Latest / The Reverse Aging Club with Meredith Oke / 158: Why Understanding Mitochondrial Health Holds the Key to Reversing Age-Related Fatigue with Roderick Lambert

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158: Why Understanding Mitochondrial Health Holds the Key to Reversing Age-Related Fatigue with Roderick Lambert · The Reverse Aging Club with Meredith Oke

6:29
Roderick Lambert, welcome to the QVC podcast. Hello,
6:32
Meredith. It's a privilege and an honor to be here. I've been listening to
6:36
so many of them, and now I'm actually appearing on one. It's like, oh, my
6:40
God, here you are. Well, thank you so
6:43
much. I really appreciate that. And I'm excited
6:47
to talk to you and hear about your journey. You've done
6:51
such good work spreading the light wellness
6:54
message to the world and especially, as I was just saying,
6:58
especially to the men, because
7:02
I talk a lot about women's health and I'm like, oh,
7:05
I've kind of been ignoring the boys. So. Roderick, I know
7:10
you work with lots of people, but you do have a strong focus on men
7:13
of a certain age. So tell me what you're seeing out there in
7:17
the world with your clients who are
7:21
probably just out there living their lives and not overly
7:24
focused on biohacking or anything like that. Yeah, well, I'm
7:28
not really a biohacker, but when you look at what
7:32
it is that brings health, it all goes down to light,
7:36
water, magnetism, the mitochondria. And thus you have to
7:40
hack the modern environment because it's pretty detrimental
7:44
in the way we've set it up in a standard way of
7:47
life. But yeah. So men,
7:50
midlife, so whatever that means to you, I call it 40 to 60
7:54
years old. Typically they're working in high pressure
7:58
jobs. Have a family achieved something in their career,
8:03
and Those sort of 20 or 30 years of
8:07
intense hard work and achievement
8:12
have led them to accelerate their
8:16
mitochondrial aging or accelerated aging. And
8:20
the ones that come to me generally are at a stage where they've realized,
8:24
okay, I'm 50, I'm 30, 40 kilograms
8:27
overweight. Starting to feel that kind of not thinking as
8:31
clearly as previous as I used to.
8:35
Stamina is failing. I can't do this stuff. I used to. And
8:38
all the things that worked in my 20s and early 30s, like going
8:42
on a health drive and dieting and running and going to the
8:46
gym, they're not working anymore.
8:50
So that's. That's kind of the sort of typical client.
8:54
That is a really good point. And I think that that is a
8:57
turning point for a lot of people. It's like we developed at a
9:01
certain stage in life, we kind of developed ideas of what it means to be
9:04
healthy. And when we're off track, we're like, oh, I got to get back
9:08
to those things. Like, I got to start running again and, and, you know,
9:12
not eat so many donuts or whatever. And then you
9:16
finally gather the willpower to do that, you get back on track
9:20
and it's not having this at all. The same effects
9:23
that it had when we were in our 20s. And it's like,
9:27
what's going on? How do you, how do you explain that
9:31
to them? Well,
9:34
that's a good question. It's something I'm still working on, trying to get that
9:38
message across. But I very, very clearly,
9:43
all my messaging and I talk to clients and the first thing I do with
9:47
a new client is we just go briefly over what, you know, what
9:51
is the mitochondria, what are the mitochondria? Rather, what is a
9:54
mitochondria? And what. And, you know, let's
9:58
ditch this idea of calories in, calories out. It literally
10:02
doesn't obey the 21st century understanding
10:06
of physics as we know it. So now when
10:10
you consider this little organelle, all the things that impact and affect
10:14
it, then that's where we're going to do the work. So, yes, it is
10:18
movement, yes, it is food composition, but it's also timing
10:21
of food. It's the light diet, it's your circadian rhythms getting back on
10:25
track and some sort of. We do a bit of
10:29
fasting work as well for better accelerating fat adoption and the
10:32
benefits of fasting. So I try and frame it round. Let's
10:36
get your cells humming, your mitochondria purring back
10:40
at least as well as they should be at the age of 50, let's say,
10:45
because that's the key to, first of all,
10:48
getting rid of all the excess body fat and improving
10:53
your stamina and brain function.
10:56
But also when you've done that and you've done it in the way we're going
11:00
to do together and built those habits, then you'll be able to maintain it then
11:03
for the rest of your life and you will get the
11:07
maximum health span for your lifespan.
11:11
Nice. Yeah. Because I think it's. It is,
11:15
you know, I mean, for you and I, we've been talking about
11:19
mitochondrial health for a long time and it's like, yes, of course, but
11:23
it's not well understood out in the, in
11:26
the general mainstream at all. And it,
11:30
and the implications of thinking of health
11:34
as beginning at the level of mitochondria
11:38
are very wide ranging and really, as you said,
11:42
go much beyond what the traditional understanding
11:46
would be. So could you
11:49
explain a little bit sort of in your words, for a general audience,
11:54
how you see it all fitting together?
11:58
Well, I think it mirrors my own kind of
12:02
journey into this, this world, this subcellular
12:07
world, even veering on the subatomic but
12:12
I start. All my life I didn't know what a mitochondria was. I worked
12:15
30 years in HR, Human Resources.
12:19
I don't remember learning about mitochondria at school. I always feel a bit
12:23
embarrassed when people say, oh, at school you learned it was the powerhouse of the
12:26
cell. I don't even remember learning about mitochondria. Neither do I.
12:30
It was not mentioned at all.
12:34
So yeah, and I thought it was calories in, calories out,
12:38
eat less, move more. And I sort of maintained till
12:42
the early 30s, slightly increased weight from my teenage
12:46
years, but nothing unreasonable. But as you get
12:49
older, you get more and more mitochondrial
12:53
damage. They stop functioning as smoothly as well as they
12:57
should and the problems start to pile up slowly. And
13:01
of course I did the usual thing, getting up extra early to go for that
13:04
morning jog, trying all sorts of
13:07
diets and things and generally sort of starving myself. It worked for
13:11
a bit and then you give up because something happens or life happens and it
13:15
all comes back again with interest. And I got to the
13:19
point I turned 40, become a father
13:23
and got a new position in my corporate career.
