Fatty Acids & Health Benefits: Expert Interview with Justine Stenger on Dr. Joy Kong Podcast

What happens with our cell membrane as we keep going and experience life? Why do we need to optimize it?

Toxins, stress, whether it's parasites, infection, there's many different assaults that we can be exposed to that will trigger that cell danger response. By restoring the cell membrane using lipids, we can really restore the entire cell's functioning.

Welcome to the Dr. Joy Kahn.

PO.

So I'm always looking for the most, up to date, most informative speakers who can share the wisdom with us. And I've met Justine Stenner, you know, a while ago, but she just enlightened me with so much about lipids that I thought I had to bring her onto the show. So, Justine, thank you for coming on to my podcast.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Joy. So nice to be here.

Yeah. So I want to introduce you a little bit to our listeners. So, first of all, Justine received her degree from Canada in nutrition and physical education, and then she pursued a holistic nutrition slash therapeutic chef certification from Bauman College. And Justine just completed her functional medicine training through the Institute of Functional Medicine and is a certified functional medicine health coach.

Certified.

Certified through the Institute of Functional Medicine. So she is a trained Bredesen practitioner and specializes in cell membrane medicine. It sounds very exciting. You don't hear about this. And works primarily with patients who suffer with neurological conditions, mast cell activation syndrome, Lyme disease and autoimmune disease. And Justine has worked besides Dr. Hoffman, Bruce Hoffman, for the past 10 years and has supported hundreds of Dr. Hoffman's chronic, complex wellness patients, nutritionally and Justine. So I would love to hear from you a little bit about your journey and what made you pursue this nutritional health. And do you have any stories to share?

Well, I do. I'll give you the short version. I think like so many of us that get into the integrative medical world, it's based on our own journey. So I had a lot of health issues when I was young. I played a really high level of basketball. I played university basketball and just completely wore my, my body out from over training. And I had all kinds of issues. I was living in a moldy basement suite during university. I ended up very, very sick and just didn't get answers from the conventional allopathic system. And that really was the reason why I started to go down that whole path. And then I was connected with Bruce Hoffman after I finished my holistic nutrition. I had moved back from Boulder and was connected with him and started working with him right away with his patients. And it was really seeing lab changes so he had implemented lipids into his practice for as long as I can remember. And I would use a lot of these labs to help patients, to support patients nutritionally. And I would see these complete transformations on diagnostic labs when we would implement these phospholipids and essential fatty acids. Specifically a lab out of Germany called the IGL, which is epigenetic mitochondrial test. And within nine to 12 months of using lipids, we would see a complete transformation on a cellular level. And it was really that, seeing that hundreds of times, and that's not an exaggeration, that was really the whole reason why I wanted to pursue my education in the field of, of cell membrane medicine, understanding phospholipids and fatty acids and how we can really help to use them to help patients to heal. And the more and more that I learn about the power of using lipid replacement therapy, so that's really just using phosph philipids and, and essential fatty acids and targeted antioxidants and amino acids to repair the cell membrane, the more and more in love I become with, with phospholipids and fatty acids. And I really think that it's the key. I mean, we're made up of cells. So when we support the foundation of our health through using lipids, we're supporting reserve capacity, we're building up a patient while simultaneously helping them to heal, helping them to detoxify, supporting so many different as our health. And I'm happy to get into a lot of those today with you, but that's a little bit about my journey. And now I do, I contract with Body Bio, so I do the clinical education with them and their practitioners. So I get to teach physicians about phospholipids and how to implement lipid replacement therapy into their practice. And I love every of it.

Yeah, I can tell you're very passionate about it and I'm sure the passion came from seeing clinical results that was inspiring you. So not many people know anything about cell membrane medicine and this is probably a fairly new branch. So can you tell us a little bit about this particular branch of medicine and what, what it has been able to accomplish and what, what does it, how does it inform us?

