STEM-Talk

Today’s episode features an important interview with Dr. Jeff Volek, a researcher who has spent the past 20 years studying how humans adapt to carbohydrate-restricted diets.  His most recent work, which is one of the key topics of today’s interview, has focused on the science of ketones and ketogenic diets and their use as a therapeutic tool to manage insulin resistance. In 2014, Volek became a founder and the chief science officer of Virta Health, an online specialty medical clinic dedicated to reversing diabetes, a chronic disease that has become a worldwide epidemic. The company’s ambitious goal is to reverse type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. Earlier this year, The JMIR Diabetes Journal published a study coordinated by Volek and Virta that showed people with type 2 diabetes can be taught to sustain adequate carbohydrate restriction to achieve nutritional ketosis, thereby improving glycemic control, decreasing medication use, and allowing clinically relevant weight loss. These improvements happened after just 10 weeks on the program that Virta designed for people. In addition to his role at Virta, Volek is a registered dietitian and full professor in the department of human sciences at Ohio State University. He is a co-author of “The New Atkins for a New You,” which came out 2010 and spent 16 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. The book is an updated, easier-to-use version of Dr. Robert Atkins’ original 1972 book, “Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution.” Volek has co-authored four other books, including “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” and “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.” Both books are co-authored with and delve somewhat deeper than “The New Atkins” did into the science and application of low-carb diets. Volek received his bachelor’s degree in dietetics from Michigan State University in 1991. He went on to earn a master’s in exercise physiology and a PhD in kinesiology and nutrition from Pennsylvania State University. He has given more than 200 lectures about his research at scientific and industry conferences in a dozen countries. In addition to his five books, he also has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Although numerous studies have confirmed the validity and safety of low-carb and ketogenic diets, Volek and others who support carbohydrate restriction are often criticized for being so one-sided that their work comes across as more advocacy than science. But in “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living,” Volek writes: “What is the proper response when three decades of debate about carbohydrate restriction have been largely one-sided and driven more by cultural bias than science? Someone needs to stand up and represent the alternate view and science.” As Volek explains in episode 42 of STEM-Talk, this has become his mission. Links: “New Atkins for a New You” — http://amzn.to/2uOjLkF “The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living”– http://amzn.to/2hh1W9k “The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Performance” — http://amzn.to/2f2oPMV New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/well/live/tackling-weight-loss-and-diabetes-with-video-chats.html?_r=0 JMIR DIABETES paper: http://assets.virtahealth.com/docs/Virta_Clinic_10-week_outcomes.pdf https://www.virtahealth.com Show notes: 3:016: Ken and Dawn welcome Jeff to the show. 3:32: Dawn asks Jeff when and how he first became interested in science. 5:24: When Jeff was studying to be a dietitian, he was looking at a low-fat, high-carb diet. But when he began to work with diabetics, something did not seem right. Dawn asks Jeff if that is what led him to begin studying low-carb diets. 6:39: Ken comments on how diabetes is perhaps the greatest healthcare challenge we face as a society, which drives costs to more than $300 billion a year. 7:59: Dawn asks Jeff about the effectiveness of traditional treatment and management approaches for people with diabetes. 8:27: Dawn asks Jeff to talk about Virta Health, a company Jeff helped found, and a recent paper and JMIR Diabetes Journal. The paper reported on the results of a study that looked at whether sustained carbohydrate restriction and nutritional ketosis could be part of a comprehensive intervention that would allow people with type 2 diabetes to improve their health. 11.54: Dawn asks Jeff why this approach would work at the cellular level, whether it is the reduction in glucose alone or if the ketone bodies are playing a role. 14:13: Ken asks Jeff why he thinks some patients respond so remarkably and others not as much. 16:27: Dawn discusses how Virta’s mission is to reverse diabetes for 100 million people by 2025. She asks Jeff if this is a realistic number or a stretch goal. 18:28: Ken asks Jeff to briefly talk about the business model of this process and how he sees it shaking out. 20:09: Dawn asks Jeff how he and Sami Inkinen, founder of Trulia and another co-founder of Virta, crossed paths. 22:00: Dawn asks Jeff what his thoughts are on the possible epigenetic effects of the ketogenic diet, with respect to general health and wellness. 25:46: Dawn talks about an athletic friend of hers with Crohn’s disease and how she had positive health outcomes from following a ketogenic diet. She then asks Jeff if anyone has seen improvements to conditions like Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis when considering the inflammatory nature of these diseases processes. 27:54: STEMTALK BLURB 28:23: Dawn comments on how she has been a vegetarian for more than 20 years, and how it is difficult to be on a ketogenic diet with no meat as a fat source. She then discusses how “The New Atkins for a New You,” has a chapter devoted to a low-carb diet for vegetarians and asks Jeff if he has any tips to share for vegetarians or vegans. 29:59: Ken discusses a conversation he had with a woman about the difficulty of a ketogenic diet for someone who is fat-phobic. She has the idea that if she eats fat it will soon be on her. Ken then asks Jeff if this “fat fear” is something that he finds in working with patients. 32:30: Ken comments on how Rob Wolff reports that lipidologists are quite wary of the LDL-P, the particle numbers that they see in some people trying the ketogenic diet. As a result, these people have to increase their carb intake. Ken then asks Jeff what his thoughts on this are. 35:33: Ken discusses how LDL-P is more strongly correlated with heart disease than LDL cholesterol in the literature. 41:02: Dawn asks Jeff if he thinks that someone on a ketogenic diet would need a different amount of fiber per day compared to what has been recommended by the Institute of Medicine. 41:44: Dawn discusses how for decades recreational and competitive athletes have religiously consumed a diet rich in carbohydrates to fuel their performance, and the conventional wisdom has been to avoid fatty foods. However, in recent years these beliefs have been questioned. Dawn asks Jeff to give an overview of this trend. 44:58: Dawn asks Jeff to expand on why he thinks there was no difference in muscle glycogen between the two groups. 47:56: Dawn discusses a recent paper published in The Journal of Physiology where Louise Burke looked at elite race walkers while on the ketogenic diet. The team found that this diet impaired performance in elite endurance athletes “despite a significant improvement in peak aerobic capacity.” Her primary point was that race walkers showed increased oxygen demand for a given speed. Dawn then asks Jeff to share his thoughts on this paper. 49:40: Ken asks Jeff to briefly explain the role of PDH, and whether Jeff looked at this enzyme in his studies on athletes who were keto-adapted. 51:40: Ken discusses how in contrast to endurance sports, some more power-oriented athletes have reported that when on a ketogenic diet they experience low energy levels during the most demanding moments in the sport, but others do not experience this at all. Ken asks Jeff if he has any thoughts on power athletes on a ketogenic diet. 56:29: Dawn discusses how Jeff has spent a good amount of time studying keto-adapted elite ultra-runners, such as the western states 100 record holder, Tim Olson. Dawn asks Jeff what he learned at this event with regards to a low-carb endurance athlete, and how this informs recommendations he would make to athletes when they are fueling for a competition of this kind. 59:07 Dawn asks Jeff if he sees more athletes shifting towards a low-carb diet. 1:00:37: Ken discusses the use of exogenous ketone esters in the Tour de France races. He then asks Jeff for his opinion on this and to briefly address the confusion on this topic 1:04:01: Ken comments on how Jeff wrapped up the confusion nicely. 1:05:14: Ken and Dawn thank Jeff for joining them.

