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LEVELS – A Whole New Level

Advertise on podcast: LEVELS – A Whole New Level

Rating
★★★★★
4.6
from
245 reviews
This podcast has
317 episodes
Language
English
Publisher
Levels
Explicit
No
Date created
2021/04/15
Latest episode
2026/11/05
Average duration
67 min.
Release period
8 days

Description

Levels builds tech that helps people understand how food affects their metabolic health, empowering others with the tools needed to achieve health goals and improve health span. We host in-depth conversations with industry thought leaders with research-backed information, so you can take your health into own hands. Connect with us: Become a Member: https://levels.link/wnl YouTube: https://youtube.com/@levels Instagram: https://instagram.com/levels Twitter: https://twitter.com/levels LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/levels TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@levels

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#318 - How Sleep Changes What and How Much You Eat | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Mike Haney
2026/11/05
Sleep and diet don’t operate independently. Controlled studies suggest that when people sleep less, they tend to eat more, move less, and gradually gain weight. The relationship also appears to run in the other direction: what and when you eat can influence how well you sleep. Mike Haney talks with Columbia sleep and nutrition researcher Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge about what the evidence actually shows at that intersection. Rather than chasing a perfect sleep score or a single “sleep food,” her work points toward a simpler idea: adequate, consistent sleep makes healthy eating easier, and a high-quality diet may help support better sleep in return. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl What We Cover: Why even modest chronic sleep loss can accumulate into meaningful sleep debtWhat controlled experiments show about short sleep, calorie intake, and weight gainWhy sleep deprivation tends to shift food choices toward less healthy optionsHow sleep loss affects appetite hormones differently in men and womenWhat the research says about eating close to bedtimeWhether tryptophan, melatonin-rich foods, and specific “sleep foods” actually helpWhy fiber, fruits and vegetables, saturated fat, and refined carbohydrates may influence sleep qualityHow much attention to pay to wearable sleep scores versus how you actually feel 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge is Professor of Nutritional Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of its Center of Excellence for Sleep & Circadian Research. Her research focuses on the relationships among sleep, diet, energy balance, body weight, and cardiometabolic health, with extensive work in controlled inpatient and outpatient sleep studies. Vagelos College 📍What Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge & Mike Haney discussed: 05:01 - What popular sleep talk still gets wrong09:30 - A wearable score versus how you actually feel10:37 - Sleep pressure and the body clock13:00 - How a little lost sleep becomes real sleep debt19:43 - Short sleep, and about 300 extra calories27:11 - Six weeks short, and about a pound gained29:05 - Why short sleep shifts you toward worse food30:30 - Appetite hormones don’t respond the same in men and women37:03 - What eating close to bedtime actually does40:20 - Tryptophan, melatonin, and “sleep foods”42:42 - Fruits and vegetables, and less broken sleep46:10 - Saturated fat, refined carbs, and a better cycle 🔗 Helpful Links: Marie-Pierre St-Onge — Columbia University: Columbia profileShort sleep duration increases energy intake — American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2011): PubMedProlonged short sleep and body weight — Annals of Internal Medicine (2026): PubMedSleep extension reduces calorie intake — JAMA Internal Medicine (2022): National Institutes of Health Fruit and vegetable intake and sleep fragmentation — Sleep Health (2025): PubMedFiber, saturated fat, and sleep architecture — Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (2016): Vagelos CollegeEat Better, Sleep Better: ihn.cuimc.columbia.edu Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/WxvbJu_GnSo Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#317 - What It Takes to Build Medical AI Doctors Will Trust | Dr. Suchi Saria & Mike Haney
2026/10/29
Medical AI is full of impressive models that work on retrospective datasets. The much harder problem is turning one into a tool that can operate continuously inside a hospital, earn clinicians’ trust, fit into an overloaded workflow, stay reliable across different health systems, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Mike Haney talks with Johns Hopkins researcher and Bayesian Health founder Dr. Suchi Saria about the decade-long journey from an academic sepsis-prediction algorithm to AI that clinicians are using in hospitals today. Her experience is a reality check on what it actually takes to make medical AI useful, and an argument for aiming higher than documentation and billing: toward systems that continuously watch patients, catch deterioration earlier, and help prevent avoidable harm. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl What We Cover: Why sepsis fits continuous AI monitoringHow causal reasoning separates signal from a noisy alertWhy real-time access to the full record mattersWhen a working algorithm still failed to get attentionHow adoption and human-machine teaming became engineering problemsWhat happened when the system went liveHow the same infrastructure extends beyond sepsisWhy healthcare is too conservative about medical AI 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Suchi Saria is the John C. Malone Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she directs the Machine Learning and Healthcare Lab, and is the founder and CEO of Bayesian Health. Her work focuses on building and deploying machine-learning systems that use real-world clinical data to improve diagnosis, treatment, and patient safety. 