The Superbrain Drug Politicians Use To Outsmart Everyone : 1399
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
Dave Asprey
4.6 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This drug has been misunderstood for decades, and that confusion is costing people focus, learning speed, and cognitive performance. In this episode, you’ll learn why nicotine itself is not the problem, why delivery method and dose change EVERYTHING, and how oral nicotine can be used strategically for biohacking brain optimization, neuroplasticity, and human performance in a healthy and safe way.
Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience:
https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR
Host Dave Asprey sits down with David Renteln, Co Founder and CEO of LUCY Nicotine, a company pioneering science led alternatives for adult nicotine users who want better options. Before launching LUCY, David was also a co founder of Soylent, where he helped pioneer new approaches to functional nutrition and metabolism.
Together, Dave and David break down how nicotine works in the brain through acetylcholine and dopamine, why speed of absorption determines addiction risk, and how nicotine affects learning, memory, motivation, and mood. The conversation also covers sleep optimization, mitochondrial signaling, tolerance, cycling strategies, and why modern regulation often slows innovation in functional medicine, anti aging science, and human performance.
You’ll Learn:
• Why nicotine itself is not the same as smoking or vaping
• How delivery speed changes addiction risk and brain response
• How nicotine supports learning, focus, and neuroplasticity
• Why acetylcholine matters for memory and brain optimization
• How to think about dosing, cycling, and tolerance safely
• How nicotine stacks with caffeine, nootropics, and Danger Coffee
• The relationship between nicotine, sleep architecture, and REM
• Why harm reduction matters for longevity and mitochondrial health
• How nicotine fits into a Smarter Not Harder biohacking strategy
Dave Asprey is a four time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade is the top podcast for people who want to take control of their biology, extend their longevity, and optimize every system in the body and mind. Each episode features cutting edge insights in health, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, hacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living.
Thank you to our sponsors!
-Lucy! Get a 20% discount by using code ‘Dave’ at www.lucy.co/dave
Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade brings you the knowledge to take control of your biology, extend your longevity, and optimize every system in your body and mind. Each episode delivers cutting-edge insights in health, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, biohacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living.
New episodes are released every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (BONUS). Dave asks the questions no one else will and gives you real tools to become stronger, smarter, and more resilient.
Keywords: nicotine podcast, nicotine nootropic, oral nicotine benefits, nicotine brain optimization, nicotine acetylcholine dopamine, nicotine learning memory, nicotine addiction risk, nicotine pouches vs smoking, LUCY nicotine, david renteln lucy, david renteln nicotine, lucy nicotine pouches, harm reduction nicotine, nicotine biohacking, nicotine human performance, nicotine longevity, nicotine neuroplasticity, nicotine sleep optimization, nicotine tolerance cycling, caffeine nicotine stack, danger coffee nicotine, dave asprey nicotine, dave asprey lucy, nootropics nicotine, functional medicine nicotine
Resources:
• HeartMath | Go to https://www.heartmath.com/dave to save 15% off.
• LYMA | Go to https://lyma.sjv.io/gOQ545 and use code DAVE10 for 10% off the LYMA Laser.
• Get My 2026 Biohacking Trends Report: https://daveasprey.com/2026-biohacking-trends-report/
• Join My Low-Oxalate 30-Day Challenge: https://daveasprey.com/2026-low-ox-reset/
• Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today.
• Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15
• My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off)
• Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off)
• Dave Asprey’s BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com
• Dave Asprey’s New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated
• Upgrade Collective: https://www.ourupgradecollective.com
• Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com
Timestamps:
0:00 – Trailer
1:10 – Origin Story
2:20 – Product Forms & Usage
3:52 – Effects & Mechanisms
9:21 – Dosing & Addiction
15:33 – Memory & Cognitive Benefits
18:57 – Personality & Stacking
21:41 – Quitting Smoking
24:39 – Government Regulation
32:00 – Addiction Philosophy
35:30 – Behavior Change & Routines
39:08 – Final Recommendations
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You see a lot of people in government using... |
| 0:03.0 | Not a lot of folks in the Senate or Congress were vaping, |
| 0:06.5 | whereas... |
| 0:07.5 | ...are not seen as the same kind of stigma. |
| 0:10.5 | RFK used pouches during his Senate confirmation hearing. |
| 0:14.0 | If I was going to sit there and be asked the most asinine questions by all those senators, |
| 0:19.5 | I would be absolutely using... he kicked ass and I'm sure |
| 0:24.5 | that's part of that. There's some really new research that's come out just in the last two years about |
| 0:29.3 | how rube regulates NAD in the brain and in a variety of tissue types. It gets its stimulant effects by downstream release of acetylcholine, |
| 0:40.6 | so the main neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory. So it basically makes you smarter, |
| 0:46.2 | helps you learn faster. I've gone off it probably five or six times, sometimes for three months |
| 0:49.9 | at a time. I genuinely like my life better with... |
| 0:53.5 | You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. |
| 1:02.3 | Poor recovery speeds up aging. When you don't recover from stress properly, your cells get weaker |
| 1:08.1 | and accumulate damage. Heart math changes that. The inner balance coherence |
| 1:12.7 | plus trains your body to recover at the source, your nervous system. The setup is pretty simple. |
| 1:18.9 | You connect a sensor to your ear that pairs to the heart math app, which guides you through an |
| 1:23.9 | HRV exercise. In five minutes a day, your body shifts out of stress mode and into |
| 1:30.0 | coherence, the state where recovery, focus, and peak performance happen. Most devices only track |
| 1:36.2 | recovery. HeartMath trains it. It works by targeting heart rate variability or HRV, your body's |
| 1:43.0 | most reliable marker of resilience. Higher HRV means faster recovery, |
| 1:48.2 | deeper sleep, and stronger performance. Decades of science prove that heart math works. Over 400 |
... |
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