SALT: The Missing Weight Loss Key | Dr. James DiNicolantonio Reveals the Truth

After 30 years of helping millions of people through my books, my podcasts, and television shows, I can tell you there is one man, one person that has changed my thinking more than anyone else. And if you've been watching the last few episodes, you know how important the work of Robb Wolf has been in my career and how important the work of Dr. Jason Fung has been. But there's one man that really, and I've had on the show various times, that has brought something that I think is now a paradigm shift that is happening globally when it comes to wellness. And that is we're no longer thinking about, you know, counting calories and dieting, but rather about managing, controlling hunger. And Dr. James DiNicolai wrote a book. This is his pivotal book that you guys need to check out. It'll be in the show notes. It's called The Salt Fix. His title subtitle says it all: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong and How Eating More Might Save Your Life. And I can tell you, this may be dramatic, but his book is not only a New York Times bestseller, he has follow-up books on minerals and how— in today's episode, you're gonna get an encore presentation of my best interviews with him back to back for just over 3 hours. I want you to know that the next 3 hours of your life will change how you think about your health, about hunger control, and it'll take you behind the scenes on how my thinking has evolved over my 30-year career. And I can tell you, this is the man that's guided me to what I'm doing with everything in my career currently. And I'll tell you, it is probably the most important recordings I've ever made. And this is the first time I've ever made an episode where I include all of them. So there's gonna be 4 incredible interviews with Dr. James. It's gonna start with our most recent one to our very first one. We'll end with that one. And I think by the time this 3-hour experience is done, what you're gonna have is a unique perspective that will change your life. So let's sit down, guys. Get ready. 3 hours right now. You, me, and Dr. James DiNicolai Antonio, the author of The Salt Fix.

Welcome, Dr. James.

Thanks for having me on again.

Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head. In regards to the reason why this book is so important is because it takes what I wrote in The Salt Fix, but translates it to performance. And like you said, it doesn't— you don't have to be an elite athlete to read the book. It really pertains to everyone because hydration is life. Salt and fluid is life, and it fuels our workouts. And so we—

and exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health. Really, chapter 2 is all on hydration.

It took me a ton of research to actually pull a lot of those studies. And really the common thing here is that when you perform any type of vigorous exercise, that blood volume drops very quickly within 5 minutes, 5 to 10 minutes, you drop a percent blood volume and it's a relative drop. Obviously you don't lose blood, but what happens is when you vigorously exercise, the blood that used to go to the heart now has to go into the working skeletal muscle., and then it starts actually going to the skin to dissipate heat. So you have this competition between blood volume from the heart, the skeletal muscle, and the skin. And so if you can boost blood volume prior to performance, which is what chapter 2 covers, then you can prevent the drop in blood volume, which is the main reason why performance suffers is the drop in blood volume.

I think it's so vital because I feel Like in life, we often seem to be low energy, low performance, low endurance. I think chronic fatigue is something a lot of our listeners experience and they think the solution is more caffeine or stimulants. And I love that your theory is so different. It's more of a mineral-based theory, obviously starting with sodium. Can you take us back just for those listeners that maybe didn't hear our first interview? And give us just a tiny recap of what kind of this premise is, because in your first— in the book that got me to understand what your work was and why it was so important was this Salt Fix about why experts got it all wrong. You know, because they vilified salt and sodium and how eating more, literally on the COVID of the book, we say, and how eating more salt can save your life. Because if we can start there, I think a lot of people have been told for decades, if you're 50, like I am, or 60 or 70, That salt is— I'll let you tell it. What have people been told for how many decades and why is it all wrong? Let's start there and then we'll dive into obviously how it impacts everything from hydration and appetite and performance, but take us back to the roots of your work and how everyone got it wrong. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. From a historical perspective, if you think of Romans used to consume on average 25 grams of salt and even in the 1800s. Salt consumption was upwards of 50 grams in, in many European countries. And even a lot of the army rations understood that most soldiers needed 18 to 20 grams of salt. So this is 2 to 3 times what we typically consume in a day was actually thought to be important back a couple hundred years ago before we invented the refrigerator. We use salt to preserve our food. Now what's basically happened in the last 70 years is that we just simply de— now demonize salt. We, we've been told it's toxic. Poison instead of this essential mineral. And what's interesting, what you said, we all think about caffeine, coffee. We didn't used to consume that hundreds of years ago, but that is one of the biggest depleters of salt is coffee caffeine. And when they were making all these recommendations to consume a low amount of salt, they never took exercise into account, nor did they take the fact that caffeinated teas and coffees are some of the most commonly consumed beverages, which deplete our bodies of salt.

Yeah. So it does the opposite. It actually, what would you call it? Like leaches sodium from our bodies. And why briefly, why is that? So if someone's, nah, that's just a bunch of chemistry, but it's honestly one cup of coffee, it removes how much water would you say? Something people can relate to.

Sure. So on average, I'll just go over some of the salt studies that looked at caffeine, but essentially 2 cups of coffee will cause you to lose 600 milligrams of sodium extra. Compared to placebo or just drinking water. And if you consume 4 cups, you lose half a teaspoon of salt or 1,200 milligrams of sodium. And so that's why coffee is a diuretic. That's why you lose water is because it flushes out sodium and chloride. It prevents the reabsorption of sodium in the proximal tubule of the kidneys.

Wow.

So when we drink coffee, in theory, to create this, what is that called when there's a balance, obviously? When we don't have that balance, it's dehydration, right?

Yeah.

And talk to us how that leads to what we've talked about in the past, to not just being thirsty, I would think if you feel that even, but then more importantly could trigger appetite, right? In, in the sense of not having this, what, what's the proper term when you have the right hydration? What, what's the term you would use?

Yeah, I would just say optimal hydration because you can talk about hydration in the cell, which is intracellular hydration, or in the blood, which is intravascular hydration. But essentially they balance each other out at a certain point. Basically the interstitial fluid has the same osmotic gradient as the blood, and eventually they'll balance each other out. But you have, you had two questions like coffee hydration and then basically hunger and how salt controls that. So there have been studies in humans looking at consuming 3 cups of coffee twice a day. And what ended up happening is that caused a massive increase in diuresis and it actually led to a net negative volume or basically hydration status of 750 mL when these people were consuming 2 liters a day.

Wow.

So in other words, if you don't increase your water intake essentially above 2 liters, and let's say you consume 3 cups of coffee twice a day, you will become dehydrated. That's been proven in metabolic studies. Looking at coffee consumption because of the diuretic effect.

And when we're dehydrated, give us what happens with everything from performance, energy, and what a lot of people want to know from this podcast usually is about appetite and how it may trigger us to want to eat when we're not really hungry, we're just dehydrated. Is that— take us through what the, the results of this are. They sound negative for the most part, right?

Yeah, simply being dehydrated by 1.8 to 2% has been shown to reduce cognition, reduce mental performance, and reduce athletic performance. And especially if you hit 3% dehydration, that will reduce both endurance as well as basically power output. So you're reducing strength and you're reducing endurance when you're dehydrated. And that's because you have less volume to dissipate the heat, to sweat, to cool your body off. That's one of the benefits of preloading with salt and fluids is you're boosting your fuel tank, you're boosting your coolant to, to actually sweat off and still maintain a normal amount of blood to feed the heart, the muscles. So that's why it's important in regards to hunger.

Yeah.

That this is what's interesting. The animal studies show that if you deplete an animal of salt, they, the addictive properties of things like sugar, things like Adderall and things like cocaine actually dramatically go up. And that's because low salt diets actually activate the reward center in the brain. It's a defense mechanism for basically animals. Animals, including humans, in order to maintain an adequate amount of salt. Essentially, if you are salt deficient, the body has to have a way of telling itself, go out and seek out this nutrient, otherwise you're gonna die. And how it does that is it activates the reward center in the brain so that when you get salt, it's more rewarding. It allows the animal to seek it out, find it, consume more of it. But things that are addictive can cross over and become more addictive when you're not getting enough salt, because that reward center is now hyperactive.

Wow.

Now I know a lot of people know people and maybe have addiction problems, whether it's alcohol, substances in the past, but one of the biggest addictions I know a lot of our clients suffer with, which we cannot throw in and never vilify, is what I think you would agree should be vilified, which is sugar. And how does it impact our ability to crave sweets? Because literally I've heard others say, and I think you may agree with this, that sugar can be more addictive than than hard stu— substances like even heroin and cocaine and other hard drugs. How does sugar play into this and our ability to regulate our control of sugar, carbohydrate?

So the animal studies, basically, if you give animals intermittent access to sugar, they'll pull on the levers for sugar more than cocaine. So that's where you constantly hear the sugar is more addictive than cocaine. It's from those animal studies. And it's the intermittent access where basically there's a period where they're off sugar and then they go back on it, but it's a constant, basically they're consuming it every single day. And wow, that's the problem with the American diet. It's hidden in everything. So not most people, it's true, most people aren't just consuming spoons of sugar, but they do put it in their coffee. And when you spike a, a processed food with sugar, then it just becomes so much more addictive. So a lot of people are focusing on the harms of seed oils, which of course are super damaging and inflammatory, but you gotta understand it's the sugar that is driving people to overconsume all a lot of these processed foods leading to obesity and type 2 diabetes. So in my opinion, refined sugar is almost just as bad as these refined seed oils because it drives addiction and overconsumption of food and the problems of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Wow. We're getting to, this is my favorite part of our conversation so far because I feel like a lot of people, they don't have control and they lack discipline. They beat themselves up so much. And I feel like sometimes we don't hear enough that, hey, not that it isn't our fault, but that if we have certain practices that we follow consistently, and it seems like maybe you can summarize this up until this point, and then we get into the performance part, but we have a pattern, it seems. Of dehydrating our bodies of essential, not just water, but these minerals. And by doing this consistently, just the example of coffee, right? How many people consistently, like watching right now, you email me, guys, everyone does this. We overdrink coffee and we don't drink and like, oh, give me a big water with that coffee. We just drink our coffee and then we're starving or hungry or we lose that control. And then we have to have a big sugar muffin or a bunch of fruit or a bunch of sugar or orange juice. And it just seems to create this negative loop of dehydration, of losing the salt and the water, which causes us to lose control. Is that in essence, get help, help people understand why as much as they may have discipline and be disciplined in their life, this is a hard thing to beat. It's, it sounds, it's more addictive than heroin, like you said, in these lab studies, right? The sugar seems to draw us almost like a drug, right? It's never been vilified. Not that we want to vilify it right now, but if we were, what would you tell people about sugar and carbohydrates and how it's truly maybe something more addictive than a drug? And I think when people do drugs, they get that, oh, I need help. I need to go into recovery. But they don't think about it when it comes to sugar because they think, oh, it's benign. But tell us why it's not benign maybe, and how maybe someone listening that is a sugar holic, it isn't their fault possibly, right?

Yeah, no, truly it, it isn't. And sugar is refined and processed just like a drug would be. So think, if you think about opium or you think about cocaine, they're all highly refined powders from plants. Sugar comes from sugarcane and you get this highly refined white crystal. So when you think about the processing of sugar, it's the same as a drug. It comes from a similar substance, a plant, a natural plant. 'Cause a lot of people say, how can it be addictive? I can get it in nature. Well, we gotta understand the processing of it. And when you process something into a very refined white crystalline form, now you can get spikes in dopamine that you never could get with just eating a piece of fruit. And it's really the level of dopamine that you get. If you get too high of a level, you'll downregulate the dopamine receptors. That can lead to withdrawal effects and cravings. And then you're in this vicious cycle of not just high sugar, low sugars, which is a physiological dependence now on sugar to try to maintain blood sugar levels. But now you're in this dopamine high-low and your body's constantly craving sugar because of the dips in dopamine. It's the troughs in blood sugar, the troughs in dopamine that lead the person to basically crave sugar. And that's what's going up.

Wow.

So if someone wants to, let's just be bold here and gain radical control over this. Why do I feel like salt may be the solution? Tell us why. And let's get into how it solves everything else too, right?

It's certainly number one. It's the biggest mineral that can be lost the most rapidly in, in, in basically you can have a huge clinical consequence within just an hour or two of sweating outside in the heat. You can suffer heat stroke if you don't get enough salt. There's no other nutrient like that where you can really die within like a couple hours from an exogenous thing that's gonna deplete it, which exercising in the heat will do that. Yeah, that's number one. We gotta understand, yes, we, especially if we're eating processed foods, we get enough salt, but there's so many things that can rapidly deplete the body of salt. That's what's different about salt. Not a lot of nutrients get rapidly depleted in the body. And then salt controls insulin sensitivity. When you don't get enough salt, the kidneys will, and, and the body will release more insulin to retain the salt. And now when you have high insulin levels and you're more insulin resistant, you crave more sugars, you gain more fat per calorie consumed, which is— so salt controls in a way hunger because it controls insulin and leptin sensitivity.

Wow.

So with the right amount of salt, and I'm a fan of simple products. I think you've, you're familiar with things like Elemental Labs, their products.

Mm-hmm.

I put one of these in, I have my 32 ounces of water and I've shown this on television and all that. And you've helped me in magazine articles talk about salt and all that. But if someone wants a simple prescription, and then let's get into why this simple prescription. Can give us? I think what I love about your book is the ability to win in life from the point of view from strength, speed. I think endurance is the biggest thing I think people are lacking right now. But what would you say as a prescription? Do you agree with this? Is, I think this one's 1,000 milligrams, right? Which is about half a teaspoon. Is that approximately right?

Yeah, just under half a teaspoon would be 1,000 mil.

And then I put it in 32 ounces of water. Is that a simple fix, something like this, or what would you suggest?

So it depends on the person's diet. If you're consuming a lot of processed foods, then you're probably getting adequate salt and you really need to drop the refined carbs and sugars. But if you're eating a whole food diet, now we don't consume the blood, the interstitial fluids, the organs. So the salt has been removed from whole foods now. So you gotta replace the salt back with like things like Redmond Real Salt or what you just showed. Like you gotta replace it back. And the studies show that between 3,000 and 5,000 milligrams of sodium per day is likely optimal in regards to decreased risks of all-cause mortality, lower risk of cardiovascular events, strokes, heart attacks, things like that.

Say that number again for us, and then tell us for anyone's whose ears are perking up, they're like, that sounds like more than what's recommended because the, the government for some reason tends to regulate this or gives a recommendation, but correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't for sugar. And I feel like if you're going to give us a doctor's prescription here, it's your background, what would it be compared to? Because I think people need a reference point. What is the— it truly is the government that says, hey, we should have this much. And what are your thoughts on that number versus the number you just gave us?

Yeah, so a lot to unpack there. So number one, 3,000 to 5,000 milligrams of sodium is about 1.5 to 2 teaspoons of salt. It's true. The government has long recommended to consume less than 1 teaspoon of salt. And of course you can lose more than that in just 1 hour of exercise. So we can basically unpack how that is, you know, completely just a blanket statement and shouldn't be prescribed individually because of depending on coffee intake and how much you exercise. So that's that. And then 3, in regards to governments not regulating sugar intake for the longest time. The US Dietary Guidelines said that it was okay to consume 25% of your total calories from added sugars. And so in the Sulfurx, I go over the historical and how they changed it and how it was basically, they went from moderate sugar intake to you can consume up to a quarter of your entire day's worth of calories as refined sugar.

Wow.

I mean, never, whereas for an essential mineral, they never even said consume at least this amount so you don't die. It's always just a inside and as if this isn't an essential mineral.

Wow. With that said, what does someone do if they're— because I hate to ask this simple question, but I think it bears having your opinion on, like this idea that doctors use this information from the government to make recommendations to people. And if people are being told by their doctors to— what is, what are they typically told about salt? Oh, be careful. People I know if I tell people to drink salt, the very first thing they think, I'm gonna have a heart attack. Literally, they're worried about what, what is it? It's high blood pressure.

Yeah.

Tell us how that, help us break that down. So maybe if anyone listening right now is, no, I can't do salt. My doctor has said not to. They're basing it on what you just told us. And tell us why we need to, to say it. Not only do we need to get your new book, but we need to get the original book because They got it wrong. And how do we give people, I don't know what the word is, but the tools to, to be able to have an intelligent conversation with their doctor. Because I, I don't think, can we win at that? Is that a lot? How do we do that with a doctor? Because I'm sure a lot of people have been told, what is it that they've been told, Dr. James, over the years? Be careful, right?

Yeah. Totally. The first thing, if you have high blood pressure, the doctor's going to say is cut your salt intake. There's no nuanced discussion. I don't think the goal should be to try to convince your doctor otherwise, because you don't have a lot of time with them anyway, and it's not going to work 99% of the time, you're not gonna change their mind. So the goal would be to just clean up your overall diet and consume an amount of salt that is good for you, that optimizes how you feel, all your symptoms that you're having. Most people, when they start introducing salt into their diet, healthy quality salt, they instantly see improvements in atrial fibrillation, cognition, energy levels, exercise performance. So you'll know what the right amount is for you when you start adding it back into your diet.

Yeah, that's great. For those that want that reference out of all your books or tools out there, I think The Salt Fix is one of them. The new book, do you get into that as well? And let's get into that because from a sense of endurance performance and really optimized, um, I mean, for me, I think it's vitality because I feel like if I'm middle-aged and maybe I'm not an athlete, but I'm tired all the time. All I do is, like we said in the beginning here, is we drink coffee and coffee, and ironically it's doing the opposite. It's hard to believe that caffeine is making us tired, but at one point it takes us up, but then the dehydration does the opposite. So explain how we can now use what we've just talked about for improved endurance and energy, please.

Sure.

So there's like a few different ways that you can think about hydration. You can think about. Hydration is, okay, I want to acutely boost my performance, or I want to have my performance improved later on, basically. And how that happens is you adapt to dehydration. It's called dehydration acclimation. So if you're someone who you're about to compete in an event, you want to be— basically, there's, in the book, I unpack how to take these salt solutions, but you start basically 90 minutes prior to performance or competition. You slowly consume those over about 30 to 60 minutes, and, and that allows the salts and the fluids to start boosting the blood volume. And in the clinical studies, you can exercise up to 20 to 21 minutes longer, vigorously exercise. That's the key.

Wow.

Which if you compare that to any other performance enhancing supplement on the market, including beta alanine and beetroot juice, those supplements can only boost endurance by about 1 to Maybe 2 minutes if you're lucky.

So this is salt.

Lewitt is 10 to 20 times more powerful in regards to boosting performance than any other supplement or performance enhancing supplement out on the market.

How does it work for anyone out there? I was talking to a client last night because she was helping review a lot of what were questions from our listeners, from everyday women that are in their 50s and 60s. Tell us briefly, and then I want to get into some of your nutritional guidelines on protein and Fiber about performance, but briefly, how does blood volume, increased volume, give us this edge? Because I think you get, we get that, that this is what happens when you do the sodium, but how does it give us that edge in a layman's way? Like in a very simple way, when blood, when you take in this wonderful fluid with the salt in it, then your blood volume goes up. How does that ex— I don't know if you can dumb it down for us, but explain it as best you can. How that impacts truly our energy, our endurance, our appetite, because with that volume in there, what happens like that? I guess that's the part I'm seeing the blood in our bodies go up. That's— tell us what that means. So the blood volume increase and how it works, please.

Yeah.

