29. Dr. DiNicolantonio: What You Didn’t Know About Salt, Seed Oils, and Micronutrients

So salt is definitely misunderstood. Salt was demonized, and now we're adding salt back in. I was thinking about you this morning when I added salt to my coffee.

Obviously, this is different for everybody, but on average, about one and a half teaspoons of salt per day is associated with the lowest risk of death, mortality, heart attacks. Salt will actually decrease the dopamine response in the brain, kind of calm the brain down from that perspective. And so you will get less sugar cravings if you make sure you're getting enough salt to understand that, like, we can't hydrate as well unless you have electrolyte. So the salt allows you to absorb the water better. It puts it to where it needs to go, and it helps hydrate you. And that's why people don't feel so good in the morning, because they've gone eight hours without drinking.

So salt first thing in the morning upon rising, which makes sense. Doctor James DiNicolantonio. Welcome to Rooted in Wellness. I'm so honored to have you here.

Thanks so much for having me.

Before we dive in, want you to know, like, this podcast is all about becoming rooted in your health, but also your inner wisdom to heal. And I'm just curious, what are three things that allow you to feel really rooted in your health and who you are?

That's a good question. I guess I would say my children, so I want to be healthy for them. So that's probably, number one, my wife would be number two. I want her to be healthy, so that's why I'm rooted in wellness. And three, I think all of us want to live longer, right? So I think, selfishly, I want to be healthy, too. So I think it just comes down to myself and my family, really.

You know what I love about this? One, you're the first person to say children, which I think is amazing. And two, if you look at your social profiles, you would expect you to say something like, incredibly scientific, but you went for your family, which says a lot. All right, so on the flip side, I know you probably work with so many people who, you know, they have these habits that might be uprooting them, right? So they might be fueling their inflammation, fueling their stress, fueling their anxiety, or they're doing all these things that are really great on paper, but they're treating their wellness like a checklist, right? Like, they're not even dropping in to how good it could be for them. Are there things in your life that you realize, like, when you go down certain paths or avenues, that they're uprooting you from your health and how you feel.

Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, there's two ways you can look at it. Like things that you should remove from your lifestyle and then things you should add. So I think if we're talking about what people should be adding to their lifestyle that most people don't do, that would lead to like really good improvements in their health. One would just be get morning sunlight. Set your circadian rhythm. People don't understand that like just getting 10 minutes of morning sunlight or will allow melatonin to secrete at a higher amount and earlier at night so you can actually fall asleep. So just getting more morning sunlight is very important. Also hydrating as soon as you wake up with something like ima. Right. Could get those electrolytes in there. Very important as well. And then getting some protein in the morning so you don't overeat during the day. So a lot of people just aren't getting enough protein and that's why they're overeating. So just three simple things you can do in the morning. Get protein, get some electrolytes and hydration in you and get some morning sunlight.

So simple. Right. We don't have to overcomplicate it. I was thinking about you this morning when I added salt to my coffee.

Nice.

We're going to dive into all that today. So, you know, most people know who you are. You have such a phenomenal platform. I feel like a lot of people found you through the pandemic. Yeah. And just my gosh, that's how you came my way. And I just, I love the tips that you give, but you also make it very grounded with a human approach. It's very tangible. You're an expert in nutrition and cardiovascular research. You have several amazing books. You are on the medical and scientific advisory board for this brand that brought us together today. I am eight. We're going to dive all into that. But I would say today we're really going to focus on vitamins and nutrients, specific foods that we should be eliminating. And also key things to really support us in improving how we feel and our performance to feel better. I'm sure you have a lot of people reaching out to you on your page with just not feeling great. Right. Despite doing so many things in today's world, we just are not feeling great. So let's talk about that. You know, how should people feel when they are at their best? I think often people look at people like you and me, it's like they think we have it all together without recognizing the effort or the intention that goes behind it. So for people listening, if you are someone who is bloated, constantly have headaches, you're not having proper bowel movements, you have brain fog every single day, you feel tired or exhausted, those aren't normal, but we're normalizing them in our society. So give us a picture of how we should be feeling optimal every day.

We. Well, I mean, that's a good question. So, like, we sort of normalize these things because they're so common, but just because they're common doesn't mean that they are normal, right? And so most of these issues are actually due to a nutrient or multiple nutrient deficiencies. So we actually understood this back in the 1950s and 60s when we would do experiments where we. Where we would just basically, let's say we would induce a B1 deficiency in someone and they would get basically constipation, they would actually start having acid reflux, they would get bloating because it would slow down their gastrointestinal system, because B1 is required for the autonomic nervous system, the vagus nerve, the control, our gastrointestinal system. So if you don't have B1, basically, you get bloated very easily when you eat just a little bit of food. You can't digest your food well, you get constipated and you actually have no energy. So people have those symptoms all the time. But because they're so common, we might not even think to say, hey, maybe you're just deficient in a vitamin. And that's just one vitamin, right? So we could go through the gamut, but basically we can. We can no longer do those studies because ethically, we can't just, like, induce a deficiency in someone anymore because. But we have known this since the 1950s. So I do think that, you know, a lot of people struggle with health issues, but there are. Sometimes it's as simple as nutrition.

