How To Legally Dope Your Blood (Without Actually Taking Illegal Drugs).

Hey, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. On today's podcast we're gonna delve into how you can legally blood dope without actually sticking needles up your butt cheek or anywhere else for that matter. My guest Craig Dinkle is a second time guest and frankly we had some audio issues. Not that that ever happens on a perfect podcast, but we did, we had some audio issues so he had to call back in and if you hear the audio gets a little funky in places, that's why is I had to have him re record some stuff as went along. But it's still awesome information. I promise not to disappoint. In this episode of the Ben Griffin.

Fitness show, the results suggested that Beetroot has a potency to preserve bone marrow integrity and stimulate the differentiation of HFCs against ionizing and radiation. These formulas were developed with the idea of sprinting and athletic performance and blood oxygen. And I have many people that report back to me increased libido for several reasons because not only does it happen with the algae, but the cordyceps has an effect on that. And of course beetroot has a long, long history.

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

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

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

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And a few weeks ago I released a podcast called Brace Yourself Shattering world swim records on 25 piece fried chicken buckets, climbing mountains while eating defatted vegan grass fed Argentinian liver, anhydrate and much more. And in that episode which, which you actually need to go listen to, I'm going to put a link to that in show notes for this episode which you can get over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BloodPodcast that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Bloodpodcast I interviewed an athlete, mountain climber, former record breaking swimmer and supplement designer Craig Dinkel about a special blood oxygenating formula that he designed called biotropic. Biotropic. And after that interview with Craig, I got an onslaught of questions from people about all these fringe ingredients that Craig and I kind of touched on but didn't take a deep dive. Into on that show, things like grass fed liver anhydrate and cordycepsinesis and the hidden benefits of beetroots and the detoxification properties of algae and whether it's true you can really get all the benefits of blood doping without actually blood doping, without actually taking your blood out and freezing it and re injecting it while laying down on the floor floor of a bus, as the Tour de France riders did in many cases. If you've read books like Tyler Hamilton's Breaking the Chain, for example, because I don't endorse that practice, but I do endorse better living through science and also using some of the things that nature has given us in terms of chemicals and compounds that are natural to get a step up in life. And frankly, I've been using this stuff that Craig makes and I like it. And frankly, Craig, I haven't even told you this, but I've been using it lately for something that I don't think it was intended for but that I decided to try it for anyways. Maybe I'll tell you about that in a moment. First of all, I will welcome back to the show, man.

Hey, thanks. I appreciate it. It's really great to be here with you again. I appreciate you coming back around.

Yeah, no problem. And just to fill in that gap real quick, I was spearfishing in Costa Rica last week and I was actually taking your supplement because I wanted to increase my breath hold time, but it turned out to be fortuitous. I got hypothermic while spearfishing and I came back from Costa Rica with a cold and you can hear I'm still a little bit congested. But the biotropic and we touched on this in our last podcast, it's chock full of echinacea, which most people know it's for immune system. We'll talk later on in this podcast how it builds the blood too. But I happen to have your biotropic with me and correct me if I am killing myself by doing this, but I tripled the dose and started taking three of the tablets a day just to get a bunch of extra echinacea in my system because I wasn't traveling with echinacea because my go to stack for if I get sick, I use some vitamin C, I use echinacea, I use elderberry and I use oil of oregano. So I was looking at your bottle in the airport on the way back, I'm like, well this has freaking echinacea in it. I'm just going to take a boatload. And I've been doing it since.

It's hilarious. No, you're a guy that I categorize in that elite athlete crowd. You're burning a lot of calories and you're burning a lot of oxyge doing a lot of things here. So there's absolutely no way that for your particular body and calorie uptake that three a day is gonna have a negative impact on you. There's no way. There's no way.

Yeah. And you know, for the echinacea, it's not. Woo woo. There's actually one study, I think you have a site on your website where there's a 58% decreased chance of catching the common cold and duration of a cold by one to four days when you use echinacea. So it is one of those things. There's a lot of stuff floating out there that reportedly helps with colds, like high dose zinc for example, or Glutathione IVs. But I know echinacea actually has a little bit of peer reviewed research behind it for that.

It really does. It's got a long history actually of very well studied and documented research behind it. And there were two reasons, I know we're probably a little ahead here, but there are two reasons I put it in there. And actually the very first reason was for the immune support benefits because athletes I know, you know this are always fighting a fine line between fitness and health, especially those people training at the highest levels and they need the extra support. So that was really the primary reason I had it in there. But it does have some supplemental benefits for increasing red blood cell production.

Yeah. And I want to get to that. We'll probably address that later on in the show. But you know, one of the things that lots of people asked me about this biotropic and by the way, if you guys want, I'll put both the link and the discount code for this biotropic in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com blood podcast. But a lot of the questions that I got were about algae and specifically the form of algae that you have in this. It was one with a really long name. How do you pronounce it? The floss. Aqua blue green. Efa. I admittedly do not know how to pronounce. I believe it's aphanaziniminon. A floss. Aqua blue green. Afa. So one question that I got from people and maybe it's because it's the new year and everyone's interested in detoxification, or maybe it's because we mentioned this briefly and didn't talk about it too much, is the fact that algae has a detoxification effect on the blood. And because detox is a woo woo term that's turned around a lot, I'm curious if you can delve into how exactly algae is cleaning the blood or detoxing the blood and why you'd want to do that in the first place. What's the deal with algae and toxins in blood?