So essentially when you start exercising, you're now shifting blood to working muscle, the skeletal muscle, and then you're also shifting blood to the skin to then dissipate heat. And you're losing volume when you sweat to cool off. So there's not only a true drop in volume because you are, you have to sweat water to cool the body off, but there's now a shift in blood that used to go to the heart that is now having to go to the skeletal muscle. So there's a relative drop in blood volume now feeding the heart. So there's this massive just depletion of blood volume within 5 to 10 minutes of 8 to 10%, essentially when you measure it in the arterial supply. Cuz it's now going into the skeletal muscle, into the skin. You have to boost blood volume by 8 to 10%. So you don't get the drop that occurs within 5 to 10 minutes. And the way to do that is to take salt and fluids in a fairly high concentration, essentially a concentration that's very similar to blood, which is ironic. And we actually learned how to do this through astronauts. This would, there's a really interesting story here on, on hydration. And it's when we send astronauts into outer space for several days because there's no gravity, their blood volume drops. So when they, upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere and the gravity, they have this low blood volume. It was causing astronauts to pass out. So NASA had to figure out how to boost blood volume 2 hours before reentry. And really a lot of the, the data actually comes from that, which is kind of interesting.

Wow. And basically the fluid that is in something like this 32 ounces of water, and I put one of these packets in there, will do that. In essence, is this kind of, you said it's like getting the ratio down to what blood is to some degree. It does not taste like blood, but in essence it gives you the same. It's almost like a transfusion, right? Is that what it, I mean, it sounds like we're vampires here, but is it like a transfusion, right? It really does give us that edge.

It 100% does.

This is again, to acutely boost performance, but essentially between 3,000 and 4,300 milligrams of sodium per 26 to 33.8 ounces respectively. So 33.8 ounces is a liter of fluid and 4,300 milligrams has been tested as probably the best way to boost blood volume. That's now pretty high. A lot of people would say, wow, that's really high. You don't have to do that though before regular typical exercise. This is okay, I have an NFL game or I have a UFC fight. You wanna be consuming the 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams of sodium in that amount of fluid. And adding glycine to that can actually improve the absorption of salt and decrease core body temperature as well. 'Cause glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and that's actually how it helps us sleep, is glycine lowers core body temp. So I have some protocols on how to do this, but if you're someone in training camp and you want your performance to be better 2 weeks later, yeah, what you do is you come in fully hydrated., but then you induce mild dehydration. Basically you weigh yourself before training, weigh yourself after, and you wanna see like a 1.5 to 2.5% drop in body weight because it's the acclimation to the dehydration later on. You do that for 1 to 2 weeks and your body will enlarge plasma volume on its own as an acclimation response to the dehydration. And now you have a larger blood volume at baseline. So there's different ways to hydrate.

If that makes sense.

Oh yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And I think, I feel like so much of what has become the questions a lot of my clients have are the very answers and solutions that all your books are about. And I feel like you've become truly the authority on planet Earth right now that knows this. And I feel like I wish there were more people, but I'm just so, so lucky that we have like your work. And I feel like this book is so powerful for that. Now there's some items, some bonus items I wanted to get to. I know we got a little more time here, and I think these are important because they impact our performance, they impact our life. And outside of salt, as much as we could talk about sodium and, and also magnesium, potassium, I think you brought, you've mentioned those in the past, that those are worthy of considering in our water as well as the one you had just mentioned, which is glycine.

Is that right?

Glycine?

Yeah.

Yeah. So in the cell. Potassium and magnesium more control hydration. They're the osmot— basically potassium's really the highest charged electrolyte in the cell and it helps to pull volume into the cell. So intracellular hydration depends on magnesium and potassium, but it, it also depends on salt because salt is the driving force for electrochemical gradients in general. Outside of the cell, it's primarily salt that is driving a lot of the fluid retention. So all three are extremely important for hydration.

I love that. All right, here it is. Uh, we'll go through these rapidly if we can, maybe a minute or two on each, or if you want to go longer. Let's talk about protein. In your book, you talk about a ratio that I think most of us can relate to, about 1 gram for 1 pound. Tell us, because I always tell my clients, start with protein. Protein is such an essential way to not just break your fast, but you need it on a regular basis. And I know for some people, just to give them an example of this ratio, 1 gram for 1 pound. I weigh 200 pounds, so I need 200 grams of protein. Give us that ratio and why that number for, from your perspective and your research has become something that it could be a little higher, a little lower, but it seems to be the average. Describe that, that number and how protein is so important for performance and for winning in life, right?

Yeah. I think that number is easy for people to remember.

Sure.

And not a lot of people know what their lean body mass is. So you can get into the nitty-gritty and say, okay, if you have more actual skeletal muscle, then your protein intake should be higher. And you could then base it off of lean body mass, but not a lot of people know how much body fat they have. And so that becomes a little more nuanced, but more tricky.

Sure.

But the 1 gram per pound, which is 1 gram, basically 2.2 grams of pro per kilogram.

Yep.

Because kilogram is 2.2 pounds. That's where most of the maximal muscle protein synthesis occurs is, is around that range. But to make it even more simple for maximum muscle protein synthesis, essentially 30 to 40 grams of protein 4 times a day seems to be the optimal amount. So you basically eat 3 meals and then maybe you have a protein shake, 30 grams of casein protein, which is a longer acting protein before bedtime. That's for maximum muscle protein synthesis. If that's strictly what you're trying to do.

Gotcha. And for people that may be following a boost— some of our clients do the OMAD, the one meal a day. They do this type of intermittent fasting. Give us your thoughts on having the protein at one meal or say a 3-hour window. How can that work for us?

Hopefully, I would say, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone consuming one meal a day if they're very active and are building muscle. Most people are consuming at least twice a day because Yeah, that's gonna improve muscle protein synthesis by having at least that second meal versus just one meal. But it does, what matters most is the, the overall total protein intake for the day. So you can do that in one meal per day. Okay. A lot of it, that's a, that's a lot of protein to try to consume in one meal. 150 grams of protein would be something that I would try to hit in one meal.

Be a nice ribeye, a nice steak, something big, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

It'd be, it would certainly be a lot of meat in one sitting.

Yep.

Yep.

It's doable. I like that. Hey, tell us about fiber because not a lot of people believe me or people like Dr. Paul Saladworth. Fiber has become something that obviously I recommend it when needed to help with appetite control. There are clients that will use that and I think it's great, but why outside of maybe holding up hunger is it not critical for our health? Because I think we've been told fiber is critical and Just give us a little bit of, of your take on it, because obviously it serves a purpose. I think it can be very useful, but I think a lot of people think it's critical. How do you differentiate between essential, critical, and your take on fiber?

So the, the discussion on fiber needs to be much more nuanced, right? Because I'll consume like a greenish banana, which has more resistant starch, which as you said, it's very bulky. It'll hit the stretch receptors and it gives you satiety very quickly. That can be sometimes a bad thing because you might become full really quickly and now you're not getting the nutrients that you need throughout the day because you're instantly just bulked your whole stomach up. So it's not always a good thing to simply just con— consume a ton of fiber. And we need to understand the nuance between fiber from whole foods is different than Metamucil or just like a supplemental fiber, that those are two different things. Where people get mad is yes, there are studies showing in like animals and, and potentially even humans too, that if you consume like a standard American diet where you're combining meat with seed oils and—

right.

That consuming a resistant starch has improvements on colon health, but you can't translate that data to someone who's consuming like wild game that isn't charring the meat, that isn't consuming with seed oils and sugars. You can't translate that data over to that person. So that's where you have a discrepancy between people who are eating paleo saying I don't need fiber. And then all the people who are evidence-based saying, wait, all these studies show that like the fiber's reducing colon cancer in humans when you give it. That's not the— you can't translate that poor diet over to someone who's eating a whole animal-based diet. So that's really the key is the, those people that are vegetarian or try to look at those studies and say, you need to be consuming fiber, aren't going into the nitty-gritties though, of actually like what the diet is being made of.

So you're saying that depending on what the quality of the food is, and obviously I know a lot of our listeners follow more of a healthy protein type of diet and they're trying to eat really good quality meat. Some of them follow more of a paleo diet, like you said, or keto diet. And if they're not overly consuming processed foods with, I guess they can inject fiber into processed foods. Obviously they do that as best they can, but it doesn't always correlate with good health. And when it's specifically the greatest concern that you, you think is out there, is it more cancer in the colon? Is that the, the issue that why fiber has become this? Like you said, there are a lot of products out there and I feel like, not that that's the only solution, but there are other solutions and eating it, whether it's a paleo or keto diet, really can give people that benefit. And those diets tend to have less fiber.

Yeah, I think there's been some misconceptions on Paleolithic intake of food, essentially you had a lot larger mammals living for a long period of time back in the day, woolly mammoths and things like that. And, and now you're, when you look at Paleolithic tribes, they don't have these large mammals that they can hunt anymore. So their meat intake looks low and their fiber intake looks high because of what's happened over the last couple hundred years. So it's not a true accurate way to say that like Paleolithic ancestors consumed a low meat, high fiber diet. That's just not the case.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes no— yeah. I know on page 188, you talk about fat adaptation, right? Can you go into that briefly about how fat and eating healthy fats? And I think you're very wise to differentiate as we try to do between vegetable fats and animal fats and these non-vegetable, like more fruit fats, I guess, like avocado oil being beneficial, but things like soybean and corn oil, maybe you can get into that briefly, but fat is always a, a, a word that polarizes people. Like salt, I feel like it's been vilified, but not all fats are created the same. Could you jump into this fat adaptation? Because I think it was really powerful. And this is somewhere on page 198 in your book that I was reading.

Yeah, there's, I guess you can, we can talk about the cooking oils and what are some of the healthy forms, and then we can talk about being like metabolically flexible and you using fat for fuel to, to even improve anaerobic performance.

Great.

But basically the seed oils that you mentioned, corn, safflower, soybean, sunflower, sesame, canola, all these things are terrible to cook with. And so it's not necessarily, if you got, let's say, expeller-pressed organic omega-6 seed oil, that's, I don't think that's still super healthy, but it's way worse when you start cooking with those oils because they have multiple double bonds and they're highly susceptible to oxidation. Compared to saturated fat. So all the studies show that if you cook with an omega-6 seed oil, you get much larger increases in hydroperoxides and aldehydes, which are damaging to the body versus animal fats or saturated fats, like coconut oil, butter, ghee, lard, tallow, things like that. So when you're cooking with a fat, at least the studies that I've looked at, definitely omega-6 seed oils should be off the table. And then, and for metabolic flexibility, it is important to mix your workouts where some workouts you preload with some complex carbs an hour before, but then you also want to do some fasted workouts as well. And that develops metabolic flexibility. On one system, you're using sugar glucose for fuel. The other system, you're using fat for fuel. And when you become metabolically flexible, the longer you can use fats before you hit anaerobic exercise is going to reserve your glycogen stores and improve even anaerobic performance, which is essentially actually vigorous exercise where you're using glucose.

Yeah.

So you train in zone 2, which is 60 to 70% of your max heart rate to burn fat. And then you train at lactate threshold to burn glucose and improving both those metabolic systems is gonna make you a much better athlete.

I love that. I love that athletic kind of strategy. It's simple, but it's not common, I don't think. And I think people are scared of using fat at times to, to fuel their, to, to fuel their lives. With that said, I know cholesterol is something you talk about on page 210. Can you share with us a little bit of that? And maybe we can end on that point because I feel like cholesterol, out of all the fats you've mentioned, and you know, if people replace those seed oils, these omega-6 oils with things like butter or ghee or beef tallow, obviously they have cholesterol, the yolks of eggs. Why is cholesterol something, maybe dietary cholesterol, something that has been vilified? And then why? I'm guessing you're going to say it shouldn't be vilified because I sure use it. And you just suggested it. How did that happen in our heads and in the world where cholesterol, obviously people are worried about it for a valid reason, right? Heart health. Is that why? And how did we go wrong there with cholesterol?

I think people get confused because they're constantly told their cholesterol in their body is something that needs to be just slammed down to zero, almost like as if the liver is producing cholesterol for no reason, which we form hormones off of cholesterol, including vitamin E. So cholesterol is extremely important, vital molecule, and it's so vital that our liver produces 75% of the cholesterol for the day. Cooking with foods that have cholesterol are— you're cooking with foods that are stable though, that have saturated fat. It's true that if you oxidize cholesterol and you consume oxidized cholesterol, that may be harmful, but it depends on how much you're consuming the other antioxidants through throughout the diet. So that discussion gets nuanced too. But I think mostly people fear dietary cholesterol cuz they think it's going to dramatically drive up their cholesterol levels and lead to heart disease. But that's really, that's an assumption. Does that happen?

Yeah.

I feel like we've covered so many things. If there's one point that we haven't shared yet, especially about this idea of becoming a champion, I love that word. I feel like in life, you know, I, for me, I, I wanna live a life, uh, where I'm enjoying every minute as much as possible. And I feel like a lot of people settle, they lower the bar. How can becoming a champion and winning in life— and we can end on this— be really impacted by like our food and our lifestyle choices? Because I love the foreword by Ben Greenfield about really understanding, because he's a biohacker of sorts and really out on the edge and demanding the most from his body. And I think as we are now in 2022 and The world is more stressed out than ever. And it seems like the work we, the loads we have to carry with work and stress are at the highest levels. I don't think people are thinking that they can win at life anymore. Tell us why they can, because I think if you can end on that, and maybe this is more the mindset, right, of the champion. And I think you cover that in many parts of the book, but I, we didn't pinpoint that, but how can, because I think sometimes you just have to believe you can be that. And obviously this book There's a tool chest of what to be doing because it feels, it just gives you so much. This is what I love about your books. You're never, um, you never hold back. It's a very, it's very rich, very deep, a lot of information. But why can we become a champion? Because I feel like some people will be like, eh, maybe I can have a little more energy, but a champion, it's a big word and winning is a big word, but tell us why this is possible and why we need to get this book because I'm so excited. I have this book in my library now and I feel like we all need it. And I think we all can win, right? Dr. Jaden?

Yeah, no, of course. I totally agree with that. And the book is truly how to improve performance and recovery. This is the tool guide to how to improve your athletic gains, whether it's endurance, whether it's strength and mindset as well. And I think everyone's trying to figure out how do I de-stress? How do I sleep better? Exercise is like the key. You can't mimic exercise in a pill. Exercise is going to be the best thing for your stress, your sleep, your health. So if you can figure out a way to optimize your exercise routine and recover from it better, then it is the key to good mental health and physical health.

I love that.

I started my career a million years ago. It seems 20 years ago with a book called 8 Minutes in the Morning. And I can tell everyone that's watched these podcasts with you and I, they're aware of that book. And I feel like for anyone out there that feels, oh, I don't even have 8 minutes. Give us, end on a pep talk that's positive. Because I think what you just said is critical. And now more than ever, exercise is the key to do it. For someone just getting started that isn't a champion yet, tell them from your, from doctor's orders, your orders, what they should do today, right now. If they're listening to us at night, first thing in the morning, then, you know.

Yeah.

5 minutes of exercise is better than none. So stop sitting. Yourself up like for failure that you have to be in the gym for an hour and a half. Otherwise it's not worth it. It's not the case. Small steps, consistent daily habits will lead to a stronger mindset and better physique, better, better health overall.

I love it. All right, guys, you heard it there. Doctor's Orders Win, available on Amazon, everywhere books are sold, obviously. But Amazon is the place where I think you guys have this in physical form as well.

It's digital.

Tell them a little bit about where they can get it from your perspective. And is there an audio as well?

Yep.

So there's a Kindle and paperback on Amazon. Probably not going to do an Audible for this one, just because so much of the information is in charts and tables that if you're really not looking at something, you're not getting probably half the information.

So go get it, guys. I think it's one of the best books I've read. And it really, I think for 2022, we need this edge. We need to win this year. I know a lot of people did not, felt defeated and last year was a tough one for all of us, but I think this is the right attitude and the right, uh, solution. So thank you, Dr. James, for all your time and your hard work. And, uh, go get his book. Win is out now on Amazon. Thanks, Dr. James.

It's a brand new book that we're gonna be talking about today called The Mineral Fix. And he really has given me, I think, an insight into why we do what we do when it comes to hunger, when it comes to cravings like sugar, carbs, and salty snack foods. And as we know, it's not the salt that's bad for us, it's the potato chips, it's the corn chips that can be overwhelming. We're drawn to these, these carbs. And so he's here today with me, uh, Dr. James DiNicolantonio. Dr. James, are you there?

Please say hi.

Yeah, I'm excited to be back.

Hey buddy, good to see you. Thank you so much for, for making this happen. This new book, uh, The Mineral Fix— tell them when this came out. It's It's literally just out this week, right?

Yeah, came out a couple days ago. It's something that I had worked on for years in the past based on some of my publications on magnesium and copper and the importance of other minerals. So it's a lot of science packed into one book.

It's a big book.

It's 500+ pages. I don't want to say 600 pages, but it is an incredible manuscript, if you would, like a textbook of really understanding minerals. And I think you have become in the world— I don't even want to say in the US, but really one of the top experts understanding this from a biochemical perspective. And it's opened my eyes so much. And I feel like your work has helped people even that, you know, that I work with a lot, like Robb Wolf. You know Robb Wolf and how much he believes in sodium, for example. And you, you know, that I have been sharing with a lot of my followers and a lot of my clients Client's Zero Hunger Plan. It was recently in Woman's World magazine, and you were kind enough to add some of your, your thoughts to that. And so thank you for that. And I thought maybe we could start with this premise that comes from your first book, but it's mentioned in the new book as well, of how we can get radical control of sugar and carbs. Because my clients know, and they all agree, and, and really, you know, we want to control our appetite and people want to control their, their, their need to overeat. And when you think about it, and I think everyone listening agrees that when we overeat, it's never— we're never overeating butter or eggs or meat or protein and fats. It's always that one macronutrient that we're addicted to because it feels good to eat carbs, sugar. And I feel like you, you wrote something recently that you shared with me. I think it was in Vice, but you've written The Salt Fix. So you've done it all. You've written pop culture stuff and you've written the book itself. But could you start with explaining to everyone listening kind of a recap of how, in your opinion— and I think it's true— how sugar, even though it's not classified as a narcotic or as a drug, has in the brain a similar effect like hard drugs, like heroin, cocaine. I mean, I'll let you kind of take, take it from here because I feel like your work is so powerful. And how sodium, one of my favorite minerals, right? And that's kind of why you wrote The Salt Fix. And so maybe from that perspective, why salt was such The Missing Mineral in Our, in Our World. When you wrote that book, how many years ago, Dr.

James?

Probably about 4 years ago.

So just 4 years ago.

I mean, you write a lot of great books, but I feel like that one set you on the map as the salt guy. All right. And so maybe start with why salt is so powerful at helping us get control over sugar and carbs, because everyone listening right now, uh, in some way or another has a sweet tooth. And I think, you know, I always tell people it's not our fault because it does feel good. It does work like, like a drug, like a narcotic, like heroin or cocaine and these other drugs. But maybe take us there for a minute about how sugar can be, in your mind, can be connected to hard drugs and how sodium, whether it's sugar or a hard drug, you know, whether it's heroin or cocaine, how sodium can help us kind of set ourselves free from that? Is, is that something you can—

you could start with, please?

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Right, so essentially, I mean, if even if you take a look at alcohol, right, some people can drink alcohol and they're totally fine, and then other people can become an alcoholic, right? And so it just depends on the person. And this— and we see a very similar pattern with sugar. Some people that eat sugar become sugarholics, other people not so much. So it definitely depends on the person But essentially how sugar is refined from a plant is very similar to opium, very similar to cocaine. It's actually basically the same, right? You take the plant and you refine it to a white crystalline powder, right? Same thing like cocaine. And when you do that, when you extract a single ingredient from a plant and highly refine it and put it into a crystalline form, now that, that substance can cause this dramatic spike in dopamine in the brain. Which leads to dopamine crashes. And it's during those troughs that your brain sort of has this addictive, I need to consume this again to get the same type of higher reward. Now, a very similar thing happens when you are deficient in salt. Your, your reward center becomes hyperactivated, and that actually would have kept us alive because how would we know we were deficient in salt unless our brain was hyperactivated to get it. Meaning if you got it in the diet, your brain would light up greater if you were deficient in it to tell you to keep consuming this mineral that you were deficient in, or salt. So if you're deficient in salt, you have this hyperactive reward center in the brain now that if you start throwing things like sugar at it, it's even more addictive.

