Top 20 Health & Fitness Podcast Episodes of 2024
Long-form bangers selected for your 2025 cardio queue
As we close out the year in a few weeks, I’m providing 20 episodes from some of my favorite voices in the 2024 health space. The podcast space is full of noise, but I’ve found these to be well worth the listen - informative, esoteric, & compelling. There’s a topic for everyone here: circadian biology, light, fertility, nutrition, VO2 max, resistance training, & more.
You’ll also see a wide-range of podcasting talent. Some veterans. Some rising stars. And some you’ve probably never heard of - but we’ll be hearing a lot of in the coming years.
Links provided lead to YouTube, however almost all of the below episodes can be found on most major streaming platforms including Spotify & Apple Podcasts. Take your picks & consider your cardio queue stocked up for the next few months.
Exiled Brain Surgeon: DARPA Mind Control, Quantum Biology & Sunlight Medicine | Dr. Jack Kruse (Danny Jones Podcast)
Summary: We’re starting with this on our list because it took the crown for most fascinating conversation of 2024. Though it’s tough to summarize this over 4 hr conversation, Dr. Jack Kruse discusses how blue light from screens affects dopamine levels contributing to addiction (MKUltra 2.0) and chronic health problems driven by DARPA & Big Tech companies. Kruse also explains the SV40 contamination of early polio vaccines, their link to cancer epidemics, & how clandestine government bioweapons research was used to target Fidel Castro. Kruse goes on to tie these narratives to broader critiques of the pharmaceutical industry & government agencies ultimately linking them to shadowy medical and political collaborations.
Quotes:
“All the original polio vaccines were contaminated with SV40, and no one knew it because DNA hadn’t been discovered yet.”
“They control your dopamine reward track…they're dumbing you down, making you much more likely to be preconditioned.”
Duration: 4 hr 16 min
Emasculation Nation w/ Dr. Abud Bakri (The Noah Ryan Podcast)
Summary: You know them both from X (& if you don’t you should). But now you can get some long-form exposure to the legends of Health X - Dr. Abud Bakri & Noah Ryan. A conversation from two of my favorites exploring themes of masculinity, resilience, health, and the intersection of biology and modern societal dynamics. Dr. Bakri’s framework is undergirded by 3 primary premises: 1) leaning into environmental stressors to build resilience, 2) balancing stress with proper recovery, & 3) embracing competition.
Quotes:
“No masculine men talk about how masculine they are…masculinity is getting out in the world and getting punched in the face and standing back up.”
“You have to design your life in a way that is congruent with your biology and what that looks like will vary person to person.”
Duration: 1 hr 21 min
Artificial Light, Diabetes, & Decentralized Endocrinology with Kelsey Dexter (Regenerative Health Podcast)
Summary: Dr. Dexter discusses the interplay of circadian biology, metabolic health, and endocrinology. She integrates quantum health practices - light regulation, circadian alignment, & personalized nutritional strategies to address systemic metabolic dysfunctions like insulin & leptin resistance. She also highlights blue light exposure as a critical disruptor of circadian rhythms affecting melatonin secretion and cortisol regulation - both of which underpin insulin sensitivity & mitochondrial function. She integrates foundational health practices like morning light exposure, low-carb diets, & progressive reductions in artificial light toxicity to recalibrate circadian signals and promote leptin sensitivity.
Quotes:
“Our ancestors lived outdoors; their light environment wasn’t an issue. Today, we live under artificial light, crushing our circadian rhythms and disrupting hormonal balance.”
“You see everyone around you living the same way. You never question that what you're doing is hurting you. I tell patients all the time that modern life sucks our vitality right out in a lot of ways and if you are sick you have to focus on foundational health practices such as light as therapy.”
Duration: 1 hr 13 min
Dr. Michael Twyman (Undoctrinate Yourself)
Summary: Dr. Twyman advocates for foundational health practices like sunlight exposure, grounding, & regulating sleep-wake cycles to improve mitochondrial & overall vascular health. He explains how structured water - formed through light & grounding - supports the glycocalyx and endothelial function both of which are crucial for preventing arterial damage and plaque buildup. He also critiques modern cardiology's focus on pharmacological interventions emphasizing the importance of personalized care integrating lifestyle factors, nutrition, and advanced bloods testing for a comprehensive approach to cardiovascular health.
