The Rich Roll Podcast - How to Be Well: Frank Lipman, MD On The Keys To A Happy & Healthy Life

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

Health isn't the absence of disease. It's a total state of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social wellbeing. Frank Lipman, MD gets it. And today's conversation reflects this very ethos. A leading trailblazer in Functional and Integrative Medicine, Frank began his training in his native South Africa. Disillusioned with the limitations of conventional medicine, he then spent 18 months working at clinics in the bush. Introduced to local traditional healers (sangomas) kindled an interest in non-traditional healing modalities, catalyzing a passion for combining the best of Western medicine with age-old Eastern techniques of healing, including acupuncture, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, meditation, and yoga. Today Frank treats patients holistically as the founder and director of Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in New York City. In addition, he is a New York Times best-selling author of six books: Total Renewal*, Revive*, The New Health Rules*, 10 Reasons You Feel Old and Get Fat* and Young and Slim for Life*. His newest book is entitled How To Be Well*, a beautifully illustrated primer on improving and strengthening your resilience, functioning, and overall health. This conversation expands the aperture on what is required to live truly well. It's about understanding food as the very building blocks of life. It's about the primacy of sleep and movement. It's about how to mitigate and prevent the invisible assaults of everyday toxins. It's about the importance of carving out time to unwind and reboot. And it's about our innate need to connect with each other in order to awaken and enhance a sense of belonging and meaning But most of all, this is a conversation about the power we all have to take better control over the quality of our health and lives. One caveat: Frank is not vegan or plant-based. Let's just say we don't exactly see eye to eye on everything. But we are great friends who extend a mutual respect for each other. We agree on the majority of things that contribute to wellness and disease. And we enjoy poking fun at each other over our differences. If we want to advance the conversation on the future of health, there is something to be said for building bridges.

Health and disease are not binary. It's not black or white. There's this huge gray area between the two. And all of us are somewhere on the spectrum between health and disease. And what you can do is move somewhat over to the health side. You don't have to become perfectly healthy, but if we can move you along the spectrum towards health, you're going to feel much better. So making a diagnosis is less important than asking yourself these two questions. What are you putting into your body or on your body or doing to yourself that could be harming you? And at the same time, look at what does your body need? Are you getting enough love? Are you getting enough sun? What is lacking and what needs to be removed so your body can heal itself or function better? That's Dr. Frank Lippman, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What is happening? How are you? What is the good word? Welcome. Welcome to the show, the show that goes deep, the show that gets intimate with some of the world's most forward-thinking, compelling minds, change-making personalities across a wide spectrum of basically everything well-being. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Like I said, welcome. Pull up a seat.

Get comfortable. Take a deep breath. Hold it in. Exhale. How does that feel? Feels pretty good, right? Pretty damn good. Sometimes we just forget to

breathe. It can change everything, your whole perspective in just a moment. Got Frank Lippman on the show today, the good doctor, Frank Lippman, as well as a good friend and functional medicine pioneer. He's dropping in for his second appearance on the show. His first was way, way back in the day, episode 72, back in the double-digit days, from all the way back in February of 2014. If you did miss that one, and many of you probably did, as the show has grown considerably since then, I suggest you delve into the archives and give it a listen at your convenience, for many reasons, not the least of which is that it really explores Frank's background, which is truly fascinating in much more detail than we do

in today's conversation, which provides some great context. Today's conversation is much more focused on the practical tenets of preventive medicine with, I think, more than a few great takeaway nuggets that you guys are really going to enjoy. So I just got back from Italy, hosting our retreat in Tuscany. Got home a day ago and a little bit jet lagged. Sorry if I sound a bit spaced out, but pretty grateful, got to say, pretty darn grateful. It was amazing. Julie and our crew, we flew into Rome initially.

We spent a few days there acclimating and touring around the city. And then spent seven days at Borgo Aisulana, this extraordinary villa in the Tuscan countryside, hosting this retreat. I think we had 38 campers. And it went well. It went really well. and it went well. It went really well. We ran Colin Hudon,

who's been on the podcast before, Chinese medicine doctor, as well as a tea expert. He hosted daily Chinese tea ceremonies. We meditated. We did yoga. We ate incredible plant-based food on a menu designed by Julie with almost all the recipes

from the new book, The Plant Power Way Italia. And I got to say, special shout out, thank you to Diego and Veronica from Love Life Cafe in Miami, who came all the way out to work their butts off in the kitchen all week to deliver

really next level cuisine over that seven day period. It was really something special. We did workshop intensives. We had a day with a happy pair of lads. We did a cooking demo we toured sienna we did uh holotropic breathing that was a trip to say the least we did we did a lot and uh and it was good uh by the way we recorded a couple of the sessions just like we did uh in the ireland retreat including live podcasts and q and a's with the happy pair boys

with chinese medicine practitioner Colin Hudon, and Ayurvedic specialist Jennifer Ayers. And I'm going to be sharing those conversations with you on this platform in the coming weeks. And after the retreat, Julie and I, we went to Venice to spend a few days unwinding, which for those of you who have been there, I mean, it's such a mind-blowing place. And the whole thing, the whole experience just left me amazed and grateful and frankly, a little baffled that this is my life, that this is what my life has become. And as I was boarding the plane home, I was scrolling through my phone and I noticed that somebody tweeted out an old blog post of mine and tagged me. It's a post called Time to Man Up. It's a post that I wrote back in 2010

when things were very, very rough for me. We were going through a financial dismantling and I had some very difficult decisions I was wrestling with about what I was going to do with my career and my life. And I just, at that period of time, I really couldn't see my way forward. So I decided to click on the link and read this blog post, which is something I hadn't done since I posted it eight years ago. And it's all about the choice between fear and faith, between basically falling in line with social expectations or having the courage, the gumption to follow your instincts. And that was a very real choice for me at that time. It's a choice that I would say was far more difficult than any ultra I've ever raced. And it's a choice that could have gone either way. But I realized as I was

getting on that airplane, I had this kind of epiphany moment where I truly understood that this blessing that is my life, that everything that I get to do today can literally be traced back to that choice that I made back then to really face fear and trust in myself. And reading it, reading that post, revisiting that time, the how and the why behind making that choice, it was super emotional. And it was also an instructive reminder to me. So I decided to post it again. I posted it on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter.

And the response, the outpouring was pretty amazing. So if you missed it, you can go on my Instagram and find it, check it out. Or you can search the archives of my website. The post again is called Time to Man Up. And I'll also link it up in the show notes for you guys. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you.

I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment

and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially

because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen,

or battling addiction yourself. I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay. Frank Lipman. Frank Lipman, MD. You know, what I like about Frank the most is that this is a guy who truly understands that health is so much more than the absence of disease.

That true health, true wellness is really this total state of physical overall system, a microcosm within the macrocosm. Frank is a pioneer. He's a trailblazer. He is a leader in functional and integrative medicine. He's also the founder and director of 1111 Wellness Center in New York City. and director of 1111 Wellness Center in New York City. And this is where he combines the best of Western medicine and cutting edge nutritional science with age old healing techniques from the East. Things like acupuncture, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, functional medicine,

biofeedback, meditation, and yoga. Frank is also a New York Times bestselling author of six books, How to Be Well, The New Health Rules, 10 Reasons You Feel Old and Get Fat, Revive, and Total Renewal. I'll have links to all of those books in the show notes. And his newest book just came out in April. It's entitled How to Be Well. And this book is both a beautiful piece of art. There's incredible artwork throughout this book. It's really quite something. As well as a very handy and accessible primer,

basically on just improving and strengthening your resilience, your functioning, and your overall health. One caveat I should mention probably is that Frank is not vegan. He is not plant-based. So he and I don't exactly see eye to eye on everything, but we've been friends for years and we just have this mutual respect for each other. We agree on the majority of things that contribute to wellness and disease, and we enjoy poking a little bit of fun at each other over our differences. And here's the thing. I think

if we really want to move the conversation forward on the future of health, it's important to build bridges, to take the heated emotion out of the scientific debate and really strive to better understand each other's perspectives and ultimately attempt to create consensus on the biggest issues, the biggest contributors to both health and disease. Anyway, I always enjoy Frank. Like I said, we've been friends for years. I found this conversation both enjoyable and informative, and I hope you do too. So let's get into it. Frank Littman in the house. So good to see you, my friend. Lovely to see you.

I was thinking back as I was, we're hosting this podcast in a little meeting place in Venice, because you're going to be catching a flight a little bit later. So we kind of pieced this together. And as I was driving down here to meet with you, I was reflecting back on not just our relationship, but the first time that I had you on the podcast. I mean, you were one of my very first guests back early in the day. I remember fondly doing it in your office. I remember clearly too, yeah.

What's the name of the dog that runs around your office? She's not there anymore. Oh, she's not? Yeah, yeah. Coconut. She passed away. No, no, no, my health coach went to live, who's the owner, went to live in India for two years.

We need a new dog. I know, we missed her. Coconut was wonderful. And the patients loved her. It was actually very healing for people. Yeah, for sure, it's nice. I mean, it's like, it's unusual to go into a doctor's office and see a dog walking around.

It's not normal, but if you think about it, that's a very healing thing. Absolutely, it's one of my tips in the book. Yeah. Get a pet, yeah. Well, we're gonna talk about it. The new book is called, How to Be Well. And I'm just getting a chance to, I'm familiar with it, but I'm just getting a chance to look through it now.

It's not out yet. It comes out in early April, correct? Yeah. It's beautifully put together. It's almost like it's sort of a mashup of beautiful graphic design with very practical, accessible knowledge about how to essentially be your healthiest best self. Exactly what it is. Yeah, you nailed it. Yep. It's cool.

