#845: How to Use Ketosis for Enhanced Mood, Cognition, and Long-Term Brain Protection — A Practical and Tactical Guide with Dr. Dominic D'Agostino (Plus: Deconstructing Tim’s Latest Keto Experiment)

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs.

This is Tim Ferriss.

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show.

This particular episode, I think, is probably my most practical, tactical discussion of ketosis.

What the benefits are, how to implement it, when the rubber hits the road what do you do? What do you do, what do you try to avoid, what are some of the challenges? And this conversation with Dom D'Agostino, I'll describe him in a second, took place about midway through a month-long experiment.

I've done a lot of ketogenic dieting, I've experimented with it since probably the late '90s.

And my latest bout was one month wearing both a continuous glucose monitor and a continuous ketone monitor.

And we basically deconstructed it, and I got Dom's advice on how to tweak it, how to fine tune it.

Now, why would you even wanna consider ketosis? And we also get into exogenous ketones, so supplemental ketones.

They've become quite the topic du jour, quite popular among certain athletic populations and so on.

But we talk about toxicity with some of these supplements, and what to look out for.

We talk about ketone dependence and withdrawal.

We talk about (laughs) before and after testing, and lots of ways that you can be a bit smarter, bit more informed about approaching all of this.

So the benefits, why would you even consider this? Why have I myself spent so much time in ketosis, so to speak? Well, there are a few things.

Immediately, I will notice once I get to a certain concentration in my blood, and that's generally around, uh, let's just call it .7 millimolars measured with a finger prick, and then more as you get going, I need less sleep.

So instead of eight to nine hours, six hours, six and a half hours, I wake up and I am wide awake.

So that's another difference.

I wake up and I am wide awake, alert, ready to go.

I don't need an hour of booting up and tons of caffeine to get online.

I am mentally sharper.

My verbal acuity, my ability to think just has a faster turnover.

And in the afternoons, I do not have what you would typically associate with, say, a normal diet involving lots of carbohydrates, the afternoon dip.

I don't need a nap.

I don't need a huge extra cup of coffee around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon to keep me going.

That is just unnecessary altogether.

But those all pale in comparison to the mood stabilizing and enhancing effects.

It just takes the ups and downs, and maybe this is peculiar to me, but it preserves the ups, right? I'm not going through crazy manic swings.

But it doesn't mute your upside in terms of mood, but it really stabilizes and minimizes the downswings.

And that in and of itself makes it worth it to me.

And then there are questions around long-term benefits, possible neuro-protection, anti-inflammation, anti-cancer effects.

And this conversation with Dom really informed and changed how I think about how I, in the future, am going to approach ketosis, which will still remain in my quiver as something I use regularly.

So Dom, who is Dom? I'm gonna keep it super short.

Dr. Dominic D'Agostino is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, and a visiting senior research scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

He's also a beast of an athlete in (laughs) his own right.

We won't get into that now.

His research focuses on the development and testing of nutritional strategies and metabolic-based therapies for neurological disorders.

This includes psychiatric disorders, cancer and human performance optimization.

And he has served as a research investigator and crew member on NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations.

His research has been supported by the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Defense, the NIH, and much more.

So he is an impressive operator.

He walks the talk.

He practices what he preaches.

So without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging, very practical conversation with Dom D'Agostino.

Optimal minimal effort.

At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time.

What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

The Tim Ferriss Show.