Science & Spirituality Talks with Tom Malterre, MS, CN, IFMCP

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Science and Spirituality Talks. Today, I'm here with my good friend, Tom Maltaire. If you don't know who Tom is, he's done a lot of different things in the world of functional medicine and education. He is well known for educating within the functional medicine domain through the Institute for Functional Medicine as well through his, his own practitioner education platform. What I know him best for is two things, to be candid. One is his elimination diet book, which just rocks. I mean, I recommend that to so many people, Tom. And then the other thing is, whenever I go to the IFM conferences, I'm expecting to see him somewhere in the exhibit hall making smoothies and really putting into motion the whole message of functional medicine, which is one of the many things that you're really good at, Tom. It's like having the principles, having the knowledge, and then putting it right into action. And you truly do walk the talk. So welcome. Thanks for being here.

Oh, absolute honor. Diana. Speaking of walking the walk and talking the talk, I witnessed in your own home how you do that as well and on a daily basis and even when you travel. So I learn from the best, really well.

And we've even run into each other at an airport at least once and we've gone hiking, you know, all kinds of fun things. Right. So we're kind of brother and sister in the functional medicine arena, so to speak. But, you know, I must say I don't really know the depth of Tom Maltaire to the point of like really unearthing and getting into some of your personal views. Like this morning, I didn't, you know, in our phone call learning that you have Hawaiian roots.

I do.

So that was new for me. That was new for me. And maybe that's going to come into our conversation. So.

Absolutely it will. Yeah.

So let's first talk about science because I think both you and myself, we like to nerd out on the biochemistry, the articles, all of that. How did you get into science? How did you get into all of this?

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, I've always been fascinated with life. I mean, I've really loved insects and wind and sunshine and trees and, you know, I've been fascinated with life. So I always wanted to learn about how life worked. But it wasn't until I was a 10 year old kid that my family doctor, Dr. John McDougall, started treating my family with food and exercise instead of medications that I really got fascinated because I was like, wait a second, you know, my family feels so much better and all we did was change our diet and our activity levels. And we're being told like, you have to go through all these different procedures and take all these different compounds and that's the only solution. And yet we just changed our diet and started moving more. And I was like, wow, like, how is it that there's this massive disconnect in the world that we live in that says we have to depend upon people in white coats and little pills in orange bottles instead of depending upon that which I was so fascinated with, which was the sunshine and the insects and the plants. And where's this disconnect coming from? Because I don't feel whole, I don't feel grounded, I don't feel complete when I'm in a doctor's office. But, but I do when I'm in the mountains and I'm drinking pure stream water and you know, there was just this disconnect. And so I started diving in a little bit more. At the time I was eating 100% plant based diet, so I was vegan. And I had a lot of people telling me that I was going to die. And they said, you know, you're not eating enough protein, you're not going to get your B12, whatever, blah blah, blah, blah. And you know, I started when I was 10 and by the time I was 18 I was in pretty darn good shape. I was doing martial arts, working out six days a week and I started going to community college and taking nutritional science classes. And my professor, who was about 5 foot 200 some odd pounds, would get winded when she was walking upstairs. And when I'd go into class after coming back from martial arts or the gym or something, and here I am in tip top shape and she would get red in the face when I would tell her what I was eating and she would say, you're gonna die, you're not doing enough dairy, you're not doing enough protein. And here I am looking and the contrast itself was fascinating, right? And so I just went, something's missing here. You know, you feel so confident being a professor in this class and yet there's some missing information. So, you know, I had journals delivered to my house. A journal of American Medical association as a student, New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature. Like I just got all these journals and I started reading and I just started saying like, where's this disconnect in what we think about food and nutrition and what is about food and nutrition? And it became very clear very quickly. Nobody knows, right? And that's wonderful. It's beautiful. It's like we should all be telling ourselves at all times, we know nothing, right? So Bruce Lee used to always say, it's the art of Wu Wei, right? The empty vessel. So when you go out in the universe and you allow your mind to be completely blank and say, sure, I know a little bit about a little bit, but that's nothing in the grand scheme of thing. It's nothing like, tell me more. What else is there? What am I missing? And each time I ask that question, the vessel gets filled with a little bit more data and a little bit more data. But the minute I say to myself, ah, I feel comfortable with this information. I know what this chemical pathway is, or I know what the solution is for this particular disease or disorder, then the vessel is closed. There's no more data gathering. There's no more information dripping in. And so I think that science has always fascinated me in that there is no end. The true scientist is a person who says all that I know are hypotheses. I can have theorem, I can have ideas about what it is, but I know that that's never a complete thought. There's always more. So I, I love that. I love that about science. I love the curiosity and I love the fact that we now have people who feel very, very secure and what science is and the scientific method and, and everybody should believe science. Just follow the science. And. And I, I think that's part of the equation. I think that's part of a mindset that now inspires the rest of us who are believing in the empty vessel to say, you know, oh, I need to search farther. I need to communicate more clearly in a manner that will inspire those people to open back up. Because that's a manner of closure that doesn't connect with the bigger self, if you will. And I think that there's a lot more out there and I'm excited to find it.