It's really well done. So I wanna unpack that, but as sort of a prefatory thing that we can kind of get into a little bit before we even get into this, we have this kind of ongoing joke between us. Like you think of me as like the outlier vegan, like I'm the one vegan who actually can be healthy and go do these things. It's like, I feel like the more sort of crazy races I do,

that just makes me more of an outlier. And like, I'm doing it to like show people, like actually you can do it too. It's funny how that works, but it's all in good fun. And I think, you know, what's cool is that we can have this friendship, this relationship amidst an environment of sort of toxic discourse when it comes to health right now. We're, you know, we tend to sort of navigate to our silos. I think that the conversations that are going on

in health right now are reflective of the conversations that are going on in politics. And I find that quite disheartening. We may differ on a few things, but I would say that on 90% of things, we're going to agree. I agree 100%. That's exactly what i was going to say almost everything we agree on it's like very few things and even our diet is very

so i mean my diet is basically you know i have a tip 70 you know vegetables or plants or 70 of it vegetables 15 fat and we're not create a perfect plate, 15% protein. Protein can be some animal protein. Right, we can quibble about that. And just so we have the cards on the table, Frank, you're my long-term project. I'm gonna get you one of these days. It's gonna happen, I can see it.

Yeah, but basically, yeah, I agree. I think we eat probably very similarly, except for that like 10, 15%, that's it. Right, right, right, right. Well, you know, we shared your, you have this amazing backstory, your personal story about how you kind of came to be the person that you are and do what you do.

And I don't wanna get too far in the weeds on that because we talked about it last time. And if people are interested in that, you should definitely go back and listen to that episode. I'll link it up in the show notes, but I think about it last time. And if people are interested in that, you should definitely go back and listen to that episode. I'll link it up in the show notes. But I think it would be good because the show has grown so much

and there's so many more people listening now who may not go back that it would be nice to kind of hear a thumbnail version of that because I think it allows people to better understand where you're coming from as a whole. So I got trained as a traditional doctor

in South Africa and I qualified in 1979. And like all other traditional doctors, I got trained in the hospital. I got trained in hospital-based medicine, crisis care medicine, to treat acutely ill patients, heart attacks, acute appendicitis, broken bones, pneumonias.

And that was wonderful for hospital-based training. And when I finished the hospital and I worked in the bush, that type of training was also wonderful in the bush when people are acutely ill. But when I came to work in a private practice in Johannesburg, people were coming in and they couldn't poop and they were tired and they had headaches and they had these problems that I wasn't trained to treat. And I realized then something's not right with the way I got trained. And actually the doctor I was working with said to me, don't worry, patients get better by themselves in spite of what we do. But I knew there was more we can do. And I saw people getting better from acupuncture and homeopathy, which was, I was working in this hip practice in Johannesburg. But anyway, I knew there

was more. And then I came to the States. I immigrated in 1984 because I didn't want to live in underparties. So my wife and I immigrated here and I had to do three more years in a hospital. And I, you know, I got a job in the South Bronx in 1984, which was this burnt out area full of crack addicts and heroin addicts. And once again, I was working in the hospital and I saw the strengths of Western medicine. We're treating really sick patients. But at the same time, when people would come to the outpatient clinic, there wasn't much we can do. It was Western medicines, drugs or surgery. And I was very disillusioned

with Western medicine. And there happened to be an acupuncture clinic attached to the hospital. I went to check the acupuncture clinic out and I walk into this room and there's about 50 addicts sitting quietly with needles in their ears. And that blew me away because these are, you know, addicts are hard patients to treat. They're pulling out their IVs and they're shouting at you. And here they were sitting quietly with needles in their ears. So I went to check out, you know, the guy who started the clinic and I said, can I come, you know, study and check this out? And he said, absolutely. And for the next three years, I was studying Western medicine in the hospital and seeing the strengths of Western medicine. And I used to go to the acupuncture clinic where they were seeing completely different

patients, the ones who were tired and couldn't poop and had headaches, et cetera. And I saw right away that they were both treating completely different patients and they were both successful at what they were doing. Chinese medicine wasn't particularly good. If you had a heart attack, acupuncture wasn't going to help you. And Western medicine was great at the acute care and crisis care, but it wasn't particularly good at these chronic type of problems. So it was obvious for me then that I knew the future of medicine would be a combination of the two. And I think it was easier for me coming from South Africa during apartheid and knowing that the system is rotten and you don't, you know, you don't trust the system. So I had

the same feeling towards the medical system. The medical system to me was rotten to the core. It was, you know, it had the hubris of thinking they could treat everything. So I went on this journey. After my training, I had started acupuncture and Chinese medicine at the clinic. And afterwards, I sought out teachers. I sought out Chinese medicine teachers in San Francisco, Harriet Binefeld and Ephraim Korngold, who remain my teachers and friends. I got into yoga and meditation and nutrition. And it was a journey of discovery for me because I knew this is not, you know, Western medicine was very limited. Right.

So it was sort of easy for me and I knew there was a better way. It wasn't, I didn't have to question anything. So it was sort of what I did. to question anything. So it was sort of what I did. And eventually it turned out, you know, functional medicine developed and I started practicing whatever you want to call it. You know, functional medicine and Jeff Bland, who's the father of functional medicine, gave me an operating manual in a way

because when I was starting, it was like a little bit of meditation, a little bit of this, and it was like a hodgepodge of everything, whatever worked. Jeff Bland came along and had a system, an operating system for me to work as a basic system and then just combine some other things. And so that's the very thumbnail version of the story. No, but I get it. And I think what's interesting is you having that foresight, that idea that this was indeed the future of medicine. I would suspect you might've thought that that future might've been in the nearer than in the,

I mean, it's like, I feel like it's only kicking in now, and now we're having this conversation and there's more and more people that are exploring medical careers in the fashion that you blazed so long ago. But I would think that there were some years there when you were starting out where you would have been looked at as some kind of radical. I was for so many years, you know, as I say, from quack to guru. For so many years, I was this outlier and quack. from quack to guru.

For so many years, I was this outlier and quack. And when I, and here's an example, in 1987, I was chief, they'd asked me to be chief medical resident at the hospital. So I wanted to give them a talk about acupuncture because I was so excited because I was seeing acupuncture work. And I thought, well, these are smart guys. I'm going to do ward rounds. I'm going to do the rounds on acupuncture.

These guys like me, I'm chief medical resident, and I'm going to just in a very nice way, explain to them, it's not imposing on what you're doing. It's working for something completely different. And I thought they would be turned on. I thought people would be open. So in 1987, I gave grand rounds on acupuncture and almost all the professors came to me and said, Frank, what are you doing? You're going to be ostracized. This is crazy. This is quackery. And no one got it. But I knew that this is what I want to do. So, yeah, it's changed a lot. Now people are much more open. And it's just interesting to see. You know when you know something works for you and it's right.

You've been down sort of the similar path. It just was the right thing to do. It was never, ever should I do this or should I. I just knew what I wanted to do and I knew it was right. And I was seeing results that I never, there was nothing that ever questioned it because I just knew that this is the way. Yeah, I think it requires one to transcend this like binary notion that we have,

that it's either Western or Eastern or it's my way or the highway. And the truth in fact lies in a more nuanced approach, this idea that everything may have a purpose at the right time for the right person under the right circumstances. Exactly. And when you walk into your office,

you have treatment rooms, you're doing acupuncture, like what else is going on? Well, we do a lot of nutrition. I have health coaches guiding and supporting people through their programs. I have a woman who does chiropractic, who does active release technique, which is a targeted muscle therapy. I have my daughter and I in my office, who's a therapist. Oh, wow, your daughter. That's great.

So she does psychotherapy. Her thing is working with millennials. She's a millennial. She's 30. So she started, she works with, you know, trauma and everything's trauma. I mean, we all traumatize. So she works with millennials trying to make them aware of who they are and what they want to be. And she also has studied nutrition.

So it's great. So she's there. I have a compounding pharmacist who does a lot of hormones for me when women want hormones, or he makes the bioidentical hormones up and does some nutrition. So I have a nice group up here. And then I have another acupuncturist who helps me. What is the state of the nation

currently when it comes to functional medicine? I mean, obviously more and more doctors are getting into this, but I feel like we still have a long way to go. Are there certain like financial hurdles that are more difficult to climb for a young doctor who's looking to get into this or, you know, how does it all work? Yeah, I think the biggest hurdle is, I mean, I think doctors are definitely getting it, especially the younger doctors. I think the biggest hurdle is it's time consuming. Functional medicine, you've got to take a good history.

You've got to work out what's going on because you're looking for the underlying cause. It's hard to do this 10 minute consult with functional medicine. So I think that's probably the biggest hurdle for both patient and doctor, because for a doctor to do functional medicine properly, it's hard for them to stay in the medical system and take insurance because they're just not going to get reimbursed for their time. And then for patients, it becomes expensive because the doctor's usually

out of network. And so this is a problem. I mean, we still, I agree with you, it's still a long way from where we should be, but it is slowly. I mean, for me to see what's happening is still very rewarding to see the major changes happening. So if you're, let's walk through a hypothetical. A patient comes into your office, they're ailing from some infirmity, perhaps it's autoimmune disease, whatever it is, but their whole life, all they've done is go to their general practitioner, a Western medicine doctor. How do you communicate with this person to try to get them to understand where you're coming from? What is it that the average patient may not understand about how their body functions and how you can serve to advance the health of that person? Well, things have changed radically in terms of who comes in.

in terms of who comes in. When I see millennials, most of the millennials that come and see me, a lot of young women who have autoimmune diseases, they've read up on this. They know what I do. You don't have to explain anything to them. It's unbelievable. It's a self-serving,

self-selecting group of people that are coming in. It's unbelievable how aware these young kids are, especially women. And they often come in with their mother to actually show their mother to actually show their mother that they're not crazy. And they'll say, I told you, Ma. I told you, Ma.

