Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Steven Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long happy life.
Dr Gundry 0:23
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast now what if you could reap the benefits of a vigorous 45 minute run? Without the usual strain on your joints? Or the lingering fatigue? Better yet? But what if you could do it in just five minutes? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, not anymore. Today I’m sitting down with ovirt nymphal, CEO and co founder of Carol bike, a revolutionary AI powered exercise bike. In the next few minutes, we’ll uncover the science that powers this bike, including how it could leave you feeling a decade younger in just eight weeks of use. So if you love my health hacks and longevity secrets stick around. We’ll be right back. auric wall welcome.
Unknown Speaker 1:14
Thank you. Thank you so much for having so
Dr Gundry 1:16
let’s start. What exactly is a Carroll bike and why aren’t I riding one right now?
Speaker 3 1:23
All right, so aero bike is the smartest and most effective exercise bike. It’s been scientifically proven to give you double the health and fitness benefits in 90% Less time compared to regular steady state cardio. It’s got simple and AI personalized workouts that are suitable for pretty much any age and fitness levels and workouts can be done in five minutes. And the best part is you only have to work hard for 2/22 Sprint’s so it’s thought effective and very easy to fit into your life.
Dr Gundry 1:58
You’re absolutely right about that. Now, everybody knows there are plenty of exercise bikes out there already. And certainly people heard about what happened during COVID with a particular exercise bike company, what gap did you see in the market that led to the creation of the Carroll bike before I
Speaker 3 2:20
I’m not an insider in the fitness industry. I’ve worked in the automotive industry and a lot in healthcare. Actually, I’m a mechanical engineer by background. And in health care we designed with my co founders, chronic disease management programs for people with heart failure, diabetes, and so on. And exercise is simply the most powerful intervention for not only that patient population for everybody really, but nevertheless, for those people particularly, and we couldn’t get them to exercise. And when we looked at the science, if you survey people why they don’t exercise, the number one reason stated is lack of time. Now surely, for some it might be an excuse. But we believe that the competition for time is really intense, and that there is a need for time efficient exercise. And when we came across the science of reheat reduced exertion, high intensity training, we fell in love basically overnight, and and really wanted to do that wanted our patients to be able to do that. But you couldn’t replicate the science that university researchers discovered in the lab on a normal exercise bike, so they use special equipment, and simply there was no suitable equipment available. And that seemed such a huge gap to us that we felt why not try and close that gap. Now, this is almost 10 years ago, and an awful lot of development effort has gone into that. But by now we have a very nice product that makes Rehat very simple. And dare I say easy for people to do in their own home in gyms. And so that’s what motivated us.
Dr Gundry 4:00
Gotcha. You know, I talk and write a lot about exercise snacking and why why you don’t need to go to the gym for hours a day to get the benefits of exercise. And you’re absolutely right. My patients basically say they don’t have the time certainly during COVID Nobody had the ability to go to the gym. So I’m gonna really dive in what re hit is versus hit because I think a lot of people listening understand High Intensity Interval Training hit but take us through that and why that’s so important. Sure, sure.
Speaker 3 4:39
So most people will be familiar with hit high intensity interval training and a typical hit program would last 2030 minutes have multiple like higher intensity intervals 45678 and they vary in range from 40 seconds to four minutes. There’s a great variety and while the benefit It’s are beyond doubt it is actually quite difficult for most people to perform those HIIT sessions because the rate of perceived exertion is fairly high. And it’s also not that time efficient once you prep and shower afterwards and everything. So based on that rehab, it was developed by scientists who were looking for the shortest, most effective, most accessible way to exercise. And research has proven that re hit is simply the fastest way to get fit. And a rehab session consists basically only of 2/22 sprints with a very light warm up recovery and cooldown period. And so where we’re hit offers high intensity training, we hit offers maximum intensity, so you really push through your limits, but you do it only for a very brief very short period of time, which makes the total exertion much much lower.
