#414 Why He Takes 150 Supplements a Day and What Blood Tests to Do - Joe Cohen

Joe Cohen (0:00)

He's an animal, he calls me his Hype Priest.

SPEAKER_2 (0:01)

Well, these are the vitamins that my Hype Priest Joe Cohen be making me take these days. I don't even fucking ask what it is.

Joe Cohen (0:07)

There's not any serious evolutionary purpose to live, you know, after you're gonna have children. And I think that in the modern lifestyle, my personal opinion is that everybody needs supplements.

Siim Land (0:17)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast, I'm your host Siim Land, and today our guest is Joe Cohen. Joe is the founder and CEO of Self Decode. Me and Joe had a conversation at our retreat in India, at a five-star hotel and longevity clinic. In this episode, we discuss our experience, and we also talk about how Joe Cohen has been coaching The Liver King.

SPEAKER_4 (0:38)

Seven times.

Siim Land (0:39)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_4 (0:40)

When was the first time?

Joe Cohen (0:42)

My first time of the program was in 2019, March 2019

SPEAKER_4 (0:46)

Oh, this is before the program.

Joe Cohen (0:47)

Before the program even started. So it was like starting to bud, and I did a bunch of treatments. I did the ultrasound on the CT scan.

I didn't do the whole body MRI then, but obviously they do it now. And yeah, there's certain tests that were added that I didn't do then. For example, the last time I did a cancer screening test in the blood. So similar to a grail test. So I've done that. That's like an example of a new test they added. They also added some of the biomarkers. I told them to add the amino acid panel, which I think is very important because that's been a game changer in a lot of things I was doing. For example, it's just not, it wasn't clear to me what amino acids that I was deficient in any amino acids, right? You would think that if you eat enough protein, you won't be deficient in amino acids, but that's actually not true.

SPEAKER_4 (1:48)

What are the things that then affect that if you're eating like meat, you would expect getting everything?

Joe Cohen (1:54)

I think it's more influenced by utilization.

SPEAKER_4 (1:56)

Right.

Joe Cohen (1:57)

So it's not even the gut, just how much you utilize the amino acids. So even if you consume a lot, if you utilize them more, it'll just be lower in the blood. And the utilization depends on nutrients that you're consuming. So if you're maybe you're consuming more of one nutrient, you might utilize an amino acid more.

SPEAKER_4 (2:19)

Gotcha.

Joe Cohen (2:20)

And for example, B6 causes the utilization of a lot of amino acids. And so if you're taking other supplements, sometimes other supplements will increase the utilization. So let's say, I don't know if this is the case, but let's say HMD is a supplement that maintains muscle mass, right?

Like a lot of the mechanisms by which we maintain muscle mass is not breaking down muscle. That is the main mechanism. It decreases catabolism. And so if you decrease catabolism, then the body uses that as a mechanism to increase amino acids in your blood when needed. But the thing is, I actually take a bunch of things that decrease catabolism, which means that I don't break down the amino acids very much. I more like use them, but don't break down my muscles very much, which can be a good thing. But also I noticed that when I exercise a fair bit, my amino acids, a lot of them are low because I think it's used. And then if I'm taking certain supplements, maybe certain nutrients that are helping the utilization and then certain supplements that prevent catabolism, all of a sudden that could be one of the reasons why they're lower, right? Certain amino acids, even if I am taking it. And certain amino acids are being utilized more than others. So, for example, I noticed if I eat more protein, there's certain amino acids that just go off if I generally eat more protein. That includes tyrosine and phenylalanine. And the reason, I think, is because those are not really utilized by exercise very much. They're utilized by other processes. And for whatever reason, like there's just a limit in how much you're going to use. So if you consume a lot of protein, I just noticed my tyrosine and phenylalanine go up. That's pretty responsive to how much protein I eat. On the other hand, as I've eaten more protein, I eat 200 and 15 grams of protein a day, something like that, which is a lot. My leucine is still low. I mean, the range is like 68 to 183, but my leucine tested a bunch of times, however, it's around 70, which is quite low, given that I consume a lot of whey.