And it's funny because often, and it's the attention with this podcast, right? Like, if we even say, eat more like our ancestors did, it's actually physically impossible to do that these days because our food quality, our soil, all of the above is just. It's not as nutrient dense anymore, right? So even if we're doing our best, maybe let's zone in on, like, what are some key things that we should be eliminating from our diets in order to optimize our energy?

That's a great question. And I actually didn't even understand this, that whole grains, most whole grains are very highly refined. So even Though technically they have the three basically constituents that gives them, makes them a whole grain. The fiber, the endosperm, the starch, etc. They're stripped off of the actual kernel. And so basically you just get this refined pulverized powder and so it spikes your blood sugar. It's nothing like actually an intact whole grain. So even eliminating a lot of whole grains, especially ones that are highly refined, can actually help a lot of people because they don't digest them well. Some people are sensitive to gluten, so we think of these things as healthy, but. But many of them aren't. So you got to kind of figure out what works for you. There are many whole grains that people do tolerate and feel great on, but some people don't even realize that just simply eliminating grains can really help their, their health. That's just one thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's interesting. So the deficiencies that you're talking about or you know, these grains that have been sh. I'm curious how often to your, do your audience or to your, your patients, do you recognize how often with your audience or with your patients, do you recommend doing blood labs? Are you looking at a wide variety of biomarkers?

Yeah, I think blood labs are good because it gives you somewhat of a snapshot, but also they don't tell you everything because the blood isn't necessarily reflective of an organ or the body system. So we have to just be careful with. If you look like you have good magnesium in the blood though, you could be deficient in your body. And so there are better TAS test, it's just that they're more difficult. And I cover some of this in my books on which tests are better than just your typical blood test. But yes, I do think everyone should have a baseline blood work to kind of just give them sort of a snapshot of where their health is, but understand that it's not perfect and empirically giving someone magnesium, if that helps them, then I don't care if their blood level is, is normal, quote unquote normal. Right. So I kind of sort of like to treat symptoms empirically, give kind of broad spectrum nutrition and see and go from there.

So can you go into. Because I'm just thinking of people listening, they're like, well, hang on a second, you know here through functional medicine that I should be doing a full biomarker test once or twice a year and if that's not really an in depth look, like what are some specific tests that you think are going to be coming out for people to Keep an eye out on.

Yeah. So from a nutrition perspective, I've done some research on copper. So usually people will just give a blood level of copper, but copper is what's called an acute phase reactant, meaning if you have inflammation, your copper levels will go up. So you can have high copper in the blood, but actually be deficient, and it's high because you're inflamed. That's just one, one example. Zinc is also an acute phase reactant, so it goes down though, with inflammation. So you could actually be getting a lot of zinc, but it could be low because you're inflamed. So I would say mineral analysis, hair mineral analysis is a decent start. It's not perfect. It's very good actually, though, for heavy metal accumulation. So if want to know if you are loaded up with heavy metals and then a trace. Trace analysis of both heavy metals and minerals for the hair is good. Magnesium. There's a. There's a blood test called mononuclear blood cell magnesium that is much better, that is reflective of whole body magnesium. And it prevents you from having to do the gold standard magnesium test, which is the IV magnesium load test, where they give you an IV of about 400 milligrams of magnesium over four hours. And they see how much comes out in your urine. And if you're holding on to more than, let's say, 20% of that, you're considered deficient. So, I mean, I see how complex this is. Like, I don't think we could ever do well, I could do a whole podcast on this, and it's just too, too in depth to go into every single one. But that's why blood always needs to be matched with different other sort of tests.

Okay, I love that. And yes, I'm gonna have you back to go through all these together. This is why I love having doctors on, because we have to, like, really understand, you know, sometimes with Western medicine and even supplementation, it's like the wild west of things that you can be checking for, but having the understanding behind it and whether how it works with your constitution is everything. So we'll dive into more, some. Some more of those key nutrients. But in this line of elimination, I guess sugar, a lot of people roll their eyes, but our ancestors didn't consume sugar at the rate, or the types of sugar, for that matter, that we are consuming in today's world. And now it's just, you know, it's completely demonized. And let's just break down, you know, how can removing sugar literally be connected to improving our energy and our overall performance.

