How To Reverse Tooth Cavities, The Healthiest Cookware, How To Use A Squatty Potty And More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, how to reverse tooth cavities and natural tooth whitening remedies. Does Roundup cause gluten intolerance? What is the healthiest cookware? How to prevent overheating during exercise, the proper way to use a squatty potty, and much more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

You sound very limber this morning, Ben.

I am limber and chipper. If we want to throw another, er, adjective in there. I just finished doing my morning yoga.

Ah, that explains it.

Yes, and it's not just any old yoga. I've been on a kettlebell yoga kick lately. Do tell. I actually, I just had 24 gentlemen over at my house for the weekend training and talking about business and just generally hanging out in the forest, and I brought many of them out for kettlebell yoga. The way the kettlebell yoga goes is you do your basic sun salutation exercises, you know, your hip flexor openers and all your ground and floor movement. But in between each sun salutation, you do Turkish get ups with the kettlebell, you do kettlebell swings, few kettlebell through the leg exercises, and just generally throw the kettlebell around for about two minutes until your heart rate is up. And then you go back into yoga. And actually, about 30 minutes of that is amazing.

That does sound quite delightful, actually.

Yes. And now I'm sipping on my morning Perrier, which is sparkling water, the next best thing to fatty coffee, and I'm ready to rock and roll.

News flashes.

It's not always easy following you on Twitter. It's fun, but it's not always easy.

You know, it'd be better if you said that in a Kermit the Frog voice. Like, it's not always easy following you on Twitter and being green. It's because I post so dang much stuff on Twitter every week. And of course, this is the part of the podcast where you get the inside scoop on some of the things that I thought were most interesting over at Twitter. Most interesting should do the entire podcast in Muppet Voices. My bad boys over@twitter.com BenGreenfield that was a little more Star Wars Y. Yeah.

Does Yoda actually qualify as a Muppet?

I believe he was created by Jim Henson.

Yes, as a matter of fact, Frank Oz.

Actually, for those of you listening in, though, this podcast actually is about fitness. So we're going to talk about Tom Brady. And I tweeted a very interesting article that appeared over@sportsillustrated.com about Tom Brady and why this professional football player slash quarterback is kind of defying aging and he's almost getting better with age.

Sports Illustrated has articles.

It does.

And had swimsuits.

Well, actually, if you look closely at the 11 other issues, there are actually articles.

It comes out every month.

Very interesting, though, that this guy is doing Chinese holistic medicine. He's a big fan of something that we've talked about on this show before, which is avocado coconut ice cream. His diet. He subscribes to about an 80% alkaline, 20% acidic diet. And in the article it says teammates always see him with hummus, raw snack bars packed with nutrients, and what one teammate calls that birdseed. So, anyways, he has this. He has a Chinese medical practitioner who he works with. He does neurofeedback training before he goes to bed at night. He tracks his sleep. I would not be surprised, although they didn't list it in this article, if he probably also tracks his heart rate variability, because a lot of professional teams are kind of getting into this now as well. But what I tweeted out was, you know, this is the way that I've been coaching, you know, my amateur age grouper triathletes and obstacle racers and CEOs who I work with for a very long time. And it's kind of cool to see the first fricking NFL finally catching onto this stuff and realizing that life goes beyond Gatorade and heavy pieces of steel. Oh, that's the other thing. He doesn't lift weights. He primarily does exercise with resistance bands. Isn't that interesting?

That is weird.

If you want to dig into the nitty gritties of the article, I will link to it over in the show notes. And the show notes for this episode are@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3 and over there you will also see another thing I tweeted about some cool new technology that allows you to drumroll, Please breathe underwater. Did you see this? Did you see this?

I did.

It was@earthware1.com Scientists just created crystals that make breathing underwater a possibility. Now, it's probably no secret that I get laughed at sometimes because I wear a crystal on my wrist 24 7. It's called a piezoelectric disc. It's embedd in this little bracelet. Yeah, I know. I catch a lot of flack from people for it because they think it's woo woo science. Woo woo science. But people don't understand crystals. Like I sleep on a biomat that has amethyst and tourmaline crystals.

Sorry, I'll stop that now.

You have a cold that release negative ions. I wear crystal on my wrist and it resonates at the same frequency as the planet Earth. So I'm constantly grounded even when I'm not in touch with the ground, like when I'm on an airplane. But it turns out now that there's also crystals that can store oxygen. So these researchers at the University of Southern Denmark have created crystals that are capable of pulling oxygen out of air and pulling oxygen out of water. And these crystals can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations and then control the release time of the oxygen. Right. So what they're saying is that this could give people the ability to stay submerged for long periods of time without an oxygen tank, just using these crystals to breathe. Because the crystals will take the oxygen, store and then release it as you are underwater. Isn't that amazing?

I don't understand the mechanism that they're going to use to deliver the oxygen, but I expect that's like the missing link.

I think probably just like a pirate, you would carry the crystal in your mouth, like in your teeth. It's like a pirate. Yeah. You know how the pirates carry the knife in their teeth? Yeah. You could carry the crystal in your teeth with the only problem being then you wouldn't be able to carry your knife because you have the crystal.

Where the hell are you going to keep your knife?

I don't know. Anyways, though, check out the article. It's pretty sick. So another thing that I tweeted was about baking soda. Speaking of oxygen and baking soda is something that's been studied for a long time as a nutrient or ergogenic aid or whatever you'd like to call it, that could potentially give you enhanced sports performance by buffering hydrogen ion buildup as you're exercising. Because as you produce lactic acid, you get this hydrogen ions. You get these hydrogen ions kicked off, your ph begins to fall, your blood becomes more acidic and the consumption of bicarbonate, AKA baking soda. You know, sodium bicarbonate is something that can buffer this type of, this type of acidic buildup, but it's something that hasn't really been researched for endurance too much as much as very, very short, high intensity efforts. And so there was this study that came out that investigated basically consumption of bicarbonate consumption of these PH buffers in cyclists. And these cyclists during a high intensity cycling test in which they basically had to ride as hard as they could for a long period of time, they were able to go four and a half minutes longer when they ingested. And here's the amount, 0.3 grams of baking soda per kilogram of body weight. And so I figured out that for somebody about my size, you've got about, I believe, eight grams in a teaspoon. So that'd be around like four to five teaspoons. Not a ton, but a decent amount.

As much as I thought, four to.

