Time & Light: Missing Pieces of a Healthy Lifestyle – with Dr. Satchin Panda

Dr. Mindy Pelz  0:02  

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I bring you Satchin Panda. If you are not familiar with him, he is the circadian rhythm expert, and has been doing a tremendous amount of research on time restricted eating, aka intermittent fasting. And so this is a conversation wow that I have been wanting to bring to you all for a very long time. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Panda’s work, I can tell you that not only is he a professor at the Salk Institute in California, but he has done multiple research studies on circadian rhythm, and particularly how it relates to the time of food, the time of light, and the time of movement, which we talk a ton about that in this conversation. He has written two books both all around the circadian rhythm. My favorite one personally is the circadian code. And he has a really interesting app you all can use and might find helpful, called on timeout, which is all of his research put together in one area. Now, let me tell you what you’re going to hear in this conversation. So a lot of you have asked me over the years, when is the best timing of food like Where should I put my eating window? And he’s going to answer that for you. It’s really cool. The way he explains it is profound. And right now just so you know, there’s a lot of discussion about like, should I eat when I first get up in the morning, especially we’re hearing this a lot when it comes to protein, that we’re supposed to get up and eat protein right away. He’s going to tell you well, I’ll give you a little clue. He’s going to tell you why eating immediately upon waking is not a great idea. So you’re going to hear that in this episode. I also want to do bring him into the jetlag conversation, because a lot of people are trying to overcome jetlag and and figure out how to shorten jetlag. And so I want to know, if you could manipulate the time of your food to the new timezone you’re going to could it possibly minimize your the amount of jetlag, you have and he answers that really cool. And then of course, we had to go into the study. So if many of you are still wrestling with the media blitz that happened about a month ago, talking about 91% increase in cardiovascular health when you intermittent fast, this was an exact opposition of some of the research he’s done on 16, eight fasting, so I wanted his opinion on what appeared to be the complete opposite of what he’s seen in his lab. And then we ended up on the weight loss drugs, and what does he think about the weight loss drugs and how that fits into circadian rhythm? And what do we need to know about the up and downside of the weight loss drugs, really good in depth conversation on all things circadian rhythm. So Dr. SACHIN Panda, enjoy. I hope so many of your questions get answered in this as it did for me. And I just really deeply appreciated the way he brings the information forward. So please enjoy. And I hope you get a ton out of this. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

Let me start by welcoming you to the Resetter Podcast. And I you know, there’s a lot of reasons people can be a fan of yours. And I really have to say I’ve been following your research, I’ve read your book, I’ve been listening to your circadian thoughts on timing of food. And it’s amazing to me how much there is to discuss when you just bring up what to eat and when to eat. It’s like there’s years of discussion there. And so here’s where I’m going to start this is by asking you what’s more important when to eat or what to eat, especially when we’re looking at chronic disease and inflammation and wait

Dr. Panda  4:40  

wait let is a tough question because it’s almost asking you to choose between two, one out of your two kids. So I guess both are important, but at the same time. Imagine that the good quality food is your best friend. And that best friend shows up on time When you are free, then that’s good. But if the best friend says up knocks on your door every night at one o’clock in the morning, then that person might not be that person may not be your best friend. So the point is timing can make good for junk. So

Dr. Mindy Pelz  5:17  

that’s why, wait, wait, say that again, timing can make good food junk, can it do the opposite? Can it make junk food good.

Dr. Panda  5:25  

So I won’t say that. It can make the junk food good. But what I can say is it can lessen the bad effect of junk food, it can lessen the effect of junk food because the timing depending on what time you’re eating, relative to fasting, timing can turn on many defense mechanism in our body, including genes that detoxify bad things and junk food. So that’s why I said that timing can lessen the bad effect of jobs.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  6:00  

Right, which doesn’t give us a free pass for junk food. I just I just want to point that out. But it is an interesting, you know, a lot of the research that you’ve done, I have poured myself into and one of the conclusions I’ve come out of your research and really thought deeply about is if we have such poor quality food, and the food industry is profiting from this poor quality food, there’s no incentive for the food industry to change. So therefore, the best tool we can give people for again for weight loss and inflammation and metabolic health is okay, just take that toxic food, and let’s compress it into one eating window, so that you have a longer period for your body to rest. So that like you said, the genes can turn on but it can also heal from the toxicity of food am I am I thinking that

Dr. Panda  6:58  

through right through I mean, one caveat, I must say from the beginning is most of the stuff that I’ll be talking about about genes, biochemistry, proteins, or detoxification, all of these are done in laboratory mouse models, because that’s where we can actually go look deeply into all these factors, we can also give the mice healthy food or junk food at different time of the day. And very systematically, methodically, we can look at every single gene and the mouse genome. And in fact, we share almost 99% chance with mouse. So that’s why a lot of this can be translated to humans. In fact, every single medication supplements, everything that we eat, that we take to madness, prevent or cure any disease were tested. At some point in my so many laboratory animals. So with that caveat. Most of the biochemical stuff or genetic stuff that I’ll talk about mostly comes from laboratory study, you actually

Dr. Mindy Pelz  8:06  

bring up a really valid point, because in the world of science, I feel like a lot of times people will dismiss a good study because it was a mouse study. And they they say, Well, this is a better study, because it was a human study. And then we have this new emerging question, which is, but the human studies aren’t necessarily being done on on the same demographic, like women aren’t separated out. And I’ve read some intermittent fasting studies where they had a cohort that had 17 year old men, all the way up to 55 year old women. And I’m like, You should never look at a metabolic system of a 17 year old man and compare it to a 55 year old woman. So just for the for the people listening, do you feel like we need more human studies? Or do you feel like the mouse studies really are giving us enough information of how to look at some of this behavior for ourselves?