13:27
And after a few years, three years of that, I realized
13:32
first of all, this corporate God that we all worship, I wasn't happy to,
13:35
didn't find it fulfilling to still worship. But
13:39
also I'd ballooned after a year or two of like
13:43
intense jogging and eating pasta and vegetables five times a
13:46
day and losing 5kg, I
13:50
obviously couldn't keep that up and got balloons to the
13:54
heaviest and biggest I'd ever been. So I quit the
13:58
job, my corporate career, trained as a coach. But at
14:01
the same time I had started to go down this sort of rabbit hole, peeled
14:05
off the first onion skin of. Okay, so it's
14:08
not just calories in, calories out, it's this whole thing about what you eat,
14:12
the macronutrients. So that was, you know, I started discovering that the low
14:16
carb, high fat world. And it was
14:20
like someone had taken a blinkers off my eyes. My God.
14:23
It's actually, the thing actually makes a difference what you eat in
14:27
terms of what happens to it when it goes inside you. And I just kept
14:31
digging and digging and digging and digging. And while I'd started out as a
14:34
life and business coach, I was still fascinated
14:38
by this whole world of actually what is human
14:42
health, Having applied it to myself and
14:46
dropped all the extra weight, 25kg in seven months.
14:51
And then eventually I just switched to being midlife
14:55
men's weight loss coach. By the way, I have successfully coached Some
14:59
women too, but generally it is.
15:03
And, yeah, and I just kept going down and I was getting this idea, okay,
15:06
so it's the organs, it's the Insulin, the Resistance, etc.
15:10
And then I realized. But hang on. But there's something more there. There's, you know,
15:15
these sort of. Then slowly, you know, when you start thinking about things, that the
15:18
universe starts putting things your way. And. And there was a
15:21
point, I think, three years ago where I was. Yeah,
15:25
someone had told me about this.
15:29
It was a money meditation thing. Joe Dispenza.
15:33
I'm not sure who. It was someone like that
15:37
to play this six times a day and get into a kind of a
15:40
meditative state and read this book. It was
15:44
called the Quantum Warrior, I think.
15:48
But it really resonated with me. And
15:51
funnily enough, my business started, you know, it was going in a bit of a
15:55
fallow period at that time. It started going well
15:58
and. But even. Interesting. Yeah, well.
16:03
And then I bumped into. Well, well, well, well, well, that's
16:07
what we're supposed to think anyway. And now these days, I
16:11
believe that there's a lot, a lot to say for
16:14
that. But I bumped into the
16:18
seven and a half hour interview between
16:21
Jack Cruz, Rick Rubin and. Who was it?
16:25
Huberman, wasn't it? Yes. And that was like. That was
16:29
like, wow, about another five layers of.
16:33
That'll take you all the way to the middle of the onion. And, you
16:36
know, I was floundering like I was in a
16:40
tsunami of, you know, tidal waves. I was completely lost, but
16:44
it just fascinated me, so. And that's when I started really looking down,
16:48
getting below the organs, the endocrine
16:51
system, down into. Into how cells work. And that took me to the.
16:55
The mitochondria. And since then it's just been digging deeper and deeper
16:59
and learning more about it.
17:02
Fantastic. I love that. I love that journey.
17:06
It's quite similar to my own, actually. It's like.
17:10
It's like, okay, I'll try this. Okay, I'll try this. And then it's like, wait,
17:14
what? Well, try, but also read and
17:18
study and listen. I mean, on this browser I have something like
17:22
50 tabs open with various different papers I still haven't got around to reading,
17:25
but just too much. So, okay,
17:29
so tell us. Because, yes, the research
17:33
journey is intense. And then there's. And there's so much of it,
17:37
Right. It's not like, oh, there's, you know, one or two papers floating out there
17:40
that we can extrapolate from. It's, you know, there are, I think
17:44
in PubMed. Last I checked, there were more than
17:48
90,000 papers on circadian rhythm slash
17:51
regulation. And then the last time I
17:55
checked the papers on quantum biology, you know, they were
17:59
much lower, but they're building and building. So
18:03
when you started to look at all of this,
18:07
which is incredibly overwhelming. So good for you,
18:13
what were some of the key insights that you started to have?
18:17
And how did you start to sort of make sense of
18:20
this world of mitochondria and light?
18:24
And apparently we have little
18:27
organisms in our body reading frequency all day long. Like how did you
18:31
sort of, how did that kind of. How'd you land the
18:35
plane on that? I don't know if I've landed yet, but
18:38
yeah, I was gonna say we're never landing. We're gonna be
18:42
circling for decades. Yeah. But you know what's strange?
18:46
It's like it just makes sense. It's. For me it just
18:49
kind of fits it. It's like, yes, that
18:53
simply makes sense that you know, when you're barefoot on the
18:57
ground, your, your autonomous nervous system
19:00
resets to, you know, the parasympathetic and, or why
19:04
it's so great here. You know, the forest circadian retreat
19:08
in the forests. Why? It's just, you come back from a weekend here and you
19:12
feel like a different person. You know, is it
19:15
the ions and anti of the air? Is it
19:19
the green of the green color of
19:23
the foliage? Is it
19:27
the infrared reflecting down off the leaves? Is it the
19:30
being, you know, lack of electro smog that you have in
19:34
a large natural national park? Is it just the fact
19:38
you're moving or the fresh air or whatever? I mean there are all sorts of
19:41
things that could be, but you can actually sort
19:44
of trace little lines of evidence to all these things.
19:49
Some lines are longer, some are less, some are more speculative, some
19:52
are more factual, but you can still do it and it just makes sense. So
19:56
I think for me, and also the first principles, I'd say, you know, we,
20:01
I mean not just Homo sapiens, what is it, 300,000 years homo sapiens, but just
20:04
the whole our ancestry in fact. Then you get, then you get down to things
20:08
like how life started on the planet, which is just, you know,
20:12
you get into life, the creation of life on planet and you get into
20:16
consciousness and that's just really mind blowing. But
20:19
let's not go there right now. Anyway, so you
20:23
think, you know, it's logical we were wandering around with
20:27
maybe some skins on us, doing
20:30
whatever we did, hunting, gathering, reproducing,
20:35
maybe starting to make some tools and Stuff outdoors
20:40
all year round. The only water we
20:44
had to drink was in the natural sources of springs and rivers.
20:49
And the food we had was what grew locally and seasonally.
