The Real Reason You Still Feel Tired—Even When Your Bloodwork Looks Perfect | Dr Pompa : 1273

Healthy could be the new sick. Blood levels could be made normal and yet not feel well. So many people are having that exact experience because it's not so simple.

How does someone know the recipe that made them sick? Because if you know that, maybe you're going to do it.

So my saying is, if we fix the cell, we get. Well, a lot of people today are trying to solve their gut problem when they're in a mold problem or they have an upstream heavy metal issue. When your cells make energy in the mitochondria, which is in our cells, they make toxins. If you understood the microbiome, that means all the bacteria, our hands that protect us. If it wasn't there, we'd be dead. Detox is about fixing what's broken there.

And it's in the cell. Not the liver, not the kidney. How do you go about fixing the cell?

I have my five Rs, which is a road map to do this.

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See you there. So, Dr. Dan Pomba, you said that a lot of disease, a lot of aging, is damage at the cellular level. And I think we have some agreement on that. Is healthy. The new sick is healthy.

The new sick. Well, I. When you look at the statistics in this country, you might say that. Actually, I've never heard it put that way, but it's actually a brilliant statement because healthy could be the new sick. And especially because it becomes so normal to them, a lower level of living. Yeah, it's kind of like someone dimming the lights in the. Outside the room after a while, you don't even know it's dim until they actually turn it up.

And like, I'm healthy. Yeah. You're like, no, you're not.

No, you're not. No, it's true. I was in a conversation just recently. I, I was in a friend of mine's waiting room and it was. Three women were having a conversation and it was about, it was about their health issues. But they kept saying, but that's normal, right? It's like, well, you know, my thyroid, I, you know, I have thyroid, you know, issues. Da, da, da, My hair's thinning. But that's all normal. And I Was like thinking, I actually didn't go into the conversation because I knew it would just be too much.

And if you look at what normal actually means, it means average. And just go to the airport and look around and that's normal. So if what you are is normal, you're probably not in very good shape because most people are sick today. So you should be so far from normal just to be healthy.

Even blood work, you look at blood work and you know, these normals that we call them are really not normal, are they not? They're based on abnormal humans in a abnormal society.

What is the normal level of Testosterone for a 35 year old guy?

You know, my answer is going to be a little different than probably what you're looking for because we look at blood levels of hormones and I always say, you know, if it were only that simple. Meaning that how your hormones interact with your cell, get into your cell so you feel well is really different than people think. Meaning hormone sensitivity, it rules. So therefore you could have someone with a lower blood level and be absolutely healthy, as we're putting quotes around it, and feel amazing and be lean and have all kinds of energy because their cells are very sensitive to their hormones. Or people could be forcing the hormones very high and their cells not be very sensitive to hormones because of something called cellular inflammation that's blocking the hormones and cellular damage to the receptor itself. So it's hard to look at blood levels and put healthy on them.

That's profound. You're 100, right? And the first thing is people say how much testosterone? I'm like, well, how much is free? How much is available?

See, it's, it's not easy.

Yeah. And we can measure how much is free. And you know, Randy Galpin was on and said, you know, above 20 and I would generally agree. And some people do not feel good at 20 because as you're saying, their cells can't use it. So then you say, well, what's the right level for longevity? And then how are you feeling? And maybe we need to crank it up to 24 so you can feel.

Yeah, you know, look at thyroid, right?

Oh God.

We have this explosion of thyroid cases in the last even 10 years. If you look at 20, it's even worse. Right. Well, look, you know, people, I. Let me, let me reference myself. There was a time where I said, I know I have a thyroid. This is when I was sick. This is back in 1999, 2000. So a long time ago. But my hair was thinning. Right. I didn't know what was wrong with myself? I had mysterious illness. Couldn't figure it out. But one thing I did know is I had a thyroid issue. I had all the symptoms.

Right, that's because you were a doctor back then.

Yeah. And I, you know, I knew it was going, but I went and got a blood test. This particular day, I ran $5,000 worth of tests trying to figure out what was wrong. Okay. And I, I know the number. It was right around that number because I didn't have insurance to pay for it. So you remember. You tend to remember things like that.

I spent similar amounts in a similar year because, yeah, it was really expensive. Still is. But not.

Yeah, no, no doubt it was back then. But I ran a lot of things. But it was a depressing day because he came back in. His exact words were, oh, you're healthier than me. Right. I didn't want to hear that. I mean, if he told me, you know, you have cancer, I'd be like, okay, at least I know what I'm up against now because I've just spent, you know, two years looking and finding nothing. But anyways, my thyroid numbers came back normal. Okay. I had every thyroid symptom. Right. So what I didn't know is, again, you know, my thyroid hormone wasn't getting its message or itself in the cell. So therefore, because I had so much cellular inflammation, thyroid res. Yeah, absolutely. Just like insulin resistance. Great, great example. So eventually, I, I, maybe five years, it would have went off. Maybe 10 years, I would have went. And finally they would have said, oh, you know, your number, your TSH is off, your T3, you know, is low. And then, great, here, take this. I would have taken the hormone. Maybe I would have felt better for a period of time. I would have definitely went back in two, three months. And they would say, oh, look, your levels are better. But what do people say? Yeah, but I don't feel better. Right. Meaning my hair's still thinning, my skin's dry, I'm constipated, so I still have no energy. I can't lose this belly fat or whatever it is. Right. The point is, is that, you know, that's the example that we're talking about, is blood levels can be made normal and yet not feel well. And so many people are having that exact experience because it's not so simple as looking at blood levels. And I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I. I mean, you know, if someone comes back and they have a testosterone level of 100, I too, probably an indication your Body's struggling a bit.

But if they walked in just with plates of muscle and complaining of excess libido and their testosterone is 100, you'd probably say, good on you, right? Yeah, yeah, it's not gonna happen.

But probably not.

It's funny, around that same year, probably a couple years before it, I got my results back from a longevity doctor in the Bay Area. And I don't think he's still practicing, Dr. Miller. And he said, dave, your thyroid's almost undetectable, and your testosterone is lower than your mom.

How do you know my mother?

Well, I sent my parents home because he's a longevity doctor. And I'm like, maybe he can fix me because I'm fat, I'm tired all the time, my eyebrows are falling out, all this stuff, right? And I remember the first time I took thyroid hormone, it was like, oh, my God, my whole body. I think now when I apply effort, results happen before I get apply effort and nothing would happen.

See, that's the difference. Your cellular health is better now. You know, look, receptors to every hormone reside on our cells, right? It's. People are listening. So I literally have my fist with a hand up, my fingers going through it. You know, hormones have to dock to those receptors. No different than your cell phone needs a tower to communicate. Otherwise, your cell phone's useless. Right? And what you just said when you were going through your health challenges, you know, we both went through stuff, right, because your cells were inflamed, blocking your hormone receptors. Oh. You can't even get the good things in. Oh, and also, toxins are building up in your cell, right. Which is not triggering your bad genes, right? It's like. And this is most of America, by the way, toxic cells, right? It's like hormones can't get in, nutrition can't get in, toxins can't get out. You know, this is the problem. Right, right there. 20 years of teaching this to doctors with, you know, great frustration sometimes.

Well, I think you're making a difference, though.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Wise, but I, I'm honored to be here. And by the way, I, I, I really. Not as many people give you credit as credit is due, meaning you are the father of biohacking. You really are. And, and I say that because I've been doing this a long time. I've been ripped off, copied, and not given credit. So, number one, I know what it feels like. But I learned to give credit where credit's due. You are. I remember years ago, I could tell you where I was when someone either said, watch this. You'll resonate with it. And I watched a video. I texted the person back, said, this guy's smart and he knows what he's talking about. And anyways, but that was. My gosh, I don't even know when that was, but I was in Tahoe. I was staying at this cool hotel in Tahoe. Actually, it was Carson's, right. Outside of Tahoe. But you deserve credit, man. Yeah.

Wow. Well, thank you.

Yeah.

No, I really did start the biohacking movement. You did Consciously to make longevity medicine and functional medicine and some of this other neuroscience and things just to make it accessible so people would want to do it. If someone had told me about biohacking when I was 19, I would have suffered a lot less than saved $2 million. Like, it would. It would have been worth it.

