Know Your Physio

Dr. Emily Werner, PhD: How to Feed Your Mitochondria, Boost Mitophagy, and Navigate Nutrition Information Intuitively

November 20, 2023 Dr Emily Werner PhD Episode 101
Know Your Physio
Dr. Emily Werner, PhD: How to Feed Your Mitochondria, Boost Mitophagy, and Navigate Nutrition Information Intuitively
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Dr. Emily Werner, a seasoned professional in the field of nutrition and exercise, joins us in today's enlightening episode. Her journey into the world of nutrition began during her active years in sports, where she discovered the pivotal role that food plays in optimizing athletic performance. Intrigued by the profound connection between nutrition and exercise, Emily's relentless curiosity led her to pursue a path that saw her become a Registered Dietitian (RD) and earn a doctorate (PhD) in Kinesiology. Originally aiming to become a professor and researcher, Emily's career took a unique turn when she started working closely with collegiate basketball teams, fostering a deep passion for delivering tailored nutrition guidance directly to athletes. Today, she stands as a respected Team Dietitian in professional basketball, leveraging her expertise to empower athletes to achieve their peak performance through nutrition.

In this captivating episode, Dr. Emily Werner delves into the intricate world of nutrition and its profound impact on health and athletic prowess. From unlocking the secrets of mitophagy with urolithin A to understanding the critical role of mitochondria in our overall well-being, Emily shares her wealth of knowledge. She explores the transformative benefits of supplements like MitoPure and the astounding enhancements they can bring to muscular strength, endurance, and energy levels. Emily sheds light on the importance of building intuition around food, navigating the sea of nutrition misinformation, and embracing the idea that it's perfectly okay to enjoy indulgent treats like ice cream. Join us on this enlightening journey as we unravel the mysteries of nutrition and optimal performance with Dr. Emily Werner.


Key Points From This Episode:

How to optimize mitophagy with urolithin A (00:30:45).
Why mitochondria play a vital role in health (00:29:30).
What MitoPure supplement can enhance (00:36:17).
Type of fasting benefits: Breaks between meals (00:43:41).
How to build intuition around food (00:50:23).
Why seek credible sources for nutrition (00:51:09).
What to listen for in your body's food reactions (00:56:21).

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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Red Pen Reviews
examine.com
Timeline Supplements
Emily Werner Official Website
Emily Werner IG

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Emily Werner:
Everything you eat and drink becomes the fuel for everything your body does. So if you can become more intuitive and in tune with your body and how it's reacting to things, you really can sift through this road map in and of itself. Your body will show you what it doesn't like, but you just have to be paying attention to those messages.

Andres Preschel:
There is only one supplement that I think almost everyone on this planet should be taking, and that's a full-spectrum and highly bioavailable magnesium supplement. Because, well, let's face it, ever since the industrial revolution, our soil has been depleted of magnesium, and therefore our food is depleted of magnesium, and on top of that, Our modern environments, which are inherently overstimulating and stressful, are constantly depleting our body of magnesium. And unlike other nutrients, this is not something that your body can produce on its own. It literally needs to get it from the diet. And one individual kind of magnesium alone is not enough. You actually need seven different kinds to support over 300 biochemical reactions that help regulate your nervous system, red blood cell production, energy production, managing stress and emotions, etc. And so the folks at Bioptimizers have made it very easy and convenient to add back in what the modern world leaves out. They've created magnesium breakthrough. Now I've been taking this for the past two years and the biggest benefits that I've seen are related to my Evening wind down sessions and my sleep. I tend to be pretty overactive in the evenings. Just totally overthinking everything that I do and This has helped me wind down and get more restorative more efficient to sleep. So I wake up feeling Way more refreshed, more energized, more clear, more ready for the day. And the way that I see it, sleep is upstream of essentially every other health and wellness related habit and decision. Because if you're sleeping better, automatically you're going to have more regular cravings, you're going to have higher insulin sensitivity, you can derive more of all these inputs like fitness, right? You make more gains, you gain more muscle, you burn more calories. And you wake up feeling refreshed so that you can do it again and again and again. And then beyond the fitness, you have more energy to go for a walk, to do fun activities with friends. You are less stressed, so you can socialize anxiety free. And you're also going to be retaining, refreshing and refining your skills and information much, much better. So you won't forget any names. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, over 300 biochemical processes that you're supporting with magnesium. Then sleep, I mean, wow. Better sleep is just a better life in general. So, I found that extremely helpful on a personal level, and I'm sure that you guys will find it helpful, too. Your mind and body, and maybe even your spirit, will thank you. So anyway, if you want to get a sweet little discount off of this amazing, amazing magnesium supplement from Bioptimizers, all you have to do is visit the show notes. So you scroll down right now, takes just a couple seconds and boom, you'll have access to all seven different kinds of magnesium that your body needs. All you have to do is hit the link and use code KYP from Know Your Physio. KYP. That's all. Enjoy 10 to 22% off depending on the package you choose, whether or not you subscribe. I'm obviously subscribed because I don't even want to think about whether or not I'm going to get this essential supplement in the mail. And yeah, hope you guys enjoy that awesome stuff. And that's all for now. I'll see you guys on the show. All right, Emily, here we are on the Know Your Physio podcast. Before we rabbit hole into any of these topics in the world of physiology and nutrition, high performance, I want to welcome you and say thank you for joining us here today. And while there's many topics that I look forward to exploring in just a moment here, why don't we start with why? Why do you do what you do and why are you joining us here on the show today?

Emily Werner:
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I think the why I do what I do is as simple of an answer as I just love to help people. I think that's what got me along the path that I eventually took towards where I am now. So yeah, I think my version of helping people based off of what I've found that I love to learn about is all through health and wellness and longevity. So that's my why.

Andres Preschel:
And how did you arrive in this career path? Why did it make sense to you to help people through nutrition, applied science, physiology, high performance? How and why did that make sense?

Emily Werner:
Well, when I was dissecting a cat in high school anatomy, I realized how much I loved anatomy and physiology. It's just like so fascinated by it. And then knowing I already knew that I wanted to help people. And so I was like, what every kid that loves anatomy in high school does is thought I'd be a doctor and, you know, focused my career path on that and then realized in college that organic chemistry and physics were not my forte. But physiology was. And so being a nerd and being an athlete, I thought I'd combine the two and learn as much as I possibly could about exercise physiology. And along the way, I discovered a passion for nutrition and the recognition that like, so I played basketball in college a little bit and through my whole adolescence, I played basketball and sports and everything. And I was like, I'm 20 years old and I've never had anybody talk to me about nutrition or the importance of nutrition for health or performance. Like, It kind of blew my mind that I was like, I've been in so many different realms of athletics and like the most I ever had was an athletic trainer showing me a P chart and talking about hydration briefly. So I was like, you know what, it'd be really interesting to start learning more about nutrition. And so that's why I decided to go on and do a master's in it. and then pair that eventually with a PhD in kinesiology so that I would have that dual expertise of the two things that I think go so totally hand in hand. And then it was just serendipity that I ended up with a job in the NBA, which is obviously a dream for me as a kid growing up playing basketball and to now be working with the top basketball players in the world. It's a real honor and it still drives me every day.