Dr. Panda  9:02  

Mouse studies give us some clue that it might work in humans, but we have to do the studies in humans, because ultimately, we’re doing all this research not to make myself here, they’re already healthy, but make humans healthier and live a long productive life. So we do have to go back to humans and do the studies. But at the same time, for example, when I talk about time retreating or fasting or anything that we do in the lab, and we say what happens in the liver. And in that case, we’re actually going and looking at liver biopsy samples in mice, which would be almost impossible to do in humans, particularly if you’re not having fatty liver disease. And if your liver is not a threat, nobody’s going to give it or give a piece of my liver for simple biopsy. Yes. Keep that in context like When we’re talking about what is the impact of certain things, medication, or supplements or lifestyle, on internal organs that are very difficult or almost impossible to sample, for example, we can also look at the impact of timeless refeeding, or intermittent fasting on brain health. By looking at different parts of the brain, there is no way we can do that study on humans. But these studies actually tell us, okay, is there enough changes that we see in laboratory studies to begin to ask this question in humans, because usually, the rule of thumb is, if it doesn’t help a mouse is less likely that it will help a human.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  10:47  

In other way, I always say it is, animal studies, get us in the ballpark, then we’ve got to decide what seat we’re gonna sit at. And so I’m a big fan of n of one figuring out how to take these studies like the ones you’re doing, and how do we make them applicable to our own life? Which leads me to my next major question for you is there’s a lot of different lengths of time restricted eating or fasting that has been researched. Do you have a sense for metabolic health, again, for cleaning up our metabolic system, which is a huge problem right? Now? What length fast? Do you feel like does that the best?

Dr. Panda  11:27  

That’s a very loaded question, because it’s the one I get all the time. And it’s the let’s put it this same way as you’re taking medication. So for example, if someone has diabetes, or pre diabetes, and it’s prescribed the medication, commonly prescribed, Metformin, there is no single dose of medic Metformin that should be applicable to everybody. Because if somebody is newly diagnosed pre diabetic, maybe somebody should take 500 milligrams of metformin. And if someone already has diabetes, maybe higher dose, and if somebody has really severe diabetes, then maybe two or three medications. So we have to put that into context. So similarly, for someone who has metabolic disease, and when we think metabolic disease, and it’s a very fuzzy term, but we can break it down to individual components. So typically, the three things that affect us that we really are concerned about are blood glucose, blood, cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol, we can say blood lipids, cholesterol, and triglycerides. Then we can add, say, abdominal obesity, because that predisposes us to many different diseases. So, so now let’s think about obesity, and high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, high blood sugar. So depending on who has what, and how severe it is, that one can have, one can begin with certain amount of fasting. The other thing is, we, when we are predisposed, or we developed certain metabolic disease, it develops because of our interaction between genes and our lifestyle. Many of us do have pair jeans, and that’s inescapable. But then, in terms of lifestyle, we have developed our habit of eating certain things, we have a preference for certain type of for amount of food, it’s not that easy to just start fasting right away. So that’s why when we do our studies in humans, first thing we want to see is well, does timing actually, is timing contributing Miss timing for contributing your disease, or is it something else, like somebody may be already eating religiously regularly within 10 hours window, but that person may already have metabolic disease or metabolic syndrome. So there is not much room for improvement in that case, but paying attention to food quality and quantity might matter. Whereas if someone who is already eating at a window have slept 14 hours, I’m not saying that every day this person eats within 14 hours, just imagine and the last two weeks when is the earliest time you add and when is the last time latest how late to do it. And if that is six o’clock in the morning, some I woke up and had a cup of coffee with cream and sugar and something else to munch and then the last time I ate over the last two weeks was going out for dinner and having a very late dinner so at least couple of times in the last two weeks. They are tonight o’clock 11 o’clock. So that gives me already 1516 hours of window within which my body was expecting food. So in that kiss, reducing that eating time to a narrow interval might benefit, because

Dr. Mindy Pelz  15:15  

it’s a change what is that because your switch goes from what you’re doing

Dr. Panda  15:19  

habitually are randomly over the last two weeks, if I have eaten two or three times before 8am In the morning, two or three times after 8pm In the evening. So, that means my body is already used to expecting for between 7am to 9pm. Vardi has already gotten this signal that Okay, so this person is likely to eat within such a long window of time, yes, the party remembers it. So in that case, reducing that timing to a shorter time can be beneficial. So then the question is, well, can I just go to six hours or two hours or three hours, which will be a huge shock, and people may not be able to stick to it. So that’s why we always suggest, well, if it is too difficult, try one week within sticking to a 12 hours window that works for you. Depending on what time you wake up, what time you go to bed and what you do in the morning or evening, try to find the 12 hours that works for you. It’s not saying that you should start skipping breakfast setting from noon to eight o’clock. But select your own window. And then if if you get used to it for a week or two, then you can reduce it to 10 hours. Because both mouse studies and human studies that we do, we are saying that when people who have a habitual or usual eating window of 14 hours or longer so that means over the last two weeks, you have eaten at least two or three meals. Within that 14 hours Windows suppose says 6am to 8pm. So that will give you 14 hours, or 8am to 10pm, that will give you 14 hours or longer than reducing that to 10 hours seems to give many benefits. And so that’s the starting point, they start with 12 hours. And then if you can reduce it to 10 hours, then that’s a good thing. Some people try to reduce event to eight hours or six hours, I must say that we when we look at really objective data, because we have done this study on many hundreds of people now. And some people say that they can do eight hours, and they start. And after five or six weeks, we see them drifting towards 10 hours, and then kind of stabilizing around 10 hours. So that’s why we feel like 10 hours is a magic spot where you can have long term compliance long term adherence. But if you can do eight hours, that’s also good enough. So I think when people reduce it too much, and this is what we have seen few cases, particularly with women, because when I say not said this, but many women want to have it all. So they will start intermittent fasting or time to say anything they want to eat within six to eight hours, they want to improve the quality of food. So they end up eating only solid and they reduce their nutrient nutrient intake. And yes, and then they go on the go for four miles five miles run four times, five times a week. And then what happens is your body is actually into a shock, because the body is not getting enough nutrients and up energy to sustain the basal metabolic processes that your body needs. And this usually happens mostly with normal weight people are slightly overweight people were trying to have it all. And if you if women are still menstruating, then they should, they would see irregular menstrual cycle or some of them can even become M menarik. And that’s a good sign that you are getting into an energy deficit that’s not supporting basal function in your body. That’s why we rarely ask people to get to that the eating window to less than eight hours because there is some risk unless you’re paying attention to your quality and quantity of nutrition and physical activity along with it that can be this pet. So sorry, there was a very long answer.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  19:41  

