What Happens in the Gut, Starts in the Mouth

The Human Upgrade: Episode 1069 

[00:00:00] Dave: You’re listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today is a  conversation with one of my favorite guests on the show, uh, a dear friend, and someone who’s  disrupted a huge part of healthcare and continues to do so. None other than Naveen Jain, who is  the founder of Viome. And Viome is a company that pioneered human gut testing about 10 years  ago, launched at the first biohacking conference.  

And since then, Naveen and I have, uh, worked together on just talking about, what does the  future look like when we have AI that can look at what’s going on inside our gut? And he said,  well, why would I just look at the gut? Why don’t I look at your mitochondria? And he came to  me about two and a half, three years ago and said, we’re finding stuff in spit, Dave. The oral  microbiome is the key to everything. Well, it’s one of the keys to everything anyway.  

So if you’re saying, what the heck? Oral microbiome, this is the collection of bacteria in your  mouth. And you might have heard, even in the ’80s, they were saying, well, people with more  periodontal disease get Alzheimer’s more. Isn’t that weird? They get more heart disease. Well, Naveen cracked the code on that stuff, and he’s going to be speaking my biohacking conference,  which is in its ninth annual iteration in Orlando this year. And we’re going to go deep on what’s  going on with aging, what’s going on in your mouth, and how that affects everything else in your  body in ways that you would never really expect. So Naveen, my friend, welcome back to the  show. 

[00:01:31] Naveen: Well, Dave, as you know, this is my absolute favorite conversation. I mean,  every single time you and I chat, it just energizes me. And we end up talking about so many  different things about, what is it about the human body that causes us to be sick? Because there’s  nothing in our genes that is written as a destiny that we all are bound to be sick. The minute we  get 40, we must start gaining weight, we have to become diabetic, we’re going to have heart  disease, we’re going to have depression, we’re going to have all these issues.  

Somehow people think it’s all about aging, and it’s given, and nothing we can do about it. And  the thing I love about you is you started the whole career saying, we have a choice. We can do  something about it. It’s not something that’s given. And this whole biohacking movement was  really, what can I do that works for me? And not something that may work for others, but what  works for me? Can I do something that works for me? That was, to me, the genesis of us trying to understand, what if we can use massive amounts of data, use AI, and be able to figure out exactly what changes in the human body when you have an onset of a disease or a progression of  a disease? 

And if we can crack that code, we can potentially prevent the diseases from happening, stop the  progression of them, and, God forbid, outright reverse them. And I think you have shown this is  actually possible. And I would say, the godfather of biohacking, and the science, and AI, how it’s  completely fundamentally changing the way we are going to look at our human body and look at  longevity, and aging, and for that matter, all the human diseases. 

[00:03:20] Dave: It’s becoming more and more clear that the advice that we always get that, this  should work for everyone, it oftentimes doesn’t work well for anyone. Diet soda doesn’t make  you lose weight. It’s actually bad for you, and it makes people fat, at least most people. So just  doing what everyone else does, that’s the liming strategy, and I’m not really into that unless I do  what everyone else does and I measure my results and then they improve, in which case, great.  That works fine. 

One of the things that I learned very early on in biohacking, long before I had even named it, was  that when I used a mouthwash, like a Listerine or something like that, I got really dry eyes in the  morning. It made me just not feel as good. And I did some research, found out it was really bad  for you, so I quit doing it. 

But then I made my own mouthwash because I’m like, I have to get rid of the germs. So I used  vodka, which is ethanol, which kills things, and I added some xylitol, which stops bacteria from  forming biofilms. I added some essential oils, and things like that. And I used that for a while,  and it still had the same effect. 

And so I started saying, okay, what’s happening here? And I quit using mouthwash many, many  years ago because even a homemade mouthwash that disrespected my oral microbiome didn’t  seem to work. And I was unaware at the time of the research on erectile dysfunction and  mouthwash. And when you came along a couple years ago and said, Dave, we’re seeing this data  now that we’re starting to get saliva, like, look at what AI is telling us, what did you discover  about the oral microbiome? 

[00:04:53] Naveen: Well, first of all, Dave, I just want to, uh, emphasize what you just said.  Anytime you hear anyone say, everyone should do this, unless your name happens to be

everyone, just don’t do it. There is no such thing as something good for everyone. We all are so  different. And it’s not that genetically we are very different. It is our microbiome is so different.  

And it’s not just about the organisms are different, about what they do based on what you feed  them is completely different. Each ecosystem in our gut, in our mouth is completely different.  And I think, to some extent, that governs who we become. In fact, they did a tremendous  research, and I think, uh, Dave, you’re pretty familiar with that. 

