Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D.

Many people have heard of that.

And the other one would be prostacyclin.

And both of these compounds are causing vasodilation, you know, they're improving blood flow.

But over time, and as you continue to repeat this sheer stress, what happens is you're improving the flexibility of your arteries, you're making them more resilient, they're able to handle stress better, you're improving their overall functioning, and you're making them more resilient and resistant to

atherosclerosis, right?

And that is essentially, I think, at the crux of what's going on here with respect to why vigorous intensity exercise is so beneficial for cardiovascular health.

We know Dr. Levine has come on the podcast and talked about, you know, some of the benefits of doing more vigorous intensity exercise and how you get more stronger cardiovascular adaptations.

And if we look at even that study he did in middle-aged adults,

where he took, you know, 50-year-olds and put them on a pretty, you know, I would say the exercise program, if you look at it, it was like all vigorous according to this definition of vigorous.

And it was, what, five hours a week?

About five hours a week.

Right.

And so if we're talking about the definition in this study, it was pretty much all vigorous because they were either running, doing like a zone two type of run, or they were doing Norwegian four by four, some high intensity interval training,

some resistance training in there.

And after two years, they reversed the structural aging of the heart by about 20 years, you know, and that's pretty profound.

So the cardiovascular adaptations are real.

They are real.

Yeah.

That's a really good point because it's kind of like thinking of a light breeze blowing across your face versus a strong wind.

Yeah.