20:55
And we spend a lot of time not eating, we spend a lot of time
20:57
moving. We spent a lot of time in the direct sun,
21:01
also in the shade. And it just makes
21:05
sense. That is how we adapted. That's how our physiology
21:10
has adapted itself to work. So when you take away all these
21:13
inputs, then suddenly your physiology doesn't have
21:17
that comfortable, comfortable, familiar surrounding
21:21
environment that it spent hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands, even
21:25
millions of years developing around. So I think it just
21:29
makes sense from that kind of first principles point of view.
21:34
Yeah, absolutely. And I really relate to that. It's like on the
21:38
one hand it's like why didn't. It's like what? And on the other hand it's
21:41
like, oh yeah, of course we're supposed to
21:45
get natural light. Of course there's a difference between
21:49
real light and fake light. Like actually. Yes. Why haven't
21:53
we been thinking about that? Of course we wake up at sunrise and
21:56
you know, and went to rest at sunset. Yeah.
22:01
So yeah, it just makes sense like that. I mean we are
22:05
still have the physiology of cavemen.
22:10
You know, we haven't adapted as quickly, that quickly to.
22:14
It's been impossible to adapt so quickly to the rate of change
22:18
that has been going on the last, well, definitely the last 300 years. But in
22:22
particular the last hundred and fifty and the last
22:26
ten, you know, it's just going mad, the exponential
22:32
technological advancement. I mean it's wonderful but at the same time it's
22:36
almost entirely detrimental to what ourselves
22:40
require and are expected and have adapted to do so. They are
22:43
adapting and well, they're reacting to this new environment
22:47
in a way that is meant to make, you know, keep you
22:51
alive to survive the natural selection.
22:55
But it's, it's, it's an uphill. These reactions
23:00
may manifest as what we call
23:03
disease. Yeah.
23:07
And for people like your clients, you know,
23:11
people who are in middle age and work a
23:15
traditional career, those careers have
23:18
become basically a full time screen job. I mean
23:23
my husband has a job like that and he's, he's on zooms today
23:26
from 8 till 6.
23:30
You know, he's got a window cracked and he goes out, runs outside every,
23:34
every hour. But that's, you know, that's his
23:38
life. And it used to be like you, you could still burn
23:42
out from stress, but you weren't in front of a
23:46
screen that much. So. And then I want
23:49
to get into, I want to get into your, your experiment that you did recently.
23:53
But before we get into that. So the blue light, right? So we're in
23:57
front of all these screens just by virtue of our
24:00
careers. A lot of, for a lot of people. So
24:05
just walk, walk us through how you
24:12
recommend that somebody in that situation
24:16
makes adjustments and why. Because I, I want this
24:19
episode, this episode is to be shared with the men in
24:23
your life. That's what this is
24:27
for. So I want them to understand, like, okay, what are, what should I be
24:31
doing then? Right. And,
24:34
you know, what can I do? We can't go back to living as we did
24:39
only, you know, 5,000 years ago. That's
24:43
literally impossible in this day and age. So what can we do? And
24:46
this, you know, so I'll take you through actually what I do with clients because
24:50
that's the easiest way. The Mitre Regen protocol, as I
24:54
call it. And so basically we start
24:57
with, we start with four pillars. So one is food composition.
25:01
So the
25:05
only rule you need to remember about what you eat is that it should be
25:08
local and seasonal. That's the easiest rule to remember.
25:13
And of course it should be thus. Hopefully, logically,
25:17
it's also therefore whole food. Foods that
25:21
grow in the ground or run around on the land, fly in the air or
25:24
swim in the water, but not coming out of a factory in a
25:28
been. Yeah. So slow, clean, seasonal. And because I'm
25:32
Here at the 50th degree north
25:37
latitude Czechia, just like most of my clients, you know, Germany,
25:40
France, uk, then
25:44
that means in the winter, naturally, basically
25:48
eating primarily animal based. And then in
25:51
the spring and summer, you're going to be adding in all the stuff that grows
25:55
around you. And is it the flower farmers market? That's like. So that's the
25:59
food thing. And here's
26:02
a quick tip for all you gents, but also the ladies. I must say,
26:06
they tend to actually underestimate
26:10
the power of protein even more. But
26:14
the first thing to do is a protein challenge. So basically I
26:17
tell them to supersize their protein portions in their meals. Eat
26:21
it first, chew it slowly, don't watch TV and
26:25
scroll on your device while you're eating, and monitor your satiety.
26:30
When you get to 8 out of 10, you stop eating.
26:35
And I get messages back because I'm in constant contact with my clients on
26:38
WhatsApp. It's like one client called it witchcraft. A lady, by the
26:42
way, this is some sort of witchcraft because she suddenly didn't have any, she didn't
26:46
want any chocolates she hadn't eaten for, I don't know, five hours or
26:50
something. And crazy. Another guy,
26:53
three in the afternoon. So I had breakfast this morning and it's absolutely
26:57
weird, I'm still not hungry. He was a
27:01
CEO of a bank. So it was like
27:04
amazing what happens when you just start to actually give
27:09
your cells the substrate that they need
27:12
to actually then make energy more efficiently,
27:16
less messily then the second
27:20
prong. So look at your diet. I mean, look at not how much
27:24
you eat volume, but look at the content of what
27:28
you're eating, the composition and relearn your natural hunger
27:31
and satiety signals. And generally
27:35
that switches within a matter of days once they start. That
27:39
second boot camp, as I call it, is based on
27:43
sleep and circadian rhythms. I don't normally
27:48
give it the title and the light diet because that can scare people
27:52
off. And in general we do the sleep and
27:55
circadian rhythms and the light diet I kind of put in
27:59
here and there, et cetera. So you get start getting the idea that the
28:02
light we are exposed to has fundamental
28:06
physiological or we react fundamentally at the
28:09
level of cells and hormones to the
28:13
different types of light we expose ourselves to. But circadian
28:17
rhythms again, I mean, for the gents and the
28:20
ladies, the phases of dark and night,
28:24
sorry, dark and light, absolutely key to
28:28
all biological systems
28:31
and all the things that go on within them and the things they do
28:35
are hooked up to this central clock that is the
28:38
main, the main signal is the phase
28:42
of light and then dark and then light and then dark. Yes,
28:46
different biological systems do different things at different times, but
28:50
that is the, that's the pendulum that just ticks day in, day
28:53
out. And yeah, so
28:57
there's a sort of education, but I mean, I focus on sleep because that's what
29:01
a lot of people suffer from. And when they fix the circadian rhythm, then
29:04
suddenly they're sleeping better, not just sleep onset that the sleep
29:08
biologists seem to get so obsessed about. That's important
29:12
how quickly you fall asleep, but it's actually what's going on during
29:16
the sleep. You know, you've got your architecture, sleep architecture. You want
29:19
to have no disruptions. Ideally, yes, there's a certain amount
29:23
of length, but you need certain things to happen. Leptin,
29:27
reset the glymphatic system, clearing up
29:31
your brain, you know, the brainwash at night
29:35
and all these other things. So to do that though, you have to get the
29:38
internal cascade of hormones and that sort of constant
29:42
interplay of cells and organs in
29:46
the right synchronicity with so they work in the right
29:49
order and do the right thing at the right time. So that's really key as
29:52
well. And because I primarily my message is
29:56
about weight loss, your metabolism is
30:00
almost entirely controlled by this circadian rhythm.