They took identical twins with identical DNA, fraternal twins, and they actually did a study on  them, and they found the same food impacts them completely differently. Same food can cause a  high glycemic response in one person and none in the other. They, in fact, saw that one can  develop a disease, the other doesn’t. So this whole idea of blaming our ancestors for our troubles,  saying, oh, I have bad genes, no, sir, you are making bad choices, and that’s really what’s  happening.  

Now, coming back to answer your question on the oral microbiome, what we started to see is many of the things that we actually saw happening in the gut actually start in your mouth. So I  don’t know about you. My mom will always tell me, eat slowly. Chew your food. And I always  wondered, why does my mom worry about somehow choking on the small food? And it turns out  she was actually very scientific. Obviously came from generations of knowledge that they had  collected.  

When you eat slowly and chew your food, you’re allowing your oral microbiome to actually pre process that food. And by pre-processing the food, two things happen. The nutrients from that  food are easily absorbed through the small intestines. Number two, it starts to send signal to the  human organs about what is coming down the digestive system.  

So I think you mentioned diet soda. When you drink diet soda, your oral microbiome starts  sending signals to the pancreas. Hey, the sweetest stuff is coming. It is most likely glucose. Start  releasing all the insulin. And the pancreas pumps the insulin down your body. There is nothing  for insulin to do because there is no glucose there. And sooner or later, your body becomes  insulin intolerant, and you start to gain weight, and you start to have diabetes. So the reason  you’re drinking diet soda actually ends up becoming a completely bad thing for you. 

Now, obviously, the other thing we learned was, and I think you obviously know, that your oral  microbiome produces nitric oxide. What does the nitric oxide do? It dilates your, uh, arteries and  the veins, so actually, it prevents the heart disease from happening. And the side effect is very  similar to the blue pill. 

It improves sexual health, improves the blood flow to your brain. It improves the blood flow to  your sexual organs, and suddenly, a good microbiome actually can be extremely good for your  sexual health. So as they say, a person you are kissing may actually cause you heart attack, it  may actually be real. 

[00:08:36] Dave: So how do I know who to kiss Naveen? This is a very pressing issue for me, as  you all know. 

[00:08:40] Naveen: So I think, as they say, test, don’t guess. 

[00:08:46] Dave: So the correct order of dating is you order a Viome test kit, you give it to  someone, say, could you lick this, and I’ll ask you out in a week or two when I get my results? 

[00:08:55] Naveen: Yeah. And in addition to that, make sure you do the STD testing as well. 

[00:08:59] Dave: Okay. You guys don’t offer that, but you probably could determine that from  gut bacteria, couldn’t you? 

[00:09:04] Naveen: Of course. I mean, there are a lot of things you could determine from, in  some sense, the infection. Because there is infection, you would see increased cytokines in your  blood as well. 

[00:09:15] Dave: Wow. There’s such a rich amount of information that you get just from spit and  a couple of other, like a little drop of blood and a very, very small fecal sample, that you can  paint a picture of someone’s overall health in a way that’s actually astounding. It’s bigger than I  thought it was going to be when you launched the company, because you keep adding additional  data, including a very accurate, anti-aging measure, like how old are you? How would you  compare the accuracy of the Viome aging score versus the things that are DNA methylation based? This is a very common thing, like the true age test. 

[00:09:49] Naveen: Absolutely. So first of all, Dave, just to step back, when you do a full body  intelligence test, you give us three samples. A spit of your saliva, finger prick blood, about four  drops of your finger prick blood, and a small touch of a fecal sample. From that, we are able to analyze every single transcript that your gut microbes are producing, every transcript that’s  coming from your epithelial cell.  

Then we look at that that’s coming from your stool. And then we look at the blood. In the blood,  what are we doing? Looking at all of your mitochondrial transcripts, so it doesn’t matter. So we  look at all mitochondrial transcripts, and then we are looking at all the human transcripts. That  means all the cytokines, everything that’s happening in your mitochondria. And then we look at  saliva.  

So in saliva, we’re looking at all the human gene expressions and all oral microbial gene  expressions. Then we take all of that information, and then we start to see, based on all these  transcripts, what molecules are going to be produced? What are the different states of different  things? 

Your sulfide production, your LPS production, your flagella assembly, and your dental health,  your gut health, your nitric oxide production. What’s causing the bad breath to happen? Is that a  polyamine production, or is it a sulfide production? Because based on that, we can tell you what  food you should– it may not be garlic. It may be tofu that’s causing you bad breath. So we can  actually tell you what’s causing the bad breath in your mouth. 

Now, based on that, we have all these biomarkers, and now we are able to give you, first thing, a  biological age. Now, how do we calculate biological age compared to many other clocks that you  have? So basically, many of these biological clocks look at one thing and one thing only, and  based on that, they think they can determine everything. 

