Episode #209: How To Know If The Supplement You’re Taking Is Safe

In today's podcast, how to know if the supplement you're taking is safe. Also, resistance training for triathletes, tips on clearing your lungs. Gerson therapy for treating cancer. When is it safe to mix fats and carbs? And are hydration and electrolytes the only causes of muscle cramping?

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlete fun and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill, cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. I'm Brock, your host or sidekick, depending on how you look at it. And of course, as always, right here on the line, mine is Ben. Ben, what's happening?

Oh, this is about the closest I've come, I think, since college or maybe since my kids were born, to pulling an all nighter. Oh, I think actually one of the Twitter followers from the twitter.com BenGreenfeld mentioned to me that he thinks I need to get an IT guy, and he's probably right. My email and computer crashed and everything yesterday. It's kind of one of those deals where I stayed up all night trying to fix it because I was tending to other things during the day. So I am barely in the land of the living right now. My buddy is pulling up in about an hour and a half for us to head down to Bend, Oregon for a big triathlon down there.

Ah, the redemption race.

Yes. Today's podcast is an abbreviated version of Ben Greenfield Fitness. We're going to try and hell will probably freeze over if this actually happens, but we're going to try and keep today's podcast to about an hour. So.

All right, deep breath.

Here we go. News flashes.

Okay, so twitter.com BenGreenfield is the place to go to get some interesting and extremely relevant studies and new releases and stuff. And right now, Ben's going to give us the highlights.

That's right. So this first one is for all you triathletes out there who arrive to a triathlon two hours early to make sure that you get everything set up and you can get warmed up and everything. There was actually a. Yeah, there was a study that came out and this one was in. It was. The Western Australian Institute of Sport did this study and it appeared in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research. They investigated different warm up procedures on how you performed in a sprint distance triathlon, which technically you'd think would be the most important type of race to warm up before because that's the one in which you're going to be going the hardest. They found that when they compared a swim warmup and also a run, dash, swim warmup and finally no warm up, that there was no significant difference in the race times or the overall triathlon performance of the moderately trained amateur triathletes that they tested. I, I thought that was interesting. Of course thing. Oh, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, I mean it seems obvious that if you're going to be like somebody, like a pro, you're definitely going to be hitting the, hitting the red line like right off the, off the bat. And I guess amateur wouldn't be pushing quite as hard right off the bat, but you'd still think it would have some difference.

Yeah, it's an interesting takeaway and I think that it's one that folks can take when they're rushed and they don't have time to warm up. Rest assured, you might still be able to do okay. Now there's actually two things to bear in mind here. One would be you hear about these swim deaths in triathlon and I do think that a big part of that is folks not really being ready for that surge that takes place when you jump into the water for a triathlon to go all out and you're just cold. I think that that would certainly be one concern here. And then the other concern would be that a very, very good idea before you do your triathlons to make sure that your bike is set up properly. Something I didn't do last week. Speaking from experience, make sure your brakes aren't rubbing, make sure that you're in the correct gear, make sure your tires are inflated. And some of that does require you to do some form of a bike warm up, if that's an option. So don't take this and use it as an excuse to sit in your car sipping your favorite beverage until that starting gun is about to go off. But it's interesting that you can do okay without a warm up. So another study looked at these special walking shoes, these rocker bottom profile type shoes that are supposed to be the.

Ones that make your butt awesome, make.

Your butt awesome, make your calves look like a Greek God or goddess. I hate to disappoint, but in this study they found that those shoes neither increase lower extremity muscle activity or the energy cost of walking, or the metabolic cost of Walking. I'm shocked.

Absolutely flabbergasted.

I know that you're heartbroken, Brock, that now you gotta go into your closet and throw out all your rocker bottom shoes.

Got like 10 pairs.

I know, I know. I was excited, actually, about going on my walk later on this afternoon. Unfortunately, though, there's no evidence that they actually work. However, if you buy these shoes and they make you more likely to go out and walk during your lunch break, then more power to you. So rocker bottom profile type shoes, you might save yourself 30, 40 bucks and just go for a regular old pair of walkers. And then finally, measurement of total serum cholesterol in the evaluation of suicidal risk. This study actually appeared almost exactly one year ago in kind of like a psychological journal. And what they did was they actually looked at people's serum cholesterol levels. And what they found was that folks who had very, very low serum cholesterol levels, basically low fats and triglycerides and things like that circulating in the bloodstream, they found that those people were actually at a higher risk of. Of suicide. And I know that this might be one of those causation correlation issues, and it could be a little bit of a logical fallacy, but it's pretty compelling to me that fats play such a crucial role in your central nervous system and the structure of your brain, everything from omega 3 fatty acids all the way up to saturated fatty acids and these ketone bodies. In terms of how your nervous system accesses fats as a fuel, that it makes pretty good sense that there could be a link between low intake of dietary fats or low cholesterol levels and some issues going on from a psychological standpoint. A really, really good resource for folks who want to dig into this a little bit more is a book written by Nora Gadgautis, who is a biofeedback practitioner down in Portland, Oregon. She wrote a book called Primal Body, Primal Mind. And in it she goes into some of the reasons why fat is actually something that may protect you against neurological deficits, Alzheimer's, things like that. So I thought this was an interesting study and one that caught my eye.

That is very interesting. And just speaking anecdotally, just from my own experience, I've noticed I have in the past suffered with a lot of anxiety and depression and was medicated even for a while for it. And I have to say, since switching to a low carbohydrate, like, not super low carbohydrate diet and high fat diet, I haven't had any trouble. And I'm knocking on wood because I don't want to jinx myself, but I haven't had any trouble with mood swings, I haven't had any trouble with energy dips, and I certainly haven't had the emotional roller coasters that I used to go on as well during the day. So just anecdotally, personally speaking, I totally am on board with that. I buy it.

However, you are probably the strangest sidekick in the world of podcasting.

Special Announcements okay, so on BenGreenfieldFitness.com there was an awesome interview with. How do you say his name? Is it Sami?

