Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 477 - Functional Medicine Expert Dr. Will Cole

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional-medicine expert, who consults people around the world via webcam and locally in Pittsburgh, PA. He specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors of chronic disease and customizing health programs for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal dysfunctions, digestive disorders, and brain problems. Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://bit.ly/3bxyMND ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

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This is Josh Setledge, a.k.a. SettleGate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Dr. Will Cole. Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional medicine expert who consults people around the world via webcam and locally in Pittsburgh. He specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors of chronic disease and customizing health programs for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal dysfunctions, digestive orders, and brain problems. Dr. Cole was named one of the top 50 functional medicine and integrative doctors in the nation

and is a health expert and course instructor for the world's largest wellness brands such as MindBodyGreen and Goop. Dr. Will Cole is uniquely skilled and experienced at finding the root physiological, biochemical, and hormonal causes underlying many diseases. He has broken free from the limiting approach of standard care, which most often calls upon drugs and hormones as a first defense against these diseases without a real inspection as to the root underlying causes and contributing factors to each individual's presenting complaints. Dr. Cole uses breakthrough diagnostic testing and analysis that's rarely done in conventional settings to uncover the hidden

causes of why people feel the way they feel. He also takes great pride in delivering personalized healthcare treatment to patients, as well as providing an environment that supports and inspires patients to reverse their poor health. Dr. Cole has also studied how red light therapy can fasten wound healing, specifically acne and acne scars, but that's going to be a different story. Hopefully one that we can hear on this episode of Mark Bell's Power Project. Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Will Cole. I got to tell you guys about the pole we ran. Let's go, Daddy. Let's hear it.

Got me again. You've been running up and down a pole? Sliding up and down a pole. What pole are you talking about? Can you put this pole away? You're actually cranking out babies over there. I know. I see what you did there. How many holes, speaking of poles and holes,

how many holes does a straw have? It's a great one. I'll just go. What's your answer? One, two, or other. One, 62%. Two, 33%. And then other got 5%. But these are some of the best answers I was able to read.

Jeremy, two holes, one tunnel. A condom has one hole. A condom with an end chopped off has two holes. Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Let's see. Jaron says infinite holes. Since there's an open space in every molecule and solid doesn't exist. That was fantastic.

Two holes, one hollow. We changed dimensions. Every time we flip a hole upside down, that was confusing, but that was from Michael. He's hanging out on the podcast often, but then every once in a

while you put anything out on the internet and somebody takes it way too serious okay uh so christian everyone just watched the video titled how many holes does a human have by some name that i can't oh by vsauce it gives you an exact mathematical answer to the question by definition a straw has one hole there is no room to argue there are not two holes and if you squeeze one side of the hole you have no holes watch the video before you comment before you comment me and i'll and you'll see i'm 100 correct how many holes does a human have so one so so i asked does the documentary give women a few extra holes? No. He says not both sexes have a total of seven

holes. Yeah. Yeah. Because we have a it sucks but like our little you know our our little wee wee has a hole that you can stick something in. Yeah but that hurts. There's the birth canal and then there's the other pee

hole. Yeah but that's what I'm gonna uh yeah so anyways everybody check out our daily polls yeah wait 1,2,3,4 here we go 5,6 where's the 7th hole

exactly mouth there you go you got your ears yeah none pearls yeah ears that would make us that would make it nine holes you got your anus okay so i was counting five holes on your head right one two three and then you got your wiener and your a-hole seven there you go seven right i was counting the eyes and then girls is it considered one hole like because it maybe streams off into two different things or something?

That's where my question came from. Remember that this started because of you. Yeah, I know. I'm fine. I'm good with it. I mean, tech, yes, you are absolutely right. It started because of me, but it went here because of this guy. No, this answer.

Pussy's mesmerizing, isn't it? Like, it really is. And it got here because of you. Hypnotizing. I'm just thinking, you know, you're talking about holes and stuff. I'm just thinking, like, you know. I can't remember. Was it Joe Rogan that would be like, it's undefeated.

Yeah. Like, it always wins. Yeah. Well, yeah, it does. Fucking so many songs written about it and stuff you know yeah some are happy and some are sad so many are mad so many loans taken out because of it anyway i think we still have a show hello we're on no one's listening anymore people dropped off yeah anyway these guys are gross we have a great guy on stage i know i always i think about that too i'm like dude we're gonna

have such a nice like high intellect individual on and then we go ahead and ruin it this way well you know if the podcast did start great because we had our boy josh introduce the guest correct and then it came to us and then we kind of dropped the ball. But it's going to come back up when the guest comes. That actually makes, that saves us a lot. It does. Because people are going to be like, oh, this is going to be good. Interesting. A lot of good information.

And then we'll talk about Starholes. Cool. Oh, Lord. Yeah. Our boy, Josh Setledge. Reading those profiles. Yeah. Doing a good job of it, huh?

Yeah. No, we've been going back and forth. I'm just telling him what he's doing is working really well. Yeah, I want to know, you know, we have so many different doctors on the show. You know, we have, like, dentists, and we've had all kinds of people from all different facets of doctoring. And, you know, to get, we've had, I think, like Dr. Gabriel Lyons,

like alternative medicine type of thing. So it'd just be cool to figure out, like, exactly, you know, what this guy's background is and then kind of what it's morphed into. Because it always seems like it turns into something different as you dive into it for a longer period of time. And it's really cool. Cause like he, when, when people study medicine,

but then they take a different route than your typical individual in the medical field. It's always cool to talk to those individuals because it's like a lot of them say, okay, they taught us this in med school. I did a bunch of research and I found out that all of this wasn't true. And it instead is, it's like this way. Right. right so it's gonna be interesting to see the way he goes

about things because like he's into keto um he he takes a lot of different routes to figure out why people have issues like it seems that he doesn't just give you a medication he said the simplest thing i was listening to him talk about macros and he's like you got protein you got fat you got carbohydrates he's like you talk to any, you got fat, you got carbohydrates. He's like, you talk to any bodybuilder and like, Hey man, you count your macros, you count your protein, carbs, and fat. And he goes, and the reason why they're obsessed with that, he's like, that is the simplest, easiest way to make changes to your body. You kind of pay attention to the intake that you're, you're putting into it. And you make some sort of assessment, either based off a history or you have a coach that assists you.

And they say, hey, here's your macros. Hey, follow this. And he said, it's great because the amount of different things that it can change for you just by having less body fat on you can have a major impact. And he also talked about ketones being a fourth macronutrient and how and some of the benefits of ketones, especially in certain cases for certain people. And so it'd be interesting to talk to him about, you know, does he feel that everyone should try a ketogenic diet? I know that he said he didn't feel like it's for everybody. He also said that what I liked that he said, and I agree a hundred percent with this, he

said, it's not, it's not for everybody. And it's certainly not for everyone or it's not for, um, like all the time, you know, you don't just do it all the time. So I think that's interesting. Not that you can't do a ketogenic diet all the time, but I think it makes the most sense to use, use it intermittently and to go back and forth between different diets. I know Joel Green has talked about that a lot where you, you know, some people have talked

about seasonal stuff where you eat, you know, fruits and certain foods at certain times a year and things like that. So I'm excited to talk to our guests today and also learn more about like, what is this functional medicine? Like, what, what does that mean? Like, isn't when we want all the medicine to be functional? Right. Yeah. I wonder like, cause I was, I was thinking about it. I've heard of naturopathic doctors, right? Individuals that like use natural remedies instead of, you know,

your typical pharmaceuticals. I wonder if he has anything to do with that. But one thing that I saw on his website that I think is interesting, it kind of falls in line with Joel Green. Cause I think you said Joel Green was like, shouldn't be fasting all the time or fasting every day. It's he's literally said it's dangerous. This guy has something that he talks about called intuitive fasting. shouldn't be fasting all the time or fasting every day. It's he's literally said it's dangerous. Um,

this guy has something that he talks about called intuitive fasting. And I kind of think the name says it all, but it seems that since he's put so much importance on it, he probably has sort of a, a bigger structural idea behind what it is and how you do it. Because even I've found that like after when I started doing fasting, when I fasted for too long, I just started to feel a little bit frail. I started getting a little bit too lean. I was like, God dang, I need to just start eating when I want to eat.