📍What Dr. Suchi Saria & Mike Haney discussed: 04:30 - Why the real AI risk is what it is allowed to do08:32 - Why sepsis is a race against organ failure11:57 - From checklists to reading the full medical record16:30 - How causal reasoning finds a patient’s baseline18:50 - Using uncertainty to avoid another noisy alert22:11 - Why an hour-late warning is already too late25:06 - Reading Epic in real time without slowing it down32:35 - A working algorithm still couldn’t get clinicians’ attention35:53 - What happened when the system went live45:32 - Human-machine teaming, and who still makes the call54:17 - The same infrastructure, beyond sepsis58:35 - Why billing and coding is too small a target 🔗 Helpful Links: Suchi Saria — Johns Hopkins Research, publications, and academic background.Bayesian Health: Saria’s company commercializing real-time clinical AI.TREWScore — Science Translational Medicine (2015): The original real-time early warning model for septic shock.TREWS patient outcomes — Nature Medicine (2022): Prospective multisite evaluation after deploying the sepsis warning system in clinical care. TREWS clinician adoption — Nature Medicine (2022): Study of provider adoption and effects on sepsis treatment timing.Human-machine teaming — npj Digital Medicine (2022): Clinician interviews on what made the deployed AI system trustworthy and usable.Bayesian Health Sepsis Flagging Device — FDA (2026): FDA 510(k) clearance for the sepsis prediction software discussed in the episode. Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/uVEKgSvei4s Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#316 - What Should You Actually Do About High Cholesterol? | Dr. Seth Martin & Mike Haney
2026/10/22
Heart disease is the leading cause of death, but it’s also one of the most preventable. Decades of research have established a strong causal role for LDL and other ApoB-containing particles in atherosclerosis, and we now have multiple proven ways to lower them. The harder question is how to turn that evidence into a decision for an individual person. Mike Haney talks with Johns Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Seth Martin, a co-author of the new 2026 dyslipidemia guidelines, about what the latest evidence says we should actually measure and act on. The throughline is pragmatic: lower exposure to atherogenic particles earlier and for longer, use additional tests when they can change a decision, and distinguish interesting new measurements from ones that have actually been shown to improve outcomes. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠https://levels.link/wnl What We Cover: Why the evidence that LDL and ApoB-containing particles cause atherosclerosis is so strongWhat “lower for longer” means and how the new LDL and ApoB goals change with cardiovascular riskWhen ApoB adds useful information beyond a standard lipid panelWhy the guidelines recommend against routine LDL particle-size testingHow PREVENT risk scores and coronary calcium scans can help decide when treatment makes senseWhat decades of statin research tell us about benefits, muscle symptoms, and diabetes riskHow much lifestyle changes typically move cholesterol, and when non-statin drugs enter the pictureWhy common heart-health supplements don’t have the evidence behind proven lipid-lowering therapies 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Seth Martin is a professor of medicine and preventive cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, where he directs the Advanced Lipid Disorders Program and Digital Health and AI Lab at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. He is a co-developer of the widely used Martin-Hopkins LDL cholesterol equation and served on the writing committee for the 2026 ACC/AHA dyslipidemia guideline. 📍What Dr. Seth Martin & Mike Haney discussed: 00:04 - LDL and ApoB are causal. Lower for longer07:10 - Guidelines set the standard. Not your doctor11:40 - 2026 shift: earlier treatment, PREVENT, lower goals17:01 - LDL near zero does not eliminate cholesterol19:59 - Hard numbers are back, and lower23:05 - ApoB if a high result changes treatment27:42 - No trial says treat particle size instead of LDL34:51 - PREVENT is for people not already high risk38:52 - Calcium 300 can push the goals. Zero can mean lifestyle first44:29 - The 3% statin line, and the choice just under it51:22 - Muscle symptoms uncommon. Statin can move prediabetes diagnosis earlier56:21 - Lifestyle often lowers LDL about 10%, not the whole benefit59:05 - Other proven drugs when a statin is not enough1:05:31 - Statin beat the supplements. Fish oil can raise AFib risk 🔗 Helpful Links: 2026 Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia: ⁠Read the guideline and supporting materials⁠The New Cholesterol Guideline: What to Know — Johns Hopkins: Read the Johns Hopkins summaryPREVENT-ASCVD Calculator.: ⁠Use the PREVENT calculator⁠Martin-Hopkins LDL Equation: Learn about the Martin-Hopkins methodSPORT Trial — JACC (2022): Read the SPORT trial Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/vRfhof5dOZw Find us on YouTube: ⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#315 - Can We Treat Disease Through the Nervous System? | Dr. Kevin Tracey & Mike Haney
2026/10/15
Most of NextLevel starts with a measurement problem: we can see more biology than ever, but we still have to figure out what to do with it. Bioelectronic medicine flips that sequence. We already know how to send electrical signals into the nervous system to change biology, including an FDA-approved vagus nerve treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, even though we still can’t map or read most of the individual nerve fibers carrying those signals. Mike Haney talks with Dr. Kevin Tracey, a pioneer of neuroimmunology and bioelectronic medicine, about what becomes possible when nerves become a therapeutic target. The opportunity is not simply vagus nerve stimulation, but learning which signals control specific organs, then building systems that can read and write them. That is still some distance away, and Tracey separates it from looser claims about vagal tone and vagus nerve hacks. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: https://levels.link/wnl What We Cover: Why the vagus nerve is not one wireHow one minute a day became an FDA-approved rheumatoid arthritis treatmentWhy a nerve target can be more precise than a drugWhy mapping the vagus fiber by fiber is only beginningWhy CRP and cytokines are not a true inflammation readoutWhat HRV, breathing, humming, and cold plunges can and cannot show 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Kevin Tracey is a neurosurgeon, scientist, and President and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. His work helped establish how the vagus nerve regulates inflammation and helped launch bioelectronic medicine. He is also co-founder of SetPoint Medical and author of The Great Nerve. 