Dr. Josh Axe: How to Boost Testosterone and Heal Nutrient Deficiencies Naturally | TUH #071

And I want to say this. The thing that irritates me the most about the medical profession and about a lot of doctors today is they're constantly breaking the Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. At one point, they told my mom, you have a 40% chance to live. How is that helping her? Well, it's hurting her. This has happened tens of thousands, if not millions of times, where a guy went in, was diagnosed with liver cancer, and they said, you have three months to live. They then went and did an autopsy. They misdiagnosed him.

He didn't have liver cancer.

No, didn't have liver cancer. Had a small, benign tumor on his liver, could have been removed. He'll live another 30, 40 years. When you take a medication, most people think all of the side effects are on the label. They're not. There's not a single drug that doesn't cause a nutritional deficiency. I've seen every time I had a woman come in, we're getting off birth control. Major candida and yeast issues. So it's been connected to numerous nutritional deficiencies. I also think it's causing and exacerbating hypothyroidism.

The next half decade, I believe that we will see three centuries of medical advancement in half a decade. The reason for that is because.

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything anti aging, longevity, biohacking, and everything in between. As you just heard, we have a very qualified guest on the podcast today is actually somebody that I have been following for years. I've read a number of his books. In fact, my wife said to me before the podcast today, she. She said, I think I've spent about 10,000 doll his collagen over the last 10 years. So you've been a household name in our house even long before I switched careers from the mortality space into the wellness space. And so to have you on the podcast for me is an absolute honor. So welcome to the podcast. Dr. Josh Ax.

Hey, thanks for having me, Gary. Excited to be here.

I'm excited for you to be here.

First off, I'm blown away by your biohacking space here. I mean, the amount of things you. Yeah. The amount of amazing tools you have. And congrats on all the, you know, amazing things you've been doing recently.

Thank you.

Just really. Yeah. So excited to chat.

Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited to chat, too. I told him before he sat down.

I was like, this is going to.

Be an Easy podcast. I'm just so intellectually curious about what you've done over your life and, you know, and, and, and, and, and some of the hardships you've been through and how you solved those. But, you know, to, you know, there's so many directions that we could go. But you know what I love.

And.

We both have a chiropractic origins. I went to National College of Chiropractic, you went to Palmer, and, you know, kind of a functional background. But, you know, I love, you know, the basics of using nutrition, herbs, you know, botanicals, adaptogens to heal the body. Yeah. Because, you know, philosophically, I'm of the mindset that we are not as diseased or pathological as we think we are. We're. We're very often nutrient deficient, and sometimes just helping support the body's own natural process is the best, Creates the best outcomes for us, rather than chemicals and synthetics and pharmaceuticals. So talk about your, Your, Your journey in natural medicine and, you know, your foundation in nutrition and, and what are some of the things that you've done in nutritional science to. To really bring to the mass as a way to, to heal themselves through nutrition?

Yeah. Well, to start, I got in the space because I had a mom who was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was younger. So when I was in junior high, my mom was 41 years old, breast cancer. And my family lived in the medical model at the time where anytime we were sick, we got put on drugs. Whatever the doctor said, we just did. And so she went through chemotherapy, had a mastectomy. And I still remember today, Gary, I remember her taking a comb through her hair, all the hair falling out, and just thinking to myself as a kid, there are two things I remember really distinctly popping in my head. I want to help people like my mom, and there's got to be a better way, a better way than this conventional medical system. And so that really set me on a path of the next year. I remember I knew nothing about health except for I knew that soda and candy bars had to be bad.

So that's a good start, man. How old were you then?

14. Okay, so that's a good start. Yeah, so 14. Stopped eating those, started really working out more, studying nutrition, eventually went to chiropractic school, got my degree there. Later on, I actually went to Johns Hopkins, graduated there, and really just spent a lot of time studying natural medicine. And right before I was about to open my own functional medicine clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, I got a call from my mom just in tears, just Sobbing on the phone. I said, mom, what's wrong? And she said, I've just been diagnosed with cancer again. And I said, okay, well what's the diagnosis? She said, well, they said, I have lung cancer. They want to go and actually start doing a radiation treat in three days. She said, what do I do? And I said, I'll be home. Got in a plane, I was in Florida, flew back to Ohio and we talked about it, we prayed together, and we just felt really led to take care of her all naturally. So we started. Her diet was pretty much cooked vegetables, juice vegetables, raw vegetables, berries, a little bit of bone broth, wild caught salmon. And that was, I mean, that was her diet for the most part, beets and carrots, things like that. And then also started doing a lot of turmeric, a lot of medicinal mushrooms like reishi and cordyceps, Worked on doing lymphatic drainage massage. And we were also really focused on her mindset. One of the things I realized was my mom had a lot of fear and anxiety in her life. So she started spending a lot of time in prayer, quoting scripture, doing everything she could to heal. I mean, this is something I really appreciate about you as well and some doctors in our space is that if you want to reverse a disease, there's not a single supplement that's going to do it. Typically. I totally agree with that. And there's not going to be a single medication, follow a full on protocol, do everything you can from all sides in order to help heal the condition. So that was very much our mentality. That's how I was taught and trained. So we did that with my mom, went back four months later, we did a CT scan. And I'll never forget this, we got a call from the oncologist and before they even told us the results of the CT scan, they said, what have you been doing? Started sharing. And they go, well, this is highly unusual. We don't typically see this.

Yeah.

But the tumors have shrunk by 52%. We want to see you again in nine months. Went back nine months, complete remission. And so now my mom.

These are nodular tumors in the lung.

Yeah, she had two.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, wow. And. And now my mom's in her 70s, you know, in great shape. She's bringing her grandkids to Disney World. I mean, we practiced a lot of visualization. One of the things she did was I asked her, I said, what does your ideal future envision look like? She said, bringing my kids to Disney World. You know, I want them in my 70s and 80s, so she's doing that now.

That's awesome. Is she bringing you to Disney World right now?

You know what? I'm not going to Disney World right now. We're sending it to my niece and Nephew. Our daughter's 4 now, one of our daughters. And so she'll be going probably. We'll probably be going next year, actually. But she loves that. But I learned so much through that process. And one of the things that happens when people get these serious diagnoses and you've seen this, it's like being a deer in the headlights. There's a lot of fear. And then the other thing is these doctors will do this. And I want to say this. The thing that irritates me the most about the medical profession, about a lot of doctors today, is they're constantly breaking the Hippocratic oath, first, do no harm. Because if you get a diagnosis, or even diagnosis somebody, and telling them, like at one point they told my mom, you have a 40% chance to live. How is that helping her? Well, it's hurting her. And so all that being said, there's.

A lot of evidence that if this surrenders, this surrenders.

Yeah, there's an old case study that was done. Again, this is one case study, but this has happened tens of thousands, if not millions of times, where a guy went in, was diagnosed with liver cancer, went, they did the. And they said, you have three months to live. They went back, the man died three and a half months later. And they then went and did an autopsy. They misdiagnosed him.

He didn't have liver cancer.

No, didn't have liver cancer, had a small benign tumor on his liver, could have been removed, could have lived another 30, 40 years. I mean, this constantly happens. And people could go and read individual case studies about people that have been misdiagnosed and died in around that same time frame when they didn't have to die. So there's no doubt. The mind body connection is so, so powerful. And that's one of the things when I did run my clinic that I was very conscious of, is that when you're coming in, we're going to be a place that offers hope in terms of healing, in our words. We're going to offer you encouragement. We're going to try and be realistic about what you have going on, but also very conscious about that. So one of my points with that was when my mom had her cancer, we laid out everything very specifically of what she was doing almost every hour of the day. You know, so for Instance, eat this for breakfast, eat this for lunch, eat this for dinner. Here's the exact supplements you're gonna take in the morning. Here's when you're gonna take in the evening. Here's what I want you to do in terms of, like, I asked my mom what she loved to do. She's like, I love horses. So we had her start going in horseback riding again and spending time. You know, we had her watch the. Only. She didn't watch much tv. When she watched something, it was only funny movies. I mean, we went through every last thing to say, this is your ideal healing protocol. And she healed. And so that really taught me, with patience, is that I'm going to walk you through exactly what to do, take all the guesswork out of it, and not only recommend a diet plan, a supplement plan, but also an entire lifestyle plan and support your way of thinking in order to get the best results possible.

And you talk about the five whys. All right. And as. As a. As sort of a foundation for, you know, determining a plan, tell us a little bit about the five whys.

Yeah, well, this is something actually developed by the founder Toyota, which actually, you know, in terms of making cars whenever a problem is wrong. How do you get to the root of the issue? Yeah, well, that's why they call it the five wives. Now, actually, Socrates is actually. We should probably.

Model myself after Socrates.

Taste it. Yeah. Because automotive industry, yes, it very much is the Socratic method of asking questions until you finally get to the root of the problem. So an example of this would be type 2 diabetes. And you and I have seen this thousands and thousands of times. I had patients come in with type 2 diabetes, and I would ask them, what did your doctor have you do? Well, they put me on metformin, and that was it. Well, that's not getting the root of the issue. And so we need to start asking, well, what is type 2 diabetes? Why are your A1C levels high? Well, there's too much sugar in your blood. Well, why is your blood sugar too high? Well, you've started to burn out the insulin receptor sites. Well, why is that? Well, there's too many carbohydrates in the diet, things that are breaking down into sugar quickly. Okay, well, why is that? Well, big reason is someone is not educated on what foods break down into sugar and which don't, and which ones help support blood sugar balance. And so by doing that, we finally get to, well, here's the root cause. So one of the root causes is simply, we need to lower Your overall carbohydrate intake or other foods that are going to cause those blood sugar spikes. And maybe there's also nutritional deficiencies. Maybe it's trace minerals, could be chromium, picolinate, could be magnesium. Maybe you're lacking certain types of antioxidants in your diet, such as those found in Ceylon cinnamon or fenugreek. And so what I really try and do is say, okay, let's get to the root of the issue. I mean, you've done an amazing job. I watched a video of you recently do this with high cholesterol and heart disease.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that's such an easy one. All these doctors today are going and saying, well, here's a statin drug. Your brain, your nervous system, they're made of cholesterol, right? And so you're going to go walls.

Your cell membranes, your hormones, vitamin D3.

I remember the first patient I ever had came in to see me and he was having nerve degeneration. His muscle was wasting, his hand was, his hair was thin. He'd actually almost gone bald over the course of a one year period of time. Wow. Satin drug. That was it.

Yeah. I mean, we talked about this actually before the podcast. I said, in my opinion, we're about to enter the most fascinating time frame of medicine. Over, I mean, in my opinion, over the next five years, the next half decade, I believe that we will see three centuries of medical advancement in half a decade. The reason for that is because you have the combination of early detection, artificial intelligence, and, and, and big data. And you're, you're able now to collect voluminous amounts of data on human beings in their natural environment. Right. And we knew in the mortality space, when I was in the mortality research space, that some of the worst, you know, research that we would do is when we would study cells in isolation. Right. Because human beings don't live in isolation. Cells don't behave in isolation. We take them out, put them in a petri dish and grow them and look at how they behave in a laboratory and say, okay, when we put the cell back into the body, it's going to behave exactly the same way. And then we put it back into a community and it behaves entirely differently. Which is why I'm really a big fan of what you said about your mother's journey, because you were like, what is she thinking? You know, what frequency is she putting through her body? What sort of emotional state? And we know that emotions are tied to frequency and frequency is tied to cellular metabolism and you know, getting inflammatory compounds out, not continuing to, to assault the body. And, you know, we, we talked about this, and I think the very exciting thing is you're going to start to see pools of large data contradict a lot of mainstream, oh, yeah, medical dogma, and it will be irrefutable. And, you know, we, we saw this again in the mortality space. Cholesterol was an easy one. And I did not see a single centenarian during my career that we processed a death claim on that that didn't have clinically elevated levels of LDL cholesterol at the time that they passed. And I'm not saying that no statins for anyone under any reason, for any cause.