Sure, sure. Well, first of all, we have two formulas here, the AFA formula and the chlorella formula. So I'm going to do a little differentiation between the two. But before I move on here, I just want to make it clear that, like you and people listening, I'm a curiosity seeker. And so when I'm trying to figure out what's going to work or not, like everyone else, I do the research and I try to do that research based on academic, scientific and clinical. So sometimes that matters, sometimes it doesn't. But for me, historically, going way back to my heavy competitive days, I didn't have that stuff available to me. So the only thing that mattered then was what my colleagues, my high level athlete friends, as I mentioned to you before, many of whom are Olympians, had two Olympic coaches that I trained under. And I've just been very, very fortunate to be around that crowd. And we all shared knowledge. It was all trial and error because as I said, we didn't have the Internet and we didn't have easy access to what we have today. So I still weigh in on what anecdotal experience gives me over even academic, clinical or anything else, because athletes know what works. They're very sensitive to their bodies because they live inside them. You know the old saying, treat it like a temple? Well, most athletes do. I mean, there are definitely those out there. I think you and I talked about Phelps earlier, eating stacks of pancakes and French toast and bacon and sausage and all that stuff. But the reality is when you're training at that level and you're burning 6 to 10,000 calories a day, that stuff doesn't stay in your body very long. It just gets, it gets churned out and burned out very, very quickly. And they still have to do a lot of things to supplement because there are a lot of gaps in their diet. So we shared our experiences. And so I still tend to weigh on what my colleagues say, what Ben Greenfield says. I'm actually going to listen to you more, even if there's no real academic study or research to back it up for the reasons I just mentioned.

Even if it involves shooting coffee up your butt.

That is one of your things, isn't.

Is? And you do get a huge endogenous production of glutathione when you do it, along with a lot of peristalsis of the colon. But a lot of people just don't chew coffee up their butt because it appears to be woo woo when in fact there's some interesting research behind it. But we digress from algae and blood toxins.

Yeah. So what I'm saying here is that I just want to make it clear that just so people understand my own personal philosophy and where it comes from, because we're going to talk about some of the science and I still feel like at the end of the day, despite what science says, I'm going to lean in on what my athlete friends say because those are the people that really know as far as I'm concerned. So I was always my own clinical trial, you know, experimenting with this stuff and figuring out what would work. And then these formulations were built on that. And to figure out how they really worked. Ben I sort of had to backward integrate to figure out what it was all about. And so it just turns out that I happen to concoct these things that really worked for me. I'm a blood oxygen guy. I was a sprinter and so that's sort of where I come from. So I'm going to take a hybrid approach here. A little bit of science and a little bit of anecdotal experience. Is that cool?

That's perfectly fine. I recently interviewed Kamal patel from the examine.com website and we talked about how often The n equals 1. And experiential data can be just as good as many of these meta analysis and larger population studies. Granted, we have to assess things under the umbrella of or through the lens of whether or not, for example, someone who experiences the effects of something like chlorella is doing the same type of activities as you, or whether or not they're genetically similar or whether or not their diet is different or similar. But regardless, yeah, there certainly can be some takeaways. Go ahead.

Yeah, so let me just talk a little bit about the algae then here. So just a couple of points here and we'll get down to the chemical structures here. But first off, both AFA and chlorella, they're superfoods. And I just think that's important to know because AFA in particular is considered a complete food. And whereas chlorella is concerned you really want what's called a broken cell wall because that's what makes its bioavailability work. If it's not broken cell walls, it's hard. It tends to go through your body like fiber. So if you want a good fiber source, make sure you have a product that isn't broken cell wall, but that isn't what you want. You want complete bioavailability. So make sure that if you're buying chlorella, however you get it, that in order to get the full uptake of it, that it's a broken cell wall. The other thing is our bodies every day are assailed by chemicals and heavy metals on a daily basis. There's pollutants in the air, there's pollutants in the water, some just pollutants everywhere. So how does it work? So that's the question. How does it work? The unique chemical structures of chlorophyll enabled it to bind and trap toxins in the gut, preventing their absorption, and it thereby processes elimination there. So it's believed to be a superior detox agent for eliminating bodily pollutants, heavy metals, and other toxins. Mercury and cadmium are two of the heavier ones that get knocked up by chlorella. AFA is similar in structure and makeup, but I don't think it has the same blood cleaning detoxification capabilities as chlorella. So the main thing here is what I like to think about when I put together the chlorophyll product, the biotropic chlorophyll is I wanted to get a product that would deliver blood development and oxygenation to the muscles when you're training and working out, but go through this entire detoxification process also, because it was my own view that if you have the vasodilation, which is produced by the beetroot, and you have a cleaner blood content going to your working muscles, then everything's gonna be working a lot better.

