Sun, Steak, and Steel: optimizing healthspan with Dennis "P.D." Mangan

You can find Dennis at:

https://roguehealthandfitness.com/
Twitter @mangan150

You can find Jerry Texeira at:
https://bodyweightstrength.fit
Twitter: @jerryteixeira
IG: jtbodyweightstrength

Dennis "P.D." Mangan shares his strategies for optimizing his healthspan as he approaches 70 years old. 

We talk about his background as a vegetarian who engaged in endurance based training in the form of running, and how he ultimately started experiencing health problems following that way of life. 

He details how a move to a diet based on animal foods and high intensity strength training produced significant improvements in health. 

He breaks down each of his 3 primary tenets of Sun, Steak, and Steel in detail, and reveals what his current daily diet and training look like. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jerry Teixeira: Hey, welcome to the first episode of the Ageless Strength Podcast. In this episode, I was excited to interview Dennis P. D. Mangan. Now, Dennis is someone that I've followed for a long time on Twitter, and he is a health coach there. Um, but the primary reason that I was excited to interview him was because he is fast approaching 70 years old, and if you've not seen Dennis, I encourage you to go check out his Twitter.

[00:00:24] Uh, take a look at him. He is in phenomenal shape. He maintains a high level of fitness, uh, and he does so in a manner that's a little bit different than a lot of his peers. Uh, he has a past as having been an endurance athlete, doing the marathon thing. He came from a vegetarian, uh, diet initially, and from a vegetarian diet, then segued into more of an ancestral approach to eating.

[00:00:51] Um, Somewhat paleolithic, uh, but I find his journey interesting, and one of the key reasons that I find it so interesting is that the older we get, uh, the more that the decisions we make have a gravity or they're more meaningful because time is short, right? If a guy is or a woman is approaching 70, um, they have a shorter horizon and they don't have as many years left as somebody that's, you know, 40 or 30.

[00:01:21] And so, when you make choices about your health, uh, those things are, are going to be amplified or magnified. And so, I find it very interesting, uh, to take a look at what this, you know, almost 70 year old person's doing to main, to build and maintain, and not just to maintain, but actually to progress, uh, in, in strength and health and fitness.

[00:01:43] Um, so, so yeah, that was the, the primary reason that I wanted to sit down with Dennis. And also... Coincidentally, as fate would have it, um, four years ago or so, he actually relocated from the Bay Area in California to the city I live in, and he's about four miles from my house, and so for the longest time, I wanted to get together and interview him, and I knew I wanted to start a podcast, um, but due to me having multiple deaths of close family members the last few years, Uh, this whole project has been on hold, uh, but now I'm finally past that and it seemed like the right time to start the podcast and get Dennis on for episode number one.

[00:02:23] So, please enjoy my interview with Dennis P. D. Mangan. Alright, welcome to my interview with Dennis P. D. Mangan. All right, Dennis. Happy to have you here. 

[00:02:35] P.D. Mangan: Thanks a lot, Jerry. Thanks for inviting me. We've been talking about doing this for a while and so 

[00:02:39] Jerry Teixeira: great to be here. This goes back to pre covid hysteria.

[00:02:42] That's right. That's right. And so, so for people who don't know, uh, Dennis and I live in the same city and we live about 3. 5, 4 miles apart. Uh, so this would, you know, could have happened a long time ago. But like I mentioned, things came up. Um, but one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, um, is Your age, what I mean by that's like, uh, your so for people who aren't familiar, um, I have a broad knowledge in strength training and things of that nature, but as I've gotten older and I think early on, I was around 30 years old, I started to really take an interest in longevity and how the things that we do, including physical training, diet and all that, um, can alter our, our odds of successfully aging.

[00:03:30] with that being said, that was when I was 30. Now I'm 43. So I'm still not, you know, quote unquote old. Um, so at the point that I'm at in life is a little different stage than where you are in life. So some of the stuff that I am interested in, I'm like, Oh, this pharmaceutical is really cool, right? This, whatever it happens to be.

[00:03:50] Um, I'm not at a point where I feel like, oh, I need to jump on these things. Like I can take my time, research them. Uh, I feel like you're at a point in life where You, the things that you do, there's more of a gravity to their implementation. Yes, um, definitely. And I think that there's a lot of people in a similar situation where they're younger and they're interested in this topic.

[00:04:11] And then, but you're at that point where, you know, you look at some of the studies on things like rap mice, which we can get into later, but the equivalent human age in some of these studies is like, oh, this would be like applying this. Medication to us in a 60 year old human subject, and it's like you're at that point where you you have a more abbreviated window, right?

[00:04:30] And so that that's one of the things I find interesting about you and the choices you make. Um, is that, you know, none of us have all the answers and all of us are going to make mistakes. But I feel like just like saving for retirement, you have less room to make mistakes in the first place. So, um, so with that kind of, uh, with that kind of being my, my.

[00:04:51] Reason for wanting to interview you. Why don't you tell us how you arrived at, you know, people haven't heard it. Sun, steak and steel is kind of like the slogan you've come up with, and that embodies at a high level, kind of like the tenant, you know, the overall theme of your content. Um, so how did you start out pursuing health?

[00:05:13] And I know you were, unless I'm wrong, vegan at one point. That 

[00:05:17] P.D. Mangan: is correct, right? So I'm ashamed to say at this point, but I was, yeah. 

[00:05:21] Jerry Teixeira: So when you decided, okay, I've got to start taking health seriously, whatever, whatever point, like, how did you get, and I know education wise, so you can maybe start with your education, I think that's relevant, and then just tell us how you arrived at Sun, Stake, and Steel, and, and what you do for yourself now at 68, right?

[00:05:38] 67. 

[00:05:38] P.D. Mangan: 67, so. 68 before long, yes. 

[00:05:41] Jerry Teixeira: Yeah, so, so now, at your age. What brought you to, to, to be who you are now and to recommend the things that you recommend now? 

[00:05:48] P.D. Mangan: So, uh, okay. Well, the story goes way, way back. Um, I, I, in, in retrospect, thinking about it, um, I, I realized that, uh, that heart disease in, in my family had a big role to play because I, I saw this when I was young, saw this in my father.

[00:06:07] Um, and so I, I, Kind of, uh, was determined that that was never going to happen to me. So anyway, eventually, I, um, I wasn't in great shape, but when I went to college and then I decided, well, it kind of should get in better shape. And, um, this was about the time that the running craze was going on and was just getting going.

[00:06:30] So I started running and, uh, I kind of liked it. I mean, it was pretty hard at first, but I kept at it. Um, eventually, uh, you know, running long distances. I've run a couple of marathons in my life. Um, but anyway, when, then, then I, you asked about my education, so I was in college, I studied microbiology, and ended up going to graduate school, uh, studying pharmacology, so that was always a big interest of mine, didn't finish grad school, was in a PhD program, but anyway, I left, decided it wasn't for me, um, in any case, I kept my, my interest in health and fitness, I was running and everything, and then, Going back to this, uh, you know, regarding heart disease, um, I was always very interested in it.

[00:07:17] And, of course, the message coming from above, from the mainstream, mainstream health or, you know, or from any kind of popular media or anything was don't eat saturated fat. It gives you heart disease, right? So, um, I, I, you know, I, I believed it. And, um, So, eventually, you know, I started cutting out meat and, uh, for my diet.

[00:07:44] Eventually, uh, I became, I did become first vegetarian and then vegan. What age was that? Um, so, by the time I did that, it would have been like my late 20s or 30 thereabouts. Okay, so pretty early on. Yeah, yeah, right, right. And, um, so, I did this and, you know, things were going along okay. I kept running and everything.

[00:08:08] Like I said, I did a couple of marathons. I always thought, I always thought running was, um, you know, just you could do. Um, and, and again, the, the aerobics craze got going in, in late sixties, early seventies, you know, the book by Kenneth Cooper aerobics that really got everything going. So this was like, okay, this is what you're supposed to do.

[00:08:32] Don't eat meat and do a lot of running. And so, uh, like I said, things went along okay. And then, um, one. At one point I, I became ill and, and, um, so. That started sort of a long search for answers, um, eventually I got a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, um, and this was after seeing, you know, I probably saw a dozen different doctors, nobody could do much for me, um, most of them were wanting to kind of, uh, give up because, you know, I, well, I can't find anything wrong with you, you know, and so, um, I this this went along for several years, and eventually, um, I decided that, uh, if I if I were ever going to get over this, I would have to try to figure it out for myself.

[00:09:27] Yeah, 

[00:09:27] Jerry Teixeira: it's got nuts, but it's got to be frustrating. And I know you've probably had people on social media reach out to you or message, you know, or comment there. There are a lot of people that it seems like. In a similar situation where they are doing whatever it is they happen to be doing. Um, they, they do seek professional help.

[00:09:46] They do go to doctors. They go to many doctors and it, it's like the unexplained phenomenon. No one can figure out what's going on. Uh, you know, so I, I think the situation you're describing is, is something that is a lot more common. And it's not, I'm not blaming the doctors to be clear. I mean, it's, you know, but I, I think health is a lot more complicated than.

[00:10:06] Then we let on. 

[00:10:07] P.D. Mangan: Absolutely. And I suppose you could say in the doctor's defense, there are a lot of things that can cause fatigue. And so they, you know, they run through the common causes, hypothyroidism for example. And, and, you know, lots of other things all the way to, you know, from lack of sleep to cancer.

[00:10:29] I mean, there are just tons of things that can cause people to be fatigued. Um, and then when they can't find anything that, you know, that, that looks as a, like a definite cause, then it's like, well, I don't know. So, um, Yeah, so I decided that I would have to try to figure this out for myself if I could, and then due to my, my background, uh, my, my science background in, in, in my formal education, um, I was able to start reading the scientific literature.

[00:11:00] Um, a lot of it was, A lot of the fields I was looking at were pretty new to me, but I could, you know, I could make sense of it. Um, you know, I'd studied biochemistry and physiology and so on, so I started, started in on it. And, um, eventually, um, I figured out a few things. Um, one of the first things I figured out was that it was probably not a good idea for me to be a vegan.

[00:11:29] Or, or a vegetarian. So, um, this was actually, at the time, news to me. I was kind of startled by this, like, really? I thought this was supposed to be the best. And, and then, you know, I, I, some of the information I picked up made me think, well, maybe it isn't. So, so I stopped. And, um, I, I started feeling better.

[00:11:56] Um, it wasn't, it wasn't just a sudden thing, but anyway, I did start feeling better. And then eventually, um, I started feeling well enough that, um, I decided, well, maybe I'll try lifting some weights. Something I thought of doing, like if I ever get better, I'm going to be weightlifting. I had, I had done weightlifting a few times, a couple of times at different times in my life.

[00:12:18] But by, at that point it had been. Years and years since I had done it. Um, so I did. Eventually I got, got, uh, had enough energy that I thought, okay, I'll give it a shot. And so I started in with an old barbell I had laying around and I did this. Uh, it was very tough, but I did it several times a week for about a month or so.

[00:12:41] And then I realized, jeez, you know, I think I need heavier weights. So I went and joined the gym and, um, Never looked back, really, uh, in that, in that, uh, time in the gym. I, I was pretty underweight at the time. So, I put on about 25 pounds of mostly muscle in the first year. Maybe, maybe even a little more than that.

[00:13:03] Um, and so there I was. Um, pretty much all better there. And it, it, it's, again, at some point in, in my medical odyssey, my health odyssey, I, I had decided that, um, I was going to quit the gym. If, if I ever figure out this out, I'm going to have to write about it. And then, you know, one day as I'm, you know, feeling pretty good, I say, Oh yeah, I was going to write about this.