Quotes:
“If we don’t get your circadian rhythms right, it’s really hard to get everything else right.”
“Reconnecting with nature—through sunlight, grounding, and proper sleep—is often more effective than expensive interventions.”
Duration: 1 hr 23 min
How Modern Lighting Is Destroying Your Health & What To Do About It with Dr. Martin Moore-Ede (Undoctrinate Yourself)
Summary: Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a world-renowned expert in circadian biology, discusses the profound impact of light on human health. He explains how circadian rhythms evolved as a biological system to synchronize with natural light-dark cycles & emphasizes the detrimental effects of ALAN on conditions like cancer, obesity, & diabetes. The conversation highlights the role of blue light in disrupting circadian systems, melatonin suppression, and the physiological consequences of circadian misalignment. Dr. Moore-Ede closes this one out detailing his work on creating lighting solutions to mitigate these effects and improve health outcomes advocating for regulatory changes to prioritize health in lighting technologies, which seem all the more plausible in the MAHA era.
Quotes:
"For 10,000 generations, humans experienced daylight at 10,000-100,000 lux and nocturnal darkness near 0.01 lux. Now, 90% of our time is under artificial light, 100 times dimmer by day and 1,000 times brighter by night."
"Unlike a lot of environmental pollutants...this one just needs a simple fix: change the light bulb."
Duration: 1 hr 20 min
Dr. Jack Kruse Industrial Military Complex’s Grip on Food & Agriculture | Dark Side of Centralization (Sowing Prosperity)
Summary: Dr. Jack Kruse appears on our list again discussing topics such as centralization vs. decentralization, the history and systemic manipulation in food and medicine, and political corruption. He emphasizes how centralization has undermined personal freedoms and health through regulatory capture, industrial agriculture, and pharmaceutical exploitation. Dr. Kruse draws parallels between the struggles for freedom in El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele and historical fights for independence in the United States arguing that decisive leadership and public awareness are critical for change. He advocates for a return to natural living and localized systems to combat the consequences of systemic control.
Quotes:
"If you embrace nature, nature will embrace you back—she will give you the health that you need."
"Children are nature's artificial intelligence... they are not like you or your wife; they are something new, designed to change the world."
Duration: 1 hr 17 min
The Toxic Chemicals Polluting Our Water: Ken Cook on PFAS, Glyphosate, GMOs & More (The Rich Roll Podcast)
Summary: Ken Cook serves as the president of the Environmental Working Group EWG - an organization we’ve called out before on the BTP newsletter. On Rich Roll’s show, Cook discusses the pervasive presence of harmful chemicals like PFAS (forever chemicals) in drinking water, food, and everyday products, emphasizing the need for consumer education and stricter regulation. He highlights the EWG's role in providing accessible tools for individuals to make safer choices, while also advocating for systemic policy changes. Diving deeper into the policy aspects of our health, he touches on the challenges posed by lobbying, regulatory paralysis, and the imbalance in agricultural subsidies that prioritize large-scale farming over sustainable practices.
Quotes:
“It's now the case that consumers learn about things directly on the internet. They match it with consumer enthusiasm for this information and a more free flowing source of that information empowers the consumer.”
“At least 200 million Americans have chemicals in their drinking water right out of the tap at a level that we consider is unsafe.”
Duration: 2 hr
Breaking Hunger Habits: Dr. Jud Brewer On How To Fix A Broken Relationship With Food (The Rich Roll Podcast)
Summary: In the overindulging, abundance-laden environment we operate in today, weight gain is happening in the brain. Dr. Brewer discusses how mindfulness can transform our relationship with food and counter the failures of willpower-based diets. He explains the difference between hedonic hunger (cravings) & homeostatic hunger (physical need) emphasizing the role of curiosity and awareness in breaking harmful eating habits. Brewer brings to light this concept of a “pleasure plateau” that can reshape how we experience food, while also introducing practical strategies to help individuals reconnect with their bodies and make sustainable changes.
Quotes:
“Distinguishing between cravings and true hunger feels analogous to this idea of trying to understand the difference between wants and needs….I think most people even if they struggle with their weight or their food choices they're living their lives so detached from their bodies and the choices they're making around what they put in their mouth.”
