The SHN #12: Upgrade Your Tap Water, Attia's Exercise Routine, and the Apollo

Welcome back to The Synergetic Health Newsletter! 

In this edition, we’ll explore why you need to avoid tap water like the plague.

After that, a dive into longevity guru Peter Attia’s exercise routine.

Then comes a spotlight on the Apollo Neuro tech device.

Finally, I’ll include some links to things I’ve found particularly interesting recently.

Joe Burt

Tap Water Needs an Upgrade

Water. Its significance to our overall health cannot be overstated.

Considering that our bodies and brains consist of approximately 80% water, it raises the question: why would we choose to hydrate ourselves with sterile, lifeless tap water provided by the government?

The reality is that tap water poses significant dangers.

Contrary to official assurances from local and state governments, tap water contains various harmful substances, including forever chemicals, arsenic, lead, pharmaceutical remnants, fluoride, and more. In a comprehensive investigation spanning nine months, Consumer Reports (CR) and the Guardian examined the water supplies of 120 individuals across the United States.

Astonishingly, they discovered that 118 out of the 120 participants had alarming levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFA's) or arsenic, surpassing CR's recommended maximum, or detectable amounts of lead. More than 35% had toxic “forever chemicals” above CR’s recommended maximum. 8% had arsenic above the max, and 118 samples had detectable levels of lead.

It is essential to acknowledge the potential risks associated with tap water, as highlighted by this significant investigation.

Andrew Huberman even joined the party speaking out against tap water in this recent podcast, which discusses how disinfection byproducts (DBP’s) are found in tap water supplies and that “It's very clear that DBPs have been shown to disrupt ovarian function, spermatogenesis, and fertility outcomes."

He also talks about the dangers of fluoride, which is actually ADDED to municipal water supplies, saying "Fluoride negatively impacts thyroid-stimulating hormone and so-called T3 levels... Get a hold of the fluoride concentrations in your tap water... Even just 0.5 mg/L of water can disrupt thyroid function."

*Sidenote I used to call my local NYC council representative asking why they add fluoride to the drinking water…. they offered no response :/

A study set for publication in August, 2023 by the US Geological Survey found that nearly half of US tap water is contaminated with forever chemicals and they even admit that its likely higher than that but they don’t have the proper testing for the more than 12,000 types of PFAS in existence (they only looked at 32!)

These chemicals found in tap water can also get you from taking a shower without an appropriate filter, through your food if you wash it in the kitchen sink, at the restaurant if you have water with your meal, in your pasta if you cook with tap water, and the list goes on.

I’ll spare you the laundry list of health effects of these chemicals and instead will offer some ways to move on from your tap water:

Drink Spring Water

Top choice would be going to a a spring untouched by man, bringing your own glass bottles, and filling up. Check out a map of springs here. You can order unprocessed spring water from AliveWaters or Tourmaline Spring.

The next best option is to buy bottled spring water in glass. Most commercial drinking water labeled as “spring water” is actually drilled and pumped out of aquifers, which are essentially wells. We don’t want this.

The company I’ve used for years for glass-bottle spring water is Mountain Valley, and they deliver 5-gallon glass jugs of delicious spring water. Other companies in this tier are Starkey, Saratoga, Castle Rock, Aqua Panna, Eldorado, and Simpson Spring.

Filter Your Tap Water

Anything is better than nothing but Brita or your refrigerator filter isn’t really going to cut it, unfortunately. You need a much more quality filter that is able to remove fluoride. Here’s an Amazon list of affordable options, and ZeroWater is a reputable name that I’ve used in the past.

A small step up from there would be something like a Berkey filter.

After that, the next level for filtration is to install a whole-home water filtration system if your budget allows and you plan on living at your home for a while.

These options range from LivePristine’s under-the-counter water revival system to Aquasana’s under-the-counter filter to Mitolife’s 7-stage filtration system to Ophora’s whole home system.

Other Things You Can Do

RO Water (Reverse Osmosis)

Some people use reverse osmosis, a purification process that removes impurities, contaminants, and dissolves solids from water by using pressure to force it through a semipermeable membrane.

Here’s an under-the-counter reverse osmosis system example.

You’d need to add back in minerals to this water after the filtration process, which complicates matters. I’m not a huge fan of this method.