So remember telomeres? The first clock was, hey, based on your telomere, we can see how long  you’re going to live. The longer the telomere, the longer you’re going to live. Well, it turns out  that was a complete myth. That research has been completely busted now. People have increased  the telomere sizes, and it does not increase your eye, uh, in terms of how long you live. 

Now, methylation is– again, they’re only looking at certain methylation on the human genes.  Now, that is only a portion of the trouble because what methylation does for the people who  don’t understand is methylation on a gene is called epigenome, and that simply does a reduced  gene expression. So when something is methylated, its under expressed or not expressed at all,  depending on how much methylation is there.

So ultimately, all methylation does is control your gene expression. So when you’re looking at  gene expression, like we do at Viome, remember, we’re the only company that does not look at  your DNA. We’re looking at your RNA. RNA already takes into account all of the methylation,  or acetylation, or histones that are happening and is able to look at the gene expression. 

So the way we calculate biological age is using AI. Now that we have over 550,000 samples we  have analyzed, we’re able to simply say, for your age, 18, 19, 20, pick a name you want, 31, 32,  what are all of the biological biomarkers in your mitochondria, in your blood, in your stool, in  your saliva? And then when you come along, and we say, you know what, Dave, your  biomarkers for everything is just like a 41-year-old. And that’s your biological age. 

And as you change your diet, as you change your lifestyle, as you do the 40 Years of Zen, that’s  managing your stress, as you go out on taking many of the things that you recommend people do,  including muscle training, so going to Upgrade Labs, building your muscles, guess what? Every  one of these things changes your cytokines. It changes your gut microbial expression.  

It changes your oral microbial expression. And suddenly, even if you are 52, your biological age  can come down to 40. And when you become 60, you could still come down to 35 rather than– so your chronological age can keep going up while your biological age can keep coming down.  And that’s one of the things we measure.  

And then we measure your immune health. How well are you protected from the external  environment? If you do get sick, are you going to end up in the emergency room, or are you  going to be able to deal with that? We give you your gut health, we give you your oral health, we  give you your cognitive health, we give you your heart health, and then we tell you exactly what  food you should eat and why, what food you should avoid and why. 

And then we can tell you exactly what nutrition your body needs. And we don’t give you  anything pre-made. We literally make the things that your body needs. You need 22 milligram of  lycopene. You need 79 milligram of amylase. So we go through every food extract. Vitamins,  minerals, herbs, digestive enzymes, amino acids, peptides, probiotics, prebiotics, and we custom  make it for you. So this is for me, made every month. So you can see here, this was made seven  days ago just for me. So everything is custom made, the nutrients your body needs.

[00:15:01] Dave: It comes down to the one question I get the most from people. And at this point  it, it’s got to be hundreds of thousands of times I’ve heard it between online, and in-persons, and  things like that. It’s, just tell me what to do. I don’t want to become an expert biohacker. And  earlier, you said, there is no one thing that’s good for everyone. 

I don’t really agree with that. Minimizing your toxin exposure is good for everyone. However,  you may be way more sensitive to one toxin than another person. So it’s helpful to know which  ones you should avoid because those are your kryptonite toxins. But if you’re not going to do that  sort of thing, you’d say, all right. Getting enough sleep is good for everyone. Moving sometimes.  Seeing the sun. But even those, how much vitamin D are you deficient in? Do you need more or  less sun? It’s all personalized.  

So if you wanted to do one of the cheapest ways of just telling me what to do, I really truly  believe you do the Viome test, and you’re going to get a very rich set of information that says, do  this. Don’t do that. But sometimes, Naveen, you tell people who are really tired that they  shouldn’t even have one cup of coffee a day, and then they all call me and say, Dave, what’s  wrong with this Naveen guy? Doesn’t he know how important coffee is for life? So you got tell  people once and for all. What’s going on? 

[00:16:19] Naveen: I thought we did that. I think it’s already fixed. Actually, it’s minimize. So  we tell people, hey, when you have very high levels of certain toxins in your body or high level  of anxiety, you should minimize. You should never cut something down, but you should  minimize for a certain time. It’s not forever. It’s only a short period of time until your body  comes back into balance. 

Now, I do want to emphasize what you just said, that there are certain things that are bad for  everyone. Mold exposure, toxin exposure, eating sugar is absolutely toxic. So that’s why I say  there are some things that– there’s no universal healthy food. The same food can be good for  you, or same food can be bad for you. However, there’s certain things that are bad for everyone,  right? Meat is not one of them. By the way, this whole misnomer that red meat is bad for  everyone is completely wrong.  

