Hidden Sources of Gluten, Crunching In Your Knees, Is Vitamin D Toxic, & Much More!

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, Hidden sources of gluten. What to do about crunching in your knees? Jess at Greenfield's top natural eczema cures is vitamin D toxic? How to know if your supplement is illegal and natural remedies for a sports hernia.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon 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 BenGreenfield Fitness.com.

So this is going to be extra awkward. Not only can I not see you, but I'm, I'm actually wearing pants and a shirt and I'm not sweating or.

Yeah, we're not in Hawaii and I'm actually drink. I'm drinking ice water. You think it would annoy people if I chew ice during the whole podcast?

No, I think people would love that, actually. I think that would, that would boost the ratings through the roof.

Are you an ice chewer, Brock?

No, I'm not.

I am an ice chewer.

I've been, I've been pregnant, so I've never, never needed to chew ice.

I've been told by highly reputable health sources on the Internet that that's indicative.

Of an iron deficiency, but that's what pregnant ladies do.

Yeah, I was gonna say that's the other thing is I could be pregnant.

Pregnant with an iron baby, one of the two.

But yeah, I'm an ice chewer, so there you go. Well, it's kind of weird to be recording an actual podcast in our actual recording studio after actually being like recording from a, from an island for the past two weeks.

Yeah, I think the people will probably appreciate the sound quality being back to normal. I actually saw and I appreciate whoever out put the negative comment about. I think it was episode 259 was. I believe the comment was the most annoying podcast ever, but then they deleted it because I could not find that comment anywhere. I wanted to actually find it and apologize and say, I know, I'm sorry. We tried to do our best, but it didn't sound great. But thank you for deleting the comment. That was very polite of you.

Yes. Point well taken. The audio crappiness is over and you guys are in for an awesome ride today.

So yeah, we'll sound glorious. Content will be amazing. Everything's back to normal.

Killer. Let's do this. Let's.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com 261 is where you can go on the interwebs to find the links to other places on the interwebs that have awesome and interesting studies that we will now explore with you.

That's right. We're always going through the best articles, the best research and bringing it to you in this podcast. And I figured what the heck, since it's been a couple of weeks since we've really dug into the research, we might as well start with our favorite topic. Poop. Yay for poop.

So this study is actually. Yeah, we haven't actually done news flashes in a while, have we? Because this is actually kind of old news at this point.

Yeah, this.

Not that it's not worth talking about.

This News is about 20 days old, but they've come out with a new pill to cure gut issues that you may have. And the pill is actually made from poop. So we've talked in the podcast before about how you can actually get rid of something like what's called a C. Difficile or a Clostridium difficile infection with, with a stool transplant, essentially you fecal transplant, you push the reboot button on your, on the bacteria in your intestines by doing a fecal transplant. And it got to the point where, and we announced this in another podcast, it was an article in the New York Times. People were like self administering their own fecal transplants. Some brilliant doctor came up with the idea though, to actually isolate bacteria from fecal matter, get it into a pill and allow you to actually consume the stuff in pill form via a nice little convenient poop pill. And it turns out the stuff actually works.

So yeah, it was a Canadian doctor I believe too. It was here in Ontario figures that they figured it out. And you can tell that it's a Canadian thing because it's called Repopulate.

I thought it might be called something like poutine, pooper partner, something like that. Anyways, though it's a little bit of a handful.

Is that more Canadian than Repubulate?

You gotta take like 30 capsules and you down them in one sitting and then they make their way to your colon and they essentially seed your colon with the normal variety of bacteria and they heal you. A lot of folks are saying that this is going to be like the forefront in gut medicine and we'll link to the article in the show notes. But it's really interesting and to me a less yucky way to do a fecal transplant.

Now, I know the answer to this question, but I know there's probably some people out there that are scratching their heads and wondering which end the pills.

Go in, which end of the pills go in. Oh, they go in the mouth end, by the way. Yes. It's not.

You're not putting 30 pills up the old wazoo, as they say.

No, no, just. Just straight into your. Your normal. The normal, average, average mouth. So. So there's that. We'll link to that in the show notes, by the way, all the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 261 so on a completely unrelated note, there was another study that came out VO2 max. So let's just totally go away from poop now.

Yeah, we're changing direction completely.

So, Brock, you've probably heard before about this idea that your maximum oxygen capacity or your VO2 max is not really that trainable or that increasable. That it's kind of like what you're stuck with genetically, right?

Yeah, there's a little bit of fluctuation, but you can maximize what you're able to do. But it doesn't really go far.

And this new study, specifically on endurance athletes, suggests that VO2 max trainability is a lot higher than what we've been led to believe. And the folks who were in this particular study, they showed a gain of about 0.1 liters per minute of VO2 max. And some folks in the study looks like about 8% or so increase their VO2 max by 0.7 liters or more. Now, that might not sound like much, but that's a huge increase in terms of maximum oxygen capacity.

Seven milliliters.

That's a lot of extra oxygen per minute in terms of what your body can use for glucose delivery and oxygen delivery to working tissue. So it's pretty big. And they actually looked at how long of an interval you'd need to do or what kind of training program you'd need to do to get that kind of an increase in VO2 max. So what they found was that of all the studies that they looked at, the ones that generated the biggest increases in VO2 max used interval lengths, meaning like running on a treadmill or riding a bike or I guess doing burpees or whatever you want to do to get your heart rate up.

Something that's kicking your heart rate through the roof.

That's right. High intensity continuous training, anyways. About three to five minutes in duration.

A little bit longer than we've talked about before.

It's A little bit longer than most articles and magazines and blogs will tell you that you need to actually increase your VO2 max. But three to five minute efforts uncomfortable. And what they found was that they got the best results in athletes in terms of increasing VO2 max. And this is going to sound like a lot, but a 10 week training program where folks were actually exercising six days a week with cardio exercise, but it was kind of like a continuous, almost like lower intensity tempo effort one day for about 30 minutes and then the next day they would do six, three to five minute efforts, each one separated by two minutes of recovery. So intervals one day and that, you know, six three to five minute efforts, that's almost 30 minutes worth of like hard work. And you know, that's almost an hour long session. But if you're really serious, like if you've gone to a lab maybe and tested your VO2 max and found it to be lacking, or you know, you find yourself sucking wind when you're climbing a flight of stairs or whatever, turns out that you can actually get some pretty big increases in VO2 max by using this kind of kind of interval training approach. And three to five minutes appears to be the sweet spot. Sorry.

And what was the increase? It was 0.07.

The upper end, 0.7 liters per minute.

0.7 or 0.07?

0.7, not 0.07. 0.7.

Wow, that's huge. I think you said 0.07 before and I was thinking, well, 7 milliliters, that's significant, but 70 milliliters, that's like. Yes, that's tons.

Yep, it's a big increase. So yeah, pretty, pretty significant. So a couple other things I figured since we haven't done research for a little while, I'll toss another couple of articles that I thought were really interesting that came across the radar. One was a super cool article on one of my favorite websites, the artofmanliness.com now don't run away ladies, because this one is something that you can use too. But it was an article about how to get tough. And the name of the article is you may be strong, but are you tough? And it gives a lot of really cool practical tips for mental toughness and, and for physical toughness and talks about how we've, we've kind of lost a lot of our, our toughness these days in our post industrial comfortable era. So some of the suggestions that they, that they made were to try living for a week without your car to try.

I haven't had a car in years.

I know I drove my truck like once a week, so that one wasn't too hard. Shaving with a straight razor, which, that one would be tough for me, I.

Think then I'd have to get rid of my beard.

I'm used to our comfortable razors. What else was on there? A trick for running. When you're out running and you want to get yourself tougher, imagine, he says, imagine that my girlfriend was being threatened by kidnappers and if I didn't get to her in time, they would kill her. Imagine your loved one being killed. When you need that mental toughness during a run and you need to go save them.

I'm totally going to use that during the New York City Marathon next week. That's going to be my goal. Save my mom.