Dr Gundry 5:57
You know, when I first tried your bike, maybe we can talk through this, but you basically kind of have a warm up period of two minutes. And you know, I’m going well, okay, come on, let’s get this going. Because I’m following the directions from the bike, obviously. And I’m going well, this is silly, what am I doing this for? And then it goes, All right, you know, now you’re going to do this for 20 seconds, you’re going to pump as hard as you can go and okay, you do that. And then I’m going okay, now, you know, this is when we’re really going to start and then it says, Okay, you’re done and relax, and let’s slow down and cooldown for two minutes. And I’m going, well, this is silly. Then we do it again, for 20 seconds. I hope I’m saying this right. And then we do one more cooldown and it says, you know, congratulations, you’re done. And I’m going Oh, come on. I didn’t even break a sweat and Dave Asprey used to talk about this. He said, How’d you like to get fit without breaking a sweat? And five minutes? I don’t come on. So did I work hard for 20 seconds two times in a row? Yeah. But it was not I didn’t want to throw up. And some hit training can do so teach me the science of why that my perceived exertion wasn’t very high. And yet I got a benefit.
Speaker 3 7:12
Sure, sure. So I want to just two things. So it is actually true. The level of energy you burn during the sprint is so low that most people don’t even break a sweat. Now, we don’t want to say everybody because you know, some people naturally have a greater tendency to sweat and they do, but most people actually don’t sweat and I know that some of our female users many of our female users actually really appreciate that they can get a good workout in at least without having to have their hair done all again and need to go to the hairdresser again. So that is true. It doesn’t apply to everybody but most people can do it without even breaking a sweat. But it is still like these 2/22 Sprint’s if you push to a limit those 2/22 Sprint’s are hard, so it’s it’s I don’t want to say it’s a it’s not a fitness pill or a free lunch, you do have to work hard for those to 22nd Sprint’s and your heart rate will be elevated and so on. Now, why does it get you fit, The secret lies in the rapid onset of the high intensity. So you go from your base rate very rapidly in the spreads to create a huge spike in energy demand. So energy demand increases by a factor of 100. And that energy demand can’t be met with your normal aerobic energy system. So where you take sugar and fat from your bloodstream, instead, your muscles have to burn and have to utilize locally stored energy resources. And that’s first for the first 10 seconds of the sprint or so that’s possible creating that switches on fastest is immediately available. But it only lasts for about 10 seconds. And then you’re forced to force your muscles to anaerobically burn muscular glycogen. And what that triggers is, or what that means is that you’re tapping into your what we call emergency energy reserves. So you have those glycogen stores in reserve for situations where you have to run for your life or fight for your life. And with those rehabbed Sprint’s you can you force your body to mobilize a fairly large amount of your muscular glycogen stored in your thighs about 25 to 30%. And now that triggers a cascade, certain signaling molecules get released. So that’s initially a NPK which is bound to the glycogen and gets then released and activated and then further downstream, it releases and activates PGC one alpha, which is another signaling molecule that is the master regulator for mitochondrial biogenesis. So with those Sprint’s you set in place, you set off a cascade of physiological responses that in effect Tell your body that it has to get fitter and stronger, and increase the mitochondrial volume and numbers so that you’re getting better at utilizing oxygen. And that increases your view to max and your cardiorespiratory fitness and therefore delivers this very substantial increase in fitness. In this very short period of time. There’s some other mechanisms that lead to further adaptations, for example, your blood plasma volume increases, and overall, you get better at both delivering and utilizing oxygen.
Dr Gundry 10:36
You know, that brings to mind years ago when the jogging craze came out, and the marathon and craze came out the interviewed some Kalahari Bushman, the icon who are great long distance walkers, they think nothing about, you know, walking 20 Miles stalking game, and they asked them, you know, what, what do you think about running 26 miles? And they said, Well, why would anybody do that? You know, you’d waste all those calories walking for 26 mile running for 26 miles to catch the animal. And if the animal was chasing you, he would have caught you long before that. And you’re right, this immediate power need was your right fight or flight, we had to get up a tree, or we had to wrestle a saber toothed Tiger, either of which would be a very short bout of intense exercise. So you’re right. Yeah, we were we were built for this. So we have an evolutionary reason that to have this.