Five teaspoons of baking soda. And again, if you want to do this calculation yourself at 0.3 grams per kilogram, and we'll put a link to the article in the show notes as well. So you consume this and you want to consume it slowly. They mixed it in about right around 0.7 liters of water. So think about like a liter sized soda bottle. You'd have like a big glass of water, you'd put all your baking soda in there. You sip it slowly because it can trigger gastric distress or what we like to call diarrhea. If you drink it too quickly and then you go out and you do your hard efforts and anything that is above your lactic acid threshold right where you're producing lactic acid, this could actually help you. And these cyclists did not experience the same type of stomach distress as has been demonstrated in some of the research. So a couple of quick things. First of all, I don't know if you're familiar with, have you heard of beta alanine supplementation? Brock? Beta alanine is a popular buffer. It's like something you can purchase for large amounts of money at health food stores and supplement outlets. This stuff performed better than beta alanine in terms of acting as a buffer. So there's that to take into consideration. And then the other thing to take into consideration is that there has been another study that showed when you load with baking soda for several days, going into a very hard event, like say a race, that it introduces some alkalinity into your body that may also help with this hydrogen ion buffering. And I actually know some people who will start their day with some apple cider vinegar and some baking soda in water. And it's because this is such an alkalinic drink to start your day with. And it turns out that if you make this a daily practice, starting off your day with something alkalinic, you may actually have better lactic acid buffering capacity. So I currently start every single day with a glass of water. Typically I'll squeeze a little bit of lemon juice in there. Sometimes I put some oil of oregano in, but based off of this, I'm thinking about dropping about a teaspoon or so of baking soda in there too. So.

Interesting. You know, there's one other thing that the studies have shown with baking soda that if you, if you actually leave it in your pants long enough, you'll stop smelling like onions.

You know, it's funny, but it's actually true. Like it can actually work as a little bit of like, you know, a perspiration soaker upper. So yeah, putting food in your pants is fun, kids. All right. And then finally speaking of putting food in your pants, let's talk about post workout meals. So I wanted to bring to folks's attention a paper that's actually been out for almost a year now, but it's called Nutrient Timing Revisited. Is there a post exercise anabolic window? It's a very good article. And again, I'll link to this one in the show notes too, because it goes into the fact that despite the claims that you have to eat right after a workout, right. That you have this 20 minute window of opportunity to maximize muscle gain or to maximize the partitioning of nutrients that you eat into muscle tissue, the fact is that all of the studies that have been done on eating a post workout meal and the benefits of a post workout meal have been done in subjects. Excuse me, that sparkling water. Have been done in subjects who are fasted. And unless you are working out in a fasted state, there is no need to prioritize a post workout meal. And what literature shows is the window of time that allows you to use amino acids to repair muscle tissue or to take carbohydrates and get them into muscle to be stored away as glycogen is actually closer to four to five hours in terms of your post workout nutrition. Assuming you've eaten a pre workout meal.

That'S much more reasonable.

It's interesting. Yeah. So you don't have to drop everything you're doing and rush away to go mix up your protein shake. Now granted, there is a little bit of an anabolic effect from protein, meaning that if you're bodybuilding, you're trying to just pack on as much muscle as possible. And we've talked about this on the show before, One of the best Strategies is small 20 to 30 gram portions of protein split up throughout the day. But if you're just working out, you're trying to get in shape, maybe even you're trying to lose weight and shed body fat. You can get away with not eating right after the workout if you have had a pre workout meal, meaning that your blood amino acids and your blood sugars have been elevated. A pre workout meal. So the article goes into a lot more when it comes to the actual enzymatic mechanisms behind why a pre workout meal allows you to not have to exercise post workout. But I thought I'd at least bring the article to folks attention and point out the most important part of the article, which is that that post workout meal importance is possibly not quite as important as you may have been led to believe by that darn protein powder salesman and gnc. So there you go.

Listener Q and A.

Hey Ben, this is Jeff Grant with Steelfit and Unbeatable Mind checking in with you on a couple things. One, I wanted to say you did a great job with your presentation at the UM, retreat. We got a lot of excellent feedback about it, so well done there my friend. Second thing is, got to share a funny story with you. So at the party after the retreat, several people came up to me and they were asking questions about the squatty potty. And it seems that a lot of people still, even after you talked about it, didn't understand that it was a stool for the feet and they were thinking of a child's potty, like a training potty, that you would actually poop on the squatty potty and then dump that in the toilet. So that was funny enough that that's the visualization people had in their minds or a lot of people. And even better though is you went on in your presentation to say that when you're traveling and you don't have it with you, you'll just drag the office chair, drag a chair from your hotel room into the bathroom. So just get this in your mind. When people are thinking that you're actually somehow pooping on the squatty potty and dumping it, and then now they're thinking that you're bringing in a chair from the hotel room, the image they had is that you were pooping on the chair. And it's just, it was really, really funny to hear this from multiple people. And they were trying to figure out how you did that. And then they were thinking that they hope to never be in a hotel room after you've been there. So gave me a big, big laugh. So I made a note when I got back home to Zurich to, to check in with you and share this story. So hope all is well. Take care and I hope you enjoyed the laugh. All the best.

I experienced the same thing as Jeff. A bunch of people. I just sort of overheard a bunch of people talking about like, oh, I can't believe he does that on a hotel room chair. I didn't correct them, though. I was like, can you believe it?

Yeah. This may be good information for people to know about how to poop. Pooping is not that complex. I know it's mostly just getting stuff out of a hole on your bottom. But the Squatty potty, the way that you use it right is it sits in front of your toilet and both of your feet are on the actual surface of the squatty potty, and it raises your feet up higher than they would normally be, almost creating the sensation that your toilet is a hole in the ground rather than a raised seat that you sit on. And so once you are up in that squatting position, then you're going to the bathroom, not on the floor or on the chair, you're going in the toilet. You're just basically kind of hovered above the toilet or with your butt lightly planted on the toilet rather than sitting on the toilet, which, you know, as I explained in that podcast slash presentation, kinks your puborectalis angle and keeps you constipated and doesn't allow you to defecate as efficiently as you normally would. And I know that efficient defecation is a goal for many, many of our listeners.

It should be.

So that's all it is, is you're going to the bathroom in the toilet, not on the floor, not on the chair.

Toilet is still the repository for your feces.

The toilet is still where everything goes. It's just the way that you are sitting, or more appropriately, not sitting when you go. So of course, if you go to the Squatty Potty website and we'll link to it in the show notes, because we actually we're an affiliate of Squatty Potty, which means if you buy a squatty potty, you can support the show. So you can feel good about yourself in many ways. You can feel good that you're pooping well. You can feel good that you supported the show. You can feel good that your puborectal is happy. It's happy down there. So check it all out. BenGreenfulFitness.com 301 we'll put a link to our Squatty Potty and you can even get it in bamboo, which is something they should have, I think, called Bam. Poo. That's what I would have called it. But anyways. So let's jump into our first question.

I am pleased to accept your waist.

Hi, Ben, it's Anne from Boston. I'm calling because I recently went to the dentist and she told me that I have a cavity forming in between two of my back teeth. She said that it was just in the enamel and so she didn't need to do any drilling or do anything to fix it at the moment and said that sometimes these types of cavities can stabilize or even reverse. And I was wondering if you had any suggestions for stopping the cavity from getting bigger or to actually reverse the tooth decay. That's already happened. Thank you.

I didn't know that cavities could reverse themselves. I thought you were just doomed. Once you had a bit of a cavity starting, it was just a matter of time.

Yeah. And that's a common belief that cavities can't be reversed or can't be healed and that the only solution is to, of course get part of your tooth drilled out and then filled up with synthetic material that festers in your mouth and fills you with plastic, sometimes metals and stuff that's technically not healthy.

Money and pain and suffering.

