Q&A 421: Microdosing With LSD, Fish Oil & Omega-6 Fatty Acid Confusion Cleared, The Latest Coffee Research, Staying Fit In Your Car & Much More!

The consumption of coffee, particularly one cup a day, is associated with a 12% lower mortality risk, and then two or more cups of coffee a day—a 41% reduced risk of mortality.

If you look, historically, at hunter-gatherer diets, they tend to be, when it comes to omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratios, typically somewhere around 2-1 to 4-1. Our modern Western diet tends to be 20-1 up to 50-1 in favor of omega-6 fatty acids.

There's another omega-3 fatty acid called alpha linoleic acid (ALA)—that's a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid, and even though people will turn to things like chia seeds or flax seeds to try and get that ALA, the conversion is remarkably poor. You could make an argument that you can get a decent amount from algae sources, like spirulina and chlorella, but they still don't touch the small cold water fish with a 10-foot pole when it comes to the actual availability of the omega-3 fatty acids.

It's kind of been well-known in health circles for a while that even though brown rice might be a little bit more nutrient-dense than white rice, it can be problematic because of the arsenic content. There's a pretty decent amount of naturally occurring arsenic in brown rice that can do some damage as it accumulates in your body.

There are two different forms of vitamin D. One is D3 (cholecalciferol)—that's what we get from primarily animal sources, especially oily fish, like mackerel, or sardines, anchovies are really high in vitamin D, herring, trout, salmon. Mushrooms, actually, are rich in vitamin D2. So, D2 (ergosterol), that's a little bit different ... Vitamin D3 is superior—that's undeniable.

Vitamin D intake is going to vary heavily in terms of supplementation and food sources from person to person as far as what's appropriate for you. And the gold standard is to simply test because it's a cheap ass test. Just test your blood vitamin D levels about every quarter or so, and shoot for a sweet spot of 40-80 [ng/mL].

They found, in patients with a history of heart attack, increasing fatty fish consumption reduced all-cause mortality by almost 30%, and then giving an omega-3 fatty acid supplement, like a fish oil with EPA and DHA, reduced all-cause mortality by more than 50%.

Daily, long-term intake of sodium fluoride has been, in multiple research studies, linked to increased risk of cancer, DNA damage, thyroid disruption ... We know it's associated with neurological issues, increased risk of Alzheimer's disease, disruption in melatonin production, and then that whole pineal gland thing—it's an actual calcification of the pineal gland, which is also kind of concerning because the pineal gland is very important when it comes to endocrine function.

Based on the largest body of research that has been done on fatty acids, the optimal ratio, if you're going to look at monounsaturated fatty acids to polyunsaturated fatty acids to saturated fats, is 6 to 1 to 1.