Okay. Yeah. You know, I honestly, like, I've never seen any research that shows that, you know, blood is blood that's clean, is more oxygenated, for example, is or is more easily delivered. But I have seen a lot of research behind chlorella, you know, which is just like a tiny little microalgae being able to bind to heavy chemicals or heavy, heavy metals rather, and chemicals and pesticides specifically in the digestive tract. And that's kind of like the pathway to the bloodstream where a lot of the toxins get delivered and deposited into the body's cells. So I know that it does eliminate a lot of unwanted metals and toxins. And I think the interesting thing about it is it's selective. Right. Like chlorella doesn't bind to beneficial minerals like calcium or magnesium or zinc. It seems to just select after things like the metals and the chemicals and the pesticides. So it does make sense that it has some blood detoxification properties. And I suppose we could theorize that clean blood is going to assure that metabolic waste gets carried away from the tissues and oxygen gets delivered a bit more readily. But that was kind of my basic question was. Yeah, that mechanism of action via which algae can detoxify the blood, it's really the chlorella component of it. Is that correct?

Yeah. So to answer your question, its ability to bind with heavy metals and toxins in the blood and in the gut is absolutely what allows it to clean and detoxify the blood in the body.

Okay, got it. Now what about, you know, I noticed on your website you also talk about the conversion of nitrates to nitric oxide. I know the body has the ability to take nitrates from vegetables, you know, like beets or arugula, and actually convert that into nitric oxide for vasodilation. What I did not realize though, and what it says on your website is that blue, green afa, this form of algae, can actually assist with converting nitrates to nitric oxide for vasodilation. How exactly does algae convert nitrates to nitric oxide? Because that's something that I had never seen before.

Yeah. According to the U.S. national Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, you're probably familiar with that site. If not, you should.

Yeah, the nih.

Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not, through the same process you have on the surface of the tongue. Particular, I think they call them crypts actually, that reduce nitrate to nitrite. And so it works very similar to the way beetroot does. The interesting thing about it though is that it naturally produces nitrites in its water environment. So I think there's a double acting effect that's somewhat subjective on my part, but it produces it in the same way, really.

So basically when algae interacts with the tongue, that's where conversion to nitric oxide takes place, is in the mouth.

Yeah, it actually begins with the saliva. Yes, that's correct. It begins with the saliva and it continues in the gut.

That's really interesting. Have you ever heard of people using algae for something very similar to. I've told a lot of people use beetroot or use arugula or dark chocolate or Red wine or any other vasodilator, for example, to get the effects of Viagra without actually taking the little blue pill. Have you ever tried chlorella for something like sexual performance or anything along those lines to assess vasodilatory properties?

Well, it's really funny that you asked that. I never bring this up because these formulas were developed with the idea of sprinting and athletic performance and blood oxygen. And I have many people that report back to me increased libido for. For several reasons, because not only does it happen with the algae, but the cordyceps has an effect on that. And of course, beetroot has a long, long history of increasing libido. So I would not have brought it up if you didn't.

Yeah, the only problem with it, of course. Well, I suppose it's not the problem with your supplement, but I have these chewable chlorella tablets and my wife won't go near my face when I have the little green specks in my teeth or even just like algae on my breath. So I suppose your supplement is a good delivery mechanism for that if you don't want the green in your teeth and you want to be more kissable. So that's interesting. We've got the detoxification properties of algae and then also the conversion of nitrates to nitric oxide. That's a mechanism of action for performance I actually wasn't aware of for algae. And kind of similarly, you have cordyceps sinesis, which we talked about a little bit in the last podcast. And one of the things that again, this gets. Woo, woo. I think a lot of times people say, oh, cordyceps helps with your VO2 max or helps you to breathe better. But not a lot of people talk about how it actually does that. I mean, how is cordyceps when someone takes this, Cordyceps sinesis, what's going on with the lungs or what's going on with the oxygen that actually causes it to have this effect?

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. So just a little preliminary data before I get to the how, just to bring people up to date here. So the data hypothesized around this is generally around the key effects of its ability to increase oxygenation and ATP production. And so research has confirmed that cordyceps usage does increase both. The problem with talking about cordyceps is there's so many good things that it does is that I want to go through this whole list of things that it does and then get down to the how. But maybe I should Just jump to that because I'll just be talking forever on the subject and maybe we can talk loosely about it after that. So how does it all happen? Again, this is very, very basic stuff. The presence of adenosine or cordycebin or cordyceps acids and its particular polysaccharides, vitamins and trace elements they believe are the cause of these well known effects. But in particular, it achieves its oxygenation through these polysaccharides which are specific to cordyceps. They're long chain sugars with lots of oxygen sections within them and they get broken down and released into the body. If you think of, you know what I think about? I think of pancakes when I think of this. The reason why is I think of leavening. I think of baking soda and baking powder. If you make a really good pancake, you've got enough oxygen in it through that leavening process. It makes them really light and fluffy. It's the only way to eat a pancake. And that's how I think, think of cordyceps. What it does is it releases these oxygen molecules into the body and they're absorbed on a cellular level. So you absorb more oxygen as these polysaccharides release their oxygen sections within them.

