Peter Attia

Peter's top picks

What Peter uses or recommends most, ranked by how often and how strongly. Paid ads are left out.

What Peter warns against

Things Peter says to avoid or be careful with. Other experts don't always agree.

Ketamine

"I have tried ketamine under therapeutic conditions once. It was — I didn't find it to be a positive experience and I will never repeat it. I described it to a friend after as Guantanamo Bay for my soul and my psyche. Absolutely devastating — just an endless spiral of death."

404 ‒ Mental health beyond neurotransmitters: hormones in psychiatry, psychedelic therapies, & more ▶ Watch at 2:02:58

D L S

Bryan Johnson, Dr. Jonathan Kanevsky and 3 others recommend it

NMN

"When you gave oral NR or NMN, the two popular precursors, only the liver could take them up and make NAD... you're pretty much just giving it to your liver."

AMA #3: supplements, women’s health, patient care, and more (EP.26) | The Peter Attia Drive ▶ Watch at 2:00:06

S

David Sinclair, Andrew Huberman and 3 others recommend it

Bempedoic Acid

"You didn't have bempedoic acid. It's a donkey-ass drug. $6,000 a year for that drug. It's just not worth it."

407 ‒ Preventing cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s disease: lowering LDL early, APOE4, and more ▶ Watch at 1:08:48