📍What Dr. Kevin Tracey & Mike Haney discussed: 00:00 - A nerve can treat one organ. A pill cannot04:43 - The vagus nerve is 160,000 fibers, not one wire07:53 - Why the first fiber-by-fiber map of the human vagus is only months old10:29 - FDA-approved vagus nerve stimulation for rheumatoid arthritis14:33 - Why one minute a day can quiet inflammation for 12 to 24 hours17:39 - Why it took 30 years to get from the mouse finding to patients31:53 - How one minute of current reaches millions of immune cells41:19 - Why arthritis has a known mechanism and epilepsy and depression do not49:16 - What single fibers could change in diabetes, the liver, the gut, and stroke recovery52:59 - Why CRP and cytokine levels still fall short of a true readout1:04:18 - Resting heart rate, not HRV, is the cleaner vagus signal1:09:55 - Why deep breathing and humming are not vagus nerve stimulation1:16:35 - A cold plunge is fight-or-flight first, vagus second1:20:23 - The spleen signal he would measure if he could 🔗 Helpful Links: The Great Nerve - Kevin J. Tracey (2025)RESET-RA - Nature MedicineSetPoint System - FDAThe inflammatory reflex - Nature (2002)Vagus nerve stimulation in rheumatoid arthritis - PNAS (2016), early human studyVagus nerve stimulation after stroke, paired with rehab - The Lancet (2021) Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/x_h6Dd_Ap_o Find us on YouTube: https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Kevin Tracey at Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#314 - How to Make Health Decisions When the Science Is Unclear | Dr. Anupam Jena & Mike Haney
2026/10/08
Most health decisions happen before the science is settled. A study points one way, another points somewhere else, experts disagree about what matters, and even strong population-level evidence may not tell you what will happen to you. In this episode, Mike Haney talks with physician and economist Dr. Anupam Jena about how to make decisions under that kind of uncertainty. The goal isn’t to find a single hierarchy of evidence or a perfect source to trust. It’s to understand how much weight to put on any one piece of information, when personal experimentation can actually teach you something, and how the potential downside of an intervention should change the amount of evidence you demand before trying it. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: Why even a high-quality study should rarely change your mind by itselfWhy a meta-analysis is only as useful as the studies that go into itWhat randomized trials can establish, and where they can still fail to apply to real lifeHow to judge whether a study’s outcome is actually meaningful, not merely statistically significantWhen N-of-1 experiments can help, and how they can fool youA practical framework for deciding whether an intervention is worth trying: potential harm, quality of evidence, biological plausibility, and cost 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Anupam Jena is the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an economist whose research uses natural experiments to uncover unexpected influences on health and medical care. He is also the host of Freakonomics, M.D. and co-author of Random Acts of Medicine. 📍What Dr. Anupam Jena & Mike Haney discussed: 04:04 - Why taxi and ambulance drivers die least often of Alzheimer's09:20 - Why half of people still skip a free heart medication13:02 - Why the headlines on coffee keep reversing14:55 - Judge the study on its merits, not on who funded it17:43 - Why even a high-quality study should rarely change your mind23:04 - Why a cold plunge trial cannot separate the bath from the belief26:19 - Why a meta-analysis is only as useful as the studies inside it27:15 - What a randomized trial can establish, and where it still fails in real life33:53 - The coin-flip test for whether a study shows cause and effect36:25 - Absolute risk, relative risk, and what "significant" leaves out43:06 - When an N-of-1 experiment can teach you what a trial cannot46:02 - Getting better does not mean the experiment worked53:55 - Harm, evidence, plausibility, cost: is it worth trying? 🔗 Helpful Links: Dr. Anupam Jena — Harvard Medical School profileRandom Acts of Medicine — Anupam B. Jena & Christopher WorshamFreakonomics, M.D. https://freakonomics.com/series/bapuAlzheimer’s mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (BMJ, 2024). Hypothesis-generating, not evidence that driving prevents Alzheimer’s: Read the BMJ studyMarathon road closures and cardiac mortality (NEJM, 2017): New England Journal of Medicine Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/k9XI7ym7iP8 Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Anupam Jena on https://x.com/AnupamBJena 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#313 - What Happens When We Start Imaging Healthy People? | Dr. Daniel Durand & Mike Haney
2026/10/01
Most medical imaging happens after a symptom, injury, or abnormal test gives a clinician a reason to look. But what changes if imaging becomes a more routine measurement, creating a record of the body before something goes wrong? In this episode of Next Level, Mike Haney talks with Dr. Daniel Durand, chief medical officer at Prenuvo, about whole-body MRI as a test case for a broader shift from episodic medicine toward longitudinal health data. Whole-body MRI is controversial, and Durand is clearly an advocate. The conversation takes the skepticism seriously, then asks a larger question: as measurement gets cheaper, more frequent, and increasingly visible to patients themselves, how should medicine decide what is worth knowing? Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: How X-rays, CT scans, ultrasound, and MRI differ, and why radiation matters when you start thinking about repeated imagingWhat whole-body MRI sees well, and where CT, colonoscopy, or blood-based approaches may still be betterThe concerns around incidental findings, overdiagnosis, anxiety, and unnecessary follow-up, and Durand’s response to themWhat the current cancer-detection evidence for whole-body MRI does, and does not, establishWhy having prior scans could help distinguish a stable abnormality from something genuinely newHow faster scans and AI interpretation could eventually connect imaging with genomic, proteomic, and other health data 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Daniel Durand is chief medical officer at Prenuvo and president of the Prenuvo Medical Group. He trained at Johns Hopkins, is board-certified in adult and pediatric radiology, and previously served as chief clinical officer and chief innovation officer at LifeBridge Health. 