128 | How Do I Live Longer??

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. This month we are diving into everything longevity. Hey, if you wanna live longer, if you wanna decrease aging, the effects of aging on the body, the actual aging itself, when it comes to your skin, to your heart, to your brain, like these next few episodes are gonna be so critical to your health journey. We're gonna talk about practical and easy applicable modalities, nutrition, supplementation, everything from a longevity perspective. Listen, I know you get a ton of content in the social media space of "take this supplement, it's gonna cure all your diseases."

"Take this supplement, it's gonna make you live twenty years longer." Hey, we're gonna actually help filter all that for you and help you understand what is actually the most effective strategies. What does research show? What do you need to do now to live longer, healthier, happier lives? That's these next few episodes.

Hey, also, just a reminder, Manna Monday is no longer on the Real Health Co. Podcast. It is its separate channel. Go to Manna Monday, search it up on all platforms, subscribe, share it, and you'll get those five minute Monday downloads for your week. Well, let's do it.

Let's get into it. Longevity. This month, we're gonna talk about saunas and fasting and cold plunging and nutrition, and supplementation, but today is probably my favorite. Like if you were to ask me, "hey Dr. Barrett, what's the number one thing you do for anti aging longevity?"

I'm gonna give it to you today. This strategy I've been doing for two decades, and now listen, I'm only 40 years old, so half my life I've been dedicated to this strategy. I've also, I use it as a form of cardiovascular training. It's actually associated with zone two training. I use it to burn body fat, keep my body fat under 10%.

If you wanna burn belly fat, today's episode's for you. I use it as my time of decompression and I use it as my time to build stress resiliency. And whether you know it or not, I'm gonna give it to you. It's all about saunas today. Sauna strategy is one of the most effective modalities for anti aging.

I'm gonna give you the data, I'm gonna give you the literature, and I'm gonna give you exactly how to do it. Because it's not just about, "hey, I was in the sauna fifteen minutes," but it's like: when are you doing it? How long are you doing it? How often are you doing it? Okay, and then what type are you using?

So I'm actually gonna help you understand the difference between traditional heat, Swedish saunas, mainly coming out of a lot of the Finnish studies, or the new infrared. So I had an infrared for years, loved it, but it's just low heat. If in an infrared, the temperature's typically 130, 140, 150. But now, I've got a traditional Swedish sauna with rocks and water and steam, and it gets up to over 200 degrees. I mean, I'm baking.

So is there an advantage there? Well, why did I shift to it? Why did I switch to that? Well, we're gonna download that on today's episode. So without further ado, let's get into it.

Let's talk about a twenty year Finnish study. Over 2,300 middle aged men going to a sauna once weekly resulted in a 49% reduction in all cause mortality once a week. Once a week sauna usage, nearly 50% reduction in all cause mortality. What does it mean? Anything related to death was reduced 40% - 50%.

What are some other crazy benefits? There is a study in a heart disease ischemic journal, and it was 1688 men and women. The average age was 63, and it was a 15 year follow-up. And they compared once weekly sauna use, two to three sessions per week trended towards lower cardiovascular mortality. And when you look at four to seven sessions per week, it was a substantial 77% reduction in fatal cardiovascular outcomes.

So this was on PubMed. It showed the difference between two to three sessions per week and four to seven sessions per week. And what they saw was a difference of 77% reduction in four to seven sessions per week. There was a study with 2,300 Finnish men, tracked 20 years, all cause mortality was 49%. But also, here's the crazy thing, is it jumped significantly when they went to a four to seven times per week.

It's not just about how long you do it, it's about how often you do it. Sudden cardiac death compared to once weekly sauna, four to seven sessions per week had a 63% lower risk. Again, comparing a higher volume of four plus sessions per week compared to once a week, 63% lower risk. Coronary heart disease, if you did it two to three times a week, sauna usage, twenty three percent lower risk. Four to seven times per week, 52% lower risk.

How about strokes? 1600 Finnish adults over 15 years, four to seven times per week sauna users had a 60% lower stroke risk compared to once weekly users. How about dementia and Alzheimer's? 66% reduction in dementia and Alzheimer's. Respiratory health like asthma and COPD and pneumonia all saw improved outcomes in sauna usage.

So, saunas are just game changers. When you look at using a sauna, the two options really out there are the super hot ones, to get over like 195, 200 degrees, and your infrared. Virtually all research has been done on those really, really hot saunas. So, does infrared provide the same benefit? We really don't know.

We think they do, because it's a different heating system. It's gonna be lower ambient heat. You can sit in a little bit longer. Like I used to sit in my infrared for 45 to 60 minutes. I cannot do that in a 200 degree sauna.