Wow.

So from your research, and especially from your first book, The Salt Fix, I feel like you would say if someone wants to control— and I don't think we have a lot a lot of listeners that are using hard narcotics, but this idea that sugar is a drug is 100%, uh, in the sense of the brain, accurate, right? It acts just like it, right? And if they want to get control over that so they can say no to the candies, the cookies, the M&Ms, the pizza, the nachos, the list goes on and on, the pasta, all the, all the things that we love. And I grew up in a Latin family like you, I think. And, you know, I was more beans and rice and Mexican food, and you're more Italian. But as much as comfort food, it can— it tends to be the thing we overeat the most and causes insulin to go up and causes us to gain weight and can cause, when paired with salt, right, it can cause our blood pressure to go up. So going on a low-carb diet, I think, has been instrumental for a lot of my clients and myself. So if people want to be able to do that and stay low-carb, low-sugar, can you take one more minute and share with us how a drink with sodium in it, kind of like what we— what Woman's World talked about in the Zero Hunger Water world, right, was able to create like this. I mean, how would you describe it? It really gives you a sense of control, right? Over the ability to say no to sugar and carbs, right?

Does both from a brain perspective and a physiological perspective. Well, essentially when you're not getting enough salt, um, your brain again is hyperactivated. You're, you're getting more of a reward from these refined carbohydrates, but when you're on a low-carb diet, you're spilling more salt in the urine. You need more salt. And so that's where a lot of people struggle too with keto diets, even after the first couple of weeks, is they crave more salt. And sometimes that crosses over and they think that craving is actually for sugar. So it's getting, getting those signals correct and not crossing them.

Wow.

And then, I mean, I know the results when you can eat a diet that's lower in carbs and sugar. I mean, your health improves so much. And then for people out there just to start with this, because I know people, you know, have written me because of our interviews that we've done about salt. Their number one concern is like, oh, My doctor said I can't have salt because my blood pressure. So take 1 minute and then let's dive into the new book. But another minute on how that is a misunderstanding and how at times it can raise blood pressure, sodium, but only when you're having a high carbohydrate diet, right? When there's insulin present. Talk a little bit on that because I think a lot of people have just taken the idea that sodium is dangerous and it's going to kill me. And so I'm not going to drink salt water. That's crazy. That's going to kill me. Tell us, clarify this misunderstanding of, of how that happens, because it only happens when we do high carbs, right?

Right, exactly. I mean, so we need a blood pressure to live. Blood pressure is important. A lot of people suffer from what's called orthostatic hypotension, or low blood pressure, and they notice that that instantly improves if they increase their salt intake. And so we need salt. It's the people that are over-retaining And why are they over-retaining? Because the kidneys can get rid of a ton of salt. If you overeat it, the kidneys will just dump it. So what's causing you to over-retain the salt? So don't focus on the quantity of salt itself. Focus on things like low potassium is probably the number one contributor to why people are over-retaining salt and insulin resistance from over-consuming refined carbohydrates and sugar. You fix those two things as well as magnesium deficiency., and you're gonna eliminate at least 90% of salt-sensitive people.

So if someone is listening right now and they're like, what? Like you're saying if I cut down basically carbs and eat a low-carb diet, right? And add some magnesium potassium to my sodium, which everyone knows about Zero Hunger Water. That's basically the 3 minerals that are in there. Robb Wolf knows this too. Obviously we all know this. Uh, that's why we love Elemental Labs and all that. Um, that literally you don't have to worry about blood pressure, because I feel like you're the only person that I trust that would say this. And yet no one else at your level, I think, is saying this enough. I mean, that's why I think that book was such a pivotal book, The Salt Fix, because you kind of basically said it on the COVID of the book, why the experts got it wrong. And I feel like— just take us on that journey in your mind, because I feel like everyone listening if they're going to listen to the Mineral Fix, they got to understand that sodium— and what you're saying there with magnesium, potassium— is important and will not harm you. It will only harm you when you, when you add the carbs in. I mean, and, and that seems so— like, no one talks about the, that pairing and how it's, it's the carbs with the salt that raises blood pressure, right?

Right.

But if you don't pair the carbs, then the blood pressure doesn't stay high, it just stays optimal, right? And you feel like you have energy, you have control over the carbs. I mean, I And I do OMAD, I do one meal a day, and I feel great all day. I have high energy.

I don't feel dizzy.

But I feel like a lot of people, like what you just said, if you can say it one more time and say it maybe in a way that people can understand that it's safe, that sodium is not the villain.

Right. Salt, which is sodium and chloride, is an essential mineral. And if you're healthy and you don't have these these 3 contributing factors that are causing you to over-retain salt, your kidneys will get rid of anything they don't need, but they can't manufacture salt. So it's much safer to get a little bit more than you need versus less than you need.

Yeah.

I remember in one of our podcasts, remember you told me about the invention of the refrigerator in the 1930s?

Yeah.

And could you share that story briefly? And then let's get into the new book because our diet before the 1930s— tell people how much salt we used to get, right?

Yeah, I mean, for the last 10,000 years prior to the invention of the refrigerator, we had to use a tremendous amount of salt to actually preserve the food. Um, and it takes a lot of salt to do that. So the average intakes throughout Europe in the 1600s, uh, 1500s as well, was probably up to upwards of 100 grams of salt, anywhere from usually 50 to 100. And then in the Roman Empire, um, it was about 25 to 30 grams of salt, which is about That's about 4 times a normal salt intake. So it was never a problem then for those individuals. And then what ended up happening is we discovered the refrigerator in the 1930s, essentially, and we didn't need to pack our food with a lot of salt. So essentially our salt intake went down.

Wow.

And in today's world, just to give people a reality check, our government in the US and outside of the country— I don't know what— if you know all the the rules, but the amount of suggested salt, where is that? Because it's down low. It's like the top level they tell us to consume is only 6 grams.

That's the most apparently we're allowed to have. But you can lose that amount in just 1 hour of exercise through sweat and the heat. So there's a huge amount of nuance to that statement. You can't just give general blank statements on eat less than X amount.

And remind us who's saying this. Is this the American Heart Association?

Who's the American Heart Association? Yeah, they've always for the longest time been the most restrictive, saying essentially less than a half a teaspoon of salt per day. Um, and again, that's because it's on top of a population that's insulin resistant, that doesn't eat potassium, doesn't eat magnesium. What happens when you give a high amount of salt, not even a normal amount? Let's actually give people twice the amount of salt compared to what we consume in the United States. And I sent you that study. It was a Japanese study. They had essential high blood pressure and they were consuming twice the normal salt intake. If they just increased the potassium from 3 to 7 grams, their blood pressure normalized. And that's really one of the best papers in The Salt Fix that kind of shows it's really the low potassium that's the issue.

Wow.

All right, we'll include that in the show notes. We'll, we'll definitely include all those studies because I feel like you're Books have citations. I mean, just The Salt Fix in itself had over 300.

Is that right?

Yeah, over 500.

Over 500. And the new Mineral Fix, I mean, has linked almost 5,000. I mean, talk about research. So let's get into the Mineral Fix because I feel like— tell us the background on this book because you wrote this from what you just said earlier, uh, not, not recently. I mean, you started it.

How about that?

You started it when? And how is this different than The Salt Fix? And who needs this book? Because I feel like it's a textbook that is at a college level. So it's— the Salt Fix was more for— I mean, I got it easy. This one I had to read carefully, and it's long. But tell us how you look at this book as a tool versus your other books, and especially the Salt Fix.

Right.

So this, The Mineral Fix, is set out a little bit differently in regards to every chapter is basically broken down into which mineral that you need. And so it covers 17 essential minerals in 5 possibly essential minerals that haven't been classified yet as essential, like chromium, um, but are still important for the diet. Uh, and so each chapter gives you food sources, highest food sources for that mineral. It goes into every enzyme that that mineral is important for. It gives you a chart on the optimal intake, not just the RDA, which is just to prevent deficiency, but really this book is about what's the optimal amount of minerals that we should be consuming. And, you know, besides that, it also goes into how our food is so depleted in minerals for just from the last 80 years. And so that causes overeating as well because we're eating this diluted food.

Yeah.

And I feel like with the world changing so much with, you know, this almost debate that's occurring, whether it's Bill Gates telling people to not eat meats and eat synthetic meat— I had Dave Asprey on the show recently, we talked about how In his opinion, Dave Asprey's opinion, that isn't right. We need animal protein, and there's a way to do it where the earth is, is, uh, put it, you know, put as a priority where you do regenerative, uh, agriculture where it's good for the earth, it's good for the plants, it's good for the animals and all that. Would you share with us briefly why a plant source versus meat source? Like, if we were to look at these, these minerals that you talk about in the book, and, and obviously I want everyone to pick this up because I feel like it's a resource that is so important. It's almost like an encyclopedia book that has, like you said, all the minerals.

Maybe walk us through—

I mean, obviously I still believe salt, magnesium, potassium are the, the trinity, the first three that are probably the most important.

Would you say—

could you start with those three and recap on those and then get into, you know, let's not do all of them, but the ones that, that I think that, that you think especially people midlife need to embrace? And then let's talk about some sources because I know there's a lot of plant-based sources there's meat-based sources, and then there's water sources. And I love— there's some simple options out there because I feel like I don't want to scare people where they have to go buy 17 vitamins and minerals and pop— and spend a fortune, $400 or $500 a month on vitamins. And a lot of my clients are keto, and a lot of them are following more of a meat-based diet. So I don't want them to feel like they have to buy a ton of plants too. But I think you've got some great solutions that simplify it all for us. But take us through some of the top minerals in the book. And if you were to say the top 3, would you say that the salt, magnesium, potassium— I don't know if you call it the trinity— are those the, the 3, uh, base to build upon?

Possibly.

Yeah, absolutely. And calcium too. And especially so if we're looking at an animal-based diet, which I follow, typically you're, you're going to be a little bit low on the magnesium, the calcium, potentially the potassium. So if you can find waters or powders to add to your water that meats and ups boost those minerals, that's going to not only help you handle your salt intake, but it's going to help every organ in the body. And magnesium is so important because there's so many different things that cause us to lose magnesium. You have to have good stomach acid to digest it and absorb it. You have to have good insulin sensitivity so you can drive it into the cell and so you're not losing it. And a lot of our foods, both animal and plant foods, are somewhat depleted in magnesium compared to before. So we had discussed what, well, what water would be good for magnesium and calcium and things like that. And that would, Gerolsteiner is one, San Pellegrino has good amounts of calcium and magnesium in it. And both of them have, well, particularly Gerolsteiner brings back some of the bicarbonate, which is even, even another advantage for animal-based diet.

And if there was a water brand that you love, that is the one. I think you've talked about it before on the other podcast.

You happen to have some there to show everyone who's watching on the YouTube?

Yeah, this is it right here. Yeah.

Check them out, guys. And tell us about this water. Where is it made? Why, why do you have it? I mean, obviously you love this water.

Yeah. Well, it's, it's sourced from Germany. It's actually about 500 feet below the ground. And so the water passes through all the natural mineral rocks and it picks up the, um, the magnesium and the calcium through that flow. And so you're not getting also the environmental pollutants because it's so far down in the ground. And, uh, there is, there is this importance of balancing acid-base in the body. A lot of people get confused about this. They think that your diet doesn't contribute to the pH because your blood pH maintains the same, but the, the tissues can become acidic if you don't get some source of base. So, uh, natural mineral waters are typically a good source of base to add to an animal-based diet.

That's great. So I mean, how far would you take the Gerald Steiner, right? That's what it's called, Gerald Steiner water. Can it be— I mean, I'm not saying it's the magic multivitamin or multi-mineral, because we're talking minerals are not vitamins, but can you get almost all the minerals you need from, from, uh, from that water?

Possibly.

If you're eating nose to tail, adding this is going to hit most of what you could be missing.

Wow.

Wow.

I mean, that simplifies it. I mean, that's German water for you, right? I mean, that's, it's incredible that it has that. And out of, and then you mentioned Pellegrino. How was that one compared?

Not the same.

Is that, that's Italian, right?

Right. It's not 100% the same. So Pellegrino has less magnesium, about the same calcium, and it has a little more sulfur in it. So it's not the exact same, but it's, it's a good way to get extra calcium in some areas.

Okay.

Now if someone isn't able to find the Gerolsteiner water. Is there a way— because, you know, we kind of created the Zero Hunger recipe with the half a teaspoon of salt and a small amount of magnesium potassium, and I think it's a good mix of the three. If they wanted to add a few more minerals to that in a powder form, are there some brands of that, or maybe even a multi-mineral, or maybe if it's not a multi-mineral, some other brand names that you would recommend as sources where people can purchase online or, you know, or get it at Whole Foods or different stores like that?

Yeah, I mean, there are whole food sources of multivitamins. I know you and I discussed NutraGold is one of them. Um, it's always—

that is a brand, correct?

NutraGold.

Tell us why you like that brand, for what reason, and what minerals do they offer, and, and which one would you suggest if someone's Googling this?

Right, well, that—

it's one of the only, um, companies that actually has It's a food-based multivitamin. So it's not synthetic vitamins and minerals. It's essentially you allow the plants to take up the minerals and vitamins and you get it from the plant. Um, Dr. Mercola has something similar. He has a B complex from quinoa sprouts. So if you can source from these sort of like whole food multivitamins, it's going to be better than your typical synthetic.

Wow.

Give us the brand one more time.

The Gold NutraGold.

NutriGold. So NutriGold. And is there one in particular? Is it like a multi-mineral that just has it all in one?

Yeah, it has a women's multi and they have a men's multi.

And do you think there is a big difference between those two? It could help— I mean, more for women? Are there minerals for women, minerals for men? Because we should talk about that. I mean, since we're talking about that book, but with those brands, you would, you would lean into the men's version, woman's version, or is that made up or not? Right.

Right. Well, typically, uh, women, if they haven't gone through menopause, do need a lot more iron because of menopause. So typically that's your biggest difference between a multi with— for a woman versus a man.

And so it's higher. It's a higher—

typically women need about 18 milligrams of iron per day, whereas men only need about 8.

Okay.

All right. So there's that difference there. Simple difference.

But—

and so NutraGold is the brand. Get the woman's version, ladies, because it's going to have more iron. And men don't— I mean, we don't need as much iron. And that too much iron in a man's body, can that hurt us?

Or Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it could hurt anyone, a man or a woman. But like you said, we don't dump iron like women do once a month.

Yes.

Yes.

That's the cycle of life, obviously. Well, so this is incredible. So take us through a little bit of the minerals that— and so the main mineral is iron, obviously, if you're a woman, you need to consume a little bit more of. But if we use this brand, the NutraGold, or the water, do we What are some of the effects? And I, and I feel like I know there's certain issues that my clients have with energy, thyroid issues, hypertension concerns. How do these minerals give us— because I think your book, the COVID says a lot. It says how to optimize your mineral intake for energy, longevity, immunity, sleep, and more. And I feel like that covers a lot from a perspective of women that are listening right now. What are, outside of iron, Is there any other minerals for women and energy, longevity, immunity, sleep that you would suggest? And, or is it about the same outside of just iron for men and women?

What would you say?

Yeah, well, magnesium is huge for energy because energy in the body, we all think of it as ATP. Really what energy is, is magnesium has to dock onto ATP first, and that's how it can actually release the terminal phosphate bond and release the energy. So ATP ATP floating around actually isn't energy at all until magnesium docks on it, clips the terminal phosphate, and releases the energy. So you can't, you can't activate energy, you can't even make ATP without magnesium.

So you gotta have magnesium for both men and women, and that's the same amount for both sexes, right?

There's no difference there.

Typically men is, is a little bit higher. I think the RDA for an adult woman is 400 and an adult man is 420. So just 20 milligrams more.

Hey, it's Jorge, and I just wanted to interrupt the show just for a moment to invite you to head on over and sign up for my Zero Hunger email that'll give you each day a simple what to eat to get radical control over your sugar, carb, and salty snack food cravings.

And if this is something you want to conquer and make a lifestyle, the newsletter is important. It will really give you tools every day to keep building that momentum.

To create a lifestyle where you're in control of sugar and carbs. So if that sounds good, check it out. Simply go to zerohungerplan.com.

I'll spell it for you, it's with a Z, Z-E-R-O, zerohungerplan.com, and it's all free.

I'll see you there. Let's get back to the show.

Do you feel these RDAs? Because when it comes to salt, we don't listen to the RDAs because they are incredibly too low, correct? I feel like in the book, is there a section where you give them the Dr. James RDAs versus the government's? Because I feel like to look at the government's, I feel like you're going to probably correct all of it. I mean, or do they have these other minerals down? What do you think?

For, for most of the minerals, the RDAs are too low. In regards to the Dr. James optimal intake. And you're right, I do have these— every chapter has graphs in regards to here's what the RDA says, here's what we think the optimal intake should be. And for almost all the minerals, the RDAs are too low. So for magnesium, we say anywhere from 400 to 600. So the, the lower end of our optimal is their essentially top end of, of their RDA, that you're okay. And really it's, it's probably the not necessarily the best. They got it somewhat okay for magnesium, but for others they're way off base.

I love that. Uh, so we've talked magnesium, we've talked sodium, you talked about potassium. Uh, and I think that's one that we talk about in Zero Hunger Water. Tell us about potassium and how it can help us with our energy, longevity, immunity, everything, including our appetite control. Cuz I feel like those are the trinity in my mind. And then maybe some other ones that we haven't talked about that obviously are important for other things, maybe whether it's immunity or sleep. And I know you talk in the book about COVID-19. So I think when we get to immunity, a very, very timely topic is still immunity function and how that can be helped. But could you— we've talked sodium, we've talked magnesium, right?

Tell us about potassium a little bit.

Sure.

So potassium is sort of like the regulator of salt. If you want to be able to handle a normal amount of salt, you don't want to be deficient in potassium. It doesn't take a big deficiency for you to start over-retaining salt if you're not getting enough potassium. So you really want to be getting at least 3.5 grams of potassium per day, but ideally and optimally, we want to— anywhere from 4 to 6 grams per day.

Okay.

And, and, you know, I always used to think that bananas were the only source of potassium. My mom Grew up in South America and was tropical in Colombia, and she'd have bananas all the time. And as much as I like bananas, I hate to think that bananas have almost— depending on how ripe they are. And I know we've talked about green bananas, right? And I've had a lot of people email me like, I'm not going to eat a green banana. That's like, too—

because they're not sweet.

I mean, they're not. They're sour. So most people buy the yellow bananas. And then when they get a little too brown, my mom used to love them brown. Down because they get sweeter, right, when they get darker. What would you say is another source outside of plant-based bananas? Because obviously, can we get those three? Because I, I don't know if we talked about this, I think we may have before we started our talk, but can we get the magnesium, the potassium, and the sodium from a carnivore type of meat-based diet?

Is that in there?

And what are some other sources and ways to get that nutrient, that mineral, that a lot of times you always think, oh, potassium, bananas. You think of other sources like that. But if we're trying to avoid a high sugar intake, bananas have that, unfortunately, especially the ones that most people eat.

They don't eat the green ones.

True, very true. No, meat and especially fish are good sources of potassium, no doubt. I mean, there are other plant sources of potassium, like under or lightly cooked potatoes. Avocados are good sources of potassium. Carrots. Carrots are a good source of potassium, um, and spinach too. Spinach is a great— and here's, here's what's interesting for, um, I think a key takeaway for a lot of women is that spinach is a good source of potassium or magnesium, but it's not a good source for iron. So a lot of women, they see the package of spinach, very high in iron, but its bioavailability is only 2%, whereas in meat it's 20%, it's 10 times higher.

