BenGreenfield-Cells.mp3

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And in today's podcast episode, I have a conversation with my personal naturopathic physician, Dr. Todd Schlatver, about cell to cell communication. Now, we actually had a pretty long discussion about how cells communicate with one another, but I thought that the conversation got really interesting and really practical for you at about the point where I began to ask Dr. Todd about how we could actually enhance cell to cell communication. So, so I'm going to actually start the interview at that point now. If you want to geek out on how cells communicate and the process behind that, I've got a really helpful video for you over on the show notes for this episode over@bengreedfeldfitness.com the other thing that I have for you over there is an article, a guest article written by, of course, Dr. Todd that gives you more information on cell to cell communication as well as show notes for everything that I go over with Dr. Todd in this episode. So let's jump right in to how to enhance your cell's ability to communicate. So what about things that actually support cellular signaling that can assist with, you know, everything from redox potential to the, the ability of cells to communicate with one another?

I go back to basic biology and correlating that to the physiology of the body in order to make energy in the body, you understand, perhaps remember, and hopefully those in the audience can remember what's called the Krebs cycle, which is the ability of the body, the cycle the body goes through, to make energy known as ATP, adenosine triphosphate. That process takes place in the mitochondria of a cell. The cofactors that turn on that Krebs cycle are what I would consider critical to enhancing the ability for our cells to communicate appropriately. That includes B vitamins. B vitamins are essential. If you look at the pathways that enable the Krebs cycle to be activated, you will see B vitamins everywhere. Those are cofactors. You also need substances like magnesium and zinc. Magnesium and zinc are cofactors for turning on hundreds of enzyme systems in the body. They are at the cellular membrane. They are at the gateway for allowing information to come in and out of the cell. They are critically important for transcription. In other words, how the mitochondria receives information, passes it to DNA, and enables us to continue the process of efficient transfer of information or energy throughout the body. So we've got B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and then we would want to have the nutrients that are critical to turning up or turning on the native or natural ability of our bodies to protect ourselves. And that's called the glutathione pathway. And those nutrients are very important, like glutamine, glycine, N acetyl, cysteine. These are the building blocks to the glutathione pathway. And then of course, it would be fantastic to include known nutrients in the terms of food that have a remarkably powerful defense system. And that would be from like wild berries. Wild berries. In other words, foods that are grown in a harsh environment have a very powerful defense system. And if we are able to use or eat the concentrates of those substances, we will be enhancing our own ability to defend ourselves. This is very important because it's very difficult to get those kinds of nutrients from domesticated plants. Do you understand? If something is very domesticated, it doesn't have to defend itself very much. And so it's very mild compared to something that's grown in nature.

Interesting.

So if you combine those things together, you would hypothetically be creating something that would turn up the signaling process to enable efficiency at the mitochondrial level for making our body operate optimally.

What's an example of like a, like a plant, like you're talking about, you know, that, that would allow for something like this to happen? Are you talking about like the typical kind of like, you know, you know, things you tend to see out there, like a cyberry and goji berry and mangosteen and stuff like that?

Yes, yes, exactly.

So that stuff actually works, huh?

Absolutely.

Interesting.

Yes. It's. When you look back, not only in ancient records of what has been used medicinally with those substances, but you look into contemporary research on things like saw berry, for example, or goji wolfberries. It's really quite impressive. Very impressive. Interesting versus something like a domesticated blueberry, Right?

Right.

Huh.

Yeah. I never really thought about things that way. Basically, if a plant has to work harder to fight for itself in nature, then you tend to see a better ability of it to pass on that capability to the human body.

Yes, it's oxidative. Its ability to survive is correlated to its antioxidant power. So what we're doing is hypothetically transferring that intelligence to ourselves by eating them.

So what about things that would be considered stimulants, you know, like caffeine or the ingredients of a lot of energy drinks that are out there on the market, or yerba mate or even green tea and stuff like that? That. That is some kind of a stimulant. Is that working to actually speed up the cellular signaling process or enhance cell to cell communication? Or is that working in a different sense?

Well, it's definitely corresponding to the redox system because the body has to take that in and then determine, decide you could say, what to do with it. Indications are that such products diminish in the long run the health of our redox system by acting more as a free radical or an oxidizing agent, hence putting more wear and tear on the body. And I'm emphasizing in the long run, in other words, if you use it over and over and over again, what's happening is you're getting more of an oxidizing stress event. The simple observation, for example, that we feel less functional over time without a stimulant speaks volumes about what's happening. Take exercise, take exercise, especially high performance exercise. I mean, we are purposefully activating the redox cycle by. But at a certain point it becomes self destructive because of the degree of oxidative stress.

Right.

So adding stimulants into that mix only advances the stress. So recovery is undervalued. And yet it's so essential to the balance necessary to excel.