Yeah, but there was a study published in, no surprise here, the British Medical Journal, because they just have crappy teeth. Let's face it, I've insulted our London and our Dubai listeners. But anyway, study published in the British Medical Journal. Not all of the Brits have bad teeth. Not any of you who listen to this podcast do. But it is kind of a stereotype, right?

It is, yeah.

So anyways, the study showed that cavities and tooth decay could be healed or reversed with diet. And they did this study on a bunch of children with cavities and they put them in three different diet groups. They had diet one, eating a standard diet with oatmeal. And it's important to know this will come into play later. Oatmeal is really rich in phytic acid. Group two consumed their normal diet and they supplemented with vitamin D. And then group three ate a grain free diet and took vitamin D. So they found that group one, the group who had a diet high in grains and oatmeal and stuff like that, along with a ton of phytic acid, which you find in grains, especially grains that haven't been prepared properly. Right. Grains that haven't been soaked and sprouted and fermented.

Does anybody eat them that way still?

What, soaking and sprouting and fermenting?

No, not soaking Sprouting and fermenting.

Oh, sure. I mean, the hell people whole wheat food from the grocery store and eat oatmeal all the time. Porridge. Porridge. So they had an increase in cavities that group, Group two had an improvement in cavities and less cavities formed in group two. They were consuming their normal diet, so they weren't adding in all this oatmeal, but they supplemented with vitamin D. And then group three. Group three was the group who followed a grain free diet that had vegetables, fruits, meat, milk, and they supplemented with vitamin D. They saw the greatest improvements and they actually had nearly all of their cavities healed. So it's really, really interesting and there's a really good book about this called Cure Tooth Decay. I'll put a link to this book in the show notes for any of you who want to get this book. But it's written by a dentist who has helped many of his patients reverse their tooth decay because he of course, is not a fan of fillings and believes that you can prevent and heal cavities with nutrition. So what I'd like to jump into are some of the things that you can actually do to reverse tooth decay. Because while this study is interesting, I want to get into the nitty gritty of how to reverse cavities naturally. Of course, it's probably important to mention one of the most well respected dentists in the healthosphere who ever lived, and that's Weston A. Price. And this is the guy who was a dentist. He lived in the early 1900s and he traveled around the world searching to discover what causes tooth decay. And he found this very big link between eating modern foods and cavities. And he found a bunch of indigenous tribes that weren't eating these modern foods that had perfect teeth and almost no tooth decay. But once they got exposed to a western diet, they got tooth decay, they had bone loss, they experienced a greater incidence of chronic illness. And he chronicled all this and recorded all this, and there's amazing pictures of all the things that contributed to tooth decay. But if you put together his findings along with this other book called the one that I mentioned earlier, the Cure Tooth Decay Book. If you put all this information together, you find basically four things that cause tooth decay. And if you can address these four things, then you can reverse cavities. The first is, of course, sugar. And everybody, including the American Dental association, of course, has shown that the acids and sugar destroy your tooth enamel that results in tooth decay. Interestingly, endurance athletes recently were shown to have more tooth decay, probably partially due to the fact that they're just eating more like sugar while they're out there exercising. Yeah.

When you get home from a long effort and you've been eating the goos, you can just feel it on your teeth. It's like a layer film.

Yep, exactly. So all the. All those triathletes and marathoners and Brits with their teeth falling out. So sugar feeds this oral bacteria, and that prevents the healthy flow of your salivary and your dental fluids. It's very acidic. It can decalcify. It can demineralize the structural content of teeth. Interestingly, it can do some similar things to bone, too. So, of course, you want to be careful of sweeteners. Stevia, of course, is the best way to go if you want to eat something that's in fact alkalinic, not acidic. So the next thing would be phytic acid, which I mentioned earlier. What that is, is it's something you'll find in grains. You'll also find it in nuts, you'll find it in seeds, you'll find it in beans. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat those foods, but I'm saying you should prepare them properly. The main reason phytic acid is so concentrated in these modern foods is because we are no longer, as I mentioned earlier, engaging in these ancient food preparation techniques like sprouting or fermentation. You know, like sourdough bread is the only kind of bread I eat because sourdough fermentation kills off just about all the phytic acid. You can also, like, you know, soak and rinse your oatmeal to get rid of the phytic acid. You can soak your grains, you can soak your beans. You know, there are plenty of soak charts out there, and we just have tons of glass mason jars in our house, right? Where when we get grains and we get beans, they're always cared for properly. But what phytic acid does is it blocks phosphorus availability and it binds to minerals that are necessary for oral health, like calcium and magnesium and iron and zinc, so you can't use them for your teeth. It decreases magnesium absorption by about 60%. It decreases zinc absorption by about 20%. So it not only does not allow you to absorb the minerals in your food, but it leaches minerals out of your body and your bones and your teeth. So phytic acids are something to avoid. And unless you're willing to do or to find foods like grains and beans and nuts and seeds that have been soaked and sprouted and Fermented, then you shouldn't be eating them. If you want to reverse cavities, and I know that's a tough line to toe, but it is what you have to do if you really want to reverse cavities. Number three would be to consume a certain type of food that's got all of the vitamins and the minerals that are necessary for healthy dental fluid flow and to help you maintain strong teeth.

Dental fluid flow.

Dental fluid flow. So basically just like the production of your salivary juices. So it's got a ton of calcium, ton of vitamin K, 2 ton of vitamin D3, magnesium, phosphorus, all the fat soluble vitamins that you need. And that would be raw dairy. And you can do that via goat's milk. You can do it via like a, like a good organic grass fed cow's milk. You can do it via raw cheeses, you can use organic grass fed butter. But basically raw dairy is one of the best things that you can do for your teeth. And of course, you know, as I've talked about before, like, nature gives us clues, right? Nature gives us clues. Like, you know, avocados are good for your testicles, walnuts are good for your brain. You know, these are shaped like those specific body parts, carrots and celery. I'll let your imagination go wild, but.

I don't want my testicles to look like an avocado. That's terrifying.