Think about it. Obviously, you eat a lot of red meat. But interesting thing about the red meat is it  has choline, and the choline in the gut microbiome gets transformed into TMA. And the TMA  gets converted by your liver into TMAO. So if your microbiome are not converting the choline

into TMA, then you can eat red meat as much as you want. It does have tremendous amount of  nutrients. Obviously, what type of red meat you eat, it can’t be with antibiotics, and it can’t be the  one that cattle are being fed with all kinds of things that they shouldn’t eat. 

[00:17:49] Dave: Gum and glyphosate, yeah, that’s probably not the diet for cows. And even fish  forms TMAO more than beef. But what I think people don’t get about the Viome results  sometimes is often you’re saying, for 20 days, or for maybe six weeks, don’t eat this food so the  bacteria that are thriving, the ones that form this toxin, they’ll go away. 

And then you can start eating the food again. So what you’re doing is, instead of, well, I’ll just do  a 30-day fast, which is one way people used to do it, or even a 10-day water only or water and  coffee fast, that’ll have a similar effect, but it’s a lot of work. And what you’re saying is, take out  these few things. 

It’ll change your oral microbiome. It’ll change your gut microbiome, and then you can add them  back in when you’re in balance. So this is a way to shortcut– what I did when I first got into this  in the late ’90s, I went on this two-year-long food elimination diet where you could only eat a  food from a family once every seven days, and I have spreadsheets and all this crap because that  was how we had to do it. 

And now you’re just saying, well, hey, these are your five kryptonite things. Don’t eat them for a  month while you re-regulate. And I think that approach, for most people, it’s just going to save a  huge amount of time, and you don’t charge a lot for the test compared to even a typical  autoimmunity or a food allergy panel. Even your cancer detection test is under 400 bucks. What  is the total health test running these days? 

[00:19:15] Naveen: So basically, we do three tests. Saliva test, stool test, and a finger prick  blood test. All three of them for 299. So literally, $99 per test. 

[00:19:23] Dave: Okay, so that’s very affordable, and you get actionable data from it. And then if  they qualify for it, they can get the cancer detect test, which is early detection for oral and throat  cancer that is– 

[00:19:37] Naveen: Literally, with 95% specificity and 90% plus sensitivity Stage 1 or pre-stage  one cancer. I mean, it’s unbelievable. Dave, I have not shown you. We’re also now developing a  personalized toothpaste for each individual based on their oral microbiome. So it’s literally a toothpaste and gel designed for your oral microbiome, literally like this. You break it up, single  thing, and here’s your toothpaste. 

[00:20:05] Dave: Naveen, I’m an advisor, and you haven’t sent me any custom toothpaste, and  I’m personally offended. Is there a special food I should take when I’m feeling triggered? 

[00:20:13] Naveen: So I think it’s going– well, depends on what trigger we’re talking about, and  we’ll come back to it. In addition to that, we also have these oral [Inaudible] that you just put in  your mouth, and they dissolve and they adjust your oral microbiome. So that’s really all the  things you need to do to adjust your oral microbiome. 

And very interestingly, I’ve been using this personalized toothpaste, and I just went to my  dentist, and I think it was two or three weeks ago, and she told me, said, Naveen, I’ve been  seeing you for five years. I’ve never seen your gums and teeth this healthy. She said, no bleeding,  no nothing. Whatever you doing, keep doing it. And she thought I started flossing. I said, doc, I  haven’t floss for 36 years. I’m going to start doing it now. 

[00:20:58] Dave: Dang, you admitted it on the air. So I believe, Naveen, that every action that  you should do to improve your health, your performance, it has to have a high ROI. And if you’re  going to spend 16 hours a day flossing to reduce your oral risk by 4%, no one on earth would do  that. But oftentimes, we do things that we believe have a high return on investment that have a  negative return on investment, like using a traditional mouthwash that sterilizes your gums that  actually harms your body in all sorts of ways, yet there’s companies probably selling a billion  dollars a year worth of products that don’t work. 

[00:21:36] Naveen: Did you see the last research that came out on Listerine mouthwash?  Essentially, showing clearly causes heart disease and diabetes because of Listerine. Because we’re killing all the microbes. 

[00:21:49] Dave: I wonder if Listerine is owned by anyone who owns big pharma companies  that sell drugs, secure those things. Wouldn’t that be an amazing business model? Sell something  that causes a disease, and they sell the cure for it. I wonder if someone’s ever thought of that  before. 

Hmm. I mean, think about all these food companies, the things they’re selling us sometimes, or  even how our foods are grown, you always wonder, how can this even be legal to put all the pesticides that we put in our food, in how we grow our food, or antibiotics in cows to make them  fat so we can somehow feed them to humans? I mean, it’s just mind boggling to me. I actually  don’t think it’s legal. If you go back and read all of the laws, I think that there are people who just  ignore the law, and then they make new laws that break old laws, and then people just get away  with it because some of the stuff, like the pesticides we’re spraying, none of them are tested on  any bug that lives in the soil. 

