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149: How to Sleep Smarter

Transcript of Episode 149: How to Sleep Smarter

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Shawn Stevenson

Meredith:   
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host Meredith Dykstra, and this is Episode number 149. We have our resident Cellular Healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, here of course, and today we welcome special guest Shawn Stevenson. Super excited to have Shawn on the show. If you guys don’t know about Shawn, you have to check out his work. He’s doing a lot of awesome things in the health and fitness realm. I’m going to tell you a little bit more about him here, and then we’ll jump right into the interview.

Shawn Stevenson is a bestselling author and creator of The Model Health Show featured as the #1 nutrition and fitness podcast on iTunes. A graduate of the University of Missouri – St. Louis with a background in biology and kinesiology, Shawn went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, a successful company that provides wellness services for both individuals and organizations worldwide. Shawn is also a dynamic keynote speaker who has spoken for TEDx, universities, and numerous organizations with outstanding reviews. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV, Shawn.

Shawn:
Hi. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, Shawn, thank you. One of my favorite questions always is this; how did you get involved in this, right? I love to hear people’s story because mine’s from pain to purpose as well. I know that you have a story, so why don’t you tell our listeners and viewers that story.

Shawn:
Sure. Sure. I feel that all of us have a super hero origin story. It was not planned out of the gates for me to be in the health space. Now, let me make this clear. When I went to college, I did choose to go premed, but I found out very quickly that I actually hated science. It didn’t work out, and so I jumped over into business, finance. I saw some movies. I think one of them was Boomerang with Eddie Murphy, and I was like, oh, that’s a cool job. He’s in marketing. I’ll try that.

Just the typical college experience, didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but being a doctor sounded good. Fate had other plans for me, and actually, while I was in college, a couple years in I got a pretty devastating diagnosis, degenerative bone disease, degenerative disc disease. My spine started to—well, it wasn’t just starting, but it was deteriorating very rapidly to the degree that—my physician at the time, he said that I had the spine of an 80-year-old person. I was just at the ripe young age of 20. That led to a lot of pain, a lot of lack of function. I couldn’t really get around quite right.

What brought me into the doctor was this aching pain going on in my leg, which if—you guys already have probably talked about this before. My physician at the time, even though he meant well, he elicited something called a nocebo effect in which you give somebody a negative injunction that something bad is going to happen. He told me there’s nothing I could do about it. He told me that this is just something that happens. He told me I’m going to have to deal with it.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Just for our viewers and our listeners, they’ve heard of the placebo effect. Where you say this is going to work and it does. Really, it’s a sugar pill, maybe, or something else, but the nocebo effect works too, right? You tell someone they’re going to die in six months, and low and behold, they’re dead in six months, or they have cancer. Then all of a sudden it manifests so, yeah, got it. Man, that’s something.

Shawn:
You got it. What’s so crazy is that, clinically, placebos are about 33% effective across the board on average, all right, so this is where you were told that this drug, even though it’s just a sugar pill or a sham treatment, is going to work for you because our minds are so powerful. The most powerful drugs in the world and healing capacities are within our bodies. People don’t really realize this, but drugs are actually interacting with this pharmacy in your body. Your body’s choosing whether or not to take it on, and so this is what happened for me from a negative perspective. I went in with this nuisance pain going on, and then I get the MRI of my spine. I get this diagnosis, and now, cut to two weeks later, I can barely move. I can barely get around. I’m laid out on my floor, and now I’m fitted with a back brace. My life is looking—I’m scared. What’s going on?

Fast forward the story just to get to the nuts and bolts. Two years go by, a little over two years, and if you’re in fear of getting around, you’re not doing very much. By the way, I—and I always recommend this too. If you get some bad news with your health, with a diagnosis, make sure you get a second if not third, fourth opinion before you do anything like surgery, getting onto extreme medications, things like that. I had the wherewithal to do that. I didn’t know exactly why. I was just looking for answers, but in this case, I got the same story. There’s nothing you could do. I’m sorry.

Two years go by. I gained a bunch of weight. Fifty pounds of extra Shawn showed up on the scenes. Also, just not being mobile, not only did my spine atrophy but all the rest of my body. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I began to really break down, experienced a lot more pain. Two and a half years go by, but this is when things take a change. It was right on the tail end of talking with the last physician that people were telling me this guy is going to be able to help you. He’s the best and this kind of thing, but he was conventional in his thinking. When he saw my degeneration, he’s like I’m sorry. There’s nothing you could do, same story.

This is when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was scared. I was in depression. I was feeling a lack of purpose because now I was barely even going to school. It hit me that these two years went by, and I had just been waiting around for somebody to help me. I’d been waiting around for somebody to come and give me some good news. Even though my physicians meant well, they were not walking in my shoes. They didn’t have the final say about what was possible for me, and so it really hit me. I need to do something, or I’m just going to give up. You got a choice here.

I actually decided to get well, which most people never do. I always like to just—I don’t want people to glance over that because it’s so important. Most people, it’s wishful thinking, or I’ll try. We’ll see what happens. Instead of making a real…

Dr. Pompa:
I have to say this.

Shawn:
I’m sorry?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I have to say this. I have to interrupt you. Sorry. We call them three percenters. Meredith will attest to this as well that I always tell the doctors that I coach, man, it’s a decision. Three percenters are the people that get well, change the world, and make a difference. They simply, at one point, do exactly what you just said. They make a decision to get well.

They make a decision for their life to change. They make a decision, and then boom. Their life takes a different course, man. You’re a three percenter, so go on there, three percenter.

Shawn:
Thank you. I receive that. I receive that. I feel that the saying that “many are called; few are chosen,” it’s really, if you update that information, many are called; few choose. Few choose. We all have this capacity within us, and so the conditions often times have to be bad enough. Rock bottom is a good place to be sometimes because it’s only up you can go from there.

Our jobs in this field are to help people to get to that place without hitting rock bottom, and that’s where the real masterful work takes place. For me, that decision led to a string of events. It wasn’t like a miracle seeming—well, it kind of did but a very analytical, scientific-minded person, but it wasn’t like a rainbow came out. It was like some kind of a party happened, and I got better immediately. It was I put a plan together that was—it had three components, and I still talk about these three things today. I didn’t know how much they mattered then. It’s just like I just picked up pieces just from sports or whatever.

One was I changed the way that I was eating, which is kind of Captain Obvious. I was in college at the time, so I was eating what I call the tough diet, aka typical university food, TUF, and so lots of pizza, lots of donuts, lots of cereal. Cereal was like my—it was gourmet for me. It was just like I would sit around, especially late at night, and have Toucan Sam or that little Honey Bee. We’d sit together, and we’d have a fine meal. I was making my tissues out of garbage, basically. I grew up like that. When people talk about fast food diets, that was the foundation of my diet growing up, and I lived in a household where it was a lot of—I mean, pretty much all processed food. I didn’t eat any vegetables except broccoli.

My body really works on a hierarchy of needs, right? Your body could really care less about building your bone tissue if it has to build your blood, and calcium is needed to build your blood, to help your blood clot for example. It’s just leaching and pulling these minerals out of my bones. I didn’t know this, and so I changed the way that I was eating. Step two, movement. Your body requires movement in order to heal itself as well, and so I kept being put on bedrest. I took that as a permission slip to not do anything, and so many people do that. I’ve came across research, what I talk about in the book, that shows exactly why exercise is so important. It’s not about getting a six pack, which is a side effect. It’s about assimilation and detoxification.

The third part was true rest and recovery, and that’s really where I focused my work the last few years. If you’re not sleeping, you’re not healing, and that’s where the real change happens with your body. This is where increase assimilation, detoxification, especially even for your brain. Your body gets better when you sleep. When you’re up, it’s catabolic, literally, but when you’re sleeping, it’s known as the anabolic state for human beings. This is when you get the increase production of growth hormone, all that good stuff.

With those three things, long story short, I was able to completely reverse the degeneration, which I got a scan done about nine months later. Just within six weeks I lost over 20 pounds. The pain I’ve been experiencing for many years is gone. I was able to get off my medications within a couple of months, and that led me to writing books, working with patients. I opened my own clinical practice in nutrition, shifting my course of study back to science and school, and #1 podcast, bestselling book, and all this cool stuff. I’ve just been able to impact the lives of a lot people, and I’m very grateful for the whole experience.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. From pain to purpose, like my life as well and so many listening. Look, it did come with a decision. I hope people hear that part. I mean, no doubt you made a decision. Your life changed. We’ve interviewed Bruce Lipton. He wrote the book Biology of Belief, and he has proven, now others, that our thoughts change our cells, every cell in our body. It really is a thought. Obviously, past abuses, the way we build our thinking, who we think we are, our identity -inaudible- our life for better or for worse, but with decisions like you made, we can change it back.

Let’s focus on the sleep thing. I said this to you when we were off air; people watching this show have sleep issues. A lot of people that watch and listen to this show, neurotoxic issues which manifest in the brain, parts of the brain. The hypothalamus pituitary, which controls their adrenals and their thyroid and even their pineal gland, it sits slightly outside the blood brain barrier. They are poison. We know that, this neurotoxic illness, one of the first symptoms is problems with sleep. Either they can’t get the sleep, or they wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, or they remain asleep, but they wake up wiped out because they really didn’t hit -inaudible- sleep.

Talk to us, man. What did you learn? That obviously played a huge impact in your healing for you to write a book about it.

Shawn:
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, what you just mentioned, it becomes a self-perpetuating issue because of the fact of if—already we’re dealing with an issue where we can’t sleep, and not being able to sleep causes us to not be able to sleep more. What do I mean by that? Basically, when you’re talking about this toxicity, what was recently discovered is that your—you just said it. We have the blood brain barrier, and your cells throughout your body are building lymphatic system, right? People have probably heard of the lymphatic system. It’s your extra cellular waste management system.

There’s four times more lymph that you have than you have blood, but there’s the blood brain barrier. Your lymphatic system basically has to pump its way up past your shoulders, and then dump back into your system. The blood brain barrier doesn’t allow that to get to your brain directly. There’s a whole complicated thing to talk about that. Bottom line is this. Your brain has its own detoxification system, which is run by the glia cells, and so it’s been dubbed the glymphatic system. This system is actually ten times more active when you’re asleep than when you’re awake. This is when your brain really does the housekeeping.

Your brain is literally doing millions of processes every microsecond, and new brain cells are getting produced, new connections. Even right now, there are massive connections getting made in your brain, and there’s waste products that result from that. Today, Alzheimer’s disease is now really pointed to the fact of an inability of the brain to clean itself. It’s this buildup of these waste products and your brain not being able to detoxify itself. That’s huge. Ten times more active during sleep, and your brain cells actually shrink up to 60% when you’re sleeping to make even more room for cleaning itself. That’s one of the big things for people to really walk away with and understanding. It’s not just, oh, you need to get more sleep so that you have more energy. Your brain is literally breaking down rapidly if you’re not getting high-quality sleep, and your brain is governing this whole system. That’s one of the big things.

What I found clinically was, number one, for the first maybe ten years, I didn’t really focus on it in my practice, even though it helped me so much. Just because I was sleeping so good, I never thought about it. That’s really the Hallmark of when you’re healed. You just forget about the thing unless you consciously tune into it. When I tell my story, I have to put myself back in those shoes, and it’s discomforting for me.

Dr. Pompa:
I know.

Shawn:
With people coming into my practice—and we had over 80% reversal rate for things like type 2 diabetes. Before people get on insulin, just helping people with metformin, things like that, just by changing their lifestyle. There was always a group—and I know you’ve seen this as well. There’s this percentage of people that wouldn’t get the results other people were getting, and sometimes, ironically, it would keep me up at night. What is going on? Are they lying to me? What is it?

I finally started asking people and this was a little over five years ago about their sleep. I was shocked. I could not believe people were operating. Walking around like this. Some people, I only get four hours of sleep a night, or I get up at night to go. I’m tending to my kids or my husband, whatever the case might be. They had these stories around their sleep that I never asked about.

This is what I do. I always try to find what are the things that are clinically proven to work? I have to package it up in a way that makes sense, and that it’s easy for people to implement. I just went on this rampage of scouring the data, looking at journals. What are some of the things that are clinically proven to help people sleep better yesterday? Once I started having people implement these strategies, it was like the floodgates opened in the results that they were getting now, whether it was getting off metformin, whether helping to balance their insulin levels, insulin sensitivity, I’m sorry, helping people with getting off statins, lisinoprils, that kind of thing for their blood pressure getting normalized, losing weight that people have been struggling with for ten years. All of a sudden the weight started coming off.

I was like, wow, this is really crazy. This is powerful stuff. That eventually led to—again, I’m very analytical in my thinking. It was like this isn’t a book yet. I didn’t even think about a book, but I wrote a blog post on it. It became my biggest blog post ever by far, and then I had my podcast platform. This was just a couple months into doing my show, and so I did three shows about sleep. They were top ten most downloaded as well. I was like, wow, people really want to know about this stuff, but they didn’t know they wanted to know. It’s like Apple’s approach. You guys don’t know you want this yet, but we’ll make it, and you’ll love it.

I was trying to be as little like Steve Jobs because I didn’t want to end up like Stevie-No-Jobs by doing something people don’t really want. That was the birthing of the book. With that said, in the book we really focus on tangible, simple, real world, easy to implement strategies. There’s 21 strategies all clinically proven to help people to sleep better. Obviously, we can get into some of those today.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. I can’t expect you to go through all 21 perhaps, but come on. Let’s go. Our viewers are going come on. Let’s do it, man. Let’s go. Give us one. Let’s start through.

Shawn:
Sure. Let’s start with a low-hanging fruit. I always like to start there. Something that people can do without flipping their whole world upside down. I’m sure that you’ve heard about this as well. Appalachian State University did a study, and they had exercisers who train at three different times throughout the course of the study to track their impact that exercise timing had on their sleep. What I’m going to share with you today is that, if you simply adjust the time that you exercise, it’s going to be able to help you to sleep better at night starting immediately.

What they did was they had exercisers to train exclusively at 7 a.m. in the morning, so this was the morning exercise group. They had them train exclusively at 1 p.m. in the afternoon, so this is the afternoon exercise group. Then they had them train exclusively at 7 p.m. at night, which is the evening exercise group. At the end of the study, they tracked all the data. Then they were hooked up to sleep monitors. They found that the morning exercisers had more efficient sleep cycles. They spent more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep, and they also had a 25% greater drop in their blood pressure at night compared to the other two times of exercising. That’s correlated with an activation of your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your “rest and digest system.” This is turning off that fight or flight that essentially keeps people up at night, all of this from working out in the morning, all right?

The results for the afternoon was really negligible in how it influenced sleep. It was just middle of the road. Evening sleepers, there is some benefit as far as falling asleep faster, but not necessarily falling into your sleep cycles properly. Evening exercise increases your cortisol, and also, it increases your body’s core body temperature, which we’ll talk about that in a second. Bottom line is this. You can still exercise at those other times. If your time to work out, you’ve got that hour after work or whatever it is, go for it.

I did an experiment with this myself for an entire year as well. Make sure to get five to ten minutes of exercise in the morning no matter what. Here’s the big tagline for today’s show. A great night of sleep starts the moment you wake up in the morning. Getting up and getting five to ten minutes of exercise in, it does something. It’s called a cortisol reset. This is why it had such a big impact on them. Your cortisol should be elevated at its peak between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. in the morning. Many people, clinically we call them tired and wired where their cortisol is too low in the morning and too high at night. This helps to reset that. Get that cortisol spiked in the morning so it can get on its normal track to gradually drop as the day goes on.

That’s number one; five to ten minutes of exercise. If you can fit your whole workout in in the morning, go for it, but so many people who—and by the way, let me—I want to make this important caveat because there are going to be—lots of people are going to get benefit from this, but there are going to be some people who are like I work out in the morning. My sleep still sucks. If you work out in the morning and then you’re doing a lot of these other things we’re going to talk about wrong or not as advantageous, yes, you’re going to end up with some problems, but simply getting five to ten minutes of exercise in the morning is going to be effective and helpful for over 75% of the people who do it.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s awesome, and I can add to that. In the morning, you have your greatest anabolic rise between testosterone and growth hormone so another reason to work out in the morning. By working out in the morning, because you get your hormones going in the right direction, there’s this natural progression as the day goes on to lower your cortisol. Go into parasympathetic later. It all works together. All right, man, give us another one. Let’s keep rocking.

Shawn:
Sure thing. Sure thing. Oh, just really quick, types of exercise, this could be—I’m a big fan of rebounding so jumping on a mini trampoline. That’s what I did this morning.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Good for the lymph.

Shawn:
Yeah. Rebounding, you can go for a quick power walk or just a quick run around the block. You can grab your kettlebell, and do a bunch of kettlebell swings. Tobata is just four minutes, and then do some stretching, lots of stuff that you can do and take advantage of. The important point is just to do something to really get your blood pumping and to get that cortisol reset. That’s number one.

Meredith:
I have a question, Shawn. Do you advocate working out on a fasted stomach if you’re doing it first thing in the morning?

Shawn:
If people aren’t officially, officially metabolically broken, yes, absolutely. Fasted exercise is wonderful.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Shawn:
Go ahead.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s what we do. No. It’s just something that I do as well. You get the extra bonus by exercising in the morning. Then exercising empty stomach in the morning, you get even more of a hormone sensitivity, so perfect.

Shawn:
Exactly. When I say metabolically broken, I’m talking about they have some issues with their insulin sensitivity, blood sugar issues. Then I would recommend maybe they bring in a little fat, maybe some MCT oil and some coffee, or tea, or something like that. It just depends on the person but, generally, yes, absolutely, fasted exercise. Again, it’s just a small amount too. Yeah, that’s number one. That’s a good question. Oh, I’m getting a little feedback.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re good. You all right, Meredith? Meredith, can you hear him?

Meredith:
Yep. Yep. I’m good.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. You froze there for a second.

Shawn:
Yeah. I’m getting an echo from everybody.

Meredith:
Now I am too. Okay. Wait. Now I’m not. Now I’m not. Now I am.

Dr. Pompa:
Now? Try it now, Shawn.

Shawn:
Okay. Hello. Hello.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I can hear you.

Shawn:
Okay. It’s better.

Meredith:
I think we’re good, all right.

Shawn:
Okay, all right, live TV. All right, so moving on, another strategy here and this one is a little bit more—something you’ve got to get dialed in for yourself personally. This goes back to really talking about this communication between what’s going on with your brain and what’s actually happening with your sleep and toxicity, as we talked about a little bit earlier, and this is probably my—I’m not going to say that. I can’t say my favorite chapter. One of my favorite chapters is “Fix Your Gut to Fix Your Sleep.” There’s this really important connection when we talk about the pineal gland for example. Your pineal gland is—what I was taught in school, this is the seed of where your melatonin is getting produced, right? Here’s what’s so crazy, and this just blew my mind when I found this out. You actually have 400 times more melatonin in your gut than in your brain, all right, 400 times.

Meredith:
Wow.

Shawn:
Actually, you can have a procedure done called a pinealectomy where they remove your pineal gland. I don’t recommend that, definitely don’t just do that. What they found was, when the pineal gland was removed, the levels in melatonin remained relatively the same in your body, all right? You have the enterochromaffin cells in your gut. You have all these different cells that produce hormones as well, and this has been left out of the equation. When we talk about this, that there’s so much melatonin action happening in your gut, immediately, just logical thinking, what I put in my gut is probably going to influence that, right? Whether I’m eating a banana or a bagel, it’s probably going to influence what’s happening with the hormones in my belly. Not only that. Also, over 95% of your body’s serotonin is in your gut as well, and this is a precursor to melatonin. This is big time action for producing these sleep related hormones.

The pathway that connects it all is called the vagus nerve. Not it all but a big majority of it. This was UCLA. They found that the vagus nerve, 95% of the data from your gut-brain connection is your gut telling your brain what to do, and not the opposite, all right? Many people consider it the second brain. You really have to understand this. With all that said, number one, we want to avoid things that are going to destroy or disrupt our gut integrity and the production of these hormones that are getting—hormones and neurotransmitters, so it’s serotonin is a neurotransmitter in your gut. This is basic things like being very judicious in antibiotic usage, avoiding pesticides, insecticides, fungicides; avoiding artificial foods, artificial sweeteners, process foods; all things that are going to throw off the gut bacteria. Here’s the last connecting piece is that Caltech researchers found out that specific gut bacteria in your belly actually determine whether or not these hormones are getting produced. They interact with cells that produce these hormones, so the gut bacteria is the whole game.

We want to support our gut bacteria. How do we do that? Making sure that we’re getting a nice intake, a regular intake of fermented foods, specifically fermented veggies, as what I’ve found across the board to be most helpful to people. With the yogurts and the fermented drinks like kombuchas and things like that, the production can be a little bit too much for people. We can end up with super high alcohol content with some kombuchas where they got to put a warning label on it. I got tipsy one time. I didn’t know. I haven’t really drank in my life. It’s one of those things, just me personally.

I drink this kombucha, and I remember I was riding home. I was in the passenger seat. My wife was driving home. Everything was just so funny to me. She’s like, “You’re tipsy.” I was like, “No, I’m not.” I’m laughing at it or whatever. I’m like, “Is this what it’s like?” It’s just everything seemed a lot more funny. Anyways, I don’t know what everybody else experience is drinking, but everything just got really funny to me. You got to be careful with that and also the sugar content, especially with stuff that you buy on the store shelf with these different products.

That’s number one, as far as the gut. Number two is prebiotics. Make sure you get a healthy dose of prebiotics that your gut bacteria can actually thrive and feed on. It doesn’t matter if you’re eating a bunch of fermented veggies or taking a probiotic supplement. Those are great for some people, for a lot of people, actually, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the substrate for those bacteria to colonize. You need prebiotics as well. Just a couple of those would be things like Jerusalem artichoke, onions, garlic, resistant starch people are talking about today, resistant starch. It depends on you and the processing. For some people it could be beans, but make sure that you soak them. Maybe sprout them possibly. Tiger nuts is another thing for people to just go to Dr. Google and look up, so make sure we get some resistant starch in there.

Lastly, there are these categories of good sleep nutrients, and I’ll just throw some bullets out at you guys for this. Why I’m calling these good sleep nutrients, these are essentially precursors that help to build these sleep related hormones. You might not think about a lot of these in these context, but I’m going to really enlighten that today. Number one, vitamin C, we know about this for our immune system, but it’s actually critical for that pathway of making sleep happen. This was the Public Library of Science, and they found that individuals who were deficient in vitamin C were more prone to waking up at night and having less efficient sleep cycles, all right? You need vitamin C. This is something that other animals produce it. It’s not an essential vitamin for them, like lions for example, but we need to get it from our diet.

Great sources would be Amla berry, acerola cherry, camu camu berry. Then typical foods like peppers, citrus foods. Things like that, kiwis. Another one is magnesium. This one is huge. This is probably the biggest one and the one I’ve seen most effective clinically as well. Magnesium is responsible for over 300 biochemical processes in the body, many of these regarding relaxation and sleep.

Dr. Pompa:
Could you repeat that? Could you repeat that? The thing went out there for a second. You said this is a big one, and then it went staticky.

Shawn:
Got it. Magnesium is a really big one in the fact that it’s responsible for over 300 biochemical processes in the body. Many of them related to relaxation and sleep. It’s quite possibly the biggest deficiency, mineral deficiency, in our world today with over 80% easy being deficient in magnesium so making sure that you get your magnesium optimized. Number one, food first, great magnesium sourced foods. Anything that’s deep dark green is just a cue for high content of magnesium. I love spirulina for this, chlorella, green leafy vegetables, but also, supplementation would probably be ideal for many people here. You have to be careful with the supplements. If you take a little bit more than your bowel tolerance, it can cause diarrhea, aka we call it disaster pants sometimes. You have to be careful about that.

What I love the most is topical magnesium. This has been for centuries. Epsom salt for example is magnesium sulfate, known to relax your body. Help to soothe muscles. Help you sleep better. I really love super critical extracts that are absorbable into your skin like a hormone cream. People are like, well, how do I get it through my skin? It’s just rubbed right onto your skin, and it can help to elevate your magnesium levels as well without the problems with diarrhea or anything like that.

There you go. Make sure you get plenty good sleep, nutrients. You’ve got to take care of your gut integrity, and that’s going to improve your sleep as well.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We interviewed Stephanie Seneff on one of the shows in the past. She’s the Senior Scientist at MIT. She showed that glyphosate, number one herbicide used, sprayed on everything. Matter of fact, they’re spraying it on even to desiccate grain, whether it be rice, wheat, whatever it is, to harvest it. It shrivels it up. It kills it. It makes it easier to harvest and even more from the harvest. Literally, it’s being sprayed everywhere on our food unless you’re eating 100% organic.

The point is this. It kills the bacteria needed in the pathway you were speaking of. It’s called a shikimate pathway where our bacteria are needed to make the neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine relax our brain that we need for sleep, and we can’t make the chemicals. What are people doing today, Shawn? They’re taking the chemicals. They’re on antidepressants, right? Oh, not only does it affect your sleep. It leads to depression as well.

Shawn:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
People are understanding this. I’m watching people shove it in their mouth, these nonorganic products, nonorganic grains which really have the most of this on it. It’s creating a leaky gut. It’s disrupting the bacteria that make the chemicals for the brain. This is an epidemic. Most people are not sleeping.

Then, everything you said happens, right? Their brain gets more toxic. I mean, I could go down the list of everything. Toxic brain, Shawn, are why people don’t feel well today. It’s why people can’t lose weight. Brain detox is a huge part of my cellular healing. It’s a last phase. We have a prep phase. We have a body phase, and we have a brain phase. I got my life back, Shawn, by detoxing the brain, and here’s the catch-22. Toxic brains, they can’t sleep, right?

