S2:E12 - Mark Ottobre Interviews Michael McEvoy

Welcome to the show that punches you in the face, but in a good way. This is the Enterprise Fitness Podcast. My name is Mark Ottobre, your host. Let's take a trip down memory lane when I interviewed Michael McBoy. Michael McBoy is a functional medicine, functional health practitioner. This is a great podcast where we cover a variety of different issues. Let's get straight into it and I'll speak to you on the other side. And today I'll be speaking with Michael McBoy. McVoy from Metabolic Healing about a number of issues including gut and digestion, adrenal health, and the myth of acid and alkaline nutrition, along with a whole bunch of other stuff that you've probably never thought of when it comes to why we get sick. We are also going to look at the steps that you can take today towards diagnosing, healing, and supporting those functions. Michael is a certified nutrition consultant through the American Association of Nutrition Consultants. Michael is a certified metabolic typing advisor through William Walcott's Metabolic Typing Institute, and he's also a functional diagnostic nutritionist through Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Institute. I'm super psyched about today's show. So Michael, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Mark, for having me. It's great to be here.

You're most welcome, most welcome. So I guess the first and most obvious question is, tell me how you got started as a healthcare practitioner.

Well, I've been involved in the healing arts all of my adult life. Back in 2000, about year 2000, 2001, I was introduced to— I was, you know, I was very actively involved in fitness and in, in strength and cardio and weight training. And then I got really turned on to yoga, and I began to study yoga, yoga and meditation and spirituality in depth. And it culminated with a trip of me going to, to the East to go and study in India. And as many people go to India, they get very sick with parasites and digestive illnesses and exposed to a whole variety of different problems. And so this was the case for me. And so when I went to India, I had an amazing experience. I learned so much and I intensified my yoga practice, but at the same time I got very violently ill. I came back to the States and I was 125 pounds. I was jaundiced. My digestive system was a wreck. I was in a very sad state of health and I was very scared. And at the time, I did not trust— there was a certain degree of mistrust for conventional medicine and I didn't want to go that route. And having been— having known very little of health at that time compared to what I know now, I knew enough to take the all of the available advice that I was given in my hometown of Chicago by some friends who had recommended that I go see some alternative healthcare practitioners in my area. And so I did that, and within a very short period of time, within a few months, my health was able to recover. But I was so amazed at how quickly my efforts had been applied, how quickly my health had improved. At that point in time, I made a vow to myself to try to learn as much as I possibly could about health and nutrition and fitness that I possibly could learn. And so over the next several years, I began pursuing radical dietary changes in my, my own body, radical detoxification protocols. I began reading as many books and articles and websites on nutrition that I could find anywhere. And at a certain point, I I got to a point where I realized that I wanted to do this professionally. I wanted to start teaching other people about ways to improve their health, and my intense curiosity had kind of led me down this path of having studied with and having worked with a number of the world's and the nation's, the United States' top nutritionists and alternative healthcare practitioners that I've been able to find. It's now my profession to help other people into trying to achieve a higher state of health.

Excellent, excellent. So is there any advice you could give someone who's going to India?

Yes, well, there's a lot of advice. First of all, you should always be prepared. And, you know, a lot of people attribute getting sick in foreign countries and third world countries to parasites and things like that. And certainly, you know, pathogens and bacteria and viruses all can have the have definitely complications inside the body, but I think that it's important to realize that germs are not the cause of disease. And there's actually been a lot that has been written about this over the past 150 years. Third world countries certainly can have a lot of foreign bacteria that we're not exposed to in the first world that certainly can be a problem if we go and visit, but I think that One of the first things to consider is what you're actually eating when you're going to a third world country. You know, when you go to India, for example, or if you go to another third world country, I mean, what most people are consuming is white rice, sugar, and foods that basically create the breeding ground for illness and for disease and create the environment for which how pathogens and bacteria and parasites can thrive. So the first thing I would tell a person is to always make sure that they're really, really— that their nutritional practice, that the practice of eating high-quality food is readily available, or at least is more available than it wouldn't be.

Do you think it's a problem sourcing quality food in India?

I think it certainly is. Absolutely. It's hard sourcing quality food everywhere in the world.

Yeah, true. Amen to that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what is it that you specialize in?

Well, that's an excellent question, Mark, and I'll kind of— I'll answer that by saying that what's really important to look at is what we see today is that there's basically— when you look at the healthcare systems that exist, there are predominantly two systems of healthcare that we are familiar with, or maybe most of us are only familiar with one of these models of healthcare. But as we all, as we all know, most of us know, the most predominant model of healthcare is called allopathy, or allopathic Western-based medical practice. And then you have another system of healthcare called functional healthcare, and this is a new and emerging field, something that's been around for a while but has been kind of overshadowed by the, the culture of drugs and pharmacology and allopathic medicine. So, th— there's a very distinct difference between these two models of healthcare, and it's imperative to understand the differences. In the first model of healthcare, you have a symptom-based model, and what I, what I mean by a symptom-based model of healthcare is that let's say you have a particular health issue that you have. Let's say you have cancer, or even better, let's say you have something more basic, more fundamental. Let's say you have chronic pain or chronic fatigue, or you have adrenal fatigue or something like this, or you have PMS. So you go to your doctor, and the doctor is very likely going to see you for 10 minutes. They're going to spend maybe at the most maybe 5 or 10 minutes with the patient. If they run any kind of laboratory tests, they're going to do a very brief overview. They're going to, you know, they're not going to be looking into details and whatnot. But then what's likely going to happen is the drug the doctor is going to prescribe either a drug or a series of drugs to treat those symptoms that that patient has presented. Now, this is obviously the most predominant model of healthcare that exists. And so then you've got a large percentage of people that want to seek alternatives. So they'll go to a nutritionist or a registered dietitian, or they'll go to even an organic health food store of some sort, seeking out advice, seeking out alternative advice for their particular symptoms. And so in the same way, just like how a doctor throws pharmaceutical drugs at a patient's symptoms, in the same way, most nutritionists and nutritionally oriented dietitians will recommend nutritional supplements in a very— in the very same way. So whereas the doctor may be recommending penicillin or pharmaceutical drug, which certainly is which can be very harmful to the body, obviously, in a number of ways. In the same kind of way, in the same kind of methodology, the nutritionist who is also allopathically oriented is recommending nutritional supplements for the symptoms. So if you have, you know, if you have chronic fatigue, let's say, and you go to a nutritionist, they're gonna say, "Oh, here, take some ginseng. That's gonna give you a little bit more energy." Or, "Here, take some vitamin B12. Let's give you a shot of vitamin B12." But the problem with that entire model of healthcare is whether you're dealing with symptoms from an alternative nutrition standpoint or from a medical pharmacological standpoint, the problem with that system of healthcare is that the root cause of the patient's problem never gets addressed. The reason why that patient developed the symptoms in the first place is always overlooked, almost always overlooked in that model of healthcare. The person may continue to seek some— may experience some symptomatic benefit or symptomatic relief from taking the drug or from taking the ginseng or taking the supplement, but the problem will continue to persist unless the underlying cause that precipitated the actual symptom is uprooted and revealed and eradicated. So that's one model of healthcare. That's allopathy. That's the most prevalent model of healthcare that people have and people are aware of. There's an entirely different model of healthcare that exists, that is emerging, that addresses causation at the root of a person's problem. And it may certainly be necessary to address a person's symptoms, but it's even more important to address what's really going on at the root of that person's problems. And so that's where a practitioner like myself comes in, is that I will then present a I'm then presented with a series of symptoms, but then I will throw back at the client or the patient saying, "Okay, well, your symptoms tell me that you likely have an imbalance in your hormonal system or in your digestive system, or you may have a heavy metal toxicity. You may have a certain degree of mercury that's interfering with the various bodily process." So what we need to do is we need to run some functional lab tests. That actually identify the root of the problem. And then from that particular perspective, once we have all of this highly individualized data that's been tailored for the individual, then we have a model of healthcare that is, that is, that is addressing the individual, the individual's net necessities through diet, through supplementation, through vitamin and mineral therapy, through a number of other methods, through fitness, through lifestyle, through exercise, through the right kinds of exercise. All of these things are very highly tailored to the individual needs of a person. And so this model of healthcare, this functional model of healthcare, is the new paradigm, is the new paradigm. I have to repeat this, is the new paradigm because of the fact that we are all biologically unique and this needs to be addressed in order for health to really be met. Let's face it, that in the current model of healthcare, allopathic model of healthcare, pharmacological you know, medical model of healthcare. This model of healthcare is significantly flawed, and it's flawed for a number of different reasons. Not only because are people being poisoned by pharmaceutical drugs, but the underlying causes of people's problems are never being addressed. And more importantly, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even give it the recognition to call that particular model of healthcare healthcare at all.