And then the mother sort of understands or gets a little bit because she respects me because I'm an MD. So it's very interesting how that works. But for people who don't get it, and I'm seeing less and less of those people, I usually use metaphors. I mean, the commonest metaphor I use is if you're driving a car and your oil light goes on, you don't put a bandaid over the oil light, you see why the oil light goes on. And I explain to them, that's what I'm doing with your body.

The oil light is your symptom. Whatever symptom it is, it's an oil light. It's telling you something's off in your body. When you go to the regular doctor, he's just putting a Band-Aid over it. He's giving you a drug to suppress a symptom. I want you to start rethinking about these symptoms and understanding that that symptom is a pointer to some imbalance in your system. And what we have to try to do is try to discover or work out why this is happening.

So I think when you explain to people or they can visualize it or understand it from that type of perspective, they usually get it, especially if they've been suffering and they want to make changes and they want to get rid of what they want to get, the other, the one thing I do use for older patients is a little bit of fear. I say to them in a nice way to inspire them. I say, listen, if you don't do this, what's going to happen is you're going to slowly go downhill.

You may start losing some type, either it's mental function or you won't be able to use, move your body as well. I don't know, a little bit of fear to say, but that doesn't need to happen. Because as you said earlier, health and disease are not binary. It's not black or white. There's this huge gray area between the two. And all of us are somewhere on the spectrum between health and disease. And what you can do is move somewhat over to the health side. You know, you don't have to become perfectly healthy, but if we can move you along the spectrum towards health, you're going to feel much better.

So I use those type of metaphors with a little bit of fear in terms of what, if you don't do this, you know, you're just going to, why do you want to suffer? Right, right, right. And I like that idea of looking at it from a perspective of imbalance, which is a very Ayurvedic perspective. It's sort of like saying, there's an imbalance here. Let's look at what's generating that imbalance and treat the body in a way that it can correct that balance on its own, right? Yeah, that's exact. So this is what the Eastern traditions teach you. This is what I learned in Chinese medicine, which is so different to what I learned in

Western medicine. So that, when I learned, you know, and my teachers in San Francisco were unbelievable. They drummed things into me that, you know, they screwed with my head because it was very hard as a Western doctor, because you're so brainwashed to believe what your system is right. And you actually see your system working miracles because it does work miracles in the hospital. You know, people come in acutely ill and you give them IV antibiotics or steroids or whatever, and they get better. So it's a powerful brainwashing because you're seeing very sick people get better, but it doesn't work for the majority of the patients

who come in with regular symptoms. So it was hard for me in the beginning to sort of wrap my head around this different way of thinking. But once I got it, it was so freeing. It was like, you know, aha. I've been to a traditional Chinese physician, a very expert one, and had that experience of having your pulse read by a master pulse reader.

And there's all kinds of lore. I don't know how much of that is apocryphal about like what they can determine from this very nuanced approach to taking your pulse. Yeah. I mean, that's a very, you know, I never mastered that skill, but- It's like a lifetime of- Yeah. There are masters. Ephraim is one of those. I've been to some Chinese medicine people who can feel your pulse and tell you a lot about yourself. I mean, I just think these people are tapping into something. I'm not convinced it's the pulse more than they're just tapping into something. Some intuition. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fascinating, though, right? It's absolutely fascinating. But there are a lot of bullshit artists doing it. There is. And there's that instinct of like, this is a bunch of bullshit. This is like, you know, you want to dismiss it. And yet, you know, I've had great experiences with these people.

Yeah, me too. Absolutely, yeah. Me too, absolutely, yeah. Let's get into the book a little bit. What I like about this book is it's so elementary in many ways, you kind of developed this mandala of health approach, right? And you break it down into these various categories, which are essentially eat, sleep, move, protect,

unwind, connect, and we can unpack these individually. But what's kind of amazing about this is that these are all sort of self-evident things. It's very like basic stuff, right? Like these are, look, you gotta sleep more, you gotta eat, all this stuff. stuff, right? Like, look, you got to sleep more, you got to eat, all this stuff. But what I think is like the more interesting question is, why do people struggle so much with incorporating these habits into their lives? Well, I think you nailed it. Habits, the word

is habits. How do you create healthy habits? And there's actually a saying that my daughter taught me that, I don't know, it's not hers, but neurons that wire together fire together. So if you start doing something over and over again, you start thinking something, experiencing something, practicing something, eventually it becomes a habit and you don't have to think about it. If you can create these habits, then you're going to get healthy. You said earlier, a lot of this is simple. Most of it, this is just common sense. This is not, when I say some of the tips are volunteering, being kind to others, going for a walk on the beach or in nature, getting a pet. You know, we can go on these simple things, listening to music.

You know, it's these ordinary actions that we take for granted have extraordinary healing benefits. And we just, we ignore it because we're so enamored with, you know, Western medicine is this, it's dramatic. And healing often isn't dramatic. Most of the problems we have, we don't need dramatic drugs or surgery. It's just doing these basic little things, creating habits, and then you have a ripple effect and you get better and better. And it's what most traditions, you know, the more and more I got into older traditions, they teach these basic tenets about eating and sleeping and moving your body and unwinding and community. The one thing that's new for us in this day and age is the protect section, because that's how do you mitigate the effect of all the chemicals we exposed to?

But a lot of it, this is just, it's common sense. A lot of what I do is common sense. Yeah, and that's not always so sexy, right? We always wanna look at what's that supplement that we can take that's brand new that we've never heard of, or this new protocol that can be sort of listed under the category of biohacking.

Like that's what gets attention, but fundamentally it's these basic things that we know that we're hardwired to do. And yet our lifestyles have moved us so far away from practicing them. Exactly, that's it. What is the most sort of common infirmity that you're seeing these days?

Like when people come to you, like what is it that you're seeing people suffer from that maybe is, I don't know, different or? Well, what I'd say is different is, I mean, first of all, I'd say 80% of the people who come and see me have digestive problems, but of that 80% of those people who come and see me have digestive problems. But of that, 80% of those have developed autoimmune problems because of that. So there's this epidemic of autoimmune problems, especially in young women.

I mean, unless these are just the people that are coming to see me. And the tragedy of this is most of them or many of them or most of these autoimmune problems have been caused or have been doctor-induced by all the antibiotics that they were given as kids. prescribed antibiotics to such an extent that we have, it's not the only cause, but I think it's a major factor in creating a microbiome, a gut that is so imbalanced and has killed so many of our good bacteria that it's created this epidemic of autoimmune diseases. And it makes me mad because you see these young women who should be healthy struggling with these diseases that have really been caused by, I can't blame the parents, but doctors being so liberal with antibiotics. And I think it's criminal. Yeah. And it's true. I mean, that is clearly an epidemic that's occurring.

Yeah. And I mean, you see it across the board. and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be like this alchemy of like science and experimentation. Like there's an art to it, right? Like it's not like, oh, you have this, so we're gonna give you these probiotics and eat these prebiotic foods and you'll be fine. And, you know, check back with me in a month. It's a trial and error kind of very delicate,

nuanced approach to trying to figure out how to get to the bottom of these things. Yes, exactly. It's very nuanced. And this is where the art of medicine comes in, which, you know, interesting enough, in South Africa, because we didn't have the money to do all the testing that is done here, you got drummed into you to take a really good history because if you take a good history, you usually will get what the problem is all about. So a lot of it is in the history, and it is nuanced. It's because you're working on many levels.

You're working with the fear of these young women that they're going to not have children or they're going to have problems. You're working with them having to deal with their families and friends on how they're going to have to eat. They're struggling in their work environment because they're tired and they can't cope. So you're dealing on many levels. So a lot of what I'm doing is you're inspiring, you're motivating. And let's, you know, I've told you this before, when I said some of these young women come in and they're vegans

and you are always my example. I give, well, you should check out Rich Roll. One guy that I know. No, well, because you need to inspire people. And your story is inspirational. I can give you a list of powerful women, vegans as well to add to your list. Well, give me because a lot of what I'm doing is trying to motivate these young,

because most of them are young women. You're trying to inspire and motivate them and make them realize that they can get better because if someone believes they can get better, there's much more chance that that they can get better. Because if someone believes they can get better, there's much more chance that they're going to get better. So you're not only changing their diet and giving them supplements, but a lot of it is working with where their head's at. And you want them to really believe in you.

You want them to believe in themselves. And you want them to realize that they can get better. So it's worth the hardship of the changes they're going to have to make because they have to stop eating crap and they have to make a point of getting enough sleep and usually they're going to have to either start meditating or doing some breath work or yoga, whatever it is. So you're working on many levels with these people

because a lot of it is you've got to inspire and motivate people. It's not just giving them a program and you've got to support them. And I'm lucky enough to have these wonderful young health coaches who are incredible with my, I mean, I love my health coaches. They've just put a whole nother dimension to my practice.

So yeah, I think it's multidimensional. And I think that plays in beautifully to this idea of the mandala because the sort of Western mind instinct is to say, okay, let's make a how-to list or a list. And, okay, what's the most important thing? And I'll do that first. And the idea of the mandala is that you can enter at any point and go on what is essentially as much a spiritual odyssey as anything else on this process of uncovering and discovering. Yeah. And discovering yourself and becoming aware of yourself. The whole idea of the mandala was actually my attempt to take everything I've learned from the Western perspective. And so for many years, I tried to understand Eastern medicine from a Western perspective. What are meridians? So those

are the fascial plane. So what is qi? So all these things for years, I was trying to understand what the hell were they saying in Chinese medicine? It's just a different language. This book, or when I started thinking about this book, it was my attempt to take my Western knowledge and put it into sort of an ancient or Eastern system that would make sense for, you know, make Western medicine or take that Eastern knowledge and then put my Western knowledge on top of that.