No, that was really well said and actually backs up a lot of my work. And what I’ve done with with women specifically is make sure that we don’t get at at certain times of the menstrual cycle too much in this calorie deficit place. And it’s specifically around the hormone progesterone doesn’t do well, when we’re in too much of a glucose restricted state and the thyroid doesn’t do well with consistent calorie restriction. So I like for women to have more cycling according to where their hormonal profile is, and what what’s going on whether they’re menopausal or menstruating. And it leads me to this question, too, for you is, do you feel like so let’s say I take I go to 12 hours of an eating window, I get comfortable there. Now I go to 10 hours, I’m like, hey, 10 hours is good. I think I’ll just stay here. Do you find that the fasting benefits stop? What if you are just super comfortable with 10 hours and you just do 10 hours over and over and over and over again? Will you eventually plateau with results? Does the healing stop? What do we know about that? Yeah,

Dr. Panda  20:55  

so there are very few long term study of a year or more. So it’s very difficult to say, what are the benefits, but what we see is you got to define what are the four are the benefits people experience. So when we ask people why they continue to do it, what is driving them to do it than that usual response is actually not metabolic health to be as the immediate benefit, what they say is the some of them that said that the sleep better, particularly those who stopped that eating window, at least three hours before the habitual bedtime. So suppose say, if you’re going to bed at 10 o’clock, if your kitchen closes at 630 or seven, then that tend to sleep better. And when and then they experienced that if they eat later at night, and that night, they have bad sleep, or they wake up in the middle of the night. So they tend to do it because the sleep better. The second benefit that we always hear is I think that’s to sleeping better, is that feel more energetic throughout the day? And yeah, you know, if you’re eating late and slipping back, then of course, you’ll feel lethargic the next day. So this is another benefit. And then the third one is, a lot of people who have acid reflux or heartburn, either disappear to have acid reflux or heartburn goes down, or some of them who have mild form, it may disappear altogether. And these are the things that actually drive people to stay with it. Then the question is, yeah, well, suppose that somebody was pre diabetic, where the blood sugar level was fasting blood sugar level was between 100 to one and qualify, they started doing intermittent fasting or timeless eating so within 10 hours, and that became normal glycemic. And then the question is, if they continue to do this, will they again become pre diabetic? Because that’s when he will sell and while the benefits kind of disappear, and this is meant, personally, I haven’t seen any case where people enter they said, there are not too many studies where the studies have continued beyond one year. There is no theory study beyond one year, but what I hear anecdotally from people and also in my own family, one or two people who who are pre diabetic that became normal, glycemic, the benefits continue for 567 years now. And then the weird thing is, once they start eating outside that window late in the night, then yes, they haemoglobin AirWatch, they go off slightly, the fasting blood glucose go up, and then they see that and then they come back, reattached to this 10 hours, window, eight hours window, yes. And then they’re still within the dance. But the point is, as we get older, our risk for many of the disease also goes up. So it’ll be interesting to see after 567 years or 10 years, we lose again become pre diabetic, or will their blood pressure go up slightly, because if there is a genetic condition than the lifestyle, they’ll show up. Yeah, same time, you know, yeah, interesting. The point is, particularly the ages between 35 and 60. That’s when of course I don’t want to say that 35 is middle lies, but it’s three middle lies.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  24:34  

Oh my gosh, you just you just made a few people turn off from

Dr. Panda  24:41  

but this video is very crucial for all of our lives because we want to be at our optimum physical, emotional and intellectual help. Right? The physical health we have to be metabolically healthy, we should be free of any disease for which we have to take Can medication every single day, let’s put it make it very clear that because this is the time when we have other things to do, this is the time when people start a family, or those who started a family earlier, this is the window in which the kids will get out of the house, they’ll go to call us. When you’re talking about 50, to 60, maybe if you had kids earlier, you may even become a grandparent. This is also the time when there are a lot of life changes are happening, you may be changing, changing jobs, or maybe going for the no personal life. Also, some people may or may get out of a marriage get into another relationship safe. This is also the time when people get into double or triple caregiving, the parents are aging, we have to give them care, the kids have not fully grown up yet here to care for them. And then if your spouse or your loved one has some other condition, you have to care for them, you have lot of responsibilities at home, at work, you may be having some community and guest man, other stuff outside your friend family relationship, then your friendship a lot of things go on during this as from 35 to 60. So that’s why it’s very critical to maintain optimum physical, emotional and intellectual health. In those years, and once you Yeah, men 10. Once you glide to fly to the age of 60, with great health, emotional, intellectual and physical health, then the rest of the life the next 30 years or 40 years will be much better. So that’s why Oh,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  26:54  

amazing. I only have four more years to go. So you want to hit 60. In the best metabolic health possible is that what you’re saying? You’re amazing.