And a lot of these were kind of for mental toughness. What's another one that they talked about for mental toughness? Oh, taking cold showers, occasionally fasting for 24 hours. Those are some other suggestions that they made. Interestingly, things we've talked about on the podcast before, as far as it all comes down to hormesis, right? Teaching your body how to withstand hardship so it bounces back stronger.

For physical tough, during a fast, you don't feel very tough. You feel like a pile of pudding.

Like a burst of wind could blow you over physical toughness, they recommended looking into doing a move nat training session, which is this session, this style of training that was designed by a guy named Irwin LaCour. And you do lots of training in harsh weather conditions like cold, heat, rain, snow, humidity, difficult terrains like steep rocky slopes, slippery ground radiating heat, dense vegetation, stuff like that. Like he puts on a lot of these conferences down in Mexico, these movenat conferences, and they recommend that as one good way to make yourself physically tough. Another thing that they recommend is to just get tough skin. Meaning like when you're, when you're training, like, don't just train with like weight machines and stuff like learn how to hold barbells, learn how to hang from pull up bars and ropes and rings and, and actually get, get calluses. They say if you're getting calluses on your hands or getting calluses on your feet from doing like barefoot training or using minimalist shoes, that that's going to help you to become more physically tough. So they recommend that as well. They recommend getting really supple joints. They say that that's an oft overlooked form of toughness to have good mobility. And the recommendation for that is again something that we've talked about on the Podcast before, but doing what's called self myofascial release, meaning like use tennis balls, lacrosse balls, golf balls, stuff like that and find those tight hard spots in your body and just like grind on them, which as we know can produce quite a bit of toughness because it's teeth. Grinningly difficult. But that's another recommendation that they make. And I've actually been using these new things called Beastie balls, which are. They're made by the same company that makes the rumble roller, which is that roller that has the ridges sticking out of it. It's like a foam roller on steroids, but now they make a ball and it's just like a lacrosse ball sized thing, but it's a bunch of ridges that stick out of it. They're pretty cool. They're called Beasty balls. Yeah. So there's that and then a few other things they recommend is to go out and do hard workouts, but only breathe through your nose, which I think is a, is a cool idea. And something we've talked about before too. That nasal.

I've been trying that lately and I end up with a lot of snot down my chin. Yes, first, but you do it, then it's good.

Once the snot clears. I also, you know, altitude training masks. They sent Brock and I a few to kind of trial out and I've been training with that. And that actually makes you more tough as well because if you go out for what would normally be like an easy commute or an easy bike ride and all you do is add in that altitude training mask, it actually makes it quite uncomfortable. So that's another thing I think that could help.

Wait, does that make you tough because it makes it hard to breathe or does it make you make you tough because you look like Bane or Darth Vader?

I think it makes you tough because you look like Bane. And if you can get like spiky shoulder, shoulder pads, you know, spike sticky like Road Warrior and a black shape. Yeah. And a black cape. Not only will you look tough and be tough, but you'll have every police officer in the neighborhood on your tail.

Maybe the toughest guy in the drunk tank.

So it was a cool article. We'll link to that one in the show notes. For all you people who want to train barefoot with straight edge Ragers razors, wearing altitude training masks, check out the article. And then the last article that I wanted to mention was that your healthy supplement could be laced with illegal or dangerous drugs. And our friend over at Sweat Science, Alex Hutchinson, our friend over At Sweatscience.

Has been lacing stuff.

Really interesting article about a new journal in drug testing and analysis that found unlabeled methamphetamine in popular workout supplements from GNC and from the Natural Health Shop. So that was a little bit disturbing. They also found a specific form of vitamin B supplement made by a company called Health Life, ironically contained the anabolic steroids dimethazine and methosterone. Yeah, I know. They also found the. The Oxy Elite supplement contained an untested drug with, with a name almost too long to pronounce. 2 hydroxy 4 methoxyphenol, ethyl 3 phenyl 2 propenamide, which actually caused. Had 29 victims and two actually had to receive liver transplants and one died. And that was. That was from that particular sports supplement. So that essentially caused acute hepatitis or liver failure.

So ultimately, we're talking about significant amounts of this stuff then, like not just a little trace amount that will pass through your system quite harmlessly, but, yeah, obviously killing people.

Yeah, that was a. That was a vitamin C and multimineral pill. So kind of like being marketed as a multivitamin.

So about this methamphetamine methylation. No, but seriously, is there enough that it was actually affecting people?

Yes. So clinically significant sources of methamphetamine.

So you could actually fail a drug test at your new job or even your old job if you were taking that.

And we've talked about this before on the podcast, but you need to begin looking when you're evaluating whether or not a supplement is going to be safe for you to take. Gold standard is you look for the NSF certification period, because products certified by the NSF certified for sport, they've been through the wringer. It's a very expensive certification to put a supplement through. And we'll talk about this later on in the podcast about how to find out if something that you're taking might, if you're, say, doing a marathon or doing a triathlon or doing something where you might get tested, might cause you to test positive on a doping test. But NSF certified is a really, really good thing to look for. And they actually have a website over@nsfsport.com where you can search for pretty much any nutrient or supplement type to find a list of particular products that are NSF certified. So say you wanted to start taking creatine, you could go to their website@nsfsport.com we'll link to it in the show notes and you could just pull down creatine and they'll just give you a list of all the different supplement manufacturers that are NSF certified that you could get creatine from, for example. So definitely something to be aware of, unless you dig the idea of hepatitis or unless you want to experiment with methamphetamine, which I hear is pretty cool.

I know where to go now to get it.

I don't have firsthand experience, but yeah, you know where to go. GNC or what was the other one? Healthy food Shop.

I think Healthy meth shop.

So there you go, folks. And I think now we've got a special guest coming on.

We do.

Hey, it's Ben Greenfield in Hollywood. Celebrity trainer Vinny Tortorich is on the line with me right now, and he has a special sneak peek into his audiobook, Fitness Confidential, which you can get on Amazon, Audible, itunes. I'll put links to it in the show notes. But, Vinnie, you work a little something special into that book. What is it that you do?

Yeah, I didn't know I was gonna do this, but when I got in there, you know, I'm not a guy who reads for a living, even though these were my words, I got in there and I'm reading the book. You're in that booth for hours on end, and I, you know, as you know, if you listen to my podcast, I can never stay on the page. And even though you get every ounce of the book in the audiobook, you also get me going off the page telling stories around the stories in the book, so you get added content.

So you ad lib.

I do some ad lib. There's stories that are in there that are just thrown off the cuff. And, you know, it's all in there.

Plus, that's kind of cool. So when you record an audiobook, there's not any, like, police officers or Nazis or anybody standing by making sure that you stick to the page. And you could do that.

Well, if I had done this book in a traditional manner, that's the way it would have been done. You know, the big companies would have frowned upon that. But since I was doing my own book, I could do whatever I want. I own all the rights to it, and that's why the book is as successful as it is. You know, we're shocked at how well it's done, But a lot of it has to do with we didn't have anyone to kowtow to or anyone to police us.

Nice. So there you go, folks. An audiobook with no rules. It's called Fitness Confidential. I'll link to it in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com, but you're going to be able to find it at Audible, Amazon, itunes, pretty much wherever books are sold. And it's by Vinnie Tortorich, Hollywood celebrity trainer. Vinnie, thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

Special announcements.

While we're talking about audiobooks, we should direct everybody to audiblepodcast.com Ben. That's audiblepodcast.com Ben where you can go and sign up and get your free, free audiobook. Free with a 30 day trial.

Yeah, totally free. You could grab that book that Vinnie was just talking about or really any, any book you would like@audiblepodcast.com Ben. And if you go there, they can, they actually somehow have some magic tracking capability that allows you them to see that you heard this podcast and got a book there.

So everybody's happy and maybe send us a cookie or.