Shawn:
Right.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s like just some of these tips that really help them. They’re huge. They’re huge for people. Helping people get to sleep is part of the healing as you spoke about and part of, really, the detox process. Yeah, I mean, any other brain hacks that our viewers should know about? I’m sure you’ve got them, man. Come on.

Shawn:
Sure.

Dr. Pompa:
Now, listen, I have to turn it over to Meredith because she loves your podcast. She was like, “Dr. Pompa, we have to interview Shawn. Our viewers will love him.” I got to give it over to her to ask some questions. Any more hacks? That’s my last question on this.

Shawn:
Sure. Sure, definitely. Wow. Everything that you said is just so on point. If we can get people sleeping even 10% better, that’s going to lead to better brain function, detoxification, these hormone pathways, your endocrine system.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. Yeah.

Shawn:
Each percentage we can improve is going to improve the whole game. You know what? I’ll do one more low-hanging fruit, but also, it’s become very popular in culture. I’ll just put this out there. It’s so funny because it’s been about four years since the first version of Sleep Smarter came out. Many of the things like the words and the way that I’ve said them have come out in popular culture. You might hear Arianna Huffington saying them, which she already told me she used my book as well. You start hearing these things…

Dr. Pompa:
Do you have your book close to you there? Hold it up.

Shawn:
Oh, sure, of course, of course.

Dr. Pompa:
I’m sure they can go on Amazon and buy it.

Shawn:
Yeah, of course. It’s available Amazon. Anywhere books are sold you could find it, but then there’s more information at sleepsmarterbook.com. There’s some bonus videos there too when you get the book there.

Dr. Pompa:
Sure. Awesome.

Shawn:
Just understanding that, even if you’ve heard some of these things before, you might not have heard it in this—in the fashion that I’m going to share it. Often times it’s important. Many times we hear something. It’s like, oh, I’m meaning to do that, but now we’re going to actually get the full click for this one. Harvard Researchers confirmed that, yes indeed, exposure to artificial light, specifically blue light and the white spectrum coming from our devices at night, does in fact suppress your melatonin and elevate your cortisol, all right?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Shawn:
This is well known now. In Harvard, there are pretty smart guys there as well. Here’s what’s going on. They found that to artificial light in the evening, specifically during the day, it has no effect. There’s no effect on your cortisol or your whatever, your melatonin. Those things are in sync. Light exposure during the day, your genes expect that. At night, the tables are turned. What they found was that every hour that you’re exposed to your device, whether it’s television, your iPhone, laptop, computer, every hour in the evening suppresses melatonin for about 30 minutes. Okay?

Dr. Pompa:
Wow.

Shawn:
If you’re on your device for two hours or you’re watching two episodes of your favorite Netflix show, then chances are you’re going to be suppressing melatonin for about an hour afterwards.

Dr. Pompa:
Sorry.

Meredith:
The dogs.

Dr. Pompa:
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Shawn:
It’s all right. It’s all right.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No, exactly. Meredith, do you have your blue blockers handy? You could put them on for us. There’s a fashion statement.

Meredith:
I have them at home, but I love them. They’ve actually impacted my sleep as well. I wear them in the evening, and sometimes I wear them during the day if I’m staring at the computer screen. Is that the wrong thing to do?

Shawn:
Not necessarily. I mean, the thing is, of course—and I’ve seen this clinically. That people that do a lot of work staring into the computer screen all day, they definitely start to have issues with their eyesight but also headaches. Things like that. There are other ways you can cool your screen down, but you don’t necessarily want to take away all the ambient light during the day. That helps to get those sleep pathways on line, so your daytime hormones need to be produced as well.

Here’s the thing. With this exposure to blue light at night, it’s like what do we do about it? Our use of our devices is not going to go down any time soon. Number one is to give yourself a screen curfew. I recommend an hour before you plan on going to bed. That’s the top choice, but here’s a couple of hacks. You already mentioned the blue light blocking shades are great. Put on these glasses at night.

There’s devices, I mean, like apps and tools now so my iPhone right here. Apple, this is a multibillion dollar company, all right? Again, I’ve been talking about this for several years. The data is out there. They’re not going to do this for no reason just because it sounds good. Hey, we’ll just put something else on the iPhone. In the tool setting, they have something that’s called Night Shift that immediately pulls out the most sleep sucking troublesome spectrums of light from your screen, and it does this automatically. You set it and forget it, all right?

They did this for a purpose, and here’s my theory on it. Chances are it’s very much like the whole Morgan Spurlock Super Size Me thing where it’s like lawsuits are going to start taking place. Hey, your device caused my obesity. Your device caused my cancer, which research is showing that individuals -inaudible- increase in cancer rates, and so they’re being proactive in helping people. Hey, there’s a tool here that’s going to make sure that you can sleep a little bit better, and so that’s for iPhones. For Androids, for people out there with Androids, there’s—it’s a little bit more sketchy. They’re a little up and down. You got to find one that works for you, but Night Shift—I’m sorry. Not Night Shift but Twilight. Just like the movies. All right, Twilight is an app you guys can download.

For your laptops, desktops, f.lux, F-dot-L-U-X, you can just go to Dr. Google. Just go to Google, type in F-dot-L-U-X. Super easy app downloads to your computer, to your devices. I’ve been using it for over three years. I absolutely love it. It’s easy to deactivate. I can see it on my screen now. It’s not on right now because it’s daytime. If you got to look at a design or something like that, you can just deactivate it. Activate it right back on.

Basically, these is protection. It’s like the light in your eyeballs are like having sex, and you need to have some protection because you don’t—never mind. You get what I’m saying. Make sure that you’re using protection at night when you’re exposed to these things. Best case scenario, though, give yourself this screen curfew. Because even though you’re protecting your optical receptors from this light, it’s still stimulation. It can be this—especially with the internet. The way it’s set up, it’s literally set up in a way that—dopamine is about seeking.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s true.

Shawn:
Dopamine is more of an active compound. It’s the opposite of what we want to be happening with serotonin for example. Dopamine makes you seek, and it’s a wonderful thing because it keeps you to be driven and to look for things. The internet, it’s infinite stuff to look for, and if you seek, you also need to find something. When you find something, you get an opioid hit, right? This is like drugs. Your brain is producing these drugs every time you find something.

With the internet, if you go to Facebook, you scroll. You look. You find. You look. You find. You look. You find. Very quickly you become addicted, and you don’t even realize it. This is why you’re like you know what? I’ll just check my Instagram for a minute, and then 30 minutes goes by, and you’re like what the—what happened? What’s wrong with me?

Then you return to doing what you were supposed to be doing. It’s because it’s very addictive. How about we give ourselves a little bit of a curfew, 30 minutes minimum, and fill that space with something of equal or greater value? That’s the key. If I’m telling you you need to get off your device 30 minutes, you’d be like whatever, man. I could do it. You try, and then you start getting the internet jitters. It’s like, well, just let me check one post. You know?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Shawn:
You start negotiating. You have to fill that with something of greater or equal value. That could be talking to your spouse. What a concept, actually spending that time together, your kids, hanging out, playing some games, doing some journaling, reading a physical book, having sex. This is a great opportunity to fill that space. Hopefully, that’s more entertaining than Facebook, hopefully. Find something. Just fill that space with something of greater or equal value. Even with that said, there’s also a chapter dedicated to sleep and—relationship to sleep and sex in the book too. These are all strategies to give ourselves a screen curfew or to approach our technology a little bit smarter.

Dr. Pompa:
Ah, man, that’s great stuff. Yeah, I mean just the apps alone. Hey, you can go in your iPhone, and I’m sure it’s in the settings area just to turn that on. You don’t even need an app, right?

Shawn:
Nope.

Dr. Pompa:
Then the phone one, just in probably the phone—I’m sorry. For the computer, the f.lux, right, you can just download that.

Shawn:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Perfect. That’s awesome. That’s great stuff. I love the hour. You’re right. I mean, the light’s one thing but it’s the stimulation. Every time you open an email, every time you look at a text, you keep looking at your phone just because you’re just—those hits, they’re dopamine hits. You just want that lift.

Believe me. You could have 20 bad emails. Not that that would happen. A good little thing that you get that high from, man, it’s like pulling the lever, right? It’s like failure, failure, failure, but your brain just wants that random hit. Never knowing when it’s going to come. That’s what opening emails and texts and Instagram, that’s all it is. It’s the randomosity of the whole process. It’s the addiction, part of it.

Like you said, search. It’s the search. That’s addiction, find. Man, leave the addiction. We could do a whole show just on your whole day, right, plugging around on your phone. I hate this thing. Anyway, that’s another subject. I’m getting off on it now. All right, Meredith, you have a couple other questions for Shawn.

Meredith:
Yeah, digital detox, yeah. I have a dual question too. You mentioned melatonin. A lot of my friends and people who I know who try to be health minded take supplemental melatonin to sleep well. What are your thoughts on melatonin and taking it as a supplement?

Shawn:
That’s a great question, really, really great question and very timely. Just to get right to the point with it, we first and foremost have to understand that melatonin is a very powerful hormone, all right? It’s a very, very powerful hormone. Not only is this this glorified sleep hormone, but also, this is quite possibly our body’s number one anticancer hormone as well. Also, it’s a very powerful stimulant for fat loss, all right? Melatonin can actually increase your body’s production—you have something called brown adipose tissue, which burns white adipose tissue, aka the fat that people are trying to get rid of a lot of times, so it has a lot of roles in the body. Your body produces it in accordance to what is natural for you. With that said, there are many other hormones that we can take dietarily, or supplemental, or with medications. You have to be very judicious and intelligent about it first and foremost.

Second thing, when it comes to supplementation with melatonin, so what they’re—I dug around. I was trying to find the good and the not so good so I can come from a balanced perspective. What was found recently is that there were many theories that taking melatonin will stop your body, suppress your body from producing it itself, but that wasn’t true in the data from what I found. What it does do, consistently taking melatonin will decrease the receptor site sensitivity for melatonin. Basically, it will make your body—your body will still produce melatonin, but it won’t be able to use it because the receptor sites are now insensitive to it or less sensitive. That’s the thing. We want to be careful in taking supplemental melatonin because we will eventually shut down our body’s ability to use it properly.

With that said, I think melatonin supplementation is good to go in spot cases, whether somebody’s—maybe they just changed a time zone, or two, or three. They’ve had a tough week of sleep, and they need to just get back on track. Relying on it as a consistent thing is not a good idea. Also, the dosage, too many products out there, melatonin supplements, it’s too high, the amount that they’re giving you when you’re producing it. It’s micrograms. Not grams, all right? You have to be aware of that as well. There’s a little bit of information on seeking the right amount in the book as well.

What I would recommend people to do personally before jumping to melatonin—which I think, again, melatonin can be great. It’s something good to have on hand for those spot cases, but it’s to use precursors. To let your body do part of the process. Precursors to melatonin are things like L-tryptophan. 5-HTP is another one. These are precursors, so your body still does a step in the process. Even go back even further to just things that are time tested and used for thousands of years without potentially negative side effects like—I’m sorry, like chamomile tea, all right? Well documented, used for a very long time. It helps relax the nervous system. It can help with sleep, also blood pressure. Lots of benefits but not negative side effects attached to it.

Chamomile might not be strong enough for some people, so then we’d go to the next step up which might be like kava-kava or eventually valerian, which is a more strong sedative. These have been used for a long time. Melatonin taken in a supplement form was invented yesterday. In the timeline of humanity, it hasn’t been around that long, so we want to just be a little bit careful with that. That’s a great question though.

Meredith:
Awesome. Love it and great answer. I totally agree. Just lastly, I’m curious how detoxification fits into your plan with sleeping smarter and how you implement that.

Shawn:
Yeah. It’s weaved in and out of the book throughout the chapters, just this whole understanding. We live in a very different world today where we’re dealing with 42 billion tons of toxins dumped into our environment every year, some crazy number like that. We have to be adamant about doing things to protect ourselves, protect our organs, protect our tissues because we are also—especially our thyroid, for example. It’s very negatively charged, and it’ll attract a lot of positively charged ions or aka heavy metals. You have to do something today where you’re helping your body to protect itself and also to detoxify these compounds. My biggest approach and what I share in the book also, I do a chapter specifically dedicated to nutrition related to food. Also, weight loss related to sleep, and how those two things are connected. It’s to avoid the problem in the first place. That’s my big approach.

Prevention is the best medicine so making sure that we are in fact eating organic, wild crafted food to the best of our ability. Usually, your ability is much more than you say it is or think it is. Shopping at farmers markets, making sure that we know where our food is coming from. We’re very disconnected from that today, and I get it. We’ve all got a lot of stuff going on, but farming percentage of society went from 20% to less than 1% of the population now is producing all the food that all of us are eating. We need to get more connected to our food again. Make sure that we’re being very focused and persistent in the quality of food that we’re getting.

Simple practices like the rebounding. We mentioned earlier the lymphatic system benefits that come along with that. Doing simple exercise, walking, moving that lymphatic system, just basic stuff like that is really my approach that I weaved into the book. There are several other things as well that—especially in the context of this show that I know you guys have provided for people. I’m a big fan of all of it. Niacin supplementation, there’s so many things that you can do to help your body to protect itself, to do its job, to detoxify itself so you can sleep better. Also, that better sleep is going to turn around and lead to faster weight loss, better blood sugar management, heart health, so many different things, anti-aging. It really all starts with having this overall arching strategy.

Meredith:
Yeah. Awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Thank you, Shawn. No. This was great takeaways for our listeners and viewers. No doubt about it. We so appreciate it. I hope people buy your book and learn more. Check out our True Cellular Detox. I think it fits in really well with what you’re doing. It really does. Great message, man, thank you.

Shawn:
It’s my pleasure, will do. Thank you, guys, so much for having me on this show. It’s been a pleasure.

Meredith:
Awesome. Shawn, how does everybody find out more about you?

Shawn:
Sure. Most people know me from my show, the podcast, which I think you mentioned. It’s crazy. This just started off as an idea, but now we have millions and millions of listener downloads every year. It’s called The Model Health Show. You could find that anywhere you listen to podcasts, whether it’s iTunes or Stitcher, SoundCloud. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you could find it.

Also, you can listen online at our website, our home online. It’s themodelhealthshow.com. The modelhealthshow.com, we have all the shows there. I have some pretty cool articles and stuff too. We have videos of most of the podcasts. You’d be in the studio with us, and we like to have a good time.

People can find me there, and all my social media is there too. I’m pretty active on Instagram now. I really love it, even though it’s addictive, but I’m on there a lot and doing the Insta Stories, and people can follow throughout my day. That’s where people can connect with me, and also, they can find Sleep Smart there as well.

Meredith:
Awesome. Thank you so much for everything you’re doing. Thanks for the awesome information you shared on the show today. Thanks, Dr. Pompa, as always. I hope all of you watching and tuning in have an awesome weekend, and we will see you next week. Take care everybody.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. See ya.

148: Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Part 2

Transcript of Episode 148: Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Part 2

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Dr. Thomas Seyfried

Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra, and this is episode number 148. Today we have our resident healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, of course, and today we welcome back Professor Thomas Seyfried. He has been on the show before. It was about a year ago exactly – I checked the date – that we had him first on Cellular Healing TV. We got so much of an amazing response, and it was quite an episode where we really delved really deeply into his research and the science that he’s working on.

We asked him back, and he agreed, so here we are a year later to talk more with Professor Seyfried. So excited to have you on the show, before we get started. In case you guys missed the first episode, which was Part 1, which was episode 94, so check that out for sure, I’m going to tell you guys a little bit about Professor Seyfried, and then we will jump right in.

Thomas N. Seyfried is professor of biology at Boston College and received his PhD in genetics and biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1976. He did his undergraduate work at the University of New England where he recently received the distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. He also holds a master’s degree in genetics from Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Thomas Seyfried served with distinction in the United States Army’s First Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War and received numerous medals and commendations.

He was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine and then served on the faculty as an assistant professor in neurology. Other awards and honors have come from such diverse organizations as the American Oil Chemists Society, the Ketogenic Diet Special Interest Group of the American Epilepsy Society. Dr. Seyfried previously served as chair, Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association and recently received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Complimentary and Integrative Medicine.

He presently serves on several editorial boards including those for Nutrition & Metabolism, Neurochemical Research, and the Journal of Lipid Research, and ASN Neuro. Dr. Seyfried has over 170 peer-reviewed publications and is author of the book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer. His full list of peer-reviewed publications can be found on PubMed. Quite an impressive resume, Professor Seyfried. Welcome back to Cellular Healing TV.

Professor Seyfried:
Thank you very much, Meredith. It’s nice to be back.

Dr. Pompa:
I don’t know if I should – (salutes) – or if I should bow down. I think I’m just going to bow down. What an amazing guy! I’m going to embarrass you, right? I’m going to embarrass you.

Professor Seyfried:
Thank you.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s quite the resume. Last time you read it, I think I was impressed. This time, I’m even more impressed somehow. Here’s the book. I’m just going to put it right up front because this book changed my life. It really did. Not that I had cancer, thank God, but it changed a lot of my teaching. I’m honored and blessed to teach a lot of doctors around the country that now know your work.

I remember, we were sitting around a small group at the cancer conference in Florida. There was eight of us. I don’t even remember you saying this, but you were – we were talking about Mercola, and of course, Joe Mercola was in that small group of this little mastermind group. You said, “Yeah, if it wasn’t for Joe’s show,” you said, “I might have sold a few hundred books, but after Joe’s show,” I think you said you sold 4,000 books, right?

Professor Seyfriend:
It was more than usual. Let’s put it that way. Unfortunately, the publishers charge quite a bit of money for this book. I told them I wish they could sell it for less, but they make it as a textbook, and that makes the price up significantly.

Dr. Pompa:
It is a textbook. This book has just years of your study and so much research. I don’t know a more research-backed book, and you had to; otherwise they’d be down your back, perhaps, because everything here that you said is – you did an amazing job citing a lot of this research, and I even dug into that. Anyway, so at the top of the show, I just thank you so much for this book.

Professor Seyfried:
Thank you.

Dr. Pompa:
It changed not just my life, but the doctors, and obviously so many of their patients, and clients because of this book. Your work is amazing and immense. Hopefully, we’ll talk about some of the new things that you’re doing. Here’s the question I have right at the top: People are going to watch this show that either know somebody with cancer or has cancer, and I promise you if you don’t, this show is even more about not just cancer, but cellular healing. What works for cancer will make every cell healthier.

Here’s the question: Can we manage cancer today without the toxicity, meaning the chemo, the radiation, the immunotherapies, all of which we’re doing with cancer? Can we manage cancer without the toxicity -inaudible- good cells? All of that might work for cancer, but it sure is making people sick. Is it possible, Tom?

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah, I think it is, and I’ll talk about that. I should mention at the beginning, I think at some point in the future, the field and the society will come to know that this period of cancer treatment will be recognized as the greatest fiasco in the history of medicine. What we are doing to people today to make them healthy is absolutely incredible. It speaks to a fundamental lack of knowledge regarding the biology of the disease.

There is no other disease that I know of where you have to poison and irradiate people to make them healthy. It’s just beyond my comprehension. The history of the disease has been this: Surgically mutilate people, or irradiate and burn them, and poison them to within an inch of their life with the design, ultimately, of trying to cure them from a biological disease that in my mind can be managed better without this incredible toxicity.

The question is how do you do that? First you have to recognize the very fundamental issue that cancer is a mitochondrial metabolic disease. It is not a genetic disease. Now, this is a very difficult concept for people to understand. The therapies that we are using to treat the disease are based on the gene theory, which says that the genes are responsible for the dysregulated cell growth, and therefore we must use any treatment we can to stop these proliferating cells, which is usually some toxic drug, or radiation, or just surgically remove organs, and things like this.

The issue, of course, is, in my view, it’s a mitochondrial metabolic disease, and as such, you have to simply ask, “What are these cells using as a fuel to maintain their state of proliferation?”

Dr. Pompa:
Hold that thought for one minute. We have so many doctors that watch this show, and we have, obviously, the layperson looking for answers. Mitochondria is where our cells produce energy, and the cells can use fat as an energy source. Your theory has been that cancer cells – this is the problem. This is disrupted. Just as an explanation of this is where the problem is. The mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell where energy is produced, this is what’s broken.

Professor Seyfried:
Yes. The issue, of course, is that if you look at the data from a broad range of cancers whether it’s breasts, colon, brain, bladder, you name it, they all have defects in the structure, function, and numbers of mitochondria in that diseased tissue. How people can say the mitochondria are not damaged in cancer is beyond my comprehension. The evidence is overwhelming.

When you look at the electron microscopes, when you look at biochemical information, you can see in the tissues themselves the mitochondria are damaged. If you’re looking at tissue with damaged, few mitochondria, structurally abnormal, those cells cannot respire effectively. They cannot get energy from the typical way we get energy, which is breathing in air and using fuels to respire.

If you can’t respire and breathe to get energy, the way those cells stay alive is they ferment. It’s a very ancient process of energy metabolism. It existed in all cells on the planet before oxygen came into the environment. Those ancient pathways exist in all of our cells, but they play a very minor role under normal conditions, but a major role in cancer to keep those cells alive. They’re not respiring; they’re fermenting. If they are fermenting, the question then becomes, “What are they fermenting to generate the energy to sustain rapid proliferation?”

The answer is glucose and glutamine. The evidence to support that is overwhelming in the scientific literature. Top papers and the top scientific journals have repeatedly shown over and over again that glucose and glutamine are the prime drivers of the proliferation of tumor cells.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, this isn’t something new. Otto Warburg went back – I mean, I think new in the sense that you and now others have proven that this gentleman, Otto Warburg – the early 1900s, this was his theory. Now, we fast-forward –

Professor Seyfried:
Warburg’s major contribution was that respiration was damaged in tumor cells, which a lot of people still can’t comprehend. Even those in the metabolism field have difficulty understanding what Warburg actually showed and what he did. Warburg never discussed the issue of amino acid metabolism or glutamine. He discussed primarily in the terms of lactic acid production from carbohydrates, which is the waste product of carbohydrate or sugar fermentation. He didn’t talk much about the amino acid fermentation.

We brought that on. We’re the ones that are doing that along with some other people. Now, the issue, of course, is that glutamine is a prime fuel for tumor cells as well as glucose. The question then becomes, “How do you stop glutamine?” People think glutamine is being respired, which means it’s being broken down according to normal methods. That can’t be because these cells are fermenting. They have damaged respiration, so they’re not going to be able to get energy from glutamine using respiration.

Glutamine has to be giving us energy through another mechanism, which is amino acid fermentation. That still goes back to Warburg’s theory that the respiration of the cell is damaged, so therefore, the way the cell has to survive is through fermentation. Because glucose is so abundant, a lot of tumor cells will be burning glucose as an energy source and fermenting glucose. All right? This is one form.

However, there are some tumor cells where you can take away all the glucose, and they still survive. The question is, “What are they using to survive?” They are invariably using glutamine, the amino acid. Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in our body. It’s the most abundant amino acid in the bloodstream and in our tissues. The muscle is loaded with glutamine. This whole concept of cachexia, where the cancer patient starts to – looks like they’re starving even though they’re eating, the wasting away of the muscles is the form of the tumor using glutamine from the muscles to survive. They’re taking the proteins out of the muscle, and they’re converting them into both glucose and glutamine. This cancer cell is surviving.

Now, you have to ask yourselves, “Of all of the different therapies that we’re using to treat cancer patients, what are the therapies that are targeting glucose and glutamine simultaneously?” The answer is none. There are no therapies that are being used anywhere in the world to treat cancer by targeting the two prime fuels that they’re using to ferment. Does it make sense that we’re not going to manage this disease if we allow these cells to have access to those two fermentable fuels?

Most of the treatments that we use to treat cancer free up more glucose and glutamine in the microenvironment. It is unbelievable that the field cannot comprehend this simple message. They continue to persist – that’s why I call it a tragedy. It’s a tragedy of monumental proportions that we know what the cells are using to survive, and very, very few of the treatments – well, some of the targeted therapies shut down the insulin-like growth factor receptor signaling pathway, which is essentially the glucose pathway, which is what Warburg said a long time ago. Those so-called medicines are targeting some aspects of what Warburg had proposed.

The cells – they say, “Oh, they’re tough, and they can escape that.” Yeah, they burn glutamine. If you’re not targeting glutamine, they’re going to be burning that, and they’re going to look like they’re escaping. They’re not escaping. These cells are damaged. They’re only looking for the fermentable fuels in the environment to stay alive. As long as they’re there, they have a real chance to continue to grow. It’s not a complicated problem.

Dr. Pompa:
I want to talk about – I want to get into some of these things that you’re studying that we, as a group of practitioners around the country are doing, that I believe more doctors and people should be aware of. Let’s go back. Your study is genetics. Someone like you with a background, years of studying, you’re saying, “Wait a minute. This isn’t the answer.”

Tom, billions of dollars are being spent. Watch television right now. If I were the public, if I were the person sitting out there, I would say, “Surely they’re going to cure my cancer because they’re going to find that gene, and they’re going to be able to do something about it with a drug. It’s going to affect my gene because I have cancer because of the gene.” What do you say about that? You’re a geneticist here.

Professor Seyfried:
It’s misinformation. It’s based on the gene theory of cancer. If the gene theory of cancer is not correct, it’s not the right theory underlying the disease. How is that information – how are those strategies ever going to work if the disease is not a genetic disease? The people say, “Well, how do you know it’s not a genetic disease?” The nuclear transfer experiments clearly showed that it cannot be a nuclear-driven genetic disease.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay, wait. You did one of those studies.

Professor Seyfried:
No. I didn’t do any of those studies.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. I thought you -inaudible-.

Professor Seyfried:
No.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. I misread that, but speak to that in simple terms, very simple terms -inaudible- meant by that for the public.