Yeah, you know, same here.

You know, not that linear. But, but when you say, okay, well, LDL cholesterol high, cardiovascular disease high, push LDL cholesterol down. Okay, so now raw material for cell walls and cell membranes and hormones and vitamin D3 and all kinds of other downstream consequences that you may not be looking at in that study come out down the road. And we've seen this so many times in medical research, you know, with SSRIs, you know, and, and the serotonin hypothesis. And, and then 10 years later, we're like, wow, the incidence of suicide is increasing, the incidence of suicidal thoughts is increasing, the incidence of other ancillary psychiatric conditions, severe anxiety, depression. And because we just looked at one variable and sorry, I'm taking a total.

No, I love it.

This is your podcast. I mean, not mine, but.

Hey, guys, I think the most important website you may ever go to is theultimatehuman.com that's theultimatehuman.com because on this website, we can directly interact with one another. You can give me suggestions for podcast guests and topics that you'd like to see me cover. You can ask me any question that you'd like. More importantly, you can sign up for my entirely free newsletter. It comes out every single week. I write this so I can get the information to the masses on how to live a healthier, happier, longer, chemical free life. You can also sign up for a pre order of my book. And if you'd like to take the genetic test that I talk about all the time, it's available there too. And lastly, you can even see all of the products that I use in my daily life for a chemical free, healthy living style. A lot of people ask me, you know, what do you use in your daily life, Gary? What do you brush your teeth with and clean your countertops with? Well, it's all there if you'd like to see it. And you can again, ask me any question that you'd like and get my free newsletter, theultimatehuman.com I promise you that information will help change the trajectory of your life. And now back to the ultimate human podcast.

And so, you know, I'd love to talk about that journey for you because one of, one of the things that you touched on was breast cancer, birth control pills in women. And so let's. I want to talk a little bit about. About that. We were talking about breast implants and also about birth control, because I don't know what the percentage is of young women that are on birth control, but I imagine it's very, very high.

Very high. Yeah, it's very high. You know, one of the things as we're talking about birth control, I think this is important for people to recognize. When you take a medication, most people think all of the side effects are on the label. They're not. There's not a single drug that doesn't cause a nutritional deficiency. That's not on the label. There's not a single drug. And we could go through. This is on, you know, this is the drug manual. It's online. I mean, anyone can go up and look this up for themselves. But if you're taking a simple drug, like, I mean, you know, this one, metformin, vitamin B12, coenzyme Q10, magnesium, and it's depleting your body, those minerals. Well, birth control is one of the worst. Birth control depletes your body of almost every single B vitamin.

Wow.

It depletes your body of magnesium. I've seen every time I had a woman come in and we were getting off birth control, major candida and yeast issues.

And they're getting off.

That's right.

Okay.

Yeah. And so it's been connected to numerous, numerous nutritional deficiencies. And I think now, I don't have exact proof of this outside of me working with patients, but I think it also, because of the B vitamins get so low, I also think it's causing and exacerbating hypothyroidism.

Oh, no question.

And so the number of women come in, think about this, they start getting on birth control. The average age is around 14 to 15 years old. And then how many women, you know, after taking it 10 years, all of a sudden are getting a hypothyroid diagnosis when they're in their 20s?

Right. And if you look at methylation pathways, you know, B vitamins are the most critical component for genetic Methylation for downregulating catecholamines, for helping with intestinal motility. And, and so you have this seeming myriad of unrelated consequences, Right, that come as a byproduct of, of. Of nutrient deficiencies. You know, I, I always relate human beings back to plants sometimes. And I say, you know, if you, if you actually were to have a leaf rotting in a palm tree and call a true arborist or true botanist out to your house, they don't touch the leaf. Right. They core test the soil and they go, you know what, Josh? There's no nitrogen in the soil. And they add nitrogen to the soil and the leaf heals. Yeah, but the opposite is true. You know, you take phosphorus, sulfur, nitrogen out of the soil and you start getting the expression of this condition in the plant. For some reason, we don't think about human beings that way. I don't think that nutrient deficiencies can lead to the expression of, of disease. And I've never heard someone put it the way that you have, where I did not know that every drug caused a nutrient deficiency, has a link to, to some nutrient deficiency. And you could probably trace. You could trace that nutrient deficiency to expression of all kinds of other conditions.

Absolutely.

And so what is the, what is the solution for birth control?

If.

Because there's, you know, sometimes there are women that have abnormally heavy menstrual cycles and they become kind of anemic. So there are different reasons sometimes to use birth control other than fertility. But what, what are some of the must, you know, go to supplements for people that, for young women that are. That are on birth control.

Yeah.

What alternative do they have?

Well, just to emphasize your point, I think, you know, birth control obviously today is taken for. As contraception. In addition, though, very frequently it's for acne, it's for reducing cramping, or just. Here's what I was on the. I was on a podcast recently, and there's a woman who took birth control, and she said, well, my doctor told me I had zero symptoms. They just told me I should be on it just so I didn't have to get a period anymore.

Just for convenience.

Just for convenience. Oh, my God, listen, that is incredibly common today. And she said, every girl in my high school was on it. Every single one. And so it's incredibly common. And so what I would say to that is, well, if you're having it, if you're having some sort of symptom, cramps, excessive bleeding, let's go ahead and look at what some of the deficiencies are and so let's say if there's anemia or borderline anemia, and I've spent a lot of my career so studying Chinese medicine. So I'm going to share some of those thoughts as well. But a big part of that they would call that blood deficiency. So we need to strengthen nurse the blood and the red blood cells in order for that to happen. The number one herb used is Don Quai. Dong Quai. Yeah. Dong Quai is a blood builder. If you taste it almost tastes metallic. Let's taste like iron.

Wow.

And so that, that's been used for centuries. The other thing is organ meats like liver. Amazing, amazing blood builders. In fact, I think they're sort of nature's B complex slash methylation support. I mean really when you look at organ meats, especially liver, adrenal, kidney, heart, I mean they are very, very rich in those nutrients. So I think those support building of blood. And then I would look at diet, I would say, hey, let's use food as medicine here. Let's do a lot more grass fed, pastured red meat. You know, whether it be beef or lamb or venison or bison, but let's do more red meat. Let's do some beets or beetroot juice, let's do some leafy greens. But doing things to some bone broth, some things to really help nourish your blood. And then there are some other things I think that are good. I mean you can take a easily digestible form of a food based iron. That's something that people can do.

It's like a food based iron. Is it like iron bisglycinate?

Yeah, yeah, that would be a great. And so I think if you can go, and this is how I take care of people. I know this is how you take care of people. It's a very personalized approach. I think that's one of the other things that a lot of people are getting wrong that are even in the natural health space is it's sort of like, okay, everyone should be on a keto diet or everyone should be carnivore, everyone should be vegan. No, everyone is a unique individual that needs a very, very specific diet that is tailored for them. And because when I have, if I have somebody come in with liver cancer or an issue that's really related to toxicity, I will have them do typically some raw vegetables, vegetable juices and more of those sort of foods. But if I have someone come in with inflammatory bowel disease like IBS D, I'm having them stay completely away from raw. Raw vegetables? No salads? No, no. Typically no vegetable juices. And having them really focus on lots of bone broth, lots of soups, even rice congee, things that are very easy to digest, nourishing to that digestive tract. And so I just think people are radically different, unique. And so we really need to customize something just for them. So in the case of, again, the person with anemia, let's do the foods, let's do the supplements, let's do some of those things that are going to help build up your blood. And there's also natural remedies for cramping. There's actually something called cramp bark in Chinese method. There is, yeah, actually. And that's at least how it's.

And do they take that only when they're. Would a woman only take that during that phase of her cycle when she's having cramping or.

Yeah, they'll tell me. In Chinese medicine, they typically prescribe it about three to five days before. Also, upping your magnesium intake around that time around your cycle is a good idea as well. And so those are some things that. That I know help.

We've seen a lot of women lately, you know, our clinic directors and functional OB gyn, and we've seen a lot of endometriosis.

Yes.

Lately, some. Some even resulting in, you know, by the time they've come to us, they've already had a hysterectomy. But for women that are struggling with endometriosis, you know, what. What are some of the ways to get to the root of that dysplasia? What are some of the dietary recommendations and what. What have you seen in your clinical practice?

Yeah. So one of the things that we can do this with a couple of conditions, I think hypothyroid is another.

Yeah.

I'd love to pick a couple of.

Big ones because really beeps and be specific about them.

But, you know, with endometriosis, you know, we really want to look at. I mean, basically you're reducing inflammation. So what happens in Chinese medicine just to kind of give everybody a basic understanding that will help is one thing they don't do is they don't diagnose you with a condition. They believe that it's too connected to your identity, and they don't want your condition to become part of your own.

Identity, to become who you are.

Yes.

Okay.

And so there's a lot of wisdom in that. The other thing is, so they'll diagnose you with a pattern. So it tends to be this they'll say something like, you have too little chi. Now, when I first heard that word, I thought that sounds kind of weird and out there. But honestly, it's just a different language. I mean, is all it is. It's a different way of interpreting things. And so chi would most be connected to a gland or adrenal glands. And as a basic understanding of the science that you speak so much on this show, cellular energy like ATP. And so your chi is a. Basically, imagine your body has a battery. Where is it at right now? Is it 80, 50, 20? Where's your body battery and body's battery? And that battery, that energy supplies energy to your whole body. So, so that's one thing you look at is chi. The other thing that we've heard is yin and yang. And yin is a lot more related to what you consider the feminine, very connected to estrogen, whereas yang would very much be testosterone. Okay. But also progesterone, because it's whatever is balancing out and harmonizing that other, that opposing thing. Or like melatonin and cortisol.

Right.

And so that's another concept. And the last few things here, and then I'll dive into that, is that your body can either be too cold or too hot internally. So think about it.

See that in Ayurvedic medicine too, because I'm a pita kapha.

Yes. Right.

So like, that's why I have like a little bowling spot here. I tend to run warm. I mean, and I am. You look at the characteristics of all of those, and that's, that's, I think, the oldest form of medicine. And it's all based on observation. Astounding how accurate this, this practitioner was, this Ayurvedic practitioner was when I met, met with him about everything about me, just by looking at my tongue, my eyes.

Yes.

The pattern of hair loss that I had, my skin and my feet, I was pretty, pretty astounding.

But, you know, sometimes people, the type of medicine we're practicing today has only been around 150ish years. When you look at Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, they've been practiced for three to 4,000 years. Now, we're not doing double blind placebo studies, but there have been millions of individual case studies done proving the efficacy of those forms of medicine. So to me, they are incredibly accurate in what they're looking at and doing. And they really take more of a big picture approach where Western medicine is more of a microscopic approach. But to your point. So yeah, your body can be too hot or Too cold. To your point, a lot of people, more people today run hot, but someone with hypothyroid would tend to run cold. Typically, yeah, my wife's cold all the time. And then you look at your body's either too damp or too dry. Dampness we would tend to call candida or it could be mucus like in some sort of ulcerative colitis or Crohn's. And then you're going to have too much movement or too little movement going on in the body called stagnation or excessive movement. So that's what we look at. So with something like endometriosis we're looking at typically too much heat in a very specific part of the body down in the reproductive organ area for women. And so we really need to. And this is where I mean this is going to sound very basic but highly anti inflammatory diet. And the other thing, now this is really unique about supplementation. So what they're going to do in Chinese medicine, it's almost all herb based or food based. But they'll try and combine certain herbs together. And so what they would try and do is, is they would try and increase blood flow to the uterus. Okay. So they want to get as much blood flow there as possible to help regenerate and help heal the area, but also cooling the area down. So they might have you do an herb like dong quai which helps build the blood. But then they might also do an herb like black cohosh which is going to actually help specifically more of that region of the body. And so they're going to combine things together. Another example we're talking about Ayurveda that's done this.