Like an avocado. Testicles hung like two big green avocados. Anyways though, in the hammock, you know, milk is white and I know this sounds like a stretch, but, you know, nature gives us clues. Milk is this nice white stuff, good for teeth, good for bones, and it's because of all these vitamins and minerals that are in it. So go out of your way to find some, some good, raw, healthy, organic dairy. If you have cavities and you want to reverse them and then the last thing is what you are brushing your teeth with. So I would recommend that you mineralize your toothpaste. You find some type of fluoride free toothpaste. Because I'm not a huge fan of what fluoride does once it gets past your teeth. And you can actually make your own toothpaste that is full of good minerals. So the way that you can do this is you get coconut oil, okay? You go about two parts coconut oil to one part baking soda. So not only can you use the baking soda to work out harder, you can also use it to reverse cavities. So you can use, let's Say you're going to use about 4 tablespoons of coconut oil. So you'd put 2 tablespoons of baking soda. And you can just use a little cup or bowl or glass jar for this. If you want a little sweetness, you can add a touch of stevia. So just like a tiny, tiny bit of stevia, it goes a long way. And then add a good essential oil. I like peppermint. Peppermint essential oil is great. It's like a little neurotropic. It wakes you up, it's stimulating and it gives it a nice flavor. And then the last thing, and this is the key, you get some trace minerals, like you can get trace liquid minerals. And these are like little droplets that you can get. And you put about 20 drops or so of that, about a one to one with the oil. So like 20 drops of peppermint oil and about 20 drops of these trace minerals. And you mix all that together and it's like this remineralizing toothpaste. And it tastes good too. Plus you'll save money because it takes a second to make and you'll have this toothpaste. One other thing I want to mention because I've been doing a lot of this lately, I do two things for my teeth. I use a water pick. So once a week I use a water pick and I just get off Amazon. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can see what it looks like. But it's like flossing your teeth except it's a high jet stream of water. I was advised I go to what's called a holistic dentist. They only use organic materials to clean your teeth and to work in your mouth. And they told me that I should start using a water pick. So I went and bought one. And it's amazing. I put a little bit of oil of oregano in there so it's got a little bit of antibacterial action. And just once a week I go through every single tooth of the water pick. It takes like three minutes and it's like flossing on steroids. So I use a water pick. Then the other thing that I do about once a week is I do oil pulling. And the way that I do that is you can get a little bit of coconut oil. You only need like a tablespoon or so. And if you want even more of like an antiseptic effect, you can add a little bit of oregano oil to it. Clove oil is fine. Tea tree is another good one. But you just put about A tablespoon of this in your mouth and you swish it for around 20 minutes. So you swish it through your teeth and around your teeth, all over in your mouth. Then you rinse out your mouth, you spit it out and your mouth just feels like clean and amazing after you finish this oil pulling. It's a century old practice in Ayurvedic medicine, but it's a really good kind of oral detoxification procedure, meaning that it can remove bacteria from the mouth and you know, help with things like gingivitis, it can help with headaches and it can help to whiten your teeth. But it can also be something that you can throw in there as you are trying to naturally reverse cavities. So it's called oil pulling. So amazing feeling in your mouth after you finish oil pulling. So those are some of the things that I would do. And of course, even if you don't have a cavity, these are things that you can do so that you don't get a cavity. So you are now equipped with all of the knowledge that you need to not look like you came from Britain.

Hey, Ben, Ellie here. This is more of a vanity question than an endurance exercise based question. But it's important for when you're smiling for those post race photos. Do you have any natural remedies for whitening your teeth? I've heard that the crest white strips and things like that really do number on the enamel. Is there anything that you can recommend that would whiten your teeth that wouldn't also damage your body?

Thanks.

Love the podcast.

You know, before we answer Ellie's question, I'm just going to correct misconception that I think you've got because you're American. British people are known for crooked teeth. It's actually Americans that are known for cavity ridden teeth.

Oh yes, that's true. Beautiful, beautiful white, white crooked teeth. Yes, yes. I'm sorry to all of our UK fans about everything that I have done to you so far in today's podcast. So let's go ahead and shift the blame here to teeth whitening strips. Teeth whitening strips. I used to be a fan of these things. I thought they were so cool. Right? You put them on your teeth and they somehow magically clean your teeth and you don't have to do anything to them at all aside from just put on these tooth whitening strips. Well, if you look at the ingredient label of tooth whitening strips. Have you looked at the ingredient label of tooth whitening strips? I haven't.

I've never been Compelled to try one of those.

Yeah.

So terrifying.

If you look at the ingredients, you're going to get polyvinyl pyrrolidone, carbiprol 956. You'll find sodium acid, pyrophosphate.

That sounds good.

Polysorbate. And if you're listening carefully, you'll understand that most of these are like plastics. Disodium edta, the textured strip is made of polyethylene. The backing is made of polyester. So you're essentially dissolving plastic in your mouth. Granted, there are some things in there that will help to whiten. Like you've got some. Typically they'll put locust, bean gum, and some fats like triglycerides and stuff in there. And of course, hydrogen peroxide, which is what produces that whitening effect. But ultimately, you're getting all of that along with a bunch of stuff that are known. Endocrine disruptors and toxins and plastics. And since your oral mucosa is extremely vascular tissue, chemicals can diffuse across those membranes extremely easily. They have easy access to your systemic circulation via your jugular vein. And you're essentially plasticizing yourself. When you use teeth whitening strips and.

Of course, in your mouth is one of the favorite ways to deliver medications. That's how effective it is.

Exactly. So a lot of times, teeth whitening strips instructions tell you to brush your teeth first with toothpaste before you put the strips on. And let's say you're using a regular synthetic toothpaste and not using something similar to the one that I just described earlier. You look at toothpaste, you've got sodium fluoride, you've got sodium hexametaphosphate, you've got a bunch of added colors, you've got sodium lauryl sulfate, polyacimer 407, polyethylene oxide, you've got a bunch of other things in toothpaste, typically about 20 to 30 different chemicals found between the teeth, teeth whitening strip and then the toothpaste together. And you're kind of getting to the point where if you're using the tooth whitening strip plus the toothpaste, and then rinsing with your. With your chlorinated fluoridated tap water, you're setting yourself up for a little bit of a toxic cesspool in your mouth.

Whenever I hear about this kind of stuff, I always wonder, like, the people who complain about vaccinations and flu vaccines and stuff like that, are they doing this? Because that's way worse.

The healthiest people I know, are using natural tooth powder or natural toothpaste or making their own toothpaste and, you know, doing some of the things for their teeth that I just talked about earlier and understanding that your skin is a mouth, your mouth, your mouth is a mouth, believe it or not. And, you know, just like I've talked about before on the show, you don't put stuff on your body or in your mouth that you wouldn't feel comfortable eating. And frankly, the ingredients in tooth whitening strips are something I'm not comfortable anymore putting into my mouth, because there are natural ways that you can whiten your teeth rather than putting all these chemicals in your mouth. Let's hear it.

Bring them on.

Natural ways to whiten your teeth. Let's jump into it. I'm going to give you three really good ways to do this. So first of all, before we jump into why these work, you need to understand why your teeth would lose their whiteness in the first place. So your teeth are actually made up of four different tissues. You've got your enamel, which is that white covering that protects your teeth. Then you have dentin, and that supports the enamel, and it's this hard yellow material, and it carries nerves. And then you have pulp, and pulp is at the center of your tooth, and that has blood vessels, and it's got lymph vessels. It's where a lot of the fluids travel. And then finally, you have cementum, and cementum covers the root of your teeth. So you have these four different tissues. Enamel, dentin, and then your pulp and your cementum.

I remember learning that in grade two, but I haven't thought about it since then.

Yeah, what's it been, three, four years? Anyways, what happens is that some foods and drinks can stain the enamel, but many of them can break down the enamel and weaken the enamel. And as the enamel breaks down, you get that yellow dentin underneath that shows. So the trick here is to either prevent the enamel from breaking down or to strengthen the enamel. So I'm going to give you three good ways to do this. The first is to get something into your mouth that is very alkaline and that will also scrub away surface stains that might have occurred from food, juice, coffee, et cetera, that get teeth back to their wider shade. You guessed it. This podcast is actually brought to you by arm and hammer. We should write to them. Baking soda, sodium bicarbonate. Boom. Once again, if you're not already buying it. For reversing cavities and for being able to ride a bike for four and a Half minutes longer. You can now get it to turn your teeth white. So just basically a mixture of baking soda and water, and you can take a few teaspoons of baking soda. Just enough water and actually, lemon juice works really well, too. But just enough of that to form a paste. Super duper. Easy to do this in, like, a little glass bowl or a jar. And you can put this paste onto your toothbrush and leave it on your teeth for about a minute or so. Okay. And then just rinse it off. So you just apply the paste to your teeth with a toothbrush. You don't have to brush that much. And then you rinse, and that's it.

