The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 194. Q&A with Gary: Fasting, Hyperbaric, Sleep, Berberine and More!!

Starting point is 00:00:00 What if I told you the way you were born could impact your immune system for life? Today's episode is all about your questions. We're going to go deep into birth, sleep, cold therapy, nutrition, supplements, and some of the biggest health misconceptions keeping people sick, tired, inflamed, and just stuck. Let's get into it. Question one, what does a hyperbaric chamber help with? Well, it does a lot of things. On the one far end of medicine, things like, what are the most common root causes of tinnitus?

Starting point is 00:00:28 So there's lots of causes for tinnitus. The first thing is if you, why should I eat grass-fed meat? Well, what's really interesting about grass-fed meat is how can intermittent fasting affect health? Some of the worst endocrine disasters I've ever seen were, how can I improve my sleep quality? Number one is... What if I told you the way you were born could? impact your immune system for life, that the ringing in your ears might not be coming from your ears at all, that just 15 minutes of sunlight in the morning could completely reset your brain

Starting point is 00:01:10 in your body. I'm your host, Gary Breka, and you're listening to the ultimate human podcast where we break down the science of human performance, longevity, and what it takes to become the elite version of yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Today's episode is all about your questions, the one you've been sending in from across the world. We're going to go deep into birth, sleep, cold therapy, nutrition, supplements, and some of the biggest health misconceptions keeping people sick, tired, inflamed, and just stuck. Now before we jump in, I want to give a shout out to my VIP group because the first five questions in this episode came straight from them. Every month, I go live and do real-time Q&A just like this, except it's interactive.

Starting point is 00:01:52 It's raw, and you get to ask me any question directly. If you want to be a part of those sessions, just head to the link below in the show notes and join us inside the VIP community. And now, let's get into it. What are some of the ways parents can help restore or support gut bacteria in C-section babies? I will link in the show notes below some of the good pre-and-probiotics

Starting point is 00:02:12 that are infantile liquid prebiotics that are meant to replace the bacteria that were inoculated or supposed to be inoculated through the vaginal canal. When you're born through C-sections, you miss this part of the inoculation and very often it can lead to a disrupted gut microbiome.

Starting point is 00:02:29 These babies are more colicky, they have more gas, they have more bloating, they have more constipation, they get diarrhea more frequently, and very often they have a lot more cramping. So it may not be digestive issues, it may be related to their gut bacteria. So I'll link some really good infantile probiotics. If you're one of those mothers that had a C-section, don't worry, you can repopulate your baby's gut safely and effectively with some of these infantile formulas. some of the infantile colostrum formulas. Another really good way to offset the C-section is to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is one of the most selfless things that you can do for your child,

Starting point is 00:03:07 and the consequences of breastfeeding over a prolonged period of time are tremendous. So if you have a chance to breastfeed your baby, that's always the preferred way to go. What are the most common root causes of tinnitus, and how can someone identify their trigger? So there's lots of causes for tinnitus. The first thing is if you go to an E-E-N-T, an ear-nose and throat doctor, and they do an examination of your ear. They're going to look at the structure of your ear. You're going to look at your tympanic membrane. They're going to look at the little bones in the ear,

Starting point is 00:03:34 what's called the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup or the malleus, the incas, and the stapies to see if there's any anomalies there, if there's been any trauma to that. And then they're going to look at the cylindrical areas of your ear and look at the cilia, the hairs, or the cylindrical cones inside of your ear to see if there's any damage.