Yeah, I remember reading a while ago, and I'm not sure if you've familiar with Randy Roach. Randy Roach, I had him on the show a little while ago and he spoke about, you know, how the dominant model of healthcare was actually chiropractic, naturopathy, and homeopathy. And in 1916, the Rockefeller Institute obviously gave a lot of money to start up the medical institute. And because there was more money in allopathic means, there was more money in selling pharmaceutical drugs than there was in actually healing someone. So yeah, everything you're saying there is definitely has a lot of merit. So if we move on, let's talk adrenal health. So how do you diagnose someone who has poor adrenal health?

So good question, Mark. Adrenal function has, you know, adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome has become a very widely recognized condition. At least by alternative healthcare practitioners.

It's getting more prevalent now?

It certainly is getting a little bit more prevalent. People are starting to look at these things with a little bit more, you know, a little bit more understanding, starting to see that it's a lot— that the symptoms that people are experiencing are definitely a lot more prevalent these days than they ever have been. But, you know, the problem is that with the current model of healthcare that exists in allopathy there is not the identification of what is really the cause of the problem. And even in addition to that, in complication to that, there aren't the— in allopathic medicine, there is not the correct method of identifying the problem. You know, for example, you know, one of the best ways to assess a person's adrenal status is not by looking at blood hormone levels. If you go to a doctor, if you go to a medical doctor and they're gonna run a blood panel, and you know, if the doctor, if the medical doctor is even, you know, versed in identifying hormone imbalances and adrenal fatigue at all, which is not very common anyway, but if they were, they're probably gonna run, you know, an adrenal panel through the blood hormones. The problem with that testing is that the blood hormones, the blood steroid hormones, is not the best way to identify adrenal status. You have to look at saliva hormones in order to do that, and so very few medical doctors are aware of that. The free fraction hormones are really the ones to look at. So what I always recommend if a person has chronic fatigue or adrenal fatigue or if they feel like, you know, on the opposite end of the spectrum, if a person suffers from adrenal hyperfunction, if they're hyperactive, you know, you may have a child, an 8-year-old child who has, you know, extreme hyperactivity or attention deficit disorder or any other disease label you wanna give somebody, then the best thing to do is to is to address their individual concerns and to really look at the individual biochemical and genetic makeup of that person and to run certain functional lab tests that are gonna help to do that. Giving you an example, I worked with a 9-year-old child not too recently. The parents had wanted me to work with this child and I said, "Okay, well, it's important that we run an adrenal stress profile to see what this child's adrenal status is." And in addition to that, I also wanted to run a gut function protocol to complement that because I felt that there were— those two tests were necessary to run for this particular child. And so, parents said, "Okay, that sounds good to me. Let's go ahead and do the test." And so, okay, I sent them the test kits out in the mail. They completed it and the good thing is that I work with clients all over the world, not only in the United States, but I have a full-time nutrition practice for clients all over the world. It's simple as sending a test kit to the client. They complete the test kit and they send it directly back to the laboratory, and then the test results come back to me. I get the test results back in my laboratory and I take a look— in my office, and I take a look at the test results. Oh my God, this child is in a deep stage 2 adrenal fatigue, close to stage 3. Somebody thought it was something that you wouldn't expect to see. In somebody so young. And in addition to this, had multiple gut function complications. There was definitely liver stress, there was definitely a problem with the child having breaking protein down in the gut. So the child had multiple complications. And so this is something that was completely overlooked by this, this child's primary health— primary caring physician, is that there's multiple underlying issues that were going on. And so So what I recommended is I recommended to support adrenal function based upon the laboratory test results. And so now the child is starting to feel better. And the good thing with working with children is that they're still growing, and so healing is a much faster process, usually in many cases. So to answer the question, I would say that it's important to really address the needs of the individual. I can't emphasize that enough, is that the functional model of healthcare is the one that addresses The individual needs, and the only way to really do that is by looking at certain laboratory tests that identify functionality in the body or dysfunction that's happening in the body, strengths and weaknesses that a person has, and then cultivating and putting together an entire nutritional strategy based on diet, supplements, exercise, and fitness that's all tailored around the individual needs.

So you, you do use the saliva test, and then from the saliva test you go from there, but that's the diagnose method, correct?

Well, the best— yes, the best way to assess adrenal hormones and all the steroid hormones, whether it's estrogen, you know, the estriol, estradiol, testosterone, melatonin, cortisol, progesterone, the best way— DHEA, you know, the androgens. The best way to assess those particular hormones is from the saliva hormones because the saliva hormones are the free fractioned live hormones, whereas the blood values are not necessarily the best thing to use.

Right. Cool. All right. So can you tell me a little bit about the stages of adrenal health?