Yeah.

Is they don't just believe food is medicine, they believe meals are medicine. So we're going to combine certain foods and herbs together to actually have it act as a medicine on the body. So the best example of this is turmeric golden tea. Right. So think about for thousands of years people have consumed turmeric golden tea. Well, what that is is it's a blend of turmeric. It's a three spice blend, black pepper, long pepper and ginger. And then something like a coconut milk or raw milk. Now think about.

That's really good.

Yeah. Think about that combination though. I don't.

You probably remember instead of water, it's coconut milk.

Coconut or actual raw milk.

Okay.

Now this is about 10 years ago. Turmeric gold. There's actually a study came out on how if you take piperine with curcumin, it increases the Absorption of turmeric or curcumin.

Mm.

Well, think about that when that was first done. And how did they know that back in ancient Ayurveda, you're taking turmeric with black pepper, ginger, and warming spices, which, those are going to open up the capillaries, increase circulation. So turmeric can now get to every cell, tissue and organ of your body. And they also knew for absorption into the cell, we need some fat in this drink. Coconut or raw dairy.

Wow.

And so this recipe's been around 3,000 years. They've been prescribing this to people with joint pain and arthritis and heart disease. This meal. And yet just 10 years ago, we figured out, oh, you should take piperine with turmeric.

Wow.

So it's pretty, it's pretty incredible.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, the science is catching up. Not, not reading in this case. And, and again, this brings me back to big data, why I'm such a huge fan of large data and now artificial intelligence from the, from the impact that it's going to have on medicine because you take pools of thousands or hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, and over a prolonged period of time and you see that you could get kind of result. You know, you might not need a randomized clinical trial when you have a population database that, that, hey, let me.

Ask you, how far away do you think we are? So I, I've done continuous blood glucose monitors, and if you think about these, if you do a blood spot test, right. You and I have had a lot of people do that to find nutrient, you know, micronutrient tests or whatever, whatever it might be. But I mean, how far away do you think we are from having that little needle on your arm you don't even feel and being able to pick up throughout the day, pull up your phone, every vitamin, every mineral, every amino, knowing exactly what you're deficient in and then having the phone pick tell you back, hey, you're deficient in iron, go eat some red meat and iron or in beets.

I mean, I think that we're there. It's just the race is going to be to consolidate it and turn it into a usable technology. We're probably 24 months away from really having that. The data is there and the technology is there and, and I'm, I'm such a huge fan of that kind of personalized, hyper personalized medicine because we can process and manage data so quickly. Just like you're talking about using a glucose monitor to, you know, record real time information on the, on on the body getting hyper specific with targeted supplementation. I've always been a big believer that we shouldn't just supplement for the sake of supplementing, we should supplement for deficiency. And, and there. Because even in Chinese medicine you could probably get absolutely deluged with the possibilities of things that you could do, but. And, and there. Because even in Chinese medicine, you could probably get absolutely deluged with the possibilities of things that you could do, but this person need.

That's right.

You know, what's. What is that biome deficient in? And let's fix that deficiency rather than say, everybody should take turmeric and curcumin, Everybody should take Coq 10, everybody should take Ashwagandha. Everybody should take St John's Wort, you know, and all of those are amazing. So the argument is not whether or not they're good, it's whether or not the body needs it.

That's right.

So I want to go back to endometriosis. You were talking about some of the teas and increasing the blood flow to that area, which. Which supports the hypothesis that I want to improve the body's ability to fix this on its own.

Yes, exactly.

And so by increasing blood flow to that area, increasing nutrient delivery to that area. So what are some of the things, you know, specifically that they could do if they've got a history of this or they're struggling with it now?

Yeah, I would say one, I think intermittent fasting can be great. I think you want to do everything you can to support your body in cellular regeneration. So that's one thing I would do. Another thing is, you know, give your body the building blocks it needs to reproduce a healthy organ tissue. I mean, I would absolutely take glandulars or organs of uterus and ovaries and some of those. So there are some really great female blends of organ and glandular tissue.

Wow.

I would do higher dose omega 3.

Fatty acids and you get the organ and glandular tissue. This is coming from animals.

Yeah. I mean, I prefer probably beef and sheep in terms of animals over porcine, over pigs, but yeah. And there's several great brands that have, you know, that have, you know, have those organ meetings for.

For women. You know, it's super interesting. I had dinner with Paul Saladino here at the house two nights ago.

Okay. Yeah.

And he was so. And he gave me the raw liver challenge. Take Coq 10. Everybody should take Ashwagandha. Everybody should take St John's Wort, you know, and all of those are amazing. So the argument is lunch And I passed. You know, we just threw it back and washed it down and then I got the iron burps. But, but, you know, one of the things that we. He sent me. He locked my phone shut. He sent me so much stuff to read. But it was on this, you know, hypothesis of targeted, you know, liver for liver conditions, kidney for kidney conditions. And he sent me some studies. Haven't had a chance to read them yet. But there, there certainly is some validity there to the nutritional links.

Well, you know, if. So, so this is what they did. If you, if we would go into an ancient apothecary, which is an ancient pharmacy, what you would have found would have been herbs, spices, mushrooms and glandulars and organ meats. I mean, that was the medicine of the time. And even today, if you look at a hormone, a thyroid drug, that's more natural, like armor with armor and thyroid CTs.

Natural dissected thyroid.

Exactly. It's natural. It is. That's what it is. Now, in the supplement form, they have to deactivate the, the, the, the hormones.

Because not whether or not they're good, it's whether or not the body needs it.

That's right.

So I want to go back to endometriosis. You were talking about some of the teas and increasing the blood flow to that area, which, which supports the hypothesis that I want to improve the body's ability to fix this on its own.

Yes, exactly.

And so by increasing blood flow to that area, increasing nutrient delivery to that area. So what are some of the things, you know, specifically that they could do? If they've got a history of this or they're struggling with it now, they.

Want it very precise about to what the exact dosage is. But natural practitioners would recommend that. So when you'd go in with actually a hypothyroid like symptoms, they would probably recommend herbs like ashwagandha, because hypothyroid in Chinese medicine is known as a Qi and Yang deficiency. So qi means it's really adrenal issue because your adrenals are low. So we need to strengthen up your adrenals and your body is missing Yang, which is. It's not anabolic enough, it's not regenerating enough. And so herbs that really help that again, Ashwagandha is the primary herb in Ayurveda to do that. Yeah, I would say one. I think intermittent fasting can be great. I think you want to do everything you can to support your body in cellular regeneration. So that's one thing. I would do another Thing is give your body the building blocks it needs to reproduce a healthy organ tissue. I mean, I would absolutely take glandulars or organs. Chinese medicine, they have very similar herbs. So they would. So anyway, so they would recommend those two. But to the point, the other thing they would prescribe and recommend would be actual thyroid tissue of an animal and try and get that dosage right.

So these women that are struggling with endometriosis should think about some of these supplements that are organ, organ based, uterus, fallopian tube, ovaries. And what are some. I mean, let's just put it out there. I don't have any affiliation with any of these guys. But what are some good brands of, of those types of supplements of, of.

Uterus and ovaries and some of those. So there are. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple that come to mind. I mean, Ancient Nutrition does have an organ blend. I think that's fantastic for women. Ancestral supplements is another brand. That's off the top of my head. Those are the two. I'm thinking of that. And there are several others. There's another one, Heart and Soil. There's another one too, and I can't remember the name of it.

Heart and Soil is Paul's brand.

Yeah, yeah. So those are the three. I know there's some really great female blends of organ and glandular tissue. Wow. I would do higher dose omega 3.

Fatty acids and you get the organ and glandular tissue. This is coming from animals.

Yeah, I mean, I, I mean I prefer probably beef and sheep in terms of like, in terms of animals. Over porcine over or, or over that have some, that, you know, that do some, some of those type of products. And I would say also higher dose turmeric, ginger, galangal, some of those herbs would be good as well. And then I would say as a treatment, I think acupuncture is fantastic for endometriosis. In fact, it's the best treatment that I know of for, for that specific condition.

Wow. Even for putting it into remission, even?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And a lot of times, and I want to take time and give disclaimers because sometimes when people hear pigs. But, but yeah, and there's several great brands that have Eastern medicine and Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and acupuncture. They, they. We don't understand it and people sort of fear what they don't understand or maybe even discredit it. And the reality is if you look at the, if you look at the health scores in, let's say Japan, which is. They practice a form of Chinese medicine. Okay. They're way healthier there than they are here.

Longer life expectancy at birth, too.

So this is what they're doing in Japan, if you want to know what they're doing. It's all the stuff I'm sharing here. So the thing I would say that people need to recognize about acupuncture and the way it works is that have, you know, have those organ meets and granulars putting needles in areas that are then connected to organ systems and have specific actions. So if somebody's having a heart attack, they'll start to have pain in their left arm. If somebody's having a gallbladder bladder attack, they'll start to have a pain in their right shoulder.

For, for women, you know, it's super interesting. I had dinner with Paul Saladino here at the house too.

And there are points all over your body that are connected to organs. Why, why, why is your gallbladder, your right shoulder.

Yeah. Why does kidney refer to the back? You know?

Right, exactly. Because there are those points there that are connected to. And so what acupuncturists to do, they will go and put needles in the area that brings blood flow to that area, but actually stimulates the gallbladder or stimulates the heart or stimulates the organ. So there are very specific spots for areas like the reproductive organs where they can put needles and it will impact that area. Big thing it will do is it brings blood and energy and nutrients to the area. So they're just moving energy or moving blood around in the.

Two nights ago.

Okay. Yeah.

And he was so. And he gave me the raw liver challenge and I, and I passed. You know, we just, we just threw it back and, and, and washed it down. And then I got the iron burps. But, but you know, one of the things. And so it. As far as nutrition, where do you fall? Because I think philosophically we're on the same page. I don't, I don't think that any. We. He sent me, he locked my phone shut. He sent me so much stuff to read. But it was on this, you know, hypothesis of targeted. You know, particular diet is the best for everyone. You know, carnivore, keto, paleo, raw food, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, what, what have you. I think they all have merit at different times. And I also think that in general, for the masses, the biggest issue is that we are not eating whole foods.

Yes.

It's just a, it's just a whole food diet that's the, that's the place to start is to getting the processed foods and dyes and glyphosates and, and non foods out, out of your liver for liver conditions, kidney for kidney conditions. And he sent me some studies having that chance to diet. Where, where do you fall in that sort of general realm of nutrition in terms of dietary recommendations, to read them yet. But there, there certainly is some validity there to the nutritional links.

Yeah. So here's my simple philosophy and you've already pretty much covered it. But it's this. Eat only real food. Well, you know, if, so, so this is what they did. If you, if we would go into an ancient apothecary, which is an ancient pharmacy specific for, for, for, for. That's personalized for you, that's based on what your body needs and where you're deficient. Now I think there's another element here that tends to, that we should think about, which is seasonality. What you would have found would have been herbs, spices, mushrooms. But I would say, yeah, it's eating real food that's really specific to your basic needs. And so again, going back to this.

And how do I find this, how do I find out what my basic needs are?