That's right, an Audible cookie. By the way, speaking of Vinnie, I am going down to LA October 31st until November 4th. I'm going to be traipsing across LA, Malibu, Santa Monica and actually coming down to Santa Barbara as well. And I'll be recording with, with Vinny Tortorich. I'll be doing a podcast with Rich Roll, maybe throwing down a few others as well. Might do something with Tawny Przak with Endurance Planet. But I'll just be traipsing across California. So if we've got listeners who are down in LA who may want to meet up, I'll be down there at the end of October, October 31st through November 4th. So maybe we can do it.

And we'll be sleeping on the beach. So that's right. If you have a couch that he can come and crash on, that would be nice.

Or a surfboard or Next. And I'll be returning to California again in December. I'll be coming down to San Francisco. I don't know if anyone's familiar with CreativeLive. You heard of CreativeLive before, Brooke?

I have, yeah. Yeah, it's like little online learning.

Yeah, it's really cool. It's like online learning. You go and you take a course and you actually take the course live online and then I think you can pay to access like replays or downloads of the course or. But I'm putting together a full three day workshop and going down to San Francisco and we'll be filming it down there with like a live audience and anyways should be either really cool or a complete train wreck, but it's called Achieve Ultimate Human Performance and It's just going to be me in a white lab coat and like a, like a skeleton model of the human body. I'll just be pointing at it. No.

Are you sure it's going to be a live audience and not a laugh track?

There will be a live studio audience and a live laugh track. All of the above. So it's called Achieve Ultimate Human Performance. We're going to put a link to it in the show notes because it just launched. I just finalized this thing with CreativeLive. So December 11th through 14th is the live one where you can ask your questions and follow it online and check it out. Or if you're down in San Francisco, I don't know, there might even be a way to attend it live. But I'll put a link in the show notes over@BenGreenfield WorldFitness.com 251 Speaking of achieving ultimate human performance, the book is out. For those of you who have been living under a rock and didn't hear about this yet, my brand new epitome of everything you need to achieve optimum human performance is available in book form now at Amazon and at Barnes and Noble and that's all over along with over $5,000 in swag and raffles and giveaways over at Beyond TrainingBook.com. We had a big response when we launched. We were like number one in Amazon in health and fitness and triathlon. Huge shout out to all the folks who jumped on board when we when we did the pre launch last week. By the way, if you're listening in and you haven't yet gotten your email with all of your discounts and all of your swag that you get when you did the pre order, go check your email inbox. We had a few technical issues where there were about I think it came out to about 450 folks who didn't get the email with all of your discount codes for ordering one book or ordering three books or ordering 10 books. So those emails are all getting sent out manually now rather than on an automated basis. So you'll get those stupid computers, stupid Internet so you'll get those soon. So I think. Oh there's one other quick special announcement that I wanted to make to folks VIP Text club. So for anybody who lives in the US you may know this if you've been getting text messages from me on on a Friday night drunk with with horrible spelling, can you bring me a pizza? I'm out of beer. They're special discounts that I give out as well as insider Deals usually like PDF downloads, little insider videos and audios. I send out little things about once every two weeks or so, just via text message to anybody who's in my VIP text club. And you get into the VIP text club by texting the word fitness to the number 411247. And the US federal government, bless their hearts. I thought they had the month off, but apparently they didn't. They shut down the VIP text club because they said that everybody who is part of something like that has to do what's called re opting in. So what that means is, is you. You may have. If you're part of the VIP text club, you may have got a special message from me at some point in the past few days that told you to reply with the word fitness if you wanted to stay in the VIP text club. That wasn't a joke. You actually do have to do that if you want to keep getting all of the discounts and the cool shizna have been sending your way. So if you're not in the VIP text club, get in now. It's free. It doesn't cost you anything. You just text the word Fitness to 411247. If you were already in the VIP text club, you have to join again for free by replying to that email that I or replying to that text message that I just sent out. And just use the word fitness in the text message and you'll be good to go. And now I can shut up.

Actually, I want to ask you one thing. I know you interviewed Durian Rider the other day, and I want to know how it went. Oh, for those of you who don't know, Durian Rider was the fellow who posted a video where he absolutely lambasted both Ben and Vidi Tordorich. It was. It was quite scathing, in fact, and it was very, very rude and outlandish.

In fact, actually, he called Vinny's podcast show host fat, but he didn't actually call you fat, so you got away.

That's good.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, though, that, that podcast went well and it's available now to anybody who is a premium subscriber. That and a really interesting podcast on Ketones. So that's all over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com premium and we argued for a solid 90 minutes, the 30 bananas a day guy and I. And it actually was a pretty epic, I think one of the better podcasts that we've ever done in terms of podcast interviews. So, yeah, it's over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Premium if you have the phone Apple, our free phone app, then you'll see it in there. There might be a little lock button next to it. That means you can unlock it if you're, if you're part of the the Premium Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. It's 10 bucks.

It's only $10 a year.

Yeah, 10 bucks a year. So.

So would you say this 90 minutes of throw down with the 30 bananas a day guy is worth 10 bucks.

And a bucket of popcorn? B.

Listener Q and A.

Hey Ben, it's Lanny. Tasta Collins. Yeah, I'm just leaving a feedback on your top 12 resistance training routines. Loving the book. I'm a kinesiologist and trainer myself. I've been a Kin for 15 years and yeah, just started running in December of 08 and took on Ironman and have done that now three times. The book is a definite bonus and a must for triathletes. I think being a kinesiologist myself, I think you've done a great job at making it easy to read. He formatted it with videos, which is great. And I like the fact that you've touched on the subject of periodization, which is often overlooked in training programs. So, you know, I'm happy to add it to my repertoire with my clients as well as I've been using some of the routines in the off season now for myself. So much appreciated. Great stuff. Look forward to more stuff that you put out.

Take care.

You know, until I listened to this testimonial from Lanny which was really nice. Thanks, Lanny. I actually, well, I still have no idea what the top 12 resistance training routines book is. How many books do you write?

Man, I can't keep up. It was like my version of CrossFit Endurance before CrossFit Endurance existed. It's just like these super high like Metcon style workouts that, that leave you crawling out of the weight room. So it was, it was back when I like there was kind of a time back in, I think it was like 2009 or so. Like I kind of got into like doing, doing the CrossFit wads every day. And then I thought, screw this, I'm just going to write all my own workouts. So I created these 12 workouts that just destroy you. Not necessarily for everybody, but if you like it, like a good workout, you just want to get into the gym and they take like 20 or 30 minutes and just, yeah, destroy you. That's over at the strong triathlete. How do you like that. Thestrongtriathlete.com yeah, it's called the top 12 resistance training routines for Triathletes. And so would this be something for muscle building? My apologies to anyone who buys that book because you're going to be puking. It is. No, it's not for muscle gain or for. Well, I mean, it'll cause muscle gain and fat loss, but it was pretty much just written to kick your ass. That's. That's pointless ass kicking. Yeah, it's a pointless ass kicking book. So it'll make you tough though.

Available at Pointless ass kicking.

Throw that in there along with. With straight edge razor shaving.

I'm gonna register that URL right now before somebody else does.

I was just calling to find out if it's possible to be gluten intolerant and not know it. What you. It could be like, not be able to handle it, but not really have any severe symptoms. Thanks.

That's an interesting question. I've actually heard people talk about this kind of thing before, that you actually can be insensitive or like gluten, not necessarily completely intolerant, but without actually showing any of those symptoms, people sort of associate with being a celiac, like the stomach cramps and diarrhea and all that kind of stuff.