Andres Preschel:
And I'd say that we definitely have, there's so much overlap in our missions and in our why, which is why I think it'll be so much fun to dive into this show with you, except I don't like dissecting cats as much as you do. No, but all jokes aside, you are now working with these high performers, but what has that taught you about what most people need to know To feel and perform their best, you know, like I like you love working with um, you know The elites and helping them get one to ten percent better right whatever it takes to get to get that edge But what does that tell you about most people? What do most people need to know about their physiology as much as possible?

Emily Werner:
It's hard to narrow it down to specifics because, number one, even researchers don't know everything there is to know about physiology. We're still trying to crack all the codes. But there's a lot, and I've seen it just absolutely skyrocket in terms of what people can learn about themselves. Over the past 10 years, that development has vastly expanded. I think I'm still catching up to it, honestly. you know, when you go through academia, you kind of get a little bit of tunnel vision, especially a PhD, because they're like, pick a single topic and write the biggest paper of your life on it. And like, you kind of forget to, not that you forget, you are in a situation where you have to spend so much time thinking about like one specific thing that when you get out of that, you're just like, Okay, maybe I answered this topic or I attempted to, but there's like hundreds of thousands of millions of other topics. So I think when it comes to what people need to know about their physiology is start with the basics like gain a baseline foundational understanding of like if we're talking about athletes talking about the different um I mean not to get to biochemistry but like macronutrient metabolism and just and just start with the macros and then get into the micros and then talk about supplements and like you can kind of like you said rabbit hole on everything um but yeah just as much as possible like If you find a love for learning, you're gonna wanna know as much as you can.

Andres Preschel:
And while, I just wanna add to your point that while the PhD, the process of getting your PhD, it is, I mean, I haven't done it, but I can imagine that it's very much, you narrow your field of vision, but at least it teaches you what it takes to learn about anything at that level of depth. You can appreciate the work of other PhDs, you know what it takes, and you know that when a PhD publishes a paper, how much work went into that paper, you know? So I think it's less about what you're actually learning. It's more of like learning about the process of learning and establishing science. That is, in my opinion, the most valuable thing, right?

Emily Werner:
Yeah, absolutely. I was actually recently asked, like, how would I what would I recommend to younger athletes as far as learning about nutrition or what they need to know? And I was like, if I could pick one thing, it's how to separate the BS from credible. It's like if you learn how to seek out credible information, that's going to lead you down a better path than just trying to learn about specific topics. Like if you can't even figure out what's accurate or coming from these credible sources, then it doesn't matter what you learn.

Andres Preschel:
How do we seek out credible information? Can you give us a crash course on it?

Emily Werner:
You know, it's it used to be as easy as just like, what website are you on? Does it end in .com or .edu or .org? But like nowadays, you can buy domain names with the .org and just be a private business. And like that doesn't mean you're necessarily credible anymore. So and you could also be a .com and have, you know, a completely credible person writing that content. So I think the I guess if I'm gonna say an easy way is to like just look at who is doing the talking and what credentials do they have to be speaking on the topics which they are. I think having degrees like credentials, nationally certified credentials in specific areas is really important. Not to say that experiential learning doesn't teach people a lot and somebody who learned from someone who has a PhD can't like relay a message. But I think it's a really slippery slope that it's just better to teach people to go directly to the source of the credible person than the subsequent like 20 people who are just touting that same message.

Andres Preschel:
And what do you think about, for example, doctors who never see a course in nutrition, but because they're doctors end up writing a book about nutrition and, oh, doctor wrote a book about nutrition. Let's listen to this doctor. What do you have to say about that?

Emily Werner:
like I said there's no hard and fast rule of credibility like it's hard because I run into that a ton and like even even cross disciplines of you know strength and conditioning talking on nutrition and again I'm not saying that these people cannot be educated in nutrition that they can't be have experience in it and maybe if you don't maybe they've never taken a nutrition course or whatever and and they decide to write a book on something because they have a broader credential that they think allows them to cross over those like lanes. I'm going to give the benefit of a doubt to like if a doctor writes a book about nutrition, I'm going to hope like assume that they at least have some knowledge of physiology to the point that they are not going to make harmful recommendations. But that's definitely not a hard and fast rule. There are plenty of physicians out there who are speaking on things and about things in ways in which they should not. And luckily, I think there's enough credentialed people who are willing to speak out against that when it happens. So, yeah, it's hard. I always say, don't just believe one source. Even if it's a credentialed source, even if it's me, don't just believe me. Go out and look at other people who are talking about the same topic and gain different perspectives on it and come to your own conclusions.

Andres Preschel:
Have you heard of, there's a website, an organization called Red Pen Reviews. Have you heard about it? That sounds familiar. So Red Pen Reviews publishes the most informative, consistent, unbiased health and nutrition book reviews available free of charge, and they exist to help you evaluate the information quality of the books you read or are thinking about buying. And so, for example, there's a book here There's a book that I read a while back, I think it's called Grain Brain, if I'm not mistaken. Okay, that sounds familiar. Yeah, and so like what they did is they had like their whole team go in and check every single reference and the validity of the studies, like the efficacy of the studies, the quality, it's like, and then they give their score, right? So I think in this day and age when you can literally buy, a.org right like for example my my company is a dot we have a.org website and while we strive to be the most credible you know we're most of us are just you know up-and-coming professionals we're not phds or experts in anything um but the point is that just about anyone can publish anything and nowadays with the leverage that we can gain online With any kind of credibility, you know, it's very easy to overstep boundaries and I like bread pin reviews because it's kind of Will will bring you back down to earth and we'll give you that kind of perspective and show you What is rooted in research? um So that you're not just buying into hype and and and i'm sure they have their own biases too, you know They actually end up writing their own books So, you know, everyone has a bias, but as scientists, I think, and I know that you'll agree here, that we're really, as long as we stay skeptical and as long as we stay, we're constantly making effort to limit our biases, then I think people can and should take us seriously. But whenever we are, you know, relying on our biases to make a profit, that is probably the most dangerous thing that a scientist can do. So and I'm sure that the hope that this topic, you know, we can probably do several podcasts on it, but I really admire your mission to make this such a simple and effective way of thinking for people to Understand right from wrong and if they don't know right from wrong at least where to look so I really appreciate that and That being said, what are some of your favorite places to learn and to stay on top of the best and latest research on nutrition?

