Habits and Hustle - Episode 484: Dr. Josh Axe: Why Your Healthy Smoothie is Making You Sick (And What Actually Heals)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Think you're eating healthy with your daily green smoothie and salad? What if the foods you believe are nourishing you are actually working against your body's natural design? In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with Dr. Josh Axe to discuss why many "superfood" staples might be sabotaging your health – especially for women with thyroid issues. We also discuss the Biblio diet, explore why organ meats are nature's ultimate multivitamins, and share natural alternatives to antidepressants that actually address root causes. Dr. Josh Axe is a doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and author of multiple bestselling books including his newest one "The Biblio Diet." He's helped thousands reverse chronic conditions through personalized nutrition and runs The Health Institute, a virtual functional medicine practice. His approach combines ancient healing wisdom with modern science to address the root causes of disease. What We Discuss:  (06:54) The supplement trap: why you can't medicate your way out of lifestyle issues  (23:28) Why smoothies and salads are terrible for women with hypothyroidism  (25:43) The Biblio diet vs. paleo: what our ancestors actually ate  (40:35) The shocking truth about modern bread vs. ancient sourdough  (46:47) Raw milk vs. pasteurized: why A1 casein is inflammatory like gluten  (51:18) Natural alternatives to SSRIs and why purpose matters more than pills  (59:42) Saffron: the most powerful natural antidepressant  (1:09:56) The GLP-1 epidemic: why everyone's becoming "skinny fat" (1:25:26) Five longevity practices for your 50s that actually work …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. 99designs by Vista: 99designs.com/jen20  – click "Claim my discount" to get $20 off your first design contest.  Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off  Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order    Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Dr. Josh Axe: Website:  https://thehealthinstitute.com/  New Book: https://a.co/d/9EI9ZYc  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ 

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their tri-light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally, use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammation and places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therisage trite everywhere wear it all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therisage.com right now and use code be bold for 15% off. This code

will work sitewide. Again, head over to Therisage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E dot com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. Magic Mind, this is for you. Okay, Dr. Josh Axe is here, and he said to me, do you have the sleep version of the Magic Mind healthy shot or performance shot? Because he loves it and he wants to take it home. He went to Arrow One to look for it. Is that not accurate?

It's accurate. It is. I actually had a patient who said, hey, this has been helping me sleep. And so I, yeah. And so he's one. time, but I was looking for it at Air One here in Culver City. L.A. It's L.A. L.A. Okay, we're going to get you one. All right. So that is really funny because I literally didn't even like, I had to usually, I do this all the time with people.

You can send this to them. I have to think about if they can post it. I have my part of my non-compete. They probably won't anyway. For a year as, uh. No, no, I've literally sent them so many people because they, people are actually big fans of this. Yeah. With like not, not for any other reason because it actually is delicious and they're just i just do it because i'm like excited for them it's a really i think this is a great product yeah anyway because let's do a shot together if you want okay are we filming this let me just say this i'm have a hard if i have any caffeine at this late in the day i will not sleep really it's only it's like 50 okay you don't want to do okay i have like i take five of them a day because i'm a crazy person why just have a little sip i want to know

if you like i'll do that yeah yeah take a little sip and tell me i've had so many because these are these are really tasty. All right, let's do it. Reclaim your brand. I mean, I love a lot of the ingredients. We've got matcha, bacopa, cordyceps. It's all the stuff that you like. Yeah, it is.

A lot of the stuff I like. Okay, tell me what you think. I mean, the flavor's great. You could take the rest home with you. Yeah, that is a great job. Okay, you can take that home and you can take it to more. Ashwaganda. Lots of good stuff.

But by the way, Oshraganda, I wouldn't even introduce you yet, but that's okay. Aschwaganda, I heard you're not supposed to take that as a supplement every day. Is that correct? I don't think it's correct. I mean, here, like my, my whole belief system is very much personalized nutrition. And so I think that there are a lot of people who take it long term. One consideration people don't think of always with aschwaganda is that it's a nightshade. So there are a group of people if they're sensitive to nightshades that do not do well with aschwaganda. And so there are other adaptogenic herbs that can work very similarly if people, you know, are looking for thyroid health or adrenal health or stress relief. But overall, I know, I, I think that people can use Oshuaganda for longer periods. I mean, there, let me just say this, there are different classes of adaptogens, some that can be used more long term than others. For instance, I would kind of classify it like this, Panx ginsing, Eleuthero, those are known as very, very strong. Adaptogens that you may only do for a few weeks or even a month or two, and then you typically don't want to do it. Unless you're older, then your body can tolerate it

longer because you have such a weak constitution. Then you kind of have the next class would be ashoaganda, maybe cordyceps, those sort of things are kind of in the middle. And you can do this pretty long term. Like what happens if you take... Three months, six months. So what, when you're saying like short term, like what's the side effects or the downside of taking one of these adaptogens too long? Well, I think some adaptogens might kind of be overstimulating to your... I mean, ginseng would be one of those. And I think just like caffeine, your body might come to rely on some of the compounds to a degree. Now, what I'm sharing is more philosophical. I mean, based on my study of Chinese medicine and I areveda. But

overall, I do think there's, you know, that can happen. Or you just, you stop seeing the benefits because your body has had so much of a compound. It's not. And we know this. People probably experience this the most with a lot of sleep compounds. Like a lot of times people will notice, hey, I took the sleep supplement one night. Wow, it really helped. Second night, third night. But after a week or so, they're like, ah, it's just not affecting me anymore. We see that with theanine a lot, Gabba a lot, some of those sort of things. And adaptogens, some adaptogens might have a similar, you know, similar thing. I think Rishi as an adaptogen. Rishi mushroom is one of the best you could take forever, pretty much. Really? Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, it's very good for sleep,

very good for lowering cortisol, anti-cancer. So it's a good one. How would you take it besides just, like, what's a good way of taking a Rishi mushroom? I mean, most people today take it in capsule form or a tablet. I mean, they take it as an actual Rishi mushroom. But historically it was done as a decoction, which is a type of tea. So it's funny that you just, because you're saying how I've noticed that a lot, right? Especially people who are like me, who are very like engrossed in the health and wellness space, right? So I take a lot of supplements, I do all the things?

And people always say to me like, well, do you feel it? And I'm always, no, I don't feel anything. Well, I don't feel a lot of it either, right? And I assume it's because maybe I'm healthy, but I do believe there's something to be said for cycling things, because your body does acclimate. Yeah, and I think, you know, in all the ancient forms of medicine speak to this, in terms of there are seasons when your body probably needs it more than others. So a lot of these adaptogens are, according to Chinese medicine,

if they're in tune with supporting the adrenals and kidneys, those are going to be needed most in the winter, typically, in terms of when you need it the most. But it just depends. So then, like, how about magnesium, right? Because I have noticed with me when I take magnesium like once, like for like one night, and it works really well. And if I take it my third, second, second, third, fourth, on the third or fourth night, I'm not like sleeping as well. I've noticed that.

Like, so you're saying with the other things that you're saying that you, the sleep agents like theanine, I also find it with magnesium. It doesn't work as well if you're doing it all the time. Yeah, well, I think once your body sort of reaches that level of it's had enough, doing more. and more and more isn't going to continue to help you. And the other thing is, too, like sometimes we try and supplement our way out of, there's a lot of people that will try and, everyone does this. We try and supplement our way out of mental, emotional lifestyle issues, and you can't fix those with supplements or food.

I'm glad that you said that because I think that what, well, people tend to think that if they do the sauna and the cold plunge and they do the ancillary things, it will make them healthy. but yet, like, they're, like, missing the fundamentals of health. Yeah. I mean, I would say the biggest fundamental of health that people miss is sort of your spiritual and mental health and having just good lifestyle and habits. Most people today schedule things from the second they wake up until the second they go to bed.

And a lot of it has to do with this sort of self-help and high productivity lifestyle. Yeah. Which, listen. High achievers. High achievers. And there's a balance to that. Yeah. But I have so many patients and people I've done.

cared for over the years that are sick, not because they're not getting enough of something, it's because they're just doing too much. I mean, this is a chronic, you know, this is a chronic thing with a lot of people, like hypothyroidism would be a good example of this. A lot of women struggling with hypothyroidism, they're moms, they've got three kids, and they are doing something from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed. And then dietarily, they're also eating completely wrong. Right. Like, eating a lot of salads and superfood smoothies are terrible for people with hypothyroidism. One of the things that we know

in these ancient forms of medicine but even medical research today generally is that people with hypothyroidism, their body temperature is low, okay? Smoothies are cooling, salads are cooling. Vitamin C is cooling, like doing a lot of those things.

We want to raise the body temperature. We want to really support the adrenals because most people that have a thyroid issue, it's never coming from the thyroid. The thyroid is always sort of like the innocent bystandard, your hormones being off. Yeah, it's always, if it's autoimmune, there's typically a there's a there's a microbiome component if it's in generally thyroid issues are

always started with adrenal issues in cortisol or let's say somebody has normal tsh levels in t4 and their t3 is off well that's a liver issue or again a gut microbiome issue to where it's not converting properly so like every per and and then i'll say this too there's a study that came out that said women who take contraceptive drugs long term birth control have a nearly 300% increase in hypothyroidism Wow. And the reason is, is birth control depletes the body of numerous B vitamins, selenium, zinc. These are nutrients your body needs for what's called methylation. Yeah.

And so if you're depleted in those, you can't produce the right amount of thyroid hormones. And also it's going to harm conversion and a number of other things. Are you talking birth control pills or like everything like IUDs or all these other things, like copper IUDs? Well, well, but the other one, sorry. The study I'm referencing is birth control pills. Okay. But that's not to say copper IUDs aren't going to cause an issue because it's going to imbalance zinc in the body when you have that much copper, and that's going to cause

a whole other problem. So, you know, it's so interesting that, like, people are not thinking about this, like, the ripple effect, that they're doing something that they don't even see has an effect on their overall health down the road and something else. Yeah. You know, like, that to me is what's so interesting about, like, what you're saying, right? Like, that's, I would never have connected the two like that. Yeah.

Right? So you said something, oh my God, you said something really good. I wanted to remember what you just said about, gosh, oh yeah, the adrenals and thyroid. How do you know if you have your adrenals are fatigued? Like if you have adrenal fatigue? Because you're saying right, because everyone, right now it's like a badge of honor if you're busy from like morning till night. Like that's the goal. And if you're not, you're considered to be lazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and by the way, I've struggled with the same thing myself. You know, like when I was in my first two years of functional medicine practice in Nashville, I, like, I was working 60 to 80 hours a week, going really hard at it. And then I started having digestive issues, like loose stool, skin rash, there's all kinds of problems. And I thought, well, I'm eating like perfectly. So what's going on here? And then I met an acupuncture and started getting really turned on to Chinese medicine. And I started learning about, you know, other ways of evaluating the body, not just doing blood work, but also feeling the pulse, looking at the tongue,

looking at some different symptoms that might correlate with other things and realizing, okay, my issue is not a nutrient deficiency, it's a rest deficiency. Like, I'm just doing too much all day long, and it's burning out my body. You know, adrenal fatigue, I would say, in terms of diagnosis,

it's an interesting diagnosis. I think generally, though, the way that we would look at, we would test to see what's off is really looking at cortisol. People can do what's got a four-point hormone test where they're looking at a saliva. levels, and that's going to tell you where your cortisol is at at different times of the day.