Awesome.

If you want, by the way, the baking soda to stick to your teeth a little bit better, wipe your teeth first. Like, get, like, a paper towel or whatever and. Or a napkin and wipe any extra saliva off your teeth, and the baking soda will stick a little bit better. So that's one thing. That's a pro tip. The next tip is a scrub. And you can make this really cool scrub using strawberries. And strawberries are high in vitamin C. That helps to break down plaque, that makes your teeth look yellow. And strawberries also have this enzyme called malic acid, and that helps to remove surface stains off of your teeth. Now, what you do is you mix the strawberry with salt. And salt is kind of like an abrasive, right? It's kind of like a scrub, so that can scrub away some of the gunk on your teeth. And then, of course, as is the theme of this podcast, you add a little baking soda. So what you do is you take anywhere between one and three strawberries, just a few, you know, small handful of strawberries. You do a pinch of sea salt, and then about a half teaspoon of baking soda, and you mash all this together. You can mash it with just like a spoon, right? Like, into a little glass bowl. And then again, wipe any extra saliva off your teeth with a paper towel. And then you apply this to your teeth. And rather than letting this one sit for a minute, let this one sit for about five minutes, and then rinse. You could do this once a week. You do it nightly if you want to, but that's also another great tooth whitening protocol.

And they add some dark chocolate to it.

Mmm, that would be really good. Strawberries, dark chocolate, baking soda, sea salt. You smile, your teeth are all brown. Do you like my tooth whitening? Actually, if you rinse that, I don't know if chocolate has anything in it, though. That would actually assist us other than tastiness. So the last thing, and this is something I've already described, would be oil pulling. And the lauric acid specifically that you're going to find in coconut oil that they incidentally put in teeth whitening strips, the same stuff as in coconut oil. It can rid your teeth of the bacteria that's found in plaque that can make your teeth yellow. And of course, this helps with gum health as well. You actually get pretty nice breath when you do the whole coconut oil thing. But you just push it and swish it and pull it through your mouth for. You can go 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. What I do is I, before bed, I lie in bed, I read a book, and I just swish all the coconut oil in through my mouth and saliva drips down onto my chest. And it's amazing. It's so sexy.

I have a feeling I'd forget and swallow it after two minutes.

Yeah, you shouldn't swallow it because it's got a bunch of bacteria and stuff in it. So you want to spit it and rinse. So anyways, those are the three things you can do. You can do a scrub with baking soda, you can do strawberry salt baking soda scrub, and then you can do coconut oil pulling. So all sorts of ways that we can care for our teeth. Oh, and by the way, for the record, I've never had a cavity, never had my wisdom teeth removed because I didn't need to, because my teeth just all kind of formed the right way. And for years and years, I've just kind of taken natural good care of my teeth and knock on wood, have had zero teeth issues. Zero. So there you go.

I, on the other hand, have no teeth. I just gum everything really carefully.

Yeah, yeah. But he does take his chompers, his fake chompers out of a glass of water and he puts them in before the podcast, even though it's audio, just so he feels good about the way he looks. I sure do, Sonny.

Hi, Ben, this is Deb Gutierrez here. As always, love listening to you and Brock and your podcasts and all of your newsletters, but I was recently reading interesting information on the fact that wheat fields are being harvested with roundup, I guess, also known as glyphosate, which may be the so called reason that people are, or believe they are gluten intolerant when they're really ingesting some pretty, pretty severely toxic chemicals. I myself happen to be celiac, and still I'm not a huge believer in gluten anyhow for its obvious Inflammatory things. However, curious to know as always, what.

Your.

Researches that you've looked at on at this is about and if you have any thoughts about that, once again, I just love all your information and have a great day.

Glyphosate.

Glyphosate, that's active, nasty stuff. Yep. Active ingredient in Roundup. And the use of it has dramatically risen over the past 15 years. Years. And that seems to be correlated with the rise in celiac disease. And while some people might think, well, that's the same as the correlation between whatever, shark attacks and summer. Right. Because more people are in the. In the pool. Oh, I see, they're in the pool. Yeah. Or in the.

Get the sharks out of the pool.

Hoping there's no sharks in the pool. But anyways, there, there are some physiological mechanisms via which glyphosate can actually promote celiac disease and gluten intolerance. So celiac disease is this reaction to gluten that affects your GI system primarily. And glyphosate has been shown to damage your gut flora and cause many of the chronic disease that are rooted in gut dysfunction. So the thing about glyphosate is that when you expose wheat to a toxic chemical like glyphosate, the wheat releases more seeds. It kind of goes to seed as it dies, and that results in a slightly greater yield of the seed. Glyphosate also kills rye grass, which is a major weed problem for wheat growers, and it's resistant to many other herbicides. So the glyphosate can really help out with a greater yield of wheat and also control of some of these weeds. The problem is that as we've been using more and more glyphosate to accomplish this, many of the of the wheat supply is contaminated with glyphosate. If you're buying non organic wheat, most of it is probably contaminated with glyphosate. And that means that a large percentage of processed foods that are made from wheat also are contaminated with glyphosate. And what happens is the villi in your gut get destroyed by glyphosate and then that reduces your ability to absorb vitamins, to absorb minerals. And then the wheat has very, very concentrated levels of gliadin because it's going to seed as it dies. And those concentrated levels of gliadin are essentially the same as the texture of human hair. It makes modern commercial wheat that's been sprayed with glyphosate or sprayed with herbicide very, very difficult for your stomach to break. Down, it produces wheat that's highly indigestible. So the end result of this is that your body develops an immune reaction to this glyphosate exposed wheat. And that immune reaction manifests in a lot of the symptoms of celiac and gluten intolerance. You know, gas bloating, constipation, brain fog, all these things that glyphosate can cause. So there are some other things that glyphosate can do. You've got sulfur, sulfur pathway, and that plays a really important part in health. And when your gut is inflamed, which is what glyphosate can do, your body's ability to transport sulfate is pretty significantly impaired. So when you impair that sulfate pathway, it can affect dopamine production, melatonin production, serotonin production, adrenaline production. That's. That's why kids who eat a lot of wheat, like modern commercial wheat, a lot of times they'll show symptoms of like ADD and adhd. And that's because a lot of those neurotransmitters are significantly affected in adults. It usually manifests in things like sleep disorders and depression, things along those lines. But when I'm working with clients who have neurological issues, trouble sleeping, depression, things along those lines, one of the first things I do is I have them go gluten free and specifically try to get them to avoid moderate commercialized wheat. So a few other things that you should know about glyphosate. First of all, when you look at tryptophan, tryptophan is one of the products of the pathway that is in your gut that glyphosate disrupts. So your body is typically supposed to grab tryptophan and turn it into serotonin. And too much serotonin can cause a lot of gut distress. And what happens is you get increased serotonin production when you're consuming foods that are really, really rich in glyphosates. So there's all sorts of issues. Glyphosate chelates minerals, so it can inhibit your ability to absorb the. Yeah, manganese, iron, copper. You know, a lot of these minerals are affected. It chelates minerals in your gut. Your gut bacteria has to use these minerals to thrive and to grow. So you get a disruption of gut flora. Once you disrupt gut bacteria, gut flora, you put yourself at risk for, like, candida, yeast, fungus, infections, stuff like that. So if you are somebody who has been eating foods that are high in glyphosates, one of the things that you should consider doing is Detoxing glyphosates. So if you look at like meat and factory farmed animals, they're typically raised on a diet that's pretty rich in glyphosates because they're fed these grains and that bioaccumulates in the tissues. So many farmers can detox these animals and a lot of farmers are doing this now of glyphosate by giving them charcoal, like activated charcoal. And you can also take charcoal capsules, and I actually recommend that you take charcoal capsules if you're consuming any type of product. Processed foods that consume wheat and you don't know about the source of the wheat. Hummus is another popular detox. You can get in like liquid form or solid form. It's also known as like clay, like edible clay. It's this dark organic material you'd usually find in soils that can.