They’re only tested on honeybees. So glyphosate is causing convulsions, and seizures in  earthworms at 300 times below the allowable levels. So we’re sterilizing vast parts of the earth,  which is clearly illegal. That’s why we’re supposed to have an EPA. But they’re doing it because,  well, they can get away with it. 

And I think enough people are waking up. And if you find out that, oh, I went on a month of  glyphosate, beef, and chicken, and corn oil, and I looked at my Viome test, and I realized that it  was absolutely wrecking me, and then I went on a month of grass-fed beef and non-sprayed  organic vegetables, and then you looked at your results, now you don’t have to wonder whether  that microwave pizza was good for you or not. You actually know.  

And then it’s easy to change your behavior when it’s not guesswork, when you get a report. And  that’s what I started doing a long time ago. That was the basis of biohacking. I just made a  promise, I’m only going to do what works, and that means I have to measure it. Because I was  doing so much work. It didn’t do anything. 

[00:23:52] Naveen: I mean, honestly, there’s a lot of the things we do. I mean, you are so right.  Health is our wealth. Without our health, we have nothing. And we know so many people, when  they are young, they sacrifice their health to make wealth, and then as they get older, they  sacrifice their wealth to get their health back. 

To me, when you are sick, you only have one wish. And when you are healthy, you have many  wishes. So why would you not want to invest on your own health? And you have shown how  much it matters, how much it works when you actually focus on your health. And I was hoping  that as we wrap up here, maybe talk a little bit more about longevity that you and I have spent so  much time talking about. 

What does it really take to stay healthy as long as you live? So it’s not just about increasing the  lifespan. It’s really increasing the health span. I want you and I to live healthy until the last day  we die. I don’t want to live for 200 years while the last 100 years are feeding tubes and sitting in  ICU. That’s not the life any one of us ever wants. 

[00:25:00] Dave: I like the Viking family cliff, where if you’re facing that, you get to jump off  the family cliff if you want to, because that’s not actually an appropriate way to spend our  environmental resources either. So if I’m going to die in two weeks, you just let me die now. And  that’s okay. And save all the money, and all the plastic, and all the pain and suffering. 

So yes, we all want health span, but there’s something scary happening in the world of longevity.  There’s a bunch of people, and I’m going to call them out as cowards, and they say, oh, we’re not  going to increase our lifespan. We’re just going to increase health span. These are people who do  not see the future. 

These are people who do not think big. And no, we are going to do both. And if you cut yourself  off at the knees and you say, I’m just going to increase health span, you’re a wimp, and you need  to step up because I want another 50 years of lifespan and my health span. Health span is table  space.  

[00:25:53] Naveen: I think we want lifespan to be as long as we can live healthy, whether it is  1,000 years or 5,000 years. And if we can live healthy for the next millennial, I would be all over  it. 

[00:26:05] Dave: There you go. And the end goal is all of us. We can die at a time and by a  method of our choosing. And if we can build that world that’s abundant safety, and it’s abundant  curiosity, it’s abundant freedom, and people who have that power, who knows what they might do? They might build a really awesome world to live in because they’re going to have to live in it  for a 1,000 years. So you don’t throw your plastic in the ocean because you know you’re going to  be pumping it through your valves and your heart later. 

[00:26:32] Naveen: And by the way, your relationship with yourself and with others changes  because you know you have to live with them for the next 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 years.

[00:26:42] Dave: And also you don’t really worry about electing politicians for four years to ruin  things only a little bit more. You start constructing systems to run society that actually run  society. That would be amazing. 

[00:26:54] Naveen: So going back, what are the five things, Dave? You and I have talked about,  what are the five things one has to do to stay healthy as long as we live? And it has to be both  lifespan and health span, as you mentioned. The first thing we spent enough time on, proper  nutrition. Because without the proper nutrition, nothing matters. So basically what I’m going  through right now is, what are the five hierarchy of needs for living long? Just like the hierarchy  of needs that Maslow put together for living happy. 

So number one is nutrition. We talked about that. Without the proper nutrition, nothing matters.  You cannot drive a Ferrari unless you put the right fuel in that. So once you’ve one that, the  second thing that really matters is stress management. How do you get your brain aligned so that  it’s not causing anxiety? Why is that? When you are in fight or flight response, which is what  stress does to you– so every time you have a stress, you are actually living in a fight or flight  response. When do we used to get fight or flight response? When you were being chased by a  tiger? 