So now I don't fast every day anymore. There's some days that I'll just eat during the day and some days that I do fast. But he probably has a little bit, maybe more of an idea of what's going on and why maybe you don't want to do it all the time. A couple of signs that you're fasting a little too much or too often is you'll kind of see it in your eyes. You know, if you start to get a little baggy underneath the eyes and stuff, that's always a sign. Another sign, maybe you don't recognize that in yourself because you see yourself every day. Another sign is that you're just missing that little extra, you know,

just feels like there's something missing from the inside. It's hard to describe, but you're just missing that little extra. And when you drink coffee or have caffeine, it doesn't seem to really do much. You're just like, man, that didn't really hit me the way I was hoping. So if you feel any of that, that's a good reason to think, all right, well, tomorrow I'm not going to fast. Then see how you feel, you know, as you move along, well tomorrow I'm not going to fast. Then see how you see how you feel, you know,

as you, as you move along, but it can be really beneficial to fast. Do you think that's different if you have excess body fat on you? I think it can be, I think it can be different if you have excess body fat and also to, if you, uh,

no, learn, learn to, they call it fat adapted. I don't know how important it is to really like, uh, worry about whether you're burning fat or sugar. Uh,

but I do think that it's important to, um, just basically try to reduce the amount of carbohydrates that you're eating at some point. Just, just from your average person, you know, if people are eating three,

400 grams approach of a carbohydrate today, and it doesn't seem to have a lot of function towards their main goal, uh, then I think reducing that can be huge. And I think your body automatically starts to learn like, Hey, let's burn up some of this fat as fuel. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Let me ask you this. Actually, uh, carnivore world carnivore month is done. Oh no. Yeah. Are you, so, so what's like's like, what are you doing now? Well, last night, I just ran out in the middle of the street naked because I was so excited that it's over with. But after that, I've been eating pretty normal. I was going to take, I'm basically taking this week off to just sort of kind of whatever,

whatever comes my way, whatever I see, just eat a little bit of that. But like yesterday was pretty clean still. I just had a kind of a normal breakfast, ate some steak and eggs and things like that. And later in the day, I had some chicken and I did have some ice cream at night. After I had my dinner, I had some ice cream. I had the Netflix and chilled. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Hey, guys. Hey. How's it going? Good. How are you? We're doing great. Great to have you on the show today. I want to dive in and kind of kick things off by asking you about what is the deal with

functional medicine? Can you explain what functional medicine is? Because we don't really have much of an idea over here. And then maybe also how you got into functional medicine. Sure. So functional medicine, in short, it's evidence-based alternative or complementary medicine. It's a lot more than that. I think more broadly and more specific, we interpret labs using a thinner reference range.

So anybody that's listening out there will know that when they go to their doctor, look at these basic labs and you have this reference range, this X to Y interval of where your numbers are supposed to be on that Quest lab or LabCorp or your doctor's labs. We get that reference range from a statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs. So who, the people that are predominantly going to labs are sadly people with health problems. So there's a lot of people out there that know intuitively, I don't feel the way that I should feel. I'm struggling with these different, maybe weight loss resistance or fatigue or low libido or digestive problems, whatever the case may be. They go to

their doctor and their doctor says, everything's fine. You know, you're just depressed. There's an antidepressant or you're just getting older or, you know, you're a new mom. All these well intentioned reasons as to how the heck you could be having symptoms despite these quote unquote normal labs. What the doctor is unintentionally telling them is there are a lot like the other people with health problems that they're being compared to on that reference range. So just because something's common doesn't necessarily mean it's normal. And, you know, we want to look at optimal, vibrant wellness, not just the lab's reference range. So we're looking at a tighter range, this thinner range within that larger reference range

of where does vibrant wellness live? Where is that? Where does where do people that live long, healthy lives? Where are they at? And so we standardize it as reference ranges that aren't standardized. And that's the functional range where your body is functioning the best. And we're also running more comprehensive labs and functional medicine. labs in functional medicine. So we're looking at root components like microbiome issues, underlying gut problems, or toxicity issues, or nutrient deficiencies, or hormonal imbalances, whatever the case requires to get a thorough, comprehensive look. And then we realized we're all different. And there's no cookie cutter approach when you're dealing with chronic

health issues, especially with autoimmunity or hormonal problems. You could have 100 people with the same set of symptoms and what's needed for one case isn't needed for the next one. So it's being evidence-based, but it's customized to the individual. That's my more long-winded explanation of functional medicine. That kind of makes me curious because you said everybody's different, but then you also said that you guys are trying to create a tighter reference range and with that being said um if somebody this might be a two-part question uh we've had guests that have come on and told us okay when you go to the

doctor these are the numbers that you want to have them look at look up for you like these are the main numbers if you're going on a carnivore diet that you want to check on right so when it comes to individuals and checking on their health with labs, when they go to a doctor, what do you think? Cause if I would think that if I ask, what are all the labs, there's too many to list, but what are the, some of the main labs that maybe people want to try to pay attention to? And then also, do you have maybe references on your website for what that tighter range for these numbers on those labs are, because I feel that maybe that's something that it's not really that easy to get access to. Sure. Yeah, those are really important

questions. And you're right. That's what people want to know. And they want access to this information so they can go to their doctor and ask for the labs, but be know how to interpret those labs, have agency over their health. So it's definitely important for people to know. Yeah, I have all these reference ranges on my website at drwillcole.com. And you really could look even at functionalmedicine.org if that's the Institute for Functional Medicine, that's who's trained myself, my team, that's the Cleveland Clinics Functional Medicine Center. But I write about these things at length as well. But there's some basic labs. And honestly, a lot of these labs,

your local PCP or GP could run these. You don't need a functional medicine doctor. I think that's important to know, at least a starting point. Obviously, we can get deeper with other labs in functional medicine that they won't run, but at least a starting point. Or even if people have labs, they can even look at their most recent labs, pull it out and compare it to the optimal ranges. So some good starting points would be A1C and glucose. Those are very important for people to understand. You're fasting glucose. The optimal ranges is under 90.

That's what we want in functional medicine. ranges is under 90. That's what we want in functional medicine. A1c, we want it under 5.4 or at least around 5.4 at the upper limit of that. Those are the optimal ranges, not just the lab's reference range. That's your three-month average of your blood sugar. Triglycerides, we want that triglycerides to be under 100. Above 100 can be a sign of insulin resistance or blood sugar problems. I mean, the reason why I'm focusing first on these metabolic issues is that it's estimated that 50% of the United States has some problem with blood sugar, where they're on that blood sugar insulin resistance spectrum, if you will, where it's maybe mild, maybe moderate, but it's contributing to how they're feeling.

But a lot of people have metabolic syndrome and prediabetes, and they don't even know it, feeling. But a lot of people have metabolic syndrome and prediabetes, and they don't even know it, let alone all the type two diabetics that are out there. So those are three. HDL is another one that we want that quote unquote good cholesterol to be above 59. If you look at the triglyceride HDL ratio and make sure those are optimal, that's something that the American Diabetic Association uses, the American Heart Association. So we look at those as well. And inflammatory markers that are basic stuff, you can have your local doctor run them, is high sensitivity C-reactive protein, HSCRP. It's an inflammatory protein. We want that to be under one in functional medicine. Above one is a sign of inflammation. Homocysteine is an inflammatory marker. We want that to be under one in functional medicine. Above one is a sign of inflammation.

Homocysteine is an inflammatory marker. We want that to be under seven. Above seven could be a sign of inflammation as well. So those are some basic metabolic labs and inflammatory labs that are good starting points. And then we can get deeper from there. And how long can we rely on today's lab results? So I guess actually the question would be, how often should we be getting labs done like on a regular basis? So that way we have something to go off of.

Yeah, that's a great question. So it depends on what you're dealing with, right? It depends on if it's the person that's just, I want to optimize my health. I want to feel the best I can feel. And I want to check in periodically. I would say every six months isn't a bad idea to see where things are at. See if what you're doing as far as your lifestyle changes, whether that be physical activity, food changes, improving sleep, whatever you're working on, you want to see if it's working

and moving the needle. So that's a good starting point every six months. If you're dealing with more chronic health problems, I would tighten that up a little bit, do three to four months at the beginning at least until you get a good rhythm on if what you're doing is working. So with patients, when I'm clinically monitoring them, typically it's every three to four months just to make sure we're objectively moving in the right direction. A functional medicine doctor will most likely monitoring them. Typically, it's every three to four months just to make sure we're objectively moving in the right direction. A functional medicine doctor will most likely use some unconventional ideas and concepts, right, to end up finding the answer. So my understanding would

be that oftentimes you go to a regular doctor and they see that you have an issue with your cholesterol, they might just prescribe cholesterol medication and it might be warranted for various reasons. But a functional medicine doctor would probably start to maybe poke around at some different areas, look at different labs. Is that kind of accurate? Without a doubt. Yeah. I mean, cholesterol is a great example. without a doubt yeah i mean cholesterol is a great example i mean total cholesterol by itself is a very poor predictor for assessing cardiovascular risk factors so it's like flipping a coin about half of people who have heart attacks and strokes actually have normal to low cholesterol so it's very reductionist to say well cholesterol above 200 that's always a

bad thing and we should take all the measures to get it lower. That may be the case. Like you said, some people need to be on some statin drugs and that's appropriate, but there's a lot of people where they're not actually looking at the context. The context matters in so many areas of life, especially health. And especially when it comes to cholesterol. So we have to look at the quality of the cholesterol and the context of the cholesterol instead of saying it's above 200, let's get it down with a statin drug. So better predictors for assessing cardiovascular risk factors would be that HDL. You want that HDL, the good cholesterol would be above 59, like I said, which adds to that total cholesterol because total cholesterol or cholesterol is a sum of HDL and LDL. So if you raise the HDL, the good cholesterol, that's going to bring up that total number.