“Our brains don't like ambiguity. They prefer quantitative clear results…so if we can learn to tolerate that ambiguity and even lean into it and get curious this is where curiosity becomes the superpower.”
Duration: 1 hr 56 min
Build Muscle Size, Strength, & Power With Science-Backed Programs (Perform with Dr. Andy Galpin)
Summary: With a few appearances on mainstream podcasts over the past several years including Huberman & Attia, Dr. Andy Galpin kicked off his own show earlier this year. One I’m excited for in the coming years. In one of his first episodes recorded, he gets into the science and application of training programs aimed at muscle hypertrophy, strength, and power development. Dr. Galpin walks through the physiological distinctions between muscle strength, hypertrophy, and power explaining the principles that underpin these adaptations - progressive overload, intensity, and volume. Galpin does an excellent job highlighting specific training programs focusing on tailored approaches like auto-regulation and block periodization.
Quotes:
“Just because you maximize strength doesn't mean you maximize size and the inverse is true as well - maximizing size does not maximize strength.”
“If you have a body, you're an athlete. We all have a need to have sufficient muscle mass. We all have a need to be powerful and to be strong whether you want to use those skills and abilities and talents to be better at a sport for or to be better at life.”
Duration: 2 hr 2 min
How & Why To Strengthen Your Heart & Cardiovascular Fitness (Perform with Dr. Andy Galpin)
Summary: As effective as his layout of resistance training programs was, Galpin’s solo discussion here meets a similarly high standard. He explores the science behind cardiovascular health and performance focusing on breathing fundamentals, the role of the heart in human physiology, & deliberate methods to optimize cardiovascular function. Galpin articulates as well as anyone I’ve heard in this space about the relationship between cardiovascular fitness and health outcomes - specifically higher VO2 max levels are linked to increased longevity and lower risk of mortality - and how we can get those superior levels of cardiovascular fitness.
Quotes:
“When you inhale that's actually a sympathetic driver and so your heart rate increases during inhalation. When you exhale, it is parasympathetic and it drops.”
“When we look at VO2 Max and we compare that to say smoking or cardiovascular disease, it's as strong if not a stronger predictor of how long you're going to live than any of these other metrics.”
Duration: 1 hr 59 min
Your Cells Are Starving For Creatine (Mastering Nutrition w/ Chris Masterjohn)
Summary: When Chris Masterjohn puts out a podcast, it’s an immediate queue for me. No exception here. Though creatine gained its popularity as a bodybuilding supplement in the early 1990s, Masterjohn describes how creatine serves as a multifaceted tool supporting energy production, cellular function, and overall health. He discusses its benefits extending far beyond physical performance and can even improve reproductive health, skin health, digestion, vision, and brain function. 5 g/day (minimum) for you, your mother, your brother, your grandmother. Simple.
Quotes:
"The fact that 2-3 grams of supplemental creatine per day can saturate muscle stores suggests that the total requirement between food, synthesis, and supplements is 4-6 grams."
"Creatine powers hair growth, the production of sebum, and wound healing, suggesting it helps maintain vibrant, healthy, youthful skin."
Duration: 29 min
Calley & Casey Means: The Truth About Ozempic, the Pill, and How Big Pharma Keeps You Sick (Tucker Carlson)
Summary: Two of the biggest names that burst onto the health scene in 2024 & will be sticking around for a while (potentially in the next US admin): Calley & Casey Means. Tucker’s interview with them highlights the systemic issues surrounding public health, nutrition, medical practices, and the industries influencing these factors. Calley & Casey leave no topic untouched covering vaccinations, reactive care over preventative care, the processed food industry, Big Pharma, & the impact of the modern environment on our health.
Quotes:
“The processed food industry was created by the cigarette industry…in the 1990s, the two largest food companies in the world were R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris…when the Surgeon General, way too late in the 1980s, said cigarettes were maybe problematic. These were some of the largest companies in the world with the largest cash piles of any company in the world. So they what they did is they used their cash piles to buy food companies…The two biggest M&A deals up until 1990 in world history were cigarette companies buying food companies.”