📍What Dr. Daniel Durand & Mike Haney discussed: 03:32 - Why imaging belongs in a series about continuous measurement15:32 - Imaging 101: X-rays, CT, ultrasound, and MRI28:57 - How AI is shortening MRI scan times38:52 - Screening versus surveillance40:26 - Which cancers whole-body MRI can miss46:39 - The case against scanning healthy people52:40 - What the cancer-detection data actually shows54:39 - "We're all going to get a body scan"1:03:31 - What would make routine imaging more useful?1:11:49 - Building a baseline of the healthy body1:17:43 - When AI can see more than a radiologist1:21:28 - Is it better to know, even when you can't treat it? 🔗 Helpful Links: Dr. Daniel Durand, Prenuvo: Prenuvo medical leadershipMeta-analysis behind the ~9,000 participants and ~1.6% detection figures. It notes limits, including incidental findings (European Radiology, 2026): PubMedPrenuvo-associated study of 1,011 people, 2.2% confirmed cancer detection (Cancer Research/AACR, 2025): AACR abstractIncidental findings in whole-body MRI and their psychosocial effects (European Journal of Radiology, 2021): PubMedPrenuvo's research overview, including Polaris data (company-reported): Prenuvo clinical research Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/rFZVbzUPSaA Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Daniel Durand at LinkedIn 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#312 - Is Moderate Drinking Actually Healthy? | Dr. Tim Naimi & Mike Haney
2026/09/24
Alcohol has spent the last 40 years bouncing between two health narratives: a little is good for your heart, or any amount is dangerous. The science doesn’t really support either slogan. Dr. Tim Naimi has spent decades studying the health effects of alcohol and, just as importantly, why the research is so difficult to interpret. His read of the evidence is less dramatic but more useful: there’s no good reason to start drinking for your health, very low intake may carry little measurable added risk, and risk rises as consumption does. Understanding why earlier studies made moderate drinking look protective helps explain a lot of the whiplashing headlines. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: Why alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen causally linked to at least seven cancersWhether small amounts of alcohol really protect your heartWhy researchers still don’t have a definitive randomized trial of drinking and long-term healthHow the “sick quitter” problem, selection bias, and confounding made moderate drinkers look healthierWhy two major recent reviews of alcohol and health produced such different headlinesHow the risk changes with dose, including Naimi’s estimate of a 1 in 25 lifetime risk of an alcohol-caused death at 14 drinks per weekWhy alcohol consumption is falling, and whether GLP-1 drugs could be contributing 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Tim Naimi is a physician and alcohol epidemiologist who directs the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, where he is a professor in the Division of Medical Sciences. 📍What Dr. Tim Naimi & Mike Haney discussed: 00:45 — Why the science on alcohol is so confusing05:48 — How alcohol damages DNA and raises cancer risk09:43 — Is alcohol actually good for your heart?14:22 — Why we still don't have a definitive randomized trial20:30 — The "sick quitter" problem24:56 — Selection bias and the problem with "healthy" moderate drinkers29:35 — Why two major reports produced different headlines31:37 — How alcohol risk changes as drinks per week increase38:21 — Industry funding and conflicts of interest46:15 — How much alcohol is too much?49:48 — Why younger generations are drinking less51:53 — Health consciousness, GLP-1s, and the decline in drinking 🔗 Helpful Links: Alcohol Intake and Health Study: No Protective Effect at Low Levels, With Mortality Increasing to 1 in 25 at 14 Drinks Per Week (Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2026) PaperReview of Evidence on Alcohol and Health (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2025) ReportAssociation Between Daily Alcohol Intake and Risk of All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (JAMA Network Open, 2023) PaperDo “Moderate” Drinkers Have Reduced Mortality Risk? (Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2016) PaperAlcohol Abstinence in Drinkers with Atrial Fibrillation (New England Journal of Medicine, 2020) PaperCanada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health (2023) Guidance and supporting researchAlcohol and Cancer (World Health Organization / IARC) WHO overview Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/8GNmcjPfg7U Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Tim Naimi at University of Victoria 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#311 - Can Your Blood Predict Your Future Health? | Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray & Mike Haney
2026/09/17
From a single blood sample, new proteomic tools can now measure thousands of proteins at once. Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray’s lab is using that flood of data, together with machine learning, to build a much higher-resolution picture of what’s happening throughout the body and where someone’s health may be headed. The early signals are striking. In one analysis of people who appeared healthy by conventional measures, every additional 4.1 years of estimated heart age was associated with nearly 2.5 times the risk of heart failure over the following 15 years. Wyss-Coray sees this kind of measurement eventually becoming a “health compass”: something that could show which parts of the body are changing fastest, then help track whether an intervention is actually moving them in the right direction. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: How a drop of blood can now reveal information from thousands of proteinsWhy aging appears to happen in waves rather than at a steady rateWhy one part of the body may age faster than the restWhat young-blood experiments in mice taught Wyss-Coray about proteins and brain agingHow the work is moving from whole organs down to individual cell typesWhy the field’s biggest constraint may now be data collection rather than better AI 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray is the D.H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University and director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. 