documented in a Fortune piece called 'The Invisible Selling Machine.'
00:13:11Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He has had no social apps on his phone for two years and keeps it on airplane mode, championing the low-information diet as his most underrated lesson.
00:14:48Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He recounts extreme time dilation while hiking at altitude in New Mexico, proposing that deliberately designed experiences could expand experiential lifespan rather than just biological lifespan.
00:19:47Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
His core luxury principle: set the price first, then make it worth it; he charged a $10,000 minimum per seat for an event and engineered overdelivery in the first two hours.
01:00:05Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
If relaunching The 4-Hour Workweek today, he'd keep the in-person event engagement strategy and could drop every other prong; in-person remains the least crowded channel.
01:27:55Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He calls Athletic Greens the most methodical, quantitative podcast advertiser he's seen, and explains why he insists sponsors offer 30-50 percent discounts so tracking codes actually get used.
01:43:44Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He confirms the mystery NFT project code-named Project 555 is in fact himself, warning it will be ridiculous and absurd.
01:59:00Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
Ferriss says people send him literally thousands of pitches per day, most of which he deflects for lack of bandwidth.
00:09:24Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
For The 4-Hour Body launch he targeted Digg.com as a front-page tastemaking shopping list, comparing it to landing atop Hacker News today.
00:10:30Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He recommends 'Small Giants' by Bo Burlingham about companies that choose to be great instead of big.
00:35:24Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
His three-day fast protocol: two days of sub-maintenance keto beforehand, last meal Thursday, then walk-and-talk phone calls 3-5 hours on Friday with LMNT electrolytes to prevent lower back pain.
00:43:24Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He limits himself to one Starbucks cold brew before 10am, then switches to iced tea because coffee disrupts his sleep more than equivalent caffeine.
01:11:27Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
His top prioritization question, adapted from Gary Keller's The ONE Thing: which of these, if done, makes the other things irrelevant or easier?
01:23:31Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He observes that people claim to hate centralization but love it because it saves them decisions, making him conflicted about the metaverse.
01:35:31Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
He uses two psoas-release devices for sleep and lower back pain: the Pso-Rite (pso-rite.com) and a travel-friendly Hip Hook.
01:40:28Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
A seemingly nonsensical Bay Area billboard on the 280 was actually targeted solely at visiting investment bankers, illustrating audience-specific advertising value.
01:48:40Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
His initial 4-Hour Workweek target was 20-to-35-year-old tech-savvy males in NY, SF and LA, capping total launch spend at $10-20K to create 'surround sound' perception.
01:52:02Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Oct 2022
Tim candidly admits that for the past several months he has had constant thoughts about the meaninglessness of life and significant angst around death, and shares his plan to reboot via rereading Frankl and biographies of people who found meaning.
00:14:36Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim reveals he is no longer hesitating about having children and is actively seeing fertility doctors, going through the 'pre-flight checklist'; his past hesitation stemmed from doubts about being a good father and a genetic predisposition to depression.
00:31:47Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
On self-compassion versus grinding, Tim argues there are counter-examples of friends with outsized financial success who were not self-flagellating, concluding self-compassion carries very little downside even in your 20s and 30s.
00:39:06Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim shares his 'jacket/smoking jacket' analogy: meditation and therapy don't make you lose your edge; you simply learn to take the edge off and put it back on when genuinely needed, as he did to handle a stalker threatening his family.
00:41:39Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim breaks down 'ontological shock' (a term he first heard from Roland Griffiths), explaining how a single mystical or trauma-surfacing experience can take weeks, months, or years to reconcile with ordinary reality.
00:47:52Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
On the fear of being misunderstood, Tim offers the reframe that we dramatically overestimate how much others think about us, since everyone is the lead actor in their own 'me me me movie.'
01:05:29Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim's morning routine starts with 20 minutes of meditation (often transcendental meditation), then Pique tea or coffee, often with Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee and Laird superfood creamer.
00:06:54Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
He organizes his week thematically, batching activities like phone calls into dedicated days (e.g., Tuesdays) rather than spreading them across every day.
00:07:55Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
His exercise routine includes acro yoga twice a week (started in quarantine via Zoom with instructor Jason Nemer), climbing twice a week, weight training 1-2 times, and substantial daily walking.
00:08:26Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Holotropic breathwork was created by psychiatrist Stan Grof as an alternative to psychedelics after they were made illegal; 'holotropic' means turning toward wholeness.