Yeah, no differences. And you know, we've had Paul Saladino on the show and he has this plant toxicity spectrum that I think you're somewhat familiar with. And you know, he limits certain plants and I've adopted some of his principles to some degree. My clients do seem to feel better when they limit their plants to more like squash, avocados, berries. He kind of leans us out of the, of the ones that have more of these toxins, as he says. If there— if we were to lean into the lower toxic ones, I would say avocados are great. Is avocado— as much as I don't think of it like a banana, it's as rich as, say, something like a banana. But meat is better— is actually better than even an avocado in the sense of its content.

For those—

I would say it's comparable. I would say it's comparable.

Okay.

Yeah, avocado is a great source of potassium.

I love that.

And for the people out there thinking, all right, meat Like, all right, Jorge, you know, I talk about it a lot. You eat a lot of meat. I mean, you do. And as much as you're Italian and I'm, you know, I was born in Mexico City and I love my beans and rice. I try to minimize that. And I love potatoes on occasion. I don't sit and eat just a lot of French fries. That was my weakness when I was younger. And potato chips, of course. But with more of a meat-based diet, how can we acquire these minerals? I mean, I feel like you shared at one point, I think in a past podcast, the idea of ancient man.

Right.

And kind of following— I think you called it the salt trail, or what was it called? The salt path?

Yes, yes. Yeah, we used to follow, um, animals, their animal trails to this, to their salt licks to obtain salt. And, you know, I do— you don't have to follow what I do, but essentially for me, yeah, I'd like to add a few sources of additional potassium and magnesium to my animal-based diet. So essentially I do eat about 1.5 pounds of meat per day.

Yeah.

And some of that is coming from liver and heart as a blend. So most people don't like to consume liver or heart directly, and neither do I. So you can buy them as blends where there's 75% ground meat, 25% liver, heart, and that way you don't really taste it.

So it's ground beef kind of, but it's ground up. Give us the organs you eat again, because I think this is really practical.

Yeah.

So it's org—

which organs again?

Give us the layout of the way you ground up this meat. It's organ meat again.

Yeah. You can just essentially order this from online.

There's many places that offer it. White Oaks Pasture, North Star Bison, um, Force of Nature Meats. And essentially it's a, it's a ground meat and it's 75% muscle meat, 25% split in half of liver and heart.

So that is really a perfect— I mean, if we're talking about sources of minerals, how much of what we need is in just what you just said?

Quite a bit, right?

It's like the water, a shortcut. With what you just said, that—

sorry.

That's okay.

Oh, did we lose you for a sec?

You still there?

Yeah.

No, yeah, we dropped for a second. We'll just do a pickup right there. But I was just mentioning, if you could share, like you mentioned this mixture of the meat of 70— what was it, 75% and then half heart and half liver, right? If we were to take this up and does it come like ground beef? It looks like burger meat, or how does it look when you get it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It looks like burger ground meat, and you can essentially make taco meat with it, put some spices in it, or you can make a meatloaf for tacos, all that stuff.

So if we eat this combination that obviously you can get— I've heard of the— what was some of the companies that you use or that you order from?

Uh, North Star Bison, White Oaks Pasture, and Force of Nature.

So if we were to use one of those companies— we'll include that in the show notes, guys— and, and incorporate this into our diet as a key element, how much of what we need from your book in The Mineral Fix are we going to get from eating that source, would you say? Quite a bit, right?

Yeah, it's— well, the liver is so important because it's going to give you copper, vitamin A, folate, And so it's, it's a perfect balance to the muscle meat. And it really gives you a lot of the minerals that are missing from muscle meat.

So one of the interesting people I had on the show contradicted that, saying that Sean Baker, you know, Dr. Baker, right? He's written a couple of carnivore books, but he, unlike Paul Saladino, doesn't believe we need a lot of organ meat because he believes a lot of the same minerals are found in the meat of the animal, the muscle meat.

Right.

Can you help clarify that? Is I think you probably lean into obviously what you just said, which is what Saladino would say, is that the organ meat is your ultimate source of these richer vitamins that you're not getting in, whether it's a steak, ribeye, burger meat. Maybe explain that for us, because I feel like I know our audience would appreciate that, because I have myself have stopped eating a lot of liver because I thought it wasn't as essential. But I'm feeling motivated right now with what you just said, that I need to get some heart meat and liver meat back into my diet.

On a regular?

Do you do this every, every week, every day? How often do you eat that mixture? What do you call that mixture of the 75 and then the heart and liver? I mean, I feel like this is like a big distinction.

Yeah, you could just call it like a ground organ blend of meats.

Okay, that also contains muscle meat. Yeah, and it's true, muscle meat is lacking in copper, folate, and vitamin A.

Day.

So you will most likely become deficient if you're only consuming muscle meat for a decade in those nutrients, and it will probably happen much quicker than that, to be honest.

So bringing in the heart— but you would say if you were to rank them, muscle meat of course, then— yeah, liver, correct?

Number 2, liver, right?

And then heart.

Yeah, maybe just like a half an ounce to 1 ounce of liver per day is really all that's needed.

Good.

So you don't need much. And the heart is great for coenzyme Q10, right?

And that gives us energy. It's important for the electron transport chain. So it gives us ATP. So it gives you some energy.

Well, I love this because I feel like as much as, uh, you recommended some brands of multivitamins that we can purchase and even the water we can drink, this is really a food-based source, the organs. Are there any other parts of an animal that we should consume, or are those the two main parts? It's the muscle meat, the heart, the liver. Is there another part? Because I know people sometimes get into bone marrow and that's collagen, which I consume as well. I like that as a soup, but are there minerals in the marrow of the bone or other parts that you'd suggest? Because I think this is important.

There's some good, there's some good fats in the bone and some people do consume kidney. You have to be careful with kidneys though, because they'll, they accumulate the toxic heavy metal cadmium. So I don't typically like to eat a lot of kidneys.

Really, liver is the perfect multi-mineral to add to muscle meat.

Wow.

So that, and then heart as well. And what, and with the heart, uh, a little less than the liver or about the same? You just do right down the middle, right?

Yeah, exactly. They're, they're split equal, but I think I just like consuming the heart because we would have consumed that.

And it's really one of the only good sources, natural sources of CoQ10.

Wow.

Wow.

And for people listening that are vegan, vegans. And I'm not saying being a vegan is bad because you can get a lot of good sources from that. And obviously the plants are carbohydrates. And most people nowadays, whether they're plant-based or not, it's almost like religion. People are very polarized by one or the other. But is there an argument? I mean, obviously you walk your talk and you're more meat-based. You have some, I'm sure, carbs. And being Italian, I know You shared last time your sauce your wife makes, which is more of a meat-based sauce. And I don't think you mentioned pasta in that sauce, right? There isn't that much pasta, right?

How do you—

because I feel like I know your secret weapon to say no to pasta as much as you're Italian. It's salt, right? Because it turns off that craving. It's kind of like how we started the conversation. But for anyone out there who's Italian like you and says, no way, I can't stop eating pasta and bread and all that, how do does what you do give you that strength? And when do you sometimes say, all right, I'm gonna have some pasta, I'm gonna have some pizza? You know, I'm not saying Domino's, but maybe something a little better.

Or do you just—

do you yourself, as much as you're Italian, just have leaned more into the meat-based diet that the Italian culture has?

Because there's great meat.

I've been to Italy, I love Italy. And, uh, or do you do the carbs at times? You know, the pastas and all the traditionals.

How do you—

how do you know in your mind when to— when to enjoy that? Or do you just say, you know what, I'm Right.

Well, I think, I mean, for carbohydrate intake is sort of, it depends on how lean you are and how physically active you are and how much you exercise, right? Any, any athlete will tell you there, most athletes will refuel with carbohydrate and they'll take some longer acting carbs prior to performance to boost muscle glycogen levels. So all carbs aren't bad if they're whole food carbs and you're high highly active person, right?

Sure.

And so that's kind of how the approach I take it. I like to exercise more and fuel myself with the nutrients rather than, um, you know, fast all the time, so to speak.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So with, uh, with your desire for pasta, like if you're, if you're having your, I'd love to share the recipe again because we had it in the last show notes, but this meat sauce, share with everyone this, this incredible recipe that we shared with them on the last show. It's something your wife makes and you guys make as a family. But how do you say no to the carbs in that? Because you don't usually have it with any pasta, right, Dr. James?

Right.

No. Yeah, no, typically it's like, it's just like a meat sauce, really.

And I've personally never craved pasta.

So maybe it's because I've been, I've been more on a lower carb intake for a while.

And so I think when you can, when you shift fuels, you no longer really crave it anymore.

Yeah. And I feel like, and I bet the meat that you put in your meat sauce is the meat you just told us. It's that blend, right? So it has the liver.

Yeah.

Or it could just be, it could be pork and sausage.

I love that. And then for, for the people that have kids, grandkids that are watching, and if they wanted to use your recipe and make it delicious, which it is, I've tried it and it's so good. How can they, can they sneak in, uh, the organ meat into that sauce? I mean, it's hard to distinguish Sometimes it's a little tougher, but if it's ground up, it kind of gets in there. And then you give someone like— you would share this with your family, your friends. It's this incredible, nutritious, almost like perfect meal, right? It really is, minus the carbs.

Exactly.

You could just cook it in the pan and then throw it right in the sauce.

Good to go.

I love it. I love it. With desserts and treats, give us your take because, you know, a lot of people, even Dr. Oz talks about this on his show. About resveratrol, certain minerals and vitamins and nutrients that are found in treats such as wine. And I know being Italian, there are people that love red wines, white wines. How do you play with whether it's alcohol, desserts, which are straight up sugar? And I mean, not to end on how sugar is the villain, but I know you believe that as I do, that sugar is something to be avoided. What do you do with your family, with your kids, with your, with with your loved ones when it comes time to after the main meal, you have your meat sauce, you have your protein. That's a blend, hopefully, of all these incredible nutrients with the sauce that you love. How do you take into account alcohol, desserts, the things that typically that's where we can go crazy and especially sugars and all that, you know, and alcohol, red wine too. Or do you just, I mean, tell us how you do it.

I mean, the simplest thing is just to not have it in the house, right? And especially the things that really trigger you. So like, for myself, like, if it's my— the things that'll get me are donuts or like a moist brownie. So, so no, no, the things that'll really get you— or a buttery carb is something that gets me, whereas like chocolate, it doesn't. I don't really binge on chocolate. So sort of keep out of the house the things that you know you really can't control. Yourself.

And red wines and stuff like this, because you're Italian. I mean, talk to us about Italian wine. We all love a cab and all that. How do you— do you not let it in the house, or what? How do you do it? And your wife, how does she do it? You guys keep peace in the house, or is she like, oh, come on, James, you're too strict?

Or do you just—

is it something you don't crave? Because I feel like this can be very helpful because I feel like a lot of people are drawn to those items. And it— I think you're a good, a great role model, you know, in the sense of how you manage to limit it or remove it completely, right? I mean, is it removed from your diet for the most part, special occasions, or when do you say yes to a glass of wine possibly?

Yeah, it's essentially removed from my diet. But I think if you're someone who—

it's a slip—

alcohol is a slippery slope for a lot of people, right?

You start drinking one glass, then it becomes two, and and it's very habit-forming, just like coffee. So all of a sudden now you're someone who's drinking 3 or 4 and you don't even realize it. You can, you can get there very quickly.

So for some people like myself, I like to just not even have it.

And on occasions, or if I'm over with neighbors, maybe I'll have a glass or two, but in general, I just keep it out of the house.

I love that.

I mean, this is motivation. I mean, because I know you walk your talk too, because not that you do this, you're not a fitness trainer running around showing off your flat stomach. But you're in very good shape. I mean, I think I see sometimes you do some of your work in the sauna, which I have a sauna too. I love saunas. And, you know, sometimes we get to see your flat stomach and you really do walk the talk because, you know, they always say never trust a skinny chef, right? Because chefs should enjoy their food. But I would say nutritionist— not that you're necessarily a nutritionist, but you definitely have nutritional strategies. You walk your talk. I feel like you have energy, you are healthy, you are fit, you embody this. And, you know, a lot of Doctors and people that write books on nutrition don't necessarily look like the picture of health. I'm like, these people look like they're unhealthy, you know what I mean? Um, for anyone out there that, um, thinks what we've talked about is, is a big jump for them, what would be your first step for anyone listening? Because I do feel like your Salt Fix made it simple. I feel like they should get that book. The Mineral Fix should be added. There's The Immunity Fix as well, which is an incredible book you wrote. You've written a book with Dr. Jason Fung too. Remind us the title of that one.

That was The Longevity Solution. Yeah.

I feel like, what would— how would you end our conversation to guide people? And obviously we want to make sure they have your website and all that as well. But what— how would you give— like, if you're there, if there was a couple of resources, maybe 2 or 3, obviously the new book is the encyclopedia. I think this has everything. The Salt Fix is my personal pick. I would say that one as well. Those would be 2. If there's a 3rd book out of all the books you've written— what would be a book and why would they need to get it? Because I think people should get as many of your books as possible because they're all so valuable. And there's so much research, I think, that lights up people's minds and makes them feel like this isn't just something you're saying, it's something backed by the studies, the citations.

I mean, with this new book, thousands of citations.

The Salt Fix, 500 citations. I mean, this is, this is your passion. You know, what would be a third resource?

And would you, would you go Salt Fix, Mineral Fix, and then what would be the third?

Or how would you organize the top 3 options from your perspective?

I guess it depends on the person's goal. If someone wants to go on a ketogenic diet, I would get Super Fuel because we really broke out what are the healthiest fats on a ketogenic diet.

Myself, Mercola wrote that one. If there's someone who wants to just eat a more balanced diet and you want some plants, some animals, uh, food, then The Longevity Solution. Is probably for you. If you're someone who wants to obviously get your minerals fixed, Mineral Fix, right?

Yeah.

Someone who's struggling with sugar addiction, Salt Fix. So it really depends what your goal is.

I love it.

No, and that's a great way to look at it because I feel like all your books have a different purpose and they have a different solution to help. And, and I feel like everyone listening has the sugar addiction, which is tough, but at the same time—

oh, I'm hearing something.

Pardon me. Pardon me, guys.

Pardon me, guys. That was an iPhone. I don't know how that came through there, but we are live here. But in ending with this, share with everyone where they can get ahold of you, how you are on social, your website, because I want them to stay in touch. And I'm just so honored that you have this other book. It caught me off guard when I saw your Instagram. I was like, he's got a new book.

And I reached out to you and here you are.

And so I'm thrilled. And being that it's Sunday, you know, we release these interviews on Sundays. I feel like this is the perfect way to start the week or to to start the week on a Sunday with this information. But give us your information so people can follow you on social. They can go to your website and add themselves to your newsletter, all that, please.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, well, speaking of Instagram and Twitter, it's @DrJamesDinic, which is D-I-N-I-C, and the website is DrJamesDinic.com.

I love it.

It's simple. And then you wrote this book, as you do some of your books, with your coauthor.

Mention his name briefly. Briefly.

And I know he's in— is he right outside of Russia, or where?

What part of the world is he?

His name is Siim Land. He's from Estonia.

Yes.

And he is a key part of this book, helped you with a lot of the research. So his take on this is, I, I would, I would assume similar, but he's got the, the, the, the perspective more from— what area would you say that he adds this, or is it something you guys just always do together?

Yeah, the last two we've done together, and he's more of like a biohacker.

So he brings a nice perspective from that aspect.

And if people wanted to follow his social, we haven't had him on the show, but I think if you can put us in touch, I think it'd be fun to have him on and eventually maybe the two of you guys. But what's his info in case he's out there? Is he on your social and he's on your website and all that?

Yeah, he's on Instagram, @simland. Perfect.

All right.

Well, I can't thank you enough. This is, as always, a provocative conversation. I know a lot of A lot of people are like, oh my gosh, like, this is— because it's not what we hear, you know. We're told certain things that are old dogma from 40, 50 years ago about how to be healthy, you know. And I feel like you brought us up to speed, and I feel like you're literally 10, 20 years in the future here. And I feel like with your support, with the support of all the people that I talk to, I feel like we can help change everyone listening to this for a more enlightened kind of perspective on what human nutrition and health is required these days.

And minerals.

I mean, I feel like it's the one thing no one talks enough about. I feel like people think it's all just unnecessary. And I think this conversation was invaluable. So thank you, Dr. James, for always being a true compass for us, pointing us in the right direction and providing the resources that I think no one can deny the citations. No one can deny the science.

You do such an incredible job.

So as always, my hat's off to you and to your whole team. So thank you so much for for your time and for writing this darn book because it is the best one out there. I can't wait to get my physical copy because I have it on my iPad. But thank you so much. It sits on there with my Salt Fix and all your books. I'm thrilled.

So, thank you again. Thanks, Jorge.

You bet.

All right.

Thanks so much.

Peace and purpose, everyone.

Thank you so much.

How has been 2021 for you? I know it's been an unusual start.

It really has been.

Yeah. It's interesting though because I've been enjoying staying at home myself. I get to spend more time with the kids and the wife. So, um, yeah, it's going well so far.

Usually I'm in New York the whole month of January doing all the, the morning shows, uh, but with COVID we're all live streaming, or it's rare. Some shows are doing that, but I feel like so many people around this time of the year when it hits the middle of January or towards the end of January, they, they kind of like have given up. I think the surveys have said that usually 80% of people that made New Year's resolutions at the start of by the middle of January have given up. So, I hope we can inspire them, ignite them, and get them excited with some incredible insight. Share with them a little bit of the Salt Fix because I feel like for me, it is the key to turning off hunger. It is how Sandy lost 2 lbs. a day on the plan and it is a simple add-in that people can do. I mean, sodium, we all have it and tell them how that book came about real quick, Dr. James, because I think this book is brilliant and I don't want to forget it.

Sure.

So, I mean, we've all sort of been taught that salt is this like toxic white poison. And the reason why I wrote the book is to really, you know, shed light that this is an essential mineral. And when it comes to how it helps regulate hunger is the fact that because it's an essential mineral, there had to be some type of signal in it really in the body that if we were deficient, it would tell us to go seek out more of this substance and consume it if we were deficient.. And, you know, in the book I sort of show how animals do this and we would follow animals to salt trails and we would consume and replenish the salt that we lost through sweat. And the signal that drives us to do that is the reward center in the brain. And so if you are deficient in salt, that reward center is hyperactivated. And so you can get more sugar cravings, more food cravings if you don't have enough salt because of that reward system being hyperactivated. Activated. So if you want to suppress that reward center and not get such a high off of sugar and all these other types of highly processed foods, right, eating an adequate amount of salt intake is your best solution to do that.

Yep. I think it's so— it's such a simple thing. And I feel like anyone watching or listening to us that thinks, what the heck, you can turn off hunger. I mean, the whole— my whole mission now has become— I've transitioned, I feel like from with COVID here, you know, into someone who's become an advocate for what I call zero hunger water, which is basically water, 32 ounces. I'm sipping it as we, as we speak here. This is my second one this morning and it's early this morning. But for me, you know, I, I do an extended fast on occasion where I sometimes fast up to 3 days and I don't do it for weight loss because I'm at my goal weight. I do it for the response to the immune system, stem cells, et cetera. So I thought maybe we could talk about that in a minute, but remind everyone, because I feel like what you said, we may have to repeat it because if anyone's listening, they're thinking, did he just say we need salt? And in Paleolithic times or in ancient times, I think what you said is, and not to give them a history lesson, but to share a little more on that about how ancient man, and we're talking how many, I mean, this is going back thousands and thousands of years, right?