Dr. Panda  27:04  

I want to say that I have a personal goal that depending on how you look at it, if you have children then have a personal goal that use it be metabolically healthy without any chronic medication. When your kids finish high school, or kids finish college, or when your kids are getting married so that you can actually dance real dance, not the slow moving. Dancer, like I was asking somebody, why do you want to be healthy? And the person said that I want to be elite dance and my daughter’s wedding. Yeah. Reason that’s a really that’s what matters. So that’s why coming back to the security and like that, what happens is when you think about lifestyle, lifestyle breaks down to nine components, that is the quality, quantity and timing of food, exercise and sleep. And once we take care of this, at least if we take care of the timing component, then everything else falls into its right place. Because to be very clear, it’s very difficult to remember, even keep track of how many kilocalories we eat in a day. I don’t know about you, nobody can sustain. I cannot guesstimate how many kilocalories I have consumed now. So yes, and the quality also, I cannot say how much carbohydrate protein or fat I consume on any given day. So yeah, the only thing I remember is the timing. So that’s why timing becomes a very tangible, very possible aspect of her life. And just imagine everything that we do in a day even this conversation that we have between you and I we set a time and we did it and once we are on time, then everything flows perfectly fine. Just imagine if I was half an hour lens podcast, you’d be so upset and math.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  29:16  

Everything Off. It’s a good analogy. It’s a really good

Dr. Panda  29:20  

family. A body has the circadian timing so that means it has a timetable. That tells us that has already pre planned that has already prescribed us. I ideally when we should go to bed, how long we should be in bed, when we should wake up when we should start eating when we should stop eating one is better for us to go out there and do some exercise and one to one and if we are on that tie. If we are on time with our body’s circadian schedule, then everything will fall into its right place.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  29:58  

And amazing so well said. So, when we’re looking at the timing of food is this has been a question my community has asked over and over again, when’s the best time for me to eat? Is it I always say eat in the daylight, we have some new research that’s coming out saying you should have protein within a half an hour of waking up in the morning. We have other people say, you know, wait a couple of hours after you wake up. And yet I think a lot of fasters skip breakfast and have their eating window and like nine or 10 o’clock at night. So can we do we know from research where this eating window should go? To maximize our metabolic health?

Dr. Panda  30:45  

Yeah, so this is a question that’s always

Dr. Mindy Pelz  30:49  

you go, you’ve answered this 1000 times.

Dr. Panda  30:52  

It’s certainly personal. It all depends on your personal life. Because there are two things, one big thing is in the pursuit of perfection, we should not give up what is good for you. Right? We always think about okay, so that is, it has to be the super optimized, perfect plan, but then it doesn’t fit my schedule. So maybe I should give up at 18. No, that’s not true. So let’s break it down to what time of the day, what happens in our body at different time of the day, so that you can actually figure out when, when is the ideal time for you? So so let’s start with waking up. So when we wake up, that’s the time when we have the maximum stress hormone, cortisol. So you may be saying that, okay, in the daytime, you’re too stressed in the evening, you’re trying to juggle many things, you’re stressed, we’re doing weightlifting, our strength training, whatever you’re doing and when the stress but actually the maximum cortisol happens within 45 minutes after waking up, then the question is, well, we know that having food with cortisol is not a good idea, because it doesn’t,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  32:02  

I was just gonna say that’s not a great

Dr. Panda  32:05  

answer. And then the other half of the story is melatonin, which is the night hormone that rises throughout night reaches its peak, maybe two to three hours before we wake up. And then it gradually goes down. And when we wake up, we still have nearly 30% of our peak melatonin level, it has to go down completely for us to feel and that’s why some people want the wake up little bit earlier than when they’re supposed to wake up. They feel lucky, groggy, sleepy, and if you take a large dose of melatonin, try to fall asleep next morning, you’re feeling still sleepy, because your body still has, yes, yes. Melatonin. In addition to making your brain to sleep, it also makes your pancreas to sleep. So that means when you eat your breakfast, most breakfast have some carbohydrate that needs to be broken down to glucose and that needs to be absorbed by a body. So insulin plays a big role in that but when melatonin is around, that insulin products and pantry has slowed down, it’s it’s not completely starboard is a slow stuff. So in that when the boring, the stress on one is high, and melatonin is high, for at least an hour or two, it’s not that I time to, to eat. I think I started saying that, once it wait for an hour or two, after waking up. And this has now amplified and everybody’s followed.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  33:41  

Well, but it makes sense. It makes sense. Because what you’re saying is that when cortisol and melatonin are high, what you need to be metabolically healthy is not quite there. So it would make sense to wait for these two hormones to go down and then eat so that you’re putting yourself in a little bit, a better metabolic advantage. But

Dr. Panda  34:05  

here is another caveat. That is there is no human study yet sewing this effect. And the reason is, it isn’t is it’s severely for that study, you have to actually bring people to the clinic they should sleep there and then immediately after waking up you can start measuring melatonin and cortisol and also keep them if bolus of food and measure their blood glucose for the next one and half hour. It is a very difficult experiment got it. The converse has been done where people are given food because melatonin also rises two to three hours before we go to bed. So then the question is if you give a bolus of for very close to bedtime, measure melatonin and measure blood glucose then that is a nice man between how high our melatonin is, and how bad our body is.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  35:07  

Our sleep, I’ve seen it on my sleep on my my aura ring. I see it all the time if

Dr. Panda  35:12  

that thing has been done, but the morning one, experimentally it has not been done. It’s just based on the idea that this is this might happen. But at least few in many of our studies, we have seen people who just delay their breakfast. I’m not saying that, that delaying their breakfast. No, not 10 o’clock, they’re delaying a couple of hours in the morning, but they’re not actually advancing that dinner time that much because the delay itself is giving up 10 hours, they also improve their blood glucose levels. So no, it’s not too many people, we don’t have enough power there to say, conclusively, as I said, there is no very specific human study on this subject and this topic that there should be a good morning fast of one to two hours, but the hormonal profiles make sense. And then there are some studies, few individuals who delivered fast they benefit from that Lucas profile. So those things are live. So So then