📍What Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray & Mike Haney discussed: 04:03 Proteins 101: the building blocks hiding information about your health05:09 How one blood sample can measure thousands of proteins09:07 Using machine learning to find patterns in the proteome12:17 Can blood reveal what’s happening inside the brain?13:11 What happened when young blood was given to old mice19:45 Why aging may happen in waves rather than at a steady rate29:24 How stable are protein measurements over time?32:37 Can proteins predict disease years before it appears?40:35 Why one part of your body may age faster than the rest46:31 The missing test: does an intervention actually change the measurement?51:04 Going from whole organs to individual cell types54:10 Why more data, not better AI, is the current bottleneck57:18 A future “health compass” for the body 🔗 Helpful Links: Organ aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease (Nature, 2023)PaperThe foundational organ-aging work discussed in the episode, using plasma proteins to estimate aging across 11 organs.Plasma proteomic signatures of cellular aging predict human disease (Nature Medicine, 2026)PaperThe newer study extending the approach to more than 40 cell types using over 7,000 plasma proteins.Undulating changes in human plasma proteome profiles across the lifespan (Nature Medicine, 2019)PaperYoung blood reverses age-related impairments in cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in mice (Nature Medicine, 2014)PaperUK Biobank Research resourceThe large longitudinal cohort used for much of the disease-prediction work discussed in the episode. Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/1dfMBAZiP8o Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray at Stanford 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#310 - Can We Measure Aging Well Enough to Treat It? | Dr. Nir Barzilai & Mike Haney
2026/09/10
Aging science has gotten much better at describing who appears to be aging faster or slower. What medicine still lacks is a reliable feedback loop: a way to tell whether something we do is actually changing the biology that drives age-related disease. Dr. Nir Barzilai argues that solving that measurement problem could turn geroscience from an interesting field of research into something doctors can actually use: measure where you are, intervene, measure again, and learn what works. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: What centenarians reveal about living longer and spending less time sickWhy changing one hallmark of aging can affect several othersHow TAME was designed to test metformin as an anti-aging drug and to convince the FDA to treat aging itself as an endpoint—and why it failed to get off the groundWhy metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1 agonists, and some osteoporosis drugs are being studied as potential gerotherapeutics, or anti-aging drugsHow FAST is searching existing clinical trials for biomarkers that change when an intervention affects aging biologyWhether aging needs continuous monitoring or can be meaningfully tracked a few times a year 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Nir Barzilai is the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair in Aging Research and a professor of medicine and genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he directs the Institute for Geroscience. 📍What Dr. Nil Barzilai & Mike Haney discussed: 05:10 - Aging is a condition, not just a label05:59 - Why aging is what drives disease08:19 - Should we call aging a disease?10:20 - Why the species may have a ceiling around 11514:34 - Why changing one hallmark of aging changes the others23:08 - Metformin was anti-aging before it was a diabetes drug31:55 - Centenarians live longer and spend less time sick40:12 - How TAME tried to make aging an FDA endpoint48:17 - Metformin, SGLT2s, GLP-1s, and osteoporosis drugs as gerotherapeutics52:26 - FAST: finding biomarkers that actually change with treatment56:49 - Whether aging needs continuous monitoring, or a few checks a year1:01:16 - Where behavior still fits once we have anti-aging drugs 🔗 Helpful Links: Hallmarks of Aging: An Expanding Universe (Cell, 2023) PaperCompression of Morbidity Is Observed Across Cohorts with Exceptional Longevity (JAGS, 2016) PaperMetformin as a Tool to Target Aging (Cell Metabolism, 2016) PaperGeroscience-Guided Repurposing of FDA-Approved Drugs to Target Aging (Aging Cell, 2022) PaperBiomarkers of Aging for the Identification and Evaluation of Longevity Interventions (Cell, 2023) PaperFAST: Finding Aging Biomarkers by Searching Existing Trials FAST InitiativeARPA-H PROSPR / FAST award ARPA-H FAST project Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/HbeGjwCw6vk Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Nil Barzilai on X: https://x.com/NirBarzilaiMD 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#309 - What AI Sees That Doctors Can’t | Dr. Ziad Obermeyer & Mike Haney
2026/09/03
Medical AI is already getting good at doing things doctors do. Dr. Ziad Obermeyer thinks the bigger opportunity is using AI to discover things medicine doesn’t yet know. His work shows both sides of that future: algorithms can amplify bad assumptions when trained on the wrong targets, but they can also uncover signals in medical data that humans miss. Obermeyer argues that as more health data is collected outside the hospital, AI could turn it into a continuous picture of health rather than a series of isolated snapshots. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover: Why AI should learn from patients and outcomes, not just doctorsHow an ECG model found hidden risk of sudden cardiac deathWhy medical data access is still a major bottleneckHow more measurement could actually mean fewer unnecessary testsWhy healthcare may be entering a “mainframe to PC” transition 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Ziad Obermeyer is an emergency medicine physician and an Associate Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He also co-founded Dandelion Health and the non-profit Nightingale Open Science. 📍What Dr. Ziad Obermeyer & Mike Haney discussed: 02:43 Why better data is fundamental to medical AI05:54 The problem: There’s no variable called “get sick”09:27 Algorithms optimize exactly what you tell them to23:03 Why teaching AI to copy doctors limits what it can discover26:28 How AI could create a new science of medicine28:40 Could AI predict sudden cardiac death before it happens?34:14 Can an algorithm teach us what it sees?36:50 Medicine’s biggest AI bottleneck: access to data49:00 Healthcare’s “mainframe to PC” transition55:08 Why more measurement could actually mean fewer tests58:46 Why medical AI is aiming too low1:02:13 What the next generation of wearables needs to measure 🔗 Helpful Links: Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations (Science, 2019)https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax2342An Algorithmic Approach to Reducing Unexplained Pain Disparities in Underserved Populations (Nature Medicine, 2021)https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01192-7An ECG Biomarker for Sudden Cardiac Death Discovered with Deep Learning (Nature, 2026)https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10674-6Predicting the Future — Big Data, Machine Learning, and Clinical Medicine (NEJM, 2016)https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1606181Nightingale Open Sciencehttps://www.nightingalescience.org/Dandelion Healthhttps://dandelionhealth.ai/ Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/WDo-iL6O5nU Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📲 Connect: Connect with Dr. Ziad Obermeyer on https://ziadobermeyer.com/ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#308 - Why Some Foods Are So Hard to Stop Eating | Dr. Dana Small & Mike Haney