So refined sugar, what we need to think of it as is it's not just empty calories. You actually have to utilize B vitamins, magnesium to metabolize that energy. So you are basically shifting magnesium, let's say, and B vitamins away from critical functions to actually metabolize and liberate the energy from sugar. Yet sugar is providing you none. So it is a nutritional depletion. From that perspective. I don't think that we should demonize, let's say natural sugars, but if you think about it like our children are consuming their entire body weight, sometimes twice their body weight in sugar per year. That's just too much. And what ends up happening is you, you break the body so young that now when you're older, you can't even tolerate, let's say, 40 grams of added sugars. And that's the problem is that our children are eating 100 to 300 pounds of sugar per year. And so that just overwhelms the system, causes metabolic syndrome. And basically now you can't tolerate sugar.

And amen that you said that. Okay, so whole kind of natural sugar. So part of me growing up at the ashram, something sweet was incorporated at every meal, but it would come from something like dates or maybe a little bit of cane sugar. And it kind of, you know, appeased your taste buds enough, but it, it didn't lead to sugar addiction. The type of sugar that we're talking about today is the refined ultra process. Sugar that's like laden in drinks, in foods and snacks, especially kids food, which you'll come back to talk about that as well. But what are some practical steps then if people are listening and they recognize, you know what, I crave sugar all the time. I'm the person who's having a lot of sugar and getting off of it is one of the hardest things that they, it feels impossible to them. What's a strategy that you recommend?

So many strategies. First, don't buy it, right? Keep it out of the house. Like if you buy chocolate chip cookies, you're going to eat them.

If you don't buy it, you can't eat it. Correct?

Yeah, exactly. And so. And it will just feed the vicious cycle. So if you purchase it and it's in the house, you're gonna eat it and then you're just gonna want every single day. So number one, just don't buy it. That'd be the best. But number two, salt and electrolytes and hydration can really help as well. So Salt and sweet they are tastes. And salt will actually decrease the dopamine response in the brain. Kind of calm the brain down from that perspective. And so you will get less sugar cravings if you make sure you're getting enough salt. So, so making sure, I mean, and people will say, well, what's enough salt? Obviously this is different for every. But on average, about one and a half teaspoons of salt per day is associated with the lowest risk of death, mortality, heart attacks, et cetera. The American Heart association won't tell you that, but from actual better studies than what they're looking at, yes, I would say consume about one and a half teaspoons for an average healthy person.

We're going to dive into salt and all of that. Okay, so owning in on the sugar aspect, let's talk about something that you will speak about is how you use fruit. Yeah. You consume fruit as a sugar, which is a carbohydrate, and how it makes you feel. So is that a strategy that you recommend?

Yeah, I do. And actually I've shifted even over a little bit more to freshly, a little bit of freshly squeezed orange juice. We're talking like two or three ounces, maybe two, three times a day because I'm active, I lift weights, I run, I walk. And so I don't mind consuming some natural freshly squeezed orange juice, which is high in vitamin C. It has things like naringenin in there, which has been shown to reduce endotoxin. If you eat something bad like you have, it's. There's been a few clinical studies. Now, I'm not recommending eating McDonald's, but where they fed McDonald's to patients and they gave them either orange juice or not and they didn't get endotoxemia. The increase in LPS in the blood if they consume the orange juice. So it's a good antioxidant. You just don't over consume it. Small doses.

So the antioxidant from the oranges was preventing the endotoxemia.

We don't know exactly what was, but orange juice does have have things like flavonoids like noringenin, which is one of them, but also obviously the vitamin C, etc. So it's just interesting that something that's been typically demonized for spiking blood glucose, well, you could consume sugar after protein and then it's not going to really spike your blood sugar that much, 100%.

And you said something really key. You're not drinking a massive glass of orange juice all in one sitting. So yeah, simple things like that. We don't need to demonize them, especially for our children. Right. So tell me about at your house, like are you buying maple syrup? Do you have some coconut sugar? What are the sugars that you find at your house?

Yeah, so we don't, when it's funny, like my kids, when we go to a restaurant, if we do, we don't, we don't go out much, but we bring our own 100% maple syrup. We don't use the high fructose corn syrup.

I'm Canadian. I know, I'm all for it. Yeah.

And I mean, you can overdo these things easily. Right? So. So everything in moderation. But you know, I think natural sources like maple syrup does have some minerals, manganese, et cetera, that a lot of people aren't getting. And I don't think we should demonize it because seed oils are more harmful than sugars, especially natural sugars, because number one, they're much more oxidative in the body and they can propagate many different things. They can turn into aldehydes, carcinogens, things that break DNA. And also, if you don't burn them, they can get stored in your own cells and your fat cells and the actual half life of those can be up to two years. So whereas seed oils has much more damaging effects and long lasting effects. Sugar, you can sort of, if you don't over consume it, you can kind of walk it off in a way or lift weights and burn some of that off. So, you know, I think natural sources of sugar can help fuel your workout. So use it appropriately.