LDL, which is very much misunderstood, it's just reduced as bad cholesterol. But the reality is it's not LDL that's all bad. It's the type of the particles that carry cholesterol that could be potentially problematic. So in functional medicine, a core lab that we run, which is a conventional lab, I mean, it's something that Quest LabCorp can run. They call it by different names. Quest calls it CardioIQ, but it's a nuclear magnetic resonance or NMR test. It's what's known as a sub-fractionation of particles that carry cholesterol. So basically, we're looking at the quality of the particles that carry cholesterol. So basically we're looking at the quality of the particles that carry cholesterol and you're at two subtypes of LDL. You have small dense LDL particles.

Those are like oxidized, rusted BB bullets that aren't good. They are inflamed. They're oxidized. They can potentially tear through arterial walls. That's not good. But there's also large, buoyant LDL, which are like fluffy buoyant cotton balls that are protective, just like the good cholesterol, just like HDL. So we have to look at the nuance of it in the context of cholesterol, instead of saying, well, above 200, let's give everyone a statin drug. Well, let's read between the lines and actually look at what's behind all of this. And there's some people that have slightly high cholesterol because of genetics and they're fine. They're in pattern A, they're in the non-oxidized pattern. They have low triglycerides, they have low inflammation markers, they have normal blood sugar. All right,

that's a completely different case than someone that has the same amount of cholesterol, or let's even say even low cholesterol, but it's high triglycerides, high A1C, a lot of inflammation. They're in pattern B, they oxidize LDL particles. That's not good. The total cholesterol isn't telling the whole picture. How does somebody go about finding a functional medicine doctor? Because I know a lot of people are frustrated. You know, they go to their doctor.

And I know that some people are also fishing around for maybe answers that they want. You know, they're kind of wishing that they get a different answer from these doctors. And again, sometimes the doctors could be 100% accurate. But I had a friend years ago, Brian Alsrieu, who just really was suffering with a lot of issues. He was really, really sick. He was throwing up, you know, multiple times a day. He got to a point where he threw up pretty much all day, every day, 30 times, 50 times, 60 times a day. It was just insanity. He didn't know what was going on. And he went to a lot of different doctors and they didn't really know what he had. They speculated it was this or that.

He tried a lot of different medications and nothing was really seeming to have an impact. And then when I met up with him, I had just ran into him and he told me how sick he was I was like man I wish I knew because I have a friend that can probably help you and I that friend is dr. Gabrielle Lyon and I led him to to her and then she was able to kind of bounce him into seeing a couple different doctors and she was very open to you know not just handling it on her own and I think sometimes some doctors are intimidated by that maybe, and they don't want to, you know, kind of open up their playbook and test whether you have worms or heavy metals or

these various things. So where, how can people find a good functional medicine doctor maybe in their area? Yeah. Dr. Lyon is brilliant. She's an amazing human being too. So I, you could do two things. You could go to functionalmedicine.org. That's a good place. You could look up your zip code and you could look at their specialties within functional medicine experience that they have. We, my day job is I consult people around the world. We started one of the first functional

medicine telehealth centers in the world over 10 years ago. So my 8am to 6pm is talking to people via webcam like this. We just drop ship labs to them and we're providing this insight and guidance over time with them. So you can do telehealth, all that information is at drwillcold.com or find someone local at functionalmedicine.org. You know, I don't want to harp on the lab portion of what we were talking about. But when you mentioned, and I forgot the whole name, the neuromagnetic something, something, something lab. I know that a lot of people are like, OK, I'm going to go get that done and see what's up there. I know that a lot of people are like, OK, I'm going to go get that done and see what's up there. But we had Dr. Joel Gould on the podcast recently, and he was talking about the importance of vitamin D and getting your vitamin D levels checked, something that not a lot of people do. It makes me wonder, because you mentioned something earlier about how you ask people to do certain labs that, you know, most most doctors don't like this.

Again, neuromagnetic, blah, blah, something. Most doctors don't like this again, neuromagnetic, blah, blah, something. So I'm curious what other, I guess, lesser known labs should people maybe get done? Yeah, I think that the NMR test is one that's typically not ran because here's the reason for this is that it's superfluous from a conventional standpoint. They're going to give anybody and everybody they're going to recommend a statin drug if it's above 200. So it's not that the doctor's being like, like malicious or keeping information from you by not running an NMR test, they can run it, but the end result is still going to be that statin drug. So why would they run it? All they need is that cholesterol above 200.

So from a medical standpoint, their training is to diagnose a disease and match it with a medication. So they're running the most conservative labs to get the information they need to give that recommendation. But from a functional medicine standpoint, that context matters. The nuance matters to understand that, to see what is necessary for you. There's a lot of different options. So NMR test is interestingly conventional, but it's one that's just not ran that often. And some other more non-conventional labs, even though functional medicine centers within conventional settings like the Cleveland Clinic, they do run them there, but they're less common. I would say a microbiome test is one of them.

You mentioned like the worms and what's going on in the gut for somebody that has like GI issues. But even if you don't have GI issues, you don't necessarily have to have extreme digestive symptoms to have underlying gut components to your case because so much of our health is governed by the gastrointestinal system in the microbiome, all the trillions of bacteria in our gut. So it's 75, 80% of the immune system. So when you're dealing with any immune mediated issue or inflammatory problems, which are a

product of the immune system, you want to look at where the predominance of the immune system lives, which is in the gastrointestinal system. So looking at, it's typically a stool test. You could do like a one, two day, three day collection to look at the landscape of the good bacteria, any bacterial overgrowths, inflammation coming from the gut, intestinal permeability or leaky gut syndrome, digestion and absorption. All those biomarkers are found on a stool test. And then I would say another common, more out of the box test to consider would be a hormone test. That's a more expanded hormone test for anybody struggling with hormonal problems, whether it's a guy with low testosterone or things, low testosterone, or it's women with progesterone and estrogen problems or cortisol problems,

people struggling with chronic stress and fatigue. You want to look at what's called a Dutch test. It's a urine saliva test and there are different types, different tests, depending on the case. But all in all, it's going to give you a lot more insight than that snapshot in time on that lab. When you go to like a conventional lab for urine, for blood, you're just going to get serum bound. You're going to get the and where you're at that moment. But these urine saliva tests are a little bit more comprehensive because you're getting multiple snapshots throughout the whole day to get a bigger context of your 24 hours and how you're feeling.

I really appreciate your approach because you were saying earlier about A1C and glucose and these being metabolic disorders and how a large percentage of our population suffers from diabetes and people are just overweight in general. If people can figure out a way to be on a diet that's reasonable, that allows them to simply just control their body weight, not get any fatter, maybe just, you know, maybe even getting a little healthier. We don't need you, right? We don't need it. We don't need your book. We don't need your website.

We don't need any of these functional medicine doctors, most likely, unless we just run into some crazy problem. But what I try to share with people often is, and I hear you talking about the ketogenic style diet and things of that nature. I'm always trying to just to sell people on, look, man, let's just figure out a way to control the overall amount of energy that you take in every day so that you can work towards losing some weight because losing weight will most likely be one of the most beneficial things that you can do. Then you can kind of worry about all the other stuff afterwards. Do you think that's kind of a correct approach? Is that how you're doing some of your work? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I want to have,

I want to empower people to have agency over their health. And I think a lot of these things that people can do in their own life, they don't need a doctor for. So that's a good thing. I think there's so many people that are struggling right now and there's so much conflicting information out there online that they don't know what to believe. So if I could provide some sort of experience that I have clinically to say, look, if most people did this stuff, these simple things, they would start, the body's amazingly resilient. I mean, the body wants to find homeostasis. If we just give our body some slight changes, it can have exponentially like

high power over our physiology. You know, it makes me curious. Cause like Mark mentioned how, like, I think on your website, you website you mentioned like ketotarian, right? I have no idea what that is. So maybe we can talk about that. But we when we had Ken Berry on, he's also a medical doctor who changed the whole way he did everything. And now he uses a bunch of nutritional interventions for all the people that he works with. And, you know, it's wild. So I'm curious about yourself within naturopathic medicine or not naturopathic functional medicine.