[00:13:28] So, so I did, I, I sat down and wrote my first book, which is called smash chronic fatigue, you know, put it up on Amazon, Amazon, Kindle, and then. And, uh, when I was done with that, um, I thought, well, what's, what's my next move here? And I guess I'll just keep writing. So I started writing. I wrote a bunch more books that I've, I've written six books in total, um, started my website, rogue health and fitness, uh, got on Twitter.

[00:13:57] Um, and so that's basically how, how I got. You know, where I am and as far as, you know, getting to sun, steak, and steel. So, the steel obviously represents lifting weights, strength training. Um, the steak represents, well, steak. Uh, eating, eating meat, getting plenty of protein, real whole foods. Uh, sun, obviously getting out in the sun, getting outside, being active.

[00:14:26] So, those are, for me, Um, the kind of, uh, that's, that's kind of sunstake and steel is kind of shorthand for what I want to convey to people, you know, in a, in as concise a way as possible as to how to look at what to do to be in good health. 

[00:14:44] Jerry Teixeira: Okay, so let's take each one of those, right? And we'll break it apart a little bit.

[00:14:49] Um, being that you start out. Vegan, vegetarian, or vegetarian to vegan, and then back to omnivorous, right? Uh, what, because you mentioned heart disease being a concern for your initial, um, foray into vegetarianism, veganism. What, what do you think is, or did you have any concerns? So when you added meat to the diet, um, obviously you mentioned saturated fat.

[00:15:16] You know, there's correlations between, especially in the U. S., and I think, I think it's probably... pertinent to, to realize that in a lot of the epidemiology, when they look at European nations, or they look at other, other countries, they don't always find the same correlation. So, in, in, what I mean by that's like in the, in the U.

[00:15:35] S., they say, well, we look at meat consumption, and as meat consumption goes up, then heart disease rates go up. But I've seen multiple studies where it's, but only in the U. S., right? And then they go to other countries and the same, same correlation is not there. So it makes me think, okay, well, like, what are we doing in the U.

[00:15:52] S. that those other countries are not doing, where they're still eating meat? And when the meat consumption is similar, why don't they have heart disease? At least at the same correlation. It's not that they don't have a correlation, it's that in those other countries, it's too weak to infer any causality, right?

[00:16:07] Right, right. Um, so, but, but I know, When you first added meat back in, I'm assuming it wasn't like you went, okay, I'm a vegetarian sweet. I'm carnivore, right? Like, so, so I'm sure there was a process. So tell me how that process kind of happened and what your thoughts, how your current thinking on heart disease evolved.

[00:16:26] Because like I mentioned, when you first added meat back in, I'm sure that had to There had to be some internal conflict, right? 

[00:16:32] P.D. Mangan: Sure, sure. So, when I first added meat back into my diet, um, what I was doing was basically paleo. So, um, that seemed to me to be the, the, um, I don't know, sanest, you know, soundest way to go as far as I could tell.

[00:16:56] So that's what I did. Um, the thing about this, this type of paleo was I had read this book by Lauren Cordain about paleo. He's kind of one of the original paleo guys. And he was someone who was convinced that saturated fat causes heart disease. And so this was a very, um, low on saturated fat type of diet.

[00:17:18] I was eating things like tuna salads, and I don't know what else, some chicken, and, uh, basically it left me really hungry. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't enough, at least the way I had figured it out. And so eventually, before long, I changed that up and started eating maybe a more conventional, um, uh, It wasn't, it wasn't really less paleo.

[00:17:45] I wasn't eating, you know, bread or things like that. But, um, you know, regular, regular cuts of meat and so on. I kind of went away from that Lauren Cordain style of paleo. Um, as far as, you know, how I started thinking about heart disease, um, again, my reading led me to believe that this was, um, Let's say not real.

[00:18:12] So you talked about, um, for instance, correlations between meat consumption or saturated fat consumption and heart disease. Well, so I'm sure you know most of these correlations are pretty small. Um, a lot of this can be explained by healthy user bias. Basically, um, Um, over the last, let's say, 40 years or so or more, um, people in the United States and increasingly elsewhere in the world have been told that meat and saturated fat are bad for them.

[00:18:46] So, health conscious people. have avoided meat. And so this can be a big source of this bias that you see in epidemiological studies. The health conscious people might be avoiding meat, but the health conscious people are also less likely to be overweight, um, to drink moderately, to not smoke, to exercise regularly, all that sort of thing.

[00:19:08] And so they're healthier and Um, the idea being, it doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that they're not eating much meat. So, that's what I, where I think a big source of bias is. Um, and, and then, of course, just the other side of the coin, of course, is non health conscious people. Um, have not heeded that advice, and there are people that are more likely to be overweight, smoke, not exercise, and so on.

[00:19:34] So, uh, that's how I look at it, um, as far as, you know, getting to what I think are the real causes of heart disease. I mean, there, there, uh, There are a number of candidates, but the main one in action here in the United States and in the developed world is poor metabolic health that's associated with insulin resistance and obesity and so on.

[00:20:03] Poor diet, lack of exercise and so on. So that's how I look at it. I think personally, I think that saturated fat as a cause of heart disease is just a non starter. 

[00:20:15] Jerry Teixeira: Yeah, the thing that, um, I, I think the, the thing I think is important to look at when it comes to saturated fat is you have population level recommendations.

[00:20:25] And so you have people that are saying, well, at a population level, here are the things that we, we should be doing. And then you've got your individual, you know, your individual approach toward your diet, your exercise. And so the thing that I always try to look at. With population level recommendations is I don't eat like the average American.

[00:20:45] I don't train, live or anything like the average American. So I, I personally, uh, look at my own blood work, my own labs and my own biomarkers, my own health, and I try to make decisions based on my, my data, not a population level recommendation. So there's lots of times where I think, you know, you know, it would, it even though this recommendation might be okay at for, for, for a population.

[00:21:09] I don't put stock in this particular recommendation just because of where my own health is, where my labs come out. So it seems to me like there's a lot of disconnect and a lot of arguing based on people not understanding that nuance. It's like, hey, that, that's fine for, you have to think at the population level in the U.

[00:21:27] S. like you mentioned, you've got people running around with Poor metabolic health. They're eating tons of processed crap. Um, which, which I've come to basically, my ship's kind of steered into the port that All the modern food environments just it's not necessarily carbs. It's not, you know, it's not that we're not keto or it really is just in the last probably 40 years, this trajectory that we've taken.

[00:21:53] And that's why I think that there's multiple diets that can be healthy. You don't have to be low carb. You don't have to be a specific diet. But to me, you have to remove this Franken food. at any discernible amount. Not that you can't ever have any of it, because dose makes the poison. Um, and we can, kind of, you can expand on this if you'd like.

[00:22:13] But like, you know, there's a recent study that I looked at where they fed methylcellulose, maybe? Um, but they, they used a filler that is in common and processed foods. And you're only starting to see now they have the correlations first between ill health and processed food consumption. But people who eat the most processed foods also are lower socioeconomic status.

[00:22:35] There's all these confounders, right? For sure. And so now you're just starting to get RCTs with processed foods. Right. And so you're, you're seeing now where, oh, as processed food intake goes up, it appears to drive hunger, leading to overconsumption. Right. Right. Now another one, the one I was just mentioning, um, they found that this additive actually permeated the gut lining and caused gut inflammation.

[00:23:00] And so it's like, oh, well, this, because processed food consumption, autoimmune disorders are, are linked. And again, is it correlation? Is it causation? But now that we're getting some RCTs on processed food consumption, we're starting to see where it seems like there may be a cause of, I mean, common sense tells you.

[00:23:18] Sure, sure. There's a causative connection, you know. Right. But I think now we're starting to see this. And, and so, The reason I like the Sun, Sake, and Steel that you've come up with, and it's similar to what I tell people, is that you've got to remove yourself from, you know, 2022 or 2023 Western lifestyle.

[00:23:38] You've got to unplug from that if you want to be healthy. Absolutely. That, you could unplug from that. There are healthy plant based people. There are healthy, apparently healthy carnivores out there. There's all these people doing different variations of unplugging from, Modern life and then they get healthier, right?

[00:23:55] So that's one of the things where I kind of came around to recommending to people is look, choose a healthy lifestyle pattern that works for you. So like I've had people reach out. Like women more commonly than men, but like, Hey, look, I don't like red meat. I don't like, you know, I don't like eating these things.

[00:24:15] I'm like, you didn't don't eat them. Like there's no, I don't care what anybody says. Red meat has a lot of nutrients, right? I mean, there's tons of B vitamins. You have creatine, you have carnosine. There's lots of, it's, it's a high, highly bioavailable nutrients in red meat. But there's no magic. There's no pixie dust in your steak.

[00:24:31] I mean, if you didn't eat steak, but you eat a whole food based healthy diet that is providing, you know, whether it's, you know, more pescetarian or whatever. So I'm always telling people like you, you need to find a healthy lifestyle pattern. And, and the thing for me, I'm aware of no evidence and no one's ever been able to provide any evidence that if you take people who are meeting the, the weekly recommendations for exercise, who are eating whole food based diets, once you get Unplugged from the modern food environment at that point.

[00:25:03] There's no difference in outcomes 

[00:25:05] P.D. Mangan: Right, right. I you know, I've I talked to people and and yeah, one thing I tell them is that The the food environment out there is toxic. It's obesogenic. It, you know, people that expose themselves to this environment typically become overweight or obese and they develop poor metabolic health and and so on.

[00:25:26] So and and this this toxic food environment is never going away. Not in our lifetimes. All the financial incentives are there for it to be in place. And besides, you know, Plenty of people love that stuff. So, um, it's not going away. So, to my mind, the, the, for, for many people, Um, who are really kind of, uh, you know, I don't know, beholden to that environment or even addicted to certain kinds of foods, you know, the high carb, high fat or high sugar, high fat stuff.

[00:25:59] Um, you know, I tell 'em, well, that environment is never gonna go away, so what are you gonna do? Are you gonna change tomorrow, next week or next year? Or, or what? You know, so, um, I I, I totally agree with you that, uh, Getting away from that environment, getting out of that environment, creating your own environment, that's how you're going to be healthy.

[00:26:22] Because if you're just... You know, if, if you're like, you know, getting up every morning and having a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then hopping in the car to, you know, commuting to work and then sitting under fluorescent lights all day and, and then, you know, come home and sit in front of, in front of the TV, um, you know, eating frozen pizza or whatever, whatever it might be, you know, the odds that you're going to be healthy at that point are not good.

[00:26:50] Um, so, you know, So, um, I, I, I do think that, um, once you, you know, once you get away from that, I do think that objectively there are better diets than others that, that might be, you know, more or less whole food based. But I, I, I also agree that getting away from that toxic food environment is the main first step.

[00:27:15] It's kind of like, um, Kind of like exercise, maybe that that, um, you know, there's different kinds of exercise, obviously, and I believe that some are objectively better than others. But the most important thing is that you do some form of exercise. So, um, yeah, this, this, the ultra processed foods it to my mind, that's what's driving the obesity epidemic.

[00:27:41] I was just talking today. On Twitter, you know, I, I said that, that, um, you know, the, the idea that obesity is multifactorial, uh, implies that starting around 1980, all these different factors started moving in the same direction and, you know, that's weird, like, why would that happen? Right. Uh, so it kind of makes more sense from that point of view.

[00:28:08] Maybe just one thing changed and that that is the major driver of the obesity epidemic. The obvious. candidate there is the food. Um, we had the dietary guidelines come out people avoiding being told to avoid meat. So they got less protein. They got then they started loading up on the carbs, refined carbs, seed oils.