Frequent STEM-Talk listeners will more than likely recognize today’s guest, veteran NASA astronaut Tom Jones, who joins us today to talk about the threat of near-Earth asteroids. Tom occasionally helps co-host STEM-Talk. But for episode 42, regular co-hosts Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis turn the microphone around to interview Tom about his days as an astronaut, planetary defense and asteroids. It’s a topic, as you will hear, that Tom is quite passionate about.  He also has a great deal of expertise in the field. Before he became an astronaut, Tom earned a doctorate in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 1988. He’s also a graduate of the United States Airforce Academy. His research interests range from the remote sensing of asteroids to meteorite spectroscopy to applications of space resources. He became an astronaut in 1991 and received the NASA Space Flight Medal in 1994, 1996, and 2001. He also received the NASA Exceptional Service Award in 1997 and again in 2000. In 1995, he received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. Tom logged 52 days in space, including three space walks totaling more than 19 hours. He is the author of several books, including Sky Walking: An Astronauts Memoir, which the Wall Street Journal named as one of the five best books about space. His latest book is Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions about Space. Below are links to Tom’s books as wells the STEM-Talk interview with Pascal Lee, which Ken refers to while interviewing Tom. Links: Pascal Lee interview: http://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-17/ New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/28/vermin-of-the-sky TFPD Report: http://www.ihmc.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/TFPD-FINAL-Report-to-NAC-10-6-10_v2.pdf Tom Jones books: “Sky Walking” – http://amzn.to/2t8dSQn “Ask the Astronaut” – http://amzn.to/2vhUxZD “Complete Idiots Guide to NASA” – http://amzn.to/2uWZHun “Planetology” – http://amzn.to/2unXgnP Show notes: 3:36: Ken and Dawn welcome Tom to the show. 4:11: Ken comments on the interesting path that Tom has travelled throughout his life and asks Tom to give a synopsis of his path of reinvention. 6:56: Dawn asks Tom to talk about the goals and highlights of the four shuttle missions he went on. 3:39: Dawn welcomes Tom as a guest on STEM-Talk. 9:23: Dawn comments on how Tom no longer flies in space, but he and some of his colleagues are now involved in another space mission that could save the Earth or a large part of it from destruction. Dawn then asks Tom how he became interested in planetary defense from asteroids. 11:30: Ken asks Tom to explain the differences between asteroids, comets, meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. 13:37: Ken asks Tom how he would define a near-earth asteroid. 14:06: Dawn asks Tom how frequently asteroids strike the Earth. 16:27: Dawn asks Tom how likely she is to die in an asteroid catastrophe, statistically speaking. 18:27: Dawn discusses an article on planetary defense titled, Vermin of the Sky, published in The New Yorker in February of 2011. She comments on how Ken is quoted in the article as saying, “The very short perspective we have as humans makes the threat of asteroids seem smaller than it is. People of all sorts find it easier to kick the can down the road and hope for a mystical solution.” 20:04: Ken comments on how in the same article Clark Chapman notes that “Unlike Hurricane Katrina, we can do something about an asteroid, the question is whether we would rather be wrong in overprotecting or wrong in under protecting”. Ken then points out that one can imagine a near societal collapse should it be announced that, with high confidence, an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, and that as a society we have no means to deflect it. Humans, Ken adds, would come to envy the dinosaurs who had no time to ruminate about their fate. Ken asks Tom if he can even imagine the societal disruption of such an announcement. 21:50: Dawn discusses how in January of this year the U.S. Government released a strategy for preparing for a Near-Earth Object (NEO) impact. She then asks Tom if he thinks the strategy is on the right track. 23:29: Dawn asks Tom to give a sense of how NASA deals with the asteroid hazard today. 25:04: Dawn asks Tom if he thinks that as NASA’s interests in asteroids has increased, if it is striking the right balance between science, exploration, and planetary defense. 26:59: Ken discusses how Tom and Rusty Schweickart co-chaired the NASA Advisory Council’s Ad Hoc Task Force on planetary defense, and how in October of 2010, their task force made five primary recommendations. Ken asks Tom to review them and briefly discuss what has transpired in the years since in a lightning round. Recommendation number one: organize for effective action on planetary defense. 28:17: Recommendation number two: acquire essential search, track, and warning capabilities. 29:10: Recommendation number three: investigate the nature of the impact threat. 29:41: Recommendation number four: prepare to respond to impact threats. 30:39: Recommendation number five: lead U.S. planetary defense effort in national and international forms. 32:05: Ken praises Tom on the successful lightning round. 32:08: Dawn asks Tom what the current score card is on our detection of NEOs and how the percentage of the NEO population discovered is. 33:49: Dawn asks Tom why we do not get more notice of the approaching objects. 34:53: Dawn comments on how Tom talked about the limitations of the ground-based detection. She then asks Tom to discuss why ground-based detection has these limitations. 36:10: Dawn asks Tom to talk about some of the cons of these space-based detection missions and whether or not there are solutions to these cons. 38:16: STEMTALK BLURB 38:42: Dawn asks Tom what we learned from the Chelyabinsk impact in 2013. 40:36: Dawn asks Tom how much it will cost to deal with the asteroid threat effectively. 41:55: Ken comments that clearly these relatively modest preventive costs would be entirely dwarfed by several orders of magnitude for any significant impact on Earth in a populated area. 42:57: Ken states that to put it in perspective, the initial annual cost estimated in the report is essentially the cost of a single, frontline jet fighter. 43:27: Dawn discusses Tom’s role as a science advisor for the B612 Foundation that is now creating a new asteroid institute at the University of Washington. She then asks Tom what his take is on the new activities that this institute will be enabling, aside from searching for NEOs. 45:05: Dawn comments on how Tom is associated with the Association of Space Explorers and asks why they are interested in planetary defense. 