I had naturopathic down. You know, you deal with so many different issues. But why why are you focused so much or it seems that you're focused on using the ketogenic diet in different ways? Why the ketogenic diet? I have to say to like, we're such a small community, I guess, but Gabrielle Lyon, Ken Berry, these are like awesome people. We're like all buddies in the, in this space, but the ketogenic diet is a tool. It is a tool of many tools that I use in my clinical practice.

Something that I've experimented with over the past 15 years personally. And also about the past 11, 12 years clinically in different iterations. There's many different ways to do it. Ken Berry is going to be a little bit more of a traditional ketogenic diet doctor. He really is an expert in that. And Gabrielle Lyon is really focused on the lower carb protein. So all doctors have their slight focus on it. All doctors have their slight focus on it.

As a functional medicine practitioner, I don't really have a tribal focus on one thing because I know I'm meeting people at all different points of their journey. And I'm meeting all different types of cases. And if I hung my hat on one thing for everybody, I'd be proven wrong all day long. So yes, there's some common truths. Like all of us are talking about these things that are true, but I need to know not just what's clinically going to move the needle in a positive direction. And look, there are different faster ways that we can get someone healthier faster, but you also have to know what they're even up for. Like, what are they even ready for? And the science and the art of what we do is that if someone's stressed about what they're doing or they hate what they're doing because even though it's good for them, they hate it. That stress around eating is going to produce a completely different result than someone that really loves that same thing. So I have to meet the person where they're at and then explain what's clinically necessary, but meet them where they're at.

So find something sustainable, but also moving the needle in a positive direction. So the ketogenic diet is something that I advocate for. It's something I do in my own life as well. Ketotarian, you mentioned like not knowing what it means because it's a made up word. I completely made it up. It's not even a real word. So it's a clean ketogenic diet. It's a mostly plant-based clean ketogenic diet. So it's pescat ketogenic diet. It's a mostly plant-based clean ketogenic diet. So it's pescatarian keto, sort of Mediterranean keto in many ways. And it has things like olives and extra virgin olive oil and wild caught fish and nuts and seeds and low fructose fruits and coconut and all that stuff. That's sort of my approach to keto for people. And that's something that I'm exploring in a deeper way

in intuitive fasting. It's my newest book where it is how do we pair a clean ketogenic diet with flexible intermittent fasting, which are two sides of the same coin. The more fat adapted somebody is the more they're going to go without eating so much because they're more fat adapted and they can go longer windows without eating. But the more somebody is eating a clean ketogenic diet, at least periodically, the more fat adapted they're going to be as well. So they're both sides. The more fat, the more fasting you do, the more fat adapted you're going to be, the more ketogenic you are, the more fat adapted you're going to be. So that's definitely something that I implement with my patients as well as personally. Intuition fasting kind of sounds like inadvertent fasting,

like where you simply because you're getting the supply that you need, you do not really just, you're not really thinking about food. And so you just end up in a position where you're like, I'll just eat later. Yeah. Yeah. And on one end, like if somebody's metabolically inflexible, like we were talking about this metabolic markers, they have chronic inflammation, maybe their cardiometabolic markers are not good. It's paradoxical. How could fasting ever be intuitive?

That's part of the reason why I titled the book that way, because to the lay person that is struggling with different health problems, fasting is going to be anything but intuitive because they're going to be hangry and be needing that next snack because their blood sugar is all over the place. But when somebody has metabolic flexibility, that is fertile ground for proper signaling pathways to have a true knowingness of when you're hungry, you eat, and when you're not hungry, you don't eat. And that's possible for every human being. But you have to put the work in to actually show up for yourself, your health, because that craving or that hormone imbalance is going to mask itself as intuition, quote unquote.

What are some of the easy things that you kind of referenced earlier? You said, you know, there's some easy things you can do to, you know, stay out in front of, you know, having a healthy metabolism. What are some of the things that you like to recommend for people to do? having a healthy metabolism, what are some of the things that you like to recommend for people to do? Well, first, I would decrease the things that drive inflammation levels in the body and more specifically disrupt the microbiome, the gastrointestinal system. So decreasing the amount of grains, predominantly gluten-containing grains, decrease that. That's going to disrupt the microbiome. It's going to raise blood sugar because of the carbohydrates. And most people have some sort of inflammatory response to gluten containing grains. So that's wheat, rye, some oats, barley, spelt. And then decrease the amount

of conventional dairy that you're having. There are better forms of dairy. I mean, there's fermented grass-fed dairy, there's beta-A2 milk. There's better versions of it. I mean, there's fermented grass-fed dairy. There's beta-A2 milk. There's better versions of it. But for the sake of simplicity, decrease the amount of conventional dairy. Added sugar, which most people know that. But even the euphemisms of things that doesn't look like sugar. So educate yourself on labels and know that even if something sounds like, well, it sounds so natural, like agave nectar, it's still sugar.

And it just sounds prettier. And then the fourth would be industrial seed oil. So like soybean oil, canola oil. Some people are fine with a little bit of these in packaged foods, but oftentimes it can drive inflammation levels and should be limited. And I mean, those four things I just mentioned for the most part, everybody in functional medicine, you mentioned Dr. Berry and Dr. Lyon, we're all going to get behind that because those things drive inflammation levels and disrupt the microbiome. And then you start increasing healthy fats like the ones I mentioned, olives, avocado, coconut cream, wild caught fish, grass fed beef, increase those, a variety of plant food like vegetables cooking vegetables if you have digestive problems a lot of people think okay like the salad is like the picture of health right but they're not even digesting salads right they're bloated and they have gi pain from salads and it's because their gut is so wrecked that they can't even digest plant foods that are raw so i would have focus on more cooked foods soft foods soups, at least at the beginning while you're getting your gut healthy.

So those are some key things. And then tighten your window of eating. And that's something that I talk about intuitive fasting. You don't have to do any extreme fast, like just do a 14, 16 hour time restricted feeding a day, meaning maybe bring your breakfast up a little bit, like have a, allow a couple of hours after you wake up to start eating, to allow that your body to have a bigger rest time after you wake up. That, you know, it makes me wonder why you, um, why you believe fasting support. Cause I mean, I fast too quite a bit every now and then. And, um, like there are some days that I do some days that I don't, uh,

but within like, I guess within the fitness industry and the health industry, you have certain individuals who are very high level who are like, fasting is totally unnecessary. It's totally faddish. You don't need to do it. It doesn't really have that many benefits. Just eat the same amount of calories throughout your day and you're going to

be okay. Then you have individuals that are like, you know, there are benefits to fasting. There are some benefits that maybe, you know, there are just, fasting. There are some benefits that maybe, you know, there are just there are different benefits to it. So I'm curious as to you, what benefits that you feel people have from restricting their time of feeding and why you may think it's important. So it's a tool like any anything else. I think that it's a tool that people should experiment for themselves.

And we're all different. That's the heart of functional medicine. It's bio-individuality. So I don't think everybody needs to do it to be healthy, but it's a tool that can enhance things and amplify things and move the needle for people that are maybe stuck at a plateau to mix things up to kind of, what is it? It's a hormetic effect. It's a form of hormesis, just like working out is. So that good stress and shaking things up a bit can make your metabolism more resilient. It can increase lipolysis and fat burning, but it's also a form, a way to start producing some ketone bodies. It is a way to

start tapping into what researchers refer to as the fourth macronutrient. We have protein, fats, carbs, and ketones. Beta-hydroxybutyrate is a fuel for the body. So it can pass through the blood-brain barrier. It acts as a signaling molecule for lots of different pathways in the body. So it acts as a natural anti-inflammatory. So a lot of times people that are struggling with different inflammation issues, it's like an endogenous natural NSAID or Tylenol that your body makes on its own. It lowers things like NF-kappa B, the COX-2 pathway, the NRP3 inflammasome, basically all these pro-inflammatory cytokines that you don't rent really high. This is a natural anti-inflammatory. It increases something called autophagy, which is cellular recycling, sort of our body's own repair mechanism, our own anti-aging mechanism in a way. And it increases mitochondrial biogenesis, actually making new mitochondria. We talk about the gut microbiome. It resets the flora, all the bacteria in the gut because our gut seems to have this circadian rhythm where certain colonies are higher in the morning,

summer colonies are higher in the evening. So having a little bit of a break of eating helps to reset that. So it could be an amazing, let's get us past the plateau for people that are doing good things, but want to take it to the next level. But look, try it, be consistent with it.