Yeah, right. I mean, isn't it true? Yeah, because I. I spent it, man. We remortgaged our home.

You know, just get well, right?

Yeah, just get well. That's why I don't have. I don't have a lot of patience for people when they say, well, how much is it? Or I can't afford it, or can you give me a guarantee? Because I'm like, you know, I wish I had all those things. Right. I didn't. And I spent it. And if I thought you had the answer, you know, I. I'm not. I'd. I'm doing it. I'll find it.

I was briefly married in my 20s, and I just realized I need to set aside 20% of my income just to function, to. To figure out what's wrong with my body, to keep my energy where it is.

Right.

And that was one of the relationship stresses. Like, why do you spend so much money on, you know, medical tests? Like, because I'm fat and because I'm tired, because I can't think and because I keep getting sick and all these things because my body hurts all the time.

You know, I had that. I think in that piece that I saw, you told a bit of your story. I. I'm not going to do this, but I'd love to reverse this and be like, tell your story to me again. I would love, like, when did all that start? But just quickly, when did that. When did your problem. When did your ill start?

They started as a. As a child.

Oh, did they?

I grew up in a basement with toxic mold. Oh, dude, I hate my man.

Mold's evil.

My family owns a gold mine. I might have a little bit of mercury exposure from that to play in old mines.

Absolutely you did. And.

And then a vampire bat bit me when I was 10. I woke up with it feeding on my neck.

Oh, that's.

And now I understand I almost certainly got bartonella from it. And I also had, you know, chronic strep throat from the molds, which gives you the pandas. And so I also was. Had Asperger's and ADHD and od.

Well, that makes you brilliant. Okay, so take that off the table. But you know, I have to say what you just said is part of what I've been teaching for 20 years is always look for the perfect storm.

Yeah.

Meaning it's never one thing.

Never.

Your body will. Your body will adapt, adapt, adapt. Right. You know, but it's when that other storm, you know, three storms come together and we have a perfect storm and boom. Then the genes start getting triggered and the bottom starts falling out in the immune turns on itself. So if you can figure out what someone's perfect storm is, that's how they're going to get.

Well, I love the way you teach this because you're teaching doctors systems biology and you're undoing the damage from medical school. And there's great value in medical school. I'm not saying that it's not there because if I get hit by a truck, I want to go to. It's just that belief there must be one cause is built into the pharmaceutical industry and they're funding medical schools. And what if in order to test for bread, you could have Pfizer? Like, well, we bake the water, we bake the yeast, we bake the salt, we bake the flour. There is no bread. You have to have a recipe, right? And there's a recipe for getting sick and the recipe for getting well. How does someone know the recipe that made them sick? Because if you know that, maybe you can undo it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, exactly. Right. But it's funny what you said though. Doctors believe that there's one cause today. They believe there's probably one drug to cover up one symptom.

Right.

I mean, it's gotten even worse than that. Right. You know, one of the things I love to teach from, just as an analogy is if you, to, to the point of what you said, right. If you can figure out the these, the cause, then surely the solution lies there. Right? And we're always looking for cause. But think of a three legged stool. All three things have to be there for the stool to stand up is the analogy. Right. Okay. We know that genes play a role, right? But Again, our DNA is not our destiny. Right? Genes can get turned on, most genes, and they can also be turned off. So think of that as one leg of the stool. Right? But then think of another leg as the stressors. That perfect storm we discussed that triggers that gene, right? So, okay, so if we deal with the stressors, do you think that there's science to show that we can actually turn off the genes? The answer is yes. So people listening that have autoimmune, right? They have thyroid conditions, diabetes, all these things. Yes, those genes were turned on, but it's definitely not your destiny. But you won't turn them off until you deal with the stressors that turn them on. There is one more leg, and that's the microbiome, as we've learned, Right? Meaning that if you think about autoimmune, there's certain bacteria, if they get in too low a number, we don't make enough T regulatory cells that tell your immune system to back down. It's okay, right? Don't attack it, you know, don't attack yourself. So, of course that's playing a role, too. So today, even in functional medicine, I find doctors are either just trying to chase the gut without understanding these other legs of the stool. So if all three of these things had to be there for you to get sick, then it makes logical sense that we better deal with all three. Yes, the gut, but. And yes, do things that can actually turn down and down regulate gene expression. But also, you better get to the cause of how it got triggered. Oh, in these stressors are also why the gut went bad too, right? So there's one leg that actually causes the other legs, you know, to fall, if you will.

So I really like that. And you've been a leading voice in talking about the role of toxins. And I recognize in my history, both toxins developed by my microbiome that was off as well as environmental toxins have had a profound impact. And even toxins from things that people think are healthy food but probably aren't. It's true. Those have been why my mitochondria were screwed up. I have the inflammation and all. So I want you to rank the toxins people are commonly exposed to from the worst and most common. Going down the list, the most common and the worst.

I don't know if it lines up, but let's go for this. Because if you look at probably the most common, like look at plastic exposure today, right? I mean, huge. I mean, they're finding it in every tissue of the human body, every brain. Now on autopsies has it. Right? Every testicle. I mean, come on. These are hormone disruptors. Right? It's like, in. You know, obviously linked to cancer and many other conditions. And we know they're driving autoimmune and other problems, and yet even you and I are being exposed. And I bring water. Glass bottles. I don't drink out of plastic. Right.

Did you notice? Glass bottles?

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how many podcasts they give me a bottle, and I'm preaching against it. And there's the bottle, and I'm like, okay, great. Now I can at least use this. One liter. A bottle has 140,000 micrograms of plastic. But anyway. Yeah, so plastic's probably one of the most common, if we're going common first. Then, of course, chemicals from our food, like glyphosate. I mean, my gosh. I mean. And I would argue that's making this perfect storm even worse. Right. So I'm going to talk about some deadly toxins that people unknowingly have been exposed to from birth on, like, you and I. And yet glyphosate allows those to cross deeper into our brain. Number one, this is a 2012 study. Stephanie Seneff, you know, one of the first. It's been duplicated on the show.

I think she has more credit than she gets.

Yeah, right. It's true. You know. Yes. It allows these toxins, like heavy metals, which are deadly. They affected me, part of my story. To cross even deeper into the brain. She believes that it's, you know, creating this massive increase in autism and a lot of other neurodegenerative conditions. It's opening up the gut barrier. So I would put that in one of the most deadly categories because in itself, it's deadly. And then it's also making other toxins more deadly by allowing it to cross deeper into us. So, yeah, that would be deadly. You know, I think deadly that people miss in. I would say alternative medicine misses for many reasons because of bad testing. And they don't know what to do with it, really. Mold, biotoxins. Right. Okay, so the urine test. Yeah, listen, in my doctor group, we tested this urine test where you look at biotoxins. Most of it's foodborne. We fasted people for a day got a little better. Two days got even better. But showing that it's mostly foodborne. And you know a lot about foodborne mold now. That's why you developed coffee. That's not right.

Right.

So it's very inaccurate. So mold is either missed because of poor testing, right? People go, oh yeah, I don't have mold in my house. No one thinks they have mold in their house, right? It's like, you know, or they do an air test because they brought in the experts and of course there's no mold in the house. But it is because it's behind the wall all. And they didn't test for it. Heavy metals. I would say a lot of people think they might have heavy metals, but then the problem here is the way that they go online and find what they think gets rid of heavy metals. It's the, the drops, it's the, the, the chlorella, the cilantro, the, you know, none of it is. If it were only that easy, right, I wouldn't have spent most of my career teaching how to get rid of this stuff out of deep tissue, like your brain, you know, that made me sick. So heavy metals, deadly. Just don't know quite what to do with it. Biotoxin is deadly because it's missed and oftentimes dealt with incorrectly. So, yeah, pesticides, big problem. Plastics, big problem forever. Chemicals is a new problem, right? Because these things, yeah, forever, they last forever in our environment. But look what they're doing in our body, right? I mean, it's remarkable that how much, you know, how much damage it's caused, how many dollars are awarded to the damages of. And yet we're still and, you know, basically getting it in all these products from dental floss to eye care, toilet paper, I mean, just go down the list. Eye drops, obviously. Clothing, waterproof, resistant, of course, pans, Teflon. I mean, you know, over 10,000 products we're being exposed to. Europe is putting bans on this stuff one after another. Denmark, the EU is, you know, next to put bans on this stuff. Here in the United States, we're not, we haven't even banned glyphosate yet. And how many billions have been awarded to cancer, non Hodgkin's lymphoma and you know, other problems. And yet you still walk in Home Depot and you see what Roundup, right?

