In this episode, Lucas Aoun appears on the show to discuss nonsuppressive muscle-building compounds, D-chiro-inositol, Vitamin D, Cortisol, and more.
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In the spirit of Leo’s passion for health, wellness, and a life well-lived, let’s continue to explore, learn, and journey through the fascinating world of biohacking, fitness, and cognitive wellness. Your presence here is not just a subscription; it’s a torchbearer of Leo’s legacy, ensuring his light continues to shine, guide, and inspire future generations.
00:00 Intro
03:40 Underrated Muscle Building Compounds
08:43 D-Chiro Inositol
14:20 Vitamin D
24:02 Cortisol
30:03 Ashwagandha
37:55 GDAs
42:38 Lucas’s Stack
45:10 Nitric Oxide
hello and welcome back to another episode on Leo and Longevity podcast uh today with us I have Lucas a so many of you probably know him from boost your biologies YouTube channel um welcome Lucas uh would you mind introduce yourself a little bit to the audience for those who don’t know you yeah sure well thanks for the um intro well I’m very passionate about biohacking and optimizing human health and you know I’ve been in this space for a number of years now and yeah just really started out with um a Fascination into human biology and um playing professional soccer I was looking at different ways to enhance my performance on the soccer field so I started experimenting with different supplements I started playing around with acetal ALC cartine as my very first like introductory supplement into the health and performance space and you know I fell in love with this whole idea that we can pretty much take control of our biology and then I you know started studying uh naturopathy so you know I’m a fully qualified naturopath that was four years of full-time study and just during that period I got involved in a number of different like startups um I was actually involved in Australia’s first neut Tropic startup so we were the very first um company in Australia selling neut Tropics back then which no one had heard of that term neut Tropic before and it was so unique and novel and foreign and so just from there I then you know expanded out my reach created a YouTube channel you know my own podcast my own Instagram and and until this day my mission is to Showcase new and novel health information that can you know benefit the world nice nice so are you um you you just before we start diving in into more biohacking tips are you you’ve done like naturopathy um I I know in the US there are two different kind they’re like the doctor of naturopathy and then the regular naturopathy is it the same in Australia well yeah Australia is actually a lot less difficult than what from what I’ve heard in the US like for us it’s a it’s a bachelor of Health Science um it is still four years of full-time study but um from what I’ve heard like in the US and even Canada it’s a lot more Technical and difficult to actually achieve that title but yeah in Australia it’s not as well I would say recognized compared to like the US and and Canada yeah because in the US there’s two there there’s the doctor of naturopathy which needs to go to medical school and there there are the naturopath which is a six-month degree you can get online so that’s why like it’s good to make the distinction of like which is what you’re not the six you’re not the six Monon kind of person you studied it for four years that’s correct and even um before I jumped into that course I was actually studying exercise science before that and I was doing I did a year and a half of that exercise science degree um and it was funny because dur in between classes I would be researching herbal medicine and supplements which was not even related to my degree but I was just too passionate about it and then I was like all right well what I’m studying what I’m spending most my time researching is basically a lot of the principles of naturopathy which is like get to the root cause it’s like functional medicine um supplementation nutrition lifestyle and then I’m was like yep makes sense for me to study naturopathy okay so during our conversations um you talked about some underrated muscle building compounds that are non-suppressive but would you mind elaborating on which one are those because I’m sure the audience would love to know sure well first of all when it comes to different supplements in the you know Sports Performance space we have a range of different you know um forms and different types amino acids different vitamins different um compounds out there and one in particular that I don’t see you know talked about that often is a metabolite of the amino acid Lucine now before I get into this the main emphasis and objective is to look for or utilize compounds that can be taken by Men Who do not want to suppress their natural testosterone production so these are non-suppressive compounds and these are highly desired by a number of men because they want to use things that they can um you know take consistently that won’t actually shut down their production of testosterone or affect DHT or estrogen and things like that and so one of those that fits that criteria is hmb which is better hydroxy better methylate so it’s a metabol