Emily Werner:
So I'm a member of the Collegiate Professional Sport Dietitians Association, or CPSDA. It's a community of exactly what its name entails. It is dietitians working in the collegiate, professional, or tactical settings. And it's relatively new. It's only a 12-year-old organization. But they do a great job of releasing a monthly research report. And it is an accumulation of new nutrition and athletics research every month. So I start there and I see if there's anything in that list. It's usually a pretty big list that I deem applicable to my practice or maybe a private client has asked me a question about it, like something I want to learn a little bit more. So that will lead me directly to the studies themselves. which is great. But if I need to seek out a specific topic and look for a quick summary, I'll use examine.com. I think that's a really great website who does a good job of, like I said, accumulating the research that exists on a specific topic all into one concise summary. And again, listing all the references so that if I feel like like i was saying i don't just trust one website like if i if they say something about a specific study and i'm like i wonder how they ran that study i'm gonna go look at the research itself and do a little more digging um so yeah that and american college of sports medicine is a similar um you know that's an organization that also they have monthly journals and maybe quarterly journals, I don't know. I get those in the mail even though I've tried to sign up for the emails every time I get one because I hate wasting paper. But I'll look through that and see if there's again anything that jumps out. I just try to stay in tune to when the journals that I trust are putting out position stands or any sort of review paper. I think nowadays review papers are like, one of the most one of the utmost like best ways to understand research understand any specific topic like Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are pretty much the only papers I read nowadays. I will very rarely read a full clinical trial study unless it's on something that's so new that they don't have a review paper on it yet. So yeah, that's what I'll do.

Andres Preschel:
Would you mind reminding my audience what that means? What is a systematic review and a meta-analysis? Okay. Why should they be looking at those when they're doing their research?

Emily Werner:
Yeah, so when you conduct research, you are, you have to choose how you are going about it, right? So, and you could do a trial that is like, I'm going to get X participants, X number of participants to do this for 30 days, and we're going to look at these measures. And that's typically, you know, let's call that a clinical trial, right? when you combine a bunch of clinical trials so from different authors different like across the world that all ask the same question because there's so many people across the world doing research that it's never just like one person is looking into something at one time. If you compile those clinical trials and you actually compile the data that they collected, you increase the sample size, which is great. And we love that. And that is a meta analysis. So you are kind of running the same trial again, except the data has already been collected and you are compiling data from across the world, the nation, wherever you may be getting the data from. So that's a meta analysis. The difference with a systematic review is that you are not you're not gathering the already collected data of a systematic review, but you are still combing through the research that already exists on a topic and you are compiling it into one giant summary to try to answer a question. So those are done if you can't get access to the data from all these studies or maybe your question is too broad and the data are too specific, you do a systematic review. So it's a big old summary of They try to find any paper that's been written on a specific topic within a specific year frame, because you don't want to go back too far, because then you're just like, you're opening up a can of worms. So yeah, a good summary.

Andres Preschel:
Thank you so much for that. And by the way, I just quickly, I navigated to the examine.com website, and I feel as if I've been living under a rock, because it's my first time.

Emily Werner:
Because you didn't know it?

Andres Preschel:
I had no idea this was a thing.

Emily Werner:
Yeah, I don't even pay, there's like a subscription version that I have no idea what extra benefits it gives you, I just use the free version and it's phenomenal.

Andres Preschel:
Yeah, it says here, so they have no ads or industry ties, they use the latest evidence to find what works and what doesn't and there's like a search engine, it's like you can look up stuff as if you're, to me it seems like just at first glance like a more user-friendly version of like Google Scholar. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you for taking us through that. I'm curious, you know, I'm curious about Timeline and why it made sense for you to get involved in Timeline. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you guys are doing through Timeline?

Emily Werner:
Sure. So it made sense for me to get involved with Timeline because they are a science first company. So I've been working with the Philadelphia 76ers for, this is my fourth season. And during my second season, one of my athletes was working with a very renowned, world-renowned dietitian by the name of Louise Burke. And she had recommended he start utilizing Timeline, the supplement Might Appear. And as part of my job, I had to look into it and make sure that it was something that was safe and efficacious and whatever. And like, I mean, this, Louise Burke is like a goddess in my world. So like she could tell me to eat dirt and I would do it. So I didn't, it's not like I was like fact checking her, like I trust her wholeheartedly, but I was just curious. Cause it's new and it was like, it was even more new at the time. So when looking into it a little bit more, we decided we wanted some more players to utilize it. And I literally just emailed the customer service email and was like, y'all do wholesale discounts? And next thing I know, I was on a call with the chief medical officer and chief marketing officers, which is common for me that they wanna send the big guns to talk to me. Like, cool, love that. But by the end of the call, they were talking to me about a potential job with them. And the reason that I even considered it was because, A, they were seeking out a person to do something that I love, which is translation, like knowledge translation, research translation to both the lay person and, Physicians and practitioners and that's like a huge part of my my personal mission is like how do we? How do we translate what's like really complicated to someone who might not understand really complicated?

Andres Preschel:
Excuse me. I'll making science sexy We're making science sexy. Look, I love systematic reviews and meta-analyses. That gets me excited. But it's not exciting to the people that actually need them. So we have to translate it. We have to make science sexy. That's what you do.

Emily Werner:
That's 100% and I'm using that from now on. It's going to go on my resume. So yeah, so they wanted to hire me to make Science Sexy, and I was like, bet, let's do this. Also, before signing on with them, I did a deep dive into their company, every board member, the founder. I wanted to know, are there any red flags? Because I never in a million years saw myself working with a supplement company. Even just two years ago, it was, my understanding of the supplement world was such a dark place that I was like, I just don't have any desire of associating with this kind of world. I use supplements, my athletes use supplements and that's fine, but to work for a company, I thought that was wild. So after my deep dive, found no red flags. I was like, all right, I might as well, you know, get into this. And I'm beyond thankful that I did because not only do I wholeheartedly believe in the company and the product and the nutrient and all of that, but it has exposed me to a world of people that I never knew existed in this like biohacking crowd. And on top of that, it has educated me on, you know, really just like the plight of humans and like how many people are dealing with things and seeking out science in ways that I never recognized because I was in such like a sport bubble. And the field of sport nutrition is like so different from the field of like biohacking and functional medicine and like that kind of realm because I don't know, like the two worlds actually like conflict a lot. And so for me, I found it really intriguing to try to be someone to find a middle, a middle ground, a compromising meeting point between the two worlds, because I do think they both can coexist and should coexist.