Professor Seyfried:
What I simply did was bundle and gather those studies up from across several decades, just put them all together in one report, in one group. They had always existed in the literature, but each one of those studies was considered an anomaly. None of those studies were designed to test the gene theory of cancer. They were done in a very unbiased way, which makes them even more powerful.

Dr. Pompa:
In simple terms, explain what they did to show this can’t be genetic because this is very simple. The public can understand it.

Professor Seyfried:
They were testing whether or not the nucleus of a tumor cell could direct development, not testing whether cancer was a genetic disease or not. They were very unbiased experiments. You take the nucleus out of a tumor cell and you put it into a new cytoplasm that can –

Dr. Pompa:
Where the DNA is. The nucleus is where the DNA is.

Professor Seyfried:
They take a cancer nucleus, the nucleus of a cancer cell, and put it into a cytoplasm of a normal cell to see whether or not the cancer nucleus can develop an organism or what would happen if this were done.

Dr. Pompa:
Stop right there. If it were genetic, if you took the DNA in the nucleus and put it in this cell, that cell then, therefore, would and should develop cancer. Correct?

Professor Seyfried:
Yes, according to the theory. The theory says that neoplasia is due to defects in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Therefore, the disease is a genetic disease. It comes from the oncogenes, which drive the dysregulated cell growth. The tumor cell also has defects in tumor suppressor genes that are supposed to suppress proliferation. The combination of these defects together is what ultimately drives the disease. The nuclear transfer experiments are a direct test of that theory, and this –

Dr. Pompa:
What happened? Did it develop a cancer cell?

Professor Seyfried:
No. In none of those cases did it do that. They did it in vivo, and in vitro, and they looked at – and the important issue here is that the studies were done by the best scientists in the world in those particular areas of expertise. They were repeated over and over. The conclusion from each one of these experiments is basically the same.

The nucleus of the tumor cell is not responsible for driving the disease. I can tell you these guys that did these experiments were the best there are. When people say, “Oh, those experiments need to be repeated,” they were repeated over and over again by the best people in the field.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, how are billions still being spent here then? If the greatest scientists did these, how are the billions being spent on this genetic therapy?

Professor Seyfried:
People refuse to acknowledge this information. They ignore it. It’s too devastating to deal with. What are you going to say if a multi-billion-dollar industry is – the concepts which driving the industry are flawed? Also, it’s the dogma. It’s the dogma that cancer must be a genetic disease. It can’t be anything other than that because Nobel Prize winners have proven that it is a genetic disease. They never tested the alternative hypothesis that it might be a metabolic disease. Their results are just – the data that they found are solid data. The difference is how you interpret those data in light of the other observations that are associated with this.

When you begin to put all this together, it becomes very clear that cancer cannot be a genetic disease. Therefore, any of the therapies that are being used based on that theory are not going to give you the kind of results that you would expect. Think about it. Every year, the number of dead people in cancer goes up. The new cases are going up. If all of this stuff is going to work and it’s going to be right, you’d expect a dramatic drop in the number of people dying from cancer.

Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.

Professor Seyfried:
All right. Why is that? The theory used to treat the disease is flawed. It’s a fundamentally flawed theory.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt.

Professor Seyfried:
Who’s going to come to understand this? How long is it going to take the people to come to understand this?

Dr. Pompa:
That’s where my passion lies in this topic. Look, there’s billions being spent on the new immunotherapies. Explain to our listeners and viewers what the immunotherapies are and what’s going on there. This is where the hope lies right now.

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah. The immunotherapies are based on what they call checkpoint inhibitors. The cancer cells have these abnormal gene expressions which inhibit the T cells from killing them. They’re going to make antibodies against these cancer-related proteins on the surface and also on some of the killer T cells to allow the T cell to now start to target and kill the cancer cells.

The problem is those same antibodies do a job on all kinds of immune cells in your body. Your body starts to attack itself. You could create autoimmune diseases. Yes, there are going to be some people that are going to have spectacular recovery from this. There’s no question about it. The problem is that these people are few and far between, and you’re going to kill more people than you’re going to cure with these kinds of therapies because they’re not based on the fundamental issue that the tumor cells are fermenting.

Sure, you can use those other things. Sure, you can irradiate people. Sure, you can poison people with toxic drugs. Yes, there will be people that will survive, but wouldn’t it be easier to target the common problem in all the cells of the tumor? Why is nobody – they’re not doing that because they’re locked into the dogma, thinking that this is a genetic disease. Once this dogma is correct – and believe me. Dogma is something that is so hard to convince people. It’s like trying to convince a person of one religion that the other religion is the true answer. It’s almost impossible to do this.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re right.

Professor Seyfried:
The argument is that, “Well, we’re going to have to wait for the people who think cancer is a genetic disease to die off, and then the new, young people who come in to the field will recognize what we’re saying, and then we’ll change the paradigm.” The problem is why do we need to sacrifice the lives of millions of people because a few people can’t understand the concepts? This is the tragedy that I’m speaking about. I don’t think it’s necessary to sacrifice the lives of millions of cancer patients because a few people locked into a dogma can’t understand the real nature of the disease.

You need to demonstrate that metabolic therapy can manage the disease better than can chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Now, of course, people would love to have the hybrid system where we combine chemotherapy with metabolic therapy or radiation therapy with metabolic therapy. I don’t have time to waste on all that, okay? I’m not going to sit around for 45 years before we finally shift – it’s like going from sails to sails to steam to eventually to steam, and now nuclear power.

I’m not ready to waste my – and saying, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s wait around for another 15, 20 years.” The issue here is that if you target glucose and glutamine, the probability of success will be infinitely greater than the stuff that we’re doing right now. The question is who wants to be the first group to go out and say, “Let’s target glucose and glutamine?”

Now, I don’t want to make it sound like it’s that simple. If you take away glutamine, you could certainly damage your immune system. You have to know it’s not so much whether targeting glutamine will work; yes, it will work. It will work remarkably well. In fact, you got to be careful that it doesn’t work so well that it causes tumor lysis syndrome and kills the patient because it was so therapeutically successful. You just simply have to strategize with dosage, timing, and scheduling to how you’re going to target glutamine without harming the immune system. The immune system uses glutamine. We’re working on that now. That’s what we’re doing.

Dr. Pompa:
Let’s pull the conversation into two areas that practitioners are doing, and it’s at the heart of a lot of your science and studies. Someone just sent me over the other day this article from Science Daily. “Fasting kills cancer cells of the most common type of childhood leukemia, studies show.” They can’t see it there, but anyways, I read the headline to you. Fasting kills cancer cells. This is a new study, Tom. Hey, this was just out December 12th, 2016. Your studies are showing this, so fasting is one of these things. Ketosis, it changes your cells from using glucose, forcing it to use fat as an energy. You just said yourself –

Professor Seyfried:
Wait. We can’t use fat. The problem is the tumor cells – to burn fat for energy, you have to have good mitochondria. Okay? The cancer cell has bad mitochondria, so how is it going to use fat for energy? Besides, the cancer cells are living hypoxic environments. You need a good oxygen-respiring system to burn fat for energy.

Cancer cells are not going to -inaudible-. Some may get a little bit. It depends on what stage the mitochondria are at in their degenerative state. Again, fat can’t be fermented. Remember, ketones cannot be fermented. Fat can’t be fermented. Therefore, ketones and fat cannot be used successfully to keep cancer cells alive.

Dr. Pompa:
Therefore, something like fasting or ketosis will force –

Professor Seyfried:
Listen. Fasting will lower blood sugar and force an alternative fuel, okay, but it doesn’t stop glutamine. It will kill those cells, those cancer cells that are heavily dependent on carbohydrates for their survival. If you have a tumor cell – we know this. We did these experiments ourselves. We have metastatic cancer – metastatic cancer is part of the immune system. They’re macrophages that had destabilized energy metabolism. Those cells survive on glutamine. We can fast the hell out of somebody with metastatic cancer, and you’re not going to cure his cancer.

That’s the challenge. There are drugs that – that’s the challenge. We’re working on that right now. There are drugs, but these drugs can also be very toxic. It’s not what works; you know what works, but how do you allow that to work without creating toxicity? The strategy for managing cancer is how do you kill the cell with the minimal amount of toxicity to the body? That involves scheduling, timing, and dosages of drugs, and diets, and procedures that all work together in a beautiful harmony to target and kill tumor cells in a gradual way, not in this altogether poisonous way. You’re going to degrade the tumor gradually over time while maintaining the health and vitality of the cells in the body.

Dr. Pompa:
We know that we can utilize fasting and ketosis to force the cells into the fat thing, and cancer cells can’t make that transition, but many of the cancer cells can make the transition. “Okay, fat, but I’m going to go and utilize this glutamine. I’m going to break the body’s muscle down, and I’m going to take this glutamine. I’m going to survive.” What’s on the forefront there? We have the [00:28:26] on the one side to control the glucose. What are we doing to control the glutamine? We can control the glucose but not the glutamine. What are we doing there?

Professor Seyfried:
That’s the challenge. That’s what a lot of companies are interested in, and they’re trying to target specific pathways on the glutaminolysis side of the coin. The problem with that is there are many receptors of glutamine. There are many pathways by which glutamine can get into the cell. The most likely, in my view at this point in time, would just be using something that binds up the – or prevents the cell from taking in glutamine. That’s basically blocking glutaminolysis.

As I said, this can be toxic, as well. In the past, people have used some of these drugs. The problem is they were using them in the wrong concentrations, the wrong scheduling, and they weren’t targeting glucose. If you shut off all the glutamine and you haven’t targeting glucose, the cells simply gobble up the glucose, and they survive. This misconception about tumor cells being very hardy, and tough, and adaptable – they always like to use the term, “adaptable.” They’re adaptable because you never shut off their fermentation.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s it.

Professor Seyfried:
They’re not adaptable. How can you call a cell that has all these broken chromosomes so tough and adaptable? I don’t know of any genetic organism that can survive and be so adaptable when its genome is shot to hell. It has mutations and broken chromosomes. What you have is an environment full of fermentable fuels.

As long as those fermentable fuels are in the environment, this cell doesn’t need much. It can fall back on the ancient pathways that existed in all cells on the planet before oxygen came on the planet. These cells are simply falling back on their ancient pathways to ferment in an oxygen-depleted environment.

What are they using? They’re using glucose and glutamine. Why glucose and glutamine? They’re the most abundant fuels in the microenvironment. Can a cancer cell ferment other amino acids? Yes, it can. How do we target those? We don’t have to worry about those because they don’t exist in the microenvironment in very large amounts. If you’re going to fuel a cell that’s dysregulated, you have to have plenty of fuel in the environment to give to that. Otherwise, it’s going to choke and die.

Yes, it can ferment aspartame, and asparagine, and these other amino acids. The problem is there’s so little of that. They’ll go through that in a day, and then what? Then there’s nothing left, so they’re going to die. They’re going to die because they can’t ferment. Now, there are some cells that have this unique capacity to eat other cells. Oh, this is a new – this is wonderful. I’m taking away all their fermentable fuels, and these cells will turn around and gobble down another cell, and then strip off the glutamine and glucose from the other cell, and ferment that inside its own – some of these cells can do this.

You just have to know about that. There are drugs that will completely shut down that process. The issue is we have a way to shut down every way that cell can try to squirm out of the restriction of the fermentable fuels. It’s just that very few – we’re the only ones doing that. There’s nobody else out there that’s doing this because they think cancer’s a genetic disease. Go figure. If you do this, in my view, we will be successful. We will manage this disease without toxicity once this information becomes known, accepted, and tried in the clinical trials and things like this.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, listen. Right now, we don’t have the glutamine thing completely controlled, but just what we have in control, controlling the glucose with fasting and ketosis has already been a massive success.

Professor Seyfried:
Yes.

Dr. Pompa:
To these types of cancers that have the ability, like these metastatics, to grab onto the glutamine. We’re close if we can get more funding. I don’t know how you came up with the funding you do.

Professor Seyfried:
Fortunately, Travis Christofferson’s foundation has been very generous. George Yu’s foundation has been generous. We have private foundation funds that support – they’re not enough, no, but they keep the program going. The idea is once – and we’ve also developed – you have to realize, also, it’s very important to recognize that we’ve developed the best pre-clinical models of glioblastoma and systemic metastatic cancer that exists.

The research that we’re doing is based on model systems that replicate all of the conditions that we see in the human. The issue here is most of the investigators in cancer don’t have these models. They’re using models that don’t represent the real world, taking human cells and growing them in an immune-compromised mouse. This is nonsense. You can get some information from this, but it’s not going to – they say, “Oh, people cure cancer in mice all the time.” No, they don’t. Believe me. I’ve never cured cancer in the mice that I have.

If they’re using bogus models, you’re going to cure it. A lot of these models don’t represent what really happens. Try to stop cancer that’s spread into your kidney, and your liver, and your lymph nodes, and your lung, and your brain. Try to stop those kinds of cancers and see how successful you are. You’re not going to be very successful any more so than you have in the clinic with the human. Once you have human cancer spreading into your bone marrow, into your brain, into your liver, and lung – this is a very serious disease. You’re not going to win a disease by poisoning the patient to death as the result of this. How many cancer patients are dying from the treatments rather than the disease itself? This is nonsense what we’re doing out there to these poor people.

Dr. Pompa:
Even the immunotherapy, I’ve heard you say, basically, they’re killing five for every one that gets a good result, literally decimating them. It’s very sad. Let’s bring it to a positive light. Our audience loves fasting. Let’s talk about some of your studies with fasting and what you’ve seen with cancer. Let’s talk about some of that.

Professor Seyfried:
We published the paper in 2002 showing that calorie restriction – which is comparable to therapeutic water-only therapeutic fasting because the basal metabolic rate of the mouse is so fast, eight times faster than that of the human. If you restrict his food by 40%, the biomarker changes in the mouse’s body, parallels the biomarker changes in the human body with water-only therapeutic fasting.

Now, we were able to show that this killed, massively killed, these tumor cells and was anti-inflammatory. It was pro-apoptotic, killing the tumor cells. It was anti-angiogenic. It shut down the blood vessels. We did all this stuff, and it was very clear. We thought this alone would be the major way to stop cancer, and it’s based on Warburg’s central theory that the cells, they’re mitochondria-defective. Therefore, the cells need glucose. If you remove glucose, they can’t ferment it, and they would die.

Our eyes became very opened when we developed the metastatic models of cancer. We were not able to cure or stop systemic metastasis using fasting or even shutting off the glucose. We tried 2-deoxyglucose. We tried a lot of things. We couldn’t stop metastatic cancer. I said, “Of course you make it better. Of course the animals live longer, just like humans will live longer,” but we could not cure metastatic cancer using fasting alone.

I’m surprised because humans do so much better than the mice. I’m astonished that when humans engage in these activities – case after case of people doing therapeutic fasting have had remarkable results in the human clinics. We’ve never seen this in the mouse. This gave us the idea, there’s something else going on here. I can shut off all the glucose on these mice, and I can’t stop the metastatic cancer completely. I can shut it down a little bit, but I can’t stop it. That’s what gave us the idea it was glutamine.

When we started targeting glutamine, these metastatic cancer cells were blasted out of existence. I said, “Oh, my god!” These cells will use glucose and glutamine. Yes, fasting, calorie restricting, ketogenic diets done the right way can be remarkably therapeutic for patients, but will they ultimately resolve the disease long-term? That’s the question. I don’t think so unless you shut down that glutamine pathway – unless you can shut down the glutamine highway. Only then will I think that we could get long-term resolution of this disease. Once we do that, I think we’re going to see remarkable long-term resolution for a lot of people that have these diseases. This is my view –

Dr. Pompa:
One of the things –

Professor Seyfried:
This is what I think.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s interesting and -inaudible-, for sure. One of the things that we look for as practitioners is, in a fasting state or even in an intermittent fasting daily state, is we want to see ketones rise, and we want to see glucose drop. If we don’t get that glucose to drop, we don’t get the therapeutic benefit even on a non-cancer patient where we’re just trying to – we’re getting their mitochondria to adapt and to become healthier. Why is that, Tom? Have you found the same thing?

Professor Seyfried:
Glucose, you have to realize – Dom D’Agostino is working with a ketone supplement.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We’ve had him on the show.

Professor Seyfried:
I’ll tell you, you can shut down the – a body can live without glucose for the most part as long as you transition over to ketones. If you don’t transition over to ketones, it’ll kill you. If you take away your glucose, you’re going to go into – you’re going to drop dead. Again, everything has to be staged, scheduled, and doses. You bring the patient into a state of therapeutic ketosis.

We know from the work that I’ve done with Dominic, and Angela Poff, and others, that if you can raise those ketones high, the tumor cells choke on them. They can’t use them for energy. The key thing is the body will use ketones for energy as long as you can keep the blood sugar low. The lower you can get the sugar and the higher you can get the ketones, the more metabolic stress you’ll put on the tumor cells.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, I think that’s what we see. In other words, you don’t know – you almost don’t get the full benefit of the ketones without the glucose dropping. We want to see this trend of glucose dropping, they feel the benefits of the ketones. If the glucose stays up, it seems to not have the same effect.

Professor Seyfried:
If glucose stays up, insulin is on. The hormone insulin stays on, and as long as insulin – glucagon, which mobilizes fats – if insulin stays high, you’re going to pee out the ketones. That’s why you need to measure blood glucose and ketones. People say, “Oh, look at. I do an Atkins diet. Look at this. I pee in ketones.” Yeah, sure you are, but much are in the blood? You’re peeing those ketones out of your body. You’re not keeping them in. If you lower the blood sugar, the ketones will stay in your body. You’re going to need them for energy for your brain. As long as glucose is high, you’re not going to be adapting to ketones as readily as you could if glucose were low. That’s the key.

If you can get the glucose low – but then you have to use certain kinds of – not all ketogenic diets are the same. Some are much, much better than the others. We patented, actually, a formulation that we were shocked to find that works so much better than some of these other – so all ketogenic diets are not the same. It’s the ratios of the types of fats that you have in there, the fats with – saturated fats, monounsaturated, these kinds of fats, certain kinds, certain ratios. They seem to be much better.

The ketogenic diet is totally – not totally, but very, strongly different from Atkins diets. Atkins diets are just, “Eat as much fat and protein as you can, no carbohydrate.” Some of those proteins are not good. They’ll drive cancer up. Some of the fats in meat can be pro-inflammatory, like arachidonic acid 24. That’s a pro-inflammatory fatty acid that’s loaded in meats. You don’t want that. That’s not part of what you need. Now, will you throw out ketones? Sure, you’ll throw out ketones. People who say that Atkins diets don’t work, they’re right.

Atkins diets don’t work to manage cancer, but ketogenic diets will work so much better, and you have to restrict them. People eating high-fat diets can provoke metastasis. Listen, we’ve seen it. It’s unbelievable. You eat a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, there’s nothing that can make those tumor cells grow any faster than that. These guys going out there saying, “Oh, yeah” – yeah. You got to lower glucose. You got to elevate ketones. You got to do a lot of things. It’s not simple, but it’s not super complicated, either.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, you threw out a word, “restriction,” and that’s something that we -inaudible- well. We don’t eat less. That only works short-term. Eat less often. That’s where the combination of utilizing fasts, even intermittent fasting daily, with ketotic states, there’s magic there.

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
The restriction we can get from eating less often actually brings us into where the body doesn’t think it’s starving, and then we get that what you just said. The restriction allows the body to actually utilize the ketones -inaudible- the glucose.

Professor Seyfried:
The other thing we have to be also very cognizant and aware of is fasting and ketogenic diets, these are weight loss conditions. They’re called therapeutic weight loss as opposed to pathological weight loss. In the cancer community, the oncology community, people always fear that, “Oh, cancer patients are losing weight, and therefore you can’t pile on a therapy that’s going to cause them to lose more weight when they’re also losing weight.” Again, you have to know that therapeutic weight loss is very, very different than pathological weight loss.

Dr. Pompa:
Tom, let me tell you something. My son is a great example, Meredith, right? He started intermittent fasting. The bodybuilders are doing this now where they’re eating in a four- to six-hour window. They’re fasting 18 to 20 hours, and he’s gaining muscle. He’s saying, “Why?” He’s in an anabolic growth hormone rise, so it’s actually not what these regular doctors are saying here. When you’re fasting like this in a form of restriction, but yet able to hold your muscle – why? It doesn’t allow gluconeogenesis because the growth hormone rises.

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah. Again, the management of the disease will involve all of these situations. There’ll be a fasting component; there’s a ketogenic diet component; there’s a ketone supplementation component; there’s a hyperbaric oxygen component; there are drugs that are going to lower and target glucose even more once the body is in ketosis, and there’ll be drugs that target glutamine. Also, stress management is also part of the package.

We’re working on a big paper right now with several of my collaborators called Press Pulse: A Metabolic Therapy for Cancer. It’s a combination of diets, and drugs, and procedures that all work synergistically together to achieve the management of the disease while enhancing the health and vitality of the body. This is what I think is going to be, ultimately in the long run, once people come to realize that this is a metabolic disease, will be the way that cancer will be managed. It’s going to be a strategy, but you have to have physicians that understand, and you have to have nurses that understand, dieticians, and nutritionists that understand. Right now, very few people understand. Food will be used as medicine.

Dr. Pompa:
We had a short conversation that day in the mastermind group in Florida. I do something, and I’ve written articles about diet variation. I’m a firm believer. Bad cells don’t adapt. You made the point earlier. Cancer cells adapt? What, are you kidding me? These are weakened cells. The whole point of fasting and doing some of these therapies is bad cells don’t adapt.

We’ve learned moving people in and out of ketosis, in and out of different fasts – and unhealthier people can do shorter fasts, but each fast, they seem to get more efficient through the fact that what’s happening is bad cells are dying, autophagy. Good cells are getting stronger. Moving people in and out of these different states, it’s all about adaptation. What’s your thought?

Professor Seyfried:
Yes. No, no, I think that’s – I wrote about that. If you constantly change the metabolic environment, only cells that have a good genome will be able to adjust and adapt to these changes. A cell with a bad genome is going to be eliminated. Absolutely, moving people in and out of these conditions will absolutely be essential for the management of the disease. That’s part of our Press Pulse strategy. You have certain parts of the therapies that are pressing constantly on the tumor cells, and then you have pulses that come in and out at the same time.

Dr. Pompa:
I love that.

Professor Seyfried:
You’re pressing and you’re pulsing in an in and out strategy. When do you use hyperbaric oxygen? When do you use a drug that will target glutamine? When do you use the glycolysis inhibitor together with the ketones in the diet? How do you manage the stress of the patient? How do you integrate exercise into this process? How do you do all this to have a synergy? A symphony of synergies is basically what you’re trying to do. This can be done once – we’re working on that exact scenario right now in our strategy. We have to demonstrate that this can work.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Keep me involved because this is my theory. Meredith will tell you, I get overwhelmed. I’m coming out of my chair right now. You’re the scientist; I’m the clinical guy, and I can tell you that when you move in and out of these states, you do. You create an adaptation issue.

All we have to do is look at ancient cultures and know that they were forced into being in ketosis, and not, and these different things happening at different times. It forced adaptation. Bad cells don’t adapt. I’m telling you, there’s magic in the variation. You saw me turn Joe Mercola’s mind on that, and he ended up writing and adding in his book the feast/famine cycle. It’s more of what you’re saying, the Press Pulse philosophy, and I’m with you on it.

Professor Seyfried:
I think it’ll be eventually – and I always keep the saying, “eventually.” It’ll eventually be the way we’re going to manage the disease. It will be because it’s based on sound scientific fact. We’re going after the weakest point of these cells, and we’re doing it while we’re enhancing the health and vitality of the body. It will be the way to go. It’s just that we have to train physicians to do this. None of this is being trained in the medical schools. Food is not viewed as medicine. These kinds of therapeutic strategies are not viewed at all.

The very individuals whose job it should be to implement these are not being trained to do it. They’re just simply not being trained. This is because people think cancer’s a genetic disease, and you’re going to have to go after the personalized medicine. You can change personalized – metabolic therapy can be personalized. Metabolic therapy is precision medicine. It’s just that it’s not related – the gene mutations are largely irrelevant. They’re effects; they’re not causes for this.

Once these concepts become more widely – my view is let’s show the evidence. Let’s show in pre-clinical models that the strategy that we’re talking about actually works. If you can show it works in pre-clinical models and dogs – let’s be honest. Dogs are suffering the same way humans are. We’re using dogs as therapy. My friends are using dogs. Dogs are responding remarkably well to these therapies. If dogs and mice with metastatic cancer can respond, humans can respond.

Who’s going to force the change? It’s certainly not going to come from the top medical schools. It’s got to come from the grass roots. People want to live. People want to live, and they don’t want to be poisoned. If there is a way that they can live without being poisoned, they’re going to want to do it. They’re the consumers. Remember, the patient is the consumer. If the consumer no longer wants the product you’re offering, change will have to occur. It’s just that simple. How do you…

Dr. Pompa:
No doubt.

Professor Seyfried:
You educate people. Basically, you demonstrate.

Dr. Pompa:
Listen, that’s why we need you at our conference. Put him there, Meredith. We got 300, probably, doctors at that event that need – we’re training doctors around the country in what I call a multi-therapeutic approach. All of we’re talking about is a part of that, like you said. It’s not one thing. We’re utilizing these things, and it’s remarkable to me how few doctors are – even understand this adaptation principle that you and I are discussing right now. Amazing things that we are doing, and yet so few know about it. We need you at the conference, doc. Meredith, I know you have some questions, so I’m going to turn it over to you.

Meredith:
Thanks so much. This episode has been an incredible wealth of knowledge. I do have a number of questions, but I know we’re at the top of the hour. The discussion on glutamine is so fascinating to me. I think, “Well, gosh, I’ve taken glutamine as a supplement a lot to support my gut health.” How does that fit in with this?