Okay, got it. So cordyceps is actually causing, is it a greater release of oxygen from red blood cells or is it more of an action like on lung tissue?

No, no, it's a result of breaking down of the polysaccharides. These polysaccharides, as I say, they're long sugar chains and they have many oxygen sections within those chains. And so those break down on the body. There's a process in the body which breaks those down and releases the oxygen for uptake.

So the polysaccharides themselves, when you consume like a cordyceps mushroom extract that actually has oxygen stored within the polysaccharides.

Yes.

Interesting. Okay. I've always wondered about cordyceps and the actual mechanism of action. So. So I mean, I know it's known as an adaptogen for hormones and for kidney function and liver enzymes. And they've got really good studies on it for VO2 max, for example, but I didn't realize it actually has oxygen bound within the polysaccharide bone of the cordyceps itself.

Yeah, when the sugars are broken down, that's why I use that pancake analogy. So for the cooks out there, they'll get it immediately. Immediately they'll understand it. But yeah, that's how it works. And that's the Mechanism by which it delivers oxygen or creates a higher oxygen carrying capability within the system.

And how does it cause more ATP to be produced? Is it similar? Like, does it actually have phosphate bound up within the cordyceps, or is it causing some type of endogenous production of ATP?

No, it causes the production of ATP directly by releasing these sugar chains.

Okay, so the sugar chains are actually offering the body a source of the precursors to necessary for forming adenosine triphosphate.

Precursors is definitely the right word. And they call this, I can't remember exactly what they call it, but we'll just call it a doubling effect of the benefit of taking cordyceps.

Okay, got it. And cordyceps, like when you get your cordyceps, there's this idea that it comes from an insect. Is that correct?

Okay, so bear with me as I go through this. So there are many species of cordyceps, but cordyceps sinesis is the most significant in terms of worldwide demand. It's often called a mushroom. You've heard that before. Or caught caterpillar fungus. But it starts off entirely as a fungus. The fungus seeks out and parasizes and germinates in the living larva of ghost moths, which it kills and mummified. Now, I know that sounds great, but the final result is really amazing.

And then over time, a stalk like.

Fruiting body emerges as the cordyceps we know and love today, producing what's called a fruiting body. And the highest prized of these are typically found in the mountain regions of India, Nepal and Tibet.

Okay, and then you harvest the fungus, and the fungus is what's actually used to create cordyceps, or is the fungus called cordyceps?

It is called cordyceps. And people don't like to call it a fungus, they like to call it a mushroom, but technically it's not. So, yeah, you hear a lot of people refer to it as a mushroom, but technically it's not. It just sounds better to say it.

Right. Mushroom is more palatable for thefor the general population. Nobody likes fungus. We think about that as being something that gives you bad breath or grows on vaginas or something like that. It has to be taken out with medications and supplements. So the fungus then that's harvested. And is it dried to produce this extract?

Yes, well, it basically comes in a dried condition.

Okay, got it. So you've got this cordyceps sinesis and then the blue green afa, which we already talked about, and then something that we hit on already, the echinacea. But this is something I find fascinating. I mean, I know that studies have shown that echinacea boosts EPO, like, more than 60%. I mean, like, huge compared to what you'd get from illegal blood doping. But what is, like, what's the mechanism of action? How is echinacea actually boosting EPO naturally?

All right, so another really good question. And for this, I'll have to do just a little bit of talking and a little bit of reading because this was fairly new to me, too. And so I concede I'm going to pass on what's next here with just a little bit of reading. All right.

Okay, let's hear it.

What they say is echinacea has been shown to stimulate macrophage activity, which in turn can result in increase in and prostaglandins secretions from active macrophages. Make sense so far?

No, that's going to fly over everybody's heads. You need to slow down. I'm serious. Go ahead and run through that again.

Yeah. Echinacea has been shown to stimulate macrophage activity, which in turn can result in increase in prostaglandin secretion from active microphagias. Now, I'm not done. I still have four more bullet points here. And this is directly off the link I have that that did the clinical research on this. So I'm going to just read a few more bullet points if I can. That work?

Yeah, go ahead.

And that's also referred to as PGE2. So the prostaglandin I'll refer to PGE2 from here on out. So the increased concentration of PGE2 has been shown to increase GMCSF production. So what's that? That's granulocyte microphage colony stimulating factors, which is also a blood progenitor and growth factor. All right, next point. Eukinaceous supplementation has been shown to increase the activity level of T cells, which are known to synthesize gm, CSF and blood progenitor growth factors also and interleukin. Pardon me. Okay, and one more point here. Shall I keep going?

Yeah, go ahead. It's kind of sort of making sense. I'm piecing this together, so I'll summarize some of your geek speak to folks when you finish up, but keep going.

Good, because as I say, I'm a curious guy. And this surprised me, too. And it was secondary to the whole point of it being in there. So the final point that they made was that the results suggest echinacea may enhance EPO Production and that the mechanism may be mediated through an increase in the circulating concentrations of the PGE2, the IL3 and the GM CSF.

Okay.

And I'll send this off to you so you can read it. It.