Oh, Sami Inconen. For those of you who again, kind of cutting through the triathletes here, but really anybody who wants to get more done in less time when it comes to working out. I interviewed a guy who's pretty much one of the best amateur triathletes athletes on the face of the planet, and he trains 10 hours a week. Well, 8 to 12 hours a week really, if you look at the whole range. But he and I just talked for about a half hour on that podcast and that'd be a good one for you to go listen to if you want to know some of the secrets of minimalist triathlon training. So I'd recommend that you check that out for sure. Some of the similar concepts as are put into my triathlondominator.com program, but also some new things like he swims with a snorkel and he does almost all of his workouts on an indoor CompuTrainer and just little things that I thought were pretty interesting and some helpful takeaways.

Well, really neat time saving, like just doing his workouts on a CompuTrainer. Like a lot of us just want to take advantage of the fact that there's good weather, like living up in Canada especially. I feel like if there's good weather I should be outside on my bike. But really, like you can save a good half hour to 45 minutes just by jumping on the trainer instead of and get a more focused workout as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And of course you don't have to go out and buy a $1,500 Computrainer indoor bike trainer to maximize your bike training. You can have just a regular bike trainer and you know, maybe some of the good old Suffer fest videos. Those are my favorite favorite videos for cycling, for indoor cycling. I'll put a link to those in the show notes. And actually that that reminds me, Brock, as I'm writing a note to myself to link to sufferfest in the show notes. We have kind of a new process that we're going to be using when we're doing the podcast. And I know that it's tough when you're out there and maybe you're biking or you're running or you're working out and you're listening into the podcast. I often mention things, I give you these lists of items that could help you out. We might go into estrogen dominance and I list all the things that might help a woman to clear out the liver and help to process estrogen a little bit better. Or in this case, we've already talked about computrainers and the Sufferfest videos and the Primal Body, Primal Mind book by Nora Gadgautis. And I realized that by the time you finish listening to an episode that you may have this whole list of things that you're trying to remember. What we're going to start doing is using a program over on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Facebook page called My List. And what it will allow us to do is for each podcast episode, we'll create a My List for you. And so you can go over to facebook.com bgfitness and you can just click on the episode show notes and it'll be very clearly spelled out like, this episode is what Brock 209 so you'll see the 209 podcast list and you'll just be able to click on it and you'll see any of the things that we talked about that you might want to look into a little bit more. So I will, every time we do a podcast, have Those up within 24 hours after the podcast is released. So you'll just be able to access those over@facebook.com bgfitness and it's called My List. And the other thing that I'm doing is creating a My List just for general needs. Everything from endurance performance to sleep enhancements to lowering stress to just a ton of different kind of goals that folks go after with their health and fitness fitness needs. So you'll be able to check all that out over@facebook.com bgfitness it's called my List.

Save all the things you love in one place.

There you go. And then of course, this podcast episode is sponsored by Audible. And the URL that you can go to if you want to get a free book From Audible is audiblepodcast.com Ben Brok kind of got shorted on that one.

Yeah, that's all right. It's easier to remember a three letter word or a three letter name than a five letter name.

This is true. This is true. Brok is markedly harder to spell than Ben. And one of the books that you may be able to get is the current audible bestseller, no Easy Day, the First hand account of the mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden. So if you want to geek out on a narrative by a Navy seal, then that. Actually I've heard it's a really good book. That would be a good one to listen to. Maybe I'll grab it for my road trip down to Oregon coming up here.

Hey Ben, it's Bill Beecher from Knoxville, Tennessee. Just want to let you know I bought your triathlon Dominator program earlier this year and competed in Ironman Louisville last month and had a great race. Took almost an hour and a half off my time. So I was very pleased with your program. I'd recommend this program to anyone looking to do a full or half distance Ironman. It was a great program. The value for the money can't be beat. Thanks again for a great program, Ben.

Listener Q and A. Okay, because we are going hot and heavy and fast and furious on today's podcast so Ben can get down to his triathlon. We're going to stick to all audio questions and we're going to start with this audio question from Ben.

How are you doing, Ben? My name is Ben, calling in from Brooklyn, New York. I have an interesting one here. I have an older brother who's 38 and he is now a triathlete. He completed the Wild Flower and he just finished the Tough man which is in New York State. And now in preparation for his next triathlon, he's come to me with some questions about adding in resistance training to his current triathlon training. I myself, I have a few years of weightlifting under my belt. I stick with the basic big compound moves, less is more type training. I've had great success personally. I've changed my body over a few years and I've packed on 18 to 20 pounds of lean mass. So I know it works. My question is what to recommend for him. I find myself wanting to stick with the same things I do because I know that full body compound moves and it'll improve everything and keep him from getting injured while he's being a triathlete, et cetera. But I thought you might have some input. I know you have a background with resistance training and obviously you're a triathlete, so if you had some recommendations for him or me, that'd be great. Thanks so much.

So you've written several books on exactly this topic.