You can. And I've been guilty before in this podcast of suggesting that gluten sensitivity and gluten free diets were simply becoming more popular because it was just like kind of the sexy thing to do and because maybe awareness of gluten sensitivity has somehow grown so more people are all of a sudden saying that they have it. But I've been looking into this and there's actually some pretty good studies that have been coming out that show that there literally is an increase in the prevalence of celiac disease and immune reaction to gluten and gluten sensitivity. And so people actually are coming down. You know, even in Italy, you're seeing this more and more. Higher incidence of celiac disease, higher incidence of gluten intolerance. And it's not because people are more aware of it. It literally is. It's showing up clinically more often. And the reason for that is because gluten is different. Like the. Like the gluten that we eat today is not the same gluten that like our grandparents ate even. I mean, it's changed as recently as that. And the reason for that is kind of multifold. So first of all, Brock, you're probably familiar with this concept of like, hybridization, like creating different Strains of agriculture? Well, they've created different strains of wheat for high yield crops, and when you do that, you alter the protein sequence of the wheat, and we've literally created, like, a new wheat. And I talk about this like in the wheat belly podcast that I did with Dr. William Davis, and he talks about it in his book the Wheat Belly. And this new breed of wheat appears to be higher in what's called wheat germ agglutinin, which is a lectin that the stomach is very sensitive to, and that makes it more prone to trigger immune reactions. That's not all, though. That's not the only reason that wheat has become a bigger issue. There's also this process that's specifically used by the food processing industry, and it's called deamidation. And deamidation is this process of using acids or using enzymes to make gluten water soluble. So usually gluten is only soluble in an alcoholic medium, but it mixes more easily with food if you make it water soluble. So they use this process.

Are you calling me an alcoholic medium?

I am an alcoholic witch. But deamidation creates a pretty severe immune response. And so that also has made wheat more of an immune issue. That along with the hybridization. So what's kind of concerning to me is the fact that it goes way beyond your gut and. And gluten can be extremely harmful to your nervous system as well. This is something that you'll find, for example, in a really good book called why Isn't My Brain Working? It's a relatively new book, but it lists a ton of studies that have shown associations between gluten sensitivity and these forms of wheat and disorders in, like, every major part of your nervous system, like your brain, your spinal cord, nerves that go into your arms, into your feet, like everything from restless legs syndrome to, like, migraines, to even cramping and stuff like that. So the immune system essentially starts to attack its own nervous tissue when you produce antibodies to gluten. And so that's another issue that comes up with gluten. Most tests for gluten don't really test for that type of immune response. They only test for the immune response in the gut, not the immune response to the nervous system. And this comes down to something that I'll talk about in a second when it comes to actually testing for gluten and finding out if you might be one of the people for whom this is a big problem. And also, there are some hidden sources of gluten that I want to talk about too. But the way that gluten actually triggers an immune response is via these things called transglutaminases. And those are enzymes that help to bind protein together, and they're also involved in the digestion of wheat. And when we get transglutaminases into our body, our body forms antibodies against those transglutaminases and tends to attack tissues where those might appear, where those transglutaminases appear. So you've got, like, transglutaminase 2, and that's the one that's found in your intestinal lining. And so when you get inflammation damaging your gut lining, you find transglutaminases in your gut, and the body reacts to those. It tags them with antibodies, and you end up getting an immune reaction in your gut. And that's like, what most people associate it with diarrhea and gas and bloating and stuff like that. But there's also a transglutaminase in your skin called TG3. And people who have an immune reaction to that might eat gluten and get, like, some red spots or even, like, eczema and stuff like that. There's another one called transglutamina 6 or TG6. That's the one found in the nervous system. And people who have an immune reaction get that against that. They get, like, brain fog or they get, like. Like, slow reaction times or nerve issues. But most tests for transglutaminase only test for that one in the gut that. That TG2. So they don't test for the skin one, the TG3, or the nervous system one, the TG6. So that's. That's one of the issues with testing. And one of the reasons why some people can have gluten sensitivities and not know it, just because they're producing antibodies against these transglutaminases that most gluten tests aren't actually testing for. So there are a few other issues that I think cause some people who have even tested for gluten sensitivities to think that they're not reactive to gluten. One is that there's this sticky portion of gluten that's called glutenin. But then there's also a protein portion of gluten that's called gliadin. And most of us have heard of gliadin before if we've kind of looked into gluten sensitivity reactions. But a lot of times what tests are measuring is not the specific gliadin antibody that a lot of people tend to be allergic to, because Gliadin has actually three different components to it. You've got one form called alpha, one form called omega, and one form called gamma. And most tests only test for these alpha gliadin antibodies, the ones that are associated with celiac disease, but they don't test for the omega or the gamma gliadins, which can also cause the same type of gluten reactivity and sensitivity issues. So that's one issue with, with common forms of gluten testing. And then we've got glutenin, which is kind of the sticky portion. It's like 50% of wheat. And most tests don't test for glutenin at all. They only test for the gliadin part of the protein, not the gluten part of the protein, even though the glutenin part can also cause immune issues. I mentioned that process of deamidation where they make gluten water soluble. And a lot of tests that don't test for what's called deamidated gluten, they can't recognize deamidated gluten. So they only test for regular gluten. And if someone's getting gluten from like processed foods, it doesn't show up on the test, even though someone might be allergic to deaminated gluten when they're not allergic to like regular gluten. And then you've also got what I talked about earlier, lectins from the, from what's called the wheat germ agglutinin, which is typically something that's formed from like these high yield crops. And also what are called opioids, which is one of the reasons that most people have a really, really hard time giving up wheat, because wheat actually has the same component as opioid drugs like heroin in it. And that also can be something that people form antibodies against. And it produces what basically a neurological reaction to gluten. Again, you get kind of that brain fog deal. And you know, when you go gluten free, a lot of times you'll get like depressions and mood swings or, you know, like withdrawal symptoms just because it's, it's addictive. But most tests, they're just testing for that TG2 antibody that's found in the intestinal tract. And they're testing for regular gluten. They're not testing for like deaminated gluten, they're not testing for these opioids, they're not testing a lot of times for gliadin or glutenin. And so it's kind of an issue. And so if you're going to go out and get tested for gluten, you need to do the right kind of test. You need to test that's going to test for all the different forms of gliadin, so alpha, omega and gamma. You need a test that's going to test for deamidated gliadin. You need a test that's going to look at wheat germagglutinin or WGA one that's gonna look at all these different opioids and then one that's gonna look at transglutaminase 2, but then also number three and number six. Now this is where a company called Cyrex Labs come in. And I have no financial affiliation with them or anything like that. I'll put a link to them in the show notes. But they have a test that tests for all of that stuff that if you really truly wanted to see if gluten is an issue for you, that would be the one to get. It's called a Cyrus. Oh, go ahead.

I was just going to say, is there really any point in getting that test done? I mean, it sounds to me like we're all just sort of living in some state or another of being gluten intolerant. So wouldn't it just be easier just.

To cut it out? Well, it's a good idea to be careful of any modern sources of gluten, unless you're going to be using an ancient form of wheat, like an ancient strain of wheat. That's a really good idea. But the reason that you'd want to get a test, and it's called a Cyrex Array 4 food sensitivity panel, is it's a little bit different than other food sensitivity panels that I've kind of raised an eyebrow at before on the podcast because it not only tests for gluten, but it tests for a lot of these foods that are cross reactive to gluten. Foods that a lot of people, if they tend to be sensitive to gluten, also tend to be sensitive to or might benefit from eliminating from the diet, especially if they tend to have damaged guts, at least until they've kind of like rebuilt their gut or fixed their gut, so to speak. So that test not only looks at all of the different components of gluten that I talked about, but it also looks at things that tend to cross react with gluten. And those the most common ones would be like cow's milk. Whey protein is a big one. Chocolate. And milk chocolate, sorry folks, is a Big one oats even like gluten free oats, but oats are a big one. Instant coffee is another one. It'll look at eggs, soy, corn, pretty much all that stuff and it'll give you a really, really helpful list. If you're someone who deals with like bloating, gas, diarrhea, brain fog, you get sick a lot. Like this would be a test that's pretty worth running. It's called a Cyrex Array for Food Sensitivity Panel test or it's a saliva test. It's a blood so okay, now you're gonna find out if you do have a lot of flags popping up that you may actually need certain things that help you along when it comes to fixing your gut or that help you if you are getting exposed to gluten or you just haven't figured out a way yet to completely eliminate some of these from your diet. Now some of the bigger ones that we haven't talked about before in the podcast that you may want to look into that'll link to One is a digestive enzyme that actually helps you to digest gliadin and also helps you to digest casein, which is the component of dairy that tends to cross react with gladin or gladdin gliadin. Gladin should be the name of a happy band like Glee. Gliadin and casein is something that this will help with. It's called DPP4. It's a specific type of digestive enzyme. You can get it off like Amazon.com, we'll put a link in the show notes that would be one to take. There is another one that's called brush border enzymes and we've talked about proteolytic enzymes like papain and bromelain and stuff like that on the podcast before for helping out with muscle soreness or muscle repair. These are more designed to literally repair your intestinal microvilli and to help to rebuild what are called your brush border enzymes. If you're using like papain and bromelain and stuff like that and you do have a damaged gut, it can actually cause more damage. Whereas these brush border enzymes would be something that you'd use early on in the process as you're trying to heal your gut. And then the last thing that can really help out that I don't think we've touched on before in terms of its significance as far as helping to shut down intestinal inflammation from gluten responses are flavonoids, literally like plant extracts from wild plants like lycopene and quercetin and luteolin and stuff like that. And that's that. What I would recommend for something like that would be the life shots supplement that I've talked about before will link to that one as well. But ultimately like gold standard if you're concerned about this stuff is you go get the test from Cyrex Labs and then if as you're, as you're kind of healing up, at least for a month or so, I'd Recommend you take DDP4 enzymes, you take some brush border enzymes, use like a really good full spectrum antioxidant that has a lot of flavonoids in it and that would help. And you know, as far as symptoms go, understand that gluten intolerant symptoms go way above and beyond like, you know, the farts. And it can be brain fog, it can be muscle cramping, it can be nervous system degradation that doesn't even manifest for a good five to ten years until, you know, like, your myelin sheets are worn down. So pretty interesting stuff and a really good panel to run.