46:16: Ken asks Tom to imagine that we have detected an NEO that seems to be on a collision course with Earth. He then asks Tom to review the leading proposed ideas on how humanity might deflect it sufficiently for it to actually miss the Earth. 49:45: Ken asks Tom if once we divert an asteroid collision whether or not it is gone for good. More specifically, how we can prevent an asteroid on its elliptical orbit from passing through a gravitational keyhole and returning to threaten Earth again. 52:37: Dawn comments on how ESA and NASA have been discussing a joint-asteroid deflection demonstration mission. She then asks Tom what the prospects are for that mission. 54:36: Dawn asks Tom if he thinks that the UN is the best organization to plan for a public safety hazard of this magnitude. 56:32: Ken asks Tom to talk about the natural uncertainty associated with projecting the exact place of impact on Earth and the implications for planning a deflection mission. 59:30: Dawn asks why it is that the topic of NEOs seems to fly under the radar and be of so little interest in comparison to other threats of much less gravity. 1:01:20: Ken comments on how he believes that this topic suffers from the sky is falling syndrome, evoking the story of Chicken Little. Also, that political leaders tend to think in terms of best election cycles and that it is hard to get them excited about potentially cataclysmic events that are nearly certain to happen in the long run. 1:02:50: Dawn discusses how NASA’s 2017 budget eliminates funding for the asteroid redirect mission, which is to return a boulder from a Near-Earth Asteroid and put it on the moon. She then asks Tom if this cancellation affects our planetary defense efforts in any real sense. 1:04:10: Dawn asks Tom how we can use Near-Earth Asteroids and their resources to aid our human space flight exploration efforts. 1:05:13: Ken comments on how he finds Phobos and Deimos, moons of Mars, absolutely fascinating. He goes on to state that these may in fact be asteroids. He then asks Tom to talk about Phobos and Deimos and why they are of such great interest. 1:07:56: Ken recommends that the listeners interested in Phobos and Deimos check out an earlier STEM-Talk podcast with Pascal Lee. (See link above.) 1:08:14: Ken asks Tom what he sees as the role and timing of the lunar activity in the larger scheme of human space exploration. 1:09:53: Ken asks Tom what he sees as the best way for government to conduct its programs so as to help enable the success of commercial space products and service providers without directly subsidizing them. 1:11:39: Dawn comments on how Tom has had a very impressive career path and asks him what advice he would give to others who would like to someday work in space or explore the solar system. 1:14:03: Dawn discusses the four books Tom has written on space flight: “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NAS;” “Sky Walking: An Astronauts Memoir;” “Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System,” and “Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions about Space Flight.” 1:15:23: Dawn asks Tom if he deals with the asteroid hazard or planetary defense in any of these books. 1:16:19: Ken comments that Tom should heavily distribute The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NASA in certain quarters of D.C. 1:16:46: Dawn asks Tom what other interests he pursues in addition to space. 1:17:31: Ken and Dawn thank Tom for joining them.

Dr. David Diamond, a USF professor, discusses his research on fat, cholesterol, and statin drugs in heart disease. He challenges the low-fat, high-carb diet and highlights the flaws in medical research. The podcast covers optimizing cardiovascular health through diet and exercise, addressing misconceptions about inflammation and fats, and the controversy surrounding statin drugs.

Joining us for this special edition of STEM-Talk is Robb Wolf, who will co-host today’s show with Ken Ford, STEM-Talk’s regular co-host and chairman of the Double-Secret Selection Committee which selects all the STEM-Talk guests. Wolf is the New York Times best-selling author of “The Paleo Solution” and “Wired to Eat.” He’s also a friend of today’s guest, Allan Savory, a world-renowned ecologist who advocates for the restoration of the earth’s grasslands. “I’ve known Allan for years as a passionate advocate for restoring the health of the earth, especially grasslands. So when Ken invited me to join him and co-host the podcast with Allan, I jumped at the chance,” said Wolf, who is filling in for regular STEM-Talk co-host Dawn Kernagis. Grasslands take up a third of the earth’s land surface. And, as you will learn in today’s podcast, they are in serious trouble. Seventy percent of grasslands have been degraded by global trends ranging from deforestation to droughts to agricultural and livestock practices. As more and more of earth’s fertile land rapidly turns into deserts, Savory travels the world promoting holistic management as a way to reverse thousands of years of human-caused desertification. Savory is an ecologist, international consultant and the president of the Savory Institute, which promotes large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands. Desertification, which Savory says is just a fancy word for land that’s turning to desert, directly affects more than 250 million people worldwide and has placed another billion people at risk, according to the United Nations. Savory was born in Southern Rhodesia, which is now the nation of Zimbabwe, and went to college in South Africa where he majored in zoology and biology. He went to work as a research biologist and game ranger in what was then known as Northern Rhodesia, but is now the nation of Zambia. Later in his career, he became a farmer and game rancher in Zimbabwe. As a game ranger in the 1960s, Allen made a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation of the world’s grassland ecosystems and became a consultant who worked with groups on four continents to develop sustainable solutions. Most of his time as a game ranger was spent in the country’s savannas and grasslands among antelopes, elephants and lions. It was then that Allan started to notice that the healthiest grasslands were those in which large herds of wild grazers stayed bunched together and were constantly on the move because of predators that hunted in packs. It was this insight that led Savory to develop what he refers to as a “holistic management framework,” a planning process that mimics nature as a means to heal the