I'm begging to get out at 25 to 30 minutes in, jump in my cold plunge for 5 minutes, and then do another session. Virtually do that every single morning. Every morning is sauna, cold plunge sauna, cold plunge rotation. I could do that for an hour in my infrared. I can't do that in my traditional heat sauna anymore.

There's smaller trial studies, but what we see with the traditional Finnish style sauna is that there are some risks, mainly with overheating and dehydration, but I mean, your heart rate increases, So there's been some studies that actually show that it's very similar to training. So check this out. When you look at sauna versus exercise, sauna, because of the high heat, elevates the heart rate. You actually stay in about a zone two cardiovascular state. Zone two is a certain heart rate.

And what it showed was that elevated heart rate, lowered blood pressure, and enhanced vascular dilation, and activation of heat shock proteins, which is necessary to, that's the anti aging component, that's the cancer fighting component. It mirrored moderate to vigorous exercise. So every time you're in a sauna, it is as if you're running for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. How about that? How about sitting in an environment that's relaxing but your heart rate's 120, 125, 130 and you're just burning fat, right?

That's aerobic training. This is where the benefit of sauna comes in. This is why I stay so lean. I truly believe that. I eat like a horse, but every morning, I mean, we're spending 30, 40, 50 minutes in a 200 degree environment where I'm just shedding fat.

And why am I shedding fat? Because my heart rate's at about 110, 115, and I'm in this zone one, two cardiovascular state. Sauna use amplified the actual protective benefits of high cardiorespiratory fitness. It delivered synergistic reductions in all cause in cardiovascular mortality. So it's a synergy to even your training.

There was a longevity, this was a longevity research from Stanford, showed that when you train and you do sauna, it's like a one-two punch. So when I look at any time that I'm trying to burn fat, like when am I trying to maximize my fat? Let's talk about now the practical application of when, how, what, and how much. So the first win. If you wanna maximize fat loss, empty stomach.

I don't want you to eat before. I want you to be in a fasted state so that your body is gonna prioritize that fat versus carbohydrates that you just ate or that food you just ate. So the best time to do it is right when you wake up. Right before you wake up, or right when you wake up. This is a great time to do sauna, all right?

Or as soon as you're done training. So there's a lot of research that shows it helps after training, strength training, it helps with recovery and it helps burn fat, and you can literally just sit in a sauna. Your body's already warmed up, so a 20 minute sauna session is great to pair with your training. How often? Really, when it comes down to it, we need to be hitting it at least three days a week.

Preferably our optimal dose is about four days per week. Now, you go five, six, or seven because you're trained, great, but you really aren't gonna get benefit at one to two days per week, a little bit, but it really starts to escalate at about three to four days a week, and then it continues on. How long do you spend in a sauna? Well, in an infrared environment, you could easily spend 20, 30 minutes, but all studies virtually show that when you look at sauna sessions shorter than 11, there was very modest benefits. But when you did anything over 19 minutes, it had a significantly larger in risk reductions.

52% lower risk reductions in cardiovascular disease over 19 minutes. When sessions of 15 to 20 minutes correlated with 40% lower cardiovascular mortality. So a dose response trend is really important here. It trends towards that twenty minute sweet spot. So what does it look like?

Well, it looks like, hey, post exercise or first thing in the morning when you're empty stomach, four plus days per week in 20 minute doses. Train yourself over time. I love to take just a big container of electrolytes, so I'll just do, I'll do like 60 ounces of water, ice, two packs of LMNT. Lemonade is the best right now, okay? I don't get any reimbursement for LMNT.

I just think it's amazing. And then I do 10 grams of creatine monohydrate. I put that in a container, I walk out to my sauna, and I just chug that as I'm dripping. And I'm gonna talk to you when I do the cold plunge episode, I'm gonna talk to you about how to pair sauna with cold exposure and how to pair the two for additional benefit. Okay?

Because cold plunging can have a massive impact on belly fat as well. But if you were to ask me today, "hey doc, what is the single greatest investment I can make in my health in regards to my home?" All right, I would tell you this. Before a weight, before a dumbbell or kettlebell, I'd buy a sauna. I absolutely would. And I would do 20 minutes, okay, four days a week at minimum on an empty stomach, and you'll just see the fat just shred off of you, right?

Make sure you're doing it under medical supervision, okay? So connect with your medical provider, make sure you're in a situation where you can handle that dosing and how to properly scale, but in longevity concepts, the sauna should be at the top of the list to purchase. This strategy will build everything else that we talk about. We're talk about cold plunging, we're gonna talk about nutrition, we're gonna talk about fasting, we're gonna have Dr. Ben, our newest provider here at the Real Health Co, who's gonna do an episode on the health assessment tools that you should be looking at, chemistry markers, blood chemistry markers you should look at every year to make sure you're aging well. So hey, if this has been useful and you're excited, make sure you subscribe to our podcast and share it with friends around you. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

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