of the amino acid Lucine and it’s been studied for many decades and specifically in humans hmb has been widely used as an ergogenic supplement um which basically means and that was you know that was the name of my my Instagram which was ergogenic Health you I Lov that that word ergogenic which basically means any supplement that can improve physiological or psychological performance um and so hmb fit that criteria as an oogenic supplement um as a means to increase muscle mass muscle mass and strength um and most of the research has focused on healthy young individuals and in particular athletes to induce muscle buildup and strength um also enhance aerobic performance and resistance to fatigue from exercise so I think hmbb can definitely be considered as a like a Natty supplement that that men can utilize for muscle growth okay any other compound that you think they can like add on to this stack if they want to stay like in the lowkey like supplementation let say from definitely definitely I mean the gold standard when it comes to natural muscle building supplements is creatin monohydrate um there’s a lot of research on monohydrate dosage range from you know five grams per day um but there’s actually a newer form of creatine that I personally think outperforms um creatine monohydrate and there’s actually some pretty impressive research to suggest that this new form of creatine known as ctin c r g a a t i n e um actually is superior to creatine monohydrate because what they’ve done is they’ve combined the precursor of creatine synthesis GAA alongside creatine and they’ve combined them to together and from the research studies it’s quite impressive I mean regular creatine increases muscle creatine by about 2% whereas this catine form leads to an increase by 16.9% which is about 8.5 times more than creatin monohydrate so we’re looking at a we’re just looking at a an advanced form of a supplement that already has you know some robust research in humans um as a means to stimulate muscle growth and even muscle strength as well and I guess the the other really important point to note is that with ctin um it doesn’t only like uh the way in which it actually outperforms creatin is that it uses three additional Pathways to enter the cell including Gaba and toine receptors and even via passive diffusion um and so this is probably what makes it Superior to Crea am monohydrate any increased side effect side effect side effect compared to creatin uh in terms of side effects I mean the the one I wouldn’t say like a side effect but an effect that I noticed early on was actually extremely vivid dreams um because the ga portion actually um fects the creatine production in in the brain and um I was noticing extremely vivid dreams when I was using this ctin form um so that could be you know a potential side effect okay um next uh youve brought up uh the topic of D KIRO inositol I don’t know if I pronounced it properly but I think I do so can you explain like what it is it’s is significance to the body particularly in relation to the 2021 P study on increasing Androgen and reducing estrogen in males so so so um this one here will you know really excite a number of individuals particularly those that are looking for ways to raise Androgen levels and and at the same time reduce estrogen synthesis in the body and so this particular study was titled deyro inositol um an aromatase down modulator in increases androgens and reduces estrogens in male volunteers so each of the 10 volunteers enrolled took this deyro andosol orally so they took it in capsu form at one gram per day for one month now in those that use deyro andosol it was associated with reduced serum levels of estrone by 85% estral went down by 14.4% and it increased serum testosterone levels by 23.4% and also it raised dhaa Levels by 13.8% um and so this is really significant because you know we see a number of like testosterone boosting supplements you see things like Tonka Ali fedos aestus like schilit different herbal supplements and you know they claim to boost testosterone and some of them do but like this is a human clinical trial although you know a small sample size only 10 volunteers yeah is there any other studies because this is like a pile of studies and I I looked into um the study on the kin noal on my own time and it’s mostly studied into women for mostly pcus and type two diabetes but most of the studies I mean I will say 99% of them are on woman subjects so except for this one I couldn’t find any other with M subjects did you find anything else by any chance uh no but it’s a good point you raised because it’s funny because most clinical studies on supplements are usually done on men but in this case like and women are often left out which is a bit unfair for for women’s understanding of their body and stuff which you know this is an important um deficiency or deficit in scientific research but yes you’re right I mean there’s limited research but this this study does seem pretty promising in terms of like there’s quite a lot of studies on PCOS you’re correct because it helps with um insulin sensitivity and so if those insulin sensitivity benefits also translate over into into men then we’ve seen studies that show that