Gladden longevity — Episode #47

Steve Reiter: Welcome to the Gladden Longevity Podcast with Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, MD, FACC, founder and CEO of Gladden Longevity. On this show, we want to help you optimize your longevity, health, and human performance with impactful and actionable information by answering three questions. How good can we be? How do we make 100 the new 30? And how do we live well beyond 120?

I'm Steve Reiter and, Dr. Gladden, we just got done interviewing Melissa Karabeyoglu from Vivoo. And the company is spelled V-I-V-O-O, but it's Vivoo, and they have test strips that will test for electrolytes and protein in your urine and a whole bunch of other stuff. And this was-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah. Like oxidative stress and what your keto levels are, what your pH is, and things like that. I love this conversation, Steve. I think the audience is really going to enjoy this. This falls into the category for you to have real-time feedback on how you can optimize your hydration, your minerals, your supplements, your vitamin C levels, and whether or not you want to be ketotic or not. And also, I think, importantly, what is your level of oxidative stress? You're going to learn some really fascinating things here about how all this ties together.

We're used to real-time feedback with things like continuous glucose monitors and Whoops, and Oura rings, and Apple watches, et cetera, but this is another take on it, and all of a sudden, you're going to open up a window into more information about yourself that you didn't have access to. I think you're going to love this show.

Steve Reiter: And you used it this morning, and you-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: I did.

Steve Reiter: ... asked Melissa about some of the results, like your electrolytes were low.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, you'll hear about that on the podcast. I learned some things, which was super fun. I was great in some things, but I needed some help that I didn't know I needed, and so that's the beautiful part of this. So, Melisa, it's great to have you on the Gladden Longevity Podcast. Looking forward to this conversation. So, tell us a little bit about how you got to be where you are today. I know you're a registered dietician and nutritionist and things like that. You have an interesting background in working with real food banks, and it sounds like homeless shelters and things like that in New York, which is really a fascinating place to bring nutrition.

Because when you think about people that are nutritionally depleted, it's going to be people that are living that lifestyle, but then also the food that they have access to is typically calorie-rich and nutrient-poor. So, that must have been a fascinating thing. So, tell us a little bit about that and then maybe how you got to where you are today.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: All right. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here, Dr. Gladden. Thank you for that warm introduction. So, you are correct. I have a lot of different areas of expertise in the field of nutrition, and I did start off in public health. When I was sitting at Johns Hopkins, I did research at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. I was awarded a scholarship, and I got very into public policy. And then, when I was living in New York City, I did work with the Department of Health for New York State and also the food bank. I was responsible for not only creating menu plans but also for teaching lessons in English and Spanish.

My passion for nutrition kept on increasing, and then I realized if I wanted to get involved at a larger level, I would need to pursue a doctorate and also get involved in policy change. When I was doing my Ph.D., which I'm still doing right now, I was also learning more and more about how individuals on our day-to-day lives were actually really low in a lot of key nutrients. And that's how I started working for Vivoo, which is why we're here to talk to today.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, okay. So, Vivoo, just so the audience understands, Vivoo is spelled V-I-V-O-O, and it is a home urine test that can be utilized to look at sort of nutrient status if you will, and we can talk a little bit about that. So, I'm just curious about the thoughts that you had with working with the government departments and things like that. I mean, do you think it's really... I saw something in your resume about just choosing fruits and vegetables, just saying yes to fruits and vegetables, or something like that, which I thought was cool. And I thought that in that population of people, access is a big issue. Did you come away with any breakthroughs for them or any ways to get them actually more nutrient-dense foods?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah, thank you. So, we always encourage the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, with the Western American diet or the standard American diet, the SAD, there's a lot of consumption of processed and packaged food, and a lot of families actually, although they could not afford to eat out, they actually didn't know how to cook their own foods at home. We were constantly increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables, whether it was at a farmer's market or there was also the initiative done by New York State where in the downtown city centers we have our, I call them the healthy fruit stands, so you can go and just purchase a banana for 50 cents.