But I would say if you're having a major cortisol imbalance, that tends to be kind of what I'm more along the lines of what I'm referencing. And one thing people don't realize is cortisol is kind of your body's master hormone. Cortisol is the hormone that is most impacted by stress or living an unhealthy lifestyle. When cortisol goes up too high or too low at the wrong time of day, that's going to cause insulin to go high. When insulin gets high, then that's going to impact everything. Estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, thyroid hormones, everything's going to be off. So oftentimes, like people are chasing all of these other hormones like testosterone or estrogen when the reality is if you can start to fix cortisol,

which tends to be, it's all lifestyle. I mean, that's one of the things I like about your podcast is it's about habits. Getting in good habits is so important to healing. Yeah. And not, I also think that as time has gone by, I realize that, more is not more, you know what I mean? Like, sometimes less is more. Like when I work out like a fiend too much, that's when I feel like my, my eczema, like, reacts and my cortisol levels are so high that my adrenals are probably fatigued. And I see all of these problems. You think you're doing something good for yourself, but sometimes too much is also a problem. Yeah, exactly, right? Can you give people some ideas of when they know when too much, when they've hit that too much spot?

I'll hit on the most common, but then generally, if you're not well, I mean, I truly believe that stress is the number one thing that makes people sick. It's not food. That's big. That's number two. But stress and the emotions you experience consistently, that is the single biggest thing that drives your stress. There's one study that said that 80% of doctors visits have a major stress component. And, you know, when I, I remember one of the things that surprised me, because they don't teach you this in school, but when I first had my, you know, a few years of running my clinic, I would have people come in with, like, inflammatory bowel disease or IBS. And they would come in, and if they would eat something that was just really, off the diet I put them on, like a pizza or an ice cream, you know, conventional ice cream. They would have just major, major gut reaction. But you know what? I would have people come in with IBD, similar thing, and they would be eating perfectly. And they would have a reaction like that. And I'd say, well, you're still on your diet. What's going on? I'm going through a divorce. I lost a loved one. Just a lot of stress at work. It's just there was some sort of stress. I mean, stress can impact your body in an even greater way or an equal way to diet.

So I do think that that's something that a lot of people are not fully functional, conscious of today. I mean, here's another big one. A lot of us have the emotions we experience based on our childhood. It could be childhood trauma. It could be, you know, toxic parents. It could be being undernourished. There's a number of things.

And most people have never dealt with childhood trauma. And a lot of people have never sort of learned how to build virtue and positive emotions as well in order to regulate their emotional state. And it's known that different emotions cause disease in different organ systems. Fear, we know this one. That affects the adrenals, right? And then your body starts putting out more cortisol. So we know fear affects the adrenals and the kidneys and reproductive organs. But then worry affects the digestive system. Grief, we're not letting go of things of the past, that affects the immune system. Anger, impatience, resentment, frustration, that impacts the detoxification system, so your liver and lymphatics, and then last year is your

heart, if you're nervous or anxious, anxiety, that really impacts heart, right? Blood pressure will start to go up. So I think for a lot of people, one of the greatest things they can do is focus on spiritual growth, growing in character, those types of things. I mean, these things are way bigger for people's physical health than most people realize. I love that you're saying this and you're a doctor, right? People come to you and like to get some kind of diagnosis of what they should be taking, doing, and you're like basically lifestyle, basically changing your emotion, get emotionally regulated or get more spiritual. You're like doing all these things that will actually help benefit their life versus just take this pill or take this peptide or do this or do that. And it's true. Like they,

I mean, all the research has shown that the people who live the longest are the happiest, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they have the community. And the best community. The best relationships. And so that's what, you know, I learned a lot of this when my mom was dealing with cancer her second time. Like I was just about to open up my practice and when my mom got her cancer diagnosis, I wanted to do everything we could to heal. So it wasn't just, hey, we're going to follow Gershian therapy and juice vegetables and do wild salmon and like have a really strict diet. And then also supplements. We did all that. But it was like, okay, we want to do everything we possibly can, especially on the spiritual side. We were praying for healing. My mom, I asked my mom, I said, what is the thing you love to do most in the world when you were a kid?

She's like, well, I used to have a horse. So, like, we went and she started doing horseback riding lessons again. My family loved the water. So they started her and my dad started doing a lot more boating and that sort of thing. So we kind of went after looking at all these different things. But another thing I discovered was my mom had a lot of worry and anxiousness. My mom was really like, if somebody would say something negative to her, it would just like crush her. You know, like, I mean, just the opinions of us.

others. And so we really worked with her spiritually on valuing God's perspective on her more than a work, a co-worker, maybe somebody who had said something years ago. So really sort of working on that childhood healing of letting go of the anxiety and the fear. And that was a huge part of healing as well. I think that's what, again, I know I just said this, but I think, and even more with certain conditions like cancer, I think that addressing the emotional root causes of things, if you don't address those things you're only in let's say you radically change your diet that's great you improve 50 percent but there's another half of the whole equation over here of healing you haven't even looked at if you're not dealing with some of these things that's a really good point are you

so you're a functional medicine doctor we know that are you also a chinese medicine doctor because it sounds like you take all these other things that are just really you just like it and you've learned a lot i think what tends to happen is and i think other people that are in the nutrition space, we'll appreciate this. I got into nutrition early because my mom, the first time she was diagnosed with cancer when I was much younger, she's had it twice. What kind of cancer, by the way? What type of cancer? First time breast cancer, second time lung cancer. That was like my mom, too. Yeah. Are they correlated? Well, yeah. So the way this works is most people that die of cancer, I die of cancer, I believe this is true. And I should look this up again. This has been a year since I

looked at the study. But most people that die of cancer, die of secondary the second time they get cancer. really yeah so so what happens is whether it's breast cancer or prostate cancer or something else people will go and do chemo and radiation well chemo and radiation not only damage and kill the cancer cells you've now just damaged the mitochondria and harmed every cell in your entire body so now your cells aren't as apt and good at fighting cancer so yeah so i mean it's it's it's a real it's something no almost no one ever talks about but it's a it's a major issue so yeah with my mom we really went and looked at, okay, you know, like, so going back, so that really turned me on to natural health more than anything. And then I started learning from people that were more in the fitness industry.

So it's like, you know, get, you know, and you're real familiar with this. It's like, so I started doing a lot of weightlifting and exercising and eating five to six meals a day, you know, chicken, breast, broccoli, sweet potato, brown, you know, the whole thing. And, and I'm grateful for that because I learned a lot. But then I went to chiropractic school and I started learning about, I got a nutrition certification, got my doctor and natural medicine as well. And during that time, I started looking more into what is the root of cancer. So one, the bodybuilding, the exercise diet, hey, that was good for understanding a certain level of supporting metabolic health. But it didn't give me all the answers of why did my mom get cancer or why did this child have autism

or why does this patient have Hashimoto's thyroiditis? And that really led me into more functional medicine, and they had some answers there, but I actually started then learning more and more about Chinese medicine, and to do a degree, Ayurveda, and then also looking at biblical medicine, this was another really, really huge thing for me, and really understanding the framework, because if you think about it like this, our modern medical system, for the most part, is about 100 years old, okay? I mean, especially when Rockefeller came in and what he sort of initiated, it's about 100 years old. Someone could argue 150 or 180, but it's not that old. Chinese medicine has been around for over 3,000 years.

so is ierveda you know when and and to me it's the most effective form of medicine when you're talking about the system that is is the system that they use Japan today is 95,000 centurions think about that that small country Japan almost 100,000 people that are over 100 years old and their type of medicine that they use there is really a blend of more of an integrative medicine combined with Chinese medicine they call compo and and that's what they're what they do and it's very very effective. And so, yeah, to me, Chinese medicine, what they do is they look at not only, hey, what's your lab work and what are the nutrients you're deficient in. They look much more. It's very personalized. It's okay, you're very unique. What are the foods that are ideal for you? What are the herbal teas

that are ideal for you? What are the lifestyle things we need to change? What are the emotions you're experiencing? We need to go and work on. It's very comprehensive. And then the other thing I think that's so powerful that I use with patients is biblical medicine. I write about that. in the Bibliot Diet. Sorry, I want to ask you about all of this stuff. But there I really get into the power of prayer, the power of fasting, the power of using these biblical medicine principles. So when my mom fought cancer, it was really a blend of something called Gershon Therapy,

where you're doing a lot of vegetable juicing. We did a lot of liver and salmon as kind of the protein sources, and then we did a lot of biblical medicine there, too. We also did something called the Budwig Protocol, which is to repair her cell membranes. That's a combination of this fermented dairy with flask. And, but all of this, like my mom's cancer diagnosis really led me to studying deeper and deeper and deeper, because when you have a family member's life on the line and it's your own mom, you really want to do everything you can. And the thing I see a lot of people doing today, it's like, oh, I've got a health problem. I'm going to try and take one supplement to fix it. Or even some fad diet. Yeah. And the reality is, is everybody is different. Like your diet versus my diet probably should be pretty different. You know, it's interesting. You said something earlier that I wanted to ask you about when we went somewhere else about how, like, A lot of women, the smoothies and the salads, let's to say with that. The irony of that is most women I know are, they run, like you said, run cold.

I run cool, right? And yet, that's our go-to. We're having these smoothies. We're having these, you know, salads. We're eating like we are, like, that's what's, we're kind of creating more coolness in our bodies, not heat. When really, we should be probably having more heat in our body versus cool. In Chinese medicine, hypothyroidism is called a chi-in-yang deficiency.

To translate that into Western medicine, that is a mitochondrial deficiency. Okay. Combined with lack of being anabolic and being able to regenerate your tissues. And so what that looks like is certain foods are really going to help that. So rather than smoothies and salads, you should be doing soups and teas. I mean, really, like chicken, vegetable soup. Things are warming and hearty. Pumpkin, butternut, squash, sweet potato, lots of cinnamon, loads of,

ginger, really warming up your system. Again, warm teas between meals. I mean, I've had so many women who have come to me on synthroid, lovothyroxin, hypothyroid, and medications, and they're totally off them now, even though they thought they would have to be. Many of them came on thinking they would have to be on the drugs the rest of their life and they're off them, because when you can really help address the exact root of why somebody's sick in the first place, people heal. Is it, do you think that women are eating these things and drinking these things because psychologically they think it's going to keep them thin or it's healthy for them, right? Like that's kind of like the number that social media has done, right? Like we think,

oh, we're having our nice fruit smoothie. To me, it's all sugar and there's not enough anything in it, right? Like, it just goes right through me. Is it like a re-education that needs to happen? Or what is the way around this to get women to realize that this is what's happening? Yeah, I think it's all because of trends. Yeah, I mean, the reality is this, do we see this with diets, right? You had, you know, the vegan diet was very popular. Not with me. And then you had the paleo diet was very popular. Then you had the keto diet, which was very popular. And so, yeah, people start to jump on these wagons, but Chinese medicine has never changed neither as Ayurveda. Right. You should be eating based on your unique composition, what's going on in your body,

and eat a diet based on that. And for a lot of people today, women especially, they need to really warm their internal system. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the paleo and the keto, because I was under the understanding that you were a big fan of paleo. No? No, I'm actually always kind of, here's the reality. I am for whatever is best for the individual, that individual in front of me. And the paleo died, I've really never been a paleo person. Oh, I thought that's what, maybe I just thought that it may have.