Where we would follow, can you share that?

Can you explain that a little bit about how ancient man knew how to follow the path of salt, sort of, right?

And how—

I think we talked about this in our first interview about how even the ancient Romans paid their soldiers and gave them a salary, right? And in the Latin term salary, I think there's a connection to salt, right? Were you worth your weight in salt? Is that where that comes in? And give us a tiny little history lesson because I feel like you're the man that could give us some light on that, please. I think people are like, this is crazy. This is new.

This is weird.

And it's not, it's, it's actually, I mean, is it ancient?

It is, right?

Oh my gosh.

I mean, well, our, our increased intake in salt actually goes back maybe 4 or 5 million years when it started cooling off a little bit in Africa and you sort of had instead of a lot of rainforest, more patches and savannas. And that's where essentially our ancient, ancient ancestors kind of transitioned from right, eating more vegetation, plants, to more animal foods. So, and when we consume the entire animal, you are getting all the salty blood and interstitial fluid, and you don't get that nowadays. So if you— the processed foods and you start eating whole foods, that is now deficient in the salt that we used to get through all those salty fluids.

So say that again, but take us back 2 seconds.

So when—

and I agree with you 100% because I do believe believe a more high-fat, high-protein diet, which is more animal-based, is what our ancestors did. But back then, obviously, they would hunt, right? And eat these animals in a way where you said that these fluids, obviously the blood, right, would be something that was very high in sodium, correct?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you just look at like a, a lion kill, right, their whole face is covered in blood, and, and that blood contains a lot of salt.

About 1.5 teaspoons per liter.

Wow.

So, you know, we used to get that. And so if you start just eating plain muscle meat without salty fluids, you have to add the salt back somewhere.

Okay.

Well, good.

But I love a ribeye and I always add salt to it. Believe me, it tastes good, you know, and I think we all know this, but what happened? I mean, not to jump all the way to, I think we talked last time about the invention of the refrigerator, right? And how before that we would preserve meat with salt. So that was a way to add it back in. But tell us what happened, because somehow through the Roman times we were— I mean, if we go back from millions of years to what, 3, 2,000 years ago with the Romans, give us a jump there, because those were still early days, early man. I mean, but we're a little more civilized. We have this beautiful empire in Italy and Rome and all that. So tell us a little bit what— how people knew then salt was powerful. And then take us to modern times, maybe up until right before— I think you told me it was 1930 with the refrigeration, with the invention of that and the refrigerator— that everything changed. But take us to Rome a little bit, about ancient Rome and the word salary. Tell everyone what it means and why it was so important for them. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, essentially Rome would not have functioned and been the empire that it was without salt, because that's how they would keep their armies going. The average Roman consumed about 25 grams of salt, whereas we only—

Per day? Per day?

Per day. Yeah, 25.

And you know, people are thinking we're going to kill people with this, but this is how they won wars.

Right.

How does that— I mean, we'll continue, please. I don't want to guide this, but take us back again to Rome. So 25 grams a day for these people that were active, saving and conquering the the empire, shall we say, right?

Yeah. And, and essentially, uh, you know, nowadays we only consume about 8 grams of, of salt. Um, so they were consuming about 3 times the amount of salt that we ingest today. Many other Scandinavian countries, even, um, you know, even up through the 1500s, 1600s, that were preserving most of their foods with salt were consuming upwards of sometimes 60 to 100 grams of salt per per day because everything had to be very tightly packed in quite a bit of salt to preserve it. And then, as you had mentioned, with the invention of the refrigerator in the 1930s or thereabouts, the— there was less salt needed to preserve the food. And so this is where we sort of got now where we consume about 8 grams of salt or about 3.5 grams of sodium per day.

So with the invention of the refrigerator, in essence, it took away the need for the salt. What happened between that then in the early '30s, right, to today where it's been vilified, where salt has become this— I mean, and I guess people thought, oh, it was only used for preservation. Now we don't need it. But I think, I mean, we talked about this in that episode, I think '98 that we talked about, where, you know, there was a campaign of sorts with the sugar industry. I mean, it really, I feel this needs to be a movie. If COVID continues, you and I need to work on a film, a documentary, because I feel like— tell us the story of what, from your perspective, and I know it's your opinion, but it's based a bit on history and what is— it's factual. This isn't something that you made up, but something happened in our culture and our government with recommending salt versus sugar. And there's no regulated daily allowance for sugar. There is for other trace minerals. And I feel like salt has been made this thing where there's a number that is so low, right? But tell us a little bit of that, of how this happened, because somehow in the 1920s we weren't doing this. We weren't afraid of salt. I mean, we had to eat it. It was a part of— I mean, what was that life like in the 1920s? Take us to the '20s before the invention, or the early, you know, early, like 1910 or something, you know, the Titanic. I always think of that time period, you you know, Victorian time period where there wasn't refrigeration, right?

There wasn't at all.

Right. Salt was cherished for, for preserving foods. Um, even in early wars, uh, most soldiers consumed around 18 grams of salt per day.

So just over twice the amount of salt that we consume.

It was very well known, um, at least up through World War II, that, that soldiers should have a ration that gave them 18 grams of salt per day.

So, and that wasn't that— what was their reasoning? Do you know a little bit of the—

oh, I mean, performance, functioning, cognition, performance in the field, how they felt replacing, you know, salt that would be lost through sweat. So that was their reasoning. They just, you know, they had done their calculations and that was—

were they aware of the ability to— because I would think if you're you know, if you have a Roman Empire and these soldiers, or if you have a 1920s soldier as well, or anything that's going on in the world where you want to be victorious and you have a lot of work to do, a lot of physical work to do. This isn't sitting at a desk if you're fighting a war. But were they aware that obviously— because I know for me, and I know just to jump to Woman's World here, uh, with the January issue that will be out in newsstands, uh, I believe the 28th of January for anyone that wants to read this. It won't be out till until then. But, you know, this gal, Sandy, you know, and I love her to death. She's a 50-year-old grandmother, and she got off her cholesterol medication, and she literally drinks this recommendation that I've given her, you know, 32 ounces of water with half a teaspoon of salt. We add a little pinch of magnesium, potassium sometimes, and a little lemon or stevia or monk fruit or something without sugar. But she drinks that, and she literally forgets to eat all day and has incredible energy, no migraines. She's off her cholesterol meds. She is at her high school weight and she's almost 60. You know, she feels phenomenal. I would think that would be very beneficial for, for, for, for people that had wars to fight as well, you know, to have all those things. And she eats one meal a day. She doesn't do it intentionally. She's not trying to fast, but she's just not hungry. And I would think that would be beneficial with, with wars and all that to also have this energy. And, and I know, uh, the military does feed folks, you know, probably 3 square meals a day. But I, I'm sure during the middle of a war, you'd be happy to get one good meal. Were they aware—

were people—

let's start to move into the direction of hunger control just for a minute, because we're going to end up with, uh, with autophagy and fasting. How does the sodium— if you could, uh, just one more time, if you don't mind, to dumb it down for everyone listening— how does it turn off the hunger and the cravings for sugar, carbs, and salty snack foods? Because I think that's what causes causes so many of us to be overweight. At least it did for me when I was younger. I was overweight because I was addicted to potato chips, nachos, milkshakes from McDonald's, french fries. I mean, it just all goes on and on. It was never a steak and eggs I was addicted to. It was always carbs, sugar, Pop-Tarts. I remember Captain Crunch cereal. I loved Captain Crunch, right? Those are the things I was addicted to. And I would think, you know, if we want to regulate our hunger, share for a moment. I don't know if the people in the '20s or the Romans knew this, but obviously, I mean, we look at movies from, you know, like the— I remember that movie, was it The 100 or The 300? What was that movie with all the Spartans? The 300. I mean, these guys looked amazing, right? They had great bodies.

You know, they're—

everyone was in phenomenal shape, and they weren't eating all day and night, and they were— they, they had salt in their diet. So how did that regulate, or how does that help us be effective and not be hungry. And do you know if they used the salt partly for that, or was it just for the energy? And they probably didn't feel hungry either. I would think they ate often, but not every 3 hours, you know, where they were dependent on— because I imagine if you're fighting a war, to pack that much food would be— it's a lot of— it's enough to have 18— you said 18 grams of salt back in the '20s, right? I mean, that you can pack. It's small, right? But to have 3 snacks or 4 snacks, a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, I mean, you're carrying a whole picnic basket every day. I mean, you would run out of— I don't know if you could win a war if you're always eating, right? I mean, and I'm not hungry. I mean, I feel like I'm on a revolution of sorts, and I know you are, to help people's health. And I don't overeat. But do you think they were aware of that, Dr. James, or is that just a side effect, just not being hungry, or was that an intentional thing to maximize the potential of winning a war and not overeating, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if they were consciously aware that salt might curb their hunger.

I think they primarily knew that this substance is going to help preserve their food.

It's going to improve their performance on the battlefield and that it was important for hydration. I think they did understand those things. And of course, for infections, right?

Tell us, what do you mean?

Well, they used to rinse their mouths. That was the natural first antiseptic antibacterial mouthwash was a saline solution.

So for gingivitis or any type of mouth infection, salt rinses were very common back in the day.

And of course, packing wounds, right, with salt was used as well. But I think to your point, you know, how does salt curb hunger? When you don't—

there's numerous things and I'll go through each one. The reason is when you don't get enough salt, it again activates that reward system in the brain. So you're going to get greater activation in dopamine from hyperpalatable foods, making them more addictive.

So that's— we're talking sugar, carbs, and salty snack foods. It's not the salt, it's the corn and the chips, right?

In fact, it's the lack of salt that actually makes those substances even more addictive.

Productive.

And on the other side of that too is when you're not getting enough salt, your body increases the fat-storing hormone insulin because that hormone also causes the kidneys to retain more salt. So if you're constantly on a low-salt diet, you will automatically have higher insulin levels, and for every calorie you consume, you are going to store more fat.

Wow.

That, that No one says this. You're the only person I bet yet.

Oh, but there are others.

There are a few of us out there, but I feel like, why is this message missing in the culture? Why is your book so revolutionary? Because I feel like something happened. Can you tell us that thought? What happened after the '30s and '40s where the public were— I mean, it feels like it was vilified. Salt was vilified, the opposite of what you just said, right?

Right.

Because, you know, an industry formed that that noticed that they can make money off of a different white crystal, that being sugar. And so in the early '30s, you started seeing, you know, these candy shops, right? And you used to be able to get fountain sodas in the— in pharmacies. And so sugar and the sugar industry started growing from there.

Well, you know, all of a sudden the population health started declining as well.

And so they had to have a scapegoat. They had to blame it on the other white crystal, salt.

And so the food industry and the sugar industry industry have definitely had many scientists on their payroll, and it was always to shift the blame away from sugar onto fat or salt.

And so this is, this is historical. This isn't something you're guessing. They were on payroll, right?

100%.

Yeah.

Scientists on payroll paid them to write even after the sugar industry, the sugar industry.

Yeah.

Right.

As early as what year? When did this start? I mean, tell us a tiny bit more, whatever, you know, because I I think people's mouths, they're like, what are you guys drinking? Are you guys drunk? This is not possible. Why would they do that to salt, right? But this is historical, right?

Yeah, I think it, you know, it first started in the '50s and really started growing in the '70s because when you had the release of the first Dietary Goals in 1977, that ended up turning into the 1980 Dietary Guidelines. And I kind of go through the historical recommendations from the first 1980s dietary guideline to all the way up to today.

And that's in The Salt Fix, right?

Yeah.

So at first it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily like, you know, salt is so bad. It was just, they just said consume salt in moderation. And then that changed to eat a low, as low as possible salt diet. And so it's even, it's interesting, even from the 1980s through, through up through 2015, it sort of became more and more and more restrictive.

Wow.

And obviously they had more money and more attorneys, more people on salary, shall we say, right?

Yeah.

To kind of push an agenda that— I mean, is there any— I mean, I just want to be a little fair and try to be non-biased, but was there any truth to it, or is there any truth to it, or was it really manufactured? I mean, because it feels like they couldn't have completely made this up from nowhere.

Right.

I mean, I feel like, wow, I want to cry right now. It's depressing.

Well, I think what they did was there are people who are salt sensitive, but they never took the time to figure out why those people were salt sensitive and inappropriate—

inappropriately extrapolated that small subgroup of people who have high blood pressure and that are salt sensitive and did a blanket statement to the general public. Population that everyone should be on a low salt diet.

So there were two faults that happened.

They inappropriately extrapolated a small group that was salt sensitive to everybody.

And when you say salt sensitive, as I know we talked about this in our last interview about the pairing, maybe you can mention it whenever it's appropriate, of salt with a high insulin response, which comes from sugar, carbs and salty snack foods, doesn't come from fats and proteins, a little bit from protein, but not nothing like carbohydrate. And when you pair salt with carbohydrates— and what I feel like this special group of people ate a lot of sugar and carbs, and then they tested them and said, oh, well, then salt's going to give you a— what was it, high blood pressure? Was that the big issue that they were so concerned about?

Well, I mean, they could never even prove that it caused hypertension or a chronically elevated level of high blood pressure. It was just that their blood pressure would spike about 5% or greater when going from a low to a normal salt intake, but your blood— your kidneys can flush out the salt fairly quickly, so the blood pressure would go pretty much right back down.

Hey, it's Jorge, and I just wanted to interrupt the show just for a moment to invite you to head on over and sign up for my Zero Hunger email that will give you each day a simple what to eat to get right radical control over your sugar, carb, and salty snack food cravings.

And if this is something you want to conquer and make a lifestyle, the newsletter is important. It will really give you tools every day to keep building that momentum to create a lifestyle where you're in control of sugar and carbs.

So if that sounds good, check it out.

Simply go to zerohungerplan.com. I'll spell it for you. It's with a Z, Z-E-R-O, zerohungerplan.com. And it's It's all free. I'll see you there.

Let's get back to the show.

But as you said, the key to this group that is quote-unquote salt sensitive was the refined carbs and sugars causing insulin to elevate and causing them to over-retain salt. And if you just drop the sugar and the refined carbs, you've dropped the insulin and you fix the salt sensitive high blood pressure.

So say that for everyone Someone listening, if you're concerned about high blood pressure, which I think in today's 2021, it's hard to believe it's 2021 world, but it is. I mean, if people think of salt, their number one issue, at least that I hear on social media and emails I get, is, oh, I don't wanna get a heart attack, I don't wanna have high blood pressure. Is that still, that's kind of the fear? That's the one story, the myth that seems to be the narrative that you might as well put the X in the skull on salt, but people are scared of dying from it. It's the opposite of your cover here where it's medicine.

Absolutely.

Is that the narrative that they're scared of, of high blood pressure? Yeah.

Oh, without question. The most comments I get is, well, what if I have high blood pressure? Well, then the key is to drop the refined carbs and sugar, start exercising more, and that requires and necessitates more salt. And salt's going to let you— allow you to exercise more, and it's going to allow you to eat those whole foods that are more bitter, but that bring the potassium and the magnesium. So salt is the gateway to eating healthy and exercising more.

Wow.

I feel like this is— I love talking to you because I feel like I always, even though I knew this already, I feel like, wow, the way you say it is so— it's profound. I mean, this is profound information. I think anyone listening to this right now is saying, wow, you know, and I feel like I mean, like with your new book, The Immunity Fix, you know, there's a chapter in there that I'm obsessed with, chapter 10, for anyone that gets the book, it's a must-read. It only came out a couple months ago, right? So it's fairly new. And obviously tell everyone about The Immunity Fix because you worked on this during COVID right? This is, you rushed this, you literally did this in, I mean, I know The Salt Fix you shared with us, 500 citations, took you 3 years to do this book. How did you do that book so quick? And I mean, that's got a lot of citations as well, correct? Yeah.

Correct.

Yeah.

We were the first, myself and another co-author, to actually publish an academic review paper on nutraceutical, essentially supplement strategies against RNA viruses, which is an RNA virus.

Is this public where we could share with people?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is, this is a published academic paper and it was—

Well, if you don't mind, share me the link and we'll share it in the show notes because this would be fabulous. So it started with that. And when was this? This last year?

Just February. That was in February.

So not even a year ago, about a year ago, right?

Essentially right when COVID was exploding, we published this academic paper, was press released by Elsevier, which is, um, you know, an academic, uh, you know, publishing, you know, group. And, you know, we started also publishing on hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, right? Do these medications actually help against COVID? And then I said, well, you know what? Most people don't read academic papers. So I might as well make my research into a book. And then it ended up turning into a 2,500-reference "Immunity Fix." 2,500? Yes. Yeah.

I love that you're so not just well-researched but passionate because to find those kind of references, I mean, I know it took you 3 years for the "Salt Fix." How did you— you must have just focused 14-hour days. You must have been a laser beam. Laser beam, correct?

Yeah, I mean, essentially right through, I would say, as soon as it started happening in late December in China, the research for me just, you know, didn't stop until, you know, I don't know, around May or so.

And the book is written with the co-author, uh, this handsome guy here. Tell us who your co-author is, because there you are, of course, and, and we're going to dive into this now.

But you, you had a little help, the author of The Metabolic Autophagy.

Pronounce his name for us, right?

Yeah.

And he helped with, um, some of the more of the biohacking.

Um, so I mean, I had actually been doing research on sauna therapies, um, sort of heat shocking yourself. I was looking at animal studies, um, where they would heat shock these animals before giving them lethal influenza and a dramatically lowered mortality, um, viral replication, lung pathology. And I, that comes down to heat shock proteins having these antiviral, um, effects. So sure enough, I did buy a sauna during this COVID.

Yeah, and I have a sauna as well. I love saunas. I do it almost every night. You recommend that as an immunity biohack, right?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

And is that how you connected with— and say his name one more time for everyone watching.

Yep, Siim Land.

And he is in Europe, correct?

This gentleman?

Yeah.

And so we sort of go through, you know, the nutrient depletions in the immunity fix that increase the risk of having poor COVID outcomes or higher mortality. But then we also want to light lifestyle strategies, biohacking strategies, cold therapy, hot therapy, things like that.

Fantastic. So his specialty are the biohacks. So, I mean, I feel like you'll have to connect us. We'll have to talk to him because I feel like this is such an important topic. And as COVID is still out there, and, you know, I just listened to NPR News this morning bright and early. I mean, it's still an issue. I know the vaccine is giving us a new light, I hope, right? You would agree there's some light there, you know, which is, is well needed. But there's so many things we can do to take control and be proactive. And I think if it's not COVID-19, it could be the flu, it could be just immunity in general. For me, you know, one of my favorite chapters, like I mentioned, is the one on intermittent fasting because as much as I used to intentionally force myself to not eat, and it was hard, you know, it was really hard. Once, for me, you know, out of COVID came this emphasis on the podcast about hunger control, because I think after our interview and speaking to a few other people from Paul Saladino, Dr. Saladino, to Mark Sisson, to Jason Fung, which is a good friend and co-author of one of your books as well. What book did you and Dr. Fung do?

That was The Longevity Solution.