And that's where, you know, because, you know, I'm obsessed with mandalas. And so that was my attempt to take all this Western knowledge in a way and put it into a mandala because a mandala is a, and I have in the mandala, you, the patient are in the middle,

in the center. And that's what I do with the patients. It's like, you need to take control of your own health. You know more about your body than I do or any practitioner does. And the more you learn about yourself, the more you can take charge and be the author of your own health. So that's how it worked. And as you said, the mandala with the circles, you can enter at any point. It's a no a no program program it's not a dogmatic system a specific diet a specific exercise regime it's finding what works for you and then just

continuing along that path and fundamentally it's self-empowering right it requires you to take personal responsibility and and shoulder that for yourself which is the antithesis of the traditional experience of going to the doctor who, you know, in many cases, that person, to no fault of their own, it's really a systemic thing, strips you of that agency and says, don't go on the internet. I'm going to, you know, and try to figure this out for yourself. I'm going to tell you what to do. Just do what I say. And there's none of the personal responsibility aspect or very little of it in comparison to what you're averaging. Absolutely. And what I find when people, especially these young patients that I see,

when they see that they have more control and they can do things, it's incredibly, as you say, self-empowering. And I mean, I've seen unbelievable changes in people. I mean, makes them into powerful young women. It's wonderful to see. So yeah, so it's working on many levels, which is very exciting. Yeah, and men as well. I mean, our common friend, Seamus Mullen,

who's got on the podcast, shared his experience of working with you and turning around his health. And that was a journey, you know, it didn't happen overnight it wasn't like you know he did one thing and everything got fixed it was a process of self-experimentation and you know this didn't work and this is working and constantly kind of tweaking things yeah he went yeah but he's a perfect example i mean now he's like such a jock you know he probably can probably can outride you. I'm sure he can. He's a strong dude.

So it's wonderful to see. It's just so beautiful to when you see those type of changes, when people take control of their health. You know, Seamus knows more about this stuff probably than I do. I mean, the guys. So I love that. I love when you can do that, when you can take people on this journey and then start taking, you know, bringing up whatever, some wild animals, setting them free.

It's wonderful. I wanna get a little bit deeper into this idea of protect, which is, you know, one of the pillars or one of the arms of the mandala, so to speak. Cause I think this is important and it kind of gets overlooked or it gets cast aside as like woo-woo or something like that.

If you start talking about like, well, I need to detoxify or there's too many toxins in my system, people are gonna start looking at you a little bit weird, like you're making it up, right? So walk me through like your perspective on how the human body kind of deals with environmental, nutritional, and sort of stress-related toxins.

Right, so why I put it in there is because as you say, I mean, everyone knows you eat, sleep, move, relax, and connect or community. I mean, everyone knows you eat, sleep, move, relax, and connect or community. I mean, that's pretty standard. But as you point out here, people or too many people don't realize the plethora or the number of chemicals and toxins we are exposed to on a daily basis. And that's because, you know, whether it's the food or the water we drink or how we, the cosmetics we put on our skin or how we clean our houses, most of these products now have chemicals in. So it's not that we expose to five or 10 or 20, we exposed to hundreds and hundreds on a daily basis.

And our bodies do have detoxification systems. We have, you know, our liver is- This is the job of our liver. Exactly. In particular, in our gut. The problem is our detoxification systems are overloaded because of the number of chemicals we exposed to on a daily basis. So for some people, they can manage. For other people, especially some people who have maybe some enzyme deficiencies or which could be genetic, they struggle. And then they can deal with five, 10, 20, 100 toxins. But once the body gets overloaded

or it overwhelms the detoxification systems, then problems start because these chemicals can cause all sorts of problems if they're not broken down properly. Some of them are endocrine disruptors, which is very common, so they affect your hormones. So we're seeing a lot of younger women with hormone problems. Just to go back a little bit, what we're seeing now is in what I saw in my generation is much more exaggerated in this next generation because they've grown up with all these chemicals.

When we grew up, there weren't as many chemicals. So you're getting these sicker, younger people because they've been exposed to chemicals from such a young age when their detoxification systems were still developing. And so the systems have been overwhelmed from such a young age. So these chemicals can go on to cause cancer. They can go on to cause so many chronic diseases because the chemicals can either stimulate certain enzymes or inhibit certain enzymes so they affect your body's metabolic processes on every level it's just not only the hormones it's how chemicals are broken down how food is is is broken down. And they can mimic certain, and working together,

certain chemicals can mimic other chemicals. So it's a complicated system. And so the solution is to try put, or be aware of all the chemicals out there and try put on your body and in your body as few as possible. We're all going to be exposed to chemicals. You don't want to get neurotic about it

because it probably produces more stress chemicals in your head. Yeah, so it's not a, you know, and you've got to be careful because some people become neurotic about it. It's just being aware of it and doing little things that can help, like, you know, going for a walk on the beach, breathing in fresh air, little things like that,

having plants in the house. But probably the most important way of dealing with it is, Probably the most important way of dealing with it is, or the starting point, is to try and decrease the amount of chemicals you put into your body. So water filters, I think, are helpful. Trying to buy organic produce is helpful. Is there a specific kind of water filter that you recommend? Well, you know, water filters have become such a big, complicated thing. An environmental working group has a nice little... Environmental Working Group has a nice thing.

Motorbike, right? Yeah. They have a nice little piece on how to choose a water filter. There's a company called Aquasino I use and recommend because it's not expensive. So there's so many water filters out there. I mean, I'm not, you know, the carbon water filters is reverse osmosis. I think if you don't know about water filters, I would go to, if you don't know about, filters, I would go to... If you don't know about...

Yeah, I'll wait. Yeah, if you don't know about it, I would go to ewg.org and put in water filters. I think they've done a nice piece on how to choose a water filter. Right. So, how would somebody know if they're suffering from some low-grade negative consequences as a result of environmental toxins? Great. So that's a great question. And then I'll finish off the next part of that answer to the first question.

Unfortunately, a lot of the symptoms people have are these vague symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, puffiness. But when it starts affecting your hormones, you can have some hormonal symptoms. It can affect your sleep. It can affect your periods. It's going to affect your libido. But a lot of the symptoms are non-specific. And unfortunately, the way our bodies adapt is if something comes on slowly, you sort of slowly feel a little bit tired, slowly start having some headaches, slowly start maybe getting a little bit of a rash here and there. And you just think it's just aging, it's normal aging process

because you're starting to slow down and things aren't working as well as normal. And so they're usually these non-specific vague symptoms because it's building up slowly. So it's often hard to tell and there are no real tests, although there are more and more labs now coming out with tests where you can actually measure certain chemicals. So things are starting to change. And just to get back to the other answer from the previous question, what do you do?

The easiest thing is to try to decrease the amount of chemicals you're putting into your body. The second part is trying to optimize your detoxification system and that you know infrared saunas are wonderful ways of sweating i'm a huge fan of an infrared saunas there's certain nutrients that i use in liver nutrients i use glutathione a lot. I think that's a wonderful nutrient or N-acetylcysteine, which is a precursor to glutathione. So the ways you do it are you try and decrease the amount going in, improve the functioning of your liver with some nutrients, and then increase the way of increasing the excretion of these toxins to infrared saunas, drinking a lot of water, those type of things, sweating. Exercise is a great way. So two questions.

The first is, is there a category of consumer products or foods that tend to rank among the highest in terms of negative toxicity? Yeah. I mean, I think factory farmed animals probably are up there. I think a lot of the way we cook the oils that we use to cook with, the vegetable oils, because when you heat these oils, they create all these toxins and free radicals. I think, to me, just process, the junk food industry is killing us slowly. So I think those would be the, you know, sugar, junk food, factory farm foods would be- The basic stuff.

Yeah. The basic stuff. And from a diagnostic perspective, and this is the second part of the question, if somebody's coming in and they're expressing the symptomology that you just described, like maybe they're feeling lethargic, they're like puffy or they have a rash.

I mean, this could be any number of things, right? And so it could be a gluten sensitivity. It could be that they're not sleeping at night. It could be that they're stressed out from work. And so the process of deconstructing that, I would imagine is, again, it goes back to this sort of, you know, artistry of practicing medicine, of like removing certain things and elimination kind of protocol to really drill down and identify, okay, what's the root cause of this? Exactly. So that's what I'm doing all the time.

I'm less concerned with the exact cause and rather, you know, when someone comes in with these symptoms, you're doing a couple of things at the same time. You're removing the foods that could cause a problem. You're trying to get them to decrease the amount of chemicals they're putting in and on their body. But at the same time, you're using nutrients to assist with the detoxification systems. using nutrients to assist with the detoxification systems, you're making sure that they realize that sleep is a priority because, you know, there's something called the glymphatic system in the brain. Do you know about the glymphatic system? So that only works when you're sleeping and that's

like a clearing system of the brain. So it's basically the detox system in the brain. So if you're not sleeping properly, toxins are going to build up in your brain. So it's basically the detox system in the brain. So if you're not sleeping properly, toxins are going to build up in your brain. So you're working on that. You definitely always have to work on giving them some way to relax a little bit. We're often starting off with apps, Headspace app, Calm app, just getting people to relax and getting them to move their bodies and explain to people you don't have to go to the gym every day, just move your body. So, yes, it's always, I mean, we're always working on many levels with people just trying to encourage them to work on these six pillars. to work on these six pillars. We're in an interesting time in which we have never been,

it's a weird juxtaposition. We've never been sicker or fatter in the history of the human race. And at the same time, we've never had more access to helpful knowledge and more of an interest in health and wellness. We're eating foods that are making us fat, but also are depriving us of nutrients, right? It's just, it's a bizarre situation.

