#1178 - Dr. Rhonda Patrick

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Have you been here since you had a kid?

Rhonda Patrick (0:03)

Yeah, I was here last, right, about four months after. I didn't sleep at all. It's amazing. I was able to talk for...

Joe Rogan (0:11)

And now your kid is how old?

Rhonda Patrick (0:12)

Thirteen months.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Wow. Wait till they start talking.

Rhonda Patrick (0:17)

Oh, he says, I mean, he's now like, his new thing is he says, all done, all done. So he'll say it before I change his diaper because he doesn't want me to go through that. You know, he's like, all done, all done.

But he'll say it like Elaine is crib and say it like when he's ready to get out, you know, a bed early in the morning. And I'm like waiting. I'm like, maybe I'll come back to sleep.

Joe Rogan (0:38)

Now, being a scientist and having a child, are you are you like cognizant of like every single factor that's taking place like nutrition, all the input, emotional input, environment, like must be kind of mind-blowing and mind-exhausting to yes, it is.

Rhonda Patrick (1:01)

I'll give you an example right now, like because we're traveling, right? And, you know, I'm pretty this the BPA, so plastic bottles, you know, I'm having to give him water and he's obsessed for whatever reason. He's obsessed with drinking. I brought his like, you know, nice cup, but he doesn't want to drink it out of his cup. He wants to drink it out of these plastic bottles. It's novel and it's frankly sound. And anyways, you know, so I'm like, all I can think about is the BPA. And, you know, am I am I exposing him to too much? And what's it doing?

Joe Rogan (1:32)

And is that BPA? Is it leech only when it gets hot? Is that how it works?

Rhonda Patrick (1:36)

So and that's another thing I was thinking about in my hotel today because I was making a coffee with one of those one of those paper cups that has the plastic lining. And like, I don't know what's in the plastic lining BPA or some of the BPA alternatives, which have also been shown.

Joe Rogan (1:51)

What does BPA stand for?

Rhonda Patrick (1:53)

Bisphenol A.

So to answer your question, there's been experiments done that have shown heat. So boiling, boiling water and putting it in plastic increases the BPA that leeches into the solution, into the water by like fifty five fold. So, yes, definitely heating it up is like way worse. And so one of the things I'm always now thinking about is, you know, going to Starbucks, whatever. Or the plastic lining they're putting in those cups when you get your hot tea or your hot coffee. I don't know if there's BPA, but there's now studies that have come out, and these studies have been done in animals that show like BPS and some of the other BPA replacements also have negative consequences on endocrine system, on reproduction. In some cases, they're passed on to multiple generations. Now how much of that is actually translates to humans? It's unknown. But there have been studies, at least with BPA, that have shown that you give a person a single dose of BPA, and it disrupts their insulin sensitivity. It also plays a role in causing problems with in vitro fertilization, so it's disrupting hormones and things like that. So I was really cognizant about it during pregnancy, because typically we do detoxify it quite well. The half-life is like less than five hours, and we excrete it through urine. It also comes out through sweat, by the way, which is really good.

But when you're pregnant, for whatever reason, the placenta, you basically take the BPA, it's in your body, and your liver will inactivate it to this more benign compound. But when it crosses over the placenta, it gets activated again. And so that's why the effects are much more robust, always on the developing fetus. And so I was really, made sure I was not drinking anything out of a plastic bottle, or anything like that while I was pregnant, just because, I mean, I don't know.

At the end of the day, there's a lot of studies that have been done in animals, and just how much of that translate, how significant is it, it's really hard to say. But it's certainly a concern.

Joe Rogan (4:02)

It's probably a compounding effect, right, with all the other environmental factors, pollution, particulates in the air, chemicals, all the other jazz that we take into our body all the time.

Rhonda Patrick (4:12)

Right, yeah. And then the fact that actually aging bottles, like as you, for whatever reason, as a bottle sits, like if you keep using, for example, the study was done with baby bottles, if you keep using a baby bottle and putting liquid in, as the bottle aged, more BPA was leached out into the liquid.