Dr. Mindy Pelz  36:15  

eating in the light would make, like try to eat when it’s like

Dr. Panda  36:21  

bedtime. So unless somebody wakes up at two o’clock in the morning and habitually.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  36:28  

Yeah, and but that’s not there. That’s that’s shift working, which I want to get to in a moment or, you know, even what happens when you change like you go into another time zone? One question I have, and I’ve recently done a bunch of research on this is our microbes. How much are microbes involved in this process of helping regulate blood sugar? And do the, the microbes have a circadian rhythm that we need to be following? We’re talking about hormone patterns, what about those microbes do they have a circadian rhythm,

Dr. Panda  37:04  

because the microbes actually change throughout the night so for example, I we go to bed with has set up microbes in our garden, we wake up with a different set. The composition of our microbiome actually changes throughout 24 hours. The reason is very simple. When we fast, as we fast our InDesign has less food than the environment for this microbes changes. So they have so this fasting environment, promote certain microbes and suppress other microbes. And then as we eat, and we have food in our system that changes the environment. So again, they switch flips, and certain type of microbes, florists, and other microbes will die down or will reduce in up. So there are studies showing Yes, the microbial composition changes throughout 24 hours. And we are, at least that is one thing that is universally now accepted from microbiome researchers is we should have as many different types of microbes in our body as possible, particularly beneficial microbes in our in our gut as possible because they do different things. They can break down food into different bioactive molecules, Norris’s so that the question is, right. Do you want all the actors on the stage at the same time? Or do you want the actors to come do their part, a different chapter of the play? By having a strong feeding passing cycle, you essentially have a nice orchestra of nice play going on inside your guard so that at different times you’ll have different microbes coming in doing their part when the can florists and then they are disappearing, making room for the other set of microbes to come in and do their part.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  39:06  

So I’m wondering, then if we have different microbes at night compared to the day, then what would signal that could be the change of light? Which then do those microbes? Maybe don’t you know, you’ve got the I love the way you phrase that when melatonin goes up to put us asleep, the pancreas goes to sleep. But do we also have another effect of the microbes dramatically shifting and those are not going to be as good at regulating blood sugar and or absorbing nutrients? Because they’re meant to be a different set of microbes for nighttime. Yeah, so

Dr. Panda  39:40  

those things have not been investigated that well, at least in humans. And mice, we know that there are different sets of microbes, they come up at different time. And again, there is not much research on what happens to that microbial composition if we signed light on the mice at different times of the night. But for The security and system. As far as we know, so far, the light has to go through the eyes of the retina to reset the master clock in the brain, and then that brain clock has to send signal to the rest of the body to implant CKD into them. So that is not direct effect of light. On the micro, micro independent of the brain, it has to go through the brand. So, there is not much research on that. And most of the microbiome microbiome changes largely connected to the quality quantity and timing of food we eat. I said again, lastly connected, okay. And since the quality quantity of food also changes at different time, because what we eat for breakfast is very different from what we eat for dinner. They’re also nourishing different types of microbes a different type.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  40:55  

So the microbes respond to the quality of food and when you eat, and now that you’re going to get the rhythm of these microbes, depending on your lifestyle behavior around those things. Yeah. Now what happens if you change time zones? So this is something that I’ve been thinking about with jetlag in general, can we use timing of food to either improve jetlag, you know, response to jetlag. And what happens when I go to a completely different time zone, how long does it take my microbes to really reboot themselves and get on to that new timezone?

Dr. Panda  41:31  

Yeah, so the study is slowing. Initially, we thought that all the resetting of our circadian rhythm to new time, John, occurs primarily through light, which is still true to large extent, because light affects our sleep wake cycle. And a timing of four affects directly affects our metabolic rhythm, which in turn influences sleep wake cycle. So then the question is, how can we combine the effect of light and food? How do we optimize that when we travel to new time, John? Or, for example, when you’re doing shift work? How do you adjust to different sets. So this is, again, an active area of research. And at the same time, it’s a very difficult area of research because, and all you have to properly change light and darkness, either in laboratory condition for mice, or in humans in clinical studies, because you can, it’ll be even more expensive to fly people from here to Europe for yesterday. That would be tough. But still, the bottom line is yes, by adjusting the food timing, at least in animal models in rats, they do reset to the new time, John much better, and much faster. So the rule of thumb is okay, I need at least one day to adjust to a one hour change in time, Joe. And some people may take even more than that. Just imagine when the daylight saving time and standard time those things shed, some people can take up to a week to readjust to the new timing, which is only an hour so but right, just imagine that your body can take one one week after one week to adjust one. So in animal experiment, and at Arts people have shown that when you chance, food timing, in sync with light dark cycle than this, that’s the set the clock to the new time, John are light dark cycle much faster than the dots that just changed the light dark cycle. And there is no chance to put tiny data out there. So that brings up this important question like when you’re, particularly when we start travel, on the travel day, many of us we try to wake up very early in the morning because, again, as estimize in the real life, yeah, if you’re, if you’re traveling with somebody else, then you got to wake them up your take care few things in the morning. So you may be waking up one or two hours and sometimes in three hours before your habitual wake of trying to get to the airport or start driving. And so that’s the circadian rhythm disruption to begin with, because you have reduced your sleep time. And then when you release the new time, John, if you’re itching late at night, our reflexive behavior is well he should not go to bed, empty stomach so he should eat something. And you’re actually eating very late at night at the nucleus. And then in between if you’re flying across a continent or going from here to Europe or vice versa, sometimes we entertain ourselves with lots of airline food. Liked It all right and watch movies and stay awake. That, again is a lot of this stuff. So the bottom line is if we pay attention to what time you are eating, what time is your flight or when you are teaching. And if you try adjusting your tire timing of eating to the new time, John on the day of your travel. So for example, on the day of the day of your travel, because you know, some people say that you should try adjusting two or three days before it’s very difficult because you’re trying, you’re preparing to do stuff. And then if you’re down only for two or three days and coming back, then it’s time to add shift. If you cannot do two or three tests before then, at least that day. So for example, if I, when I fly from, say West Coast to East Coast, I also go through the same thing at work of an hour or two earlier to get to the airport. And at 6am. In the morning, when I walk to the airport, it just cleans when I see people lining up to get that morning breakfast morning bagel.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  46:08  

me Tell me Chow and the line is long and the food is toxic. I have the same problem. When I look at that