Professor Seyfried:
Glutamine is very important for gut health. Glutamine is important for our overall health because our immune cells use glutamine. Glutamine is a major fuel for our lymphocytes, macrophages, natural killer cells, for dendritic cells. When patients are burned, when people are burned, large doses of glutamine are given because we open our body to infection from bacteria. Our immune system needs to kill the bacteria, and glutamine is a powerful fuel for our immune system to kill the bacteria.

The issue, of course, is that cancer cells are also using the glutamine. How do you balance this? How do you walk this fine line between needing glutamine for the immune system and knowing the cancer cells need the same fuel to keep them going? This is our challenge right now. This is what we are doing right now. We are defining what that fine line is, and we are coming across the fine line to strike hard at the tumor cells, and then back off, and rebuild the immune system. Strike and rebuild. Strike and rebuild. You do this under a physiological program that keeps the body healthy, or you minimize toxicity to the greatest. No one is doing this. We’re the only ones that are doing this right now.

Meredith:
If someone doesn’t have cancer, then it would probably be a fairly safe supplement to rotate into the regime.

Professor Seyfried:
Oh, yeah. I think so. I don’t think there’s any problem with it at all. It’s good for people. It’s an important supplement if you know how to use it the right way.

Meredith:
What are your thoughts on exogenous ketones? You mentioned them briefly, but therapeutically, are you using them? Are you not using them? Why?

Professor Seyfried:
No, no. We’re working on them. There’s a lot of different products on the market for this. You have to be careful. Some of them have too much glucose in the product. My view is use your glucose ketone meter and see what it does to your GKI, your glucose ketone index. If it makes your glucose ketone index really low, which is what you want, then that’s good. If it doesn’t – from my experience, the ketones are horrible-tasting.

The really good ones that work, we got to make them taste – as Dominic says, “They taste like jet fuel.” This stuff, you have to choke down. To make a ketone supplement that tastes sweet and nice, you got to be careful. I don’t know what it’s going to do. I’m not willing to commit myself to any kind of a product or any kind of a – all I know is that the body makes ketones naturally, but that only comes when you do therapeutic fasting.

Getting back to the really health benefits of therapeutic fasting, is we make natural D-beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is the ultimate enhancer of mitochondrial function. Can you take a supplement that will do the same thing? People are trying to do this because everybody wants things in life to be easy. They don’t want to fast. They just want to drink some sort of a slurry and get the same benefit. Sometimes it doesn’t work as well. If you do fasting with ketone supplements, oh, boy. If you get the right ketone supplement with a fast, that could be lights out for a lot of tumor cells, I can tell you that.

Again, this all has to be worked out, and evaluated, and that needs to be – and the food industry is very interested in this. The food industry is moving into the space that the pharmaceutical industry should be in. We’ll see what happens with that as things progress.

Dr. Pompa:
I appreciate that. Here it is, Tom. “Fasting kills cancer cells.” This is December 12th, 2016.

Professor Seyfried:
Who did that study? Who is that? Was it Longo’s group?

Dr. Pompa:
It’s Southwest Medical Center summary. “Intermittent fasting inhibits the development and progression of most common types of childhood leukemia, researchers have found.” Who did it? Let’s see.

Professor Seyfried:
If they’re glucose-dependent, they’re going to die.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt. I’ll send it to you.

Professor Seyfried:
-inaudible- leukemia. We know this. We’ve done so many studies in this already. We’ve published a lot on that, so that's surprising to me.

Dr. Pompa:
No, I know.

Professor Seyfried:
It would be surprising if it didn’t work.

Dr. Pompa:
Meredith, I’ll send it to you, and you can make sure Tom gets it, okay?

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah.

Meredith:
Sounds great.

Dr. Pompa:
I thought it was great because it proves something that you’ve already proven.

Professor Seyfried:
We’ve seen that a long time ago. I tell you, it works better in humans than it does in the mice. I can tell you that much.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Tom, listen. We so appreciate your work. Everyone, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. Doctors, if you’re watching this, if you don’t have this, shame on you. This should be on your shelf right here. I tell you what. I refer to it. It’s always in reach. I tore this thing apart. You can see every little thing. I’m constantly grabbing it even to reference a study.

Professor Seyfried:
Okay. Thank you.

Meredith:
Awesome. Thank you so much. In closing, Professor Seyfried, I’d just like to ask if you have any words for someone who’s watching the show today and has cancer. What would you say to them?

Professor Seyfried:
I’d say to them that there’s hope for the future. It’s the real kind of hope, not the false hope that some of these other therapies are delivering. Unless the cancer moon shot all the money that President Obama just signed in on the basis of Vice President Joe Biden effort – unless that money is going to understanding cancer as a metabolic disease, I would say it’s going to be largely wasted, just as it’s been for decades.

I would say that the future of cancer management will come to be when they realize it’s a metabolic disease. This will be, in my view, the way we’re going to manage this disease. When are people going to come to understand this, and how fast will all these smart guys for the first time do something that is actually smart?

Dr. Pompa:
Amen.

Professor Seyfried:
It’s just going to take time.

Dr. Pompa:
Billions being spent on a false dogma. That’s a shame.

Professor Seyfried:
Yeah, that’s basically what it comes down to. Until the dogma is changed, we’re pretty much going to have the same old same old. Only the statistics will show you that. As I said in the book, if you want to know how the war on cancer is going, read the obituary pages in your local newspaper, and then you’ll know.

Dr. Pompa:
Bingo. Yep. We better change our philosophy, that’s for sure. Thanks, doc.

Professor Seyfried:
Okay.

Meredith:
Thanks, everyone. A sobering ending, but there is hope with all of these different strategies you guys employ along with the multi-therapeutic approach, that there are answers and solutions. Thanks so much, Professor Seyfried. Thank you, Dr. Pompa. Thanks for tuning in, guys, and we’ll see you next week.

Professor Seyfried:
Thank you. Bye now.

Meredith:
Bye.

147: How to Balance your Endocannabinoid System

Transcript of Episode 147: How to Balance your Endocannabinoid System

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Dr. Philip Blair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qOo3lw8Z8″

Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra, and this Episode #147. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Daniel Pompa, on the line, of course. Today, we welcome a very special guest, Dr. Philip Blair. Dr. Blair is no stranger to Cellular Healing TV. He’s been on the show twice before, Episode 84 and Episode 90. Dr. Blair is an expert on CBD oil, or cannabidiol oil, and healing properties of this really amazing compound from the hemp plant. We’ve delved into it a lot before, 84 on that episode was an overview, and Episode 90, we discussed the power of CBD oil and how it impacts Alzheimer’s and different brain conditions. It’s such a hot topic, so we brought Dr. Blair back on Cellular Healing TV to delve in a little bit further. We’re going to talk about the ECS today, or the endocannabinoid system, and all the benefits that CBD oil can have on that system. We’re going to delve in a lot more.

Before jump in, let me tell you guys a little bit about Dr. Blair if you’ve missed the other shows, and then we’re going to delve into this really exciting topic. Colonel Philip Blair, M.D., is a retired family physician recently relocated to the Florida Space Coast, which I guess is no longer correct because you’re out in Washington State. I’ll have to get the updated file next time. He graduated from West Point in 1972, and attended University of Miami School of Medicine, and trained as a family physician. After retiring from the army in 1996, he managed workers’ injuries and provided primary care above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, Kodiak Island, and Newfoundland, Canada. In 2000, he became Vice President for Disease Management at AWAC Incorporated, an insurance claim management company, where he developed a highly successful interventional approach to chronic kidney disease. In 2011, he formed his own company, consulting for employer-based health insurers and providing a revolutionary style of chronic disease management, achieving success in over 75% of patients with diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. In addition, he’s a skilled computer database developer and instructor for speech recognition software on PC and Apple platforms. He also enjoys ballroom dancing and public speaking. What a well-rounded guy. Welcome, Dr. Blair, back to Cellular Healing TV.

Dr. Blair:
Meredith, it’s great to be here again. I’ve got such exciting information to share, things that I’ve discovered in my studies and my experience with cannabidiol so really excited to be here, especially after the conference in Las Vegas where you guys did such a magnificent job.

Dr. Pompa:
You can see all of our doctors that know, and teach, and really participate and practice cellular healing use the cannabidiol. It’s such an amazing cellular product. It’s very part of our system. We’re excited to gain more information. Trust me, all of those doctors, and their clients, and patients are watching. We’d better bring them some good information, man. I can’t wait to hear it.

Dr. Blair:
I was always perplexed by why is it that all of these alternative care – because I’m an allopathic. I’m a family physician, and I was trained that many of these alternative pathways had really no significant value. They were unproven. Over time, I’ve seen very clearly they are very effective, and they are healthy. The dietary changes that we’ve been told in medicine have been wrong. What is it? What has been the transition that makes these other therapies or how is it that these therapies work when we’re not able to define them in the typical allopathic fashion? Why do they work? I wanted to explore that.

Dr. Pompa:
Exactly, this is information that more people need to hear. I think that right now, people are hearing a lot about marijuana, whether we legalize it, not legalize it. I think that we could have an easy solution for everybody if everybody understood. There are benefits to the THC. However, that’s where most of the debate lies. Why, because it causes the psychological, the high, if you will, the part of the brain that we need to keep functioning driving a car or whatever. I think there are some studies showing that there are some negatives to THC in higher amounts, what it does to the brain.

However, what we’re talking about today has nothing to do with that. What we’re talking about, the CBD, the cannabidiol portion, that’s the portion that hey, this is really what has the greatest health benefits, everything. If we’re going to legalize everything, which this is already legalized. This is really where the conversation should. Bringing in our listeners, this is what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the part of marijuana that’s already legal, the part of marijuana that really has the most health benefits. Most people don’t get the separation, Doc. Maybe we should start there and then back into the conversation.

Dr. Blair:
That’s a really good point. I want to make a clear distinction that we’re not talking about the THC portion, the part that makes you high. We’re talking about the healing portion which is in the cannabidiol. That’s what medical marijuana is all about. It contains the cannabidiol in high concentrations so it can affect those particular healing pathways. That’s very, very important that people understand that. When we’re talking about marijuana, we’re really talking about the cannabis plant. The cannabis plant comes in two varieties. This is simplistic, but we’re talking about it comes either as marijuana, or it comes as hemp.

Hemp is the part that contains the cannabidiol, and it doesn’t contain hardly any of the THC. As a result of some of the legislation and confusion, the cannabidiol is legal when it comes from imported sources. There are several good companies that are providing really high-quality cannabidiol from clean sources that have analysis, that are transparent, and you get consistent product continually.

Unfortunately, sometimes in some of the states that have legalized marijuana, you get a variable quantity in terms of the mix of what is there. You don’t always get the effect, and then you are at risk of getting the high that comes along with THC. So many people don’t want to have anything to do with that, anything that will cloud their thinking or their thought processes. They definitely want to stay away from that as well as those patients who have restrictions in terms of their exposure and are being drug tested on a regular basis, a very good point, Daniel.

Dr. Pompa:
Starting there – as a matter of fact, Meredith, you might want to just hold off the one that we carry because he did say that there’s a few companies. You don’t have it to hold up?

Meredith:
No, I’m at home. I don’t have it.

Dr. Pompa:
We’ll get the name. There are a few companies that really have a quality supply of the cannabidiol. We have one guaranteed at 8%. There’s no chemicals because you’re right, Doc. You have to be very careful in this area of what you actually utilize. Meredith, you can just tell him the one that we carry, and the name, and how to get it.

Meredith:
It is the Elixinol brand that we like to use. I believe it’s 18% CBD in the syringe form that we have. There is the Elixinol syringe, which you can get it. It’s in a liquid form. There are also tinctures, as well, of the CBD oil. We also have it in capsule form, too. You can get those at revelationCBDoil.com.

A quick question just to follow up to it: you were saying a lot of people call in and are wondering if I take this CBD oil, is it going to show up on a drug test?

Dr. Blair:
We try not to insert ourselves into drug testing area, but the cannabidiol and the Elixinol products don’t contain any significant amounts of THC. There’s definitely no psychoactive effect in terms of getting high, or feeling drowsy, or having those particular effects that THC causes. I can’t promise that people won’t in terms of drug testing. I can just tell you that the Elixinol does not contain any significant amounts of THC, which is the only thing that drug testing tests.

Dr. Pompa:
I’ve had a couple people get tested when they’re taking the CBD, and they were fine. My kids are on ski team here in Park City. They get tested. They take CBD for obvious benefits. With that said, let’s now get into the benefits. After we’ve talking about some of these benefits and why you, and I, and our doctors feel this is such an important product that we all should take – and there’s many reasons why. I want to get to which products. Meredith brought up that we have the 18% guaranteed CBD oil straight up. We have a tincture, and we even have pills so we can give our viewers – because, Meredith, we always get that question, too: when to use what. What are these for? What is that for? We’ll talk a little bit about that, so benefits and which products to take and when. Yours, Doc.

Dr. Blair:
What I want to do is that recent information has come out about the endocannabinoid system. Not very many people really understand that we have this complex system within our body that is the homeostatic and the regulatory system for all of our other systems. What the evidence is showing now is an amazing amount of disease that is focused really right on the endocannabinoid system. We can’t say that it’s causal, that things like migraines, or irritable bowel syndrome, or fibromyalgia are caused by the endocannabinoid system, only that these problems are related to dysfunction or deficiencies in the endocannabinoid system. As you look at these other diseases, whether it’s cancer or it’s PTSD, what we’re seeing is consistent disregulation, discordant elements of the endocannabinoid system that are showing disease models. What we may be dealing with in many of these complex diseases that are so difficult to control, especially the chronic ones, is some perturbation of the endocannabinoid system that causes a dysfunction leading to these particular diseases, which is why we’re encountering some of these problems.

Dr. Pompa:
Just to back up for our viewers and listeners, the endocannabinoid system. What is it? We understand the endocrine system, meaning our hormone system. We understand our cardiovascular system, meaning our heart and blood flow, right? What is the endocannabinoid system?

Dr. Blair:
It’s very similar to the endocrine system in the sense that it’s endo, meaning inside, and the cannabinoid. The cannabinoid is the kind of molecule that actually prompted the discovery of this system in 1992. We really didn’t even know it existed. Since that time, we’ve made connections with all of these other different systems. That’s what I want to point out is the endocannabinoid system is the interface between the outside and the inside as well as the inside to the outside in terms of how we manifest ourselves, and our personalities, and our characteristics, and our health.

The endocannabinoid system is composed of ligands or agonists that interact with receptors that are on the cell membrane and even in the nucleus of the cell as well as it includes some of the metabolic factors that degrade as well as synthesize the endocannabinoids that are circulating within our system. The endocannabinoid system has the –it’s located in the brain, and in the immune system, and in nerve tissue, but it’s also very highly located in the gut.

Dr. Pompa:
Could you say then it’s a communication network, if you will, helping the body communicate system to system?

Dr. Blair:
It is, yes, but it even – very interesting. It’s almost like a translator. It’s taking our thoughts and ideas, and it’s translating them into performance, into body functions. What we’re seeing is that with people who are stressed out, and anxious, and they’re worried about things, that’s translating into dysfunction in different areas probably through this translation function that the endocannabinoid system facilitates. The same thing is true for things like dysbiosis, where we’ve got the wrong bacteria in the gut, that it’s causing problems. That’s actually feeding back to the body and to the brain, whether it’s creating depression, or anxiety, or dysfunction, and health issues. We have this wonderful communication system, when it’s working properly, that’s great. That’s very healthy, and it allows us to recover. When it’s not working properly, what do you do about it? How can you enhance and recover the endocannabinoid system?

What I want to talk to you about today is how all of the systems that cellular healing is using is enhancing those endocannabinoids, and it’s restoring the endocannabinoid system so that we get back to normal. We restore ourselves and recover from those traumas, from the diseases, from the errors in our dietary, and our environmental issues that we’re facing with.

Dr. Pompa:
I was just going to say look. Everything about health is how our body’s communicating, whether it’s from bacteria to cell, cell to cell, system to system. In simple format for our viewers, this is what the endocannabinoid system does in so many aspects and probably a lot of aspects we haven’t even discovered yet.

Dr. Blair:
I think that’s a really good point. We’ve only gotten through the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s going on with this. There are so few people who understand or even know about the endocannabinoid system, and I’m talking about medical professionals who don’t even know it’s there, then to realize that it is at the heart of so many of the other systems, that communication between the brain and the hormones or the brain, and the heart, and the neurologic system, all of these interfaces going on here. It’s a little bit like – okay, with hormones, that’s like a sledgehammer. You use this corticosteroids example. They have a tremendous, powerful effect, but it’s a sledgehammer. If you use that too often, you’re going to destroy other systems that are involved. What we’re dealing with in the endocannabinoid system is the fine tuning. It’s the ball-peen hammer that is very focused in terms of making changes and normalizing the body rather than pushing it off in one direction that actually can develop other types of diseases.

Meredith:
I have a question Dr. Blair. I know you had mentioned that a lot of diseases that are manifested today are possibly caused by a deficiency or a dysfunction of the ECS. Do we know what is causing this deficiency or dysfunction of the ECS?

Dr. Pompa:
Endocannabinoid system.

Dr. Blair:
As a result of the different environmental things, whether it’s a toxin, or it’s a lack of exercise, or it’s the wrong foods that we’re taking in, these things are making changes in the endocannabinoid system that are subtle, but over a period of time they will manifest disease. That’s why diet is so important. That’s why probiotics and prebiotics are so important because, in essence, they are making changes to the endocannabinoid system and signaling the body to make overall changes.

In good health, when we’re doing all the things that we’re supposed to be doing, whether that’s diet, exercise, meditation and prayer, relaxation techniques, all of those things – that’s great. Then we can restore the endocannabinoid system. We’re using those as endocannabinoid enhancers. When we get to a point where we’re just at too low a level, or we have toxins that are interfering with that recovery, or we have a major injury, then you’re not going to be able to recover. You’ve got to boost that system. That’s what I see as why we as allied health professions can all work together in terms of recovering the endocannabinoid system and restoring health to so many individuals.

Dr. Pompa:
This is where the CBD oil comes in. How does it balance the system? What does it do?

Dr. Blair:
That’s one part of it because you’ve got the therapies that you know work. I was talking with a chiropractor in Australia, and he was lamenting to me that it used to be that osteopathic manipulation was great and that resolved 90% of the problems. That doesn’t work anymore. The therapies that have been tried and true aren’t working anymore on today’s population. There’s something more going on. What it is, I think that’s open to debate and concerns. There’s lots of evidence for these other types of problems, whether it’s in the foods that we’re taking in, or it’s chlorine, or it’s lead, mercury. All of those things are probably playing a role, but it’s not working anymore those simple therapies. That’s why a combined approach is so very important in terms of restoring the endocannabinoid system.

What you do with regard to diet, with regard to sleep, with regard to exercise, those are all very positive and herbal supplementation. You’re enhancing the endocannabinoid system. That’s where the phytocannabinoid cannabidiol really comes into play because it can work as an enhancer for the endocannabinoid system, whereas some of these other things are pushing in one direction. It’s the sledgehammer approach. What we want to use is some fine tuning and restoration rather than pushing the body in one direction only.

Dr. Pompa:
Let’s talk about it. Doc, I know you’ve done so much research. You send us emails all the time about a research article on cannabidiol and Alzheimer’s. Here’s one on Parkinson’s. We know the research is piling up as far as CBD, cannabidiol, and its impact in these nerve degenerative conditions, depression. I can go down the list. You’ve sent me many different. Share with our viewers some of those studies and some of the effects on some of these conditions.

Dr. Blair:
I mentioned three already, about the migraine, and the irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. These syndromes, that’s another word for things that we don’t know what’s causing it but it has all of these symptoms put together. They’re all characterized by a central hypersensitivity. The migraine, or the irritable bowel, the chronic fatigue, they all have this central sensitivity to almost anything that they are exposed to. If they get too much of anything or get under too much stress, then they manifest worsening disease. These particularly are excellent at characterizing the endocannabinoid deficiency-type of syndrome. What it comes down is these diseases may be the first of the endocannabinoid system dysfunction deficiency that can be corrected and can be targeted with the endocannabinoid enhancement therapy that we’re all using.

In other areas like the brain, you mentioned the Alzheimer’s disease. There’s also Parkinson’s. There are others. ALS has been shown. All of these conditions are now showing endocannabinoid dysfunction. That means that either the endocannabinoid hormones are too high, or they’re too low, or the receptors are wonky. They’re just not around in the right concentration. That indicates that it’s really a balance that’s going on. It’s not a matter of being too much or too little because almost every tissue, every part of the body, behaves differently and reacts differently due to these different levels. Instead of trying to control one with pushing the level higher or lower, it’s a matter of let’s get it back in balance. A lot of the things that we do that are healthy, diet, exercise, sleep, are all important for balancing those and restoring normal.

Dr. Pompa:
I think it brings up the obvious question. We always get this question, right Meredith, the dosing of it. How do we dose CBD? Do we dose it differently per condition? Do we start low? Talk about it. We’ve talked in some of the past shows about the dosing of it. That brings us into the conversation of what products. We have the syringe which really gives the highest punch. Then we have the tincture that I’ll oftentimes start with people who I just want to start slow with. Of course, it has a nice pleasant taste. That helps, too, for the kids. Then, of course, we even have the pills. When would we use that? Share a little bit from that.

Dr. Blair:
Let me get to that, but I just want to mention about behavioral diseases like PTSD. There is very clear evidence on PET scans these people have abnormal CB1 receptor functions and their anandamide levels, or their natural endocannabinoids, are decreased. In the area of depression, schizophrenia, these are all showing endocannabinoid dysfunctions, irregularities.

The same is true with the gut. The same thing is happening there in inflammatory bowel disease as well as irritable bowel disease. It goes on to the immune system in terms of the hyperactivity and the autoimmune diseases as well as the hormones. The hormone functions, the stress hormones, cortisol particularly, is regulated by the endocannabinoid system.

That goes into a lot of the drugs that we use. We usually think well, we’re using this drug. How does that drug work? It turns out that many of those drugs are actually using the endocannabinoid system. Things as simple as Tylenol, acetaminophen, are using the endocannabinoid system as well as the corticosteroids, and the antidepressants, and the antipsychotics. They’re all going through this particular system, but they’re the sledgehammer approach. It’s not a balanced approach.

Dr. Pompa:
I can tell you first hand that many of my clients have major pain. They start taking the CBD, and they notice a difference right away without having to take their pain meds that they were literally stuck on. Likewise, you had mentioned the gut conditions. At some point, we always want to try the CBD oil because of the antiinflammatory effect and the balance that it has on the microbiome in the gut. It’s remarkable. Just about every condition we’re dealing with today, there is some gut component. Anxiety, sleep, I always reach for CBD in these areas: Anxiety, sleep, gut, pain, go down the list. You’re right. I’ve experienced it clinically.

Meredith:
Personally, it’s really helped me with sleep and any anxiety issues, as well. I notice I had to take an extremely high dose to notice an impact. I don’t know if you could speak to that in regards that some maybe need a much less dose than others and why that would be.

Dr. Blair:
I want to address that in particular because dosing is a particular problem, and understanding that, and what goes on with it. I want to get to the concept here of what cannabidiol, what this phytocannabinoid does differently than the other substances that are out there that work on the body and the endocannabinoid system. What is that?

What we’re seeing with cannabidiol is it’s restoring the endocannabinoid system. It’s rebalancing the number of receptors, the amount of endocannabinoids, as well as working with some of the other cell-to-cell communication that is going on. It’s like a medic working on so many of these systems, returning them to a normal function. It’s balancing some of the synthetic hormones to make more of our natural endocannabinoids as well as decreasing the amount of degradation or the amount of destruction of those enzymes, those substances, so that you’re maintaining levels.

As you do that using the cannabidiol, we’re seeing a restoration of the endocannabinoid system so that it may be that over time, when we have enough experience, we can show that as the endocannabinoid system is restored, less and less of the cannabidiol may be required. Less and less of those other therapies may be required because you’re getting the body back into balance.

When you talk about, Meredith, you mentioned that some people require more. You’re absolutely right. I start with a standard dose and recommend about 15 mg twice a day for most people. That is a really good starting point because that allows you to move forward in terms of increasing the dose or to decrease it very naturally. I like patients to use it according to what their needs are because every patient is different. You don’t have to use – it’s not the same amount of diet, activity. It’s not the same amount of exercise for everybody. Everybody is an individual, and so is true for the endocannabinoid system and their level of dysfunction. Naturally, you want to adjust it to their particular needs. Because cannabidiol doesn’t have any, at least the Elixinol product, doesn’t have any significant side effects, or toxicity, or adversity, and there’s no addictive component to it, you use as much as you need to to get to that target symptom that you’re trying to control. If you need to double the dose, you double the dose.

Meredith:
Does that mean if you need to take a really high dose that your ECS is much less functioning than normal or does that correlate?

Dr. Blair:
It does suggest that, but we don’t have the studies to prove it, in fact. What I’ve found is that I really haven’t had to go more than 180 to 200 mg of CBD for anybody in order to get the benefits to it. Interestingly, many people who get the analgesia, and they get the anti-anxiety, and those other things that go on, or they don’t get those particular things, but they do get the other side benefits. I think what’s unique to the cannabidiol is that it has all these side benefits. We’re always talking about the adversity of the different drugs and substances. You’ve got to watch out for this side effect. The side effects in the sense of these positive benefits that occur with cannabidiol are quite remarkable. As you said, Meredith and Daniel, in terms of sleep, relaxation, and improved healing, what wonderful side benefits that come along with it even if it’s not your main topic and target.

Dr. Pompa:
Probably so much of it is that it has such an amazing anti-inflamatory effect. Obviously with that alone, you will affect so many pathways. You had brought up in one of the past shows its effect on the cell membrane. The cell membrane is pivotal to how many different things with our health. This is how you turn bad genes on and off. This is how your cells move things in and out, your receptors to every hormone are on the cell membrane, and yet it has an amazing effect on the cell membrane, which by the way is my R number two of my Five Rs, regenerating the cell membrane. CBD oil plays a significant role in the membrane.