2026/08/27
Why do we crave some foods the more often we eat them? Are we addicted? Dr. Dana Small’s research suggests that food craving reaches far beyond taste or willpower, and that “addiction” isn’t a helpful descriptor. Every time we eat, unconscious signals from the body teach the brain which foods deliver useful nutrients, and train us to want more of those. In other words, we don’t eat crave foods because they taste good; foods taste good because our body craves them. Understanding that means we can rethink overeating. It’s not a matter of addiction or self-control; it’s our body behaving the way nature intended it to, but in the setting of foods not found in the wild, like those high in both fat and carbohydrates. But we may also be able to train our brain away from these cravings. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ What We Cover Taste vs. flavor, pleasure, motivation, and food rewardHow gut nutrient signals teach the brain which foods to seekWhy fat + carbs produce an unusually strong reward responseWhat eight weeks of high-fat, high-sugar snacks did to the brainHow GLP-1s may cut food wanting while preserving pleasure 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Dana Small is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Metabolism and the Brain and a professor at McGill University, with appointments in Neurology and Neurosurgery and Medicine. She directs the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, and her research examines how sensory, metabolic, and neural signals interact to shape food reward, eating behavior, and metabolic health. 📍What Dr. Dana Small & Mike Haney discussed: 02:44 - Is food actually addictive?05:02 - Taste and flavor are different senses08:21 - Why “hedonic” vs. “homeostatic” eating is misleading10:42 - The reward from sugar begins after you swallow it22:32 - The “high road” and “low road” of food reward27:41 - How scientists teach the brain to associate a flavor with calories38:30 - Why combining fat and carbohydrates produces more reward47:34 - How beliefs about food can change physiological responses50:02 - Eight weeks of snacks changes how the brain responds to food57:51 - What this science means for people trying to eat differently1:03:50 - How GLP-1 drugs may change food wanting1:07:30 - Can GLP-1s help retrain eating behavior for the long term? 🔗 Helpful Links: Habitual Daily Intake of a Sweet and Fatty Snack Modulates Reward Processing in Humans (Cell Metabolism, 2023)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36958330/Supra-Additive Effects of Combining Fat and Carbohydrate on Food Reward (Cell Metabolism, 2018)https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(18)30325-5Integration of Sweet Taste and Metabolism Determines Carbohydrate Reward (Current Biology, 2017)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28803868/Rethinking Food Reward (Annual Review of Psychology, 2020)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31561741/In Defense of Pleasure: We Need to Rethink Food Reward and Obesity (PLOS Biology, 2025)https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003497Mind Over Milkshakes: Mindsets, Not Just Nutrients, Determine Ghrelin Response (Health Psychology, 2011)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21574706/ Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/lXlCqNqjgHY Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#307 - It Took Months to Interpret His Genome. Claude Did It in 30 Minutes. | Dr. Euan Ashley + Mike Haney
2026/08/20
Twenty-five years ago, sequencing the human genome seemed poised to usher in an era of personalized medicine. Dr. Euan Ashley helped turn that promise into an actual clinical experiment, leading one of the first efforts to interpret an entire human genome in the context of a real patient’s health. The challenge quickly became apparent: medicine could suddenly generate billions of data points about one person, but making sense of them was painfully slow. That history feels newly relevant. Ashley recently gave an AI system his own 15-year-old genome data and watched it reproduce most of an analysis that had originally required months of work by a team, in about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, genomics is being joined by wearables, multi-omics, and other technologies capable of tracking far more of our biology over time. In this episode of NextLevel, we use the genome revolution as a case study for what happens when our ability to measure the body advances faster than our ability to interpret and use the information. The next leap in personalized medicine may depend less on collecting another mountain of data than on building the tools, reference datasets, and healthcare systems capable of turning that information into decisions. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Euan Ashley is Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University and the Roger and Joelle Burnell Professor of Genomics and Precision Health, with appointments in medicine, genetics, and biomedical data science. He’s also the author of The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them. 📍What Dr. Euan Ashley & Mike Haney discussed: 03:33 What happened to the promise of personalized medicine?06:33 The first clinical interpretation of a human genome11:26 AI interprets in 30 minutes what once took months21:25 Why genomics still needs better, more diverse reference data27:41 Building a molecular map of exercise with MoTrPAC32:01 Exercise changed nearly every organ researchers measured39:05 Why your personal baseline can matter more than a "normal" range42:46 How wearables opened a new era of longitudinal health data47:48 The biggest barrier to continuous, personalized healthcare51:39 What medical AI needs to become genuinely useful57:05 How AI can ace medical benchmarks for the wrong reasons58:20 The heart measurement Ashley considers a medical "holy grail" 🔗 Helpful Links: Clinical Assessment Incorporating a Personal Genome, The Lancet, 2010. Landmark integrated clinical analysis of a complete human genome.Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC), NIH Common Fund. Large-scale project mapping how exercise changes tissues and organs. MoTrPAC: Human Studies Design and Protocol, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2024. Human study of molecular responses to endurance and resistance training.The Mitochondrial Multi-Omic Response to Exercise Training Across Rat Tissues, Cell Metabolism, 2024. MoTrPAC study on molecular changes across organs after exercise.Harmonizing Standards and Resources for the Medical Genome, Nature, 2026. Ashley et al. on genomic reference standards and clinical-grade sequencing.Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/bD2YVGdwviE Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#306 - Does Intermittent Fasting Actually Work? | Dr. Courtney Peterson & Mike Haney