Yeah, I really like that position of humility because then you retain that curiosity. Do you think in science, you know what you're saying? Like, you know, there's always more and, you know, staying open, being that hollow bone. So do you think you ever find truth within science? Is truth an absolute.

Truth is in the eye of the beholder. Right. So I believe that a person's bias will always direct them towards whatever truth they think is truth. So if we maintain an open mind, I don't think that we can ever say something is. I think we always just say my perception of it is. So I'm sure there are universal truths, but I'm not going to be the person to say what is. I'm just going to say I know my experience and from my perspective, here's what I'm observing. I'm interested in knowing your perspective because it probably will round mine out. So thank you for your perspective. Right. I don't think we can know a quote unquote truth per se. I think it's always shifting.

Yeah, I so agree with you on that, Tom. Especially because, you know, even being classically trained in science, I would always argue with my fellow colleagues about how science is subjective. The way we set up and experiment is subjective. It's like what we think is the best, but we kind of feel like we know what the outcome will be, so we set it up in a certain way. So I really like what you're saying. It's like we're always moving with it. We're moving with information.

Yes. And then that allows for us to observe our complete fallacies. So, for example, I had the pleasure of learning from Professor Seralini from conference, right. He was the key witness in all the roundup trials. He's the guy who discovered the aromatase enzyme. He's this brilliant researcher, scientist, and, you know, he pointed something out to me one day. He said, you know, Tom, you're so interested in environmental toxicology, you want to know how chemicals influence human physiology, and I admire that. But one thing we need to take into consideration when you're reading all the past studies is they were all done incorrectly. I said, what do you mean they're all done incorrectly? He says, well, the vast majority of trials, when we're looking at safety of chemicals on mirine models, you know, so the mice and rat models, what we're doing is we're using a control rat who's not getting the chemicals, who's eating Purina rat chow. And we're looking at the chemicals that are coming in through the other rats, and the other rats are eating the Purina rat chow and getting the other chemical exposures. He says, but we don't really have a clean control. I said, what do you mean we don't have a clean. But both eating Purina Ratcha. He's like, yeah, but I tested the Purina Racha and the Purina Rat Shao has incredible levels of environmental toxicants in it. So our control group is toxic, and we're comparing it against a toxic group that has additives, but we don't have a real clean baseline. So what he did was, for one of his trials, when he was Comparing roundup against rat to ratio trials. He made his own organic rat feed just so he could see the actual changes that would occur compared to an organic rat feed versus a regular conventional rat feed. So I mean, it totally threw my, my whole consciousness off. I was like, I've been reading studies forever about, you know, these chemicals and just assuming that it was an even playing field. Jeff Bland blew my mind in another conference when he said, you know, hey, by the way, all these mirroring models, they're done on rats, right? And are rats nocturnal or diurnal? Right? And you're like, oh no. You know, we're comparing these, these creatures that don't even have the same sleeping patterns that humans do. Like how is that going to throw off the clock genes and the circadian rhythm and the, you know, what's going to happen to the pituitary gland, the pineal gland? It's like, oh no, you know, so you have all these ideas about what things are and it only takes just you turning around the corner and the entire thing falls apart, right? So and it, and the same time you could also say the entire thing comes back together, right? So it's like, it's all exciting either way.

You know, here's another fun fact because I actually did rat studies, I must say, in my, my doctoral research they engage in coprophagy. So I was studying the enter hepatic circulation of bile and that, I mean you have to take into account that they're eating their fe, which just recirculates the same nutrients. It's like, how interesting. So like, you know, humans aren't doing like we make so many comparisons between us and what we think is going on. I'm so glad that you bring that up because obviously the photoperiod they're eating, they eat the chow. This like a mono diet, like this whole time, right. And like you pointed out, toxic. So that's so interesting, right? What do you think? Let me just pick your brain on this a little bit since we're going down this pathway to what is a perfect study? Like you know, right now the bar is placebo controlled randomized trial intervention prospective. What else would you add based on your conversations with all these?

Double blind as well, right? Yeah.

Double blind. Double blind. Yeah. Yeah, maybe triple blind. The statistic. Everybody is in the dark, right?

Nobody can see anything. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Well, we'll get into this later, I'm sure. But I believe in predetermined energetic bias. So if you have a determined outcome, then you have already contaminated the experiment. So, you know, I don't, this is a little etherical, but I, I believe that every thought is creative, right? Every thought has an energetic wave and it, it is creative. So if there was a way to have two different polar opposite viewpoint, people speak to who was going to be doing the research and say, like, you know, we don't know the outcomes. We have no idea. We don't, you know, and they can maintain neutrality and they would get the mixed energetic bias of both. Then I don't know if they would glom onto one or the other. I don't, I don't know how we could even that out. But I think that so far, I mean, we're doing what we can do, but I don't think we recognize that there's always bias. And we're going to skew. Just by looking, we're going to skew the results.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, I think that under best circumstances, we look at a metabolic ward or a sleep lab where there are, there's a container where you try to control for all these variables. And what you're bringing up is a variable that isn't often considered, which is that of the intention, the bias, what again, what you think will be the outcome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's already changing the outcome because everything you're doing, whether or not you realize it, is kind of aligned to that outcome. Because for so long, scientists couldn't publish negative results. Like, if you didn't find what your hypothesis was looking to do then, and if you had a negative result, like, you know, that Omega 3 supplement didn't change any marker, journals didn't want to take your research and publish it. You had to have something like noteworthy or something that shifted. So it's challenging.

And just for the sake of our immediate context, I'm going to give you the opposite end of that spectrum. Where in 2007, Dr. Michael Holic was presenting his pivotal paper on vitamin D, and he actually submitted that paper 11 times to the journal and got it refused. And, you know, at that time, there was a very intense bias against supplementation and alternative therapies. So, you know, that man was a genius. That man had done all the data. He had worked in Hector Deluca's lab at University of Wisconsin, Madison. I mean, they had the dream team of vitamin D researchers, and he was being denied access to a journal. And when finally he got accepted to that journal, within six months of publishing, it was the fourth most requested and downloaded article in the history of the journal. So it really had a massive impact on a field. But the reviewers recognized that and they tried to tame, I guess what the impact would be by requiring him to censor and censor and republish and whatnot. It's a fascinating process, right. So there's a lot at play behind the scenes when it comes to research. It's not just what's happening with the researchers, but it's also happening within the research field itself. So I'll give you another example. I was in a cohort of people when I was looking at all the impacts of Roundup on the environment and individuals, and I was with a group of researchers who were trying to get grants for organophosphate pesticide testing. They wanted to see the results on children and whatnot. And nobody could get grants. So, you know, it was impossible in the current environment where there was some pressure from. Now we see it was, it was a very deliberate pressure from an organization, Monsanto, that didn't want negative press or research towards its product that was making billions of dollars. So they actually paid teams of people to influence researchers. They paid teams to influence social media. So we literally found this in, in Freedom of Information Discovery in Professor Seralini's trial. It was called the Monsanto papers, that there is this massive investment to bias the field of science. So there again, we have now an external viewpoint, you know, the macroscopic and then moving into the microscopic of the lab itself, you know, so yeah, there's, there's always something.

There is, you know, and again, you're just raising the flag on all kinds of things. It's like the pre work, the actual research, the post work, and how everything can be tainted along the way. Even though, you know, science aims not to do that. I feel like, you know, science is but a tool or a method in so many ways. It can only be as good as the people involved ultimately.

Yeah. And the interesting piece that I found, and you know me from when we were working together at IFM and I was a thorn educator, it was fascinating to me, that whole process of, I would say, having an idea prior to manifesting a result permeated through, through everything. I don't know how else to put that, but we could see it coming from a company standpoint, we could see it from a community standpoint. I think that the only way that we can maintain our own internal integrity is to ignore everything that's coming from the outside world and focus on what's coming from the inside world. So I don't know if you recall, But I still maintained a clinical practice even when I was educating all the time for Thorne Research. And I insisted on that. And the reason I insisted on that is because it didn't matter who I was interviewing. It didn't matter who I was rubbing elbows with. It could have been the best researcher in the world. It could have been, you know, an immunologist or a neurologist. You know, I had friends at Harvard and we knew Schoenfeld from Israel. We just had all these huge names they were constantly whispering in our ear telling us all this data. But I never believed it until I could have a person sitting in front of me who I would try the supplement or the protocol or the lifestyle change or whatever it was, who gave me feedback that confirmed that. And then the next person, the next person, the next person. Until I had a couple hundred people who could confirm those findings, I didn't believe the science because so many times, you know, you had some influence somewhere that pushed a thought in a general direction or. And that came out with a result. Right. So I have a tendency to just say, like, okay, that's great, but is it true?

Yeah.

And then I perform my own experiments with my clients. Right. And that, I think, is the ultimate research, is taking as many bits of data and then your own personal experiences and your clinical experiences and then combining it all. I think that's the solution. Really.

That's actually really beautiful. And you're right, like taking the macrocosm of all of that research out there and listening to somebody, a sage on the stage. But then until you actually see it borne out, either for yourself or for somebody else, it's like, is that really true? And it's good to keep questioning the truth because to me, that's what a true scientist is, a truth seeker.

Well, it keeps it exciting, you know, it keeps it fun, it keeps it fresh. It keeps it always like this unsolvable puzzle that's just, you know, this fascinating, incredible matrix of possibilities. And if you look for the. The intertwining possibilities and always know that you're never seeing the true picture, then, boy, it's. It's a fun adventure.

Yeah. I love your willingness to be open and to almost see science as a playground. Right. So it's kind of like, let's just see what we can do and let's have fun here. Yeah.

And what a wonderful bit of cheese that you get at the end of the maze on this playground in that you have a person who transforms, right. So you have the joy of being in the presence of a person who comes to you in pain. And what I see, pain is resistance, right? So there is some energy trying to flow through that person. And that person, by coming to you, recognizes that they want to get in touch with that. And then your job is to find the block and give them the option to let it go. So that's why the root of the doctor is docere, right? The teacher in. All you're doing is saying like, hey, I'm seeing, I'm hearing, I'm feeling, and this is what I'm observing. And a logical explanation would be this, this, and this. My personal clinical experience would tell me this, this, and this. If you were to choose to take these types of actions, your probability of letting go of this is extremely high. What's your choice? Right? And then that person can say, like, wow, you know, yeah, I'll. I'll change my diet, I'll exercise a little bit more, I'll work on my sleep hygiene. Yeah, yeah. And then boom. You witness these quote unquote miracles, right? Where someone who has rheumatoid arthritis for 31 years, within 12 days it's gone, right? Or someone has Ms. Like symptoms and chronic fatigue, and within two weeks, gone, right? And you're like, wow, this is, this is amazing. What else can I learn? What other options can I present to the next person who comes with a block into my clinic? Like, what can I tell them? How can I share this? Or how can I work on myself to be an open channel? How can I be that guy who like, resonates this excitement to a point where they look at me, they feel me, my energetic vibration, and then they say, ooh, like, that looks like fun, you know? And then you're like, you can join me. Here's what I do. You know, you could do it too, right? So that whole dance, I think, is just super rewarding. I. I don't know. For me, it's amazing. It's probably the most fun job on the planet.

So when somebody is sitting across from you and they are going to you for a clinical consultation, food, are you looking at them in a scientific, biochemical way? At the same time, you are looking at them through energetic eyes, or how is your brain working as you're sizing somebody up from a clinical perspective? Like, it kind of feels multi dimensional. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, so how does he decide where to go with a dietary approach? Is it like, are you reading into their ability to change or is it more energetic or just walk us through. I'm curious.

Oh, there's no separation. Right. So really, I'm a data point guy, so I love testing. And if someone's willing to test, then, you know, we're running food panels and nutrient panels and gut panels and. And we look at the data. And then before the data, of course, we're connecting with a human and we're asking their priorities and their goals and their intentions when they're feeling well. So we're playing around with them in that futuristic, creative place. Right. That they're there for. But I don't know why we're here. Right. They know why we're here. They've consulted me because they have a vision buried somewhere of what life is like when they're done with this problem. So I want to dance with them in that energy. I want to. I want to feel out what that zone is. I want to be able to visualize. I want to be able to feel it. And then we'll get the data, and then I can tell them what's separating them from their vision. So the data points really tell beautiful stories about our next actions. Right. And then from there, I can coax them to play around in those actions and then see what their response is. And then we might have to be doing baby steps. It might be doing one or two things for a few weeks and then a lot of things, or not. Or stopping and waiting until that becomes habit months on. So it just. It's a dance. It's always a dance. It's gonna be the connection and then the investigation.

And how often are you employing the elimination diet, since you've authored a book on it? Is that something that you're doing with every single person because you just see the utility of it, or you just pick that out for certain people?

I wish that I could recommend it for every person, but what I'm seeing is that there are people in certain states of either consciousness or health that they're not ready for that. And by me recommending something that can be considered very stressful to some people. So I've heard that it could be harder to change your diet than change your religion. And if I meet a person that's very entrenched in a mindset or a belief system, that that's not true, or it's not going to work, or it's too difficult for me, or it might be too difficult for them, they physically are absolutely exhausted. So to take on the food prep and the purchasing of foods and whatnot is too much for some people. So I Oftentimes will meet people where they are. So when I first started out in clinical practice, I was gung ho. I was like, do not, you know, pass go, you know, until you do the elimination diet. Right. And now it's more like, hey, where are you at? What are you willing to do? And let's test that. And do you want to push that boundary a little bit? Because I'd love to challenge you there. Oh, no, you're not ready. Okay, well, wait, you know, so it might be. I'll give them a little bit of education on what gluten is and where it's found and leave it at that, and then they'll come back. And it's nice to have some sort of analysis of the food intolerance. So we can, like, point to a piece of paper and say, whenever you're ready. Like, it appears that your immune system does not tolerate these things, and it would be awesome to give it a break and then wait till they're ready to give it a break.

Do you think it's a metaphor when people are so bombarded from an immune standpoint? It's. Is it a metaphor for life in the way of just taking too much in and forming a response? Just like you said, there's really no separation. So do you find that people who would fare really well from an elimination diet would actually do really well with elimination in other areas of their lives? Like, whether it's a job or it's a partnership or it's a certain activity that they're doing every day that's not benefiting them, they're smoking, or they're just, like, in this downward spiral. So does an elimination diet in some way kind of connect to elimination of other things? And maybe the diet is a way to get there.

I love that. So the analogy, then, is, if I'm hearing it correctly, if we examine the food and we understand that the things that we're pulling into our life can have either positive or adverse outcomes, and if we use that as a metaphor for life itself, then we can think about the thoughts that are coming in or the verbal abuse we're getting from our boss or our spouse, and we can determine what would life be like without that. So we have this mindset of, like, I now know I can remove certain things in my life and feel fabulous, so why not consider fine tuning the rest of my life? Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. I mean, basically. I mean, I've used so much of the elimination diet in clinical practice, and what I would find is that somehow people's lives would change that went beyond the food. It was like they quit the job, they got a divorce, they moved to a different state or country. Like, all of a sudden, their life was being eliminated from whatever was seemingly, like, weighing them down. But they didn't have the clarity to make the decision. So I was curious if, metaphorically, your book on the elimination diet is about something deeper.

It's over. Yes, of course.

I'm always trying to find that depth.

Yeah. So really it's about exploration and it's about nourishment. Right. So the interesting thing about the word nutritionist, it literally means one who nourishes. Right. So in order for someone to be nourished, I always fall back on Sid Baker, right. Who's always like, hey, look, if you want balance in your life, if you want health and you don't want to slide into disease, limit the amount of irritants you have, increase the amount of nutrients, right? So really, a lot of people don't take into consideration what's coming at them all day, every day. They don't think about the things that are irritating them, and they sure as heck usually don't think about the things that nourish them. So in our society, I don't think we take enough time to observe what's actually happening. So we make decisions without even knowing why or what or anything, including our food, including our relationships, including our jobs. So when we stop for a second and we say to ourselves, where am I at? What are the inputs that are bringing me here? Then immediately it shifts the trajectory of our path. Like it. It has to. Because now we've said to ourselves, who am I? If I identify as a sick person, you know, what does that feel like? If I identify as a person who is. Well, what does that feel like? And just the process of wanting to examine that has already caused change. Right. You've left the possibility now to be somebody else. So absolutely, there's something more.

Always, you know, as I listened to you as well, another new thing that I've learned about Tom Altair today is that you did martial arts in the way that you did, and that that coincided with your path forward into health. And as I hear you speak now, it almost feels like a bit of Zen philosophy, a bit of, you know, where is my energy, my qi, my chi? Where am I? You know, how am I? I just feel like I've interviewed somebody else who also had a. An early connection to martial arts, and he had a very similar path to almost how you have Fulfilled your life's mission. Right. So it seems martial art connection and philosophy somehow is intertwined. And you tell me if this is correct for you with your approach, because martial arts, like, as I'm listening to you, I'm like, you know, you could be saying this on the mat or like, you know, in. My husband did aikido. So, you know, I think of it like that, like so much of that philosophy feels like what you're describing in your health coaching and nutritional counseling. But you tell me, do you think that your approach brings in some of your early, I would say connection or. I don't know if you still do martial arts, but at least those early days of martial arts.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because the, the physical mimics the mental, right? And if you embody through martial arts some of the concepts of integration and flow and transference of chi or qi, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. You, you, you see it in everything, right? It's not just in the, the forms. It's not just in the interactions or the sparring. It's. It's in life, right? It's. It's everywhere. And I think the philosophy actually attracted me to the martial arts. I don't think the philosophy from martial arts is what perpetuated me forward. I think they just kind of, you, you, you find what it is you resonate with, right? So I did the aikido and the kanzen Kojiro karate and hungar and Choi Le Gungfu. And, you know, you resonate at different times in your life with different types of styles and different energy depending on, I think, where you're at. But you attract what you learn from it based on who you are. I think so, yes. I think the martial arts had an influence on my output, but I think I aligned with that energy at different stages in my life. So it's both.

And so how did you get into martial arts then? What was your intro?

And so at one point in time, I decided to do martial arts. There was that piece. But then also as a kid, I've always thought that it was the responsibility of the strong and skilled to protect everything else. And maybe that's because I was being, you know, picked on. I don't know. But it was one of those things where, you know, if I saw an animal being hurt by another person, I would stop it, or if I saw a fight happening, I would stop it. And I didn't care if I was, you know, smaller, you know, twice as the guy was twice as large as I was. Or whatever. I would just run in and be like, no, no, no, no, stop. You don't need to hurt each other. You know, type of thing where it's this separation from what I knew to be true. Right. So it always was fascinating to me, enamoring to me to watch martial arts films where, you know, these samurai would protect entire villages from invaders. And it was like, okay, well, you had to have the training to build up the chi, to have the capacity to repel negative qi. And that whole philosophy to me was like, yeah, well, then if you trained enough and you had pure of heart and pure of mind, then you could protect everything. So that whole thing attracted me to martial arts.

That's interesting. Hmm. And your brother. How is your connection with your brother now?

Oh, great. Come on. We got over it when, you know, you know, 18 or whatever I was. But, yeah, when he asked me to be the best man at his wedding, everything dissolved. So it was really sweet.

That's sweet. So I'm just going back to your early origin story. At the age of 10, I believe you mentioned about having this connection to the family doc, and some family health issues. But even going back a little bit earlier, were you always drawn to nature? Did you ever, like, if you can go back to who you were as a kid, now in your 50s, I know that we're like the same age. Would you say that you could have predetermined this path, that you would get into health and healing in some way? Were you naturally drawn to, like, you just talked about protecting others, helping others? Did you have that inclination at a very young age?

No. Initially, I thought I was going to be a vet, so I loved animals so much, I thought that I had to be a vet. So I would go to the pet stores and try and rescue, you know, injured lizards or whatever it was and buy them and nurse them back to health. But it was. It wasn't until I met Dr. McDougal and saw the power of food changes, lifestyle changes to humans, that I was like, wow, this is. This is something that can do a lot of good. I'm on board with this. This looks great. And from that moment on, really, I never diverted my attention from anything but that. So I always knew I was going to be somehow involved in that. And so every course I could take, you know, and then my two degrees, you know, were all headed in that one direction. So I had a lot of. I mean, I attended as many conferences and listened to books on tape, and we didn't have the Internet like we have now. Or AI or audible or anything like that. So I had to go to conferences and buy people's cassettes and whatever, But I did all that so I could learn. And, you know, one of our good friends, Dr. Jeff Land, was like, the guy who threw everything wide open, really. I used to listen to his functional medicine update CDs over and over and over again all day long, every day. I'd literally wake up to, you know, a little entrance music, and then I would get whatever the episode was, and I'd fast forward to whatever it was, and then I'd go back and listen to everything again and then again. And it was just this process of getting so excited that there were these alternate ways to look at life that were containing less resistance and more elevation of vibration. Right. So it was like an alignment of sorts where I was like this. You talk about truth, right? And I know there is no real truth, but there are certain things that. That vibrate at a frequency that you identify with, and there are certain frequencies that you do not identify with. Right. So when I started hearing about functional medicine, I was like, what? This is? This is my vibration. Like, let's. Let's go. Let's learn this. Let's figure this stuff out.

I can tell because you get that excited, childlike feeling to you when you're, like, into something. Right. It becomes apparent.

Yeah. Well, you. Yeah, you see me at conferences, and I'm like, I'll just sit in the back of the room and just go, what? And then I'll run up to the hotel and, you know, pull up all the research and look at it and be like, it's true. That's crazy. That's so amazing. Yeah. And then start working on protocols, you know?

So, I mean, you just feel all in. You feel, to me, very impassioned with what you've been doing in life. And I'm kind of curious, being that this is not just a talk about science, It's a talk about spirituality. As I listen to you between the lines of what you're saying, I'm kind of feeling like, is nutrition Tom's form of spirituality, like, this connection to food, the connection to discovery, curiosity? Like, is this whole platform that you've been creating over all of these years. Is this really a spiritual path for you? And maybe it's not. Maybe it's not. It's just, you know, I'm curious. I'm putting it out there to you.

No, it makes sense. Yeah. So what I. What I get from this is that when you find the secrets to Power a human cell, then that cell can function at another level. And when it starts functioning at another level, your consciousness changes. And when your consciousness changes, then you can see there are 10 more levels after that. And you keep seeking, you know, how do I understand more, how do I resonate more? I keep talking about vibration. I guess it is. I had a out of body experience where I left my body and was looking at my body down in a bed. And then my vibration just kept getting higher and higher and higher and higher until I just burst into this white light. And I hear about that all the time from like near death experiences. And it's the exact same experience I had, you know, where you just feel like you're one with everything, you're part of everything, you're, you are love. You just, you can feel everything all at once and there's no disconnection. But the amount of euphoria or I don't know how you would even describe the feeling you get is undescribable. I mean, it's literally more bliss than you would ever imagine. And so what I think of is that I'm attracted to things that are constantly elevating that vibration. And if you look at functional medicine, it basically is about moving the resistance and elevating the function. And at that elevation of function, I experience a higher vibration. So I'm constantly seeking that for myself so I can share that with others. Because I, I find great joy in service. I find great joy in bringing other people a higher vibration as well, or learning from people who have a much higher vibration than I do. It's just what I'm attracted to, I guess. So it's that channel of eating well, sleeping well, exercising well, looking at your nutrient deficiencies and replenishing them that really kind of has me feeling like I'm healthier, well more well rounded, operating at a higher frequency. And so I, I seek that for myself and others.

So based on what you just said, would you say that you have to address your physical cellular needs in order to better self actualize and get to a place of what you're saying, like higher resonance or better vibration? Do you think that you can do the opposite or just the reverse direction where people meditate or they try to self actualize without tending to the food per se. So, you know, it kind of the, I don't know, reverse direction?

Yeah, and I've always been fascinated by books like, you know, Illusions by Richard Bach, where it talks about messiahs who have embodied in us. And I think that that's Completely possible. I think that there are people who have tapped into the energetic frequency through meditation or through just thought itself in belief and faith, where they are, where they want to be here and then that resonates through the body. I believe that there are people who can probably sustain health with thought alone. Yeah, I don't know why I've not chosen that yet, other than the fact that I'm just having a lot of fun learning about all the little nuances about the mind body connection and how one can beget the other. Yeah, absolutely. Is it possible? I think it exists all the time. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people on this planet who are very, very in tune with their energy creative process and keep their vibration really high just by breathing and meditation and thought, for sure.