So cell membrane medicine is really a targeted medical approach to heal the cell membrane. So I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Robert Navio's work around the cell danger response, which is really a response of the cell when it is exposed to dangers. So toxins, stress, whether it's parasites, infection, there's many different assaults that we can be exposed to that will trigger that cell danger response. And we can restore, by restoring the cell membrane using lipids, we can really restore the entire cell's functioning. And so cell membrane medicine really is just using lipids and essential fatty acids. So a very targeted phospholipid and fatty acid approach to help heal the trillions of cells that make up who you are. So we're made up of about 100 trillion cells and 200 different cell types. And it is truly the structure and the function of your cells that determines your overall health. So when it's when we have a breakdown on the cellular level that things go sideways with our health. And when we heal the membrane, which is really the brain, everything happens on that membrane. We have all of our proteins and peptides, all of our ion channels, all of our receptors. The membrane really is everything. And so when we can restore the health of the cell membrane, we can simultaneously restore the health of the organelles inside the membrane as well. And then we also have this compartmentalization that happens inside our cell with these biological membranes. So when we think about cells supporting the mitochondria, the mitochondria has a membrane that's rich in phosphatidyl choline, rich in phosphatidyl ethanolamine, which are our two most abundant phospholipids in the body. And there's also an innermost membrane called the cardioin in the mitochondria, where oxidative phosphorylation really happens. And that membrane is also rich in phospholipids and. And essential fatty acids, mainly linoleic acid. So when we look at literature around healthy cardio lipin, we see about an 80 to 90 concentration of linoleic acid, that beautiful omega 6 fatty acid that, ironically, so many people demonize. But it is so critically important for our overall health. And so that's a little bit about cell membrane medicine. There's so many different branches or reasons why we would want to use it. And I really tell a lot of clinicians that there's nobody that you don't want to use this approach on, because it truly is the foundation of our health. But that's. That's kind of the gist of it.

Yeah, Obviously we want to optimize it because it has declined.

Right.

So what happens is our cell membrane, as we, you know, keep going and experience life, why do we need to optimize? Must be because it hasn't been functioning well enough.

Yeah, well, we. We got to Think about all the assaults that we're exposed to, first and foremost. So when we think about the environment today, we are in an environment that is riddled with toxins. So those damage our cell membrane. We are living in a soup of electromagnetic frequencies, and those damage our cell membrane. Medications damage the cell membrane again, stress can damage the cell membrane infection. So Lyme is a great example of something that would damage the cell membrane. The spike protein. You know, all of these assaults. And if we don't have reserve capacity, so that biochemical bank account that has lots of, you know, we, we can take lots of withdrawals out of it, we're going to end up in a situation where we don't have what we need to go and, and repair damage to the cell membrane. And so I really like to use the analogy that these phospholipids and fatty acids are really putting valuable deposits into your biochemical bank account. You are providing your, you need to go in and heal damage to the membrane so that if you are exposed to any of these assaults that I just listed, you actually have what you need to repair the damage. And that damage also happens on a mitochondrial level. We know our mitochondria are so susceptible to damage. And so when we have these lipids to go in and, and repair damage to the membrane, then we can restore functioning of, of the cell and the organelles within the cell as well. But just aging, Joy, remember, like just the ag have increased inflammation, we have increased levels of catabolic reactions, oxidative stress. So we have damage to the membrane just kind of as a natural process of aging. And so these really become so much more valuable, so much more critical as we age because we have a diminished ability to synthesize these phospholipids as we age. And then we also have all these other factors that are working against us. So when you look at literature, I know that you were particularly interested in using lipids to support brain health. And when you look at the literature around using lipids to support brain health, there's actually researchers that are hypothesizing that we could potentially mitigate the brain shrinkage that we see typically happen between the ages of 50 and 80. So our brain usually shrinks about 20% between that age timeframe. And using this approach, this lipid replacement therapy approach could potentially completely mitigate that brain shrinkage. So they, they're absolutely critical if we are interested in preserving our brain, optimizing our brain, but also just improving our health span and optimizing our, our health.

Span and what kind of lipids do we need to replenish the membranes?