[00:28:31] Of course, could very well be involved. You know, the vegetable oils that just sky rocketed in, you know, the consumption just skyrocketed because they're in basically all the ultra processed foods. Um, Sugar, of course, although lately sugar consumption has been going down and obesity is still going up.

[00:28:52] Well, you 

[00:28:53] Jerry Teixeira: bring up a good point. So sugar consumption, and actually, I'm pretty sure overall carbohydrate consumption has, for at least the last four or five years, has actually been on a downward trajectory. But the processed food consumption has been increasing regardless. Right. So, you know, if you... I'm going to go low carb, but then you're eating your slim, fast keto cupcakes or whatever, you know, whatever these foods are, you're getting the emulsifiers, a lot of the common ingredients in the processed food, it's still similar processing techniques, so I think to your point, you know, you have the, the, the, and we could talk about this, but like you have the seed oils and just for the record, I don't have any seed oils in my house except for, I probably, I have sesame seed sometimes for Japanese food, I'll use some sesame seed.

[00:29:37] Um, But if I go to In N Out, I don't stress a little bit of seed oil in the spread, right? If I'm out at a restaurant, I'm not like grillin the lady about whether or not they use seed oils because I think, for me, it's common sense that dose makes poison. Right. And, you know, linoleic acid... is essential and having a little bit in your diet you actually need.

[00:30:00] And so I, I think that if it is an issue, um, and it may be, I mean, I, you know, I, I'm certainly not a lipidologist. I'm, it's not, it's not my field of study. But for me, the reason I avoid it's not because I'm super convinced that it's deleterious in and of itself. I avoid it because, like, why do I need it? I mean, I have olive oil.

[00:30:18] Like, I have good quality olive oil at home. So, like, why do I need soybean oil? I already, I know some people argue you don't need olive oil either. But, but my point is if I need a cooking oil, I, I, what rationale is there for me to go pick up soybean oil, or corn, or canola, or whatever? It's like, no, I have olive oil.

[00:30:34] It's been consumed for 2, 500 years all over the Mediterranean. So, the, the, in RCTs and whatever data that do exist on olive oil, it looks like it's healthy. But then also I can step back and if you want to talk evolutionary biology or whatever else it's like, well, I mean, it's got a track record of health and olive oil was never at the core of some obesity epidemic, right?

[00:30:55] So for me, my avoidance of, of seed oils isn't because I'm convinced that they are the problem. They, they may be a proxy for the ubiquitous of all this processed food. And maybe they aren't the, the boogeyman that people make them out to be. But I, I kind of look at it like, you know, what if there's some, some, Fire to the smoke.

[00:31:14] Uh, right. Not worried about it because I'm already not, I mean, you know, so, so that's kind of my take on them. I mean, I, I keep waiting for somebody to come up with some convincing human data that, you know, there's mechanistic stuff. There's rat studies, but I always fall back on like, why do I need these in my diet?

[00:31:31] Whether they are or are not, uh, whether they are or not detrimental to your health, like what, what, what, where's the benefit? Like, why, why would I replace real food with, you know, This stuff, you know, so that's kind of what I fall back on. I don't like raise the alarm about it other than, hey, it's in all these processed foods.

[00:31:49] And you see people all the time online that are like, man, I stopped seed oils. Now my health improved. But the majority of the time it's they were using seed oils in this crap diet and by removing the cereals, they automatically improve the diet quality. So how I can't pinpoint like, oh, it was definitely the seed oils.

[00:32:07] You know, I can't say it's not right. I mean, you know, I don't. I don't, I don't belittle somebody's improvements that they made it very well could be that maybe that is, you know, because at the level we're consuming them now, I don't think there's other than looking at our health now, right? I don't think there's been a point in time that we've consumed them at the level we consume them now, right?

[00:32:29] So I don't, I don't see how you could try to make a. argument for epidemiology using what we have because what, where's your comparator? Like, what are you comparing it to? You know, I, I'm aware that the RCTs we do have, they're only so long because you can only run these things, they're expensive. In the short term, it's like, well, it brings, you know, lipid biomarkers improve.

[00:32:49] It seems that they're fine for human health. It does seem that way, which is why I don't raise the alarm over them. In and of themselves, but like I mentioned in my mind, they're empty calories. So like, what, what, where's the benefit to me taking these things and adding them to my foods? I don't want empty calories, right?

[00:33:05] I want, I want nutrient density. I don't, I don't want this stuff. So that's kind of my take on, on the seed oils. I'm interested to know from, from your looking into them. I know the link to ultra processed food, obviously, um, but mechanistically or, or And I know it's speculative because, again, we lack the human data, but do you have what your, your gut tells you if they do have a deleterious effect, what you think that is, or where you think they might be causing an issue?

[00:33:30] Um, 

[00:33:31] P.D. Mangan: yeah, so, well, well, for one thing, um, Like you mentioned, um, we haven't typically consumed very, very much of these things. Seed oils, as such, are only about 150 or so years old. Um, um, they weren't used in any kind of quantity before that. Um, and, you know, the invention of heavy industrial milling machinery allowed people to extract.

[00:34:02] Uh, oil from seeds that they couldn't get before. Um, so consumption went up. Uh, uh, around 1900 in the United States, uh, the consumption of linoleic acid was about 2% of calories. And currently it's something like 8% or 10%. So, uh, consumption has gone way up and then, 

[00:34:23] Jerry Teixeira: uh, But calories have gone up too. This, this is true.

[00:34:27] So, so it's not just, like when you talk comparing calories now to then. It's calories are up, but but in comparison the total total fat consumed Right. So it's, it's worse than it sounds. You know, you're not comparing 2500 calories, for example, to 2500 calories, you're comparing 2, 500 to 3800, or whatever it is.

[00:34:45] P.D. Mangan: Sure. Sure. Right, right. And so, um, yeah, and then, and then the consumption of these vegetable oils, they were very popular because, um, they don't need refrigeration and so on. And, and they're a lot cheaper than animal fats and so on. So people liked them, and the consumption rose. And then... really rose even a lot more, um, in the 1970s when they, they started, uh, soybean oil really came on the scene in a big way.

[00:35:14] So what is going on there? Um, a few things, um, for one thing is the balance of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids in, in evolutionary, terms. It's thought that people consumed these two polyunsaturated fatty acids on a basically about a one to one ratio, and we certainly don't anymore in in the United States is 20 to one or higher.

[00:35:40] So this this is thought to be a cause of inflammation. The omega 6 fatty acids, this is something I really don't see brought up very much, but it's very evident when you, when you look in the literature. Omega 6 fatty acids, um, are used to make inflammatory cytokines. Um, and the, the sort of odd thing about, um, Making these inflammatory cytokines, the, first of all, they're made into phospholipids on the cell wall.

[00:36:11] So the odd thing about this is that these fatty acids are incorporated into the, the cell membrane, is what I want to say. Cell wall takes me back to bacteriology. It's, it's, you're supposed to say cell membrane when you're, when you're talking about animals. Uh, so. They are incorporated into the cell membrane in proportion to their presence around the cell.

[00:36:41] And so if somebody is consuming a lot more omega 6 fatty acids, let's say in that 20 to 1 ratio compared to omega 3, because these omega 3 fatty acids also are used to make these phospholipids, which in turn become cytokines. So... So people can have, uh, people who consume a lot of omega 6 fatty acids can incorporate a lot of these in the cell membranes and then they make, uh, inflammatory cytokines.

[00:37:11] So they're more predisposed to inflammation. Um, another thing that I don't, another little fact, and I, Hopefully we're not getting too much into the weeds here. But another little fact that I think is unappreciated is aspirin. So aspirin, people, people have for several decades now, people have, it's common for people to take a baby aspirin to, uh, prevent heart disease.

[00:37:38] That's, that's the, that's the thought anyway. Lots of conflicting, um, information about this, you can read about that in detail, but what does aspirin do? Aspirin inhibits, uh, the production of these inflammatory cytokines that are made from omega 6 fatty acids. So in, in a certain way, you could say that what aspirin is doing is it's, um, Preventing or inhibiting the effects of these omega 6 fatty acids.

[00:38:07] So, there's, there's one piece of evidence. Um, another thing is, there have been, um, So, obviously, over the years, there have been a number of trials. So, with the cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease, there have been a number of trials where, You know, they wanted to lower cholesterol. And so, one of the ways they did this was by having people in these trials consume polyunsaturated fatty acids because they do lower, lower cholesterol.

[00:38:37] Sure. Um, and so, um, some reanalysis of recent data of the, the Minnesota, Minnesota Coronary Experiment and the Sydney Heart Study. Um, Reanalysis of the data found that the people who, the, the experimental group, the ones who were consuming the polyunsaturated fatty acids, um, the seed oils, I think it was safflower oil in that particular case in the Minnesota study.

[00:39:09] Um, yeah, their cholesterol went down, but they died at a quite a bit higher rate than the control group who did not do that stuff. Similar results were seen in the Sydney study. The Minnesota study, um, This data, I'm not sure about the exact history, but the study was originally done in the 70s, I believe, and then it wasn't published, or this particular data wasn't published, so.

[00:39:34] Yeah, they didn't like the results. 

[00:39:35] Jerry Teixeira: They didn't, 

[00:39:35] P.D. Mangan: they didn't like the results, exactly, exactly. And, and, and they, there was another one, the um, Well, I'm going to flood the name here, but it was a much older study than in the 1960s, where very similar thing where they had this group of men who had, uh, they had all had previous heart attacks and they put half of them on a diet that had a lot of corn oil in it.

[00:40:01] And, and then the other half, uh, they didn't do much of anything, I believe. Um, so yeah, the corn oil group died at a much higher rate. Um, you know, greater rates of cancer. I believe it was in this case. So I think it's 

[00:40:17] Jerry Teixeira: ischemic stroke. Maybe in this in the higher omega six in the in it might have been the Minnesota.

[00:40:24] There was one. I think that you had your all cause mortality was higher, right? But I also think it was it was stroke rates that 

[00:40:29] P.D. Mangan: were higher as well. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, so, so there's those those kinds of, uh, Yeah. you know, pieces of evidence. Some people point to the, uh, the Minnesota experiment saying that they were really eating a lot of 

[00:40:44] Jerry Teixeira: trans fats, right?

[00:40:45] Because it was the older before trans fats were really, well, actually they were known about because there was Fred Kummerer, right? He was already sounding the alarm, but nobody listened, but nobody listened. Right. So I think the thing for me, like with what you're talking about is let's, let's assume that the trans fats were the causative agent in the, the, you know, poor health outcomes.

[00:41:03] I still fall back on. Okay, cool. Trans fats are gone. Now we've got these, these vegetable oils, uh, we think that that's the causative agent. Like we think that's what, which we know that those, those are bad. So I'm not downplaying that, but to me, I still fall back on, okay, great. Now, why am I replacing my olive oil with this rapeseed oil?

[00:41:20] Like what? And I, I've had people show me like RCTs and like, look. It lowers LDL more than olive oil, rapeseed oil is, canola is better than olive oil. Right. And I'm like, what is that, a 90 day study or, I mean. Right. You know, to me, it's like, that's not compelling for me to go swap out my olive oil for. For sure.

[00:41:37] For, for this stuff that again, maybe it's not bad, but why it's almost like, and the funny thing is it's almost like there's this like, I guess I get, I get, because there is a. growing social media wave against these oils. So then you have a pro seed oil defense or counter reaction. Yeah, but to me, it's like so simple.