And you know, those bastards are now trying to go to states and make it illegal for them to have liability for spraying chemicals that poison people. And I'm, I don't understand that because there's a certain type of person, and thankfully I'm not one of them, where if you kill their children, they will kill you, right? And so I, I just don't, I don't understand how our government isn't taking action on that. I think they might, but.

Well, there's a chance right now. Yeah, I'm there. There's a new sheriff in town. There's a chance that this can all. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Change. I hope it does.

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One of the things about glyphosate that that isn't well known is that glyphosate, when you spray it on soil and plants, it causes the toxic mold to make 500 times more mold toxin. And in things like corn, we used to just have mold on the corn. It's called Fusarium, and it's one of the big toxic molds. Well, you could see it, but when you spray glyphosate, it goes into the roots of the corn, and it binds to the sugar in the corn, and you can't see it. And if you test the corn for this toxin, you won't see it, but once you digest the corn and your enzymes break the sugar apart, the toxins released. And so glyphosate is making mold toxins work, and it's making metal toxins work? Yes.

Oh, yes, absolutely. Does you know something I heard you say recently? And I said, wow, he's the first person that I've heard say this. And it's true that when people are in a mold exposure, oftentimes they get, like, mucus biofilms, and they have certain sinus problems that they have even certain mucus in the back of the throat. And I'm always like, that's mole. And the reason is the fact is the bacteria and mold are enemies of each.

Yeah.

Ancient enemies. Absolutely. So what do bacteria do to protect themselves? They felt biofilms. Right. So that is a sign that I've talked about for many years. So I don't know how you figured it out, but. Or how you. Where you got that, but it's true. But I rarely hear people talk about that.

It's fundamentally important for parents.

Right.

Because your kids have behavioral problems. And Pandas is what happens when toxic mold messes with the streptococcus bacteria, and it makes it form a biofilm in the sinus of your kids, and then they get chronic strep throat the way I did antibiotics every month for 15 years. But the toxins from strep cause an autoimmune reaction. I think it's probably to the lining of your nerves to myelin. But that's what causes this Pando's disorder, which makes you have OCD and odd, both of which I used to have. So you think my kid's not trying hard, or they have autism or whatever. They might just have mold toxins, or they might have mold toxins that cause bacterial toxins. And it's so real.

Absolutely. Because the mold will obviously have the opposite effect. Right. It will cause bacterial problems. Just like. Yeah, it's. It's amazing. But see, the reason you know that is because you experienced. Yeah, right. The reason I know that is because I experienced it. Right. Meaning Like, I had these, you know, impossible biofilms. Right. A lot of people today are trying to solve their gut problem when, again, they're in a mold problem or they have an upstream heavy metal issue.

Makes me so happy you're saying this.

Yeah. And they're going all these, you know, probiotic this, that other thing. It's like, hold on, you know, now what's 20 miles up the river? There might be a factory, you know, dumping a toxin in the river. And that's why your fish are dying down here. So stop trying to populate the fish. You know, in other words, the microbiome. It's not going to happen until you deal with what's going on up there. But, you know, doctors don't want to hear it. We have more fancy testing, whether it's SNP testing, genetic testing, microbiome testing, but yet I feel like alternative medicine is pulling away from that, in a sense, and getting fancier. And instead of, like, dealing with the upstream issues, we got our lives back because we got to the cause.

We're incredibly fortunate, and it took an enormous amount of money and learning, and.

That'S why we're here.

Yeah. And we're both able to educate. And I think you have so much leverage because you're teaching doctors how to detox in a way that's functional. And so, you know, I practice gratitude for all the shit I went through because it motivated me. My blog. I thought five people read this and not go through all the hell I went through. And that was my goal.

Dave, look at the. The amount of people you've been able to impact. Right. And it's. It would have never happened if you hadn't suffered. Oh, yeah. So from pain to purpose has been my whole life story, man. I sit here because of that, you know, And I. I like to say pain to purpose, to promise. Meaning I always believe God has a promise in it for someone that if, you know, if you anchor to it, it's like, watch what can happen, watch what he does.

Completely agree. Yeah. All right, let's start at the top. How do I get rid of toxins in my sinuses?

Well, let's say this. How do you get rid of toxins in your brain, sinuses, body? Right. Well, no doubt there's detox pathways that we all were born with. They start in our cell. They eventually have to work their way to the liver, kidneys, gut, etc, but it all starts here. So if you've heard me say real detox is at the cell, it's a cellular issue.

So agree.

So we can't just say, I'm going to get rid of these toxins using chelators, binders. That's part of it. I teach it. However, if we don't fix what's broken here, then we're never going to fix what's the problem. So, meaning if you. If your cells detox pathways start to slow down now, you're broken from the very beginning and you will never get well. So my saying is, if we fix the cell, we get well. But let me give people an analogy they can hold on to. So there's many different detox pathways that our cells utilize to get rid of toxins. And by the way, when your cells make energy in the mitochondria, which is in our cells, they makes toxins. It's like burning wood in a fireplace. Yeah, right.

Reactive oxygen species.

Absolutely. If you don't have the damper open, meaning the toxins can't get out and they come into the home, we die.

Right.

Okay, so everyone has that analogy. Okay, here's one more we know. To make a car more powerful, faster. Right. Perform better, people put dual exhausts on them.

Yep.

And immediately the power goes up. Okay, that means that if we can get rid of toxins, we actually increase power. Okay. Now let's do the opposite.

Oh, that's a true story. I did that to my Tesla and nothing happened.

Yeah, that's really weird.

I don't have a Tesla. Never owned an electric car.

That's what just. Well, good thing. They might bomb it outside. Who knows what's going to happen happen these days. But anyway, so it. So now if this is a true story. Let me tell the story. So I. We were in high school and I drove my friends somewhere, I think it was a party. And I was the designated driver and we got in the. The car to drive home. And I'm driving home and the power's dying and I'm dying and I'm. At this point, I have it floored. Literally. I accelerated the gun. I'm criticizing my friends, how heavy they are. I'm like, literally, I. I wasn't processing. Finally it gets so bad, the car just dies. The next scene was me calling my parents to come pick us up. Okay. The next day we found out what happened. Someone who didn't like one of us stuffed an apple in the exhaust. An apple. Okay, so what happened? The toxins were building up in the engine, and the engine was. Power was getting less and less. Sound familiar? America, right?

You're seeing banana thing from that movie.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But anyways. But until the point where the engine and, you know, died. Right. But that's what's happening in people's cells. When these detox pathways slowed down, you'd be dead if they were, you know, if they just stopped. But slowed down. The toxins are now building up in the cell. And just like the engine first sign is just low power. Gosh, I just feel. I can't make it through a day. I feel like. But, you know, you feel like you're gonna just go kaput, and that can happen. But as those toxins build up in the cell, a lot of things happen. Your detox pathways, they get worse and worse. Your DNA that's in that cell as well, starts to get triggered. Toxins, as we said, turn on the bad genes. So now you get the diagnosis. It's a thyroid condition. It's Hashim. Whatever it is. Right. They start turning it on, but also more as the energy drops. So now energy's dropping, inflammation is rising.

Right.

And all your methylation pathways are exhausted. Your glutathione pathways, you know, and your hormones don't work even if you're taking them, just like us. Yeah, that's. Detox is about fixing what's broken there.

And it's in the cell. Not the liver, not the kidneys.

That's right.

Okay. And not those. Even the sweat glands.

Yeah. No, exactly. And listen, I'm all for saunas. I'm all. I have one. I, you know, I love them just as you do. I'm all for keeping the liver. Part of my process is you have to keep the liver and the kidney and the gut open. But the big part of what I've been teaching for 20 years is fixing this. And I'm pointing at the cell.

How do you go about fixing the cell?