Maybe your brain fuel also. And I noticed too, like, if people don't go so restrictive and hardcore, the cravings actually dissipate.

Yes.

And a lot of my clients who were continuous glucose monitors, some people can eat two, three or four dates and they're still within range. Like and, and dates are sweet, man. Like it's candy.

Yeah. And the reason why you don't feel good is because even if you're on a full ketogenic diet, your brain and your red blood cells still have to function on glucose. So your brain can maybe access 45% of its daily needs through ketones, but that's that. So in order to basically then get the glucose, your body has to take up to 80 grams of protein to convert that to the 40 grams of glucose that it absolutely requires. And so if you're not consum carbs at all, that's why you don't feel good, because your brain and red blood Cells need that blood glucose and now it has to try to steal all the protein away from what you're eating to, to create that glucose, whereas you could have just consumed that. So it's kind of a stressor on the body. Actually. We see when we look at the hormones that happen when you're on a low carb diet, it's very similar to in fasting. It's, it's a stressful situation from the fact that cortisol goes up, which is a stress hormone, and things like noradrenaline and adrenaline also increase as well. And so it seems like to me that a very, very low carb or no carb diet is actually a stress around the body. And so that's why a lot of people, once they start consuming some carbs, I would say anywhere from 40 grams at the absolute lowest to upwards of 2, 300 for an elite athlete. That's why they feel so much better.

I love that you brought this up. When we were jamming before we started on my heart palpitations, guess what diet I was on when my heart palpitations were at their worst? Low carb Atkins diet.

Yep.

Yeah, hardcore Atkins diet. I was like, I was probably so acidic also, like literally just protein for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Minimizing fruit. No fruits at all actually. Just minimal veggies if I needed to have them. I wish we knew what we knew what we know today back then so the doctors can make the connection.

I love that you said acidic because there's a lot of people out there that don't believe in no acidic bodies. Yeah, the acid that's produced when we over consume animal protein. But the science behind it is very strong. I've actually published a couple review papers on the subject in peer reviewed academic literature. And so what happens is when the body metabolizes animal protein, it creates what's called sulfuric acid and then it dissociates into the hydrogen ions, which is what actually makes your body more acidic. And so that can activate the osteoclast when you're. When the acid load increases in the interstitial fluid to break down bone. And that can definitely.

Acidosis.

It is, it's metabolic acidosis. And you don't really see it in the blood blood because the blood has buffers to kind of bind the hydrogen ions. So your blood can look good but the interstitial fluid is super acidic. And you would never know that. But we do become more acidic as we age. If you look at the blood ph, we could go from 7.42, we can go all the way down to 7.36 and still be in the normal range. But you are very acidic at that point. If you are close to being actually acidemia, it's called acidic in the blood. Then your interstitial fluid, the fluid around all your organs has been acidic probably for decades. And so that can lead to a lot of harm.

And do you think people are probably just addicted, like they're addicted to the benefits, the physical rewards that they get from minimizing carbs?

Yeah, I think so. I think yes, you're going to be super lean on a low carb diet. Yes. Your cravings are going to be less and it is very helpful for a lot of people. And I think you can be in a low carb diet, that's fine. But I do think we need some carbs. I think the minimum for Almost anybody is 40 grams. Yes. But when it comes to athletic performance, obviously more than that.

40 grams. Yay. So doable. Yeah. I'm happy that we hovered on this because I think that a lot of the people that I work with there's this stigma like it's deeply ingrained in brainwashing than we were exposed to that in order to have a physically fit body or a body that's going to look a certain way or to lose weight, that we have to go on pure restriction and eliminate carbs.

Right, Right. And yeah, no, that's totally not the, I mean the lightest I ever was was on a plant based diet. Now I'm not, I don't advocate plant based. I've tried many diets, so I don't, for most people, I think it can help, especially women, I think do better on plant based because they don't need as much protein. But if you're a very muscular, heavier male, very difficult to get enough protein on a plant based diet. But I was, I was so light because I lost a lot of muscle mass. I didn't really necessarily do it optimally, but yeah, you can lose a ton of weight on a high carb diet. They're healthy carbs.

Exactly. There's a proper way to do it and everyone's different, right? Yeah. And I would say too, you know, Dr. James, have you ever found a study that showed that increasing plant based foods into your diet, like whole real foods from the earth, had any detriments to your health?

