Yes, you can be insulin resistant with normal blood sugar, because glucose is the last marker to rise while fasting insulin climbs first, and a fasting insulin under 5 is the target almost nobody tests.

• What to do: Ask for fasting insulin, hemoglobin A1C and fasting glucose, then check your waist to hip ratio and body composition instead of trusting glucose alone.
• Why it matters: One patient had glucose under 110 after two colas worth of sugar yet an insulin near 300, and doctors who test only glucose miss many cases.
• How to apply it: Cut starch and sugar, eat protein, fat and 30 grams of fiber, walk 10 to 20 minutes after meals, lift weights, sleep well and fast 12 to 14 hours overnight.
• Metrics: Fasting glucose 70 to 90, fasting insulin under 5, A1C about 5.0 to 5.2, post meal glucose under 110 to 120, waist to hip ratio under 0.8 for men and 0.9 for women.
• Tools: Function Health tests with an insulin resistance score from 0 to 100, a continuous glucose monitor for a few weeks and a tape measure.
• Risks: Statins, sleep apnea, chronic stress and artificial sweeteners can worsen insulin resistance or cravings.
• Exceptions: A glucose spike after eating is normal, and thin people can still carry hidden fat, so body composition matters more than weight.

Bone mineral density predicts only about 70% of fracture risk because a two-dimensional DEXA misses bone shape, and lifting challenging loads can thicken the femoral neck cortex even when hip density barely changes.

• What to do: Do two strength sessions a week built on a squat, hinge, push, pull and carry, add balance moves and keep up daily activity such as walking, dancing or shoveling.
• Why it matters: Bone mass peaks in your 20s and about 5% of the skeleton is remodeled every year, so the goal after 65 is to hold on to bone and prevent falls.
• How to apply it: Use 8 to 12 repetitions, pick difficulty rather than maximum weight, try walking lunges and step-ups, and add a few sets of 10 to 12 small hops if your joints allow.
• Metrics: BMD explains about 70% of fracture risk, FRAX estimates 10 year fracture probability, and CTX and P1NP track bone resorption and formation.
• Tools: DEXA with 3D hip analysis, FRAX, a machine circuit for beginners, Function Health tests, Prolon and Momentous creatine appear in the episode.
• Risks: Calling an X-ray bone on bone can scare people away from exercise, and heavy loads with poor form raise injury risk for beginners.
• Exceptions: For someone using a walker with severe arthritis, the goal is function and fall prevention, not bone density.

You can keep doing hard things by switching between several drivers instead of relying on one, as ultra endurance swimmer Ross Edgley did over a 157 day swim around Great Britain, a 56 hour Yukon swim and 30 marathons in 30 days.

• What to do: Name your spokes before a hard task: because I said I would, fear of letting people down, love, anger, doing it for others, gratitude for what you can do and the absurd hero mindset.
• Why it matters: The anterior mid-cingulate cortex reportedly grows when you do hard things and shrinks when you avoid them, and one driver alone tends to fail during long, painful efforts.
• How to apply it: Focus on the next stroke or step instead of the clock, lower the stakes in your head when pressure builds, protect deep sleep and switch spokes when one fades.
• Metrics: Edgley swam almost 2,000 miles in about 157 days, 317 miles of the Yukon in 56 hours went 70 hours without sleep on the Yukon expedition and uses his pull-up one rep max as a strength reserve.
• Tools: Electrolytes, a glucose wearable, a temperature regulating mattress cover and a protein snack are mentioned as sponsor products, not as part of the model.
• Risks: Motives such as anger or ego can fuel you, but Edgley found records alone felt shallow and sleep loss can drain dopamine and serotonin.
• Exceptions: In ultra endurance an imperfect stroke is fine, while high stakes in precision tasks can overload the motor system and hurt performance.

A registered dental hygienist names four 2026 favorites they use and recommend to patients: the Quip Rev oscillating toothbrush, GUM Professional Clean floss picks, Sensodyne Clinical Repair toothpaste and the Quip rechargeable cordless water flosser.

• What to do: Choose an affordable oscillating toothbrush, durable floss picks that do not fray and a sensitivity toothpaste with enamel remineralization, then add a water flosser if you want extra cleaning.
• Why it matters: Technique decides results. Guide an electric brush slowly from tooth to tooth and never scrub, and floss by hugging the tooth up and down on each side.
• How to apply it: Subscribe to brush head refills every 3 months, keep floss picks in your bag, car and desk, and start the water flosser on its gentle mode before moving to deep clean pressure.
• Tools: Quip Rev, GUM Professional Clean Floss Picks, Sensodyne Clinical Repair and the Quip water flosser.
• Risks: The Sensodyne version they use contains SLS, which can irritate some mouths. Check the label for an SLS-free option if you have irritation.
• Exceptions: Sensodyne costs more than some pastes, and the water flosser category is crowded, so compare options if budget matters.