Starting point is 00:03:53 Most of the time when you have tinnitus from trance, from trauma, you know what's causing it. It was like a gunshot went off next to your ear, or a loud firecracker, or you actually received head trauma, or you have a prolonged exposure to loud music. You're a DJ, or you're an environment where there's a lot of cacophonistic noise. But a lot of people will develop tinnitus seemingly out of nowhere. Remember, sounds are actually not created by the motion coming from outside the body. They are converted to electrical signals inside of the brain. so a sound wave is converted to an electrical wave and this conversion happens inside of the brain

Starting point is 00:04:32 not in the areas of the structure the physiological areas of the body meaning not in your tympanic membrane not in the bones of the ear or the cochlea of the ear but actually inside the gray matter of the brain this is where tinnitus can go wrong inflammation neuroinflammatory conditions viruses being stuck in a sympathetic state a state of fight or flight, excess catacolamines, these can all cause tinnitus and they're dramatically overlooked. If you're somebody that's actually suffered from chronic tinnitus and you've already had your ears structurally examined and they said there's nothing wrong with you, your hearing is fine, but you still have noises in your ears. You may want to investigate some of the newer

Starting point is 00:05:17 technologies that are now becoming available. Some of those are red light therapy lasers for your ears. It's a place in Miami called Sentinel Wellness that has one of these powerful lasers. You can actually get red light necklaces. These are plastic, wide necklaces that go around the neck, and they actually have inserts that go into the ears that are not just red light. They're powerful red light lasers that are designed to reduce the inflammatory cascade inside that area of the brain where you can get trapped catacolamines causing over stimulation and the perception of a sound when you actually don't have a sound. One of the better ways to treat tinnitus is to also engage in regular nerve-calming activities,

Starting point is 00:06:01 breathwork, yoga, meditation, those things that tell your body it's okay to rest and digest. If you've ever been in a traumatic experience where you've been confronted aggressively, and then after that confrontation is over, or you were in a near car accident, and after that event has ended. You have a ringing sound in your ears and you know there was no trauma. There was no contact made to your brain or to your cranium, but you have this ringing. That's the type of ringing that is not caused by structural anomalies that's actually caused by your nervous system being trapped in the wrong state. Fight or flight, which we call sympathetic versus rest and digest, which we call parasympathetic. So anything that calms the nervous system can calm

Starting point is 00:06:47 tinn. What are the benefits of berberine? Wow, I actually just sent out three studies today to a VIP client of mine, so I will link those in the show notes below. So berberine acts like a glucophage, like metformin. Metformin's a glucophage that they give to diabetics to control their blood sugar. Burberine is a root. It's also very, very good for improving insulin sensitivity and controlling blood sugar. So if you look on your labs, there are three or four things you want to look at if you're looking at your blood sugar control, glucose, hemoglobin A1C, which is the three-month average of your blood sugar, and then something called insulin, which is the response to blood sugar that your body is doing in the pancreas, producing a hormone to help

Starting point is 00:07:28 lower your blood sugar levels. So berberine in several side-by-side clinical trials outperformed metformin, which is a prescription and a glucophage. So I'm a huge fan of berberine, especially for people that are trying to control their blood sugar. It has a positive effect on insulin sensitivity, has a positive effect on blood sugar. You can take it with meals up the three times a day. And if you're one of those people that are struggling with blood sugar, berberine is absolutely a supplement that you should consider.

Starting point is 00:07:58 How long should I get morning sunlight? Eight to 12 minutes is all you need. Remember, it's important to be outside of your windows. When we say natural light, preferably contacting your skin, even if it's cold outside, you are going to, need to get beneficial blue rays from the sun. Not the kind of blue light that comes from your phone, but beneficial blue rays from the sun. You get all kinds of infrared and near-infrared spectrums that are very, very good for cortisol and melatonin. You also get the red light,

Starting point is 00:08:25 which is beneficial for your skin, collagen, elastin, and fibrin. Let's not fear the sun. If you're worried about UVA and UVB rays, just go out in the first 45 minutes of the day, what's called first light. There's no UVA or UVB at that time of the day. If you really want to get in a really, really good sleep habit or morning sunlight habit, just make sure that within 30 minutes of waking, you get outside for 8 to 12 minutes, facing the sun, allow natural light to get into your eyes.

Starting point is 00:08:53 If you're one of those people who lives in Canada or the Midwest where it gets foggy and dreary in the wintertime, you will still get this light through the clouds if you get out in morning sun. All right, why should I eat grass-fed meat? Well, what's really interesting about grass-fed meat is grass-fed grass-finished is what you want to be after. just like pasture raised is what you're after in chickens and eggs.

