#1176 - Dom D'Agostino & Layne Norton

Joe Rogan (0:01)

One, two, three, four, three, oh, two, one.

And we're live. Gentlemen, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Let everybody know who you are. Layne?

Layne Norton (0:12)

I'm a meathead who likes science. Got into bodybuilding when I was young, and then did a BS in biochemistry, PhD in nutritional science.

Kept lifting, did power lifting, won two national championships, got silver medal at Worlds, set a then World Squad record, and did also bodybuilding and won a natural pro card. They actually have natural bodybuilding, believe it or not. And throughout that time, just when I first got into it, one magazine said one thing, and even in the same magazine, they'd have an article one month, next month it would contradict it. So I was like, I'm just gonna try and figure this shit out for myself.

Joe Rogan (0:52)

Which is the place that a lot of people listening are at right now.

Layne Norton (0:55)

Yeah, and it's tough, because it's kind of like, who do you trust? Because not everybody has the time or the energy to go and do a degree in this stuff. So, but that was me. I kind of got down the rabbit hole of, all right, let's try and figure this nutrition stuff out. And of course, the more I learned, the more I realized I didn't know.

But yeah, it just became a passion for me to, and to this day, I'm so very, I love this stuff. This is what gets me up, gets me going.

Joe Rogan (1:20)

Well, guys like you are very important, guys who actually train very hard and really understand the science. This is, because it's usually one or the other.

Layne Norton (1:28)

Absolutely.

And I, like when I was doing it, I graduated my PhD in 2010 When we started, we actually both knew each other from the bodybuilding.com message boards. So those back before social media.

Dom D'Agostino (1:41)

Trained together back in 2006 or seven.

Layne Norton (1:43)

Seven, at Experimental Biology. So this big, there's a big symposium every year for science geeks. And we were both going to it. And we found out about each other on the forums, and we went and trained together, and he's a beast.

And yeah, we really hit it off, and we've been friends since then. So for everybody who's looking for a fight, sorry, we're probably gonna be pretty friendly.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Well, it's gonna be a conversation. We don't need to have a fight. Dom, you've been on the podcast before, but for people who didn't listen to that one, please tell them who you are and what you do.

Dom D'Agostino (2:14)

Yeah, I'm.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

Keep the sucker.

Dom D'Agostino (2:16)

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I will, getting back, I majored in nutrition actually as an undergrad, but didn't actually see a career in it that much. So I went into neuroscience, the 90s was a decade of the brain, and my formal training is in neuroscience, and it got steered towards basically changing the neuropharmacology of the brain with nutrition, and that's what the ketogenic diet does. And it has tremendous benefits, I think, for military personnel, which is funded by the Office of Navy Research and the Department of Defense to develop ketogenic strategies to enhance readiness, resilience, and performance, and safety in military personnel.

Joe Rogan (2:57)

And why specifically does the ketogenic diet help military people? I know there's a thing with Navy SEALs with preventing epilepsy with breathing.

Dom D'Agostino (3:07)

Yeah, so central nervous system oxygen toxicity, a limitation of that is, or a limitation of Navy SEAL diving, is oxygen toxicity seizures.

And anti-epileptic drugs are not really a viable option because they can, they're side effects, they can decrease cognitive resilience, physical resilience. A ketogenic strategy is something that's being studied now from a basic science, mechanistic perspective, to animal work, to now human studies. So it's not out in the field yet, but some guys are actually doing it. And I study the science of that.

Joe Rogan (3:42)

So for people who don't understand what we're saying, for some folks who have epilepsy, the ketogenic diet has been shown to stop seizures.

Dom D'Agostino (3:49)

Absolutely. Go Google the Charlie Foundation. So that's how I actually got linked in. And actually I met a natural drug-free bodybuilder. His name was Mike Dancer, and he had severe terminal epilepsy.

Google Mike Dancer ketogenic diet, and you'll find an amazing story about a guy who used nutrition to manage his epilepsy when drugs failed, and he used it to prep and win bodybuilding shows and compete in bodybuilding.

Joe Rogan (4:15)

And the rebreathers sometimes cause seizures with some of the soldiers.