No, in fact, one of the things we talk about in the bibliodide is we sort of cover, what's the difference between a biblical diet versus a paleo? Paleo is based on evolution. I'm not an evolutionist. and so I'm much more of a creationist in terms of my belief system, and so it's never really lined up for me. The other thing is there's always been this sort of confusion in the paleo community of what a paleo diet is.

For instance, I remember when I first got introduced to paleo diet, it was like, eat a lot of raw nuts. And they're like, but then on the other side, they're like, well, don't eat grains because the phytic acid. And I'm like, you're telling me that raw nuts don't have loads of phytic acid. It just was so incoherent. I think you're right. I don't think people really, I think a lot of people are confused what it means. Like, I think when I think it's a lot of nuts and meat, that's what I think too. Yeah. Well, and the other thing is, and by the

way, can somebody eat a paleodontan for some people, they thrive on it? Yeah. Like, I'll give an example. Like Mark Sisson. Yeah, Mark Sisson is a friend of mine. Me too. He moved to Nashville recently, and so I just saw him in the gym last week. I love Mark Sisson. You know, I was telling some of the other day, I said, Mark's in his 70s. I don't know another person in their 70s who's as healthy as Mark. Oh, by the way, have you seen it? He's got like a nine pack.

Have you seen him? He's like not for real, though. Like that's like genetics at some point. Oh, listen, there's an element of genetics. There always is. But again, he's the healthiest person in their 70s, I know. I mean, athletic. And in his 70s, he's playing running, running, playing Frisbee.

I mean, he's, you know, and I know some other people that are in their 60s, 70s, Jill's Lamarch. I mean, my dad's 75 water skis every day. He does. So there are other people out there. But Mark, to me, is, so in my point there is, he thrives on doing more of this primal diet that is really inspired by more of the paleo. It works for him.

Yeah, and he does great with it. But I think that, you know, the other thing is, okay, you're on a paleo diet. You're telling me that cavemen were running around like milking cows and drinking dairy. So it's like, so if somebody's on a true paleo diet and they're doing a lot of raw nuts, I mean, it's one thing, you have a walnut fall from a tree, you have a couple, but baking, like, using, you know, almond flour and dairy, that's not, you know, the meat, fruit, you know, the meat and fruit primarily diet, okay, you know, I get that. I totally know what you're saying.

I mean, I'm still like, like, to your point, I am a little bit, I was a little bit confused by that. But then I saw this whole, that your whole thing about the Bibliot Diet, and when I was going through it and it says things like don't eat pork, don't eat seafood, shellfish, shellfish, you know what it sounded like to me? It sounds like the kosher diet. Because kosher is not eating pork, not even filthy animals, right? Not having shellfish because it's dirty. It's like bottom feeders. How is the Biblio diet different than like the kosher diet? Yeah, that's a great question. I would say one, the only people I know that follow the kosher diet is a very small group of people, and it's people that are Jewish. Yes, I'm Jewish. And amazing.

And I've talked to you, you know, Jordan Rubin, my best friend, business partner, he's Jewish as well, and he co-authored the book with me. And so, you know, a kosher, here's what I would say is a kosher diet, it kind of, you know, we're reading with both the Old Testament and the New Testament in mind. We're writing this book with those things in mind. And so, but there will be a fair amount of overlap. But I would also say we go a little bit further in that, like I've got another really close friend of mine who's Orthodox Jew in working on becoming a rabbi right now. And he eats things that are

kosher, but he doesn't care if they're organic, doesn't care if they are ultra-processed. I mean, none of that matters. Trust me. I know it's a problem, actually. Okay. Yeah, no, no, no. This is one of the big arguments in my household with my family because I'd rather have organic, grass-fed, all the things that you're going to say. But a lot of Jewish, kosher, and Orthodox people, they would eat a lot of, very processed foods, not organic foods, like shitty food, to be honest, but yet they refuse to have a lobster or a shrimp. Like, to me, that's, like, completely counterintuitive. Yeah, so, and let me say this, the one thing that I think they're totally correct in is this, from an animal standpoint. I think that biblical kosher slaughter methods do

matter to the health of the animal. Yeah. You know, I think that matters a lot. You know, I think that there's evidence on the way you slaughtered the animal and the amount of stress hormones that are released that are then going to go into the meat tissue. I mean, I think that's a real problem. So, but I would say it's different in the, again, in the light of the New Testament there as well in terms of, like, as a Christian for me and in authoring the Bibliob Diet, I don't

believe that eating pork and shellfish is a sin in the same way. that it was during the Old Testament period. I do believe, though, that God didn't just say, just for the heck of it, don't eat pork and shellfish. And modern science proves this today. I mean, when you look at pork, it is the greatest carrier of parasites of all animals. I mean, so more people get parasitic infections,

I think, from eating pork than probably any other food. People are like, well, what if it's really, really well cooked? Like, I had a cousin who killed a wild boar, froze the meat, made it into sausage, cooked it really well, ended up getting like a terrible parasite infection from that me. And I know this with a lot of people. So the reality is, is that pork is the dirtiest land animal. I mean, listen, they eat, it's documented. Like, they eat their own crap. They, they're scavengers, don't eat anything. They're digestive systems. They have a mono chamber similar to humans. And they store toxins, their bodies, versus

cows. Defic, I mean, they take some 24 hours to digest. They have a monochamber digestive system. they are much better at cleansing toxins out of their tissues. So ruminant animals like cows, lamb, goats, much, much healthier for us than pork. And then, I mean, people can look this up. What is the dirtiest food in the sea? It's shrimp. I mean, go and just do a Google search or chat GTP. It'll tell you the level of dioxins.

So it's even documented today that pork and shellfish are very, very toxic meat products. So the Bible is completely right in that. And so, again, I think that there's definitely some overreact. But I think the Bibliot Diet goes a step beyond kosher in terms of, is it organic, is it pasture raise, looking at all those fine details, because one, we're called to be good stewards over the animals. They should have lots of sunlight. They should be drinking spring water.

They should be grass-fed year-round. And they should be slaughtered biblically. I mean, I believe all those things are important to stewardship and the health of us. One of the things we wrote about in the book was, you know, there's this principle you are what you eat. But really, it's you are. what you eat what they ate, and not just ate, their entire lifestyle. Like I was writing, one of the things that we discovered was, and you already know this probably, but if a cow eats

grass, they have more omega-3s in their diet, right, in their tissues. So that's why you want to do grass-fed meat. But they also have more amino acids per calorie. They also have different amino acid ratios. They have more carnacine. They have more creatine. They have more chlorine. They have more vitamin E. So, I mean, it's a really big deal. And even the sun matters how much sun they get. So there is a lot of evidence that eating animals the right way is, you know, is pretty darn important. So anyways, the bibliodata would say there's some overlap with kosher, but it really goes a step beyond of making sure that foods are also in alignment with God's design. So would you say that grass fed is more important than organic?

it's an impossible question for me to answer because if you had to pick one you know i would probably say to me i'm going to bet more on grass fed than organic because of that reason of because the percentage in which i think that when i'm shopping at a local farmer's market and it doesn't use the term organic but knowing those farmers probably use less pesticides on their feed or no pesticides at all. It's just a gamble I'm taking. It's not a good answer. And I also thinking about, okay, what's my bigger problem? Am I overburdened with toxins? Is that a bigger issue for me? Or am I more inflamed? And I have more of an issue of certain nutritional deficiencies. So it's a toxicity deficiency sort of, you know, decision. So why is shrimp so expensive then if it's the most

disgustingly dirty thing in the world? And yet it's the most expensive thing to eat, besides lobster? I'm guessing because it tastes good. It tastes good, but it's not like it's like, it's not like it's that rare. You can find shrimp and they're dirty, but yet, like, it's a delicacy. It's considered a delicacy. Do you eat it or nothing? You won't eat it. No, I haven't eaten it for 20 years. I think the last time I had it was probably 19, I'm 44, 25 years. Oh, wow. Okay, so then yeah. Okay. I have, okay, so wait, I want to ask you more questions about the Bibliot. Okay, so what are the superfoods of the, of the Bibliot diet? Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so there are several.

I would say, well, let me head on the ones that fly in the face of sort of modern culture today. Okay. Bread. Yes. Red meat, salt, and raw dairy. So bread in particular, now let me say this. What I call it a superfood, you know, that's not one we really labeled a superfood in the book, but it's one that we said most people can tolerate well if it's done right.

Let me just say this. Most people, bread has got a bad rap because most diets today, or almost all bread today is just bad bread. It's from hybridized grain. It's then been stripped of the brand, so there's no fiber. You're not absorbing nutrients. It's been fortified with synthetic vitamins

that are probably not even good for you. And so there are all of these, there's all these issues with it. If you think about the way that Jesus, or when we read about any of these sort of ancient people that were eating bread, the way that it was likely done via, and I've read this in terms of the historians

and what they were saying, or the way the bread was done, they would have harvested it. They would have then soaked it and laid it out to dry in the sun. That's a process called sprouting. They would have then taken it and grounded up, stone ground it, and then they would have fermented it and made it into bread. And this is not wheat bread with caramel color or white bread or anything else.