So that is what I— that is why I do extended fasts for longevity, for increased improvement in stem cells and immunity function. And I I think one of the tricks, and just connecting it back to Woman's World, because I know a lot of people listening are fans of Woman's World magazine because it's out and it's the number one publication on grocery stands in the country. It's number one. I mean, there's no— even People magazine doesn't get this kind of coverage because it's everywhere in the grocery stores. And in today's world, not everyone reads magazines. But on that cover, we know that Sandy was drinking this water and she literally talks about— she doesn't mention the word fasting in the article. But she's not someone who does biohacking. She's a 58-year-old woman. And I think our average listener is in their midlife, to say the least. We don't have a lot of 20- or 30-year-olds. But if they are listening, I think, and if they're overweight or feel like their immune is weak, I feel like this idea of forgetting to eat, otherwise known as fasting, if it's effortless, is scary for people. And I think in Chapter 10, you really share some of the science that I think can bolster our motivation to know that, you know, it's almost like we're scared of salt, we're scared of fasting, you know? We've been told, "Oh no, no, no, you know, you can't do that. You'll pass out. You have to—" I mean, I know in my study of food and all that, Harvey Kellogg, around the same time period that, you know, we talk about the Victorian time period, he created the Kellogg cornflake, you know, at his sanitarium. I think it was in Michigan or something like that. And created this to help people be healthy, but he created a whole industry that broke the fast, and he created the word breakfast. I think it was first quoted in Good Housekeeping in the early, in like 1910 or something like that. And then people, he was like, "You have to eat breakfast." You know, we all have been told breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right, Dr. James? And I feel like, you know, for my clients, a lot of them will just drink this, you know, Maybe have a little coffee, maybe with a little butter or something like that as a biohack. But a lot of times my clients will forget to eat till dinnertime and they'll eat one meal a day. We all heard of that acronym OMAD. And tell us why that isn't something— because I feel like it's— I'm just thinking this out loud with you, but as much as sugar and carbs and salty snack foods are something we want to avoid, we want to embrace salt. Why would a strategy like fasting be something that can improve our immunity? If we could start with that, I would love that because I feel like that is one of the issues that a lot of my clients face when they consider not eating. And they're like, "But is it safe? If I drink your stuff, if I drink salt and I'm not hungry now," and as you've explained so beautifully how that turns off the hunger mechanism, "Is that safe though?" And you know they're going to say, "Well, I'm going to pass out. I'm literally going to die if I don't eat immediately," and every 3 3 hours. Why is the opposite possibly true? And in Chapter 10, you call it, you know, everything from— I think you mentioned, uh, what is the, the topic here? How fasting affects immunity. You mentioned the word that I, I love. I'll just share with everyone here: autophagy. So maybe could you share a little bit of what— of this? We'll start with this because it really connects to women's world, because that's how you lose 2 pounds a day, in my opinion. You fast, which is not, you know, people like, well, I get why you lose up to 2 pounds. It's not everyone will lose 2 pounds. It's up to 2 pounds. But you sure could if you have a lot of weight. And I feel like people are going to say it's not safe. This is very provocative. It's, you people are dumb. This is not safe. It's not what the government tells us to do. Everyone knows we need to eat breakfast. But take us down this path. And I'm not saying it's another conspiracy, but maybe, you know, about us being— we're more capable than just, you know, being so dependent on on eating every 3 hours. But talk to us about Chapter 10, please, Dr. James.

I want to let you take over, please.

I mean, the average American consumes probably 6 to 7 meals per day.

And so that's constantly keeping insulin levels elevated. So doing an intermittent fast, which is sort of like your novice fast, right, where you're— it's more like time-restricted eating. You're consuming 6 meals a day.

You're consuming maybe 2 meals per day. Yeah. So whether that's skipping bre—

for, for most people, it's so easy to just skip breakfast and then they consume lunch and dinner.

Yeah.

Um, and when you get into the more OMAD or the one meal a day fast, you start getting more into the deeper fat burning at the 18 to 20 hour mark.

And that's what I love because that's where you can really see a drop in weight. As we say on the COVID they're 2 pounds a day. So that does happen. And would you call that an extended fast if you're doing OMAD, sort of?

It's right on the cusp, right? Because usually it's a 23-hour fast. I know Dr.

Fung always says, you know, he likes the longer ones. And I've done 3-day fasts and I do them on a regular sometimes. I try to do them at the start of the week. And I can tell you, I feel out of control healthy. I do CrossFit, I work out, I weigh almost 200 pounds of lean muscle. And it's because I'm eating more protein, I imagine. Think, you know. And I have, I have this energy. I feel like a Roman Spartan type of, you know, type of guy here. And I'm trying to get— I'm turning 50 in March, and I want for my age to look my best. And I feel like OMAD has done that. But, but doing— even if OMAD is the start of an extended fast, a 3-day fast, and, you know, Dr. Fung talks about that at times, and he even talks about 4-day fasts, and he always seems to imply that, you know, if you've got that fat on your belly or on your sides. And if you're a heavy person, I mean, he says you can go weeks without eating, you know. And people like, oh my God, Jason Fung is mad. And you work with Dr. Fung, so I know his work is valid. So, so yeah, so I need to zip it here. I want you to talk because I feel like this is such an important topic, fasting in general, you know, from intermittent fasting, which is what, maybe 2 meals a day. I do the 1 meal a day. Some of my clients will do the 1 meal and then on occasion do 2 to 3 day fast, you know, just to— and, and not for weight loss necessarily, because maybe jump back in where you were saying what happens when you go longer than, uh, well, that you— when you do OMAD or beyond, because things happen to the body when you don't eat beyond 24 hours, say 2 days or 3 day fast, right, Dr.

James? Right, right. So if you want to tap into what's called autophagy, where your, where your body essentially breaks down damaged, um, proteins and form new proteins and increases the production of stem cells. That really starts to happen at 2 to 3 day fast. So in The Immunity Fix, we discussed that, uh, immune resets, um, would, would require probably 2 to 3 day fasts, but you shouldn't really do it more than, uh, every 2 to 3 months. Because if you start doing prolonged fasts, um, more frequently than that, you will start breaking down protein and muscle. So there's this balance, right? I mean, if you're a lean, muscular, active person, you don't— you shouldn't be doing extended fasts really to reset your immune system.

With that intention, that's fine with the immune system. And did you mention stem cells? Talk briefly about that because I know that's something that's kind of like new tech— or not new technology, but new science. And people know that these stem cells can create miracles in the body. You know, some people spend an extreme amount of money to get stem cells in their body. And so when we do, say, up to a 3— would you say 3-day fast is where the magic is?

2 to 3 days, yes. 2 to 3.

What happens— briefly give us a little history on that, or from your perspective. I know Jason Fung is, is the expert on fasting, but I feel like you're very knowledgeable on this. You know, the chapter is very detailed. But what happens beyond weight loss? Because I know that's the start of it. We want to drop weight and be aggressive with it and see some results, but the results are beyond that, correct?

Absolutely. So essentially, I mean, in regards to immunity, your stem cells are what form your immune cells. They come from the bone marrow, and the bone marrow produces your stem cells, which then eventually differentiate into your immune cells. And so if you're constantly eating, you're in this state of growth, whereas when you fast, you're in the state of repair. Repair. Um, and so what ends up happening is any damaged immune cells or proteins in the body, when you switch over to a prolonged fast, you go into a repair mode and you start breaking down damaged immune cells and you start forming new healthy ones. So it is truly like that immune reset.

Tell me this, in the, in the book with the, the Immunity Fix, you talk about autophagy.

I know a lot of people have heard the word.

I talk about it as housekeeping, but beyond the weight weight loss and the immunity. Give— end on that, and then we can dive maybe just a few more minutes on the book and some topics. I don't know if it's sauna or things that you really are— something that you want to bring to our attention, because I think you have a great palette to paint from here. But with autophagy, what other things that I think would motivate people to understand that doing a fast of some sort, whether it's a 16-hour one, a 24-hour one, or even an extended one, is going to give them? Because you mentioned the stem cells, and I feel like for me, I'm turning 50, and I don't know why I feel older now at 50. It does feel like I got 50 more years, which is the halfway point, which is great. I mean, I'm excited for the next 50 years. But is it stem cells, or what is it that you would say is the greatest, outside of weight loss especially, because we've nailed that, I feel, but that fasting can do for us? Because I know Jason Fung would talk about this for days, but I feel like from your perspective, it would be a little more focused possibly because you mentioned the immunity and it really does with COVID-19 transform our immunity. Because I feel like people— I know we talked about the bone concern, the calcium concern, but extended fasting or even a 24-hour fast or whatever we end up doing, if it's 16 hours and you eat 2 meals a day or whatever people are doing that are listening interesting. I feel like so many people have been told— and I grew up in a Latin Catholic family where if you don't eat, you weaken your immune system. It's the opposite. Just maybe start there and then give us a little— take us to the top of what is the— why the immune system works so more efficiently when we do an intermittent fast, right? Because I feel like that's not what we're used to hearing.

Yeah. I think because nowadays we're hyper-eating. We need to start more fasting, right?

Um, hyper eating. I love that term. Is that something that, is that your term? I love that. I'm gonna give you credit for that. We'll have to make a hyper, hyper eating, right?

Hyper eating. Yeah. Well, essentially.

And so I think— Define that from your perspective, because I agree. I mean, we're literally not even eating every 3 hours. It's like constantly, right?

Well, yeah.

When, when we were growing up, we would only eat 3 times a day. Now we're, we're eating 6 times a day. So that's what I meant by hyper-eating. It's just the frequency's gone up twofold.

I think more. I think more people with COVID they're bored at home and they're popping M&M's and peanuts night and day. So hyper-eating. So go ahead.

Yeah. Even our plate sizes have increased, but obviously— Yes. But I think from an immunity perspective, if you consume just 100 grams of carbohydrates from sugars or refined carb course, that lowers the natural killer cells' ability to kill viruses by 5 hours. So it's, you know, they're essentially— their ability to kill goes down by 5 hours.

So say this one more time for anyone who's like, well, I missed that. What, what, what, what did you say one more time, Dr. Jameson? This is powerful. This is like— I mean, this is the reason to do it, just in what you just said. But please, one more time, if you would.

If you, if you consume 100 grams of carbohydrates from either sugar or refined carb source, that drops your immune system's ability to kill viruses for 5 hours. That's incredible.

And that's not a lot of— I mean, 500 grams. I mean, 500 grams, right? No, 100. 100 grams. That's the equivalent of— is that— I mean, give us something that people can relate to. It's not much, right?

Snickers bars, 2 Coca-Colas, essentially, right?

2 glasses of orange juice, right? Is that— yeah, it's 29 grams. I mean, it's almost the same amount of sugar in a glass of fresh orange juice as there is in a Coca-Cola, right?

Bowl of cereal with milk, essentially, you know, your typical American breakfast.

100 grams of carbohydrates, 5-hour depression in the immune system, right? Yes. No one, no one talks about this. No one. And then, and then they do this and they eat every 3 hours, you know, snacks and, and all their meals. I mean, wouldn't you say say the standard American diet, right? SAD. People are consuming 100 grams easily. I don't want to say with every meal, but I do feel it's with every meal, right? Every meal, yeah. Not just hyper meals, but hyper— high carb meals, right?

Absolutely. So I mean, the average American is consuming 400 to 500 grams of carbohydrates per day, refined carbohydrates per day.

So what does that do to the immune system if 100 grams kills it for 5 hours. Let's add that up. How many, how many did you say on the average day? 6. So 6 times, 6 times 5 hours, that's, you're literally, it's 30 hours your immune system's offline. And I don't even know how that, how does that happen in a 24-hour day? You literally have no immune system, right?

Right, right.

Your immune system is chronically suppressed when you're constantly eating carbohydrates.

Wow. I mean, That's profound. I mean, I feel like for the sake of— for the— for, for drama, say one more time, because it's, it's like, let's let that— like the mic drop on that, because I feel like that's a big deal. Say one last time. So you're saying when we eat carbs, 100 grams, our immune system drops for 5 hours? 5 hours. Meaning we can get anything. We could get a cold, we could get— I mean, the stuff that's out there, let alone COVID. Of it. And then if we do this ever and ever, the average American is having 400, 500—

yeah, yeah, 400 to 500 grams of refined carbohydrates per day.

So then that's literally your whole— that's over 20-some hours a day, almost 30 hours a day. Your immune system is— what's the best word— compromised or just depressed or lowered?

Depressed, lowered. So I mean, just eating 3 meals that contain 100 grams of refined carbohydrates the entire day, your immune system would be suppressed.

And as much as people are taking vitamin C and getting their vitamin D and even their natural sunlight, I mean, that helps a little bit, right? It helps counter it. Or, or is it just something that as much as that is nice, it's still suppressed? Or, or how— take us into how to counter that. Now, I'm not that I want to encourage people to eat carbohydrates. I mean, we're trying to, I think, hint, hint everyone not don't eat carbs if you want to have a strong immune system, right? Let alone do the fasting, right? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't eat refined carbohydrates. There are certainly good sources of carbohydrates, right? Green bananas, um, certain unrefined breads.

I like— you say green bananas? Green bananas.

Yeah. Um, which are essentially a more resistant starch. They're not—

they're, they're definitely not sweet, right? I remember my mother used to love the, the black, like the, not just brown. She'd like them because they're so sweet, right? They get sweeter. And I usually like avocados and things like that. But so you're— and I know Paul Saladino has that. Have you seen his work with the plant toxicity spectrum? He loves squash and things like that, very low sugar. So it's good to eat low sugar carbohydrates, obviously, right? If you're going to do that, unprocessed.

Right. Like the reason why a yellow banana is so sweet compared to a green banana is because all the glucose is locked up in as resistant starch or fiber when it's a green banana. So it's much more fiber than glucose. As ripens, the resistant starch or fiber breaks down and releases the glucose.

Wow. I've never thought of eating— because, you know, when I go to Costco, wherever I get my bananas, I get them for my kids sometimes. And, you know, I try not to eat them because usually, you know, I always, always ate them And back in the day when they were softer, you know, and when they're hard, you're like, oh, it's not— they're not ripe yet. And you always make fun of a green banana because you're not ready for the world yet, you know, but you're actually eating them when they're green, right? Because they're healthier if you're going to eat them that way. Much healthier.

So it's a great source of potassium, great source of B vitamins, and low calorie and extremely filling because it's a ton of fiber.

And low sugar when it's green, right? Exactly. Wow. I would have never guessed that. A banana based on its timeline is healthy, but the sugar— how much more sugar happens when it gets more yellow? And then obviously, like my mom, she used to have them when they were brown and definitely sweet as you know what. But I mean, there's a difference. It actually changes the profile of the banana as it ripens.

Right. Essentially, you go from having 5 grams of fiber in a green banana to none. Whoa.

Oh my God. Wow. Right. Wow. Wow, that's— okay, wow. So, all right, so back to what you're saying. So, if we eat 100 grams of carbohydrates, 5 hours loss of immunity, what happens when we do the fast and the autophagy? Because now we can bolster that, and that's a way to— I mean, if you are eating, we'll just say, for example, an OMAD meal like Sandy did on the Woman's World magazine cover, doing one meal, and you end up— sure, you have a little meat, a little carnivore, but you have some squash, maybe spaghetti squash, maybe a green banana, maybe an avocado. I don't know, you maybe, maybe you have some—

my favorite here, I mean, I love David because he's on QVC—

maybe some nachos. I don't know. I mean, that definitely looks like a Super Bowl party, right? But if you eat this, obviously, and then you fast though, say for 23 hours, then tell us what the autophagy does to help. I don't want to call it repair the body, but it helps, uh, does it— the housekeeping, right? It's, it's that type of because I think that's the part I've explained. But from your perspective, how does that work briefly? And then let's— we'll wrap up here because I know it's getting a little late, but I appreciate this. I feel like this is, this is what we need to hear because I think people need options, you know, because not everyone's going to do what I recommend. They're not going to do what you recommend. They're going to do what they want. But I think if we can educate them, they'll make a better decision, right?

Right.

Absolutely. So I mean, the fasting is going to prevent the more meals glucose, and the more blood sugar spikes that are hurting your immune cells for 4-5 hours, right? So eliminating those glucose bombs is really going to eliminate those bombs on your immune system that are damaging them and then really glycating proteins, glycating your, your red blood cells so you can't oxygenate your body as well.

And of course, immunity comes down to the health of your own cells as well.

And really the key with autophagy is the cleaning up of damaged damaged or old immune cells and replacing them with more functioning immune cells. That's essentially the benefits.

So if we had a Super Bowl party, you know, at the end of the month here in February, and we have nachos and we eat a lot of them, say we get our 100 grams of carbs, maybe a few extra, and then the next day, or we just have that one big party meal or whatever, we enjoy a, a, a, not necessarily the perfect meal, but we have a high-carb meal, and then we fast for 23 hours. In that time, the body has time, and if If we extend it, even better possibly. Just so we're cautious of the minerals, we're trying to balance out any acid in the body, right? To balance that out. Can we really, in essence, I mean, for people that want to do that on occasion, maybe have a cheat meal, shall we say, once a week, and I'm not saying it's Domino's pizza and nachos, but some people do that. I haven't had a Domino's pizza since college probably, but I feel like if they wanted to, in essence, they could do that. It doesn't have to be just a carnivore diet, as healthy as that—

that would be healthier.

But the autophagy allows that reset, and, and the immune system comes back. Is there a way to gauge it? If the, if, if the carbohydrates, 100 grams, drops it for 5 hours, what does the autophagy do to the immune system? Does it give it, um— is there some way to quantify it, maybe in the sense of a result that people can have like a shield around them, or they feel like an extra layer of— rather than suppression of, of, of strength, maybe of some sort, right?

Yeah. It'll bring you back to baseline. It'll bring you back to, you know, the health of your immune system prior to that, that glucose load. Yeah.

Does it give you an edge as well if you go longer in the sense of the extended fasting where it can give you— I don't want to call it like superpowers, but like a super immunity. Does that— I mean, in Chapter 10, I know you talk about the autophagy, but can it go to that level sometimes where the stem cells are improved? Because stem cells tend to— I mean, for anyone that's out there that's heard of this, it seems to be like a miracle sometimes when people are near the very end of life. They go to Mexico and they get stem cells. You've heard of these people, right? I mean, celebrities have done this. And why did people do that? And how does autophagy help that? Because I feel like that's almost magical. Logic, it seems, but it's not because it's, it's, it's biology, right?

Yeah, you're switching over from growth to resilience and protection. And the cancer studies, the really the chemotherapy studies are very clear on this, that if people who have cancer, which they're already in a state of, you know, low muscle and low protein, but if they fast 2 to 3 days before chemotherapy, that dramatically reduces the side effects and improves outcomes.

Because this— your healthy cells are not— you're in a more of this repair mode.

So your antioxidant defenses are up, so the chemotherapy isn't as damaging. Your cells aren't turning over as quickly. And so that has been— there's been many studies to show that, that—

and that's why we think the autophagy really comes and kicks in at that 2 to 3 day mark from based on those studies.

To be sitting down here and having a conversation with the author author of what I think is probably one of the most important books I've read in 2020. And I really do believe it's, it's a book that we need to examine because, as you know, so many of us right now are looking for more support, more control over sugar, carbs, and salty, stacked foods. And I always have to tell people that it's not the salt that's bad. It's the chips, the potatoes, the corn. And joining me on the other side of the country here on the East Coast is a man who wrote a book that has changed my thinking. I'll show you the COVID here, guys. It is a critical book, I think, in our quest for zero hunger. And, you know, we've had incredible conversations with incredible people. But this author really, and this man, Dr. James D. Nicolantonio, I hope I'm pronouncing it right, is on the other end. Would you say hi to everyone, Dr. James, just as a shortcut, right? Yeah.

