Requesting the following guest for your podcast…
Dr. Martin Gibala, muscle physiologist and professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. I think he’d be a great guest and completely within your wheelhouse. He seems very knowledgeable in areas you often cover, such as VO2 max, zone training, mitochondrial health, workout efficiency and so forth. I’ve heard him speak and he’s quite good. Anyway, that my request. Thank you.
Cigar Smoking
I recently subscribed and listened to your smoking/nicotine AMA from a few years ago and I noticed you didn't cover Cigars. I'm a cigar smoker who never smoked anything else (weed, cigarettes, vape, etc) and when I look for studies almost none of them separated cigar smokers from cigarette smokers and the few that have seem to indicate there's no mortality difference in exclusively cigar smokers and non smokers. I have a few theories on this such as length of time to smoke makes you less likely to do it very often, the non existence of other chemicals and additives, and of course the major point of not inhaling the smoke. I'm curious what you think of this and do you think there is value in looking into this separation at all?
Epilepsy, Heart Disease and Falls
Hi. I'm a 69 year old woman with tonic clonic epilepsy. My seizures are infrequent but major, and increase my risk of a lot of other health problems. My neurologist says there really should be a field of neurocardiology. While I do have atherosclerotic heart issues, I have atrial flutter and fib, with high heart rates, that gets triggered by seizures and does not respond to medication. (Cardioversion or atrial ablation.) Seizures have also led to significant injuries from falls, including brain injuries with cognitive and neuro-ocular consequences and physical injuries like torn rotator cuffs. I'm curious about anything you've looked into around epilepsy and neuro-degeneration--brain damage directly from seizures, from falls, and from oxygen deprivation post seizure. I recently had a seizure which left me unconscious for five hours in what my neurologist called a neuro-vegetative state, linked to low neurotransmitter levels. SUDEP, Sudden Death in Epilepsy seems to be linked in ways that are not fully understood, to a lack of chemical signaling to restart interrupted breathing. There are also heart rhythm irregularities that may be involved. Epilepsy is a huge umbrella, and there are still many unknowns, but most studies have been genetic or dealing with brain biochemistry. There is almost no research on environmental factors even though most pesticides are neurodisruptors and some are even used to induce seizures in lab rats. While I'm in a higher risk group for SUDEP, epilepsy is less likely to kill me directly, but increases risks of cognitive issues, the electrical side of heart disease and serious falls. My seizure disorder has changed with age, with no warnings beforehand and longer recovery times. Based on my reading there are some suggestions of depletion in substances only some of which we know how to replace, For instance l-tryptophan seems to be somewhat protective against dying from post-ictal oxygen deprivation. So basically, I'm curious about anything you've looked at that could be applicable to epilepsy and it's relationship to two horses and a pony.