environment. Once an opponent of livestock, he grew to believe that increasing the number of livestock on grasslands rather than fencing them off for conservation was the way to stop desertification. But when civil war broke in Rhodesia in the ‘60s, Allan ended up leading an elite military squad to fight communist guerrillas. In the latter days of the civil war, Allan became a member of Parliament and the leader of the opposition to the ruling party. He was exiled in 1979 as a result of his opposition to the ruling party and immigrated to the United States. In 1992, Savory and his wife, Jody Butterfield, formed the non-profit Africa Centre for Holistic Management and donated a ranch that serves as learning site for people all over Africa. He and Butterfield then co-founded the Savory Institute in 2009, whose mission is to promote restoration of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. The couple lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and have co-authored books together, including “Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment,” which came out last year. In 2003, Allen received Australia’s International Banksia Award for the person or organization doing the most for the environment on a global scale. In 2010, he received the Buckminister Fuller Institute’s Challenge award for work that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. The Savory Institute also is one of 11 finalists in the Virgin Earth Challenge, a $25 million initiative for the successful commercialization of ways to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Links: Savory Institute –  http://www.savory.global “Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment” – http://amzn.to/2sHBkmm “Holistic Management Handbook – http://amzn.to/2sI0Is7 Show notes: 4:51: Ken and Rob welcome Allan to the show. 5:01: Ken comments on how Allan has travelled an incredibly varied path through life and asks Allan to discuss his experiences as a biologist and park ranger in Africa. 8:23: Ken discusses the time Allan spent fighting communist guerrillas when civil war broke out in Zimbabwe in the 1960s and comments on the elite military group that Allan hand-picked and trained. Ken asks Allan to talk about how and why he was selected to lead this unit and about his methods of selection and training. 10:43: Rob asks Allan about the significance of the herds of wild grazing animals, that Allan observed when he spent time in the savannahs and grasslands as a game ranger and solider. 14:38: Rob discusses how in the later days of the civil war Allan served as a member of parliament, but in 1979 ended up being exiled and emigrated to the United States. Rob then asks Allan to talk about this part of his life. 17:50: Ken comments on how Allan has led an interesting life and taken on numerous difficult positions, never shunning a painful choice or controversy. 18:35: Rob discusses Allan’s frame of reference, now called holistic management, that he began developing. Holistic management mimics nature and also draws on organizational skills learned in the military and is considered by Allan as a legitimate option to heal the environment and reverse desertification. Rob asks Allan to clarify what holistic management is and when and how it developed. 22:09: Rob asks Allan to describe the desertification and the impact it’s having on the earth. 30:31: Ken asks Allan to discuss how he met his wife, Jodi Butterfield, and how the two of them created the Savory Institute, which works to promote preservation of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. 32:25: Ken asks Allan to share the activities and goals of the Savory Institute. 36:37: STEMTALK BLURB 37:04: Rob comments on how the world seems to always bifurcate into two ideological camps. On one hand there are malthusiasts, or folks who have predicted a number of collapse scenarios, resource depletion, mass starvation, etc., and although extremely convincing at times, their predictions are usually wrong. The other ideological group may be referred to as rational optimists, who make the case that markets and innovation will always save the day. Today, it is generally argued that rational optimists win the debate, but Rob has a gut sense that this may not go on indefinitely. Rob asks Allan what his views on this topic are, and whether he is a malthusiast or rational optimist. 44:06: Robb talks about advances in evolutionary medicine and how traditional medicine often chases symptoms in lieu of finding solutions. Robb asks Allan if he sees a parallel with sustainability in food production, and if this evolutionary framework could inform our approach to a sustainable future. 48:18: Ken comments on how many people are surprised to learn about the predator-prey interaction in the holistic management process and asks Allan to talk about this interaction. 51:41: Rob asks Allan to expand upon the constant battle of the topic of holistic management and properly managed grazing animals. 54:30: Ken remarks that many people have jumped on Allan’s claims regarding the potential of carbon sequestration, both supportive and critical. Ken then asks Allan to elaborate on his views of the efficacy of carbon sequestration in the framework of holistic management. 56:23: Rob asks Allan what the largest benefits are for the farmer adopting the practice of holistic management. 57:54: Ken comments how Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms is a large proponent of holistic management, and how he credits the approach as a key element in transforming Polyface Farms from an uneconomic farm into a prosperous operation, which serves as a model for many other diversified farm operations around the world. https://youtu.be/4dq8vsVvvOc 59:13: Rob asks Allan if there are any specific conditions that he could see the adoption of holistic management in agriculture proceeding either faster or slower around the world. 1:02:05: Ken asks Allan how new technology, such as robotics, may help holistic management practices. 1:04:41: Rob asks Allan to discuss his new book, Holistic Management: A Common Sense Revolution to Restore Our Environment, released in 2016 by Allan and his wife, Jodi. This book is a revised third edition of Allan’s book published in 1990: Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making. Rob comments on how the new book’s subtitle has a more urgent message and asks Allan to talk about why he chose to revise the subtitle. 1:05:47: Rob asks Allan if down time exists for him and what he does for fun in this time. 1:07:03: Allan ends the interview by talking about how it’s important that people take a position and stop sitting on the fence.

