AMA #3: Adaptogens, Fasting & Fertility, Bluetooth/EMF Risks, Cognitive Load Limits & More

This ask-me-anything episode opens with Andrew Huberman, who introduces himself as a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. He says the AMA is part of the show's premium subscriber content. The premium channel exists to raise support for the standard weekly Huberman Lab podcast, which comes out every Monday at zero cost to listeners. It also funds human research at Stanford and other universities that is expected to lead to protocols for mental health, physical health and performance.

The subscription costs $10 a month or $100 a year, and there is also a lifetime option, all through hubermanlab.com/premium. Non-subscribers can hear roughly the first 15 minutes, which is meant to help them decide whether to subscribe. The host promises answers that are as accurate, thorough and concise as possible.

The first question is about adaptogens, and the host admits the term has no settled meaning. He says the strict definition is "still evolving," and that no one really knows what the word covers or excludes. The working definition he uses is a compound, usually a supplement or a drug, that helps you adapt to and buffer stress. He then widens it to include behaviors.

Only later does he read the listener's actual wording: there is a lot of mixed information out there about adaptogens like ashwagandha. He links that confusion to the definitional problem. The term is defined differently in different communities and is "generally used as a matter of convenience rather than really strictly defining what it is." The listener also asked what the scientific evidence says about adaptogens and the body's stress response. His short answer is that the evidence says "quite a lot" and that the stress response "can be buffered substantially by certain adaptogens."

He sorts adaptogens into three groups: compounds found in food, supplement-based compounds, and behavioral tools. Throughout, an adaptogen means anything that buffers stress "in a substantial or meaningful way" in order to support cellular health, organ health and daily functioning, including sleep, performance and mental health.

The first group is vitamins and micronutrients that are readily found in food. The catch, he says, is that getting doses large enough to buffer stress may require eating a fairly narrow range of foods, or a lot of them. His examples are water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins that can reduce so-called reactive oxygen species. That, he says, is where the idea that antioxidants are good for us comes from.

He then explains the mechanism. Reactive oxygen species are reactions and molecules that appear in cells when cells are stressed or age. They are harmful because they tend to hinder mitochondria, which are tied to energy production. What he presents as settled is that reactive oxygen species build up in cells, tissues and organs with age and with repeated stress over time, and that antioxidants, including certain vitamins and some micronutrients, are effective at reducing them.