So how do you sort of think about your approach to your patients in terms of trying to get them to understand the relationship between the foods they're eating and the behavior patterns that they're adopting and the impact that that has both on the short-term and the long-term implications for their health? You know, I think these days most people get it. You know, you explain to them that the default choices we have in the culture are generally unhealthy and you have to make an effort. You have to take control of yourself and realize that if you're just going to eat what's out there and if you're just going to continue with the old ways, you're not going to get better. Just look what it's doing to the culture. You know, now 40% of American adults are obese.

And I studied the numbers from 2015, 2016, 40%. You know, four out of 10 are obese. And also probably deficient in all sorts of vitamins and minerals, right? Exactly. So you have to make that effort. I just think it takes work. That's why with the mandala, you, the patient, are at the center of your healthcare. You need to make that effort, be aware.

And that's why I think most people do need supplements because the food is so depleted and we're exposed to so many toxins and there's so much stress. So we're not getting enough nutrients and our need for nutrients is greater because of the world we live in. So that's why I'm a big believer in why most people probably need supplementation just to help them along the process. So you just got to explain to people that, and once again, scare them a little bit. If they don't make changes, you're going down this path of dis-ease and discomfort. So that's where I think the health coaches are really helpful because in the old days, I would say, okay, here's a piece of paper,

stop eating gluten, stop eating sugar, go meditate, yada, yada, yada. Now I have coaches who can sit down with people and guide them and support them. So this is where you can shop for healthy foods. When you go out to a restaurant, these are the type of things you can choose which are going to be healthier for you. These are the yoga studios in your area. Here are some apps you can use. So there's so much out there. But people, you know, there's so much information, people don't know where to turn. And there are time constraints.

People don't have the time. So if you can help, you know, direct people and say, this is what you need to do and then help them, this is how you do it, and then help them. This is how you do it. And then support them through that process. That makes it much easier. And that's been extremely successful in my practice. Having health coaches has been the best thing that's ever happened.

Yeah, it's the accountability piece. I mean, you're creating a level of engagement that most people don't have with their health practitioner in a way that holds them accountable and has them feeling like somebody actually cares and is looking after them. Exactly. And that's a huge piece, right?

And it allows the, then the healthier choice becomes maybe not the most convenient choice, but a more accessible choice. Absolutely. And it allows that person to develop a sense that it's within their grasp. Exactly. Right?

Yeah. And that's what is happening now because there are so many healthier choices and having someone guiding and supporting them is just, you know, it's priceless. Yeah. And, you know, it's also a confusing time. I mean, I sort of talked about how we have access to all this information, but if you go online and search about health or diet, you're going to find so many conflicting opinions.

And it's bewildering to even an intelligent, well-intentioned patient or consumer who's trying to get to the bottom of this. And it's so much so that you could just, I sympathize with the person that just throws their arms up in the air and says, well, forget it. Right. And that's exactly, this is why I wrote the book, because there is so much information. And I thought, well, maybe I'm a trusted resource. These are the basic things. If anyone can do this, these are the basic things you need to do. And they're like over a hundred tips because it's not just about diet. You know, for some people, diet is a hard place for them to start.

But if you can start by, you know, going for a walk on the beach, if you can start by just learning to breathe, if you start by listening to some music, if you start by having some fun, if you start by eating dinner at the table with your family. I mean, there are so many things we can do that are going to make us feel better. And so the book is really this how-to book for people who are overwhelmed.

And you just start and you can do it at your own pace. So that's why I think this is my favorite book, own pace. So that's why I think this is my favorite book, because I think after all these years of seeing different struggles and my struggle with trying to get patients to do things, I think I found something that I think people will connect with and see that it's not that difficult. And as we always say, these ordinary actions have extraordinary healing effects, things we take for granted. And that's what we said from the beginning. 90% of what we believe is the same.

It's that little, and which is fine because there's no one right diet for everyone. There's no one right diet for anyone anyway. So, but that's what I love about you. That's what it's like. I give you shit all the time. Yeah, I know, it's all right.

I'm just envisioning like a patient coming to you and saying, Dr. Lippmann, okay, I gotta get, you gotta help me get on the ketogenic diet. And you're like, well, do you eat dinner with your family? No, do you go for walks? Do you take care of yourself? Not really. How many hours of sleep do you sleep a night?

Oh, three or four. You know, it's like- Exactly what happens. Yeah, right. Let's start with like fixing that first rather than jumping on the bandwagon of whatever the flavor of the month is in terms of what's making headlines.

Yeah, and not that I don't use a ketogenic diet for some patients and And, you know, it can be very effective, very difficult. So, it all depends where people's heads, you know, part of what you do as a practitioner is you try and gauge who this person is in sitting in front of you and try to work with where they're at and sort of penetrate their being and try to get, and sort of penetrate their being and try to read them and see what is going to work best for them. I mean, that's the art, I think, of medicine, trying to understand who this person is in front of you

and how can you inspire them to take charge of their own health. Right. As somebody who is a proponent of supplementation, help me separate fact from fiction in this world. Do you want specific questions? Well, I mean, I think, you know, I wanted to, I intentionally left that a little bit broad because I think I people that are eating really well because our soils are depleted and our food is perhaps not as nutritious as it once was, even somebody who's attempting to do all the right things can still do a blood panel

and realize they're vitamin D deficient or they're vitamin B12 deficient or they're slightly anemic or any number of these things. And then the conversation then turns to, okay, how do we rectify this? I would imagine that some supplements are more worthy of our attention than others. And of course, this is a case-by-case individual thing. But where is the hype and where is the solid foundation for practical implementation?

Right. I think the word I use is targeted supplementation. So a lot of the vegans that I see, you do the bloods and often they're B12 deficient or vitamin D deficient, everyone is, maybe iron and simple. You just say, okay, these are deficient. You don't have to change your diet. Just take some B12 and vitamin D and maybe some iron. And if you really want to take a multi just to cover your basis. So I think targeted supplementation is the answer. Now, as we get older, I think our needs increase. And as we get older, we're more worried about our minds and whatever. So, and our mitochondria. So for instance, I take a shitload of supplements.

I mean, do I need as many? Maybe not, but I don't, you know, I take glutathione and I take a coenzyme Q10, I take alpha-lipogey. I take a lot of stuff and I mean, I feel great. And I don't recommend as many supplements to my patients as I take. I just don't think it's really fair because I take a lot of supplements and I don't want to impose that on other people. But I do try and use targeted supplementation on patients. So when someone comes in and I think they're toxic or I'll use nutrients to support liver function when their gut's off, I'll use nutrients to get their guts in balance. When people are tired, I may give them some adaptogens or some CoQ10s.

It all depends. I think there's no, you know, the basic supplements that probably most people will do all right with, but once you get to the next level, I think you need to target what you want to deal with. But I'm a huge believer in supplements. People sometimes give me a hard time, other doctors, they say, well, you sell supplements, obviously you're going to believe in them. Yeah, I sell them because I believe in them. But I do think targeted supplementation is a good idea for most people.

What about GMOs? Major problem. You know, to me, first of all, GMOs, we may not know for sure, but why take the chance? It's just, I'm very, very wary. I have a tip on GMOs here. Avoid them. And I think it goes beyond GMOs. I mean, I'm not sure if it's the actual process

of genetically modifying the organism or the herbicide that is actually used with GMOs, which is glyphosate, which is an active ingredient in Roundup. I think glyphosate, well, we know glyphosate is a poison. And actually, all wheat in America is sprayed with glyphosate. Wheat is not genetically modified, but if it's not organic, it's been sprayed with glyphosate to help in the drying process. And glyphosate, we know, is a toxin. And it's an antibiotic too.

It's registered as an antibiotic. I think glyphosate does a lot of damage to our microbiome. So I'm not sure if it's the GMO part of it or the glyphosate, but I don't care. I mean, avoid them. That's my attitude. Yeah, and if you're eating factory farmed animals, these animals during their short lifetime have eaten nothing but grain sprayed with glyphosate.

So you're eating a very concentrated, you know, sort of source of that. And, you know, I think people need to really understand that. Plus hormones, plus antibiotics. I mean, factory farmed animals are probably one of the biggest evil. I mean, it's just, I have this argument with some of these paleo people as well,

because if they eating factory farmed animals, that is just, I just can't accept that they think they are healthier because they're not eating their carbs, but they then go out and eat their factory farmed steak. I mean, that's crazy. So I think that's, you know, GMO foods, factory farmed animals are problems.

Yeah, and the converse of that would be the vegan that's eating vegan junk food and GMO foods, factory farmed animals are problems. Yeah, and the converse of that would be the vegan that's eating vegan junk food and GMO processed, whatever. Exactly the same thing. It's not gonna work as well. Do you know Zach Bush? No. I just had him on the podcast. I gotta introduce you to this guy.

We went down the rabbit hole on glyphosate and GMOs. And of anybody I've spoken to, this guy has a beat on it in a very powerful way. I'd love to talk to him because I think I've known and written about this and try to research as much as I can. I mean, glyphosate is a problem. And I personally think it's probably more the glyphosate

that is the issue and less the GMOs. I mean, we don't know about GMOs, but I think the problem is more likely the glyphosate than the actual modifying the organism. Not that I'm for that, just conceptually and philosophically. I sort of have a bit of a problem with that, but I have more of a problem with the glyphosate. Yeah. According to Dr. Bush, our use of glyphosate is so profuse that even in your effort to avoid it, it's unavoidable because it's used so widely. It's blown in the air and then it's in the rainwater. And even when you're eating organic, it's raining into the soil that, you know, in which the organic food is being grown. And it's in our drinking water.