Prior to Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel’s research, scientists assumed that the brains of all mammals were built in the same way and that the overall brain mass as compared to body mass was the critical determinant of cognitive ability. It was to resolve these conundrums about brain mass, body mass, and intelligence that Herculano-Houzel turned to chainsaws, butchers’ knives, and kitchen blenders to concoct what she refers to as brain soup. As STEM-Talk co-hosts Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis point out during their interview with Herculano-Houzel, epsisode 39 of the podcast turned out to be not only an enlightening conversation, but also one of the most fun STEM-Talk interviews to date. Herculano-Houzel is a Brazilian neuroscientist who devised a way to count the number of neurons in human and animal brains. She writes about this in her book, The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable. Her method of counting the neurons of human and other animals’ brains allowed her to study the relation between the cerebral cortex and the thickness and number of cortical folds in the brain. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and biological sciences in Vanderbilt University’s psychological sciences department and the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. She grew up in Brazil and received her undergraduate degree in biology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, to get her masters in neuroscience, and completed her Ph.D. in visual neurophysiology at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany. After completing her doctorate, Herculano-Houzel returned to Rio and went to work for the Museum of Life where she designed children’s activities. In 2002 she returned to her alma mater and began researching how human brains compared to other animals. In 2004, she devised a way of reducing brains to liquid as a means to count the number of neurons in them. It is technically known as the “isotropic fractionator.” In 2004 she won the Jose Reis Prize of Science, and in 2010 she received the James S. McDonell Foundation’s  Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition.  She is also the author of a biweekly newspaper column on the neuroscience of everyday life for Folha de São Paulo, the major newspaper in Brazil. Going into its 11th year, the column has appeared more than 270 times since 2006.  In addition to “The Human Advantage,” Herculano-Houzel is also the author of six books in Portuguese that focus on the neuroscience of everyday life. She also has a popular blog called “The Neuroscientist on Call,” which she describes as not-so-random thoughts about brains, the universe and everything. She lives in Nashville, TN, with her husband, son and two dogs. Links you may be interested in: “The Human Advantage”: http://amzn.to/2rtvNOY The Neuroscientist on Call blog: http://www.suzanaherculanohouzel.com Show notes: 5:32: Suzana talks about growing up in Rio and how she became interested in science. 7:07: Ken asks Suzana about her work at Rio’s Museum of Life. 12:55: Dawn asks Suzana when she firsts became interested in neuroscience. 16:00: Dawn follows up with a question about the composition of cells in the brain. 29:21: Suzana talks about how the brain represents just 2% of the average human mass, yet requires 25%of person’s energy. 33:14: Dawn tells Suzana she’s curious about Suzana’s method of counting neurons and asks her to talk about how she came up with the idea of brain soup. 38:58: Break 39:24: Dawn reads a portion of a book review that described how Suzana turned to chainsaws, butcher knifes and blenders to concoct brain soup and asks her to elaborate. 42:03: Suzana talks about some of the difficulty she had in locating brains for her research. 53:07: Suzana shares some of the lessons she’s learned from analyzing the brains of more than 100 species. 58:52: Ken asks if the cerebral cortex is the best overall predictor of cognitive ability across species. 59:50: Dawn wonders about whales and asks Suzana what we know about the intelligence of aquatic life. 1:05:41: Ken asks if there are neuronal differences in humans. 1:09:33: Suzana talks about how cooking helped homo erectus, the first modern human species, to double its brain size. 1:14:49: Ken reads an excerpt from an excellent review of “The Human Advantage” that ran in The New York Review of Books. 1:18:35: Ken and Dawn thank Suzana and sign off.

Thyroid cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers in the United States, especially among women. In Florida, thyroid cancer trails only melanoma skin cancer as the state’s fastest rising cancer. Today’s guest on episode 38 of STEM-Talk has made it his mission to not only treat thyroid cancer, but also raise awareness about the disease. Dr. Mark Lupo is founder and medical director of the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida which is based in Sarasota. A graduate of Duke University, he went on to earn his medical degree at the University of Florida where he worked with the world-famous thyroid expert, Dr. Ernie Mazzaferri. Dr. Lupo also did his internship and residency in internal medicine at Florida and then won a fellowship in endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition at the University of California San Diego and the Scripps Clinic. Dr. Lupo’s research and practice are particularly focused on thyroid nodules, which are abnormal growths of thyroid cells that form a lump within the thyroid gland. Although the vast majority of thyroid nodules are benign, a small proportion do contain thyroid cancer. His practice is centered on diagnosing and treating thyroid cancer at the earliest stage and helping people avoid unnecessary surgeries. He also is very involved in teaching neck ultrasound, thyroid cancer and general thyroid disease to other physicians at the national level.  He has published book chapters and several articles on thyroid disease and thyroid ultrasound.  In addition to his work as the medical director of the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida, he also is a clinical assistant professor on the faculty of the Florida State University College of Medicine. Dr. Lupo also was named the 2017 recipient of the Jack Baskin Endocrine Teaching Award, which is annually presented by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.  You can learn more about the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida by visiting http://www.thyroidflorida.com. Show notes: 3:21: Ken and Dawn welcome Mark to the show and ask him what led him to study medicine at Duke. 4:52: Dawn asks Mark how he ended up choosing endocrinology with a particular interest in thyroid nodules and cancer as a specialty. 6:40: Dawn asks Mark how he found the time to go on incredible adventures, such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as he worked to establish a practice. 8:40: Mark provides an overview of the thyroid. 9:46: Dawn asks Mark to clarify about whether a thyroid nodule is the same thing as a goiter. 10:25: Ken comments on how thyroid nodules and cancer seem to be epidemic and how there has been an increase of instances in the United States. He asks Mark if there is a greater incidence of disease or if there is just better detection or a combination of both. 14:33: Dawn asks if we know why thyroid nodules and cancer seems more prevalent in women. 15:01: Dawn inquires about the survival rate for those diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and whether or not it has changed over the years. 17:45: Dawn comments on how she has been looking forward to this interview as a result of a thyroid scare she had in graduate school where there was an inconclusive biopsy. She asks Mark how common it is to have an inconclusive finding and unclear results about a sample. 20:52: Ken comments on his personal experience with thyroid nodules that led to surgery and a positive outcome, and how he met Mark early in this experience after hearing him on a podcast discussing fine needle aspiration. After hearing this podcast, Ken concluded that he most likely needed this procedure. Ken asks Mark to talk about this. 23:37: Dawn asks Mark how often the thyroid nodules are discovered incidentally. 27:34: Dawn asks if there are certain characteristics you can see by ultrasound that give you an idea as to whether you are looking at a benign or malignant nodule. 29:53: Dawn asks what the histological differences are between a benign adenoma and a malignant nodule. 31:16: Ken brings the discussion back to the topic of indeterminate diagnosis, and comments that more of the biopsies are being read as being indeterminate, which leads to more surgeries. Ken asks Mark to discuss this phenomenon. 