Oh, so not the chickpea spread. When you said that, I was like.

No, not the chickpea spread like the clay H u m U s. Not H u m m U s, Although the latter is quite delicious on sourdough bread. And by the way, if people are scoffing about detox, I just finished an article that's going to get released next week on quickanddirtytips.com and the entire article is written as a rebuttal to the recent article that came out.

Oh, that big article.

There's a big article release that detail. Detoxing is a myth. And the fact is that bioaccumulation of chemicals and toxins in tissues is demonstrated in thousands of studies. And there are many, many things from like spirulina to milk thistle extract to dandelion root to charcoal to this humus that have all been shown to be able to release a lot of these toxins and chemicals that have bioaccumulated. So ultimately, I would definitely detox. If you've been eating a glycogen phosphate rich diet or I'm sorry, glyphosate rich diet. And then, yeah, I mean, absolutely, if you struggle with gluten intolerance, celiac, anything like that, you should go way out of your way to avoid any foods that have been exposed to Roundup.

So I think talking about the hummus and sourdough made you hungry. I can hear your stomach crack.

Yeah. And if you look out the door and your neighbor has the big tank attached to their back as they wander around their front yard spraying their yard with Roundup, you need to go out there and just tackle them, drop, drop.

Punch them right in the face.

That's right. Right in the choppers.

Hey, guys. Enjoy the podcast. Ben. Saw you up in Vermont. I was standing there at the corner after the memory test just before the rope climb. I was actually running the Ultra Beast on Sunday. Next year, you got to get out there with us and do the Ultra Beast. Anyway, my question is regarding pots and pans. Spent stupid amounts of money on what I thought were good pots and pans, only to discover they were crap. Just curious what you use, Ben, and starting to really worry about what's seeping in as they fall apart, the surfaces fall apart, what's seeping into your food as you cook it. I don't know if you just kind of go outside, grab a stick, and roast everything now that you're living out in the woods or not, but love to hear your opinion and what you found. Thanks, guys.

So do you remember seeing Jared during the race in Vermont by the rope climb there?

I remember the memory test in Vermont. So the beast, the spartan beast, you got up to the very, very top of the mountain. There was, like, this board with all these numbers on it, and he had to look at the board, and there was a series of numbers and a special word next to your race number, and you had to memorize that phrase, and at some point during the race, you had to spit that phrase back out. It's like, two hours later, as I'm running up this field, this guy's standing there with a clipboard, and he's like, what's your phrase? What's your number? And I actually still remember it. It was because I had to say it. I just, like, was saying it to myself as I was running. It was Uniform 953-3323. That was my. That was my number. I still remember it. I had it so amped, and if you miss it, then you do, like, 30 burpees. Amazingly, some people actually carried sharpies up the side of the mountain so they could ride it down on their arm.

Oh, cheaters.

Yeah, I know. They. Yeah.

Oh, and they call Lance Armstrong a cheater.

Exactly. Exactly. In my opinion, sharpies are right up there with. With epo, testosterone, and other performance enhancing drugs. So, anyways, Jared, I was so focused on spitting my number back out, I don't remember seeing you in the memory.

Presumably, he was holding his crappy pots and pans and waving them.

Yes. Okay, so pots and pans. What do I use and what shouldn't you use? Let's. Let's first talk about what you need to be careful with when it Comes to pots and pans and you know, of course we, most of us are aware of this kind of nasty chemical that you find in Teflon, right? It's called pfoa, Perfluorooctanoic acid, pfoa. And that's been so slippery. Tumors, blood, lipid changes, liver damage, hormone imbalances, reproductive issues. It's got a lot of different health issues. So a lot of this nonstick cookware actually has Teflon in it. And so that's one of the things you really want to be careful of is Teflon. Anything that has Teflon stay far away from. But there's a few other things that you want to be careful with in addition to avoiding nonstick aluminum. Aluminum conducts heat pretty well. It's usually the least expensive options when it comes to cookware. But aluminum, when it's heated, leaches into food. And the problem with that is because of the connection between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease and the ability of aluminum to build up in neuronal tissue. So any type of aluminum based cookware I would stay away from. I'm not a huge fan of aluminum. And there's no coating or enamel or anything you can put on aluminum that gets rid of those leaching risks. So aluminum cookware would be a no. You've also got ceramic cookware. Ceramic is pretty popular. But the problem with the glaze that they put on most ceramic cookware, especially like, like foreign made ceramic cookware, like ceramic cookware made in China is it's got lead and that lead is again a heavy metal that can bioaccumulate something to be really careful with. So if you're gonna buy ceramic, ceramic is not bad. Like it's, it's, it's a decent way to cook. But you need to buy American if you're gonna buy ceramic. I don't possibly Canadian. I'm not sure what they do in Canada up there with like the lead or I don't know, we just rub beavers on. Yeah, it's laced with beaver hair and poutine. But the ceramic cookware in America is okay. Just be careful and don't use ceramic with really acidic foods. Like, don't, don't get a lot of like lemon and marinades and vinegar and stuff like that on them because that can increase leaching in the, in the ceramic cookware. I'm surprised.

I thought ceramic was going to be one of the, one of the recommended ones, but I hadn't thought of the glaze.

Gotta be careful of the lead stainless steel Stainless steel is. It's also like aluminum. Pretty inexpensive. It's lightweight, but good quality. Stainless steel cookware usually has a copper or an aluminum bottom, which is really, really good for heat conductivity, but it does have leaching potential. So. Damn it, it's got a little bit less leaching potential. You're ruining my kitchen. Than aluminum. But in addition to aluminum and copper, it also often has nickel in it. And so, you know, I personally actually do because I don't, you know, I eat at restaurants and stuff. I don't always know what stuff is cooked in. What I do is January, which is coming up soon. I just do a metal detox. Like every January, I use this stuff called Metal Free. It's called Metal Free. It's made down in Florida.