Dr. Blair:
The way that it does that may be in terms of restoring some of those endocannabinoid receptors on the cell membrane so that the endocannabinoid system can function better. There is even more. There are receptors that we’ve now identified that are on the nuclear membrane. There are endocannabinoid receptors that are there. They get transported from the cell wall and the membrane to the nucleus to trigger epigenetic changes that go on within the cell. That’s very similar to the ketones and how ketones function in terms of signaling through the certain receptors that are on the nuclear membrane.

Dr. Pompa:
I have to ask that question because we’ve talked a lot on this show about epigenetics, and for new viewers, we used to think that hey, you have a thyroid condition or diabetes or you got that particular cancer because your mom or dad had it. We know today that most genetic conditions are turned on, meaning we trigger these genes of susceptibility. The good news is studies show we can turn these genes off, right? You talked about ketones. They have the ability to turn things off. STAT’s and Bruce Lipton’s work, who we’ve had on the show, fixing the membrane and how that turns off those genes. Are there studies? You mentioned one that it affects the receptors, the cannabidiol receptors, on the nucleus. That’s where the DNA is. Are there studies now showing that CBD oil has an effect on turning bad genes off or good ones on?

Dr. Blair:
Yes, I think there are some incredible studies that show that it’s working. Cannabidiol is specifically working through the PPAR receptors. That’s P-P-A-R gamma receptors. If you’re familiar with ketones, they’re working through the PPAR alpha receptors that are on the nuclear membrane. The PPAR gamma are also working there, and they are changing the enzymes and the activated genes that are producing enzymes as well as some of the proteins that are being produced in the body. It’s that control point, the nucleus, in shifting the genetic makeup. That’s how also that CBD orchestrates some of the changes in the enhancement of the endocannabinoid system, by affecting those genes that are involved with improving the endocannabinoid system but also those other measures, turning off those bad genes, particularly the oncologic genes that are there as well.

Dr. Pompa:
Is there a length of time in any of these studies that people staying on CBD saw the benefit of the gene expression?

Dr. Blair:
I don’t have any of the studies. I can’t quote anything of that factor. In terms of clinical experience, what I’ve seen is that two to three months out, people are able to dramatically reduce their dosage so they’re not having to use high levels, and they’re getting sustained benefits. They’re not having a falling back into their previous states. I think that’s an indication that some of these things are going on, but we certainly don’t have the evidence at this point. This is such a fledgling science that’s going on.

Dr. Pompa:
No doubt about it. On the dosing again, I know that the 18%, the one that we have, the syringe-looking one, it has pumps, which is nice. Remember the old days. I don’t want to bring up the old days. Every pump, it delivers a nice 15 mg dose. It makes it a lot easier to take a dose in the morning and a dose later. That’s where I start as well. I typically start someone with one squirt of that twice a day. What about the higher-end doses?

Dr. Blair:
That’s a great way to start in the X-pen that you’re talking about. I just want to make one correction there. The old product that first came out from Elixinol was a syringe, very much syringe style. That was 18%. The new product is actually only 10%. It had to be reduced because it was too thick. You remember, there may have been some difficulties in terms of squeezing it out. In order to make that delivery system consistent, it has been reduced in terms of viscosity so that it can be easily expressed and deliver that 15 mg.

The X-pen is a great device, and I think it’s the premiere device and product that Elixinol offers because it delivers a full blend of the natural cannabinoids as well as the terpenes and flavonoids that go along with it. Exactly, I think the X-pen is probably the premiere. It’s got some supplemental cannabinoids that are there. Not endocannabinoids, that’s only inside of us, but it has actually some extra cannabinoids that are not psychoactive whatsoever but really enhance the effectiveness of the cannabidiol in the body.

Dr. Pompa:
Starting with one pump, it’s one squirt of that. There’s your 15 mg, and you do that twice a day, great starting point. Where do we go from there? Someone says okay, I want more. I have ALS or I have a condition that I think might demand more. Pain might demand more, right? Where do you go from there on the high end?

Dr. Blair:
I think you just increase the dose. You increase it very quickly. I haven’t seen any reason to wait. If you have any toxicity or adversity then go ahead and double the dose. Get to the point where you’re getting a resolution of some of those symptoms that are really bothering you. If it’s pain and you need analgesia or it’s anxiety, increase the dose until you get that effectiveness. That can be just in a day, or two days, or three days. You don’t have to wait a long time as if you would with an antidepressant.

Dr. Pompa:
I always tell them to keep it under their tongue as long as they can. That gets a little bit difficult, but what’s your recommendations there? We want full absorption maximum dose.

Dr. Blair:
I think that under the tongue and what I call transmucosal absorption is some of the best. That means that it’s absorbed anywhere in the mouth. The back of the tongue may be the best. Under the tongue is very effective, but to hold it in the mouth is great because you get the direct absorption. When you get direct absorption through the mucous membranes, you’re bypassing the metabolic effects, the first pass effects, of the liver. You’re getting immediate penetration into the blood stream, to the brain, and to the tissues throughout the body. I think that’s an excellent approach.

How long? It’s whatever you can really tolerate, whether that’s two minutes or if it’s five minutes. You’re going to swallow it after, and it’s going to get well-absorbed through that particular system, so you’re not going to have any difficulty with it. It just takes a little bit longer to reach effectiveness when you swallow it, let’s say a capsule, where it has to go into the GI tract versus you taking the X-pen and you’re swishing that in your mouth.

I don’t have them hold it under the tongue. I have them swish it in the mouth because I really want to get the absorption all over the mouth. You know, Daniel, you can use that. It’s any membrane. If somebody wants to use it rectally, it’s very possible to use it. You can have special suppositories made, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can actually use the capsules directly into the rectum without any difficulty.

Dr. Pompa:
Let’s talk about some of their other sources because I think we carry as well, or at least Revelation Health does, they have the tinctures which is a lower dose. It tastes better. Let’s talk about how that would be a benefit. They also have it in capsules, so you mentioned a few things there. Talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Blair:
The capsules are great because they – that fits in with our current paradigm in terms of taking pills and taking capsules. This is truly for a healthful substance. Each capsule is 15 mg, so it matches the X-pen in terms of the dose. The standard that I recommend is 15 mg, one capsule twice a day. That’s what the bottle is. It’s 60 capsules. That’s got a nice blend of the other cannabinoids and the flavonoids so really valuable product.

Then we step down to the tinctures which have different concentrations. You’ve got the 100 mg bottle that has about 3 mg per ml. Then you’ve got the 300 mg bottle that has 10 mg per ml. Then the 3,600 has 30 mg per ml. You’re getting pretty high concentrations of 3% in the 3,600 product. When you’re looking for longevity and you’re going to be looking at continuing this, this is a great item to get because you can really maintain your health. You don’t have to worry about reordering or having enough. If you’ve got a 3,600 mg which has 120 ml, it’ll last for quite a while in most cases depending on what the dosage is.

Meredith:
Now Dr. Pompa, you often suggest taking the CBD using with a fat, right? Perhaps some MCT oil, some coconut oil, and that would increase the absorption, right?

Dr. Pompa:
They mixed the product up. Before, it was a little different. Now, like Doc’s pointing out here, they’ve made this product in a combination of different things. Doc, back in the day, we were mixing with different things to help the absorption. They’ve really solved that. Elixinol made it a lot easier that you don’t have to do that as much.

Dr. Blair:
Right, and I do agree with you, Daniel, in terms of using a fatty food or a fatty meal afterwards is excellent because we’re talking about the same sort of absorption process. We’re talking about activating the lipid system and the fat. I don’t think that’s any problem for you guys and the network because they’re all into and realize how important healthy fats are in the body. That’s really important.

Realizing that that’s not for everybody and not everybody can do that, the Elixinol has made a new product called liposomes. These are actually water soluble. Because they’re water soluble and they’re wrapped with a phosphate skin, they’re more absorbable. They have a better bioavailability than the tinctures. You can get sometimes five or even ten times the effectiveness using the liposomes as you do get with the tinctures or some of the other formats.

Meredith:
Do you guys carry any topical products? What do you think of the topical or the transdermal absorption of CBD?

Dr. Blair:
We have just come out with a healing cream, a healing balm, that can be used on the skin. It’s got great effects. It’s a wonderful application that can go on irritated areas containing a modest amount of cannabidiol to get that absorption.

I have to tell you one thing. You look back at flax, and flax bandages were what people generally used in Europe and in different wars. Flax actually contains some cannabidiol of itself which may account for the extra healing effects that have occurred with that. Topical is very true.

Generally, I recommend that you can use either the liposomes or you can use the tinctures as a topical application. I recommend it for rashes of all kinds, whether that’s just irritation, or it’s viral infections, or it’s trauma where you have incurred some injury and damage. In those cases, I’ve seen advanced and accelerated healing for large wounds as well as analgesia to take care of it. Not too long ago, I was not paying attention, didn’t put my cup of my hot tea down properly, and I burned my lip on it. I immediately put the CBD on it. It just absolutely quenched the pain and discomfort as well as preventing any blister formation. It’s great for the medicine cabinet and for those injuries that we have along the way.

Dr. Pompa:
I think our viewers are right now are probably going yes, I want to try it, but I don’t know where to start. We talked about the X-pen, and we talked about the tinctures, and we talked about liposomes. Then we talked about transdermal flax. Kind of give our viewers where do I start? What are the benefits of the tinctures, the liposomes? When do I do which one? I know they’re going to ask the question. Meredith, we’re going to get that question. I’m trying to nip it in the bud for you.

Dr. Blair:
Let me get that taken care of, but I just want to go back to one of the first questions you had is, Meredith, you said I have to take a whole lot of this. What’s going on? Why do I have to take a whole lot? I’ve encountered patients who have not responded at all. One of the things that will not allow you to respond to the phytocannabinoids and CBD specifically is a lack of Omega-3 fats within the body. If you’re deficient in Omega-3s then – the Omega-3s, they work by creating a lot of the receptors and a lot of the hormones that are part of the endocannabinoid system. If you don’t have those Omega-3s in the proper balance or if you’re overwhelmed with Omega-6s, then you’re not going to be able to have the playing field that cannabidiol can work on and can activate in the endocannabinoid system. Whenever I encounter people who are less than an ideal response, I want to make sure they’re getting adequate Omega-3s within their system. That’s one of those caveats. I wanted to make sure that you got that message in there.

Now, are you deficient, Meredith, in Omega-3s? Probably not. It’s just is probably your individuality. Because we’re all individuals, what’s the best for anybody? In my looking at it, you want to look at those other things. You want a whole body approach. You want a whole person approach. It is diet. It is exercise. It is sleep. You’ve got to take care of those. The phytocannabinoids, the cannabidiol is there for that enhancement taking it up to the next level to get them recovered or get their symptoms controlled right away.

Then, what is the product, what is the route that they would be most comfortable with? If we’re talking about people who are really used to the standard paradigm of pills and capsules, then the capsules are a great way to go to get them started with it. If you have to make fine-tuning adjustments, though, you’ve got to think in terms of tinctures where you can adjust the dosage. You can use the dropper to figure out how many milliliters or fractions of a milliliter that you want to do to get the exact dose that you’re using. If you want something real quick and easy, then the X-pen delivering one shot of the CBD into the mouth. For kids and young people or people who have really terrible, difficult taste concerns like autistics. They have a real problem with taste. The liposomes are a great place to start with them because they’re a very attractive taste. They’re flavorful, and they can mix with water or they can mix with other substances, and they can easy to get into people to have them use.

Any of these things can be used depending – and what is the best one? The best one is the one that they’ll use. The best exercise is the one that people will do. You’ve got to integrate it into their particular lifestyle.

Let me just point out one thing on the liposomes. Because of their increased bioavailability, I generally recommend – I have a typical standard that I recommend. I reduce that. I find that the liposomes are about five times more potent in most people and so you don’t need to take as much. In some people, they’re just not as effective as the tinctures, or the X-pen, or the capsules. They’re very, very good, and they’re very effective especially for behavioral issues and anxiety but sometimes not as effective for the chronic pain and for the high doses that you might require.

In terms of topical dose, your fallback position is always – if people really can’t stand the taste, and they really have difficulty, or they think there’s some problem that they’re developing as a result of using an oral formulation, put it on the skin. Have them get some absorption through the back of the hand, or on the abdomen, or the back. My wife has some pain issues, and I use some applications onto her back. It’s very, very effective for systemic absorption as well as using topical relief of some aches and pains. When I get a shoulder pain or a knee pain, I use it there. I get systemic absorption. That’s pretty clear. Maybe not as much as an oral dose, but it’s effective.

Dr. Pompa:
I have just a quick question. We’re coming at the top of the hour here, but why if the liposome was five times more potent as far as absorption because it’s surrounded by a fat molecule, why would it be less effective for some of the other conditions?

Dr. Blair:
I can’t answer that. It’s wrapped by a phosphate molecule, and the phosphate makes it more bioavailable as a result of that: better absorption, better transmission and absorption through the gut. I don’t know what that is. We don’t understand that exactly. We do know that it’s better absorbed and maybe the other formulations are having difficulty going across the membrane. They’re get metabolized more quickly. Something within that process that is interfering with the delivery and the bioavailability. If we can get it in then it’s more effective that way.

Dr. Pompa:
Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you said the liposome was five times more potent. However, it didn’t work as well as some of the other deliveries with certain conditions.

Dr. Blair:
That’s right. That’s exactly so. Where did I lead you astray?

Dr. Pompa:
Maybe I’m mixed up. Meredith, make us both clear.

Meredith:
I don’t know. I wasn’t really following that very clearly.

Dr. Blair:
Let me reiterate, then. What I see with the liposomes is it’s got improved bioavailability so it appears to be more potent. When you take in one pump, which is one milligram of the liposome 300, then it’s like taking 5 mg of the tincture. Why wouldn’t you just say well, just let me stick with the liposomes. I can get five times the effect with it. That works in many people, but it doesn’t work in everybody. What I find is that the X-pen is better. It’s got a better blend and a balance of the other cannabinoids and the other substances. Same is true for the capsule. The tincture also has a little bit more. The liposomes are your bare bones cannabidiol. You don’t get a lot of the extra things that go along with it. It may be the other extra things that are missing.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s it. You answered it, right? Because the other factors aren’t there, it’s just straight CBD. Although better delivered, it doesn’t have some of the extra factors as would the X-pen or the tinctures. I got it.

Meredith:
–different tools, too, because as we know, everyone reacts differently to different things. Some work better for some than others. The tools and just all the options are wonderful to have.

Dr. Blair:
That’s great. Here, you have the flexibility of doing what you need to and making adjustments. Rather than one size fits all, it’s a matter of customizing for that individual’s need. Along with your other therapies, I don’t want to deemphasize those at all. I want to really make a point that those other therapies are also important for the long-term, whole-person concept.

Dr. Pompa:
We preach and I teach a multitherapeutic approach. Why people are getting sick is, yeah, certain genes are getting turned on. Certain stressors, toxins included, are turning on those genes. Then we have a disruption in the microbiome today that’s making this whole thing a perfect storm. If we’re not working in all of those areas together with the multitherapeutic approach, we’re not going to get well today. We’re not. We’re not going to function in good health. It is everything. This is a tool that me and my doctors, we absolutely love. I think you brought more clarity, at least, to our viewers as far as how to use these tools.

Dr. Blair:
I brought some resources, too. Meredith, I don’t know if it’s possible if you could show some of those references. Here’s a collection about the endocannabinoid system and the clinical endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome that we are seeing. These are excellent. These are full articles that you can download and you can see and review. I really welcome you to take a look at these and find out what those sources and take a read on these articles. I found them fascinating, but I find that any of these studies on endocannabinoid system as well as cannabidiol are quite remarkable. It’s going to fulfill my many years, I’m absolutely convinced.

Dr. Pompa:
No doubt about it. Thank you for that because I’m no doubt certain that it’s resources that everybody needs to look at, so thank you.

Dr. Blair:
Also, with you, Daniel, in terms of what you’re doing and in terms of the whole-person concept and restoring balance to the body, and the cellular healing, that’s very critical, as well. You have to have all of your major points have to be addressed if you’re going to get maintained health and restoration of health.

Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. We always enjoy having you on, Doc. There is no doubt about it. We appreciate you coming on, always a wealth of knowledge especially in this area. I know it’s one of your loves. You research a lot of things, and you are an absolute wealth of knowledge in this area, that’s for sure.

Dr. Blair:
I sure appreciate the opportunity to share this because I think it’s so critical and unrecognized in all of our health professionals that we can integrate all of these approaches. As an integrated approach, it’s a wonderful way. It also combines all of us as medical professionals along the same line using the same system for the benefit of others.

Dr. Pompa:
Thank you.

Meredith:
Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Pompa, and thank you, Dr. Blair, for sharing all of this amazing information with us. Dr. Blair gave us permission to upload this PowerPoint, as well, with some of the highlights of what we talked about, all of those resources, as well, that you can check out. That’s going to be on podcast.drpompa.com on the podcast page along with the full transcript of this episode.

In closing, thank you so much, everyone. Thanks for watching, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next time.

146: Can you drink wine and stay in ketosis?

Transcript of Episode 146: Can you drink wine and stay in ketosis?

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Todd White

Meredith Dykstra:
Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I'm your host Meredith Dykstra and this is Episode Number 146, and we have Dr. Dan Pompa, our resident cellular healing specialist on the line. Today we have a very special guest, and his name is Todd White. Todd White is a wine expert and we have a lot of fun things to talk about. This is not your average wine that he makes. We're going to talk a lot about wine today, but before we delve in, let me tell you guys a little bit more about Todd. Todd White has been a serial entrepreneur and creator since he was age 17. Today, after 15 years in the wine business, his life is dedicated to educating and helping people make better choices about food nutrition and how they think about consuming alcohol. He is the founder of Drive Farm Wine, a writer, speaker, and a leading authority on healthy organic natural wines, and the importance of micro-dosing alcohol for health, longevity, and vitality.

Todd's passion is unlocking the best way to enjoy alcohol, how to enjoy the benefits of modern consumption while avoiding the negative outcomes. Todd has been a featured guest on many of the nation's leading health influential podcasts, including David Asbury, Bullet Proof Radio; Mark Sisson, Primal Blue Print; Abel James, Fat Burning Man; Rob Wolf's, Paleo Solution; and Jimmy Moore, Living Low-carb Show. Todd is a self-described biohacker who practices daily meditation, Wim Hof breathing, cold thermogenesis, a ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, and he is a fitness enthusiast. He's also a frequent speaker on ketogenic lifestyle, and is completing a cookbook on the ketogenic diet and lifestyle to be released this fall called, Keto Well. He was most recently the featured ketogenic speaker at the 2016 Bulletproof annual conference on biohacking. He lives in Oak Brook, California in the heart of Napa Valley wine country. Welcome, Todd White to Cellular Healing TV.

Todd White:
Awesome! Hey, guys, I'm just super excited to be on your show today. We have a lot of fun stuff to talk about and wine is the topic.

Dr. Pompa:
Man, I tell you [00:02:17] comment. I mean, think about it, intermittent fasting, ketosis. I mean, we could do a three-hour show, I think, and just keep rocking it out, but today's topic will be trapped and forced into wine. Not really, that's probably my favorite subject. I mean, my gosh, we get to talk about wine on Cellular Healing TV. I can testify to your product personally. I can already testify to many of my clients who are not able to drink wine and I said, “Try these.” They were able to drink wine. You have already made a lot of people very, very happy. So let's tell people why that is. What's the difference with these wines, Todd?

Todd White:
Well, I can't wait to get into the wine thing. Hopefully, we'll get not only, but just a couple moments on ketosis and also my favorite topic of the moment, which is intermittent fasting. I know you and I have talked about, we just eat too much too often, and the wrong things, but before that, let's get right on to wine.

I came down this path. I've been in the wine business for a long time and as I got deeper into biohacking over recent years, and I think ketogenic for the last three years. what happened next was I just found I could not drink traditional wines anymore. What I'm going to have to do here, because I'm at my office today—this is kind of a crazy thing, but there's some beeping out in my warehouse, so I'm just going to move rooms while we're talking real quick.

Meredith Dykstra:
I thought we were going on a tour.

Todd White:
Looks like it's going to calm down now, so anyway.

Dr. Pompa:
You could show us where the wine is, though.

Todd White:
The warehouse is actually right next to me in a separate building, but we're kind of adjoined. It's noisy there for a second. Looks like they've calmed down. All right, back to the wine thing.

Dr. Pompa:
That was the truck backing up. Beep, beep, beep.

Todd White:
It was the truck backing up, actually. There's a huge, huge truck here making a delivery. Anyway, hopefully they'll get settled down back there. When I got to where I couldn't drink traditional wines anymore and so I started biohacking, and unpacking what was going on with wines. Initially, I thought it was just the high alcohol. We'll talk about how and why alcohols are higher in commercial wines today than ever. It's both the wine making style as well as it's being fueled by irrigation in the US, but we'll cover that.

I thought it was mainly the higher alcohol. I started dosing down on alcohol, which was effective, but then I discovered the natural wine movement, which is really exploding in Europe. There's not—there's very little natural wine made in the United States, so we'll define what natural wine means because most people think, well, isn't all wine natural? In fact, it's not. I'm going to cover all those topics for you. When I discovered natural wine and got rid of all the additives and toxins that are in commercial wines today, in addition to dosing down the alcohol, I discovered that I could drink wines again. This is what many of our customers also discovered. You've probably—Dan, you've had this experience, right? I mean, you've had the experience with our wines. They literally make you feel different and you don't have that negative repercussions. What's been your experience?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, just that. At the top of the show I said that it's—look, I've had many clients who are not able to drink wine. They're neurotoxic, they're very sensitive, and they're able to drink these wines. Again, what I found personally is I can drink a lot more of this wine, no problem, feel fine, right? Of course, we're going to discuss why that is, but there's a couple reasons why that is. Yeah, I know these wines are also—as we're going to talk a little bit about ketosis. They're keto approved, which could be one answer why. There's no sugar in it, but I think there's other answers too.

Todd White:
They are. All of our wines are sugar-free. In fact, we do independent lab testing and even the King keto, Dr. Dominic D'Agostino, who's the leading ketogenic—

Dr. Pompa:
He just spoke at our seminar. He's been a guest on the show. Yeah, two weeks ago he was at our seminar in Vegas.

Todd White:
Yeah, awesome guy. In fact, endorses our wine product and he's done independent lab testing with—in his own la, and at his house with blood testing on our wines and has recently posted and endorses what we do as ketogenic wine. Let's talk about what makes a wine natural. Let's start with farming. Natural wines are always organically or biodynamically farmed. Biodynamic farming is just a prescriptive of organic farming, so it's an advanced form of chemical free farming. All natural wines are chemically free farmed or biodynamic. There also dry farmed. What that means, just like our name, the wines have no irrigation and the reason that's super important is because irrigation, fundamentally, changes the physiology of the plant, and most importantly, how fruit ripens.

What happens at the end of the ripening process is, that when a fruit is filled with water, having been irrigated, is that the character of the fruit is not as well developed and the phenyl flavors don't develop correctly at the ripening process. What that means is that the fruit has to be picked later in the ripening process with higher sugars. What higher sugars create are higher alcohol, and higher sugar byproducts like glycerol, right? It's important to have organic chemically free farm -inaudible-.

Let me give you an example of what irrigation does to a vine. When you irrigate a vine, it gets all of its nutrients and all of its water right from the surface from a little drip hose just above the trunk, right? The root ball of an irrigated vine is about 3 feet in diameter and about 3 feet deep. Where an unirrigated grape vine at maturity, will have a root structure that can range 30, 40, 50 feet deep as that vine struggles in search of water and nutrients, right? It's struggling against its neighbor, it's struggling against nature, to feed. This creates a fruit with much higher character, right? This is a reason in most of Europe, almost all of Europe, it's against the law to irrigate a grapevine. In fact, irrigation did not come to the United States until 1973, for grapevines, right?

Now, why do you irrigate a grapevine? Why do American vendors irrigate a grapevine? Because it creates a higher yield and the fruit weighs more. It's filled with water, right? Fruit is sold by the time, so if it weighs more, then there's more profitable. Just like with most of Agra business, the industry has consolidated and the goal, and the objective have a corporate consolidation is not to make better, healthier wines, it's to make wines cheaper, and faster.

Dr. Pompa:
Always.

Todd:
This has happened all across our food and everything that we grow. This has been a massive, massive problem driven by corporate America. To give you an idea, in the American wine industry, 52% of all the wines made in the United States are made by just three giant companies. Now, you don’t know that, and they don’t want you to know that. It’s a multi-billion dollar operations, and so they hide behind thousands of brands and labels to have you believe that you’re drinking from a small farmhouse or somebody’s chateau when in fact you’re drinking from massive factories. Just to take that one step further, 70% of all the wines made in the United States are made by just the top 30 companies, mass consolidation of the industry. What happens with mass consolidation is we’re working on spreadsheets. We’re not working on your health, right?

Again, the goal was to make wines faster and cheaper. Not healthier or better. How do they do that? First of all, they use a whole bunch of chemicals, right? What’s little known to your listeners or anybody who hasn’t heard a podcast or read an article that we’ve written about this topic—because this is the big dirty dark secret of the wine industry. There are 76 additives approved by the FDA for the use in winemaking. Of the 76 approved additives—which your audience has no idea that these additives even exist. They think wine’s fermented grape juice, but in fact, it’s not. Of the 76 chemical additives that are approved by the FDA for the use in winemaking, 38 of them include the acronym GRAS. You and I know that that stands for generally regarded as safe, so the FDA is telling us that, half of these additives, they’re safe, right?