All 83 of Peter's picks

• Zone 2 training Uses and recommends it 3 episodes "I'm still generally doing 4 hours of Zone 2 a week with one sort of higher intensity workout that's geared towards VO2 max a week, and then four strength training sessions a week. So that's kind of the foundational pillar of everything I do." +7 others
• Creatine monohydrate Uses and recommends it 2 episodes "I take creatine monohydrate, five grams a day." +31 others
• Magnesium Uses and recommends it 3 episodes "Oh, I take magnesium L-threonate and ashwagandha for sleep... so I take magnesium in three forms. I'm big on magnesium." +15 others
• Slow-Mag Uses and recommends it 2 episodes "I take Slow-Mag, which is just a magnesium chloride slow-releasing version of magnesium... great for bowel function. I don't know the last time I had a cramp in my life." Only Peter
• Voltra Uses and recommends it "By the way, I have no affiliation with the company, but I have become completely enamored with and obsessed with Voltra... One of my patients gave it to me. I loved it. I actually bought a second one... The first thing that I fell in love with was the manipulation of concentric and eccentric tension. It's frankly just a space-saving device. I've got one of those big Freemotion things, I'm selling it... because it just replaces them." Only Peter
• Ketogenic diet Uses and recommends it "Not only was I on a ketogenic diet for 3 years, it was probably the best I ever felt... My abandoning the ketogenic diet was independent of my views of the ketogenic diet, and to this day I still view it as an effective diet. What has changed is my belief as to why it works... Today, I think the diet works for the same reason many restrictive diets work, which is it makes it easier to control energy intake." +7 others
• The Transformed Cell Uses and recommends it "The first person who I ever read articulating this was Steve Rosenberg. Wrote one of my favorite books about science called The Transformed Cell. This book is over 30 years old. I probably read it cover to cover 10 times during the course of my life." Only Peter
• Morpheus Uses and recommends it "I've talked a lot about how I like using a device called Morpheus. Again, no affiliation with Morpheus, but I like it because you use either a chest strap or an armband where the optical sensor is in the antecubital fossa. So you're actually getting a very accurate measurement. Things on the wrist and hand are not nearly as accurate." +1 other
• Standing broad jump Uses and recommends it "I still keep track of my long jump — a standing broad jump. Why do I love that? It's testing in one movement your maximum power and your eccentric strength. The takeoff is a maximum concentric power movement, but to stick that landing you have to have the brakes — that's a maximum eccentric movement. One of the metrics I maintain in my life as I think about aging is I want to go as long as I can being able to do a broad jump that is taller than my height." Only Peter
• Topo Chico Uses it 2 episodes "We can fully talk about the fact that we're drinking Topo Chico because we're just advertising for free. We're not getting paid to do this." Only Peter
• Ashwagandha Uses it 2 episodes "There's certain supplements that I use to sleep as well, so I'm a fan of glycine, ashwagandha, magnesium L-threonate." +1 other
• Methylfolate Uses and recommends it "We know that if you take methylfolate and methyl B12 you're going to lower homocysteine. That's abundantly clear. The thinking is that might actually lower ADMA and SDMA and raise nitric oxide synthase. Again, a relatively low-cost, low-risk thing to take at modest doses." Only Peter
• Rapamycin Uses and recommends it "I take eight milligrams once a week for as long as I can tolerate it... My conviction around mTOR is far more based on the experimental data... There are only two interventions, full stop, that have ever extended life across those four categories of eukaryotes: caloric restriction and rapamycin." +1 other
• Vitamin D Uses it 2 episodes "I do take vitamin D because, interestingly, despite the fact that I'm outside every day, without supplemental vitamin D my levels are surprisingly low. I take 5,000 IU, and that takes me from a level of 30ish to a level of 50ish." +21 others
• Eight Sleep Uses and recommends it "I don't have any affiliation with these things, so I use Eight Sleep as my mattress cover. I love what these guys have done. It's a fantastic cooling product and it's made an enormous difference for me. I've been using it for the last three years. Most of our patients are using it. There are other products out there and I've tried them and they're good; this one I just happen to fancy the most." +16 others
• Carlson Fish Oil Uses and recommends it "I like to give a shout out to companies that I think sell good products, so I use Carlson's EPA and DHA. I can't remember exactly which one I take, but it is the highest EPA version that they have. So by taking four of these capsules a day I'm taking roughly two grams of EPA a day and probably a gram and a half of DHA." +2 others
• Pendulum Glucose Control Uses and recommends it "The reason I'm taking this particular probiotic is, having looked at all of these probiotics, I think this is the most rigorously tested and validated probiotic out there. In a small but double-blinded randomized clinical trial it demonstrated a six absolute percentage point reduction in hemoglobin A1c in people with type 2 diabetes, and about a 30% reduction in postprandial glucose area under the curve." Only Peter
• Dexcom G6 Uses and recommends it "I love the G6 and I'll talk about it all day long without receiving advertising dollars to talk about it... There is no more powerful behavioral tool for me than my CGM... The one I wear now is the Dexcom G6. It's an FDA-approved device and it gives you a number that is in this case incredibly accurate, probably plus or minus 2 or 3%." Only Peter
