Dave Asprey, recently explored the potential of NanoVi® technology for optimizing VO2 max and mitochondrial function on his podcast, The Human Upgrade. In this episode, Dave highlighted results where participants experienced significant improvements in their VO2 max and other metabolic tests after just one NanoVi session. Watch the video below to learn more.
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[00:00:00] Rowena: Metabolically, we’re not functioning well, and it shows up as all these different diseases.
[00:00:00] Dave: If you take excessive antioxidants, you turn off your ability to improve from exercise.
[00:00:09] Rowena: Athletes did not build muscle and did not do as well when they overdid antioxidants.
[00:00:15] Dave: Your heart races, your skin flushes, you feel like you’re going to throw up or pass out.
You’ve got to take control of your health and of your biology to make it do what you want. Low effort, high return, and that’s what I’m all about. The DNA. They make a device called the NanoVi that has a direct effect on VO2max. Today, we’re going to talk about VO2max. And before you say, Oh my God, I don’t want to listen to this.
Chronic cardio is a pain in the ass and is not a good way to raise VO2max. The reason we’re going to talk about this is it’s an important component of longevity. And if you want to live a long time, as you read about in Superhuman, at least hopefully you read about my big book on longevity, or if you read Smarter Not Harder, I go into ways to raise VO2 max in a small amount of time.
Your goal is to have good VO2 max, but to not spend six hours a week slogging it out, doing zone two cardio with a doctor who charges you for longevity work, but tells you that it’s not possible to extend human lifespan. And if you want So, I don’t believe overexercising is a path to longevity, but I do believe VO2max is an important variable.
So, the question is, what do we do about that, that’s time efficient, and doesn’t mean that you have to become some sort of endurance athlete in order to believe you’ll live longer, because it’s hard to have new hips and knees when you’re 65, which is what happens if you do it. So, how do we make all this work?
And the ability to have endurance is priceless, not because you could run away from tigers because they run out of energy. Anyway, what’s most important is the endurance from having higher VO2 max reflects itself in your body’s ability to remain calm and your body’s ability to do the work of maintaining your system.
So if you’re Low energy and you have no endurance or no VO two max capacity. You’re kind of stressed all the time. So I have an expert with me today named Rowena Gates, and she’s studied for years cellular optimization. And she works with a company called ang three corporation. They make a device called the NanoVi you’ve probably seen me using for years now that VO two max.
So we’re going to go into a Reactive oxygen species, how these are making you old and some things you can do about it. Rowena, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks. Many listeners know about reactive oxygen species, but I don’t think most people really understand them. What is ROS and why do we care?
[00:02:57] Rowena: Well, reactive oxygen species are one type of free radical that you can’t avoid because of the oxygen irony, which is you can’t live with it forever and you can’t live without it for probably 10 minutes. So you need the oxygen, but it’s like the exhaust out of a car to burn the engine. You’re going to end up with reactive oxygen species and they’re always going to be. Either mitigated by an antioxidant, or they’ll do damage.
[00:03:27] Dave: I like to think of it as rust. In fact, that is a reactive oxygen species. You put oxygen on iron, you get rust. So your cells aren’t made out of iron, at least mostly. But they do have a similar oxidative process. And since all life is based on ox redox, this is how your cells make ATP and electrons, which fuel your longevity.
Like, okay, it’s a necessary thing. So, why would we want to reduce reactive oxygen species? Wouldn’t that reduce our energy?
[00:03:56] Rowena: You want to reduce the amount of damage it does. You need the reactive oxygen species. They not only are a damaging byproduct, but they also have a cell signaling function in the body.
So you don’t want to eliminate them, but you want to reduce the damage that they do. That’s where we come in. That’s what we’re kind of all about.
[00:04:19] Dave: It’s a really important thing to understand in aging. If you take excessive antioxidants, and I’ve done this very early in my path, and I’ll do the same thing as everyone else instead of a personalized approach.