Sure. Well, you know, the basic— you know, when you're looking at functional medicine or functional nutrition, and specifically as it's related to hormone function in the body, you know, you have— first, let me say this about all hormones. This is, you know, bioidentical hormones. This is a big thing that people are really wanting to get in. You know, menopausal women are really wanting to get involved in this. Weightlifters. You know, I know Charles Poliquin is, you know, he— I was watching a video on that Poliquin gave recently about ways to identify, you know, if a person is more androgenic or less androgenic, you know, by identifying tricep measurements and things like this. And all that's very interesting. What's important to realize, and I should also say that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, if done correctly, if done with the correct laboratory results and by a practitioner such as myself who is capable of putting into practice for the individual the, the right methodology and the right practice, bioidentical hormones can be an excellent way to help improve upon somebody's health in a number of different ways. What I want to say is this, is that all of the steroidal hormones— this is very important— All of the steroidal hormones in the body are all derived from cholesterol. Why is this important? Because look, if you look at what's out there in the mainstream, almost all mainstream doctors are telling you, watch your cholesterol, watch your cholesterol, or we'll put you on a drug. Well, and so what you're, what you're not seeing is that the reality of the situation is that cortisol, all of the adrenal hormones, all of the sex hormones Estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, DHEA, they're all derived from cholesterol. And so give you another example. A client comes into my office with stage 3 adrenal fatigue. You know, they have a some cortisol level, you know, very low. And I take a look at what this person is consuming and they're under-consuming. They're, they're not nourishing their bodies properly. They're not consuming the right fuel for their, for their body. They're not consuming the right fuel for their body's unique biological engines, they're for their unique biological needs. And I also see that they're on a statin drug, a drug that's lowering their total cholesterol level. Well, what they don't tell you is, at the doctor's office, what they don't tell you is, is that statin drug is inhibiting hormone production. And how is it doing that? Because cholesterol is the root, is the primary precursor to all of the steroid hormones. So to lower cholesterol levels, to tell a patient to lower the cholesterol levels, could be a very, very dangerous thing because of the fact that cholesterol is essential for all the steroidal hormones. I see this all the time.

So could you— so sorry, continue.

The three— yeah, so the three— so there's basically three stages of adrenal fatigue. You know, you could categorize this however you want, and you know, you, you, you have basically a stage one adrenal fatigue is usually when a patient is pumping out high amounts of cortisol. High amounts of cortisol. And this is usually categorized, you know, from a physiological perspective as being adrenal hyperfunction, when the adrenal glands are over— are working too hard, there's too much cortisol being produced. And that can cause a lot of problems, by the way.

And they actually feel good at this stage, don't they, because there's so much cortisol?

They— a lot of times people feel really good when they have a lot— when they have high cortisol levels. They can go, you know, They may have incredible physical performance. They may have, you know, they may be, you know, a really, really intense athlete. They may have endurance. They may be only, you know, only needing 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. But the problem is that at a certain point, that high amount of cortisol that they're pumping out is going to start to diminish, or the high amount of cortisol that's being pumped out by their adrenal glands can actually inhibit the conversion of the thyroid hormones. And so they may start seeing on a blood test, they start, start feeling, you know, they may start having, let's say, abdominal weight gain, let's say, or they may have suddenly, they may have, you know, they may have an entire— they may start crashing, their appetite may increase intensely, something like this because of the fact that— not going too deeply into the chemistry here for people, but the glucocorticoid hormones can inhibit the conversion of certain thyroid hormones. So there's a big disadvantage to thinking that your high cortisol level is a good thing, that not only is it not a good thing, but at a certain point you might crash and you might burn. So that's stage 1 adrenal fatigue, is adrenal hyperfunction. Stage 2 is kind of this, this, this kind of this in-between phase where a person is starting to slope. You know, they may be in a stage 1 and now they're starting to slope into a stage 2. And what you commonly see in stage 2, you could see in any stage of adrenal fatigue for that matter, but what you commonly see in a stage 2 adrenal fatigue is also a DHEA level that's either depressed or very elevated. You start to see in stage 2, you start to see imbalances with other hormones in the body. DHEA, excuse me, DHEA being the primary kind of counterbalancing hormone that's also produced by the adrenal glands. This is also very important. Androgenic hormone. And so when, when, when DHEA is either depressed or elevated, this is also going to cause symptoms, and this is also going to interfere with, with how cortisol is being used in the body. So when a person's in a stage 2, and if they're starting— if they're starting to slope, and the lower the sum cortisol level gets, the more you start to see the symptoms more complicated, more complex, and more deep. And then by the time you see a person in stage 3 adrenal fatigue, they're already in an exhaustive status— they're already in an exhaustive state of stress. They've probably been in an exhaustive state of stress for a long period of time. They've likely got multiple issues going on besides just adrenal fatigue. They've probably got multiple gut issues. They probably got all kinds of toxicity that the body's incapable of detoxifying. They probably have problems with the liver. Probably problems with converting certain hormones into other ones. Usually got— some of the people in some of the most chronic states of stress are in that stage 3 adrenal fatigue. So what's important to realize though is rather than labeling them as stage 1, stage 2, stage— whatever that is, you wanna call it whatever you want. The most important thing is really to support and maintain normal biological function in the body. and that's a powerful thing. When you really, really understand that your body is unique to you, when you understand that your body is made, is biologically unique to you, and the fuel that it needs, the nutrients that it needs is very individual to your own body, once you get that concept and you start applying that concept, real healing takes place.

I was going to ask you about TSH. Thyroid stimulating hormone. Um, what's your take on that? Because I know in Western medicine their range is like 0.05 to 4 thyroid stimulating hormone. What do you do with the thyroid if that's— how do you diagnose if that's low? Do you get a T1, T2 test, or T— sorry, I should say T3, T4 test, or is there another way?

Well, I'll say this, that the thyroid— diagnosing a thyroid condition is a complex thing. It's a very, very complex thing. You cannot diagnose hypothyroidism by looking at a TSH level by itself. You can't do it. You always have to run T4, T3, as well as negative T3 values. And even then, you're going to likely see— if you see a high TSH, you might see T4 and T3 normal. Or if you see a low TSH, you might see, you know, T4, T3 out of balance. But, you know, it's very— hypothyroid conditions are not very easy to diagnose. You know, I'm aware of a number of people that suffer from all the classical symptoms of hypothyroidism, all of them, and their blood test results look fine by conventional standards. They look fine. So, you know, and I know— I personally know many medical doctors that treat hypothyroidism without having any laboratory tests that verify it, and the patients get better. But, you know, all of these things really come back to the individual. They all come back to supporting and maintaining biological function. You know, the thyroid gland is controlled largely and influenced largely by the parasympathetic nervous system. And so it's very common that people that have a hypothyroid or an underactive thyroid condition, which is now You know, by current estimates alone, they're saying that about 40% of the population has some degree of hypothyroidism. 40% or more. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

Do you usually see thyroid dysfunction with toxicity, or is there a link between even adrenal fatigue and thyroid dysfunction?

I've never seen a hypothyroid condition or even an autoimmune thyroid condition like Hashimoto's I have never seen a thyroid condition that does not have underlying heavy metal and/or chemical toxicity. I've never seen it. Every single person I've ever viewed that has had hypo— so-called hypothyroidism has had major heavy metal toxicity from mercury, from amalgam dental fillings, from aluminum, from arsenic, from cadmium, from nickel, from chemicals, from, from dioxins and PCBs. Yeah, everybody that I've seen has had these complications.

And is there any link with adrenal fatigue and thyroid issues?