2026/08/13
Is intermittent fasting biohacker wellness hype or legit health intervention? Some studies show real benefits, others find nothing, and the occasional headline calls it bad for your heart. Dr. Courtney Peterson has spent nearly two decades running some of the field's most tightly controlled feeding trials, and her data points to a clear pattern: there is a real effect to a restricted eating window, but when you eat may matter as much as how long you fast. Her studies found that eating in a short window early in the day lowers blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity, even without weight loss. A physicist by training, she brings that same rigor to a field built mostly on people's own food diaries. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Courtney Peterson is an Associate Professor of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She holds a PhD in physics from Harvard and leads clinical trials on intermittent fasting, meal timing, and circadian rhythms. 📍What Dr. Courtney Peterson & Mike Haney discussed: 0:00 Introduction02:39 The three types of intermittent fasting05:29 The 2012 mouse study that started the field11:24 Why fasting works through appetite, not extra calories13:48 Her six-hour study: lower blood pressure, no weight loss25:34 Why results depend on who's being studied28:45 The shift worker whose health got worse36:45 Her theory: timing over fasting length43:08 Heart attacks, blood pressure, and the body's clock45:55 The camping trip that reset people's body clocks58:11 Early findings from her unpublished aging study1:08:16 Should you eat ice cream for breakfast? 🔗 Helpful Links: Time-Restricted Feeding without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet (Hatori et al., 2012) — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2012.04.019Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves Insulin Sensitivity, Blood Pressure, and Oxidative Stress Even without Weight Loss in Men with Prediabetes (Sutton et al., 2018) — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2018.04.010Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels and Affects Markers of the Circadian Clock, Aging, and Autophagy in Humans (Jamshed et al., 2019) — https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11061234Calorie Restriction with or without Time-Restricted Eating in Weight Loss (Liu et al., 2022) — https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2114833 Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/dKauIgX3IH4 Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#305 - What You Can Learn from Measuring Everything | Dr. Michael Snyder & Mike Haney
2026/08/06
What if we could measure the human body the way engineers monitor a jet engine? For nearly two decades, Stanford geneticist Dr. Michael Snyder has been trying exactly that. By continuously tracking everything he could possibly track in his body—genome sequencing, metabolites, wearable data, whole-body imaging—he has turned himself (and ~100 study subjects) into one of the world's largest experiments in continuous health measurement. The point wasn’t mindless biohacking. It was to answer a question: Are there clinically useful signals in all that data? This conversation suggests the answer is yes. Snyder’s experience and that of dozens of his study subjects offer some of the first real evidence that continuous measurement intelligently analyzed can reveal that you’re getting sick before you have symptoms, help find solutions to medical conditions that work for your unique biology, and help you refocus on prevention of disease rather than management. Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Michael Snyder is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics and director of the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, where he previously chaired the Department of Genetics for 15 years. 📍What Dr. Michael Snyder & Mike Haney discussed: 03:10 Why Dr. Snyder started measuring healthy people instead of waiting for disease09:18 Living in the future: tracking his own biology for nearly two decades15:02 Why "normal" isn't enough: the importance of personal baselines22:48 Discovering his own genetically unique form of type 2 diabetes32:06 How wearables detected illness before symptoms appeared39:18 Whole-body MRIs, incidental findings, and why change over time matters46:55 Why everyone has abnormalities, but not everyone has disease55:41 The promise of metabolomics, proteomics, and continuous biological sensing1:06:52 Why AI is essential for interpreting thousands of health signals1:15:34 What continuous measurement could mean for preventive medicine 1:23:10 The next decade of personalized health and what's still missing 🔗 Helpful Links: Personal Omics Profiling Reveals Dynamic Molecular and Medical Phenotypes (Chen et al., Cell, 2012)https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(12)00965-3Longitudinal Multi-omics Profiling Reveals Dynamic Personal Health Status (Price et al., Nature Biotechnology, 2017)https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3695The Integrative Personal Omics Profile (iPOP): A Decade of Progress in Precision Health (Snyder lab review)https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00409-3Wearable Sensor Data and Self-reported Symptoms for COVID-19 Detection (Mishra et al., Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2020)https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-00640-6All of Us Research Programhttps://allofus.nih.gov/Connect with Dr Michael Snyder: https://med.stanford.edu/snyderlab.html Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/eUEYmLC1CcE Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.