What you do is you turn off your ability to improve from exercise, because you don’t get the benefits of having some free radicals. It’s when you get too much, they stick around too long, or when you allow them to do damage. So one of the things that you might do is say, I need antioxidants, and you need some, but if you don’t get the benefits of exercise, you broke, and if you don’t get enough, you get too much damage.
So there are other things you could do, like you could train effectively and I’ve, my last book was a lot about how do you raise VO2 max without taking a lot of time without generating excessive free radicals through excessive exercise, or you could actually make yourselves better at handling reactive oxygen species.
And this is where Rowena comes in. So, Rowena, how do you do this?
[00:05:16] Rowena: So, that’s all the cell activities, having everything work better in the cell. And that’s where, that’s where we come in. And we have a very, very fundamental approach to that. With the Natavi device, it influences the environment in the cell, which is the water.
And after that, the body takes over. And so, it’s so fundamental that it doesn’t override anything. And the body knows what to do with it when you give it a little extra support. So one of the first things it does is you can measure that improvement in mitochondrial function.
[00:05:53] Dave: Okay, this is fundamental to human life and it’s missing from most medical knowledge.
If you go way back in my journey, there was a time when I said, Hey guys, if you take butter and MCT oil and you blend them in coffee, It works really well. If you don’t blend them and you just eat the butter and drink the coffee, it doesn’t work. And it got to the point where I went really deep on the science because I’m a nerd and I ended up funding research at the university of Washington.
And this is about the structure of water and how it affects cell biology. So inside your cells, It’s the outer layer is a bunch of little tiny droplets of fat into a cell membrane. And if you were a plant, it’d be your cell wall. They’re slightly different, but some people use both, but in humans, it’s a membrane or in animals.
And then inside there, you have a bunch of water and a gel and what influences the cells behavior and how effective the cell is, is, is the water structured. And you do this with things like sunlight, with things like movement. Things like infrared light and it’s profoundly effective and it turns out that one of the reasons people feel so much different if they take their danger coffee, which has minerals that affect cell biology, but not reactive oxygen species.
And then you put in these types of oils, those oils change the structure of the water when you mix them up. So in a typical day, what your body does, you drink a glass of water, it’s regular bulk water that even if it’s special spring water, whatever your body says, Oh, good God, I’ve got to heat this water up with body heat.
Hold it up against the cell membrane and it’ll change into something called exclusions on water. Or, there’s other delivery systems for exclusions on water. The more exclusions on water you have, the better your mitochondrial function, and the better your ability to make your own antioxidants goes up.
How do you use NanoVi to change the structure of water inside my cells?
[00:07:49] Rowena: So, you hit it. It’s all about exclusions on water, which only forms on surfaces. Which could be the cell membrane, the mitochondria, and especially the proteins. Because in the cell there might be 5, 10, 000 or more proteins in one cell.
They’re very small, they’re all over the place and they create a lot of surface area. And so if exclusion zone water only forms on surfaces, it forms in layers, then if you can increase that exclusions on water, which could be through diet and what you’re talking about with the coffee I know you worked with Jerry Pollack and he showed that and he’s been a wonderful friend to us as well.
Just a wonderful man.
[00:08:30] Dave: He’s the guy who did the research at the University of Washington.
[00:08:33] Rowena: Right. The exclusion zone water called exclusion zone because if everything else is pressed out, because the water molecules are so closely packed together that everything else is excluded. And we call that ordered water.
And that ordered water surface has to form. On proteins and quite a long time ago, they figured out that it was the water that enabled the proteins to fold, which they have to do before they function. And if you have unfolded. or misfolded proteins, you have liabilities. So they have to fold or they can’t work, and they get the energy to fold from the water.
And so that part was all known in cell biology, and in NanoVi, we just leveraged it by helping improve the ordered water in the cells to support the protein folding and the body takes over. And that’s why I said earlier, it’s just the environment, it’s the water that we’re influencing. And after that, the body really does It knows what to do.
It’s the most regenerative machine imaginable almost.