So the easiest way is to see somebody that probably practices some form of Ayurveda, Chinese medicine. And what they'll do is they'll look at your tongue and they'll feel your pulse. And there's a tremendous amount you can tell from that. Now people could do this themselves. You could look at a tongue map and then go and look at your own tongue in the mirror. And if you have ridges on the side of your tongue, that's known as a spleen qi deficiency, which really means that your digestive system and liver are in glandulars and organ meets. I mean that was the medicine of the time. And even today if you look at a hormone verstress. And so there are things you can do to help that Diet specific. If your tongue is pale, that's a blood deficiency. You want to eat more blood building foods. If there's a white coating on your tongue, that's dampness. A thyroid drug, that's more natural. Like armor natural.

Dissected thyroid.

Exactly. It's natural. It is. That's, that's, that's what it is. Now you need to do probably a lot more bitter stuff that'll help clear out that dampness out of your body. That's the best way to tell. But you could also tell based on your symptoms.

Yeah.

If somebody has hypothyroidism low, low body temperature. We want to really warm up the body. We want to really do some things that are very nutrient dense, high in B vitamins that are going to help. So for instance, if someone has hypothyroid in the supplement form, they have to deactivate the hormones because I'm going to have them do a diet that's going to be high in, in Chinese medicine you call it foods that support the adrenals and water element. And so it's going to be seafood, wild caught fish. It's going to be seaweed, it's going to be berries, it's going to be rice. Those are some of those foods that would help a condition like that. But I would say, yeah, base, it's based off of your symptoms or seeing a practitioner who knows exactly. They want it very precise about to, to what the exact dosage is. But natural practitioners would recommend that. So when you, when you'd go in with actually a hypothyroid like symptoms, they would probably recommend a bl, you know, herbs like ashwagandha. Because hypothyroid in Chinese medicine is known as a Qi and Yang deficiency. So chi, how to let you know what you're deficient in and that's going to be the most accurate, accurate way.

Yeah. And you know, you kind of had your own interesting journey.

Yeah.

Recently we, we talked about it for a few minutes before the podcast and I, I, I say lots of times my audience knows this on the podcast that I think some of the greatest interventions, the biggest means you're, it's really.

Adrenal issue because your adrenals are low. So we need to strengthen up your adrenals and your body is impacts on humanity and mankind.

Even innovations in medicine come from people who solve the problem and usually a problem in their own life health issue. And it became their passion, their obsession. And now they're, they're, they're out changing the world. So I was shocked by the journey that, that, that you were on when you told me about it the other day because I've, I've been, you know, watching you for years and always considered you one of the, the pioneers. As I was sort of getting into this industry 10 years ago, I was a, you know, huge fan.

And then you sing Yang, which is, it's not anabolic enough, it's not regenerating enough. And so herbs that really help that again, Ashwagandha is the primary herb in Ayurveda to do that and went quiet for a while. Yeah. About two Years. Yeah.

And so tell us a little bit about what happened on.

Yeah.

That journey.

Yeah. So, I mean, it was crazy. And he's medicine. They have very similar herbs, so they would. So anyway, so they would recommend those too. But to the point, the other thing, I mean, let me just say I was sitting down with a doctor not far from here in Sarasota, Florida, and this is about a year and a half ago, and he told me, he said, Josh, I want to let you know your prognosis. And I said, okay. He said, best case scenario for you is you're going to have. Thing they would prescribe and recommend would be actual thyroid tissue of an animal. And try and get that dosage right, chronic pain the rest of your life and you'll be the first person to know when bad weather comes through. And he said, worst case scenario, he said this could kill you. And he said there's a really good chance you're going to be permanently disabled from this. This is just a year and a half ago. It was so crazy, Gary. A few months before that I was throwing my 2 year old daughter Arwen up in there in the pool. I was squatting and deadlifting.

So these women that are struggling with endometriosis should think about some of these supplements that are.

I was, you know, doing. I, I'm a triathlete in the past. I was cycling, I was swimming and, and felt great and I had injured my back lifting too heavy that I should have, but I was lifting weights and I.

Organ, organ based uterus, fallopian tube, ovaries. And what are some. I mean, it's just.

And I herniated a couple discs in my back. Well, went and got stem cell therapy.

Put it out there. I don't have any affiliation with any of these guys, but what are some good brands of, of those types of supplements in your back?

Yeah. And I did a bone marrow draw. Got it my back and it helped tremendously. I noticed a really big improvement. So then I thought, I'm going to get this done one more time and I'll probably get back to 100%. Well, something went wrong when I got the stem cell injection and afterwards. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple that come to mind. I mean, ancient nutrition does have an organ blend. I think that's fantastic for women. I just didn't feel right. And then I felt worse and worse. Yeah. And so what happened was now I went and got an mri, nothing showed up. And so I kept getting worse and worse and worse. So I thought it's not an infection. I cannot figure this out. Well, finally one morning I woke up, I couldn't walk, the pain was so bad. It was so. I mean, I couldn't move at all. Hardly.

When you say pain is. Pain's in your low back.

Yeah, L4, L5 disc. In my low back. In those discs. And so I had to call an ambulance. I was. Ancestral Supplements is another brand that's off the top of my head. Those are the two I'm thinking of that. And there are several in Puerto Rico at the time.

Oh my God.

Had to come pick me up, bring me to this hospital in Puerto Rico. Do others. There's another one. Heart and Soil. There's another one too, and I can't remember the name of it.

Heart and Soil is Paul's brand.

Yeah, yeah, Heart and Soil. So those are the three. I know an mri, get the report back. It says I have an infection in my disc. It's gone into the bone. And when I looked at this MRI, my entire L5 disc was like lit up because the infection had gotten into the bone. And then there was also an abscess that had gotten outside of that into the, you know, by the spinal canal. And there's an abscess by my spinal cord localizing the infection. And that's why when I met with the doctor, he said, you could die.

So the disc was protruding even into the spinal cord through that?

Yes. Wow. Yeah. And so, and so when I got that diagnosed and so eventually took a. Had to take a medical flight from Florida or from Puerto Rico to Florida, sat down with that doc, he shared that with me. And can I tell you, just to have some that, you know, that do some. Some of those type of products. And I would say also higher dose turmeric, ginger galangal. Just let me see here. Just kind of vulnerably from an emotional standpoint here. I had never felt so depressed, hopeless, just terrible in my whole life after getting that diagnosis. Because this is a very, well, like a well known infectious disease doctor in Florida. And I had never known what despair and hopelessness felt like until then. And after feeling that way for about 24 hours, I mean, I just felt it'd been the darkest I'd ever been because again, you get that diagnosis and then I go online and start reading and researching, as I know we might do. And I thought, well, I'm going to find some examples of some of those herbs would be good as well. And then I would say as a treatment, I think acupuncture is fantastic. For endometriosis. In fact, it's the best treatment that I know of for that specific condition. Wow.

Even for putting it into remission, even.

People that overcame this and got 100% back to normal. I couldn't find any.

You couldn't find any?

Oh, my God, no. And then so. So the things that we're reading was.

Especially guys like you and I, like, we all. All I need is one anecdotal story to latch onto.

That's right. And so I got down on my hands and knees and I just prayed and I said, God, yeah, Yeah, I think so. And a lot of times, and I want to take time and give disclaimers because sometimes when people hear, would you heal me? And I believe you can heal me. And I just felt like the peace of God come over me. And the thing I really felt like the Lord just said, just walk with me. We'll get through this. And so I decided I was going to believe for the best outcome possible. That's really. And by the way, that is a turning point for Eastern medicine and Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and so many people that was a turning point for me is deciding I'm going to believe for the best case scenario. I'm going to plan and do everything in my power to make that a reality. There's a. There's acupuncture. We don't understand it. And people sort of fear what they don't understand or maybe even discredit it. And the reality is, if you look at the. If you look at the health scores in an old quote I love, and it's get on your. Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work. It's a very similar mentality. And so I started doing more and more research before. And I met with this doctor he was recommending, I think at the time, something like six weeks, weeks of IV antibiotics and another six weeks of oral antibiotics. So three months of antibiotics and then that was it. That was the treatment. And I thought one. And let me say this. I am. I'm not one of those people out there that says there's never a time and place for medication. I think there's a time and place like when, let's say Japan, which is. They practice a form of Chinese medicine. Okay, I have a spinal infection, so I started taking antibiotic. But I also read a research study on hyperbaric chambers. And one of the studies was on people with spine. And they're way healthier there than they are here.

Longer life expectancy at birth.

Yeah. So, so this is what infections. And it found that they were able to cut down dramatically the antibiotic use time, down to a total of four weeks. They're doing in Japan, if you want to know what they're doing. It's all the stuff I'm sharing here. So, so, so, so the thing I would say that people need to recognize about acupuncture and the way it works is, is that they're from several months. From several months. And so I went and started getting in a hard hyperbaric chamber at a 2.5 ATA.

2.5.

Yeah.

That's a lot more than the soft ones.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I did that for about two hours a day, almost every day, five days a week. And I was able to just do that, Four weeks of it. Putting needles in areas that are then connected to organ systems and have specific actions. So if somebody's having a heart attack, they'll start to have pain in their left arm. If somebody's having a gallbladder attack, they'll start to have a pain in their right shoulder. And there are points all over your body that are connected to organs. Why, why, why, why? Why is your gallbladder your right shoulder.

Yeah. Why does kidney refer to the back? You know?

Right, exactly. Because there are those. Antibiotic time. I also was eating primarily meat, vegetables and berries. I started doing IVs daily.

What kind of IVs?

I did a lot of silver.

Vitamin C. Okay.

Yeah. But I did Myers. Yeah, I did vitamin C. Glutathione. I wanted to protect my cells from the antibiotics because when you do, Ivan, it can affect your cells as much as your gut. Doing a lot of supplementation, like probiotics and a number of things like spirulina. And so it followed this protocol. After two weeks, I started feeling a little bit better, 1% better, and then 1% better than 1% better. This time we're doing this interview. So I started getting better, but I didn't walk for a total of 10 months.

Hold on, you were in a wheelchair? In a wheelchair going to the.

No, no, it was worse than that. I had to have a stretcher, a medical van come to pick me up because I couldn't be sitting, put so much pressure on the disc. So it wasn't just standing. I couldn't sit. No, no. Yeah. So I, I, the only way I could get anywhere was crawl. So I was able to at points there that are connected to. And so what acupuncturists to do, they will go and put needles in the area that brings blood flow. I crawled in the pool once I started being able to do physical therapy, but I didn't walk on my own or even sit in a wheel sit for 10 months blood flow to that area, but actually stimulates the gallbladder or stimulates the heart.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And then I got on a walker. Actually this time last year we're doing this interview right now. I was on a walker. So I just, it was, I just started getting harder. Stimulates the organ. So there are very specific spots for areas like the reproductive organs where they can put needles and it will impact that area.

It big up and where your legs just so weak.

And I literally had to kind of learn how to walk again. Yeah, I was so weak, I lost 40 pounds.

Wow.

I mean I was.

You're not a big guy to begin with.

No, no. I mean I, I, I went from about 175 to 180, down to about 135. 140.

Wow.

Yeah. I lost 40 pounds. And, and now here's the thing I want to share the good news is that I now am about one year removed and I'm already better than the best that doctor said I would be. I'm back lifting weights, carrying my daughter. Thing it will do is it brings blood and energy and nutrients to the area. So they're just moving energy or moving blood around in the ground. I'm, you know, doing this interview, I'm flying on planes all over the country. I mean doing all of this. And I think by the end of this year, I'd say I'm probably 80, 85%, but I'm continuing to progress.

And right now, do you, do you notice that it's there? Okay, so it's not causing you. And so it, as far as nutrition, where do you fall? Because I think philosophically we're on the same page. I don't, I don't think that any.

So, so, so I think by, by the end of this year I'll be back to 100 and, but it was a very, very focused protocol.