Okay. I. I have my five Rs, which is a roadmap to do this Right. I don't want to bore people with the deep science. Your audience is pretty privy here, so. But the five Rs came about. Let me tell that story first out of a very frustrating lecture that I gave in California. Know, I was so jazzed talking about this, what I just said, basically. Right. I. I probably didn't have as good analogies then, but I was super excited. But I could tell they weren't my audience. You've spoken enough. You know, when you have them, when you don't. I didn't have them. So beating myself up on the flight home, literally, I was like, gosh, you know, I. I just need to figure out a way to communicate. And then I prayed. I literally, I just, I said a prayer and I'm telling you, it started coming and I reached down and grabbed my notebook and the five R's was born. Okay, so what are they? Our number one. It's the obvious. You have to remove the source. We just talked about this. What's upstream, what's up the river, right? Or the sources in your life you think you're going to get? Well, if you're still living in a moldy home, you're. You could do all your biohacks and all my techniques. Yeah. You're going to chase it. Some things might feel.

Get rid of them all. Get rid of the peanut butter, get rid of the moldy coffee. All the normal sources.

Yeah, absolutely. You have to clean it up. R number one. R number two is you have to regenerate the cell membranes. Now I do whole weekend seminars just on membranes. It's not my saying, but there is one life and death begins on the membranes.

Is that Gilbert Ling?

Is that Gilbert Lang?

I would guess.

Oh, I didn't.

Seems like something from Cells Dells Cells gels.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I, I gotta figure that out now because I, I wanted to give credit to someone. I always just make sure that people don't think it's me.

Got it here.

We're back to that credit do thing. It's not me. We do our best because I tell. I heard someone say one time, oh, I'll pump. I didn't say that. A fixed cell go, well, that's me. That life and death begins on the memories. Not me. But it does. It's that important, right? I mean, I've already made the point that your hormone receptors are on those membranes, right? So hormone health begins on the membranes. Your ability to lose weight or not lose weight could be in the membranes. And by the way, it's not just the membrane of the outer cell. That is a lipid bilayer, two layers of really important fat. That is the gatekeeper of what comes in and what comes out. I already said how important that is. Right? But those inner membranes, the mitochondrial membrane, that's it. That's where power happens, right? It's like without that. And you know how many people have so many toxins in their cell that their mitochondrial membrane again, they're taking all these things. Wonder why it's not working. Wonder why their energy. Horrible. It sucks. It's the mitochondrial membrane that is a problem.

So you're doing phosphatidylcholine phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylcholine.

Is very important because it makes up such an important part of the membrane. Here's this is such a great topic. So we're on R2, but we're going to stay here for a bit because this is such an important topic right now in our space. Omega 6 is such a bad guy. And I understand why. Because. That's right, because people are adjusting so much. All the vegetable oils, all the things, all the grain fed meats. Right. So we have a dominance that. I get it. But here's the problem. Omega 6 is the king of the cell membrane. It's the most important. But by the way, because of that, it's why it's so, so deadly when it's rancid. Omega 6. Right. So adulterated Omega 6 is so bad because Omega 6 is so important. So my point is, is that when I teach fixing the membrane, my attention is at Megas, at the Omega 6, getting rid of the bad and bringing in the good. And that's what people don't understand. It's not the bad guy. Right.

So, so you're giving people extra but, but undamaged damage to flush out the membrane.

So when people were eating all these rancid seed oils, they're those Omega 6s are going right to the membrane and they don't stay for hours, they don't stay for days, they're in there for months.

792 days or something.

That's the last estimate. Right.

It's like I found the study for that in one of my books.

Yeah. So that's driving cellular inflammation which disrupts your hormones, which disrupts your nutrition and all your expensive supplements from getting its hormones in the cell. So yeah, stay away from seed oils. You know, and again, when you go to a seed oil could be healthy by the way.

And in low doses. Yeah.

And unadulterated, you know, and that's, that's the issue is people are everything in whole foods or a health food store. If it's in a package, it's very fragile. It's. Yes, it's an adulterated oil. So telling people randomly stay away from seed oils. Yeah, yeah, I, you get that. But it's a little more complicated.

If they're eating egg yolks, eating some avocados, are they not getting undamaged Omega 6?

See, here's the way I answer this. I love vegetable oil and vegetables.

There you go.

I actually this is controversial too. I love fish oil and fish fish oil is more fragile than seed oils. It's double bonds. Think about this.

Yeah.

Fish oil has five. It's right. Fish oil has five to six double bonds. Dha what? It has six. I think the other one has five. EPA has five. Three, two or three is seed oils. Right. Now what are the most. What fats take heat.

The best saturated fat.

How many double bonds do they have? Zero.

Kind of weird. They don't have any. And they're fully saturated with oxygen so they're very hard to damage.

That's right.

Most of what I eat.

Yeah. So again the more double bonds, the more fragile. So we have to be careful of our fats obviously. And like I said, the omega 6 is very important. Phosphatidylcholine, 70% omega 6.

If I'm in replacing my cell membranes detox mode, which is going to take at least two years to replace half your cell membranes, what percentage of my fat should be undamaged? Omega 6.

Well, yeah, that's. Listen, I. Anywhere from a 4:1 to 1 to A. Some say 6 to 1 ratios is what you see in nature. Right?

Yeah.

So think of it as in, you know, in those ratios and again, if you're eating to your point, egg yolks. Right. Grass fed meat, you're going to find those ratios are in nature. Why? Because it knows best.

The thing is though, in grass fed beef it's 1.6% linoleic acid. There's a lot of linolenic acid which is different, but the linoleic, it's pretty low and I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. But I do find that after 15 years of not eating processed seed oils at all and I don't eat a lot of nuts because of oxalate and all that, but I still get some that my ratio dropped to about 2.8 to 1 of omega 6 to omega 3, which is too low for longevity. We want it to be four. So then I eat a few walnuts, nuts or some other things like that that are not roasted. And how far can that omega 6 to omega 3 ratio go before it becomes like you need more Omega 6.

Yeah. It's to your point actually, which would be shocking to people is that when you get that low you actually start driving inflammatory processes.

Absolutely. When I saw the labs, I'm like, damn it.

Yeah.

So I went out and you know, got some walnut oil.

Again, you mentioned you glossed over. I there's, you could read studies on the one to one ratio is good for the heart to two to one Ratio is good for your kidneys. The four to one ratio is a ratio that we target for the cell membrane. That's not my research. That's some very smart people. This guy. Oh, he was a Japanese scientist. One of the first studies that I've read. Yoshi, I think it was name is. But it was that 4 to 1 ratio is magic around the membrane. So that means it's good for this brain too.

Yes.

Right. And so I, I think targeting that is wise if you're trying to get your health back.

Olive oil.

One bottable bond. Right. So I've had meaning more stable.

It's, it's definitely more stable, but it.

Still can oxidize because sure, yeah, people put it on their stove. But the point, because there's a double bond, right. So we're, you know, butter, ghee, tallow, no bubble bonds. You could put it on your stove, you could fry in it, for goodness sakes. There is a double bond with olive oil. So you do have to be careful. You know, obviously it can happen.

You might know the answer to this. You're one of the few guys I could ask. I know that 30 to 50 grams of olive oil, if it's real olive oil, has health benefits. And there's really clear stuff, as I've always said, of course, a couple tablespoons a day, that's fine. But excessive oleic acid causes a massive increase in oxidation of omega 6 of linoleic acid by driving something called D5D. So how much olive oil is too much and should I eat only olive oil the way some people are these days?

I don't think you should only eat olive oil.

I don't think it's good longevity practice.

Yeah, I don't either. Yeah. You know, I think it, the question is more complicated than our brains, you know, want to think about it. Because there's other protectors in that. Meaning if in a laboratory you're watching that oxidation, in reality, there's other protective factors that can. So it literally, I, I, maybe there's one. I don't think there is. But you'd have to study, you know, olive oil in its effect specifically in that area, you know, with the taking all other factors out. So that's a little hard.

It is hard, hard. And I kind of roll my eyes at this point, like, oh, it has all these protective antioxidants. I take hydroxytyrosol in a capsule. That's like a thousand liters of olive oil in every pill. So if you really want the antioxidants from Olives, you can get olive polyphenols and they work much better than over driving oleic acid because I would rather have clean, undamaged Omega 6 in small amounts and mostly saturated because I want my membranes to work. But I might be missing something. Like, what am I missing? You're an expert that at.