Oh, is that Dr. Minkoff's?

Yeah, Dr. Minkoff makes it. But anyways, the reason I use that is because of these type of metal exposure and the fact that you really can't live in a bubble. So Metal Free is what I use. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But I just go 30 days every January, I use this, this Metal Free stuff just because, again, like, I realized that you can't always control what your food has been cooked in. So the next.

Come to my house.

Yeah. Copper. Copper. Obviously not a great idea. Very, very easy for it to leach, especially if it comes in contact with acidic foods like wine and tomatoes and citrus juices and a lot of things that things are typically cooked in. So copper I'd be careful with.

It looks so pretty hung above the stove.

It is pretty. And I do actually have four copper mugs that I drink Moscow Mules, out of which are. It's like ginger beer. And what else is in there? It's ginger beer. It's vodka and ginger beer, I believe.

And lemon juice, isn't it, too?

I think it's a lime, actually, that I put in there. Okay. So what we do use primarily is cast iron. A really, really good seasoned cast iron cookware. It's expensive, but not only does it really not have any of this Teflon or other toxic chemicals in it that can leach, but especially for you athletes out there, it actually is a good source of iron. It's okay to have a little bit of iron leached from cookware because the iron can help with anemic, like, symptoms. It can help with iron deficiencies, and it's also. It's really, really safe to cook with. So I'm a huge, huge fan of cast iron. And that's what we use. You can, you can get cast iron kits off of Amazon for yourself for Christmas. I know that it's spendy, but you can also, like, if you do search for like cast iron cookware a lot of times, like on, on Craigslist, places like that, you can find it used. You never know what people were cooking their food in or what they were cooking in their cast iron pots. So be careful buying it used. I would say you never know if someone's been like, I don't know, stewing a squirrel. But ultimately cast iron would be the way to go. And, and we've just gradually built up most of our cookware to be cast irons. Now we have cast iron skillets, cast iron pots, cast iron pans. And that's what most of our stuff is now, is cast iron.

It's great for fending off home intruders as well.

Yeah. So cooking cast iron. And as we talked about in a few podcasts ago, keep your food in glass and yeah, you'll be non toxic and skipping through the pastoral fields naked and healthy.

Why are you naked?

Hey, Ben and Brock, this is John from Arlington, Virginia. Love your podcast. I'm a longtime listener. A couple weeks ago, I suffered a serious heat stroke after finishing marathon and went to the medical tent. My temperature reached 108 degrees. They packed me in ice and gave me an IV. It took about 20 minutes to get my temperature back down to 102.

Do.

Doctors said I showed signs of potential heart problems or possibly a stroke. For those 20 minutes, I really felt like I was fighting for my life. So it was a pretty scary experience. After being in the hospital. My bottles were normal after a couple hours and they released me. Since then I've had a constant headache for about 10 days. But now it's gone and everything seems to be fine. This wasn't my first endurance rape. My fourth marathon, I've done two full Ironman races and several half Ironmans and half marathons. So I've never had an experience like that before. So I have two questions for you. First, I don't want to end up there again, so I want to know what you could recommend to avoid this. I feel like I could have hydrated better and could have had more electrolytes. But I know you're not a fan of electrolytes and I'm just curious what is the right amount of electrolytes to avoid a situation like that? And the second question is, I want to make sure I'm okay. It was a pretty scary experience, especially with the potential Heart issues or stroke. I feel fine. But I still would like to get some checkups and want some recommendations from you as to what kind of checkups I should get to make sure I didn't do any permanent damage to my body. Thanks a lot. Look forward to hearing some feedback. And again, love the podcast.

Thanks.

That sounds very, very unpleasant, John.

Dang. Wow, that's scary.

Yeah, it's totally scary.

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you about how to prevent overheating during exercise, because there's a lot of steps that you can take. But before I do, one of the things, as far as the heart goes, is I have a hidden heart chapter. It's a bonus chapter in my book over@BeyondTrainingBook.com in that chapter, I go into deep detail, but I can tell you the two tests I researched. The two tests that would be affordable for most people to get that would allow you to know if you have electrical abnormalities or structural abnormalities in heart tissue due to excessive strain or excessive exercise. So you can find out if you have what's called ventricular hypertrophy, which is like, enlarged athlete's heart. And you can also find out if you have electrical abnormalities, cardiac arrhythmias. So the two tests that you would want to get. One is an echocardiogram. It's an ultrasound echocardiogram of your heart. Super cool. Yeah.

So fine.

It allows you to. I don't know if it's better than Chuck E. Cheese's, but it's kind of fun, I guess. So you lay there and you get to visualize your heart. So there's that. The. The echocardiogram. Ultrasound echocardiogram.

And then the thing that I found really fun. I should explain why I think it's really cool is you get to watch, like, basically the flaps in your. Yeah. In your ventricles and stuff. So you can see it just sort of, like, open, and all the blood goes rushing in and it slams shut.

Yeah.

It's just. It's really cool to see how your heart actually works.

Yeah, it is. It is pretty cool. Whoa. Jan. Hello.

Maybe I should be what I think is really cool. This is very boring.

No, I don't know why I just yawned anyways, though. The other thing is a stress EKG where you run on a treadmill. You've got leads hooked up to your chest, and you're looking at what your electrical rhythm of your heart is doing at varying intensities, from an easy intensity all the way up to, like, running as hard as you can on a treadmill. And paraventricular contractions or slight abnormalities in your heart rhythm are, believe it or not, pretty typical. Once you get up to a really, really hard intensity, because I had them and I asked my cardiac doc, I'm like, should I be worried about this? And he's like, we pretty much see that in everybody. Like, once you get up to the maximum effort on a treadmill, everybody has these little hiccups in their heart. But if you're experiencing those, like if you're on at a brisk walk and a light jog and you're getting PVCs, that's where you would want to be concerned about. About, you know, the potential that your heart could have been damaged. But ultimately those are the two tests that I do. If you really want the nitty gritty on those tests and the full details.

Of what I found, you wouldn't say a MIPI stress test where they inject the. The radioactive dye and then they can see, like actually see the tissue that's been damaged.

You can.

Doesn't have the perfusion.

Yeah, you can do that, but that's a little bit more spendy involved tests versus like a stress ekg. There's, there's. It's not invasive. Right. Just like an echocardiogram is not invasive. So it's more affordable for most folks. And you know, the latter. The stress ekg, you can get that at most sports performance facilities.

That's true.

Yeah. Yeah.

I had to go to a cardiac lab and luckily I live in Canada, so it wasn't expensive. I mean, it's free. Yeah, but it's. You have to have a good reason to do it though.

Free. Except your taxes. Anyways, let's.

Socialism, dude. It's awesome. Good parts of socialism.

Oh, I'm a capitalist libertarian. Just for the record, I got a.

Full panel blood test done on Monday, of which I found out my liver enzymes were elevated, but. Which is cool that I found that out. But it was also free.

Yeah.

Hooray, socialism.