This was ancient grains, typically wheat, barley, and rye. And the ancient grain, maybe it would have been iron corn. There was a lot of other ancient wheat. by the way, as well, and this would have been turned into a sourdough bread. And when you soak it like that or ferment it, you're killing off all the phytic acid, which is known as a mineral binder. This is why when you're eating regular bread today, you're absorbing almost no nutrients. Because even the nutrients that are there, even though they're deficient, they're bound

in a mineral binder, phytic acid. So you're like getting 10% of it. When you sprout or ferment, unlock all the nutrients and now you're absorbing all of it. So some of these grains, like rye and barley in particular, I mean, they're pretty, they have good nutritional value, especially when they're fermented. So we know in the, and when they're talking about bread in the Bible, it was pretty much all sourdough bread for the most part or a good majority of it, or it was sprouted. And so, so that was a pretty pretty good food at the time. What about people like today, right? We're not, a lot of people don't have time to make their

own sourdough bread, right? So, or are you assuming that they will? I don't know. Are you just saying to be much more conscientious of when you buy a bread to make sure it doesn't have all of these, like the the over-processed, the ultra-processed breads, like buy it from a, like a good provider, basically. What I'm saying is, by the way, I'm not endorsing bread. No, I, just so you know, I am saying that bread, bread is not a villain, and if you're going to eat bread, eat sourdough from ancient grains. That's what I find interesting, because I never hear about sourdough. You hear eat multi-grat, no, whole wheat bread, sprouted bread, you know, any kind of

grain bread. But I've never really heard sprouted. I've never heard of sourdough bread as one of those. Well, you don't live in the South. So if you lived in Nashville, and some people don't struggle this, but there are, like my wife's been making sourdough for about three, four years now, a friend of Carrie Underwood, she started making it, and Chelsea was talking to her, and so she ended up making it. There are a lot of homesteaders in the South. And if, listen, if you're on this podcast or YouTube or social media listening to this and you make it, you know, I like to hear from you here. But there are so many. I mean, you'd be shocked at how many women now are making sourdough bread at home.

You'd be shocked. So let me just say, it's actually more prevalent than you probably realize. But you could go to Air One or Whole Foods Market. I said it, Air One, nobody's going to Air One hardly. But you can go to Sprouts. You can go to public, potentially. There's a brand called Rudy's that has sourdough spelt. There are a lot of local bakeries.

I mean, all over Tennessee. You don't have to be in Nashville. You could be in Memphis or Knoxville or, you know, all kinds of places. and buy it at local bakeries. So you can find it today probably more easily than you think. I guess you could also just buy a breadmaker, like you said, and just make your own.

It's probably not, it's like not that difficult. It's just, you know. Well, it's like anything. It's incredibly difficult the first time, and then after that, it's incredibly easy. That's right, exactly. Okay, so talk about other ones that you were saying. Yeah, the red meat.

The raw milk, though, again, not so common, right? What's the difference between buying organic milk and raw milk? I would say the only food that there's a bigger difference of today versus in the past than bread is milk. I mean, historically, if you think about the way that milk is probably consumed, it was raw, completely organic, and in many, many cases fermented. And so, and the genetics of the cows were actually different. So today, with Holstein cows, they have a type of casein, which is similar protein to gluten. it's in milk, that tends to be more inflammatory to people. And it's called A1 casein.

Sheep and goats, in human milk, actually, too. It's all A2 casein predominantly. And this sort of protein is easier to digest, doesn't cause the same levels of inflammation. Sometimes when we were doing genetic modification, or I would call breeding, there was a genetic variant. You know how a lot of people today have MTHFR, G-Mute? Yeah. Well, imagine something like that happened, but in the proteins that were, created a gene variant in holsting cows. And then that was passed on to jerseys and

certain other, of a lot of our modern-day Western cows today. And that protein is very inflammatory to people like gluten is. And this is why if you buy, some people have noticed, oh, when I eat goat's milk or sheep's milk, I don't have allergies versus cow's milk I do. It's typically not the fact that it's cow's milk. It's typically the fact that that type of cow has A1 casing, which is almost all cow's milk today. So people can buy today A2 Dairy, which has the right genetic components in terms of the protein.

So that's important. That's a big one. The other one is if milk is pasteurized, you're heating it up, you're killing all the enzymes and all the bacteria. The bacteria are 99.999,999% of the time, good bacteria that you need for digestion. And the enzymes, you have to have,

like lactilose, even breakdown, or lactase to write down lactose. So all that being said, that's really important, too, to not have it pasteurize. And then homogenization is a whole other thing where you are destabilizing and denaturing the fats, causing issues there. So that's very unhealthy. So, you know, Jordan Rubin, I mentioned him before. He cured himself of ulcer of colitis and Crohn's disease. And almost the only thing he ate for 40 days was raw goat's milk kefer. And people would say, oh, if you have a digestive issue, don't drink milk or don't have dairy, is almost the only thing he ate.

And he cured himself from inflammatory bowel disease. So now he did a few other things, too. What were the few other things he did? Because that would make a difference. Yeah, yeah, I'll share, yeah. Yeah, tell me what else he did. Because this is the same guy who I saw when I was researching you who said that he cured himself of cancer by praying, right? By having prayer.

And this is all part of what we cover in the book, the Bibliot Diet. So the number one food he consumed was fermented dairy. He consumed carrot juice. He consumed some fruit like blueberries and figs. And he did a little bit of red meat. It was raw, though. It was raw beef, carpaccio, and then salmon. And that's predominantly what he ate.

For 40 days? Mm-hmm. And he spent every day and night praying for healing, and he ended up 40 days reversing his ulcer of Cladus and Crohn's. When was this? 1999-ish. Oh, wow. Oh, a long time ago.

Oh, wow. It never came back? No, no, no. I mean, he wrote a book called The Maker's Diet, and then he founded Garden of Life with all of this. Oh, so it happened before all of that. Yeah, oh, yeah, this happened. He was actually a little bit about Jordan. Jordan was at Florida State University. He was a male cheerleader. And I mean, and so male cheerleader is that somebody might feel like that. You've got to be pretty big and strong to be a male cheerleader. Do you ever? Yeah, so, I mean, he was a big, strong guy, and he ended up losing

I want to say he was over 200 pounds, lost like 80 pounds. I mean, you should see, he looked like a skeleton. I mean, literally like he was, I mean, almost died. It was very, very sick. And so here's what happened. This is crazy. So he had a man call him, and this is after he'd gone to Germany and Switzerland. I mean, he was going everywhere trying to find a way to heal.

Got conventional medicine, got put on antibiotics, all kinds of things. And he had a man hear about him, called his father. His father was a chiropractor. This other guy was a chiropractor and a naturopathic physician. And he called Jordan's dad, and he said, listen, I know a way to help your son heal. He said, if he follows a diet based on the Bible, he will heal. And Jordan was living in West Palm Beach at the time. This man lived in San Diego, California.

And he said, have him come out and live with me. And I'll show him exactly how to eat, how to do it, and what to do to heal. Jordan ran in an RV, went out, moved to California, just lived in an RV, followed this protocol and completely cured his Crohn's and Colitis. And that's then what inspired him in natural health. He started working at a health food store, learned about supplements when he was working as a clerk and just answering questions in a health food store. Then he started selling with one product because he did these probiotics that helped him heal. And anyway, so I could keep going. But overall, I started Garden of Life. Yeah. You know what's so interesting? I don't,

maybe you can explain this. You know, in the Jewish world, colitis and, um, Crohn's. Crohn's, are pretty prevalent. Like, growing up, I had a bunch of friends, males, not so many females. Yeah, I was going to ask you, why is Colitis and Crohn so prevalent in the Jewish community? The reason is, is that Crohn's and Colitis are tied to grief. Something has happened in the past that still bothers you today. Really?

So think about it. I mean, I don't need to tell you this as somebody who's Jewish. I mean, think about your past, think about the Holocaust, think about all of the, all the injustice that's done to your people. I mean, so, so, so, so the colon and the lower digestive track, and this is now, now I'm talking about Chinese medicine, their view, or even German who medicine believes a similar thing, but it's that when you've had something happen in the past, and it's still, it's still living with you today in the form of you're seeing it as a, as a, as it being something that's harming you or you're a victim in that way, it absolutely destroys your, your lower

digestive system. That's really interesting. It must be sub-called, like, it has to be subconscious because these are kids when they got it and like it was it passed down from their parents' anxiety or unknown anxiety or sadness. Well, I, listen, I think there's an epigenetic component. So I think that can be passed down. But listen, the parent's disposition will, will directly impact the child's disposition. So I mean, it's, you know, if your, if your parent is very negative, one or two things happen, more often that child stays negative. Or they decide to use it for good, and they go completely in the other direction. That's so true, right?

You got the pendulum swings the other direction, for sure. So this is, so he then, tell us the story about him and his cancer then, because years later, yeah. So here's what happened. So Jordan Rubin, this was about 15 years ago, yeah, 14 or 15 years ago was diagnosed with testicular cancer. And he went into me, and this is the crazy part was this is in the middle of when he was growing garden of life. So nobody knew this this whole time.

And the doctor told him. him, Jordan, I know who you are. If you don't do chemotherapy like I'm recommending, you will die in three months. Like, it's a death sentence. You are 100% dead. Told him that. Jordan got on his hands and knees and quoted Job when he left the room. And he said, naked I will, I came into this world, naked I will leave. You know, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And so this is a verse in the book of Job. And Jordan said, I knew that I was, God was calling me to follow a biblio diet, a plan of healing in the same way. So Jordan then started doing, his diet was similar. It was basically raw dairy, avocado, raw coconut cream. It was mostly fat. It was pretty

ketogenic. A lot of salmon service, green vegetable juices. That was pretty much his whole diet. And daily praying, he had people placing their hands on him, praying for healing, anointing his head with essential oils. I mean, this whole on protocol for 40 days. And he healed completely. now let me mention why he got testicular cancer though he had a distended testicle and it was actually not like he you couldn't see his testicle like it was it was in the wrong place in his body and so the doctors when he was an infant said we may want to do surgery here and his dad said i don't i don't want to do that surgery and so he didn't but like if you don't have that surgery your chance of getting cancer goes up like over it's like a thousand percent wow so like his chance of getting cancer was incredibly high due to um The fact that it was descended and from his a kid. So then he basically healed himself. Or as he would say, or I would say, you know, God healed him. And I think there's a distinction there in terms of like following God's guidance and influence, right, in terms of and praying daily for healing.

I mean, we believe that something supernatural happens with prayer. I think prayer is effective. It matters. You know, with my mom. We followed a whole protocol, but we were praying daily. she was meditating on Bible verses daily. So I personally believe that while we have free will, God is intervening in our lives, constantly,

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So let's talk about, I want to have us a bunch of things. I want to talk about anxiety and some natural alternatives to SSRIs that you talk about. Yeah. Right? Because I feel like we're in a world right now where everybody is now just easily put on some antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. Girls in high school and college. Early or now. I mean, Lexa Pro. I mean, it's so early. Earlier now. It's heartbreaking.

I mean, I'll be shunned again by saying this, but I know people who are like my kids' age who are like 10, 11, 12 years old, and their parents are putting them on Adderall and putting them on anti-anxiety, antidepressants. I'm like, how the hell do you know if your kids are depressed at 11 years old? And they, I get pushed back all the time. So it's a real app. I think that is the new pandemic that we're facing in the world. I talk about this regularly. When I first opened my functional medicine practice, the most, the most, the fastest growing conditions were childhood obesity, childhood diabetes, again, hypothyroidism, testosterone levels being a problem, all those things. Today, over the last five to seven years, mental health disorders, depression, anxiety, that's definitely the identity issues, the fastest growing problems. That's the fastest growing. Do you think it's, and I want to be careful how I say this, but do you think a lot of this is just self-induced? Do you think it's because of social media, that people are just labeling themselves quicker with, like, anxiety issues and all these mental health issues? Or do you really think it's a symptom

of a bigger problem that's happening? I think it's all those things. So let me head on three ideas around that. Okay. One is it's a misdiagnosis in terms of ADHD. So I was the child who was prescribed Adderall, like Ridlin when I was younger than Adderall in college. Took it for three days. I felt like a zombie. I'm like, something's not right here. I'm not going to stay on And here's the thing, like, are we supposed to take boys and just shove them in a classroom for eight hours and say, just sit there and don't move? Exactly. It's craziness.

