Behaviors That Alter Your Genes to Improve Your Health & Performance | Dr. Melissa Ilardo

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Melissa Lardo, professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah. Dr.

Elardo is a world-renowned expert in human genetics and epigenetics. She conducts pioneering studies on how our behavior and the environment can modify our gene expression. Today marks the first time on the Huberman Lab podcast that we really explore human genetics, epigenetics, and how behavior shapes gene expression across generations. We talk about the inheritance of physical traits like eye color, and we dive deep into fascinating mechanisms such as the mammalian dive reflex, a physiological reaction to breath holding in cold water that, as Dr. Elardo explains, can dramatically alter the physiology of your spleen to allow significant increases in red blood cell count and oxygen availability to your brain and body.

And by the way, the mammalian dive reflex can be activated outside of free diving, and you can even do it at home. We also explore how mate preference and selection in humans relates to the immune system. That is, if you were given a choice of many, many different mates, as most people are, the mate you would select is the mate who has the immune system composition that is most different from yours, and you would know that on the basis of their smell and how attractive their smell is to you compared to the smell of other people. We also talk about how differences in external traits signal important variations in organ function, hormone levels, and even brain physiology.

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