compounds that generally support insulin sensitivity can also have a supportive effect on hormonal output and production and also testosterone synthesis so yeah I’d love to see more human studies on and with a larger sample size particularly you know like more than 10 volunteers but you know for those uh early adopters we’d find it pretty pretty exciting yeah and do you know how it compares to any other form of inositol like myo inositol uh well I do know that myo inositol is probably like better studied than this dyo andosol my andosol is very well researched in terms of um modulating the central nervous system assisting with um like uh modulating neurotransmitters and and um even supporting magnesium balance and things like that um but there’s actually there is actually another form of ansol which doesn’t really get spoken about much at all I’ll be doing a video on it soon um it’s called itpp and this one here I’m not sure if um if Leo ever mentioned it on his channel but this this version of anos um itpp is um is one that’s heavily studied in uh horse racing to um improve uh their stamina and endurance and this one is a little bit different it works on red blood cells and different things like that okay so you see it like the world of Dey nozo and nozo in general maybe involving involving in a field of supplements especially for men yeah yeah I mean it wouldn’t surprise me if you know in 3 to 5 years from now we see an explosion of um you know dcyo and noo being included as an ingredient in testosterone boosting formulations it’s it’s really not considered at all right now like I don’t see any supplements on the market currently using dyon nool as a testosterone booster maybe because there’s limited research but hopefully in the next 3 to five years we see more human studies and this would support its use even further have you traded yourself um I’ve actually got some coming in the mail so I’ve I’ve got that many experiments lined up Lucy I find it hard to it’s hard to track and keep up to date but um yeah I’ll definitely be giving it a shot um very soon okay yeah let us know about the side effects that they might have as well because the study was not very comprehensive if I may say so it’s just early on I think in terms of the research um next I want need to touch base on vitamin D and so we often hear that the benefits of vitamin D particularly in supplements form so because there are many studies that have shown Vitamin D supplements can lower likelihood of coal cancers reduce mortality from cancer also help with metabolic syndrome um Leo did a whole um playlist on vitamin D um so how do you reconcile this with the idea of getting Vitamin D naturally as something more effective than supplementation absolutely well when it comes to vitamin D first and foremost the best way to increase vitamin D synthesis in the human body is through sunlight exposure like being exposed to sunlight second to that most people would think okay then if I if I’m in a in an environment or I’m living in a country where there’s minimal sunlight what is the next best thing to raise vitamin D and most people will be like okay I’ll take a vitamin D supplement orally I’ll take it orally swallow the capsule or the pill and and raise my vitamin D levels that way um there is another way to raise vitamin D the other way so it doesn’t work like that actually so that that’s a misconception most people have because vitamin D is actually like processed by the liver and it can be processed two ways it can be processed is by the 125 de hydroxide vitamin D or the 25 hydroxy vitamin D and so because most people are inflame I mean in the US 93% of the population is currently inflamed the vitamin D cannot be processed properly by the liver so they think taking vitamin D would raise their vitamin D levels and often times it’s not the case because they’re highly inflamed sorry I just wanted to mention because people are very prone to vitamin D but they don’t understand like everything starts supplements won’t fix it all like you have to start like changing your lifestyle or absolutely and that’s um like vitamin D can get sequestered in in fat cells is what you’re mentioning and so like if you are carrying excess body weight or or body fat then taking a vitamin D supplement may may not actually be raising blood levels of vitamin D because it’s getting sequestered into fat cells and not being properly utilized like you said through the liver and different things um so definitely supplementation is considered like there are lots of research studies though suggesting that taking vitamin D supplementation can help with immune health and preventing colds and flues and things like that but if we’re lacking sunlight or if somebody doesn’t want to take a vitamin D supplement there’s one particular probiotic strain um lactobacillus ruteri um that one there has been shown to raise blood levels of vitamin D and the other way to do it is also to potentially utilize a vitamin D lamp so you can actually buy these vitamin D lamps at home um which I’m sure you’ve seen the spury vitamin D lamp and that can be used as well as a as a way to stimulate vitamin D synthesis with only 3 to five minutes per day so that’s um another FDA