#304 - Did Low-Fat Diets Drive the Obesity Epidemic? | Dr. Arne Astrup & Mike Haney
2026/07/30
For decades, we've been told that eating less fat is one of the healthiest things we can do. That advice reshaped the foods we buy, the way we think about weight loss, and even how parents feed their children. But what if we misunderstood fat in the first place? In this episode, nutrition researcher Dr. Arne Astrup traces how the war on fat began, why many of its core assumptions haven't held up under decades of research, and what we've learned instead. Rather than asking whether fat is "good" or "bad," he argues that the more useful questions are: What foods actually keep us healthy? Why do some people gain weight more easily than others? And what happens when we reduce nutrition to single nutrients instead of whole foods? Free course: Improve your metabolic health Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠ 🎙️ About the Guest: Dr. Arne Astrup is a physician, nutrition researcher, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Copenhagen whose research focuses on obesity, appetite regulation, dietary fats, and cardiometabolic health. He previously chaired the Danish Nutrition Council and helped lead Denmark's landmark ban on industrial trans fats. 📍What Dr. Arne Astrup & Mike Haney discussed: 00:00 Introduction01:03 How fear of fat became public health policy07:40 Did low-fat advice help create today's processed foods?10:20 Denmark's trans fat ban and one lesson nutrition got right14:00 "I was wrong." Why dietary fat isn't the main driver of obesity18:45 Why your body fat isn't simply the fat you eat27:00 Why fat can help you eat fewer calories32:00 Are nuts actually easy to overeat?36:00 Cheese, yogurt, and why whole foods don't behave like nutrients41:00 Why insulin resistance changes carbohydrate tolerance55:00 The LDL debate: what saturated fat actually changes1:01:00 Why it's time to stop talking about "saturated fat" as a single thing 🔗 Helpful Links: Diets with High or Low Protein Content and Glycemic Index for Weight-Loss Maintenance (DIOGENES Trial): Landmark randomized trial led by Dr. Astrup examining protein, glycemic index, and long-term weight maintenance. New England Journal of MedicineWeight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Subjects on Ad Libitum Diets with High or Low Protein Content and Glycemic Index: The DIOGENES Trial (12-Month Results). One-year follow-up of the DIOGENES study. International Journal of ObesityDietary Saturated Fats and Health: Are the U.S. Guidelines Evidence-Based? (Astrup et al., 2021): Consensus review arguing that current saturated fat recommendations should place greater emphasis on whole foods and dietary patterns than saturated fat alone. Nutrients (2021)Walter Willett's research on industrial trans fats and cardiovascular disease: Early epidemiologic work that helped establish the harms of industrial trans fats and ultimately informed policy changes worldwide. PubMed search for Walter Willett trans fat publicationsWorld Health Organization: REPLACE Trans Fat Initiative: Background on the global effort to eliminate industrially produced trans fats from the food supply. World Health Organization REPLACE Initiative Watch the conversation: https://youtu.be/ajqg7LdM0PM Find us on YouTube: ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/levelshealth?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👋 Who we are: Levels helps you understand your metabolic health with personalized data, expert guidance, and tools that connect your daily choices to measurable changes in your body. Our goal is to help you make better decisions about food, exercise, sleep, and long-term health. Look for new shows every month on A Whole New Level, where we have in-depth conversations with thought leaders about metabolic health.

Podcast reviews

Read LEVELS – A Whole New Level podcast reviews


4.6 out of 5
245 reviews
★☆☆☆☆
shelby202 2026/03/01
Sound quality bad
Missed opportunity for levels. Poorly made podcast
★☆☆☆☆
globaltrader 2026/02/16
Disclose radiation level
I’m a fan of the test, but people need to be told that it’s an extremely high radiation test
★☆☆☆☆
Lucca20Two 2025/10/18
Just ppl selling stuff
Not passionate professionals sharing both science but sharing a product, service, brand. Not for me
★★★★★
sommgirl 2025/05/31
Thanks to the great team at Levels
Sorry, I have to disagree with Awesome. Doctor Lustig is an incredible resource at Levels and has vastly improved my understanding of our most up to d...
★★★★★
llppp819 2025/04/24
Awesome
I love Casey and Calley Means. I think they have a good book and so well informed. I can’t stand Robert Lustig and immediately turn off if he’s on. I ...
★★★★★
ktwlks 2025/03/16
Life changing information!!!!!
This is truly life-changing information. I’ve been listening for months after reading Casey’s book. I’ve been wearing a continued glucose monitor and ...
★☆☆☆☆
Vermillion on the lake 2025/02/20
Very poor use of the English language
I really tried to listen to this episode but the person doing the interview destroyed my interest by continuing to use the word “like”. Someone needs ...
★★☆☆☆
Timo1234625638 2024/09/01
Confusing and Contradictory
One person will come on and preach the carnivore diet and talk down vegetables and nuts, and then another will say we need 50 grams of fiber. Their co...
★★★★★
Richard Fliehr 2023/07/25
Love the podcast and the product
A red pill (no political connotation intended) for how you see your health. Once you learn how much what you eat, sleep, and do affects everything in ...
★☆☆☆☆
Cet2016!! 2023/07/23
Totally lost me with the wacko grifter brother
It’s pretty disturbing that the chief medical officer for this company has fully aligned with her wacko brother who is pushing dangerous conspiracy th...
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