39:28: Dawn asks which institutions are doing specialized tests. 41:11: Break 41:38: Dawn asks Mark to go into further detail about what we are looking at when we do testing for molecular subtypes. 44:48: Dawn asks Mark if there is a genetic predisposition to any types of thyroid cancer. 48:13: Since positron emission tomography has been helpful in diagnosing metastatic disease in hurthle cell carcinoma, Ken asks if it makes sense to use a ketogenic diet as a supplemental approach to managing the cancer. 52:26: Dawn asks Mark what his thoughts are on the current interest and understanding that cancer is at least partially a metabolic disorder. 53:21: Dawn asks Mark to discuss the different treatment options for thyroid cancer. 1:04:20: Dawn asks Mark to describe the treatment of immunotherapy and how it relates to thyroid cancer. 1:05:56: Dawn asks Mark if thyroid cancer metastasizing varies by subtype. 1:06:58: Mark talks about how lifestyle and environmental exposures might impact the prevalence of thyroid nodules and cancer. 1:09:48: Dawn comments again about her thyroid scare, and the doctors believing that it may connect to her soy intake as a result of her being a vegetarian. 1:10:43: Ken asks Mark about the impacts of dental x-rays. 1:12:20: Ken comments on how thyroid shields should be used in dental x-rays. 1:12:39: Dawn asks Mark what, if any, prophylactic measures we can take to minimize our risk of thyroid nodules or cancer. 1:13:41: Ken asks Mark to talk about the correlation, and possible causation, between insulin resistance and the development of nodules. 1:15:27: Dawn asks Mark about his thoughts on screening individuals for thyroid cancer, since roughly 50 percent of the population has thyroid nodules. 1:18:21: Ken asks Mark if observation should be the standard care for non-palpable thyroid nodules under ten millimeters. 1:20:07: Dawn asks Mark what the quality of life consequences are for patients who are unnecessarily treated for thyroid cancer. 1:21:38: Dawn asks Mark to talk about the options for people who end up with benign nodules. 1:23:52: Dawn asks Mark if the ionization of salt backfired and contributed to the increase in thyroid nodules, cancer, and autoimmunity. 1:27:20: Ken discusses a New York Times article about doctors reclassifying a thyroid tumor, where they reported that noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasms with papillary-like nuclear features are no longer considered a type of cancer. Ken asks Mark to discuss this shift in categorization and its consequences. 1:31:46: Dawn asks Mark about his work travelling around the country teaching surgeons and endocrinologists how to use clinical features to minimize unnecessary surgeries and about using ultrasound to risk stratify the nodules. 1:33:15: Ken asks Mark about receiving the 2017 Jack Baskin Endocrine Teaching Award from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. 1:34:20: Dawn asks Mark what else he likes to do in his spare time other than his mountain adventures. 1:35:09: Dawn and Ken thank Mark and sign off.

The front pages of Gary Taubes’ new book on sugar feature a blurb excerpted from the magazine Scientific American: “Taubes is a science journalist’s science journalist who researches topics to the point of obsession – actually, well beyond that point – and never dumbs things down for readers.” Gary’s most recent obsession is documented in “The Case Against Sugar,” a book that argues that increased consumption of sugar over the past 30 to 40 years has led to a diabetes epidemic not only in the United States, but an epidemic that’s now spreading around the world. Episode 37 of STEM-Talk features a more than two-hour conversation with Gary about his latest research as well as a look back at other nutrition and science topics that have dominated Gary’s journalistic investigations since the 1980s. Gary first burst onto the national scene in 2002 with an article in the New York Times Magazine titled, “What If’s It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” Gary made the point that Robert Atkins and his high-fat, low-carb diet had a better history and scientific record of helping people lose weight than the low-fat diet that was and remains the centerpiece of the nation’s health policy and food pyramid. The article had an immediate impact. As Michael Pollan pointed out in the introduction of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” in the fall of 2002 bread “abruptly disappeared overnight from the American dinner table.” Virtually overnight, wrote Pollan, Americans changed the way they eat. Gary did not set out to become a science journalist. He graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with an S.B. degree in applied physics and went on to earn an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University. But while at Stanford, he realized he wasn’t that passionate about becoming an aeronautical engineer and decided to enroll in the Columbia School of Journalism to become an investigative reporter. In the ‘80s, Gary became fascinated with flawed science and started writing a series of magazine articles about bad science. That eventually led to a pair of books: “Nobel Dreams” in 1987 and “Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion” in 1993. After “Bad Science,” Gary turned to nutrition reporting and that resulted in the 2002 article in the New York Times Magazine. He followed up on his research for the article with two books: “Good Calories, Bad Calories” in 2007; and “Why We Get Fat” in 2010. Both books detailed how refined carbohydrates are largely responsible for America’s rising obesity rate and a primary cause of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases of the Western diet. His new book, “The Case Against Sugar,” takes this argument a step further and shows how the explosion of sugar consumption and sugar-rich products in the United States has led to a global diabetes epidemic. Dan Barber, author of “The Third Plate,” wrote in a New York Times review of Gary’s book, “Comparing the dangers of inhaling cigarettes with chowing down on candy bars may sound like a false equivalence, but Gary Taubes’s “The Case Against Sugar” will persuade you otherwise. Here is a book on sugar that sugarcoats nothing. The stuff kills.” Below are links to Gary’s books: “The Case Against Sugar” http://amzn.to/2ps8Qbl “Good Calories, Bad Calories” http://amzn.to/2qTwJJ6 “Why We Get Fat” http://amzn.to/2qKuv2u “Bad Science” http://amzn.to/2qTjyrI “Nobel Dreams” http://amzn.to/2pXpRgK Show notes: 4:41: Ken and Dawn welcome Gary to the show and ask him to talk about how a Harvard physics major ended up going to journalism school to become an investigative reporter. 12:53: Dawn asks Gary to tell the story behind his 2002 article in The New York Times Magazine, “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” 21:13: Gary shares how his work for “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” led to additional research and the book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” 31:00: Gary explains how his study of physics gave him a passion for understanding the history of theories, and how that passion has helped him over the years as an investigative reporter. 43:44: Dawn asks Gary to share lessons he learned from the Nutrition Science Initiative (NUSI). 50:06: Ken refers to reports about Kevin Hall, a researcher at NIH, who essentially claims he’s disproven the carbohydrate-insulin hypotheses of obesity, and asks Gary for his thoughts. 1:02:40: Dawn asks Gary if he thinks there are specific populations where it would seem less appropriate to be on a low-carb diet? 1:06:44: Ken asks if elevated LDL-P should be a concern for people on low-carb diets since it’s a concern for people on normal diets. 1:13:17: Gary talks about the history of sugar in America. 1:18:08: Ken asks Gary to provide the background on how diabetes is now becoming a worldwide pandemic. 1:31:31: Gary elaborates on the sugars found in cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup. 1:34:43: Dawn asks Gary, “If you could remove sugar from the modern environment, but keep everything else the same, do you think we would have an obesity epidemic?” 1:37:21: Gary talks about what brain scans reveal about the addictive effects of sugar. 1:41:53: Dawn asks Gary to share the background on a 2015 report in The New York Times that Coca-Cola initially subsidized the Global Energy Balance Network. 1:46:55: Gary talks about the role of the microbiome. 1:51:31: Ken asks Gary to share his thoughts about the possible effects of artificial sweetners. 1:54:33: Dawn asks Gary how his personal dietary approach has changed over the years. 1:59:01: Dawn and Ken thank Gary and sign off.