So here's the thing. I think that most people don't even understand what whole healthy plant foods are. Right. And also some healthy quote unquote plant foods, some People don't tolerate from like a digestion perspective, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I think, I think plant foods, if you tolerate them, can be great. But then for some, for some reason, there is a large group of people that don't tolerate plant foods. It's so odd. But who am I to argue that with them? Right? So I think if you tolerate them, I think that's great. Right. Sweet potatoes, you know, lower starch of vegetables are really great too. Peppers, onions, broccoli, if you cook it especially, I think can be fin, for sure. Yeah. But some people don't tolerate that. And if they don't. So you. That's why you have to test these things out. Right? Because if you think about it, like, some people genetically are more kind of like an Inuit in a way, right? They ate more animal foods. They didn't come across a lot of plant foods. So sort of your, your genetic predisposition will kind of also help you, guide you to what foods you should eat.

That's me. I'm 50% meat and potatoes on my mom's side and then my dad's side's completely vegetarian. High plant fiber, Right. I would say for a lot of people who are new to plant food, raw foods, raw plant foods are going to be harder to digest. And two, over time, if you try to incorporate them or increase them, there could be a digestive issue. Right. Like dig deeper to understand why your body is not metabolizing certain foods. Or maybe they just, like you said, they're not right for you. Right. Okay, so you brought up seed oils. Let's talk about seed oils again. They were never used in the way that our ancestors used them. I think our ancestors were able to use them very therapeutically. Often they were called pregnant. Right. But tell us about the problem with seed oils now. And you know, what's the harm?

So just from the fact of how we extract them, we have to use high heat and we have to use hexane and all these solvents. And so chemically it's very harsh to do that. So you're already oxidizing the oil before you even ingest that. So it's already a highly oxidized. There's tons of lipid peroxides, they're called in industrial seed oils. That's just the fact. And you can even get trans fats before you even heat these oils, too. Too. So that's one problem. The other problem is these seed oils, they no longer are coming with a lot of vitamin E that they technically would come from like a Natural source and vitamin E is kind of nature. Set that in there on purpose to prevent that very susceptible oil to oxidation from oxidizing. So now you're ingesting this oxidized oil that doesn't have the vitamin E to protect it. It hits the acidic acid of your stomach, further oxidizing it, leading to aldehydes, carcinogens, et cetera. And then as we had said before, it can get integrated in your cell membranes, which is not good and can lead to a lot of oxidative stress in what are called ox lamps, oxidized linoleic acid metabolites. And there's been many studies showing that the more seed oils you eat, the more they get integrated in your lipoproteins and they make your lipoproteins like the quote, unquote, bad cholesterol, LDL, more susceptible to oxidation. We don't want that. And so, so I think healthy seed oils, I love black seed oil. I love certain cold pressed seed oils at minimal doses, but definitely not industrial produced. And you definitely don't want to cook with them because that will further oxidize them.

Absolutely. So let's break it down for listeners who, you know, if this feels like a lot of information. The direct correlation, if I'm consuming a lot of seed oils, processed ultra refined heated seed oils that are coming from, whenever you eat out at a restaurant, from the processed food that you're eating, how is that contributing to their inflammation?

It's, it's a lot of people throw around the word, what is inflammation? A lot of inflammation is oxidized linoleic acid metabolites. In other words, the Omega 6 that you're consuming from these seed oils ends up oxidizing and ends up turning into all these harmful products which can even turn into aldehydes like 4 hydroxy nonenol and other aldehydes that are carcinogenic. And that's what actually inflammation is. It's partly these oxidized linoleic acid metabolites, but also it activates tumor necrosis factor alpha, nuclear factor kappa beta. It stimulates immune cells in a bad way. And that's what really inflammation is, is, is those types of things. And that's what seed oils do.

And so it's so important to like really prioritize eliminating these from your diet because it's almost like the accumulation of this oxidative stress over time is eventually what leads to those inflammatory markers that you talked about, but also how we're going to age, Right? Correct. And it's possible to turn on the genetic markers that might predispose someone like me, for example, to higher levels of LDL cholesterol or lp. Right?

