[Host]: Dr. Huberman, welcome to the A16Z show. I want to talk about what's happened over the last 5 years. Like since you launched your podcast, there's been an extreme increase in consumer interest and focus on their own health. Like as an investor, we used to kind of think people were only willing to spend on what we'd like call sex or vanity drugs like Propecia, Viagra, and that has totally changed in the last 5 years. I'm curious what you think the major drivers of that have been and what your role has been in it.

[Andrew Huberman]: So I think the major driver was there were a few breakthrough supplements that changed the way that people think about healthcare and decided they needed to be more self-directed in their healthcare. I think the other thing is that the health and fitness and industry collided with mainstream medicine and just self-care. What happened during the pandemic was everyone wanted to know what they could take to improve their immune system and their health. And the first thing that sort of broke through was vitamin D. Then, as resistance training came in, it inevitably brought with it an interest in protein needs. And then gradually now the creatine craze. What became very clear is everyone realized some bell went off: We are all responsible for our own health.

[Andrew Huberman]: A lot of the mental health issues that we saw during the lockdowns were disruption in circadian biology. There's a really beautiful study with more than 80,000 subjects out of the UK that shows that the brighter people's days are and the darker their nights, the healthier they are mentally. And so it was so important to me to give people tools to be able to control their circadian biology, momentary anxiety with things like long exhale breathing which just simply reduces heart rate. We know through something called respiratory sinus arrhythmia involves the vagus nerve.

[Andrew Huberman]: Well, I very deliberately not joined a MAHA panel to maintain the flexibility that I want to say what I believe. I think that some of the things they're doing are directionally right trying to food supply, get people embracing healthy behaviors. At the same time I for instance think that the mRNA vaccines for cancer are a transformative incredible life-saving technology. The challenge has been that we've got right-wing media and we've got left-wing media. I love that I don't belong to any camp. I feel very free.

[Andrew Huberman]: I see the GLPs the same way as credit. The GLPs make it such that people can be a healthy weight without having to exercise. But Retatrutide went through phase three at Lily, people can lose up to a third of their body weight in a pretty short amount of time. In theory, you could eradicate obesity. I'm guessing that more than half are going to be taking them. The margins for error seem to be greater.

[Andrew Huberman]: BPC-157, body protection compound. It can improve cartilage growth, nerve regrowth, which is a little bit worrisome if you have a tumor. You don't want to vascularize the tumor. Melanotan, which makes people tan from the inside, raises energy and libido dramatically. But those drugs are very risky. The kind of oranging of the skin can be permanent. And there's the risk for men of priapism which can cause damage to the nerves.

[Andrew Huberman]: We all have heard of Modafinil, it increases energy when you have poor sleep. Adderall is more of an amphetamine type stimulant. There's a very interesting drug I think is going to become far more popular soon, which is already FDA approved called Sunosi. Seems to have a much gentler arc of alertness and focus. I think there's an excessive amount of stimulant use. You don't want to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system so much for so often. It can probably shorten your life.

[Andrew Huberman]: Reading, I mean, people are wearing sleep sensors. But you can't write to the sleep system yet. In 5 years, you'll go to sleep with a little thing in your palm and your core body temperature will just drop. I'd love to see real-time cortisol sensing. Morning cortisol peak, getting that, you win 90% of the game. I can't sleep well unless I've had enough starches during the day. If you're going to have carbohydrates at any time, it should be within 3-4 hours before sleep.

[Andrew Huberman]: I use Claude to quiz myself. Claude is really good at generating tests for me on knowledge. When you understand mechanism, I think it gives a higher probability that somebody is going to implement the advice. AI could probably deliver that information, but I don't know that it can build the relationship well enough.

[Andrew Huberman]: I think it's pretty clear that the genetic upper limit is about 120 and for most of us it's probably closer to about 105. I'm very excited by Tony Wyss-Coray's work from Stanford about factors in young blood and in exercised blood that can rejuvenate the brain and body. I would bank a bunch of my own blood after exercise. I'm healthier now at 50 than I'm likely to be at 70.

[Andrew Huberman]: I have a pet octopus, Van Go. I'm trying to get the octopus to report to me what it's thinking. You have to do it based on the camouflage patterns. AI can actually learn a lot by correlating the behaviors of an octopus with its camouflage patterns. I'm interested in what the octopus understands about the world and can communicate that to me.