If you're going to try, just like any type of working out, you have to be consistent for a while. See if it's actually moving the needle for you. Does it improve your quality of life? And do your own end of one experiment. If someone doesn't like it, then I would say maybe try a different type because there's tons of different ways to do intermittent fasting. But if you really don't, doesn't resonate with you, doesn't mean you have to do it, but it's a great tool and it's completely free tool as well, which is appealing for many people. In your experience,

how connected has mental health been to diet? This is an important topic because in the West, we like to separate mental health from physical health. Like it's as a mental health issue. Like I have anxiety or someone has depression, someone has brain fog or fatigue or ADD, ADHD. I mean, any one of these sort of brain health issues or mental health issues, the reality is mental health is not separate from physical health. Mental health is physical health. Our brain is part of our body. And there's a whole field of research looking at this. It's known as the cytokine model of cognitive function. research looking at this, it's known as the cytokine model of cognitive function. Cytokines are pro-inflammatory cells. So it's research looking at how inflammation is impacting how our brain works, how inflammation is impacting our mental health. So I mentioned how that beta

hydroxybutyrate, the ketone can really work on lowering neuroinflammation, improve something called BDNF, brain-derived neurotropic factor. That's one of some of the neurological benefits of a clean ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting and many, many other things is so helpful for people with things like anxiety and depression and brain fog and other neurological issues. So we can't separate and isolate and compartmentalize mental health from physical health. And I think that's central to my work with my patients because a lot of them are struggling with different degrees of this. And when they start realizing, okay, the things I do in my day-to-day life can make a major impact, it can actually help my brain be healthier. That's a powerful tool. a powerful tool. That actually makes me wonder if you could, I know everybody's different. So this might be kind of a, like too general of a question, but when you think of people's lifestyles now, you know, like I mentioned, we had Dr. Joel Gould, who's talked about people aren't getting

sunlight at all. People aren't getting outside. They're going from box to box to box. And that definitely has a effect on your circadian rhythm, your sleep, which will affect your mood and your mental health. Um, so we, we will affect your mood and your mental health. So we know that there are like habits that people have that are not beneficial for their mental health at all. But nutritionally, has there been any type of trend or, or general, you know, I guess pattern you've seen in terms of people coming in with certain issues that have common like nutritional habits? Are there things that you're just like, Hey,

this is, this is a trend that I see with a lot of people that eat this way. Um, maybe try taking this out and making the switch. I mean, you talked about seed oils, dairy, all of that, but is there anything else? Those core four that I mentioned, the grains, the dairy, the sugar, and the industrial seed oils, those are definitely like if someone hasn't experimented with getting rid of them for a time and seeing what that can do for not just brain health, but this overall systemic health, that's a good starting point. If you haven't some other foods that are a little bit more, uh, less known, even though I think they're more known than ever, but now, but foods that are healthy, but are problematic because of people's gut problems, meaning they are real foods. They're from the earth, they're from,

from their natural stuff, but they are problematic because of the epidemic of gut problems, basically. So the four more foods above the core four that I would say would be nightshades, which are plant, a plant group that includes peppers, tomatoes, white potatoes, eggplants, goji berries, all good stuff. Like I love stuff. I love ketchup. I love hot stuff. There's nothing wrong with it. But some people's systems, they're reacting to these foods like the alkaloids in these nightshades.

They're driving GI inflammation, joint inflammation, musculoskeletal inflammation, flare-ups for certain people. Eggs are another good example. I love eggs. But some people, the albumin in the egg white, it's causing inflammation levels in their body. Legumes would be another one. I don't have a problem with legumes. Some people do. So the roughage, the lectins, protein in different beans can be problematic for some people.

And then nuts and seeds. I don't have a problem with nuts and seeds. Some people do. That goes back to that earlier point with as far as my clinical practice. I don't have an agenda on like these are bad foods, these are good foods, because I want the person to know for themselves what works for them and what doesn't. So I do fine with them, but maybe I know many patients that won't do well with a configuration, different lists of those foods. They'll have problems with that. We're all different.

So those are some healthy foods that people should at least consider thinking, oh, do I feel bad around when I have those foods? And maybe consider removing them for a time and doing sort of an elimination diet approach. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by friends over at Piedmontese Beef. Real quick, I have to give a huge shout out to my boy in SEMA. Dude, you looked fantastic for that photo shoot. What were you eating for your meal prep? So it's actually pretty awesome. The reason why Piedmontese is so great is not only does their beef taste amazing from those jack cows over at Piedmontese, but it is not only does their beef taste amazing from those jack cows over at Piedmontese, but it's also pretty low fat. They have certain cuts to have more fat, but it's like

a diet steak. And I coined that from you, Andrew. You're the one who called it a diet steak because leading up to the shoot, I wanted to lose a little bit more body fat. I didn't want to eat a crazy amount of fat. So I just like honestly loaded up on protein and steak from Piedmontese. Can you tell me the macros on their flat iron, Andrew? Cause you know those. Yeah. So the flat iron, I believe is like 46 grams of protein to only four grams of fat. I mean, tell me another protein source that has that ratio of protein to fat. Like it doesn't exist. And then even more so, so the diet steak itself that I, you know, I guess I could have some claim to fame. I call the Bovet steak a diet steak because there's like 100 grams of protein for the whole thing and only 16 grams of fat.

But the thing is, it's like the size of a football. You know, so for anybody that's really trying to cut down and they like, oh, I can't be on a diet because I'm always hungry. Try eating a Bovet steak, you know, see how you feel. You're going to get tons of great protein, tons of healthy fat, taste amazing, and I can tell you right now how to get 25% off that. You guys got to head over to Piedmontese.com. If you know how to spell it, say it with me. It's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout.

Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two day shipping. That's actually what I was just about to ask. If the, if is the elimination diet or a form of that, the best way to go about trying to figure out what sits well with you, or is there any kind of labs or any tests or maybe some, some guided instruction from a functional medicine doctor that somebody can do

to help better understand. Cause I know for me in my past, um, I I've struggled with a bunch of different foods, you know, like Mark would try to, you know, uh, school me on certain things. Like, Oh, if you have this, you'll, you know, feel this way. And I'd be like, dude, I, you know, crap my pants like nonstop, you know, like with the carnivore diet. Um, so it's like non-stop you know like with the carnivore diet um so it's like really frustrating um so is there like maybe a certain direction you can guide people in regards to figuring out how they can find out what foods sit well with them and which ones they should definitely avoid yeah i think that there's no lab at this point that I like better when it comes to food reactivities than an elimination diet approach. So that's why my second book, the one that right before intuitive fasting, I came out last year.

It's called The Inflammation Spectrum. And it really is a deep dive in that. And it's just born out of my clinical practice and seeing how to do an elimination diet in a way. So in a way that works and gets you feedback for yourself to know, Hey, I don't feel good when I have this. And it's a no brainer at that point to keep it out for a time. So it's, but look, I mean, reintroduction is just as important as the elimination. So sometimes people remove it fine, and then they just like, it's sick of it. And then they bring it all back in and they don't get any information on if it works for them or not. And so I want the reintroduction chapter of that book, the inflammation spectrum is really

important so that you can get that information on what foods are causing the issues. Now, look, there's a whole section in that book. Exactly what you were talking about is like, if you're still having problems on the carnivore diet, which is an ultimate elimination diet, we have a, this is something going on here. So that's most of my patients is that they've done all that stuff. And then there's a whole sidebar in that book that talks about histamine intolerances, salicylate intolerance, oxalate intolerance, FODMAP intolerance, people that have beef allergies because of certain immune problems. So there's a lot of beyond the basic stuff that at that point, labs are helpful. That's not the basic food sensitivity testing, which to be honest with you, those have less

to do with the food and more to do with the immune system's overreaction to those foods. So when I see tons of foods lit up on those food sensitivity testing, really all it's telling us is that the person has intestinal permeability, their inflammation is really irritated, and it's attacking, it's tagging everything with an antibody. So if you went to the lab like the next week, you'd see different foods being positive on that because it's the snapshot in time. So an elimination diet is way more appropriate as a starting point to heal the gut and calm things down. And then later on, if you want to run a food sensitivity testing, you can get better data on that because things have chilled out a bit and you may know sort of underlying what's really irritating the immune system, looking at chronic infections, et cetera, that can create this sort of low grade inflammatory response long-term, despite cleaning up your diet with like a carnivore

diet, which you can't really go more specific than that as far as eliminating things. You know, there's something that I know that you can help us and the listeners kind of understand more of. Um, when I used to train people in person a few years ago, uh, whenever I'd have like a heavier client come in and we'd talk, they'd say that, yeah, my doctor said I have thyroid issues. And that was like something I heard so much. My doctor said I have thyroid issues. My doctor said I have thyroid issues. And, um, that's something that I'd like even close nowadays, whenever, like sometimes when I'll talk to those like heavier individuals again, it's like, oh yeah, my doctor said I have thyroid issues. So my, my first question is how legitimate is that? doctor says hey you have thyroid issues is that sometimes just kind of a blanket you know thing to say you have that i mean some people legitimately do but is it over what's the word i'm looking for

is it over like diagnosed is it over diagnosed sometimes for for the general population when they go to normal doctors and then also because you you know you you have a lot of knowledge here how does somebody actually really know if they do have thyroid issues? This is an important topic. To me, I think if anything, there's two different things going on. I think what you're saying is right, because the doctor wants to help the patient and they're like, oh, it's a thyroid problem.