What happens then? Your body shuts down your digestive system. That means, don’t worry  about digesting your food. You’re going to be lunch for someone else right now. Run away or  fight. Your immune system is shut down because you don’t need to worry about anything else  right now. And that’s the reason people who are always stressed tend to get sick more often. 

Now, what do we do? So first thing I would advise people is, go to 40 Years of Zen. Learn to be  resilient. I mean, seriously, you have to learn to be resilient because, guess what? Your  environment is constantly causing you stress. There are people out there who work for a  company, and their boss is causing them stress. They go home, their spouse causes them stress.  And there are people, they surround themselves with a lot of seers. Those people cause them  stress.  

So here is my recommendation. Quit your goddamn job if it’s causing you stress. Quit your damn  spouse if it’s causing you stress, and get out of those damn crap who are pulling you down and  not letting you grow. Leave that bucket and go to somewhere else where you’re surrounded by  people who are positive, who are uplifting you, people who actually believe in you.

The Human Upgrade: Episode 1068 

[00:29:11] Dave: It sounds hard to do, and it is if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, which  right now more than half of Americans are. The reality though is you could lose your job  tomorrow anyway. So you could do that when you’re stressed, or you could intentionally choose  what you’re going to do, make a plan, even if it takes a little while to make it happen. It’s scary. 

But if you do that, you get your energy back. And when you get energy back, you can get a raise.  You can get a new job. You can build a new self. Or you can change your relationships. You can  work on it. But right now, if you’re feeling low energy, stressed all the time, you can change your  nutrition so you’re high energy, which then you have enough power to make a change in your  

career or in your relationship. And each time you do this, it gets better and better. So what I want  people to learn how to do is, for the least possible effort, and dollars, and time, to get the most  energy into their system as fast as possible. And that’s why I started Bulletproof.  

[00:30:09] Naveen: I want you to talk a little bit more about 40 Years of Zen because it has  helped so many people who came to 40 Years of Zen, had so much stress, and when they left,  they became extremely resilient. 

[00:30:22] Dave: 40 Years of Zen has been running for about eight years, about 1,500 high end  entrepreneurs, and celebrities, and pro athletes have come through. It’s a five-day intensive neuro feedback program. It’s at 40yearszen.com, but it’s based on using tech. We have seven patents  now in the neuroscience that we created.  

[00:30:39] Naveen: Yeah. 

[00:30:39] Dave: And the tech shows you when your brain is going into a stress response, but it  gives you a special process, one that we teach you so that you can go back and turn off the  source cause of the stress. Because right now, Naveen, if I said something mean to you that was  a trigger for you, before you could think, your body would change. 

And then you would believe what your body told you. And that’s because we’re both humans.  And the difficult thing is, how do you tell your body to not be reactive to that? You can’t think  your way through it because it was reactive before you think. Well, there’s a way to go in and  edit the settings in your operating system. 

So the last two chapters of Smarter Not Harder, I teach the process to everyone. That’s a $20  book or something. And so Smarter Not Harder, so we can start on it. 40 Years of Zen is a very high-end custom program. Eight people per week. But Upgrade Labs is a franchise. It’s one of  my companies that’s opening across the country that has neuro feedback as part of the program. 

So when you come in, you can put on muscle, or lose fat, or get your energy back using AI. But  that frees up so much time. You can do this. So I would say go to 40yearszen.com if you’re  interested in a very high end program. Or go to ownanupgradelabs.com, and you can open a  franchise in your neighborhood that provides neuro feedback as well as all of the biohacking  stuff. And of course– 

[00:31:56] Naveen: I’m going to come to that in a second. 

[00:31:59] Dave: Yeah. Okay.  

[00:31:59] Naveen: The third layer, exercise, is that you have to build muscles. You have to get  your heart rate up. A lot of people think you have to spend two, three hours a day to actually get  that exercise. You and I don’t have two, three hours a day. In fact, your body just needs to get a  

good 30 minutes to 45 minutes of fast walk or a good strength training. This is where I  absolutely enjoy going to Upgrade Labs. Doing the workout, you don’t need to spend two, three  hours. You can get, in 10 to 15 minutes, the same feedback in your body as if you worked out for  an hour. And now tell me a little bit more about the Upgrade Labs part that you were telling me.  

[00:32:42] Dave: The idea is, if you were to go to a spin class, say five days a week for an hour a  day, a lot of people do that, well, you’ll improve by 2% over the course of two months. Give me  15 minutes a week without any sweating, and you’ll improve six times more. You get a 12%– 

[00:33:00] Naveen: Including building muscles. 

[00:33:03] Dave: Yeah, all of it. So it turns out that you can now take the amount of time you  invest in exercise, or more likely, 92% of people don’t even do that. So now it’s painless enough  that it’s worth it, and in the extra time, you can do neuro feedback to give yourself control of  your brain. It’s not as deep as I can take you at 40 Years of Zen, but it’s deep enough to make a  difference. 