30:04
And if you're not getting the right quality sleep, then you're going to really
30:08
struggle to lose weight long term
30:12
for sure. Third boot camp then we go into like
30:15
a bit deeper into fat adaption and fasting. So we talk about the timing of
30:19
food. I mean you and I would probably talk about chrono nutrition
30:23
actually eating when you're supposed to eat in the day. Depending on the season, you're
30:26
ideally going to eat during daylight, not at night,
30:30
after dark. But that's pretty hard for most people
30:34
who are working. So it's about, you know,
30:38
perhaps narrowing that eating window down to let's say 12 hours or
30:41
10 or whatever kind of works for them. But also
30:45
starting to exercise what I call the fasting muscle.
30:49
So going to 24 hour fast, trying that a few times.
30:52
Some people, one recent client said to me, no, I
30:56
can't do 24 hours. I've been without food for
31:00
18 hours before. And I got the shakes and felt disinfectant. That's okay, it's cool.
31:03
And after a month of being on the, you know, this is. Anyway a month's
31:07
gone by then. I think his fat adaption had improved his ability to
31:11
switch between burning glucose, burning fat.
31:14
And so he did it and it was like, wow, that was
31:18
so easy. And now he's gone, he's, he's mad about fasting. It's like for him,
31:21
that is the biggest mind blowing thing that
31:26
he's learned from me is that he can actually go two days now
31:30
without, oh,
31:33
there's someone going down the stairs.
31:40
Yeah. So anyway, so he's like absolutely
31:44
off his mind that he can go two days without eating anything at all
31:48
and just be extra focused on all the stuff he has to
31:52
do. And the final bit is movement. Yes,
31:55
movement's important, but it's not about burning calories, it's about everything from, you know,
31:59
the piezoelectric effect, about
32:02
mitochondrial regeneration, etc,
32:06
etc, so you know, deuterium depletion. So
32:10
those are the four pillars and that's how I explain it. But I explained in
32:13
the concept of their daily. That's why it's one on one because, you
32:17
know, this lady I'm working with,
32:21
I'm getting a lot, I'm not sure if it's on the recording, but I'm getting
32:24
a lot of banging in my ears
32:27
it's the. So yeah, one lady I'm working with, for her she's
32:31
rediscovered her enjoyment of swimming. So she's now going
32:35
four times a week to the local swimming pool. Another guy's got his own little
32:39
sort of mini home gym and a treadmill. So for him it's
32:43
just tweaking the way he does his weights but also how he does his
32:47
cardio. Because I'm a big fan of
32:50
Philip Maffatone or Maffatoni. I'm not sure how you pronounce his surname.
32:54
American sports scientist and his math method.
32:59
So it's different for everybody how you.
33:03
In the details but the broad concepts are the same. And then we go
33:07
for two months where I'm actually putting on the coach's hat, where
33:10
I'm helping them to learn through their own experience
33:15
and build these habits into what I call
33:18
systems. So actually they're building a system for
33:23
continued success. There's no kind of end
33:26
date or goal to achieve specific. Well there is one. There are
33:30
a couple but it's more about. It's starting to become
33:35
then standard way of living. Right. And then we might bring in
33:38
things like cold thermogenesis and grounding. But I. That's based on the
33:42
temperature of the client and how they do.
33:47
That's. That's a very thorough and robust approach. I love it.
33:51
There was. So there's. There was one. There's one piece that I wanted
33:55
to expand on a little because I do find this really
33:58
trips people up. And when I say things like this
34:02
people just stare at me like what is. You are
34:06
so crazy. You know the idea that circadian rhythm
34:09
is connected to our metabolism and
34:13
I mean we know it's connected to every biological function but I think
34:17
that that one in particular people are like, what. How
34:21
does like circadian rhythm is like when I get jet
34:24
lagged how. What does that have to do with my metabolism? Could you
34:28
expand on that piece a little bit? I will
34:32
try to. And yeah. And the first thing I'd say is that
34:36
unless they're paying me, I don't talk about this stuff at all. Not even at
34:39
home because you just get looked at like you're mad
34:44
or I'm on a podcast, I'm happy to divulge.
34:48
So how does circadian rhythm impact
34:52
your metabolism? The broader
34:56
picture is I use Swiss railways. So
35:00
it's basically the Swiss railway system is renowned for being on time. I don't know
35:03
if it's still true, but it used to be. Or Japanese bullet trains. They run
35:06
on they literally to the second on time.
35:10
And so there's a central controller
35:14
there that is ensuring that all the trains and all the junctions,
35:18
all the stations and all the drivers are getting the right information at the right
35:21
time. So, so the trains can go speedily, without delay,
35:25
safely along their routes to the destinations.
35:29
As soon as that controller starts to
35:33
misread his script or press the wrong buttons, then you're going to start
35:37
getting accidents on the track, trains are going to get
35:40
delayed, et cetera, et cetera. So including the train,
35:44
that is your metabolism, because that is
35:47
site that is linked to again the
35:51
phases of dark and light and also dark and light, and also
35:55
when you eat that time of that moment that you eat during the day,
35:58
once, twice, maybe three times during the day, then
36:02
that also helps, that's feedback for the circadian system
36:06
about food consumption. So
36:09
consistency is one thing and regularity. But
36:13
concerning the actual idea of,
36:18
well, so one of these trains I talked about is the
36:21
metabolism train. And at night,
36:26
while a lot of people I think just kind of think sleep is just something
36:29
you do, you switch off and then in the morning you switch on again and
36:32
nothing's happened. And if you're lucky, you feel refreshed.