That is an excellent question. So the most abundant phospholipid in our body is phosphatidylcholine. So when we look at something like the body biophospholipid complex that I talked to you about when I was visiting you at your office, that is a very, very specific formula that has four phospholipids in it that we need to support the outer and the inner membrane of every cell. So the outer membrane of the cell is primarily phosphatidylcholine. It accounts for about 50% of the cell, the outer cell membrane. Then we have phosphatidylethanolamine, which is our second most abundant phospholipid that's found in the inner membrane. We have phosphatidyl, inositol and phosphatidylserine, which are also found within the inner membrane. Then within the cell we have fatty acid. So a phosphatidylcholine molecule has a polar head group or a choline component. There's a little phosphate group. It sits on a glycerol backbone, and then it has two fatty acid tails or chains. And those two fatty acid tails or chains are made from the dietary fats and oils that we consume. And there's four main fatty acids that are found in the cell membrane. So there's linoleic acid, omega 6, which is our most abundant fatty acid in the membrane. There's oleic acid, omega 9. There's arachidonic acid, another fatty acid that is demonized, that really has a Goldilocks effect. So we don't want low levels of arachidonic acid, but we also don't want high levels of arachidonic acid. And then we have dha. And DHA is most abundant in the brain, in the eyes and in the heart. And we have quite a bit of DHA in the kidneys as well. So those are our four main fatty acids in the membrane. And if you notice, notice that three of those four are essential fatty acids. So linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid, or the plant based form of omega 3 and those downstream metabolites. So DHA is a downstream metabolite of that parent oil, that essential parent oil. Three of those fatty acids are essential. So this is where we really need to pay attention to supporting our body with these essential fatty acids, those fatty acids that we don't have the enzymes to make to ensure that we're supporting optimal fluidity of the cell membrane and optimizing those fatty acid tails.

And where can we get these essential fatty acids?

So essential fatty acids are found. So most people are very familiar with the Omega 3 side. So Alpha linolenic acid, the plant based form is really rich in things like flax seeds, chia seeds. We also see walnuts, hemp seeds have pretty abundant amounts of ala. And then the downstream metabolites are primarily from fish seafood. So we see really beautiful amounts and things like wild caught Alaskan salmon in sardines and mackerel and anchovies and then the linoleic acid side or omega 6, those are going to be found most abundant in seeds. So we see sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, those sesame seeds are beautiful source of linoleic acid. Also healing oils like black cumin seed oil has a good amount of linoleic acid. The body biobalance oil is what I recommend. That is a beautiful cold pressed oil that provides us with a great amount of linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid in a 4 to 1 ratio, which is what we want. So we can get these essential fatty acids from food sources. But a lot of people have been told to avoid linoleic acid, which is a big problem. And then we also know that most people are taking fish oil. And so when we, when we create an imbalance in these essential fatty acids, we end up really damaging the cell membrane because both linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid or omega 6 and omega 3, they compete for the same delta D6 desaturase enzyme. So we see this, this depletion of linoleic acid when we take too much Omega 3. And we can also create the reverse effect if we're eating a lot of linoleic acid and not enough of the omega 3. So we want to balance, balance and harmony between those two essential fatty acids is absolutely key.

Well that's going to be hard for a regular person to achieve that kind of balance. Right? How do we know how much of what to take? I mean how does a normal person navigate?