Are you, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, that's documented so many people that you would say, like Einstein, like, oh, he has ADHD. Yeah, it's just, so overall, I mean, it's what we're doing in terms of just prescribing drugs for things. They never fix their, that's something I don't think people fully have grasped yet. A drug cannot heal you. A drug is never reversed hypothyroidism. It's never reversed autoimmune disease.

It's never reversed heart disease. Yes, your numbers change, but the root of what's actually happening has never fully fixed. So I do think that there is a problem of one, we're treating it completely wrong. I do think some of it's not even real to the point, at least the way we think it is. And then the other thing I would say is, I think that if somebody feels sad, that's normal. Sometimes you should feel sad. Sometimes you should be down. So sometimes we're drugging things that are minor, that are just part of life that we should never.

And then, but to then continue with this, because we become less religious, we have more identity issues. We have less purpose in life. I mean, think about, like, I'll just share this for myself. Like, as a Christian, I believe that I am called to love people, love God, make earth the heavenly place. Like, I believe that I'm called to take the Garden of Eden and make the entire world a Garden of Eden. Like I have so a sense of like when I have kids like I have kids right now like my five year old and my two year old daughter like for me I have so much purpose of knowing I'm called to help them live for eternity. I want to find their greatest character qualities and make them more like Christ and growing character. I want to take their skills like my daughter just came from swim lessons like my wife was sending me videos and I'm like okay she's really good at swimming. Okay let's let's help her do everything as you can to get better at that. Like I have such a sense of purpose and identity of knowing I'm a child of God and I'm going to live for eternity. So, like, that just fuels me. Now, take someone else who doesn't believe there's a God, there's no eternity, there's all this is, there's a level of nihilism there. God, I'm depressed

now thinking about it. So when people especially are outside of the Judeo-Christian worldview, there is a lack of purpose and identity there, or if somebody is non-religious, and we are living, I mean, the United States specifically is far less religious and spiritual, and even the Eastern spirituality that people talked about today. Like here's what meditation is in Eastern world religion. Empty yourself. You know, just think of nothing.

Like, that's the whole thing. No, the Judeo-Christian view is, no, fill yourself with the Spirit of God. Meditate and chew on what is love? What is kindness? How can I, like, you're actually filling yourself with something. Oh, I understand. So you're saying like it's a very,

it's a on trend and popular to sit in meditation and not think of anything, like, to basically, like, have zero thoughts. Clear your mind. Yeah, zero thought. I mean, the Buddha did that. So, I mean, that's the, you know, part of where it's coming from. So, but, yeah. But you're saying the Judeo-Christian is the way of, like, having, like,

these positive, good energy life thoughts that actually help nourish you. And it's way more beneficial. Yeah, like, on the flight here, I was reading the book of Joshua, you know, and very early on. That's easy reading for the play. Well, yeah, I mean, I like to read my Bible. So I was reading it, and I was reading, and basically, God is telling Joshua, like, do not be terrified, do not be discouraged. And one of the things he tells him is he said, meditate on my word, day and night. Then you will be prosperous and successful. He's telling you, I want you to meditate. But what do we want to meditate on? My word. On the Psalms, on the Proverbs, on the, you know, on the, well, then it would have been more the Torah, right?

But, like, Janice, like, meditate on my words day and night. So it's not meditating on nothing. It's definitely meditating on something. On something, yeah. Yeah. So tell me then, for people who are on a lot of these medications, what are some natural alternatives for them? Yeah. Well, number one thing people need to do is find identity and purpose.

That's a good one. It's the single biggest thing people are missing today. And so I would say find your, and the way you build identity is you do it by attaching yourself to something or someone and finding your role. Okay. So, you know, people do this a lot of times. If they don't have a religion, they'll do it with politics or some social movement or something like that.

But you want to find the most, yeah, so you want to find your identity and purpose. The other thing I would say you want to do is, You want to just live by God's design. When the sun goes down, start getting ready for bed. When it comes up, start getting outside. Spend more time outside. Vitamin D is good move. If you're not moving, it's going to affect your neurotransmitters.

So overall, have really good daily habits, walking outside, exercising outside. We're meant to be social creatures. I mean, we are meant to love one another, connect with one another. Like today, what most people do for their meals, I'm going to shovel down breakfast. Then lunch, I'm going to be working while I'm eating lunch. I'm getting home at night, maybe I'm meeting at 9 p.m. or their soccer practice or whatever. So, you know, sitting down and having deep, intimate conversations with people in front of you, your family, your friends, those sort of things, that's incredibly important.

Cash, sharing your stressors with other people that you can trust. The Bible says, cast your cares on him because he cares for you. Like, you know, spending time in prayer, knowing that God hears it and waiting for that still small voice, that consciousness that you can hear speak back to you. So I think these are the biggest needle movers. Now, in terms of diet, lower carb, higher fat. I mean, it's pretty important. Higher protein, higher fat.

I mean, you know, lots of omega-3s, that's been shown in study. So that's salmon, walnuts, chia seeds, you know, those sort of foods are going to be really good. So more of the fatty fish, taking an omega-3 supplement. Herbs tend to be pretty good. Saffron, probably the best of all, or one of the best. I heard that Saffron is like kind of the best. antidepressants. That's natural besides exercise. Agreed. Totally agree. Saffron's amazing. Though I promise, it is so expensive. I was going to say, you know, how expensive it is?

It costs $100 bucks every day. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I would say if you're going to buy it in bulk and buy it in powder form, because that's going to get you the biggest bang for your buck on saffron. But overall... Is there research to back this up properly? What is the actual data on saffron for an antidepressant? Yeah, so the one study, and I want to say it was 88.5, milligrams. I know that because I was formulating a supplement for it based on the clinical study. So it's around 88.5 milligrams. And basically it was just, it was a double-blind study shown to improve mood. By how much, though? You know, I don't, I don't have the percentage memorized on saffron in terms of how much it improved mood. But I do know they had, they did have a placebo group. Because to me, the only thing that I've ever had work for me, when I, in terms of when I got sad or like anxious or whatever, I moved. I went for a walk. I changed my environment. Yeah, it's huge. To me, that's like the that's the number one antidepressant. It works every time. It will always shift your mood. And, uh, but people just don't want to do it. Yeah, there's also studies on if you're growing

in life. Yeah. It actually, uh, gives you a great level of, uh, satisfaction and happiness versus if you're not. So like, if you feel stuck in life, like you're not moving forward, that's a, that's a, that's another thing. And that's where it's like, commit yourself to learning something, even if it's not going to pay off tomorrow, something you can really learn and grow towards. Right. It's that personal growth part. That makes a big difference. You're a big guy that talks, not a big guy, but you're a guy that talks quite a bit about essential oils. What are the benefits of essential oils? Are there specific ones that people should be focused on that really help with moving the needle in one area and another? Yeah, you know, here's what I'll say. My, my, I

I've done a sort of a mix of essential oils based on their historical use and then even some of the modern science today. I think essential oils are great and have a lot of benefits. Again, just with all supplements, including those, unless you're really deficient in something, I don't think they're a miracle or a cure in a lot of cases, but I do think they're a really great part of our daily lives. I think that there are studies on lavender oil for sleep. Yeah. It's really good for that. What do you do with it, though? Do you put it on your, like, you put it here on your pulse or palm? I tend to put it more to where it's going to get more in my sinuses, so rub it a little bit more

in my neck or even under my nose. Oh, okay. So that's where I tend to put it. But so if you're going to use it topically, a 60 milligram dose, which is what is in a lot of the studies, that's about one drop of an essential oil. Okay, so that's for sleep. Lavender's great. I love that one. Yeah.

Holy basil, that's a good one. That was known as Tulsi as well. That's great for stress relief. It's a natural adaptogen. There was a study at Vanderbilt University on doing citrus. oils like orange oil, and that actually calming patients coming out of surgery and going into surgery, including the nurses. So there was a good study there. A lemonine oil and citrus oils, they're not distilled. They are pressed. And they've been used in Chinese medicine for thousands

of years for supporting fat digestion and moving lymphatic for lymphatic stagnation. What's that oil called? It's citrus peel oil. Oh, citrus peel oil. But anytime you see lemon oil or orange oil or grapefruit oil, those are actually citrus peel oils. So all of those, because of de-liminine and some of the other compounds, those would all fall into that category. So, I mean, there are a lot. I mean, I think topically, Helicrism is amazing to prevent scarring. I think sandalwood and frankincense are good for, as part of a blend for skin cancers. Really? Frankencence is I've heard of that as a really good healing. It can also starve off getting sick. Is that, have you heard of that? Yeah, yeah. I think generally, you know, the oil itself is most studied for maybe its

immune properties. The powder, which we call baswellia or basuelic acid, is most studied for its anti-inflammatory properties. We pair that a lot with turmeric for those benefits. So, yeah, so in the Bible it talks a lot about these different essential oils and their uses. There was actually an ancient blend called the Holy Anointing Oil. And we read about this both in the Old Testament, like when King David is being anointed and Solomon is king. And it is a king. And it is a blend. And it was actually, it was a mixture of olive oil. And I'm going to get most of these always correct, cassia, cinnamon, calamis, and I want to say myrr, but they would annoy king's heads with it. But also, in the book of James, it says, if you're sick, go to the elders of the church,

have them lay their hands on you and pray for healing, have them anoint your head with oil, and you will be made well. So this is probably one of the most clear things in the entire Bible in terms of if you're sick, this is what you should do to heal. Also, I know you like coconut oil. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of coconut oil, internally and as a carrier oil. I was going to say, I actually like putting it on my body. It's a great moisturizer. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. People don't use it enough. And it's, like, cheap. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think coconut oil is great because it's saturated, and I think that's more in line with what our skin is. This is another reason why I actually think beef tallow is another great one.