Okay, gotcha. So here's what I. So for those listening, I do have a degree, I have a master's degree in physiology, so I'm picking up on some of this. But the idea is that erythropoietin, those are the precursors to red blood cells. They're like young red blood cells. Erythropoiesis is what you call production of red blood cells. You know, change in the number or the concentration of red blood cells. And echinacea is causing an increase in erythropoies in the concentration of erythropoietin. The basic idea is that red blood cells come from stem cells, and stem cells get induced to be produced by a whole bunch of different growth factors. And those are the ones that you just spit out, Craig, like interleukin or IL3 or that granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor, the GM CSF, and then also from erythropoiet, ethiopietin, which I mentioned earlieror epo. So erythropoietin gets secreted by your kidneys, and that stimulates what's called erythropoiesis by promoting the formation and the release of red blood cells. And specifically, it does that from bone marrow. So it's really interesting that you get this secretion from the kidneys that stimulates the formation of the red blood cells, the production of the red blood cells in the bone marrow. But then, then you've also got the production of these prostaglandins, the production of interleukin, and the production of GM csf, all stem cell precursors that also stimulate production of epo. And with echinacea, from what I understand, it actually stimulates this macrophage activity, or macrophage activity, depending on how you pronounce it, that causes an increase in the PGE secretion, an increase in the GMCSF production, an increase in the churning out of these red blood cells from bone marrow, and then, like you mentioned, the activity levels of T cells, which cause other erythro growth factors to be formed. So there's like four different mechanisms of action whereby echinacea is enhancing EPO production. And again, it's all without actually, actually taking erythropoietin in, like a supplement form or without taking your blood out and re injecting it into the body. So it's fascinating that it's hitting almost every single mechanism that the body would normally take to produce red blood cells when you use something like echinacea as a way to do that rather than some other illegal method. So, I mean, it really is basically blood doping.

Now you make a good point too. I want to just highlight here you mentioned rather than an illegal method, and we both come from that world of high level athletes that get caught up in that stuff sometime. And it's really, really important to find a way to do this naturally and as healthy as you can. And to that point, I've made sure that everything inside my ingredients are all World Anti Doping association safe. And it's really critical that people take a look at that if they're athletes and they're competing at a level where they might get their blood tickets, because there are very few but a couple natural ingredients on the water list that will shock you and surprise you that you think of nothing more than something you might pick off a backyard tree.

Like what?

I have that list and I'll send it to you. But I think it's something as crazy as some sort of lemon peel extract has some component in it that does something that water doesn't like.

Like Limone.

I honestly don't remember, Ben. I can't remember exactly what it is. I fortunately don't have to pay much attention to that list anymore, except for where it pertains to. To the ingredients that I produce in my formulation. So I honestly don't know. But easy enough to find it. You know what I'll do? I'll pick it off the list and send it to you so you know what it is.

Yeah, that'd be interesting. I mean, there is one website that I use quite a bit and I'll put a link to it in the show. It's called Global dro. Global dro. And you can look up your sport, your sanctioning body, any supplement that you plan on taking. And if you want to know if that particular compound or that particular chemical shouldn't be in your body when you're competing in the sport you're competing in, whether in or out of competition, globaldro.com is a really, really good source. I send a lot of athletes to that so they can go through their supplement cupboard and know if something is something they should or should not be using. But yeah, send that over to me too, because I'd be curious to see some of these common ingredients that Folks may not know are sanctioned by the World Anti Doping Association. Association.

I was shocked, shocked when I saw it because I thought, you know, someone could really innocently be taking an ingredient like that and never even consider to look at the list because, as I say, it's a natural thing. But I'll definitely send it to you so you know what I'm talking about.

Okay, got it. Cool. So we've got echinacea, we've got algae, we've got the cordyceps. And then another one that you have on here is grass fed liver anhydrates. And we talked about that a bit in the last episode that we did in terms of it being an extremely nutrient dense source of vitamin A and D and E and K, how it's a decent source of protein, and how there's some research behind it for everything from B12 to iron. But I had a few questions for you about the liver. Why do you call it anhydrate? What does that mean?

It's just another word for desiccated. It could. So what does that mean? Just means dry. Just means dry. So desiccated liver means dried liver. It's just a way to get the liver into a state that's highly bioavailable and not in the form that most people don't like to eat, which is on your plate.

With onions, is it more bioavailable when you dry it or is it more bioavailable and it's on your plate?

With onions and bacon, it's more bioavailable as something on your plate, but no one likes to eat it. It people. Well, that may be a bit strong.

Most people don't. I dredge it in eggs and then the coconut flour and I grill it in butter and then I add some onions. And it's pretty flavorful. And you have to. The trick is that you soak your liver in lemon juice or raw milk overnight or at least for a few hours, and it gets rid of some of that, like that livery taste that a lot of people don't like. But of course, you can't take that in your carry on bag on your way to a race or something like that.

That's funny because I thought you were joking.

No, I'm serious. I love liver and that's how I make it.