So it's really important to. That's why I love the body biobalance oil for that reason because we are adding an insurance policy. It's a nice 4 to 1 ratio between linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid. But it's, it's quite easy to actually do if you are, if you're aware of these two essential fatty acids and you start paying attention to them in your diet. So if we have like 4 tablespoons of pumpkin seeds and a tablespoon of flax seeds. Like that would be a nice 4 to 1 ratio. That's an easy way to kind of. Of pay attention to it from whole food sources, or if we're eating wild caught Alaskan salmon or sardines, you know, two or three times a week. We want to make sure that we're also supporting the linoleic acid side so that we're getting in that nice balance and harmony between those two essential fatty acids. We always want to make sure that all of our seeds and all of our nuts are raw. They're never roasted. Because remember, these essential fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids. So they're very, very susceptible to oxidation. They are easily damaged. So we don't want to expose them to heat, light, or oxygen. We want to really protect them from oxidation. And then I always remind people that when we consume polyunsaturated fatty acids, we really want to make sure that we consume those with protein. Because when we eat polyunsaturated fatty acids with protein, it forms a bond, and that bond protects those polyunsaturated fatty acids as they move through the GI tract from oxidation. So very important that we always take those with food, which is another concern. A lot of people, people are taking fish oil on an empty stomach. We never want to do that. We always want to make sure that we're taking these polyunsaturated fatty acids with protein.

Okay. And you should be covered with nuts, right. Because they do have protein that's part of the nuts. And so you can just pop these nuts on their own. That would be okay.

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. As long. Just make sure they're raw. Yeah, make sure the nuts are raw.

Okay. Do they have to be sprouted?

There's always going to be good, better, best. I think if we have the time and the availability to soak and. And go to extra step of sprouting, that's great. But I. A lot of people just don't have the time to do that. So unless you're eating vast quantities of these seeds, I don't think it's the end of the world to just eat them raw. Of course there's going to be exceptions to that rule if people have digestive issues. And then you're. You're going to really want to pay that extra attention to soaking and possibly sprouting, but you just want them raw, just never roasted.

I see. Okay, so nuts and fish, seeds and fish. But yeah, but it's still. I don't know how many people are able to eat the right ratios to achieve optimum cell membrane health. That's interesting to see if any testing or any analysis has been done.

Yeah, you know, there is a, there is a fantastic test. So Body Bio runs a wellness report from the Kennedy Krieger. And the Kennedy Krieger at the John Hawk Hopkins University does a red blood cell fatty acid test. And that is actually the gold standard for fatty acid testing. So that's one of the other reasons why I got so interested in understanding essential fatty acids and understanding balancing them because of this Kennedy Krieger test. Because I saw so many people, Joy, come in, they were mega dosing on fish oil and they had completely tanked their entire linoleic acid size. So linoleic acid are essential. That essential parent oil goes into gamma linolenic acid or gla, which is rich in like evening primrose oil. That goes into dihomogamma linolenic acid, and that goes into arachidonic acid and adrenic acid. Now the conversion to those downstream metabolites is very poor. So those downstream metabolites really become essential fatty acids as we age. But when we look at. So to talk about the brain, when we think about the brain and myin, the, one of the main fatty acids in myin is linoleic acid. And arachidonic acid makes up about 14%. So what I was seeing constantly is low levels of arachidonic acid and patients demyelinating. And you almost see that across the board. So I was, I, I saw, you know, the narrative out there is to lower arachidonic acid, avoid linoleic acid. And then I would see these consequences on labs from, from patients that were actually doing that. And it's so detrimental to our brain health. Our brain is 80% lipids by weight. So really, really we gotta pay attention to fats if we are interested in supporting our brain. And it's not just any fats. You know, there's a lot of emphasis out there right now on saturated fats because that's become trendy again. And it's. Saturated fats can be made in the human body. So those are not really what we want to put a lot of emphasis and focus on. We want to make sure that we're supporting those essential fatty acids because those can't be made in the body.

So, so recap. Again, which are the essential ones?

So linoleic acid, there's only two linoleic acid, Omega 6 Alpha linolenic acid, which is the plant based form of Omega 3 and really all their downstream metabolites. So ALA or alpha linolenic acid goes into EPA and dha. So EPA and DHA really become essential as we age, specifically DHA because that's very important for the brain and the eyes and the heart like I mentioned before. And then on the linoleic acid side, all of those fatty acids that I recommended or mentioned. So I would recommend not only supporting with the body biobalance oil to support your two parent oils, but also like the body bio evening primrose oil and supporting with egg yolk so that we're supporting arachidonic acid and some liver maybe once a week to support dihomo gamma linolenic acid. So it's really just educating people on how we can eat a really nutrient dense whole food diet and also support these fatty acids and keep that balance and harmony as close as we can. And no one's going to be perfect, but we can do a really, really great job of just focusing on adding them into our diet and, and doing our best to balance both sides.