[00:42:01] I'm just like, okay, well, nobody's demonstrated that there's some awesome health. But like, for example, I include fatty fish in my diet. Um, I eat salmon, I eat sardines. I include seafood because I think that. The, the, the data are clear enough for me looking at different populations, and one of the arguments I hear about seafood is, well we, we, we grossly under consume omega 3 in the U.

[00:42:29] S., which we do, and I think that's a big part of maybe some of this omega 6, uh, the negative, um, associations with omega 6 is like, well, if we would eat more omega 3, and I've heard some, some, um, Uh, I think Bill Harris even talks about it's not so much the omega 6 that are causing the problem, it's our gross under consumption omega 3.

[00:42:47] If we ate more omega 3, even, even the exact ratio wouldn't matter. It's, it's the absolute deficit in omega 3 is the problem in the West. So that, that's what hit. So for me, it's like, okay, I, I think that almost universally, I mean, I, I know you've got your, um, rapey fish is bad. I mean, there's always, there's always a contingent that is, is gonna think everything's bad.

[00:43:07] But it, but it seems to me that You know, increasing omega 3 content, especially marine omega 3 makes sense. And so certain foods like that, I think, okay, I'm, I'm gonna make sure that I'm including these things several times a week. I can't find any rationale for like, well, I better go out of my way and buy some, some seed oils.

[00:43:25] Because I'm missing out on that health benefit that those things provide. Like, I don't want to miss out on marine omega 3. So I include it. I, you know, you can get. Omega 3 in grass fed beef, for example, but it's not EPA, DHA, you're talking ALA. To me, I still think that there is a benefit, um, in including that, that marine omega 3.

[00:43:45] Um, but yeah, for me, with seed oil, I think it, it falls back to, we can mechanistically speculate, maybe there's something there, but even if there's not, I just, it's not a health food to me, you know. Yeah, right, right. Um, so is it, you, you, it seems like you maybe are in a similar place where you're like, hey, 

[00:44:02] P.D. Mangan: Yeah, I mean, I, I don't, you know, if I, if I, if I go out, um, yeah, I don't, I don't generally stress about it.

[00:44:09] I know I'm going to get some, but I certainly don't consume it at home. Certain things I do think are, uh, you know, uh, for example, deep frying things in seed oils is really a bad idea in my view. Um, and, and there have been studies on this, you know, that, that like, Causes colon cancer in mice, this kind of thing, when they take this oil and give it to the mice, the oil that's been used in deep frying.

[00:44:35] And then they, you know, they never change these things, they have the same oil in there day after day that they're boiling things in. So I think that's, that's pretty much always a bad 

[00:44:44] Jerry Teixeira: idea. Yeah, I'm definitely in agreeance there. And there's some, there's some data that show that comparing different oils, uh, when you're using, I can't remember if it's soybean oil, it may even be canola, but there are toxic aldehydes that are formed.

[00:45:01] Now, I don't know if these have to be breathed in, if this is something that would be an inhalational hazard, or, or where that comes along, but I think it's like, to me, the precautionary principle applies. It's, it's like, okay, well, I don't think refrying with any oil repeatedly, I don't care how, which one you're using, is the smartest thing.

[00:45:19] So minimizing fried foods, eating out, sure. If you're going to fry something at home, You know, you can use avocado, all of whatever the case is. I know some people will say, well, don't use olive oil because the smoke point. But when I've looked at the studies, olive oil, because the vitamin E and the polyphenols, it actually maintains its integrity well as a frying oil.

[00:45:36] So I actually do fry my foods. If I'm going to fry something, I use olive oil. Um, but yeah, to me, it just falls back to, like you said, I don't trust the restaurant to actually change their oil like they're supposed to. Right. So how long has this been heated over and over and over to these high temperatures?

[00:45:51] And, you know, that obviously can degrade the integrity of the fat in the first place. Um, so yeah, I definitely agree there. Um, when, when it comes to saturated fat and the diet, uh, I think that What matters to me is what, what do my lipids look like in response to the saturated fat in my diet? I don't stress eating saturated fat, but I do care how my labs look.

[00:46:17] And I know that there's the mainstream, um, there's, there's the mainstream view that LDL cholesterol and, you know, ApoB. So the particles that contain, right? Um, atherogenic particle count are, are. Necessary, but not sufficient to cause ASCVD. So what that means is that this is a causal factor, but not causative in and of itself.

[00:46:45] There has to be something else present with this for you to then develop, um, you know, heart disease. So, in your view, setting aside saturated fat, because I do agree saturated fat itself can't be viewed as causative because some people can eat a higher saturated fat diet and because... You know, different genetic factors, they don't see the same rise in, in, in LDL or, you know, it's not really bad cholesterol, but you know, those atherogenic particles, they don't see the same rise.

[00:47:14] So what, what's your view on, especially like I mentioned, because of your stage in life and where you are and obviously heart disease is a consideration, how do you view your, your, your lipids? Um, We're not doctors, I'm not concerned with what you would tell someone else, but just in the way you view your own lipid when you go get blood work and you see your own, uh, whether it's a o b or, or your L D L and, and that, like how do you look at that and what, what are your concerns?

[00:47:39] P.D. Mangan: Yeah, so, um, So, basically, um, as far as my LDL cholesterol goes, I don't really care very much about it. Um, I, I can't say that because it's not terribly out of whack. It was like 125 last time I had it checked. Even so, most doctors would say, oh, that's too high. You know, you better, you know, cut down on your...

[00:48:01] Saturated fat consumption or something and, um, but to me, I, you know, at 125, I don't care, maybe one could say that I have the luxury of that because if my LDL was 200, you know, I might be wondering, well, what should I do about that? If anything, uh, might want to get checked out further, um, and, and just make sure that everything's okay.

[00:48:24] Um, What I, what I'm concerned with on my lipid panel is mostly is the ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol. This is a powerful risk marker, much more powerful than, um, LDL cholesterol. And for some reason, Um, maybe because there's no medication that can do anything about it, it's pretty much ignored.

[00:48:48] Um, the ratio of triglycerides to HDL, um, when you, when you, uh, for example, there was one study that, uh, divided men into quartiles of triglyceride to HDL ratio, and the men in the highest quartile had 16 times the rate of heart attacks as the men in the lowest. What is, you know, so what is the ratio of triglycerides to HDL?

[00:49:11] It's a marker of insulin resistance, basically. So, that's what I look at. Mine is very low, 0. 5 or 0. 4, last I checked. So, you know, I'm satisfied with that. Um, and so that's what I look at. There are, um, lots of studies. I mean, really, lots, uh, you know, a dozen, I don't know, looking at older people with, uh, uh, looking at their LDL cholesterols and total cholesterols and finding that the ones with the highest numbers live the longest.

[00:49:47] Jerry Teixeira: Yeah, it seems that there's an age where below that age, and I'm not sure, so I don't want to, misquote it, but below a certain age, lower seems better. And then once you get north of that age, all of a sudden, it starts to shift to where... Having it a little higher seems to be productive. Yeah, high. 

[00:50:02] P.D. Mangan: It's funny about high cholesterol.

[00:50:03] Yes, it seems to be. It seems to be a risk marker only in, you know, relatively young, you know, to middle aged people. And then, you know, beyond that. Um, that, yeah, the, the, the, in older people, those with highest cholesterol live the longest, and of course, this is taken as evidence that the cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease is wrong, and I tend to look at that way myself, Um, you know, what is, what is going on in heart disease?

[00:50:33] Well, endothelial dysfunction, in other words, dysfunction of the cells that line the arteries, which can be caused by a number of things. Um, so, You know that anyway, that's how I look at my lipid panel it in from my personal point of view. I look at and say, well, it's about perfect. You can look at other things, uh, as risk markers like fasting insulin.

[00:50:58] Um, you know, so I have a very low fasting insulin. That's a very good indication of good metabolic health. Um, and and so, um, I look at all these things and I'm I'm basically not not worried about it. Um, coronary heart disease, really.

[00:51:21] Like, if I, if my LDL was higher, let's say a lot higher, for instance, and I decided I wanted to check it out. Um, one of the things I would want to be doing is a coronary artery calcium scan. This is, um, a very good, um, marker of future cardiovascular risk. There's an interesting study that just came out this year that showed that, Um, people with low coronary artery calcium.

[00:51:51] Um, they divided these people into three groups, basically zero coronary artery calcium, and then something like from one to 100 and then over 100. And they, uh, tallied up how many cardiovascular events these different groups had and the ones with zero coronary artery calcium, which was a lot of them in some cases, about half.

[00:52:11] Half the people they looked at had zero coronary artery calcium, had low rates of cardiovascular events, regardless of their levels of LDL cholesterol, even when it was high, conventionally high, above 190. Um, so, that's how I look at it. Um, I, I don't, I don't feel like, um, I've got A high, you know, degree of heart disease risk.

[00:52:37] Of course, anything can happen, but so far so good, right? 

[00:52:42] Jerry Teixeira: It seems like so where I come from is similar to you. My LDL last blood work, which I'm due for blood work again soon. It was like 91, which I mean, I'm not concerned, you know, but I look at my overall picture and I if like what you mentioned, if you're metabolically healthy and if your labs indicate such.

[00:53:03] Um, then even when you look at when they plot these things out in various studies and they talk about insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, they've got smoking, they have all these different factors that are associated with increased risk for heart disease and when you look at LDL, it's, it's not compared to a lot of these others.

[00:53:23] There are a lot of other factors which are much more strongly influencing. 

[00:53:26] P.D. Mangan: Absolutely. It's a, it's a, it's a, I've heard it called a baby risk factor. for the LDL cholesterol. So what one of the things I'm sure you've seen this was, uh, uh, the women's, uh, women's health study. Anyway, they tabulated all this data and the number one risk for having, um, a heart attack.

[00:53:47] You know, or heart disease was diabetes, and, and, and women who had diabetes had, uh, about 11 times the risk of having a heart attack as, as women who did not have diabetes, and then you can go down the line. Cigarette smoking was You know, 2 or 3 times higher, uh, 2 or 3 fold risk, metabolic syndrome, um, various things like that, obesity, and then you go down to LDL cholesterol, and it was 1.

[00:54:16] 25, um, for high LDL cholesterol, so. Um, all those other factors, you know, uh, even cigarette smoking, uh, can, can lead to endothelial damage, insulin resistance, so on. So, all those other factors, other than LDL, are related to poor metabolic health. So, that's how I look at it. That's, that's what you want to do to be healthy overall.

[00:54:41] Um, is to have good metabolic health, have good insulin sensitivity. Insulin resistance is just. Um, It's just involved in so many chronic diseases and it's 

[00:54:55] Jerry Teixeira: linked. I think I'm pretty sure it's linked to almost, if not all, then it is very implicated. And I, it's one of those things where, like, they don't know if it is.

[00:55:04] Is it the inflammatory state that then leads to disease or disease to inflammatory state? But the thing is, as the inflammatory state worsens, the disease state. I mean, they're inextricably linked, whether it's causative or not, you know, so, but that's kind of what I've settled on is, you know, I'm getting older and I've got kids and so I, if I had blood work come back and it was Exceptionally high.

[00:55:26] Like if you know again, I mentioned 91, um, 90 grams, nanograms per deciliter. So if I came in and it was significantly higher, I'm open to making dietary modifications. I don't I'm not stuck on a specific food or I've got to have, you know, ribeye or brisket or whatever. Um, I'm I'm fine to make changes. But I kind of look at it as when I see my risk, my risk is low.

[00:55:50] And so if I had even lower l d l Would my risk be even lower? And it seems to me that it's a case of I'm already very low to a little a little more, you know slightly lower. I don't know that that even matters. So to me, it's like could it be lower? Yeah, it could always be lower. Is it worth me going through steps to try to lower it even further?

