The Science & Health Benefits of Deliberate Heat Exposure

**Andrew D. Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are talking about the science of heat, and more specifically, the science of heating, the verb, meaning how our body heats up from both the outside and the inside. Heat is a remarkable stimulus, meaning when we are in a hot environment, it has a profound effect on our biology. And heating up from the outside or, as you will soon learn, from the inside, has a profound effect on many different aspects of our health, including our metabolism, both in the immediate and long-term, our cognition, meaning our ability to think more or less clearly. And if you're immediately thinking that heating up makes you less capable of thinking, you're wrong. Heat applied properly as a stimulus can engage certain neurochemical systems in your brain and body that can allow your brain to function far better. We will talk about those data today. So we're going to talk about the science of heat and heating, both in terms of their mechanisms and, as I know many of you are interested in, the tools related to the use of heat, things like sauna. How often to do sauna. How long to be in the sauna. How hot to be in the sauna for particular goals and outcomes. We're also going to talk about the very exciting new science around local heating. That is the use of heat applied to specific areas of the body in order to heal or improve tissues at that location that you are heating as well as your biology and health overall. In fact, we are going to talk about one very recently published paper that came out in the journal Cell. Cell is one of the three apex journals, meaning three of the most competitive, most rigorous scientific journals. Those are Nature, Science and Cell. This particular paper was published in Cell, and I will go into it in more detail later. But basically what this paper shows is that by locally heating up skin and fat, you can change the identity of certain fat cells at that location and elsewhere. We have three kinds of fat, white fat, beige fat and brown fat. And as you will learn more about soon, white fat is not very metabolically active. It's more of a fuel reserve. It's what we typically think of as blubbery fat. Beige fat and brown fat are rich in mitochondria, and those mitochondria provide a sort of furnace or heating mechanism for your entire body and increase your metabolism and the burning of white fat. So in other words, having more beige fat and brown fat is a good thing. And it turns out that the proper application of heat to specific areas of your body can increase the conversion of white fat to beige fat. In other words, turn an innocuous fuel source into a metabolically active tissue that can help you burn off more white fat. I think many people are going to be interested in this paper and the tools that emerge from this paper. It's a fascinating set of findings that actually emerged from my understanding of the biology of burn and people who receive intense burns. And that is not what I'm going to recommend to you as a tool of course, but understanding a little bit about how burns impact our biology and health has allowed these pioneering researchers to develop new tools to combat obesity and metabolic disorders and that you can apply for basic things like fat loss. I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab podcast is now partnered with Momentous Supplements. Our motivation for partnering with Momentous is to provide people one location where they can go to access the highest quality supplements in the specific dosages that are best supported by the scientific research and that are discussed during various episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast. If you go to livemomentous.com/huberman, you will see those formulations. I should mention that we are going to add more formulations in the months to come. And you will see specific suggestions about how best to take those supplements, meaning what dosages and times of day, and in fact, how to combine those supplements with specific behavioral protocols that have been discussed on the podcast and are science supported in order to drive the maximum benefit from those supplements. And many of you will probably also be pleased to learn that Momentous ships not just within the United States, but also internationally. So once again, if you go to livemomentous.com/huberman, you will find what we firmly believe to be the best quality supplements in the precise dosages and the best protocols for taking those supplements along with the ideal behavioral protocols to combine with those supplement formulations. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health, even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body, and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year's supply of vitamin D3K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element, and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly, and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present, and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try element, you can go to drink element, that's lmnt.com/huberman, and you'll get a free element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try element, you can go to element, lmnt.com/huberman.