Really I have, I've written two different books on weight training for triathlon and they come at it from two totally different perspectives. And you really do have that option. Ben, great name by the way of two different standpoints. If you're resistance training for endurance sports, one would be to really go after strength endurance and this would be with more of like a CrossFit style protocol where you are pushing yourself cardiovascularly. You've got a really high metabolic cost to your weight training sessions. You're going from set to set with very little rest and doing typically relatively higher reps, slightly lower weight, a lot of body weight stuff, a lot of gymnastics type of stuff. If you were to look at my book, the Top 12 Resistance Training Routines for Triathletes, that's what that is. They're all super short, 20 to 40 minute routines where you're doing box jumps, then you're running over and you're doing pull ups, then you're going from the pull ups over to a couple cable exercises and you're doing all of that in this one big circuit and you're going pretty hard the whole time. Now that's a good way to go. If you fall into the category of being someone who is really time crunched, who wants to kind of get in, really get a good workout in, combine your strength and endurance all into one and then just be done. It's also good if you're trying to burn a lot of calories so you've got some weight to lose and you really need to make sure that there's a high metabolic cost to all the workouts that you do. And it's also fine. And if you tend to be coming from like a strength and power background and you're really strong and that's not an issue for you, you know, building strength, building power, lifting heavier weights, doing some of those higher metabolic cost weight training routines can be effective. I also like those as kind of just like an off season or maybe like a during the holidays way to get in, get out really quickly to the gym during a time like say for a triathlete during the off season when you're not doing a lot of swimming or cycling or running anyways. And so because you're not getting a lot of the cardiovascular work from those skills, you're kind of combining your cardiovascular work and your strength work into one. Now, any of you hardcore weightlifters out there probably know that you're missing a big component when you do these type of high metabolic cost type of circuits, whether it be CrossFit or there's a bunch of them out there. Jim Jones P90X Beachbody and Sanity. Any of these. Because you're working at such a high intensity, you really can't build strength and power very efficiently. You can't lift heavy weights and really engage in more of the type of exercise that has actually been proven in research to do things like improve running economy and running efficiency or cycling economy and cycling efficiency. And that would be heavier sets performed typically in a lower rep, lower set type of scenario, like three sets of five squats, three sets of five deadlifts, three sets of five power cleans. And that's kind of the standpoint from which my other book, Ultimate Weight Training Guide for Triathletes, was written. It lays out all of the research studies that have been done on endurance athletes, cyclists, runners and swimmers and the type of routines that have worked effectively. And then kind of gives you a matrix for the beginning of the year all the way to the end of the year in terms of how to put together your season effectively for the primary purpose of going to the gym, not to work on endurance, but going to the gym to work on strength and power. So there's really kind of two different approaches you can come at it from. And yeah, I mean, if you're like a kind of a weaker person, someone who's got a lot of, say, slow twitch muscle, somebody who really wants to work on strength because you're getting injured a lot, or work on power because you're just having the hardest time generating force, then doing more of that traditional type of strength training is probably a better way to go for you than doing like the high metabolic cost, super high intensity type of weight training routines. So there's two ways to go. I'll make sure that I put both of those books as links on our new my list over@facebook.com bgfitness and in the show notes. But those are kind of your options.

As somebody who's being coached by you. You've got me doing the super slow sets right now and I'm sort of, I guess I'm not really at the peak of my ironman training at the moment, but I'm getting there. Is this exactly the thought behind it? Because I am doing a lot of those more intense, harder runs and longer rides that the strength training is a lot more sort of less aerobic.

No, it's because I'm using you as a guinea pig.

All right.

Yeah. No, actually, that's a really great question. So the super slow protocol, like the one that we interviewed Doug McGuff about a few weeks ago is really kind of unique because it kind of hits both of these concepts that I was just talking about, both the strength and the cardiovascular endurance. But the cardiovascular endurance side of it is a little bit weird because you're lifting a weight so slow that it's really increasing your blood pressure quite significantly and improving your cardiovascular efficiency in that manner. Not necessarily because your heart rate's through the roof, but I've personally been using the super slow strength routine once a week and I'm using it with some of my athletes now just as a change up. I mean, Brock, I've had you, you've done some of the high metabolic cost weight training routines in your program. At certain times during the year I've also had you doing more of the traditional strength training like building up to your marathon. Last year we had you doing a lot of that. And this is kind of a hybrid form of training where right now I've got you doing the super slow strength training and then kind of a slightly higher metabolic cost type of weight training routine, but a combination of the two and that's actually somewhat similar to what I'm doing at this point in my training right now as well is I do one super slow weight training routine a week, which is more strength based and then I do one kind of higher metabolic cost type of suspension training workout out another day of the week. So ultimately what it comes down to is you need to do what you enjoy, what you can do consistently, what you can fit into your schedule and understand that you're going to get benefits regardless. But hopefully that explanation I just gave you gives you a better idea of what will get you to be able to prioritize a certain result.

Beautiful.

All right.

Alright, let's move on to the next question from Clayman.

Hey Ben, say this is Clay Anderson out of the middle of South Dakota. I just finally got onto an Advair inhaler and it's really starting to unplug my lung capacity and I'm noticing that I'm doing a lot better on my times. Can you give me some more ideas to try to unlock the, you know, the mucus or whatever in my lungs through the process that I kind of trying to get through. And, and the $280 Advair definitely is helping a lot and I'm trying to, you know, ex, you know, get as much of this stuff out of my system, doing some sprints and things like that. But if you have any other ideas that I need to try and shoot for or different methods that I could try to excrete as much of this phlegm or fluid or what have you in my lungs. I appreciate it to know more about. Hey, thanks a lot. And thanks very much for what you're providing everybody.

Yeah, mucus in the lungs is no fun.

No, that's not my idea of a good party. And that's what this Advair is designed for. The advair is an inhaler. It's for people who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or copd, and people who have airway spasms due to asthma. And basically, it's a corticosteroid inhaler, kind of a standard inhaler. The way that these act is they're called beta agonists. They cause the muscles in your respiratory system to relax and that opens up your airways and lets more air get in and out of the lungs. And they are super effective. Steroid asthma inhalers are used by thousands of people, and they're quite common as kind of a first treatment for asthma and breathing problems and to shut down an asthma attack or a flare up. There are some issues with them, though, that can make finding other ways to control some of these issues attractive. For example, steroids can be addictive. Any steroid is an immune suppressant, and it can cause this dependent effect of the body on it. And one of the things that the body can depend on that steroid for is the proper function of immune system. So when you suppress your natural immune system function through the use of a steroidal inhaler for a long period of time, if you ever get off the inhaler, it can make it kind of tough to be able to fight off colds and flus and stuff like that. So that's one thing that you got to be careful about, is it can have an immune suppressing activity or effect. When you use a lot of asthma inhaler, like, if you're using it frequently in high doses, that can increase your risk for a yeast infection. Or also what's called thrush. And, you know, thrush is something that babies get quite a bit, but it's also something that you can get in terms of like a fungus or a yeast infection in your digestive tract or in your respiratory tract, if you're using these a lot. One of the issues, and this is one that we've hit on before on the show, is the fact that corticosteroid inhalers are just that, they're corticosteroids. So those can cause adrenal suppression. What that means is that they can block the release of two of the important hormones in your body that produce cortisol. And while we tend to think about cortisol sometimes as being this bad hormone, it's definitely necessary. It controls cardiovascular function and it helps your body respond to stress. It can regulate your metabolism of fat, carbohydrates. And when you're messing up the balance of cortisol by using a corticosteroid inhaler, there can be some ramifications from that. That's funny.