So now one last hopefully quick question. Is it worthwhile cutting back on gluten or is it really sort of an all or nothing kind of situation?

It is pretty much an all or nothing kind of situation if it's actual gluten. It's, you know, it's kind of like being, you know, the way I've heard it described before is like, you know, you're either 90% pregnant or you're, you're not pregnant or how's it go? I totally just F that up. You're. You can't be 90% pregnant. You either are pregnant or you're not. There you go.

That makes more sense.

Hi, Ben, this is Tim from Peoria, Illinois. Recently, I've noticed that my knees make a crunchy noise when I get into kind of the squat position, walk upstairs, or even lunge. Usually there's not too much pain involved. They do feel a little stiff and there's some swelling every now and then. However, I have started to notice that when I'm doing squats lately that I feel some instability between my knees kind of in the where the cartilage would be. I'd like to know if there are any particular supplements, therapies or exercises you recommend. I run a couple days a week, lift weights two days a week and getting ready to start my hockey league. And I play goalie and so my knees are especially important to me. I really appreciate the podcast and I.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks. Bye.

Hey, Tim. You can impress people at parties if you refer to it as crepitus.

Crepitus, that's right.

So is that your Latin speaking self coming out again?

Creaking joints and crunching joints don't necessarily mean that you have arthritis otherwise.

I've had arthritis since I was eight.

Yeah. I mean if they aren't associated with pain. I mean, like for example, you can get popping noises. Like the noises that you hear with knuckle cracking. Those are just gases that's like nitrogen that's getting displaced and it enters the joint fluid that lubricates your joint. And then when you push or pull your joint in a certain way, like when you, when you pop your knuckles, those nitrogen bubbles basically like pop and they. And you're just hearing gases moving around. So that's, that's one issue. Give you gases, just blame it on your fingers. Another kind of joint noise can occur when tendons or ligaments cross over joints that they're attached to. So like you'll hear some people crack their neck. That's usually ligaments crossing over vertebra in the neck that you hear cracking or popping. Some people get like a cracking or a snapping hip. That is, that is similarly not an arthritis issue. It's not necessarily an issue you should ignore because usually it means you've got really tight hips and you need to do some mobility work for your. Specifically like your psoas and your, your hip flexors. But ultimately that's not an arthritis or a cartilaginous issue. It's just snapping. It's. It's tendons or ligaments crossing over bony joints and snapping. So if there is damage to the cartilage, if there's damage to the joint surface, you can also get cracking and crunching and creaking. And this is the type of joint noise that's, that's really accurately termed crepitus. That's true. Loss of joint cartilage wear and tear on the joint surface that results in the type of issues that Tim is probably experiencing in his knees since he's.

Got some pain and some swelling and stuff.

Exactly. The nice thing is that some of it can still be related to this popping or snapping. Related to the. Specifically in this case, the kneecap or the patellar bone snapping as it moves over bony prominences in the femur or on the articulating surface of the tibia. Now in most cases that's improper tracking of the patella that would cause something like that. And that can usually be fixed through a combination of hamstring stretching, and strengthening of a specific part of your knee called the vmo. That's that if you flex your knee, especially if it's in a straightened position and you notice almost like a teardrop shaped muscle form over the inside of the knee, that's called your VMO muscle. And you can strengthen that. I'm gonna put a link for Tim in the show notes to about 10 different really good VMO exercises. But the simplest is you simply sit on the ground with your legs out in front of you and you put like a pillow or a cushion or a foam roller or whatever in between your thighs. And then you simply pick your legs up off the ground while at the same time squeezing them together. And you just hold that for like 10 seconds. And you can feel your VMO working as you do that. And then you, you just release that contraction and then repeat. But I mean, you can do like standing straight leg extensions, you can do, you know, different forms of squats or lunges where you're really activating the VMO by kind of like turning your feet out. When you turn your feet out, you tend to activate that VMO a little bit more. You can even walk uphill on a treadmill while trying to keep relatively straight legs with your toes. Kind of turned out that works the vmo. I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can work it. I found out a lot of this stuff because I couldn't run for a good six months when I injured my knees playing too much volleyball in college. And I got essentially what was jumper's knee. And a big, big part of it was vertical jumping was not just because I was Michael Jordan in a volleyball, you know, every single night of the week. But I was also not stretching my hamstrings and not paying attention to my VMO strength. So big, big part of this was the. Is the vmo. When you're, when you're looking at the hamstring component, a big, big part of that is strengthening your posterior chain just as much as maintaining mobility in the hamstring. Good book that I'll just touch on briefly because I've kind of, kind of kicked this horse to death in previous podcasts. But I think everybody should own the book foundation. I'll link to it in the show notes. I've gotten into that book so much that three mornings a week now, I do all 10 exercises in that book to turn on my butt and to strengthen my posterior chain and to kind of keep my butt activated. And it's made a huge, huge difference. And just like my posture during the day, the way I stand, the way I squat, everything so my butt does not appear to be growing in size. Unfortunately, it hasn't appeared to have any kind of positive aesthetic effect. But I also am not morphing into a jlo. So anyways, though the foundation economic exercises, I would definitely do those. You asked about supplements in addition to doing VMO exercises, stretching the hamstrings, doing all 10 foundation exercises from that book foundation that we'll link to in the show notes. Number one supplement would be Caproflex. That's just like I, I keep a bottle in my refrigerator at all times. It's my go to anti inflammatory joint formula. It's like cherry juice, turmeric, ginger, glucosamine and chondroitin from like organic type 2 chicken collagen. It's pretty much the only supplement I've found that actually makes your joints feel better when they hurt. So that one, if, if I ever feel beat up, if, if I've done a race and my joints are hurting, if I've had a hard workout the day before, I'll pop anywhere from six to 12 of those and I literally just pop them like candy. Like, I don't even swallow them. I just chew them up and, and chase him with a glass of water. But cap reflex is the one that I'd recommend for that and those would be the biggies when it comes to the crunchy munchies in your knees.

Being that Tim is a goalie, I don't know how old he is, but he may remember a guy named Vladislav Trechak who used to play for the Chicago Blackhawks back when he was.

Who doesn't remember good old Vlada Lav Vladislav?

Well, if you were born in the 70s, you would have idolized him like the rest of us did. But I, when he played for the Soviet, the Soviet team, they used to break his kneecaps repeatedly in the off season and then let them heal in order to like get them really strong and, and get all those bony crustration or crustation so he was able to fall on his knees repeatedly without hurting them. Tim may want to look into that protocol.