Particular diet is the best for everyone. You know, carnivore, keto, paleo, raw food, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian. What, what, what, what have you think.

Call including hyperbaric, red light therapy, getting in a red, you know, red light bed, doing red light, doing PEMF therapy on a regular basis. I did all of those cold laser, all of it religiously. And the power of prayer, I believe mindset is really important for healing as well. And so I did all those things and praise God, I'm here and I'm healthy now. But yet a lot of people were like, hey, where were you? Yeah, I was bedridden for a year and just sort of now getting, getting back at it. But, but one thing I am grateful for is that this pain will be used for purpose. Like, I learned so much about longevity, regenerative medicine through the process because, I.

Mean, there you are on your back. So what, you were probably just reading, studying. They all have merit at different times. And I also think that in general, for the masses, the biggest issue is that we are not eating whole foods.

Yes.

It's just a, it's just a whole food diet. That's the, that's the place to start.

That's right.

Yeah. You know, trying to, trying to dig into this. So you only did the 14 week course of antibiotics. That's it. After that you went all, everything. Hyperbarics. What do you think you attribute the, to getting the processed foods and dyes and glyphosates and, and non foods out, out of your. The greatest leap forward to. Or is it kind of the combination? Is it the hyperbaric?

Let me say this. I think in terms of protecting my cells in my body, the hyperbaric was a very, very powerful tool. But the one thing I didn't mention, which I can't forget now, most people wouldn't do this. You and I would, but most people wouldn't. I went and got stem cell therapy again.

You did?

Yes. So the first time I did it my own bone marrow. And was the second one. The second one I went and saw your diet.

Where do you fall in that sort of general realm of nutrition in terms of dietary recommendations?

Well, Rafael Gonzalez with rehealth. This is a Cancun clinic in Cancun. Yeah. So here's my simple philosophy, and you've already pretty much covered it, but it's this, eat only real food. And I think they're the best in the world. I mean, they're study cells.

I'm a huge fan of Raphael.

Amazing. And so I went there, got stem cell done in my disc with this incredible practitioner and specific for, for, for, for. I could tell that also helped accelerate the healing process. But, but to answer your question, I think it's the hope that's personalized for you, that's based on what your body needs and where you're deficient. Now I think there's another protocol altogether, doing all of those things in combination to one another that really, really helped you know, one thing that I noticed.

A difference was Raphael's group put the stem cells right into the disc. I mean, into.

Yeah, we used his cells with a practitioner, a guy named Dr. Brian Schipel.

Okay.

Really amazing, doc. But yeah, I mean, it helped tremendously. You know, one thing I noticed a big difference with when my back. Because after, after this, I had, I still had a lot of. Even when I was up walking, I couldn't sit very long, a lot of back pain. When I would do contrast therapy, I would go and alternate between cold plunge in a hot tub. I probably noticed the biggest difference immediately from alternating hot plunge and cold tub the next day than any other thing I did. Element here that tends to. That we should think about, which is seasonality. Wow.

So circulation, vasodilation, vasoconstriction, vasodilation, dramatic improvement.

But I would say, yeah, it's eating real food that's really specific to your basic needs. And so those areas of the body.

Have really compromised blood flow, so they're.

Slow to heal to begin going back to this.

And how do I find this? How do I find out what my basic needs are?

And that's why I healed so slowly. Most people don't realize this. Your. The disc and the bone has almost zero blood supply. And that's. So the easiest way is to see somebody that probably practices some form of Ayurveda Chinese medicine. And what they'll do is why it took, you know, four to five times longer healing that area than any other area of the body typically would.

So this, this next. Were you doing any exosomes?

Yeah, we did as a follow up. So, so we did stem cell therapy and then, and then we did some exosomes as a follow up too.

Wow. Yeah, I'm, I'm very, very close to Dr. Rafael Gonzalez. I'm a huge fan of his exosomes, of his. Of his stem cell therapy. Well, congratulations on getting to the other side of that.

Thank you so much.

That's amazing.

You know, look at your tongue and they'll feel your pulse and there's a tremendous amount you can tell from that.

Now, people, one of the other things that we talked about before we started the show and, and, and I'm, I'm.

A part to do this themselves. You could look at a tongue map and then go and look at your own tongue in the mirror. And if you have ridges on the.

Side of your tongue, partner in a fairly sizable clinic. So we see a lot of hormone patients.

That's known as a spleen QI deficiency, which is really means that your digestive system and liver are open.

And I said probably 70% of the patients that our clinical team sees that qualify for hormone therapy are actually not on hormones. And I've heard you overstressed.

And so there are things you can do to help that. Diet specific. If you're tongue, talk about the risks.

Of, of hormone therapy. I'm, I'm a fan of it. And also not a thing is pale.

That's a blood deficiency. You want to eat more blood building foods. If there's a white coating on your tongue, that's dampness, you need to do probably a lot more bitter stuff. That'll help clear out that dampness out of your body. That's the best way to tell. But you could also tell based on your symptoms.

Yeah.

If somebody has hypothyroidism, low, low body temperature, we want to really warm it.

Depending on the age and the circumstance.

So talk a little bit about the.

Risk because, you know, the one thing that I see as a trend is younger and younger and younger patients, especially men, but also women being put on hormone therapy in their 20s. Yeah. Some even in their early, early 20s. 21 year old, where he's 21 when I met him. Good friend, huge YouTube influencer. And he did blood work and gene testing with our, our clinic. And one of the things that popped off the charts was his testosterone level. And I was, what are you doing on hormone therapy? 21 years old. Taking testosterone injections is a lifelong commitment. Who, you know, who, who did this to you? And eventually got him off of that and titrated him off to a more natural pathway. And ironically, his testosterone's higher than it was.

Wow. When he started warm up the body. We want to really do some things that are very nutrient dense, high ends.

But talk a little bit about hormone therapy because TRT is so popular now.

Yeah.

And I think here too, you see a lot of clinics just using that single dart approach. Everybody gets the same thing. Yeah, yeah. So tell us about that.

Well, the first thing is people are getting it because they're deficient. It is a problem. I mean, when, if you look over the last 50 years, testosterone levels in men have dropped by 33%.

Yes.

I mean that, that is mind boggling. I mean, men today, what period of time? About 50 to 60 years.

56 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The World War II study.

Yeah. And so when you look at that, it's absolutely crazy. And then you've got men in their 20s that are essentially have B vitamins. That are going to help. So, for instance, if someone has hypothyroid, you know, the same level of testosterone that during World War II or the 20 years after did in their 60s. Yes. And so there I'm going to have them do a diet that's going to be high in. In Chinese medicine, you'd call it foods that support the adrenals and water element. That absolutely is a problem. I recognize the problem. The solution though, of TRT therapy. And so it's going to be seafood, wild caught fish. It's going to be seaweed. It's going to be. By the way, this is my general worldview when it comes to almost every medication out there. And I consider it to be a form of or very similar to a medication. I'm not saying it's identical, but there's forms. Is that you are going to have some sort of side effect when you're doing something. Berries, it's gonna be rice. Those are some of those foods that would help a condition like that. But I would say, yeah, it's based off of your symptoms or seeing a practitioner who knows exactly how to let you know what you're deficient in. And that's gonna be the most accurate way outside in versus helping and supporting your body. Do it from inside out, creating more testosterone on its own. And so when you look at it, one of the issues is it's a contraceptive for men. And so men, the testes now are going to stop producing. It's going to lower sperm count almost to nothing if you take it long enough. And so now your body's going to stop. The testes are going to stop producing testosterone. And because you're, you're, you're getting. It's a very similar thing that can happen if you're adding any hormone outside to the body.

Right.

And so, you know, and there are studies that show the longer you use it, the longer it takes to get your testosterone levels back to normal. And there are. I read a lot of studies. This isn't one study. I'm quoting. This is numerous studies on this. There are some studies that show if you use it two years, five years or more, some of the men never become fertile again or never get their testosterone. Never are able to produce without exogenic.

Yeah, and you know, you kind of had your own. Interesting.

Without exogenous testosterone. And so, and so that's my concern. And so I'm not arguing against somebody in their late 60s or 70s and supporting them for a period of time doing testosterone therapy. That's not what I'm arguing against. I'm arguing against men in their 20s and 30s and some of them even in their 40s, who may decide or change their mind that they want to have a family one day or maybe their doctor never told them. This has in a few studies been linked to. There is a chance, whether it's 5% or 10 or 30, that, hey, this could make you infertile in the future. And again, there are multiple studies on this. One study shows it doesn't do that. They did a study showing that over the course of two years, everyone's came back to normal.

Journey. Yeah, recently we, we talked about it for a few minutes before the podcast and I.

But there are other, other studies showing no, that they didn't get back to normal. And it does cause a level of infertility. So I just want men to know that there are some major side effects of this. And here's the other thing. There's a natural way. Yeah. You don't have to do it this way. And this is how with every single medical condition. Here's what I wish. I wish everything was, I say lots.

Of times my audience knows this on the podcast, that I think some of the greatest interventions, the biggest impacts on humanity and mankind, even innovations in medicine come flipped.

I wish that our conventional medical system was only emergency care system in it.

From people who solved the problem. And usually a problem in their own was secondary care.

And I wish today what you and I teach was primary care. It's if you go to any hospital, any place you come in with an issue, it's food is medicine, supplementation, those sort of things first, because, you know, if, if somebody, we were talking about heart disease earlier and high cholesterol levels. If somebody comes in and is truly has some form of heart disease, let's put them on a Mediterranean diet or a diet just for them, high on them. Let's give you an omega 3 supplement. Let's do turmeric. Let's do magnesium. Let's do hawthorn. Let's do garlic. Let's prescribe walking regularly and exercise. Let's have you do some of these polyphenols.

Let's do life health issue. And it became their passion, their obsession. And now they're out changing the world.

This. And then if that doesn't work, if we exhaust that for the next one to two years. Okay, well, now let's bring in a medication for a period of time, monitor you, and then actually try and get you back off again after three months. A lot of these medications the idea should be you're on the medication for.

So I was shocked by the journey that, that, that you were on when you told me about it the other day, because I've, I've been, you know.

One month, two months, three months, we're monitoring you while trying to get you off it because it's causing nutritional deficiencies, other side effects. But that's not the model today, because follow the money. I mean, there, you know, does somebody make more money if they keep you on a drug for one month?

Yeah.

Or your lifetime.

Yeah. Watching you for years and always considered you one of the, the pioneers, as I was sort of getting. I think that's the whole model of diseases. If I can convince you that you have a genetically inherited disease, I can get you to subscribe to a lifetime of medication. You know, you have familial hypertension, you have genetically inherited hypothyroid, you have, you know, diabetes runs in your family. And if I can, you know, if you buy off on that, you know, philosophy, then then you also buy off on a lifetime of medication. I have a condition that requires this medication.

Let me ask you, how many times have you had somebody come in to see you in your clinic and they've had a doctor tell them you have to be on this drug the rest of your life and your condition is irreversible?

Oh, it's a, yeah, it's, it's a disease. They tell them, you know, you have hypertension, idiopathic hypertension, which the average person doesn't know what that means. They just know, okay, I have high blood pressure, and if I don't take this for the rest of my life, I'm always going to have high blood pressure. And when they adding into this industry 10 years ago, I was a, you know, huge fan. And then you ask why. Well, because your grandfather on your mother's side had it and your, you know, your, your quiet for a while.

Yeah. About two years. Ye.

And so tell us a little bit about what happened on.

Yeah.

That journey.

Yeah. So, I mean, it was crazy.

Colonel father, you know, grandfather had it. Yeah. And, and look at this. Your uncles have it and so does your older brother. So it's familial.

Yeah.

But if you, if you even take it a step further and say, well, if I inherited this condition from my offspring, then I mean, let me just.