Happy to be here, Jorge. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. Oh my gosh, I'm beyond honored. I think your book says it best in the subtitle, Why Experts Got It Wrong and How Eating More Salt May Save Your Life. And that's a profound statement. But I have to tell you, I've been following a lot of what you recommend in the book. I've elevated my sodium intake. And, you know, a lot of my clients follow a high-fat, high-protein diet. They do a lot of intermittent In Fasting. When I read this, it just shifted my thinking because I would say, and I will let you kind of take the introduction here and introduce us to the thinking of salt. But I think we have been told that salt is this mineral we have to be so cautious of and it is so delicate. Yet at the same time, we are not getting enough. It is important. I don't think it is a delicate one that will harm And it's not that we want to have a pound of salt every day. It's not something like that, but we do need to elevate our intake. And I couldn't agree with you more. So I'm just honored to have you on the show here today. And I'm hoping that by the end of our conversation, everyone listening or watching can really have an idea of how to utilize salt and really as a tool to fix their health to some degree and perhaps help them feel better, have less false hunger is what I call it. And I know, I know in the book you talk about people that follow a kind of a keto-based Atkins type diet. And a lot of my clients do that. So I'm just thrilled to have time with you and thank you so much for creating such an incredible conversation here. And if you don't mind, share with everyone a little bit of your background and how you came to write this book, because you've written many books and we'll mention your, even your newest book here at the end of the show, because I think it's incredible.

Incredible, all about immunity.

But tell us a little bit of your origin story, if you don't mind, Dr. James, because I feel like you're such a unique man. I have not seen another book like this. It's not like there's 10 books on salt and why we need to eat more salt. But please, if you wouldn't mind, tell us a little bit of your, of your beginnings and how the work began and how the book came to existence.

Sure. So I'm a cardiovascular research scientist at St. Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute, and I've been publishing on nutrition and nutraceuticals for, you know, the past decade. And my interest on salt and the origin story was when I was actually working as a community pharmacist. Um, a lot of my patients, uh, were put on diuretics for high blood pressure, right? And told to cut out eating salt because that's the first thing your doctor's sort of been trained to do. If you have high blood pressure, they automatically tell you to cut your salt intake, right? Yes. Yes. Really the other primary drivers, usually that's insulin resistance or being overweight. They, they instantly go to just cut the salt intake as if it's like this toxic poison, uh, when really nothing further could be from the truth because this is an essential mineral. Um, and so the origin story really comes from a lot of my patients complaining to me as their pharmacist that they don't feel well. I'm not doing well on these low-salt diets or these diuretics. And I would push them back. I would say, go back to your doctor, you know, tell them that you're not feeling that good. Maybe have your sodium levels checked. And a lot of times they were deficient in salt. And when the doctor would, you know, tell them to start eating more salt, they instantly felt better. Um, and probably the most emails that I got from people after reading the book is that their atrial fibrillation or their muscle cramps instantly improved as soon as they started eating a normal salt intake again. Yeah, that's the origin. It wasn't really matching up from not only from my patients that I was seeing as a community pharmacist, but as a wrestler and a cross-country runner, I've always known the importance of salt to performance and exercise.

Well, and I'll tell you, being a fitness trainer, I feel like a lot of people look at sodium and they think, hmm, they don't think it's an electrolyte. But can you explain to us why sodium right now is recommended at a daily allowance that, in your opinion, I would think you would agree, is too low, and why maybe sometimes athletes— you know, as a trainer, I work with people that do exercise, and they've heard of electrolytes, they've heard of Gatorade, but it has a lot of sugar traditionally and things like that. But help us understand how the experts got it all wrong, because I feel like, in my opinion, it's 100%. But I think a lot of A lot of people think, well, how can the United States, how can someone that recommends a daily allowance for a whole country be off? And then share with us, if you don't mind, what those numbers are and what, in your humble opinion, they should be. And especially if we're following an active lifestyle and maybe a keto-based type of diet, because salt is something that can be regulated. And I remember years ago reading how in Roman times and Greek times, salt was so precious. I think the word salary comes from the word salt. Is that right, Dr. James? Yes, that is correct. Yeah. You know, people were worth their weight in salt. So, I love the history of all that. I am kind of a salt buff. So, to have you on here, it really is the best. But share with us a little more about that because I feel like there is what we are told by the experts today and maybe identify who these experts are and what they are telling us and obviously then take us to what you think is better. And then obviously if we're fasting or doing keto diet, why that— why those numbers are probably accurate or if we need to take them up even a pinch more.

Right. Well, so most people don't really know the historical intakes of salt throughout the past 10,000 years, which was in European countries typically 3 times the amount compared to what we consume today because they didn't have refrigerators to preserve preserve food. They preserved all their food in salt. And you actually need quite a bit of salt if you're only utilizing that substance to preserve a food. So it was just literally just packed full of salt to preserve fish and meats and all these things. Right. Um, so, so for the last 10,000 years, we have been consuming, you know, around 25 to 50 grams of salt per day.

And now one more time, because what are we told currently by the government? What would you say? And then say that—

most governments tell you to consume no more than 6 grams of salt, whereas historically we were typically around 25 to 50 grams of salt. Wow.

And this is 10,000 years ago, right? A record. And all the way up until— until what time did things shift, would you say?

Up until the invention of the refrigerator. Refrigerator. And then once we were able to refrigerate foods, right, in the 1930s, '40s, '50s, um, the, the intake of salt sort of normalized to what it's at today, um, which is about 1.5 teaspoons is what most people consume.

1.5 teaspoons. And if, uh, now tell us, what are the agencies in the government that regulate this? And what, what is that? Is that their, is that their, their recommended daily allowance? Is that how that works?

Give us a minute on that if you So typically, um, the historical recommendations from the American Heart Association have been less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium, which is essentially less than about a teaspoon, a half a teaspoon of salt. And they don't tell you a minimal amount though. They just, they just have this less than sign as if this is not an essential mineral. They should also have, well, you should at least be consuming X amount per day. So it's just sort of consume less than, this amount. And some of the guidelines have gotten a little bit looser because now, you know, more information has been coming out that low salt can be harmful. Um, typically now, uh, the US, you know, dietary guidelines, they, they sort of cap it at around 2,300 milligrams, which is a teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon. Um, but really most of the data suggests that 1.5 teaspoons is associated with less cardiovascular events, less mortality, and, you know, really improvements in insulin sensitivity and all these things.

This is incredible. And what I'm blown away with is that what you said is historically true. I mean, the invention of the refrigerator was documented in the '30s, as you said there, and maybe there was one or two earlier, but for thousands of years, salt was the tool used to preserve things and the tool— now, soldiers in the Roman times, was this and any time in history, salt was looked at not as magic necessarily, but as a tool that gave our bodies vitality. How would you describe that? Energy? Tell us what the right amount of salt will make us feel like. And obviously the numbers we have now, I mean, you know, the majority of the people I work with are exhausted, they're tired, they're hungry all the time. It goes on and on and on. And then maybe we can connect it to hunger because obviously we've lowered the salt so much that may impact appetite. So I'll let you kind of take it, please.

Yeah, well, I mean, the importance for Roman times was very important for their armies. I mean, back, back in those days, and even really back just 50 years ago, rations, war rations always had typically about 18 grams of salt per soldier per day. So that, that's how important, you know, going to war, if you want to have an army that can go to war and fight, you need to have enough salt for these people to be active and actually protect your country. Um, so that's why it was really, you were worth your weight in salt because you were literally fighting for the protection of the country. Wow. Wow. Um, yeah, that's kind of, it's, it's an interesting historical, um, perspective, but I think the confusion why people think salt is harmful is because the sugar industry really got involved in this whole dietary debate. And they needed a scapegoat, right? So if, if they wanted sugar to sort of have a free pass, what other white crystal could they blame all the harms on? High blood pressure, on hunger, on cravings, on obesity. It was salt. That's what they did. So, I mean, we know too for a fact that the sugar industry paid numerous scientists to publish papers to sort of, um, you know, scapegoat other substances as being harmful and sugar being harmless. And really salt took the brunt of that. That for blood pressure and cravings and, and being an addictive substance, right? But it's really not the salt that's— that can be addictive, it's really the sugar. And people are just starting to figure this out. And then that type of craving and addiction can lead to out-of-control hunger and weight gain. So, um, it's just— it's really interesting how these crystals work from a taste perspective and how that actually activates sort of the hunger and craving centers in brain.

I feel like what you're saying, not only is the light bulb, as Oprah would say, it's an aha moment here going off. But I feel like what you're saying makes so much— it's almost like when I have conversations with people who've studied anthropological ancestral health and what our ancestors ate. And then obviously, before there was refrigeration and before there was preservative, the foods were preserved with other items. Out of salt. We hunted and we gathered foods and we did a lot of hunting. And, you know, we've had on the show Dr. Paul Saladino and Dr. Paul Shawn Baker and Mark Sisson, and their primal perspective on what we did as a species is so powerful because history— I mean, history is history for the most part. Hopefully it's not distorted, but this history is very well documented. And so salt, as it became villainized? I hate to call it that. I mean, it almost sounds like a conspiracy theory that salt became just the bad guy because, I mean, how did they pick that? How did that happen? Because I feel like the experts that you mentioned in the book obviously have made for decades— and how many decades has it been, would you say, Dr. James, where people have looked to salt as this bad guy? Was it from the 1930s, '40s, '90s? How did that villain vibe become there? And then obviously, tell us what the fix is, because obviously we need to change things. And I think, you know, this— your book has given people, I think, the truth. You know, it almost feels like it should be a documentary. And, and I feel like this truth is not being talked about. I feel like your book is the primary book that— I mean, it's the book on Amazon and everywhere we go. And I feel like I would wish there were more of them. I feel like you don't have a large group of people that, you know, there's like 10 books on salt and why we all need them. There's books on sugar. Definitely sugar has become, I think people now know, and it's a battle, I'm sure you would agree that, you know, that the sugar companies are probably saying, well, not all sugar is bad if it's healthy, you know, whole sugar, cane sugar and all this. But tell us how we lost our way possibly and how did they pick this? Do you have an idea on that? What can you share from the book perhaps on how it became the villain?

Right. Just from sort of, let's say, an evolutionary perspective. When, when we would hunt an animal, mammals are essentially walking bags of salt, right? And so per liter of fluid, you're gonna have 1.5 teaspoons or essentially a full day's worth of salt in that animal. Right. And we know that, that we humans, we contain 5 liters of blood and that's not counting interstitial fluid. Right. And we know traditional Um, even the Maasai, they'll actually drink the blood of their cattle, um, and milk as well, which is fairly salty. But we could, we could follow animals to salt licks and directly consume salt from a lick, right? Or we could get brackish or salty water and just consume it straight. So we've always had access to this pure, either saline solution through the mammals we would hunt, or just going to the salt licks that— and following the animal trail. Else. So we always have been, you know, our taste receptors have always been activated by pure salt, but not sugar. So the— right. And so that's the, that's one evolutionary difference. We did get some sugar through fruit, but there's a huge difference between consuming sugar, a little bit of sugar that comes with fiber and water versus a highly purified white crystal. And sort of to give you an example of this, right, because people will be like, well, how can sugar be addictive? It's in fruit. Fruit, right?

It doesn't mean— yes, right?

Um, it's in plant— it's in a plant, right? Well, if you think about it, if you extract plant compounds, right, from let's say the cocaine leaf and you get cocaine, or you, or you get opium, right? You extract these purely crystals, right, from these plants. Now you have a highly addictive substance because it's about the, the concentration and the purity. And boiling down and getting the, the, the sugarcane and the fluid out— and then forming this white crystal, you now have this very, very hyperpalatable purified substance that can activate the dopamine receptors in the brain to a much greater degree. And this sort of hyper-release of dopamine—

we get high, we get addicted to it, right?

High. And then the more you get, the more you need to get that high. So that's sort of just how I try to explain on how sugar can potentially be addictive. And now it's not, you know, addictive for everyone, just like alcohol isn't addictive for everyone. But there is a subset of people that when you consume sugar, it leads to this craving and this massive out-of-control hunger consumption, especially food consumption due to this, you know, massive release of dopamine. Yes. And when you don't get enough salt, there had to, there had to have been something because it's an essential mineral. There had to have been a way that tells mammals and tells humans, seek out this substance when you're deficient. There has to be a signal. Well, when you don't have enough salt, what happens is the dopamine receptors in the brain become hyperactivated. So essentially, if you don't— if you're not getting enough salt, when you consume any other substance that can activate the reward receptors in the brain, it makes it more, let's say, addictive.— that includes sugar, that includes medications, that includes things like Adderall.

They've tested this on animals.

They will deplete an animal of salt, and then if they give them things like cocaine or Adderall, those substances become much more addictive because low salt activates the reward centers in the brain. Because when you— when that happens, it's what saves you. It's what drives the animal or the human to seek out the salt, get the reward. And consume it so you don't die of salt deficiency. So that's how the body works and that's how cravings work.

Yeah. So for anyone out there that has cravings, I mean, I think that's the word, and especially the sugar and carbs, you know, because I think, I mean, all weight gain and right now with COVID-19 and people wondering about underlying health conditions and being overweight is definitely not helpful. You know, you want to be, I mean, unknowingly I've shared this on the podcast, but back in September, did not know I I had COVID-19 and tested about 2 months ago for the antibodies and had them. And I had a little trouble breathing. I used to have asthma 30 years ago when I was a kid and I thought it was just bad asthma, but I didn't quarantine. I saw my sons and I didn't know I had it. And I feel like I had a little bit of an advantage being leaner and stronger and having a healthy diet and doing OMAD, one meal a day and all that. I have a high protein, high fat diet. So I feel like I was lucky. But with these cravings, a lot of people, as you know, have gained what they are calling now the COVID the COVID-19, which is 19 lbs. of belly fat. It seems to always be in the belly. So, you know, for anyone out there that is trying to lose weight, you know what I have suggested to them is, you know, I will have with me, like right now here upon rising, I will have 32 oz. of water and I will usually add 1/4 of a teaspoon, about 1,000 mg. Of salt in my 32 ounces of water. And so we do the math. Some of my clients will take a gallon of water. You know how sometimes they work out and they take more water with them. So we'll times that by, I think, 3, correct? About 128 ounces of water would be 3 of these, I believe. Is that right? Or is it 4? Not, uh, 128 divided by 32. Let me double check. But what would you— was I right? Yeah, 4.

Yeah, 4.

So before these, so that's in a gallon. So that would be if it's 1/4 of a teaspoon, 1,000 milligrams of the fine salt. But it's coarse salt. I always tell people to double. I don't know if you would agree with that because it's a little more bulky, the coarser salts, more the crystals. But whether it's 1/4 and 32 ounces, or I guess a full teaspoon in a gallon of water, for me, it doesn't seem like a lot of salt in the water and it doesn't make the water excessively salty. It's like a saline, I think you were saying, right? Is that an amount that you would suggest? Because I know a lot of keto people— Robb Wolf was someone who suggested that to us, about 1,000 mg in 32 ounces. You could do it in less, but then it becomes very salty. But what would you suggest for anyone out there as a prescription of sorts for an active lifestyle if they're doing something where they're perhaps trying to eat less and control those urges? Percentages for sugar and carbs. Do you think that prescription is something you would suggest, or tell us what you, what you think about an amount that you would suggest on the low end, maybe as for, you know, the middle and at the highest point, maybe a range of sorts, you know?

Yes. I mean, salt needs are always kind of determined by losses. So that's going to be determined by someone's lifestyle and sort of where they sit on the spectrum. Spectrum of insulin resistance. So, I mean, first, the one thing I do think we should probably clarify— please— a lot of people are told that they're salt sensitive, meaning their blood pressure will go up when they consume a normal amount of salt, and they're told to cut their salt intake. Well, the majority of the time, what is actually happening is they're actually just insulin resistant because they're eating too many refined carbs and sugars. And if these people would just drop the refined carbs and sugar, they wouldn't over-retain the salt. So it's not that you should just start eating more salt. It's make sure you first cut out the refined carbs and sugar so you can tolerate a normal salt intake. And then also make sure you're consuming enough magnesium and potassium because that allows us to utilize salt in the appropriate way. But if you, if you fix all of that, then we see that these people that are on ketogenic diets, right, they need a little bit more salt. So typically, um, adding 1 to 2 grams of sodium extra compared to the typical 3 grams of sodium in, let's say, a normal person, they seem to do much better because when, when you drop the insulin, you start spilling sodium out in the urine and you start losing it more. And then glucose helps us absorb sodium as well. So chronically, a lot of these people feel better with more salt because they're not absorbing it as well. Yes.

Well, I think that's so critical because obviously your lifestyle determines what you lose faster and if you're active and not active and what you're eating. So the current— just to kind of set a little footnote in the conversation here, the current recommended daily allowance. Tell us what that is, what you just said for the average person. And then based on something that I'm suggesting about 1/4 of a teaspoon of the fine salt in 32 ounces. And we have clients that are doing this and their appetite Appetite stops. They literally will have the supán rising. They don't even feel like they need coffee, right? What happens is they go on and they will have a few of these a day and their greatest concern is if they do this and have good energy, they feel good, they don't have an appetite, they are like, "Am I going to be OK?" They are fine. They don't pass out. They don't feel faint, lightheaded, and they end up having 1 meal a day or so. I have some Clients that do even longer fasts, but they get concerned. Is too much salt too much salt? So maybe then take us to the extreme of what would be too much, because what you shared, what our ancestors did, what was that number from the ancient times when we would preserve meat with that? It was 25 grams, was it?

Yeah, around 25.

It's like a lot, right?

Well, they've tested this out in people who have normal blood pressure. 80% of those people are not salt sensitive. So there's been studies giving these people up to 80 to 100 grams up to 80 grams of salt and there's no increase in blood pressure, or if there is, it's very tiny. It's very—

When we say a gram and you're saying up to 80 grams, what is that in milligrams?

That's 1,000 per gram, right? Right. That's, yeah, that'd be 80,000 milligrams.

I mean, because right now I have clients that are doing this gallon of water with 4 of these, as we did the math there, right? And it has 1/4 of a teaspoon. So we end up having a teaspoon of salt. Teaspoon of salt is how many grams would you say?

So a teaspoon of salt is 2,300 milligrams or 2.3 grams of sodium.

Doesn't seem like a lot, 2.3. And yet we could at times, and during our, these kind of like beginning times when we were preserving food with salt, the numbers were as high as 80 as well back then, or more 25 to 30? Or is that hard to say?

Well, we've tested 80 to 100 100 grams of salt in normotensive people. And essentially that usually doesn't even move the needle on blood pressure in the majority of normal blood pressure. Yes.

Because is that the primary concern that the villain of salt has become, right, Dr. James? This idea that blood pressure is going to go too high. Because I think when I said this originally to certain clients, whether they're celebrities or people we work with online or listeners of our podcast, they get concerned that a gram or two extra could literally knock them dead. You know, tell me, share with everyone how these numbers really, like the greatest concern from having the salt. I mean, what are the side effects? And they can be positive because I feel more energy, more hunger control. But is there any negative at all? Is there anything that the experts were partially right on? Because I feel like they were they were totally wrong. I mean, I hate to, to make fun of what this work has been of these other folks, but they've really made this a villain, but it has no ammo. It seems to have no truth to it. I feel like we've been truly misled down a path of concern that doesn't exist. Is that possible?

Well, we have been misled because it's a quick fix for someone who is insulin resistant. Right. And then you can't handle as much salt. So for those people, they might see some fluid retention, but they've never, you know, sort of helped these people understand the underlying root cause of why all of a sudden you can't tolerate a normal salt intake. So, you know, for, for some people, they eat a normal amount of salt and they don't do well because they can't tolerate it. But if they simply cut the refined carbs, cut the sugar, or they may have high levels of aldosterone, which can be treated. Um, usually there's an underlying reason why. It's very rare that you have a genetic kidney issue where you're overabsorbing salt.

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So it's really just figuring out the root cause of the problem. And then once you fix that, a normal intake of salt seems to be much more beneficial than—

and not to interrupt you, but so you keep— you mentioned sugar and carbs, which obviously is something that we limit and I've recommended to clients and to the listeners of the podcast. Tell us how sugar and carbs with the combination of too much salt that be a pairing that could cause problem. And when you remove the salt, why does the pairing disappear? Why does the issue seem to just fade away? I mean, because how does the sugar amplify the negative impact of salt?