Is there a way to test or to quantify if cell signaling is, for example, being helped out by something that you eat or by a lifestyle measurement that you take, or if cell signaling is being impeded? I mean, are there tests out there that can test this kind of stuff?

Yeah, the cutting edge of science says yes. I mean, of course we're trying to become much more articulate about how to understand this. But the closest we've come is by doing an assay on human cells through an assay called the antioxidant response element, the are and on the cell's ability in particular, again the mitochondria, to turn on its detoxification system in response to free radicals. We can measure that. Now, we can measure that ability for a certain substance to do that or not, and to what degree. So that that test is very, very illustrative of a substance's ability to signal the body to turn on this native system that informs how cells can efficiently operate. There are other tests too, for example, and some of these I'm sure you are more familiar with, like, Like inflammatory response. Let's take that one. If we measure nuclear factor kappa binding, and that's kappa B. That is a standard means by which we can measure how inflammation is taking place in the body, whether inflammation is being triggered or not. This inflammatory response, this NF kappa B, is triggered by many stimuli like stress, ultraviolet light, bacteria, viruses, foods. And when the NF kappa B is turned on the body's protective mechanism against free radical damage is measured. Certain antioxidants, very specific. Certain antioxidants reduce this inflammatory response by protecting cells from free radicals that induce chronic inflammation if the inflammation is prolonged and constant. So that is another measure of a signaling process. Whether that particular component of our structure and function is measured. SIRTA1 SIRT1 is an anti aging marker in the body. That's another way a substance could be measured about whether it's benefiting the body or not.

So the first one was called a what?

The very first one was called antioxidant response element.

Okay. And then the next one was. I just want to take notes for people on the show notes.

The next one is the. I think I mentioned NF Kappa B.

Okay.

And the third one I measured, I mentioned was Cert 1 S I R T I 1. You could also measure telomere response. Telomeres are the end particle on a chromosome that we have learned is shortened by oxidative stress, which when shortened, seems to decrease longevity. If the telomere can be maintained in its normal length, longevity seems to be enhanced.

Gotcha. Are these the kind of tests that someone could order just like from their doc, or are they going to need to meet with a naturopathic practitioner to find this stuff? Or how does this actually work?

That's a great question. No, they are not conventional tests that could be run through a doctor's office. These tests that I'm talking about are cutting edge assays that you would have to do through a professional lab that's outfitted itself with the ability to do that. And the one that I think very highly of is Brunswick Labs out of Boston. Brunswick Lab specializes in cutting edge technology for assessing the role of our human cell response to nutrients.

Interesting. Okay, cool. I'll put a link to that in the show notes for folks who are interested in actually testing their cells kind of capabilities here. Fantastic. Well, is there any other information that you think would be helpful for people when it comes to cellular communication and enhancing it, or cautions that you would have for people recommendations or any other advice?

Well, I would say read or listen to this broadcast over and over and think about maybe questions you could bring back to Ben in terms of understanding how this works? Because I think as an athlete, if many of you are athletes, this is critical to not only your performance, but how to increase your ability to perform. Well. This is to me central to turning up and optimizing your performance. So it's going to come down to some, you know, taking in some very critical nutrients in order to do that. I mean, I can't go without saying because there's also some really good references to. What I'm going to say next is look at the product, LifeShots. LifeShots is a substance that hypothetically was designed to turn on the signaling process. And the company that developed Live Shots, known as Live Shots, wanted to test out their hypothesis. And that's why they took, once they developed that product, took it to the scrutiny of science and submitted it in a blind fashion to Brunswick Labs, along with some other very well known products that many athletes are using and tested it blindly, you know, against a lot of these different tests that you just asked about, Ben, with respect to testing its signaling capacity or signaling power. So, you know, look at that.

Life Shots.

Life Shots. And maybe you could get a link for them to look at the studies. I mean, there are actual studies that are provided by Live Shots that show what those results are and what the composition of that product is. It's a handy product because it's a beverage that is in a powder form. So you can put it in anything liquid. So it's fast and it's very useful. And it's not a caffeine derivative.

So yeah, okay, I'll link to that as well. And that's a powder that you add to basically just like water or do you use.

Oh, you can just anything liquid. You could add it to juice or water and go from there.

Okay, all right, cool. Well, a lot of information here on cellular signaling and enhancing cellular signaling. I'll go ahead and put some of my notes in the show, notes for people to access. And I'll also put a link to some of the other conversations I've had with Dr. Todd for this podcast. And then, of course, leave your questions, your comments and your feedback below the post and I'll be sure to answer them. So, Dr. Todd, thanks for coming on the call today.

Yeah, it was fun with you, Ben.

All right, that's going to wrap it up. I hope that was helpful for you and be sure to head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for all the show notes for this episode. Thanks for listening in and have a great week.

Sa.