Say I was sitting down with a doctor not far from here, Sarasota, Florida, and this is about a year and.

A half from my ancestor. What gene did they pass on to me? That caused this condition to exist. I always tell clients to ask their doctor that because, you know, you want to see them, their face go blank. You ask them, well, if this is familial, if it's genetically inherited, then what gene did I inherit that caused me to have this condition? And well, we don't know. No, we actually do know. We've actually mapped the entire human genome. And I think a lot of disease and pathology runs in families. Not because you're catching disease or passing disease from generation to generation that's actually very rare. You're passing in nutrient deficiency related to methylation. And again, I think that the evidence is about to be overwhelming when you combine large data, I mean our clinic.

And he told me, he said, Josh, I want to let you know your prognosis.

XC 1015, 000 patients a month for genetics.

And I said okay. Said best case scenario for you is you're gonna have chronic pain the rest of your life. And you'll be the first person to know when bad weather comes through any.

Testing in, in an average month, a good month, you know, 20, 000.

Wow.

So when the data, and we've been talking to a different groups about help helping us publish the data. The quantum analytics department at Harvard, their human flourishing study, their longevity study. I think that, you know, you're, you're about to see data start to contradict.

Said worst case scenario. He said this could kill you. And he said there's a really good chance you're going to be permanently disabled from this.

This is that notion of because disease is in your family, you genetically inherited it. Yeah, right. So I'm, I'm taking a little diversion there.

But most of us have a very difficult time meeting our protein needs. And certain protein sources like whey protein and others can be as little as 20 absorbable. This is 99 absorbable. And it has all of the essential amino acids that the body needs to build lean muscle, to recover, to improve our exercise performance, and most importantly to repair after we have intense exercise. So this is called perfect amino by body health. It's like I said, 99 absorbable. It only has two calories. Eventually.

Just a year and a half ago, it was so crazy Gary. A few months before that I was.

Throwing my two year caloric intake. Has virtually no caloric intake. It will not break a fast. It tastes amazing. You mix it in water. I take this literally every single morning. If you're working out in a fasted.

State, daughter Arwen up in there in the pool. I was Squatting and deadlifting. I was, you know, doing. I, I'm a triathlete in the past. I was cycling, I was swimming and, and felt great.

You have to take a full spectrum amino acid prior to your workout to preserve your lean muscle and make sure that you're recovering properly. And again, it will not break your fast.

So. And I'd injured my back lifting too heavy that I should have. But I was lifting weights and I. Oh.

The caloric impact is virtually zero. You get all of the full spectrum amino acids. It tastes wonderful. I use it every single day. You can go to bodyhealth.com ultimate that's bodyhealth.com ultimate. And look for the perfect aminos. They actually come in capsules if you're on the go or it becomes in several flavors that they make in a.

Powder, which I love.

It's flavored with natural means of flavoring. So there's no artificial sweeteners in here. So this is one of my absolute favorite products. Give it a try. If you're working out at all, you need a full spectrum amino acid, go to bodyhealth.com forward/ultimate. That's bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate. I love their lab tested products. You can actually see the absorption rate for all of their products.

They've got great electrolyte and I herniated a couple discs on my back. Back. I went and got stem cell therapy protein combinations.

My favorite is the perfect Aminos. Bodyhealth.com forward/in your back.

Yeah. And I, I did a bone marrow draw. Got it my back and it helped tremendously. I noticed a really big improvement. So then I thought I'm going to get this done one more time. And ultimate.

And now back to the ultimate human podcast.

I, I love this approach that you have that you know what, so, so back to the hormone therapy thing.

Yeah.

What are some things that you can do when you notice that you have low hormones? Because I am astounded at the age level at which these levels are becoming deficient and sometimes clinically deficient.

And I'll probably get back to 100. Well, something went wrong when I got the stem cell injection. And afterward. Yeah. After I would say if you want to naturally boost your testosterone levels, let's.

Say there's Tongkat Ali. There's all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. And that's great. I would say lifestyle medicine, mindset medicine. And let's start talking about food as medicine. Let me start with food as medicine first. There are several deficiencies and there are numerous studies that show certain nutrients, if they're low, is going to cause you to have low testosterone. If you start supplementing with those, it's going to help. Zinc and vitamin D in particular, two very important. We know you've quoted constantly. Vitamin D is a pro hormone. Zinc is actually very critical for men. Sperm count, testosterone. I just didn't feel right. And then I felt worse and worse. Yeah. And so what happened was. So those two alone, just taking 5,000 IUs a day of vitamin D and 30 to 60 milligrams, probably 30 long term. Now, up front, you probably want to do closer to six now. I went and got an mri. Nothing showed up. Up. And so I kept getting worse and worse and worse. So I thought, it's not an infection. I cannot figure this out. Well, finally, one morning I woke up, I couldn't walk, the pain was so bad. 60 milligrams of zinc. But doing those two alone will impact and help increase testosterone levels in almost all men across the board. From a supplementation standpoint, if you're an older man, I really like ginseng. Panax ginseng, I also really like. There's Tribulus, we know that's been used for years for this. Fenugreek is another one.

Fenugreek's a big one.

That's fantastic. So I would put those up on the list and there's loads of herbs. I could talk about all the others, but those are. Those are some of the easier ones to get that I would recommend. There's a study on Ashwagandha showing that it was so. I mean, I couldn't move at all, hardly.

When you say pain is. Pain's in your low back, it does.

Support it mildly as well. And then weight training, you know, go and just lift some weights. That helps boost your testosterone levels. And then from the things you don't want. And then spending more time outdoors, getting sunlight early in the morning, getting outdoors, that's also going to help help. Now, from a mindset standpoint, let me tell you a really interesting study. There is a study done on testosterone in men related to their mindset. And so here's what they looked at. They had men get on a rower, okay. Just like we'd get on your regular rowing machine. And they told. And they had, yeah, L4, L5 desk in my low back in those discs. And so I had to call an ambulance. I was in row as fast as they could. One of the groups at the end, they said you lost. Another group of men, they said you won. Now there's a third group, and I don't. In Puerto Rico at the time.

Oh, my God.

Had to come pick me up, bring me to this hospital in Puerto Rico, do an mri, get the report back. It says, I have an infection in my disc. It's gone into the bone. And when I looked at this mri, I don't know the exact details of this part of the study, but another group, when the interview processed whether they won or lost, they actually just believed they were winners. They had this internal self confidence. The men who lost had, I believe it's 5 to 7% lower level of testosterone.

Wow. So they get off the rower and they'd be like, yeah, sorry, buddy, you lost.

All right. My entire L5 disc was like, lit up because the infection had gotten into the bone. And then there was. Yeah. The men who won had a 5 to 7% higher testosterone levels. And the men who believe that they were inherently winners, 15 to 17% higher testosterone levels. And I think this goes to show. And this could be a broader conversation about culture, making men feel guilty for being masculine, being men. But it's very important that men feel like they're men. There's another study done on men chopping wood. And it actually demonstrated. Yeah. More than playing sport, more than playing soccer or probably similar sports like basketball or others. Men going out and just chopping wood was false. When abscess that had gotten outside of that into the, you know, by the spinal canal are far greater in elevating testosterone in men. Because I think that one. It is a full body movement. You're using a lot of strength. But also there's. I feel there's something about your chopping wood. You feel like a man.

It's like a primal. Yeah.

Yeah.

That is a superman thing to do.

Yes. Yeah. I remember my dad bringing me out of the yard and like teaching me, like, with an. Our last name, Zach. So it's pretty appropriate. But like. But like. And there's an abscess by my spinal cord localizing the infection. And that's why when I met with the doctor, he said, you could die.

So the disc was protruding even into the spinal cord through that.

That's right. Wow. Yeah. And so same like X, you better.

Be a good job.

But teaching me to. And so when I got that diagnosed and so eventually took him. Had to take a medical flight from Florida or from. From Puerto Rico, chop wood. And I probably. I was a teenager, I felt like more like a man that day than probably any time in my entire life. And so. But I think There's a lot of men today that don't feel like men. And, and this, this is even a relational thing. I think that there are, I mean if you're a, any woman watching this, men need to feel like they're winners, not losers. How can you make your man feel like a winner?

Right.

It is so incredibly healing and loving to be able to do that for your man. In a similar way, women want to feel loved and protected and pursued. And so men, how can you do that for your women? But, but the, the psychology of, of even how these things affect hormone balance. Yeah. Is really, it's, it's real. You go to Florida, sat down with that doc. He shared that with me. And can I tell you just, I.

Saw a whole talk on how it was actually my pastor and he was talking about how, you know, no man's ever been nitpicked, nagged or, or belittled into having strong character.

Just let me share just kind of vulnerably from an emotional standpoint here. I had never felt so depressed, hopeless, just terrible in my whole life after, after getting that diagnosis because this was.

A really, this is a, and you know, the philosophical approach of that. I also saw, I want to say a Scandinavian study, Swedish study, very well.

Like a well known infectious disease doctor in Florida and I, I out the.

The impact of patients when being delivered information about conditions on cancer were, were actually lied to and very similar cancers. One group told you qualify for a life saving treatment and you're one of the lucky few. Your chance of survival is virtually 100%. And the other people given the actual news about their cancer and the cancer outcomes and the demonstrative difference just purely from the mindset. And I think some of these things are the unexplained things that you see in labs or some of the unexplained things that you see, miracle cures that you, that you see when you take this, this whole body approach. I mean I know on our side when, when our clinical team is.

I had never known what despair and hopelessness felt like.

Looking at testosterone, we actually start below testosterone and go from, you know, sort of the middle of the tree down into the root. And we start with vitamin D3. We look at DHEA, we'll look at whether or not there's a protein called.

Sex hormone build that and, and after feeling that way for about 24 hours, I mean I just felt this. It'd been the darkest I'd ever been because again, you get that diagnosis and then I go online and start Reading.

It, binding globulin, SHPG in the way. And then we look at the nutritional components, the methylation components, and in almost every case you see testosterone just.

Boop. Yeah. And researching, as I know we might do, and I thought, well, I'm going to find some examples of.

If you think about it, you know, one of the larger, largest hormone studies ever done was done during the Second World War because they got, they, they have blood work on all the GIs, whether they were enlisted or, or drafted. And this is where, you know, when, when you're quoting that in the last 50, 60 years, you know, we've had such dramatic drop in, in testosterone. A lot of this is because we use population data. You know, when you look at a LabCorp range, okay, and it says testosterone goes from 262 to 940. That range is based on the population.

Yeah.

So as the population gets worse, the.

People that overcame this and got 100 back to normal, I couldn't find any range goes down. Yeah.

And so now somebody who might have been high end of normal 50 years ago now, like, oh my God, your testosterone's off the charts. You know, it could be something wrong. You know, so, you know, as the popular. It's like grading on a curve, right? I mean, yeah, if, if the highest grade in the class was a 75, a C, then all of a sudden the 75, you couldn't find any.

Oh my God, no. And then so, so, so the things that we're reading was especially guys like.

You and I, like we all, all I need is one anecdotal story to latch onto. Five becomes an A. Well, that's just average.

That's right.

You make an average people extraordinary because the population average is, is, is going down. Right. And I think that's some of the, the challenges with a lot of the way that we diagnose things is that as the population gets worse, we accept a lot.

That's right. And so I got down on my hands and knees and I just prayed and I said, God, more average results.

As being high end of normal.

Well, you and I both know this from looking at a lot of blood work. And that is so often people come in because they say my blood work came back as normal. And so they think that I don't have anything going on or their doctor might even tell them it's all in their head. And the reality is, well, you're either not testing for the right things or your ranges are incorrect. Would you heal me? And I believe you can heal Me. And I just felt like the peace of God.