approved medical device yeah I’ve seen it and Leo had had one actually um but another thing that I want to mention regarding vitamin D is that people have to realize that vitamin deficiency in 90% of the case are only for European descent or Caucasian people some Asian also have vitamin D deficiency but for some reason in um African desant they often time don’t have vitamin D deficiency even if they don’t go to the sun I find it like absolutely amazing to see the amount of studies that have shown that and so it’s like sometimes having exposure to the sun doesn’t do at all because your genetics also play a key role into it absolutely and actually uh a quick little bioh hack for those listening in if they want to calculate how much vitamin D they’re they’re actually making by going out in the sun there’s a pretty cool app you can download called DM minder have you heard of that no application it’s a it’s a free application where you can um you can plug in your longitude and latitude on your phone and also input your skin complexion if you’re like dark or or or lighter and it can give it can actually recommend roughly how many minutes you would need to be in the sun to generate let’s say 10,000 IU or 15,000 IU of vitamin D so that’s a pretty cool little quick um Health trick nice nice and can you get into details for those who don’t know about the importance of vitamin D’s that goes beyond bone health and so like do you have a protocol to make sure that you have enough do you supplement with it like what it’s your approach when it comes to vitamin D so first and foremost the most important thing when it comes to vitamin D is to get routine blood testing so this needs to be done at least twice at least twice per year to assess your um 25 hydroxy vitamin D um this is important because levels can fluctuate and they can vary depending upon so many different factors um some people who take vitamin D supplementation even if they take let’s say 5,000 IU daily for let’s say two months some people will not see an increase in their vitamin D they need to take even more um so in terms of its um pleotrophic effects I mean vitamin D it’s actually not a vitamin it’s a hormone it’s it regulates so many different um chemical reactions it it turns on and off genes in the body so it have you know has an effect on um potential you know cancer development uh immune modulation it even helps with um with mood as well vitamin D is crucial for neurotransmitter production it has a suppressive effect on inflammatory pyocin it helps with um you know regulating different longevity Pathways you know actually turning on longevity Associated genes and Pathways so in general it’s definitely a vitamin that you you really make you really want to make sure that you’re not low in year round and particularly when it comes to like the cold and flu season those that have high levels of vitamin D during those periods of time have a decreased risk of you know um like the severity of their flu like if they get the flu they they recover faster okay I don’t think I did check my vitamin D I got very sick during New Year’s Eve and I find it very hard to recover for once and I’m suspicious it’s like one strain of Co I’m not fully sure about I try just recently like 10 days ago yeah I lost my voice completely for like a couple days like I just started like now I think it’s the first day I’m able to talk long term without my voice going down I mean so far it’s working um and I so I did everything I usually do when I get a call like I kicked out like for two days I was in bed then I took all my vitamin supplements you name it tons of gtic uh and I was fine because I helped one of my friend during her New Year’s Eve event so I was like it was okay but the recovery part like I felt still like the sickness was in my body like my throat part like the tiredness and I actually had stopped neuros for a month to see the to see how it will affect me how long the effect will go but I’m starting again because I don’t want to get long form of covid if it was Co I’m not true I stop I’m not going to go get tests just for this but I lost my sense of smell of taste which I usually don’t when I get the cold so that’s how I became suspicious but I so yeah I did all my tests I didn’t check vitamin D levels so before the 90day protocol I started in between the sickness um but that’s something I should to my actually during during that uh during that New Year’s Eve period I mean I also got sick as well um and so did a lot of people around me like they they they actually got like there might have been a strain of Co going around that just seemed to hit a number of people at the same period of time in that period I thought everyone was just burnt out and fatigued after a big year like and everyone’s just crashing and just they’re stopping working and now their body gets sick um but yeah a lot of people around me were getting symptoms of covid like the the dry cough the fatigue it’s the heaviness like the heavy feeling feeling it’s a horrible feeling yeah I know I was not able to do like I felt stuck I was like I’m recovering but I’m not fully there also I couldn’t speak so that’s why I was doing research and I’m not recording anything I like my voice