[00:56:17] I don't know. This is, I guess, an adventure, personally, that I'm starting to dig into more to decide if I think it's worth making any, any more modifications to what I do. Um, but yeah, I do think it's important for people to step back and think about the total, total picture. And, and one thing that I, I do think I've kind of, or at least my current thinking is all else being equal.

[00:56:38] So if metabolic health is the same, if you're, if you're insulin sensitivity, if everything's the same, I don't think there's any negative. To your LDL being lower. I don't, I don't think you're, there's not a downside, you know, that I've, I've, that I'm aware of, or that I've seen. So for people that are concerned with it, yeah, try to lower it, if you're not shooting yourself in the foot by lowering it, you know.

[00:56:58] But I think that that, with that being said, it's, are you lowering it, all else being equal, meaning you're not incorporating. At the risk of, oh, in order for me to lower this, I had to incorporate these foods. Now these foods are negatively impacting other biomarkers. So it's like, can you keep everything else equal and then lower it?

[00:57:18] You know, and I think that's something that each individual has to decide. Is this worth it for me to pursue this or not pursue this? Um, I know. There's people now, young people proactively taking statins and pharmacologically trying to lower their LDL and I mean, I'm not going to get into all that, but, um, okay, so, so we touched on saturated fat, your view on, on cholesterol and how you look at your own lipids, um, one of the things asked on, on Twitter, I said, Hey, I'm going to be interviewing Dennis.

[00:57:47] You guys have questions. So I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you're somewhat similar to me and that I don't, Don't really stress on everything I eat having to be organic, um, right. Everything doesn't have to be grass fed, you know, right. You seem somewhat similar, uh, but I had one, one question in particular, I know you drink some wine, you can touch on that, but when, so when it comes to your, we've got, you, you maintain a high protein diet for, for obviously reasons I'm sure people don't need to be told, but muscle preservation, optimizing your strength, training adaptations, um, good for satiety.

[00:58:21] But when it comes to the plant foods that you include. With your, your, um, whatever, whether it's, and you do eat seafood, correct? Yes. Yes, I thought so. So, so you, you got your protein down, animal based protein primarily. Now, when you, when you add plants, what are your criteria? Like what, do you just eat them for taste and flavor?

[00:58:40] Or are there, I know I, I've made more of an effort to try to include polyphenols. I know some people don't think they matter, but I'm not convinced that they don't. Um, So, so what do you look for when you're pairing your protein with your, your auxiliary foods? We'll call them. 

[00:58:55] P.D. Mangan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, interesting question because probably, you know, the number one criteria for the plant foods I eat is that somebody serves them to me for dinner.

[00:59:08] So, you know, if I were on my own, um, you know, I, I, I'm not sure, you know, yeah, I used to, Cook some broccoli, you know, back, back in my bachelor days. But, um, yeah, so, so that's it. Really not, um, yeah, I, I eat, uh, you know, cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, uh, Brussels sprouts, things like that. Even a few peas and stuff like that.

[00:59:32] As far as the polyphenols go, that's an interesting question. Um, I, I would have to. Basically agree with you. I'm not convinced that they're not important. Um, there's certainly epidemiological evidence, at least that they are and some animal evidence and so on and so forth. Um, so the thing is that the plant there, I've said this before on Twitter, there's four plant foods that Uh, basically knock everything else out of the park in terms of polyphenol content, and those are coffee, tea, wine, and chocolate.

[01:00:06] And basically, you know, when, when you stop and think about it, that's pretty obvious because they're all basically concentrated plant foods of a particular kind. So, polyphenols go, yeah, I, uh, I consume all of those. And so I feel like I'm getting... Plenty of them. Um, yeah. And so as far as the vegetables, you know, and other things, a little bit of fruit here and there, um, that I eat, it's mostly as far as I'm concerned for flavor and just just makes up for a little 

[01:00:39] Jerry Teixeira: variety.

[01:00:40] Got it. Now, do you, are you concerned that all because you drink, drink red wine regularly, right? And I had an individual on twitter asked this question specifically, but do you get concerned with glyphosate or, or um, Pesticides in the, in the wine, things like that. 

[01:00:56] P.D. Mangan: Um, no, I don't, uh, I, I, I don't know. Should I be

[01:01:01] I, I, I, but I don't, no, I, I generally don't. Um, I, I'm generally not very concerned about that stuff. Um, my. I'm sure you know about the great article by, now his name is escaping me at the moment, about dietary pesticides are 99. 99% all natural. So this is an article written maybe 20 years ago, basically showing that various plant chemical compounds are Toxic and, and in some cases even carcinogenic and that the idea being to, to worry about, um, you know, trace amounts of pesticide is not, um, not worthwhile to worry about.

[01:01:53] Now, glyphosate, I don't know. That's, that's some, that seems to be something else altogether. But also, I'm not, um, you know, consuming a lot of things, I feel, that are... that, that, that, that is used on, um, you know, you were asking about organic food in general. Um, my feeling is if you're, if you're eating, um, let's say, uh, let's say a supermarket steak and, uh, instead of a frozen pizza, you're, you're already just.

[01:02:28] Miles ahead nutritionally and everything, right? So, I'm not saying that there couldn't be any benefit. There is benefit to having like a grass fed organic steak, sure. But how much more benefit? Is it worth it to pay two or three times as much? For me, no. I just don't stress about that 

[01:02:47] Jerry Teixeira: stuff. Yeah, I looked at the argument for grass fed and one of the big ones, and I touched on this earlier I think, but one of the big ones was, People say, well, the omega 3 content is a lot higher and I, I say yes, but I'm going to eat salmon two to three times a week or sardines.

[01:03:02] And you would have to eat five pounds of steak a day to even sniff the amount of omega 3 I'm getting from salmon a few times. In addition, you're not getting marine source omega 3 so you can't even compare it. So, so to me, I think if you're buying grass fed for the omega 3 content, that's like missing the forest for the tree, unless you don't like fish, you don't want to eat fish.

[01:03:20] I mean, it's not that you can't. Um, and then, you know, Um, there's, well, the fatty acid profile is a little different, like we mentioned, maybe a little bit smaller amount of pesticides, um, but when I've looked into, like, glyphosate, the, the, the studies that show a toxic effect, like the intake levels have to be very high, so people that have worked around it, the ones that are winning lawsuits are people that have been using it in the yards and get, like, I mean, you know, exposure to it, not dietarily, so it may be, depending on the data that we see, it coming out, yeah, maybe it's something to be concerned with, but I just think based on what we, what we have right now, it's not something that I've really worried, you know, too much about.

[01:04:03] Um, so, some seafood in your diet, Obviously steak, uh, like we touched on Right. Little plant for garnish and taste. Right. Little polyphenol. So coffee and wine. You coffee and tea and wine. You do that on a daily basis, correct? Right, 

[01:04:16] P.D. Mangan: yeah. Yeah. I do a little less coffee lately. Tea agrees with me more. Uh, but yeah.

[01:04:22] So daily. Sure. But I 

[01:04:24] Jerry Teixeira: think kind of what, what, what we can agree on is if you are metabolically healthy and you are living a lifestyle such that inflammation is low, Then some of the small things, people get overly focused on little minutiae that probably don't matter much in a healthy individual. 

[01:04:42] P.D. Mangan: Right, right.

[01:04:43] So, yes, you see people, to my mind, focusing on the wrong things. So, I mean, you can find all this, like, what I guess you could call organic junk food. Uh, you know, so, so you can go into Whole Foods, I, I mean, I haven't been there in a long time myself, but you can find all these, um, packaged products that are organic and, and if you're looking at those and thinking because they're organic that it's healthy, no, you know, it's, it's like, uh, Um, you know, protein bars.

[01:05:17] This is this is another thing. People have protein bars. Basically, most of them are just candy bars with some extra protein thrown in, right? Yeah, they're terrible. Yeah. So and so people think this stuff is healthy. They're not looking at the right things, which is making those basic changes, eating real whole foods and not eating the junk food.

[01:05:35] You know, even if some piece of junk food is organic, then it doesn't matter. It's still not going to be healthy. And, you know, people I think most many people don't understand 

[01:05:48] Jerry Teixeira: this, right? Yeah, I agree. I think it's very confusing for it's very confusing for people. And I think that's where we agree is like focus on the big levers that are going to move the needle.

[01:05:59] Put your effort there. And then a lot of the things that people want to really dig into. It's like a tiny amount of Optimizing that maybe doesn't even matter. Um, right. So, okay. So we talked about steak, uh, as the dietary portion, right? Like steak, sun, steel. So now when it comes to steel, I know you, you started weight training, um, from coming from the background, having done some marathons and that type of thing.

[01:06:24] And from what I've noticed of you with your content, it's like you've settled into, and it's somewhere, something similar to what I've settled into is strength training is important because number one, I think health health span is. More important than focusing on lifespan and the distinction between the two is health span meaning maintaining your functionality and your and your robust health for as long as you can.

[01:06:45] Because we can only do so much and it may not be maybe with your genetics can't do much at all about lifespan, right? But we can definitely make a significant impact on health span. So we agree. I think it's becoming more common knowledge that you've got to include some resistance training to combat sarcopenia age related muscle loss.

[01:07:04] You, you've settled into higher intensity, lower volume training as what you generally recommend for people. So, uh, talk about why you think that's the way to go, especially as people age and get a little older and maybe the recovery capacity is not like it was when they were 22. And, and that's something I see all the time is guys that are like 55 women that are, that are 45 and they're over here looking at these programs.

[01:07:28] People are putting out their 24, 25 years old. Right. You don't have that recovery capacity anymore, man. Like, that's not for you, right? 

[01:07:35] P.D. Mangan: Right, right. You don't want to be in the gym five days a week when you're 65 years 

[01:07:39] Jerry Teixeira: old. Yeah. So maybe talk about how what your current thinking is. And like I mentioned, I know you favor intensity over volume.

[01:07:46] So maybe dig into that a little bit. 

[01:07:47] P.D. Mangan: Right, right. So I'll preface this by saying that, um, uh, ideas or conversation about Fitness and working out are like the most controversial things on the internet. And it's hard to believe how high tempers rise when people start talking about this. But everybody's got their favorite way of training.

[01:08:10] I certainly have mine. I believe that it's very scientifically backed. Um, it's high intensity training basically. So what high intensity training is, is, um, is. Working at a high level of effort. Um, the type of high intensity training I do is one set only. So I do, uh, I get a complete workout done, uh, in the gym in under 30 minutes.

[01:08:34] If I'm working out at home, I can do it in quite a bit less time. under 25 minutes. Um, so I get a complete workout in that time. I do it twice a week. So this allows plenty of time for rest and recovery. So minimum two days rest in between each workout. Um, and I believe that this is the most efficient way of training.

[01:08:57] This type of training goes back, um, you know, uh, back to Mike Mentzer, Arthur Jones, um, and then, uh, Doug McGuff has written a seminal book on this type of training, Body by Science. Um, so, this is a type of training, basically brief and frequent, but intense exercise. Um, it covers all the bases in terms of building muscle.

[01:09:23] Uh, of course, as you say, it's, it's so important, especially as people get older, because you want to retain your muscle, people lose muscle as they get older, if they don't do anything about it. So that's very important as far as the, the sufficiency of this type of exercise. In other words. Is this all you need to do?

[01:09:44] So this, this gets a little more controversial, I think, but I believe that yes, it is all you need to do. Um, you can, this, this type of training is a good cardiovascular workout as well. Especially if you, if it is done with minimal rest in between exercises, which is how I practice it. Although, sometimes the minimal arrest gets a little bit longer when somebody's sitting on an exercise station looking at their phone.