“PCOS is the leading cause of female infertility…it's insulin resistance. This is not related to insulin resistance, which is on the spectrum diabetes. It is insulin resistance. PCOS is a metabolic condition.”
Duration: 2 hr 21 min
Dr. Layne Norton: Tools for Nutrition & Fitness (Huberman Lab)
Summary: First, Layne is notorious for underrepresenting the mechanistic approaches of research and overvaluing the short-term outcomes of “HUMAN randomized controlled trials” (i.e. discourse on seed oils). While I’m also not an advocate for podcasts over the 2 hr 30 min mark, I'm giving this one a pass given the level of depth & tangible advice this conversation produced. Of particular benefit in this episode is to hear Layne’s style of thinking towards evidence, scientific rigor, and how narratives are constantly being built around weak, isolated findings. This episode serves as a strong critique of many sensationalist health claims we see in the health space by seeking to embrace nuance and further emphasize that the context and quality of evidence matter.
Quotes:
“Be imperfect but consistent with what you do.”
“I could thread the needle of science using these cherry-picked studies and so what I'll tell people is if I go into a topic or if I go into something what I'm looking for highest quality of evidence is first ask: do we have some meta analyses?”
Duration: 4 hr 4 min
Dr. Stacy Sims: Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity (Huberman Lab)
Summary: A must listen for women aspiring to build a robust health-centric lifestyle framework. Dr. Stacy Sims, an expert in exercise physiology and female-specific nutrition, lays out how women's physiological and hormonal cycles influence their nutrition and fitness needs. She discusses in detail the impacts of hormonal birth control, intermittent fasting, training adaptations across life stages, and how to better synchronize nutrition with hormonal cycles.
Quotes:
“Women are already metabolically more flexible than men…so when we're talking about fasting or fasted workouts…it increases stress on the woman…and they can't hit intensity high enough with no fuel to be able to invoke the post exercise responses of growth hormone and testosterone.”
“I want people to understand that birth control has a significant effect on the body…not just reproductive…we don't know enough about all the other effects so I have parents who say my daughter wants to go on the oral contraceptive pill. She's having irregular periods. She's an athlete. We want to be able to control it and it's like if there's a issue with your menstrual cycle now, it's still going to be there when you get off.”
Duration: 2 hr 29 min
Dr. Shanna Swan: How to Safeguard Your Hormone Health & Fertility (Huberman Lab)
Summary: In many ways, 2024 felt like the year the fertility (or lack thereof) flag was finally raised. Much of the research in this space as to why we might be seeing such a precipitous decline over the past 3 decades was led by Dr. Shanna Swan. Now in her 80s, she continues her fight against the modern environment discussing how environmental toxins impact hormonal health and fertility, why decreased sperm counts are linked to chemical exposure, and what immediate actions government agencies must take to reduce toxin proliferation in our food & water sources. She also outlines simple lifestyle changes to mitigate toxin exposure over time.
Quotes:
“Never put plastic in a microwave…here's the story, the BPA plasticizers are added to the plastic but they're not chemically bound to it so if you put anything in a container that has these chemicals in it, then put it in a hot environment, they will come out of the plastic and go into the food.”
“The same property of phthalates that makes them good for pesticides also makes them good for our hand cream…that's absorbed in the body.”
Duration: 2 hr 18 min
How to Improve Oral Health (Huberman Lab)
Summary: This one stands out as it the most often neglected pillar of our health framework. Huberman does a great job here (with the help of our friend BowTiedGator) emphasizing the oral health connection to cardiovascular, metabolic, & brain health. He highlights the distinction between demineralization and remineralization, why xylitol has a unique function in fighting cavities, what foods we should limit in optimizing oral health & how gum disease is linked to severe conditions like Alzheimer’s & cardiovascular issues.
Quotes:
“The key point is the degree to which your mouth is in a demineralization state or a remineralization state and the degree to which cavities have the opportunity to form is dependent on the amount of time in which your mouth is net acidic or net alkaline.”
“There’s a critical need to be a nasal breather at night and not a mouth breather not just for sake of staving off sleep apnea but also because the dryness of the mouth is one of the ways that you really can throw off your oral health in major ways.”