Dr. Panda  46:19  

as like a commodity. I’m not going to work your card sit in the Aeroplan running, you’re not going for a 10k Your body doesn’t need Yes, you can just go Yeah, pick out your neck pillow, an eye mask and try to catch up on that slip that you lost. And yes, that’s what somebody everybody good travels to try to. And then in flight. And after you have rested minutes from West Coast to East Coast is sometimes can be three to four or five hours flights that you can take out wherever you have brought with you to eat or it will be done Clyde the man when you reach. Ideally, you’re reaching before nine or 10 in the night so you can reach and have some fun. So then the next morning, and this is something that’s very important that next morning, if you can go out for a morning walk, slow jog, or be outdoors. After waking up. That actually helps tremendously to reset to the new times. In fact, many successful people, I have met many successful businessman and other professionals who travel a lot and have been healthy. I asked them so what’s your secret? They’ll say? We’ll tell you one thing. Never eat in flight.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  47:46  

Yes, that’s my secret. I don’t eat on the flight.

Dr. Panda  47:50  

Money. Get to the new place. If it is still there. Like, go for a run. Or next morning, go for a run. Dexter morning, go for a walk if you cannot run because another thing about enjoying a new place is to go early morning. Go for a walk. Typically eight, right? Within an hour after sunrise because that’s the time on the cities are completely empty. You feel like you’re on this Plex. You are the king or the queen. Yeah. You can take nice pictures without all the tourists.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  48:31  

Yeah. So So then let me just recap what you just said. Because I think jetlag is really an interesting conversation because more people are traveling and it’s just becoming like, we used to drive cars. Now we hop on planes. So are you saying if like couple of if I could a couple of days before going to a big time zone shift. If I could start to eat in accordance to what that timezone would be like, then that could help. It’s one factor that could help with the transition into that jetlag.

Dr. Panda  49:03  

But it’s not always ideal because for example, if you’re flying from West Coast to Europe, and that’s a nine hour stripes, that means I have to wake up in the middle of the night.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  49:12  

That’s right, I’m about I’m doing that next. I’m doing that next week. This is why this Friday, and I already Ah, so I’ve already downloaded the app that tells me like how I should be going to bed a little different. And then I’m thinking okay, well now in light of this I’m like how do I maybe put the timing of food and look at what my eating will look like when I’m there and start eating in that pattern a couple of days before I go

Dr. Panda  49:39  

I’m independent. If you’re flying to Europe then I usually don’t eat and fly because most of the flights are less than 10 hours went from West because sometimes, but then you take out Yeah, one hour after takeoff on one hour before takeoff when you cannot sleep so that leaves only 878 Max Number seven to eight hours. And that’s what you should be sleeping luckily is yet to catch up with your sleep. And then to be fair, and then the breakfast in Europe is way much better than the for this. Oh, yeah. So build up some appetite. Go have a good breakfast today.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  50:19  

And the day, yes, yeah, don’t deprive yourself just to set reset your circadian rhythm is what I heard in that one. So, yeah, so that’s good. Okay. So the next question I have to ask you, and I’m sure people have been asking you this recently, is, you know, so much of the research I’ve seen you talk about and you produce and bring out into the world has been about the metabolic benefits of, of intermittent fasting, not just from a hemoglobin a one C, but when we’re looking at cholesterol and blood pressure, and several metabolic markers. And then we have this headline is what I’m going to call it that came out like a month ago that said, if you intermittent fast 91% increase in cardiovascular event. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because we are we were flooded with questions on that. And I And when I looked at it, I thought this is an exact opposition of the research I’ve seen you produce. So it didn’t really make sense to me. Can you address that? So people understand what that headline was? And was it accurate? And how does it tie into the research you’ve done?