Andres Preschel:
Right, so you're putting the bio in biohacking. You're really showing people the science of life and what it takes in this modern day to live the life that nature intended, because it's difficult, right? With all these modern stressors, these modern environments, the stuff that's going into our body and affecting our mitochondrial function, which lays the foundation for all other function, right? So it only makes sense that you're trying to find this middle ground, making science sexy and involved in this awesome company. So can you tell us a little more about What is MitoPure and how does it actually work the level of the mitochondria? Why do we need to take something like this? Why does it make sense, especially in this modern day?

Emily Werner:
Buckle up. It's not a short story. So let's start at the mitochondria, right? Like everybody's heard of the mitochondria. It's probably the most well known organelle we have within ourselves. And everybody knows it to be the powerhouse of the cell. And a lot of people like think that that it's just, you know, they think of like the bicep flexing emoji and like your power and like whatever. But it literally means power, space, home, like house. Right. So it's where our energy, our power is created. What happens over time is our mitochondria become dysfunctional, which like it has hundreds of functions. So when I say dysfunctional, I am not being specific. I'm being like very broad. It can become dysfunctional in one of its hundred different pathways, right? But as that happens, one of the things that occurs is we often can create less energy. So less adenosine triphosphate ATP, as I'm sure your audience probably already knows. So we cannot stop this decline in mitochondrial function. Age induces it. Stress induces it. And those are two things we literally cannot avoid. So where Timeline comes in is they have found a nutrient that was originated in pomegranates that induces the mitochondrial recycling process called mitophagy. OK. So the mitochondria being as important as they are within the cell, they have a life cycle of themselves that is separate from the cellular life cycle. So a lot of people know autophagy, the cellular recycling process, your mitochondria do the same thing. And so what happens is when this nutrient is introduced into the system, which it's not, it's not a new thing. Our bodies can make it ourselves when we eat the right precursor foods. So it's nothing abnormal or synthetic that is triggering a process that we don't typically do. It's just ramping up that process. So if we can recycle more of our dysfunctional mitochondria, we can create space for new and fresh mitochondria that are better at doing their jobs. And then, like you said, the mitochondria are the basis of so many physiologic functions that it has this really great snowball effect of positive outcomes because we are just refreshing that powerhouse.

Andres Preschel:
Right. And what are some areas of the body that have the highest concentrations of mitochondria and therefore, by optimizing our mitochondria, we can expect the greatest benefit in these areas?

Emily Werner:
muscle, heart, brain, eyes, kidneys, I think is up there. We're talking thousands of mitochondria per cell.

Andres Preschel:
It's interesting because I'm sure most people tuning in have seen a picture, a diagram of a cell with like a couple of mitochondria in it, but there's thousands.

Emily Werner:
Thousands. Thousands. I know, which I didn't even fully realize, but if you think about it, it totally makes sense, right? Like what hearts of our physiology require the most energy and the most consistent energy. It's our muscles to move us, it's our brains to keep us alive, it's our hearts to keep that blood pumping. The body is evolutionarily designed to keep itself alive, so we need the most energy coming out of the most vital things.

Andres Preschel:
Right. I'm just thinking back, I'm reflecting back on, you know, like fifth grade when I had to make like a cell like cake. I don't know if you had to do something similar.

Emily Werner:
Yes.

Andres Preschel:
And you had to, you know, create all the little parts of the cell. I can, like, reflecting back, imagine if, I'm just trying to imagine if I had to make thousands of mitochondria. I would have probably never taken up the project to begin with.

Emily Werner:
No, it would have been a whole cake.

Andres Preschel:
Yeah, exactly. That's amazing. And so and so why does this ingredient in pomegranates like pomegranates, like why? Why does that make sense?

Emily Werner:
So the way it came about was the research branch that created Timeline was looking into pomegranates back in like I think it was like 2008 when everybody was touting how much of a superfood pomegranates are. And they were like, OK, let's figure out why. which is like nobody did that, I don't know. So they decided to look into it and what they found was our gut microbiome converts the elegitannins in pomegranates, which is a polyphenol, it converts those elegitannins into urolithins, which urolithin A is like the most prominent and does the actual like mitophagy induction. So the problem is, so basically they did that research and they're like, oh my god, great, we found what is potentially the reason that pomegranates are such a longevity food. Let's just get people to eat more pomegranates or what do we do with this? What they found in further research was that only about one in three people can actually do that gut conversion in any meaningful quantity. So, like, I mean, that's like 60% of the population that just that straight up just really can't do that conversion. You could you could eat all the pomegranates, drink all the pomegranate juice that you want, and you're still going to get like micro amounts of your lithonate.

Andres Preschel:
Hold on, if I can quickly interrupt you, which I want to try to avoid, but in this case, is there proof that those people, while they can't produce that, while they don't have the glycobiome, do they need to have it to get the same quality of life, the same benefit? What if they've adapted to just lower turnover and their body functions optimally without it?

Emily Werner:
That's a great question. I think in order to answer that, we need to have a measure of what is optimal function. Right. So without which which I personally I don't even know what that would be like because of all all the different paths that the mitochondria are involved in. I think that's kind of an impossible question to answer.

Andres Preschel:
Right, right. So that's a difficult thing to specify. However, what if we can measure the activity of mitochondria? You're talking right now about the level of the gut, right? Do those people actually have impaired ATP production as a result?

Emily Werner:
Probably not. So everyone experiences mitochondrial decline regardless of their ability to convert precursor foods into beneficial nutrients. Right. So I wouldn't say that the people who can't do that natural gut conversion would have worse mitochondrial decline than someone who could. Theoretically they might, but then we also have to assume that those who can do that gut conversion are eating the right precursor foods consistently. So, which like we know they probably aren't. And what they found within that same research of like why are some people converters and others aren't, can be broadly defined as just gut microbiome diversity, which especially in the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere, we have diets that have just destroyed people's gut microbiome diversity. So it's kind of safe to assume that most people are not going to be good producers of your Lithon A by eating the precursor foods alone.

Andres Preschel:
Right, right. And so by adding this in, do they automatically optimize the gut microbiome's ability to support the mitochondria?