Duration: 2 hr
Optimizing Testosterone Levels In Men | Dr. Adam Hotchkiss (The Proof w/ Simon Hill)
Summary: Dr. Adam Hotchkiss, a physician and health optimization coach, approaches the topic of testosterone with as much nuance as anyone in the hormonal health space. He covers the mechanisms, misconceptions, and societal impacts surrounding TRT, as well as some broader aspects of androgenic health. Rather than viewing TRT as a one-size-fits all tool, he advocates for holistic lifestyle changes to combat many modernity-drive problems first like fatigue, low libido, & depression. He also provides insight regarding tools like HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) and SERMs (Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators) when seeking to maintain fertility while using TRT.
Quotes:
“The benefits of TRT are actually via increasing estrogen, not the testosterone. A lot of people assume that estrogen...is the female sex hormone. In that study, the guys who had lower estrogen had more adiposity, more body fat, less libido, and poor erection quality. So, the more the estrogen went up, they got leaner, better erections, and better libido."
"Everybody is a genetic individual...I've seen guys with a testosterone level of 200 who feel great and guys at 500 with every symptom under the book. It's all about symptoms and context."
Duration: 1 hr 57 min
Are You Seduced By Foods? | Dr. Tera Fazzino (The Proof w/ Simon Hill)
Summary: If it’s anything we need to understand about nutrition in its current state, it is the addictive nature of hyper-palatable foods in the modern diet. Dr. Tara Fazzino, a psychologist specializing in addiction and food behavior, discusses how these foods specifically engineered with ideal combinations of fat, carbs, & sodium intensify reward responses in the brain, making them hard to resist and easy to overconsume.
Quotes:
"With repeated consumption over time, these foods can lead to changes in the brain that make us highly motivated to seek out and consume them, much like the patterns seen with substances like alcohol and nicotine."
"These foods can activate in kind of an excessive manner our brain reward neuro-circuitry in the same degree as some substances...leading to us consuming more calories per meal just because it's so good."
Duration: 1 hr 47 min
Holding On to Stress Is Destroying Your Health | Jim Laird (The Jay Campbell Podcast)
Summary: Jim Laird is unlike most strength & conditioning coaches in that he takes a unique approach to his health framework by living authentically, adapting health approaches to suit individual needs, & balancing intense work with restorative practices. After battling his own host of health issues including colitis & recurring forms of infections, he highlights the importance of holistic health practices while balancing intensity with relaxation, grounding, and connecting with nature. Another important aspect of Laird’s health framework: recognition of the link between unresolved emotional traumas and long-term chronic illnesses.
Quotes:
“We’ve got more gyms than we’ve ever had, and we’ve got more obese people than ever. So maybe it’s not the lack of exercise; maybe it’s the environment that people are spending their time in.”
“We are all biochemically unique and everyone is a different n = 1…what might work for you is not going to work for me.”
Duration: 58 min
The Current Peptide Landscape And Cutting Edge Developments | Kyal Van Der Leest (The Jay Campbell Podcast)
Summary: Kyal Van Der Leest is an Australian naturopath, nutritionist, and founder of the supplement company Level Up Health. The discussion touches on peptides, health optimization, spirituality, and societal challenges. Van Der Leest emphasizes the importance of choosing “high vibration” in all aspects of life to counteract societal challenges like disinformation, low-energy influences, and environmental toxicity. He explains the concept of a bifurcation in society where people must consciously decide to take control of their health and spirituality. Kyle and Jay also discuss the emerging role of peptides in health and wellness - BPC-157 & Thymosin Beta-4 - particularly for healing, recovery, and optimizing health.
Quotes:
“You have to forcibly remove yourself from areas of low vibrational frequencies. You cannot go out into massive fields of people or concerts or any of those cool things that you know we all would like to do in our lives without knowing that the risk of dropping your frequency is extremely high.”
“How many people can we actually save from the Draconian allopathic medical system because what we do is teach them a better way. We teach them again how to become the proactive scientist of their own health and until they learn that they're still going to go and listen to their doctor.”
Duration: 1 hr 11 min
Load up the cardio queue for the next few months. Advance your learning. And make 2025 your healthiest year yet.
We’re more bullish than ever on the future here. For you. For your health. For your family. Your empire is depending on you. As always, stay healthy & we’ll see you next week.
Your friend,
BTP
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