I was going to ask you about beef tallow. Yeah, I like it a lot for, because it's probably the most similar to the oils we actually have on our own skin because it comes from an animal. So because I know right now it's like super trendy to make everything with beef tallow, sunscreens and moisturizers. So you think it's not just a trendy thing. You think it's really effective. Well, do I think it's trendy? Yes, but I think what's old is new, you know. And let me say this, I think it depends upon the person. Like I, there are some people out there that saying you should never have a seed oil and you should, and beef tallow is the best healthy thing for everyone. I don't think that. Like I think that there are certain. types of seed oils if they're cold-pressed and prop flaxseed oil is a seed oil. Yeah. Like Ayurvedic used cold-pressed sesame oil as their number one oil they consumed in India. So for Ayurvedic medicine. So I try not to put blanket statements on there like never have seed oils. Yeah, right, right. There definitely are some seed oils that are fine and healthy as part of a balanced

diet. And there's some people that might do better, especially with those raw ones I'm talking about, than doing a lot of butter or tallow. But I also believe there are people that do really well with these high-saturated fats like butter and tallow, and they can benefit from consuming them. I'll show you, like, my body type. I do coconut oil I thrive with. I do real well with extra virgin olive oil as well. Those are the two oils I thrive on. If I do too much butter or beef tall, like I don't feel well, but my wife's different. My wife can eat beef tall all day. Really? And they do great with it. So I just think, you know, some of it depends on what we talked about earlier. Every single person should have a diet that's specific to their body type.

And like, if I have a patient with cancer versus inflammatory bowel disease, those are very different diets. Inflammatory bowel disease is like soup, soup, and more soup, like all cooked meat, really well-cooked vegetables, maybe even some rice kanji and, you know, things like that. And then some of the cancer, I'll probably do a lot of juice vegetables, a lot of raw,

those sort of... Why? Because I think with cancer, so in Chinese medicine that's known as a chi... Basically, it's stagnation. One of the biggest causes of cancer is things are stuck and they're not moving. So you want to really move the body a lot, and you want to address nutritional deficiencies and toxicity.

Max Gershian, who developed Gershant therapy, believed that one of the best ways to do that is to flood the body with nutrients. What's the best way of doing that with whole food nutrition? Juicing vegetables. You know what else he juiced? This is saying to sound gross and crazy to people. Raw beef liver. He took raw calf liver from young calves.

and juiced it. And so the Gershian diet. Now, originally that's what they did. Then some other people took over and they're like, oh, that can't be good because it's an animal product. And then now I think they do maybe recommend desiccated liver as tablets. But overall, that's what he did because beef liver is probably the most nutrient-dense food there is.

So Gershian therapy, and if you're combining that with the Chinese medicine ideals as well, you're doing lots of organ meats, you're doing lots of vegetables and berries and those things where you're really flooding the body with nutrients. and then you're really supporting the body's detoxification protocol. That's why he also recommended some coffee enemas, things to really help release bile and flush toxins out of your system. And so anyways, with cancer, you also want to go very high enzymes. And there's some studies on doing a lot of proteolytic enzymes,

and enzymes are very good for breaking down what we call senescent cells in the body and cancer cells. But enzymes are also very reactive. They're moving. They help things happen within the body. So overall, when somebody has cancer, you really want to just you really want to move things turmeric and ginger together are also very good to do for that god you just said a bunch of things i wanted to ask you about it's all my notes but i can't

see without my glasses but basically you said something about okay number one organ meats you talk about in the book yeah as a big as a big super nutrient it's the number it's the number one food we're missing in our society today major yeah yeah organ meats so you know there's this whole craves over peptides today do i know of course okay yeah every single person and and their and their and their asks me about peptides daily. So, yeah, I've done a lot of studying on peptides and a lot of research. And I am a big fan of peptides, for the most part. I will say this.

The number one place you find peptides in nature is in organs. I mean, so like Chinese medicine, if you would go in, or even a lot of these biblical physicians, like Maimonides probably and others, they would have prescribed and recommended if you're sick, herbs, mushrooms, and glandulars, or organs that you would take as a supplement, essentially. And so, so like BPC-157, that body protective compound, that's found in your gastric juices and your stomach and your duodenum. You know, thymus and alpha one or thymulin, these peptides today that people take as well, like that TB 500, you know, that's found in the thymus cland. You know, that's a big part of your immune system. So actually, people for thousands

of years have taken thymus gland to fight cancer or immune issues. And so peptides are natural compounds found in our organs and glands. And if we were eating more liver and kidney and heart and things like our ancestors did, then we wouldn't be as deficient as we are today. So I think people, I think people can take peptides, get a lot of benefits from them if they're taking them correctly, you know, whether it's subcutaneous or some are absorbed well orally. But I think there's lots of benefits of peptides. My point there is organ meats are where you're getting those. Like if you, if somebody had, the principle is called like heels like. If you have a heart issue, eat heart. If you have a liver issue, eat liver. If you have a thyroid issue,

what should you take for your thyroid? Thyroid, gland. You should take that as a son. In fact, you know, the number one natural thyroid medication, Armour, or N.P. Thyroid, or N. P.throid, those are from beef and pig. Thyroid glands. They just take the thyroid gland and they, and they, yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what armor is. And. So wait a second, are you telling me that you eat heart, you? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, but, But let me say this. Listen, my palate is not adapted to the bitterness. I mean, listen, I like chicken liver fine.

I will salte it with garlic and onions. I like ketchup with it. I salate in coconut oil or olive oil. And I like liver fine. I like liver patte, too. So, like, that's all fine with me. And heart actually does not taste bad either. But the way that I get it, like, I buy a brand.

It's called Forces of Nature. And it's beef, heart, and liver in there. and then I take organ, a multi-organ supplement regularly too. You do? You know, when I was a kid, my mom would force me to eat liver. Do you remember that when you're a little boy? And ever since then, I haven't had a thing. I haven't had it.

But it is, like, I think it's known to be, like, the healthiest thing in the world. It's the most nutrient-dense food there is. But how do you stomach it? Like, can you just take, like you said, a capsule? Yeah, yeah, people can take capsules and tablets today. Easy, super easy. Okay, so what, okay, so can you? I would take that because what would be some benefits? What would be some of the things I would

notice in my overall health by me taking one of these like organ, either eating organ meat or taking a supplement of it? Well, I think for most people, if you are deficient in a nutrient that it's high in or a peptide, it's high in, then you're going to notice a difference. Like iron, for example. Like so many women are low in iron. Well, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, iron and the other things you need to build blood like B12 and folate. I mean, those are found into very high levels in heart and liver, coenzyme Q10 as well, carnacine, taurine, creatine. I mean, all those are in heart as well. So, yeah, I mean, I think women could really benefit from liver and heart, specifically, also ovary in uterus. I mean, those are good for, I think women going through menopause,

all women, really, of all ages. And then if you have a thyroid issue, thyroid and adrenal would be great as well. But I would say the nutrients that they're the highest in are B vitamins, iron. I want to say thyroid has some selenium. But they're pretty high in, I mean, they're more nutrient deaths than vegetables. I mean, people take today superfood greens powder. What do you notice there? Well, the organ glandular supplements are going to be probably just as potent or more. So, okay, so if people have like a bad heart, like, you know, people are so many people are on statins and all these things. Why are they not taking like a heart supplement, like you just said, like one of those, or eating heart? I mean, do we have another hour? I mean, I'll try and do this

in one minute. But I mean, listen, I mean, you can't, the margins are not near as good. I mean, you got to understand what these drugs. The drugs they make for pennies. Yeah. They make the, it's virtually no cost. And then you get to mark up something a hundred times. I mean, so. Forever. Forever. So, I I mean, that's why, listen, here's something, and I will debate anybody on this. If you send me almost anybody, send me anybody with, you know, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I, you know, I'll fix it. Give me almost anybody with type 2 diabetes. And if they follow the plan I lay out, they will reverse their type 2 diabetes and very quickly. What would you do?

Give me the plan for anybody listening. Yeah, type 2 diabetes, high protein, high protein, high. fiber and moderate fat and lower carb. And so, you know, it's mostly meat and vegetables. There you go. There's exactly meat and vegetables. So you eat that and then I'm going to have you do berberine 500 milligrams per meal. I mean, you have chromium pecolonate, 200 micrograms for meal. I'm going to have you do vitamin D and magnesium. I'll have you do an herbal tea blend of cinnamon, fenugreek, and gymnosia every single day. And I'm going to have you exercise. I deal like a combination of weight training, just walking outside to reduce stress. And someone will reverse

their type 2 diabetes, incredibly fast. Yeah. I've helped, you know, so many people reverse their type 2. That's, and that one's easy. I mean, there are others that are maybe more. That's an easy one. But the same thing is true for hypothyroidism, for low testosterone, for PCOS. PCOS is an insulin issue, too, by the way.

So, but with a lot of these, and I'm not trying to be overconfident here. I just have experienced this with patients. And so today, the problem is, is that the problem, there's several problems. is, if you give somebody the option of a pill, and then their doctor tells them, you're healthy now, you're normal, and they think they are. Well, of course, who's not going to choose taking a pill over exercising if they don't like exercising? Now, you and I like it. Like, I wouldn't feel normal. Like, not exercising. I would just feel so bad, but some people can live with that. But it's, yeah, so, you know, I... But that's also kind of like with the GLP ones, right?

Like, there you go. People are losing 50 pounds a hundred. Like, if you look around the world, literally around the world, everyone's thin now. You think that's natural? You think everyone's just thin because they're just now exercising and eating right? No, everyone's shooting themselves up. Well, in GOP1, people are losing. I mean, one study found 40% of the mass they're losing is muscle mass.

For 1,000 percent. Are you looking at people walking around? They're basically skinny fat now is what they are. That's right. That's exactly right. They're skinny fat. People are taking the GLP ones are now skinny fat. The GLP-2s, right, which is more like the trizapitides, I guess, right?

They're a little bit like you don't lose your appetite as much. Yeah. But what are the side effects with that one? I'd be honest, I haven't. Besides the fact that, like, again, these are all, these are not behavioral, like, these are not changing and modifying behavior. And you're a doctor. Yeah.

You know, the problem I'm seeing is that now everybody's relying on them. They're not changing and modifying their behavior. Yeah. They're on. So are they going to just be on this for life? Like, I don't understand. Do I think that the entire world would be, especially the Western world, be much healthier if we eliminated all GLP1? Yeah, people would be healthier. I think generally. Now, let me say this. You know, there are probably some statistics to where certain diseases decrease with taking GLP1. But do I think it increases overall longevity and decreases mortality? No. Here's another one. I think we would be better off getting rid of 90 plus percent of all medications and all of 90 percent of all mainstream medicine. Yes. Yes. We would be healthier for it. I mean, if we keep emergency medicine, true emergency medicine, I want to keep that. We're the best in the world at that.

But health care, I mean, if you're comparing us to Japan or, you know, a number of these other countries, we're not even, we're not even close. We rank like one of them, it's either life expectancy or quality of life. It's number 70. I think on both. I mean, and especially now. it's even gotten worse. I mean, I think it's beginning progressively worse. The fact that, like, nobody has health, but also they make it impossible to have health insurance. And it's so expensive. And all

the doctors now don't want to be a doctor. They all want to be a concierge doctor, which is very expensive. And, like, no offense to you, I know you're a functional medicine doctor, but most of the people in the world can afford to see you. Not, well, actually, you too.