Speaker 3 11:43
Absolutely. And another thing so the response is to the rapid onset, basically of the sprint. And one thing that if you want to call it a hack or something really clever, is that when you switch on the when you have this spike in energy demand and the body anticipates a fight or flight situation and prepares for that. And it means it mobilizes lots and lots of energy mobilizes lots and lots of glycogen, you burn only through your metabolize only a tiny fraction of that because the Sprint’s are so short, but the signal went in already just with the onset. And that is thought to be the reason why you don’t have to do more Sprint’s or longer Sprint’s you would just burn through more of that mobilized glycogen, but the signal was already went in at the very beginning. And therefore that triggered already the adaptation and there’s something really quite peculiar and quite unique about re hit. Because with exercise is usually a quite linear function. If you either work longer or work harder, you get greater benefit. What the data right now suggests is that with every hit doing more sprints, and longer Sprint’s it’s not only that, you don’t get greater benefits, it’s actually an inverse relationship. So if you do more Sprint’s or longer Sprint’s you get less fitness benefits, now that’s, that’s a curiosity and a little bit of a paradox, it’s not entirely understood, what scientists think happens is that their psychology just kicks in. So if you knew you had to do and sprints, and they’re all like 40 seconds long, you just don’t go all out, you don’t push to your limit, you operate, you pace yourself, and you stay somewhere at 80 90%. And it’s going to be really hard and so on. But you don’t get the benefits from this short, sharp spike in energy demand and with to 22nd Sprint’s, so by the end of the last five seconds, you feel a bit of discomfort, admittedly, but that is short enough for you to really push to your limits, and therefore reap the rewards of this signal that’s derived from this, this very sudden onset of energy demand.
Dr Gundry 13:57
So you know, I describe the typical five minute Caryl bike experience, I suppose a lot of people are saying, Well, okay, you know, thank you very much, or now I know what I supposed to do. Why can’t I just hop on my exercise bike and duplicate that experience? What say you?
Speaker 3 14:17
Yeah. So we tried it. So we had no intention of becoming or inventing an exercise bike. The science existed beforehand. As I said, it’s been 1520 years researched. When we came across it, we fell in love. And we really wanted just to do that exercise. And I remembered so there was a BBC documentary about that whether showcase the science of reheard, the amazing benefits, how you don’t even sweat, you could do it in your suit. And I bought the same evening, a very good conventional exercise bike and thought, I’ll just do it, but I couldn’t. The experience was nothing like what was portrayed in that documentary. And we contacted the scientists who were featured there. Dr. Niels Follett amongst others and asked them what are we doing wrong? And the first thing he said was, well, you need a special bike. So in their in their labs, and they failed to mention that in the document by the way. Yeah, exactly. In that lab, they use special equipment that was operated by a second person. So by lab technician and exercise physiologist, and with that second person, you could dial in the optimal resistance at the right time. And to get this spike in energy demand, you have to basically start pedaling really fast at low resistance, and then your personalized resistance needs to be applied in an instant at the optimal time. And that’s just very, very difficult on a normal bike. Now, most people just wouldn’t know what maximum intensity feels like. If you pedal at top speed, try to dial in like turn a button, it’s just very difficult. So we decided that’s the genesis of Carol bike, that it’s unpractical to have very expensive research equipment and a second person there, we thought there must be a better solution to that we use technology, we use computer controlled resistance mechanism, a computer called break that automates the workout. And we use algorithms and AI to find the optimal personalized resistance for each user, no matter how fit or not you are and what age you are. And that’s really how it came about. So of course, people are welcome to try it, I don’t think so we were very disappointed when we tried it on a normal bike, and it was enough for us to say, hey, we’re going to build our own bike, we can do better than that. And Carol is very optimized for these rehab, right, it’s not the only thing you can do. It’s in fact, it’s a very versatile bike. But we’ve really tried to optimize every aspect of the bike to make it perfect for this type of workout,
Dr Gundry 16:55
I actually have done it in my suit, and I was able to do it and and I did not ruin my suit. So you’re right. And you know, that’s actually one of the brilliance of this, because in general doing exercises is number one a pain in the neck. And number two, you you are convinced that you have to do it for a long time to get any sort of benefit. And you’re also right that the traditional hit training, personally speaking, you know, more is coming. And I think psychologically, you protect yourself, because you really don’t want to go to failure psychologically. And yet, you guys have figured this out. So So what you’re saying is that the computer is always tracking my effort, and knows, as I get fitter to be be the technician and turn on the resistance. So it tracks this. That’s correct.