[00:09:35] Dave: You imagine if some of the water in your cells is not exclusions on water because your body didn’t do a good job of converting the water. There’s all kinds of environmental things that lower the amount of this water. You must have this water to make ATP, the Krebs cycle, which was really fundamental to my longevity book and my brain book.
Actually, I think of it like a little, a little motor, it goes around, but if it’s in the wrong fluid, it doesn’t have the right amount of viscosity. So you can’t make energy. And if you can’t make energy, you can’t make more exclusions on water. And if you’re low on energy, because you’re low on exclusions on water, the body has these things that are necessary to do to stay alive right now.
And then it has things that are necessary to do to repair and maintain and extend your longevity. It will automatically stop doing all the maintenance stuff, including folding proteins or repairing proteins, if you don’t have enough exclusion on water. And you look at what does cancer look like? Well, there’s misfolded proteins.
So a deficiency of exclusions on water is a problem. So I like to say that the most efficient and effective thing to do Is to just go for a four hour run in the sunshine every day. Because if you just do that you get sunshine makes exclusions of water all that movement of water and the tissues The fact that you’re gonna have to live something like 20 percent longer just to make up for all the suffering not with okay That doesn’t work.
It’s not sustainable. Nobody does that and if they do does that time come from their kids? Does it come from their work? Cause it’s not effective time. And if you love it and you’re doing weekends, fine, more power to you. Start saving up for your new replacement. But if you want to do this every day to get exclusion zone water, it’s not going to happen.
So my biohacking stack here at home, I do everything I can to improve this. We go to upgrade labs. We do all this. So red and infrared light whole body vibration, moving up and down, doing a rebounder, all of those can influence it. And just going out in the sun for 20 minutes. All right. All of these are beneficial, but we only have so much time.
And if you’re in Canada, there isn’t even any sun half the year. So what do we do? You can just breathe it. And just like smoking or vaping or nebulizing are very effective ways to get things into your cells, even though vaping is a really dumb idea. But you can nebulize glutathione. We all know this is a way to get medication in.
So you could try to drink exclusions on water, which I think helps, or you could breathe it. And then the results are actually stunning, which is why I want to do this episode. What do you see in studies when people spend a few minutes breathing air from a NanoVi?
[00:12:07] Rowena: Well, I think the most interesting research relating to you is the metabolic testing that was done.
And it’s a group called Panoi. We have wonderful metabolic testing equipment. And they could show that the VO2max was significantly improved by 7. 8 percent in one session. And the respiratory exchange ratio, also 11 percent improvement. And then for metabolic function, the crossover point, which is burning carbs versus burning fats.
Super important in weight management and aspects like that. Also improved in one session.
[00:12:44] Dave: So a 7. 9 percent improvement, that was in VO2max? 7. 8 percent actually. 7. 8 percent We can round up to 8. That was on VO2max measurements? Yes. Okay. Guys a 12 percent improvement of VO2max is equal to two years of additional expected lifespan.
So you’re getting what, about 1. 3 years, if my math is about right?
[00:13:04] Rowena: I’m not going to comment on that. That seems dicey to me.
[00:13:08] Dave: Got it. Well, all I know from writing books on longevity and studying it for 25 years is that if you can increase VO2max, you increase expected lifespan. Is it causative? Probably.
Is it correlated? Yeah. So I feel really comfortable saying increase VO2 max to increase your longevity. Will it extend your life beyond the normal rate of aging? Probably not by itself, right? But what it does do is it supports having great energy and you do other longevity therapies on top of it. So now you don’t get degenerative diseases.
You’re highly functional. You look better. Your brain works better. Your metabolism burns fat better. What happens when people cross over about 50 to their fat burning?
[00:13:52] Rowena: They become way less effective, but they’re metabolically less effective. That’s the, that’s at the heart of so much of this, you know, all these various specialties in medicine.
If you go right back to the heart of it, it’s the metabolically we’re not functioning well, and it shows up as all these different diseases.
[00:14:09] Dave: It’s funny because I had really serious mitochondrial dysfunction even in my twenties, I had chronic fatigue syndrome and I realized mitochondria were not the common topic they are today.