You guys are expensive. You guys, the tests are rarely, like, all the tests are super expensive. It's not a cheap thing. They make it for the top one or two percent of the world to be able to afford it. I mean, here's what would fix most problems. And one, let me say this too, though. I believe that going to see a functional medicine doctor will save you more money, not to mention save your life. You think so? But we'll save you more money in the long term. How? Well, one, you'll pay less on insurance premiums. Well, you guys don't take insurance. But what happens if there's an emergency? Yeah, but what you're paying, because, listen, insurance gets

expensive when you have a pre-existing condition. Oh, yeah, it does. So my point is you're paying more on your insurance. I mean, that really adds up over time. But the reality is, I mean, do you still see patients? Do you actually? You do. You actually. Well, so the way that I work today is I have a team of practitioners. I run a telemedicine, a virtual practice called the Health Institute. And so we have people come in regularly, but I have a group of practitioners that work on my team. So I don't see people one-on-one, but I do group calls once a week. And so I do group calls once a week and I'll troubleshoot with like the patient everyone can attend ask me questions live go through that with everybody the hard cases I go through I work with the practitioners on the cases so I'm not

doing one-on-one calls with people right now but I do run a you know of a virtual practice and work with cases every day so do you think then as someone has to choose between a regular doctor like when I say like an MD doctor or functional medicine you think functional medicine is a better are called because they are getting more to the root of the problem and they'll save money on on the long term yeah and listen to the amount they'll save long term my point is is that you will pay a lot for insurance if you maintain the same condition in the poor health that you have versus if you can reverse the condition and pay less for insurance much less that will save you some money but overall i mean the reality is functional medicine or what i do i'd probably call it more

personalized cellular medicine, but more of that personalization there, which I think is a little different. It's a form of functional medicine, but I think it goes kind of a step further. But, you know, that the thing that people have to think about is like, what's your life worth and your quality of health, right? I mean, it's, I mean, there's an investment there. There's no doubt about it. But I will say, if we changed our entire health care system to where doctors, rather than prescribing drugs, the only thing they did was prescribe diets, supplements, and lifestyle changes like exercise, that's not expensive. That doesn't have to be expensive. No, it doesn't have to be. And it fixes 70% of the problems. That fixes, yeah, at least 70.

Exactly. I agree with you. Yeah. Why is everybody now prescribing or talking about microdosing these GLPs? Yeah. Because the side effects are less. I mean, I don't know. I mean, that's the only reason. Listen, I, you know, I guess the way that it probably works is people that have these major cravings, it takes the edge off towards not totally fixing the problem. It's kind of like this. It's like some people, it's like, hey, you've got low energy. Let me give you 500 milligrams of caffeine. Let me give you so much every hour that you're just versus.

Well, they're saying now. Hey, here's some rhizobos or here's some green tea. Just, you know, one cup a day. I mean, so the microdosing is around one eighth of the dose to one tenth of the dose probably. So it's going to be, it's quite a bit less. And if somebody, it's not going to do near the harm, not even close to where the full doses of GLP1 was. And finally, I don't even know if I have a problem with microdosing myself.

I don't think it's the right fix. I think I would rather have somebody just eat more protein and fiber because they're going to get, this is good or better results. This is what the, I mean, I'm telling you the doctor, the very well-known doctor here. But like, that is good for inflammation. The microdosing is good for inflammation. It's good for brain health in terms of brain fog, focus. like those are the three keys.

Oh, and they say now for metapause symptoms. This is what, that's what's being touted. I'm not saying it's accurate. I don't have enough, I don't know that first, I don't think there's enough research on it. I don't think there's enough research on any of it. Or understanding how it works physiologically for us to make a lot of big conclusions right now. But do I think a microdosing is harmful to people?

I'll say this. I don't think it's probably that bad. So I don't, listen, I'm against this ultra-dosing of GLP1. I am like as against it as anybody else, more than anybody I can think of. But the microdosing, I don't think, is probably that bad. But would I ever recommend it? I don't recommend it. I think people should just not do it.

Change your lifestyle and- I was going to say, how many people- I'd rather you take that. What does berberine do? So, berberine is a compound from the bayberry leaf, similar to like curcuminoids or compound found in turmeric. And they are probably found to be the most powerful blood sugar regulator, so they help with insulin resistance. So again, for diabetics or pre-diabetes,

which, by the way, like one out of every three Americans now have pre-diabetes. Think about that. One out of every three, it's incredibly high. So berberine is probably the most effective herbal compound for blood sugar. And then after that, it's probably, you know, just as a whole, you know, cinnamon, fenugreek, and gymnoser probably the next. And mulberry leaf is good, too. I want to know about fruit. Fruit's such a controversial. God's so stupid how controversial fruit is, but it is. You talk in your book about certain things, like the figs, papaya. What, in your opinion, is the most, like, pound for pound, and you cannot say blueberries. I won't. Okay, is the best fruit for your health? Pomegranate. I love pomegranate. Yeah. And I had a feeling, I did see it in there.

It's very biblical. It's very Jewish. Like, people love. Yeah. I will. We love pomegranates. Well, pomegranates have a lot of benefits. One, they're incredibly high in fiber, and they're incredibly high in antioxidants. So they're lower glycemic, similar to berries. But pomegranates have a unique compound called allegic acid. It's also found in raspberries and do a degree in walnuts and pecans, but higher levels in pomegranates in raspberries.

And so, and this is a compound that about half of people can convert very well to something called uralithinae. And urelython A is something people are buying today. Very popular. But here's the cool thing about allegeic acid from pomegranates. It not only turns into uralithin A, it turns into urelythin B, C, D, E. There are many, many more of these phytonutrients of ureliathins that have many, many benefits. And so these are things that people maybe haven't even heard of before. But that's why pomegranate, it's a whole food source.

You're going to get a much, much wider range in benefits than taking just a plain old urelythine a supplement. And this is really important for what we call mitochondrial biogenesis. It's great for recycling your mitochondria, for taking those damaged parts of damaged cells, recreating mitochondria, our mitochondria are the engines or power plants of our cells that give us energy, that gives our cells and all of our organs energy. So a lot of conditions today are tied to mitochondrial dysfunction. Chronic fatigue syndrome is probably the most prevalent. But also hypothyroidism, like I mentioned earlier, anything with low energy, cancer is connected.

to mitochondria dysfunction, there's a lot of conditions there. Chronic infections, if people have long COVID and they're not healing still, mitochondrial dysfunction. So, yeah, pomegranates to me are probably my favorite fruit for healing. Heart benefits, too. We remember all the old pomegranate juice, but there were some studies then on just even the juice. But yeah, pomegranates would be my number one fruit for healing. And then after that, they're probably just berries as a whole are good to get. There are berries that people don't even think about as berries like carrants and aneronia.

And of course, goji is amazing. But yeah, that'd be up there. What's your theory on colostrum? Is it useful? Is it a waste of time to take it? I think this is one that is very, very based on somebody's bio-individuality. I think if some people, it can really be a strengthener of immunity, I think for some people it just won't do anything, or maybe their body's even too sensitive to be able to deal with

that sort of stimulation that can occur with colostrum. So I think my guess is this, and by the way, I don't think anyone knows this. this, but my guess is that people that do well with fermented dairy will likely do well with colostrum. But I think this is where there, some people, some people have lost the art of just listening to your body. Your body will tell you so much. If you eat something and you keep getting gas and bloating, don't keep eating that. Now, sometimes there's like, okay, let me give one example, though. When you're increasing your protein intake, you will get some gas and bloating because your body has to start to get used to creating enough of certain enzymes to break down

the protein and then even then later if you have too much well then you'll still get gas and bloating but so sometimes it's an adaptation issue but i would say if this is months long and you're still having problems when you eat a food listen to your body it's just not agreeing with you know like i have a patient i'm working with right now and he has ibsd and um and i gave him a diet that was like all cooked food, you know. And so rather than a smoothie, what I have a lot of people do is I have them do a pumpkin smoothie for breakfast, have them do a third a can of pumpkin, and I have them do vanilla, like a bone broth, like a protein powder that's made a bone broth, maybe another vanilla plant protein, and then I have them do pumpkin pie spice with a lot of ginger cinnamon and do that

as a smoothie. And he ate that, and along with a diet, I put him on, and he went from having 11-bound movements a day down to just two. This is after just one week. And then I saw him again. The next week, and he's like, oh, man, I had like, you know, I'm up to like seven or nine bowel movements again, because I just, we're having, you know, just major problems there. And I said, well, what do you do differently? He's like, man, I'm still eating healthy. You know, it's like, this morning I went and I had yogurt and I had melon. And then I did, and I'm like, Rob, like, okay, I know melon sounds incredibly healthy. And I know yogurt sounds incredibly healthy. But you've got IBSD and your constitution right now is so cold and digestive system is so weak. You can't, like,

it's going to wreck your system. You can't do it. And then we get him back on it. He has a lot of ginger turmeric tea, too. And then it just fixes it again. But there are just things like that. Like people, there are so many people that are suffering with health issues. And they think, oh, salads are healthier, smoothies are healthier, whatever. And if they just, not even eat things that they would think of as healthier, sometimes it might be worse for them or they would think it would be, but it will actually completely fix and heal whatever their issue is. Can you take a certain, like, what are some tests, like basic tests or really, or tests, not, don't have to be basic, that really tell you a great picture of someone's, like, true, like,

inside, the health, like, deep in the innards of themselves. Yeah. The number one test is looking at your tongue. Oh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like this? Exactly. Does it look healthy to you? Yeah, yours is actually one of the, one of the, one, it's healthier than most. When, we could say when the healthiest tongues you've ever seen? No, it's healthier than most, because I've do this before. There are a couple things. Really? You got a little bit of heat. But it's not, it's not too bad. It's pretty hot in here, though. Well, it is very hot in here. But I'll give you example. One thing I see in people is,

so if some people have ridges, like bite marks on the side of their tongue, that's called a spleen tissue deficiency, or it's a digestive deficiency. That means your digestive system's weak. So we've got to really warm it up and help do some things to strengthen digestive system. The other thing would be if somebody's tongue is pale. That is a type of anemia. We call it a blood deficiency. So we need to do a lot more red meat and beets and steamed greens and blood-building foods, coating on your tongue. Now, we call it Candida. We'll call it dampness as well.

So your tongue will tell me the exact herbs you need to tell me a lot. I don't have any of that stuff? What do I have? So the only thing that you have is a little coating that's almost an orange, yellow color on the back of your tongue, but it's very subtle. That just shows me that really, really the only thing I'm saying is you've got a little bit of heat in your large intestine. What does that mean?

It means that there's a little bit of influence. inflammation in your large intestine. It's mild. But I would say, you know, something, you want to do things like spearmint tea, something like that, that'll start cooling it. And just do some more cool. In fact, you actually are the opposite of some people. You would probably do well with like a coconut yogurt or a goat smoke yogurt or something like that. So what do I stay away from? You probably want to stay away from things that are like some things that are very spicy might bother your system possibly or make that slightly worse. But really, again, you're, you have one of the healthier, almost every time when I, if I ever bring that up or somehow it comes up,

Most people have major deficiencies and problems. Yours is, you have one of the healthier. It seems like your system moves pretty well based on what I see there. But the other thing is, there are blood tests I like. We do a test at the Health Institute where it's called a true health test. And we look at micronutrients and organic acids. We also do vitamin D. So we do a number of tests.