Yeah. So talking about the epa, dhea, I think that's possibly what most of the doctors stop at when it comes to recommendations of fatty acids. The recommendation is combine these two. If you have a total of 1,000 milligrams a day, then you're doing great. Then you're set on the fatty acid side. Is that something that you see with patients and what they're recommended?

Yeah, that's, that's exact. I see that all the time. And that was exactly why. And I was in the same boat because that was really what I was taught in my education. It's all this hyper focus on omega 3. Omega 3 is a panacea and I don't want to make it sound like Omega 3, DHA specifically is not important. It is extremely important. It's an essential fatty acid. But having this myopic focus on it and only giving, only educating on Omega 3 and then neglecting that entire side of essential fatty acids is. It's just lacking an understanding of cell membrane medicine really and really looking at what is the cell made up of. And we want to make sure that we provide this patient with support on a cellular level. And that means making sure that we're supporting both sides of those essential fatty acids and not just one. And again, just going back to the conse that when we overdose on fish oil and we're not getting enough linoleic acid, and I don't mean from packages, boxes, bags, restaurants, grocery stores, Those industrial seed oils, those chemically processed oils are poison. So I want to make it really clear that we do not want to touch those oils. But there's a huge difference between consuming those oils and consuming raw forms of linoleic acid or cold pressed oils. Those are different animals. So I do want to make sure people understand that. I'm not encouraging anyone to go out and start eating, you know, hyper processed foods that are riddled with these industrial seed oils. We, we definitely want to avoid those.

You can explain a little bit why people need to avoid those. I think it has definitely come to the forefront of, you know, of harmful foods. But since you're specialized in these, you know, fats, maybe you can explain a little bit to people so they understand, you know, all those things that sound, you know, sunflower seeds oil or palm oil, you know, all these different oils that are, you know, all over the place in processed food. What do they do?

Yeah, so first of all, the processing of these oils really turns them. They should not be consumed by humans, period. I mean they're, they're truly poison. They're processed with, with, with hexane, with solvents, with bleaches, with deodorizers. They're often just byproducts of the food industry that they're throwing into processed food just to get rid of it. These are not foods that any human being should be consuming. But when we consume those oils and it's, they're rife in our, our food system. So it's very challenging to avoid. But when we consume those oils, we have to remember that those get actually integrated into our cell membrane. Those oils become part of who we are and every single thing that happened on the membrane. So all of our proteins, all our peptides, all our ion channels, all our receptors, remember that membrane is the control center of the cell. It's determining everything that's going into the cell. It's, it's determining all the waste that can be excreted. So the assault that that has on the body is so significant and it's long lived. This is not a short term assault result. So it's really important for people to be intentional about the oils that they consume and to avoid those industrial seed oils. And it's, it gets harder and harder all the time because they're, they're truly everywhere.

Yeah. So what happens once they have incorporated into your cell membrane? How long does it take to get rid of them?

So that, you know, that really depends on. I know there's a lot of people that have thrown out like 600 and some days. And it, that really depends on the person would say that on average you're probably looking at, you know, four to six weeks to be able to integrate new lipids into the membrane. But that's really going to be dependent on the individual, their state of health, their metabolic health. There are so many factors that would go into that. So. But it is, you know, it's not the same as eating a bag of Skittles or something that you're going to have this massive glucose spike and you got exposed to these chemicals and preservatives and artificial colors and flavors that you can detoxify. And not that I would recommend anyone consume that food, but, but it's, it's much different than these oils that are actually getting integrated into your cells and becoming part of who you are.

Yeah. And you mentioned taking nine to 12 months for people to realize the full benefit of these oil replacements. Is that how long it takes to kind of revamp the membranes?