Emily Werner:
I mean, not just the gut microbiomes, like the supplemental version of urolithin A, which is timelines might appear. is completely bioavailable. So you surpass the gut microbiome's issues to get your Lithin A into the bloodstream. But to your point, the gut also has mitochondria, so they are going to be positively affected by a higher concentration of your Lithin A in the bloodstream. But it's not like it's just targeting the gut. It's going to be everywhere.

Andres Preschel:
And in that theoretical third of individuals who already have a good foundation and they have a good microbiome, they can use urethane, they have decent mitochondria, is there any potential negative detriment that they might see if they have, let's say, I don't know, a surplus of mitochondria or a surplus of mitochondrial function? Can that be negative at all?

Emily Werner:
No, I don't think you're ever going to have a surplus of mitochondria because the body's not going to allow for that. I've never heard of a case of too much mitochondrial biogenesis, except for, I mean, I guess you could argue tumor formation might have that. But the excess of your lithane is not causing excess mitochondria to occur. It's not causing biogenesis. It's causing mitophagy, which is clearing out the debris and taking out the trash, essentially.

Andres Preschel:
Right, right, right, right. You're not making, you're not getting more trash cans, you're taking out the trash. Correct. Okay. Correct. If someone starts taking this, what kind of outcomes can they expect?

Emily Werner:
The clinical trials that we have in human populations have shown improvements in muscular strength, muscular endurance, VO2 peak, reductions in inflammatory markers like CK and CRP. Those trials have been in middle-aged and older adults. We're working on publishing a trial that we did at the Australian Institute of Sport in elite athletes. So kind of seeing like, are athletes really at a mitochondrial ceiling or does this also potentially help them? And then beyond that, all of those clinical results, those are what we see at the four-month mark of taking MitoPure daily. But when we talk to people who have begun taking MitoPure, and I can even attest to this myself, within two weeks, you start to feel not different, but just like, for me, it was fatigue. I used to be a midday nap person that come 2, 3 o'clock, I was legitimately exhausted. Um, and then I kind of realized after a couple of weeks of taking might appear that I was like, Oh, I don't, I don't feel so tired anymore. I feel like I have more, um, like mental clarity, you know, throughout the day. Um, other people that I've spoken to reports just recovering better from their workouts. Um, both in like, their like cardiovascular side of things as well as a muscle soreness side of things um and all that you know within the first like two to four weeks so Yeah, that's what I would say people can expect.

Andres Preschel:
And I mean, I know that while it's difficult to see meaningful change in elite populations, those are the kind of people that, you know, they undergo so much testing where you can see something meaningful, even if it's one to ten percent, right? So, that being said, what can your average consumer expect? You know, would you say that it's similar in the sense that they can expect, let's say, better recovery or, you know, they don't have this midday crash or is that reserved for, you know, is that a measurable Is that only, is that only measurable in the elites when you undergo this kind of, you know, testing? Can an average person see a significant result?

Emily Werner:
All of the results that I mentioned were done in average people. So we, everyday people, it was middle-aged and older adults. So it's like two separate studies. basically conducted the same way just in two different age populations. So all of these people were just generally healthy, no chronic disease states present. There was no diet intervention. There was no exercise intervention. It was just like, live your life, but add this supplement into it, and then we'll test every so often. And that's and they found the increases in muscular strength, muscular endurance, the the inflammatory marker reduction, all of that just in everyday people.

Andres Preschel:
In this modern day, there are a few habits, lifestyle systems, and biohacks that will sort of like set the stage for physiological excellence. Like, you can give the body the opportunity to take care of itself. Do you think that urolithin A might appear that it actually accomplishes this?

Emily Werner:
Theoretically, yes. As I mentioned, number one, the body already knows what urolithin A is because you can get it from food precursors that you've probably had at some point in your life. So to me, that is a good sign that naturally we produce this, and so it is a familiar thing. On top of that, it's triggering a process that is also extremely familiar to the body. Mitophagy is happening right now. It's happening every single day, every single second of every single day, right? You have thousands of mitochondria. They are going to be recycled because that's a more energy efficient way of saving them than to completely kill them off and create new ones. So those two things combined tell me that if we aren't introducing anything new to the body, But we are just optimizing a process. I believe that the downstream effects of that are just optimization in like every other area in which the mitochondria are involved. It's kind of like, it's like the most foundational way to optimize.

Andres Preschel:
Right. Right. I like that description. It's like way upstream of everything else. Like it'll make every other healthy input better. Um, that's, that's awesome. Um, and then on the, on the other end of the spectrum, what are some habits that destroy mitophagy?

Emily Werner:
Mitophagy specifically, I'm not sure. Like, I don't know. I would assume it's the same kind of habits that just destroy mitochondria and your health in general, which is like having a crappy diet, not exercising. So like living a sedentary life, alcohol, smoking, you know, all of those kinds of things that have

Andres Preschel:
all of those negative effects yeah i would i would say those probably but i can't i can't speak to like specifically targeting mito mitophagy in a specific way let me ask you this i have a series of questions um that i want to ask you but this kind of reflects back on the beginning of this show which is about you and your story uh in the process of working with timeline and mito pure and with mitochondria What have you learned about your mitochondria that you wish you had known, like, way earlier in your life? You know, independent of earlithin A. What's something that you wish you knew earlier about your mitochondria?

Emily Werner:
I wish I had known that the body is not meant to be constantly fed. So, like, early in my career as a sport dietitian and even like in the process of school for nutrition there's constant rhetoric around athletes need to be fueling all day every day because they're burning so much and da da da da and like i'm not gonna say that's wrong but i do think it isn't the best long-term strategy for an athlete. Now granted, most of us in the sport nutrition community are working with athletes for a very specific chunk of time, whether that be the years they're in college or the years of their professional career or whatever. But I have taken the specific mission of my practice to be, I want to teach long-term lessons And part of that is the idea of we're not meant to be constantly fed. And that's not a plug for intermittent fasting or anything like that. Although I do believe that it can be a useful strategy for the right people. And I don't necessarily believe athletes should be doing that specific strategy. But I do think there is something to letting the body figure something out naturally. And I think if we are constantly introducing food and nutrients to it, we don't allow it that time to do that. Does that make sense?