Dr. Panda  51:25  

Yeah, so the let’s try to explain what does that research. So what happens in the US almost every couple of years, there is this survey that goes out to 1000s of people that are normally paid to in a way that they present all atrocity or as land etc. And one of the questions there is what did you eat yesterday, and how much you have not typically when you eat it, because you know the questionnaire is not actually optimized to accurately say when this person but anyway, so they collect this information. And then they also collect other information, whether the person is smoker or nonsmoker, all the other information, which is called enhance less the salt form is done in every two years. And that helps people to kind of look at the broad picture of what is going on. With respect to health, what percentage of these people who are interviewed are obese, what percentage are healthy, what problems they have, and all that stuff? That gives us a very good idea of what is the state of the health and the country. But it doesn’t give us a good picture of what people ate. Because more than 60% of people in the service, they under report what they eat they because it’s very difficult. If you ask me what I ate yesterday, and all the person size becomes very difficult to describe on top of that, when I will, yeah, breakfast at eight o’clock. Or maybe they forgot and then people are not objectively asked When was your first calorie? What was your Becca? So the survey is that a lot of studies saying that the survey is not the best way to collect nutrition information. And in fact, there was a Mayo Clinic article saying how more than 50% of people report metabolically implausible amount of food they eat for example 100 kilo person or report that he or see at only 400 kilocalories. That’s impossible. So, huh. So that is a lot of problem with that data. So that’s why that nutrition data has never been used to set policies about what when and how much people so it to be very clear that nutrition data is rarely used to do set any policy. Second, that near to sanitize also never used to say that whether you said it this way to reduce the risk for other disease. So So essentially, this is a garbage in garbage out kind of analysis because the nutrition data collect there is a report. So now in this study, what they reported was they asked people who were eating less than eight hours, this is very important that they asked, did they eat whatever they reported? Was it less than eight hours that didn’t actually say whether they were eating only one meal? Some people say that we had only one meal because maybe that day they ate one meal or whether they are how much they had. There was no explicit in that abstract there is nothing saying that how much they had. What they had is just one thing that they ate within less than eight hours and then they try to match what kind of people are dying. Every year than that try to match them to the subject, which is very indirect way of connecting, who is who are the people who are dying and the next five or six years and then this called the National death index and then connecting with, it’s not that those specific people who are die because those specific people are not longitudinally solid. So it was little bit right and difficult to make this connection, you have to do some statistical with plus to make that connection. And another thing was, this was not meant for public consumption this abstract. When we go to scientific meetings, we usually put a small study and then see what people think it will give us feedback. And then we come back to our lab and take our many, this is not a good idea, maybe I have to do more. So that’s the purpose of scientific conferences where we submit a very small article, less than 500 words, saying this is what we do. And then sometimes we do put a poster so that means it’s like two or three fingers. Think of your high school science fair project, how people put a poster is a must like that to get some feedback. And unfortunately, American Heart Association decided to put it for public consumption in Slough scientific, this person in Addison, the scientific discussion. And then when it came out, although it’s not peer, reviewed, by other scientists, to the same rigor as any journal article is peer review. There is no scientific discussion going on. What it went out, people got really scared things out, we got calls from our face and saying that, hey, I want to withdraw from this study, because I might die. And we go like, I know that our regulators, they would actually say, well, now in light of this study this finding, do you think that you should continue this study? And? And are we there are many scientists who got this kind of questions from the patients, on medic physicians who got a lot of questions from the patient. So that’s why we had to come together and put a statement, and that statement is now circulating in social media. We put it back to the American Heart Association, and then we decided that we’ll put this statement out there. Because they, right, because if you go back and ask the same thing, since a lot of people are under reporting that calorie, including the obese people, they actually under report that calorie. So does it mean if you take it along that line that would sound like if you eat less, you will likely become obese? Which is also not true. It’s not it’s not caused? Yeah. So that’s why Yeah, and then if you look at what, how many people, the headline is 20,000 People study says this or something like that.

Unknown Speaker  58:04  

Right? Yep, I looked like less than less than 500,

Dr. Panda  58:07  

people actually reported that they were eating within eight hours or less than eight hours. And if you look at them, that disproportionately more likely to be smokers. And we know that smoking has a huge impact on heart disease and and many other compounds. And that they said they never reported how many calories were they eating? And why were they eating for less than eight hours? No, one minutes. This study actually collected data from many years ago, at that time, intermittent fasting, fasting was not a thing. So the question is, why were they eating pointless? So that also brings up another issue that we have seen with respect to sleep? People say that one should sleep between six and half to seven and a half hours. The reason is, there are many studies all over the world on millions of people. Now it will combine all the numbers saying that those people who habitually eat between six and half to seven and a half hours significantly reduced risk for many metabolic disease and morbidities. So then the question is, well, people who sleep less, of course, we all know that, or advise them to sleep a little bit more. Those who sleep four hours or five hours we tell them sleep more. But then the question is who are habitually sleeping for eight hours, nine hours, because they feel like they have to rest that law. Professional athletes, for example, they need more than eight hours of sleep. So are we going to tell them hey, your chance of dying is much higher because you’re sleeping more now because the lifestyle that the body demands that long period of sleeping so they slip love, we should not ask them to decrease their sleep.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  59:58  

Well say and well said, Yes, that’s a great analogy. What are your thoughts on the new weight loss drugs, because one of the things that I keep hearing from a lot of people is that they they just not hungry. So in some sense, they’re fasting. And so but then the dark side of that is sometimes they’re not hungry at all, and they’re bringing in very little calories, do you? Do you have any opinion on where we’re gonna be heading with these weight loss drugs, and the purpose of them is to improve metabolic health. But we also know, intermittent fasting improves metabolic health. So where do you see it fit into this conversation?