Yeah. You know, I had one of our functional medicine practitioners tell me one time, if you take the advantage, if you take the vantage point that when you're looking at a client, number one, God didn't make a mistake. So in other words, they have an autoimmune condition. Don't assume that they woke up one day and started manufacturing antibodies to the colon or to the thyroid. Think that the immune system woke up one day and was properly in that area.

I'd come over me and the thing I really felt like the Lord just said, just walk with me, we'll get through this. And so I decided, yeah, maybe it's.

A heavy metal, it's after a viral pathogen, or maybe there's bacteria in the luminal wall, the intestine, and it's actually after that and not the tissue. So, number one, God did make a mistake. Number two, what nutrient deficiencies could be causing this condition to exist? And number three, what is the common link between all of the symptoms that this person has? And it's such a reflection, I was.

Going to believe for the best outcome possible. That's really. And by the way, that is a.

Turning point for refreshing way to look at human beings because you go, okay, first, I'm going to assume not that there's nothing wrong with you because we have a condition, but that the body didn't make a mistake. We just have to find out why it's behaving that way. And then secondly, that could there be a nutrient deficiency? And one of the interesting things that you brought up that I didn't know was that all pharmaceuticals cause a nutrient deficiency. What are some of the other big ones that people should be aware of? You know, there are strong links between NSAIDs, you know, like cortisones and, And. And, you know, in deficiencies of folate and.

Yes.

Cause which.

Which I think is why so many people. That was a turning point for me is deciding I'm going to believe for the best case scenario, you have primary.

Issues are in the gut. As soon as somebody gets on methotrexate, they have a gut issue. Yeah. Or they get on corticosteroids.

I'm going to plan and do everything in my power to make that a reality. There's a.

There's ghost to, you know, goes to hell in a handbasket. And then shortly thereafter, so does their mood.

An old quote I love. And it's get on your. Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work It's a very similar mentality. Yeah.

Right. So what are some of the other big ones that people should know about?

Yeah, well, antidepressants are very high up on the list. A lot of B vitamins. It is really going to affect methylation.

Yeah.

Your. Those pathways. SSRIs in a big way. So. So that's. That, that's. That's a big one. Of course, the most common one and maybe the most damaging of all in my mind, in terms of just corporately across the. And so I started doing more and more research. America are going to be antibiotics. I mean, of course they deplete your body of good bacteria.

Right.

But what else do they put your body of? Every single B vitamin. You know, there's a unique study. There's a study that came out of Stanford years ago, and they discovered that if you supplement with probiotics, your serum level of B vitamins that, that you're absorbing, your body can utilize nearly doubles. Wow. So, I mean, it's a. It's.

If you stop taking antibiotics.

No, if you take probiotics.

Oh, if you take probiotics.

Yeah.

Okay.

But my, my point with that before and, and, and I met with this doctor he was recommending, I think at the time, something like six weeks of. I was going to be, though. When you deplete your body of good bacteria, you're now not absorbing the antibiotics. And another six weeks of oral antibiotics. Oh, so three months of antibiotics and then that was anything as well.

Yeah.

And so. And B vitamins are going to be a big one. That was the treatment. And I thought one. And let me say this. I am.

Well, I always remind people that we actually don't eat to feed ourselves. The only reason why we eat is to feed our gut bacteria. That's what really feeds us.

Yes.

Right.

I mean, we're not.

I don't know that we're capable. I don't want to make too blanket of a statement, but I don't know that we're capable of even taking a single nutrient.

I'm not one of those people out there that says there's never a time and place for medication. I think there's a time and place.

Like what from our food and, and having it show up in the blood is something the body can use without your gut bacteria. Right. So we feed them and then they feed us.

You know, I have a spinal infection, so I started taking an antibiotic. But I also read a research study on hyperbaric chambers, and one of the studies was on people with spine Infections and it found that they were able to cut down dramatic or eventually ATP feeds us.

But I mean, really got to think about. There's an intermediary between your plate and your body eating.

Yeah.

And it's your bacteria, it's your gut bacteria.

I mean, there are more bacteria, there are more microbes in our body than cells in our body. And you got 37 million 37 trillion cells.

Yeah.

And there are actually more microbes.

Yeah.

In our bodies. I mean, it's crazy. One other drug I just want to mention too, and I didn't mention it earlier, but statin drugs. I mean, how. I think this is crazy to me. People are diagnosed or are prescribed a statin medication. They take it. Well, one of the nutrients it depletes is coenzyme Q10. Well, that's critical for your heart functioning properly. So in reality, we know that if you're taking a statin drug, you're increasing your risk of different of heart disease. I mean, that's, that's medically the antibiotic use time down to a total of four weeks.

The reality, what about all of the studies that they point to that, you know, taking statins reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, mainly atherosclerotic and you know, plaques, the plaquing, narrowing, scarring.

So, so, so, so here's, here's my opinion on. And let me dive into something else here, a different topic and then bring.

It back to this from several months.

From several months. And so I went. There was a study done on studies. Okay. A study done on studies. And this is a really reputable study. Now, of course, after it came out and started getting in a hard hyperbaric chamber at a 2.5 ATA, you know, the pharmaceutical companies were freaking out about it. But 51.3% of studies today are inaccurate.

2.5.

Yeah, 2.5.

A lot more than the soft ones.

That's right.

Yeah.

They're lies. They're not true. Think about that. More than 50% of the studies we would go and read at when you.

Say cannot be true, how are they not true?

So, so, so here's what I mean. It's false data. Like, like what they're saying in the study is not, is not true. And they give six reasons for this. I'm going to remember most of them. One is, and I did that for about two hours a day, almost every day, five days a week. And I was able to just do that four weeks of. If you have a small sample size, it's, it's, it's Its chance of being true is a lot less. If the population that you're studying of people don't actually have the condition. If it's a larger placebo group, it tends to be less accurate. If there is a strong financial bias connected to it, they tend to be less accurate. If you are. If there's a lot of flexibility in the synabiotic time, I also was eating primarily meat, vegetables and berries. I started doing IVs daily antibiotic time. I also was eating primarily meat, vegetables and berries. I started doing IV's daily study. Too much flexibility, it's inaccurate. And the other big one is cherry picking IVs. I did a lot of silver.

Okay.

Yeah. Oh, did Myers. Yeah. I did vitamin C, glutathione. I wanted to protect my cells from the antibiotics because when you do iv, it can affect your cells as much as your gut. Doing a lot of supplementation like probiotics, you're just cherry picking the data you want and putting that out to the public. And people are reading that. That tends to.

This is a massive issue. When the war on fat started, remember?

And there you go.

Finally blew that thing wide open. They were like. He left out entire contradictory data sets.

Yes.

You know, it's like exculpatory evidence in court. It's like, what kind of IVs.

I did a lot of silver.

Okay.

Yeah. But I did Myers. Yeah. I did vitamin C, glutathione. I wanted to protect my cells from the antibiotics. Do I. It can affect your cells and. And a number of things like spirulina and. And so it followed this protocol. After two weeks, I started feeling a little bit better, 1% better. And then 1% better than 1% better. This time we're doing this interview. I was. So let me say this. So I started getting better, but I didn't walk for a total of 10 months.

Hold on. You were in a wheelchair. In a wheelchair. Going to the. We only want to talk about the facts that lead to proving our case. And then all these ones that disprove it.

It. Yeah, we're gonna leave out. Well, and let me give you example how it's almost 50. 50. When you look at the food studies done today. Let me think of. I. I could think of like 20, but let me pick one. So beef. There are loads of studies that show you eat red meat, causes heart disease. No, no. Hyperbaric. No, it was worse than that. I had to have a stretcher, a medical van come to pick me up because I couldn't be sitting. Put so much Pressure on the disc. So it wasn't just standing. I couldn't sit. No, no. Yeah. So the only way I could get anywhere was crawl. So I was able to crawl. I crawled in the pool. Once I started being able to do physical therapy. As much as your gut, doing a lot of supplementation, like probiotics. There are also several studies that show. No, it reverses heart disease. Which ones are true? These are these.

Right.

Okay, so same thing. Tomatoes. There are studies showing tomato. You know, they're actually showing that it causes heart disease. There are some on. I was going through this whole chart today, but I didn't walk on my own or even sit in a wheel. Sit for 10 months.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And then I got on a walker. Actually this time last year we're doing this interview right now. I was on a walker. So I just. It was. I just started getting up and.

Were your legs just so weak?

And I literally had to kind of learn how to walk again. Yeah, I was so weak, I'd lost 40 pounds. All of these. And so here's one of the other things that happens in studies. They don't get specific enough and clarify things. Like for instance, the beef study. If we're looking at grass fed. Grass fed beef is in a number of things like spirulina. And so it followed this protocol. Radically different than conventional grain fed beef.

Right.

But when they're in. Wow. I mean, I was.

You're not a big guy to begin with.

No, no. I mean, I went from about one in the study. They're just saying red meat or beef. 75 to 180 down to about 135. 140.

Wow.

Yeah, I lost 40 pounds. Now here's the thing I want to share the good news is that I now am about one year removed and I'm already better than the best that doctor said I would be. I'm back lifting weights, carrying my daughter. After two weeks, I started feeling a little bit better. 1% better. And then 1% better than 1% better. This time we're doing this interview. I was. So let me say this. So I started getting better, but I didn't walk for a total of 10 months around. I'm, you know, doing this interview, I'm flying on planes all over the country. I mean, doing all of this. And I think by the end of this year I'd say I'm probably 80, 85%, but I'm continuing to progress.

And so do you feel it right now? Do you notice that it's there?

No.

Okay, so it's not causing you.

So I think by the end of this year I'll be back to 100% and. But it was a very, very focused protocol.

Hold on. You were in a wheelchair? In a wheelchair. Going to the. You and I are going to have a tomahawk after this, by the way. You know that.

Yeah, I can't wait.

I showed it to him right before.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah, I can't wait. But I think you know that that is, that's how some of these studies are false. Is this contradicting data saying, well, this happened, oh, we found out that's not true. I mean this, you know, and this happens more often in the medical industry by far. But this happened in resveratrol. I mean, I mean we saw a lot of people saying, oh, resveratrol, miracle thing. But they were only testing in a petri dish. So then later on when they run human trials, they're like, oh, well actually everything that we publish for 10 years and we said that it adds 20 years to your life. This is false now.

Right, Right. Yeah, I. It's. You see that pendulum swing a lot in, in medical science. SSRIs was also, you know, a big one, you know, recently showing.

No, no hyperbaric. No, it was worse than that. I had to have a stretcher, a medical van come to pick me up because I couldn't be call including hyperbaric red light therapy, getting in a red, you know, red light bed, doing red light, doing PEMF therapy on a regular basis. I did all of those cold laser, all of it religiously and the power of prayer. I believe mindset is really important for healing as well. And so I did all those things and praise God, I'm here and I'm healthy now. But yet a lot of people were like, hey, where were you? I was bedridden for a year and just sort of now getting, getting back at it. But, but one thing I am grateful for is that this pain will be used for purpose. Like I learned so much about longevity regenerative medicine through the process and these.

Tail end risks in, you know, suicidal tendencies and increased, you know, one other thing because I mean there you're on your back. So what you were probably just reading, studying.

That's right.

Yeah. You know, trying to, trying to dig into this. So you only did the 14 week course of antibiotics that' after that you went all natural hyperbarics. What do you think you attribute the.

Sitting puts so much pressure on the disc. So it wasn't just standing. I couldn't sit. No, no. Yeah. So the only way I could get anywhere was crawl. So I was able to.

The greatest leap forward to. Or is it kind of the combination?