Speaker 3 18:03
That’s correct. So in the lab setting, so it’s literally plate loaded bikes, they put like some metal bike weights on the resistance system that get released and then slow down the Apply resistance based on that. And in the lab, they have obviously developed certain reference tables as to how much resistance should be applied. But then they also apply judgment. So they looked you up and down their subjects up and down and said like within that range here will apply but more here will apply less based on how I assess your fitness levels to be now we can’t do that because it’s it’s not supervised. We have you do this in your own home, you can do it in like the leading gym or like biohacking facilities, but it’s not typically a supervised exercise. So for your first ride, we use similar reference tables based on what the scientific community used. And we’ve got by now after hundreds of 1000s, many hundreds of 1000s of rides additional data. So based on everything you tell us, we find a very good estimate as to how the workout should be for you what the resistance level should be. But then we also look at your performance and how you perform during the ride, how quickly you’re fatigued during the sprints. And based on that the resistance will be personalized and optimized from ride to ride. So not only will we find very quickly, the optimal point for you at that stage, but we will also keep making it more challenging as you get fitter and stronger so that you plateau as late as possible. Or if you had an injury or you had a pause and training also where your fitness declined. We will also make it easier for you so that it’s always a challenging but feasible workout to perform.
Dr Gundry 20:00
Yeah, and I liked the feature, it basically gives you a graph of your previous performance and then shows, you know, hopefully that oh, look, you know, you incrementally beat your previous performance. So there is cleverly you’ve designed in some feedback to give me you know, a gold star for my effort, or, or you can see that you’re right, the computer can tell, you’re falling off at the end. And you can see that
Speaker 3 20:33
absolutely. And I mean, it’s completely natural that you should fatigue during the sprint. And in fact, if you were, so that curve of your power throughout the sprint class to drop off, otherwise, you haven’t reached your peak, it’s basically your peak power and peak intensity, you can only hold for literally a fraction of a second, it’s a momentary thing. And then you will drop your power output will drop off. And that’s a normal and intended characteristic. And in fact, so we’ve got by far, by far, the largest database of reheat rides with, like 25,000 riders, many hundreds of 1000s of rides that we can analyze. And so we know what the optimal shape of that curve is for any type of person, and are therefore able to really dial in on the optimal resistance so that you can push yourself to your limits and gain the maximum benefits from recent,
Dr Gundry 21:30
this must be terrible news for personal trainers out there were no pain, no gain, and you got to, you know, sweat through I mean, you got to be on that bike. And there are, you know, there are our bike programs that I have done. And I’ve you know, hillclimb through these things, and I felt climbed on bikes through Tuscany, it’s hard. So you’re saying, come on. Now, folks, you really can get a lot of benefit through these little short sessions. Yes,
Speaker 3 22:01
that’s right. That’s right. Absolutely. And it’s not only we have a lot of data on that, and we can see that we’re basically replicating the level of improvement that was seen in academic trials. But you know, it’s, I would argue that the leading example personal trainers, or like performance studios, they embrace it, the different people, some people do not like to exercise, and they just want to get it done as quickly as possible. But we have many users who really enjoy exercising and they just want a this really powerful stimulus as part of their program. And it’s an additional thing, or they also because the bike can do lots and lots of other things as well use varied programs and mix it up. And so I’m surprised if I see kind of how broad the spectrum of users is from, you know, people who struggle to exercise and and found it hard to find something that suits them to yeah, really, I mean, top class athletes who who just want basically an additional stimulus from this very high intensity very short, Sprint’s so it’s the range is really pretty vast.