is not there there’s no point yeah yeah same thing in Los Angeles a lot of people got sick even now like pH is still going around um all right next go ahead I might I might actually mention just with that Lucy um one thing that um has helped personally like recover from like that was um pea pmil ethylamide which is like a it’s a oral supplement um paa he got some pretty good anti-inflammatory effects and some actual stuff studies in in in uh preventing long CO as well well somebody recommended me something a bit more controversial but the horse the warmer based I don’t know if you heard of but apparently Trump took um they’re like you should take it I take it every once a month so I’m sure I don’t have Co it’s was like h i do some research on it um I’m not that experimental um so next I want to talk about coral so we know cortisol is very complex hormone it’s my best friend at the same time my worst enemy because it has both like beneficial and detrimental effects so depends on timing uh it serves as anti-inflammatory agent when it’s acute but when it’s chronic you you know it messes everything so giving the complex nature of cortisol um could you share like which supplementation you found the most effective of lowering cortisol levels but particularly when it’s not when it’s only chronically elevated so it doesn’t affect the acute benefits that we have from cortisol yeah absolutely and it’s um it’s important what you’ve said there around the fact that you know we don’t want cortisol to be chronically too low because then we’re missing out on the um important effects that it has on you know inflammatory Pathways the immune system has an immunosuppressive effect um and cortisol has being one hormone that I’ve been very interested in for a long time because actually my cortisol levels as measured through a Dutch test a um which is a most comprehensive assessment for your cortisol output um my cortisol levels have always been actually too low and I would I’ve have always wanted things that can actually increase cortisol so like I feel better when I take things that actually stimulate cortisol um but in if we’re looking at the other way around which is generally more towards like Cushings Disease or like they they’re actually um producing too much cortis they’re under super so much stress you know we we’ve both talked about you know torine big doses of of torine can help with that you know suppressive effect and can help shut off um cortisol production glycine’s another one that you’re you’ve also talked favorably about and I’m also a big fan of but the other um constituents actually from a herb known as polygonian um cusum and that’s um emodin e m o d i n um and aodin has some really powerful effects as like a over-the-counter supplement to suppress cortisol um and actually the formulator um of chemic labs the gorilla chemist I think you may have seen him before um he actually has a supplement called Cy block which has this emodin and that um suppresses 11 11 beta hsd1 so it actually prevents the conversion of the inactive form of cortis cortisone so cortisone into cortisol and it does it very very powerfully and I’ve seen a number of clients who have used this emodin and they’ve used it like about two hours before bedtime and they definitely notice that two hours after dosing they feel more relaxed and tired and sleepy and they sleep really well yeah because cortisol level is highly correlated with also your ciran Rhythm ideally you want a cortisol pick in the morning and you don’t want it in the middle of the night and you don’t want High cortisol before going to bed um is this herb or supplements is it adaptogenic her is it it can be considered yeah it can be considered adaptogenic that that term there adaptogenic is when I was studying you know naturopathy we we learned about that in the first year of our our re research in adaptogenic herbs things like ashwaganda riola ginsing like these are very well studied herbal medicines that have a modulatory effect on the stress response um and emodin e m o d i n if people look that up and they look up um Cy block um they’ll see that supplement and they’ll see that it also has some beneficial effects on um helping with glucose metabolism so know assisting with blood sugar control um and it also helps to improve the immune system it also reduces appetite and also has a funnily enough it actually has a pretty strong La laxative effect so it can actually um get the bowels moving as well I see how did this compare to adaptogenic herbs basically like what I mean I’m trying to say is how effective is this compared to any other way we can can mod cortisol um it’s a good question I mean in terms of um like potency I would say that it’s at least 30 to 40% more potent than something like ashwaganda or um like a big dose of magnesium or perhaps even some of the antistress jinings like um Siberian ginsing might have a anti-stress effect but um if somebody the only person who should be really using this supplement is someone who has tested like they can’t just you know randomly go and take the supplement they have to do a blood test they have to check their cortisol make sure their cortisol was actually very high um do do a Dy do a Dutch test