And just for the record, I believe that Brock just said bony castration.

Hi Ben, this is Jenny. I have a question for the podcast. I have reoccurring instances of eczema around my eyes and it's driving me nuts. It seems like I will get the dryness around my eyes and my eyes will look more wrinkled, unfortunately, and I've been to the dermatologist. I've used different creams that she's given me and I even did a week of low dose cortisone oral, which I really don't like to do. And what happens is it will go away and then it comes back and goes away and then comes back and here it is again. I don't know if there's anything I could do dietary or anything that you have suggestions, but I am just desperate to get rid of this. It's driving me crazy. I really appreciate your help. Thank you so much and thank you for the show.

Bye.

I'm pretty sure we've talked about eczema or eczema on the. On the show before, so maybe we should. I'll do a spin through the. Through my. And see if I can find.

I asked my wife about this because she used to deal with eczema like crazy. She used to deal with eczema and acne. Like one of the very first ways that we started to eat healthy was back in the day we bought like, Lauren Cordain, who's kind of now involved with like the Paleo movement. But he wrote this book called like the Dietary Cure for Acne and it talked about removal of commercial grains and dairy from the diet. My wife did that. It was back in the day when I was a personal trainer and I didn't even care about nutrition that much. This was like seven or eight years ago.

And she did it before. It was cool.

Yeah. Overnight I saw my wife's acne go away and I was kind of like, holy cow. So that's kind of when I started looking into maybe thinking outside the box when it comes to nutrition. Actually was. It all started with my wife's skin. So of course she was the first person I went to and I actually asked her this question this morning before jumping in here to do the podcast because I saw that we had a question on eczema. She has a few things that she does. First of all, apple cider vinegar. She actually will put a few shots of apple cider vinegar in the bathtub as well as take a couple shots or orally. And the alkalinity from apple cider vinegar is supposed to help tremendously with the eczema response.

That's one thing that she does both inside and out.

Yep. She from a website called I think it's soapgoods.com. she purchases beeswax and then gets coconut oil and actually makes her own lotion with beeswax and coconut oil. Two components that can help out quite a bit with both acne and eczema by drawing a lot of stuff out and through the skin. But there are companies like, if you didn't want to make your own, I know Burt's Beeswax does one that has beeswax and coconut oil in it. You can get that off Amazon. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. But like, Burt's Beeswax would be an example of kind of like a safe kind of topical to use for something like eczema. And I don't know if you've tried that with the creams and like the, the, like the cortisone type of lotions that you've used, Jenny, but look into anything that's got beeswax and coconut oil in it. There are also a few other topicals that may work that have specific herbal extracts in them. Look for things with three different ingredients, one called chamomile, one called licorice, and one called witch hazel. Any of those three have been shown in studies to be just as good as or better than a cortisone cream for eczema. So topical herbal applications, you could technically make your own. Like, if you were to go to like mountain rose herbs and get like a chamomile, licorice and witch hazel, like essential oils, add those into some beeswax and some coconut oil, you could technically make your own kind of topical herbal gel for eczema.

And you've got some kind of delicious.

Tea as well, and you have some kind of delicious tea or lotion that you can eat. If you ever find yourself in a car wreck and, you know, in a ditch by the side of the road for a while, probiotics have been shown to be really effective against eczema. And, you know, part of this might be because eczema is a little bit of an autoimmune issue, similar to other skin issues, you know, like the gluten that we talked about and that, that transglutaminase 6 that I was mentioning earlier. You can also get other autoimmune reactions to other foods that can manifest as eczema. Gut inflammation can also manifest as eczema. And that's where using a really good therapeutic grade probiotic can really, really help out. Right now, my favorite probiotic, in addition to just making your own sauerkraut and kombucha and kefir and stuff like that at home, home is the caprobiotics. That's a really good one. But getting out of probiotics would be something else to look at. And on a related note to that, I would recommend that you look into something like the autoimmune protocol, like a four to eight week autoimmune protocol where you're completely eliminating any foods that might remotely be associated with your eczema. My favorite way to do that is to just grab the autoimmune protocol ebook. There's a really good one out there called the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's like a, I think it's got a four week option or an eight week option. That'd be a really good one to grab. The last thing that I would look into that's that's again been shown to have an effect on Eczema is an essential fatty acid that can shut down the inflammation, specifically the inflammation that's present in skin lipids that can trigger the inflammation that causes eczema. This would be something that you take orally. It's called gamma linoleic acid. You're going to find it in things like primrose oil, things like borage oil. It's present in the fish oil that I recommend, the super essentials fish oil. But any source of gamma linoleic acid can be really helpful as well. And there was one double blind study that looked at the use of of borage oil versus a control group for eczema and the essential fatty acid supplement group did indeed improve. So I'll put a link to the super essentials borage extract and fish oil, the Burt's Beeswax lotion stuff, the autoimmune protocol, the probiotics, everything over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 261 for you to kind of explore explore for your eczema. But those are both Jess's and my recommendations. And perhaps Brock has his own Canadian spin on this. Brock, anything to add? But.

Well, it involves milking a beaver, so I don't know if anybody wants to hear about that.

Yeah, the last time we talked about beaver milking on the podcast they tried to arrest us, so we should probably not broach that topic.

Hey, Ben and Block, this is Chrissy.

I called the show about a year.

Or so ago and told you about my leg cramps. Actually I wrote in and I had problems with a bubbly sensation like it felt like aliens coming out of my legs after a hard workout. You recommended magnesium oil, which I've done and I've just tried everything from deep tissue massages to art and anything. So I Went to my doctor and they did some blood work and found out that my vitamin D levels were low. So I took 50,000 IUs twice a week. Vitamin D. Before I started taking this prescription of vitamin D, I had just run the big ten K in Atlanta for the big Peachtree road Race and it looks like I ran an ultramarathon because I was fumbling and it was awful. My legs were cramping up at the end of the race. So I decided to finally go to a real doctor. Went on, got on the vitamin D and then a week or two later after being on the prescription, I went into an orthopod. He said, well, what's not feeling good? And I said, you know, I'm feeling fine. I've actually been running really well. It's really strange. I don't know what changed. And then it hit me. I've been taking massive amounts of vitamin D. So I mentioned that and the doctor even looked at me like, you know, that's an interesting thought. I have been running awesome ever since I've been on this mega doses of vitamin D. Thank you so much for everything you do and I hope this helps.

Bye.

I remember this question because I also get the crazy aliens trying to bust through calves after a race.

You know what those are called? Fasciculations.

Oh, I thought you meant aliens.

I think we talked about this in the last podcast that happened to me after Iron Man Brock saw it. It was like a freaking alien like popping out my stuff stomach. It was really weird. Like the entire upper left side of my rectus abdominis went into a full on cramp and literally looked like it was going to pop out of my my stomach skin. It was really gross.

If it wasn't so high up I would have been really worried it was a hernia, but it was sort of in an odd spot for that.

Yes, or an erection. Anyways though vitamin D or a vitamin D deficiency has certainly been shown to be correlated with muscle twitching, muscle tingling, numbness and these fasciculations. And the reason for that is because of the way that vitamin D regulates calcium and magnesium levels. And so if you're deficient in vitamin D, it certainly can be something that can lead to cramping. It's not quite as much of a predisposing factor to cramping as is a magnesium deficiency or a mineral deficiency, but a certain certainly can cause non exercise based cramping. Typically, exercise based cramping is due to pushing your muscles above and beyond what they've experienced. In training during something like a, like a race. But vitamin D deficiency can certainly cause that. So yes, Chrissy, that that could have been caused by your vitamin D levels. But now that you're up to 50,000 international units twice a week, I would say that you need to be aware of some vitamin D toxicity issues. I definitely don't want to leave that on the table. And there's probably the.

Oh, just before we continue on, I, I think near the end she actually did mention that she's down to just taking that once a week. She's still taking the 50000 business once a week now.