Yeah, no, I mean, I, I again, I, I think that's where, here's where your, your eyes, personality can get us, right? Because we, we love to do it and we do it the best and we can overdo it. So I think that when you're, you know, you're eating a balanced diet and not chugging a bunch of olive oil, that's when you get into trouble, right? I mean, listen, every, people did it with coconut oil, not just people did it with, I mean, everything can work. My gosh, we can drink too much water and people, I see people doing that, right? I mean, so everything can backfire on us, right? So you know, if you're eating olive oil and you're using it in your food, it's different if you start chugging a lot of olive oil, right? I mean, again, too many antioxidants is bad. It's bad for your immune system. Yes, right. It's like. And then we also know that oxidants can actually be good ozone, right? I mean, how most things work. You're the biohacking expert. Most biohacks work on a premise called hormesis, meaning it literally drives a reaction in our body and our bodies drive an opposite reaction to adapt to the stress that it created. And that adaptation, if you adapt, becomes a good thing. When you go into a cold plunge, your body literally thinks it's going to die. It raises norepinephrine, epinephrine and growth hormone. But if you stay in too long inflammation, you don't sleep as well, you know, because that's the premise of hormesis. If you adapt, it's amazing. If you don't, it's bad. Exercise. You can exercise too much, right? If you exercise too much, you don't adapt. It becomes a good thing, becomes negative.

Okay, totally agree with you. So we're going to replace the fat in our membranes with unpoisoned fat because mold toxins and angiogram disruptors dissolve into your cell membranes. So I like this picture of if you have like a glass of water with a drop of food coloring in it, you have to add a lot of water before you wash all that out and faster the same way. So it's going to take you four years to get 75% of that die out if you just pour new fats into the system. And I've noticed over the years, people who start putting butter and MCT into their coffee every day, the way I did when I was at Bulletproof, Now Danger Coffee is my new one. Because who knows what you might do after. For the first few years, you cannot get enough. It's like mana from heaven. Like, oh, I needed this. And almost to a day after two years, which is when half the cell membranes have been replaced with more stable oils you've flushed out the system. It's like, you know, I like this, and I do it sometimes, but the craving is gone. It's like the body finally got what it needed.

I've got this.

Okay.

Again, this is learning. Working with so many sick children, autistic children. This is opposite of what most people teach. But when I'm teaching membrane, I say the most important thing is you have to bring in the. The glue, the stabilizers to the membrane first. And those are your saturated fats and cholesterol. Thank you. So saturated fat and cholesterol are the most. That's the base layer. Yeah. So people go opposite. So before we even think about the Omega 6, if you don't stabilize that membrane with those saturates in the cholesterols, the matter of fact, the two fats that are demonized the most is exactly what we need to start with to lay that found. So your foundation, when you were like, you need, your body knew, your intuition, your innate intelligence knew it needed the foundation. And then you don't need as much of the foundation. Then you start building on it with the good Omega 6 and Omega 3, too. We're just talking about that. But Omega 3 and Omega 6 are your. Those are your parent oils. They're essential, meaning you have to get them in your diet, Right. So you can make dha, epa, but you have to get those oils in, and they have to have the saturated fats and cholesterol, but that is the foundation. Okay, yeah. So you laid the foundation, and then you acquired less later. Innate intelligence knew it.

Okay, so there's our cell membranes. So we fix those by increasing our intake of saturated and undamaged moderate amounts of polyunsaturated fats and some monounsaturated fats, including phosphatidylcholine, and just. Just choline itself, things like from egg yolks and allowing the liver to make more cholesterol.

And. And by the way, one of the shakes that I made I called it my membrane shake. It was filled with egg yolks. And, you know, because again, it brought in, right, that perfect egg yolks. It's like, it's almost made for the membrane. It's brilliant. I mean, it's like it's God's food for our cell membrane. So, yeah, I was literally putting, like, you know, know eight egg yolks in it every day. And, you know, honestly, my hair went amazing, my skin got amazing. But that's a reflection of your cell health, man.

It's so funny you're reminding me. I haven't thought of this in a while. My first book was a book on fertility, how to have healthier kids. And I invented this recipe. Yeah. My mother, my children was infertile when we met. And it took five years to design the pain. The purpose, to restore fertility so we could have our kids. My kids are teenagers now, and daughter's about to graduate from high school.

I'm like, wow.

And so we couldn't have kids. And one of the most healing things that I made was this recipe. And I published it as get some Ice Cream. And it's called get some because it had so many egg yolks. It had butter and MCT oil and phosphatidylcholine just from lecithin.

That's a membrane shake right there.

And. But we put in an ice cream.

Maker, and when you eat some membrane.

Ice cream, an hour later you get this thing like, we should go to the bedroom. And I think it's because the body says there's so much abundance. I should get pregnant now. Like, this is a time the nutrients in the world are present. And thousands of people have emailed and posted saying, I thought you were crazy, but it totally works.

Yeah, right.

So it's egg yolks, right?

It is, man. I mean, you can't discount what's the benefits in the whites? Not the fats, but the proteins. My biochemistry teacher, Dr. Shahid In. In school, he said the perfect food is the egg. It's the egg, you know? You know, and I'm back then, I'm like, why would you. Now I get it. It's the egg. He's right. It's amazing.

I. I think, though, you're supposed to cook the whites a little bit because if you take whites by themselves, you get biotin.

Yeah, I use in the shakes. I. I would just use the yolk. Not that, because you could. Yeah, it's raised the bite.

What works even better is you take the egg whites and you feed them to your pigs and then you eat the bacon.

There you go.

So I did when I was on the farm. Okay. So we've got our membranes handled. And now our cells. Our sensitivity to hormones are. Are there. And we're able to detox the cells.

Yeah. Bring good things in, good things out. Membranes. Yeah.

What. What's Next on the Rs.

R3 is restoring cell energy.

Okay.

You know, this is key favorite. Yeah. It is your favorite because oftentimes when you're dealing with people who can't digest food, they're sensitive to the world. This is where the biohacks can be beneficial. This is where red light can come in. This is where, because you're going around these things that are so broken that we're able to biohack into the mitochondria. And it's helpful.

So if you can't digest your food, you should definitely have some alkaline water.

Right. Well, I don't. You know, I'm not a believer in continually drinking alkaline water. I think it's a big mistake, actually, myself. Oh, you're being facetious.

I'm trying to trigger you.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Yeah. I'm like, oh, I'm not a believer. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah.

If you drink alkaline water, you turn off your stomach acid.

You can absorb your slightly. Right. And you wonder why pathogens will, you know, feast on you. Yeah. I'm not a believer in alkaline water. Yeah.

A little story on that front. A friend runs.

I'm glad we resonate on that. I was. I thought maybe you were. But I'm going to tell you what I feel.

It's sometime around 1996, when I was trying to get better, I bought this $2,000 alkaline water machine from Japan when you couldn't get them in the US like the Kanken and all that. And by the Kenyan makes perfectly good structured water. Just don't turn on the alkaline setting. But I have this thing and I drink my alkaline water and I would find food undigested in my poop. And it took like six months to realize it's the stupid alkaline water.

Yeah.

Right. And what a waste of money.

Yeah.

And the CEO of one of the major bottled water companies is a friend. And I was talking about this because one of his products is alkaline. And he's just shaking his head. He goes, it's such bullshit.

Yes.

But everyone wants to buy it. So if you're listening to the show, run away from alkaline water.

Yeah.

It's bad for you.

Yes.

Okay.

Guts meant to be out acid for a reason, right? I mean, it makes no sense. Yeah, it's crazy, too, because, you know, when you look at real water, right? It's like, what water is running at these alkaline numbers, it kills fish. Like this makes no sense, people.

Okay, so we don't do that.

I don't do that.

So we increase our energy. This is by eating enough calories.