I think we've spent so much time talking about how cortisol can be so bad and how we really want to get rid of it. When you first said that it inhibits it, I was like, oh, awesome.

Well, yeah, I mean, when you wake up in the morning and sunlight hits your eyes or you have a couple of coffee, what you're doing is causing this surge in cortisol. It's your wakefulness hormone and it's good in moderate amounts. And so you're looking at adrenal depletion and potential for adrenal fatigue. And that is what kind of a severe adrenal crisis is. You get low blood pressure and you start to get, you feel like lying around in bed all day. And that's because you're not making enough cortisol. There can be a bone thinning effect of long term inhaler use, basically a drop in bone density. And then the final thing that can happen is basically some issues with the skin. The skin can really take a beating from long term steroid use and it can get thin and dry and you can even get like premature wrinkles and stuff like that. In some cases, acne can be an issue as well. So if you can find some alternatives to keeping mucus from building up up, it's certainly prudent. You know what would be an ideal scenario is you use your inhaler when you're literally having an attack and you have to get it out. Otherwise some of the things I would recommend one would be to have a humidifier or like a vaporizer in your bedroom, like when you're sleeping, because that high humidity helps to soothe your airways and it can help to loosen a lot of that phlegm that builds up. And that'd be kind of a no brainer to get a humidifier or humidification system in your bedroom. And you can do things like put like a eucalyptus oil or a mint oil in there as well to basically make that vapor a little Bit more effective and even more pleasant. Long showers or long baths with hot water and steam, those can have a similar effect. And that's something you can do in the morning or before bed at night, for example, as well. Tea in a similar manner like a mint or a eucalyptus tea. Those can also, especially if you're taking the time to breathe the steam while it steeps and kind of breathe a few breaths, rest of that tea as you bring it up to your mouth. That can be a good way to loosen up phlegm and mucus as well as a hot liquid like a soup. And including soups in your diet, that's another good thing that you can do is to include hot things like tea and soup. Heating pads applied to your chest. Those are kind of a good natural remedy for chest congestion. You can get these commercially made heating pads. You can literally also just do a simple homemade heating pad. Just take a sock, preferably a clean one, especially if you live anywhere around my house, and you can put a couple cups of uncooked rice into a sock. A lot of people don't know this trick about making yourself a homemade heating pad. And then you just tie a knot in the open end of the sock and you microwave the sock for about three to four minutes. And that makes you a pretty cool little heating pad that you can use. That's also good, by the way, if you've got like a stiff low back or low back pain, you can just lie on that side sock for a little while that. That heat going into your low back, but you can also put it on your chest. So cleaner than tying a dead chicken around your neck, even if it's, even if it's dirty sock. Salt water. Gargling with salt water, that can help, as can gargling with apple cider vinegar. Those are two of the things that I'll do if I have it like a cold or a flu or something. That's really building up a lot of mucus in my throat. Some folks like to use these, these neti pots to clear out phlegm and congestion in the respiratory tract. That works better for the sinuses. And, you know, I've. Personally, I own a neti pot. I've used a neti pot before where you literally, like pour this pot into one nostril and you kind of let it percolate through your sinus cavities. And I actually got a pretty bad ear infection after using one of those.

Oh, really?

Maybe I used it improperly, but you're.

Not supposed to pour it in your Ear.

I kind of steer clear of that for now. I think what had happened is I used it and then I got an airplane and flew, and it shoved a bunch of that fluid into my eardrum. So, yeah, it does take quite a.

While to actually clear out. I have noticed whenever I use it, it's like two hours later. All of a sudden, like, some of the water will still be trapped up somewhere in the sinus and just come rushing out all in one go. So you have to sort of be careful that you've cleared everything out before you go out and bubble. Or on a plane.

Or on a plane. Exactly. And then the last thing I'd say is consider looking into, like, spicy foods, you know, like the capsaicin you're gonna find in a lot of spicy or hot foods. That's what's called an expectorant, meaning that it helps to thin mucus in your head or your throat or even your lungs. And that can allow you to clear some phlegm as well. So, you know, go out for Thai and order number five and see what happens.

All right, good suggestions. Let's move on to the next audio question from John. Hi, Ben.

This is John Austin from Toronto. Hope you're doing well. Just want to say thank you very much for all of your help. I've increased my testosterone, I've had my knee fixed, and all around feeling great and looking forward to using your tri RIPT program. I want to ask you if you've had any. Done any research on the Gerson Therapy for cancer. We have two friends who are actually in the latter stages of cancer right now. One has leukemia, and I think one has lung cancer that's metastasized to her kidney, to her liver. And just want to know what your thoughts are. Now, you're not a doctor, but I just want to know your thoughts. What would you do if you had a family member who actually had cancer, as well as if you have any suggestions on supplements or things to do. I remember hearing something about cancer feeding off of sugars, so to go on a low carb diet is one of the better things to do. As always, thank you for all your help and thank you for the podcast and hope you're doing well. Thank you.

Bye bye.

Now, I know we've spent a lot of time talking about different sorts of approaches for treating cancer or preventing cancer or just helping get through cancer treatments, but I don't think we've ever addressed the Gerson Therapy.