Yes, there's a study that I just saw recently in the last week or two. They studied these pregnant women in Indiana or something who lived near fields. And they all had glyphosate in their bloodstream. So it's a problem. I mean, this is the problem of today. We have big food, big ag, big tech even that are really screwing us up. And we have to not only fight them, make people aware of them, but you have to pay a lot of attention to how we're being manipulated. And, you know, a lot of the disease is actually caused by the system.

And it's just, and that's what I love about the millennials, to be quite honest, because they- They're on top of it. Totally on top of it. And they like don't trust these people. I mean, I love it. I just, I get, to me, it's just to see it. Because my daughter's 30, she's a millennial and you're probably your older kids too. I love them.

I mean, it's just her and her friends and these kids that I see, they just, you know, they don't trust the system. They see that it's rotten to the core and they want to do their own thing. They don't want to go work in these big corporations and they want to change the world. And it's, you know, as much as we bitch about millennials or my generation bitches about millennials, I think they're wonderful. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, you know, imagine being reared with a super computer in your back pocket that could answer any question you could ever have.

Like I can't even imagine what that would be like because we're so late to this game. Like we've lived through this extraordinary transition that is still very much in its infancy, but to see young people so engaged and activated and interested in these subjects that we care about is inspiring. It gives me hope for the future and makes me optimistic.

I mean, their insistency on transparency and sort of core fundamental values in the corporations that they patronize and their built in, I don't know if it's distrust, but skepticism when it comes to what the powers that be are telling them they should or they shouldn't do, I think is a very healthy injection into our system. I love it. Hopefully we'll save us all at some point.

I think so, I love it. Yeah, I agree 100%, yeah. What is your perspective on fasting, intermittent fasting? This is, you know, everybody's talking about this now. There's a lot of interest in this at the moment. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. You know, what's interesting is, you know, Ephraim and Harriet, my Chinese medicine teachers, taught me early on. And what they taught me, I'm sure it comes from the Chinese medicine tradition, was to rest your digestion for as long as possible.

That was the episode. There was nothing about intermittent fasting. They just say, you know, eat your dinner earlier and your breakfast later. You know, breakfast is break fast. And their whole thing to me was to try, you know, spend 10, 12, sometimes even longer. Just their take was to rest your digestive system. Now we know there's more things happening, you know, from the physiology. It's affecting your insulin and your sugar metabolism. So I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting.

I do it once or twice a week. Just skip breakfast. I'll have a cup of coffee in the morning and that's it. Like a 12 hour or like a 10 hour? 14, 16 hours. I try to eat dinner early anyway. I've always done that. Not always, but many, many, many years. I try to eat dinner as early as possible and try and rest my digestion for at least 10 to 12 hours. But at least once a week, sometimes twice a week, I'll just skip the breakfast

and then just have my first meal at noon or something. And I'm a huge fan of intermittent fasting. We use it in the practice from time to time. We encourage people to do it, but it can be difficult for some people, especially if they need that sugar rush and they need those carbs. So the people who tend to eat low carb tend to find it much easier to do. But I think it's, you know, this is the problem we always have

when something becomes a fad, you have to take the fad away from it. I mean, I do think there's a place for intermittent fasting and just, once again, it's definitely resting the digestive system, which is a great thing, but it's actually, we now seeing more and more of these positive metabolic effects as well.

And those metabolic effects, I mean, let's explore that a little bit. I mean, physiologically, biochemically, there's autophagy that's happening. What exactly is going on that is creating the positive benefit and what is that positive benefit? Well, the positive benefit is it's helping stabilize some of the hormones.

And as you said, the autophagy is happening at the same time. Your cells start to break down and get rid of the crap. So it's encouraging your body to start getting rid of toxins. So, you know, I've never got got into the there's actually a wonderful book that she did you meet jason feng at um at revitalize no i didn't go this past year okay he he's he's this lovely doc traditional doc from in canada in toronto you should have him on your podcast he wrote a great book on fasting and all the benefits. And he describes a lot of this.

Jason Fung, F-U-N-G. I'll check it out. Yeah, you should. I'll introduce you. He's great. So, I mean, I haven't studied it enormously. I've just skimmed through his book and looked through articles when they come up. But I'm sure there's a lot of,

you know, the only thing that they've found, for instance, anti-aging or the best thing anti-aging is decreasing your calories or fasting. And I believe, I'm just starting to kind of get up to speed on this, that there's some benefits in an extended way with fasting in terms of arresting cancer cell growth or making your body more receptive to cancer treatment protocols without causing the damage to the healthy cells. I think so, I think so.

So do you know Walter Longo? Yes, he talks about that. Yeah, so he's becoming, yeah. Yeah, I'm doing the podcast with him tomorrow. Oh, good. Yeah, so I'd love to learn more about that. Yeah. So it's becoming, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm doing the podcast with him tomorrow. Oh, good. Yeah, so I want to learn more about that. He seems interesting. And Jason, you should get his book on fasting.

He's like very science-based, smart. He's an endocrinologist or nephrologist. He's a nephrologist, but smart, nice, couldn't be nicer. And really sort of looks into things in a real scientific way. I mean, I don't do that, but he's just a good resource. So have you had experience working with patients in a longer-term setting? No, I don't do that. I mean, I don't have experience.

I just had, you know, one of my patients asked me would I just monitor him through he wanna do a week of a water fast. And I said, absolutely. But I really don't have experience. But I think there's absolutely a lot to it, much more than intermittent fasting, fasting in general. It's just not something I know enough about, but it's intriguing.

And I think there's absolutely something to it, yeah. enough about, but it's intriguing. And I think there's absolutely something to it, yeah. Let's get back to this idea of microbiome health, because I think it really is foundational in so many ways. And I wanna make sure that we kind of flesh this out in a practical way that gives some people some things to think about and some things to do. With the kind of baseline

understanding that perhaps not all of us are treating our microflora as well as we could, what are some indications that things may be awry and what are some practical things that people can do to get on the path to correcting that? And why is microbiome health so important? Right. So microbiome health is so important because even in Chinese medicine, the gut is the earth element. It's at the center. And when the gut is off, everything's off. But we now know when the microbiome is off, not only does it produce neurotransmitters or unhealthy brain chemicals, you know, most of your, these neurotransmitters are made in your gut and there's a direct highway between your gut and your brain. You know, the gut's called the second brain. So you're producing

a lot of these chemicals that create maybe anxiety, depression, all sorts of things. But more important is what happens when your microbiome is out of balance. And it's an ecosystem. I mean, it's much more complicated than just good guys and bad guys. It's this whole ecosystem. There's actually a wonderful book that's hard to read called I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong, which sort of I think has a much better explanation or understanding of the microbiome than we sort of explain to people in functional medicine. We say, well, it's too many bad guys, too many good guys,

not enough good guys, too many bad guys. It's way bigger. It's like a complicated ecosystem and how different bacteria and viruses and parasites work together and what happens in that ecosystem. But when you have a microbiome that's out of whack, it then causes damage to the lining of the gut. And the lining of the gut is mostly one cell thick. So once you damage that lining, then you have toxins or breakdown products of food that seep through the gaps in the wall of this lining or somehow get through this damaged wall and then gets into your bloodstream.

And those toxins and breakdown products of food go into the bloodstream and then go all over your body and your body sees it as foreign and starts trying to protect it and creates antibodies. And often those antibodies start reacting against other normal tissues in your body. And that's how autoimmune problems start. But even if your body doesn't produce antibodies, these toxins and breakdown products of food go into the bloodstream

and create inflammation in various organs. So it's more the damage to the lining of the gut caused by this microbiome that's out of balance that is the real problem. And then what can you do about it? I think the first thing to do is you watch your diet. You've got to stop putting in the crap, the foods that damage your microbiome,

the factory farmed meats, the sugar, the gluten, or the foods, the GMOs of foods sprayed with glyphosate. Chlorinated water can actually affect your microbiome. I didn't know that. Yeah, don't take antibiotics. What about when I go to the pool and I'm swimming in chlorinated water? It's fine,. I didn't know that. Yeah, don't take antibiotics. What about when I go to the pool and I'm swimming in chlorinated water?

Yeah, that's fine, I wouldn't worry about that. I can't imagine how much chlorinated water I've swallowed over the years. Yeah, I mean, we all gonna do things that affect our microbiome. So the antibiotics, sometimes even the chemicals in our food can be a problem. And then what we eat is important.

So fermented foods are one of those foods that, you know, people don't eat anymore because, you know, it's got a tangy, you know, sometimes the taste is hard to get used to. to get used to. And one of the tips that I give people that most people don't know about is the good bacteria or the ones you want to foster growth of actually feed on fiber that you can't break down. So lots of fiber, this is where the good plant-based foods come in. And I tell people, don't eat your stalks and your stems, whether it's asparagus or the broccoli. That part that you cut away and throw away, eat them because your bacteria, that's what they feed on. They feed on that fiber. They're the fertilizer for that soil, those bacteria in your gut. So those parts of the plant are actually really important to actually feed the good

bacteria. Yeah, the prebiotic. Yeah, exactly. The prebiotic foods. I have this sense, like sort of this theory, I'm interested in what you think about this, that I don't doubt that taking probiotics are beneficial. There's nothing wrong with it, certainly. And I'm sure that there is many benefits to be had, but I have this sense that perhaps the claims of taking such, you know, there's a pantheon and there's good ones and bad ones and all of that,

but that perhaps there's some, there might be, the claims may be a little bit overblown. And I feel like probiotics are the new protein, you know, in the sense that you go to the grocery store, everything is emblazoned with giant letters about how much protein it has in it with this idea that more is better. And now I'm starting to see that,

you know, always pay attention to food labeling, you know, and now I'm seeing all these labels that talk about the probiotic content in it, whether it's a Greek yogurt or what have you, to try to lure the consumer into this idea that it's a health food even if it isn't, and that you're treating your microbiome right, and that that's the end of the discussion.