Is it the hyperbaric makes the studies false. Often they don't do them long term. It's only a short term study on. And then the years. And then when they do the full, as you're saying, 10 year study rather than the 10 month. Let me say this. I think in terms of protecting my cells in my body, the hyperbaric was a very, very powerful tool. Study. Well, then you find out, oh, well, this was the actual effect of it. But the one thing I didn't mention, which I can't forget now, most people wouldn't do this. You and I would, but most people wouldn't. I went and got stem cell therapy again.

Yeah. Because you have the time for the adaptations in the body to manifest into whatever that condition is you did.

Yes. So the first time I did it, my own bone marrow. And was the second one. The second one I went and saw Rafael Gonzalez with Rehealth. This is a Cancun clinic in Cancun. And I think they're the best in the world. I mean, they're study cells.

I'm a huge, huge fan of Raphael.

Amazing. I crawled in the pool once I started being able to do physical therapy.

So just to sort of bring things back full circle. I mean, philosophically, you're a huge believer in nutrition, lifestyle, you know, our mentality.

You know, and so I went there, got stem cell, done this in my disc with this incredible practitioner. And I could tell that also helped accelerate the healing process. But, but to answer your question, I think it's the whole on, on, on.

A state of optimal health. So if where does somebody start? They're like, I want to go on.

This health protocol altogether, doing all of those things in combination to one another that really, really help. You know, one thing that I noticed.

A difference was Raphael's group put the stem cells right into the disc. I mean, into journey. So many gurus to listen to. There's so many diets to pick out there. What testing do I do? Where do I plant the flag and get this journey going?

Yeah. I think the first place somebody should start is figuring out what does my ideal life look like. Yeah. We used his cells with a practitioner, a guy named Dr. Brian Schipel.

Okay.

Really amazing, doc. But yeah, I mean, it helped tremendously. One thing I noticed a big difference with. But I didn't walk on my own or even sit in a wheel sit for 10 months when my back. Because after, after this, I had. I still had a lot of. Even when I was up walking, I couldn't sit very long. A lot of back pain. When I would do contrast therapy, I would go and alternate between a cold plunge and a. What do I want to be doing when I'm in my 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s? What condition?

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And then I got on a walker. Hot tub. I probably noticed the biggest difference immediately from. Do you have. Do you want to reverse it? But just think about your health in your life and what you want to be doing in the future. Now I'm going to say something that probably not a whole lot of people have said, but alternating hot plunge and cold tub the next day than any other thing I did. My answer is, who are the five people who are doing that? Actually this time last year, we're doing this interview right now. I was on a walker. So I just, it was. I just started getting up.

Wow. So circulation, vasodilation, vasoconstriction, vasodilation, dramatic improvement because those areas of the body have really compromised blood flow, so they're slow to heal to begin.

Exactly what you want to do in the future. I mean, if you look at the greatest way to learning today is via mentorship. And that's why I healed so slowly. Most people don't realize this. The disc and the bone has almost zero blood supply. And that's why it took, you know, four to five times longer healing that area than any other area of the body typically would. The mentorship, Apprenticeship.

Right.

I mean, it's, it's. That's how you. So it's like if I. Today we're listening to government officials, we're listening to people like Anthony Fauci and others.

So this, this next. Were you doing any exosomes?

Yeah, we did as a follow up. So we did stem cell therapy and then. And then we did some exosomes as a follow up too. Other people that probably have very poor health. Okay. Whether Antifaxi did. I don't know. My point is there's a lot.

Wow. Yeah. I'm very, very close to Dr. Rafael Gonzalez. I'm a huge fan of his exosomes, of his. Of his stem cell therapy. Well, and where your leg's just so weak.

And I literally had to kind of learn how to walk again. Yeah, I was so weak, I'd lost 40 pounds. A lot of people in government, the CDC, the FDA, pharmaceutical companies, even doctors that have very, very poor health. That's not who you should be listening to. Listen to either the person who has extraordinary health himself or the person that helped that person get extraordinary health and follow the principles that that person's following.

Wow.

That's how we know. There's actually a Bible verse, I think, that's very relevant to this. And it's how do you know who to follow or believe? By your fruit, you will recognize them. Wow. I mean, I was.

You're not a big guy to begin with.

No, no. I mean, I went from about 1. Who has the best fruit in their life, who has the best health? Okay, well, let's start to follow their advice, model what they're doing. So if you want to be healthy, the greatest thing you can do is find other people that are living this life. 75 to 180, down to about 135. 140. Wow. Yeah, I lost 40 pounds. Now, here's the thing I want to share. The good news is that I now am about one style and just start to model them now. Let me bring it back a little bit as well. Let's say you're just getting started in this natural health realm and you want to make a big change. Here's one. Just change breakfast. Wow. If you just change breakfast, that's a third of your diet, right? I mean, that's immense. Or if you're intermittent fasting, change lunch. But my point is, just make that one switch. Do a superfood smoothie for breakfast. Do a handful of berries, a little bit of coconut milk, some collagen and bone broth protein, and boom, there you're removed. And I'm already better than the best that doctor said I would be. I'm back lifting weights, carrying my daughter. Go. You know, just make that change. But I would say the biggest and let me go through my top things. If somebody really wants to change their health, the number one thing you need to do is focus on your spiritual and emotional well being. The top study I've seen on longevity, the thing that I think without a doubt will increase your lifespan is your community and inner circle. So true.

The Blue Zone research proved this. Yeah.

Hang out with other virtuous human beings that love you, that support you, that help you grow and become the best you. That's the number one thing. Number two, use food as medicine again. Change breakfast. Just start to try and eat just real food. More organic meat, more vegetables, more fruits, getting those in your diet. Number three, walk. Walk a lot Outside, I'm, you know, doing this interview. I'm flying on planes all over the country. I mean, doing all of this. And I think by the end of this year, I. I'd say I'm probably 80, 85%, but I'm continuing to progress.

And the most underrated exercise on the planet. Yeah, Josh, this has been amazing. I think there's just so many, so much to chew on. I hope I can have you back again and we can take another feel it right now. Do you. Do you notice that it's there?

No.

Okay, so it's not causing you a deep dive too. I wind down every podcast the same way, ask every guest the same question. So there's no right or wrong answer for this question, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Well, to me, it's really tied to something in Greek called the. The synum bonum. And that is we're called to do the greatest good in this world. I believe we're all called to do three things. Love God, love people, make Earth a heavenly place. Take the Garden of Eden in Genesis and turn the entire bumps. Yeah, turn. So. So I think by. By the end of this year, I'll be back to 100%. But it was a very, very focused. Proto the entire place into a paradise. You know, when you read the book of Genesis, you'll see us in a garden. When you go and read the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the last two chapters, we're in a garden city. That's what we're called to create. So we need to take our, find our greatest unique gifts that God's given us. What is that thing that God has called you to do that you can call, including hyperbaric, red light therapy, getting in a red, you know, red light bed, doing red light, doing PMF therapy. You can do. Take that to the highest level. If you're an artist, be the Michelangelo, be that person. And then grow in your character, grow in skill, growing character, and use that for the good of humanity. And one of the things that will help you do that regular basis. I did all of those cold laser, all of it religiously and is being healthier. I once had a pastor come into my office and he was my best patient. You have people like this. They never missed a workshop, never missed a nutrition lecture. Was everyone. And I asked him, I said, said, hey, why? I said, why the power of prayer. I believe mindset is really important for healing as well. And so I did all those things and praise God. I'm here you my best patient. He goes, because I want to be doing mission trips when I'm in my 90s. And I said, you got it.

Purpose.

And so that's. It's purpose.

That's amazing. Awesome. Well, guys, you heard it here first. Dr. Josh Ax. Where can they find you if they want to find out more about you? Read up on some of your books, find out more about your clinics. How does my audience find you?

Yeah, well, one area is my podcast I'm gonna have and I'm healthy now. But yeah, a lot of people were like, hey, where were you the longevity. Longevity expert here. Gary on. So Again, it's the Dr. Josh AX show, so people could check out that podcast. And. And also I. I've covered a lot of topics and so if people just go on YouTube and search Josh Axe. Hypothyroid. Hypothyroid Josh X Testosterone, that can find a lot of the things that I taught YouTube on there and then on social, it's Rjosh Axe. I got a new book out called Think this. Not that it's really about mindset medicine and those are the best places. But hey, thanks so much, man. I admire so much about what you've done and just helping people reverse disease and just really being a pioneer in this industry too. So thanks so much. Yeah, I was bedridden for a year and just sort of now getting for having me. It was an honor.

Thank you so much, brother. It's great having you on.

Thanks, Gary.

Yeah. And as always, that's just science.

Getting back at it. But. But one thing I am grateful for is that this pain will be used for purpose. Like I learned so much about longevity regenerative medicine through the process because I.

Mean, there you're on your back. So what you were probably just reading, studying.

That's right.

Yeah. You know, trying to, trying to dig into this. So you only did the 14 week course of antibiotics.

That's right.

After that you went everything natural hyperbarics. What do you think you attribute the greatest leap forward to? Or is it kind of the combination? Is it the hyperbaric?

Let me say this. I think in terms of protecting my cells and my body, the hyperbaric was a very, very powerful tool. But the one thing I didn't mention, which I can't forget now, most people wouldn't do this. You and I would, but most people wouldn't. I went and got stem cell therapy again.

You did?

Yes. So the first time I did it my own bone marrow. And was the second one. The second One I went and saw Rafael Gonzalez with Rehealth. This is a Cancun clinic in Cancun, and I think they're the best in the world. I mean, they're stem cells.

I'm a huge fan of Raphael.

Amazing. And so I went there, got stem cell done in my disc with this incredible practitioner. And I could tell that also helped accelerate the healing process. But to answer your question, I think it's the whole protocol altogether, doing all of those things in combination to one another that really, really helped. You know, one thing that I noticed.

A difference was Raphael's group put the stem cells right into the disc. I mean, into.

Yeah, we used his cells with a practitioner, a guy named Dr. Brian Schipel.

Okay.

Really amazing, doc. But yeah, I mean, it helped tremendously. You know, one thing I noticed a big difference with when my back. Because after, after this, I had, I still had a lot of. Even when I was up walking, I couldn't sit very long. A lot of back pain. When I would do contrast therapy, I would go and alternate between a cold plunge and a hot tub. I probably noticed the biggest difference immediately from alternating hot plunge and cold tub the next day than any other thing I did. Wow.

Well, so circulation, vasodilation, vasoconstriction, vasodilation, dramatic improvement because those areas of the body have really compromised blood flow, so they're slow to heal to begin with.

Well, and that's why I healed so slowly. Most people don't realize this. Your. The disc in the bone has almost zero blood supply. And that's why it took, you know, four to five times longer healing that area than any other area of the body typically would.

So this, this next. Were you doing in the exosomes?

Yeah, we did as a follow up. So, so we did stem cell therapy and then, and then we did some exosomes as a follow up too. Wow.

Yeah, I'm, I'm very, very close to Dr. Rafael Gonzalez. I'm a huge fan of his exosomes, of his, of his stem cell therapy. Well, congratulations on getting to the other side of that.

Thank you so much.

That's amazing. You know, one of the other things that we talked about before we started the show, and, and, and I'm, I'm a part partner in a fairly sizable clinic. So we see a lot of hormone patients. And I said probably 70% of the patients that our clinical team sees that qualify for hormone therapy are actually not on hormones. And I've heard you talk about the risks of, of hormone therapy. I'm I'm a fan of it and also not a fan of it, depending on the age and, and the circumstances, stance.

So talk a little bit about the.

Risk because, you know, the one thing that I see as a trend is younger and younger and younger patients, especially men, but also women, being put on hormone therapy in their 20s. Yeah. Some even in their early, early 20s, 21 year old.