It's slightly off. They want to give that something to help that person. So they give a levothyroxine or Synthroid or something like that, some thyroid replacement hormone. I do think that's going on. And I bet for your client base that you were seeing, I could see that being the case is like they were probably advocates for their health enough to go want to seek answers. And the doctor's like, maybe it's this, that's the TSH is slightly elevated. And TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. It's a pituitary hormone, a brain hormone.

So just like what I mentioned with cholesterol context matters on that too. So there's a lot of thyroid problems. You have to look at the context of that, not just hanging your hat on one number on a piece of paper, which is a snapshot in time, because it's going to be all different depending on the day that you collect it. So there's two things, the context of the person and what they're dealing with, because the thyroid hormone, the imbalance is there or dysfunctions there. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. I find that sometimes people, their immune system is so stressed out, they have other

things going on. They maybe have lifestyle, like mental, emotional stress that is going on. And those other variables are what's suppressing the thyroid. So it's not always that, well, the thyroid's low, let's get it up. And that's what you'll see happen is that people do take the thyroid replacement hormone. Their numbers do improve on labs, but they don't feel any different. So at that point, you have to say, okay, well, obviously it wasn't the thyroid that was keeping you back from doing all these things. We have to look at, not be so myopic and say, it's just that one thing. With that said, they're not running comprehensive thyroid labs typically in the conventional setting, unless the person's really fighting for it. Back to that cholesterol analogy,

it's superfluous. They're going to give everybody synthroid or levothyroxine and maybe like a T3 like cytomel. But beyond that, that's what their options are within the conventional system. But we want to run a full thyroid panel and then look at the optimal range is not just the lab's preference range. So we're looking at TSH, total T4, total T3, and then free T3, free T4. The body converts T4 and T3, 80%. And that conversion happens in the liver. We have to look at liver health and then 20% is converted in the gut. So we have to look

at the gut microbiome. And then we have to look at thyroid antibodies, thyroid peroxidase antibody, thyroid globulin antibody. These are autoimmune markers. I mean, the majority of low thyroid problems in the West are autoimmune in nature. It's really not a thyroid problem. It's the immune system attacking the thyroid, thinking it's a virus or bacteria, Hashimoto's disease or Graves' disease, some sort of autoimmune thyroid issue. So I think there's two things going on. One, they just think, OK, this levothyroxine is going to solve all these people's problem. And for some people, it is a tool.

And for some people, they need to be on those things for sure. But what happens to the people that they're told this is thyroid, but given the T4 and they don't feel any different. So at that point, it's not dealing with the full complexity of why they feel the way that they do. So that would be my thought on that. You're trying to solve the problem on the level that it exists, right? So if somebody has this thyroid issue, what sparked that like where did where did this come from did it come from environmental reasons did it you know but you try to trace it back with your knowledge and it sounds like you have such a vast knowledge of uh just keeping

people really healthy and strong um what are some things that people can do to protect themselves against we're now hearing like there's other strains of this virus perhaps kicking around and things like that. I know you're also well-versed in like red light therapy and things of that nature. What are some things that we can do to keep ourselves healthy and strong and staying away from some of these viruses? I know we hear people talk about washing the hands all the time and social distancing. What are some things that we can actually go and do to be proactive to make sure we don't end up in some compromising positions? The best thing you can do, I mean, beyond all the basic things like you mentioned, of course, like do that. But the real health side of things, like how can you make your immune system the most

resilient and mitigate risk factors as much as you can? And we can't control everything. There's people that there is exceptions to what I'm about to say, but the vast majority of people that have the most severe cases are very metabolically inflexible. They are very metabolically sick. are very metabolically inflexible. They are very metabolically sick. And that's back to that earlier statistic that I said that 50% of the United States is struggling with some sort of blood sugar problem and insulin resistance. So the more that you become metabolically flexible, the better chances you have with having a less severe case, and you'll be able to fight it. Your body will be able to fight it appropriately. So leaning into these practices of a clean ketogenic diet, leaning into things like intermittent fasting, that starts to train your body to be more metabolically flexible,

these healthy hormetic effects to make your immune system more resilient, your metabolism more resilient. Specific nutrients, I mean, vitamin D is the obvious one. And vitamin D, you mentioned earlier, but it's responsible for over 2,000 different genetic pathways. Very important. It is very much correlated in studies coming out now that the people that have the most severe case tended to have lower vitamin D levels. So make sure your vitamin D is somewhere between 60 to 80 is the optimal range. Most people, even if they're supplementing are not 60 to 80. So you want to get your vitamin D checked because if you're supplementing, I see it all the time, they'll be better than if you're not

supplementing, but it's like maybe 30, maybe 40, maybe 50, but that's it. You want to be a higher range than that to get the best optimal ranges for vitamin D. And then food is first. I mean, you want to really look at food as medicine to provide your body raw materials to have all the phytonutrients, all the polyphenols it needs, all the vitamins it needs, but also stable macronutrients to balance your blood sugar because blood sugar volatility is really anathema to immune health. So you want to have blood sugar stability for sure. Now, I want to piggyback off of something that Mark asked, and it's because of our boy, Josh Sittledge, that helps do all the research on the guests that we have on. He mentioned that you dabble in terms of like light therapy or

red light therapy and in terms of like seeing if it's legitimate or not and I know I'm curious like how legitimate do you think that is because some people see that and they're like that's all BS it's just light or it's just red light and then I don't know I don't know if you you think that there's benefit to it there's a lot of people that say that it has benefit towards the mitochondria, etc. So how important do you think it is or how beneficial do you think it is? And yeah, can you help us understand that? Sure. Yeah, I should have mentioned that under the immune system.

I think it's a great tool to consider, but it's like a tool like all the other things. I think it comes secondary to food. I don't think you'll red light your way out of a poor diet i think you get to start with like some core things and then if you want to add these other things in and experiment it there's no risk factor to it to try and see if you like it there's some exciting research around it to show it does improve mitochondrial health it does support pathways that could be beneficial with lowering inflammation and modulating the immune system in a positive direction. But for some people, look, more studies, of course, need to be done over time. There's a lot of anecdotal benefits

as far as people noticing it improves their quality of life. And there's really no risk factor to give it a try. And be consistent with it if you do try it. Because sometimes people do it for a little bit and they say, it doesn't work for me. That's like doing anything sporadically and saying it doesn't work for them. Like they show up to the gym once a month and say it doesn't work for them. It's going to take time and be consistent. So like anything, any craft, any art that you're trying to get good at,

be consistent. And I see these tools to be part of that too uh and i could go there's a huge list of things that come to mind on that is that to really see if it works for you you have to be consistent with it have you seen any firsthand um experiences with red light therapy that somebody has you know that i don't know if you prescribed it but like maybe you know you kind of gave someone the idea to go ahead and start doing it. Have you seen any reports or anything firsthand from anybody getting some real benefit from the red light? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's as I mentioned earlier, my whole focus throughout the day is talking to people with chronic health issues.

A lot of people with autoimmune problems. talking to people with chronic health issues, a lot of people with autoimmune problems. And we, because I'm with them for such a long period of time, I'm consulting them via webcam over the course of a year to two years, we can really hone in on, okay, let's move the needle with these core things. Let's dig in deeper with certain protocols. And I've seen the needle move in people's health journey time and time again with something like red light therapy, where they felt good. They were better with the foundational things we leaned into. But then they layer in tools like red light therapy, like a juve light or something like that, or ice like cold therapy or sauna therapy or these type of more out of the box, non-food, non-natural medicine, non-medication things. They really can be a tool in the toolbox to lower inflammation, to support the immune system,

improve energy, improve sleep. I've seen all of those. How weird do you get with some of this stuff? Like, are you wearing the blue blockers and watching the sunrise and, you know, concerned about your circadian rhythm and things like that? I'm not that weird. I talk about the sunrise and, you know, concerned about your circadian rhythm and things like that. I'm not that weird. I talk about the weird stuff, but I like to keeping it simple. I don't know. For me, it's like, I feel great. I don't need more tools just for the sake of it. I don't, I don't tend to be more of a biohacker type. I have a lot of patients that are biohackers and I have to know this stuff clinically. I know the research, I know how to implement it. I've experimented with all of these things to know for myself, but it's, they're not things that I, that are major needle movers for me

to know all this stuff. And I'll tell you what, like, even like, well, I do have blue light blocker glasses. I guess I'm a little weird, but not that weird, but I'm looking at a screen all day and my eyes get fatigued staring at screens all day long. So I find that my eye fatigue has improved. But, like, I want to get the patient feeling the best they can feel. And for some people that have exhausted all options, they're really struggling with different things, let's bring in other tools and try them out and see if it's a needle mover or not. But I'm pretty basic here. Even like biohacking tracking stuff,

like Oura Rings, the Lumen, I use them for patients. But for me, I don't have to. I'm pretty intuitive with my body to know, hey, if I do this, I feel good. If I don't, I check in with my labs periodically, like I said, but it's not something where I have to know day-to-day all these metrics. It kind of stresses me out. And stressing about this stuff is not good for your health.