just to make sure because otherwise you know if you make the mistake that I made four or five years ago where I was like just taking every single cortisol lowering supplement before bed and then I woke up feeling like I had no energy that’s what happens when you have no cortisol you have no energy so okay so you just mentioned Nanda and I think I want to touch base onto that um because asang is highly popular for many health benefits I Le can solves everything uh but there are many health concerns so there are health concerns with the Gaba system and also a lot of case report of sudden lior failure uh which is very concerning uh given this risk and I know you talk a lot about Asanda but can you can you explain a bit more about your thought on ashanda if you ever recommended to anyone if so who would be those people and how do you weigh the basically the the benefits of it compared to the risks if there is any way to wait it sure sure so ashro Ganda is classified as an adaptogen so it is considered like an adaptogenic herb it helps to modulate stress it helps to modulate the immune system helps the nervous system but the way in which it does these and the way in which it achieves these effects are not necessarily good for every individual and there’s a number of individuals who have now known noticed the side effect associated with ashwaganda known as anhedonia or a blunting of the pleasure response a numbing of the emotions and this is not a nice side effect uh at least for most people whilst there are some people who welcome the side effect they actually want to feel numb or they want to numb their emotions maybe after a breakup or after a stressful situation they deliberately want to numb their emotions that’s a different story but in terms of you know this this side effect we’re seeing that it can actually last for weeks and even months after stopping usage so let’s say you take ashwana for two weeks or maybe three or four weeks and then you stop taking it a lot of these side effects can actually linger and stay around for a number of weeks even months after stopping um and so this anhedonia effect is what I personally believe to be linked to the serotonin system um it’s specifically desensitizing the serotonin 5hd 1A receptor um which is a and a really challenging thing to reverse and I would actually welcome people who are listening to this video now if anyone has Solutions or has figured out a way to reverse this side effect leave a comment in the video Let’s see if people can help with um you know solving this so I never taken Asanda but I had I have experienced anonia The First Time of My Life um after Leo and I separated and because things got so stressful that my whole body shut down and I was not understanding why I had zero emotion and like everything was flat and it was like you hear about anonia but as soon as you experience it it it’s different like how is this possible like how can you not feel anything like zero and it it made me like my friend were like are you okay I was like I’m just eh num and so I remember talking to Leo about this because we had hided conversation at the time and I was telling him like he’s like you’re not answering I like I don’t I don’t feel like I have zero feeling the zero emotion and I have to I have to have the supplement here but I remember he told me he’s like hey I have one of the supplements go check it take it and it will help with the anonia and it indeed did after a week so I have to figure out it was a research compound I forgot the name of it I just know I have it so I’ll check on my box later I’ll let you guys know but I remember that it it lasted for at least a month and before I was not telling anyone I was just not understanding it at the time and so I can only imagine if people lasted for weeks I mean it was scary I was even doing therapy and telling my therapist like she she had no idea what it was like she’s just French therapist nice for other things but not they don’t understand biology really and I was like I ask me questions like I don’t feel anything I don’t have any feelings emotions nothing I’m completely indifferent and I I got scared after like two or three weeks I was like how long is this going to last like what can I do and at the end I end up taking this compound and helped I I’m sure with time it gets better but I don’t know I can only imagine if people get into that states of anonia and can get out of it how frustrating it must be and how like it’s bad you don’t enjoy anything but you don’t you you don’t have any heartbreak or anything else also depends where you are in life yeah yeah well this is a I mean I mean I’d love for you to share that you know once you figure out the name of that supplement the compound that Leo recommended there would be a num there’s thousands of people who are desperate for a solution so if you make a video you know talk about it um that would be highly desired because too many people are suffering you mentioned it in one of the videos but it’s still like it’s controversial it’s not something I think you want to recommend to people because it doesn’t it’s not for everyone I I’ll find it I’ll see if I make a video because sometimes I’m I’m a bit afraid of making video