We haven't. And by the way, John, I will link in the show notes to episode number 204, where we talked quite a bit about some of the basic nutrition and lifestyle modifications that I recommend for dealing with cancer. I also talked in that episode about a book called the Fourfold Path to Healing. And I will put a link to the Fourfold Path for Healing, both here in the show notes as well as over on the My list page for this episode. But, yeah, the Gerson Therapy, it's been around for a while, and it was originally used as a treatment for migraine headaches and also for tuberculosis. And it's based on the idea that disease such as cancer, is caused by the accumulation of toxins. Toxins. And so what you try to do with something like a Gerson Therapy is to detox the body. And typically it involves some kind of a special, like, vegetarian diet with lots and lots of juicing. There are a lot of different dietary supplements that are kind of included as well, like liver cleanses and toxin cleanses. And you also get things like coffee enemas, castor oil. Sometimes with Gerson Therapy, they'll use hydrogen peroxide or ozone therapy, which you've actually talked about on the show as well. And the person who developed this Gerson, Max Gerson, he didn't actually found this National Cancer Institute, or what's called the Gerson Institute. I'm sorry, he didn't found the National Cancer Institute. It's called the Gerson Institute. His daughter founded this thing called the Gerson Institute. And I'm not even sure what state it's in, but they get folks going to this Gerson Institute to go through this detox. And it really does include a lot of things like enemas and some serious detox therapy. Now, it's been looked into by the US National Cancer Institute, it's been looked into by the American Cancer Society, and it has been reported that there's no reliable scientific evidence that it's effective in treating cancer. There have been some reports of some patients having some nasty side effects from all the detoxing and the colonics and these other things that they're going through. It's one of those things that you do need to take with a grain of salt, though, when the National Cancer Institute or the American Cancer Society is reporting no reliable scientific evidence. Because if you look at something like the Brzezinski Clinic, which is a clinic over in Texas, they actually have. They had a whole dvd, like a whole movie put out by that clinic. And I forget the name of the movie. I think it's called, like, the Brzezinski story or something like that. But basically there's this physician who developed what's called Antineoplastin therapy, which is essentially a therapy that includes these amino acid derivatives that are used for medicinal use. And what these antineoplastins act as are molecular switches. So they can literally force programmed cell death of tumor cells or cancer cells. And this type of treatment has been shown to be fairly effective. But it's pretty amazing. And I've seen the DVD and I'll link over to the Brzezinski Clinic website where you can check, check it out. But it's pretty amazing how this guy's highly effective therapy was actually shut down by the US government, basically because it's so natural that they couldn't really make a lot of money off of it. Pharmaceutical companies couldn't make a lot of money off of it. And so it was one of those things where there was kind of this conspiracy to shut it down. And so having watched that film, looked into that therapy, seen the research studies that show how this Antineoplastin therapy can actually work, and seeing that it is effective, I can't simply straight up say that this Gerson Therapy, because it's an alternative, isn't going to be effective. But I haven't seen the same scientific evidence for it as I've seen for something like this Antineoplastin therapy put out by the Brzezinski Clinic. So, as I've said before on this show, I'm not a physician. I am nowhere near a cancer specialist or anything like that.

But.

But my basic recommendations would be to listen to what I went through in episode number 204. Read this book, the Fourfold Path to Healing, which talks about using nutrition and therapeutics and movement and meditation in the art of medicine. And it does address cancer to a certain extent as well. And then also check out this website for the brzezinski clinic@brzezinskiclinic.com, i'll link to it in the show notes. That's one that, that I've found pretty compelling when it comes to a cancer treatment that seems to have something going for it.

Cool.

It looks like the movie's actually called Cancer Is Serious Business. And I guess business being the key word there.

That's the name of the movie put out by the Brzezinski Clinic. Yeah, okay, gotcha. I think there's another one, though, Brock, called the. I believe it's called the Brzezinski Story. I think that was the one that I saw no, the Brzezinski movie. Brzezinski movie dot com. And you're right, it is. I'm going to go there right now, see if I can pull it up. Yeah, it is called Brzezinski the movie. Cancer is a serious business. Yeah, you're right. So we'll link to that in the show Notes for folks too. That's a movie you can download to your computer or you can order the DVD of and I've seen it and I thought it was really good.

Cool.

Well, let's move on to the next audio question from Horace.

Hey, Ben, how are you? This is Jorge in Canada. Two weeks ago I finished my first Ironman. That was in 11 hours and 14 minutes. I'm very happy with my results and I have to attribute a part of my success to you and your expertise. So thanks for sharing your know how with us, the athletes. You are making us healthier people. My question for today has to do with supplements. I'm not a big fan of supplements just because I don't know what's in them. They are not regulated and any joker could outsource manufacturing to Asia, set up a website and print a label and they just go to the market. So my question for you has to do with whether, you know if there is some sort of organization or website that certifies the quality of supplements. So thanks again and bye for now.

So nice little testimonial thrown in there along with a really good question.

Yeah, congratulations, Jorge. That's pretty, pretty cool going out and doing that. Anytime you cross the finish line of an Ironman, I don't care how fast you are, you've definitely done something pretty epic.

Absolutely.