And after I went through all of the stuff, I gotta figure out how to fix this in me. And so I became a scientist studying my own mitochondrial function. and bye! The more things I did to make them work better, the more my brain worked.
[00:14:34] Rowena: So
[00:14:35] Dave: biohacking is at its core mitochondrial centric and in my world, mitochondria are the frontline sensors of reality and they do it very, very fast and they’re distributed consciousness of ancient bacteria and the data that I have says 48 percent of people under age 40 have early onset mitochondrial insufficiency and over age 40 everyone has it unless they are hacking themselves maybe with a NanoVi.
Because that is, that is aging. So have the mitochondrial function of a young person, and you have the physiology of a young person, the spiritual side of mitochondria that’s a part of biohacking is something I want to go there with, with you on. If mitochondria are sensing reality, and they are running at half the power they could, they’re going to be stressed.
Yes. What does that do to your central nervous system?
[00:15:22] Rowena: There’s huge, it’s, it’s very easy to measure actually with testing with heart, heart rate variability for example. Cool. Where, well that’s your autonomic nervous system, but it, it’s a stress on everything. And when things improve, you’ll see the, the autonomic nervous system improve right away and can bring a person out of stress mode.
[00:15:44] Dave: So, so if you think about this, let’s say, man, I’m stressed all the time. I’m feeling anxiety a lot. Increasing your VO2 max increases cell energy, which makes the cells less stressed, which makes you less stressed, which makes your mother in law not look like a bad person.
[00:16:00] Rowena: Right. And if you think of cognitive function, your brain is burning what 25 percent of the oxygen you use is burned by the brain.
Where is the oxidative damage going to happen? And so you think of that whole cycle and your cognitive function and how that affects mood. Depression, things like that, then all wraps in pretty tightly for that stress mode with feeling more anxious, more stressed and so on in the brain because it’s such a big user of oxygen.
[00:16:30] Dave: It is a huge user of oxygen and a lot of people don’t realize this, but your mitochondria, they don’t just make energy. They don’t just sense reality. They decide what to do and they are the things that manufacture or fold proteins. We know that with heat exposure, they actually will unfold a damaged protein and refold it if they have exclusions on water.
And we know that they manufacture melatonin inside the cell as an accident. And very importantly, your mitochondria make glutathione. Yes. And listeners know glutathione is a big deal. It’s not that you just take your glutathione, it’s that your body makes it. What happens when your mitochondria are working very well?
Can they make glutathione?
[00:17:12] Rowena: Well, it’s interesting because glutathione is an antioxidant. It’s not a protein. And the NanoVi device only helps the protein function. But glutathione on its own does nothing. All that metabolic use of glutathione Or any other antioxidant, or any vitamin, or any biochemical process.
Those are all protein functions. And so when you if you’re not making enough glutathione in the mitochondria, At least have it working really well, and so just, you can get that upward spiral, have it work better in the system, then the mitochondria work better, and you want to spiral upward.
[00:17:50] Dave: So when mitochondria work better, they can manufacture more glutathione, which makes them resistant to oxidative stress.
[00:17:55] Rowena: Right.
[00:17:56] Dave: Right? Right. So I don’t mind boosting my glutathione, but I want my cells to be really good at doing that so they can quench free radicals after they’ve had a chance to be signaling molecules.
[00:18:05] Rowena: Right, right. And that’s actually another area of research since I last spoke with you was in total antioxidant activity.
The NanoVi showed improvement in one session and also day over day improvement over five days. So that it suggests that when you give the body a little help, It’s going to, it’s antioxidant activity is just going to work better and that it’s a cumulative effect. Yeah, and you won’t feel that, by the way.
I want to just point that out because as biohackers, we love to feel stuff. We love like the big hit. Yeah, that was great. And that’s why we have coffee and things. But some things, most things, actually, you don’t notice. You don’t see them. You can’t, you can’t. You know, feel it, I should say. And total antioxidant activity is one of those things.