[01:10:11] Um, so, um, As far as, you know, if there, there is, In my view, a false dichotomy between aerobic and anaerobic training, um, back when old Dr. Kenneth Cooper wrote his book aerobics, you know, they kind of thought that they had discovered this sort of unique exercise modality called aerobics or, you know, otherwise known as endurance training or cardio.

[01:10:41] Um, and, But anaerobic exercise, the kind of exercise that is a high intensity training, also improves cardiovascular fitness. When you think about it, any kind of training, let's just look at aerobic training, it's always about the muscles. The heart and circulatory system... Is there to support muscular work, um, to, to feed oxygen and nutrients into the muscles and to take waste products away from the muscle.

[01:11:18] That's what it's there for. Now it's interesting when you look at, um, VO2 max, which is measure of, uh, you know, basically highest performance of exercise capacity. This is a common measurement in exercise physiology. What happens when. Someone who is, uh, they take untrained people and train them for eight weeks.

[01:11:41] Okay, regardless of the type of training, yes, their VO2 max goes up. Um, and what are the physiological changes that happen that causes increased VO2 max? Um, oddly enough, it has nothing to do with the heart. The heart doesn't change. You do see some changes in the heart in people who are doing long distance running over a period of many years.

[01:12:06] Yes, you do see those changes, but VO2 max can go up without any changes in the heart. What is the number one physiological correlate? Oddly enough, at least I thought it was odd when I learned this, it's blood volume. So people's blood volume goes up. You can take those trained people And, and then after eight weeks you find they, they, the untrained people after eight weeks you can find they have a higher VO2 max and then measure their blood volume and their blood volume is gone way up.

[01:12:37] And then you can take those same people and phlebotomize them to the point where their blood volume is the same as when they start before they started the training program. And their VO2 max goes away. So, this is the main change, uh, uh, uh, increasing VO2 max. So this is to support the muscles. So, um, This is why I think that this type of training that I, that I practice and advocate is basically all you need to do.

[01:13:12] I do some, uh, you know, I like to throw in a metabolic conditioner, sprint cycle, uh, bout at the end of my workout. Basically, just to make sure, just to make sure that I leave the gym huffing and puffing. Um, And then, and then twice a week also, right? Twice twice a week. Right. And, and so then, um, you know, I'm active on my off training days.

[01:13:37] I believe this is important to people shouldn't just sit around. And, and so I try to be active. I go for a walk, do a few other things, try not to just be sitting at my desk all the time, get up and move around. So that's important. And yeah. Um, I believe that, uh, people can be perfectly healthy doing that, not only perfectly healthy in it, but in very good health doing that.

[01:14:00] So, to my mind, the, the time that so many people spend in the gym is mostly not necessary. It can be counterproductive. Um, And, and, you know, there are a lot more wrinkles to this as far as, um, you know, knowing how to train and so on. But that is what I do. I, I basically do one hour a week of intense exercise and then try to be somewhat physically active the rest of the time.

[01:14:30] Jerry Teixeira: Yeah, I think that's, that's sound. Um, you know, people get hung up on optimizing and doing what's optimal, right? So, you know, you can get into, well, I want to optimize my aerobic system, um. My aerobic efficiency, I'm going to do a lot of low end zone two, things like that, that, that like more physical activity is great, right?

[01:14:49] I mean, generally, the more physically active you are with a caveat that there's some, it's a little nebulous when you start getting into doing high volumes of high intensity work, then, then, , that's where you get into potentially, maybe there's a, a negative, you know, 

[01:15:06] P.D. Mangan: negative. Yeah, yeah. High, high intensity.

[01:15:08] Like high intensity interval training in particular is a very taxing form of exercise. And a little bit goes a long way. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, right, right. So you people, you have people, uh, you know, really fatigued and unable to recover and so on. So, yeah, that, that, That's a very, somebody who's doing high intensity interval training, you know, short and sweet is the best way to do it.

[01:15:31] Yeah, I 

[01:15:32] Jerry Teixeira: think so. Infrequent, um, or lower the frequent, as intensity goes up, you lower the frequency. Um, the more intense your sets are when it comes to distance training.

[01:15:47] So I think you're smart two days a week like that, you know, if you're, if you're throwing some intervals in at the end, same type of deal, you want to have plenty of recovery time in the off days. I do think when we look at the metabolic health of of hunter gather populations around the world, They're all physically active, but they're not run.

[01:16:02] I mean, they're not out there running marathons or anything like that, but, but they do have to go hard now and then chasing something, climbing up trees. They, they, they work. But again, like it's, it's not high volume of that kind of work. And then they walk or canoe long distances. So it's, it's low intensity, right?

[01:16:19] They're not, they're not, right. I think, you know, I think one of the. areas where people kind of get in trouble is they start running. They start, you know, doing, doing endurance work, but they're doing a lot of endurance work at too high of intensities, where the smart way to do it would be 80% of that work should be done at very low intensity.

[01:16:38] If you like it, because you enjoy it. 

[01:16:40] P.D. Mangan: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting that, uh, if you, if you look at, uh, epidemiological studies of exercise and, and mortality rates, that, um, uh, The lowest mortality, the lowest mortality rates connected to exercise fall at a surprisingly low amount of exercise.

[01:17:03] Like, um, one study that I'm aware of, uh, the Copenhagen City Heart Study, they looked at this and they found that people who jogged, Something like one and a half miles, two to three times a week had the lowest 

[01:17:19] Jerry Teixeira: mortality. Yeah, it was like an hour and 20 minutes of exercise a week or something. Yeah, and 

[01:17:24] P.D. Mangan: that's the kind of thing, like, if you told that to the typical, uh, You know, fitness, uh, uh, aficionado in the United States, they, they just laugh at that.

[01:17:33] What? A mile and a half jogging, a mile and a half at a, what, nine minute mile pace, you know, ha, ha, ha. You know, and, and, and so it's, it's really a low amount of exercise, um, compared to what so many people are doing out there running the marathons or doing triathlons. Um, and, and so. You know, as far as fitness goes and what's best for your health.

[01:17:56] Um, I, I think it's, if not, if not, uh, easily overdone, at least it certainly can be overdone. And a lot of people are overdoing it, 

[01:18:08] Jerry Teixeira: um, that, that Having, having brief infrequent balance of high intensity exercise would be steel. And then sun kind of ties into that because Part of sun. This isn't, you know, go sun your balls.

[01:18:24] Sorry for popular with certain biohack, but it's alluding to which, which is strongly correlated with better improved health outcomes is spending time in nature to include walking and being active in nature. So maybe expound on how you've come to, uh, your, your current thoughts on, on the sun portion.

[01:18:46] Like how, like how frequently should people get outside? How much of it do you think should be in the form of sun exposure? Because, you know, It's one of the things I find funny is you get a lot of of people and and there's a lot that the mainstream gets Right, so I'm not one to always be bagging on the mainstream I mean they you know, but you you do get this almost like phobia of the Sun, right?

[01:19:07] And when you look at the data that are out there in Inadequate sun exposure is just as strongly linked to skin cancer as excessive sun exposure And inadequate sun exposure is also linked to a plethora of other health problems. So what, what have you, what have you come to for your, you know, for yourself?

[01:19:28] Like how often do you try to get outside? How long do you spend outside? How much is sun exposure and and what you're thinking behind that? Yeah, 

[01:19:35] P.D. Mangan: yeah, well, okay, so I do try to get outside every day. Um, it's not always possible for me to get out in the sun. For example, um, these last, uh, few months we've had here in our city, it's like, you know, you don't want to go outside in the sun for about three or four months there.

[01:19:51] Oh, 115 degrees? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. So I didn't. Um, but, you know, I went out walking in the morning, that sort of thing, still did that. Um, so, as far as the type of sun exposure, so, you know, just to be clear here, a lot of people get this, you know, they hear, like, lying out in the sun or being in the sun and they, like, whoa, I didn't think you were supposed to do that.

[01:20:15] So, to be clear, I'm talking about moderate sun exposure. Nobody should ever get sunburned, for sure. Um, you know, that's something you don't want to do. And, and... You know, beyond that, it is very difficult to say, um, uh, you know, how much sun exposure somebody should have, because it depends on so many things.

[01:20:34] It depends on your latitude, your altitude, the time of year, the time of day, what the weather's like, how many, how many, how much clothing you're wearing, the color of your skin, all these things. Tons of factors. So, um, you know, For if we're talking about midday sun in the middle of the summer, a very short exposure is really all you need by short.

[01:20:57] Yeah, 20 minutes. Let's say, um, this this time of year, you can be out in the sun. This is November. So this time of year, you can be out in the sun a lot longer again. It depends on the time of day. All these other factors. So it's hard to say. More generally, being outside is a really good thing to do. Um, you know, fresh air.

[01:21:17] You're moving, uh, And and possibly getting sun and and all these things. So, you know, it is very important, um, you know, to get that physical activity to be out in nature. You know, they're they're, uh, being in nature is just more calming, you know, getting away from, uh, social media and well, 

[01:21:39] Jerry Teixeira: the mental health aspect.

[01:21:40] There's there's studies that show living in a city. So living in cities versus living in the country. There are studies that show that it is It's less favorable, but if you live in a city and then you spend daily time, so green city cities have a lot of trees, a park close by, you spend time in the park, um, they, they do find that subjective scores of mental health and all that stuff improve, um, but they've even replicated in green environments of taking, taking people and had them sit amongst fake trees and, and, and it's not quite the same because we, we breathe in it.

[01:22:14] Yeah.

[01:22:17] Uh, and then you can't do the fake plant thing and assume it's the same, but just the color green. They've even done studies where they show people the exercising, looking at a red wall versus a green wall. Heart rate's lower looking at the green wall. So it, I mean that's why I try to exercise in my backyard as much as I can for my resistance training.

[01:22:33] Uh, it gives me a little bit of time in nature. It helps me get outside if I'm stuck in the house. Um, so, so yeah, I, I definitely agree with you. It's not. Well, elucidated yet. I mean, you know, a lot of these things, it's like a lot of these things. It's like, okay, seems like it's good. It's probably good. And there's no downside.

[01:22:51] So why not incorporate some of that? If you live in a city and you go for a walk, try to plan a walk along a green route, try to be in your trees, right? You know, try to walk or water. If there's a river in your city, go for a walk down, you know, down the riverside, things like that. Um, so, so, yeah, anyway, sorry.

[01:23:06] Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:23:06] P.D. Mangan: No, no, it's a bit. But one of the thing I just wanted to point out about the sun aspect that we, you know. didn't explicitly say was that we've been told to avoid it for the last 40, 50 years. Uh, and so, you know, One needs to look at it in that context, I, I think, you know, in other words, this isn't sort of a sunbathing lifestyle or something like that, that I'm necessarily advocating, but, uh, you know, we've been told to avoid the sun and I think that's led to a lot of health problems, uh, you know, people are vitamin D deficient and they, then they don't get outside.

[01:23:43] 50 

[01:23:44] Jerry Teixeira: something percent of the world's population. Sure, 

[01:23:48] P.D. Mangan: sure. It's huge. So, um, you know, this is, this is kind of an example of, of something you can see a lot in, in other, um, uh, aspects of, of health and fitness is that, um, They focused on one thing, and then that ended up messing up a bunch of other things. In other words, the dermatologist said, Oh, you know, avoid the sun, or if you have to go outside, slather yourself in sunscreen, and so on.