In a rare departure from interviews with scientists and engineers, STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC Director Ken Ford interview Jeffrey “Skunk” Baxter about his life as a musician and founding member of Steely Dan, and how he went on to become a defense consultant on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The two fields seem completely different, but Baxter explains the similarities between them and talks about how improvising in jazz is a skill that can carry over into defense analytics and tactics. Baxter’s bio includes playing with a number of well-known bands, such as Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers. As a studio musician for 35 years, Baxter recorded with Donna Summer, Dolly Parton, Ringo Starr and Rod Stewart. He was a record producer for Carl Wilson, the Beach Boys and Stray Cats. He also composed music for movies and television. He has achieved a certain renown in Washington as an advisor and consultant for multiple agencies and defense technology companies. He chaired a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense and was a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute. Baxter also holds a unique affiliation with IHMC as “senior thinker and raconteur.” He and Ken go way back—to Ken’s own days in the rock ‘n’ roll business, which the two discuss in the interview. Baxter’s IHMC bio is available at http://www.ihmc.us/groups/jbaxter/. More information on him is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Baxter or https://www.facebook.com/skunkbaxter/. In 2009, Baxter gave an IHMC lecture entitled “The Revolution in Intelligence.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GRkCyvIz70 2:12: Dawn reads a five-star iTunes review. 3:04: Dawn reads Baxter’s bio and introduces Jeff and Ken. 4:38: Baxter talks about musicians who influenced him growing up, from Beethoven and Chopin to Thelonious Monk and Ella Fitzgerald. 5:05: Baxter was five years old when his mother gave him a great gift: “She taught me to read.” 6:04: Baxter read a lot of military history because of his father, who spent five years in active duty and 20 years in the reserves. 7:00: Baxter describes his beginnings as a musician. 8:00: His love of the complexity and improvisational nature of jazz helped prepare him for work in the intelligence community. 10:25: Ken asks Baxter to talk about his days in the ‘70s as a founding member of Steely Dan. 11:15: Baxter shares his insights about studio recordings. 12:27: Baxter notes that a long time ago Ken was very involved in rock ‘n’ roll as an agent who booked and managed bands. 15:30: Baxter talks about Steely Dan and the unsung hero of the band, Roger Nichols, who was the engineer. 17:30: Baxter describes his transition from Steely Dan to The Doobie Brothers. 21:11: Ken comments that the evolution of The Doobie Brothers was remarkable. He asks Baxter about bringing Mike McDonald to the band. 23:20: Dawn asks about Baxter’s transition from full-time rock musician to advisor on missile defense. 23:30: Baxter quips: “A radar is just an electric guitar on steroids.” 25:35: Writing a paper on converting the Aegis system to do theater missile defense on a mobile platform led Baxter to a position as a missile defense consultant on the Senate Armed Services Committee. 26:28: Baxter describes D.C. as “a whole new world to me” filled with “unbelievably talented, smart patriotic men and women.” 27:25: How Baxter used Beethoven, Bach, Jimmy Hendrix and Pink Floyd to teach radar at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. 28:50: Edward Teller, the Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, was also a concert pianist. Baxter talks about how he began to realize that more and more physicists he met were also musicians. 29:48: Dawn asks how Baxter was received by the defense community in D.C., given his rock band background. 31:33: Baxter talks about his first ‘brutal” press conference on missile defense (not considered back then by the press as a worthy endeavor). 32:48: Ken adds, “It’s important to be disliked by the right people.” 33:00:  Baxter describes how the people in Washington that he worked with in government, industry, military and intelligence communities were talented and patriotic people and, for the most part, unsung. 33:43: Baxter sees a connection between creativity in music, which involves problem solving in a non-linear approach, and the way talented people in government work. 34:05: Commercial break. 34:47: Baxter describes how the organizational chart of a symphony orchestra looks frighteningly like the government’s organizational chart. 37:00: The organization of a jazz quintet, however, is the opposite of an orchestra. 38:30: Baxter recalls a magazine article by William Nolte, who teaches intelligence at the University of Maryland, that made a case for teaching analysts to improvise the same way musicians do. 40:15: Baxter talks about how Pachelbel’s Canon has the same chord pattern as “Let It Be Me” by the Everly Brothers, or “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. 43:25: Dawn asks about war games and the role of improvisation in what might happen next. 43:45: Baxter says war games are table-top exercises where there is a blue team (good guys) and red team (bad guys), a white team (overseers of the game) and various other teams. 45:48: In terrorism, Baxter says, “the improvisational part is important because terrorists don’t have the weapons, capabilities or resources, so they have to improvise.” 47:00: Dawn asks about the transition from analog to digital recording in the music industry back in the 1980s, and how it parallels with the evolution of defense technology. 49:28: Dawn reminds Baxter about his 2009 IHMC lecture that addressed ways to improve the U.S. intelligence gathering. 51:43: Baxter says it’s amazing how quickly the intelligence community has caught on to new technologies and leveraged them. 52:10: Ken notes this is in contrast to a time when Baxter once compared the name of the Steely Dan album “Pretzel Logic” to some aspects of the intelligence community. 52:30: Baxter describes how the electron is now the horse of the 21st century. 52:54: Dawn reminds Baxter that he once said the U.S. beat the Soviet Union because of our soft power (culture). Dawn asks if the U.S. can still play that card in places that are trained to reject U.S. culture. 53:11: Baxter recalls playing concerts in the Soviet Union where every song was illegal, yet thousands of people in the audience knew the lyrics, which is why he believes music is a way to bring people and entities together. 54:55: Baxter describes how missile defense as well as blue jeans, French fries and Elvis Presley helped bring down the Soviet Union. 55:42: Baxter explains how the British saved rock ‘n’ roll. 56:26: Baxter stresses the cultural influence of the U.S. and raves about Japanese rock bands. He also notes that Tito Puente won the Latin salsa competition several years in a row with an all-Japanese band. 58:22: Baxter has been working on a solo recording project for more than 15 years, which he says has been on his bucket list. 58:58: Baxter talks about doing jingles for Lays potato chips, Budweiser and Ford. 1:01:21: Ken mentions that Baxter scored the music for the popular animated TV show “King of the Hill.” 1:002:06: Ken asks Baxter about a 1968 meeting with Richard “Paco” Zimmer, a legendary concert promoter and road manager. 1:05:32: Dawn thanks Jeff for being a guest on STEM-Talk. 1:06:31: Ken says “this interview was especially fun for me; and it stimulated a lot of great memories.” 1:06:55: Dawn and Ken sign off.