Is it good for you? Incredibly good for you. Will you actually say, Oh, my antioxidants are working better? No. You will
[00:19:02] Dave: when you wake up
[00:19:03] Rowena: the next morning. Right.
[00:19:04] Dave: Right, you’ll see changes in your skin, changes in your love handles, and things like that.
[00:19:08] Rowena: Exactly, but you may not, you know, you might not make those direct correlations.
[00:19:12] Dave: This is one of those things where, what is, a little device you put on your desk, And you breathe structured water through a little thing that kind of blows it in your face or through a cannula. And when you do this, you’re getting that 7. 8 percent boost. And if you do it regularly, just, just throughout the day or even just once a day, what you’re doing is over time, you’re building more and more and more resilience.
So when people come to 40 Years of Zen in Seattle, it’s five days of super intense meditation with computers assisting you, pasta with ketamine, we have NanoVis there. And people breathe this because my job is to be able to push their brains beyond what they can do in a normal week, because they’re fitting 40 years of meditation in five days, right?
So it’s like a marathon for the brain every day. So why would I want a NanoVi? So they have less reactive oxygen species affecting their brain, and so they have more ATP in their brain. And since you can talk, you can type, you can do whatever you want, while there’s a NanoVi on, it doesn’t take away time from the rest of your day.
My nightmare would be spending eight hours a day on longevity stuff, because I’d have to live a lot longer. You’d
[00:20:17] Rowena: probably die of boredom.
[00:20:18] Dave: Yeah, exactly.
[00:20:20] Rowena: But I love 40 Years of Zen and I love it. It’s very easy to measure brain endurance and performance. And the NanoVi plays a big role there. And cognitive function is something that we just see a huge emerging interest in cognitive function.
[00:20:35] Dave: Yeah, it’s funny, I started there back when my brain was just fried in my 20s. I got into smart drugs and nootropics and all that. Yeah. And I was like, this is most important. I was like, Oh shoot, to make that work, I got to fix my body. And then, Oh, great. Now I got to work on the emotional and you know, the, the meditative and spiritual and all that.
But all of them circle around mitochondria, which is fascinating. So you have a tech that on a per. Per unit of suffering basis, it’s not hard to breathe air. And so it’s an intervention that doesn’t take any energy or effort to do other than flipping a switch to turn the machine on.
[00:21:09] Rowena: Right.
[00:21:09] Dave: Right.
Versus, you know, go out and do 85 air squats, one legged while holding broccoli. Or whatever the thing is it, it’s like a low friction kind of intervention
[00:21:19] Rowena: and it stacks. I bet you don’t do it alone, right? That you can always use red light or PMF or breathe molecular hydrogen or, yeah, you know, something at the same time.
Even if you’re just doing breath work or meditating,
[00:21:33] Dave: you
[00:21:33] Rowena: could. I use it meditating.
[00:21:34] Dave: You will get better results from meditation with better mitochondrial function. Yeah. And it’s strange, but your mitochondria listen to your meditation. If you get in the right state, they’ll change their function, they’ll calm down.
You actually direct them. With advanced meditation, you just want unstressed mitochondria that make enough energy, which is why they’re unstressed, because then that allows them to listen better to what you’re doing. So you can shift your state at will instead of them shifting your state because they just wanted more ATP.
[00:22:01] Rowena: I need to do another round of 40 years of Zen. I’m done.
[00:22:05] Dave: I want to talk about post exercise recovery. I am a huge fan of doing exactly the right amount and intensity of exercise as you need to get results and no more, partly because I have shit to do, but also just because I I think that most people have something better to do with their time.
And I don’t mean if you enjoy pickleball. It’s not really exercise. That’s having fun. It’s just being metabolically fit. But pickleball doesn’t change your VO2 max in a meaningful way, right? So you could post pickleball or post CrossFit. It doesn’t really matter. Use NanoVi. What happens after exercise when you use NanoVi?
[00:22:37] Rowena: So the most dramatic one is a faster immune response, whic
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