Okay, let's jump. Anyway, let's jump into heat stroke. So. Heat stroke, they've done a lot of research on it in the military and things like Ironman triathlons in marathons, and there's several different things that can cause it. They found over motivation to be a risk factor, meaning you've been driven too hard. Like two a day, football practices or marches where you're being really pushed. Or even races where you're going harder than you normally should due to peer pressure or the pressure to go outside. What your comfort zone, what your mental comfort zone, what your brain's normal central governor would allow you to do so really. That's why in racing, in practices where you have a coach really pushing you, and also in the military, we tend to see things like heat stroke and, and when you look at the combination of heat and humidity, that's the ultimate one, two punch for heat stroke. Not being acclimated to the heat and dehydration are what research has shown to be the two things that put you at the greatest risk for heat stroke, even though a couple of other things can also increase your risk for heat stroke. One would be your body mass. Right. Like basically the, the bigger you are, the, the harder it is for your body body to cool itself, which is why bigger athletes have a higher risk of heat stroke.

And then that's not just fat, that's muscle as well. It's just size.

Yep. And stimulants as well, amphetamines, ephedra, even very, very high amounts of caffeine, as well as some antihistamines, you know, like even NyQuil and stuff like that in your system that can increase your risk for heat stroke. So actually, incidentally, cocaine can as well. But I don't think many of our listeners are on snow when they're out there in their triathlons and their marathons. Ultimately, most of the stuff that increases your risk for heat stroke is pretty common sense. Right. Don't use a bunch of ephedra. Don't wear clothing that doesn't cool well. Stay hydrated. Make sure you acclimate yourself to heat. Just don't wear clothing and acclimate. Get there in time to wherever you're going to be competing or else do what's called passive acclimation, which is where for four weeks before you go and compete in a hot event, you sit for about every 48 to 72 hours in a dry sauna. Dry sauna is better than a wet sauna for heat acclimation. But basically you expose yourself to heat. Like if I live in a cold climate, like I live in Spokane, Washington, if I were going to go compete in Ironman Hawaii for a good one to two months prior to that race, I'd visit the sauna at the YMCA every two to three days and just sit in there and read magazines for like 20, 30 minutes, sometimes longer than that, just to acclimate. So a few of the things you can do prior to the actual competition itself, one would be to go in really, really well hydrated and to stay well hydrated during. Because there is a link between hydration and what's called rectal temperature, which is typically what the they look at in research to see how high your core temperature was getting. If you're not swallowing an actual capsule that measures the amount of heat buildup.

It's likely where they took his temperature in the medical tent after the race to usually do rectal temperature.

Yep, yep, exactly.

The most reliable.

Yeah.

And the most fun you can cool.

First, they've got some really, really good studies that show that ice water immersion cools runners twice is fast than even like wrapping them in wet towels. A lot of the Marines use ice water cooling. They've done research that has found that when you do like an ice bath, you could probably even do like a cold shower prior to competing in a hot event. It actually does help you to stay cooler during that event itself. So if you have the ability to pre cool, then do it. That's why I really like that in triathlons, for example, like Ironman Hawaii, right. Like you're out there in the ocean for an hour before you hop on the hot bike. And believe it or not, that slight cooling could actually help. Especially since you're not in a wetsuit in a race like that. You're just wearing a regular swimsuit or a speed suit. So you get a little bit less heat buildup. So there's all sorts of things you can do. But those are the two tests that I would do. I'm going to link to a really great article for you over at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. It's obvious that I don't. I'm not really on the Gatorade bandwagon when it comes to their fueling recommendations, but they do have some really, really good research that they do on heat and heat mitigation. So I'll link to that article for you in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 302 now, as far as whether or not you have recovered from heat stroke, basically they have found some research that suggests that heat stroke patients have br brief or lasting heat intolerance. And that means that if you've had heat stroke once, you're going to be more sensitive to the heat. However, they've also found, and there was another interesting study they did back in the 90s, that many heat stroke patients within two months return to normal heat tolerance. So that means that if you're competing, you know, within eight weeks after you've already had a heat stroke, you should be really careful. But A lot of folks return to normal heat tolerance within a couple of months in the Marines where they've done a lot of studies on heat illness and heat stroke, they've found that subsequent heat illness occurs in less than 1% of Marines, meaning that if you get treated early for heat stroke, if you've gone through some of the prevention mechanisms that I just described, it's pretty, pretty possible that you can return to normal competition within literally a matter of a few months without having to worry about excessive and repetitive heat stroke issues. So I'll link to that, to that study for you in the show notes or that it's really more of a paper than a study, but it's just the synopsis of all the research that's been done on heat stroke in sports and causes, prevention, treatment, etc. Really, really good one to read for preventing overheating heating during exercise. So I hope that's helpful, John, and I hope that you recover quickly.

Yeah. Hope you are okay.

Yeah. Oh, and speaking of being okay. A okay, we are going to read review. So as, as we are prone to do every single week, we read a review from itunes. So if you go and leave our show a review in itunes along with a star rating, preferably a five star rating, because if you're gonna leave four stars, why not just leave five? I mean, come on.

Yeah, that's just lame.

Very good. Just say it's perfect. So anyways, if you hear your review read on the show, that means that if you hear it and you email Ben greenfieldfitness.com with your shirt size and your mailing address, we will mail anywhere in the world a Ben Greenfield fitness gear pack. You can buy these and support the show over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com gear where you can get a shirt, a water bottle and a sweet beanie, but you can also just get it for free if you leave a review and you hear your review read on the show. And so now is the time on the show where we sit down and.

We hear some sit down by the fire.

Gentle light our pipes. Gentle piano music or shall we do accordion music? What do you think? Piano or accordion?

Always accordion.

Accordion music. As we read today's review from Prajna Girl titled is Brock or Barack.

All right? I love them both Ben and the Canadian. That's I am. That's you can just call me that. Ben is very intelligent and so is Brok Barack. I like that. Brokbarack keeps Ben down to earth. I think Ben knows so much he kind of forgets to dumb it down for the rest of us. But Brock Barack's follow up questions usually do the trick. That's good. That's my job is dumb things down. I listen to the show or several every day while half the time I am confused and the information seems to contradict itself from previous shows. Ben does a great job of circling back and explaining what he does and his thoughts on studies to make it easier for us to decide what. What might work for us.

Yeah, I'm a good circle backer.

That's. You have a shirt that says that. I think I keep hoping that if I just keep listening to this show, I might actually learn a little something. Thank you guys so much for the show and for keeping me motivated at work. I have a standing workstation and because of you guys, I actually use it. Smiley face.

Wow. Whereas before she just kept. Yeah, she had it but books on it.

Yeah, just kicked it over every once in a while.

Well, Brock, slash Barack. Barack. I think that was a great review and thank you for leaving it prajna girl.

So anyways, for the record, it's Barack.

Yeah, it's B R O C K, not BARACK like the U.S. president.

Or we could lie to the people.

We could you rename you Barack Jason Skywalker Armstrong. I think that that's a great note to end the show on because we've been going for a little while. So if you want the resources for everything we talked about, from the Spartan cruise to my crazy rectal ozone interview with Dr. Mercola to on it to everything that we talked about, head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com302 check it all out. And until next time, have a Great Week.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

Sam.