Yeah. I mean, look, there's so many things here that apply, right? But what I want people to understand is that the energy of the cell is everything. There's something called the Gibbs free energy equation. As cellular energy drops, inflammation rises, right? And cellular energy drops. In the Gibbs free energy equation, glutathione drops, and then inflammation increases. So the Gibbs free energy, it shows you the relationship of energy to glutathione. Oh, and there's another equation is glutathione drops, methylation drops. So it's a stress on methylation, right? It's like, look, gene and SNP testing is fun, but really it's, you know, I didn't have a snp and my methylation, I couldn't methylate at all. Stress plays into methylation. This is R5, though. So we're going to get to our five because it's reestablishing methylation pathways, which are hugely important. It's. It's. But it's not as simple as just, oh, I have the gene. You know, methylation is important for so many different functions that the body will prioritize and we'll get to that. But let's figure out. Let's, you know, the energy of the cel, if it's not restored, you know, then the problem is, is it's very difficult to restore any of the detox pathways. It's very difficult to restore methylation. It's very difficult to drive down the inflammation, which is our number four is cellular inflammation.

So on. On the energy front, in order to fix that, fixing membranes helps. And then you take things like PQQ CoQ10.

So I built a lot of products that have all those things in it, right? Because back when I was doing it, I didn't have one product. I was putting things together, right? I was experimenting with pqq. I was experimenting with, you know, all these things that worked in, in fact, the mitochondria, right? And listen, when I was getting. Well, I didn't have a Dave Asprey telling me about the benefits of red light. I Didn't have it right. And again I got well without it. But my gosh, I think to myself, you know, how much easier could it have been? Because that was, that's a big problem is getting people cell energy enough up that where they can actually start to deal.

It's shocking what happens even just 10 minutes that people with chronic pain, which is ultimately there's a mitochondrial issue there. You put red light on them and magically their pain goes down a lot. And then you give them some charcoal which is a toxin binder and the next day they're like, oh, it doesn't hurt.

Like, who would have thought? Yeah.

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So we get our energy up with red light with some supplements and all that. And there's many ways, I mean we've both read books about that one. So what's after that is methylation.

Yeah, no that R4 is just, we kind of hit on this. But you have to reduce the inflammation of the cell. This is where a lot of my diet strategies play. And of course I developed a lot of products around cellular inflammation. Right, right. And I talked about when your membranes are inflamed, your hormones, don't worry, can't get the food. So we kind of already talked about the damaging effects of inflammation. You know, my diet strategies are very different than most people. I, you know, everyone looks for the perfect diet. And I said no, the perfect diet is oftentimes the change of diet. I believe people stay low carb too long.

Yes, but I love low carb.

I believe people stay in keto too long. Yes, I love keto.

Amen.

I believe people stay in carnivore too long because it's so be it. But I love carnivore so and I believe people can be plant based too long, you know, like more than three days. Yeah. So yeah, you and I, you know, we tend towards the other side. But the point is if you look at every healthy culture that ever existed on the planet, they were forced to change their diets, whether it be animals, foods, this, that, I mean so many reasons, just season change. But fact is is that today we don't have to do that. But it's a mistake because diet change can actually act in that hormetic stress where it stresses the microbiome and that it forces diversity, meaning it forces the microbiome to make different. When you go from a keto diet, or let's be more extreme, a plant based diet into a keto diet, imagine the bacteria change to break down these foods versus these foods. Well, it's pretty vast. So the more diet changes you have, the more bacteria you are forced to make and they start to create diversity. So the number one way, and by the way, most people know this diversity is the king. Meaning if we, the healthy people have a lot of different bacterias, et cetera, in their gut, they will absolutely have better immunity, better brain health. Right. So diversity rules.

Agree.

Tell me.

Well, it has to be diversity of the good guys, because you can have diversity. That includes all the crap.

If you have bad guys, you don't have diversity. Not necessarily. They take over they monoculture.

You can have diverse bad guys. In fact, a lot of people have 20 different bad bacteria in their guts.

20S. Not diversity, though. And we're talking thousand thousands.

I mean, so many different types of. So I'm just saying.

So usually for diversity, when people have like 20 bad guys, it drops the population so much so that their diversity looks horrible.

That makes sense.

Does that make more sense? Meaning you. When anytime you see a lot of bad guys, you see horrible diversity, it's because it's. It's like mold. It's called amplified mold.

Right.

If you have stachybotrys, you go, what happened to all these other normal bacteria in the home? This guy killed them all.

Correct.

Makes sense. Yeah, I gotcha. Okay.

All right.

I love the challenge, though. But anyway, so. Yeah, yeah, because I, I love that. Matter of fact, I'm the guy who'd be like, wow, I didn't know that. I'm actually wrong. I'm good with that.

So we're both learning from each other.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. But anyway, so the diversity. Right. But diet change creates that diversity that we need. And, and it does other things. It actually, when you change your diet, it creates a hormone optimization, literally.

I believe in seasonal change. Our bacteria was never evolved to say, on Monday I had Mexican, Tuesday, I had Thai. You know, Wednesday I had Ukrainian. Like, it seems like eating random food all the time is not what our things was.

Yeah. I mean, seasonal change is what we see, right? Yeah, that's what we see. There is in part of my feast famine cycling. It's different diet change, though, because I agree with what you're saying. But feast famine cycling, what type of diet change is this? Let me use low carb as an example.

Okay.

But this could also be used for why people are intermittent fasting too much.

Oh, right, Totally. This is a big problem.

It's a big problem. We'll talk about it's fun topic. So I, you know, I've taught correct fasting for years, and I never thought that I'd be here today saying, you know, people are fasting too much. Fasting can be very bad. Fasting is a stress, you know, fast. Yeah. So anyways. But okay, so people in low carb too long and this happened, right? So Joe Mercula came to me. We were at a cancer con thing, and he said, doc, he said, man, I, I feel like I, I'm down to 10 grams of carbs a day, but I'm getting weaker in the gym and I'm. I think I'm getting even fatter. I said, oh, yeah, that's because, you know, your body's using its muscle because you need to increase your carbs.

He never does it to the extreme.

Yeah, now he's the extreme. The other way.

But anyway, yeah, now he's like drinking sugar or something.

But anyway, okay, so I said, just listen. Add in two feast days a week where you eat good, healthy carbs, right? And transform, right?

So I, I tell people, eat the pancakes. Low toxin or whatever. On Saturdays, if you're fasting, like, you have to do that.

You have to do that.

Okay?

Because here's the analogy, right? So the body will always eventually think it starts, right? Because it's going, okay, if this is fat, is the only thing we're burning, able to burn, I'm going to hold on to it and the, the metabolism will continue to drop. Bodybuilders figured this out a long time ago, right? They would carb load before competition and come and rip. So I challenge people, add a feast day where you increase your carbs and watch what happens. Two days later, your ketones are going to go through the roof, which they always, always do because your body then leaves your muscle alone. It says, we have all this fuel now. You're not starving, and I'm gonna burn your fat now. So the analogy is, if you have a cabin in the middle of Alaska, right, And you have a certain amount of wood that you know gets you through the winter, right? This winter is really bad winter. It's a harsh winter. And you went through, you're going through your wood way faster. What are you going to do, Dave? You're going to burn more wood, burn less.

You're gonna have to conserve.

That's right. Because you want to survive the winter. Y just like your body wants to survive. First thing, have to survive, right? So you're going to burn less. That's lowering your metabolism. Meaning instead of being 70 in your house in the winter, you're going to go to 60 and you're going to say, but I'm good with it because I'm going to live and I'm going to make it through. So I'm burning half the amount of wood. Think of that wood as your fat. But a friend comes over I say, dave, oh my gosh, I should. Why don't you tell me? I have so much. Let me bring you some. And I bring you a bunch more wood. What are you going to do?

You're going to warm up the house?

That's right. That's the feast, man. That's what the feast does. Now Dave says, I have plenty of wood now, so I'm going to burn more. And you fire up the kit, you know, fire up the engine. And that's what your body does on feast days. So we have all these people that are low carb too long, intermittent fasting too much, and their body is literally starving. And it goes into a survival mode. And they wonder why they don't have an enough cellular energy. And they wonder why they're gaining fat and losing muscle.

This problem. The Bulletproof Diet was the first modern intermittent fasting book as far as I'm aware. And like three books later, I wrote Fast this Way, my second book on fasting, because everybody started over fasting. It's, it's a scalpel. And you don't need to use a scalpel for everything in your home. You'll get holes in your couch. Like, it doesn't work.