Yeah, so it does, in our, in experience it, it does take between about 9 to 12 months to restore the membrane brain, restore mitochondrial functioning. So it is a long term plan that you got to stick to. And I know a lot of people don't like to stick to things for that long and they want to see immediate benefits, you know, a couple days or a week after taking a new supplement. And I just want to remind people that phospholipids and fatty acids, they're, they're essential nutrients. So I don't even really like to consider them supplements like some of the other categories that we would take because they really are absolutely essential for our overall health well being. And so we don't ever want to stop feeding our body these amazing nutrients. And again I'd mentioned that they become more and more important as we age. So we can use a therapeutic dose of them to really help to restore the cell membrane, restore the mitochondria and the, or all the organelles. Remember we have membranes on all our organelles within the cell and if they don't have a membrane, they're interacting with one. So, and then after that, that therapeutic period of time, so, so say a year for, for most people, then we can probably come down and take more of a maintenance dose just to make sure that we, our body has what it needs. And remember, it's all about thinking about our biochemistry like that bank account. So we want to always put these deposits into our biochemical bank account so that when the body takes out withdrawals, when it needs to repair it doesn't end up bankrupt. So I would say these are long term supplements. If people are really dedicated to their health, you want to keep taking them for as long as you live.

Yeah. So I know, you know, a lot of people got scared of seeds, of nuts and seeds, right. They, they think oh my, my goodness, too much Omega 6 is, they're pro inflammatory. So that's the, I think the very simplified version of what consumers get is that omega 6 is pro inflammatory, omega 3 is anti inflammatory. So we'd better up our omega 3 intake. So you're saying that's just, you're really not seeing the picture, right?

No. And it's really when you look at those pathways, the, the, my understanding is that that whole narrative started from the idea that linoleic acid is going to get converted into arachidonic acid. And when you look at the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, it's like.05 to 2% in healthy people. It's, it's very, very low conversion rate. And so, and the thing is, is it's not only linoleic acid doesn't only make that pathway, does not only make it in inflammatory molecules, it's also anti inflammatory. So it's really just not looking at, I think that we have developed this perspective of linoleic acid. Again just going back to this whole industrial seed oil because those industrial seed oil absolutely will cause massive inflammation in the body. I mean they really are, I would say they're a main contributor to chronic disease because most people are just not aware of how often they're consuming them. A lot of people that even that I work with that think that they're eating a really clean. They say I'm eating all organic. Well, these seed oils are inorganic food. If you're eating out of a package or a box or bag you, or eating out in restaurants, you're, you're getting exposed to them even if you're eating organic. Organic. So we just have to be detectives when it comes to label reading to ensure that we avoid these really harmful oils and we nourish our body with beautiful forms of linoleic acid. And that's why I love the, the body bio balance oil because it's cold pressed. There's no hexane, there's no solvents, there's no bleaches, there's no deodorizers. It's really formulated to nourish your cell membrane. Every batch is tested for oxidation. So you can ensure that you're getting a really clean Oil, So not all are created equal. We want to make sure that when we do use an oil that's monounsaturated or polyunsaturated that it's always a cold pressed processed and we are not using, they're not using any of those solvents.

Yeah. And when people think about taking oil, I think some people will wince a little bit. You know, drinking or eating oil like they, they, you know, they're afraid, maybe afraid of the taste. So. But I have tried the, the, the balance oil that you men with the essential fatty acids and it's actually really delicious to sprinkle on salads. I think that's the, that's the main way of eating it. Right. So you, you don't want to heat it up, obviously.

No, yeah, you always want to use that in a cold application. You'd never want to heat it. But yeah, I use that in salad dressings. I make pestos with that oil. I use it just like I would an olive oil. You just wanna always make sure the application is cold.

Yeah. And I think our listeners can actually get a little bit somewhat a discount too. Right?

Yes, I think you should have a code to give.