We were constantly trying to encourage populations to have fruits and vegetables accessible, even in food desert populations, even in Manhattan. Some areas are food deserts because there's just so much restaurants and to-go stores. There are not actually a lot of supermarkets, and if there are supermarkets, they're usually not affordable. When I was doing that, I realized how much individuals were lacking proper kitchens and enough time. Both parents were working and also the cooking skills. So, I started off as a dietician and a chef, but then I wanted to develop more and more initiatives throughout the government. 

So, that's somewhere in my future career prospects. And currently, right now I'm trying to learn about how to improve my diet on an individual level. I have my own private practice, and I counsel a lot of clients. Most of my clients are still actually in the New York City metropolitan area, and we talk about the importance of cooking your own food at home and making realistic goals.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Let me interrupt this for a second, but that is a real challenge for people to cook. So many people are busy, right? 

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Everybody's a busy professional; a lot of our clients are busy, professional, a lot of people listening to that are in sort of the biohacking space and actually a new space that we're going to open up called age hacking. But I think that in that space, being able to prepare food or prepare food on a Sunday that's going to carry you through the week or doing some things like that, I've gotten into this routine where I get... right now, I go to the store and get what I can get. 

So, I have some basil, some spinach, and some kale. They didn't have any fresh arugula that I was interested in, things like that. But I'll throw them in a pot and just take a large volume and condense it down, not cooking the nutrients out of it, just enough to get it condensed, so I can eat a lot of veggies in the course of a day by doing it that way. But it only takes about five minutes to do that, quite honestly. So, that's one of the hacks that I've figured out about how to get more volume in with kind of minimal effort, if you will. Do you have any hacks like that that you'd recommend for people?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, I love that hack of yours. I actually saw that on your Instagram page, and I thought that was fantastic because our generation is so obsessed with making smoothies, and it is easier to digest the food when you do blend it and make it into smaller particles. But actually one of the purest ways you can cook greens is to slowly just cook away the water. A lot of fruits and vegetables are 70 to 90% water, and we're constantly trying to be hydrated, and that's what I love with Vivoo. We can test our hydration, which obviously it matters every day, your hydration, but also within hours. 

And as we age, the percentage of water in our body decreases. When we're newly born, it can be 70 or 80%, and when we're in our late years, it can go all the way down to 60%. So, I always tell my clients to eat their water. And I think a lot of individuals can get overwhelmed when they look at a huge amount of spinach or greens, but when you cook them down, all of a sudden, you go: "Oh, wow, I think I could eat that." You know?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Right. Exactly.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: That's a great hack you have. Yeah, it's much more approachable and tasty.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, exactly. And tasty. It's super tasty, actually. It makes the whole kitchen smell good too. So, that's interesting—this idea of eating the water. So, let's talk about water for a minute, and let's talk about Vivoo. So, we all know that hydration's important. One of the parameters that Vivoo measures is the level of hydration. And let's just describe how the Vivoo... I'll describe how it works because I did it this morning. Basically, it's a strip in a packet. You pull out this test strip. It's not like any other urine dipstick that you've seen before in a doctor's office or anything else.

It's kind of multicolored, multi-hatched, whatever, and you end up urinating on it, sort of midstream urination, and then you hold it up to your phone's camera and take a picture of it. Or actually, the app automatically, the Vivoo app automatically took a picture of it for me, and then from there, it analyzes, I'm assuming, all the different colors and saturations or whatever, intensities. And from that, it ends up making a report based on ketones and certain minerals and hydration and some other things. So, I'm a huge fan of real-time feedback for people. So, continuous glucose monitors, I think, are massively important for people to actually understand what's going on when they eat something. 

But I think this is fascinating too because we have a lot of people that are listening and are avid exercisers and take their health very seriously. And I'm exercising, doing something every day, virtually every day. So, I did a workout this morning, actually before I did the test, and then I have a strategy around water where I do drink through the day, but some of it's green tea, some of it's pure water, some of it's hydrogen water. And I also have a strategy for staying hydrated at night where when I get up to urinate, I also drink water again, so that I don't wake up dehydrated. So, I was interested to see that my water score on the app was at a hundred percent and that I was a hundred percent hydrated. And I thought: "Well, that's-