That's better. Just keep it simple if you're overwhelmed with this sort of issues. But some patients love it and they want to see the end of one on a day to day basis. And it encourages them to keep going. So it's definitely we integrate those things when patients need it or want it. those things when patients need it or want it. You know, before you actually got on the episode, we were talking about like how we switch between just like different foods, different, I guess, dieting practices on a day to day, sometimes week to week basis. Right.

And then when you were talking about, um, Keto Terrian or Mediterranean Keto, um, you mentioned that you're not very tribal in your diet approach. Obviously everybody's different. So my curiosity is that, is there a benefit? Because when somebody sees a diet, they do the diet and a lot of individuals, then they're all about keto or they're all about carnivore, they're all about paleo forever. Now, in your opinion, do you think that over time that it's beneficial or there's a benefit in just switching the way you eat from time to time, still keeping the core concepts of healthy foods, you know, some of the main things that you mentioned, sort of the seed oils, etc., still keeping certain things out, but switching things up over time? Or do you think that, like, if somebody were to do Mediterranean keto, right, and they really liked liked it that they could just stick to it for the rest of their life i think if they enjoy it the the enjoyment around

food and the that someone loving it having a positive attitude towards it really is fundamental for the sustainability of it but also the effects of it as well. If someone's finding anything arduous or punitive or restrictive for long, it's not good because it's not going to create, it's not going to be sustainable. And even if it is sustainable, it's going to be such a source of dread and negative obsession. They're not going to actually produce good results in the longterm. With that said, that's something that I'm exploring in detail and intuitive fasting. It's macro variability. It's diet variation. I think that that works for a lot of people, especially if they're stuck at a plateau, like if you're feeling great and you love what you do, just keep doing what you're doing. But if you're like, okay, there's something,

maybe I'm better off than I was, but I'm not where I want to be, or this isn't working for me, then I think shaking things up is a great way. So that could be eating window variability. So in the book, I do vacillating cycling of eating windows. That's a great hormetic effect on the body and macro variability too. So I think that's good for the gut microbiome. It's good for the metabolism. It's good for a lot of different things. It's sort of like a yoga class for your metabolism where you keep it flexible and you keep your body adapting to life itself, which it's a good idea. So, yes, to answer your question, yes, I think that variability is a good idea for people to try. You mentioned also just like sustainable and someone being able to enjoy their diet being most important. So my question is in regards

to artificial sweeteners. You try to recommend something to somebody like, hey, switch from regular Coke to Coke Zero. And they're like, oh no, artificial sweeteners. Like, I can't do that. I heard those are bad. So what's your stance in oh no artificial sweeteners like i can't do that i heard those are bad uh so what are what's your stance in regards to uh artificial sweeteners well look they're they're not healthy i would say that they have their their studies to show there's several studies that show that that these things can definitely disrupt the microbiome. They're not good to have

for a lot of people's digestive health. But do I think it's relatively better from a metabolic standpoint over the regular Coke? Yeah. But just because something's better doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal. So I'm fine with the better option if you have it occasionally, but are there optimal, more optimal options? And we live in a time now where even if it's not a health food, but there are like stevia sweetened sodas out there. There are different, more like monk fruit sweetened sodas that are out there as well that are at least, are those health foods to be having

copious amounts no but they're at least a little bit more natural and less insulting to the gut microbiome than something like you know sucralose or aspartame um how did you end up being uh keto and vegetarian same time how'd you come to this? I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess, maybe. I don't know. I was more plant-based for a long time and then it evolved. I noticed I was depending a lot on carbohydrates for fuel. So I just switched up the macronutrients

and I'm more of a pescatarian keto with some grass- fed beef too. It's really flexible. It's not super dogmatic, but it's still mostly plant-based. And it just evolved. It was evolving of like, okay, this worked me for a time. I don't, my energy's not great. I adjusted to a higher fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate,

macronutrient ratio, hence ketotarian. And that's really where I came to be at is my own personal journey with food. And then clinically at the same time, I hosted a podcast for three years or so called Keto Talk. And I kept hearing a lot of questions of potential pitfalls of the ketogenic diet. I'm stuck at a plateau. And they were depending a lot on bacon and butter all day, every day, because it was keto, but it wasn't good for them long-term. They had a honeymoon period with keto because it's way better than the standard American diet. But back to my earlier statement, just because something's better doesn't necessarily mean it's

optimal for long-term health, like months and years down the line. So that's another reason why I wrote Ketotarian to say, how do we make this sustainable lifestyle change and integrate these whole foods that will help you in the long run? And just because something increases ketosis doesn't necessarily mean it's great for your health long-term. And just because something decreases ketosis doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for you. So, so the name of the game isn't just anything to get increased ketones at all costs. It's what's the bigger context of your health and understanding that, you know, multiple times during the episode, you, uh, you talked about the gut quite a bit. Um, and you know, you mentioned things that obviously are not good for

your gut, but, uh, like I really like Greek yogurt and kimchi, right? Um, you hear that that stuff's good for the gut, but is it like, is it actually really like that? Like, does it really make a difference? I'm curious. Are there foods that maybe people should start implementing into their diet that is good for gut health? Um, cause I used to say like probiotics in the past, I don't really take that anymore and I'd haven't noticed a difference. Right. So, um, yeah. Are there any foods that people should start implementing into their diet that really will be beneficial for their gut health? I think fermented foods like that are great ideas. You know, getting a grass fed yogurt. If you're problems with dairy, well,

look, fermentation does mitigate some of the dairy issues because the fermentation helps with the casein breakdown, the dairy protein and the dairy sugar. But you can get coconut yogurts and other yogurts if you have problems with that to get cultured bacteria from that. Kimchi, I love kimchi too. You can try kombucha, you can do kvass. There's lots of different fermented foods that are good supporters of a healthy gut microbiome. So they're less like grass seed where they come and like populate the microbes and make more bacteria. They're more of like influencers of the microbiome economy. They are like good bacteria that will just encourage good diversity of the microbiome

as well as those foods, specifically the kimchi. They have fiber. So fiber is good prebiotic food for producing more good bacteria. And look, good bacteria are also antibiotics in many ways too, because they help to kill off any opportunistic or dysbiotic bacteria. They're regulators of the microbiome. So that is something to think about. But be judicious with it. Some people that have digestive issues, more isn't always better and they can feel worse with these things. And then they think, oh, this isn't for me. Well, how are you using this? Start off with a low amount because they can cause, they're shifting the microbiome

and that can cause some symptoms like more bloating or more digestive symptoms. And especially if you're new to that, but start off with a small amount, test it, see how you feel. A lot of people really enjoy them. It improves their overall digestive health and they enjoy eating it in general. But yeah, those are some things to think about. Look, there's nuances to all the things I said. Those fermented foods are all also higher in histamines. So some people are histamine intolerant and what I just said doesn't apply to them, but it's about the context of the person.

If you have histamine intolerance, you probably don't want to have those fermented foods, but many people can enjoy them. There's not a lot of good research supporting that probiotics do much of anything. Is that correct? Yeah, there's some studies to show that it can be beneficial. Is that correct? Yeah. There's some studies to show that it can be

beneficial. I prefer starting with food. And from there, if you want to experiment with probiotics, and typically it's not high enough, you have to get a higher colony forming units to actually see changes. But I find, in my opinion, that the needle moves stronger for people just starting with food. And that's not just probiotic food, but it's prebiotic foods too with fiber. Great. Where can people find out more information about you? Thank you for your time today.

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. Everything is at drwillcole.com. That's D R W I L L C O L E.com. Great. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Thanks guys. Thank you. Have a good day. You too. That for your time. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Have a good day. You too. That was very informative. Holy shit. Yeah. It was a lot there. He's spitting out a lot of information.