Well, I'm eating these probiotic foods, so I'm fine. When in truth, the real sort of pathway to health is exactly what you said, eating like tons of fermented foods and foods that are high in fiber, the prebiotics that seed your microbiome over time and create a sustainable gut flora that will benefit you in a more real way.

Right. Is that accurate or? 100%, I think probiotics are literally a crapshoot because you're talking about everyone's ecosystem is completely different. So a probiotic may work for you, but it won't work for me because we don't really know. which is, I think, so premature because what they're testing is a small part of this huge room that we're talking about. So it's very, very inaccurate.

So probiotics are, as I said, literally a crapshoot. You're guessing. Now, I think we're gonna probably get to a more sophisticated understanding where they're going to start measuring not the type of bacteria that's measured in your poop, but the metabolites of these ecosystems. And from the different metabolites, they'll be able to determine what types of probiotics you need more of. So I think we're heading in that direction. We're definitely not there yet.

So the probiotic story is too early to tell are they helpful or not. I think absolutely they care. I've seen probiotics help, but a lot of the time they don't help because it's not the right probiotic for your gut. But the other thing that people forget about, it's not only the prebiotics that are helping.

We know now that exercise helps your probiotic, sleep, your microbiome. Sleep helps your microbiome. Stress reduction helps your microbiome. So all these lifestyle changes that we're talking about actually affect your microbiome too. So it's not just the food. actually affect your microbiome too. So it's not just the food, it's all these common sense lifestyle changes that we recommend that affect your microbiome as well.

And the microbiome being that second brain, that gut brain has a profound impact on, not just our overall health, but like on our cravings, on our perception, like how we think and process information. It's insane what is coming out right now and what we're learning about that. And I'm curious as somebody who practices medicine

in a way in which it's paramount to kind of listen to the patient. The patient comes to you and says, this is how I'm feeling. And you're taking copious notes and you're really trying to gauge where this person is at with their health. How do you parse truth from fiction? Or maybe that's not the best way of putting it. Like when somebody comes to you and says, oh, well, I've been doing what you said, Frank, and I'm doing good, but my

body is telling me I need this or I need that. Sometimes that's a signal that you are deficient and you should be eating something. Other times that's just an unhealthy craving or something, your unhealthy microbiome is signaling your brain that you should eat that actually you shouldn't eat, right? So how do you distinguish between those two? And how does somebody who's listening, who experiences that, how do they determine the difference? That's a great, great question, because that's a common myth or fallacy out in the culture, especially in this new age health world.

So many people think eat whatever you, if you're craving something, it means you need it. And that's not necessarily true. It may mean that those bad bacteria in your gut are craving it and not you. And it needs that bad food to stay alive. So it's telling you eat that. Exactly.

So it's very complicated. And once again, I always go back to basics with people. I always try and clean out the gut, get people to move, get them to sleep. So my experience has actually been with the microbiome and people's microbiomes are off. It's usually more helpful and more important to use a combination of herbs that kill or somehow manipulate the bad bacteria. I get much better results from using herbs like grapefruit seed extract, olive leaf extract, berberine, artemisin, these herbs that have

been used in traditional medicines for thousands of years. And now so many companies make them together in certain products. I actually get much better results and I always start initially with a combination of these herbs, oregano oil. So a lot of these herbs actually have more beneficial effects to sort of creating some balance than probiotics per se. But I'm always using probiotics too,

because why not? It's just that it usually doesn't harm. But I think you need to work on all these levels. You do need to, I hate saying it this way because I think it's much more complicated, but it's how people understand it. You need to kill bad guys and seed it with good guys too.

And as you say, give the prebiotics to feed the good guys. What's your perspective on all these testing kits and companies where you can send in your sample and they tell you what's good and what's bad, uBiome and the like? I think, and they're going to hate me for saying it, I think, I wouldn't say they're bullshit, but I think it's much too early. I think they are probably 10% of the way. I think they're going in the right direction. I like the concept, but my problem with them is, and, you know, we've, I used to do a lot of this testing, you know, some of these functional medicine labs used to still do the testing and they measure certain bacteria and

then you start treating these lab results. So the eubiomes in there, I think, are testing a limited number. They're testing a small part of a huge ecosystem and making you make changes or treat that 1% or 2% of the system that they're treating. So I don't think they're particularly accurate. I know it's the hot thing in Silicon Valley and people are there. I think it's not particularly helpful. And I think they're going in the right direction. And as I said earlier, I think what's probably my prediction

is what's probably going to be a more effective testing tool is testing the metabolites of these bacteria, of this ecosystem. So if you test that butyrate or this metabolite is decreased or increased, you sort of get a more general idea of what could be helpful. I think what's happened, I mean, this is my take because I've seen this happen too often in Western medicine. It's so reductionist that they take one little part and then they start treating that part. And to me, it's just, in a way,

although it comes out of the holistic world, it's a very Western reductionist way of seeing the microbiome and treating the microbiome. And I think it has limited value. I know people are going to get pissed off with me about it, but I really think it's not going to be that successful in the long term. But I do think it's a good step in the right direction. But at the moment, I'm not impressed. And I think they're doing it in this Western reductionist way, which I don't think is the right way in the long term. It's too much of a sophisticated ecosystem there to do it that way. Do you think there's a possibility, though, to figure out some way of doing it in a way that

can scale that takes into consideration the nuanced, sophisticated factors? I think we're getting there. I just met this couple actually here in LA yesterday, because I've always thought about that. And this book, I Contain Multitudes, actually articulates these concepts pretty well. It's hard to read, but I think it's a really good book. And it sort of goes against a lot of this faddy stuff or the way we sort of see the microbiome, but I think he's got a much better take on it than anyone else. I do think this couple yesterday was telling me about their company where they agree, because I was talking about this in a talk I gave, and they came up, they were all excited, and they said,

we agree 100% with you, and we actually are starting to measure these metabolites. Yes, I think we're going to get there. I do think it's possible. I think it's a great, the potential of measuring your poop to give you information can be extremely helpful. So, yeah, I do think we're heading in the right direction. I think measuring metabolites are probably going to be the way to go, but we're far from there now.

Maybe it's happening so quickly. In a couple of years, we're far from there now. Maybe it's happening so quickly in a couple of years, we're going to be there. But I do think it is part of the future of medicine. What do you think are some of the health fads that you're seeing out in the world that are popular at the moment that you think are bullshit? I hate saying anything's bullshit because a lot of these things help people. And a lot of these things on what happens in America, it's like interesting to see because you come as someone coming from the outside

and you come inside. The beauty of America- Like de Tocqueville. Coming to America with the outsider's perspective coming from the outside and you come inside. The beauty of America- Like de Tocqueville. Hey? Coming to America with the outsider's perspective and an ability to see it more objectively. Yeah, what I love about Americans is they take on new ideas and new concepts.

It's so much harder to get through to these old cultures with these new ideas, which it's very exciting. But what happens is people get, the nuance goes away. So let's take juicing as an example. I mean, I'm not saying juicing is bad, but what's happened to the whole juice world is I think terrible because you're putting all this sugar into people

and it's not good. That doesn't mean juicing is bad. Ketogenic diets, I think, have a place in the lexicon of, or the toolkit in medicine. But, you know, people take it to such extreme. It's not- That's also the American way. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And it goes back to reductionism also, because, oh, juicing, so now I'm just gonna juice, or now I'm gonna, you know, prick my finger and be ketogenic for the rest of my life. I don't think any of these ideas were, those are unintended consequences of what might start, what may have started as good ideas that have a certain place. Exactly. And I think that happens very often. Yeah. But, you know, it's like, you know, there was this woman yesterday at this talk, and I love, she's doing all this crazy stuff.

I love people who do that because I think experimenting and exploring all these things is wonderful. But ultimately, you need to understand who you are, how your body works, what works for you, and understand that it may not work for you, even although it works for your spouse or your friend. And so, ultimately, it's about learning about who you are and, you know, what you want in life and what works for you in life. And also, I think, a humility and an appreciation of just how unbelievably, mind-bogglingly sophisticated our bodies are. Absolutely.

Yes. That there is this grand interplay of countless systems working together in unison and perhaps not in unison, which leads to dis-ease, and that it's never gonna just be one thing. Exactly. And the idea that we have that something can be fixed with one thing, I think has led to amazing medical breakthroughs, but also led us very astray.

I agree a hundred percent. You know, what I often say to my patients is, you know, there's usually not a magical bullet and making a diagnosis is less important than asking yourself these two questions. What are you putting into your body or on your body or doing to yourself that could be harming you? And at the same time, look at what does your body need? Are you getting enough love? Are you getting enough sun? Are you getting enough love are you getting enough sun are you getting enough salt are you

getting or you know what what is lacking and what needs to be removed so your body can heal itself or function better so when you see it that way you try and pick away at the things that could be affecting this this ecosystem that is we are as human beings um and what can we add to it and adding to it is not just probiotics it's adding community it's you know sun for instance has got such a bad rep you know maybe not in california but um i'm with you on that you know i think we talked about that last time yeah i'm upset yeah well i I mean, I think being in California, people are overly obsessed with sunscreen in an almost neurotic, crazy way.