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Wonderful.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah. But that's interesting to see. It's like: "Oh, okay, this stuff that I'm doing is working." So, I think, for the listeners, if you're waking up with a dry mouth or you're feeling like: "I wonder if I'm getting enough water," this can be a good way to do it. So, tell us a little bit about some of the other things that this can measure besides just hydration.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, thank you for sharing your hydration score. That's very impressive. Vivoo does test hydration. It tests nine parameters in total. So, that's great, by the way, that your results are showing that you're hydrated. It's probably because you're consuming so many different sources of water and throughout the day. Water can be one of those hard test scores to hit a hundred percent, so congratulations. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Oh, really? Okay. I didn't know that.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, we also... Yeah. Just because I think a lot of individuals are trying so hard to drink their water, and then they're not seeing the results show. Maybe they're not drinking the water with enough electrolytes, maybe they're drinking it with their meals, or maybe they're drinking it too much in one go. So, I think you have a really great regimen.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: I do try to drink throughout the day. I'm sipping on something-

Melisa Karabeyoglu: That's excellent.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: ... here while we're talking. You see-

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Oh, wonderful. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah. 

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah, I think with Vivoo, what's really interesting is, like you were saying, it's great to just have that confirmation. You're seeing that all these activities that you're doing throughout the day are having a positive reflection internally, so you're able to see how that is. So, with urine tests, the difference with blood lab tests, the doctor would say: "We would like to test these lab values." You would go, you would give a blood sample and also sometimes a urine sample. But with Vivoo, we're showing daily results of what your kidneys are really excreting. 

So, we also look at vitamin C, which is a water-soluble vitamin. So, it's very important for everyone to monitor their vitamin C intake just because since it is a water-soluble vitamin and it's not a fat-soluble vitamin, we have to make sure that we're eating it every single day.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Right.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: And we hear about it a lot with COVID, et cetera, for keeping our immune system strong, but beyond that, it's just a great antioxidant, and it's really important for longevity, for collagen synthesis, for any kind of process relating with skin and tissues and joints. So, it is really essential. And men would need around 90 milligrams; for women, we would say 75 milligrams. If you're smoking, you would need more just because smoking does produce a lot of free radicals, and vitamin C is an antioxidant. A lot of the antioxidants from vitamin C would work to neutralize those free radicals from smoking.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: One of the other interesting things it's not only "eat your water," I think it's" eat your vitamin C."

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yes. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Because vitamin C that shows up in a plant is different than the vitamin C that you get in the health food store that-

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Totally, yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: There's a misnomer about that. Ascorbic acid is really the centerpiece of vitamin C, but it really is a whole constellation of molecules. And so, when you eat it and get vitamin C that way, as opposed to just taking ascorbic acid... Actually, vitamin C is an antioxidant, but when you take ascorbic acid in high doses, it's actually an oxidant. So, it's used to treat cancers, and it's used to treat infections. So, just keep that in mind that if you're trying to optimize your vitamin C, it's not about going to the store and taking pills. It's really about eating not only your water but your vitamin C. So, I will share this. My vitamin C was also 10 out of 10, which was optimal. 

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yay. Congratulations. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: But I'm going to tell you about the things that weren't optimal. Well, oxidative stress was also optimal at ten out of 10, and my ketones were optimal this morning at ten out of ten, probably because I was fasting. But let me tell you about what wasn't optimal. My magnesium was low. You had five out of 10. My calcium was low at five out of 10. My sodium was low at four out of 10. And I think that this is really interesting information for me because I do saunas on a fairly regular basis. 

I don't have access to it every day, but I'm pretty good about that. I live in a climate that's warm, currently in Puerto Rico, and I oscillate between Puerto Rico and the US, but I'm out running, I'm sweating profusely, and I come back. My clothes, it's like I just jumped in the ocean, but I haven't yet, but I will if I come back from a run. Point being, when you perspire a lot, and you're exercising a lot, I don't think I'm actually repleting my minerals nearly enough. Right?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. It's great you're taking that point. So, a lot of individuals should be exercising as you are, and that's fantastic. I saw on your website it seems that you really do practice what you preach. So, by the way, that's amazing, everything you're doing. But a lot of the minerals, like you're saying, for example, calcium, magnesium, we test those along with sodium, and it's really essential to replenish those. So, we always think of sodium because we're salting, but also just because sodium is really responsible for the regulation of fluids, and it's really found outside of our cells, in our interstitial fluids, so it's really important to make sure that we're eating salt.