Absolutely. You know, there's a number of studies, a number of medical studies that have shown— if you look at a lot of the medical literature regarding adrenal function, there's a number of different pathways. You know, you've got this whole symphony of different hormones in the body that are, um, you know, this whole symphony of different hormones. All these hormones are interacting and The master hormone is pregnenolone and that gets converted into DHEA and then another part gets converted into progesterone on the other end and that gets used and converted into cortisol. So you got this whole symphony of hormones going on. But you've also got things that will interfere with these conversion processes in the body, you know, with these enzyme reactions taking place. Mercury from silver amalgam dental fillings, which are still widely used today by many conventional dentists, Mercury will outgas from your silver amalgam dental fillings and will make their way into not only the endocrine glands, not only the thyroid, and not only will they interfere with the conversion of progesterone into cortisol, but they'll get into the brain, they'll get into the nervous system. They're gonna start interfering with all biological processes in the body. So heavy metal toxicity is one of the primary— heavy metal and chemical toxicity are two of the primary underlying causes of all health issues from what I've seen.

Just a quick question on, I guess, detoxifying mercury. Do you ever use chlorella to detoxify mercury?

Yes, I— there's many different kinds of chlorella that you can use. Some is more potent than others. You know, some cheap brands of chlorella actually contain heavy metals in them because they're so cheaply made, but there are certain companies that manufacture Highly concentrated colloidal concentrated chlorella supplements that are very powerful at pulling heavy metals out of the body.

I've heard the argument that they also move mercury, but they move mercury to the brain, which is much worse. Have you found any, any of that to be true?

What I'll say about the chlorella is that it can be very beneficial, but it should be done under close supervision, and it should be done with adjacent protocols that are more powerful. So, you know, the body has a couple of different processes that it can detoxify xenobiotics and heavy metals. You know, the body will excrete heavy metals and chemicals through the feces, through the urine, through the hair, through the sweat glands. And, you know, the kidneys are a primary organ that heavy metals get filtered through and then urea is created and it's excreted through the urine. But the kidney cells can be— the glomerular cells of the kidneys can be permanently damaged by the amount of heavy metals that are coming through it. My preferred method of assessing, of helping a person to detoxify heavy metals, is the liver and the bowel pathway. And by enhancing the liver's ability to detoxify through the glutathione conjunction A person is able to safely eliminate heavy metals a little bit better. So if you're gonna use chlorella, it should only be done in combination with other protocols. And I am a big proponent of things that will help the body to produce glutathione. You know, glutathione being the most important endogenous antioxidant that the body produces.

Yeah.

It's one of the most important antioxidants for detoxifying heavy metals and chemicals. And when there's low amounts of it, when toxicity is prevalent, glutathione levels tend to be decreased. And this is especially true as we age.

Right. Well, I've got a Facebook question here, actually two Facebook questions. The first one is Trevor asks, how does caffeine affect adrenal health?

Well, that's an excellent question and it can affect the individual. Well, I'll say this about caffeine. So because of the fact that everybody's body is biologically unique to them— remember I was talking about that functional model of healthcare— and that in that functional model of healthcare, what is the most important thing to realize is your own biochemical individuality. Not one nutrient, food, drug, vitamin, or mineral will behave exactly the same way in everybody's body. That's a critical point to understand. That means that that caffeine will tend to behave very differently in a person's body as opposed to somebody else. Now, take for example, if that— if an individual is what's called a fast oxidizer, if their cells are converting sugars and carbohydrates into energy very quickly, in that process, drinking coffee is only going to speed up that process even more. It's gonna make them even more of a fast oxidizer. And guess what that's gonna do to their adrenal function, it's gonna cause them to pump out even more cortisol, and it's gonna cause blood sugar levels to go up. But take example on the opposite end, though, that this is a common reaction that happens with fast oxidizers. But somebody who's a slow oxidizer, who has a very different metabolism, somebody who has a slow oxidizer is actually burning fuel and carbohydrates too slowly. And so actually, for a slow oxidizer, caffeine will tend to have a— more of a waking up effect, meaning that it's not going to cause there to be such a high release of cortisol, and it's not going to cause that high of a spike in blood sugar as it would for the fast oxidizer. So to answer that question, how will caffeine affect adrenal function? It certainly can negatively affect adrenal function, but it can affect adrenal function worse to certain individuals and less so to other individuals. So in order to understand how caffeine affects you, you're going to really need to understand your own biochemical individuality, the speed that your cells are making energy and how quickly the energy is being converted inside of the cells, whether your cells are more designed to assimilate and digest fat and protein, or more— your cells are more designed to assimilate carbohydrates. And certainly there can be tremendous variations within that spectrum.

So a fast oxidizer would be a typical carbohydrate type?

No, a fast oxidizer would be a typical protein type, somebody who needs more protein and fat. A fast oxidizer is one who has a— what's called a glucogenic imbalance, that they're overly reliant on on the, the process of glycolysis, on the process of sugar and carbohydrate metabolism, and they're not using fat well enough. So what that— a fast oxidizer actually needs is more fat and protein to stimulate the underactive aspect of the metabolism and to slow down the overactive aspect of their carbohydrate metabolism. So a fast oxidizer and a slow oxidizer need diets that are very opposite, very different. And the wrong diet for the individual causes havoc in the body. I see this all day long, day in and day out. So it's imperative to address the needs of the individual. I don't recommend coffee in general for people, for anybody, because coffee is more or less a drug. But, you know, there can be some, you know, at least apparent benefit from it if a person is a Carbo type. But again, if you're doing anything, you know, if you're doing anything in excess, if you're a Carbo type, even if coffee is not going to be that destructive to your body, it's still going to cause a physical addiction because it is a drug. And so that's why people that try to stop drinking coffee, they have withdrawal symptoms. They have headaches because the body has kind of created a dependency on it.

Yeah, for sure. Emma asks, does caffeine affect the gut?

Well, again, it certainly can, and it goes back to the issues of the individual. You know, a lot of people say that when they drink coffee, they have a bowel movement, or, you know, coffee will induce peristaltic function. Well, I'm sure it can for many people because of the fact that coffee is a stimulant, and anything that stimulates the bowels is going to cause the bowels to release. But, you know, coffee is also a diuretic. Coffee will also cause the excretion of numerous minerals, and this is not necessarily a good thing. I've heard studies before that caffeine, specifically from coffee, causes the— will actually cause double— a doubling your loss of calcium every day in some occasions. So this is not a good thing if a person has— especially if a person has a greater need for calcium. Take for example, if a fast oxidizing protein type who has an increased need for calcium is not getting enough calcium, is eating a very poor diet, and is drinking coffee on top of that, that is a recipe for disaster. I guarantee it. At this point in this stage in the game, there's going to be significant mineral loss, there's going to be mineral deficiencies, there's going to be You know, why is it that so many fast oxidizers complain of drinking coffee? It makes them jittery, anxious, nervous, it gives them a migraine, it makes them, you know, gives them heart palpitations. It's because their metabolism is not designed for that type of a food. But other people have a totally different reaction to coffee. I guarantee you, everybody that's listening to this call, do an interview of 10 different people and ask them what What effect does coffee have on their body? I guarantee you that you're going to get very different reactions from people with regards to how coffee affects them. How is that possible? It all goes back to the fact that everybody's biologically unique. So coffee can— if a person has a fast oxidative metabolism, coffee is going to destroy their metabolism and it's going to enhance their symptoms and can actually make their gut functions worse. But other people, it's not as bad because of the fact that coffee doesn't have that same effect.

Wow, cool. That's a pretty good answer. And just to remember, I guess, all the listeners out there, just to remember that a fast metabolizer is a protein type and a slow metabolizer is a carbo type, correct?