Dr Gundry 23:10
All right, I mentioned in the introduction, that this is a anti aging machine, perhaps is the nice way of saying what how in the world do you make that claim because that’s a very you can D age by 10 years, where does all this come from, I
Speaker 3 23:31
can back that claim up. So with re hit on the Carroll bike, and this has been shown in numerous studies and we see it in our data, you get a substantial improvement in vo two max so you get around 12% In just eight weeks and then further studies and our own data shows after like 18 to 20 weeks or so you’re up to 20% and below two Max,
Dr Gundry 23:57
let me let me back up for our listeners and viewers who don’t know what the VO two Max and why should we care? Of course
Speaker 3 24:04
yes. So VO two Max is your ability to burn to use oxygen during exercise and it is possibly probably the most important health marker and there’s a very strong association or correlation between Bo to max and and longevity. So, the other thing is from the age of 30 year we we lose vo to max about 10% per decade. So in only eight weeks you can overcompensate you can regain more than you would lose in terms of vO two Max cardiorespiratory fitness, that whole decade of aging. So it’s it’s not subtle at all. It’s very noticeable. You get the metrics on the bike you get a fitness score, so you can track yourself very well from ride to ride and see your progress but you can also feel your progress because you will feel I mean, yeah, feeling in terms of cardio fitness 10 years younger, that’s very significant. The other thing is, and this is based on scientific research, the correlation between vo two Max and healthy life expectancy. So a 10% increase in VO, two Max would correspond or the correlation would be equivalent to two years of healthy life expectancy gained. So that’s that’s very substantial. So if longevity, I mean, it depends what your health goals are. But most people I think would like to age well and in good fitness and improving your VO to max is one of the best ways to achieve that.
Dr Gundry 25:41
You know, it’s interesting, I like to study super old people in term has been coined Blue Zones in my upcoming book, I actually debunk Blue Zones but a great number of these places and I was a professor at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California for many years. And all of these areas are hilly communities. And interestingly enough, four out of the five groups are sheep and goat herders, and these sheep herders in their 90s have incredible vo two Max I couldn’t keep up with the sheep herders going up hills. So you’re right there vo two Max is is really impressive. And I think part of it is because they go up and down hills all day long. So you’re right. VO two Max is really important. So you have any you have any user examples that illustrate this. You probably have tons we do.
Speaker 3 26:41
We do. We have a lot. We have one. I don’t know whether you had the pleasure to meet Andrea, she’s she was with us at the Biohacking Conference. She’s also user but an ambassador, she wouldn’t mind tell if I told her story. So she’s an avid user, and she’s in her 50s. But she’s got the VO two max of a, I think it was a 20 year old. I mean, unbelievable improvements that she’s achieved. And wherever her cardiologist couldn’t believe what values she produced. Now, that’s she’s quite exceptional in so many ways, and very special. So we know we do very clearly get the feedback from our users that it’s very noticeable, very tangible improvement that they achieve.
Dr Gundry 27:25
I want to segue into something you brought up what really prompted you to figure this bike out. And that is you’re well aware, and I hope our listeners are aware in America, only 88% of Americans have metabolic and flexibility. They are insulin resistant. They are pre diabetic or diabetic. And I don’t think there’s a difference. So only 12% of Americans. In fact, only 50% of normal weight individuals are metabolically flexible, which is really scary. So and again, you got into this because you wanted to figure out a way of helping these individuals as I do. So tell me how the Carroll bike affects insulin resistance, which is one of our great killers and agers of of everything.
Speaker 3 28:23
Yeah, yeah, sure. So in terms of the results that we’ve seen in academic, randomized, controlled, peer reviewed trials, we’ve seen very impressive improvements in metabolic health. So one trial and that was done with Carol bike compared to jogging. The Herald bike group, after eight weeks, using the bike three times a week saw an improvement in their Mets Zen score. So that’s a metabolic risk score, that that’s calculated based on a basket of physiological measurements like blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, waist circumference, and in only eight weeks that risk score reduced by 62%. So it’s a very remarkable reduction in in risk of developing metabolic diseases. Now, the mechanism and nothing is if you’re entirely the last word, it’s an emerging field of research even so people have been working on it for 1520 years, but one reason to why this might be so effective is as you do those Sprint’s you mobilize lots of glycogen so sugar stored in your muscles, you empty the emergency energy reserves of your body and your body really wants to be ready for the next attack or the next critical situation in a way and so wants to replenish those stores also as quickly as possible. And and these processes of accessing Energy and storing energy are governed by insulin. And therefore, it is thought that that’s the mechanism that improves insulin sensitivity, reduces insulin resistance and ultimately improves metabolic health and supports weight management, even so, so many people do exercise for weight management, I don’t think it should be the primary goal. But I totally respect that that’s it’s an important goal, I think that there’s much greater prizes actually to be happier than just burning some calories, like the metabolic health benefits are much greater in my view, than just burning some calories. But basically, overcoming insulin resistance would make it so much easier to manage your weight, because you can actually, if you do want to fast, fast, from time to time, I have the impression because I’m metabolically flexible, and not insulin resistance, I can actually access my fat store and the energy in my adipose tissue. And so I’m not starved even so. So I like to do these fasting mimicking, I never do like a water faster. So but from time to time, I do these five days programs with significantly reduced calorie intake. And I managed to do those with hardly any sensation of really hunger and starving. And that I attribute that to metabolic flexibility. And because I can actually use the energy I carry around with me,
Dr Gundry 31:20
yeah, you know, the study you refer to, I think people should understand and correct me if I’m wrong. But I think they just had to do these Carol bike workouts three times per week?
