Dopamine Can Keep You Younger—and You Get To Turn It On --- Just Cycle Fast and Jump Rope

Many find much in behavior change difficult

  Padmanabhan, P., Casamento-Moran, A., Kim, A. et al. Dopamine facilitates the translation of physical exertion into assessments of effort. npj Parkinsons Dis. 9, 51 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-023-00490-4

Many find much in behavior change difficult—and Johns Hopkins researches may have found an answer to make it much easier to make those behavioral change choices that could keep your genes functioning to keep you healthy and without structural changes that cause disabilities.  Yes behavior change may just have gotten a lot easier so that life that often  gets in the way no longer does.

Let me give you an example.   A famous actress came to me in 2007 to lose the 30 pounds she had gained after a pregnancy—she had gained about 50, but lost 20 with delivery and breast feeding.  A year later she was stuck at 30 pounds heavier.   We helped her change diet, portion size and time of eating,  and do physical activity, and she lost 16—getting close.  But then came a cast reunion and a friend got sick, and exercise and healthy food choices, portion sizes and timing got lost. She gained back 8 of those lost pounds in literally two weeks.

Exercise became “too hard,” to fit into the schedule of caring for her baby, her hubby, and her friend.  It was last choice on her pleasure scale. That “too hard” means it was work for her, and that may be why only about 28% of US adults manage to get even  the minimum CDC recommended level of physical activity. That’s not the minimum for maximum health, freedom from disability and longevity, but the minimum just to maintain decent health. The minimum for optimal health is the full four of the LongevityPlaybook.com program—10,000 step or step equivalents a day, 30 minute of resistance exercises a week, 20 minutes three times a week of cardio, and 20 jumps twice a day.  But the “too hard” behavior choices pertain not just to physical activities, but to food choices, portion size and timing of food, to routine stress management, to appropriate sleep times, and even to taking the right supplements.

How did she overcome that “too hard”to make the behavior changes a part of the joy in her life she no longer considered a job but play that she so enjoyed she fit them in easily.

Well researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine geve us the answer to what she did---she changes enough in diet—see below—to produce more dopamine.  But lets not get ahead of the story.  The Johns Hopkins researchers decided to find out why physical effort feels easy to some people and exhausting to others. They used Parkinson’s patients—who regularly supplement their dopamine levels—to see what was going on. Their discovery: When exercise or food choices seem too hard to even imagine doing them, it may be the result of  too low levels of that  neurotransmitter/ hormone that influences pleasure, reward and motivation, as well as movement.  

So here’s an idea. If you’re exercise adverse, work on naturally raising your dopamine levels and see if the idea of exercising doesn’t become more appealing, and when you do it, takes less effort—mentally and physically.

Basic dopamine-loving habits: Getting enough sleep, moving more—especially some short fast movements like fast cycling and jumping rope, listening to music, meditating, and spending time in the sun. (Yes, we know from other studies on Parkinson’s patients stimulated by a great scientist at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr Jay Alberts, that cycling at over 90 revolutions per minute and jumping rope fast increase dopamine production in key brain areas.)  Other tricks that boost levels:

1. Eat protein rich foods like salmon, turkey, legumes, and soy.  They contain an amino acid that, down the road, helps promote production of dopamine.

2. Cut out carnitine and saturated fats—eating substantial amounts of red meat or processed red meat may disrupt dopamine functioning in reward areas of the brain.  

3. Make sure you get enough iron (check your levels) , niacin , folate, and vitamin B6—nutrients that help form dopamine—they are all (save iron) in your multi  (1/2 twice a day) that we discussed last week—it really does make you younger longer.  

Once you nurture your dopamine levels, your attitude toward what is hard and easy may shift and you’ll find you’re motivated to do—and enjoy—exercising., stress management, even making healthy food choices, portion size and timing easy. It’s worth a try!  She did it even before the science was there—we just disn’t know why fast cycling and jumping rope and the food choices were so powerful for her. Thanks to the team from Hopkins, we now have an expalanation and after 2 more children, and 16 years, she is still at her “babe” weight.  Maybe those hacks are what keeps Martha Stewart at her ideal weight too.

So to add to last week, make sure you get a Multi-Multi daily (do talk to your practitioner about a multi --it has about 200 mg of magnesium or half your daily requirement), do 10K a day in step equivalents (all activity counts from washing dishes and gardening (83 step equivalents a minute for each), to pickleball or ping pong (120 step equivalents a minute for those two),  avoid unforced errors and don’t text and drive, or drive after even one drink,), 4000 mg of bovine colostrum, a probiotic (or alternate between two as I do, vitamin D, EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), and 7 to 8 hours a night of sleep for your wellbeing.  They are what we can all aim for, and reach, no excuses, in ourselves and for our patients.  Get a buddy or phone one as your walk and you’ll have the two most important choices for stress management, a posse and a passion, and you are making the four of the five most important choices for brain health:

 stress management,

physical activity,

sleep duration and quality,

food choices, portion size and timing;

floss regularly, avoid unforced errors, get sleep, add a few supplements (see some above), and measure outcomes (and get your inflammation numbers measured and normalize them).

Doing the four components of physical activity –starting with walking--is one of the basic six pillars that keep you physiologically younger longer (Goal 1 of the Great Age Reboot book and LongevityPlaybookApp) and help you get to the “6 Normals Plus 2” of the Program. and to avoid unforced errors.  

·      Stress management, including posse, passion, play, living below your means, and locus of control

·      Making Healthy Food Choices, portion sizing and timing

·      Doing Four components of Physical Activity—any; resistance; cardio; jumping;

·      Avoiding Unforced Errors—here avoid drinking more than 1 drink a night (women) or 2 drinks  a night (men); only drink with food and with other individuals; never drive after drinking; avoid smoking and vaping, and wear an N95 mask or mask designed to block exposure to the inhalant if around any of those inhalants at home or work or play, or chose a job without one of those inhalants. Maybe we need to broaden that set to include more unforced error chemicals (like BPA, and other endocrine disruptors) than just cotinine, and some monitor of how much we keep our food healthy

·      Getting 6.5 to 8 .5 hours of sleep nightly and making healthy brain choices

·      Taking the supplements and small molecules shown to increase healthy longevity (like a multi is-see the Library in the app)

And our job (IMHO) as members of the Great Age Reboot (LongevityPlaybook.com) community is to motivate those choices!!!

Here is the last paragraph from the comment on an earlier newsletter:

 “Get to the point where you feel your health is much better than those of your high school classmates by doing physical activity anytime (but afternoon may offer an advantage as does mixed time), adding  a walk after dinner and less TV time when not exercising in addition to smelling regularly, and avoiding  midlife obesity, midlife hypertension, smoking, low education, diabetes, and hearing loss –  add vitamin D, omega-3 (you get both from 4 ounces of salmon a day), half a multivit-multimineral twice a day, and a few resistance exercises a day… add normal LDL , fasting BS, a few more exercises,  and you’ll radically reduce your risk for dementia, CV disease, and cancer   We’re building a healthy lifestyle program every week in these Newsletters and in the LongevityPlaybookApp.  Hope you choose to live younger, longer and enjoy the journey—remember your health is a relationship—only make choices you love and that love your body and brain back.

Thanks for reading.  Mike Roizen MD