00:18:46Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim warns that legitimate well-trained indigenous practitioners essentially never call themselves 'shamans'; self-described shamans are a red flag.
00:21:22Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
For joint pain he uses Kelly Starrett's Voodoo Floss and contrast therapy via a chest freezer converted into a cold plunge (he warns to unplug it first to avoid electrocution).
00:23:25Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim notes that doing intense breathwork (like Wim Hof or holotropic) after a psychedelic dose can have a multiplicative effect, making 50 micrograms of LSD subjectively feel like 100-200.
00:30:44Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
He is back on the slow-carb diet and still aims for a 72-hour water fast once per month plus at least one week-long fast per year.
00:44:14Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Tim reads roughly three to five hours per week, typically before bed for 30-60 minutes, significantly more when traveling.
01:00:50Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
For sleep he uses California poppy, magnesium L-threonate, the Oura ring for tracking, and an Eight Sleep bed cover, noting caffeine's quarter-life is about 12 hours.
01:10:41Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
Blaine explains a terrifying underwater breath-hold attempt went sideways because starving himself to slow his metabolism had the opposite effect, causing him to convulse and black out while handcuffed and strapped down.
00:02:34David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
His mother died in his arms, and that moment is when he says he became fearless because he felt he had nothing to lose.
00:08:16David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He names the 44-day water fast in a box in London as his most dangerous feat, going into mild organ failure and doing lasting damage to his metabolism.
00:19:46David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He lost 60 pounds in 44 days, and during refeeding his phosphate levels jumped out of control, nearly sending him into shock and killing him.
00:20:18David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He describes pushing objects through his hand for real, starting with acupuncture needles and using X-rays and MRIs to map blood vessels and find a 'sweet spot.'
00:25:27David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He tells the story of reaching a 21-year-old burn-unit soldier, Victor, with magic; afterward Victor left his room for physical therapy for the first time.
00:39:56David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He reveals a newly learned sword-swallowing trick, showing an X-ray and performing it live on stage.
00:43:33David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Navy SEALs are trained to walk underwater strapped to 45-pound plates until they black out, so they lose the fear of drowning.
00:03:37David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Born with his feet turned in, Blaine couldn't run or swim fast, so on the YMCA swim team at age five he learned to swim without breathing to keep up.
00:05:41David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Blaine became afraid to deeply connect with others after his mother's death, feeling like a snapped twig.
00:08:47David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
As a teenager he ended up in Mike Tyson's limo over a mix-up with identical bags, and Tyson told him 'when you have nothing to lose you have everything to gain.'
00:09:19David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He attended acting school for a year and learned 'living truthfully in a given imaginary circumstance,' applying it to make magic more believable.
00:15:32David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
As a kid he educated himself by reading Nobel Prize winners in literature, then the books they recommended, following the chain like 'the original hyperlinks.'
00:17:37David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Reading Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha' at age 11 sparked his lifelong obsession with fasting and the idea of controlling the body with the mind.
00:17:37David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Sleep deprivation has obsessed him; he's gone five and a half days without sleep, with hallucinations kicking in around 55 hours standing up.
00:25:58David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
On a Bryant Park pillar stunt he hallucinated that flat buildings behind him were lion heads while standing 36 hours.
00:27:00David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
He uses number-based superstitions and breaks fasts into chunks, counting to the halfway mark then 'starting fresh' to push through endurance feats.
00:33:14David Blaine · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2021
Both Tim and Kevin independently deleted all social apps from their phones (Tim four weeks earlier, Kevin a couple months prior) and report dramatically improved energy, lower anxiety, and better signal-to-noise.
00:30:42Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
GPT-3's release prompts Kevin to take universal basic income seriously, predicting AI will eliminate vast numbers of technical and creative jobs sooner than people expect.
00:23:29Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim says no amount of money, even $200 million, would get him in a ring with Mike Tyson because of his fear of traumatic brain injury from prior concussions.
00:09:01Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim reveals he decided around his 43rd birthday to take a 6-to-12-month break from all investing decisions because money thinking makes him anxious rather than happy.
01:25:18Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim discloses his highest-conviction COVID stock bets were Amazon (around $2,000) and Shopify (around $380), bought in April 2020.