• Opposite Action Uses and recommends it "Let's use the DBT example of opposite action. This is one of my favorite personal techniques, right? When I am really upset, I 100% isolate... No, Peter, get up off this chair and go and play baseball with your son or go and play soccer. And it guarantees you're going to feel better." Only Peter
• Blood pressure cuff (manual) Uses and recommends it "I do both a manual cuff where you're using a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. And then I use a couple of different automated cuffs. I find the manual readings more accurate. I find that automated readings can be easily 10 to 15 millimeters of mercury off for me especially systolically." Only Peter
• Trap bar deadlift Uses and recommends it "One of my favorite exercises to do was very heavy hex bar deadlifts with drop sets — literally dropping the weight at the top. Heavy pickup with good explosion on the concentric phase. You have to do this with a trap bar, not a straight bar, because then from a standing position you drop the bar. I wanted maximum strength and power with zero size, right? Because size is weight." Only Peter
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy Uses and recommends it "Therapy, which I do at least one session a week, sometimes two, plus journaling, and doing something called dialectical behavioral therapy. These things have been enormously important in increasing the quality of my life in the past 5 years." +1 other
• Metformin Uses and recommends it "I prefer to just use metformin if we're gonna go down that path. Let's do it pharmacologically with potent drugs that we understand, that are consistent from batch to batch, that have a much higher sort of oversight of regulation." +3 others
• Oura Ring Uses and recommends it "The G6, along with the Oura ring, which I've talked a lot about... I've worn every wearable that there is, but they're the only two that seem sticky enough that I can't stop wearing them. A month ago I went to charge my Oura ring and I forgot to put it back on my finger when I went to bed... I was so pissed." +12 others
• Colonoscopy screening at age 40 Recommends it "It's been very pleasant to see that the formal recommendations have now moved from 50 to 45. But if you do the math, you'll realize there are still many people dying of colorectal cancer under the age of 45, and therefore I believe that really we should start screening even average-risk adults at 40, and obviously earlier if they have any of the known hereditary drivers." Only Peter
• Carbohydrate Restriction Uses it "In my own journey of nutritional experimentation, carbohydrate restriction was proving to be very beneficial... I'd already lost most of the weight I was trying to lose just from carbohydrate restriction." +1 other
• Extended Fasting Uses it "For about a 3-year period of time, I was doing a quarterly fast, and it would be anywhere from 7 to 10 days once a quarter, and then on the other 2 months of the quarter, I would do a three-day fast... I was really fascinated by this idea that with enough nutrient deprivation, we could promote enough autophagy that it would have real health benefits." +2 others
• Automated blood pressure cuff Uses it "I use a couple of different automated cuffs. There's lots of good ones out there. But I would just say make sure you're doing everything correctly. The automateds tend to run higher in me." Only Peter
• Continuous glucose monitors Uses it "I'm trying to think of all the times I wore a continuous glucose monitor — if I ever saw a blood glucose level that would have been north of about 160 milligrams per deciliter." +12 others
• MDMA Uses it "I've had very positive experiences on guided MDMA." +3 others
• Psilocybin Uses it "I've used psilocybin in a therapeutic setting that was incredibly positive. It was an out-of-body experience — I was witnessing myself from outside of myself at different places in my life. It gave me incredible empathy for what was going on with the other person during an experience in my life. The durability of that is a decade later and will be lifelong. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had in my life." +8 others
• Power training Recommends it "We think it's very important for people of any age to always incorporate power training in what they do. There's a use it or lose it aspect to this. Power is the first thing we're going to lose, then we lose strength, then we lose size. A review of 13 studies found power training superior to traditional strength training for power." Only Peter
• Rep in Reserve (RIR) framework Recommends it "The most helpful way is to go through the rep in reserve framework, and this is where most people ought to live — in the one to two RIR, rep in reserve area. It's a very safe place to be. You're not going to get into trouble, and by the way, you're virtually getting the same benefits as going to failure on every set, which truthfully is almost impossible anyway." Only Peter
• Time under tension Recommends it "One of my favorite ways to increase the overload or to progressively overload is time under tension. My shoulders don't love bench press anymore. So one of the things I really enjoy doing is very slow sets because I can use much less weight. I can do pauses at the bottom, increasing time under tension, and I'm still getting the stimulus for growth and strength without having to rely on enormous amounts of weight." Only Peter
• VO2 Max Testing Uses it "For our patients, we actually do the test. We got sort of tired of relying on other labs to do it." Only Peter