We actually have an excellent speaker, and I'll send you some of his podcasts. And he just talks about how it's salt; we're always told that salt is vilified like fat, was in the '90s when it was really bad. And a lot of us actually may be deficient in salt, especially if they're like yourself, a health enthusiast. And also, if you're not consuming processed food or if you're not consuming a lot of meat, dairy, and eggs, you might actually be low in salt. So, if you are consuming more plant-based and you're also sweating like you are, being very active, you might be low also on salt, and you might need to add it to your meals, which sounds really contradictory. And I feel like everyone's listening; they're saying: "A dietician's telling me to add salt to my meals." But we might need to, yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: And that's the beauty of being able to test it because otherwise, you don't know. It's not like I feel like I'm hyponatremic, low on sodium or magnesium. I can't really tell per se, but to be able to test that and actually see it and then make a trajectory change because of it that's powerful. That's powerful information like that.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. So, as you know, of course, since with your education, obviously you know calcium, magnesium, they go hands-in-hands and both of those minerals, sometimes an individual might be great on calcium and low on magnesium, but with calcium, a lot of the time also, it's just really... All these minerals are important for our body, and we don't really realize that minerals actually never go away. If you burn them, they're inorganic, and they don't have carbon. So, they're in ashes and everything, but we have to constantly consume them. 

And we always think of calcium from dairy, and you can definitely get calcium from dairy and eggs, but it's actually present also in greens and broccoli, anything dark-colored and dark green-colored. And you can also... So, I'm sure that delicious dish you make of wilted greens, that has a ton of calcium. That's a calcium depot. And if you were cooking it even in a cast-iron skillet, you would get the iron also from the skillet and getting your iron, I always love to talk about, like you were saying, instead of going for vitamin C in a conventional form which we are marketed to consumers, think about how we naturally have been consuming it for years for seasonal fruit. 

Just the same thing with minerals. A lot of ancient food practices have tons of minerals present in the food due to agricultural and just genetic modification. A lot of our soils are deficient in a lot of minerals, so we have to go to an extra step and add them into our diet. In addition, an individual like yourself who is sweating out a lot, every time we're sweating, what are we losing? We're losing fluid, but we're also losing electrolytes. We have to replenish them, just like we drink when we get out of the sauna.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: It's an interesting thought because we think a lot about nutrient density. I think a lot about nutrient density and the fact that it's difficult to get nutrient-dense foods. Even organic foods are not terribly nutrient-dense sometimes, depending on, to your point, the soil that they're grown in, the time of year that they're grown, and things like that. But also, when you think about nutrient density, it's not just about phytochemicals and vitamins; it's also about the mineral content. And I haven't been thinking quite as much about the mineral content as I have the other elements of nutrient density, so to speak.

I think that what was recommended to me by the app, the app also makes some recommendations. It was recommending that I eat some okra, I believe. Was some okra. It's basically in me, calcium. I was also a little bit acidic in my pH. It was recommending raspberries to [inaudible 00:20:08]. Doing some things like that. But what about magnesium and calcium? Do you have sources of magnesium that you like that people can go to?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. I think magnesium is one of those minerals that we hear about more. We've all heard about calcium because we're constantly pushed by the USDA to increase our dairy, and it's just drink your milk, et cetera. We heard about magnesium about ten years ago just because the supplement industry has... pushing us to buy magnesium, and it's also really essential, though, if you do work out, just because it's necessary for our muscles to function properly along with our nerves. That's why we always tell our... If you do take an additional supplement to supplement in the night, just so you can relax the night, your muscles and your nerves will relax.

In terms of food, magnesium is actually really rich in chocolate. If you were to eat raw cacao, and since you are in Puerto Rico, if you could go to maybe a little bit like Costa Rica and get some real raw cacao that's really, really rich in magnesium, of course, depending on the soil and also a lot of legumes. So, a lot of beans are really rich in minerals and in addition to grains. So, we would always suggest having grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. They are rich in magnesium, yes.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, that's right. I think pumpkin seeds are actually very rich in magnesium.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: They're, in fact, they're a great source of magnesium.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yes.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: When you start to talk about legumes, there's this concept about lectins that always pops up for people. "Should I be avoiding lectins or not avoiding lectins?: What's your take on the lectin story? Is this something we should be aware of, or what?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. So, I love that book, and I remember I was very interested in that; I love the grain brain. And I do believe that for me, I'm very interested in cultures around the world, and I love traveling, and I love talking. When I go there, I love to go and talk with the older people who are still preparing the food the way they were taught by their grandmother, and then I see these ways that they were cooking certain food groups, for example, legumes in a way that naturally can remove the lectins and phytates.