So the idea here is we’re building energetically powerful people who are resilient. You get to  pick what’s most important to you. If you say, I want to be resilient to stress, we’ll train your  stress management systems to be stronger instead of saying, I want abs. And you can get both,  but let’s prioritize.

So ownanupgradelabs.com is what lets you open a franchise. And I’m flying out, actually to  Idaho to meet one of our first franchisees in Meridian, Idaho, uh, when they’re doing their grand  opening, and there’s others popping up all over the country. So the idea here is– 

[00:33:52] Naveen: Including Bellevue. 

[00:33:53] Dave: In fact, in Bellevue, it’d probably be your neighbors. And the idea there too is,  do we care about what’s going on in your gut? Yes. So working with Viome is a part of the plan,  and I’m just grateful that finally there’s something that I wanted when I was 25 and 300 pounds.  

If I could have gone to an Upgrade Labs, and gotten a Viome test, and done all this stuff, it  would’ve saved me thousands of hours and a million dollars that I spent to lose the 100 pounds to  get my brain back. 

So it’s not necessary to be wealthy anymore, but it’s not free either. And eventually, we’re going  to change society to where we just build society to do this for you. And the companies that are in  the way of that, they will dissolve into nothingness because there simply won’t be a market for  mouthwash that takes away your erections. It’s dumb. 

[00:34:41] Naveen: The fourth thing, uh, Dave, is proper sleep. And again, here, like many  things in life, the quality matters, not just the quantity. So don’t focus on how long you sleep.  Focus on how well you sleep. And this is really where the crux is. You need to be able to get one  and a half to two hours of deep sleep, one and a half, two hours of REM sleep. And measure the  damn thing. 

You can’t measure it, you can’t improve on it. And some people are really fortunate. And people,  especially, who reduce their stress in their bodies, are able to get good exercise, they’re able to  get good deep sleep and good REM sleep. And, by the way, also the nutrition. It is very clear  when you have nice nutrition in your gut, circadian rhythm and circadian rhythm of your brain  start to align. And that is where you get a good night’s sleep. 

So to me, just like Dave, you probably do, I have an Oura Ring. I measure my sleep. I have Eight  Sleep mattress underneath that changes the temperature as I sleep. So as I go to REM sleep and  deep sleep, it cools it down for me. And it’s completely monitoring my sleep. I have a sleep pad  underneath my mattress that’s also measuring my sleep because it matters to me, right? 

[00:36:00] Dave: There you go.

[00:36:01] Naveen: Once you have done that– by the way, everything that we have done so far,  your nutrition, your stress management, your exercise is what allows you to get a good night’s  sleep. The last part– do you want to add something to the sleep part, Dave, before we go to the  last part? 

[00:36:17] Dave: I would just suggest, if you’re curious about this, go to sleepwithdave.com, and  that is a mini course. It’s totally free. It’s a gift. It tells you every single thing that I’ve done to  improve my sleep from five minutes of deep sleep a night to an hour and a half a night. So  sleepwithdave.com is the funniest URL of my entire career. So there you go. 

[00:36:38] Naveen: Well, first of all, it’s a great URL, and I sure hope that people actually take it  literally. But let’s keep going. Next and last thing that really is, to me, the core of everything I  believe in is finding purpose. People who live a life of purpose tend to live 10 to 15 years longer  than the people who have no purpose in life. 

So to me, Dave, I think once you have done all those four things, this is where you spend the rest  of your life. Find something that you’re willing to die for, and then live for it. When you wake up  in the morning, and you’re not jumping out of the bed, it’s not your calling. Quit what you’re  doing. Find something that you really care enough about. 

It comes a time in our lives where you, I, and many people who are listening, we don’t need to  worry a lot about, are we going to be able to get the next meal? To me, find something that helps  people live a better life. You can create an amazingly great business. Every entrepreneur who’s  listening, don’t wake up in the morning trying to figure out how to make more money.  

Making money is a byproduct of doing things that improve other people’s lives. Focus on, how  many lives can you improve? This is how you create a massive business. You don’t wake up in  the morning wanting to make money. You focus in the morning, wanting to improve people’s  lives. And if you can do that, everything else will fall in place. So Dave, you live a life of  purpose, and I want you to spend a few minutes just talking about what it means to you, and  what would you advise people? 

[00:38:19] Dave: Well, I have a mission statement across all of my portfolio of companies,  which is, to upgrade humanity. So if it doesn’t do that, we’re not doing it. And one of the things  that sometimes younger entrepreneurs do is they’ll look around, they’ll see something that’s working, and now I even see videos online saying, well, here’s how to use ChatGPT to copy a  website, and do a crappier job, and sell some cheap white-labeled thing that isn’t what you’re  trying to copy.  