36:36
Actually I provocatively say
36:40
you actually do more in your sleep than you do during the day. In the
36:42
day your body's just keeping you alive, but at
36:46
night it's doing everything that helps you stay alive the next
36:50
day, fixing all the damage. I use the supermarket as an
36:54
allergy, the 24 hour supermarket that during the day there's no time to
36:57
clean up all the stocks coming off the shelves, people are buying, they are
37:01
dropping stuff, making a mess, etc. But at night the supermarket
37:05
closes, the cleaning crew comes out and they clean up the stock,
37:08
they restock the shelves, etc. If it didn't happen that,
37:12
if that didn't happen or it wasn't long enough, or it wasn't done good enough
37:16
quality, then the next day when the supermarket opens, there won't be enough
37:20
supplies, there'll still be a mess, etc. So
37:25
I don't get, don't often have to go
37:28
so deep down into details like you know, leptin signaling
37:32
and being
37:36
in a certain phase of sleep, you know, certain period after you've gone to
37:40
sleep, which is actually not so much after you go to sleep. It's like since
37:43
you saw the first light that previous morning, that then
37:47
this sort of whole leptin signaling, the main, I call
37:50
him the main or it the chief
37:53
accountant, inventory Stock taking, that takes place at night. But if
37:57
you're not getting to bed
38:03
at a certain time, after you've got up and seen the morning light
38:07
in a certain stage of sleep, then that inventory won't take place. And your
38:10
body simply says, your body gives the brain, or brain gives the
38:14
message. Okay, tomorrow, there's scarcity.
38:18
There's scarcity in the environment. Everything we
38:21
consume, we're going to have to store. That's the default,
38:25
default mode that your
38:28
metabolism is in store because there isn't enough. But if the brain
38:32
is getting the signal inventory and can take stock
38:36
of what the food environment's like, how much fat there is
38:39
in the body, et cetera, et cetera, then the brain gives permission.
38:43
Yep, tomorrow you don't have to store. You can burn and
38:47
that will affect your appetite as well as how you
38:51
actually use what you're taking in. That was a long answer. Sorry.
38:55
No, I love it. That's great. This is what we're here
38:59
for, is to, to hear how this works.
39:05
And I think metaphors are the perfect way to do it
39:08
because I feel like once we can wrap our minds around
39:12
it, then what you were saying about creating those systems and
39:16
creating a relationship with food and
39:19
light that's different from the one we had before, it becomes more possible
39:23
because the intellectual part of us does
39:27
want to be satisfied. I always say my, my intellect needs
39:31
like a bone to chew on so I can go and change my habits
39:34
without it interfering too much.
39:38
Doubtless you've heard the phrase, when you know better, you do better.
39:43
Yeah. And to have enough to understand why.
39:47
And because at the end of the day that changing our
39:50
light is not that hard. I mean, when
39:54
you think about all the other things people think they have to do to lose
39:57
weight, you know,
40:00
mitigating bright light at night and going outside in the morning is
40:04
like actually just thinking about like, compared to
40:08
gastric bypass surgery or liposuction or
40:12
marathons or whatever people think they have to do.
40:15
Yeah, it's actually pretty straightforward.
40:20
And sometimes I think that's the issue. Like it's too simple, but like, no, it
40:23
should be more like, should be more complicated, but
40:27
not really. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
40:31
I have nothing to say. Well, it can be complicated because right
40:35
now, you know, it's dark at 5:30 in the evening and
40:39
only gets light at 7 or something in the morning over here. So.
40:43
So the social clock, unfortunately is the same all year round. The solar
40:47
clock changes as we progress through the
40:50
seasons. And that has to, you know, you have to sort of think about that
40:53
a little bit. So. And it is quite. I mean, I struggle with it
40:57
myself a little bit. What to do in the morning. I get up at 6,
41:01
make my son breakfast and it's dark. So what am I gonna do about
41:05
my light environment? So what do you do?
41:09
Well, currently. Well, last year, last winter I was
41:13
being very, very
41:17
diligent about wearing my blue blockers and
41:20
using just this, for instance, this little beacon here. It's a no blue
41:24
beacon from your friends.
41:28
Friends at block blue light. But it's really handy this
41:32
and sort of not quite
41:37
finding my way in the dark but under these dim circles and then once the
41:40
sun comes up, getting outside
41:44
this winter, I'm not being as consistent or diligent, I have to say.
41:49
So I'm using one of those bulbs that emits at least a full
41:52
spectrum of visible light to kind of
41:55
replicate that light. Although I'm fully aware that
41:59
it's maybe not even a tenth as strong as
42:03
the sun's daylight, so it
42:07
won't have the same effect. But yeah,
42:10
I know of a great panel that I think you've had
42:15
him, Ken Seeder on the podcast. Yeah. So his
42:19
Solite photonutrition panel, I'm a big
42:22
fan because it's 13,000 lux,
42:28
powerful, full range, not just visible
42:31
balanced visible light, but also into the near infrared.
42:36
So, you know, almost as close to as about as close
42:40
to the sun as you can get from a tech device perhaps.
42:44
And then you can switch it into a red and infrared lamp
42:48
panel for therapy later
42:51
on. So I want to get myself one of them, but I haven't got around
42:54
to it. That would be the perfect for winter. That'd be perfect. Yeah,
42:58
those are great. And yeah, Ken Seder's lights are
43:01
great. It's a non profit organization and
43:05
he worked alongside John Ott back in the day. So
43:10
yeah, great product. I'm happy to support, support him. And, and I agree and
43:14
I love you explaining that because yes, you know, we, we, we have life,
43:17
we, our children go to school, we. There are certain things that,
43:21
I mean, I know people who have opted out completely and, and
43:25
run their own schedules and I have deep respect for that. But
43:30
not all of us have chosen to do that. But what I'm hearing you
43:33
say is that there are ways to make choices that are at least
43:38
keeping in mind the circadian aspects.