with certain compounds because most of the what they call biohacking Community and I really hate that term but most of them they’re looking for shortcuts of things so they want a pill to fix whatever issue without doing all the work that needed be beforeand it’s like cerman says it best it’s like first is Lifestyles changes then it’s supplements it’s like you can’t go without starting from the roots of things so that’s why I’m like I’m always hesitant to making those compounds because it can have reversed effects for people that are not living a proper lifestyle when they take supplement and they’re not thinking through it so they’re like oh this might help but I’m still drinking alcohol I’m still doing this drugs I’m still taking this steroid so it’s very it’s a fine line of U what would I share so because ethically I want to stay in the realm of I don’t want anybody to suffer from anything I’m not going to do I mean AE strategy of giving IO gain to anyone like it’s not it’s just not the way to go yeah no that’s completely fair enough and I respect um I respect your decision to do that and that’s like yeah it’s a it can be controversial some of these compounds you know can be potentially risky as well in terms of their you know use Administration they might have side effects but um when it comes to ashwaganda when people just think that it’s an over-the-counter supplement they can take it you know it’s not necessarily safe and if they want a lower stress why don’t they choose other antistress supplements or you know magnesium torine glycine these other amino acids elering you know much better no it’s been promoted like the big rush of any anything in general like look at the seos rush that’s been happening and people not realizing that 9 % of seos have like high level of heavy metal which does nothing because heavy metals prevents you to absorb any vitamins so it’s like all those things is like driving me crazy all the time when people see Trends and they just jump on it and not thinking through things I don’t know ASA is a frustrating one for me for you is Asa for me seos but I have different compounds against we’re against so let’s talk a bit about um gdas so gdas are gaining popularity so gdas their roles is to stabilize blood sugar levels um in your experience how effective are they are managing blood glucose so let’s talk about different case studies uh let’s say for individual with insolid resistance or M syndromes but also in for Fitness enthusiasts uh Slash want want to be bodybuilders and can you touch a little bit about the mechanisms that GDA work on the body yeah so yeah so um I’m very passionate about this area glucose disposal agents gdas now if you look at the look at that term basically what these supplements or or drugs are designed to do are to number one help to lower blood sugar levels or they can work by mimicking the effect of insulin so or they can work by potentiating and making insulin work even more effectively um or they can even work on another pathway which is um upregulating receptors on cells to enable blood sugar sugar to enter the cell so let’s have a look at different gdas that are currently on the market we have things like berberine we have things like cinnamon we have a pharmaceutical drug metformin which is technically a g a GDA we have um I’ll classify a bit different because I wouldn’t for fitness enthusias I I think we can touch based on that after like nobody if you work out do not take mid foran like period but goad sorry yeah no that’s a valid point in terms of blunting hypertrophy and you know lowering rgf1 not not not the best thing particularly for natural lifters that don’t want to be using that but in terms of um other compounds chromium is another one um you know some other things like tudka which one alphao acid that’s another great one one you know the these are these are powerful compounds that can help to in some of them work by increasing muscle insulin sensitivity other ones work by increasing liver insulin sensitivity I know that 1,800 milligrams of tudka TCA can support uh liver insulin sensitivity when I just had some before this podcast actually um and there’s a there’s a range Le yeah was he talking about the other form like udka the other one yeah I Haven tried that yeah I’m Keen to try that I’m um I haven’t actually been able to Source it here in Australia yet but yeah udka versus Toka udka also has some beneficial effects doesn’t it yeah a lot more potently and I think I still have some I have to check nice nice um yeah there’s definitely a range of other compounds but one in particular that I think has um some pretty impressive research is dihydroberberine okay um which is an advanced form of berberine and that’s you know beneficial for lowering blood sugar increasing insulin sensitivity and and um what I notice is when I take dihydroberberine with a very high carbohydrate meal and then I go train later on that day I get you know much better muscle pumps and strength in the gym and I just feel a lot stronger overall okay so is it the only one that you take and is it your protocol you only take it while you have high carb Mill and then go to the gym after or do you think there is specific combination that’s optimal