So how do you know if a dietary supplement is safe? This is kind of a big and a serious issue. And in the U.S. dietary supplements are regulated by the U.S. food and Drug Administration. And it is to a certain extent a little bit of a wild, wild west when it comes to purchasing dietary supplements and trying to figure out whether or not they're actually safe. What it comes down to is that there are a few independent organizations that offer seals of approval that can be displayed on certain dietary supplement products. Products. And what these indicate is that that supplement has passed that organization's quality tests for things like potency and things like contaminants. And they're seals of approval from independent organizations, not from the fda. But they provide you some assurance that what you're buying was properly manufactured and more importantly, that it contains the ingredients that are actually listed on the label and that it claims to contain because there are many, many supplements out there, there that are like oregano Oil is a very simple example. The active ingredient in oil of oregano is carvacrol. That's what does things like breaks down bacterial cell walls and has like an antifungal, anti yeast, antiviral type of effect. When you take it for something like your gut health or to improve your immune system or to do like I do, I take it before I get on airplanes or trains trains or buses. But the fact is that most of the oil of oregano that you purchase has a very low carvacrol content. And so it's not that effective. And you're typically wanting to look for something that has about 75 to 85% Carvacryl content in order for it to actually work. Well for an oil of oregano to do that, it has to go through some type of pre and post production analysis of carvacryl content to prove that it actually shows that it has what it claims to have in it. And you know, that's for example, you know, like I've got the Ben Greenfield Fitness branded oil of oregano. That stuff's got slightly over 85% Carvacryl content and it has undergone a pre and post laboratory analysis for that. Now, as I think I've mentioned on this show a few times, I am in the process of designing basically a supplement line that covers a lot of the bases when it comes to a lot of the things that I end up talking about on this show. And there are certain independent organizations that can do a pre and post analysis of this supplement line. I've been looking into them. Consumer Lab is one that puts out an approved quality product to steal. If you see the consumerlab.com approved quality product product seal on your supplement, that's a pretty good sign that it's got what it says that it has in it and that it's safe. Another one is the US Pharmacopoeia Dietary Supplement Verification Program. And this is another program that is pretty decent when it comes to showing that there's kind of a seal of approval on this product. And then the biggest one and probably the best one and the most expensive one is called the NA International Dietary Supplement Certification. This is the most expensive. It really jacks up the price of the supplements because what they do is they literally go into the lab or into the facility where the supplement is being produced. They clear the lines of any other vitamins or supplements that are being produced in that factory. They hone in on this one single supplement that they're getting the NSF certification for. And they make sure that that thing is clean from start to finish. And that the pre production and post production not only is not laced with things that might be considered steroids or hormones or things that might cause you to test positive on a World Anti Doping association test, but also that everything is produced in a certified good manufacturing practices facility with total confidence that the ingredients are actually there that the company is claiming are there. So if you see something with an NSF certification, and that's the one that I'm going to end up using, by the way, that's a really, really good sign.

That's a certification that I've seen here in Canada as well. The other two I actually, I don't think I've noticed here in Canada you're.

Not going to see the U.S. pharmacopoeia or the consumer Lab. You'll find sometimes internationally, but that's more US based as well. The NSF is a pretty good approved quality product seal though, so you're looking for any of those three consumer lab, US Pharmacopoeia or NSF as being good seals and signs of approval. And then the other thing you want to look for is the, what's called the CGMP stamp somewhere on there. And that just shows that it was produced in a certified good manufacturing practices facility. And there are brands of supplements out there that are kind of just like generally known to be pretty decent. Anything physicians line like Thorn for example, is pretty good standard process. They're good now supplements, they do good stuff. The main thing is though, if you walk into the bargain bin of your local super supplements outlet or whatever, a lot of times you really are kind of going out on a limb when it comes to whatever you pick actually having the ingredients that it claims to have in it. And a lot of times you're just making expensive pee or getting kind of the placebo pill when it comes to supplements, if you're not getting something that has one of these seals of approval on it.

So that's a tricky business.

Yeah, but the supplement industry, and I've mentioned this before and kind of gotten on my soapbox about this, but before every single day almost I get emails from people who want me to private label a supplement. And these are just like huge mass produced herbs and ingredients that are old, that are not fresh, that have been produced in China, mass produced in China can be laced with heavy metals or other toxins. And it's very, very easy to take something, let's say digestive enzyme enzymes. And to get a cheap, very inactive form of those, private label them. And I could pay something like $3.99 a bottle. Turn around, sell that for $15.99. I mean, the markup on supplements is huge. But unfortunately, you get what you pay for much of the time. And in many cases you get a lot of supplement companies that are just trying to make a buck. So you got to be careful.

So you can't even sort of rely on the fact that, okay, this one's more expensive than the rest of them, so it must be better.

It seems stupid, but a lot of times that is a pretty good sign. Like if you're, if you're, you know, if you're, if you're paying a lot of money for a supplement. Supplement companies aren't, aren't dumb. They're not going to charge a lot for supplements, at least way over and above the going rate, unless they actually have spent a lot of money on the back end doing all the pre and post production analysis and everything. So it's one of those deals where, yes, the markup is big and supplements in general are expensive compared to what they cost to make. But the very expensive supplements typically really, it really can be a sign of quality, the price on some of these things. And that's why a lot of the physician line supplements, you end up paying two to three times the cost for. But that's because you're paying for the ingredient quality.

Okay, so look at the, look at the certifications and then cross your fingers.

That's right. Cross your fingers and pop your pills.

All right, well, let's move on to the next question from Keerthi.

Hi, Ben, this is Keerthi from San Diego. I've heard you say in your podcast, while referring to the study on egg yolks, that eating toast along with scrambled.

Eggs causes oxidation of fatty acids and.

It'S not good for your health. I also heard you say that it is good to mix fats along with starches like white rice, etc. To reduce the glycemic index of those starches. So I hear mixed messages here. How much fat can I really add to those carbs? For example, how much of butter or ghee can I add to a cup of cooked rice? Also, at what point does it start becoming unsafe? I also want to know if it matters what kind of fats they are. Like ghee versus olive oil.

Yeah.

If you can clear this up, it will be great. Thank you.

Okay, so it sort of sounds like those statements are at odds.