And these are called wantrepreneurs, and they’re doing it for money. They haven’t innovated.  They don’t have a mission. They’re just saying, I want to make money. And they’re actually  parasitic because they take away the quality from things. So remember 10 years ago, you could  buy something on Amazon, and it was good, and you go to Amazon now, everything is made out  of cheap plastic and it falls apart like you bought it at a flea market? Well, the reason that  happened was the race to the bottom. And we don’t want to create a world like that. 

We want to create a world where you’re doing something new and different. You’re not just an  echo chamber. Oh, look, I rewrote someone else’s blog post. No. Find something new, and then  bring that to the world. That’s what creates peace in your life. That’s what creates a difference.  And that’s what creates trust. So there are too many people out there trying to quickly and  cheaply copy something. 

I guarantee you there’s someone out there who’s not doing the Viome test, because you have $2  billion of national laboratory research behind Viome, who’s saying I’m doing the same thing. No,  actually, they’re not. So I would encourage you if you’re doing this, saying, what difference do  you want to make? And it is not about, I’m going to feed a billion people. 

That’s an ego goal. What it is is it’s about, I am going to feed hungry people, and I have a new  way to do it. I’m going to feed the people who need it. I will help those who are ready to receive  my help. And that could mean you run a yoga studio, so you’re going to run an amazing yoga  studio with continuously improving things. And that is a mission that is worthy and powerful.  You don’t have to open a 1,000 of those to be a good person. 

You just have to do a good job serving your community and serving people already. That’s been  my mindset since I started Bulletproof. I thought I might help five people with my blog. That  was my goal. Because if you didn’t go through what I went through, I would’ve done you a very  big act of service. And it grew to be larger than that, but it did that on the back of talking about  new things. So my piece of advice for you, if you want to be happy, start a business that does  something new, and different, and better. And if you want to be miserable, start a company that  copies someone else, because it doesn’t work.

[00:40:48] Naveen: Well, Dave, I’m so thankful to you for who you are, what you stand for, and  how you have dedicated your life to serving other people. And it doesn’t mean you don’t build a  great business. You do build a great business, but you do it focusing on helping other people live  a better life.  

And that, to me, is the best life to live. As we start to look at our life someday when we have to  look back, and we say, our success will never be defined by how much money we made. It’ll  always be defined by how many lives we improve. And stay humble. I mean, you have to know  that humility is a sign of success. When you still have iota of arrogance left in you, that means  you still try to prove to yourself or someone else. And so stay a life of humility, and go out and  make a difference in other people’s lives. 

[00:41:37] Dave: Well, Naveen, I think at some point in the future, we should get together and  actually teach people how to think like this because I don’t exactly know how I learned it over  the course of my career in Silicon Valley, but you seem like you were born knowing it. It’s a  different entrepreneurial skill. It’s not SEO management. It’s not that sort of thing. It’s being able  to see a vision of the future and how to get people there. And I think this is your seventh big  company, so I’ve been learning from our friendship for a long time. 

[00:42:07] Naveen: Dave, it’ll be such an honor to do something with you along the lines where  we can actually change people, teach them how to think differently. If every entrepreneur can  really look at the same problem from a different lens, you can not only solve a massive problem  that you never thought about, it suddenly changes the business you are in.  

It’s about asking the right questions. So what questions are you asking is the problem we solve.  And maybe you and I should talk about that at a biohacking conference on, how do you ask the  right questions? Whether it is the climate change, how do you look at the climate change as a  problem and build something that will change the lives of 8 billion people on planet Earth? 

How do we look at any problem and create this massive, audacious change in the society and  become that catalyst that changes the way people are going to live their lives? So I’m thankful to  your friendship. I’m so thankful that you and I continue to innovate, continue to find new ways of  working together. And this may be a catalyst where you and I actually work in teaching other  people about how to think differently.

[00:43:14] Dave: I’m up for doing that. Guys, Biohacking Conference is June 22nd through 24th  in Orlando. biohackingconference.com. And Naveen, send me some toothpaste, man. 

[00:43:26] Naveen: I will do that. Good to see you, brother. Good to see you. [00:43:29] Dave: Good to see you. 

[00:43:32] Naveen: And I’ll see you in few weeks.  

[00:43:32] Dave: By the way, um, we also should tell people, Viome, V-I-O-M-E.com/dave, use  code DAVE10. Naveen’s graciously giving you 10% off. And seriously, if you haven’t done the  Viome test, it is the lowest-cost way to get the answer to, just tell me what to do. That’s your  answer. 

[00:43:49] Naveen: Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. 

[00:43:51] Dave: All right.