Dr. Rhonda Patrick

normal metabolism, normal immune function happening, just life, aging, right?

So this concept is referred to as hormesis, right?

This has a very profound antioxidant, anti-inflammatory response or, you know, or whatever the response is.

It could be the production of more stem cells or something like autophagy.

These stress response pathways are activated like by a variety of stressors.

So for example, one pathway is called heat shock proteins and

And as their name would apply, one would go, oh, they're activated by heat.

Well, correct.

They are activated very robustly by heat.

But you can eat a plant like broccoli sprouts, which is high in something called sulforaphane.

And it activates heat shock proteins, among other things.

It also activates a very powerful detoxification pathway called NRF2, which helps you detoxify things like carcinogens that you're exposed to.

Cold also activates heat shock proteins.

Now, you're going to more robustly activate heat shock proteins from heat rather

versus cold, but there is some overlap.

These generalizations are kind of, they're just not useful.

And I think that a lot of people online in the blogosphere

they gravitate towards them because it's just easier and it's a lot more sensational.

But I do think with respect to plants, there's just evidence that sulforaphane is a very powerful activator of the NRF2 pathway.

And this is a pathway that regulates a lot of genes and a lot of genes that are related to like glutathione production, genes that are involved in detoxifying compounds that we're exposed to from our food, like heterocyclic amines.