It does. And this is actually a really great question. It's a really, you know, intelligent question. So, yes, anytime you consume a fat or a protein with a carbohydrate, it can tend to slow down the rate at which that sugar is absorbed and tend to mitigate some of the spike in blood sugar that can occur when that sugar is consumed. On the flip side, however, when we're looking particularly at fats and cholesterol, sugar does have the ability, high levels of blood sugar does have the ability to oxidize cholesterol particles that are in the bloodstream. When you oxidize cholesterol particles, you're looking at them becoming more atherogenic or more likely to cause plaque in the arteries that lead to heart attacks. Now, I should note here that even a bigger issue than carbohydrates and sugar when it comes to oxidized ldl, are heated or highly pressurized vegetable oils, or what are called PUFAs, or polyunsaturated fatty acids, those when oxidized. And that would be something like canola oil, for example, or frying your food in any kind of commercial vegetable oil. That's a bigger issue than the carbohydrate issue. But what we're really considering here is trying to keep cholesterol or fats from being oxidized. And I believe I've harped on this before, but it's one thing that's very important when you switch to something like a lower carbohydrate, higher fat diet is that you don't start eating all these things like coconut milk and coconut oil and avocado and olives and olive oil, and at the same time still be consuming foods that would be considered inflammatory, primarily sugars, starches, and vegetable oils. Because that really sets you up for disaster, because not only are you consuming a lot of fats, but you're oxidizing those fats, whereas consuming a lot of those fats in the absence of oxidation wouldn't be as big of an issue when it comes to atherogenic range risk or putting your heart at risk. When you're looking at trying to figure out when you're supposed to consume carbohydrates with fats, or in Kirti's case, he wanted to know how much white rice could he cook with his ghee. One of the main things that you need to look at is the type of carbohydrate that you're consuming. For example, is it a carbohydrate that would be more likely to cause inflammation and Typically, the type of carbohydrates that are going to be more likely to cause inflammation would be grains, specifically wheat, which we discussed in the Wheat Belly podcast that we did with Dr. William Davis. I would not be consuming wheat in a high fat diet. The other thing that I would be really careful with are packaged or processed carbohydrates. Things like crackers, chips, cookies, biscotti, scones, things that typically have high levels of these PUFAs of these vegetable oils that you're consuming along with the carbohydrate. That's where you need to be careful as well. So basically, like processed or packaged starches would be another thing that you'd want to stay away from, especially consuming in the presence of fat. So, you know, like Wheat Thins would be one of the worst things you can eat because you're getting the accommodation of of wheat starch and vegetable oil. That's a very inflammatory food. So in terms of what you could do, you could do things like relatively safer starches, sweet potatoes and yams and starchy vegetables like parsnips and beets and carrots and things of that nature. Those would be the safest to have. With fats to be cooking in butter or coconut oil or ghee, rice, and some of the lower gluten or non gluten containing grains like quinoa or amaranth or millet, a little bit less of an issue. Those can still be slightly inflammatory, especially in people who have poor gut health. But those are not as big of a deal compared to things like wheat or even some of the other elements that can contain gluten, like rye and spelth and things of that nature. The other thing that you want to bear in mind is that anytime you're spiking blood sugar, you're tending to create more of an inflammatory scenario, with higher levels of blood sugar being more able to oxidize the cholesterol particles that you have in the bloodstream. So when you are consuming carbohydrates, you try and do what you've heard many of my guests on this show and myself also recommend before, and that is consume your carbohydrates in the presence of physical activity in which you're going to be in a state of insulin sensitivity, and those sugars are going to be less likely to build up in the bloodstream and more likely to get shuttled into the muscles and stored away as storage glycogen or energy. So this would mean that you try and stack your carbohydrates, whether they're cooked in fat or not around your workout window. So as a pre workout meal, something you might consume during a workout, like a long workout or within anywhere from about 20 minutes to 2 hours post workout when your insulin sensitivity is going to be fairly high. The other time of day when I would say that it's going to be safest in the absence of a workout to consume something like this and to have a carbohydrate along with a fat would be, for example, in the morning when your insulin sensitivity is also relatively high compared to where it is the rest of the day. Those would be some of your rules. Basically, you stay away from consumers consuming fats with inflammatory carbohydrates such as wheat. And then you control your blood sugar levels and try and set up your carbohydrate intake, time it throughout the day so that you're not rapidly amping up blood sugar levels, which can be another issue. So hopefully that kind of sort of gives you an idea of how you do this.

Yeah, I think that makes complete sense. But it does lead me to one other question, I guess which would be is it worse to then stick to maybe the sort of closer to a North American high carbohydrate low fat diet if you're not able to actually do the right kind of fat with the right kind of carbohydrate or in the absence of carbohydrate, which one actually sets you up for which one's more evil?

That's a good question. And obviously it depends on the source of the carbohydrate carbohydrates. There have been studies that have compared high carb low fat versus high fat low carb and found that the high carb low fat did increase a lot of the markers of inflammation and risk of heart disease. But again the source of those carbohydrates were not controlled. And so let's say you were going to eat a higher carbohydrate intake, but you were going to go about it the right way. And we've had vegans or vegetarians on this show before who do that because that's generally a higher carbohydrate diet. Guys like rich roll people who are juicing, doing a lot of vegetable based starches, staying away from inflammatory carbohydrates, but also because the absence of meat and dairy in their diet typically not eating much fat. And I think that from a heart disease standpoint, and again, I don't have a bunch of studies in front of me and, and I'm more talking kind of blue sky here. From a heart disease standpoint, I think that that's a fairly low risk type of eating pattern. My main concern with the high carb, low fat, if the source of the carbs is from really healthy sources and you're doing lots of vegetables and juicing and nutrient dense carbohydrate sources and staying away from inflammatory things like wheat. The bigger issue with that is kind of what we alluded to earlier in this podcast, is are you getting enough cholesterol and fats in your diet for adequate central nervous system integrity, adequate fatty acid levels for the brain, being able to stave off things like Alzheimer's disease and some of the neurodegeneration that can occur with a low fat diet? And are you giving your body enough building blocks for hormones? And that's where I think that the bigger concern is, versus heart health. I'm not sure that it was vegetarian or vegan diet necessarily works for the heart, but I think you gotta be careful, especially about your nervous system and your hormones.

With the diet like that, that makes complete sense. And it leads us to our final question for today. The final audio question from Seth. I think he says, hi, Ben, this.