Yeah. And the thing is too is there's a lot of seed oil deniers and because they'll point to meta analyses saying, hey, look, there's a meta analysis showing seed oils don't increase inflammation, CRP doesn't go up. But if you actually look at the clinical studies, almost none of them included actually include cooked seed oils the way we're actually consuming them. They're never, they're never cooked, they're uncooked seed oils. And so you're not gonna, you're not gonna really see the inflammation from that perspective. And so that's number one. Number two is you really wanna look at clinical studies looking at heart endpoints like all cause mortality, a coronary heart disease, death. And Chris Ramsden did a fantastic job. He's from the nih. He's done two meta analyses of randomized control trials looking at seed oils compared to saturated fat and trans fat, when we know trans fat's bad and they were seed oils was worse than the combination of trans fat and saturated fat in regards to increasing all cause mortality, increasing coronary heart disease mortality. And he had to dig up old documents that were never published, like the Minnesota Coronary Survey and the Sydney Diet Heart Study. He had to actually go into the basement 40 years like later and dig up all the actual data. And then he published these meta analyses. So that's why we didn't know about the harms when they happened 40 years ago. And so that's why there's a lot of seed oil deniers because, because they'll reference the meta analyses that prior to Chris Ramsden's work and some of the things that I had said about the inflammation and the issues not actually utilizing cooked seed oil. So I think it's important for people to know that information.

So one day we need the same labeling as, you know, showing that trans fats are in food. We need to like the same labeling seed oils are in this product.

Industrial. That's a great point. We do need to have basically a label stating how much, you know, industrial seed oils are in there.

The terrifying thing about this is that even if you go into a really great healthy food store, if you go down that processed kid food section, seed oils are in every single product. You might be able to find one food in the entire aisle that doesn't have seed oils for children's food. Drives me insane. It's Fake food.

Yeah, it is. Totally.

I'm a really big fan of cooking with grass fed butter. Organic ghee.

Yeah, I love that.

With.

Yeah, that's what I cook with. I cook with Kerrygold for eggs. I'll have like four eggs for breakfast. Pasture raised always. Yeah, just a little bit of pasture raised butter. Because saturated fats don't oxidize, they don't have double bonds. And when you have double bonds that can lead to significant oxidation. And that's why olive oil doesn't oxidize much either because it only has one double bond and it. But it's so high in polyphenols that the polyphenols and olive oil protect it from oxidizing during.

Yeah, I often even like, if, like if I'm focusing on getting good quality fats, I'll sooner cook in something like a vegetable broth or a bone broth or something. And then I'll drizzle cold pressed oils like an olive oil, which I love. You're Italian, I'm assuming so. Yeah, you probably love it too. We keep it out on our dinner table every single night and just drizzle it on top of our meals.

I love that. Yeah, yeah.

Which is great. Okay, so let's dive in now to vitamins and nutrients. Actually, we're going to go back for a second. Something I wanted to ask you. Oh. I have a theory. So you're, you're mentioning how these seed oils can be rancid. Right. When we cook with them, they become rancid. They're oxidative, they cause oxidative stress. But what about all of the, the nut craze that's happening right now? So nut butters, all the, the seeds and nuts that are being used for all of these butters, like, aren't those rancid?

I think they probably could be. Probably not as rancid as, as the oils, but I think the, the nut butters, I think we just need the tests. Right. I don't think I haven't seen much research on them, so. But they could be just curious. Yeah.

Yeah. Because we're just seeing like an influx of. We're probably eating more nuts and nut based products than we've ever eaten before in history.

So.

Curious about that. Thank you. Okay, so now I want us to dive into vitamins and minerals and how we can incorporate more of these into our daily lives to feel better, but also perform better. And let's start with one of your favorites, which is, is salt. So salt is definitely misunderstood. I will never forget you Know, my dad had an issue with his heart. In the 90s, salt was demonized. Salt was removed from our house altogether, and now we're adding salt back in. So let's talk about the differences in salts first and which ones you feel are most beneficial and why.

Sure. Let's even take a step further back and let's talk about like salt consumption throughout history. We actually use salt as our main food preserve preservative for thousands of years. And with the invention of the refrigerator in the 1930s, our salt intake was cut in half. So we actually technically are on a low salt diet, even eating a normal amount of salt, which is demonized right now compared to, you know, the last 10,000 years. And so we have to also understand too, the food we eat, like let's say when, if we would hunt a buffalo, we would get all the salt from the blood. The interstitial fluid, like an elephant contains millions of milligrams of sodium. So we no longer get that though. You just get a piece of like chicken breast. Right. And without this, the blood, the interstitial, etc. So we could have gotten salt from, from that aspect as well. And we consumed a lot more as the food preservative. Now, the ones that I like, I mean, my personal favorite is Redmond because it comes from an underground mine 700ft below the Earth's surface. So you're not getting microplastic if you're sourcing from a modern day ocean. Yeah, yeah. So I liked, I like Redmond as my favorite. But if you can find a good salt that has them, some of the micronutrients, you're not going to get a ton, but you're getting it for the salt. That's the important part. The sodium and the chloride. But you can get some iodine, particularly with rutmann. That's a good one. That's about the one mineral that you can get in addition to salt that you can get a clinically meaningful dose on. The magnesium, the potassium, the et cetera. It's very minimal. You're going to have to use something else really to get your other, other.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you like Baja Gold sea salt?