Avoid Plastic Bottles Like the Plague

Water stored in plastic containers inherently carries varying degrees of toxicity. Over time, plastic materials and their associated chemicals can leach into the bottled water, leading to the contamination of your body through various means. They also reek complete havoc on our oceans and environment (sadly covered briefly in this beautiful nature documentary: Our Planet II).

In a pinch, drinking water out of hard plastic bottles like Evian or Fiji is a fairly clean way to consume H20.

Filter Your Shower Water

Showering or bathing with tap water can expose you to similar or even greater risks compared to consuming it. Particularly when taking hot showers, you may effectively be subjecting yourself to a toxic gas chamber for approximately 10-20 minutes each day.

You can choose a cheaper shower filter option or a more expensive one here.

Sauna Over Steamroom

The steamroom is mainlining toxic chemicals into your body. Choose the sauna instead.

Final Thoughts

There is much more to be said about water and its role in human health, but this is a good start. Tap water is toxic and should be avoided as much as possible.

Filtering your water with a quality product is the bare minimum, drinking glass spring water and having a quality shower filter is next step up, adding a whole-home filtration system to your spring water and shower filter is watermaxxing.

Peter Attia’s Exercise Program

Author of the bestselling longevity manifesto “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity”, Peter Attia is a leading voice in the “Medicine 3.0” movement.

His message is that people need to take control of their health now, not to wait until they get a diagnosis to work on their health. For the low, low cost of $160,000 a year (rumored), you can join Hugh Jackman and become a client of his.

If you want to learn more about Attia and his advice for healthy living, you can watch this 25 minute animated summary of his book, listen to his popular podcast “The Drive with Peter Attia”, listen to his 3:30 interview with Andrew Huberman or his slightly shorter interview on “The Tim Ferriss Show.”

This post is going to just be a description of Attia’s current exercise program, as outlined in his recent podcast.

Monday: Lower Body Strength Training and Full Body Stability Training (90-120 minutes total)

Tuesday: Zone 2 Cardio (45-60 minutes usually done on stationery bike) plus Stability Training (60 minutes)

Wednesday: Upper Body Strength Training and Full Body Stability Training (90-120 minutes total)

Thursday: Zone 2 Cardio (45-60 minutes usually done on stationery bike) plus Stability Training (60 minutes)

Friday: Lower Body Strength Training and Full Body Stability Training (90-120 minutes total)

Saturday: AM Workout- Zone 2 (45-60 minutes); Afternoon Workout- Upper Body Strength Training and Full Body Stability Training (another 90-120 minutes)

Sunday: Zone 2 Cardio (45-60 minutes usually done on stationery bike) plus VO2 Max Training (usually something like this 4×4 protocol- 4 minutes of the highest intensity, followed by 4 minutes of recovery, repeated 4-6x)

In total, Attia does around 180-240 minutes of zone 2 cardio, gets in four strength training sessions, around six stability/movement competency sessions in a week, and one hard VO2 max training session. This guy also goes on regular ruck walks, competes in archery, and other “normal” stuff too.

Stability Work: Some of Attia’s stability exercises he does can be found on this page. Still more can be found under his “Exercising for Longevity” playlist on his YouTube page.

They include concepts from Functional Range Conditioning (FRC), Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS), Postural Restoration Institute (PRI), and more.

You can listen to Attia talk with his trainer Beth Lewis on DNS here.

For your own approach to stability training, it’s helpful to know what your individual strengths/weaknesses/limitations are.

Attia On Exercise Prescription

Knowing that most people can’t dedicate 10+ hours a week to exercise, he recommends an easy split of 50% strength training (to increase muscular strength, endurance, and bone density) and 50% cardio for those unable to meet his time standards (80% of this allotted cardio time to low-intensity, zone 2 type and only 20% to high-intensity cardio).

Thoughts

For someone as busy as he is, it’s quite admirable that he walks the walk and gets in this much exercise every week. He clearly makes it a priority after having spent his life studying the science and art of longevity and concluding that “Longevity, both through lifespan and health span, is impacted more from exercise than any of the other variables that we have.”