Dr. Panda  1:00:37  

I think the drugs are extremely useful, because the reason why we need drug is what our lifestyle is recommended. We, some of us fail to follow that lifestyle. So for example, for many of us, as I said, to many, many years of eating habit, we are sensitive change our brain in a way that our brain just wants those foods, it’s very difficult for us to have control over our cravings. So we cannot stop our events, if we know that this is not how they we just, we just go and have that big portion size, because we don’t our brand doesn’t get the signal that you have stomach is full. So it becomes very difficult to control the hours to hit. And in that way, in those cases, those who are BMI, say 35 Plus, and they have tried everything and they’re not losing weight, they’re still having comorbidities, then it’s okay to have this worthless drug or type two diabetes drug because these drugs were essentially initially designed for managing type two diabetes. And they have been very effective, they can reduce hemoglobin a one C substantially, that is very difficult to achieve with metformin are the first line of drugs. So then the question is, well, we know that there are many side effects loss in appetite. So that also leads to loss and total energy intake, loss and macronutrients and micronutrients. And that spawning another industry of supplements and a specific macronutrient support. And I guess we’ll see this going on for a while. And I think the long term studies, or the long term effect when it becomes more and more apparent, and maybe people will think twice. So for example, there are studies showing that chronic use of this worthless, I won’t say worthless drugs, because they may be taking for something else but type two diabetes, the GLP one receptor agonist, it does reduce our peristalsis motion, and our guts, gut doesn’t move for as much as it used. Some people develop gastroparesis, where it can say your gut goes through paralysis or something in extreme cases. So that is embedded some vomiting and all that stuff that can be chronic, even after you stopped it. Although the SK is still pretty low, it’s not negligible. So if there is a risk of developing this gastroparesis, or this gastric fan, even what percent of people who have taken the drug for one year, and if you compound it over 10 years, then maybe 10% or so, then you have to think twice to see okay, so can you can you manage it slightly differently. So, for example, when I talked to many physicians that say that they try to put somebody on the lowest possible dose for a while to see how they’re reacting, and then they continue, maybe escalate this, depending on the target. So most of it is actually prescribed for type two diabetes. They say the person is responding well, and it’s stabilized. The appetite is coming back slowly, then they continue. And now the second thought is, well, if they don’t want to, if the person doesn’t want to stay on this drop, then can they begin with very below toes and intermittent fasting or thymus ating? Will that help them sustain the benefit of the drug without too much of the adverse side effect? I was said that this is just a third and justice is a hypothesis. I haven’t seen any actual human study that has begun, but I hope somebody will start those kinds of studies why are the lowest possible doses along with some form of intermittent fasting, timeless eating, along with healthy nutrition our eyes, because we have to think about the macro and micronutrient balance. And I guess that will be that kind of study will give us some idea. Okay, so is it good to combine this? All there is no benefit. You know what stack it with?

Dr. Mindy Pelz  1:05:26  

Yeah, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, I guess, again, thank you for letting me pick your brain. I’m a big fan of the research that you’ve been doing. And the message you bring me I mean, you You’ve changed a culture in not just time restricted eating, but also in all things light. And I love this idea of movement like this timing has been, I feel like a part of the health equation that has not been talked about enough. And you’ve just been such a champion of it. So thank you for that. I have to, I have to finish up on my favorite question to ask everybody. Which is, what is health for you? Like if you could define health? How would you define it? Because we’re all chasing health. But often we’re chasing something we don’t know how to define. Yeah. So

Dr. Panda  1:06:19  

I almost say that the best biomarker of good health is to have a good circadian rhythm. So in this sense,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  1:06:25  

right, there you go. And what how do you what do you see

Dr. Panda  1:06:28  

every day so for example, when you wake up within said a few hours of waking up, you should have a good bowel movement. Because having a regular bowel movement is the best thing for your gut health. And I’m surprised to hear that so many young adults, particularly young women actually don’t have regular bungoma. And then the same thing with many older adults too, so and then the second day is a yes, after waking up. And going outdoor, you should feel fully energetic. Because the first half of the day is when we are really a lot of brand is a lot we can do more complex tasks, we can take NZP to position. So that’s another feeling that it should have it I’m not saying that you have to wake up at six o’clock or seven o’clock. Whatever your habitual wake up time is from waste of time. Plus, six to eight hours is your most productive hours of the day. That in the late afternoon is served not have too much muscle pen, joint pen, X and other stuff, because those actually limit our movement or musculoskeletal health, which is very important. And in the late afternoon, you should feel energetic to go out to have physical activity. And then you should also have healthy hunger in the morning. In the evening, as you’re winding down. You certainly naturally feel sleepy to go to bed is to not be taking a sleep ad or sleeping pill to fall asleep. And to have this body’s ability to sleep without any sleeping, sleeping head and to be in bed to get some restorative continuously for at least six hours. I says at least six hours because as you get older, some of us have difficulty falling asleep staying asleep for Morton’s continuously for six hours, then this is my definition of help with goals once our circadian rhythms. I love that no going then we know that everything else falls into inside this.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  1:08:44  

Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Well, I love all your EQ your explanations and metaphors and analogies and just just appreciate the work you’re doing. So where did it where can people find your book and and you have an app? Like how do people find some of the really cool stuff that is available to them to interact with your work?

Dr. Panda  1:09:04  

So I have two books now one of the circadian core that was published a few years ago, and now it has been translated in 19 or 20 different languages. That’s, that’s quite nice. That’s quite satisfying, gratifying to see. And that the second book was mostly on diabetes, because I realized that nearly half of the adults in the US are pre diabetic or diabetic and once you get type two diabetes is a very nasty disease because once you get diabetes, then it affects almost the rest of your body. And so how you can Mattis prevent man as diabetes, type two diabetes, particularly with circadian optimization. That’s the topic of the second book, this Akkadian diacritic score. And then of course, we do a lot of research which can be very complicated for people to participate in. So that’s why we He synthesized all of that research around timing of food slave light exposure and exercise into a simple app called on time health. And it doesn’t sell it tells people to be on time with their own circadian clock. And that way they can amazing, and they don’t have to do too many counting calories or counting person size, I guess what I say is, once we have a good control of our time, whether it is in your personal schedule, or with your help, then you have a great sense of urgency that you are in control. And once you control the timing for than what we see a lot of people they feel that they are in control of the quality and quantity of their foot. Similarly, amazing. Once you set a time to go to gym, you just had to go to gym, you don’t have to think about what you will do. You have to just go to the gym, and then you will find things to do. And that will improve your cardiovascular health and Stripe clinics. Similarly, just keeping track of time,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  1:11:13  

I feel like the general theme of this podcast could be like time the missing piece to a healthy lifestyle. Like it’s so interesting to me like how we talk about everything you’re supposed to do. And we have left out of the equation, the timing of all of that. So thank you for highlighting that. I think it’s I think everybody’s gonna get a lot out of this. So appreciate you and yeah, keep doing all the amazing work that you do so

Dr. Panda  1:11:41  

much and have it perfectly circadian day

Dr. Mindy Pelz  1:11:45  

I will I definitely will. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai