Amino Acids, BCAA's, EAA's, Ketosis, Bonking & More With 41 Time Ironman Triathlete Dr. David Minkoff.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, there's an epidemic now of chronic illness. You know, ms, autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, Parkinson's, als, these degenerative chronic diseases. I saw that within a few months of treating her with the methods that I learned, her symptoms completely went away. Especially if they're trying to do it like a detox fast. It's way safer and way better. Your liver needs these things to detoxify, and if you're not putting it in, it's going to metabolize your muscles and your body.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement.

Get out there.

When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and my guest today is actually standing at Ironman, Florida talking to me on his cell phone. So you may hear things like the Ironman announcer in the background and potentially the hubbub of folks going back and forth, but this guy is such a wealth of knowledge and I am so excited to have him on the show today that I really don't mind interviewing him straight from the Ironman Expo down at Ironman, Florida. But I just thought I'd let you know that this is a cell phone interview. Anyways, though my guest name is Dr. David Minkoff, and Dr. Minkoff and I go way back. So I first met him and he's a 41 time or a 40 time, 41 time, hopefully within a couple of days. Ironman triathlon finisher. And I met him at the half Ironman World Championships in Florida about six years ago, where I interviewed him a few weeks later for a podcast episode called A Peek into the Life of an Ironman Physician. And then he actually helped me with a personal metal detoxification that I needed to go through. And I did that using a metal chelating spray that Dr. Minkoff designed. And I interviewed him about that in a podcast about how hidden sources of heavy metals are destroying our health and what we can do about it. And I'm going to put a link to all of these interviews that I'm talking about. In the show notes, in case you want to go and listen to the other goodies that we've had with Dr. Minkoff and you can listen to the shownotes over@bengreenfieldfitness.com Amino. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Amino Now, Dr. Minkoff also helped me with my son's exercise induced asthma. We talked about that in the podcast about why kids are getting exercise induced asthma. He helped me figure out why river was getting asthma during his soccer games. And we fixed it. It's completely gone thanks to Dr. Minkoff and the advice that he dished out in that episode. Well, now he's back again straight from ironman, Florida. And Dr. Minkoff is back to fill us in on amino acids, branched chain amino acids, essential amino acids, ketosis, and all the things that go into amino acids because they can be a little bit confusing in terms of how to use them, how many calories they have, how quickly they're absorbed, how you would combine them with things like low carbohydrate intake, whether or not they're able to be used to stave off bonking or central nervous system fatigue. A lot of things going into aminos. They're one of my go to supplements that I use for sports performance. But I want to give you a chance to be able to kind of wrap your head around how these things actually work. Now, Dr. Minkoff actually graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School. He's an MD and he worked in infectious disease and then neonatal intensive care and emergency medicine, and then eventually branched out into alternative and complementary medicine and opened the LifeWorks Wellness center, which is known as one of the foremost alternative medical clinics in the US and like I mentioned, he spends time in the trenches practicing what he preaches. He's done 40 Ironman triathlons. He's about to do his 41st. And he knows quite a bit, not only about swimming and biking and running, but also about medicine and nutrition. So, Dr. Minkoff, thanks for coming on the show today.

Oh, thanks, Ben. Good to talk to you again.

Been a little bit, yeah. So how are things down at the Ironman Expo in Florida?

Well, I just got here. It's a six and a half hour drive for me. So I literally just got out of the car. It looks busy. I think they have a full race. Last year it was 45 degrees or 50 degrees with we couldn't swim. This year looks like it's going to be nice hot. It's clear and I think it's going to Be just a perfect day to race.

You Floridians, you're so soft. 45 to 50 degrees keeps you from swimming.

They didn't let anybody in the water. They brought everybody down to the beach at 6:30. From midnight on I'm sure that there was no chance anybody was getting in the water. But we all got the wetsuits and we went down the beach. We were looking at it and said there's no way. And then they canceled it. And then they had us go on the bike by number five guys every 10 seconds. And I was number 3400 and something. So I sat around the cold from seven until I think 9:30 or quarter 10. And by then I was toast. I did the bike and half the run, but I was just never warmed up. It was freezing day. It was a tough day.

The last time I raced in Florida they did something similar. They canceled the entire swim mass start because of an impending hurricane that was blowing in enormous waves into the beach there at Clearwater. And they moved us all inland to swim in this nasty stagnant pond, basically leaving like they had you do when you raced Ironman one by one, one after the next and you just sat there in this long queue of athletes waiting to take off for the swim. So kind of an anticlimactic way to start an Ironman triathlon. But ultimately I'm looking forward to hearing if number 41 wants to winds up going into the notch on your belt. So you'll have to keep me posted on that. In the meantime though, LifeWorks Wellness center where you practice. I've been there. I've visited the clinic down there in Clearwater and it's pretty well known in the US as one of the top anti aging and alternative medical clinics. But before that, I mean you're all over the map. You worked in infectious disease, in neonatal intensive care, in emergency medicine. What got you into the woo woo health side of things, as many would call it these days.

Well, my wife, who's also a very good triathlete, she's just a very good triathlete. She usually is podium in almost anything she enters in 1996, decided to have the fillings removed from her teeth. I was an emergency room doctor at the time. I didn't know anything about toxicology or heavy metals or anything like it. And about a few weeks after she had the mercury removed from her teeth by a dentist who wasn't really trained to do it and didn't have the right equipment, she got an episode of thyroiditis and then she got what looked like Ms. She couldn't lift one arm, she couldn't move one leg. I took her to the best neurologist I knew and they said, it looks like she's got Ms. We need to start her on steroids and interferon and some other things.

It looks like she's got Ms. Like multiple sclerosis.

Like multiple sclerosis. Like acute multiple sclerosis. She's a nurse, she always ate well, she always took care of herself, she's always a great athlete. And it didn't make any sense to me. And one day, by accident, she's a, she has a home health nursing business. And I went to pick her up and a dentist had just moved in and the sign said Natural Dentistry. So I saw him coming out to his car and I went to talk to him, introduce myself. And I said as I go, my wife has just been diagnosed with Ms. And the only thing I can think of that, that might be related is that she had the mercury fillings in her teeth removed some weeks ago. But I don't know anything about this or if it's even possible. And he said, oh yeah, it can be. And you better get educated because way back then nobody knew anything about this.

So at that point you were already a doctor, right?

Oh, yeah, this was 1996. So I was, I'd already been practicing medicine since 1974.

So this was just stuff that you guys hadn't covered in medical school. The idea behind, like mercury and metals.

No, no. You know, then most everybody was getting mercury fillings. There was no warnings about mercury in fish. There was no consciousness about giving pregnant women vaccines with mercury. There was nothing. There was nothing. There was a few dentists who knew about mercury free dentistry and how the proper way to remove it was, but basically nobody knew anything. So he said, there is a doctor in Seattle who knows about this stuff and he teaches courses to doctors and you better go up there and learn it. Because the guys I had referred her to, the endocrinologist for her thyroid and the neurologist for her, it wasn't even on their list of possibilities of what could be wrong with her. And so I went out to Seattle and I trained with this doctor and I learned it and I came back home and I did the testing on her. And lo and behold, her mercury levels were very high. And I got very interested in this whole subject of there's an epidemic now of chronic illness, Ms. autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia I mean, there's Parkinson's, you know, ALS, these degenerative chronic diseases. And I saw that within a few months of treating her with the methods that I learned, her symptoms completely went away. And I had no idea at that time to go into practice. But I was so inspired by, boy, there's a lot of stuff I don't know. You know, I, I knew neonatology and infectious disease and I'm board certified in pediatrics. And I had done emergency room for about 20 years and I was really good at that stuff. But this other stuff I didn't know anything about. So she got interested too. And probably two weekends a month we flew somewhere to do a weekend seminar to learn. And we opened up a little clinic on a part time basis because the emergency room is shift work. So I had a couple afternoons a week that I could sort of get my hands wet in it. And we just started to see people with all kinds of things that, you know, nobody knew how to handle. And as we learned, we got better at it. And, you know, the clinic grew and grew and grew. And I left emergency medicine. I've been doing this full time for a long time now. And it's, it's, it's amazing how you know a lot of people who have lost hope. I think the average person I see has seen nine or 10 doctors that you can make these people better, you can help them to get better. If you figure out what are they toxic with and their bodies are deficient, their guts don't work, you can repair them and they will recover their health. In our hands, about 85% of the people that come, they actually get better and then they can go on and live their normal life. This isn't a genetic defect. A lot of these people get pinholed as, oh, you're depressed. This is menopausal depression, this is clinical depression. They're given psych type drugs, but really nobody's looking very carefully at basic things like your mercury is high, your arsenic's high, you have chemical phthalates and plastics and petrochemicals and mold toxins. Oh, by the way, your body, magnesium level and selenium level and essential amino acids and essential fat levels are low, you have no CoQ10 and you have no zinc. Oh, yes, you have a parasite in your intestine and your urine showing high levels of mold toxins. And that's your typical patient.

Yeah, it's crazy. So you're testing a lot of things when someone goes into the clinic, and I know We've talked about in some of the previous episodes that we've done about some of the things that you test for, like metal, for example, and how you chelate that. And that's a full hour long discussion you and I have had. And for people listening in, I'll link to that over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Amino but just one question for you regarding that, Dr. Minkoff, before we turn our attention to amino acids, and that is as far as testing for mercury, what is your preferred method of testing for something like mercury?

Well, it depends what you're looking for. A lot of times what happens is that the urine levels, if you don't challenge the body, you won't get any. Because once you have a metal exposure, unless you have a big exposure or you have an ongoing exposure, it clears from the blood and then clears from the urine within a couple weeks to a month or two. So if someone's eating a lot of big fish, like tuna, shark, mahi, where the levels of mercury are high, and let's say they're having sushi a couple times a week, their blood levels of mercury will be elevated and we can pick them up on blood. So I look at blood, the lab we use will look at aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, mercury and lead. And many people have high levels. We also do a challenge on people where we will give them a chelator, either an oral chelator, like metal free, or an IV chelator, and then measure either their urine or stool levels to see what comes out. And if you give the chelator and they have high levels stored in their tissues, then the body will shed the mercury and you can pick it up in the urine of the stool.

Okay, got it.

I don't really like hair levels because a lot of people who are sick or if they're mineral deficient or if they're amino acid deficient, won't mobilize the heavy metals to the hair. And the hair looks okay, but really they're not okay. It's just that they can't move it because they're missing things.

Got it. That metal chelating spray that you referenced, that's the same one that you recommended to me when I was doing a metal detoxification. The metal free spray, it's like a sublingual spray, right?

Correct, correct.

Okay, cool. And I'll link to all this stuff in the show notes for those of you listening in, because there's a, there's a lot of stuff here. I know, but amino acids is what I wanted to actually ask you about Dr. Minkoff, because I get so many questions about those. And I know that you study them quite a bit and use them quite a bit with yourself and your patients and the athletes that you work with. So my first question for you regarding amino acids is when did you begin to use amino acids and why? How did you kind of discover amino acids?

Well, it was about 10 years ago. I had another healthcare practitioner come to my office as a patient, and she was an expert in a program for cancer that was developed by Dr. William Donald Kelly. He was a dentist who worked out a way that you could. He cured himself of pancreatic cancer. And he had about 10,000 documented cases that he worked with that, that were cured with cancer using some very high dose concentrated pancreatic enzymes and then a few other things. And she had, she came to me because she was ill and had heard about me. And she had apprenticed to Dr. Kelly before he died for a couple of years. And she was an expert in his method. And she brought me his book when she came and I read the book and it said in there that you could test to see if you had smoldering cancer by taking a dose of these enzymes for a couple of days to see if you turned on symptoms, aches and pains, other things, that you should keep taking these enzymes because it would kill the brewing cancer cells in you. Up to that time, I had been mostly a vegetarian since age about 14. I did eat some dairy products. I would eat occasional fish, but mostly it was brown rice and pierogies and a lot of vegetables. And I had. I had at the same time been suffering from a hamstring for about a year and a half that I could not get to heal. Every time I tried to work out hard, it just would. It would hurt again. And I was afraid to do anything. And I tried really everything from chiropractic to massage, acupuncture, frequency specific microcurrent. I had it injected with cocaine. I had everything. It didn't make any difference. So these sort of two things were going on at the same time. And I. So I said to her, well, I want to try this program. I don't think I had cancer, but let me try these enzymes and see what happens. And she gave me a couple days worth of the enzymes and I started taking them.

And what kind of enzymes were these?

These are pancreatic enzymes.

Okay, Pancreatic enzymes.

It's mostly chymotrypsin.

Okay.

But this isn't like a digestive enzyme that you'd buy in the health food store or get from a healthcare practitioner or even like Wobenzyme, which is a stronger version. These are just like massively strong. I mean, they're like 10 or 20 times the strength of anything you could get. And Kelly was manufacturing these and when he died, his son took it over. And so these are very strong. And the idea is that when you take them, they absorb through your body without them being digested, they go into your bloodstream. And if you have a brewing cancer, the cancer protects itself from being seen by the immune system by putting a coat of protein on the surface, like a decoy coat to make the body think that these are friendly cells. And these high dose enzymes, when you take them digest off that protein, they expose the cancer tissue and then the immune system can attack it. When I took these enzymes, within two hours I had the worst burning stomach I'd ever had in my life. It felt like I'd drunk hydrochloric acid. I had to take bicarbonate and drink a lot of water. I went to her and I said, I don't think I have cancer, but I sure can't handle these enzymes. About six months after that, it always bothered me, why can't I handle these things? Then I met a guy who had been in Europe and he had picked up a blend of amino acids. And he said, these are really something, they're very unique. You should try these and maybe they'll heal up your leg. Maybe you could use them in the clinic. I tried them and within about six or seven weeks my hamstring was fine. It was like late spring when I tried it. I went to Ironman Canada that year and I had my best time that I'd ever had. I also noticed that my maximum heart rate had always been about 172 and that on the amino acids, after I was acclimated to them, my new maximum heart rate had gone up to 184. I had a real physiologic change that I could not only perceive but I could measure. I started using these amino acids in the clinic and a lot of people started to like, wow, I'm better, my energy's better, I feel better.

Just to interrupt you briefly, how many or how many grams or how many tablets of amino acids were you using at that time to do something like heal an injury?

I was taking 10 every morning and they're a gram. The amino acids are a gram each.

So 10 grams.

So 10 grams. And then he said, experiment with more. If you do a long Ride day, a long run day, take another dose when you're done because you'll recover faster. So that's the program that, that I went on. And then this patient of mine came back about six months later and I thought, I'm going to try these enzymes again just to see if there's any difference. I took the enzymes for four days, real high dose. My stomach was completely fine. Then I realized that because I'd been a vegetarian, I was probably inadequate in amino acids. That's why my muscle didn't heal, my stomach lining wasn't normal, and that once I was taking these amino acids, my body actually went back to the way it was supposed to be. That was a huge revelation for me. Like, holy smokes, maybe it's not just me. Then I started to measure every patient, their blood levels of amino acids, just 22amino acids. I would measure their blood levels of amino acids fasting in the, in the morning. And I found that all chronically ill people, almost all athletes, in fact almost everybody had deficiencies in their serum level of amino acids, especially the essential amino acids, which are thethere's eight of them. They include the branched chain, but then there's five more. These eight amino acids make up over 50% of every protein in the body. And if any one of them is in a low state, then the protein that that's needed for may not be made when it needs to be made. And that could be anything from a digestive enzyme to muscle to tendon to bone, to a neurotransmitter to growth hormone to insulin. These are all made out of protein. In fact, there's about 50,000 proteins in the body prepared or made newly every day.

Did you test your body or do you now test to find out if people are amino acid deficient? Like, is there a good test to actually see if you need amino acids?

The one I like the best is it's now Genova does it. It's called the ion panel.

Okay, yeah, I'm familiar with that one.

I like it because it's not just amino acids. It's minerals and vitamins and essential fats. It's not cheap, but if you're interested in health and fitness, spend the money and get the test because you will be amazed at what you find. There's almost nobody has normal as a normal panel. And when you know what's wrong, you can fix it.

Yeah, I've had that panel done before. I ordered it through. There's an online company called Direct Labs where you can actually order one of these panels. And yeah, I mean you get a ton of information. And I definitely found out I was deficient in several amino acids when I took it. I would imagine a lot of athletes especially are due to protein turnover and the increased calorie requirements. But ultimately, whenso you started using amino acids and then you began to implement these into your clinic and use them with patients and athletes?

Yes, I give them to every patient I see and they all keep taking it because they feel it and it corrects their blood levels usually within about three months. And in some of them who are wasted like they're a cancer patient and they've been through tough therapies, chemotherapy, radiation, and they're really sort of emaciated, then I'll give them 30 a day, I'll give them 10, three times a day and generally within three or four months they'll add 14 to 16 pounds of lean body weight. If we add the perfect amino to the, to their regimen.

Yeah. I personally was catabolizing my body with Ironman triathlon and that's how I went from being 210lbs in bodybuilding down to 175lbs. And competing in Ironman was just long fasted bike rides and runs. And eventually the way that I stopped my body from losing muscle once I began to get too light was I kept on doing these runs and these rides. But I would Simply take about 10 to 20 grams of amino acids per day either during the workout or after to basically keepkeep muscle catabolism from continuing to occur. So yeah, I know a lot of people do use them for muscle building and maintenance of muscle mass as well.

Yeah, and I think, you know, like in the bodybuilding arena there's a, there's a very well known trainer down in South Florida in Miami who is having his guys take 100 grams of whey protein two or three times a day to try to get the maximal protein. But almost nobody can take that much because they get gas and bloating and they just can't take all the whey protein. I said why don't you try using this amino acid blend that we have and give them 10 or 20 a day. It won't affect their gut at all. And it's way more anabolic. Your body can use these to make muscle about five times better, almost six times better than whey protein without all the GI distress. And he went onto these things or started putting his guys on these things and he called me, he said I can't believe the difference.

How is it different than whey protein or rice protein or pea protein. How is an amino acid actually different? I mean, is it void of calories? How would you compare it to something like a protein powder?

Well, here's the thing. When you eat a protein, it doesn't matter if it's rice protein or fish protein or beef protein. There are two possible pathways. So when you eat the protein, your body breaks it down into amino acids. If you think of it like proteins are words, and amino acids are letters. In the English Alphabet, there's 26 letters, and if you put those letters together in different combinations, you get different words. So with amino acids, there's 22amino acids, and you put them together in different combinations and you get different proteins. So like insulin, I think, has 69amino acids in a very specific order. And when you put them in that order, that's insulin. If you do, say the muscle protein, skeletal muscle protein, I think there's like 455amino acids in one of those chains. So that's much bigger, but basically it's the same thing. So your body has to take, say, a steak, break the steak by digestion into individual amino acids, because you can't absorb the protein by itself. It's too big. Those amino acids go into the body, they go into the bloodstream, they go to the cells. And once those amino acids go to the cells, the cell then will do one of two things with the amino acids. It will either use them to make protein or it will break. Amino in Greek or Latin, stands for nitrogen. So an amino acid is a carbon chain with nitrogen on it. Carbohydrates and fats don't have nitrogen. They're made out of the same stuff, except they don't have nitrogen. So if the body can use the amino acid to make a protein, then the nitrogen stays in your body, because now it's a hair, you know, it's a piece of hair or muscle, or it's an enzyme, and it stays in. If the amino acid comes in and the body can't use it, it will break off the amino, and what you're left with is basically a carbohydrate. And the body will use it as a carbohydrate to burn or to store as fat or glycogen. So if there's an amino acid that is used, then it gets made into protein. If it's not used, that amino acid goes to the liver, it gets packaged as ammonia, and then we urinate it out. Urine is basically amino acids that have to be gotten rid of in the form of ammonia. What it turns out is that if you do studies on different proteins, let's say you take whey protein and you feed somebody only whey protein for three days, and you can measure how many grams of nitrogen did they get in when they took the whey protein. And then you measure their urine during those three days, you collect all their urine and you measure how much of the nitrogen came out. That will give you an idea of how much was actually retained, because the ones that get made in the proteins don't come out. The ones that can't be used come out with whey protein. If you, let's say, ate 100 grams of whey protein per day for three days, only 84% of the nitrogen that you took in will be peed out, which means only 16% of it is retained. The reason for that is the mixtures of amino acids in whey aren't very close to what the human body needs to make our proteins. And so a lot of them get wasted. Another quick analogy. Let's say you're in the business of making cars, and the basic parts to a car are four wheels, one chassis, one motor, one steering wheel, like simplest form. And I sent you 400 wheels, 400 steering wheels, 400 motors, and 400 chassis. How many cars could you make? And you could only make 25 cars because the wheels would get used up. And then you have all these steering wheels, all these motors, all these chassis left over, and they're going to sit in your junkyard. And that's what happens with the human body, is when the stuff's left over, there isn't the storage pool for amino acids or for proteins. They have to be gotten rid of.

In this case, your body would create 25 cars, and then it would dump all the chassis and everything else that got shipped. You know, the extra 375 leftover pieces it's not going to be able to use. That just gets dumped out via your urine. It has to be processed by your body as nitrogenous waste.

Exactly. So then we can then do a balance study on. Okay, let's do whey protein, see what happens. Let's do brown rice protein. Let's see what happens. Let's do soy, let's do beef, let's do fish. This number is actually. How well is the nitrogen in that thing utilized? How well is it made into body protein? The numbers come out like this. Whey and soy are about 16%. Beef and lamb and fish are about 30%. 2 to 33% utilized. So they're about twice as good as the vegetable protein. The best protein for diet is whole chicken, eggs. Egg plus yolk is about 48% utilized. Breast milk is the only thing that's better. It's about 49% utilized. And this formulation of amino acids is tailored to be the most utilized thing that's ever existed and it's 99% utilized. So when you take this mixture of eight amino acids, the perfect amino, the utilization of the amino acids is 99 plus percent. There's no, virtually no nitrogen waste and virtually no calories because there's no nothing burned. It gets made into body protein by your body. So that's why it works so well, because it's exactly what the body needs to manufacture protein.

So when a study comes out that shows, for example, whey protein to be efficacious for post workout protein synthesis or for hypertrophy or something like that, it's not that the whey protein is useless, but it's simply what you're saying is the fact that not as much of that is utilized as could potentially be utilized if it were broken into its individual amino acid constituents. And if we're to just consume the essential amino acid portions of something like a whey protein or a steak.

Right. It's the essential amino acids in the right balance.

Now what is the right balance? When you say the right balance, is that the ratio?

It's the ratio. Here's an example in the Canadian fda, when they looked at this product, they said the evidence is, the scientific evidence is that there are nine essential amino acids, not eight. And we will not allow you to sell this product in Canada unless you add the ninth amino acid, which is histidine. A study was done that if you add that 9th amino acid histidine to the 8, that the nitrogen utilization goes from 99 to 90. It goes down that adding the extra ones doesn't help. It makes it worse because now you have extra junk that has to be processed. So the ratio has to be exactly what it is and if you alter it, it won't be as good.

Okay, gotcha. So this is very similar to actually something else I wanted to ask you about here in a moment. But branched chain amino acids, a lot of times you'll, you'll hear with branched chain amino acids, which are leucine and isoleucine, seen in valine, for example, very popular among athletes and bodybuilders, they'll use in many cases like a 2 to 1 to 1 ratio, claiming enhanced absorption and utilization at that ratio of amino acids. But when it comes to BCAAs, the branched chain amino acids versus something like essential amino acids or EAAs, can you explain what did difference would be between the two and why so many people are using BCAAs, very, very popular supplement.

Right. It's mostly marketing. It isn't science. But you could take branched chain amino acids in any doses you want all day long. And if you just ate fruits and vegetables which had negligible other amounts of amino acids, your net nitrogen utilization would be zero. Because with three amino acids you do not build protein and you can't because you need eight. What happens is that the branched chain amino acids get used for fuel because they get turned into carbohydrates and they spare muscle. And so you may utilize your other proteins or you may not catabolize your existing proteins as much, but they're not anabolic in themselves.

Okay, so it's primarily the absence of an anabolic effect, the maintenance of lean muscle, the building of lean muscle or other tissues within the body that you're missing out with on BCAAs. They're basically burnt as fuel, but don't necessarily give you like an injury prevention effect or something like that. Right, but when you're taking something like an essential amino acids, you're saying that you're still getting leucine and isoleucine and valine. So you're still getting the fueling aspect of something like a BCAA in the what now?

Say that again please.

Soso with an essential amino acid that still has all of the branched chain amino acids in it, right?

Yes, because they're all essential.

Okay, so we're still getting the fueling benefits of a BCAA when we take an eaa. But with the EAA you have the added anabolic benefit.

Yeah, but if you take the essential amino acids in the right ratio, it's not going to be used for fuel, it's going to be used for anabolic effect.

What about if you take it during a workout?

The repair of muscle starts immediately. It's actually going on all the time. So we usually suggest to people that you take the dose before you work out because you're going to get active recovery while you're even working out. And then if you take a carbohydrate with it, you'll have something to burn if you don't have any glycogen left or if you're not a fat burner.

Now do you personally? Because this is what I used to do when I raced Ironman. I would take 5 to 10 of these per hour during the actual race. Do you use them during the race or do you just use them before or after?

No, I use them. I use them both. I take 10 grams before. And now what I've discovered is if I put. We have it available now as a powder, too. So if I put the powder in a bottle of water, that's what I drink. So I'm doing five to ten an hour while I'm racing. And it has a great effect not only on your muscles, but on your head because, you know, there's this whole thing of your brain stops before your muscles actually stop, because your brain, if it perceives that something's going to go wrong, it will get conservative. And if it's getting plenty of amino acids, the sort of bonk or the kind of like, I can't go anymore feeling really is diminished.

Now, that's something that I've heard before, this idea that central nervous system fatigue is what may cause you to slow down during a workout or during a race, and that it's not actual exhaustion of your glycogen storage sores, but it's central nervous system fatigue due to low levels of amino acids in the blood. I've also heard that tryptophan, the amino acid that can make you sleepy when it crosses into your brain, can be offset or competed against if other amino acids are present in the bloodstream. Now, if you looked into either of those theories when it comes to amino.

Acids, well, tryptophan is an essential amino acid. It's one of the eight. So it's in the product. So you're getting tryptophan. And tryptophan is in every protein in the body. Every protein in the body has tryptophan.

Is this one of those ratio issues you were talking about? Like, for example, if tryptophan were present in too great a ratio in an amino acid blend, then it could potentially cause sleepiness. Or you could potentially experience that central nervous system fatigue if too much tryptophan were present.

Oh, sure. And we make a sleep product, Healthy Sleep, and it has an activated form of tryptophan called 5 hydroxytryptophan. And if you take tryptophan before you go to bed, you'll get tired.

Yeah, that's five htp, right?

Right. And it's a precursor to melatonin and it gets made into melatonin and it'll make you sleepy. So, yeah, it'll definitely do that. These amino acids can be used individually in sort of pharmacologic doses, like where you use one or two, if there's a specific thing that you're trying to do, you're trying to activate a certain pathway, you're trying to make dopamine, or you're trying to make serotonin, or you're trying to make melatonin, that using these individual amino acids, you can do it. The purpose of perfect amino more is for sort of overall general whole body protein synthesis.

Now, a lot of people who are experimenting with carbohydrate restriction or with ketosis, for example, do experience catabolism or muscle loss because of inadequate levels of amino acids. And I know that many of them are using branched chain amino acids, for example, to fuel workouts in the presence of a very low carb intake or along with something like MCT oil or ketones to maintain high levels of ketosis. Have you experimented at all with ketosis or carbohydrate restriction, or do you have any information on how essential amino acids would play into that equation?

Well, I've been experimenting with it with intermittent fasting and what I found is that I'm just taking the perfect amino blend. But I find that my workouts are great. If I ate my last meal at 6 o' clock at night and I work out in the morning, that I can run two and a half hours with nothing except 10 grams of the perfect amino and I'm totally fine. I think that it does make a difference and that each person's so different on this and everybody's doing something different, but it won't break your ketosis. I mean, I think if that's the thing that the person's worried about, since these are utilized and they're not turned into sugar that you don't have to, you know, there's only 4 calories in 10 grams, so that's. It's really almost nothing less than a piece of gum. So if you're, if you're trying to be ketotic or stay in a ketosis, these won't break your ketosis. You know, I can't say that 100%.

But there's no gluconeogenesis that occurs when you consume an essential amino acid versus something like a protein powder or a steak.

Well, this blend, I don't. Everything else probably there will be.

Okay, gotcha. The specific ratios that you formulate, they are, they're in the proper blend right now.

There is not, there's not a lot of research on this, so most of this is just anecdotal. But the research Is that if it's 99% utilized and there's only 4 calories per 10 grams, that if you're in ketosis that this amount of calories isn't going to make any difference. It's not going to break your ketosis.

Yeah, no. I took them quite frequently during the 12 months that I did. Strict 90% plus fat based diet. And that was one of my primary sources of protein, was just these. I would eat them by the handful. They don't taste very good, but I would literally just put them in my mouth and chew and swallow and chase with a strong glass of water. The next question I have for you, kind of related to chewing and swallowing them is I know that sugar can absorb almost instantly in the mouth with amino acids. What are we looking at in terms of digestion? And the reason I ask is a lot of times I will tell athletes not to consume, for example, an eggs and bacon breakfast prior to a big workout or run or triathlon or something like that. Because that protein can take four to six hours to digest and absorb. And for any amino acids to really be available. What are we looking at in terms of time when it comes to how long it takes this stuff to hit the bloodstream?

Well, with the perfect amino, it's 23 minutes. If you take it with a glass of water, juice or a sports drink. You take 10 tablets in 23 minutes you will see the elevation of amino acids in your blood. It's probably absorbed through the stomach wall. They're already pre digested so that they don't need any digestive enzymes. There's no digestion process. Once they hit, they go when people take them. That's why you shouldn't take two, four times a day because there just isn't enough oomph to make an impact. You're best taking them all at once. If you're going to take six a day or eight a day or 10 a day, take them all at once. Because that sort of gradient of concentration gets them across better and they're utilized better.

Should you take them with a meal or a part? For me, them a meal?

Well, if you take them with a meal, they're going to get mixed up in your stomach with everything else and who knows what's going to happen. So I tell people, take them on an empty stomach 23 minutes or more before a meal, especially if that meal has fat or protein. Now you can take them with, you know, if you're just eating, if you have, say you want to have a banana or some berries it won't interfere with them because there's virtually no protein in there and there's no fat in there, and it won't delay absorption. So. But with fat meal, if you have an avocado and you take them, you know it's gonna getit's gonna get stuck.

Okay, so my nightly habit of finishing up a workout and having a glass of wine and a handful of amino acids for the protein, the glass of wine is a non issue.

Non issue.

Okay, all right. Because that's kind of my little hack is I generally don't eat dinner for like a good two hours after my workout, but I want something as I finish up and I sit there in my recovery boots or stand at my desk working on an article or something like that. And so I'll just chomp on a handful of these amino acids. Usually I take 10 or so and I do that along with a glass of wine. And what you're saying is don't mix them with proteins and fats. But if you had, for example, a piece of fruit or a glass of wine or a sweet potato or something like that, it wouldn't mess up up the absorption of the ratios.

Right. Leave lots of butter on the sweet potato.

Okay, gotcha. Now, how many amino acids or what gram dosage of essential amino acids can you safely take on a daily basis? Do you get to a point where there's any nitrogenous waste buildup?

Yes. And for the average person, it's 30 grams a day. You can meet your full body requirement at 30 grams a day. So if you took 10, three, if you're a vegan and you don't eat any animal protein and you're worried about your protein intake and you want a complete substitute, if you take 10 three times a day, you'll fulfill your whole requirement. There's actually a study on this. There's a desert in China called the Taklaman Desert. And I think it's 400 and some miles of just very rough terrain. Temperature extremes from below freezing to over 100. It had never been successfully navigated by an unsupported person, you know, person with just a backpack walking across it. It had never been done. And so there was a race walker gal who was tested beforehand for her VO2 max and lactic threshold and heart rate and hemoglobin and all this stuff. And she took eight of the of the amino acid blends three times a day, plus about 3,500 or 4,000 calories of a glucose fat, vitamin, mineral mixture. And she did it in 26 days. And when she was tested at the end, she was actually anabolic. She had lost some body fat, had gained muscle, her lactic acid threshold had gone up, her hemoglobin had gone up. She hadn't had any catabolic effect at all. And this was on a 135 pound gal at eight tablets three times a day.

Eight tablets three times a day. And she was just taking those during her, during her actual expedition.