Correct.

Yeah. And the other thing I'd just like to get your thoughts on, just to kind of get the full spectrum of the issue, there have been some studies, and I know Charles Poliquin's talked about this a little bit, that Coffee drinkers live 5 years longer than non-coffee drinkers, because for the average person eating a Western diet, it's actually one of the only sources of antioxidants they get. Obviously, I'm in total agreeance that we should fix the diet first and not rely on something like coffee for antioxidants. But do you think there is any value, I guess, as an antioxidant for coffee?

Well, there certainly are a lot of antioxidants in coffee. There's a lot of antioxidants in chocolate. There's actually more antioxidants in raw chocolate than there is in almost any other food. Raw chocolate has the highest ORAC value, which stands for Oxygen Rated Antioxidant Capacity. There's something like, I don't even know, 4,500 ORAC per serving of raw chocolate. But antioxidants, if you want to talk about antioxidants for a moment, antioxidants, what is an antioxidant? Antioxidant is any type of a nutritional mineral vitamin substance phytonutrient that prevents oxidative damage in the body. Well, what is oxidative? What is an antioxidant? I don't know if personally the word antioxidant is not really, in my opinion, there's a better term that some doctors use for antioxidants and these are anti-free radicals, is a better term than antioxidant. Because what antioxidants are really doing is that they are neutralizing the potentially damaging effect of free radicals in the body. Well, what is a free radical? A free radical is any atom or molecule with an unpaired electron, right? So what does that mean? That means that free radicals are everywhere. We— in fact, your body is incapable of living without free radicals. Your metabolism makes free radicals. It's a necessary part of your metabolism, of cell function. You have to have a certain amount of free radicals, but the problem is if oxidation is out of control, if a person is an extreme fast oxidizer or an extreme slow oxidizer, the likelihood that they have free radical activity ensuing in their tissues is going to be greater because of the fact that their oxidation, their cellular oxidation is out of control. So antioxidants, and there's the most common and powerful antioxidants are the ones that maintain and support cell membrane structure, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium. Those are the most essential antioxidants. Vitamin E particularly is its primary constituent of cell membranes. But did you know what the actually probably the biggest antioxidant of them all is? It gets demonized by just about everybody. Cholesterol. Cholesterol. Is an antioxidant and free radical scavenger. Cholesterol comprises all of the cell membranes of the body, meaning that it prevents the breakdown of those cell membranes. You know, visualize a cell. What's a cell? You got a little— a blob. Draw a blob or a circle on a piece of paper. That cell has a membrane, it has an outside wall, and then you've got the nucleus and you got the mitochondria inside of the cell. So that cell membrane, that outer wall of that cell, needs to maintain permeability, a certain balance between permeability and stiffness. Cholesterol maintains the integrity of that cell membrane. So if you've got fatty acid— if you've got free radicals ensuing in the body, oxidation out of control, cholesterol is gonna be a powerful nutrient to protect the cell membrane from collapsing and from producing excess free radicals. That's a powerful concept that needs to be understood. So, you know, the idea that you should drink coffee to get antioxidants from it, that's That to me is a really— that's a tertiary argument for the promotion of coffee when in fact that when all foods that are found in their natural state contain significant amounts of antioxidants in them. You know, every vegetable contains large amounts of vitamin C. Some vegetables even contain vitamin E. You know, high-quality grass-fed beef is going to contain tremendous amounts of zinc and selenium and nutrients that are going to support and maintain biological function. So to say that we should be getting antioxidants from coffee, I mean, that's kind of a— that's a real stretch. I mean, just because there's antioxidants in coffee doesn't necessarily mean that that's the best way to get it. But again, it all goes back to the individual because how any nutrient or how any food behaves in the body is all dependent upon each individual's metabolism. Right.

That's a good answer. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, continue.

Well, so antioxidants are certainly very important and for some people they're more important than others. But understand that the function of antioxidants, you know, there's two kinds of antioxidants, okay? Whoever's listening here, you could start taking notes on this. This is good stuff. There's two kinds of antioxidants, right? You have exogenous forms of antioxidants which are all the food kinds of antioxidants, you know, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium. Cholesterol, zinc, you can keep naming those, phytonutrients, all the trace antioxidants that we don't even have names for, quercetin, curcumin, substances, polyphenols, catechins, all of those things are all— have antioxidant capabilities. They're all found in foods. Those are exogenous forms of antioxidants. Then you have what are called endogenous antioxidants and endogenous antioxidants are antioxidants that get produced by the body. The cells make 5 endogenous antioxidants, and these are made by the body. These 5 antioxidants are— ready for this? These 5 antioxidants are glutathione, superoxide dismutase called SOD, catalase, alpha-lipoic acid, And the 5th one is— so 1, 2, 3, 4, what's the last one? I forgot. Oh, and the 5th one, of course, is coenzyme Q10.

Right.

So these 5 antioxidants I just mentioned— glutathione, lipoic acid, CoQ10, catalase, superoxide dismutase— these antioxidants are what your cells make to protect yourselves from the harmful effects of heavy metals, chemicals, environmental pollutants, from free radicals in the tissues, from the damage and destruction of all of these carcinogens, and from the destruction and breakdown that these carcinogens and free radicals can have on cell membranes. These 5 antioxidants are, are critical for maintaining health at every level, at every stage in the game. And guess what? Go ahead.

Oh, I was going to say, uh, just so I can kind of, um, get a nutshell kind of statement on, say, something like glutathione. This is an analogy given to me, and I just want to see how it fits with you, is that, say for example, free radicals— if vitamin C basically works at one molecule of, say, vitamin C and one free radical, they basically cancel each other out. But when you have something like glutathione, one molecule of glutathione will eradicate 1,000 free radicals. So something like glutathione is 1,000 times more potent if you can stimulate glutathione, then something like vitamin C. Is that analogy apt, or does it need tweaking?

Well, it needs a little tweaking because, because the reality is that no one nutrient or antioxidant exists independently in the body. So how is glutathione conju— where is glutathione conjugated? It's conjugated in the liver. It's conjugated in phase 1 liver detoxification. But there's other nutrients in phase 1 liver detoxification that are essential as well in order for glutathione to be conjugated through the cytochrome P450. Vitamin C is actually a major constituent of liver detoxification in that stage 1 and 2. And then you've got glutathione, but then glutathione is used in the phase 2 pathway and then it's conjugated with— there's methylation there and then there's selenium and methionine and then the sulfur amino acids that are essential there. So you've got all these different nutrients that are combining to basically enhance the liver's ability to— the liver cell's ability to detoxify and to make glutathione more potent. But, you know, in order to stimulate glutathione, you need— you do need vitamin C, and you also need— you also need a whole variety of other nutrients as well. It's not like you can— you can certainly take, you know, a liposomal glutathione and slap it on your skin, or you could take, you know, another form of a glutathione product liposome-coated, or you could take, you know, glutathione patch or something like that, or a gel. It's not necessarily helping your body to make more glutathione, but it is certainly helping to elevate the glutathione levels. But you should also be aware that your, your fundamental nutrition should also be intact. You should definitely be ramping up other nutrients as well if that's your strategy. But again, it all goes back to the individual because, because here's the thing, here's the key thing to remember. Is that within this is— I'm going to tie it all back together with the biochemical individuality and how we're all unique— that certain individuals are weaker with their phase 1 liver detoxification and other individuals are weaker with their phase 2 and stronger with their phase 1. So that means that certain individuals need a different nutritional protocol just to conjugate glutathione than other individuals do. And so that is something that you cannot get from a one-size-fits-all nutrition plan. That is only something that you can get from somebody who really knows the subject well enough to help you improve your health from a functional perspective.