01:30:30Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim clarifies he held roughly 14x more in cash reserves than he put into stocks (about 2% of liquid net worth per position vs ~30% cash).
01:42:50Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Kevin shares he buys and tastes the world's top-10 Beer Advocate-rated beers as an affordable alternative to expensive wine collecting.
01:14:27Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tyson's return is an eight-round exhibition fight against Roy Jones Jr. on September 12th; Tyson is 5'10" 240 lbs vs Jones at 193 lbs.
00:14:09Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tyson pledged 100% of the fight proceeds to charity, saying that's no longer where his happiness comes from.
00:15:44Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim invested about a year earlier in Maui Nui Venison, a Hawaii operation harvesting invasive axis deer; Peter Thiel is also a fan.
00:38:33Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Tim does twice-daily 20-minute HRV breathwork sessions, working with a PhD using a 3.7-second inhale and 6.3-second exhale to activate his parasympathetic nervous system.
00:44:12Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
A clinician described Tim as 'cardiac hyperreactive'; small triggers spike his heart rate to 80-90 bpm and keep it elevated for six to seven hours.
00:46:50Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
The number-one rated beer in the world is Kentucky Breakfast (Brunch) Stout by Toppling Goliath, hand-numbered and aged like wine.
01:14:59Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
The King Julius IPA by Tree House, a top-ranked IPA, sells as a four-pack for about $39.99 on mybeercollectibles.com.
01:17:36Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Kevin highlights TSM (TSMC) as an investment because Apple and AMD both rely on it for next-gen chips, including PlayStation and Xbox processors.
01:38:13Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Kevin buys gold via the iShares Gold Trust (IAU) over GLD due to lower expense ratios and gold stored in Switzerland and the UK.
01:46:27Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Kevin recounts a young Robinhood trader who took his own life after misreading a leveraged options position showing a roughly $100,000 negative balance.
01:52:11Kevin Rose · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2020
Three two-year randomized controlled trials showed a standard Centrum Silver multivitamin reduced global cognitive aging by about 2 years and episodic memory aging by nearly 5 years (4.8 years) in adults 65+.
00:06:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A 2-year training study by Ben Levine took sedentary 50-year-olds (using the Norwegian 4x4) and reversed heart aging by 20 years, making their hearts structurally resemble 30-year-olds'.
01:09:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Vigorous-intensity exercise produces lactate, which the brain consumes as fuel and which acts as a signaling molecule activating BDNF; one year of training grew the hippocampus 1-2% instead of the usual 1-2% age-related loss.
01:11:05Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A study giving 20-25 grams of creatine after ~21 hours of sleep deprivation not only negated the cognitive deficits but improved cognition beyond rested baseline.
01:29:12Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Vitamin D conversion in the liver requires magnesium, and roughly 50% of the US population is magnesium-insufficient, helping explain why so many people stay vitamin D deficient despite supplementing.
01:38:29Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Finnish data show sauna use 4-7x/week was associated with 24-40% lower all-cause mortality and roughly 66% lower dementia and 65% lower Alzheimer's risk, with dose dependence.
01:15:13Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Microplastics accumulate up to 20x more in the brain than other organs, and people with Alzheimer's had up to 20x more microplastics in their brains than those without.
01:48:58Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
The 'sick quitter' confounder undermined many studies claiming moderate alcohol is protective, because former drinkers who quit due to illness were miscounted as lifelong non-drinkers.
02:04:39Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A 70-year-old makes about four times less vitamin D from sun exposure than their former 20-year-old self.
00:08:19Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Broccoli sprouts contain about 100 times more of the sulforaphane precursor glucoraphanin than mature broccoli.
00:15:34Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Sulforaphane activates NRF2 phase-2 detox enzymes; people start excreting 60% more benzene within 24 hours of taking it.
00:19:11Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
People practicing intermittent fasting naturally eat about 200 fewer calories per day, which accounts for much of the weight loss.
00:34:16Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
During a prolonged fast you can lose up to 10 pounds of water weight and your organs actually shrink as damaged cells undergo cell death.
00:47:43Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A Polish sauna study found protection only below 190 degrees F; saunas in the 190-200 degree F range were associated with increased risk.
01:20:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A hot bath kept at 104 degrees F for about 20 minutes produces effects on blood pressure comparable to a sauna.
01:21:21Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Sauna heat lowers sperm motility, but the changes reverse after about 6 weeks of abstaining (and it does not work as contraception).