• David Protein Bars Uses it "I normally travel with protein snacks, I've got my David bars and my venison sticks, and I just for whatever reason I was in such a rush when I packed I didn't take any of that stuff." Only Peter
• Kaiser Uses it "I'm doing more stuff on a Kaiser as opposed to like jumping around and doing insane box jumps" Only Peter
• AG1 Uses it "I take AG1 most mornings." +1 other
• Bempedoic Acid Uses it "I take some that are disease specific, right? So I take a PCSK9 inhibitor, I take bempedoic acid, I take an SGLT2 inhibitor." Only Peter
• Fish oil Uses it "I do take EPA and DHA in the form of fish oil capsules, not because I have an affection for capsule over liquid. It's just going to increase my compliance. I noticed when I was taking liquid, because you're storing it in the fridge, I was just less likely to remember to take it twice a day." +16 others
• Methyl B12 Uses it "I don't supplement B6. I'm just taking a bit of folate and methyl B12." +1 other
• PCSK9 inhibitor Uses it "I take some that are disease specific, right? So I take a PCSK9 inhibitor, I take bempedoic acid, I take an SGLT2 inhibitor." Only Peter
• Pendulum Recommends it "As far as I know there's no other probiotic that has any meaningful effect on the body outside of Pendulum. If you buy the argument that a probiotic for your gut needs to have anaerobic bacteria in it... Pendulum is the only company that can make it. I have no affiliation with this company." Only Peter
• Pendulum Akkermansia Uses it "Akkermansia, which works through the GLP-1 butyrate pathway, is anaerobic, and Pendulum is the only company that can make it... I take Akkermansia." Only Peter
• Pendulum Polyphenol Uses it "So I take three of their products. I take something called Glucose Control, I take Polyphenol, and I take Akkermansia." Only Peter
• Glycine Uses it "There's certain supplements that I use to sleep as well, so I'm a fan of glycine." +1 other
• Journaling Uses it "Therapy, which I do at least one session a week, sometimes two, plus journaling... These things have been enormously important in increasing the quality of my life in the past 5 years." +11 others
• Melatonin Uses it "I don't use melatonin or phosphatidylserine unless I'm jet lagging. If I'm time zone hopping, I'll use those as well." +4 others
• Sauna Uses it "I'll brush and floss my teeth before I go in the sauna, because I sauna before bed as well, so that once I'm done with that sauna and shower I'm just going straight into bed. So for me that's also a very productive sleep trick." +22 others
• Two-Phone Strategy Uses it "I have two separate phones. I have my regular phone that has email and social media and junk on it, and then I have what I call my bat phone that literally has nothing... I can't even be tempted to look at social media or look at email, so it's all in this spirit of turning the system down before bed." Only Peter
• Jarrow Formulas Methyl B12 Uses it "I take methyl folate and methyl B12. I use Jarrow as a brand. More than anything I'm measuring homocysteine levels; that's why I'm taking methylated versions of those." Only Peter
• Jarrow Formulas Phosphatidylserine Uses it "Occasionally for travel I will take Jarrow's phosphatidylserine. It comes in 100 milligram capsules or gel caps. For some reason I like the gel caps better. I'm presumably on a long flight where I'm trying to overcome a significant time zone, so I usually take about 400 milligrams." Only Peter
• Solgar Ashwagandha Uses it "In the night I take ashwagandha. I take 600 milligrams of ashwagandha. I recently switched to the Solgar brand." Only Peter
• Thorne Glycine Uses it "I take two grams of glycine. I use the Thorne brand." Only Peter
• Vitamin B6 Uses it "I used to take 50 milligrams of B6 daily. I've now lowered that to three times a week. We have seen some people who, when they take too much B6, can actually develop a sort of neuropathy. It helps with the homocysteine; you just have to be careful that you're not overdoing it." Only Peter
• Baby Aspirin Uses it "My family history for heart disease is high and my AspirinWorks was high, so that's why I take a baby aspirin." +1 other
• Berberine Recommends it "The other thing about berberine, and this is when I still do use it in clinical practice, is it is also a weak inhibitor of the enzyme PCSK9... I'll just give them berberine, make no other change, and see if there's a significant enough difference in their LDL... Every once in a while you look like a rock star." +2 others
• Branched-Chain Amino Acids Uses it "Maybe we can talk about branched chain amino acids, because I use them, many of my patients use them, and I've learned that most brands out there are not doing anything." Only Peter
• Firstbeat Uses it "I chose to work with Firstbeat... it came with its own little EKG thing... it became a really helpful way for us to try to look at sleep patterns. The problem is the compliance was very low." Only Peter
• Lipitor Uses it "Taking ten of Lipitor three times a week, when coupled with ezetimibe... the 10 plus 10 stack of those two was a minimum effective dose that produced very good results in me, meaning it got me to below the 20th percentile." Only Peter
• Lithium Uses it "If those groundwater data are correct, you don't need to be taking that much lithium to reproduce the levels. We're talking 10 to 20 milligrams, and that's actually an over-the-counter dose. So that's why I take it now... I put it in the category of probably not harmful, not sure how much value I'm getting out of it." +1 other
• Protein target of 1.4 g per kilogram of body weight Recommends it "I really am pretty adamant about people maintaining the right amount of protein, and at a minimum, I want them hitting 1.4 g per kilogram of body weight. But if they can accomplish that on a ketogenic diet, on a low-fat diet, on a mostly pescetarian diet, it just doesn't really matter as much to me." Only Peter