to not only control blood sugar but increase I will say muscle mass and muscle like uh Power uh the other one that I use also is brewers yeast um that contains yeah some yeah okay that contain sorry what what was that sorry I what did you say that what what does it contain uh it contains a glucose tolerance Factor it also contains like chromium and and B vitamins that are good for blood sugar control and you only need really like two grams per day of Brewers East to get a beneficial effect so you take it daily no matter what your training is or um what your meal looks like um i’ I went through a period where I was using it daily and then I’ve taken a break but I’ve I’ve used it on and off quite a lot yeah okay I’m curious what’s your uh usual and I’m pretty sure changes but you’re a daily supplement stack uh well all I’ll do is I’ll I’ll reveal what I had just this morning because it’s um you know it’s 8:30 a.m. so I woke up I had a sublingual um ad denil cobalamin so a different form of vitamin B12 I take that under the tongue I do have a I do I don’t have a deficiency in vitamin B12 but I have levels that are being checked consistently but I take that one under the tongue and I always noticed energy increase after using that I had five grams of toine before this podcast I had um two capsules of artichoke extract so that’s for Liver Health M um I also had Al phenol alanine the amino acid um for dopamine production and I also had Toka as well so I had 1,000 milligrams of Toka um so that’s pretty much all I had this that’s that’s all I had this morning no real potent like stimulants I haven’t had any coffee um I save coffee for when I need it like to train legs in the gym and you know do high performance activities okay I see and then you have your supplements during your first meal and I’m guessing at night so then yep so then I have like I’ll have a range of like might have a GDA with my lunch because my lunch is higher in carbohydrates just for reference as well people think that I don’t eat much carbohydrates but I definitely eat a lot of carbohydrates I have at least 300 to 400 gr of carbs per day and I don’t I’m not fearful of carbohydrates if you’ve got good insulin sensitivity and you and you train well and hard and intense like you can tolerate carbohydrates um and then I’ve got a nighttime protocol as well so that’s pretty much what I do on a daily basis I wish I had the time to do that again but now it’s just once a day for a easiness purposes nice it gets it gets a lot of uh planning and being consistent taking them it’s it’s tough do you plan them in advance um I’m pretty yeah I’ve actually recently reconfigured my supplement drawers so it’s all efficient and easy to use nice nice uh the last topic that I want to touch base is more focus on aging and Longevity uh it’s about nitric oxide so nitric oxide has again another one that has a dural role in the body particularly when it comes to aging so it’s known for its benefits for blood flow Muscle Recovery uh but you wanted to share some of the Insight how nitric oxide can potentially accelerate aging and the science theory behind it yeah so nitric oxide pretty well known in the bodybuilding Community as like a beneficial um opens up blood vessels particularly for erection performance like viag s sanhil improving blood flow circulation um dilating blood vessels but actually nutric oxide if we have excessive nutric oxide signaling and production it can actually contribute to inflammation um there’s research suggesting that high levels of nutric oxide is actually produced during inflammation and and nitric oxide is actually a pro-inflammatory free radical that can stimulate the peroxidation of unsaturated fatty acids so if you’ve got very high nitric oxide plus you eat a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids or um poofers you know that can create a an environment where you know it’s inhibiting mitochondrial respiration um and affecting metabolism so yeah nitric oxide is one that we some people you know need to be cautious of deliberately raising and actually methylene blue actually inhibits methylene blue lowers nitric oxide not many people know that but it does have an effect on N nitric oxide okay yeah Nitro oxide also I was looking at a study was researching for the podcast and I thought there are some of it that shows that it really plays a c crucial in oxidative stress so I know the relationship between aging and nitric oxide is not being fully like studied but one can make the link of you know how it does its work in this regard um okay I think we covered all the topic that we wanted to cover today uh I wanted to see if you have any anything else you want to add or share with the audience um no I think that was think that was great I think um most important thing is come back to self-awareness like when any of these practices protocols you know like it’s important to just maybe keep a keep a log on your phone or like just document your your experiences that’s invaluable and that sort of data is going to help you for for many many years so yeah thanks for the opportunity to come on Lucy and um yeah look forward to being in touch all right well thank you Lucas you have a great day thank you