And in functional medicine, in the heart of the Matrix, we have mental, emotional and spiritual. So I'm kind of curious, with your imprint in functional medicine, what do you see as spiritual in your life? How would you be filling out the Matrix for you?

Hmm. I. Spirit, what is spiritual in my life? I don't. What isn't spiritual?

That's a great response. Yeah.

I mean, when you look at it, I mean, everything seems like it's this opportunity to connect. Right. So with the energy that's behind us, behind everything, behind nature, behind food, behind everything. So that is spiritual to me. I mean, I meditate. I spend a lot of time in the mountains. I love the mountains. The mountains is my church. I do trips with people. I do trips by myself. I will, you know, literally sit on top of a mountain quietly for hours at a time and just take it all in. And in that timeframe, I will at times try to understand and I'll just try to connect with what's happening around me. Is that spiritual? I don't know. It's just practice. But I have a lot of gratitude for many things in my life. And I think that in itself is a spiritual practice. But that's an interesting mindset. I don't think there is a separation, really. I think if you're observing there's a underlying current through everything you do, whether it's a thought, a word, or a deed, it's there, it's always there. And I think it propels you forward. And when you don't listen to it or you block it out, it can create resistance, but it's always there.

So when you say it's always there, I'm kind of wondering about every person that comes into life and into being. You know, you have five Kids. So you've observed this not just with yourself and your family, but your children. What do you, like, what's the reason for being born? Like, why are we here? Let me just ask you kind of one of those mountaintop questions of, you know, what's the point? What's the meaning of this?

Yeah, you know, I've been seeking that always, but there's been some really great definitions, you know, and the channelers have brought on an interesting perspective, like Abraham Hicks and Bashar and others who have said, like, you know, hey, you are this energy collective which I experienced. And when you want to experience a. Like a adventure, a movie, a learning process, then you condense your energy down, imagine yourself to have limitations, and then create your own journey about, you know, either suffering and recognizing that you can be as small as you want to be, or you can be, each day evolving and growing and coming back to source. You can find yourself, you know, meditating and getting in touch with that higher self. Or some people are using psychedelics and getting in touch with their higher self. And in that process, they can see what's possible, and then they can experiment to reach that higher state or not. I think it's just life is a choose your own journey. So if you say, why are we being born? It's for the adventure. I really believe we're here to learn and grow, have a different perspective and hopefully have some fun in the process.

That. That's a very creative response. Right. It's just being open. Kind of like your approach to science feels like your approach to spirituality in some way, which is life. And what are some of the things you feel like, you know, you kind of created and grow that you've grown through in. In your life thus far? Like, what do you see kind of like for the second half, like, what did you. If you look back, like, what was, like, the primary theme? And then, like, what do you see for yourself going forward?

Oh, yeah. Well, I've learned a lot about separation. And, you know, as your kids grow and they don't want anything to do with their dad anymore, you know, that that has been. I've grieved from that. I just assume everybody views life the way I do. Right. And we're all interconnected. And when you have a family, you have a really big connection, and you're like an extension of each other. And so, like, your hearts never separate and your minds never separate, and you're just this one unit. But that isn't everybody's reality. And I can't control what other People want to feel or do or, or be. And that's been really hard for me to recognize that other people don't, including my own children, see life as this opportunity to be in connection and growth together. There's this isolation thing that I think happens naturally with kids where they're like, I am me. I can make my own decision. I don't need external guidance. I need to show my autonomy. And, you know, that's tough for me to let go of. So that lesson has been something that I've been like, wow, okay, well, I have to be okay with the fact that they have their own mission and their own journey and honor that. And the reality is I'm seeing every day on social media, you know, I look at situations and certain circumstances happen, like, you know, Tylenol coming out in the news about potential issues and immediately I see people who do this, like, that's ridiculous. Tylenol's perfectly safe and everything's fine. And like, that's, I can't believe that this is even coming out in the media. And I'm like, you know, there's a, there's this, this difficult piece for me where I'm like, okay, do you even know what Tylenol is like? Have you looked at the chemical structure? Do you know what particular enzymes act upon that and how it changes in the human body and what influences those different pathways and those enzymes? And, and you know, what can we see as, as a possible harm versus what is actually happening and find some balance in there and be open minded and explore. And like, I just, the way I see the world is so different than other people. A lot of the time that I'm, I'm having to learn to let go of, you know, what everybody else wants to perceive. I want to have everybody excited. I want everybody to explore, I want everybody to examine, turn over all the rocks and say, who are we? What are we doing and how can we support one another? And oftentimes there's a lot more drama than I would probably desire. And so as I'm getting older, I'm learning to just start to take a viewpoint from a distance instead of from my heart. And that's harder to do. Yeah, yeah. And, and I'm learning that, you know, that's kind of selfish on my part to want them to be something other than they want. Right. And so it's really, I don't feel like it's coming from a selfish spot, but it is selfish. I feel like it's more like, ah, look what's possible Like, I've felt how you're feeling before, and I'm assuming that that feels pretty bad. Like, wouldn't it be great if you felt a little bit more openness or love or joy or curiosity? And so I kind of want to share that, but I don't always succeed in doing that, and I don't think people want that sometimes. So it's very much like a client coming in and me saying, well, look at this elimination night. It's so amazing. And they say, I'm not ready for that. I have four kids, and two of them have disabilities, and I work late, and I don't have time to prepare all these different meals, and so I gotta let it go and just go, okay. You know, I'm. Whenever you're ready, I would love to. To play in the realm of elimination diet. Right. So it's the same thing. Whenever you're ready, I'd love to play in the realm of. There's a lot more about this story, and I have a lot of information. I'd love to share it with you. So that's why I'm curiously looking at my own podcast right now, because I feel like I have a lot of stories that I think would help people feel unstuck. So I'd love to share.