All right, so let me ask you this, um, how would you rectify adrenal health for someone? Would you give them certain supplements, or would it mainly be done through nutrition?

Well, it depends on the level of adrenal fatigue particularly. Again, in order to really assess if a person has adrenal fatigue to begin with or what stage of adrenal fatigue they're in, it's essential to run a steroid hormone saliva steroid hormone test to really gauge that information. That's the most effective way to get the actual numbers. Then the protocol for somebody is going to be very, very different among the population. The protocol for stage 1, 2, and 3 are going to be very different and then there's individual considerations to be given within that. So I'm not just gonna tell a person to take some bioidentical DHEA and progesterone and pregnenolone, you know, you know, just tell them, just here, take this and then call me in the morning. I'm gonna look— I'm gonna— that's, that's not what you want to do. That's, that's again, that's the same thing as— that's the same thing as going to a doctor and saying, I've got a headache, here, we're gonna throw this at you. We're here, I've got this particular symptom, here, I'm gonna throw this drug at you. If you go to the health store, here, I got this symptom, I'm gonna throw that at you. This is looking— I'm looking at the ratio between progesterone and estrogen. I'm looking at all the other hormone numbers to find out exactly what the precise number should be of bioidentical hormones for each person. I might not even use bioidentical hormones with some people. I might completely negate that altogether, but bioidenticals can certainly be of value, can certainly be very beneficial for some individuals in chronic states. But then there's other things that could be of value as well, such as certain, certain glandular supplements can be of value. Not only adrenal glandular, but also, you know, other glandulars as well to enhance different glands in the body. Because remember, the adrenal glands are not— they're being told what to do by other signals in the body, right? The adrenal glands are under control of the sympathetic nervous system, and then you've got the the HPA axis and the HPT axis and all these different systems that all regulate adrenal function. You've got to also look at the pituitary and the thyroid and the hypothalamus and all these different things. But I tell you what, to make everything much simpler than that, to simplify everything, by understanding your fundamental type of metabolism, the rate with which your cells are making energy— remember, the, the process of energy production in the cell is the only way that the human body can make energy for all of its biological functions. ATP, adenosine triphosphate, the energy that's produced from fat, protein, and carbohydrate, is the substratum for all biological function, all biological energy in the body, including the adrenal glands, the thyroid, the brain, the nervous system. All of it is dependent on how energy is being produced inside of the cell. If that energy is not being produced efficiently in the cell, It is impossible. I'll repeat that again. If energy is not being produced inside of the cell efficiently, it is not possible for all the hormones in all the glands in the body to be succinctly working and doing what they should be doing. So to simplify, you want a plan that's tailored for each individual, looking at their specific tendencies. So there's a whole— I'm not going to make any recommendations based upon, you know, one-size-fits-all to anybody. It's all gonna have to be tailored to the individual. Give you another example. So working with somebody with a deep stage 3 adrenal fatigue, you know, some cortisol level of whatever, 16 or something, very, very, very deep. Also extreme amount of toxicity, 9 amalgam dental fillings, liver dysfunction, gut dysfunction. Hey, guess what? The adrenals are gonna be only one thing that we're gonna look at. We're gonna look at the whole spectrum of this person. We're gonna look at what they're eating, their exercise routine, the supplements that their body are— they're in most need for, and then cutting out things that aren't making any sense, that aren't working for that person. So it saves this person some money from wasting their money on all these junk supplements that have no value for this person. So it all comes back again to a functional model of healthcare.

Okay, so let's just switch gears for a sec and talk a bit about digestion. Poor digestion often goes undiagnosed. Would you agree with that?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?

Poor digestion would go often undiagnosed. Would you agree with that statement?

Absolutely, without a doubt. So how would digestion— leaky gut was undiagnosed.

How would you diagnose someone with poor digestion?

Well, first of all, what you're going to have to look at is what— when you're talking about digestion, what is it you're talking about? What are the fundamental processes of digestion? Well, okay, so you're looking at bacterial balance, first of all. You're looking at— you're looking at a number of factors. You're looking at the stomach's ability to produce hydrochloric acid. You're looking at the liver's ability to produce bile and bile acids. You're looking at also the third thing you're looking at. So one, again, hydrochloric acid level when you're talking about digestion. Two, you're looking at liver function, bile acid production. 3, you're looking at enzymes, digestive enzymes that are being used to break down food. And then 4, you're looking at the actual— what's called the actual intestinal immunoglobulins. You're actually looking at the mucosal barrier itself, whether or not there's integrity with that immunomucosal barrier, the actual gut bacteria and all of that, that mucosa, that mucosal barrier that comprises all that bacteria. So one thing I want to throw out there to the listeners is that, did you know that 80% of your immune system, 80% of your immune system is found inside of the gastrointestinal tract? 80% of it. It's actually your intestinal mucosa is actually the body's number one first line of defense against all pathogens. When you have any bacteria or pathogens that enter into the body, it is the intestinal immune system found in that mucosal barrier in the gut that lines from the— that lines the mouth to the anus that is protecting the rest of the body from the potential harm that could be caused by that pathogen, by that bacteria. So if a person has damage to their intestinal mucosal barrier or if they have insufficient levels of hydrochloric acid being produced, or if they have liver toxicity which is contributing to either very high amounts of bile acids or very low amounts of bile acids being produced, guess what? Their gut is going to be shut down and they're going to have multiple problems. And what you're going to see is, Mark, and what you're really going to see, and this is something that we're seeing a lot with the children today, we're seeing intestinal dysbiosis, we're seeing extreme leaky gut. We're seeing correlations. There's been medical studies that correlate directly with brain and cognitive function and gut health. Could you— you've ever heard—

could you define, um, because some of the listeners— I've mentioned this to some of my clients about leaky gut, and everyone who, uh, kind of when I mention it, they look at me a little bit puzzledly. Can you define leaky gut just so listeners know?

Leaky gut is basically when there is an insufficient amount of lactobacteria inside of the gut, which is the healthy bacteria, the benign and essential part of the immune system. When that bacteria is either not present in high enough amounts or the actual mucus that is the barrier that holds all of that stuff together, when that's not working properly, you have toxins leaking back into the bloodstream, wreaking havoc on the cells of the body. That's basically in a nutshell leaky gut.

Right.

Yeah. And that can— that's a very basic explanation, but basically that can contribute to so many different problems. So many different problems.

You were leading to something just before.