Starting point is 00:09:16 Grass-fed meat means that the cow is feeding on the grasses. And it's not just grass. It's all the different cloves, all the different types of foliage that are out in a field. When a cow eats what it's meant to eat and it doesn't eat processed grains, high-fructose corn syrup, soy meal, and highly, highly processed wheats and grains, then the omega-3 to omega-fatty acid ratio inside the meat changes. You know, right now, the ratio of these omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids are way out of balance. We also have a tendency to have less antibiotics, less steroids, and less vaccinations in

Starting point is 00:09:58 cattle that are grass-fed and grass-finished versus those that are commercially raised. And in commercial feedlots, the whole idea is fat as fast as you can. can and slaughter as early as you can. A grass-fed cow might be four to six years old, whereas a traditionally raised, you know, produced cow in a feedlot might only be two to three years old. So meat is more mature. It still has the delicious marbling. It may be ever so slightly more expensive, although I noticed that grass-fed meat prices are coming down. So if you're looking at labels and you really want nutrient density in your food, something that's going to secrete a lot a GLP1, the famous Mozambic, Wagovi, Manjaro. We actually make it right here in our gut.

Starting point is 00:10:43 You make that in response to nutrient density. So grass-fed meat has a better nutrient profile. What are the best types of eggs? Pasture-raised, free range. These are words you want to look for. Of course, organic. But the word pasture-raised is the real trigger that you want to look for. Now, recently, I've read some unfortunate articles. I don't know how true they are. I haven't actually dug into them personally, but I've read some unfortunate articles about some of the eggs that are labeled as pasture raised are not actually pasture raised. So if you'd like, I'll link a couple of brands that I like below. I have no affiliation with them. But we want to look for things like organic, pasture raised, and free range. Those are buzzwords that you want to look for on your egg

Starting point is 00:11:26 cartons. What does a hyperbaric chamber help with? Okay, wow. Well, it does a lot of things. On the one far end of medicine, things like diabetic ulcers, burns, chronic peripheral neuropathy, where certain tissues are pathological because they're deprived of oxygen. This is where hyperbaric chambers were originally designed, along with curing something called the bends, which is when divers come up to the surface too quickly, and gas expands inside of their joints, nitric oxide specifically. Nitrogen actually expands. The gas bubble expands too fast and causes a lot of pain.

Starting point is 00:12:00 But for generalized use, meaning for the general public, why they are becoming so popular, is that there's a lot of science around increasing the density of mitochondria, mitochondria, the powerhouse of your cells. They're the battery of the cell. They make something called ATP, which is what powers human beings, delivering oxygen to tissues that may not be getting a lot of oxygen. So those fine little capillaries in your body that are a fraction of the human hair, about 70% of your circulatory system, which is what we call microvasic. So those vessels serve critical areas of our body, like the back of our eye, our brain, our liver, our lungs, our pancreas, or kidneys. So getting floods of oxygen into those areas is an excellent way to not only maintain a healthy lifestyle, but possibly even extend your life because you're getting oxygen to tissues that might not otherwise be getting oxygen. Here's a quick tip that I've learned. Not all hyperbarics are the same.

Starting point is 00:12:57 There are home hyperbarics you can get through prescription. which are soft chambers, they go to about 1.3 atmospheres, have plenty of benefits. Then there are hard shell chambers that actually do deeper dives that would equate to a 33-foot scuba dive, doubling the atmospheric pressure. Those seem to be better for cognitive dysfunction, neuroinflammatory conditions, things like autism, any kind of traumatic brain injury or concussive injuries. There's quite a few studies out now that show dramatic effects with hyperbarics in those different scenarios. Remember, hyperbaric does not have to have 100% oxygen. 100% oxygen chambers should only be used in a medical facility, like a hospital,