So, they always soak their legumes, they always throw off the foam. A lot of them will scoop off the foam constantly. And I do believe that legumes and beans, yes, they do have lectins. However, there are a lot of different cooking methods that can dramatically decrease them, and their health benefits are very great.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, that's my take on it as well. I think if you're eating raw beans or some of the foods that are high in lectins raw, it's an issue. But if you actually cook those, then you kind of destroy... you denature of the lectins, and you can get past them. And I think people have mislabeled foods. Beans and legumes, I'm never going eat those because they have lectins in them, but in actual fact, they're short-changing themselves if you cook them properly, and now all of a sudden, you're missing all these sources of different minerals.

And beans and rice, of course, are a perfect protein combination, things like that. So, I think we need to be careful when we hear about something related to foods in the sense that we don't want to be excluding foods because what I think and what we've seen with a lot of food sensitivity testing is that it's the people that have the broadest range of foods in their diet that seem to have the least food reactivity because the immune system isn't seeing the same thing every day.

And so, I think it's also important to have nutrient variety. And I try to counsel people that what your body really loves is variety, so give it as much variety as possible, maybe with the exception of ice cream and pie. But anyway...

Melisa Karabeyoglu: I think that's a great point. Now with economic problems worldwide, people are, for the first time in a long time, really watching how much they eat of food groups, in Europe. And right now, I'm in Europe and Asia, and meat and dairy prices are so high. It's very inexpensive in America, so people are consuming it very carefully. You have a little bit of everything, and we used to live in larger families, and we couldn't sit down and eat 30 almonds, 40 almonds, or for instance, eat huge tablespoons of almond butter.

A lot of these foods which are so easily available in our modern lifestyle haven't been available to us for so many years in such large isolated amounts. So, I do think a lot of these sensitivities are happening because we are, like you said, not having a very well-balanced diet. And living alone or not having the proper education, not learning from your grandmother or grandfather can also have a really big impact on that.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: That's a good point that you make. I think that the fact that we have access to high quantities of a single item, whether it's cashews or almonds or walnuts or spinach or anything else, right?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: The fact that it's really nuts. So, I think if you're listening to this, I think one of the things you want to do is broaden your reach when it comes to things that you include in your diet. Every time I go to the grocery store, I try to buy different things just to mix it up, both from a standpoint of my palate, but also I know that it's good for my immune system and also it's good for getting different nutrients at various times. So, I think that's a good takeaway. With the whole Vivoo thing, what's the mission here? What are you guys trying to actually accomplish? What's the big picture?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: That's a great question. So, I think something really beautiful that the CEO and founder always mentions is that she really wanted to make wellness accessible and affordable. It's a very light and easy-to-carry strip. You can take it with you wherever you go, anywhere. I take it when I travel all the time, which always shows that I'm dehydrated, by the way, when I'm traveling. And it allows a lot of people to access data that they would not otherwise have the opportunity to.

Some individuals have a really hard time even going to get a simple blood test done once a year, and then they realize that their magnesium levels are low, et cetera, et cetera. So, it's a really exciting approach, is that you're able to have this individualized data based on your internal structure and seeing how your body is responding. Now we know that your carefully-thought-out water regimen is really functioning well for your body. Maybe for another individual be, they might be-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Correct. And they- 