Andres Preschel:
Yeah, yeah. I think we can explore this a little further to make the point for those who haven't, who aren't here, you know, who aren't here with us right now. But I'll start with this. It's the beauty of the intermittent metabolic switch, right? Is that what you're describing? It's like if we can establish some degree of ketosis throughout the day, independent of fasting, like if we spend significant enough time between meals to allow our body to achieve a ketogenic state, a low blood glucose state per se, then we can orchestrate a lot of the evolutionarily preserved mechanisms that give us and reward us with this amazing quality of life. Like we were not designed, we spent millions of years Without the super convenient access to highly processed foods that we have nowadays, you know, anytime we have an urge Craving we can immediately satisfy that and that's a problem, right? So maybe this can help bridge the gap But please I would love to keep this conversation going this specific one because I think this is absolutely Priceless and I'm so glad that you shared this of all things with our audience

Emily Werner:
Yeah, I think I think you're touching on like the physiology behind what I'm talking about. I wouldn't necessarily say because I think I I hesitate to say like get into a state of ketosis and that kind of thing because I think it's it's a little too sexy for the science. Like I think it's, I, I, I, I, I think that I think using stuff like that, like sends people down a rabbit hole of like, how do I eat but getting ketosis? But like, I don't know. Anyways. So, But yes, you touch on the evolutionary side of things, which is frankly like we didn't always have food readily available. And now let me be clear, because I don't want sports dietitians coming after me for saying that athletes shouldn't be eating every two hours or every hour or whatever. There are very specific cases where that's an absolutely appropriate strategy, especially if you have a weight gain athlete who can't It can't eat more at meals, so they just have to eat more meals. You know, if if you need to use consistent feeding as a strategy for something, fine. In the same way that if you need to use intermittent fasting as a strategy for something, fine. I personally believe in switching things up and like kind of surprising the body in many ways. Like, I think that that's a good longevity strategy.

Andres Preschel:
So again, this is opportunistic feeder, but not eating processed junk that is readily available.

Emily Werner:
Yeah, 100%. I do believe strongly we are a product of our food environment. So like, if I'm working with whether it be a private client, that's just a general recreational exerciser, or it's my athletes, Like, I am addressing food environment. I'm asking questions like, well, what do you have laying around the house? Who does the grocery shopping? Like, what do you have consistently available? And that's also one of the best touch points I have with my athletes is like, if I know that the environment they're walking into at our facility or on the road is all healthy food, that's fine. Like, eat what you want if it's in front of you, because I know it's healthy. as opposed to when they're at home and outside of our control as an, not as an organization, but my knowledge as a dietitian, they're gonna be, everybody succumbs to cravings, everybody succumbs to temptation when it comes to food, and once in a while is not gonna kill you at all. I'm a big fan of moderation, but it really depends on your goals that, will dictate what kind of food environment you need to be in.

Andres Preschel:
And what would you have to say about the gap in evolution between the rapid evolution of our technology and the slower evolution of our physiology? You know, there's this like gap in evolution. And I think that I honestly think that the word like I think biohacking is like the effort to like try to bring those things as closely together as possible and to help our body either evolve or to try and mitigate the damage of this gap in evolution. What do you have to say about that?

Emily Werner:
What I said at the beginning of the podcast, I think holds true that like there's so much that we still don't know. about physiology and performance and health and all that. And I do believe in these technologies that are helping us to learn those things. With how much technology is coming out, I always question validity and I'm like, show me your peer-reviewed research that shows that your product is doing what you're telling me it's doing. But let's, for argument's sake, say that everything is valid or whatever. I think it can be super interesting. but it's in the same way that if a client asks me if they should start counting calories. my assessment of before I answer yes or no is going to be, what is that gonna do for you and for your mental state? Because if you are the type of person who wants to know this information and will use it for good and not evil, great, it can be an extremely valuable tool. But at the end of the day, it's a tool and it shouldn't be like, Bible, you know, it shouldn't be the end-all be-all of what you're doing and how you're understanding yourself. So I would say the same thing for these technologies is that super cool and amazing and can give us a lot of information, but like what are you going to do with the information and and will it send you down a negative spiral if you get what you deem to be negative information?

Andres Preschel:
So it seems to me like what you, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like it's very important for you with your clients to help them build some intuition around food.

Emily Werner:
Right? A hundred percent. Everybody eats every day. So like to build intuition around food is like, to me, the utmost form of education beyond health and unhealthy or whatever.

Andres Preschel:
And do you believe that a lot of this data and information can and should serve as like the backbone of our intuition?

Emily Werner:
I think it can. Yeah, and I do think it should. It's kind of a tough way to put it. It's almost too black and white.

Andres Preschel:
Yeah, I was gonna say, my follow-up question was like, because obviously there's a lot of marketing around food. Like there's a lot of things that trick our psychology and our intuition. There's greenwashing, there's brilliant, there's trillions of dollars going into marketing. Like when we step into a grocery store, we're at a disadvantage, you know? So my follow-up question was, how do you think we can realistically build that healthy level of intuition with food, considering the vast amount of information around it, whether it's science or whether it's total bullshit, how do we build intuition around food in this modern day?

Emily Werner:
Having complications?

Andres Preschel:
It's so tough. Excuse me, hold on. Because as a physiologist, I can sense the buildup in your CO2 in that side. It is a loaded question.

Emily Werner:
It's not even that it's like a loaded question. It's just a tough one.

Andres Preschel:
It's a tough question. But hey, I think I think that's that's why that's why we're doing this show. Right. Like, yeah, we have the time to try and answer this question. And even if you and I can't answer it, I think it shows people how like how much there's there's left to know and to discover, because everybody wants intuition. Everybody wants access to the right information and to the healthiest foods. But this is how difficult it is to people that are deeply and intimately invested in this field can't even have a conversation. I mean, we are having a conversation, but we can't give you a clear answer, right? And every time someone shows up in a grocery store, they expect answers, whether it's conscious or subconscious, they expect to make the right decisions. So hopefully this can help them not by giving them the answer, but by showing them that even we have difficulty answering this question.

Emily Werner:
And you touched on, I think, what my answer would be, and that's A, conversation. So like, that's what we're doing. And B, honesty and like, grace for life getting in the way of what would be deemed right or wrong. Like I hate using right and wrong when it comes to food and nutrition because like there's that's too black and white. There's literally too much gray area to be using such definitive terms like good, bad, right, wrong. I really I don't like it. So I think the The best way is to just keep having conversations. Hopefully people having these conversations on platforms that can reach more and more people is the way to do it. And that goes back to like finding credible sources like we talked about earlier. And it's really like, this is gonna be so cynical of me to say, but like, A lot of it comes down to money when it comes to marketing and pushing foods and all those things. And that's not to say there aren't amazing companies out there who are doing what they do because they wanted to create a better product for people's lives and health and longevity. But those companies are typically funded way less than those who are just out to sell a product and have a whole staff of marketing people that train in psychology of people going through the grocery store. So it's like when it comes to We have to take it upon ourselves because the industry is not gonna do it for us, is what I tell clients. You have to educate yourself to push through the BS that exists in the media and the marketing in the world around us and learn as much as you can about nutrition and your physiology so that way you can make informed decisions.