What we really focus on is vitamins and minerals and amino acids and looking at essential fatty acids. Like where are those major deficiencies? that's my favorite test. I also like doing a hormone panel, and then another favorite is a GI map. Those are probably the three tests I run the most, and I can tell that along with looking at somebody's tongue, and of course, their symptoms.

I mean, I usually have everything I need to know. I mean, there's other tests sometimes I'll do on occasion, food sensitivities. I mean, there's others, but those three I just mentioned are probably the... There's a test also I really like. It's called an organ age test, and so I'm able to look at the age of basically, all the different organs in the body based on different biomarkers, and that's pretty,

pretty powerful as well for some people. Can I get all these tests? Yeah, yeah, I'll send them to you. I'm serious. Yeah. You're very, can I, and I mean this, you're very knowledgeable. I told you, I liked you before you became so popular, because I liked the way, you can tell you're, like, you're really smart, but there are people who are smart and there are people who really kind of, like, go underneath the hood and, like, figure, like, you really do go underneath the hood, and you say things that not ever, like, things become so noisy. right? Like, what I like about you is that, like, I always seem to learn something different when I listen to you. Well, one of the things, again, when you have your... You can pay me later.

Yeah, well, when, you know, like, again, for me, it was so much, like, when my mom was sick, it was like, I got to figure out everything I can. And the other thing is, I think I realized, too, is that one, one, I just, I enjoy this. Like, I like learning. I'm like, if I do, like, you know, some sort of, you know, personality profile learner is always number one. But I enjoy learning, but, you know, I think I found that there are probably quite a few people, and this isn't to anybody. But, you know, I think a lot of people, maybe even early on in the career, they learn a lot of studies or stats and they can spit those off. But, but I never, I don't know, I always wanted to understand philosophically and scientifically, how does the body work? Why is that happening? And I

always started asking, I don't know if you've heard of this, the five whys. Why? Well, why is that? Well, why is that in understanding? And so, and I think that helps me as a practitioner to be able to understand that a little bit more, kind of that general sort of philosophy. And by the way, The thing I like about the blood test, too, is that we do, um, these are, it's a blood spot. So, like, you can do it at home on a little piece of cardboard. We have, you know, people that become patients do that just right on the, and then you just ship it in. It's so easy. I mean, it's a, you know what's going to be so amazing in the future?

Eventually, we'll have, like, this is an aura ring I wear. Like, we'll be able to have, or very similar to, like, those continuous glucose monitors. We'll probably be able to have those on in 20 years and pull up our phone and it'll tell you what you're deficient, everything you're deficient in that day and the exact meal you need. and you can probably have it delivered to your home. In 10 minutes. I used to wear all the oras and all the fitbits and all the things. And honestly, like, I felt it was more stressful than not. Yeah, I see that with some people, for sure.

No one needs to be wearing a continuous glucose monitor on your arm all day unless you are a real diabetic. Here's what I found. It was helpful for me to do for two weeks. Yes. And then I didn't need it again because I just knew, like, I was surprised. I found for fruit with myself. I can do one serving, and I'm good.

good. But if I ate two, like a really big servings of fruit, like, whoa, my blood sugar really jumped. I also found if I eat fruit around exercise, I'm fine too. But it was like, so one serving or round exercise, good to go, two servings without exercise. My body does not like that. I also found like potatoes. I'm like, oh, I ate all these potatoes. My blood sugar is going to, it didn't. I agree. But I think fruit, I eat so much of it. It bloats you because it's so much like water and sugar and all the things. I love fruit. Yeah, same here, yeah. I love it. But that's why I'm thinking, like, is it, like, I don't, if I'm eating so much of it, maybe it's, like, too much of a good thing, maybe. I eat, like, I can eat pounds of it at a time. Again, again, I think they're meant to

be done one serving. Yeah. And not, and not more. What you think one serving is and what I do. One apple, you know, three-fourths of cup, probably of blueberries. I mean, something like that. Like that. Okay. Okay, you have one more question than that you go. Okay. Let's talk about like eczema and syrias. It's like that kind of thing. Because, what makes it start to inflame again? Like what, like, is it just stress life? Is it, I have a feeling, tell me if there's a correlation between this. If you're, if you're working out too intensely and your, and your cortisol gets too high, it can inflame your skin. Is that just something I'm making up in my head? No, that's true. But let me say, so on your tongue, back of the tongue,

orange yellow, that's damp heat in your large intestine. That's the cause of eczema. So when somebody has Dexema, it's, again, this is the Chinese medicine powder, but it's damp heat. So that's, there's yeast, there's bacterial or yeast overgrowth that's happening in the colon, and then there's also heat and inflammation there. So in that case, there are certain herbs that are really good for expelling damp heat. One really good one is, for use probably, it's one most people probably haven't heard of yet. It's called Sasparilla. Sometimes it goes by Smylex. If it's affecting the liver to chrysanthemum, like people with rosacea, chrysanthemum is by far the best herb. they could ever take, probably for most of them, gentiener. But it's really more bitters.

Getting some more bitter greens in your diet, things like that, that helps flush some of that damp heat. And that typically is what you do. But like exercise wise, if you're to the point where you're getting red in the face. No. Or where you're creating a lot of heat, it could, it could make it worse. Or of course, if cortisol gets too high from over exercise, that definitely will bother it too. Can life stress just make you have more? Of course. Yeah, that's probably. Well, I mean, Life stress is really in a way, it's going to exacerbate everything in Chinese medicine. That would typically be what we would call depleting your chi or in Western medicine depleting your mitochondria, right? Too much stress. Your battery, it's like your body's battery is getting too

low. So really, if your battery's low, that's affecting every single organ, every single cell in your entire body. Would you send me those things that I should, those herbs? Yeah, of course. I'm telling you. I wish you saw patients. I do. I see them in a group format, and I have practitioners. But my practitioners are amazing. They are really, really good practitioners. How many do you have? So we had about 18 or 20.

I mean, so. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. That's amazing. 18 or 20, yeah. Okay, so wait, okay, did I ask, is there anything I didn't cover with you besides? I mean, I wanted to ask you, like, Salt. I know you're big Celtic or Celtic.

Well, you know what? Here's, I think that salt, this all comes down to the individual as well. I think that you should sprinkle a little salt on your food, but also not go overboard. Like, you shouldn't be doing buckets of salt on your food. And some of this also depends on how much potassium you're getting, which you're going to get predominantly from fruit and to a degree from things like vegetables and potatoes. So, again, I know people always want me to give a straight answer, and I can sometimes. But it's so hard because, again, like my mindset's always, I need to create something customized

for you. Where do you live? Like, you're going to sweat more in Florida than California. like are you exercising you're not let me give an example the most popular electrolyte beverage today i don't like it all for most people oh i know it's synthetic it's a five to one ratio a thousand milligrams of soda 200 of potassium for my most people i work with is to probably closer to a one to one ratio of an electrolyte drink exactly coconut water throw sea salt in there there you go there's your electrolyte drink so or watermelon juice with with um with electrolyte so yeah i don't know how this whole

this whole, it became like a whole thing, like elementy and all these, sorry, but all these things, I mean, no, because I don't understand. Why can people just take, like, their own coconut water, their own water and just add some lemon and some of their own salt? It's cheaper, it's free, and it's way healthier. And your body, like, it's like, it's not bloated. Like, I find those things have way too much sodium. Yeah, they do. Like, unless they do. I mean, it's great. I mean, I have some people, like, they're giving themselves health problems. Actually, it'll increase the water retention, increase some of the dampness. It'll make them more.

Now, you know, if you're sweating buckets or you're, let's say you're a crossfitter and you're sweating a lot, that brand, even though I don't like it because synthetic and the other things in it, it's probably the right ratio for those people. If people are marathon runners, those sort of things, it's meant for them. But the average day person that just sweats a little bit when they're exercising, it's the ratio is so, it's way off. I don't understand, but that's the thing, right? Like, people are overdoing everything, right?

Like, you see when people go on their hike for like a mile, they're taking their trail mix with them up the mountain. And probably a camelback, you fall of, you know, the, yeah. Totally. It's true. It's so crazy. Okay, one other, one last question, I promise. Give me five things in your 50s for longevity.

Number one, have a spiritual growth practice. us. Number two. Start focusing more on building community. Like this could be, you know, lunch with your best friends. Just start a weekly brunch, something to where you are building deeper relationships where you're looking at serving and helping other people, but just better relationships. Three. At the very least, change your breakfast. You know, focus on more protein, more fiber, more nutrients. It might look like what I talked about, the pumpkin smoothie, or blueberries are fine at room temperature with some coconut milk, some collagen or bone broth protein, some plant protein, but something like that for breakfast.

Four. Yeah, I want to mention exercise here, but here's what I'll say for exercise. Do the type of exercise you're going to be consistent with. I mean, I love weight training. By the way, the longevity studies show that probably the best exercise is racket sports, like tennis and pickleball and badminton. So I love that. I love swimming.

I love cycling. say generally, you know, just spend more time moving. And the last one, number five, just spend way more time outside. Yeah, I think those are good. Hiking, getting sun, all that. I think the pickleball tennis is also good for your brain coordination, keeping your brain, like, moving. Of course. Yeah. By the way, the best exercise is walking, because everyone can do it, and the barrier to entry is very, and especially if you've got hills. I mean, it's even better. A hundred, totally agree. You know, I agree. Okay, I guess I can let you go now. It's been, You can open the, we can open the window.

Well, yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. This was fun. It was a great question. I mean, some of the questions are ones I don't, I don't answer often. And those are my favorite interviews. I love being able to answer the questions that are kind of less common. Oh, my God, I have a million more, but I don't want to, I feel like I've, like, taken up way too much of your time.

And I know it's like a sauna in here. So I didn't want to make you sweat more. Saunas are great for our health? That's right. Exactly. I was going to say, you didn't say sauna in the five longevity. And I said 50s, not 40s, because I think, you know, people who, you know, people who, Like, I feel like they're, like, now empty nesters and they can, like, focus on their lives more, maybe. It's a better, um, their kids are off from college and what have you. Okay. So Josh, doctor, what do people call you? Josh? It depends. A lot of people call me Josh. Some people call me Dr. Axe. Some people call me other things. You know, my, my five-year-old daughter calls me, you know, dad or makes up other names. So I'll call you Dr. Josh. That's great. Yeah. Great. I'm great with anything.

Dr. Josh's, Dr. Josh Axe's book is called, when is it out, Biblio Diet? It's out soon. September. Oh, September. Yeah, soon, very soon. And I don't know, everything that Josh, I like, I like you. I think you do, he's got great info. Thanks.

I really, like I said, I've been following him for a long time. It's very knowledgeable and that's it. Buy his book. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.