Okay, 50, 000. I was still like most folks I recommend right around 2000 a day like, like, which obviously comes out to like around 14000 a week. For some folks who have vitamin D deficiencies, I'll get up to a recommendation of 35 international units per pound of body weight. Like if you're, if you test your vitamin D and your 25 hydroxy vitamin D levels are below about 40. But for a lot of people still that even comes out to like 5,000 to 6,000 international units per day, which comes out to, you know, right around like 30,000, 30 to 40,000 maximum per week. The issue with vitamin D is if it's not balanced properly with vitamin A and with vitamin K2, there can be a big, big issue with arterial and soft tissue calcification, meaning that the way that vitamin D interacts with vitamin a and vitamin K2 is to protect soft tissues from calcification. But if you're just getting high intake of vitamin D and you're not getting adequate vitamin a or vitamin K2, there can be some pretty serious issues. Chris Masterjohn has written and researched on this extensively and kind of this holy trilogy between vitamin, vitamin A and vitamin D and vitamin K. And you have to make sure that you're getting these in proper ratios. So for example, you take something like, like liver or like cod liver oil that's got really nice ratios of all three vitamins. You take vitamin D from just like a synthetic supplement in huge amounts and you're not getting that same type of ratio. So it's really important that you get the right interaction between the three. And preferably you get the majority of your vitamin D from eating organ meats or using like a fermented cod liver oil or even again like that super essential stuff that I mentioned earlier that super essentials, fish oil. A lot of people don't realize that actually has fish oil from liver in.

It.

Or Fish liver oil in it that actually is something that kind of flies under the radar, but it has, as far as the amounts go, it's got vitamin A in it and vitamin D in it, both from purified fish liver oil. If you were taking like four of those capsules a day, you'd be getting around 2,000 or actually it's about 1,000 international units of vitamin D, about 2,000 of vitamin A. But you'd still be missing out on the vitamin K2, so you'd still have to add in a vitamin K2 or eat natto grass fed butter, work in liver every now and again, that kind of thing. Now, Chris Masterjohn, I'm going to link to a couple of articles that he's written, but he's actually talked about some of the things that can help mitigate vitamin D toxicity. For example, people who have low levels of thyroid hormone actually are not protected against the toxicity associated with vitamin D. And they've actually done studies in cows where they overdose them on like millions of international units of vitamin D. And cows that were simultaneously given both vitamin A as well as thyroxine which is the active form of vitamin D. That's the T or the active form of thyroid hormone. It's the T4 form of thyroid hormone. They didn't die, they didn't get these calcified lesions in their kidneys or their arteries, whereas the cows that didn't get thyroid and that didn't get vitamin A did. So again, if you're taking a bunch of vitamin D and you've got thyroid issues, if you've tested and you've got high TSH, low T3, low T4, once again you need to be working in some type of organ meat that's giving you thyroid hormone, like eating for example like sweet breads or you need to be working in some kind of thyroid support. And, and by the way, I think I mentioned this in podcast number 260. I've personally to kind of bring myself to back from that damage that I did combining super duper low carb with huge or more than would be natural amounts of training for Ironman. I've been using a supplement called Thyro Gold to actually get a good desiccated full thyroid glandular extract into my body just because I travel a lot and I can't necessarily be eating thyroid gland sweetbreads on the airplane.

Although you'd like to be.

So yeah, make sure your thyroid gland is good to go or that you're using a thyroid supplement if you're megadosing with vitamin D. Make sure that you're getting adequate vitamin A, adequate vitamin K, and then. I thought you'd enjoy this one, Brock. There's also some pretty interesting studies in mice that show that having sex protects against vitamin D toxicity. Toxicity.

Having sex with mice?

Yes. Okay. More specific. That's why I dress having that.

I can see why.

I have no clue why they went about doing a study this way. But they did a study with mice in which they overdosed them with vitamin D. But some mice were in male male cages and some mice were in mixed sex cages with females. And the mice that were overdosed with vitamin D, but that also were able to have sex did not experience the same type of calcification or abnormalities that the mice which were forced to not have sex experienced. So it was unclear what the reasons for that were. It could have potentially been the kind of like amplified effect that sexual activity has in the thyroid gland and the pituitary gland in terms of, of amping up production and helping out with vitamin D metabolism. But yes, having sex protects against vitamin D toxicity. So there's your fun fact for the day. You can, if you don't have access to liver or sweetbreads or things like that. Best source that I know of for that kind of stuff, you just need to order it is US Wellness Meats. So I'll put a link to them in the show notes. But they're like a really good pasture raised organic stuff. Source of a lot of these organ meats that you can just order. Toss a chest freezer out in the garage, keep the stuff out there, work it into your diet. Take some cod liver oil or use this super essential stuff. Throw in some vitamin K or some Natto and some grass fed butter and you know when you're doing all that stuff, that'll help you out quite a bit when it comes to fighting against a lot of those toxicity symptoms and calcification that would occur with that amount of vitamins, vitamin D that you're using.

Hi, my name is Maria and I was interested in your TMG product. However, I'm an elite athlete and I'm tested by USADA in WADA and I was just wondering if you have any information about whether that product is. I know the actual ingredients are not banned by wada, but I need supplement. Contamination is a big problem that I have to be concerned about as well. So just wondering about your opinion on the safety of that from that perspective.

So, Maria, I have to apologize. You actually asked this question and I think you expected a Phone call back, but I thought it was such an interesting question that I wanted to put it on the podcast. Yes, I hope she thinks to listen here.

We like to neglect people, not respond to their phone calls and instead just embarrass them on podcasts, air them in.

Public when they don't expect it.

Pretty easy answer here. First of all, I mentioned the NSF sort of certification and the website NSFSport.com Now, I'm going to look like a hypocrite here because TNG is not NSF certified. There's a reason for that. It's an extremely small company. They don't have a lot of money necessarily for an NSF certification, but they don't even have a website.

I've tried looking them up.

It's a Chinese herbologist down in Portland, Oregon named Roger Drummer. He is an extremely upstanding guy who has an incredible devotion to quality. That's why this stuff is 90 bucks for like a month supply. But it is adaptogens and adaptogens when it comes to sport. They've been used by athletes who participate in, for example, the Olympics, like Russian athletes have used them for years to prepare for the Olympic Games. Adaptogens have been used for for thousands of years in Chinese medicine. Cordyceps were used by the Chinese during all the Olympic Games that the Swedes use a lot of rhodiola and adaptogens are completely natural. Very few of these supplements that have ever been accused of being laced or anything like that were herbal adaptogenic compounds from good high quality sources. Now, if you're getting the old stuff that's been sitting in big bins in China for like five years, you're kind of playing with fire there. But like a good high quality adaptogen, first of all, there's no adaptogens listed on the prohibited substances list that's published by the World Anti Doping Association. So the adaptogens themselves you don't need to be concerned with. I would just be more concerned with the source from which you're getting the adaptogens. I would be getting them from a very, very high quality source. So the TNT is not NSF certified per se, but I will vouch for the stuff. It is incredibly pure. And it's like what happens is the herbal extracts that are used in a typical adaptogen usually is a 10 to 1 yield, meaning it takes about 10 pounds of raw herb to produce 1 pound of pure extract. And the stuff that they use in T and Chi is a 45:1 yield, meaning that they use 45 pounds of raw herb to produce just one pound of pure extract. So that's why it's super potent. That's why the people who take it are like, I'm never going to stop taking this stuff again. That's why it's like the most powerful, smart drug I've ever used in my life. It's some pretty powerful stuff. You pay for it, but it's powerful. So I'm going to give you another website, though, Maria, that you can use in the future. And for that, any of our listeners can use if they're concerned about something being banned by the WADA. And the website is called globaldro.com I'll link to it in the show notes, but it's GlobalDRO. DoctorO.com stands for Global Drug Reference Online. And what you can do is a search for the UK Anti Doping Association, Canadian, United States, Japan, and those are the biggies. And you're able to search for whether or not something is banned by the WDA or any of those anti doping associations. And you can look ingredients up super quickly on that site. So that's what I'd point you to. If you're looking for, like, a specific supplement or ingredient and you want to find out if you shouldn't be using something is globaldro.com but in the meantime, I will vouch for TNT. It is really, really high quality stuff and you don't need to be worried about cross contamination with that one.