Yeah, there's— so there's a major connection between the gut in the brain. Brain health, cognitive function. You know, when you see all these children that are vaccinated with, with high amounts of mercury-containing vaccinations, you know, I think that the conventional medicine is now recommending something like 16 vaccinations for the first 20 months of a child's life or something unbelievable like that. Yeah, I mean, I just, I just worked with a client the other day whose 3-year-old son, within the first 6 months of the child's life, the child was given 16 vaccinations. The child was then— then did an entire panel with another doctor of DMPS, heavy metal test to identify heavy metals, and it was off the chart levels of mercury in this child. This child had all kinds of intestinal leaky gut symptoms as well as what you see a lot with children that are autistic. Folks, the rate of autism has reached epidemic proportions. 1 out of every 110 children is now autistic. 1 out of every 110 children. This is a disease that did not exist 50 years ago. This is a disease that did not exist 50 years ago and is primarily caused by the, the amount of poisons that we're exposed to on a daily basis, from the amount of heavy metals and chemicals that we're being either injected with or we're ingesting, and poor diet and poor poor lifestyle factors and the— there's a strong correlation. In fact, you cannot separate the fact that leaky gut and autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder and all these cognitive function types of issues are so heavily caused by a very, very compromised intestinal mucosal immune system. And so by enhancing the intestinal mucosal barrier, by supporting the normal intestinal immune function, there can be a lot of good things that happen. There's a lot of healing that can be done. I'll give you another example. So I worked with a mother on Facebook. This was a— as I said, I have— I work with— I do— I have clients that I consult with all over the world. People in Australia that I work with all over Australia. Europe, United Kingdom, here in the States, all over. A woman in the United States contacted me on Facebook. I have a lot of clients that I work with on Facebook contact me wanting to do consultations, and she said, well, my son, he's 16 years old and he's got intense intestinal cramping that he— it sends him home. He's got to go home from school every day. He's got— he's also, in addition to this, he's got extreme anxiety and nervousness, and his body temperature is very cold, and he seems not to be gaining weight, and it seems to be always related to his intense intestinal cramps and anxiety. So this whole picture kind of put this thing together for me. And so I said, okay, well, I think what we need to do is we need to run some laboratory tests to find out what's really going on with your son. And so that's what we did. We ran a mucosal barrier— mucosal intestinal mucosal barrier test. And that revealed that his, his immunoglobulins, his gut was really in bad shape. His— he had all kinds of pathogenic infections. He had Candida albicans. That's another big one that you hear, you know, everyone's got Candida. He had that. He had all kinds of gut symptoms that were coming up. And so we ran a a basic nutrition protocol for him for a 12-month protocol, and then 3 months later I get a call and his sheet from the woman, his mother, and he is doing great. He never has any cramps anymore. He's gained some weight. He's got more color in his face. He's much— he's doing a heck of a lot better in just 3 months. So there's a lot of great healing that can be done, but again, it has to be tailored for each individual to really get a sense of what you're doing. 'Cause you know what? You can spend thousands and thousands of dollars on nutritional supplements and you'll never get any real progress or very minimal progress you'll get. You'll be lucky to reverse the particular condition that you have by just going with random nutritional supplements randomly. But I'll tell you this, that if you do a protocol, if you— with me, if you do a protocol, if you run a series of tests and we actually get to the root of the problem, I'll be able to eliminate you for you wasting so much money on so many useless things and useless supplements that aren't going to work for you just by simply identifying that, hey, the cause of the problem was this, this, or this. And if we address this, this is going to— yeah, you're going to have to spend a little bit of money now, but think in 3 years from now, you're not going to have to spend this money at all.

So I was actually— sorry, continue.

Go ahead.

No, I was actually going to ask you, is there any general supplement supplements that you do recommend, and is there any general supplements that you do give to people to support digestion?

Well, yes, that's a good question. I always recommend a good, very high-quality therapeutic-grade probiotic supplement for people with digestive problems. That's something that's always got to be addressed. You know, and then that can, that can be very different, you know, because with, with pro— even with probiotics, certain probiotics will tend to work better for some people, not as well with other people. And so, if you go to a health food store and you get a good $40 or $50 probiotic or whatever you're paying, you know, it may work. It actually may not work though, you know, because you may— your body may need more of one of those kinds of probiotic strains and less of another one. You may need more acidophilus or you may need more, you know, L. plantarum or another one of these strains or lactobacillus. So there are a few probiotics that I've been working with, with really chronic cases that seem to be working well for everybody. And so, you know, one of the things is that getting them on a really high-quality therapeutic strain, therapeutic-grade probiotic, that's always something that's gonna be a benefit to somebody with intestinal issues. But there's other things as well, and, and I'm not gonna give these out because the fact that It really depends— the protocol really depends on certain results on a test. But I will say that, you know, the other thing that you could give somebody would be like a really good quality multivitamin, could be very beneficial. And, you know, there's definitely something to be said about multivitamins. You know, this can really help improve a person's health in a number of different ways. The other thing I'd say is just supplementally Drinking high-quality water, you know, just by getting water, this could be a huge improvement on your, your cell's ability to hydrate. You know, so many people are dehydrated. You know, the interesting thing— and I'm going to kind of, I'm going to kind of jump around a little bit— I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk about hypertension, high blood pressure, for a moment. You know, people that have high blood pressure often, almost all the time, they have fluid retention in their tissues. They have excess water retention. But guess what? These people are actually dehydrated. They don't actually have enough water in their cells. They've got too much water in the tissues. So the water that we're exposed to on a daily basis— most of us are still drinking fluoridated tap water, which is poison, or chlorinated or municipally chemically treated water, which is really, really dangerous to the body and in no way supports gut health and in no way supports any human function. So if you— I always recommend that everybody starts consuming really high-quality water. And that's— so those 3 things, I'd say probiotic, a really high-quality multivitamin, high-quality probiotic, high-quality multivitamin, high-quality water are 3 things that I recommend everybody consume in addition to high-quality food that's right for their type of metabolism that has been tailored to their bodies. Unique biological needs.

Excellent. Cool. So I guess the other question I had for you was, can you tell me about the myth of acid versus alkaline nutrition?