Yeah, that's fucking awesome, though. Yeah, I think when it comes to, you know, you see, you know, the yogurt and it says, you know, probiotics and it says how many billions, whatever it has on there. I just think it's important for people to know there's not a lot of research that is like well established that says this is definitely good for you. Which we already know with nutrition science, it's just really, really hard to tell. And for the reasons that he mentioned. So I think the best way to go about, you know, handling stuff like that is just to try and for the reasons that he mentioned so i think the best way to go about you know handling stuff like that is just to try it for yourself you try it and you feel that you enjoy the food you like it you feel like you're digesting things well then maybe you stick with it yeah it's

not exciting but what he said about um start with the food first is so important um just i was just when you mentioned probiotics like it reminded me when my diet was you know all over the place you know like oh probiotics that's gonna help my stomach and like i went to um camera where it sprouts and i was like hey what's like the best probiotic and of course it was like you know and it was like 60 or something you know and i'm not saying like oh that's a hell of money but like when you look at all the other ones they're like you know like 10 bucks crazy yeah and then it's like bam here's this one that's like in this fancy box and i'm like 60 bucks a month probably you know right yeah so i'm like that's the one i'm going with and i remember one i didn't notice anything but

also like i got real constipated i don't know if it was just because that or because it was timing with the rest of my shitty diet. Yeah. So exactly what Mark's saying and exactly what Dr. Will Cole just said, start with a diet and try it for yourself. But like, don't put too much weight on one pill that's going to you think is going to help that gut. It's going to be a lot more work than just that. help that gut it's it's going to be a lot more work than just that and looking at my past you know it's four years in the making of where i can actually you know handle some decent food and you know not feel terrible yeah no it's like you throw so many things at a board you're just trying to see what sticks yo absolutely yeah yeah when really it's just you know trying to be a little

bit patient and you know eat better foods than in and out and fries every day you want, trying to be a little bit patient and, you know, eat better foods and then in and out and fries every day. You want to try to have as little intervention as possible. You know, you get get everything you need from food. And then if you are somebody that cares that much and you get your blood work checked and it turns out you might need magnesium or you might need to supplement stuff or you're on a low carbohydrate diet and you cramp up and you want to utilize a product like Element or whatever it is that you're doing, you just want to try to pay attention to how many of these supplements you're taking and what are they doing for you? Do you really feel like you're getting a benefit from them?

Are you noticing a difference with your blood work? Do you feel good? This is the basics. them are you noticing a difference with your blood work is it you know do you feel good you know this is the basics you know are you feeling really good every day is probably where you should start that's why the big concepts I think are like the most important like he had some great concepts of the gut you know decreasing grain seed gluten you know conventional dairy sugar industrial seed oils those are really good concepts to start with. Some really good things to start with, along with getting adequate sleep,

adequate amounts of protein, exercise. There are a lot of things that you can just kind of check on a checklist and make sure you have all those, and they'll probably deal with a lot of the issues you're dealing with, you're trying to deal with, rather than adding some probiotics into the mix and cut X extreme, whatever, like all these random things that probably aren't going to make that much of a difference. It's easy to get confused because you're, I don't know, your stomach hurts or you have an issue. Like, man, I end up in the bathroom all the time.

This would be great. I heard probiotics are great. And you run to the store and you try to pick up stuff and you don't really know. the store and you try to pick up stuff and you don't really know, you don't even know like, you know, how stable the probiotic is like in the product. Like it's just, it's so hard to know much of anything. And nowadays, you know, there's, I've heard more recently, there's a lot of knockoff products on Amazon. And so when you buy a supplement from Amazon, there's companies that go so far out of their

way. I mean, they get busted here and there, but they make a lot of money first. They will try to mimic or copy what the other, what the superior brands look like. So, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like just shitty stuff going on, you know, and, and then plus the supplement industry is not all that regulated and stuff like that. And so if you can get it from your food, then you're on the right path. And, you know, eating whole foods, people can argue all they want about diets. But if you just are eating, you're eating fruit, vegetables and meat, you're not going to be fat.

You're going to be in great shape and you're not going to need a lot of supplementation probably. Yeah. And taking things slow. You know, like, oh, and Seema said that he has Greek yogurt and, you know, he has a good healthy gut. I'm going to eat, you know, a bucket full. That's some stupid shit that I would do back in the day. And be like, oh, my gosh, it doesn't work for me because my stomach is cramping. It's like, oh, because I haven't had this much dairy you know my entire life so

yeah one step at a time hey yo real talk though go to trader joe's you want greek yogurt it's uh the prices over there are great and cranberry juice i think stan is a big fan of cranberry juice from joseph it's cheap there like really yeah um the the cranberry juice at uh trader joe's they have such good prices over there what's going on i don't know it's like three or four bucks whereas the same one at Raley's is like nine or ten dollars. It's like Lakewood or something. Lakewood. Yeah. No added sugar. It's like double the price at Raley's. It makes no sense.

I don't get how they do it. Damn. I don't know. But go to TraderJoe's.com slash PowerProject. Just kidding. That'd be sick. Which yogurt though? Because I just get Fie like at Walmart. Oh, dude. See? Yeah. No. greek yogurt is uh it's like this they have different flavors they have an unflavored one but it's a full fat

greek yogurt and it has some like honey in it or whatever or that's yeah but it's they have an unflavored one if you want that do they have a fat-free one why do you want a fat-free free yogurt what what ew that's what I use ew they probably do but ew that free that free is a little rough yeah

the uh the problem with Trader Joe's is that they have plantain chips so plantain plantain

I don't know how to and you love them they're so good the spicy ones I gotta try those if I go get yogurt from there I'm gonna get like

five bags of those they got good snacks man yeah i was gonna say places like that have a lot of good snacks because they sell you on the healthy version of that food but you know it's just like ambiance of the place you think everything's fair game you know yeah everyone's like a hippie in there have you noticed that like everyone here is totally healthy you don't see a lot of it's not walmart oh that is so true it's not walmart but they can see that i'm a foreigner when i walk in there though like i don't know where anything is and like i'm always in someone's way and they get pissed off at me like a tourist yeah that's the one in elk grove though so maybe it's different elsewhere you know what the weird thing about trader joe's is too

the prices are actually great but why is it how they have all this stuff they're they're tiny but why is it that for some reason like for years i always used to think trader joe's is expensive even though they're not they're really not it's not like i like i have to go check it out i haven't it's great prices for great things yeah i think some place some grocery stores just sell different stuff like a place like nugget like nugget sells it sells different stuff so it might price people out of it because of like the type of products they have there but if you look at like some of their cereal or something like usually it's similar price you know but then they'll have like weird eggs you know they'll have weird omega-3 freaking you know from the chicken down

the street you know yeah a lot of weird stuff and then so you look at the prices in there and you oh my god how come prices are so jacked up but it's like a almost like it's not not boutique grocery store but sort of you know it's different let me rewind real quick i gotta i gotta make a comment about something you said about the amazon thing, dude. I really was like wondering, cause I was looking up some supplements months ago on Amazon. Like, wow, why is this so cheap now?

Why is this so cheap? I didn't buy it because it was suspiciously cheap. But that makes a lot of sense. Cause I hate running into a word. I can't say that well. Suspiciously. Um, still can't say self-conscious.

Self-conscious. Fuck it. Subconscious. Self-conscious. Still can't say self-conscious self-conscious some subconscious self-conscious still can't say that word self-conscious words conscious arugula arugula nope nope no that one's fine hey arugula coffee hey but yo yeah be careful about those subs on amazon because it might be a six dollar vitamin d but that's not some vitamin d you might not be getting the d that you're looking for nope no it's uh actually that you mentioned vitamin d i was looking up um k2 and uh so like vitamin d on its own don't know the price in my head but like we'll say it was 10 bucks vitamin k2 on its own was 10 bucks when you get the combination it was like

five it was like very different i'm like uh who knows what the hell like the amounts you know what i mean yeah they use more ingredients and yeah i'm like the capsule size chain like whatever you know i mean but i was like no like i'm gonna pass on that one might as well just like go with reputable brands yeah yeah you try to go with brands that you like i always use a company called jero j-a-r-r-o-w and they've been around forever yeah prices are like in the middle you know they're not it's not like super cheap or anything but they've just been they've been around for a long time like why not use you know someone that you that's been around and executed well for a long time.

Yeah. But yeah, that shit on Amazon is kind of trippy. That sucks. Yeah. Everything off. They've been doing that for a long time with, like, electronics and stuff. Right. So I guess it's not a big surprise.

Yeah. Those bastards. Take us on out of here, Andrew. I will. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode just got word as we're podcasting that element is still offering the free recharge pack

yeah so we're just as confused as you guys were we didn't know that they were going to keep it going so we don't know the the end of this so if you guys haven't done so do so right away because it could be over by tomorrow. So just head over to drinklmnt.com slash power project, claim a free recharge pack,

just pay $5 shipping and you get eight samples. Really just amazing stuff. I'm sipping on some right now. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Biles Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on Twitter. Don't forget the newsletter. Links down in the description and the podcast show notes. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? And SeemaYingYing on Instagram and YouTube. And SeemaYingYing on Twitter.

Mark. At MarkSmellyBell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.