Fasting's a stress. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if your body adapts, it's awesome. But here's the other thing, too. So people jump into a water fast. I love water fasting because I fast a lot. But most people today, metabolically, they can't even handle water fast. Body goes after the muscle right away and it doesn't bounce out of it because they're so broken in their mitochondria. Right. And that's where you use fat for energy. But, you know, so some people better off starting with partial fasting and then, you know, later. But the, the point is, is that people are just fasting because they hear people do it. And sometimes they feel better just because, you know, they're taking away foods that were inflaming them.

They're not eating garbage.

And oftentimes what works, people get locked into what diet works. They get locked into what fasting they get locked into. So, yeah, these are good topics because people are confused on these subjects.

There's one toxin you didn't mention, and I've come over the past maybe five years to think that I wrote about it at the beginning of the Bulletproof Diet book. But I think I under, I under index on how important it is. And it's oxalate.

Well, I mean, oxalates, they're plant toxins. Lectins are plant toxins. Right. Now, very different types of things. We might disagree on this, right. But I believe plant toxins can be very bad. But they can also be good hormetically.

Depending on the dose, so.

Depending on the dose. That's exactly right. Depending on the dose. So the fact is, is that when you have leaky gut, the dose lowers dramatically. Well, they can. It's in higher doses. Right. So again, that's why I said I showed people, okay, in keto, too long is bad. But these plant based diets that are loaded up with oxalates, that's the dose that can actually drive inflammation.

That trashed me when I was a vegan. But then, then I look at what would happen on a feast day back in the bulletproof diet. I'm like, okay, I'll have some kind of dessert made with almond flour, and I'll have a bunch of sweet potatoes and I'll have some raspberries. Even though I cut out spinach and kale, I was still getting too much oxalate because we can handle about 200 milligrams a day and I was probably getting a gram. And it forms those razor sharp crystals.

Yeah, they're a little spiky.

Yeah. And they literally cut the membrane. And I know that I was getting too much because when I was eating a lot of raspberries, I ended up going to the urologist because I had to pee like 25 times a day. And so many women are eating so many oxalates in their health foods, even on low carb diets.

They're juicing kale or, you know, they're juicing it all up and then putting it down and there's no protectors, it.

Just shreds the gut.

Yeah. If you eat some oxalates with meats and different things, you have protectors there, you know, so the dose, particularly with calcium and. Yeah, exactly. And with other foods that protect you from it. Again, it's not, it's not what you.

Think it, I guess that there's, there's an upper limit and a lot of people are crossing over the upper limit, I would say, without knowing it. And 80% of people at autopsy have calcium oxalate crystals in their thyroid. Like it is, I'm starting to believe, foundational for a lot of the disease.

Yeah. You know, I wonder how much of it is because the amount of massive gut inflammation. And we know when someone's gut's leaky and open, that amount going into their bloodstream becomes even more normal. So again, Their limit gets way lower, and then they're still eating this limit.

There's leaky gut. And dysbiosis means the small amount of bacteria, not very much in humans can break it down. And then toxic mold drives oxalate development inside your metabolism. Too much Collagen above about 20 grams a day drives it. Too much glycine drives it. So we get some from our metabolic processes, a bunch from our diet, and we now have the studies that show it directly damages mitochondrial membranes and cell membranes. So I'm like, if you have chronic muscle pain, joints hurt and you have to pee all the time, you're getting chronic UTIs. I like to look at oxalate in the diet and lower it, but not eliminate it.

Especially if someone already knows they have leaky gut and they're already challenged. I mean, you know, when they take it away, they feel better, right? They do, right? I mean, it's like I said, lectins. I can make an argument for why lectins are really important for a microbiome, but if your gut's wide open, you take lectins where you go, I feel better. My digestion is a little bit better. Right. Because, you know, there are things that we, we should be able to ingest in the right amounts, normal amounts. We'll say what, you know, whatever that is.

It may be somewhat genetic, though. It seems like the nightshade thing really is a genetic.

Yeah. But Dave, I wonder if people had nightshade problems in the 1920s. I would argue I think they did. There was arthritis. No, I, I don't know the answer to that, but I would argue probably not. You answer. Your.

We had arthritis was, was documented forever. And the, the reason I think it's so genetic, my kids eat real similar diets, and one of them has the genes. And I found out if I eat nightshades, the arthritis that I was diagnosed with when I was 14 comes back in one day.

Right.

And I. It just causes systemic inflammation, brain fog, all that stuff. And my gut's pretty healthy. One of my kids.

You definitely have a pathway that was either damaged or, to your point, epigenetically triggered.

Yeah.

And you're not able to break it down.

So one kid, a few bites of potatoes, neck hurts. All the same stuff that I dealt with for so long. Other kid eats all day long.

So either way, like that three legged stool, that gene got triggered?

I think so, yeah.

Was it triggered from your mother? Maybe. Or was it triggered in you? Probably. And now it's in your. Your son.

Exactly. And I think both my parents have that, but it's. It's fascinating, and we may not ever know for sure. Sure. And the moral of the story here is if you eat something and it consistently causes problems and you fix your gut, it may not be a food that's highly compatible for you, and that's okay, but it'd be nice if you could eat it.

Right?

So. So it's.

It.

It's cool to hear you say not all lectins are bad, because I don't believe that either. And if they don't affect you, then you want to eat them. And maybe you. You just want a little bite because it's triggering, changing your gut bacteria. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I. Right now, it's like I said, everyone's going after lectins as if they're bad. But again, the premise of hormesis, you know, stress can be good.

Yeah.

They're plant toxins. They're stressors to your microbiome. But the fact is, is that that can be good. But arguably, I. Too much stress, too much oxalates, too much lectins will be very bad for you because you won't adapt, especially if you're already challenged in your gut. You're not going to adapt to a small amount of those plant toxins. I can handle a lot more than when I was sick. When I was sick, I couldn't handle gluten. I can eat gluten now. Right. It's like, because I. My body's dealing with it overload.

Do you eat American gluten?

Well, I can eat it, but do I want to eat it? No, I eat Italian gluten. Do I want to eat it, But I can't.

But you understand, not Italian. Don't do that. That. What's going on?

Is it double zero? I. I eat it all the time. I.

There's a shortage of Italian gluten. They're shipping American gluten to Italy. They're grinding it up.

Yeah, of course, just like the olive oil.

But French gluten is safe. I. I eat French. I make my own sourdoughs from French white flour and 1 teaspoon of American.

Flour trashes, by the way, they did the same thing with olive oil. They send the bad olive oil to the US So you have to know your olive oil. To your point. You have to even know you're Italian in flowers now. But it is a different gluten. It's a different wheat, obviously. And.

Yeah, all right, I have.

But my point there, yeah, I can eat American Gluten. And I have no reaction, even with the glyphosate. Organic. I don't eat. But my point is, is I used to react. That was the point I was making.

I haven't. I haven't. I don't feel confident in finding American gluten, so I don't really want to test myself. That doesn't have glyphosate. But the fact that I can eat some sourdough, which is well fermented, has like.

Holy crap.

I would have told you there's no chance I could ever touch gluten again, but I. I've also healed. Like, we're talking.

Yeah, I was just gonna say. Yeah.

It doesn't seem to be making me fat. There's something about detox that you're one of the only people who'll really talk about this. What's the role of emotional trauma with toxins and even spiritual awakening? What role do toxins play in those?

When I was sick, you know, I am. I. It was very hard for me to think positively. Oh, right. You know, I mean, so when people say, just think positive, I guess you've never been sick because, you know, it's really hard to get your head around.

Thanks for saying that.

Yeah. And so it gives you a lot of sympathy and empathy for people. And, you know, also spiritually, you know, I mean, I. You get massively disconnected. Listen, my wife. This is a true story. I mean, her crying out for an answer for our family. For me, yeah, I had two young boys at the time, five kids. Now. It was hard, right? And she literally on her knees probably many times. This particular time, God spoke to her heart that not only is he going to get me well, but I'm going to take an answer to the world. A message to the world was her exact quote. And when she would tell me that, I didn't want to hear it, Dave. I didn't. Because my exact words to her were, I can't even get myself well. Yeah, I mean, that's my negativity. And honestly there, I wanted to die. I did. I wasn't planning suicide. Although I thought about it, because for me, living death was far less scary than living my life like I was. And, yeah, that was my reality at that point.