Now, why don’t your—here’s the reason your audience doesn’t know these additives. There’s no contents or nutritional label on a bottle of wine. It’s the only major food product without a contents label on it. Now, let me tell you why it doesn’t have a contents label on it. If it did, the contents label would be this big with a bunch of names you couldn’t produce. You couldn’t pronounce, right, just like you find in food products today. Wines are filled with preservatives and additives and adjustments, right, to make them snackable and drinkable and to make you want to crave them more, right? The reason that there’s not a contents label on the bottle of wine is because the wine industry has spent tens of millions of dollars in collaboration with the government to keep wine labels off of wine. Now, if it were just fermented grape juice, why would they care if there was a contents label on it? It’s not, and that’s what they don’t want you to know.

Natural wines contain zero additives. They are also fermented with native yeast that are indigenous to the vineyard where the grapes are grown. Commercial wines are inoculated with genetically modified commercial yeast. The very first thing a winemaker does when a standard wine is made is they use sulfur dioxide to kill the native yeast, right, so that they don’t ferment. Then they inoculate the juice with a commercial yeast, and we don’t know what the health ramifications of these genetically modified yeasts are. We just know that when wines are fermented with native yeasts and additive free, they don’t contain any of these problems commonly associated with drinking wines, right? We’re talking about native yeast, no additives, no adjustments, organic farming, and biodynamic practices. This is what makes up a natural wine.

Again, less than 1% of wine made worldwide is actually naturally made. We’re talking about this permeation of additives and adjustments and manipulations to wine are spread globally. I mean, they began in the West. They began in here in America, but it’s really a global problem now. There’s a few hundred thousand winemakers worldwide. Less than 500 actually make these natural wines.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s hard to believe.

Todd:
It’s just crazy. Here we are trying to protect our health, trying to really be aware, and listening to folks like you and other health influencers who are really doing amazing work in educating people about how to live a healthier longer health span. I know you and I have talked about this before. The goal is really health span. Not lifespan, right? We want to be healthier longer, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Todd:
Your listeners and my followers and the folks that we associate with and live with are super concerned about what they eat and drink. We try to eat whole and fresh, and clean and organic, but then nobody’s really telling us about what we’re drinking. Most of your audience enjoys imbibing in alcohol, as do I. I want to take the same approach toward wine or alcohol consumption that I take toward everything that I think about consuming.

Dr. Pompa:
Two things, there was just a study going around talking about how one or two glasses of wine is actually good for our microbiome. However, you add 76 additives and other chemicals. Who knows, right, higher alcohol contents? I think we go against what we know is true about wine. A little wine is—from the antioxidant values to the fermentation, what it does for our microbiome I think we’re just learning. It has all types of benefits until we screw that process up.

European wines, no doubt. We see that benefit to the microbiome as opposed to the U.S. wines. Obviously, European wines, one thing you pointed out was—number one is that it’s illegal to use irrigation, so they’re getting a better fruit, obviously, a better product even to make the wine with. They’re not adding the additives, evidently. Some do though, right? If you’re going to find natural wines, you’re going to have to go to Europe. Am I right on that?

Todd:
Substantially, most natural wines, 95% are produced in Europe. That does not mean all European wines are natural.

Dr. Pompa:
Correct.

Todd:
There’s a very specific category. We’re the largest reseller of natural wines in the world now. If you were to buy wines from us, you’re going to get a lab tested natural wine that isn’t…

Dr. Pompa:
That’s where I was headed. That’s where I was headed next. You have a criteria. We risk it. Oh, natural wine, we order from them. However, we don’t really know. Do they have sugar or not? We really don’t know that. You do. You test them.

Talk a little bit about that testing. One of the things you look at too is the alcohol content. Real wine really has a lower alcohol content that we’re finding in the U.S. The U.S. wines, the Napa wines, people like the higher alcohol, so that’s probably part of it. Talk about your criteria, and talk about your testing. Really, that’s why I want to buy wine from Todd.

Todd:
Right. We have a very specific testing protocol. We’re looking at alcohol. We’re looking at sugars. Because I’m sugar free, I want to drink wine that’s sugar free. Consequently, it’s virtually carb free because the carbs in wine are coming from sugar. We’re also looking for mycotoxins like ochratoxin A. There is no screening in the United States.

This is really interesting. Quite a few of your audience and there are a lot of folks in the health movement who were concerned about molds, right, and quite a few people who have allergies to mold. All of our wines are tested for ochratoxin A, which is the primary mold found in grape farming. The problem in the United States, there is no screening for ochratoxin A. It is not required by the government. Now, you can get it screened. You can lab test the wine for ochratoxin A, and it is required. If you’re an American wine producer and you export to Europe and other parts of the world, they actually require that you submit an ochratoxin A report as a part of your export lab reports, right? Our government doesn’t require that we look at it here, so we’re also screening for molds.

Here’s the interesting thing about alcohol. Let’s talk about alcohol for just a second. Alcohol is a toxic. I mean it’s a toxin. It’s poisonous, right? So is water and oxygen in the wrong dose, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Todd:
Dosage really matters in everything that we do, and the reason we talk about micro-dosing alcohol. Let me talk about once again the government and their collaboration with the wine industry in not being honest with the public. When you get American bottled wine and it says 15% on the label, which is quite common—alcohol levels have risen in wine over the last couple of decades both as a result of irrigation and as a result of wine making styles, right? Americans, typically, historically want bigger, bolder, bigger, right? In everything, we just like big, right, including alcohol and this boldness of taste. That’s not how real wine tastes. Real wine doesn’t have that kind of alcohol level in it.

The resulting alcohol in a bottle of wine will be determined by the sugar level in the fruit at the time of picking. The higher the sugar caused by irrigation—the higher the sugar, the higher corresponding outcome of alcohol will be. American wines now are—domestic wines, commercial wines are typically seeing 14½ to 16, 16½% alcohol stated on the bottle. Now when I say stated, what that means is that the alcohol—the wine industry is back in bed with the government, and the government has allowed the wine industry to be dishonest with you. What I mean by that, about alcohol, is that what’s stated on the bottle by law is not required to be accurate. If a wine says 14% on the label, legally it can be as high as 15½%. The wine industry gets up to a point and a half to mislead you about how much alcohol is in it.

Now, the reason that happened is because that law was written back in post prohibition era when the testing methods for alcohol were not as accurate as they are today, but there’s no reason for that to remain on the books today. The lab methods for measuring alcohol are extremely accurate today as technology has evolved. Again, the wine industry wants to keep that so they can fudge, and tell you that there’s a lower amount of alcohol than is actually in the bottle. The reason that matters is because here’s what we want from alcohol. Am I right? You can drink spirits. Let’s talk about just drinking in general for a moment. You can drink spirits, and we’re talking about a 40% dose of alcohol, right? Spirits are clean when they’re distilled. In the Paleo movement or many people say you should drink -inaudible-. It’s plant based and it’s distilled, so it’s clean.

I agree with of all that, except that the alcohol dose is simply too high, right? You’re talking about 40% alcohol. Then you can go to traditional wines, which are 14 to 16, 17% alcohol, or you can go to beers, which are strictly out for me for two reasons. Sugar levels are too high and the gluten levels. Even it’s gluten free, you sugar level and high—your sugar level is very high in beer, right, which is why you have the beer gut. We know that’s an insulin response. It leaves me with how do I get a responsible dose of alcohol to achieve the following effect? I only drink at night, generally around the table. We don’t’ drink in the daytime here. I don’t recommend people drink during the daytime for a whole host of reason.

Dr. Pompa:
We fast…

Todd:
What’s that?

Dr. Pompa:
I said we fast during the day. We don’t want to drink that. We want to keep it going.

Todd:
Exactly, exactly. Here’s the benefit of alcohol and how alcohol is just super positive, an amazing drug, right? Here’s how it’s positive. We’re around the dinner table. We’re going to have a lift of euphoria, a bringing of creative expression. We’re going to have a little lowering of our vulnerability window, which allows us to know one another better, right, which allows us to bond. This is the reason that people drink with their buddies, and they have these bonding experiences, right? We made ourselves a little bit more open and available, right? It also helps to settle our monkey mind, right, which I recommend meditation for that first and foremost. It’s going to help settle us into that community around the table when everything else just melts away, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Dr. Pompa:
It is.

Todd:
That’s particularly beautiful when we’re with people that we just met. I was at a dinner party last night with about 20 folks around a large table and about half of them I didn’t know, right? This is an amazing experience of community and sharing, and really love and opening up and elevating euphoria. That’s what’s terrific about alcohol. The problem is when we crossover this side of that plateau, now we’re losing cognitive connection. We’re losing creative expression. We’re losing that sense of community, and now were’ into a place of oneness, right? That’s what we want to avoid, and that’s the reason it’s super important from my perspective to dose down the amount of alcohol that you drink.

If you’re like me and most people, including the people I was with last night, I’m not going to drink a glass of wine. I’m going to drink several over the course of the evening, right? I want to start with a lower alcohol product that allows me just to drink a little bit more. Enjoy it longer, and frankly, lower alcohol wines taste better with food. Alcohol and food don’t taste great together. Well-crafted wine and food taste well together. It brightens the expression of food, but we got to keep the alcohol level down, which is the reason we don’t drink anything over 12½% alcohol. Most of the wines I drink are 11%. I just prefer the taste of a lower alcohol wine. It allows me to drink a lot more of it without any of the negative effects. I mean, I know you’ve had that experience with our wine.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No doubt about it. Being able to drink more of it allows you the benefits of it, really -inaudible-. You’re getting more of the benefits without the drawback. When we’re dehydrated in the morning and at night, it’s the alcohol. It’s the over alcohol that’s dehydrating. When I drink your wines, I’m not getting that. I’m not getting that dehydration that I hate with regular wine. I mean, there may be other reasons for it, but I would say the alcohol is probably the number one reason related to the dehydration.

What are some of the other things you test for? I mean, you talked about the mold, the number one mold in wine. You talked about, obviously, the alcohol level. I’m sure you’re looking at certain additives. What else do you have?

Todd:
We’re also doing random screening. We don’t screen every wine for glyphosate, but we just don’t find it. As you know, there was a study done last year with three American wine appellations showing 100% contamination with glyphosate in all of the wines tested, both from organic and nonorganic farms across three appellations. The reason it’s speculated that glyphosate is getting into American wines, this is a really interesting concept, is from the irrigation. The way Roundup is applied is different than the way it’s applied in other farming practices, which can be applied by plane or with large sprayers. In a vineyard, it’s applied very close to the ground in a very narrow spot just underneath the grapevine.

The way it’s applied doesn’t really afford the opportunity for overspray. When you’re seeing glyphosate found in American wines on organic farms where it’s not being used, how did it get there? The most recent speculation is that it’s coming in through irrigation. That’s obviously because our wines are dry farmed, and as I said, most all of Europe is illegal. It’s illegal because the Europeans who have been making wine for about 3,000 years—the reason irrigation is illegal in Europe is because the Europeans know what I know. The moment you start irrigating a grapevine you change the fundamental character of its fruit, and so in order to protect the appellation and the quality…

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You froze up there for a second.

Meredith:
Lost you for a few seconds there.

Todd:
Oh, okay.

Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- because you change the fundamental character of the fruit.

Todd:
Right. This is the reason that irrigation is illegal in Europe is because Europeans who have been making wine for 3,000 years know what we know is that when you change it to the fruit, you change the quality of the wine, right? In order to protect their brand quality, that’s the reason it’s been made illegal. We’re also not seeing this glyphosate issue in Europe the way that we see it here.

Dr. Pompa:
Let’s have the obvious conversation, the sulfite conversation that so many people know. They blame the sulfites on everything. Now, again, there is a difference in the level of sulfites. Every natural fermentation process is going to have them. Tell us a little bit more about that if you could.

Todd:
Sulfites is another element that we test for. Sulfites are naturally occurring in all winemaking, right? Whether you add additional sulfur dioxide, which is used as a sterilizer and a preservative by most wine makers worldwide, including excessive amounts in commercial wines so that they can create—they sterilize the wine so that they create this shelf consistent. Every bottle tastes the same just because we’ve sterilized it. Let’s talk about sulfites and what’s making most people feel bad when they drink wines. It’s particularly inherent to how red wines make people feel, right?

It’s not coming from the sulfites. Here’s what we know about sulfites. White wines are higher in sulfite than red wines, right? Most people experience wine problems with red wines, although with me it was historically just the opposite. I couldn’t drink white wines. The primary problem was the sugar level. If I drink sugar, it gives me a headache, right? I’m not accustomed to it.

Dr. Pompa:
Me too, I’m the exact same way. Yeah.

Todd:
Right. Our white wines are also sugar free. We test for sugar on every single wine in addition to sulfite. We place a cap on sulfites in wine at 75 parts per million. Now, the U.S. limit allowed is 350 parts per million. We place our cap at 75 parts per million because naturally occurring sulfites can be as high as 75 parts per million, although I would tell you most of the wines that we sell and test are under 30 or 40 parts per million and many of them 5 to 10 parts, right, because they have no added sulfur dioxide.

What sulfites do do to a wine, we don’t believe—for most people, unless you experience a legitimate sulfite allergy—and for those people, they’re walking around with an EpiPen in their pocket because sulfites are contained in many foods, naturally occurring and added, right? Most people don’t genuinely have—it’s less than 1% of the population has a sulfite allergy, right? What sulfites do do is when they sterilize the wine, these huge doses of sulfur, it removes the soul and the character from that living, beautiful, soulful juice, right? It just sterilizes it. It makes it just this shelf consistent. Every bottle tastes the same. That’s not how real wine tastes. Real wine has soul and character, and it’s alive, right? That’s what real wine tastes like.

Here’s what’s making most people feel bad when they drink wines. It’s not the sulfites. It’s generally these biogenetic amines like tyramine and histamine. Those are exaggerated in commercial winemaking practices because of the way wines are made now, and so you just inherently have a higher histamine and tyramine level. This leads to tightness and tension just in the forehead. It leads to, for some people, spotchyness, or redness, or a feeling of warmth that’s unnatural. These are these biogenetic amines that are really at work. I don’t have a particular sensitivity to histamines, but if I drink commercial wines, I can feel it right here in the front. Right in the center just above my—that’s tyramine and histamine, right, and it gives you that tightness in the head, a bit of—just a tightness. That’s unnatural. You don’t get that from natural wines.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. I’ve tried to explain that to people, so hopefully having this show, you being the expert, you’ll get it across to them. Meredith, I know you have some questions, so we’ll turn it over to you.

Meredith:
Oh, okay, all right. Yeah. I’m glad because I was going to ask him, you just answered it, what people are mostly reacting to? I think that’s great. Can you talk a little bit more about the yeast, though? I’d like to understand that a little bit more.

Todd:
Let’s talk about how wine is made just real quickly for your audience who may not be familiar—I have to plug in my computer here—who may not be familiar with how wines are made. This is the most common question that I get when I travel around the country. We sponsor all of these. We’re the official wine for most health conferences. People most often ask, well, how can wine be sugar free? Doesn’t it have sugar in grape juice? Isn’t it filled with sugar? Yes. This is how it becomes sugar free.

This is how you make alcohol. When you inoculate the fruit juice or anything with sugar in it, potatoes—you can make alcohol out of many things. Let’s just talk about wine for a moment. When you inoculate the grape juice with yeast, the yeast eats the sugar, right? As it eats the sugar, the byproduct to that is carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol, right? How a wine becomes sugar free is when the winemaker allows the fermentation process to complete and the yeast eats all of the sugar. Now, what’s happening in commercial wines is that the winemaker, again, is using sulfur dioxide to kill the yeast prior to its full fermentation leaving behind residual sugar, in the industry, known as RS, which of course we test for. We don’t want you drinking sugar. I believe sugar is public enemy number one for health. That’s how wines are made.

Now let’s talk about a yeast for a moment. Here’s what we don’t know because no one’s funded any study around this. We do not know what these genetically modified commercial yeasts are doing to you and your body and your mind. We don’t know. Here’s what we do know. When we’re not using them, you feel better, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Todd:
There’s no research. I can’t tell you what commercial yeasts are doing. I don’t know. Here’s what we do know is that when we remove the additives and we use a native yeast that’s indigenous—it’s on the skin of every grape. When we allow wine to make itself naturally, we don’t have any of these issues and problems. I mean, I’d love to be able to give you some science studies on the effects of commercial yeast. They just don’t exist.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Let me tell you something. What we know about GMO, none of it’s good. We know that there’s potential problems all over the place, even with our microbiome, so I’m sure it’s a big reason why we don’t feel as well. Like I said, I’m sure the studies will come eventually, but right now I just want to avoid it.

Let’s shift gears. You have a book coming out, man. It’s the keto. You’ve been keto three years. It changed your world. Intermittent fasting I always say was the thing I changed over. At 51, it had the greatest impact. It’s been a few years now doing intermittent fasting, probably three, almost four. It had the greatest impact on my health out of anything I ever did. How did you find ketosis? How did you find intermittent fasting, and what effect have they had on you?

Todd:
I discovered ketosis and the ketogenic diet like most people do. Not everyone but like most people, to break through a weight loss plateau, right? I first experimented with ketosis not understanding the ketogenic diet at all in the 1980s with the Atkins Diet, right? You might recall in the original Atkins book, I mean, he was a proponent of reaching ketosis, and this is before it was as sophisticated or well understood as it is today. He suggested using the urine sticks at that time to see if—we know now that once you become fat adaptive and you’re metabolically adjusted to burning fat that the urine sticks are no longer really accurate. Blood testing is the gold standard for the measurement of ketose. I had been experimenting with low-carb diets over the years, but I had decided to experiment about three years ago with ketosis to breakthrough a weight loss plateau. I thought I had just five more pounds I just personally wanted to lose that I couldn’t seem to shake. In fact, after I became ketogenic, I lost almost an additional 20 pounds over the ensuing years that I really had no idea that I really needed to lose.

Here’s been my experience with ketosis. Most people begin to break through a weight loss plateau, but in fact, I continued. The reason that I’m a proponent and an evangelist for the ketogenic diet today is really its effect on the reduction of inflammation, so you can even look in the face of someone who’s ketogenic, or I have—everybody on my staff is ketogenic. It’s not a requirement of working here. It just happens to be who we are, and most of the folks who work for me are younger and happen to be quite thin. Even when they became ketogenic, they didn’t experience much weight loss, but what you could really see is a restructuring in their face. This tremendous melting away of puffiness that’s even apparent—you don’t even realize it’s there, particularly people who are thin by nature. You don’t really see them as inflamed. In fact, when they become ketogenic, you see this melting away, and you’ll see a more defined facial structure, right? That’s inflammation. That was an amazing result.

For me, the problem with the ketogenic movement at the moment is that, even among health experts, talk about how difficult it is to be on a ketogenic diet, and I just don’t feel that way. It’s a luxurious way to eat. I mean, it just is exceptionally delicious and luxurious. What my cookbook is really showing is, look, this is a magnificent and pleasurable and delicious way to live, right, and you’re not actually depriving yourself of anything other than some poisons.

Dr. Pompa:
Where do we get your cookbook, man?

Todd:
Like everything else, we’re just never on schedule. We’re just always constantly in a struggle. We’re super busy this year. Our business grew a hundred X because we sell all these healthy wines that people just seem to want to drink a lot of, right? We’ve just been kind of busy.

Let’s talk about fasting for just a second before we wrap up. I have to agree with you. Intermittent fasting for me was probably—it was so profound when I discovered it. I wanted to share with your listeners for those—many of them I’m sure are doing intermittent fasting. The Leangains method, the 16, 18-hour fast and 2 feedings in a 6 hour window is the most popular fasting regiment, and the one I followed for 2½ years or so. Six or eight months ago—maybe it’s been a little bit longer than that now. I adapted a single feeding a day doing a 24 hour fast every day, 22 to 24 hours. I had the most profound impact. When I went to a single feeding a day—I hate to use the word feeding. It sounds so clinical.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, for animals. -inaudible- and you’re like this mrrr, mrrr.

Todd:
Yeah, single feeding. I have such a romantic relationship with food that I hate to call it feeding because I just…

Dr. Pompa:
Let me give you a tip, one meal a day.

Todd:
One meal a day, it’s been the…

Dr. Pompa:
You froze up again.

Todd:
Once I went to a one meal a day program, I have got new power, best at the gym. I got boom. It’s like I had my personal best on both high-intensity training as well as resistance training for weightlifting. My personal best after I went to -inaudible- a day. I thought I might experience just the opposite. I thought I might experience some lean body loss or a loss of power in not having that fuel. In fact, just the opposite happened, and I work out in the mornings in a fasted state.

Dr. Pompa:
I think the way you went about it is right because some people—we’re dealing with sick people, right? They struggle even at 14 hours, and then all of a sudden, that gets easier. Then all of a sudden they can do 18, then 20. I do probably 2 to 3 days a week where I eat 24 hour, dinner to dinner, so 1 meal a day. One feeding a day when they take me from the barn, and they give me—I assure you it’s not oats. It’s more grass related.

Anyways, yeah, you know what? I’m telling you, Todd. I mean, I agree. You become hormonally optimized with the rise in growth hormone. I mean, how many studies did I read, right Meredith, at the seminar? It really is amazing. However, it takes people some time to get there. When people tried it right away, they throw the baby out with the bath water because their mitochondria are so damaged. They’re inefficient. They just simply can’t do it right away, but we have more methods. We have more methods.

Then I’ll tell you, Todd. What’s magic for me is at least one day a week where I actually purposely do eat more. It reminds our body that it’s not starving. We know that the body will hang onto that fat because it becomes that precious. Just that one day feast cycle, which I wrote an article called Diet Variation, it really is just emulating or imitating our ancestors and what they did, what they were forced to do. I’m with you, Todd. I mean, just powerful stuff, hormonally changes, and you do become more anabolic and lean all at the same time.

Todd:
My advice and council to people is really to ease into fasting. Also, if you practice a ketogenic diet, once you become fat adaptive and you’re burning fat as your primary fuel source, fasting becomes so much easier.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No doubt. No doubt.

Todd:
Yeah. If you’re a glucose burner, fasting can be really tough because your brain is demanding fuel.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No doubt. When you go into ketosis, you’re supposed to release upon fat burning something called cholecystokinin, which cholecystokinin actually tells your body that it’s not hungry. Therefore, you just don’t have to eat. It’s easier to fast, right? Let me tell you something, folks, though. The key is feasting in the evening, making sure you eat enough. If you try to caloric restrict by saying, okay, I’m going to eat less, even for my dinner, your body is going to think it’s starving. It’s going to shut off all the fat burning, so not a good idea.

Feast like our ancestors. Have a good glass of wine or two, right, or three for that matter. Todd, come on. With your wines, you can drink a bottle for goodness sakes.

Todd:
I drink a bottle every night.

Meredith:
Now, do you call that micro-dosing, Todd?

Todd:
That is micro-dosing. We’ve lowered the inherent amount of alcohol. When I say I drink a bottle, we’ll start at dinner, and I eat on the early side because I’m fasted. I usually eat between 6 and 7 at night. We’re going to start there. I don’t usually drink without eating because I’m fasted, right? I don’t want a jolt of alcohol to my brain, so I’m going to eat with a meal. Then drinking a bottle of wine will go on for three, or four, or five hours before I go to bed. I mean, it’s not like just sit down and hammer a bottle back. It’s a gradual process, and there’s food involved, and so that’s mitigating part of the absorption.

Dr. Pompa:
You raise a good point, though. See, you’re talking about one meal a day. When we look at our ancestors, when we look at the Romans and the Greeks and so many other cultures, right, the Hebrew, I mean, they had this one big meal a day where they sat down, but it lasted two to three hours. I mean, Europe still is that way more, right? I mean, it’s this slow process of eating and feasting, so I mean, it’s amazing what happens in that process. Your body doesn’t think it’s staring. What does it burn all day long through the night? Fat, it burns it. You want to live longer; you stabilize your glucose and insulin, the only real way to do it. The only way of doing it is not eating. Every time you eat, even if it’s a salad, you spike your insulin and glucose, right?

Todd:
Absolutely, absolutely.

Dr. Pompa:
Todd, we have a saying on Cell TV. Don’t eat less. Eat less often. That’s the key to living longer, man. Eat less often.

Todd:
That’s right. The other thing that you see, when you talk about this longer dining period, this is about a cultural value too. This is how stories are shared. This is how love is created, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Todd:
The one thing we can all do to make the world a better place or as we say here how can we be the change we want to see in the world? The way we can be the change we want to see is to spread more love. There’s no better place than the dinner table to spread that love, right, and to touch people you’re with. We’re eating too often, and we’re in too big of a hurry.

Dr. Pompa:
Man, I’ll tell you. Add a little of the wine, right, the good stuff. I’m telling you. It’s good for your adrenals. It’s good for this. It’s good for your life. I mean, yeah, we know the French and all these cultures that lived long, healthy, without heart disease. They’d drink some wine. Our Lord and Savior drank wine.

I mean, come on. It’s part of the culture. It’s what man has done to wine, just like meat, just like dairy, just like wheat. Everything we’ve ruined, commercialized. Wine is no different. We’ve made bad for man. Let’s go back to the old way, right, Todd?

Todd:
Super simple.

Dr. Pompa:
I want to throw a caution out there because some people think that they eat one meal a day or two meals a day, but when you look at it closer, they don’t consider this. The handful of nuts or the scoop of coconut oil is a meal often times, right? They’re doing these things all day long. They don’t realize it. It’s like give your body a break. Truly fast and truly eat and enjoy, what you were saying.

Todd:
Yeah. No question about it. I’m sure many of your listeners are already on fasting regiments. It’s one of the greatest biohacks of all time, right? It’s natural. It’s ancestrally correct. We know that. I mean, we’ve known for two and a half million years sapiens have been walking around. It’s been a couple of thousand years arguably the agriculture revolution was just 10,000 years ago, right? Before the last 1 or 200 years, I mean, even we had more regular intermittent fasting because people didn’t have regular access to food.

Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.

Todd:
If we look back prior to 10,000 years ago, it was a daily practice. Sometimes people went multiple days without eating.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s the thing we call block fasting here on Cell TV where one or two fasts a year, just like that. For patients getting their health back, often times we have to fast them once a month or every other month. Four or five days, I’ll tell you what. Without food, watch what happens. You know what? The Hunza people did it every spring. They called it starvation spring. The American Indians did it. I mean, all of these tribes did it. Sometimes they were forced to, but it also became something that they just planned on because they knew that these gaps were coming, and they wanted to get their harvest ready, etc. They fasted.

Human are meant to fast. It’s healing. Animals do it instinctively. We’re trying to teach you all to do it.

Todd:
Awesome. Awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
Hey, Todd, thank you, and I’ll turn it back over to Meredith to close us out.

Meredith:
Thank you guys so much. I didn’t expect to be totally re-inspired to fast from this show, but now I really am so awesome information. Todd, you have such a generous offer for our listeners. If you guys go to dryfarmwines and it’s wines plural .com/drpompa, that’s D-R-P-O-M-P-A, you will get a bottle of Dry Farm Wines for one penny.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh.

Meredith:
Yeah. Check that out. Yeah. Dr. Pompa, you can go to your own—you’re on your own. Get one.

Dr. Pompa:
I love Todd. I tell you. I love him. Let’s just keep having him on just so we can keep getting a bottle of wine for a darn penny. Hey, we’ll have you back on when we do your cookbook, man, when you get that sucker out there.

Todd:
Awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
All right, Todd. We appreciate you, man. We appreciate you.

Todd:
Yeah. Hey, listen, thanks for having me on the show today. It’s just an awesome time. Also, if any listeners want to contact me direct, it’s just Todd, T-O-D-D, @dryfarmwines.com. I promise to answer your emails. Also, I want to say to all of you and to your audience I love you. Thank you so much for having me on today. Spread lots of love throughout the world every chance you can, and spend more time eating with your friends.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. We love you too, Todd. Thank you, man.

Todd:
All right, take care.

Meredith:
Amen. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for watching.

Todd:
Bye.

Meredith:
Enjoy your healthy wine, and we’ll see you next week.

144: Keto Q & A

Transcript of Episode 144: Keto Q&A

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Errin Smith

Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host Meredith Dykstra, and this is Episode 144.Today, guys, we have a really special show for you, and we have a very special guest joining Dr. Dan Pompa, our resident Cellular Healing specialist, and I. Today we have another amazing team member of ours. That is Ms. Errin Smith out in California who is also a keto queen. She has been delving into the keto lifestyle and has been part of our lifestyle for a while. Helping us do a lot of amazing things. Welcome, Errin. Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing, and why you’re on our Keto Q & A Episode.

Errin:
Thanks, guys. It is so fun to be here. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. This is so fun, so thank you. Yes. I’ve working with you guys for a few years now, been in the health industry for, gosh, almost ten now. Working with practitioners, with high-end supplements in the past, and now I’m hanging out with you guys. Just complete health nut, follow Dr. Pompa like nobody’s business. Now I get to work with you guys, and it’s so wonderful and helping spread the message about true cellular detox.

Just felt really called to just help the change the world in a really big way, and that’s what we’re doing with this epidemic that we’re going through with toxicity. We know ketosis is a huge part of part of the healing, and so learning about it over the past years has been so fun. I’m just, obviously, crazy about it, and that’s why we’re here. It’s awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
I don’t want to get too far off track, but I always ask all our guests, hey, what’s your why, right? In other words, what drives you in this field? You have a story, so just briefly tell your story. I mean, you’re driven.

Errin:
Oh, yeah. Back in the day, before I knew much, I had a—I mean, I’ve been in the health—I mean, I’m learning about health for I don’t know how many years now. Thought I was doing things right and really into fitness and health. I was like, oh, I’ll do a detox, and I did this detox. Let’s say I learned the hard way about detox. I was very, very—I got very sick for a while and just really changed my life in a really big way. Long story short, fast forwarding to now, I—what we’re doing helping with everyone that’s toxic but mostly down in California here, with the autism spectrum down here, I mean, that’s really why I’m here is to help those kids that are going through massive health issues. I went through it myself as well, and that’s why I’m here.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You did detox wrong, and literally, I mean, it put you in the hospital.

Errin:
Yeah. I almost didn’t make it out, I mean, but again, it led me to here. It was a blessing in disguise and the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me.

Dr. Pompa:
Then you ran into one of our doctors who are trained in true cellular detox. He says, look, this is the way you have to do it, and you have been on board with us ever since. I mean, you do. You promote all the true cellular detox, CytoDetox. You’re a connection to our doctors. You really are. Educating our doctors on how to put this in their practice, I mean, that’s part of what Errin does.

Errin:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. That brings us to today’s topic. Look, the three of us have experimented with fasting, which I think is another show, ketosis and all these things. You girls always raise amazing questions, right? I think being at the seminar, even more questions got raised, right? We had 200 and some doctors there. We were doing blood testing, ketone testing, and glucose testing on them showing them how to determine if someone’s fasting or if they’re going into gluconeogenesis. You had so many great questions, and Meredith and I were like we’ve got to do a show.

Look, fire away. I mean, honestly, I think we should just go through some of these questions. I promise you. Our viewers and listeners have these questions too.

Errin:
Yeah, exactly.

Meredith:
A lot of them are from doctors. They are from viewers. We get phone calls. We get emails. We get so many of the same questions because we talk a lot about ketosis, so this episode is dedicated to that. If you guys have future questions, we can do future shows, but we had to start somewhere. Errin put some of these things together, and this is really exciting.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s a great list, a great list of questions. Let’s jump in.

Meredith:
Jump in, awesome. All right, so one of the questions we get a lot, how should athletes and non-athletes who are struggling with adrenal fatigue approach ketosis?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. If an athlete’s struggling with adrenal fatigue, I would immediately say overtraining, overtraining, overtraining. Rest more, right?

Errin:
That would be me.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Rest more. That’s the biggest mistake in the athletic world is people over train, but let’s talk about adrenal fatigue. I mean, adrenal fatigue is obviously very common, right? We know that any type of stress, physical, chemical, or emotional, can—the adrenals are the downstream whipping boy, that they have to adapt. Here’s the thing. It may take longer for someone with adrenal fatigue to get into ketosis. However, they do. Then it becomes less of a stress. Once the cell, the mitochondria, becomes an efficient fat burner, there’s frankly less stress because you’re not getting the glucose rises and the glucose drops.

We look at what the adrenals do. It has to deal with that day in, day out. Those types of rises and falls are very stressful and create a lot of stress into the whole endocrine system and, obviously, affecting the adrenals. Yes. Could you do some adrenal support? We talk about the Seriphos. We talk about Ga and other ways to support the adrenals, of course, but I believe ketosis really is a tremendous asset to adrenal fatigue.

Meredith:
Mm-hmm. What if someone wanted to combine ketosis and fasting who was also experiencing adrenal fatigue? Do you suggest that, or do you think just the ketogenic diet would be more advisable in that case?

Dr. Pompa:
Look, anybody can fast, and it depends on if we’re talking about daily fasting or block fasting. Daily fasting, we look at glucose, and Errin, you did some experimenting on yourself like we did at the seminar. We look at glucose in ketones as a way. Doing it with just a simple blood prick in the finger, doing it in the morning, and doing it before your first meal is, basically, is your body adapting to that intermittent fast?

When you talk to Jason Fung, Dr. Fung, who has written a couple books about this and he’s doing all this research up at the University of Toronto, he says, look, I don’t care. No matter what, someone will eventually adapt. I agree with him. However, in that interim is what we want—we can make that adaptation much more pleasant. If they’re not adapting, whether it’s just low adrenals, they’ll start breaking muscle down into glucose. By looking at what the body’s doing with their glucose and ketones throughout the day, we can determine how long that fast is, and we can shorten it in the beginning while they’re getting better and better and more efficient at fat burning. That’s how we determine that.

Meredith:
Adding a lot fat in, if somebody wanted to do intermittent fasting but was moving to ketosis but was experiencing adrenal fatigue, that would maintain blood sugar and possibly help ease the fast. Correct?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I mean, it does. I mean, you can add some fats in, which sometimes work for people. Sometimes they don’t so, again, looking at your glucose numbers after you take in fat. Does glucose rise, or does glucose fall? If it rises, then it’s not the best thing. If it falls, then that’s a good thing, and it can be supported.

However, we want to get to the point where we just fast, right, with very little fats. We don’t want to keep fat. The part of fasting is the fact that we want not to eat. We want to rest ourselves. We want to rest our GI. We know that, just eating nothing, you get the highest growth hormone rise, the most insulin sensitivity. I mean, some small amounts of calories, I don’t think that it matters, but we know that too much can take someone out of that—the benefits of fasting.

Here’s the other thing. To get into ketosis, you don’t need to eat fats to get into ketosis because your body will eat its own fat, right? We know that a two-day water fast, we see ketones flying off the chart. You’re not eating fat because you’re burning fat. That’s a misnomer. Anyways, I don’t know if that answered that at all.

Meredith:
I think that’s such a great point to hammer home too. People think, oh, ketosis, the ketogenic diet, that they have to eat 90% fat. That it’s fat, fat, fat all the time. Just the simple water fast, when you transition yourselves over into burning their own fat for energy, the ketones rise, and then you can shift into ketosis from just drinking water. I think that’s a concept we forget, and maybe don’t always think about or clarify enough.

Errin:
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Pompa:
Dominic D’Agostino, he just spoke at our last seminar. He’s the one doing all these amazing studies for the Defense Department, for the Navy SEALS in ketosis. He brought up a good point. He says there’s different types of going into ketosis, right? I mean, there’s the keto diet that’s 90% fat that we do for—we did for seizure patients. Then there’s, basically, a modified ketosis. That’s what he said he does, and that’s what I do, modified. I don’t eat extreme amounts of fat. I mean, considered very high fat, I’m sure it’s considered compared to the American diet. However, it’s modified, meaning that you don’t need a lot of fat to go into ketosis. You just need really quality higher fat.

Errin:
I think, if I can stem off that, that’s always one question. Again, people that are really into it like I am that we want to know, okay, well, exactly how much fat? Like you said, everyone is different. Everyone has their own—their bodies are different, and their needs are different. How active they are is different. I mean, I know some people. They start at 50% fat, 60% fat, and work their way up. Is that something that…

Dr. Pompa:
Here’s really what it comes down to, right? If you decrease your carbohydrates below 50 grams, which is typically where people have to be to be in ketosis, it really is—it’s a carbohydrate thing more so than a fat thing. Now, too much protein will break down into sugar, so we have to consider protein as being moderate. We can talk about that. What happens when you draw up your carbs and do moderate protein? You still need to eat. Where are your calories going? They have to shift to fat. Do you see what I’m saying?

Really, the fat is more of, okay, we want to make up the calories. What are you going to do? You make up with too much protein. You can knock you out of ketosis. You can’t do it in carbohydrates, so really, it leaves fat. Really, what throws you into ketosis? It’s the lack of carbohydrates that actually puts you in ketosis. Not the increase in fat.

To answer your question, what I have a lot of my clients do is they download CRON-O-Meter. That’s C-R-O-N, meter, M-E-T-E-R. They track what they’re eating. Then if they’re saying, well, we’re looking at their numbers and to be in ketosis you want to be at least above .5 millimolars of ketones, so we’re testing that, and let’s say they’re not in. That CRON-O-Meter will let me know what to adjust. Oh, my gosh, well, it could be because you’re eating too much protein, right? It could be because your carbohydrates aren’t low enough. Some people need to go down to 20 or 30 because they’re that non-efficient. Then what is your fat? Maybe we need to give you more fat just because you’re starving yourself, and it’s caloric restriction. Does that help that at all?

Errin:
Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Meredith:
Yeah. Great point to make, just to clarify that. That brings me to two follow-up questions with that as well, which we had gotten one in. How to test for ketosis, which that ties in there, and then someone asked can you do the ketogenic diet without a gallbladder?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. On that last note, I want to say this, Errin, to make sure your question is answered. It’s different for everybody. I have people, on the gallbladder now so I’m combining these two questions, which are great, they don’t break fat down well, right, but we want to put them into ketosis. Then I lean towards more protein because I have to in the hopes that we’re not using that to go into sugar. I have some people who can’t really do a lot of high fat because they have trouble breaking down. Of course, we can assist that with some bile salt, called Ox Bile, 500 milligrams, 1,000 milligrams per fatty meal helps. Lipase is another enzyme that breaks down fat. That helps as well, and most enzymes, like Digestizyme, it has some bile. It has some lipase, but sometimes we need to add a little extra Ox Bile or bile salt to break down fat.

However, we still have people who struggle, so they can’t do as high of fat. Literally, I put them in a ketotic state with not that high of fat just because we have to. Then it starts to become a little easier for them. Then we can start to raise up their fat. I think fat benefits us in other areas. It helps the cell membrane. It helps the brain. I mean, it’s a clean burning fuel. We want fat, but it is different for everybody, Errin.

Errin:
Exactly.

Meredith:
Yeah.

Errin:
It helps. Those enzymes, that was one of my questions. Thank you. I do know people that they struggle to break down fat. They love the idea of ketogenic diet, but they’re just like I can’t break it down. What do I do? That’s perfect. Thank you.

Meredith:
Yeah. That was spot on.

Dr. Pompa:
Another little tip is coffee enemas or a product that we sell. You sell at Revelation Health called Xeneplex, X-E-N-E-P-L-E-X, which is a coffee enema and a suppository. Every time I do a suppository, I do this. I know I do that. I know I do that -inaudible-.

Meredith:
Love the demo.

Errin:
It works.

Dr. Pompa:
My children always point that out to me. Dad, every time you say the word suppository, you act it out. All right, anyways, so we take a cup of BIND, which is a binder that sits in the gut, and you do a coffee enema, or you do the Xeneplex. It pushes out the bile, which often times is backed up in the liver, and it’s toxic bile. We call it hepatic biliary sludge, meaning liver bile sludge. We need to get that out of there. When we do, we’re able to break down fat more so having that as part of somebody’s regiment for a while until they get more efficient helps.

Meredith:
I know you’ve shared a little trick before too, but I just want to clarify the sequence. You take the BIND, activated charcoal, and then you eat a fatty meal, and then you do the Xeneplex suppository? Is that the correct sequence?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You can take the BIND maybe 30 minutes ahead of the Xeneplex or a coffee enema, and I even like to take a couple more after. Just to clean up. The fatty meal forces out the bile. So does the coffee enema. As well as the Xeneplex, that forces out the bile. When you eat fat, you produce bile to digest it. Okay? We want to push that bile out with—and by the way, a coffee enema, it’s the caffeine that actually stimulates that bile to come out with all those toxins. Then the BIND is sitting in there as a catcher’s mitt so you don’t reabsorb it, but you pull it out. We’re pulling out that toxic bile, opening up the liver, and then it makes that more efficient, that whole process, a little trick.

Meredith:
Sorry. You do the BIND or the coffee enema prior to the fatty meal?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You take the BIND. Okay? Thirty minutes to an hour later you eat the fatty meal, and do the coffee enema, boom, boom, boom.

Meredith:
BIND, food, coffee enema, got it. That’s a great tip for people that want to detox a little bit better so awesome. Then did you want to go into the testing there a little bit more with ketone testing, and what to do in the timeframe of that?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I wish I had mine. Maybe one of you girls can show. We use Precision Xtra meter. That’s X-T-R-A, Precision X-T-R-A. Make sure it does glucose and ketones. You buy strips that match the Precision Xtra. Universal drug stores is a place that—universaldrugstores.com is a place to get the ketone strips for two bucks a strip as opposed to paying four on Amazon. The ketone meter is about 25 bucks on Amazon, so not expensive. The glucose strips are very cheap.

The testing, when you look at the test for ketones, you’re in ketosis above .5 so nutritional ketosis, .5 to about 7, 8. I’ve seen, even, people go up to 10 in a fasting situation with ketones and be just fine. If you start going 15, 20, 25, that’s a whole different—that’s you’re not producing any insulin, and that could happen with diabetics. That’s diabetic ketosis. We don’t want it. This is nutritional ketosis.

I like to do it in the morning. That’s typically your lowest value. If you’re in in the morning, we know you’re going to be in later. Typically, your ketones will rise through the day, especially if you’re intermittent fasting. That’s a whole other subject. Yeah. That’s how you test, if that helps.

Meredith:
Morning and then so if you are intermittent fasting and in ketosis, it would be a morning. Then it’s prior to your first meal, right, to measure to see where you’re at?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I mean, as we said, we had the adrenal conversation. Is this working for me? I said how long someone can intermittent fast for. I always feel like before you have new viewers we have to explain that. That means let’s say you eat dinner at 7 o’clock at night. You don’t eat your first meal until later the next day, so 7 to 7, there’s 12 hours. Add another six, right? That would be what? One o’clock in the afternoon would be your first meal. That’s an 18 hour intermittent fast, which is a great intermittent fast.

We know that all this hormone optimization happens by fasting every day, almost every day, around anywhere between 13 hours, if you will. I mean, there are studies that show that there’s a benefit even as little as that. I think, as you go, more benefits occur. All the way up to even doing dinner to dinner, which is a 24 hour. Okay. That’s intermittent fasting.

Now, to answer your question, doing morning glucose and morning ketones. Glucose, you write it down, 90, ketones, .4. Okay. Not quite in yet. Okay. What we want to see as the day goes on—we want to retest them right before you eat your first meal. Let’s say it’s 12 o’clock noon. Okay. That’s my first meal. I’m going to retest it right before my first meal, and I’m going to go, okay, now let me write down my glucose and my ketones. What we want is we want glucose to drop and ketones to rise.

Now, there is factors that can throw that off, right? What about your morning coffee. We’ll talk about that, right? Errin, you have some experiment that you did there. Then what about exercise? Different types of exercise can throw that off, right? We’ll talk more about that.

Let’s say you didn’t exercise. You didn’t eat. Okay. Let’s keep it at that, and we’ll get to the other questions later. We want to see glucose drop and ketones rise. That’s, really, the magic happens. What’s happening is, the ketones, your body’s burning its fat, making ketones as a replacement for the glucose because you’re not eating. After 12 hours, your glycogen stores. That means you store your sugar in your muscles and your liver. They’re dropping, dropping, dropping, and your body’s making it up by burning fat. Ketones rise, glucose drop.

Now, let’s say it doesn’t happen. Your glucose is starting to rise, and your ketones are not moving or maybe even dropping. That means your body could be taking its muscle and breaking it down into sugar, multiple reasons for that. We talked about adrenals. Maybe it’s another hormone issue, a thyroid condition. We want to shorten the fast down to maybe 13 or 14 hours until we get that efficiency going, and then we can start to spread it out again. Eventually, the body becomes more and more efficient, and that’s the idea.

Meredith:
I love that, and Errin, I don’t know if you want to transition over into your little elaborate glucose testing personal experience. Yeah. This is a good spot to maybe talk about that.

Errin:
Yeah. I’ve been doing, actually, four-day block fasts once a month. I’m really definitely getting my body into this state, and I love it, right? A couple weeks ago, I came off a four-day fast, and I had my meal. Didn’t break in very easily but maybe that’s something we can talk about. I went and worked out, and I played volleyball for two hours in the sand. I’m down on the beach here in California. It’s two-man, so I mean, it’s high intensity.

I played for two hours, and had my glucose ready, grabbed it out of my bag. Everyone on the court is like what are you doing? I’m like leave me alone. I test my glucose. Gosh, what was it? One-thirty I had written down. I had 130. Then an hour later I checked it again, and it dropped down to 77.

Dr. Pompa:
You checked it. Yeah, great, great. Let’s look at that. This was high intensity, running around, two-man volleyball. Would you say that it is?

Errin:
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, burst, boom, boom, boom.

Errin:
Burst, yes.

Dr. Pompa:
What happens when you burst? When you burst, your body has to release glycogen. That’s stored sugar from its liver, from its muscles. We always expect a rise in glucose, so what you experience is absolutely normal. Now, as you went on, your glucose levels, you burned up your glucose, right? Your glucose then came down, and now you were forced to use your fat for energy because your fat adapted. That may not happen for everybody. They may have to burn up their muscle because they’re not efficient at fat burning, or they bomb. They just don’t have energy, and they go I need the sugar drink because their body’s not efficient at fat burning.

Yours is, so what happened is your glucose came down, leveled off, because your body started burning fat as an energy source. It became very efficient at that. That’s what happened. Now, if you were completely void of all your glycogen, then you could still—and you needed that burst, you might get a little lightheaded. That’s what happened, and that was normal. You had some other examples. What were some of your other ones?

Errin:
Actually, with my document—Meredith has the document in front of her. There’s a couple other situations that I had, but just in the morning, my glucose, I noticed its resting is in the 90’s. For as much as I fast, when I get into these fasted states, my glucose will go to in the 70’s, but resting is 90. I mean, does that say anything about stress, adrenals?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Your morning glucose is, on average, about 90. Is that what you’re saying?

Errin:
Mm-hmm.

Meredith:
Just for an example, your morning glucose was 95. You went paddle boarding for an hour and a half. Ate fermented yogurt, and then it went down to 77.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. Again, that’s what we would expect. Paddle boarding is you can use all fat doing that, right? It’s not super high intensity where you’re posting on the thing, but you’re going like that. When I go on a long mountain bike ride, I’m going to get lower glucose, or a long walk, you’re going to get lower glucose tending down. Again, high intensity, you’re going to get that spike in glucose, and then even a drop in ketones. Then doing the paddle boarding, your glucose would tend down. Your ketones are going to go which way?

Errin:
Up.

Dr. Pompa:
Up, yeah, exactly. You’re burning fat. Glucose, remember they move opposite, right? When we see glucose tending down, we’re going to see typically ketones tending up. We know that you were burning fat paddle boarding, and the ketones were rising, and the glucose was dropping. Okay.

Your morning glucose being 90, I think it’s pretty normal. I mean, you tend to—your cortisol rises in the morning, and it’s going to cause a little glucose release. When people start releasing around 100 or above, that’s abnormal. That could be gluconeogenesis where my body was breaking muscle down at night. They have the inability to burn fat when they’re not eating through the night, so their body’s breaking muscle down. That’s why diabetics get their highest glucose in the morning. Their liver will start dumping glucose. Their body will break muscle down, whatever it has to do because it’s not able to burn fat, but it’s a bad thing. We don’t want that.

Now, you’re in the 90’s. I think it’s pretty normal. A little bit of cortisol rise. What we want to see now is as you don’t eat through the day, as you’re intermittent fasting, we want to see the glucose tending down, and we want to see the ketones rising. Does that happen for you?

Errin:
Yeah. When I definitely restrict and I’m coming off of more of my fasted state, absolutely. Yeah. It’s funny. When I do go to the gym right around there and I’m on that empty stomach working out, I use those battle ropes, right? I start cranking on those, and I can feel my ketones. Like my brain just get that buzz. You know that’s the sign, I think. The fun part is you can just tell. You really start getting the hang of you can tell when you’re in ketosis pretty quickly.

Yeah. It just depends on how much—I’m still playing with it. I’m still learning what’s right for me. I think that’s the thing for athletes is learning that balance of how long to wait for your fast, like you were saying, plus the amount of fat, plus just your current day-to-day stress levels. Things like that that you want to work around and not over train.

Dr. Pompa:
I love to exercise on the empty stomach. In the fasting state, studies show you get your highest anabolic reaction. Growth hormone goes up. Testosterone goes up. You become more sensitive to those anabolic hormones. Everything good happens. The old days, I was one of them. Thirty minutes after your exercise, eat whey protein. Get some -inaudible- in.

We really know today that that’s not the case, right, especially when you’re fat adapted. When you exercise and then you wait at least an hour after you exercise, you’re gaining the benefit of that growth hormone rise. By the way, you spare your muscle. That’s the cool thing is, when you get that growth hormone rise, you’re in a—you’re sparing your muscle. You’re protecting it, and your body’s burning its fat. You’re revving up your hormones to replace the glycogen and burn fat. I mean, all those amazing things happen. We don’t want to eat right away, and we want to give our body the chance to just appreciate those hormones, those anti-aging anabolic hormones. That was the thing.

I don’t like fat before I work out. I don’t like fat during the workout. I like to really just ride it out. I think that, if you’re doing something very long endurance, there may be a time where you use a lot of your bursts. Like if you’re in a race, that you may have to eat somewhere along the road. We know that when you’re fat adapted, meaning in a ketotic state, that your cells are using mostly fat for energy. You can go hours and hours and hours without eating because it becomes that efficient.

Meredith:
Now, just a question here too, are there gender differences with that? It seems maybe men can handle that a little bit more as far as going longer times, just eating more fat, less carbs, being—tend to shift into ketosis more easily. Can you talk about gender differences?

Dr. Pompa:
It’s funny. You’ve been with me when we’ve asked a lot of people that question, whether it’s Fung or Dr. D’Agostino, and they always say no. I always say, well, clinically, for me, there is. I see it. I see that thyroid, people with thyroid issues, they take longer to adapt. We have developed now many strategies to help people keto adapt that struggle to keto adapt, or we’ve developed strategies for people who are in ketosis and say I’m not losing weight. I mean, we could do a whole show right there, right?

We’ve learned that some people don’t. I think women definitely fall more into the category, whether it’s because they have certain hormone challenges. More women have hypothyroid. I’m not sure the answer, but I say, yes, women struggle a little more than men to get into ketosis, even lose weight into ketosis. That’s my experience.