Speaker 3 31:32
That’s correct. Yes. So it’s over eight weeks. And that was done three times a week. And they spent so so around 25 minutes working out per week, it was very, very little time investment,
Dr Gundry 31:44
man. I mean, that’s, that’s a deal. And you’re right, I, you know, I in my clinics, I measure fasting insulin and insulin resistance, we use home IR, but it’s interesting, most people are unaware that they have an elevated fasting insulin, even people with normal blood sugars, even people with normal hemoglobin a one sees are shocked when they actually have an elevated insulin level and an elevated insulin resistance. And the way I tell people is that your muscles are essentially, the customer, that insulin sells the food that you eat to. And if if the if the muscles are hungry, it’s an easy sell. They’re going oh, yeah, give me some of that I, you know, it looks delicious. But if your muscles are full, then the best sales pitch in the world isn’t going to work because the muscles go up, sorry, you know, there’s no room in here, I’m stuff, you know, go away. And what happens to my patients and happened to me back when I was fat is that insulin does not want to waste calories. And so insulin says, you know, a famine will be coming, it always has, and I’m going to help you out. And I’m going to take all those extra calories that the muscles don’t want, and I’m going to store it as fat and you’ll thank me someday. And because because the famine is coming at always as of course, it hasn’t been here for quite a while and my patients really good at so what you’re saying is so true. You and it just takes a little stimulus to make your muscles hungry. I think that’s what you’ve proved with the bike. Yeah, speaking of weight loss, who cares about weight loss if what we’re losing is muscle. And one of the scary things from the latest weight loss drug craze is that the initial results and they’re still they’re still not enough studies. Looks like the weight loss from these drugs. 40 44% of the weight loss is muscle. And that, to me is really scary. Because again, muscles are the customer for insulin. And so tell me about fat loss and the Carroll bike. I wholeheartedly
Speaker 3 34:22
agree. And I think people should be very careful, especially. So I’m now 46 And I’m actually I’m much more interested in maintaining and building muscle than being at my skinniest leanest. So yeah, I would much rather have slightly higher weight and good level of muscle mass, then lose a lot of weight at the cost of also reducing muscle mass. I entirely agree that so I do think Harold supports weight management through the mechanisms we’ve discussed around insulin sensitivity. Carol also burns a meaningful amount of calories because of the afterburn because of there’s something called excess post exercise oxygen consumption. And so that means even though during the short Sprint’s you burn quite little energy so little that your body doesn’t heat up, and many people don’t sweat research has shown that you burn through a substantial amount of calories in the next 90 minutes, 120 minutes after the sprint. And so it does contribute to like a meaningful amount of calories, give you an example, I do a ride most mornings, and we can calculate the epoch because that’s been thoroughly investigated. And in six, seven minutes on the bike, I burned about 220 calories. Now that’s compared to my overall need is almost like 10% of my daily and of calorie requirement. And that’s meaningful if you if you have that off. And there’s other programs and there’s actually there’s a little bit of a gender bias in there. So it seems to be a female users are using that program more, we call it the fat burn series, which has a standard slightly lower intensity, but has a lot more sprints and shorter Sprint’s so it’s like eight seconds on 12 seconds off, and you sweat like crazy with that one. But you also burn through phenomenal amounts of calories. So if weight management was one of your primary goals, that would be a good program to also make sense. So we think everybody should do the refit, kind of to have your base covered. But then you could mix in some of these fat burn programs. And that that would certainly help with calorie consumption. The other thing is in rehab, because the forces are quite high. It is actually the the forces are meaningful, also from a strength perspective. So while you’re not training your upper body, you do actually train your legs also for strength. And so this hasn’t been published yet. But I’ve had sight of the results, a new study that showed that you have also around increased 12% improvement in strength, lower body strength, after eight weeks doing this rehab, right. So it’s basically your through that training, you wouldn’t you would offset even if you you know have a calorie deficit through the training, you would protect your muscle mass.