That's funny because I started young on liver, knew the value of it as a young athlete, and for some reason I know the flavor you're talking about. It's more of a texture to me than a flavor that you're talking about there's sort of a, somewhere in the middle of a bite. I don't know how to describe this, but it's almost a bit dryish or cardboardish. But, but I've always liked the flavor and I've always liked it with onions. And it's not like I've ever made it a primary source of food for me, but I do like it. So I never have any problem with it. But it's way easier for people to take in a concentrated form, get a lot of it through supplementation. And the reason why it really matters here is that and why you get it from a non plant source like, like liver. And if you have to get it for vegans out there, that if you have to get it from a non plant source, this is the way to go. You get an Argentinian hormone free, antibiotic free, grass fed, clean energy form of this stuff. And so that's why I almost, tongue in cheek, say vegan fed. Because these cows are vegan fed. They are eating the cleanest grass there is, Argentinian grass fed. But the heme iron inside of meat, of organ meat, there's 35% more uptake in heme iron than there is in plants. You can't get the same thing out of a plant that you get out.

Of meat in heme iron. Like H E M e iron.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay, got it. What does it mean for iron to be heme? What's that mean?

Well, it's classified. So let me walk it through this way. In animal foods, iron is often a chemical attached to proteins. So in animal foods, if it's attached to protein, it's called a heme iron. In plant foods it's not attached to a protein, so it's classified as a non heme iron. So the heme iron in meat is attached to a protein and that's the difference of it. In protein it gets released and then you have a 35% uptake that you don't get from anything that comes from a plant source. That's the difference. Does that make sense?

Okay, got it, got it. So when it comes to consuming this heme based iron and it makes total sense, but when it comes to, to consuming it, are there any studies that have shown this to increase endurance or increase oxygenation or. Why is it that you would put this particular form of desiccated liver into a tablet like this?

All right, well, that's another really good question. So liver is just first off loaded with copper, zinc, phosphorus, the B sweet vitamins, the B sweet Vitamins are very, very important for energy producing. B12 and B9, by the way, I never even talked about this with you, but B9 and B12, which are loaded up of the highest quality in liver, also combine to make RBCs. You should check that out. So that's. Yeah, it is so. And it's another reason to have it. Folate and 12 act together to create red blood cells. So another reason why you should get that stuff into your body no matter how you have it.

Now one of the guys that you talk about on the site is Dr. Urshoff, is that correct?

Yes.

This guy that did the study on animals and endurance, what did he find?

Yeah, that Irishoft study is pretty interesting. And that occurred over a 12 week period. He used rodents as subjects. What he did was he got three different groups of animals and the first was given an ordinary diet and that group showed the least amount of growth over that period. The second group he gave a B vitamin complex and that group experienced a little higher growth rate relative to the first group group. But the third group was given 10% liver anhydrate added to their diets. And results of that group were that they grew at about 15% more than group one. But there's also this thing called a fatigue factor. And as far as I know, science hasn't quite figured out exactly what's causing that. And it's a good thing and it's a benefit to all of us. But what the doctor did secondarily is he placed the subjects into a drum of water where they couldn't get out and they had to keep swimming before the doctor would hand pick them out himself. And the results were pretty interesting. The subjects on the original diet, and I'm cheating a little bit here. The subjects on the original diet swarmed for about 13.3 minutes before they gave up. The second group, which had added, which had the added B vitamins, swam for 13, four minutes before giving up. And of the last group, the anhydrate users, 12 subjects in all three swam for 63, 83 and 87 minutes. And nine were still swimming vigorously at the end of two hours when the test was terminated. So the liver anhydrate subjects could swim almost 10 times as long as the others without becoming tired.

So you've got the liver in there and then the last one, which you already mentioned a little bit is beetroot. And of course it's no secret, a lot of people know beetroot. Beetroot causes vasodilation and beetroot kind of Opens up blood vessels. It's like Viagra for the whole body. But when it comes to beets, one thing I noticed on your website is you talk about how it's assisted with or how it assists with muscle stem cell repair. How does beetroot cause muscle stem cell repair?

Yeah. So I want to be clear on this point too, that my preferred usage of beets is for the nitric oxide support. That's primarily what I think of when I think of beetroot is a high quality of its ability to produce nitric oxide in the body. Let me read to you what the objective of this one study was. So they say that beetroot not only stimulated cell proliferation, but also minimized DNA damages of splenocytes, which is where we.

Get a lot of like our T cells and our B cells, a lot of our immune cells. A lot of those macrophages you were talking about in association with red blood cell production like that, a lot of those are produced by the spleen. It's interesting, it's why free divers have really high amounts of, of oxygen carrying capacity. Because your spleen gets super duper compressed when you get below about 30ft when you're diving, for example, in the ocean. And that spleen compression actually causes a big production in new red blood cells.

Yeah. So what they say in this study is beetroot also repopulated S phase cells and increased Ki67 or C kit positive cells in bone marrow. Further, beetroot treated mice showed notable boosting or differentiation of HSCs into burst forming units along with increased production of IL3. Beetroot treated mice displayed enhancement in the level of hemocrit and hemoglobin as well as other number of red blood cell and peripheral blood. And so they came to a conclusion that the results suggested that beetroot has a potency to preserve bone marrow integrity and stimulate the differentiation of HSG against ionizing and radiation. And to quote them, this is a direct quote. According to striking results, advanced molecular research will be beneficial for enlightening of beetroot effects in the stem cell field. So I've always been an early adopter on things. I read things like this and I know that beetroot is a safe, healthy thing to take. And I figure that if it's going to produce a secondary benefit beyond the nitrogen oxide, I can't lose by doing that.

Okay. And backing this up a little bit. Would you say peripheral or peripheral? Peripheral, because I'm familiar with peripheral blood cells. That's what you're referring to?

Yeah. Peripheral. Yeah.

Okay, yeah, those are just all the cellular components of blood. So that's like red blood cells or what we were talking about earlier. Erythrocytes and white blood cells, the leukocytes and platelets. And those are all found within blood and not necessarily sequestered within like the lymphatic cell system or the spleen or the liver or the bone marrow. Instead, those are like the circulating cellular components of blood. So what you're saying is that the beetroots assist with the actual formation or the upregulation of many of these peripheral blood cells?

That is what the study says. That's what the researcher says.

Interesting. Yeah, interesting. As well as formation of new stem cells or blood cell precursors.

Correct.

Interesting. See, that's something I wasn't aware of, but it would cause me to hazard. A, a beets or beetroot may be something that one could take also when injured. I had a fascinating podcast with Sean Stevenson where we talked about the use of other stem cell precursors, other things that have a very, very high concentration of growth factors like colostrum or like aloe vera or goat milk. And some of the things that we talked about in that podcast included some of the things we've talked about here. Algae, for example, is something that we touched on in liver. But it looks like beetroot may actually be something that a lot of people, people would think of as being only a performance aid, but it appears to assist quite a bit with cellular damage and oxidative damage as well, which is really interesting.

Frankly, I find it all riveting and it's extra special to have you here today too, explaining some of these things that I, as a non scientist, do not know and am just learning also.

Yeah, I was waiting for this podcast to be able to delve into some of this stuff and admittedly I'm kind of learning from you too as we go because I've been popping this stuff for the past month and a half, or I guess it's been like two months now, just before my endurance based workouts or lately when I've been sick. But it's interesting to have this opportunity to delve into the literature a bit more as much as for those of you listening in, this might seem like we're kind of on the spot going into this stuff. It's actually really fun. Fun to be able to take some of these things that nature has provided to us, put them all together, and then see what happens when you do something like climb a mountain or dive down deep under the water. So One of the things I wanted to also ask you about, Craig, and this is another question that I got after our initial podcast, and that is the afa. So you've got your biotropic AFA and your biotropic chlorella is the only difference. That you've used different form of algae in both.

That is essentially the difference. So let me tell you what's thematic between them. It's probably obvious at this point. You know, coming from a sprinting background, everything that's thematic in them has to do with blood oxygenation, blood development, immune support, the B12 suite, which I'm a big, big believer in, you know, the B12, the B9, all the B sweet vitamins I think are critical to having from the highest, cleanest possible source. So the theme that they share is blood development and oxygenation. But what I call the prime movers in them are in the one formula, the AFA and in the other formula, the chlorella. And so what's the difference? I know people ask, and that's where you're headed, what's the difference and who should take what. So it's so subjective. And I personally like the chlorella formula the best because I have always liked the idea of blood detox. I like blood detox. I like the idea of cleaner blood. I like the idea of the vasodilation and the chlorella formula, taking what I hope to be cleaner, more purified blood with the cordyceps, the euchinacea and the desiccated liver in it going into my muscles when they're training hard. So if I can get more of that, all of that good stuff and cleaner blood going into training muscles, I have always felt better with that formulation. So I'd say people who are looking for the detoxing capabilities of a formula, as I've experienced the athletic improvement, I would say the chlorella would be for that crowd. The AFA is, you know, that's the creme de la creme of. So they say. I agree with them. Of the algae supplements.

Yeah, that's the stuff that's harvested from like Klamath Lake in Oregon. It's used in the. There's another supplement, I think called Thrive that has that same form of algae in it. It's like for supplement companies who want good algae, that's like the go to source for algae. Right.

It's an amazing algae. It just does so many good things. I don't think it personally feel, although the research is there and it does back it up as a Good blood detox agent. I think that chlorella is the best blood detox agent there is to the extent that such things exist. But what the AFA does that's so amazing is that again, along with the blood development oxygen theme and the B12 and that whole suite of blood oxygen development, the prime mover here being afa, the reports I get back from that are it has an ingredient in it called pea, and PEA is a mood enhancer and used in a lot of nootropics to increase cognitive focus and mental clarity. So people feel good on the AFA process product, but it also is known to be a stem cell producer produce stem cell recovery in the body. It's a better recovery agent. It is a blood detoxer. But I think chlorella is better. But people feel good on it because of the mood enhancing properties of the afa. So I'd say if you're an athlete that needs higher level focus, a lot of athletes need that. I was very, very fortunate that as a competitor I had no issues with concentration of focus or quality clarity. None. Zero. Just very, very lucky that for me I didn't have that problem. But some people do. And even at the highest levels they do. So I'd say if a pick me up is what you need and you're looking for a better recovery tool and the potentiality of stem cell repair, AFA is the way to go.

Got it. And pea, that's phenylethylamine. That's found in a lot of like nootropic and smart drug compounds.

Yes. And it's natural to afa and in fact it's such a good form of it, it's been used in clinical trials and academic research as a supplement to help attention deficit disorder as well.

Yeah. It causes you to produce more dopamine and some other things too, like acetylcholine and norepinephrine and serotonin, a whole bunch of neurotransmitters. So it's cool stuff. I did not realize that algae was a source of that though. That's really interesting.

Yeah, it's fascinating. And so then the other thing I'd say is I did develop these and I want to be very transparent about them. This, the purpose of these formulations were developed with athletic performance in mind and I stand by that. But responses I get back from people. People tell me that I've had several people tell me on the AFA product that they've lost weight, including people who really didn't even need to lose weight. Not A bad thing. It's easy to put weight on, it's not so easy to take it off. So there has been the side benefit of weight loss, but I want to.

Be clear that why would that happen? I mean, are people just taking it and exercising more?

Maybe you sort of hit on where I was going to go. I don't really know. I don't think there's any great science behind it. Although there is research to weight loss. But I haven't been able to really back it up. So I don't touch on it. So I have to go with anecdotal on this. But I think the reason people lose weight on it is exactly what you said. They feel better, they work out more, they work out a little bit longer. And if they're getting the lift from it that they say they're getting, this might sound funny or even a little woo woo to use your term, but they might be happier about the whole process. I didn't have those issues as an athlete. Again, as I said, I didn't. I was just so laser like focused. I was just looking for the thing that would give me the cleanest possible energy. And for me personally, highly subjective, I felt that was chlorella. But as I say that people are reporting all these great, you know, also the nootropic effect. I have several testimonies of people saying they've never felt chlore on anything they've used before than on this product. So that's a lot there. So maybe I should recap here. AFA for mental clarity, focus, feeling a little better and blood oxygenation support and delivery. And Chlorella.

Gotcha.

Yeah, and Chlorella really for the same things, but highlighting the blood detox capabilities of it.

Okay, interesting. Yeah. And with the fat loss thing, I mean, who knows, since chlorella clears up toxins from cells, perhaps you're getting a little bit of lysing of fat cells, for example, in folks who take something like that or the other possibility. I think this happens when a lot of people take supplements, especially fat loss supplements. You take the supplement and you're like, oh, I'm supposed to go exercise after I take this to get the greatest benefit. And then they exercise and it comes out to the claim that something causes fat loss when influence. In fact, perhaps there's a lifestyle modification that goes hand in hand along with it. But either way I don't think anybody's.

Complaining, but I think you just nailed it. I just want to underscore your point that I believe you got to move you have to move. And unless you're taking a product like this or something similar purely for the health benefits of it, which is okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Otherwise you have to move, you got to go work out, you got to do something to get the benefits of these things. I know. I don't pretend that anything's a panacea. I really believe you gotta move in. Supplementation just supports movement.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is fascinating and I'm super stoked that we got a chance to delve into some of these ingredients because I myself was curious about how some of this stuff works. And you inspired me as we talked during this episode to get the wheels in my brain turning about how exactly things like cordyceps and, and algae and echinacea and grass fed liver and beetroot can actually assist with some things that perhaps we don't know about or weren't aware of before. So I will link to some of the studies and send me over whatever you'd like, Craig. And I can also put some of those in the show notes. I'll link to Global dro. I'll link to your blood oxygenating supplement. I know we've got a code Ben. Code is Ben, where you can get a 20% discount. So if you want to try that, the AFA or the Chlorella for yourself, either version of Craig's biotropic, you can. I'll put links to all that stuff over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BloodPodcast that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Bloodpodcast and when you're there, you can leave a comment or a question for Craig or myself. You can go listen to the previous podcast that I did with Craig in which we really got a little bit more into Craig's fascinating background as an athlete and as somebody who started to piece together a supplement like this. And of course, if you enjoyed this episode, you can always pop over to itunes and leave a review or say something nice as well, if anything in here was compelling to you or you came across something you didn't know before. Because that's my goal, is to give you guys stuff that goes above and beyond the run of the mill information that you're going to find a lot of times in nutrition speak or in the fitness industry or in the longevity sector or the biohacking sector or anything else. So I hope that this has been helpful for you. If you're listening in, Craig, thanks for coming on the show and sharing all this with us, man.

It's my pleasure. It really is my pleasure. It was great the first time. It's been better this time. And it's always a joy to talk with you and I learned a lot from you. You really are an expert in the field and we all appreciate that you're here helping us out.

Awesome. Well, thank you for those kind words. I appreciate it. You give me a big head and a red face. Or maybe it's just the beetroot and folks listening in. Until next time. BenGreenfieldFitness.com BloodPodcast is where you can get the shownotes. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Craig Dinkel signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week. 3 2.

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

Sam.