That'd be fantastic. So is that what you see for this next phase of your life? Like, you know, going forward, this turning point? What do you see going ahead? Is it podcasting? Is it bringing your message out to more people? What. What do you see?

All the above. So I've already been working the last four days on a series of videos that I'm going to be putting on Instagram and YouTube that talk about the molecular mechanisms of acetaminophen, slash paracetamol, depending on if you're in the UK or not.

So.

Yeah, yeah, because I just want to provide different perspective, and it's been a joy. I worked for the Autism Research Institute for a while as an educator, and I got to rub elbows with Sid Baker and Alessio Fasano and, you know, Theosia Horaidis and all these incredible researchers and brilliant minds. And I would love to just bring their perspectives, their storylines to this, what I consider to be very minimalistic view of reality. Right. So I think there is just so many people that feel comfortable saying, I know this and that's enough. And not only is it enough, it's what is, and I should share it and force it on other people. And I heard this wonderful quote. I read this book called Conversations with God. And I'm sure I'm misquoting it, but he said something along the lines of God's saying to the lead character in the book, I can't tell you my truth until you stop screaming yours. And you kind of go like, whoa, How many times am I missing out on information? Because I feel comfortable, I feel secure, I feel supported by scientific consensus right where there might be an entirely new reality for me right around the corner. If I could just empty the vessel, if I could just be that Wu Wei, I could, I could invite in something else. I could stop screaming long enough that I could hear a whisper that says there's another truth. Maybe not the truth, but it's another way of looking at it, you know, just, just that, that little incidence of, of like, growth, openness. So well.

And it really makes me think about neuronal plasticity, heart rate variability, metabolic flexibility, like these tetherings of, like, flow and being in flow states and movement and flexibility. And there's so much revelation in that openness. And I get inspired listening to you about all of this. I really, I feel like your podcast would be fantastic. I hope you do that. Get the word out on so many different things. You know, you've got so much to offer, Tom, so. And in such a positive, unique, diverse patchwork of experiences and perspectives. So it's, it's very rich.

Oh, it's life. It's what I know. But, yeah, it's fun, whatever it is.

And that's the best part, to stay in that mode of having fun.

Oh, dad, jokes galore. That's probably what my kids want to separate from me. I'm sure that I've exhausted them.

Well, that, that's just. I feel something that teens and young adults, we all kind of go through that, right? Yeah, it's.

Yeah, you become the antithesis. Right. So it's like I, I was like, I. I idolized my mom until I turned like 17, and then I thought she was like the worst person on the planet. And it took me to move out of the house, be completely broke and starving to recognize how much my parents gave to me. And so I had to call them up and say, like, oh my gosh, thank you. Like, what a self absorbed person I was to assume that you were obligated to be giving me all these things all the time. And now I recognize you put in so much time, energy, effort and love on my behalf, and I'm so grateful. Thank you. So I was so glad that I woke up to that, but I Don't think every kid does that quickly.

Yeah. They all have their own journey. So, Tom, in our closing moments here, any final thing that you want everybody to know about Tom Altair, kind of anything that we didn't cover, or you feel like you really want to get something out, or you feel like we covered a lot of ground?

I think we covered a lot of ground. Yeah. No, I just. I would love the opportunity, if you are suffering, to have a discussion with you. And if you wanted my scientific mind to examine stuff, let me know. If you wanted my heart to connect with you and identify with where your pain is, let me know. It'd be fun to see if we could grow together.

That's great. And how do people find you? And I'll have the notes in the show notes. But what would be the best?

Is it bellinghamfunctionalmedicine.net yeah, tommellinghamfunctionalmedicine.net is my email. And the website is just bellinghamfunctionalmedicine dot net yeah.

Great. All right, I'll put that in the show notes. Tom, thank you so much for taking the time for this thoughtful conversation. It's been so nice learning more about you, and I have a million more questions, but I think this. Well, we could have a part two and a part three along the way, but this was a good start.

Yeah. It's been a pleasure. I always love connecting with you, Deanna. So I think we kind of are brother, sister, functional medicine, twinsies, so that's awesome. Although I. I would never put myself in the same scientific publishing, brilliant brain as yours. But it's. It's great to share space with you. For sure.

Well, we're part of the whole, as you would allude to. Right. It's not just one person. It's the spider web. Yes, the spider web. So thanks. Thanks again.

Ah, my pleasure.

Take care.

You too. Bye. Bye.