Back pain has become the world’s leading cause of disability. Stuart McGill has been at the forefront of non-surgical approaches to addressing back pain for many years. His 2015 book “Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You” is a wonderfully accessible account of his methods and perspectives. McGill spent 30 years as a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada. His laboratory has become a renowned destination for everyday people as well as Olympic and professional athletes from around the world who are struggling with back pain. He is the author of more than 300 scientific publications and 3 textbooks that address issues such as lumbar spine function and injury mechanisms, patient assessment, corrective exercise prescription, and performance training. McGill also consults for many medical management groups, governments, corporations, legal firms, and elite sports teams. He has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Volvo Bioengineering Award for Low Back Pain Research. He released his landmark text, “Low Back Disorders: Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation,” in 2002. It changed the way coaches, bodybuilders, athletes and non-athletes approached core training. His new book, “Back Mechanic,” is written for a lay audience and addresses common misperceptions about back pain. It also provides a step-by-step guide of the McGill Method to fix back pain. Backfitpro.com is a web site also geared for a lay audience and is dedicated to providing access to evidence-based information and products that assist in preventing and rehabilitating back pain. Products featured on the website have been tested in McGill’s lab at the University of Waterloo. McGill and his staff have also produced a video, “The Ultimate Back: Enhancing Performance,” that synthesizes McGill’s approaches for avoiding back injury and enhancing athletic and physical performance. It is available for purchase on Vimeo. 4:23: Stuart talks about how he was more interested in becoming a plumber than a scientist until his high school football coach asked him to return to school and earn his high school degree. That led him to college where he met professors who got him excited about mathematics and physics, and eventually the study of spine biomechanics. 7:00: Ken asks Stuart to describe the remarkable research atmosphere Stuart was able to create at the University of Waterloo. 8:08: Stuart explains that he did not go to medical school, but that he learned he had a unique talent of assessing and relating to people with back pain. 11:00: Ken shares his experience of back pain and traveling to Canada to visit Stuart as a patient, which prompts Stuart to describe his process of assessing people. 14:53: Dawn asks Stuart to talk about his motivation for writing “The Back Mechanic.” 19:53: Although back pain is the world’s leading cause of disability, Dawn asks Stuart why back pain is underappreciated by so many people in the medical community. 22:04: Stuart explains some of the most mechanisms for back injury and ways to prevent them. 26:22: Ken asks Stuart to talk about a study he did several years ago on firefighters with the Pensacola Fire Department. 30:36: Stuart talks about how heavy weightlifting will probably shorten the careers of modern golfers like Rory Mcllroy, and how the great golfers of old who had wonderful long careers – Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player – weren’t weightlifters. 33:53: Stuart talks about the great strikers in mixed martial arts and the UFC are the leaner ones who can unleash muscle. The same is true of the great sprinters, the great golfers, and the great home run hitters, who are the ones who can create a very brief muscle power pulse, and let it go. 34:33: Dawn asks Stuart about reports that the rate of back surgery in the U.S. is five times higher than in other developed countries. 39:31: Stuart provides an overview of the how to about a self-assessment of pain triggers. 46:29: Dawn asks Stuart to explain the McGill method to fixing back pain. 55:03: Ken asks about the technique of power breathing and the implications for spinal disability. 57:15: Ken mentions that he and Stuart are fans of kettlebells, and that power breathing is what a a person does when swinging a kettlebell. Ken asks Stuart to talk about the exercises that he sees as most beneficial with kettlebells.  Ken and Stuart discuss the relative benefits of kettlebell swings, farmer’s walks, and bottoms-up carries. 1:06:49: Stuart talks about measuring competitors in the World’s Strongest Man competition, the NFL, heavyweight UFC fighters, and then asks Ken to guess who had the strongest core Stuart had ever measured. Ken says it was probably a kettlebell dude like Pavel. Stuart confirms that yes it was Pavel Tsatsouline. 1:10:29: Dawn asks if it is true the spine is weaker and more vulnerable to injuries in the morning. 1:14:30: Stuart talks about sciatica, which is usually caused by narrowing of the discs and a little bit of arthritic activity in the vertebra. 1:18:35: Stuart talks about what he describes as silly stretches and exercises, which includes sit-ups and crunches. 1:21:19: Ken asks Stuart to run through the McGill Big Three exercises for spinal stability. 1:30:41: In American training culture, Stuart says there’s too much emphasis on time under the bar, and not enough emphasis on pushing heavy stuff around. He goes on to explain how pulling a slid is a tremendously strengthening and athletically enhancing activity. 1:37:35: Ken talks about friends who’ve sustained back injuries, and points out that was often after they had joined certain training programs focused on Olympic style lifts with high reps. She asks Stuart if he is seeing increased number of spinal injuries with the increased popularity of those type of training programs? 1:43:38: Dawns asks if there’s a direct correlation between back pain or injury and a person’s ability to brace. 1:45:29: Ken asks Stuart to comment on a 2016 study showing that taken as a whole young men today have much less grip strength than their fathers. 1:50:39: Stuart talks about the kinds of back injuries that are associated with sex and ways to mitigate spinal pain associated with sex. 1:52:02: Stuart talks about how his lab was the first to measure orgasm. 1:55:16: Ken and Dawn thank Stuart and sign off. Visit backfitpro.com to learn more about the approaches and back pain exercises that can rehabilitate and prevent spine injury.

Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen discusses blood flow restriction training, its effectiveness for muscle growth and recovery, and its benefits for seniors. The podcast also covers his background in science and his work with Olympians, as well as the mission of the USA Athletic Trust.