Andres Preschel:
Yeah, and I'm sure you're familiar, well obviously you're familiar with the Nova classification for levels of food processing. And I'm pretty sure, I'm actually on the website, on one of the websites now, but like the ultra processed foods, like one of the characteristics Literally a characteristic is like they are marketed. They're so heavily marketed Right and it's like whereas like the group one on processed foods. They have no marketing. It's like vegetables Vegetables don't need any marketing. So it's like any food that makes a claim that it's healthy is probably not healthy. Would you agree or disagree?

Emily Werner:
Ah What's interesting? In a grocery store, yeah. What's interesting is that there are federal regulations around like using the word healthy. So to use the word healthy on labels. it actually does come with some bearing of like it has to be under a certain amount of calories, certain percent fat, certain amount of cholesterol and sodium and those things. The problem with just using those types of terms is that what's healthy for one person might not be healthy for another. Right. And that goes back to the individualization and and gaining a better understanding of those things. So when I like like you said people are always looking for what's the easiest way that I can eat healthy quote-unquote and I always say like the closer to how it came out of the earth the better. So fruits and vegetables stuff that doesn't have a great shelf life that's gonna go bad in your fridge in a week that means you gotta eat it like There's and there's nothing wrong with going through the aisles and getting packaged foods or whatever that does have a shelf life. But I believe the foundation of someone's diet and the vast majority of someone's diet should be stuff that would go bad in your fridge in a week. And like is just that that whole food kind of stuff.

Andres Preschel:
Cool, and then not aside, but rather complimentary to intuition, what kind of testing do we need to do to figure out what's the healthiest food for us?

Emily Werner:
That's a tough one, because there's a ton of tests that exist that will, that allege that they can tell you what foods are best for you. I have not seen enough solid research to stand by those tests. I think the best test is literally the gut test. It is, what do you, No, like, no, like, like, right. You're like, listen to your gut. Like, yeah. Do you, which is like a form of intuition, but it's like intuition with tangible outcomes. So like, if you eat something and then you're like pooping your brains out, probably not the best food for you to be eating. If you eat something and every time you eat it, you feel lethargic afterwards. probably not the best thing for you to be eating. So like reminding people that everything you eat and drink becomes the fuel for everything your body does. So if you can become more intuitive and in tune with your body and how it's reacting to things, you really can sift through this road map in and of itself. Your body will show you what it doesn't like, but you just have to be paying attention to those messages. To me, that's a better way of of of testing because i think the like the food sensitivity tests that exist or the gut tests that exist the way that they measure things is based primarily off of like what enzymes are present in your gut right the enzymes and stuff that are present in your gut are going to be the ones who are that are related to whatever foods you consistently eat. So I don't see those tests being a true measure of like what your gut can and cannot handle because you are introducing those tests to an already biased environment of your gut. So that's why so many people who do food sensitivity tests, they come back and they're like, oh, my God, I'm a high reactor to bell peppers, but I eat bell peppers all the time. Like, how is this possible? Do I have to stop eating bell peppers? And it's like, Well, no, you don't necessarily. Do you feel like shit after you eat bell peppers? Then yeah, you should probably stop eating them. But if you don't, the test isn't a black and white definitive of cut all these foods out and you'll optimize your life like that. It just doesn't work as simply as that.

Andres Preschel:
Right. And what are some habits and lifestyle systems that we need to add in to develop the necessary intuition to choose the best foods for our physiology?

Emily Werner:
People aren't naturally born with this intuition, or maybe I think we are naturally born with it, but especially the American environment is so inundated with information all the time that I think a lot of people have become reliant on getting their information externally as opposed to looking internally. So it's like hard to just say that there's specific ways and specific systems that people can utilize in order to build their intuition. When to me the answer is like just sit down and think and be quiet and be observant and- Be present. Be present. Yeah, that's like the word for it. I think I think a short like a simple tool when it comes to nutrition and intuition is keep a food diary. I think that's the easiest way to be present when it comes to food and beverage. What is a food and then work with it? Oh, yeah. So just essentially writing down everything you eat and drink and when you do it and how I mean, that that works, too. But the important thing about a diary is correlating it with how you feel. So it's to keep a food diary. Like, ideally, what you'd be doing is writing when and what you have and then like 30, 60 minutes later, noting how you feel and. That that's the best way to start putting patterns to things if you aren't intuitive on your own with your with your food intake.

Andres Preschel:
Right. It's like your personal end of one clinical trial. And then you get to see what works and what doesn't.

Emily Werner:
That is the scientific version of intuition is an end of one clinical trial on everything.

Andres Preschel:
Wow. And are there any technologies that you can use to gain objective data that might show or reveal how you feel and are reacting to these foods? Like, for example, Can you wear a wearable device that shows you your HRV? And can you say, oh, you know, I had this food at night or in the day and look at my HRV, you know, like, are there any different metrics that we can look at that will help us build this intuition or will help us put objective data, pair it with our, you know, with our, with our thoughts and feelings?

Emily Werner:
I think using technologies that already exist, you can glean some information about relating your nutrition habits to specific outcomes. My first thought is sleep. I think that it's if you pay attention to sleep data and there's drastic changes and you can relate that to drastic changes in the diet, I think that that's an indicator. Um, and kind of vice versa. See this, this, the problem is that like if you're sleeping like crap, research shows you're more likely to eat like crap. And then it's like this vicious cycle of like you keep doing one and then the other. So, There isn't anything specific to nutrition. Like to short answer your question, I am not aware of a technology that is specific to allowing you to track your nutrition subjective outcomes and relate it directly to objective outcomes like HRV and sleep and stuff like that. That doesn't mean that doesn't exist. I'm just not aware of it. And also it sounds really fricking complicated. Whereas like having just like a notebook for a week and just like writing stuff down to me makes a little bit more sense. But I'm sure there's somebody working on that.

Andres Preschel:
Emily, like technology business partners, let's get started. This is the billion dollar question. Yeah. I think there's no software engineer, right? Yeah, I mean, there's clearly some room for innovation. I mean, that could be a really interesting question to explore, right? And project to innovate on.