Right, right, exactly. So essentially, when you consume a diet high in sugar and carbs, you have an increase in the hormone insulin, and insulin causes the kidneys to over-retain salt. And so when you drop the carbs and sugars, you drop the insulin, and now you can start, you know, handling a normal amount of salt appropriately.

And with this appropriate amount of salt, and what would you say for anyone who may be just a standard person listening, they're not following a particular diet, but they definitely are trying to lose weight. And obviously if they cut their carbs, what would be a range that would be on the low and then on the high? Because obviously, you know, I feel this conversation is going to help people to enjoy salt again. But what would be a range you would give them? And on a high end, I know 80 grams seems excessive. I don't know if you suggest that much for anyone out there, but what would be your range, or so to say?

So if you can fix someone's underlying insulin resistance and get them to a non-salt-sensitive state, then cut the carbs out and the sugars, sort of.

Exactly. I hate to be so blunt, right?

No, I mean, and that's the truth. Sometimes health is as simple as that. Really, that 1.5 teaspoons of salt for most people seems to be the sweet spot because when you start going below that level of intake, when you start going below 3,000 milligrams of sodium, all the stress hormones start increasing and heart rate starts going up. When you go below, say that number again, 3,000? 3,000.

When you go below 3,000, which is 3 grams, correct?

Yeah, that's 3 grams of sodium. Yeah. Um, which is about 1.5 teaspoons. Um, you go below that and in a, particularly if you get below, um, 1 to, to a half of a teaspoon, this is where you really see dramatic rises in things like renin, aldosterone, noradrenaline, epinephrine, right? All these stress hormones get highly activated. We block these stress hormones with medications to reduce cardiovascular disease. So, you know what I mean? So if you go on a low salt diet, you're putting yourself in this very stressful state and your heart rate can be upwards of 6 to 10 beats per minute higher when you go on these low salt intakes. So when you actually look at it from a— if you multiply the heart rate by the blood pressure on a low salt diet, it's almost always harmful in regards to stressing the heart out.

So with 3 grams being that, what would you say the upper limit would be if someone were very active and sweating, and what would cause them to want more? And what would you say is— I don't know, give us an example of a person that would need double that, triple that. What would be a range that you would take to the higher end?

Yeah, so I mean, so for normal people, that 1.5 teaspoons seems to be the sweet spot, right? Around 3,000 to 3,500 milligrams of sodium seems to be perfect When you start exercising, particularly in the heat, and this depends on the person, you on average, you lose about half a teaspoon of salt per hour of exercise through sweat. So now you've got to add in half a teaspoon of salt for every hour that you've exercised. But if you get— if you're doing this in really hot temperatures like 90°F, studies show you can lose anywhere from 1 to 2 teaspoons of salt per hour. So it just really depends on your lifestyle, how hot it— how hot hot it is outside, how much you're sweating. Are you going into a sauna? Right.

And then also caffeine intake.

So coffee not just is not only a diuretic, it's a natriuretic.

It causes you to lose a tremendous amount of salt.

So 4 cups a day.

Yeah, we're all Java junkies, right? And so we never used to drink really coffee on a daily basis in evolutionary time. So all of us are on this natural salt wasting substance, which is what we call coffee. But any caffeinated beverage is going to cause up to a, you know, half a teaspoon of salt loss if you consume around this 300 to 400 milligrams of caffeine in like a 1 to 2 hour range.

So you're saying with 1 cup of coffee, and you know, most people don't have a small cup of coffee, it's not something elegant, they go to Starbucks and it's something large, very grande.

Coffee will cause most people lose about 1/8 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt. And then when you start— yeah, and then if you get to the 3 to 4 cup range, you lose about 1/2 teaspoon of salt, which most health institutes tell you is the maximum amount you should be consuming. And you're, and you're losing that and just drinking 3 or 4 cups of coffee, or you're losing that in just, you know, 30 to 60 minutes of exercise. So there has to be some nuance in this discussion.

So if someone is listening to this and they get your book, book and they follow you on social and we're going to give out all that information and their doctor now says, you're crazy. Who is this guy? This Dr. James, I mean, he's just trying to sell books. What do we tell them? What part of— because I'm going to tell everyone to please get your book. And of course, we're going to talk about your new book. I want to spend some time on that for just a moment or two, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, because I think it's an incredible book about immunity and with COVID-19. I mean, we need to lose weight, but we also have to know how to bolster immunity and improve our immunity. But what would you say to someone out there that they— not that they're going to have battles with their physicians, but I'm sure in your working with so many people, if that obstacle occurs where they're getting pressure, whether it's from loved ones, doctors, experts, what does one show them from your book? What is something that you could share? And I don't know if there's a couple studies or research studies that you could mention, one or two that people could Google, that they could literally show to their physician and say, no, look at this, this was a study done at Harvard or something like that. I don't know what, what ammo we could give them, one piece of really strong ammunition.

Obviously your book is the key one. Yeah, I mean, well, the book has over 500 references and it took me over 3 years to research and write this book. Yes, it was a labor of love, but I think from a From a discussion standpoint, you know, doctors, they don't necessarily want to be told by their patient, well, read this book, you're, you're wrong, right? That's going to instantly put up a wall and they're going to instantly not be receptive to information. So how you could kind of approach this is, is, you know, Doc, if I lose some weight and maybe cut out some of these carbs and sugar and, and fix my high insulin levels, do you think I could start adding a little bit more salt back to some of my food so I can start eating healthier again and exercising more? I don't feel that good on this low-salt diet, right? And if you come from a place that I don't feel that good, and maybe here's a way where I can tolerate a normal salt intake again, that's a better approach, I think.

If there is one study that is the study that is probably the most essential, is there one that comes to mind from your research of the 500 or so?

Right. There's— I mean, it depends on what type of study you're looking at. I mean, Intersalt was the, was the biggest study that demonized, um, a normal salt intake. The problem is though, is there was a new sort of secondary study when they removed the four, um, sort of tribal groups that were consuming this very, very low amount of salt, like 500 milligrams or less per day. When they removed those four groups in, in, in the INTERSALT study, um, so the INTERSALT contained 52, uh, populations. Populations. When you remove those 4, became 48, blood pressure actually went up or, uh, actually slightly went down with an increase in salt intake. So Intersalt was one of the biggest population studies demonizing salt because as salt intake went up in those 52 populations, blood pressure went up. But when you remove the group that was consuming this very, very low range and you looked at an actual, you know, Western population, you looked at 48 countries, blood pressure actually slightly went down as, as salt intake went up. And so that was like a really key observational study. And then there, I mean, the, if you look at any meta-analysis on people with normal blood pressure from the actual clinical studies, low salt intakes don't ever lower blood pressure really more than 1 to 2 points, nothing, virtually nothing, but they always raise heart rate by a fairly dramatic amount. And so those studies are important, but really There's been studies published in New England Journal of Medicine that have shown— they're looking at over 100,000 people— that if you go below that 3,000 milligrams of sodium per day, you're at a much higher risk of dying from heart disease or all-cause mortality. And so those are really important studies too. So if the new—

the journal of the— what, which journal was New England?

New England Journal of Medicine.

Yeah. If they're reporting, or this idea that 3,000 you had mentioned is a good number.

Yeah.

Less than 3 was the worst. Less than 3. And what is, and what is our current recommended daily allowance in the, in the, in the US, would you say?

Yeah. So most health institutes say you should not eat more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium.

And that, that number is obviously their upper limit too, as you said, with the, with the, uh, the sign that the greater than or less than the less than sign, right? Upper limit.

The upper limit. Correct. The upper limit.

So for someone watching right now, obviously they need to get your book, but I would say, how would you— not to end on this note, because I want to talk about your new book, but how would you put everything they've been told for— I want to say since the refrigerator was invented— to put away the salt. And not that a particular type of salt is better than other. I know some salts are contaminated. And with plastics, and we want to try to get more of an ancient source for mines down deep. I love Redmond's Real Salt. Have you heard of those folks back in Utah? They have good salt and has extra minerals in there. But what would you say for someone who's just— their mind has been blown with this conversation? They're like, who are these guys? Who's Dr. James? And obviously this book has been a bestseller. And I think it's such a critical resource. And it's spent— you spent 3 years, as you said, putting this together. But what would you say to these people that are listening to this for the first time and really they don't know what to do next? What's the next step for someone who wants to improve their health? Obviously, we're going to cut carbs out. I can promise you that. And sugars. But then when can we start adding the salt back in and get this fix going? I mean, literally, you could start at any time. It's not like, well, I got to check with my doctor, or should they, or what would be the next step?

What would you suggest? Well, I think, you know, so many people are, uh, have metabolic dysfunction and they're on medications that cause blood sugar to drop. So you do want to work with your doctor because if you start cutting out, right, the refined carbs and sugars, you're not going to need as high of a dose of these medicines. And so you do need to, these people do need to be monitored by their doctor. They should be working in conjunction with their doctor and getting the okay and saying, I plan on reducing my carb intake from 400 grams this week to 300, then maybe to 200, then to 100. And then when can I— I'll take and, and have the blood pressure and all that checked. And typically if you work with your doctor and you start using salt to eat healthy real food, because now all of a sudden those bitter foods that you didn't used to like, like those greens, they start tasting much better when you start sprinkling a little bit of healthy salt on there.

I agree 100%. And so by adding that, so, and if someone does a cold turkey. They just say, literally, no pun intended with the turkey, but just cut out the, the carbs and the sugars. And now they're on a kind of a carnivore diet, kind of like what Dr. Baker and Dr. Saladino have recommended. A lot of my clients are embracing that, and they've made the jump. They just decided to cut it out, and they're improving their health with salt intake. Is the amount— 1,000 milligrams per 32 ounces— does that seem reasonable? Or what we say was about a full teaspoon for a gallon of water. Does that seem like a fair number to you? Do you think it should be a little higher or a little lower, or does that number seem safe for someone who's cut out the carbs?

Yeah, I mean, I hate to put a number on it because it just depends on lifestyle, right? And so your body typically will tell you how much fluid to consume, and if you start listening to those signals as well, it'll sort sort of guide you to a good spot for salt intake too.

What, what is a natural way for people to know if they're getting the right amounts? I mean, obviously their hunger gets regulated, correct? Their hunger and energy feels good. And, and maybe what would be the, the gauges for when you're too low on sugar though? Obviously more appetite, more tiredness. What— give us a few guidelines so people can, can kind of figure out that range for themselves. If they've cut the carbs out, cut the sugars about, you know, I'm following this, this guideline, obviously, of about 1,000 milligrams for about 32 ounces of water, you know, and, and I think we're in a safe limit where if it's a whole gallon of water, which we— I think we calculated is 4 of these, right? It's a teaspoon of salt, which doesn't shock you at all. I think we're in the safe realm. What would be the guidelines to know if that is working for them based on— is it energy, how they feel, appetite, right?

Things like that. Yes. I mean, the, the most common signs of not having enough salt intake would be, you know, lightheadedness, especially when you go from a seated to a standing position. All of a sudden you feel lightheaded, right? Because the main sign of not having enough salt is a low blood volume. And essentially then all of the symptoms stem from that. So when you don't have a good blood volume, uh, your exercise performance goes down, you feel fatigued, you're lightheaded, you can start getting muscle cramps. Them. So there's, there's these signs to look for and that's the key that maybe you might be deficient in salt.

And if you're too high in salt, what, what, what's a sign that immediately says, oh my gosh, cut back on the salt. Not that that would happen. It sounds like our bodies can take high, high levels of that, but you always hear people worried about, um, you know, whether it's the bathroom, going to the bathroom too much. Is there, is that some truth to that?

I think, um, yes. That people who, if you do consume more than a normal intake, your bathroom frequency can increase, of course.

However, both as they would say, number one and number two, so both the urine and going to the bathroom, bowel movements, or just to be specific?

Yeah, I mean, bowel movements could increase too. Sure. Okay.

Okay. But it shouldn't be runny stools or anything like that. I mean, people should be normal. They should be fine. I mean, even with high levels of salt, right? That doesn't— and I've heard that as a myth. I think it's more of a myth, right?

Yeah. I mean, it depends on the person. I think the main symptoms and signals for someone who's probably having too much salt, and this is probably because they're metabolically just, you know, they're— they have metabolic syndrome, is they see the swelling in the hands or the feet when they consume salt. And now to me, that's a huge red flag. You know, that person may have insulin resistance or might not be getting enough potassium or magnesium, or there's something going on that should not happen.

Okay, so it's more of a retention in fluid, but that's paired with sugar and carbs, as you had mentioned, right?

It's almost always paired. It's almost always in these people who have insulin resistance. Incredible.

Incredible. Well, tell us for a moment, I see the book behind you, The Immunity Fix. Obviously the world has changed. It's almost 2021 now, and I feel like obviously the salt fix can be very beneficial to help us with energy, health, regulating appetite. But tell us your newest book, just give us a little insight onto that because I want people to pick that up as well. I think it's a book that right now I think people want to know about, about their immunity. And would you share a little bit about the new book, please?

Sure. So this new book really stemmed from several publications of mine. And then I started saying, well, people don't really read scientific journals, I might as well turn this into book and it ended up turning into something that has, you know, almost 2,500 references. Wow. Wow. It's like this encyclopedia on immune health and, you know, what supplements can help support the immune system. But when I started looking at some of this, I wanted to take a different approach. Most people view their immune system as a mask or not a mask or having a vaccine or not having a vaccine. But people can do things to improve their own immune function. And this is what's important, right? That support their own immune system.

And, you know, the study started showing that if you have metabolic syndrome, which is a constellation of 3 or more of the 5 following issues: high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high glucose, high waist circumference, and low HDL.

If you have 3 or more of those, that's considered metabolic syndrome. And those people are at a 3.5-fold higher risk of dying COVID and a 4.5-fold higher risk of ending up in the ICU. So, and we know things that can fix metabolic syndrome rather quickly. I mean, simply going on a diet low in refined carbs and sugar can help fix metabolic syndrome within a few weeks. And if that syndrome is increasing your risk 3 to 4-fold of ending up in the ICU or dying from COVID well then people need to understand that what they're putting in their bodies is determining their own immune health and how well they can fight against viruses.

I think that is a powerful message. And, and I feel like in today's world, we feel like so much of what we have going on we can't control. But the very thing you just mentioned is the one thing we can control— what we eat, how we think. And this book, obviously, it's available everywhere. Well, for someone who is considering The Salt Fix and The Immunity Fix, what would you say this book has given readers that The Immunity Fix, the new book, in the sense of a prescription on how to overcome it. I think that's incredible. There are 5 factors, right? 5 factors and a high waist circumference. Maybe you could talk for a moment on that because I know so many people watching this hate belly fat, but that's a high waist circumference, right? How that can really put you at a high level of concern. I feel like that's why I got through COVID-19 myself. Myself. I didn't even know I had it other than a little bit of a difficult at night breathing and I had my asthma inhalers. It helped to some degree, but I got through it. But, you know, I have a flat stomach. Back in the day, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, I was overweight. And so, I know a lot of people watching have a high waist circumference and cutting out sugar and carbs, is that one of the tools that you talk about in the book as well?

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And then, well, the one scary thing too is that A lot of people can be thin on the outside, but actually on the inside, right? They have this fat in and around their organs. It's called visceral fat. I know you're familiar with that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, it's almost like you're not even protected. Of course you're at a higher risk if you have a high waist circumference, but, but you're not safe, so to speak, even if you have, even if you're thin on the outside, because you might be metabolically sick. And that's why checking triglyceride levels and insulin levels and things like that, and blood pressure are good signals if you may or may not have insulin resistance. But really too, I mean, the media has covered that the elderly are, are the most at risk for COVID.

Yes, we hear that a lot.

True or false, or yes, or it is true, but we don't have any control over that, right? We don't have over your age, but what they don't talk about is things like vitamin D deficiency. If you're significantly deficient in vitamin D, that's actually a worse risk factor than being old. It's been shown to increase the risk of dying from COVID by 15-fold. 15-fold. Vitamin D.

Vitamin D versus— what is a good number from the book that you would suggest? I mean, I feel like you're the doctor that can give us the, the ranges, you know.

Yeah, so vitamin D deficiency is typically diagnosed at less than 20 nanograms per mL, and typical sufficiency levels, or, or levels, you know, that are considered that are normal are usually above 30 nanograms. And what's interesting is we're starting to see studies that if you're at really 55, that might be the best level to be at, right? And so, but the most of the population, 1 billion people globally are vitamin D deficient. And half the global population is vitamin D insufficient, which is like between that 20 and 30 range. And so you have this risk factor where, you know, half the population is either vitamin D deficient or insufficient, and it can increase your risk of, you know, having a poor COVID outcome by 6-fold and increase the risk of dying up to 15-fold. And, and to give you a comparison, if you're— the risk factor for if you're over 60 is really only about 9-fold. So this is a worse risk factor. Something that we have control over compared to being old.

Right. That's incredible.

And you talk about this, I'm sure, extensively in the book. So if vitamin D is one of the elements that we're missing, and I know we can get it from the sun, correct? Is that partially what your prescription would be? That, or give us that number again you gave us and then the way to measure it. Was it— what was the number?

Yeah. So typically most vitamin D deficiency is less than 20. 20, insufficiency is between 20 and 30, and then sufficiency is above 30.

And what is that range? 30, what are the units or how to measure it?

Uh, nanograms. Nanograms.

So typically if you go to Whole Foods, for example, or you go to, you know, your health food store, what would be a way to, is that typically what they put on the bottles just to educate everyone?

Uh, typically they do. Um, they've actually switched from international units to micrograms on the actual bottle. So the bottle won't tell you, you know, um, your, your blood level, so to speak. Your doctor typically works with you on how to, what dose to get you up to that type of level.

Got it. Got it. So, um, to end on this note, I feel like people need to know how to stay in touch with you on social media, your website. Would you mind sharing how people can stay at, stay connected to you and, and, uh, where online you're located so people can hopefully follow a lot of what you do and, and subscribe to your newsletter and things like that?

Yeah, so I'm typically most active on Instagram and Twitter, which is @DrJamesDinic, which is D-I-N-I-C, or my website is drjamesdinic.com. Um, and Amazon has, you know, The Salt Fix and The Immunity Fix and all my other—

I love it. And, uh, I know you've written other books as well, but what would you say, uh, for 2021 is one of your goals with all that we have in front of us in the sense of a world where we are not healthy, we're not well, and obviously there's so many things we need to embrace. I feel like, is there a message you want to share with anyone as we wrap up here that would be the, I would hope, the pep talk or the motivation? Because I feel like we have a lot of power. We have a lot of control. As you said, we can modify. We can't modify our age. We can't maybe change what the world is doing, but we can change what we do to some degree. What would you share to give someone a little push right now? Because I feel like we're at a point right now where they can get a book, they can get one of your books, hopefully both. But they can also do something different with what they're eating and what they're doing.

Right? Right. And that's exactly the message of the book is that you are in control of your health. There are things that you can do to support your own immune systems. And, you know, ultimately we're gonna have other viruses that we have to deal with in this world, right? Even if we get a vaccine and it's your own health, that's not only gonna determine how well you can fight other other viruses, but the leading causes of death in the US are cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity. That is primarily driven through diet and lifestyle. And so we can't lose sight of, of those leading killers because right now we do have a spike in, you know, deaths from COVID We gotta, we gotta look at the whole picture. And ultimately you are in control of what goes in your mouth and, you know, your exercise things like that. Thanks for having me, Jorge Cruise.

Oh, you bet, my friend. Thank