43:41
And so even if we can't at this
43:45
moment rearrange our schedule, we can not
43:49
look at our phone first, we can at least have a full spectrum bulb or
43:52
something. Approximating. Approximating
43:56
what we could be getting outside and.
44:00
Yeah, and I think it's. I really do encourage people to, you know, work with
44:04
a practitioner who understands this because. Cause there are nuances to it
44:08
and it's just so important. So that's the message. It
44:12
matters. It doesn't have to be perfect, and
44:18
it could be the best you can do. We don't have any purity
44:21
tests here. Whatever. Every small step counts.
44:26
Cracking your car window on the morning drive.
44:31
Putting on the blue blockers like you're wearing when you watch TV at
44:35
night. Like all these little things. All right, cool.
44:39
So thank you so much for that. I think you have given, like, a really
44:42
solid overview. I hope that all of the
44:46
husbands and boyfriends who are. And dads who are having this episode
44:50
shared with them feel seen. Okay.
44:54
You're. It's, you know, life is life and things happen.
44:57
So if you're not feeling or looking how you'd like to
45:01
be, there's lots of, lots of possibilities in the world
45:06
to do things differently and feel good.
45:10
And Rodrick's a great guide for that.
45:13
So. Okay, so tell me, you've been
45:17
waiting, haven't you? Yeah, I've been waiting. I'm like, okay, I've got to
45:21
cover them. We got to do the foundational pieces.
45:24
So you're just casually mentioning that you had your
45:28
biophoton emissions measured. Yeah. I
45:32
didn't know you could do that. Yeah, well, you can't just do it anywhere. I
45:36
was gonna say, what's going on in Prague?
45:39
Well, yeah, so
45:43
there I was watching a lecture in the Light
45:47
right now, the Guy Foundation. If you know anybody who wants to get into
45:50
this, it's. Maybe you're like
45:54
several levels advanced. Well, doesn't matter. Guy Foundation. The Guy
45:57
foundation is amazing. That. That is deep science, friends. So if.
46:01
If that's what you need, go there. If you need the deep science, go to
46:05
see. Go see the Guy Foundation. But, you know, you had
46:08
Bob Fosbury on. On recently. I just listened to his.
46:12
To the. You know, he's. I could listen to him hundreds of times. There's always
46:15
something you. But anyway, he was giving a lecture in the spring sort of
46:19
autumn series currently ongoing, on Light.
46:23
And introducing the talk was this
46:26
Czech researcher scientist called Dr.
46:30
Michael Tiffre. And I thought, bloody hell, he's here in Prague.
46:34
I should just reach out and contact him. And in that quantum
46:38
way, as it happened, well, I reached out to him on LinkedIn. Just say, hello,
46:41
are we connected, etc. And as it happened,
46:44
a Few weeks later, the Czech Academy of Sciences had its week
46:48
of open house for the Czech Academy of Sciences,
46:52
various locations. And the
46:56
Institute of Photonics and electronics, where Dr.
46:59
Sifra has his lab, had
47:03
also excursions and lectures there. So I
47:07
signed up free of charge. It was great. Let him know that I was coming,
47:10
that I'd say hello, you know, poor guy. And. Yeah, and so
47:14
I went to see, you know, what was put on for the public and I
47:17
knocked on his door and we got talking and I said, yeah, be really
47:21
cool actually, because his research is around
47:25
ultra weak photon emissions. That means the light that is
47:28
created in your body all the time,
47:32
what it's for, how to measure it, what it's good for, etc. And
47:35
trying to understand it. So that is a large part of his work. The rest
47:39
of his lab also is looking at how to use microwave
47:42
EMF to modulate. They're looking
47:46
particularly at microtube tubules in the cells. So that's very
47:49
interesting too. But anyway, he's
47:53
real expert on
47:57
ultra weak photonic emissions. Your own
48:00
biophotons. Right. So for people just joining
48:04
the party, our body actually emits light.
48:09
So that does tie back into how light is so important. I mean, we are.
48:13
It has been shown with. You can't see it with the naked eye, but
48:16
it has been shown that we are giving off
48:20
what is called ultra weak biophoton emissions. And
48:24
so this guy has a lab where he studies those. Exactly.
48:28
And yeah, and he's done some interesting papers and posters and research on the topic.
48:32
And I said, it'd be really cool, you know, at some point if I, if
48:36
I would be able to like measure my own biophotons. So he
48:39
said, well, yeah, okay, let's. Let's go and do it. So
48:44
I went into this. Yeah, it's absolutely cool. The guy is really nice as well.
48:47
So. Yeah, and
48:51
one of his research team took me into this dark room.
48:55
There was a big black box with a cuff, a sleeve,
48:58
black sleeve. She said, you know, put your hand in there. Then there's a
49:02
sensor, there's a place to rest your hand. And. Yeah, and so
49:06
they switched it on. And on the laptop next to me in some software, there
49:10
was literally this graph that was demonstrating how many
49:13
photons per second was coming off the skin of my hand.
49:17
It was about 30 to 40 photons per second. Wow,
49:21
it was so cool. That's so cool. We are
49:25
so cool. Humans are so amazing. Like what?
49:30
Well, I don't think it's just humans. I mean, mammals at Least do the same,
49:33
I'm sure. Biology in general, living
49:36
systems. So, so what are they
49:41
studying in terms of biophotons and do they have any
49:45
theories? Have they. You know, are there ranges
49:48
where they, like, oh, you have, you have lots of biophotons
49:52
emitting or less. Right. It's, it's. I don't think,
49:56
you know, the various work or the
50:00
labs around the world that are looking at this have got
50:04
as far as that. But Michal did say that
50:07
he's a few months away from developing a product where it
50:11
could be in a clinical setting at least, used to measure
50:14
biophotons. And because there's a correlation between the
50:18
amount of photons being released and
50:22
oxidative stress that it could be,
50:26
at least it would be one way of gathering data
50:31
to then see. Can measuring your biophotons
50:35
tell you anything about the level of oxidative stress
50:38
in the subject by way of explanation?
