Welcome back everyone. In this episode I chat with Dr. Pierre Capel, professor emeritus in experimental immunology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he researched a wide range of topics from genetic modification to cancer immunology.

But to give you a little bit more of a backstory of why Pierre is the ideal guest for today's podcast, I met Pierre at a conference that we both spoke at in Amsterdam and was very surprised to find out that he had been working with Wim Hof, otherwise known as the Ice Men.

The guest on the last podcast I published, who is especially well known for some of his amazing physical feats, like staying in the tub of ice for over an hour and 53 minutes.

This was entirely by coincidence that we would bump into each other and just a few days before my interview I had scheduled with Wim.

Well as it turns out, Pierre has actually been digging into some of the science behind at least one aspect of why Wim can tolerate the cold in the manner that he does, his breathing technique.

In fact, if you ask Wim why he can stand the cold the way he does, he's very likely to tell you that it's because of his breathing technique.

While Wim is a man with an amazing story to tell, he's not a scientist, but Pierre's explanation for the underlying mechanism makes what Wim has to say about the importance of his breathing make a lot more sense.

As it turns out, the key comes down to what the 2014 P&A study on Wim's technique showed, that reductions in blood carbon dioxide levels temporarily increased blood pH.

The missing piece to the puzzle that Pierre brings in this simple fact is that pain receptors that are critical to feeling cold temperatures actually rely on what are known as acid sensing ion channels,

which have been shown in other studies to become inactive within pH ranges, Wim and his trainees are able to increase their blood too.

I really really enjoy this conversation with Pierre.

In addition to talking about some of the thermo and pain receptor stuff, we also discuss other cool loads he's familiar with, including good stress and bad stress and how meditation affects the expression of your genes.

Meditation and the speed with which it affects FMRI changes in the brain, how even loneliness can change gene expression, including some involved in metabolism, inflammation and the endocrine system,

the effect of social isolation and mice on cancer metastasis, and conversely how wound healing can be affected and mice by just changing their environment.

What effects the stress hormone cortisol has on gene expression and what the inflomosome is and how its activation can be linked to the central nervous system.

We also discuss how the limbic system regulates emotions and this is not easily controlled, but meditation has been shown to help control the limbic system.

All right, now that I've given you a little taste of what this conversation is about, just one super quick reminder.

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