01:22:53Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
University of Chicago research found African-Americans must stay in the sun 6-10 times as long as Caucasians to make the same amount of vitamin D3, because melanin acts as a natural sunscreen.
01:41:10Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
A recent Emory animal study found psilocybin increased life expectancy by almost 20% in mice.
02:14:30Dr. Rhonda Patrick · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2025
Doris, diagnosed with schizophrenia at 17 with 53 years of daily hallucinations and six suicide attempts, achieved full remission within months on a ketogenic diet, came off all psychiatric meds, lost 150 pounds, and lived 15 more symptom-free years.
00:02:42Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Palmer states there is no single root cause for any psychiatric diagnosis, and that even at the genetic level one gene confers risk across schizophrenia, bipolar, autism, epilepsy and more, so DSM labels are not distinct entities.
00:16:34Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Palmer argues mental disorders ultimately come down to mitochondrial dysfunction, with blood work, lumbar punctures, autopsy and neuroimaging studies all converging on impaired metabolism in specific brain regions.
00:36:10Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
The most controversial claim: many antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and antidepressants reduce symptoms by impairing mitochondrial function, putting a 'straitjacket' on hyperexcitable cells, which may worsen the illness over the long run.
01:06:53Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Despite tens of thousands of children on ketogenic diets for epilepsy, there is not one case report of a child transitioning to exogenous ketones and keeping the benefit, suggesting exogenous ketones cannot replace the diet.
01:22:48Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Since the 1940s, blood studies showed people with bipolar and schizophrenia had elevated lactate, a marker of mitochondrial stress, building an 80-year evidence trail later formalized as the mitochondrial theory of bipolar disorder around 2000.
01:30:39Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
The ketogenic diet is a 100-year-old evidence-based treatment for epilepsy, and standard anti-seizure drugs (Depakote, Tegretol, Lamictal, Topamax, Valium, Klonopin, Xanax) are routinely used in psychiatry.
00:23:16Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Researchers have documented at least 40 different mechanisms of action of the ketogenic diet in the brain, including changes to neurotransmitters, calcium channel regulation, gene expression, gut microbiome and inflammation.
00:24:21Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
One study found children hospitalized for a serious infection had an 80-percent-plus increased risk of developing a mental disorder, most within three months, spanning autism, schizophrenia, OCD, learning disabilities and seizures.
00:52:22Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
If mitochondria are removed from a synapse but it is flooded with ATP, neurotransmitters still do not get released, showing mitochondria directly control neurotransmitter release; they also control the first step in synthesizing steroid hormones.
00:53:33Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Most ketones in the body are produced by mitochondria in the liver, and a ketogenic diet triggers mitochondrial biogenesis in liver cells, improving overall metabolic signaling.
01:24:26Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Randomized trials of older adults exercising showed those who did NOT take metformin had greater mitochondrial benefits than those who did, since metformin appears to impair mitochondrial function.
01:40:07Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Palmer recommends zone 2 training as a near be-all-end-all for mitochondrial health, noting muscle mitochondrial improvements translate to brain benefits and neuroplasticity.
01:43:28Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Ferriss developed severe Lyme disease with slurred speech, memory loss and joint pain; a week-long fast made all symptoms vanish around 1.2-1.3 millimolar ketones, and they did not return.
00:43:26Dr. Christopher M. Palmer · The Tim Ferriss Show · Nov 2022
Attia is most excited about liquid biopsy cancer screening, especially Grail, which detects cell-free DNA methylation patterns to catch up to 50 cancer types early before they accumulate hard-to-target mutations.
00:03:35Dr. Peter Attia · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
He frames exercise as four pillars: stability, strength, aerobic efficiency, and anaerobic performance, arguing most people neglect stability, which begins with the feet.
00:16:33Dr. Peter Attia · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
He warns that excessive time-restricted feeding without strength training causes muscle loss, citing a patient whose body fat jumped from 18% to 30% with no weight change, and his own jump from 10% to 16%.
00:33:37Dr. Peter Attia · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021
ApoB is the single best biomarker for cardiovascular risk because it counts all atherogenic particles, and PCSK9 inhibitors can drive ApoB into the 10-30 range with essentially no side effects.
01:16:09Dr. Peter Attia · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jun 2021

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