50:43
It's generally thought that the more photon emissions
50:47
that are cap. More photons you're emitting, the higher the
50:51
oxidative stress at that point in time,
50:54
at least. Because, of course, oxidative stress is present all the time and
50:58
it goes up and down. So potentially, and
51:01
I'm working with a longevity clinic here in Prague that,
51:06
so we'll be talking about this soon, is, you know, how could
51:10
this possibly be used as another advanced,
51:14
another advanced way of, you know, potentially
51:18
measuring via the chronic or the
51:21
oxidative stress in someone their biological
51:25
age as well? Because there are lots of different ohmics
51:28
and telomeres and that sort of thing. Perhaps measuring
51:32
your biophotonic emissions would have something would be
51:36
able to tell us something about that. So, you know, maybe Michael would
51:40
be something we could have on your, on your, on your podcast, actually. Yeah, no,
51:43
I'd love to. I was going to say, I got his contact info. Yeah.
51:47
Because. Yeah, the way I've heard it described is that as we
51:51
age, our cells leak light at a
51:54
higher rate and when we're young and healthy, we keep
51:58
it more, keep it inside of us and it's a little
52:02
tighter. Is that related? That's a very useful
52:05
shortcut for people who don't know about
52:09
what's going on at this level. Because I would say from
52:13
what I know, that is essentially true, but we're going back to the
52:16
mitochondria. That's why we start to get fat and irritable, sorry,
52:21
having cognitive decline and autoimmune and
52:25
cosmetic skin rashes and this sort of thing as we get older, because
52:29
more and more of the mitochondria in our cells are starting to
52:32
function less efficiently. And when they start to function as efficiently because they're
52:36
somehow damaged or the electron transport plane is blocked, then you get all
52:40
these electrons spinning, falling off and
52:44
reacting. Because oxygen is highly reactive. You know, if you've set fire to something with,
52:47
with a match, you know, oxygen is reactive, that is starting
52:51
to react with the molecules and proteins
52:55
and things that are around in the cell and in the mitochondria itself. So
52:58
there's. And this of course, damages the mitochondria and the cell and all the other
53:02
organelles and things inside the cell, which creates a chain reaction of more
53:06
and more of this happening, like fireworks. You can imagine it. So the more of
53:10
these start to do this, then you can reach a
53:13
threshold within the cell where the cell will actually then collapse. The
53:17
cell membrane will collapse and it'll spill out and start it all over again somewhere
53:20
else. And therefore it's like an avalanche of this oxidative
53:24
stress, as it's called. This. This.
53:28
Yeah, the oxidize oxidation of molecules in the cell.
53:31
And at some point, of course, cells make up tissues,
53:35
tissues make up organs, so it'll start affecting
53:39
the organs in which this is going on. So whether it could be a pancreas,
53:42
be it could a kidney, a brain, heart, et cetera.
53:46
So yes, so as we age, this happens naturally at a certain
53:49
speed. But as we've discussed, the
53:53
modern lifestyle actually has so many insults to our cellular
53:57
biology that actually we are. Now we talk about the
54:00
pandemic of obesity, of heart disease, etc. It's a pandemic of
54:04
accelerated aging simply. And it's, you know, you can see
54:08
this now that people are being diagnosed with cancers, unfortunately, at a younger
54:11
age, with all sorts of these chronic diseases
54:15
of lifestyle at younger and
54:18
ages, simply the way the rate that humans are
54:23
aging is accelerating. So instead of getting it at 60 or 70,
54:26
you're getting at 40 or 50, et cetera, or even younger.
54:31
And as this cellular, basically
54:34
fireworks build up inside you. One of
54:38
the ways we make this light is
54:42
when this oxidation process happens, you excite the electron into
54:46
a higher energy state and when it comes back to the lower energy
54:50
state, it releases a photon. So that's how they're made.
54:53
Most of them are absorbed within the body. But of course, if you're measuring the
54:57
skin, then you've got a chance of actually picking them up on a
55:01
specific special
55:04
thing, measuring device. But I don't know anything about the
55:08
engineering behind this, but which is What I did.
55:12
So that was a long answer. But yes, as we age, our
55:16
cells start to get less functional as well,
55:19
producing more, more light.
55:24
Incredible. Yeah, it's going to be, I think, very
55:28
interesting as our capacity to measure that
55:31
increases and understand the links between,
55:36
between all of this. That's, that's a practical,
55:40
real world use. But whatever, you know, for me the intellectual
55:44
challenge is not for me but for others to do. But I want to
55:48
understand it, thanks to their work, is what
55:52
is going on? Why are we producing this light? You know, what is it doing?
55:56
And you can hypothesize that because
56:00
we know that there are very many
56:04
molecules in our body that react to different spectra of light.
56:08
Then is this light
56:11
signaling to these other molecules in the near vicinity
56:15
at certain frequencies of light to do things? Is this
56:19
actually. The micro tubules actually
56:23
can channel the light so from one part of the cell to the other, from
56:27
one part of the cell to the other to the next cell through the body.
56:30
So it's doing something. It's not just there by accident.
56:35
So that's what I would really like to know, but hopefully I'll live
56:39
for this science to have been,
56:44
what's the word? Diligently and rigorously studied, maybe.
56:48
Yes, well, I think it's happening. I mean, I'm
56:52
been getting emails and finding new quantum biology
56:57
labs popping up all over the place. And this
57:00
lab, it probably doesn't use the term quantum biology, but that is what
57:04
they're doing. And I think that
57:08
investors are starting to see the potential in it
57:11
for technological innovations and
57:17
healing devices and so forth. So I have, I feel pretty
57:21
good, we're going to learn some really cool stuff in the next decade.
57:25
Yeah, yeah. And just by meeting
57:28
Michal, apart from measuring my photons, you know, he's just based on
57:32
a post I was doing about this experience, he sent me about eight or nine
57:35
really interesting papers to read about it. So, you know, and
57:39
then, you know, his lab runs monthly, I think,
57:43
lecture with other researchers in different parts of the world. So I've just, I'm
57:47
halfway through this amazing lecture by this, I can't remember his name.
57:51
I'm very sorry, sorry, sorry, sir, from Canada,
57:55
who's now research, you know, the first 20 minutes is all about,
57:59
you know, the quantum supposed and
58:03
already elicited discovered
58:06
quantum effects, you know, in biological systems. So you know, this
58:10
quantum effect of how, you know, elect light tunnels
58:14
within the, the, the, I can't
58:17
really call it now, but anyway, the leaf of a plant before it finds, you
58:21
know, that the to then attach to a
58:24
chloroplast. I don't know much about plants, but
58:29
anyway, so that. That seems to be. To demonstrate quantum
58:33
effects in that. It's just. It's
58:36
wonderful. Beautiful. That's amazing. Yeah, I'd love.