I. I've heard of it. I've heard from Carrie Breca about that one. I haven't looked into it.

Yeah, with Redmond yet though, like put a dash of salt into your water, it tastes better than the water without the salt. It feels so much more nourishing and grounding.

Yeah. A little bit of lemon juice too, or lime and even a little Bit of orange juice. And yeah, it's. It's. We need. We need to understand that, like, we can't hydrate as well unless you have electrolytes. So if you're just consuming plain water all day, you're going to pee a lot of electrolytes out, and you're going to actually pee a lot of that water out very quick, quickly. So the salt allows you to absorb the water better. It puts it to where it needs to go, and it helps hydrate you. And that's why people don't feel so good in the morning, because they've gone eight hours without drinking. They've lost about 500 milligrams of sodium overnight. And so your blood volume's low, your blood circulation's low, which means the blood flow to your brain is low. And that's why focus energy is really bad in the morning. And then as soon as you hydrate with an electrolyte like salt, with electrolytes like relight, boom, you feel so much better. You can feel within 30 minutes, too.

Incredible. So salt first thing in the morning upon rising. Which makes sense, right? Is that how you prescribe it?

100% should be the first thing. Get some blood, extra blood volume into you is kind of like how I like to look at it, because, again, you lose that overnight. And we also lose a lot of salt through coffee. So four cups of coffee will cause you to lose a half a teaspoon of salt. So caffeine and coffee, big salt waster.

I did not know that.

A lot of people don't know that. Or just caffeine in general. Even tea, but not as much tea is less of a salt waster. But anything with caffeine and then coffee is like a double hit because of the other constituents in there.

So making my salty coffee this morning was such a great idea.

That's a great idea. Yes.

Okay, you talk a lot about this, but tell us about the fascinating connection between salt and insulin resistance.

Yeah. So salt, basically, there's a few things that happen when you start consuming less than about 3,000 milligrams of sodium, which is about one and a third teaspoons of salt. And what ends up happening is insulin levels will start increasing as a way to. For the kidneys to hold onto it and preserve salt. So it's like a defense mechanism. Your body says, wait, you're not getting enough salt. I need the kidneys to start holding onto it. What can I start doing to increase that? It'll start increasing insulin to start holding onto that salt. And also the decrease in blood volume will decrease blood glucose and insulin delivery to the muscle. And so that will raise insulin and blood glucose as well if you're not consuming enough salt. And then low salt diets also increase the noradrenaline and adrenaline, which can also lead to insulin resistance. So many clinical studies in humans have shown low salt diets lead to insulin resistance and significant increases not just in fasting insulin, but also insulin AUC after, like a postprandial glucose test.

We have to do some unlearning still. And you've been talking about salt for a long time, but I still feel like there's a stigma around having too much salt. So can we own in on the quality of salt that people are buying then? So, Redmond salt you talked about.

Yeah, and I think, really, I think the main issue is, is that so many people are metabolically broken and they have high insulin that when they take salt, all of a sudden they see their blood pressure or their heart's pounding and like, it's the salt. But in fact, the clinical studies have shown if you give a drug like metformin, which improves insulin resistance, you actually get rid of the insulin or the salt sensitivity. Or if you get people to lose weight, which improves their insulin resistance, it gets rid of their salt sensitivity. In other words, 90% of the cases of people who are sensitive to salt from a blood pressure raising perspective is due to insulin resistance. And so if you just lower insulin or if you consume enough magnesium and potassium, then you're no longer going to be salt sensitive and you can start consuming the salt that your body's meant for you to consume.

So a good way to test then is, you know, tomorrow morning if you wake up, you put some Redmond salt into your water. If you notice that you're. Your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, then that could be a sign of insulin sensitivity.

Yeah, that's a sign of insulin resistance, right? Yeah, exactly. So like basically self sensitivity in most cases is just insulin resistance. Correct.

Fascinating. Again, most people don't know about this. So should we be focusing on mineral density then with salt?

I think the focus with salt should be are you getting enough magnesium and potassium to counterbalance it and are you over consuming refined carbs and sugars? Because that's going to cause you to over retain the salt.

Isn't there something about iodine also with Redmond?

Yeah, Redmond has iodine too. Basically, their mineral analysis shows about 170 micrograms per average intake of salt, which is about the RDA for Most people.

Okay, good to know. And how much salt are you adding to your food every day?

I don't really measure it out per se, but I do add it to my eggs, I add it to the meat, vegetables, and so probably I try to aim for about 4,000 milligrams grams of sodium, which is around like one and a half teaspoons of salt per day.