Meredith:
Then, of course, the next question that would be logical is so what are these strategies? Someone wrote in. I don’t understand the 5-1-1 rule, the 2-2-2 rule. I think that could tie into this question as far as some specific strategies for those who are having trouble keto adapting. Can you explain that? It’s a lot for you, I know.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re doing a really good job of taking the questions and transitioning into our questions that we have. Diet variation, aka feast-famine cycles, is something that absolutely works. What do I mean by this? Okay. There’s different ways to diet vary. Seasonally, maybe you go in ketosis. I’ve had people who are struggling to get into ketosis. I say, okay, three or four months now, let’s go back to a regular Cellular Healing Diet. No grains. No sugar, maybe 100, 150 grams of carbs a day but still no grains.

They go back to that diet, and all of a sudden, they start losing weight. To my amazement, I’m going why is that? That’s weird. Then you say, okay, let’s do that for three months. Let’s go back into ketosis. Then they do, and all of a sudden, they start losing weight. That happened to my wife, and it’s happened to several people. That variation causes some type of adaptation. Some type of hormone optimization that allows them to be more efficient the next time they go into ketosis.

Okay. The 5-1-1 now is weekly diet variation using feast and famine cycles, okay, which I believe we’re just imitating ancient cultures doing this. Five days a week we are in a ketosis, eating a ketosis diet, or maybe even a Cellular Healing Diet. Let’s say ketosis. We’re under 50 grams of carbs. Okay? One day a week we fast. We go dinner to dinner, 24 hours. The other day and it could be random days, not back to back, just random days, we feast. We eat more often that day, whether it’s three meals a day. We eat higher carbohydrates.

Let’s try to keep them healthier, although, for healthy people, it doesn’t even have to be. They can eat pizzas and pasta. Remember what’s her name that we interviewed, right? They were eating every other day, and they were just eating regular diet. It still worked, right?

Meredith:
It did. Dr. Krista Varady, with her first tests, with her experiments, yeah, “The Every Other Day Diet.”

Dr. Pompa:
Right. They said it wasn’t even perfectly every other day. Her thing was we just varied it. We did feast days, fast days, and it worked. She believed it was some type of adaptation. I agree. The feast day, for example, my day is typically Saturday or Sunday where I eat more. I eat more of everything. I try to eat more protein, more carbs.

Meredith:
I’m excited.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, what it does is this. We know this for sure. What happens is is if you’re in a ketotic state long enough, the body will think it’s starving because the insulin can get so low. Then it could start to go into gluconeogenesis, but eventually, what the body does is it wants to survive. If it’s using mostly its energy from fat, okay, think about this, what does it do? It can even blunt the insulin receptor and store more fat. It wants to conserve its fat because it wants to survive. The body always wants to survive.

Therefore, it literally blunts the insulin receptor, stores more fat, and all of a sudden, you’re going I’m eating 20 carbs a day. Why can’t I lose this, or why is it even increasing? It happened to me. We throw a carb day in, and now all of a sudden your body starts burning fat. It says, okay, we’re not starving. Let’s burn fat. We feel free to burn. That’s what these feast days can do. They remind your body it’s not starving. It feels free to burn fat, so two days after, typically, a feast day, you’re actually visibly leaner. Your body starts tapping into that where it didn’t.

Diet variation can break you into that mode of fat burning again, whether it’s seasonal or whether it’s weekly, as I just gave an example. Another one is basically a 4-2-1 where we do two fasting days and one feast day, or we could flip it. Do two feast days and one fast day and four—you get the point. It’s the variation that matters.

Meredith:
It’s so funny. Okay.

Errin:
Yeah. I am too. That podcast with your son, Dr. Pompa, was such a great podcast talking about that as well. How Daniel just applied that and how he’s transformed himself. It’s just incredible, perfect example.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No. What it was is it was hormone optimization, right? I know some of your questions too, Errin, are questions that we gathered and questions you may have is about the fasting, as far as the eating window and how to do that. I think there’s a lot of great questions in there, and that’s probably another show. I mean, I don’t know. Meredith, you have the questions in front of you. I don’t want to direct it. You direct it.

Meredith:
Yeah. We’ll keep this focus on the ketogenic diet, but we’re definitely going to do a fasting Q & A show as well. Any of you listening, if you have fasting questions, send those in. You can submit them on the form on Dr. Pompa’s website, and we’ll get those answered for sure. That’s a whole other can of worms. Just with the fasting with the 5-1-1, I do want to clarify. For some people, they say, okay, fasting day, what do you mean? Is that a water fast? Is that 24 hours, 36 hours? People want to know the exacts there.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I just say it’s dinner to dinner. It’s 24 hours, so if you eat 7 the night before, go eat at 7 again the night before. That’s what we call a fasting day.

Meredith:
Perfect. Awesome. Five days in either keto or Cellular Healing Diet, one fast day, one feast day. The feast day I think is just so fun too. I think that that’s part of what makes all of this sustainable. I was explaining the 5-1-1 to a client this morning, and she’s so excited to have a day to feast. It’s such a win-win because you get more results when you feast because the body can relax. It doesn’t hang onto those toxic fat stores. You can have fun and plan out those really festive fun feast meals every week too. It’s such a win-win in that way. I mean, I feel a major…

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I think it’s essential. I really do. When you look at all ancient cultures, when they had food, boy, they ate, right? I mean, that’s the thing is the body is all about survival. If it thinks it’s starving, that’s a problem.

Think about this. The ketogenic diet, remember it was called a diet that mimics fasting. You remember that. We see the same things happen in ketosis as we do when we’re fasting, right? I said we can get into ketosis fasting, or we can get into it with this diet. We see a lot of the similarities between fasting and ketosis. With ketosis, you do it long enough, just like a fast the body will go into a starvation mode, right? I mean, people can fast, typically, 30, 40 days and not even hit starvation, right? Eventually, it will occur.

Same with ketosis, eventually, the body could say I’m starving. Insulin gets so low. You start burning muscle. That’s when you see people that are low carb. I’ve seen it. They’re fat around their waist, and they’re eating 20, 30 grams of carbs. They get less and less, even lower. Why are they still fat? It’s because the body’s going to hold onto it to survive unless you throw it off with some diet variation.

Meredith:
It just decreases hormone sensitivity, right, is the bottom line?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No doubt. The body’s smart enough to say let’s blunt the insulin receptor. Let’s hold onto this precious energy because that’s all we have. You’re not giving me any other carbohydrate. Again, I think when we look at cultures, they always—we’re moving in and out of ketotic states. When you look at the Eskimos, even when they had the flourish of being able to eat other foods, they sure did, and during the wintertime, they would go into ketosis for long—they’re winters are much longer. They were strong people, but they definitely held onto a little more fat during those times too. They had to.

Meredith:
Right. No. You can’t outsmart the innate intelligence.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Meredith:
Also, the person was asking to explain the 2-2-2 role just because the 5-1-1, the 2-2-2, they are your creation. They are so brilliant so if you can just break that down to clarify.

Dr. Pompa:
One of the things—when people go, like Errin, how much fat do I eat? It’s so hard. People get overwhelmed. Just to make sure they get a variety of different fats, we do two tablespoons of grass-fed butter, like Kerrygold, and there’s others. Why? It has conjugated linoleic acid. That’s a fat you actually need to burn fat. There’s also medium-chain triglycerides. Those are fats that actually help us become more efficient fat burners, right? Coconut oil, loaded with medium-chain triglycerides. Those are fats that help us become more efficient fat burners so two tablespoons of coconut oil, and then maybe two tablespoons of olive oil or macadamia oil to bring in some monounsaturates.

We’re getting a variety with the 2-2-2. Then there’s actually one more too, two teaspoons, not tablespoons, teaspoons of sea salt. Why? When you’re going into ketosis, you can become electrolyte deficient because your body starts to lose potassium, magnesium. Remember Dr. Dominic said at the conference, for him, it’s magnesium. He starts getting calf cramps at night. It could be potassium, and it could be magnesium. Sodium helps you maintain those electrolytes. A good sea salt that has some other minerals in it is helpful, or you can buy an electrolyte that doesn’t have sugar in it. Most do, so be careful, which is all of those, and take some extra magnesium. Those are all really good tips.

Meredith:
Yeah. That’s a perfect transition into this next question. What are the best supplements to take during ketosis? You said the magnesium, sea salt. Electrolytes, do you have a specific brand you like, or maybe some other specific supplements that are helpful when you’re in that ketotic state to optimize it?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We have something called E-Lyte, which is just a pure electrolyte I use all the time that you sell in our Revelation Health. The Magnesium Malate, very absorbable. Magnesium Citrate, some do better with one versus the other and then the sea salt, the Himalayan sea salt. Some of the different sea salts carry a lot of different minerals with it. Salt also is beneficial for the adrenals so very helpful with the adrenal thing as well. Those are very helpful.

Seriphos helps the cortisol level because high cortisol levels can kick people out of ketosis. Again, that helps the adrenals. Seriphos is another really good one. You can mention some of the products, the fat products that we have there on Revelation Health that are helpful as well. Those are some ideas.

Meredith:
Yeah. It’s great. I know you like the PTM as well, which is the potassium sodium stabilizer for ketosis as well, and along with all those you mentioned, yeah, some amazing fats. We have some awesome MCT oil, and there’s one I really like. I’ve been likely lately too. It’s by KetoForce, and it’s called Keto8, and it contains a special type of MCT’s. They’re C8, so they’re carbon C8, like that molecule. It’s a different form of MCT. It can be a little bit easier on the stomach, and it also tends to be more ketogenic. That’s one that I like. I’ve been putting that in morning coffee.

We have some X-Factor butter oils, which are high vitamin butter oils, which are delicious blended into your drinks. You’re just taking raw. The butter pecan flavor is my personal favorite. We have some awesome raw coconut oil, Skinny & Co. brand. As you say, we want to be rotating the fats. Just like everything else. It’s that constant rotation to diversify and hit all the bases.

Dr. Pompa:
Let’s go back to Errin, some examples. We’re going to get this question. Okay. You talk about adding these fats, and these fats are great in ketosis. What about if we’re intermittent fasting with ketosis? What about my morning coffee? You did some tests. Tell us what happened with your numbers. Meredith, you probably have those written down in front of you. What happened with her coffee fat experiment?

Errin:
Yeah. From what I can remember—Meredith, feel free to chime in. When I actually had just butter in my—just without the coffee, my glucose went up. When I had coffee with butter as well, I believe—I don’t know how many points, but it went up. When I had plain coffee with a little bit of cream, it went down. I’ve been doing the buttery coffee every morning. Now I’m going to try just working out on a fasted state with black coffee, and see how I do. Do a little bit better.

Dr. Pompa:
No. That’s okay. Coffee, it can kick in fat burning for people. When my wife drinks her morning coffee, she gets a massive drop in glucose. Just eating fats could cause a rise in some people, I mean, oddly enough. Again, that’s why you test, right? Coffee with fat, try just black coffee, but 30 minutes after you do your morning coffee, test your glucose. You don’t even need your ketones. Just see what your glucose does.

You have to look on an average, right? If it’s just two or three up, that could just be the error of the machine. On average, if it stays the same or drops, then you’re good with your morning coffee, but try it different ways. If the morning coffee is not working, add some fat. If it’s not working with the fat, try just black. You made our point for us.

Errin:
Yeah. Oh, man, that glucose meter has—I mean, it’s changed my life. At first, I was testing my ketones. I was like, oh, yeah. I’m in ketosis. Then you’re like no. It really doesn’t matter unless—you’ve got to have your glucose down. That was such a big factor for me. I’m one step further into knowing what I need to be doing, which is great.

Dr. Pompa:
We’re doing a little study of our own with Dr. Mercola and a group of our doctors where they’re all wearing a Dexcom. It’s something that looks at glucose all day long, even when you’re sleeping. This is new territory. We’re learning more about this. We’re doing the finger prick, but having to actually look at it all day long gives us much greater information. It really shows how different people are, right?

Errin:
I’m jealous. Where can I get one of those?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. They’re about three grand. They’re $3500, and you have to put the insert in. Hey, if you’re willing to pay, you can be part of our study. You’re welcome.

Errin:
Let’s do it. There you are.

Meredith:
R&D.

Errin:
Yeah.

Meredith:
I find too, I guess just for women and talking about the butter or fat in the coffee, that it just seems so much more protective for most women to have fat in their coffee versus not and especially connected to adrenal fatigue and adrenal issues. Drinking black coffee, if you have adrenal issues, I’ve read maybe isn’t such a great idea.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No, exactly. It’s true. I mean, some people, they get the vroom, and then they get dropped, right, because their adrenals can’t handle the stimulation of coffee. I agree. I think, most of those cases, adding some of these fats to the coffee can give them a more protect effect. Not everybody so, again, test, but I do agree with that.

Meredith:
I don’t think you said -inaudible-.

Dr. Pompa:
What’s that?

Meredith:
Oh, go ahead.

Dr. Pompa:
No. I was going to say…

I wanted to hit one thing, and we keep talking over it. There’s that delay, right? The one thing I do want to address in ketosis because we’re going to get this question, and we haven’t answered it. What about the people who are in ketosis? They’re getting high ketone numbers, meaning they’re above .5, but they’re not losing weight, right? Don’t we get that? Come on. Yeah. Diet variation, absolutely, a part of that answer, we gave you that. Okay.

There’s another aspect. We’ve been talking about doing ketosis with the intermittent fasting daily. When you look at the—and I presented some of these papers at my conference, at the seminar last week, is we know that restriction is key with ketosis, and that really drops the glucose. In these studies, if we don’t get a glucose drop, then we didn’t see weight loss. If you remember that study, I presented that. Therefore, then what do we mean by restriction? Most people think, okay, just don’t eat as much, right?

Stop eating. Okay. All right, I’m done. I’m not going to eat as much, and you walk away still hungry a little bit. That’s called caloric restriction. We know that doesn’t work. I don’t think I have to make that argument. How do we get the restriction then? We get it by fasting, intermittent fasting daily and ketosis. If someone’s not losing weight, if their glucose levels aren’t coming down, then more restriction is needed, but not eating less, eating less often. That’s why we want to push them out, and see if we can get them out.

I just had a client who said, listen, I am—he struggled with even getting his glucose drops in the early stages, even 14 hours. Now he’s eating one meal a day, and he broke through. Now his glucose is plummeting. I mean, his glucose goes down to 60, even 55. His ketones go above 3, even up into the 4’s by the end of the day, so this is happening. We call that the target zone. Dr. Saffery calls it the target zone, what they use for cancer. They want to see this big difference of drop in glucose and rise in ketones, but that’s when then all of a sudden weight loss kicks in. I’ve seen that enough to know that it takes time to get there, but more restriction is needed. Therefore, we have to get that time that people are eating. Eating less often is the key.

Meredith:
Love that. Intermittent fasting, ketosis, and diet variation, it takes it all.

Dr. Pompa:
All of them.

Meredith:
Yeah.

Errin:
It’s the magic.

Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. Now, if you remember my slide at the seminar, I also said, well, if you’re not losing weight in ketosis, you could be eating too much protein, right? We’re going to do a show coming up with Dr. Ron Rosedale who talks about why too much protein is dangerous because of something called mTOR, so stay tuned for that, really, really important. You can be eating too much protein that is driving gluconeogenesis, making sugar for the protein. You could be eating too many carbs. It’s different for everybody, right, or you may need more restriction. I hope that answers that question.

Meredith:
Do you think you could add to that eating more fat as well? Maybe somebody wouldn’t be eating enough fat?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah. It may be. If they’re not eating enough fat, where are you getting your calories from?

Meredith:
Protein and carbs, yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Protein and carbs, right. The fat equation really comes from that means you’re probably not eating enough as far as per meal. Remember, here’s the importance of eating a big meal, even if you’re eating one meal a day. If you push it aside and say I’m done eating, your body will eventually think it’s starving, so the big meal is key. We don’t eat less. We eat less often, but when you eat, you better eat to full. If your body thinks it’s starving, it’s going to start holding onto fat. Why? It wants to live. It wants to survive.

Meredith:
It all comes back to that, adaptation and survival.

Errin:
Yeah. It is brilliant.

Meredith:
This is a perfect transition, again, into our next question. There was a woman at your seminar, Dr. Pompa, I’m sure you’ll recall, who is a big fan of exogenous ketones, which are manmade synthetic supplemental ketones. I’m sure a lot of you who are watching that are into the ketogenic diet, maybe you’ve experimented with. There’s a lot of different brands the market. Someone is wondering what your thoughts are on exogenous ketones. To take, to not take, if to take, which brands you like? What do you think there?

Dr. Pompa:
I think we’re in early experimental phases of this, right? Instead of your body burning its fat and making ketones, can we take ketones? Let’s tell what we know. We know if you take ketones, okay—which Dr. Dominic D’Agostino who we mentioned doing those studies for the Defense Department, he is one of the initiators here, right, I mean, scientist who’s developing these things. If you take them, we know we can drop glucose, so some people get an initial reaction where they lose some weight. We know if we drop glucose, we can actually cause more fat burning and weight loss.

However, one of my fears from the beginning is, in every one of us, there’s these mechanisms where the body starts to know how much of certain things are in the blood, so to speak, right, out in the system. If we start to feed ketones, the body will keep the ketones at a certain level. It’ll shut off fat metabolism, so the ketones come back down. Too high of ketones can be dangerous as we know from diabetic ketosis. This balancing act that the innate intelligence does could then shut down fat metabolism if we keep taking ketones, so now you’re not burning your own fat. Where does that occur? When does that occur? I don’t think we know the answer to that.

I asked Dominic on I think the interview we did on Cell TV, and he said, yeah, we don’t know. It could be. That woman that you said, right, she said, well, look, I’m taking exogenous ketones. My glucose is down. Her ketones were up. She was in the target range. She asked why am I not losing weight, right? She stopped losing weight. One of the doctors said, well, it’s probably the exogenous ketones, and I believe he’s right.

Her ketones are up from taking them, forcing the glucose down, but it’s obviously shutting off her fat metabolism. I think it can be a tool for athletes. You take ketones before an endurance thing. Man, it puts you into a fat burning. They feel great. They can go longer. No doubt an amazing tool. It could be a tool for diabetics that want to get their intermittent fasting, and they’re getting symptoms, etc. I think it can be a tool, but like anything, I think that we have to use it wisely.

Errin:
What was interesting too from my standpoint—and maybe this was just a random day, but I actually tested my glucose after taking one of those supplements. There was a little bit of a milk product in it, just a little bit. I spiked up, I think, by ten points. It was really interesting.

Dr. Pompa:
That was something that was in the product that you reacted to.

Errin:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Right. There’s one called KetoForce. There’s one called…

Meredith:
Prüvit, KETO/OS, Prüvit.

Dr. Pompa:
KETO/OS, there’s another one called KetoCa.

Meredith:
[Kegenix].

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I like the ones that just have the beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is just pure ketones and some citric, some natural citric acid, which we know helps the uptake of the ketones. Those are some of the brands that I think have a pretty good balance there.

Errin:
Fantastic.

Meredith:
Keep testing. Yeah. I took some this week too. I had had a couple that I tried this week too, and I definitely felt an increase in energy and cognition. You were in my brain, Dr. Pompa, and I don’t like the idea of being dependent on a supplement to create ketones in my body. Our bodies have that natural ability. We just have to train ourselves to do it. I think they can be definitely a helpful crutch, but for long-term use, I think it’s really questionable.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We want our body to—listen, there’s more than the magic happens in ketosis than just high ketones, right? I think there are so many things that we don’t understand yet that go on in a ketotic state. When you’re forcing yourselves to burn fat as a source, here’s one right now. We know it burns cleaner. It burns like natural gas, very clean. You don’t need a chimney as opposed to wood where you need a chimney, right? Glucose burns like wood.

When you shift your body over to this efficient fat burner, we know that we’re decreasing inflammation. Just by taking ketones, are we getting that absolute mitochondrial shift of a fat burner? I don’t think so. We want our mitochondria to burn fat as a fuel source, producing ketones, and then we get also the benefits of the ketones. Like you said, it’s a tool, but I think we want our bodies burning fat and making ketones ultimately.

Meredith:
Yeah, totally. Awesome. Errin, you had sent in an interesting question, your friend who has had an experience with the HCG Diet.

Errin:
Yeah. I was just about to ask about that. Yeah. That was a perfect segue. Yeah. What about the people, Dr. Pompa, who—for example, I have a friend. She grew up. At 12 years old, started a diet. No fat, like the low-fat, the no-fat, fat-free this and started exercising at a young age. Just had no fat her whole life.

She’s gone through some things in her life where she now struggles to lose weight. She’s an extremely healthy person from the inside, but still has that weight issue. She’s tried, I mean, honestly, a lot of things including hCG, which worked for her for a few rounds. Then it stopped working, of course, as we know these things. For someone’s who’s been so restrictive their whole life, and then she tried to do the ketogenic diet. Again, had issues with it because of what she’d gone through. Can someone bounce back do you think from that much hacking on the body? Trying to figure it out and restricting the fat and all these things their whole life, can they come back?

Dr. Pompa:
No doubt. Joe Mercola calls it metabolic—or mitochondrial metabolic therapy where we have to fix the mitochondria, right? That’s what’s broken. How do we do that? All these strategies that we’re talking about, right, intermittent fasting, periodic block fast and that’s something that you heard me teach the doctors at the last seminar, why does this work? We’re forcing the cells, the mitochondria to take over, to adapt. Eventually they do. It just takes time, right?

When we’re forcing the lack of fuel to the mitochondria, whether it’s a fast or ketosis, what happens is—because her mitochondria are not utilizing fat, obviously, efficiently. In these times, we’re forcing it in a fast to use fat. It has to. Eventually, the bad mitochondria die, and the good ones start to multiply. It’s called autophagy. The gentleman who just won the 2016 Nobel Prize won it for autophagy, showing why fasting actually works for health. One of the reasons is autophagy, meaning we lose our bad cells and we gain new ones.

Eventually, yes. She just has to replace those faulty damaged mitochondria. Just like a cancer patient, right? Again, fasting, periodic fasting, daily fasting, in and out of ketosis, diet variation, all of these are the tools. I’ll add one more. This is key is the true cellular detox. Toxins corrupt the mitochondria. Until we’re upstream dealing with the toxins the right way, you’re never going to fix the mitochondria, right? That’s important.

Errin:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. To add to that, she also found out through her own research she has the MTHFR gene, so there’s methylation issues. Like you said, again, we know how to work with that. I mean, she’s tried the ketogenic diet, and really loves, obviously, what it’s all about. Would you then start someone maybe at a—break them in slowly at 50%, and then work their way up with fat, from the fat intake standpoint because of the—in addition to the strategies that you were talking about?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. Look, some people will gain weight from a high-fat diet and for multiple reasons, the inability to break it down, the inability to burn it. They increase their caloric intake because they’re eating more fat, and not breaking it down. I mean, all these different things, reasons. However, it is different for everybody. I shift that person over to a lower fat. Not low-fat but a lower fat, maybe Cellular Healing Diet, moderate carbohydrate. To today’s standards, it’s still considered a low-carbohydrate. A hundred to 150 grams of carbs a day, that’s really low carb.

I had a gentleman deliver something to my house, and he’s a talkative guy. He started telling me he had his toes removed. “Yeah. You didn’t see me for a couple months.” He had his toes taken off, diabetes, right? Immediately, I said, “Whatever you do, don’t follow the Diabetes Association Diet.” “Yeah, they put me on a really low-carb diet.” I’m like, “Oh, well, that’s good.” “Yeah, they have me eating 75 grams—no more than 75 grams of carbohydrates per meal.” I’m like, “Per meal?”

Meredith:
Per meal? I thought you were going to say per day.

Errin:
Oh, my god.

Dr. Pompa:
Believe me. I don’t get that in a day, right? I just said that. The poor guy, I mean, just absolutely—but I mean, the point is is that, diets today, they call that low carb, my god. The point is, though, that you have to shift the diet. Anyways, I wanted to…

Errin:
Yeah. No. That’s great. Thank you for that. We talk about it all the time. That multi-therapeutic approach is so key. It’s not just one thing. It’s all of them, and we’re all different. We’ve all gone through different things. We got to work at it and test things. That’s the key.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s different for everybody, right? I mean, that’s why most people who have major challenges, they need a coach, right? They need someone who’s experienced this and knows what to do when. I mean, with the detox, even these fasts, the average healthy person can experiment with it, but sick people, there are so many things that happen. You have to know what to do.

Errin:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Meredith:
I think this is a great place to close. We have more questions, but I think we’re up on the end of the hour and ending it with the multi-therapeutic approach. That is the foundation for everything that we do to fix dysfunctional mitochondria, to fix our bodies when they’re not working, and we can’t lose weight, and our bodies and brains aren’t functioning. That is the answer. It’s not one answer, but that is the answer is multi-therapeutic approach.

Errin:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Look, we’re going to do another one of these shows I think, taking people’s questions. I think this was a great show. We’re going to do it for the fasting, the intermittent fasting, because we probably created more questions. We’ll do another show on that. Meredith, we have to do a show on diet variation as a separate show too because there’s a lot of strategies there that we can build on, and let’s gather some questions for that. We can have Errin on anytime. I love bringing the third party in, so you just keep bringing those questions, Errin. We’ll keep brining you on.

Errin:
I’m there. I’m there. Oh, man, if only these podcasts could be five hours long.

Meredith:
I know. [01:01:44]. We got to keep it in. Errin, thank you for joining and being an amazing part of the team and walking the talk and practicing what you preach, as we all do. I think that’s where the value comes is that this isn’t us just reading from textbooks, but so much of this is personal experience. The clinical wisdom that you bring as well, Dr. Pompa, it’s so fun to talk about. We’re so excited to share, so if you’re watching and you have more questions, send them in. Submit them, and we’ll do more Q & A’s in the future. Thanks so much, Errin and Dr. Pompa, and thanks, everybody, for watching. It’s been so fun.

Dr. Pompa:
See you. See you, guys.

Errin:
Thank you, guys.

Meredith:
Al right, have a great weekend, everybody. We’ll see you next week.