Yeah, that'd be wonderful. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of people really, you know, are really interested and maybe you can share some of the clinical examples you've seen when you, you know, what you've seen as far as when people's fatty acids and you know, lipid profile is really, you know, damaged and what happened to their health and then what happens when you actually revamp their membrane?

Well, you're, you're going to see a lot of benefits again because just going back to all of the things that are happening on the cell membrane. So you see really different things in, in different people, whatever their weak links of their, to their chain really was. So I've seen improvements in thyroid health when you improve, you know, the cells and you're improving those receptors. Gut health. Major, major, major improvements in gut health. So 90% of your gut mucosa is comprised of phosphatidylcholine. Amazing improvements in liver health. So non alcoholic fatty liver disease, actually you see a complete reversal of non alcoholic fatty liver disease in a lot of individuals that, that supplement with phosphatidylcholine and make the appropriate dietary changes. Really profound improvements in the brain. We see lots of people demyelinating lots of neuroinflammation in the brain. So these phospholipids are powerful antioxidants and anti Inflammatory molecules. And they're also the phosphatidylcholine is the main phospholipid that's found in myelin. So a lot of people that are low in these phospholipids end up having really compromised cognitive functioning. We even see in the research when it comes to like Alzheimer's disease, there's a direct correlation between low levels of these phospholipids and developing Alzheimer's disease, developing Parkinson's and Ms. So there's, there's substantial literature to support using these phospholipids and fatty acids for, you know, brain health, liver health, heart health. Phosphatidylcholine can clear plaque from the arteries. You're really supporting the health the heart cells, the endothelial cells. You're improving nitric oxide production. The list just goes on and on and on. So I could talk about phospholipids and the benefits of them with every organ in every system for days.

Wow. We've seen it in every organ system diseases, basically.

Yeah, yeah, it's. And it's not to say, I mean, there's other treatment modalities that often need to be implicated or applied to patient treatment as well. So it's not like, you know, you just give phospholipids and fatty acids and you're going to cure everyone from their chronic disease. But it is definitely the foundational layer because without healthy cells, we're really just putting band aids with all the, on these patients, with all these other treatments. And again, it's going back to remembering like every nutrient that goes into the cell dependent on the health a healthy membrane, all of the that are escort squirted out of the cell dependent on a healthy membrane. So we have all these people that are doing, you know, these detoxification programs with binders and all these like harsh protocols that are really stripping them, you know, further depleting them. But we can use phospholipids and support the cell membrane and support their ability to detoxify on their own because the, the cell is miraculous. And the other really cool benefit of phosphatidylcholine is it not only helps, it's not only your micro most profound detoxification support because when we have adequate amounts of these phospholipids on the cell membrane, toxins are not even able to get into the cell because there's no room for them. They, they prevent them from entering. But PC is able to actually enter the cell and remove toxins intracellularly and that is a clinical, that, that clinical pearl I see all the time. These patients will come in and this test that we run out of Germany will show toxins that are attached to your DNA. They're called DNA adducts. And phosphatidylcholine will clear those toxins from the DNA. And I have seen that like clockwork, patient after patient after patient. So yeah, the benefits are just, there's a, there's a laundry list of them. There's no reason to not use it. It regulates the reverse cholesterol transport system. So you're helping with, you know, removing, passively removing cholesterol from the membrane. You're supporting inflammation, you're mean, there's, you're preventing cardiovascular events by supporting HDL and neurological disease. Yeah, just so many, so many clinical applications for using PC.

So is a person supposed to take this several times a day, supposed to take this on a long term basis or do you think after cell membranes repaired they can get off maybe the supplements and just rely on food? What are your thoughts? Thoughts?

I don't think that our food system allows for us to just rely on food anymore just because it, it's really depleted. And I have, I'm sad to say that because I wish I could say we could just eat a whole food, diet based diet and, and support our body's needs. But I do think that there's a need for supplements. But when it comes to the phospholipids, the frequency, I think it depends on the dose that you're taking. So a lot of patients that I work with have been prescribed 2 or 3 tablespoons of PC D. I think in those situations it's a good idea to divide the dose into two so that they're not getting that massive bolus of fat in at one sitting. But if you're taking a tablespoon, you can just take it once, once a day as a good maintenance dose. And again, yes, I think that you should take it for long term, for as long as you live if you can invest in it because it's, it's that valuable. And then again, just going back to our, our demand, our need for these phospholipids really increases age.