Starting point is 00:13:39 under the direct supervision of somebody that's trained in hyperbaric medicine. They are not toys. They can be very, very dangerous. You want to get hyperbarics if you're thinking of getting one for your home or your doctor's thinking of prescribing hyperbaric therapy. It's fine to just use ambient air that is compressed at twice the atmospheric pressure. Remember, the air that you're breathing is 21.1% oxygen by you. using a hyperbaric chamber, you double that amount of oxygen that's going into the bloodstream.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Okay, so how can intermittent fasting affect health? It can be very good for you or it can be very bad for you. Here's one of those things that one size doesn't fit all. Some of the worst endocrine disasters I've ever seen in our clinic system were young menstruating females that ate in a very narrow feeding window. So here's how you decide if intermittent fasting is good for you. When you get a blood test and you look at your glycemic profile, glucose, insulin, and hemoglobin A1C, if you have a low hemoglobin A1C below 5.2, you are not a candidate for intermittent fasting. And the reason is this, because your blood sugar is already low. And so if you have prolonged low blood sugar and you go a long period of time without eating, your pituitary will perceive

Starting point is 00:14:53 that low caloric intake as starvation. It will begin to throttle back your metabolism. So the pituitary will begin to decrease its stimulation of the thyroid. It will drop thyroid stimulating hormone. It will reduce the production of thyroid hormones, T4 and subsequently T3, so your metabolism will begin to slow. So it makes it easier to gain weight. Remember, the pituitary, especially in females, is regulating your menstrual cycle. It's determining whether or follicular, ovulation, or luteal. Anytime that the pituitary is perceiving low blood sugar as starvation and throttling back to metabolism, it can also throw off a woman's menstrual cycle. So if you have high blood sugar, 5.5 or higher, 5.6, or you're pre-diabetic, 5.7, 8, all the way

Starting point is 00:15:41 up to 6.0. 6.4 is where you become diabetic. If you're in that range, intermittent fasting can be life-changing for you because you have insulin resistance and intermittent fasting will help improve your insulin sensitivity. Start with 12 hours of eating. and 12 hours of fasting and slowly decrease the window to eight hours of eating and the balance of the time fasting. All right, how can I improve my sleep quality? So you're not asking about sleep duration. You're asking about sleep quality. Number one is consistent bedtime. I know that's tough for a lot of people. Set an alarm 15 minutes before you want to go to bed. Start getting really good at going to sleep. Most of us set alarms to wake up. We never set alarms to go to bed. Number two,

Starting point is 00:16:27 get morning sunlight. This is the most underrated sleep hack on the planet because it is free and it's easy to access. People don't give it the just amount of credence that it deserves. So getting morning sunlight in the first 30 minutes of waking, staying hydrated in the morning, sleeping in a dark room, sleeping in a cold room, and investing in a few dollar, all-cotton, full face eye mask, meaning it goes all the way from the top of your face down onto your cheeks, wrap it around your head. Those are great ways to improve your sleep quality. if you're somebody that ruminates at night and has a hard time falling asleep because you're thinking, try magnesium three and eight. Why does morning sunlight improve sleep? Because morning sunlight is

Starting point is 00:17:07 medicine. Morning sunlight is specific wavelengths of light designed to reset your circadian clock. You get certain wavelengths of blue light, which stimulate cortisol, the waking hormone, suppress melatonin, the sleeping hormone, and tell your body it's time to wake up. So if today's episode lit a fire in you, don't let that fire go. go out. Take what you've learned and go do something with it. Swap out your fish oil, change your light exposure, get your child, the gut support that they need, step into cold water tomorrow morning. Your biology is listening to your behavior and every small change adds up. If you want to stop guessing with your health and start getting real, data-driven answers to what's going on

Starting point is 00:17:48 inside your body, come join my VIP group. We do monthly deep dives, live Q&A sessions, and this is where I share the uncensored, unfiltered, behind-the-scenes science that I don't post anywhere else. You were never meant to be average. You were meant to be the ultimate human. I'm Gary Brecker. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see you next time. And until then, it's just science.

The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 194. Q&A with Gary: Fasting, Hyperbaric, Sleep, Berberine and More!!

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