Well, Mark, that's a very, very good question. You know, we've all been— all of us in the health world, and I'm sure you can attest to this as well— you know, there's so many different myths out there that exist, not only about acid-alkaline nutrition but about so many different things in general. You know, and all of this information that we hear about in the health world seems to be so conflicting, doesn't it? It seems like so much of the information that we receive through the media, through medical studies, through nutritional schools of thought, through all the thousands and thousands of different nutritional books that have been written over the past 100 years, so much of this information seems to be conflicting. This is exactly the case for the acid-alkaline debate. One of the things that I want to address particularly is that almost all schools of nutrition think that it's good to be alkaline, it's bad to be acidic. I can absolutely assure you with certainty that it is absolutely not good to be too alkaline, just as if it is not too good to be too acidic either. Both of those are pathological states Alkalosis and acidosis are both imbalances. When you're in homeostasis, when you're really achieving— if you really achieved a really high state, high level of health, your body's pH will fluctuate very, very, very slightly. There is very little movement. Your body more or less is at that 7.46 range. Your blood pH is more or less at that 7.46 range. But the more deregulated a person's health, The more you see alkaline imbalances, the more you see acid imbalances. So to say that it's good to be alkaline, that's a complete pile of hogwash. It is not good to be too alkaline. In fact, most people are too alkaline and that's their problem. And in fact, I'm also gonna say that the relative ash of a food itself, the pH of a food itself, will not necessarily behave the same way inside of your body. Wow, that's an important point, isn't it? Yeah, you know, in most, most nutritional schools of thought tell you that vegetables are alkalizing, potassium-rich vegetables are alkalizing. Nonsense, absolute nonsense. And the other thing that they'll come, they'll say is the best way to test your pH is by your saliva pH and your urine pH. Yeah, I'll tell you right now that your urine and your saliva pH are two of the least effective ways to identify your actual blood pH. Well, first of all, your urine and saliva pH contain the residue of your metabolism. They do not— those urine and saliva pH do not reflect the actual cellular, you know, the pH level in your blood when the cells uptook the nutrients and made energy and the pH of your blood. In fact, oftentimes it's inversely related to that. Somebody that has a high alkaline saliva pH could actually be too acid. Their blood could be actually too acid and conversely, it could be the other way around. So, when you— see, the thing is this, that plant foods that contain potassium, When you talk about acid and alkaline, what are you exactly talking about? I'll tell you this. The more you start to look at this issue, the deeper you start to look at the biochemistry— I've spent hundreds of hours researching and understanding blood chemistry and the effect that— how nutrients behave in the body. I can tell you this. What I can tell you is this, is that there are numerous levels and systems of pH balance in the body. You have an intracellular pH, you have an extracellular pH, you have a tissue pH, you have a blood pH, you have a venous blood pH, you have an arterial blood pH, you have a large intestine pH, you have a small intestine pH, you have a stomach pH. You have all of these different pHs in the body, and they all need to exist in some kind of a range differently. It's neither desirable to be too acid or too alkaline. It is desirable to be pH balanced. Now, how a food or a nutrient behaves in the body, the relative effect of how that— let's say, let's say a person consumes a huge garden salad that's very rich in the minerals potassium and magnesium. If that person is a fast oxidizer, They already will tend to have blood that's too acidic, meaning that if they eat a high potassium meal, that is only going to contribute to higher levels of blood acidity. Wow, isn't that unbelievable? But it's true. High levels of potassium in a glucogenic fast oxidizer will actually cause their blood to be even more acidic. But for other people, those potassium-rich vegetables will make it— will create an alkaline response. But again, it all depends on the individual.

Yeah, that's very—

not upon—

sorry, I was just going to say, that's very interesting that you bring up those points there. You know, I didn't know that about the differences between the fast oxidizer and the slow oxidizer, and the different vegetables can obviously have a different effect. So that's, yeah, that's very interesting.

Yeah, and the thing is that all nutrients, again, all nutrients and foods will behave differently in the body. When you eat a vegetable, it gets broken down broken down into, into various minerals and vitamins. But how those minerals and vitamins behave in the body is going to be dependent upon each individual. That's basically what it comes down to for sure.

So I guess, what is the best way to develop an effective nutrition system for any person?

Well, the best way to identify what nutritional strategy a person needs, whether your health goal is to lose weight, to have more energy, to recover from an existing health condition, to prevent any type of a health condition from arising in the future if you want to practice preventative medicine, preventative healthcare, preventative nutrition, or even more so, even if you have, you know, if you have a fitness routine or exercise routine, you want to improve your cardiovascular function, you want to improve your weight training, you want to become a better distance runner or a better sprinter, the best thing to do is to understand, first of all, that your body is unique to you and it operates in a way that is highly individual. And because of that, it requires very different nutrients in order to function at its peak. And a person will need a very, very different set of nutrients in order to achieve optimal health. What I would strongly recommend everybody do is to consider that their body is unique to them and to look at their type of metabolism, how their cells are actually functioning. And it may also well be very, be very important to look at other laboratory tests such as what we discussed today, you know, certain hormone tests, certain gut function tests to identify maybe heavy metal tests and even interpreting blood chemistry in depth. Looking at all of these things will pinpoint exactly what's going on in the body and what foods and what nutrients that person needs at any one given point in time.

Yeah, for sure. So do you have any, I guess, final thoughts?

Well, I would, I would definitely suggest to people to nourish themselves properly and to really understand the profound effect and the profound impact that food and nutrients have inside of the body. Actually, if you can realize that the foods that you put into your body is actually biochemical fuel for how the systems of your body operate and function, if you can understand that, you can understand the importance of food specifically.

For sure. And, uh, finally, how can people get in touch with you?

Well, as I said, I am based out of Santa Cruz, California in the United States, living in sunny Santa Cruz right off the Pacific Ocean. But I have clients that I work with because of the access of the internet and Skype. And Mark, I'm really thankful that we were able to do this call through Skype today and that you interviewed me. Thank you all the way.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I know that I'm going to get great feedback from this because you've definitely dropped some bombs today. Time today and, you know, providing people with the information, which, as I said, that's what it's all about. This show is about the no-nonsense and no BS information, and you've definitely done that today. So, uh, for me and my listeners, we, we thank you. So, um, yeah, thanks.

Uh, my pleasure. I, I really enjoyed the, the talk, the call today. Um, if people would like to get in touch with me, they can either view my website. My website is www www.metabolichealing.com. That's www.metabolichealing.com. And you can also find me through Facebook. I'm very active. I post daily. I have a daily blog that I post through Facebook with. And you can find me through Michael McEvoy Nutrition, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-M-C-E as in Edward, V as in Victor, O-Y Nutrition through Facebook. And I would like to actually extend an offer to all of your listeners today, Mark, that if you— if any of your listeners are interested interested in doing any consultation work with me, whatever they decide to do, I'll knock 10% off of whatever services that they choose to do as a discount just for being listeners of yours.

Well, that's a very good deal. I'll definitely get— I'll jump on that because you know, you're going to find out a lot of things. And as you said before, it's going to save you a lot of time and effort in the long run because you're not going to be using this shotgun approach to your nutrition. You're going to get it done the right way first off. So yeah, again, thank you, Michael, and I look forward to seeing your ventures in the future.

Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the call.

You're welcome.

Talk with you soon.

Alright, ciao.

Thanks again.

Bye. There it is, folks, the interview I did with Michael McVoy. Folks, if you liked it, please leave a review for me on iTunes, and even better, let me know who you'd like me to interview. I really want to get the new episodes happening. But I'm not sure. What do you want? What do you want from me? Who would you like me to interview? Who would you like me to get hold of? Whose mind would you like me to pick and get inside of and unpack and learn from? So that's what it's about, folks, looking at reamping the podcast show. These are the old episodes, but we can certainly make more. We can make some new and exciting stuff. And the stuff that I do like to make is the evergreen content, where, you know, if you're Googling a certain issue and you stumble across one of my podcast episodes, it's the authority on that episode. So let me know what you want to hear, what you want to learn, and I'll make it all free of charge just for you because that's how I roll. Stay tuned, and if you need some personal training, do Google Enterprise Fitness or just simply go to our page directly. It's melbournepersonaltrainers.com.au. But these These episodes are proudly brought to you by Enterprise Fitness. Folks, thanks for listening, and until next time, train hard, supplement smart, and eat well.