Wherever you fall on the spectrum of optimizing your health, exercise should be a primary consideration. When the guy most in-the-trenches of longevity science is pounding the table, I have to listen (even if there’s no way I’m exercising this much).

This Week’s Reminder to Avoid Artificial Light at Night

Bad things happen when melatonin production is shut off. Melatonin production is shut off by artificial light at night. Avoid using artificial light at night.

Tech Spotlight: Apollo Neuro

I’ve been using this device for the past several years, and have amassed 101,907 minutes of use (~1700 hours!).

“Born from neuroscience research at the University of Pittsburgh, Apollo Neuro’s stress-relieving technology has been independently tested across thousands of users in the clinic and in the real world through seven complete clinical trials, with 14 more currently underway.”

This wearable goes around your wrist or ankle and sends silent, soothing vibrations to rebalance your body and mind. These vibrations send safety signals to the brain, activating your parasympathetic nervous system, and giving your body and mind a chance to recover.

There are seven “vibes” to choose from, depending on what state you would like to enter into:

Energy and Wake Up

Social and Open

Clear and Focused

Rebuild and Recover

Meditation and Mindfulness

Relax and Unwind

Sleep and Renew

The independent studies done on the device have found validity to Apollo’s claims of less stress, quicker recovery, better focus, higher HRV, improved sleep, and faster access to meditative states.

Read about their seven completed clinical trials and 14 ongoing trials.

Check out their YouTube page which includes many webinars and instructional reviews on the product.

You can also listen to the founder, neuroscientist Dr. David Rabin, on the Ben Greenfield podcast and the Wellness Mama podcast.

To counter the positive spin, it’s possible that the marketing has gotten way ahead of the science, according to Robert Shmerling, MD. He claims that reducing stress doesn’t require buying a high-tech device, and that Apollo’s claims would not be adequate for FDA approval.

If you decide to give the device a try, you can always return it within 30 days of delivery for a full refund, excluding shipping.

Twitter Thread of the Week

Vegetarian Diets Are Associated With 2x the Risk of Depression, Higher Rates of Stroke, Allergies, and Cancer: This study showed that “Meat non-consumers experienced approximately twice the frequency of depressive episodes of meat consumers.” And this study showed “that Austrian adults who consume a vegetarian diet are less healthy (in terms of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), have a lower quality of life, and also require more medical treatment.”

Aspirin May Replicate the Benefits of Fasting: This study presents evidence that taking aspirin daily may be such an all-in-one caloric restriction mimetic (CRM). The daily HED (human equivalent) of the mice dose the study experimented with was about 8mg/kg, which means that taking 2 tablets (325mg each) aspirin daily should be able to replicate for most people the design of this study. “…Based on the results described in this paper, aspirin may be classified as a CRM. Indeed, aspirin fulfills all the criteria of a CRM”

Drinking Pepsi and/or Coke Raises Testosterone in Males: So this study is a doozy for me. “…The country’s most popular sodas might refresh the parts other drinks can’t reach – by giving men bigger testicles and making them more masculine, a study suggests. Research on mice showed adult males who drank Coca-Cola or Pepsi had higher testosterone levels and larger genitals than their peers…’The outcomes demonstrated a high dose of Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola could promote testis growth and development,’ the study said. Testosterone levels were also recorded, and concentrations were found to be enhanced at the end of the study. On days 10 and 15, the group which drank pure Pepsi had significantly higher concentrations of testosterone than the control group.

I came upon this study after researching more about Ray Peat, who advocated for higher levels of sugar intake than every other nutrition “guru”. The study’s conclusion that “large doses of Pepsi and Coca-Cola could improve testosterone production in male mice” is really something else. Have we gotten the sugar thing wrong? I remain open-minded.

Blue Light is Terrible For Children: Research shows that children absorb 45% more toxic blue light through the retina than people over 25. Since children are known to hold digital devices closer to their faces, this can result in their being exposed to 4x higher amounts of blue light. Long story short, limited children’s use of screens is critical for preventing mental and physical health issues. All the problems associated with artificial blue light I’ve highlighted in the past get magnified in this scenario.

That will do it for this time! Hopefully you got some value out of it. If you have any questions/comments/things you’d like to learn more about please don’t hesitate to reach out. If you know anyone who loves learning about these types of topics, pass it along!