I thought it was so expensive because of the methamphetamine.

Yes, the methamphetamine and the liver herniation too. You gotta pay to get your liver herniated.

Hi, Ben, this is Edward. I'm calling regarding an injury I've occurred probably around three or four months ago. It's called a sports hernia, otherwise known as athletic pubalgia. Normally, surgery is recommended as treatment for it, but I found some limited evidence that more conservative treatments can be effective. Just basically some combination of physical therapy modalities and exercise. And so I've had some moderate success rehabbing it myself the past several months. Just gradually increasing intensity of some core exercises as the muscle, you know, sort of recovered and got stronger. And I probably say I've gained about maybe 60 to 70% of the function in that muscle back and my core function in general. But I just like to see if I can get it as close to 100% as possible and speed things up a little bit. I was wondering if you have any suggestions along those lines or if you've ever encountered this injury before. I'm not sure. It's probably not common one in shock pleats. Although I did hear of a case of a long distance runner having a sports hernia just from overdoing abdominal exercises. Thank you very much. Take care.

I've had a sports hernia.

Have you?

Yes, the, or as they call it, athletic pubalgia, which was always just a little bit too close to the word pubes for me to talk about much. So I just, I just go with, with sports hernia. It's, it's kind of a catch all term though. You know, groin tears. Hockey. Groin hockey hernia. Sports hernia. Gilmore's groin is another term that it goes by, but it's pretty much like any kind of issue with your, with your pubic joint down in your, in your pelvis bone. Slash. Pubic. What's it called? Your, your. I'm blanking on the name now. I should know it because mine turned out to have a stress fracture in it. No, not your wang. That's not a bone. Believe it or not. That is sometimes it is in fact a, it's.

Do we have to mark this explicitly.

A gland but the, the, the pubic tubercle basically that, that little bone that kind of connects the two parts of, of your pelvic bone. That one I had a stress fracture in. And that was also related to. Well, for me it was a, I want to know.

Don't tell me.

It was a bike accident. I essentially almost went into the full splits coming off the bike on ice and kind of pulled on that muscle a little bit, gave a little stress fracture to that part of the pubic bone and that it was technically a sports hernia. Now I went into the doctor because I thought I had a, a full on hernia. I couldn't do sit ups, I couldn't do crunches. Like any type of exertion that caused intra abdominal pressure, including like coughing and sneezing and all that stuff caused pain. So I thought I had like a traditional kind of like herniation of some of my intestines through the, through the pelvic wall or through the abdominal wall. It turns out that it was just a stress fracture and that a lot of times will, will also manifest as a sports hernia. Even though a sports hernia can also be a tear in what's called your inguinal canal. And of course I don't want you to misconstrue this as medical advice. I am not a physician, but I simply did not engage in any type of abdominal stressing, crunching Sit ups, hip flexor, or running for six to eight weeks. And mine went completely away. So I just did like upper body training. I did swimming, I did bike riding and just avoided running. And it healed itself. And you'll find that a lot of times when it's not an abdominal hernia, but it's one of these inguinal hernias or it is a small stress fracture in your lower pelvic bone that it will just go away in that way. So if you were going to get this repaired surgically, there's actually a form of surgical repair called a laparoscopic surgery that has a really quick bounce back time. You can literally be back to activity within a week or two. And all they do is they, they go in and they're going in through these tiny little incisions. They're not opening you up. But it's a really minimally invasive surgery that they do primarily with these tiny surgical instruments that are guided by tiny, tiny telescopes attached to tiny cameras. I feel like maybe I should even be talking about tiny sharks with lasers. Lasers, Lasers. So you can get this laparoscopic surgery and they're just using, they're using cadaveric specimen to essentially patch up the hole. If it is indeed a hole and it's not a stress fracture. I would make sure first of all with an X ray that it isn't indeed a stress fracture. But, but if it is an actual hernia, they can use what, what's called a dermal tissue matrix, which is just this mesh type of matrix that, that heals up the tissue really well and patches it up. Definitely needs laser and definitely needs lasers. And then you're off to the races. Brock's being incredibly distracting.

Sorry, the show has gone on too long by adds kicked in.

It's an inguinal hernia graft. So hey, be easy on me. I haven't had a chance to geek out on this stuff in a while. Okay. Ultimately, if your hernia was not related though, to an acute injury like me going into the full splits coming off my mountain bike on ice, then usually it's due to a pelvic misalignment issue. So I would look into whether or not you might have a sacroiliac joint display dysfunction. What that means is that your sacroiliac joint is immobile, meaning that one side is stuck or not moving properly. You can self adjust that. You can use books like Kelly Starrett's Becoming a Supple Leopard. You can use a book like that foundation exercises book that I talked about earlier, I have a book called Run with no pain@runwithnopain.com it was designed for low back issues in runners, but it's essentially made to rotate your hip back into a proper position if you've rotated it out of position with the combination of chronic repetitive motion activity and a weak booty. So that'd be another one to look into. But ultimately I would make sure you don't have a stress fracture before you're sure that it's a sports hernia. If you do get surgery, opt for the laparoscopic surgery and know that a lot of times these issues resolve with six to eight weeks of just like keeping up your fitness through non weight bearing activity, avoiding running and not going out and doing sit ups like Rocky. So that is, that is where I.

Will start dangling from the rafters of that of a Russian barn.

That's true. And speaking of dangling like a Russian from the rafters of a barn.

Like Vladislav Trecak.

That's right. We have an itunes review left by.

Heavy D. Oh, somebody wants some of the fancy Ben Greenfield fitness swag that they saw in Kona.

We have brand new Ben Greenfield fitness T shirts, Ben Greenfield fitness hats, Ben Greenfield fitness water bottles, and if you leave a review for the show, we shovel three into a bag, we sprinkle it with gluten, and we, we drop it in the mail to you seal it up with a laser. So Heavy D, we're going to read your review and if you hear us read it on the show, shoot an email with your address to Ben greenfieldfitness.com and myself and my team of elves will put a package in the mail to you. So here's what Heavy D has to say over on itunes. He says my resource and gives us five stars. Gentlemen, thank you for being my health resource. Our resources are some of the most important things in life from where we get our food to where we get our love. You have to choose wisely and maximize. I wonder if Heavy D is like a pastor or something.

Yeah, I was expecting. I thought it was gonna be like really badass based on.

Yeah. And he says, I pick your shit show over the mountain of other options because it's thorough, educational, and to the point. One out of three isn't bad. Ultimately, it makes me better at being human. And the icing on the cake is that you guys are chill. I listen every week because it's a good time. But by the way, Heavy D, we're actually drunk, not chill.

Yeah, that's a slight difference.

And speaking of being drunk, he says. So thanks again. Beers on me. If the occasion ever presents itself.

Those better be gluten free beers.

Sure as hell after this episode better be gluten free beers. So yeah, thanks for the review, Heavy D. And also again, huge thanks to all of the people who have been over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and have left a donation to support our podcast. Keep the podcast coming. Or keep the donations coming and we'll keep the podcast coming. So the shownotes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 261 have everything we talked about and oh, so much more. Don't forget to drop me a line if you're going to be in California while I'm down there. October 31st through November 7th, I'll be down in Cali. And if you're wanting to get into the VIP Text club, don't forget to text the word Fitness to 411247 using your phone. It's that thing in your pocket, even though it shouldn't be in your pocket. And then visit Beyond TrainingBook.com if you haven't yet grabbed my brand new book. So there you have it. Did I miss anything, Brock?

I don't know. I stopped listening like an hour ago.

Yeah, exactly. So all right folks, well, until next time. This is Ben Greenfield and a dispassionate add ridden Brock signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com who are you?

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It.