[01:24:16] And, and, was anybody thinking, Oh, yeah, now, now everybody's going to be vitamin D deficient, and then all these other things are going to happen, increase rates of whatever, cancer, heart disease, not to mention brittle bones, and so on. Um, so, When I, when I talk about sun exposure, I think it's more of a, uh, uh, like in sort of like in refutation of that, that whole thing, you can see it, you know, plenty of other examples of this, like the, one of the big things that comes to mind, veering off a little bit off topic here, but, but getting back to what we were talking about, about, um, the obesity epidemic.

[01:24:58] They told people that saturated fat was bad and that meat has lots of saturated fat, so don't eat it. And so people cut back. So, obviously, you have to eat something. So they started eating a lot of low fat, high carb, high sugar stuff. And, you know, again, the exact causes of the obesity epidemic are still in debate.

[01:25:20] But they started eating a lot of ultra processed food, low in protein, and Then, you know, I mean, is it a coincidence that they came out with these dietary guidelines and then everybody gained weight massively for the next 40 years? No, I don't think so. Well, I think 

[01:25:35] Jerry Teixeira: a part of it, you had physical activity levels starting to decline with the proliferation of technology.

[01:25:40] So we used to have to get up to change the channel on TV at least. Right, right. Technology, I mean, we used to vacuum our own floors, now the robot does it. Right. So, technology's displacing movement. And protein in the diet, even though maybe calories came up to the point to where absolute protein is not like super deficient in, in a lot of Americans.

[01:26:01] But, but when you look at I think the mean, or I'd have to go back and see exactly where it's at, but like your, your middle of the road protein consumption, it's, it's, it's low. It's like 12% of, of 12. 5% of calories roughly. And so, you know, you're at 12. 5, which the argument, and I've heard the argument as well for, for the average sedentary American.

[01:26:22] You don't want them eating more protein. They don't really need it. Maybe, but the problem is we shouldn't be sedentary at all. And when you look at, being sedentary is as bad or worse depending on the data set you're looking at as smoking for your health. So it's like this storm. If you really think about it from like 1970 on to today, especially in the 80s.

[01:26:49] All the things that we should be doing to improve our metabolic health or maintain our metabolic health because we didn't even lose it before like we had metabolic health, like you, you just, when you were younger, or you think back to like, I have four older brothers, my parents, in their generation, you, you were physically active at work, you were physically, we got home from school, we just played outside till the sun went down.

[01:27:10] Right. So it's like kids, people, there was no video games. I mean, I'm, I'm young enough that And Atari and all that was around, but I mean, it was not to the proliferation that we have now, you know, so as technology and technology is amazing. Like it's improved our lives in a lot of ways, but I think understanding being cognizant and like once again, stepping back and saying, okay, the modern environment is damaging my health in the following ways.

[01:27:36] So, Physical activity is going down. Protein intake, you know, we're replacing, like you mentioned, we're replacing protein foods with other foods. So now it's, it's higher refined carbohydrate. And again, 61% of Americans calories these days on average are from ultra processed foods. So the problem is not just, oh, maybe you're still getting enough protein, but you're not physically active, so you're not even utilizing that protein to the full extent.

[01:28:00] Then you're your nutrient density is piss poor. So you have low nutrient density. It's like We have people eating 3, 800 calories a day these days with nutrient deficiencies. That's insane. That shouldn't even be possible Right, right and and I I hesitate I know people want to pigeonhole carbohydrate And I've been on the lower carb spectrum for 13 years or so now.

[01:28:23] I I simply feel better that way I don't think it's necessary if anybody disagrees the billions of Asians that plow rice And our, our lean would, would beg to differ, right? But the difference is they don't over consume calories. They, they eat higher carbohydrate, lower fat diets, which can work if that's what you choose to do.

[01:28:38] But they're also not in our food environment. So they don't have these things prepackaged and ready to go 24 7. They're not eating breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, you know. So, so where I do think that there are multiple dietary strategies that can work. I think that it within this modern Western environment where we have so much technology and so little physical activity and ubiquitous food everywhere.

[01:29:01] You know, I remember growing up in a small town and we had one, two, two drive ins that were burger stands. One that was like a taco, taco shop, this is a population of about 10, 000 where I went to high school. And now, you know, they have Taco Bell, McDonald's, Subway. In a little tiny town, right? So before you just didn't have there were less gas stations less convenience stores So you just didn't have it everywhere And so, you know, I I really think sun stick steel getting outside Making sure you maintain a high enough protein diet of whole foods.

[01:29:37] Um, and then, you know, inserting some high intensity exercise resistance training Like those really are tenets that I think are are Sound because what that's making you do is step back and say hey from 1970 to now This is how my environment has changed right and for me to thrive Like to me I and I tell people now like if you're not an outlier You're not going to be healthy if you just exist like the average American just exist.

[01:30:03] You go to work, take the kids to school. I don't fault like I don't victim blame. I understand the concept of personal responsibility. I know you, you kind of fall along the same lines is like, look, it's not the average Americans fault that they're in poor health. And the reason I say that is yes, you're, you're, you still make choices every day you eat, you don't exercise.

[01:30:20] I get all that right. So, so I'm not absolving everyone entirely of personal responsibility, but my brothers. My next oldest brother, 10 years older than me, passed, and then I've got three brothers older than him. And none of them were overweight growing up. Like, they were all healthy. Because they grew up in a time where you just did what kids do, and families just did what American families did, and almost no one was fat.

[01:30:43] Some people do, genetically. They have bad genetics and they, obesity is a much more of a fact, but this current obesity crisis, it's not, it's not genetics. Genetics haven't changed in one generation, you know, or two generations, right? It's this food environments change. And I, and I, I hear a lot of fitness, primarily this, this attitude comes from like fitness trainers and that type of, of, of person on social media, but it's, we just got to man up and accept responsibility.

[01:31:11] And, and, and I, um, And unfortunately, where it's come down to is, in my mind, the government is long past needing to step in and, and change the modern food environment. But I also have absolutely no confidence that that will happen, like you mentioned earlier, in our lifetimes. I do think, you've got like Kevin Hall, you've got these researchers at NIH.

[01:31:29] I do think that there is a lot of scientists and researchers who are passionate about trying to improve public health. And they, they invest their lives in trying to make a difference. But the problem is for every scientist, that's like, hey, this is what we need to do. You've got Nestle and Nabisco throwing money all over the place and none of that shit matters, dude.

[01:31:46] These companies are gonna get their way. Right. Every time. Right. Because, because to me in America for better for worse, we have the lobby system and our politicians are bought and paid for. All of them. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, whatever. They're all bought and paid for. Because they have campaigns to run.

[01:32:02] They take donations. They, you know, they're funded. So to me, it's gonna be very, very difficult to get a concerted public effort Where our elected officials are taking this seriously and telling corporations to kick rocks. Number one, we're supposed to be a free country, so if you want to eat crap, you can go eat crap.

[01:32:17] Like, I'm not saying the government should be regulating and preventing people from eating these things. I favor a strong education push, which I've not seen. I know these researchers are doing the best they can. They're putting it out there on social media. They're trying to get the message across. But, and so again, we're Americans.

[01:32:33] I don't want to be, I don't want people telling me what I can and can't eat. I want to make my own decisions. I'm a big boy, right? But I just think that a strong push educationally to show, to teach people what they should be doing, I, I don't see that, 

[01:32:45] P.D. Mangan: you know, being made. Right, right. The, the, the thing is, is that there's no agreement on what they should be doing because you, you know, you get, you, you still get people, you know, I'm, I'm sure you see every day, like on Twitter, that they're, you know, strong contingent of people still saying you shouldn't be consuming a bunch of saturated fat and, and this kind of thing.

[01:33:06] Right. You know, there's, there's, I mean, I think you and I can agree pretty well on what should be happening as far as, you know, what should be, what people should in generally, what, what people should in general be eating as, like you said, there's a bunch of different approaches, basically the main one being don't eat all that ultra processed garbage food.

[01:33:29] Right. Um, and so, you know, So, but then like, yeah, there's, there's Nestle and Pepsi and Coca Cola that are out there, the big food companies, and, 

[01:33:39] Jerry Teixeira: and so, part of a balanced diet, Pepsi, part of a balanced diet, 

[01:33:42] P.D. Mangan: right, right, so they're, they're going to have, they're going to have their say, and, um, and then the other thing, so the other side of the coin with people, you know, with the obesity epidemic is, um, A lot of people really don't know, you know, what they should do.

[01:34:01] So, I mean, I do health coaching, health and fitness coaching and, and, you know, most of my clients are coming to me to, to, to help them lose weight. And so I get these people that have tried and tried and tried. They're very, you know, they've tried very hard to lose weight. And, you know, they might lose weight for a little while and then it doesn't stick.

[01:34:21] And they, they can't, they can't do it. And some very smart people that, that have. So, you know, so there's that, and so then there's also a lot of people who frankly, sorry to say, they don't care. Um, you know, they're just not health conscious, they're not going to give up whatever it is they're eating and drinking, and so they're not going to change.

[01:34:46] So, I think this, The obesity epidemic itself, just like the toxic food environment, is intractable. Um, an individual can save him or herself. Uh, hopefully, if, you know, if they have the will to find out the right way to do it, and then to put it into practice. But as far as population wide, I have very little hope, I'm afraid.

[01:35:12] It's not going away. 

[01:35:13] Jerry Teixeira: Yeah, I have the same. View. You know, I think that going back, like I mentioned, people just existed as Americans going through life like everyone else. And very few people were fat, right? So it's not like they were doing something special, right? And now 

[01:35:29] P.D. Mangan: like, like I was telling somebody just just the other day, you know, when I was a kid, you know, There weren't any gyms.

[01:35:36] They basically didn't even exist. 

[01:35:39] Jerry Teixeira: My grandparents would think you're insane. They just physically worked. Wash clothes by hand. And whatever else. So I think it's, I have a soft spot for, and I was obese myself once. Luckily I caught it when I was like 45 pounds ish overweight. And that's what sent me on my, you know, improving my metabolic health and actually getting on the right track.

[01:36:02] So I've been there. And, you know, the longer the longer you're stuck in that rut, the harder it is to get out of it, unfortunately, but I think that today just Waking up and being a regular citizen, a regular person, just going through life the way Americans have always just gone through life is a recipe for being in poor metabolic health and being obese.

[01:36:21] I don't blame people for that because that's the environment, you know, this is the first time in human history where we've just got such an excess that the poorest people are just inundated with with, with excess food, excess everything, you know, at least, at least in our country, right? And so I do think though, with that being said, And, and me thinking that it regardless of the best efforts of some awesome scientists and researchers that are trying to do well.

[01:36:45] I don't think public health is, is going to fix this situation soon. There are some, this is, you know, we're not going to get into this today, but there are some new pharmaceuticals that seem to be doing a great job, super promising. And, and I'll, I'll be clear. I think if you can do it on your own with diet and exercise, that's awesome.

[01:37:03] But I also. And I have this conversation on social media a lot. Diet and exercise are not going to stop the obesity epidemic. This has been getting worse for 40 years. Everybody knows they need to eat better and exercise. There's not anybody that doesn't know that, right? And I understand, maybe a better, a better approach.

[01:37:20] Efficiency, don't waste your time. Like, we can help those people. But to your point, somebody has to reach a point where they're like, You know what, I'm going to fix myself. Like, I don't blame the average American because it's the environment in my mind. But with that being said, even if it's not necessarily your fault, because you're just existing the same way everyone else did, only now you're fat and previous generations weren't, no one's going to help you and no one's going to save you but you.