Brain scans of people who were overweight or obese looked about 8 years older, and low estrogen, testosterone or thyroid hormone also sped up brain aging, so fixing metabolism, hormones and nutrition can visibly restore brain structure.

• What to do: Treat the brain through the body. Track cardiometabolic health, hormones and nutrients, and add a brain MRI with quantitative analysis plus Alzheimer's blood markers when family history or age 50 to 60 makes them relevant.
• Why it matters: Brain changes can show up about 30 years before Alzheimer's, and around 60% of people diagnosed with dementia have cardiometabolic problems. Scans show recovery after nutrition is restored, as in anorexia, where the brain improved most.
• How to apply it: Get a broad blood panel that includes vitamin D, iron, omega 3, heavy metals, insulin, thyroid, sex hormones, homocysteine and methylmalonic acid, then retest after changes to see your trend.
• Metrics: Alzheimer's incidence doubles every 5 years after age 70, from about 5% at 70 to 10% at 75 and 20% at 80. One APOE4 copy roughly triples risk, and two copies (about 6% of people) raise it 9 to 10 times. Key markers include p tau 217, amyloid beta 42/40, neurofilament light and GFAP.
• Tools: Functional MRI, PET, NeuroQuant brain age and brain charts, plus the Function Health panel. Sponsors named in the episode: Bon Charge red light mask, Paleovalley bars, Timeline Mitopure, Seed DS 01, BiOptimizers magnesium and Fatty15.
• Risks: A single marker or a normal structural MRI can miss the problem, because many psychiatric conditions show up in function, not structure. Imaging is more controversial than blood work.
• Exceptions: Only about 2% of Alzheimer's cases are directly genetic. APOE4 tilts risk but is not destiny, and its effect varies by ancestry.

Humans are far more olfactory than they admit: after a handshake people sniff their own hands, and invisible body odor can predict friendship, spread fear and cut men's free testosterone by about 14% within 20 to 30 minutes.

• What to do: Treat smell as a real social channel. Notice the hand-to-face sniffing that follows handshakes and give some weight to first impressions that "just click", because odor similarity predicted how friendly strangers rated each other.
• Why it matters: About 7 million receptors of roughly 350 types feed the olfactory bulb, which connects directly to the amygdala and hypothalamus, so odor can shift arousal, aggression and hormones without conscious awareness.
• How to apply it: Read "pheromone" claims with caution and use the term chemosignals instead. Remember that baby odor (hexadecanal) lowered aggression in men but raised it in women, so the same signal does not act the same way in everyone.
• Metrics: 14% drop in free testosterone after sniffing tears; 15 of 16 people identified digitized violets; a perceptual map of 4,000 molecules.
• Tools: Electronic nose with metal oxide sensors, the Taylor Aggression Paradigm and fMRI.
• Risks: Smell digitization is at the "1956 black and white TV" stage; rose and anise recreations failed, so do not expect products from it soon.
• Exceptions: Odor similarity predicted friendship ratings but not performance in the mirror game, and the tear effect was shown for men sniffing women's tears.

Fasting feeds Akkermansia, a gut bacterium that eats the intestinal mucus layer, and with no fiber or polyphenols competing for its attention it can overgrow and thin that lining, which fits a Swedish study of about 4,200 people linking high Akkermansia on a low fiber diet to higher type 2 diabetes odds.

• What to do: Stay in the Goldilocks zone. Pair fasting with polyphenol and resistant starch foods such as berries, apple peel and crucifers, and vary your foods instead of repeating the same ones every day.
• Why it matters: Biology follows a U shaped curve, so even a good thing like fasting can drift out of balance over time through accumulation, degradation, attenuation and compensation. Akkermansia is good in balance and harmful when it has only the gut lining to eat.
• How to apply it: Eat foraging style foods the day before a fast (berries, resistant starch, crucifers, lower protein), keep fasts shorter, and treat a small handful of berries during a fast as acceptable. Do not take probiotics daily as a rule. Consider a few weeks only after antibiotics.
• Metrics: About 20 types of mucin are produced in the body. Apple peel carries very long procyanidin chains of roughly 30,000 units. Count calories weekly if at all, not daily.
• Tools: Element 500 mg sodium cans, with 100 mg potassium and 30 mg magnesium, no sugar and no caffeine, sipped through a fast. A CGM and ketone monitor can show how small foods affect you.
• Risks: Repeated long fasts can trigger hyperphagia, a binge urge that grows with a big meal. Daily antioxidants may blunt useful signaling after exercise, and carnivore style diets can raise Akkermansia without fiber to balance it.
• Exceptions: Akkermansia works best when your levels are low. Older adults tend to have more Akkermansia but fewer Bifidobacteria, which can strain the immune system.