Yeah, as if sun, people have been living under the sun. Now, I'm not saying sun can't cause problems, but yeah, too much sun and going crazy, absolutely. But this is what happens. We get caught up in in it's always binary. It's either, you know, it's good or it's bad. And most things are nuanced. Which makes it a little more difficult when it comes to trying to convey a message because it can't be drilled down into a clickbaity title or some product or

anything like that. Exactly. So if somebody's listening to this and they're nodding their head and they're agreeing with you and perhaps they're struggling with some health issue, but there's no functional medicine doctor in their area, they can, of course, pick up your book. They can sleep more. They can eat better. They can do all the things that you lay out in the book. But what is some, you know, now I'm gonna ask you to be reductionist,

like give somebody just some basic things that they can think about beyond what we've already talked about and work into their lives that can have a positive impact? Right. I think if you can find meaning in your life, a purpose, a passion for something, to me that's probably as important as stopping to eat sugar.

So I think doing something you love, surrounding yourself with people who love you and you love, having a purpose and meaning in your life is crucial, I think. I think our addiction to technology is becoming more and more of a problem. I think probably as bad as sugar. I mean, as you probably said this a thousand times, sugar is the devil. Everyone should just stop as much as they can eating sugar. But I think this technology part of our lives, as much as it's helpful, is becoming more and more of a problem.

It's a huge problem. Especially with millennials, you know, this addiction to their, they can't live without their phones. They want more likes on the Instagram or whatever. It's becoming a problem. And actually what's interesting, and my, you know, I see it, my daughter does a lot of this stuff in therapy. She's also, you know, she's seen this as a huge issue for her generation, this addiction to technology. And I think, I wish the millennials would be as aware of the big, you know, they're aware of big food and big ag and, you know, these big corporations. I'd

like them to be aware of big tech. I think big tech are manipulating us in the same way. And I love Google and I love all these things too, but we've got to be very careful of how, if it starts controlling you, it becomes a problem. I think awareness around that is starting to percolate. There's a guy called Tristan Harris. Yes, I saw.

I saw there was an idea. Who was an ex-Facebook or one of those. Was he Facebook or Google? I think he might have been Google. Now he's got this foundation that's really studying the impact of this and speaking out about the extent to which these products are specifically devised to captivate our attention and addict us. And it's a huge

problem that we're all sort of willingly, you know, signing up for. And, you know, I notice it myself. I'm not immune from this. Like I'm, you know, I'm an active participant in that world. And I know that it's not good for me and it's become more and more incumbent upon me to create boundaries. And as somebody who's in recovery and has addictive tendencies, like I feel the resistance to that. Like I see my addict body acting up and my attachment to this thing.

It's just, you know, alarm bells are going off. Like this is not good, you know? Yeah. So, and then the last thing, which is a little bit vague at the moment, but I think it's gonna become more and more of a problem, is electromagnetic fields. The whole, you know, we're starting to hear and see more and more patients who are super sensitive and have become super sensitive to all sorts of things. And, you know, they can't even go into a house with wifi.

So I think this EMF issue is gonna become more of a problem with wifi everywhere. And I mean, we started to see the odd person, but I think that probably in time is gonna become more and more of an issue. Have you seen patients that, like how do you identify that? Well, you know what, actually, I mean, I'd read about it and, you know, in the stuff

that I read, there are doctors who talk about it. And I thought, yeah, maybe. And then I got a call from a brother of a friend of mine, someone who I grew up with in South Africa, who's the straightest guy, who the last person I would have thought, he's just not into this stuff. And he became sensitive to EMFs. And some of these people you think,

oh, they're a bit crazy or whatever. He's like one of the straightest people I know and when i heard his story from him that really made me realize that this is real because he's not the type of guy who's going to get quite this is and you know so i'm hearing more and more of these stories i think it's early days, but I believe in the next couple of years, we're gonna see more and more of it. Yeah, I have a good, we have a good family friend who was suffering.

I can't remember exactly what her symptomology was, but she was able to identify that it was directly related to the wifi signal in her house. And they've had to remove it. She had to like, they had a guest house at their house. She had to like move it to the guest house for a period of time to kind of stabilize after that. And at first I was like, come on, you know, but then I was like, oh no, it's actually real for her.

And she's gotten better. And I'm like, oh, no, it's actually real for her. And she's gotten better. And I'm like, there's definitely something there. Right. But we don't know what will be revealed. I know, yeah. But it's frightening because if anything, the signals that swirl around us are only going to become more omnipotent. I agree. And omnipotent. I agree. And omnipresent, I should say. As they say, the canaries in the gold mine in South Africa,

what they used to do is they used to send canaries down the mine. And if they didn't come back, there were these toxic fumes coming up. So the miners wouldn't go down. And if the canaries came back, then it was safe to go in. And I think these people are the canaries came back then it was safe to go in and i think these people are the canaries and but no one's going to listen anyway it's not one of those things it's too too esoteric for the powers that be to change anything and people want their wi-fi i mean everyone wants wi-fi wherever they go so i yeah i think we're at the very early stages of that. Cool.

Well, we got to wrap this up, but I want to kind of close with this idea of self-empowerment, which I think is really at the core of the new book. Yep. feels engaged and emotionally connected to their own health journey that fuels the further exploration and growth of that person. If you can just, and I'm sure you've had this experience countless times with patients, you just get them to adopt one or two healthy habits, they start to feel a little bit better, they see the results, they experience the results.

And then suddenly the lights go on, there's an enthusiasm and a level of engagement that you can then sort of like, as you birth a child into the world, say, go forth and prosper now, because you know that person is going to take that responsibility seriously and invest in themselves. And I think this book is a great primer

for catalyzing that in individuals. And I just know in my own experience, that's part of my, I'm not here to tell anyone what to do. I'm here to hopefully just ignite a spark. And I trust that if I can ignite that spark, that person will have their version of my experience or your experience. And it's not for me to say what that looks like, but I think that's the way to really kind of

activate people in a way that is most potent. Right. No, I agree 100%. You nailed it. And that's exactly why and how the book was written. It's for someone to enter this mandala at any point, start having fun, start eating dinner with your family. So just pick up over 100 tips, pick up anywhere, start feeling better, and that's going to motivate you to do more and more. So, yeah, and the book was written exactly for that. If we can inspire people to make a few changes, they become habits and that motivates, that's the carrot for them. That motivates them to, you know, do more things for themselves and empowers them. And the book is all about how to do that. It's not that difficult. This is what people do.

We've made- We wanna overcomplicate it though as human beings. Exactly. And especially in Western medicine, we make it as we, the doctors know everything. It's so complicated. You gotta trust us. No, you gotta trust yourself.

It's really not that complicated. I'm not saying it's always easy, but it's not really that. There's really not that complicated. I'm not saying it's always easy, but it's not really that, you know, there's simple things that you can do that can make a huge difference. Good talking to you, Frank. Always wonderful talking to you. How do you feel?

You feel okay? I feel great. We did it, right? Cool. So the new book is How to Be Well, The Six Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life, available everywhere April, what's the date? April 3rd. April 3rd.

If you're digging on Frank, the best way to connect with him, go to his website, bewell.com. Bewell.com, right. He have lots of blog posts there and helpful information for anybody that visits. It's a copious resource. Frank is on Twitter at Dr. Frankippman. Is that your Twitter?

Right. And are you on Instagram? No. Well, Be Well is not me. My health coaches do. There's a Be Well Instagram. They do it. I do Twitter at DrFrankLippman and I do Facebook.

Yeah. What's your favorite? I don't, you know, I just, but what I do find about Twitter is it's angry white men. There's a lot of those. There's a lot of those. You get attacked on Twitter? Yeah. Do you?

Well, there are one or two of these traditional doctors that have a big problem with some of the stuff I'm saying, and they get vicious. You're not making change if you're not, you don't have a few of those guys out there. Not that I care, it's just interesting that like, you know, Twitter seems to be the place where they can- Well, that's the place where people feel the most important to behave. Is that right?

Yeah, that definitely seems to be the case, yeah. I get a little of that, trust me. Cool, so always a pleasure to talk to you. Let's end it with one last thing. If you, I think I asked you this last time, but I ask it of all the doctors that I have on the show. If you woke up in a parallel universe and you were the surgeon general in this administration,

what would be the first order of business? You know, clean up the food system. Wendell Berry is a famous American philosopher. He says, people are fed by the food industry that pays no attention to our health and treated by the health industry that pays no attention to our food. So my first action would be making the food industry aware of how they're affecting our health

and making the health industry aware of how food and what people are eating are affecting our health, is affecting our health. It is affecting our health. So just, you know, bring awareness to the food industry and the health industry. We could do a whole other podcast on that because I'm with you, brother. Good talking to you. Okay, lovely talking to you, Rich. Peace, plants, honesty. So there you have it. We did it. I hope you have it.

We did it. I hope you enjoyed it. Make a point of picking up Frank's new book, How to Be Well, wherever you buy fine books. And give him a shout out on Twitter at Dr. Frank Lippman. Let him know what you thought of this conversation. As always, check out the show notes for links and resources related to today's conversation on the episode page at richroll.com. And do not forget to pick up a copy of the Plant Power Way Italia

or the new edition of Finding Ultra if you have not already. And if you're looking for more nutritional direction, check out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. We have thousands of plant-based recipes, literally thousands. Everything is totally customized based on your personal preferences, your allergies, how much time you like to spend in the kitchen, what your budget is, how many meals you're preparing, or how many people there are in your family unit. We offer unlimited grocery lists, even grocery delivery in most US cities

with international delivery in certain cities coming soon. And you get all of this for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. To learn more, go to meals.richroll.com or click on the meal planner icon on the top menu on my website, richroll.com. If you would like to support my work, all you got to do is subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. Share it with a friend, subscribe to my YouTube channel, although there's no YouTube video for this conversation. All of that helps in extending the reach and kind of spreading the word. And I really, really appreciate it. You can also support the show on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. As always, Jason Camiolo,

my steady audio engineer. He helps out with production and show notes and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for graphics and theme music, as always, by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. Be back here soon. In the meantime, be well.