Emily Werner:
Yeah, I mean, Like off the top of my head, I'm thinking of there's a handful of companies I'm aware of who all do different aspects of like what we're talking about, but it's kind of culmination of all of those things that would be super difficult. But then we go back to the question of like, what are people going to do with that information? Right. Is that is that the quick hack they're looking for? I don't I don't know. Sure. Yeah. Fifty fifty. I'm in.

Andres Preschel:
Cool. Man, I'm just trying to take all this in because I hope that this conversation doesn't lead to, I mean, obviously you're not having a great time talking about this, but I hope it doesn't lead my audience to more confusion or to any stress. I know a lot of people are looking for simple answers and intuition seems like it's a simple thing that is so individual to everyone and so personal to everyone. Yeah, I mean, I think that these modern lives really take away from our intuition, like, for example, you know, doom scrolling, or like, I don't know, like, there's so many things that take away from this intuition. I wish it was more simple because that does, that should lay the foundation for all kinds of healthy habits, you know, beyond food, right? Like if you're intuitive, then maybe you can figure out how hard should you go in the gym today and how long should you spend recovering? You know, what time should you go to sleep? When should you wake up? Like there's so many things that intuition can help us, uh, you know, become healthier through. Um, so man, that's a fascinating topic.

Emily Werner:
It's not an easy one, like it's, it's... It is an easy one, but it's not the answer that people want because it actually requires work and practice. I don't think you become intuitive overnight. It's taken me years, and I'm very biased in the fact that I've been educating myself in this for many years. I've gone through formal schooling and informal schooling to do this, so it's like, I acknowledge how much it's taken me and I was greatly assisted by an entire academic system to do it. So for just the average person who's just trying to figure out what works for them, it's tough and you're constantly inundated by information of people with quick hacks and then you want to try those because it's easier than trying to learn intuition and all that so like I get it and I do empathize with the audience because I used to be that person but I I just encourage people to do it in the same way you encourage people to know their physiology. Know your intuition like you. The more you can do that, just the better life you're going to live in general.

Andres Preschel:
Yeah. I always say that, like, know your physio. And honestly, the reason why I came up with that name and the brand mission is that I think that it sets the foundation for eventually becomes and hopefully becomes intuition and interoception, that deep bodily awareness. And that's that's really the mission at the end of the day. The mission is is is to build that And so it's interesting that we arrived at this question naturally But it's really the question that I want people to ask themselves all the time. You know, what can I learn about my science to? Optimize my life, but really what that means is develop the necessary intuition to make the best decisions for the best quality of life, the quality of life that nature intended for me. And it's really cool that something as simple, well simple but not easy, at the level of our mitochondria can help us improve the odds of that coming to life. No pun intended. So I know that we're short on time here. This has been so much fun. I have one last, well, two last questions for you. First question is, if you could put a word, phrase or sentence on a billboard somewhere in the world, what would it say and where would you put it?

Emily Werner:
I often joke that if I wrote a book, I would call it, it's okay to eat ice cream.

Andres Preschel:
I love ice cream. Who doesn't? What are your favorite ice cream flavors? Just out of curiosity.

Emily Werner:
Um, I gotta say like mint chocolate chip probably is, is up there or it just depends on the mood that I'm in. But, um, yeah, mint chocolate chip or like, uh, something, something peanut butter chocolate.

Andres Preschel:
Yes. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a peanut butter, chocolate guy, pistachio, like a gelato, pistachio, gelato and hazelnut. Those are my top top flavors right there. Anyway, why would you write a book? Why would you write a book with that name? And why would that be the phrase that you're going to put on the billboard?

Emily Werner:
I think it actually plays into this whole conversation about intuition that we're having, because ice cream and treat foods and that kind of stuff are so demonized, especially in like the nutrition health space world. that I think people need a reminder that it's okay to eat ice cream and it's okay to live life and have a quality of life while still trying to optimize your health and achieve your goals. So my book would be about nutrition and healthful practices, but it would also be about grace and intuition and

Andres Preschel:
It being okay to eat ice cream. That's that's lovely and and where if you had to pick one or maybe two places to put this billboard Where do you think gonna make the most sense? anywhere By the way, it can be on the world that can be on the on the moon it can be on a satellite, you know anywhere I Would put it.

Emily Werner:
Oh my god. This is gonna be so controversial. I'd put it in like every gym everywhere Oh Wow Like just because I think that I just, I wanna tackle these people who have such a black and white view on health. Like I just don't, I don't think that that's, if they wanna do that for themselves, that's fine. Maybe I wanna put it on like social media so that the people who are touting that kind of idea have to see it. Because I just don't, I wholeheartedly believe that that is not the way to go about this. this life. And especially if you try to be in a position of helping people like I just I don't see such strictness as a way to help people.

Andres Preschel:
And and you personally you know we talked about our favorite flavors but how would you describe the perfect ice cream as far as ingredients go?

Emily Werner:
as close to the earth as it can.

Andres Preschel:
There we go. So like whole butter, whole grass-fed, grass-finished butter, whole milk, no sugar, maybe some maple syrup. Yeah. What else? Some Redmond sea salt or Redmond salt. I don't think it's sea salt. Redmond salt.

Emily Werner:
A little bit of salt. Yeah. I mean, just a whole ingredients, like put some fruit in there, like get those nutrients. If you're going to use chocolate, do either like a raw cacao or something that just is sweetened with anything besides something fake. Like, you know, it's not going to be the most light caloric density food, but it will be delicious. But it will power your mitochondria.

Andres Preschel:
will power the mitochondria. Awesome. Emily, what an honor and pleasure. This has been so much fun. Where can people find you if they want to learn more?

Emily Werner:
So my website is eat elite perform dot com. And my personal Instagram is at Emily and Werner 34. But that's more like personal. I sometimes post things about what I do in the NBA. But I would say my website is definitely the best starting point.

Andres Preschel:
Amazing. Amazing. Well, hey, thank you so much. This has been such an honor, a pleasure, so much fun, and we hope to have you back on the podcast in the near future.

Emily Werner:
Anytime. Thank you for having me.

Andres Preschel:
So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos, to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPreschel.com, that's A-N-D-R-P-R-E-S-CHEL. E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com and go to podcasts. You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth. Thanks again for tuning in and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day.


Teaser
Magnesium Supplement
Importance of nutrition for athletes.
The credible sources for information
Importance of systematic reviews/meta-analyses
Mitochondria and energy production
Pomegranates as superfood
Urolithin A improves mitochondrial function
Benifits of Intermittent fasting
Building intuition around food
How to listen to your gut intuition
How to listen to your body's signals
Develop intuition for optimal health
It's okay to eat ice cream
Outro