Melisa Karabeyoglu: ... over-hydrated or under-hydrated.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Right, exactly.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, it's showing you proof, and also, I think it's biohacking. So, I know you were mentioning that you also... Before we started recording, you were saying that you use the ring. These are all different tools that we have invented to allow humans to connect better with their bodies. I always say I wish... This is my own point. I wish that in our school education, we were taught so many things. I wish we were taught more about also money management, but I also wish we were taught more about health and more about how all our lifestyle choices impact our bodies. I wish we were given a little bit more of a medical knowledge in our high school education.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: No, I agree with you. I was just thinking, as you're saying that, that one of the best ways to do that every kid in junior high or high school has a health class, but it's just information. I mean, what would be fascinating for them would be to see their own bodies on a Whoop or an Oura ring or using Vivoo, use that for the semester and see how it changes their activity levels, their dietary, their sleep patterns, all these things and really start to set them up for success earlier in life. It'd be really interesting to actually almost start a not-for-profit or something to introduce kids to this kind of real-time feedback.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. So, real-time feedback, exactly. And I think in this really quick-paced life we're living in, everything is about real-time and how it's working, and you can be talking with someone in a different country on a different platform like we're doing right now, and everything is so... We're looking at nutrient-dense food, how to get the most from each meal. And also, this is just another type of tool that you can use on how to get the most from your actions and your lifestyle choices.

So, for me, I find it very motivating because it's similar to having nutrition or a personal coach or a doctor that's a close friend that can be like: "Look, this is working well for you. You're absorbing vitamin C." Or: "Look, you're not getting enough magnesium from your diet." So, that's great. And also, you mentioned that your oxidative stress is great. I love that because I'm very interested in inflammation, so I always look at oxidative stress. And I also love pH. I find that that's really important. Research shows that when we have a more alkaline diet, it's harder for infectious diseases and even cancerous cells to grow. And-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: That's great.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: ... I think the whole, what you were saying before, it means a lot when it's about you. We hear in the news about this and that, but when it happens to a close friend, one of our friends gets cancer, and all of a sudden, cancer becomes important. When you're on your phone, and you are scanning this after you take the test, and it shows magnesium, all of a sudden, you think: "Wait, what was magnesium?" You Google it. It makes it more important. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Absolutely.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, when you get these individualized results, it makes you much more motivated. I'm a dietician, and unfortunately, a lot of individuals come to me thinking that I'm going to help them get to a weight loss goal. I always focus on health instead of a number on the scale, and I think that-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: True.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: ... these tools are great because they're putting a revolution. Instead of just focusing on what's on the outside of someone, we're actually getting a chance to look inside and see what's going on.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: I think to that point, one of the things that you talked about was when you travel, you notice that you're more dehydrated. And airplane travel, in general, is dehydrating for a couple different reasons. One is that the humidity inside the plane is at 20%, which is very low humidity. The other is that you're at 8,000 feet and when you're pressurized to 8,000 feet, even though the plane's at 35,000, the cabinet is pressurized at 8,000 feet. When you go to 8,000 feet, it basically changes the pressure inside your thoracic cavity, and your body responds to that by releasing a diuretic hormone, a brain-derived neurotrophic factor. 

And so, you're actually urinating more when you're on the flight. And if you go to an elevated altitude, let's say your destination is Aspen or someplace, you're going to be urinating a lot more there. So, when people say you're going to elevation, you need to drink a lot of water, it's true, but it's also true on a flight. So, we love hydrating before we get on the plane, drinking hydrogen on the plane, hydrogen water on the plane to protect you from radiation, and also hydrate. And then what I do is, I drink another hydrogen when I get off. Because when you get off of a flight, you always feel a little groggy somehow. I don't know if you're like that? 

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah. 

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: But when you drink the hydrogen water, it kind of reboots you, and also you're rehydrating, and it's also alkalizing your urine, and so, all of a sudden, you start to feel good again. So, that's important for people to understand when they travel; it's another challenge to your hydration, just like exercise is another challenge.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah, that's really great what you're sharing. And I feel like a lot of individuals are, number one, afraid to use bathrooms outside of their house in general. Number two, especially in airports and planes, because it's more dirty in their mind. So, they're like: "I don't want to drink a lot of water because then I have to make the person next to me get up, and then I have to go into the small little thing." And then they have-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Interesting, yeah.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: And then some-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: It's a male versus female thing, too, I don't know.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Possibly. And also, it's like you're like: "Hi, can I have three more of those really small water bottles?" And then the hostess looks at you like: "Ugh, her." So I, no one really hydrates well, but you're right. I mean, after the plane, I didn't know, those are amazing facts you shared. I knew about our internal structure, but I didn't know about the feet change, but we just feel really dehydrated. Even in my knuckles, I'll see that I look dehydrated, and I feel that grogginess. So, I'm going to hydrate even more now, which I didn't think was possible on the plane.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, no, good for you. Good for you.