[01:37:44] And up until this point, I do feel like doctors have, to a large degree, had their hands tied because our, our anti obesity medications have, have, Lag lead sucked, right? Right And so now, um, silaglu tide and some stuff like Seems like theres some good stuff coming out I'm What was that, Ollantra 

[01:38:00] P.D. Mangan: stuff? Is that 

[01:38:01] Jerry Teixeira: the one where the oil came out of your Eu, ja, oh yeah, jah right um So, I I recognized that the only hope to me for the obesity epidemic tides turning is for doctors to have effective pharmaceuticals Because people will take a pill If it works People arent gunna strap on their shoes and go take up running numbers I mean they will, but not at a population level right Just You know what I mean?

[01:38:22] It's just not gonna happen. So, I do think you've got people like myself, or you, or various other people trying to help make a dent. But it's dude, it's the smallest of dents when you look at the overall, you know, yeah, it's like it's like putting your finger in 

[01:38:37] P.D. Mangan: people have asked me Exactly. People have asked me like what you know, what what do you hope to accomplish and I said well I don't have any illusions that I'm gonna accomplish much of anything is yeah It's like just like you said putting your finger in the dam.

[01:38:50] Yeah, if if an end if individuals You know, listen to, you know, hear my message, listen to what I say, and it helps them. That's really the most I can hope for. Uh, um, the, the, I think the larger changes, the food environment, and, and the obesity epidemic are as, as a whole, at a population level, pretty well 

[01:39:14] Jerry Teixeira: intractable.

[01:39:15] Right, I, I agree. So, I think, to kind of sum up where we're at right now, for, for people listening, uh, or watching, You need to move with a high intensity of effort a few times a week. You need to be outside, in nature, physically active throughout your days, if possible. Um, if you can't be outside physically active due to weather and things like that, then I think just making sure that you do include that same activity, getting up, walking around, moving, getting the blood flowing, not sitting for too long at one time.

[01:39:46] Uh, Eating a high protein, whole foods based diet and focusing on improving your overall metabolic health more so than individual markers or things like that is, is the way to go. Um, now, more, more for your older, for, for the older listener, uh, and maybe some younger people that are really interested in this, but I know you've done quite a bit of research into, uh, pharmaceuticals or exogenous compounds that may provide a longevity benefit.

[01:40:14] So, um, What, what are your, I think rapamycin probably being the most well established for having a benefit in humans. Um, certainly in, in, in, you know, every, every model organism they've tested it on, mice and the like, it's, it's been very effective. So, what, what are your thoughts on rapamycin use in humans?

[01:40:36] And what, what are your thoughts on, uh, any other exogenous molecules? I, I, the reason I separate them is I think that, There, there's a clear divide between the effectiveness of something like, you know, rapamycin versus the rest of this stuff. Um, so if you could kind of touch on, and I think this is really interesting coming from you because like I mentioned earlier, I'm not at the age where I feel like I need to make a decision on these types of things today, but I know you're at the age where it's past time to do these things if you're going to do them, right?

[01:41:04] So, so, right. And I know you've put in the research to make a personal decision. So, so where do you, where do you stand on, uh, on these things, um, rapamycin? And then, uh. You know, supplements, I'm not convinced there's any supplements that are going to do anything. Um, but, you know, maybe you've seen some research that you think maybe there are some that are worth it.

[01:41:23] P.D. Mangan: You mean as far as extending lifespan? Or healthspan. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there are certainly supplements, you know, basically, sort of. I guess what we call ordinary supplements. Like I take magnesium, for example. Sure. That's, you know, but as far as general health, right, exactly. So as far as extending lifespan, um, it seems to me and health span it from, from what I can see about the research, um, Rapamycin just, you know, knocks it out of the park as far as, you know, anything else.

[01:41:56] So, like, there's, there's been, of course, a lot of talk about metformin, and, uh, metformin has extended lifespan in, in some animals and so on. Um, the interesting thing about, Metformin is that it's an anti diabetic drug and, um, and that it does extend lifespan, like I said, in some animals. And the fact that an anti, an anti diabetic drug does that.

[01:42:23] There's a huge lesson in there. Um, basically keep your metabolic health as good as possible because that that's what extends lifespan. But as far as, as far as substances, rapamycin seems to be. By far the most effective. It's extended lifespan and health span. And basically, I believe every single species in which it's been tested, lots of humans are taking it.

[01:42:48] Now you can find forums online where people are talking about how to get rapamycin, the doses they're taking and so on. This is all basically, um, um, Uh, you know, it's experimental. I mean, I mean, because we don't know. I mean, we don't know, like, you know, what's the appropriate human dose for a lifespan extension?

[01:43:10] That's a question that just cannot be answered. Um, there are certainly clues from animal studies. Um, I believe that rapamycin is a very safe drug. Um, um, Nacal bligascloni, um, uh, Noted scientists in this area and a friend of mine has said that, uh, rapamycin is safer than aspirin and I think, yeah, looking at the evidence, yeah, it is.

[01:43:35] Aspirin can have potentially serious side effects and rapamycin doesn't really seem to have any. Um, the interesting thing, another interesting thing about rapamycin from, um, The point of view of, like I mentioned, metformin and, and being an anti diabetic drug and extending lifespan. So one of the things they used to worry about with rapamycin is, um, they said, well, oh, this can cause diabetes because they would see, um, blood sugars going up and so on and people taking this.

[01:44:09] Um, and so what, what this is really, there, there's a phenomenon. called, um, fasting or starvation diabetes. So what this is, is, uh, if somebody, if somebody is fasting, if, say, say they fast, uh, don't, don't eat anything for three days, and, uh, then, They eat, they eat something that contains carbohydrate at the end of this three days.

[01:44:37] They will, uh, have, uh, in many cases have glucose in their urine, appearing in their urine. And that is a sign of diabetes. That's not supposed to happen. This is called starvation diabetes, or I've seen it, starvation pseudo diabetes. Um, And basically, this is a normal physiological response. When you're not eating food, your body changes in certain ways.

[01:45:00] Certain parts of you become more insulin resistant in order to preserve glucose. And then you eat some carbohydrate and then boom, you're still, you know, this is all still going on and your blood sugar goes way up and so on. So this is apparently what rapamycin is doing. Rapamycin has been called fasting in a pill.

[01:45:19] Um, that, you know, increases autophagy and Does all these other things, um, that basically mimic. Or, at least there are some strong similarities with fasting. Uh, and it extends lifespan. As to, um, as to taking it, well, Mikhail Blagoslony has said that there is an explosion in rapamycin use in the United States.

[01:45:46] And, um, depending on how you take that, I guess, I guess you could say that's true. Just a few years ago, um, there was Dr., Dr. Alan Green in New York who started an anti aging Uh, exclusively anti aging practice, and he started prescribing rapamycin to people, and people were flying in from all over the country, uh, just to see Dr.

[01:46:09] Green, I interviewed him, um, he started this, um, when he started taking rapamycin himself, he's, he's fairly old now, I think he's, uh, maybe pushing 80 at this point, um, and he started taking rapamycin himself and found Huge improvements in his health, um, including a fairly major heart problem he had, uh, went away.

[01:46:35] Um, and so, uh, he started this practice. Anyway, now, several years later, there are, um, if not a multitude, there are quite a few more doctors around the country that are prescribing it and a whole lot more people that are interested in it. Um, these people, of course, realize that, um, before there's, uh, you know, if you wait until the FDA approves and there's an established, uh, you know, way of all doing this, that they could be dead first.

[01:47:10] Yeah, it's going to take time. It's good. You're right. So they're not waiting. Um, so yeah, that rapamycin just seems the most promising thing as far as, um, You know, you mentioned about, like, at your age, you're, you're not particularly in a hurry or something like that, which is totally fine. Um, and, and, of course, I'm not making any kind of, just to be clear, recommendations here or anything.

[01:47:35] Sure. But there's pretty good evidence that, um, taking it at a younger age has the same or more benefits as taking it at an older age. For instance, um, You know, calorie restriction, which is a very potent lifespan extending intervention in lab animals, seems to work better when it started relatively young.

[01:48:01] Post maturity, let's say. In other words, a human being, presumably 20, might be at least, if no benefit, It may be conceivably harmful at that point, but after the age of 20, after the age of full growth, then it seems that rapamycin would extend lifespan at any point, um, after that. But then, of course, it does work in older people, too.

[01:48:32] So that's, that's where, where it is. It's a prescription drug, obviously, so people have to, um, Have to see a doctor to get it sure 

[01:48:43] Jerry Teixeira: now with all of these Exogenous molecules regardless of their efficacy because we just don't know you know in a lot of cases One thing that I think people need to understand and see if you agree with this there are common Um, cellular pathways that are activated through stress, be it dietary stress, exercise, and a lot of these molecules are acting on similar pathways.

[01:49:10] So, the better, the more optimal someone's total program is, the less of a benefit they're likely to yield from any of these interventions. So, now. The data, limited though it may be, on rapamycin, especially the mouse studies and the lifespan extension, is pretty impressive. So, you know, that's one where one would probably hypothesize that it's going to have an additive effect to the exercise, to everything else.

[01:49:42] I've seen some people, you know, not convinced that, um, metformin or some of the other things would have, a measurable impact in an individual who is at the higher end of the exercise spectrum, who already has ideal height, weight, those types of things. Uh, you know, the interesting thing about Metformin is I think that based on, you know, TAME will be done.

[01:50:09] I think in enough time for it to actually matter to us like you'll be able to go. Oh, look Here's here's the data from from and what tame is it's looking at metformin and human aging and you know So I think we'll at least be able to look at some data in non diabetic if I'm not wrong They're looking at it because there's tons of data in diabetics.

[01:50:26] It's supposed to be in like normal people to see if it has a positive effect so You know, maybe we'll have some, some data there to where we can then form a better conclusion of, you know, the control for exercise and look at it. Did it have the same effect in people who exercise? Right, so 

[01:50:41] P.D. Mangan: there's, there's a pretty well known paper where they looked at all kinds of studies on metformin and, and found that diabetics who take metformin have lower mortality rates than non diabetics who don't.

[01:50:55] And that's pretty remarkable when you think about it. Um, you know, like, wow. You know, the, the, the immediate sort of, uh, immediate sort of conclusion might be, yeah, wow, everybody should be taking metformin. But the problem is the control group. Are they healthy? No, we're talking about the population at large.

[01:51:15] They're not healthy. All that, all that, what that study means to me, or seemingly means, is that, um, the whole population is unhealthy enough to be taking metformin. Basically, 90% of the population is unhealthy enough to do that. Is metformin really going to extend lifespan in healthy people that are optimized for body composition, diet, and exercise?

[01:51:42] Who knows? Uh, if it does, I think the benefits going to be pretty marginal. 

[01:51:47] Jerry Teixeira: Hey, so, um, tell everybody where they can find you on, on social media, on your website. Um, 

[01:51:54] P.D. Mangan: Oh, okay. So, uh, my website is rogue health and fitness. com. Uh, but these days I'm a lot more active on Twitter. My handle is Megan one 

[01:52:03] Jerry Teixeira: 50. Yeah.

[01:52:04] Yeah. You're definitely active on Twitter. 

[01:52:05] P.D. Mangan: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe a little too active. 

[01:52:08] Jerry Teixeira: All right. So, so Resistance train, be physically active every day. Some of that time spent in nature, eat enough protein, avoid the modern food environment. That's the fastest way to build metabolic health. Maintain metabolic health.

[01:52:21] Dennis, I appreciate you coming. It was awesome. 

[01:52:24] P.D. Mangan: Thanks a lot, Jerry. It was great. It was great being here. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, 

[01:52:27] Jerry Teixeira: thank you. All right.