An average American spends about 12.5 of their final years sick, disabled or in a nursing home, and this video blames chronic inflammation and chronic disease rather than age, which ten habits can push back.

• What to do: Pick one to three of the ten habits and start tonight: get labs, eat fat and animal protein first, cut sugar, grains and seed oils, lift something heavy two or three times a week and sleep at least 7 hours.
• Why it matters: Visceral fat is the most dangerous fat, and in a British Medical Journal study the weakest grip carried about one and two thirds the risk of death of the strongest grip.
• How to apply it: Measure your waist and height with a tape, take private photos every one to three months, fast 12 to 14 hours before blood tests, skip snacks, stand up and sit down every 10 to 15 minutes and raise the head of your bed.
• Metrics: Hemoglobin A1C, fasting insulin, triglycerides, HDL, hs-CRP, vitamin D 25, sex hormones, waist-to-height ratio, five timed floor rises and 10 seconds on each leg.
• Tools: A tailor's tape, light dumbbells, red bricks or 2 by 4 blocks under the bed legs and the Proper Human Diet community for accountability.
• Risks: Snacks of any kind, seed oils, alcohol and sugary breakfasts keep insulin and inflammation high.
• Exceptions: Some people do fine on 6.5 hours of sleep, and a first step can be as small as walking to the mailbox.

Supplements work best as the third layer after behavior and nutrition, and the smartest move is to test one single ingredient formula at a time for about a week, because that is how you find the minimum effective dose and drop whatever does nothing for you.

• What to do: Answer three questions first: how well do you sleep, how good is your nutrition and what is your budget. With about $100 a month or more, start with a broad foundational formula (vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, probiotics, prebiotics, adaptogens).
• Why it matters: No supplement or drug can make up for poor sleep, light exposure, exercise and food for long. Ingredients also behave differently in different people, and the ideal dose for you may even be zero.
• How to apply it: For sleep, avoid caffeine after 2 p.m. and food in the last 2 hours. To fall asleep faster, try magnesium threonate or apigenin for one week each. For waking at night, consider 900 mg myo inositol. For focus, keep stimulants (caffeine) separate from neuromodulators (alpha GPC 300 to 600 mg, L tyrosine 500 to 1,000 mg).
• Metrics: Aim for more than 1 g of EPA a day from fish oil. Fadogia agrestis is around 600 mg a day, cycled 8 weeks on and 2 off, or 12 weeks on and 1 month off. Tongkat ali is around 200 to 600 mg a day, with blood work after 8 to 12 weeks. Protein is about 1 g per pound of body weight.
• Tools: Examine.com for ingredient forms, and a high quality omega 3 as the single most impactful supplement.
• Risks: Fadogia agrestis can be toxic to testicular cells at high doses, alpha yohimbine can cause strong anxiety, and melatonin doses are far above natural levels and may not keep you asleep.
• Exceptions: Skip theanine if intense dreams wake you at night. Women should expect some supplements to act differently across the menstrual cycle. Always check with a physician before changing any protocol.

Sauerkraut is not a probiotic: a probiotic is a specific strain with a known genome and clinical or randomized trial evidence, while the live microbes in sauerkraut, kimchi or kombucha are just live microbes, and only some yogurt brands list strains backed by evidence.

• What to do: Pick supplements or yogurts that print the strain name, take them with food and swap products if you notice no change after a trial period. Eat varied fiber and a mix of ferments such as yogurt, kefir, sourdough, tempeh and sauerkraut.
• Why it matters: Strains of the same species can act oppositely (EHEC E. coli vs the harmless E. coli in your gut), and a 37 study review of fermented dairy found benefits for gut symptoms, serum TNF alpha and gut barrier function.
• How to apply it: Store probiotics cool, dry and away from oxygen. If you avoid dairy, use plant-based yogurt, water kefir or kvass, whose microbes also survive in the gut. Treat commercial stool tests as information, and talk to a doctor or dietitian about persistent symptoms.
• Metrics: 37 fermented dairy studies; kimchi vs cabbage over 3 weeks; fecal calprotectin for inflammation and zonulin for gut wall function.
• Tools: Strain labels and the US probiotic guideline; stool tests only to detect pathogens such as C. diff.
• Risks: Wrongly handled food can carry Clostridium botulinum, and washing produce does not remove all pathogens.
• Exceptions: Most microbes pass through rather than settle, so the benefit depends on regular intake.