Steve Reiter: This episode of the Gladden Longevity Podcast is brought to you by H2, Molecular Hydrogen in the Gladden Longevity Store.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah. Steve, you've heard us talk about this numerous times on the podcast, in terms of the benefits of H2 and hydrogen water. We love it. It's really the best way to balance your entire redox system, so it really protects you from free radical damage. I take it every time I get on a flight to protect me from radiation damage when I'm flying, and I use it to rejuvenate my brain in the afternoon. There's really two kinds of exercise. There's physical exercise, and taking H2 before or after that works great, but also, there's a mental exercise. And I find that the H2 will bring your brain back when you're tired in the afternoon. So, I think it's the perfect thing for longevity and for performance, quite honestly.

Steve Reiter: And I talked to you about this, that I found dropping one to two tablets in a glass water bottle right before bed, I've seen an overall bump in my deep sleep when I do so. So-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Fascinating, yeah.

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Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, one of the other things that I use it for routinely is when I'm about to go on a mountain bike ride, and I will say this, that if I go on a long mountain bike ride, I will take one prior, I'll take one during, and I'll take one after. And some of the iron men that we've worked with have said that when they're doing an iron man, they'll take it three or four times throughout the race, and their comment is that it's taking out the old battery and putting in a new one. It really rejuvenates your body's ability to perform when you're doing a more extended athletic activity. So, think about that too. If you want to go do a longer hike or whatever else, take it with you.

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So, I will also add that the Vivoo app, it is possible to link up like your Oura ring or your Whoop or maybe your Garmin or whatever other trackers you have, I think, and dump that data in there. But I think it has to go through... You were telling us before the podcast I think it has to go through Apple Health or Google Health as an intermediary to get it onto the Vivoo platform. Is that correct?

Melisa Karabeyoglu: Yeah, that is correct. If you have your ring and your [inaudible 00:35:51] stuff logged onto Google or Apple Health, and you also have your Vivoo paired with that, which is really simple from our app, then they can all sync, and then it shows you how much calories you've been spending in a day, and also it's really cool because you're like: "You've been burning this many calories, and your sodium is low." And then you're like: "Ah-ha, now I get it. I have to hydrate after I exercise with something, electrolyte water."

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: And you can see your strain score. So, if you're an athlete, as many of you are, then you can see your strain score. You know what environment you were exercising in, whether it was in a gym or outdoors or in the cold or in the heat. And you can start to learn and anticipate your needs. I think one of the best things about something like this is it can actually move you from being reactive to being proactive. So, if you know you're about to go out and do this, and you're going to come back dehydrated, well, let me hydrate extra before I go out and let me hydrate during, so that when I get back... The goal is not to come back dehydrated, so I know how much I should drink. The goal is to come back and not have to hydrate very much. So, it's about hydration all the way through.

Because if you're an athlete, performance really drops off with several things. One is continued exertion, of course, but dehydration is a big stimulus for decreased performance, as our drops in electrolytes. Your body reads those changes and says: "Okay, the brain is going to shut down the muscles because we're starting to overheat the boiler here. We're starting to overcook the muscles, or we're starting to work on a depleted schedule here of electrolytes and nutrients." And so, it's your brain that actually controls your ability to perform.

So, if you're anticipating that and able to use a device like this to learn how to preempt that, you'll be able to perform better, whether it's skiing or whether it's playing golf or whatever else you might enjoy doing. So, that's cool too. I like taking this from the reactive into the preemptive mode here.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: That's excellent. I think it really does motivate you to take immediate action. And I think that's really great what you are saying. I think a lot of individuals think: "I'm going to hydrate right now after my workout." But you're saying if you can know that data before and then hydrate throughout and right before, then after-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Exactly.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: ... you won't have to because there's only so much you can absorb, and it puts a lot of strain on your body actually-

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: That's right.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: ... to do.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: That's right.

Melisa Karabeyoglu: So, that's really interesting.