Is Chris calling from Buffalo, New York. I just finished my third 70.3 in Muskoka and I had a new problem during this race that I haven't had before, which was leg cramping. Starting about a half mile into the run, cramping was mostly in my quads. It was so bad it forced me to walk. It was pretty terrible. I've worked with a running coach to improve my efficiency to involve more hip flexors, less quads, so I don't run into this problem. I never have any cramping on the bike. And I will also tell you, during the race, I had, I had four gels, a couple waffles, two bottles of water with chia seeds, another bottle of plain water. During the run, I had lots of pretzels, two more gels, some water and some coke. Also during this race, I peed more than I ever have during a race. I had to stop two times on the bike to pee and twice on the run. And if you add the pee in the water, that's five times during this race. I feel like I may have pissed out all my electrolytes and I don't know that that maybe caused my cramping. I was wondering if you had any suggestions. Thanks for the time. Talk to you soon.

Okay, so I had pretty much the exact experience when I did the 70.3 Syracuse I cramped up really bad coming off the bike and into the run. It wasn't in my quads, it was in my hamstrings. But I actually, I barely drank anything. So I did the opposite of what Seth did, but had a similar outcome.

Yeah, and cramps are multifactorial. And that's the thing, is you always gotta remember that cramping can have absolutely nothing to do with your electrolytes and hydration. Because there's two other things that can cause cramps. One, and this is a really big issue, especially when you are racing or you're competing, whether it be in a basketball game or a soccer game or a triathlon, is exercising beyond your usual level of training that increases your odds of muscle cramping significantly. And when you're in a state where others are pushing you, especially if you're a highly competitive individual, what happens is, as you begin to increase your level of exertion over and above what your body has experienced in training, there can be a protective spasm of the muscle to keep it from tearing. You know, it's one of the reasons that, you know, like chimps or gorillas are so strong and they can throw cars, is they have less of a propensity for that, what's called the Golgi tendon organ, to contract and cause that protective muscle spasm that puts us into that cramped state. So that's one thing that can cause a cramp that has nothing to do with how much water you've taken on or how much salt that you've consumed. Although it should be pointed out that if you are in a dehydrated state or if you are in an electrolyte or mineral depleted state, that protective spasm is going to kick in earlier. Okay, so that's one thing to bear in mind. The other thing, especially when we're talking about something like bicycling, where you're in this one position for a long period of time, is if your bike fit is really not set up the way that it's supposed to be. A muscle can be, or go into a state of spasm after it's been shortened for a very, very long time. So let's say that your seat height is too low. What's going to happen if your seat height is too low is your hip flexors or your quads are going to be in this constantly shortened state the whole time that you're riding your bike. And after a while, after a few hours of being completely short and unable to lengthen out or unable to stretch you'll stand up after doing something like that and that muscle will be in this cramped or spasm state. And a lot of times you'll be able to trace cramps back to basically improper bike fit, especially when it happens during something like a triathlon. Another issue can be simply tight muscles, specifically really, really tight fascia, what are called, called fascial adhesions. If you tend to be someone who's prone to that type of thing, not doing foam rolling, not getting some soft tissue work done, not doing things like even some trigger point with a golf ball or a tennis ball, that can be an issue as well. I know that I personally, if I don't really make sure and roll out my calves with the foam roller, that they tend to be prone to cramping, cramping when I get into cold water, cramping when I tend to push myself while running. And if I can go into something like a race with a little less adhesion occurring at the muscle level, that's a lot less likely to occur. And then of course I should throw in there that, let's say you're using sodium during your event, but you're magnesium deficient. No matter how much sodium you take in, if you've built up several months or years of magnesium deficiency, that sodium isn't going to help you. It's a reason to do something like supplement with magnesium on a daily basis or use a trace liquid minerals blend. If you are chronically dehydrated, that can also aggravate muscle cramping. Even if you're drinking a lot during the race, if you've been dehydrated in the days leading up, that can be an issue as well. It's not as big of an issue as the sports drinks companies and the salt pills companies would have us to believe leave. But in a state of mineral depletion, typically more of a chronic mineral depletion, not an acute mineral depletion on the day, but literally going for months or years with, you know, basically eating a very mineral poor diet, that can also increase your propensity for cramping. Absolutely. So, you know, understand that it's multifactorial. And you know, typically when someone comes to me and they've got these cramping issues, we're usually looking at everything. What's your bike fit look like? If you can get a spectra cell analysis, what are your magnesium levels like? What's the overall sodium intake like in your diet? How's your hydration from day to day? How tight are you? How often do you get soft tissue work done. And how hard are you going in this event versus how hard you've trained your body to go in training. So lots of ways that you can come at something like cramping. And I know it can be frustrating because you're trying to kind of eliminate variables one by one, but that's really what you have to do if you want to figure this out completely.

Awesome. Well, I'm going to look at both of those things for myself and Seth. I hope that helps you out as well. And that brings us to the end of this episode so Ben can get in a car and get his butt down to his redemption race lead man.

So if anybody, if any, listeners are going to be down in Bend at TheLedman125, I'll be down there. I'll probably be hitting Twitter with wherever I'm at during the week over@twitter.com BenGreenfield remember that this podcast is brought to you by AudiblePodcast.com Ben and when you go to AudiblePodcast.com Ben you can get a free book. The other thing that I wanted to mention to folks is that that coming up on Saturday is an interview with Fitness for Geeks author Bruce Perry. And we're going to be geeking out on fitness and talking about basically we're kind of comparing our phones and what apps we have on our phones for geeking out with fitness and talking about GPSs and GPS devices and all sorts of interesting stuff when it comes to using technology to improve your fitness. And then finally, if you want want access to a list of everything that we've talked about today, the cancer books and CDs, the information about the weight training books, the primal body, primal mind, pretty much everything that we talk about on any podcast. We're going to have a list going over@facebook.com bgfitness and we're using my list for that. So check all that out. And until next time, this is Ben and Brock signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

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