Dr Gundry 37:21
Yeah, my patients know and I teach them that really 60 to 70% of our muscle mass is in our button, our thighs. And that’s what you’re working. And I tell them, please, please don’t go to the gym and get the five pound weights and do curls as you may get guns but you’re wasting your time in terms of the real consumers. And that’s your button your thigh muscles. So you’re exactly right, Carol bike exercise and getting smarter. Now it sounds really smart to just exercise for five minutes. So I’m already smarter. But tell me about BDNF and the hit series.
Speaker 3 38:06
Yeah, sure, sure. So the exercise an exercise in general has lots and lots of positive effects. And high intensity exercise has in particular many positive effects and some maybe that people didn’t expect, but there is actually a large body of evidence that supports that especially high intensity exercise releases BDNF, that’s brain derived neurotropic factor and that helps to keep the brain young, unhealthy. So it encourages neuro plasticity. And if you have lots of it, it’s associated correlated with higher cognitive performance, attention memory, and if you have little effect, it’s also correlated with cognitive impairment and dementia and even depression and things so so having having an exercise that stimulates BDNF release is certainly helpful. And one recent study has shown that these short Sprint’s increase BDNF some four to five times more than light exercises for a much longer period. So that was like exercise for 90 minutes did some of this is obviously blackbox. And we’re just observing, and we don’t know all the like how it links together. But the observation seems to be that high intensity exercise really particularly isn’t particularly beneficial for BDNF release.
Dr Gundry 39:34
Yeah, we’re learning more and more about a set of signaling molecules called Maya kinds that are released from muscles and I think the science is is you know, is in its infancy, but these Maya kinds definitely have some neuro tropic effects that, again, we’re just uncovering this whole class of a signaling molecule. So yeah, another good reason And to do this, all right, well, there’s certainly a growing interest in the Home Fitness trend. Where do you see the Carroll bike standing in the next few years?
Speaker 3 40:09
Oh, so I hope that everybody has one. So our intention when we started, and I hope this doesn’t sound too grand, but was we need to shift the needle on an epidemic of inactivity, the benefits of exercise are so clear, and so overwhelmingly positive that it’s really hard to understand why we don’t do it more. And the figures, the participation rates, and activity rates are really quite depressing. It’s, I think, in the US by some measures, only 5% of the population gets sufficient exercise and physical activity, we hope that time efficient exercise can make a difference and, and actually shift the needle on this epidemic of inactivity. So obviously, we want to be successful as a company, no question, but we’d also like to make a real difference to people’s lives and and help them find a habit that they can fit into their life to get and stay fit and active.
Dr Gundry 41:09
Some people say this is great, but I want I want a trainer yelling at me, either in person or via a video to make me do this. Can the Carol bike be configured to yell at me? Or what are you doing?
Speaker 3 41:27
So yes, and the what we have done is we obviously have our own workout series. So at the moment, there’s some 20 protocols or workout options, all with good scientific evidence that we recognize that people might not always want to do the same thing. Sometimes they have more time or in a household, there’s several people living. So you can use the Carol app with a number of third party apps. So you can have the peloton digital on it, and that works nicely. And then another thing, so the cycling community is quite a subculture really they love to in winter, or whenever it’s raining, or whenever many circumstances work out on apps like Swift, and where you can cycle through virtual worlds with literally 1000s of people. And there’s a number of those apps, Swift Kinomap. And with our latest model, we are fully compatible with those apps. So you can use a variety of third party apps through to cycle through virtual worlds, through through like video recorded Well, it’s really quite amazing, the variety of third party apps that also works on Carol. So we we’ve made the bike very specialized. And this is always our primary focus, we want it to be as good as possible, optimal for every hit. But we recognize that you know, your wife, your children, partner might have different tastes. And most people just don’t have two bikes at home. Most people have one bike at home. And so therefore, we can’t just be a one trick pony and how to enable those things to
Dr Gundry 43:03
that’s fantastic. Because you’re right, you don’t really need two bikes at home. That’s good. That answers a big question. I’ll bet you that our listeners are going, you know, is this a one hit wonder? And obviously not. So where can people find out about the Carol bike and I understand you have a special discount?