• Cystatin C Recommends it "In our patients, we're very aggressive about checking a biomarker called cystatin C, which we think is far superior to creatinine as a way to keep tabs on their kidney function." Only Peter
• DEXA scans Recommends it "If people are doing DEXAs to measure their muscle mass, what metrics are they looking at on a DEXA and what percentile do you like to see them at? We look at appendicular lean mass index and fat-free mass index." +10 others
• Dead hang Recommends it "People have heard me talk about a dead hang. We say a target for a male would be 2 minutes, for a female, a minute and a half." +2 others
• Pull-ups Recommends it "Pull-ups are a great test for people, especially done under control with complete range of motion. Maybe doing an exaggerated eccentric. For males, five or more; for females, three or more complete pull-ups with a 3-second eccentric." Only Peter
• Wall sit Recommends it "A wall sit with thighs parallel to the floor — two minutes for both men and women." Only Peter
• Retinoids Recommends it "In addition to sunscreen and retinoids, I think that vitamin C is a really important molecule." +1 other
• Sunscreen Recommends it "The absolute minimum thing I should use on my skin every day, it would be sunscreen." +3 others
• Colonoscopy Recommends it "I'm really happy to see that the guidelines for colonoscopy were moved from 50 to 45. I think that's an excellent step in the right direction. I would personally move it up one step closer to 40." Only Peter
• Coronary imaging Recommends it "I think coronary imaging is pretty important especially for people who are hesitant to begin managing risk factors." Only Peter
• PSA test Recommends it "We're much more aggressive on PSA than what is recommended. We think it should be done annually on every male non-negotiable." Only Peter
• apo LP(a) blood test Recommends it "We talk about blood markers like apo LP little A. I think that should be done, but you know, everybody buys themselves one of those a year." Only Peter
• low-dose CT scan Recommends it "We actually recommend low-dose CT scan for lung cancer screening. So lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men and women by far." Only Peter
• Abbott finger sticks Uses it "What were we doing with our Abbott finger sticks? Measuring D beta hydroxybutyrate." Only Peter
• hCG Recommends it "And by the way, even if I was going to replace it, I would not be using testosterone. I'd be using hCG." +2 others
• Magtein Recommends it "By the way, anytime you're buying magnesium L-threonate, just make sure it has Magtein in it. So you could buy it from any different company, but they have to have the Magtein proprietary combination because they're the only people that have the license to make L-threonate." Only Peter
• Carlson Recommends it "Nordic Naturals and Carlson's I like for EPA/DHA, if not going down the pharmaceutical route." Only Peter
• Jarrow Formulas Recommends it "The companies that I rely on and rely on their products are basically Jarrow... Pure Encapsulations and Jarrow are probably the two companies that would be my go-to for virtually anything." Only Peter
• Nordic Naturals Recommends it "Nordic Naturals and Carlson's I like for EPA/DHA, if not going down the pharmaceutical route." +1 other
• Oral Glucose Tolerance Test Recommends it "There was a day when you would use the OGTT to diagnose type 2 diabetes, and not what we do today, which is rely on hemoglobin A1c. I think the use of an OGTT is a better test, and I think the hemoglobin A1c is not a particularly helpful test." +1 other
• Pure Encapsulations Recommends it "So Pure Encapsulations and Jarrow are probably the two companies that would be my go-to for virtually anything." +4 others
• Thorne Recommends it "I think for berberine, when we do suggest patients take it, I think we use Thorne as the brand that we recommend." +3 others
• Ketamine Warns against "I have tried ketamine under therapeutic conditions once. It was — I didn't find it to be a positive experience and I will never repeat it. I described it to a friend after as Guantanamo Bay for my soul and my psyche. Absolutely devastating — just an endless spiral of death." 5 recommend it
• NMN Warns against "When you gave oral NR or NMN, the two popular precursors, only the liver could take them up and make NAD... you're pretty much just giving it to your liver." 5 recommend it
• Bempedoic Acid Warns against "You didn't have bempedoic acid. It's a donkey-ass drug. $6,000 a year for that drug. It's just not worth it." No one recommends it
• CJC-1295 Warns against "CJC-1295 is both biologically plausible and biologically active, but the issue is whether that activity translates into a meaningful human benefit at a dose we understand with risks worth accepting. For CJC-1295, I think that case has yet to be made. CJC-1295 reached phase two but was abandoned." No one recommends it
• Mountain Dew Warns against "If I'm sitting here drinking six Mountain Dews a day, would I be better off doing everything the same but moving to six diet Mountain Dews a day?" No one recommends it
• NAD Infusions Warns against "All those clinics that are out there giving NAD infusions, which is very popular, that's always struck me as quackery, and it just seems even more quackery today, because none of those cells are able to take up NAD." No one recommends it
• Wrist-based heart rate monitors Warns against "I went down the rabbit hole on this a year ago of looking at every single one of the wrist-based heart rate monitors and I was blown away at how inaccurate wrist-based heart rate monitors were." No one recommends it
• Nothing matches.