I think you just gave a gift to a lot of people with mold and these. These illnesses. Everything feels impossible because it's so big. And your mitochondria are not making energy, so it is big because you just don't have it. But my experience is that mitochondria are the antennas that make life force, but they also allow you to connect spiritually. They're the interface to the spiritual reality. And when they're broken, you can't connect to the spiritual source. It's hard to connect to other people. And it sucks on a level that people have been really sick, may not understand.

I mean, I was trying to drive my wife away, I think, out of guilt, out of my own. I don't know, but. And looking back, but she. She hung in there, man, you know, and, you know, here I am today. Because what she said is right, or God through her was right, you know, taking a message to the world, pain to purpose, to promise. That's the problem. That was the promise, by the way. So pain to purpose to promise. I closed that loop of why I've added the pain to purpose to the promise.

Do people give you a hard time about bringing God into medicine?

Yeah, I'm sure, but it's who I am, you know, I mean, like, it's like, I.

You don't like it, go somewhere else.

Yeah, exactly. I can't not be it, because that's just that He. Yeah, it's just, it's. He's everything to me, and that's me. And again, I. I'm so glad I live in a country that I can be me and you could be you, and he can be he, and she could be he. I heard her. And, yeah, it's like, but I'm me. So I always say, thank you for allowing me to be me.

There you go. It's. It's been an interesting shift in Silicon Valley during my career there. If you brought up any kind of spirituality or your Christianity, which is the. The most shunned type, you'd almost get excommunicated from the tech community.

Right.

Because you weren't logical. And where things are in Silicon Valley today is actually there's a rise in Christianity.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's actually happening in a very interesting, interesting way. I think Peter Thiel has maybe played a meaningful role in that, who's a very interesting human being. He's the first guy to offer to fund Bulletproof. Back when I ran Bulletproof, I said, you know, I'll put a half a million dollars in if you'll build a coffee shop by my office or my home. And I said, peter, there's no foot traffic by your office or your home. So that would be a bad investment. And I didn't take the money, but it was. It was really cool. And just watched him Say, well, this is what I believe. He's also gay, so he's like, I'm just going to be me. And I respect the hell out of that. And so seeing the shift where people are saying there is a role for spirituality in medicine and in healing and if you don't have purpose and connection, you might just hold onto that lead in mercury and mold toxin way harder. Is there evidence for that?

Well, there is. Is because, you know, the emotions, the spirit, the emotion, the body all work together, right? And people, we all have trapped emotions. Same place in the cell, at the cell level. That affects our DNA. Listen, Bruce Lipton, we both read his book, right? But wasn't he the first to bring science to it?

You met him?

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

He's a great guy.

Oh my gosh. But he was like the first to make it popular. The science around down. Wait a minute. Okay, I, I told you everyone that the membrane, on the cell membrane are these receptors to our hormones. That's pretty easy to understand, right? You know, it's like, okay, yeah, they have to. Doctor, that's it. But what he showed was that membrane and those receptors, integral membrane proteins, your thoughts too in a wavelength come in and they attach to that receptor and then get the, the message goes in the cell and you know, that then will tell your cells to produce certain proteins.

Yeah.

And then those proteins are who we are and who we become. So your thoughts become who we are. Right.

For the.

For better, for worse. Right? That's science. So the fact is, is that when our thoughts are negative, you know, that's trapped in those cells just like toxins, and we become that. Right. So absolutely, you can't separate it.

Without the Biology of Belief, his big book, I don't think there would be biohacking. It was really. Oh yeah, the environment really provably does change our biology.

Better for worse.

Exactly. And a lot of people don't know this about Bruce Lipton. He's a hardcore cell biologist. He's a membrane guy. He was one of the first guys to like clone cells in a lab. Like, he's not a, you know, hippie dippy guy, which some people would think he's as scientific as it gets. He just did what he saw in the lab and wrote the book and started the whole movement there on epigenetics.

What book was this in? This is the Biology of Belief. No, no, this story, this is true.

Right?

Okay, so here's this story.

I don't think his book has the cell bio. I interviewed him and he Told me about it. That's why.

Okay, so they took a Japanese man from World War II. My dad was in World War II. So a lot of traumas, right? God, yeah. So they, they took him and they showed him scenes of World War II over there in the room. They were under the microscope. They were watching his cells. Wow. And they would write down when the cells would react in a violent or manner, visibly react. They would mark the time. 128, you know, 220 cells. Out of the guy's body. Out of the guy's body, yeah. Okay. And they would document it. And it was every time the scenes they could see and it was correlate. So they did something else. They took them 50 miles away.

They're quantumly entangled, doesn't matter how far.

And it still happened. So. Yeah, I mean, so if that doesn't get you to understand.

Yeah.

You know, that, that connection, that sounds.

Like that might be one of the heart math books.

Yeah, that was my question. I thought.

Yeah, it's. I don't remember the Japanese.

I hate saying the story without giving credit when I read it. I didn't forget.

And it's what it means. And certainly my, my new book heavily meditated. It's like what is the process for removing trauma all the way down to the subcellular level so that your entire being becomes non reactive to something that was formerly a trauma. And that's been a lot of my last 20 years personally. And there's a neuroscience way of measuring it and kind of an eight step process. What's your favorite way of removing emotional trauma?

Oh boy. I mean, my thing is my prayer time. That's my meditation time. Start every morning. I mean, look my in that is gratitude, you know, Vitamin G, man. I mean it is, you know, that's, that's everything, you know, it just, it anchors me to who I am, who God created me to be and what for. And I'm just gratitude. I have so much gratitude around it. But you know, I do. It's, it's part of my day. I'm so great today. Started it the same way as I do every day.

Gratitude's been a part of the biohacking movement for a long time. And where I am today is you need to take the right supplements on the right order. So I start with vitamin G and then you gotta take vitamin F right away afterwards. And so vitamin G is gratitude, Vitamin F is forgiveness. So gratitude opens that state that allows you to do forgiveness, which is a process of being non reactive to trauma. It has Nothing to do with tonics. When you forgive them or saying that it's. What they did was. It's just about. It no longer left a mark. It's like cleaning yourself up, which is a form of detoxing. And I have had multiple people tell me with their patients, oh, they do emdr, they do emotional release work, they do trauma work, and suddenly the metals come out in their pee. But they hold on to the metals as long as they hold onto the toxins. Do you see that?

Because if they're both stored in the cell, that means that they both affect your detox pathways. So therefore the toxins then are affected.

Correct.

Yeah. You see? So you can't separate it.

Right.

And, you know, I used to always say to people when I took very challenging cases on, I would, I would. I got very good at knowing when people had a lot of their toxin traumas. Right. Toxic traumas. And I wouldn't take them on because I knew that those are the ones I couldn't help. And they can't be helped.

They're patients who sue you, too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's not that they can't be helped. I just. I always would say I'm just not the expert there. Yeah. And I'm still not the expert there. You know what I'm saying? So I just. I know my limitations.

For them out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Absolutely. You know, in a very good way. I'd say, you know what, Go read this, you know, because I don't want to add one more layer of the toxic trauma they have, but I also don't want to take their money if I can't help them or think they can't help it. I mean, people that had a lot of stored up, you know, toxic trauma, where people. That's not my expertise. It's just not.

Well, Dan, I. I very much respect that take, and I respect the way you just stand up for being yourself. And you've trained a lot of physicians long time. This new way of thinking, cell membrane centric, toxin centric. The frameworks you're using, they're useful for doctors. They're also useful for people who just are sick and tired of being sick.

Yeah.

So thanks for just putting it out there. The books you write, the.

The.

The courses you teach, I appreciate you coming out as well.

Well, I appreciate what you've done too, because you put some great stuff on the map, man. So thank you as well. Honored to be here.

If you like today's episode, you know what to do. You should check out Dan Pompa's. Work. He's got so much cool stuff. And hey, check out Bruce Lipton too, while we're at it. He's OG if you enjoyed this episode with Dr. Pompa and would like to get help through his new healing system built built exclusively for the Human Upgrade listeners, visit DaveTestKit.com and use code 10OFF for 10% off. See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.

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