Speaker 3 43:21
That’s right. So so we sell through our website, Carol bike.com. There’s a lot of information, a lot of material on the site, please have a look. If you have questions, or you would want to have a more tailored personal advice. We have fitness advisors that have like MSDS and Exercise Science, exercise physiology, can schedule a call with them and go in detail through your, you know, specific circumstances, discuss with them, whether it would be a good fit. We are in the leading biohacking facilities. So if you if you go to an upgrade labs or so the Dave Asprey facilities, you will find our bikes there. So that would be a way to experience our bikes. We don’t operate showrooms. That’s just something we don’t have. But we offer a very generous industry leading risk free trial period. So when you purchase the bike, you have 100 days to see whether it is right for you. And 100 days is plenty of time to assess one whether you see the fitness benefits, and you will see the metrics and you will see how you feel. And 100 days is also plenty of time to assess whether you’re able to build a habit, and that’s really, really important. Yes, so we offer that and that takes a little bit the risk away and makes it easier for people to see whether it is for them. And so that’s that’s the best way to try the bike really great. For your listeners. Please do Um, I think we’ll have a code Gundry for $100 off. So that would be something, especially for your audience.
Dr Gundry 45:11
Yeah. And we’ll post it so that people can see it in muse. I greatly appreciate that. Because, you know, you’re right people know how important exercise is. And somehow we don’t have the time. But folks, I can do it in my suit, you know, I sleep in my suit. So you, you can do, you can do this. And I really appreciate you, you guys putting in the effort to make what I call exercise, snacking, something that actually doable, because it’s really important that these little hits of exercise add up, and you’ve, you proven it. So folks, take them up on the offer. And I, I really appreciate you coming on the program.
Speaker 3 45:54
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. All right. We’ll hopefully
Dr Gundry 45:57
see you again. Maybe I’ll take picture on my bike and send it to you in my suit. Awesome. All right. It’s time for our audience. Question. Napa Gandhi 7251. From YouTube says doc, could you tell us something about methylene? Blue? Oh, well, what do you want to know about methylene blue, if you go to some of the old bio hacking sites, you’re going to see touted the huge benefits of methylene blue as an electron donor as a regenerator of NAD plus as a reducing agent. And yes, this is all true. Fun fact, as a thoracic surgeon who would be looking for tears in a very large lymphatic vessel called the thoracic duct, we would actually inject methylene blue into the legs of our patients before we took them into the operating room and scope, their chest and the methylene blue would come dripping out of the thoracic duct up near the top of the chest. And we could find it that way. But methylene blue is an interesting way of being a regenerator of NAD plus, but having said that, there are cases of toxicity from methylene blue so buyer beware there in my humble opinion, far easier and more effective ways of generating an ad plus including large number of poly phenols are my favorite subject, but that’s a great question. You’ll see it pop up again and again in biohacking. It is cheap, but just be careful. Now it’s time for the review of the week user i x one S F nine w m 8k from YouTube says I’m very thankful for you bringing us a better healthy life, I believe listening to your podcast as enriched my healthy lifestyle. I am 77 I’m always fed my family with healthy foods and treats. We have to be aware of what we put in our mouth. Thanks for what you do for us. Well, thank you very much user, etc, etc. It sounds like you’ve been at this for a very long time. And sounds like I’ve added a few little tidbits and pearls for you to incorporate. That’s what I’m doing here every day with the team to give you useful information that you can incorporate into your life and into your diet and your lifestyle. Because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
Speaker 1 48:58
I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry podcast YouTube channel where we have 10s of 1000s of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long vital life. Let’s do this together.
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