Yeah. So you had mentioned that you are using these fatty acids to help patients with all kinds of conditions from healing of different organ systems. Can you share some of the, the patients that you've worked with? Maybe examples.

So we again, because of Bruce's practice, he sees a lot. He's really world renowned for Treating mast cell activation syndrome, mold, old Lyme, really chronic complex conditions. So that's the main demographic of patient that I see a lot of mast cell activation syndrome now, especially over the last couple of years, that's really exploded. And so even when we look at mast cell activation syndrome, the mast cells have membranes, their cells like every other cell in our body. And the granules that hold these inflammatory chemical mediators, mediators are actually found on the outer membrane of the cell. And those granules can hold up to a thousand different chemical mediators. So when the mast cell is degranulating from these triggers constantly, you're potentially releasing up to a thousand different inflammatory chemical mediators, creating this multi system, multi organ inflammatory condition. And so I've seen really, really great results, results with patients that have mast cell activation syndrome. When we stabilize the mast cell, when we heal the cell membrane and we provide it with structure and function, then they're not, they don't degranulate as frequently as they did when they originally came in. You know, it's really about healing that membrane that's going to stabilize the cell. So that's been very significant. Lots of neurological conditions, you see really great brain improvement. So Bruce does the NeuroQuant, it's a Vol. That tests for volume, brain volume. And we've seen lots of improvements in brain volume using lipids. And so that's been really amazing to see because I think there's kind of a belief out there that we don't have the ability to regenerate the brain. And I just don't believe that to be true. I think that when we catch cognitive decline early, we, we have ample opportunity to really repair the damage. And then mold illness is another real big one. And so many people are suffering with, with mold illness. I think it's estimated that about 50% of, of homes actually have water damage. So so many of us are exposed to this and it's amplified now by the electromagnetic frequencies in the environment. And again, when it comes to these biotoxins, they directly damage the cell membrane and they damage the mitoc. So when we provide these patients with lipids to repair damage to the membrane and repair damage to the mitochondrial membrane, we see just incredible improvements in, in their health.

Yeah, amazing. And you also mentioned, didn't you mention something about, even for, for female fertility, that this, these fatty acids can help, right?

Well, the egg is a cell, right? So it, it needs that phosphatidylcholine and ethanolamine and phosphatidyl inositol and serine and these fatty acids to support that cell to be healthy. And we see amazing literature around using phosphatidylcholine during pregnancy for neurodevelopment. Like, you see next to no neurodevelopmental disorders in these people that have robust levels of phosphatidylcholine through supplementation. And even in I've read studies where these children are followed later in life. And you see next to no neurodegenerative disease in these children. So it really, really sets these kids up for cognitive success with these phospholipids. So, yeah, for pregnancy, for pre pregnancy, for pregnancy, for breastfeeding. I think that they're so, so valuable.

Yeah. This is wonderful. This is fascinating and something just not talked very much about. I'm sure, you know, when you talk about fatty acids and they may have never really heard about the discussion and they never realized how important they are. So is there a place that people can work with you or follow you to learn more from you?

Yeah, well, there's a couple of places, though. I would encourage everybody, if you're interested in learning more about cellular health, to go and follow Body Bio. They have, they put out so much great information on social media, media, lots of great blog posts on the website. So it's just bodybio.com and @bodybio on Instagram. And then my Instagram is at Justine Cellular Nutrition and I talk all the time about cell membrane medicine and how we can improve our health using phospholipids and fatty acids. So you can follow me there as well.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing the wealth of information. Yeah, I'm sure it's going to improve quite a number of people's lives because of this podcast.

I really appreciate you having me.

Yes. Thank you for being my guest.