58:40
We'll track down that. We'll track down that video and put it in the
58:43
show notes because that sounds really cool.
58:48
Yeah, it is. We've reached a point, it
58:51
feels like, where we have just started to develop the
58:55
technology to measure these things. So it could have been
58:58
said theoretically, of course, there are quantum effects
59:03
running living organisms, running living systems. But
59:07
now we can actually. I mean, to my. What. From
59:10
what I understand, we can actually see it. It's been imaged
59:15
and it's. There is imaging of quantum tunneling that I
59:18
think was around 2019 or something. I don't know
59:22
if it was in a leaf, but the actual act of it. Okay,
59:27
I don't know about that. I thought the problem with quantum
59:30
effects is that the. The observer is part of the
59:34
quantum universe. So the observer impacts and
59:38
influences the thing that he's trying or she's trying to measure. So that's
59:42
a slight problem. Yeah, I don't really know how
59:45
we get around that, because the quantum universe seems to know. Even if
59:49
it's just a machine and there is no consciousness around, it still
59:53
knows it's getting measured, doesn't it?
59:57
Yeah, exactly. That's part of the problem. But. Yeah, well, Michal
1:00:00
himself, you know, the thing I used was quite an expensive bit
1:00:04
of kit, but he said there's another piece of
1:00:08
technology that they use for. To measure actually the
1:00:12
whole body. You have to sit there for five hours. But I've seen
1:00:15
images of it, and this is
1:00:19
even more expensive and complicated technology, but it exists.
1:00:24
If you need someone to sit there for five hours and measure photons,
1:00:28
I will do it. I'll be your guinea pig. You know, happy to. So.
1:00:31
Oh, that'd be great. Oh, I'm very excited to
1:00:35
know that we've got technology where we can start
1:00:39
gathering a lot of biophoton emission data.
1:00:44
So fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I should. I'll definitely
1:00:48
tell him, you know, about today's podcast and I'll
1:00:52
ask him if I can pass on his contact to you because he's. He would
1:00:55
be an interesting person to talk. Yeah, I'd
1:00:59
love to talk about him. What. Where the technology and
1:01:03
level of understanding is today. Yes.
1:01:07
Yeah. No, this has been so super fun. Is there anything you'd like to
1:01:11
add, Roderick, or any. Any last thoughts? We've
1:01:15
covered a lot of ground today. I feel like.
1:01:20
Well, what would I add? I mean, to the.
1:01:24
The male partners of your female audience, but also to the ladies who
1:01:28
are watching and to the gentlemen who are watching, I would say
1:01:32
that you don't have to understand all this in great detail.
1:01:36
You do need to have an interest a
1:01:40
little bit to a certain degree, to be open and receptive to
1:01:43
the things that, you know, you hear Meredith's
1:01:48
guests talking about week in, week out, because
1:01:53
what we have been, and I was for almost my entire life, you
1:01:57
know, trained to think that it's all about calories in, calories out,
1:02:02
move more, eat less. Whether it be weight loss or health or whatever it
1:02:06
might be you're striving to achieve in your health. It's not the whole
1:02:10
picture, and it's only when you actually change your perspective.
1:02:15
We're not steam engines. We have these trillions of
1:02:18
little things in us that actually
1:02:22
are far more complex and sophisticated than any kind of steam engine,
1:02:27
and they require certain things. And then when you start to. But again, the things
1:02:30
you do are actually quite reasonable. You know, it's getting out in the
1:02:34
morning sun, it's making sure you're getting some sunlight during
1:02:38
the day. It's about keeping a
1:02:41
steady bedtime, a consistent bedtime.
1:02:45
It's about, you know, making sure it's pitch black in your eye. They're not
1:02:49
crazy, crazy things. While they may well
1:02:53
be having quantum effects within you, you don't have to understand them
1:02:57
and you will see the difference. And, yeah,
1:03:01
so it's not too late. Never too late
1:03:05
to start. I love that
1:03:09
it is never too late and it makes a difference for most
1:03:13
people quite quickly. So thank you so much,
1:03:16
Roderick. And how can, how can people find
1:03:20
you? So, yeah, I post
1:03:23
pretty much daily on LinkedIn.
1:03:27
I spend a lot of time preparing posts and it's. Yeah, but I just
1:03:31
really enjoy it and I'm always learning new, fascinating stuff. I just feel I have
1:03:34
to share. And it's difficult for my audience because it's not always about what they
1:03:37
want, you know, losing fat or having more energy.
1:03:42
So that's my challenge. I have a lot of
1:03:45
nerds on. LinkedIn who love reading all your random stuff.
1:03:50
Yeah, well. Yeah, well,
1:03:54
yeah. Roderick Lambert on LinkedIn. I have a
1:03:57
links page, midlifemetabolichealth.com where they have
1:04:01
got a bunch of free resources you can get or sign up. There's
1:04:05
even a slightly oddball health quiz you might want to
1:04:09
try, see where you're at. It doesn't ask you most of the questions there.
1:04:12
You won't be asked at your GP or your doctor.
1:04:18
And I'm on Facebook and Instagram as well. Midlife Metabolic
1:04:22
Health. Roderick Lambert as well. And otherwise, you can
1:04:26
DM me through any of these platforms and I'll be very happy to have
1:04:30
a chat with you about anything at all, actually.
1:04:36
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
1:04:39
I very much enjoy your posts on LinkedIn, so thank you
1:04:43
for taking the time to do that and reading all this research and then
1:04:47
being able to talk about it in a way that those of us
1:04:50
who majored in English can understand.
1:04:54
If it's any consolation, I have a bachelor's degree in
1:04:59
music, so. And if I can understand it,
1:05:03
then anybody else can. Right? Yes. And that's.
1:05:06
And that's a great message. You know, this stuff is,
1:05:10
you know, getting right down into the weeds
1:05:14
can be a bit much, but there are some great takeaways that anybody can
1:05:18
understand if they choose to pay a little bit of
1:05:21
attention and listen to people like Roderick. All right, thank
1:05:25
you so much. We'll do it again. Thank you, Meredith. Yep.
1:05:29
Take care. Bye. Bye.