That was her sole protein source. Now, I had the same thing happen with a couple of the guys on the Tour de France team. Jeff Spencer is a good friend of mine and he was working with the team and we gave them for a couple of the guys, the amino blend to see what would happen in the Tour because he told me that they were always catabolic, no matter what they gave them in terms of IV nutrition food, that by the end of the Tour they were all broken down. And so they were taking, in addition to whatever else they were eating, they were taking ten tablets three times a day. And what he reported is that they weren't catabolic at all, they were fine, that they were able to maintain muscle mass, the usual tendinitis and the rest of the stuff that they saw, that the body with that dose was actually able to keep up with the metabolic demands of the race and stay even and not break down. And that was also remarkable to me that the body could do it if it had the materials that it needed to keep up with the protein metabolism.

Now, are you familiar with the appetite suppressing effects of some of these amino acids? Like, I know, for example phenylalanine, which is an essential amino acid. After you eat it, your intestines release the hormone cholecystokinase. And that's like the signal to your brain to feel satiated after you eat. Do you use this much for folks who are trying to lose fat, control appetite, control carb cravings, things along those lines?

Well, what we found is that, and this is also, there's a published study on this, that if you put someone on unlimited fruits and vegetables and their only protein source is the amino blend and they take 10 tablets three times a day, that you get very. I think in one month they had close to 20 pound weight loss with complete sparing of lean body mass and they were eating about 2000 calories a day. So we use this in the clinic and it can work. Then in our office, we've done about, I think over 500 patients on an HCG diet, where people are basically on a 500 calorie a day fast.

Yeah, that's a very low calorie diet.

It's very low calorie fat melts off these people and we give them perfect amino. While they're doing it, they lose the same amount of weight but they don't waste all their lean body mass. They hold their lean body mass. We put them on the scale and we're watching them every week. They don't lose bone and they don't lose lean body mass. So that even though they're calorie restricted, they keep up with what they're burning is fat and not their own, their own lean body tissue.

So theoretically, if you were using like strict ketosis, intermittent fasting, daily fasting things along those lines, these, because they're pretty much caloric or not EU caloric, but they're acaloric, they're 4 calories and a very large serving of them, you can get away with getting your protein staving off muscle catabolism, stabilizing the appetite a little bit and still restricting calories.

Yeah. And I think if people are doing this, whether it's like, especially if they're trying to do like a detox fast or one of these things that it's way safer and way better because your liver needs these things to detoxify. And if you're not putting it in, it's going to catabolize your muscles, your body and your organs. And if you're putting these in, it won't do that, it'll preserve itself, which is what you want.

Dr. Minkoff, how old are you? You don't mind me?

67.

67, yeah. Okay, so this will be your 41st Ironman that you're towing the line on and I guess at the time of this recording in two days. The race is on Sunday.

Saturday, yeah.

Okay. The race is on Saturday. Okay. What kind of time are you shooting for?

Oh, if I did 13, I'd have a good day. If I did under 13, I'd have a great day.

That's pretty quick for a sub. 13 Ironman at 67, that's up there. Do you go to Kona? Do you compete in Ironman Hawaii at all?

I've been to Kona eight times. Haven't been there since I think 2010, 2009.

Okay.

My first Ironman was Kona in 1982.

Okay. Wow, you've been at this a while. I was 1 years old in 1982. It's amazing. It's amazing. Resilient men.

Yeah. And you know I still work a 50 hour week and I'm, you know, I have a busy clinic and so I do a lot of other things. So when Tawny was coaching me a bit last year and finally we just threw our hands up and said, you don't have time, you don't have time to train for an ironman. So she said, well, you shouldn't do it. So I thought, you know, I like it and I do the best I can and you know, my workout hours aren't probably anything close to what would be ideal, but it's fun and I do it because it's fun. And I got a podium last month at Augusta, the half ironman. And it's fun. It's a game and all of us have a good time. All this old guy sit around sitting on the swim dock ready to jump in and you know, it's not serious. We're just all glad to be alive and we're glad to be there and we're just like, thank God we can, we can do this stuff.

Well, although I plan on probably golfing when I'm 67. More power to you. I love what you're doing and best of luck on Saturday. Best of luck for myself and the rest of the bench. Greenfield Fitness audience Folks, if you're listening in, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Amino to read up on the show. Notes. I've been taking some notes about everything from these pancreatic enzymes to the ion panel, from direct labs, the metal detox, all the previous podcasts I've had with Dr. Minkoff and these amino acids. You can check all that out in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Amino BenGreenfieldFitness.com Am I n o and in the meantime, Dr. Minkoff, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing this stuff with us.

Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it. You've been an inspiration to me too. And I, you know, it goes both ways. So I appreciate all you do and had your knowledge, your book was just amazing. So keep going because people need you and you put out great information.

Oh man, thanks. I appreciate it. Well, folks, this is Dr. Minkoff and Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.