Okay, great. Noted. All right, let's shift to daily performance and essentials and the things that we're lacking in our diets. Right. So things like, if we're thinking about micronutrients like magnesium and thiamine, they play a crucial role when it comes to our energy and our performance. So why are these two specific micronutrients so crucial for our energy and performance?

They're sort of work together. So basically, in order to activate thiamine to its active form, you need magnesium. And so that's why typically they're talked about a lot, but also from the energy perspective is B1 allows us to metabolize and use glucose for energy, and magnesium allows us to actually make ATP and then activate ATP. So magnesium actually has to dock onto the terminal phosphate on ATP, cleave it all off, and that's actually what releases energy. So if you don't have magnesium to dock onto ATP, you can't even activate your. Your own energy for yourselves.

You have an incredible gun. Magnesium. What did you say, 50% of the population, more than 50% of the population is deficient in magnesium today?

I would say 50% is not hitting the RDA. And then depending on the patient population, so as many as 80% of postmenopausal women, especially if they have osteoporosis, are going to be magnesium deficient. But as little as maybe 30, but of quote, unquote, normal, healthy college students have been shown to be actually magnesium deficient. So I'd say somewhere between 30 and 80% are deficient in magnesium.

Is this another one of those biomarkers like your magnesium can come back within range? I often look at potassium. So if potassium's low. Yes, there's a connection to magnesium deficiency.

Yep. So actually, some of the biomarkers for magnesium deficiency, oddly enough, besides magnesium in the blood, which isn't perfect, is low calcium and low potassium, because magnesium allows the potassium to stay in the cell. And so if you will lose it, if you're deficient in magnesium, you'll lose the potassium out of your cell and then you'll pee it out, and thus your blood levels of potassium will be low.

Why do people want to focus specifically on magnesium?

Well, I think because most people don't understand that actually testing potassium and calcium is a good marker for magnesium. It doesn't intuitively make sense. You need to understand that magnesium keeps potassium in the cell and that's why to you want to measure potassium. And same thing with calcium. You don't realize that magnesium activates vitamin D, which then allows you to absorb calcium. And hence low calcium in the blood can actually be a sign of low magnesium because you're not activating vitamin D and absorbing calcium. No, no one, very few people understand that. So that's why I think we don't focus on potassium and calcium in the blood. We focus on magnesium.

And I want to bring that up because, you know, a lot of times when we're focusing on our diet or exercise, it's like this focus on macronutrients. Right. Instead of these micronutrients that have, have a big, they play a big role in how we show up every day in our energy and our mood and our hormones and our body.

Yeah. Because we're not, we're not, we're not eating less macronutrients. In fact, we're eating more, more carbs. Right. Probably more fats, maybe less protein. But the macronutrients aren't what's out of whack, it's the micronutrients. There's been really good studies looking at the, the mineral and vitamin analysis of crops over the last 50 to 80 years, both in the UK and in the United States. States. And on average, plants have lost 30 to 40% of the minerals and vitamins. And same thing with animal foods, maybe 20%. So we're getting less. You have to eat 30% to 50% more food to get the micronutrients that we used to get just 50 to 80 years ago. And it's, that can lead to what's called high calorie malnutrition simply because you're getting more macronutrients without the microbes that you need to metabolize.

Yeah. This is where, you know, understand your biology for sure. Especially if you're someone who's not consuming a lot of these micronutrients through food or plant based foods also. But supplementation is so beneficial for people these days. Right. I'm not a big fan of supplementing for the sake of supplementing, but this is actually a perfect segue to IM8.

Yes.

When this product came my way, I am such a skeptic of new brands that come out. I will always Want to try the supplement, you know, for an extended period of time before I recommend it. And honestly, Dr. James, like after a few weeks I noticed a difference in my energy, in my digestion. So we'll dive into it. This is a brand, Imate Daily Essentials. It's a groundbreaking supplement that was co founded by David Beckham. It's designed to replace the need for 16 separate supplements. It supports key areas like energy, cognitive function, gut health and more. I love the flavor. It's got a full spectrum of ingredients, 92 premium ingredients in one supplement. But here's where we have to call it out. It's the quality of the ingredients and the clinical dosing that is in this that makes it so powerful. So what is the Daily Ultimate Essentials?

Yeah, the Daily Ultimate Essentials is Fantastic. It has 92 ingredients, full spectrum multivitamin, mineral, medicinal mushrooms. It has a gut health formula complex. So prebiotics, probiotics and even postbiotics. The it also has the CRT8 technology as well. And there's so many other things that have clinical effective doses in here like Coq 10 for the heart, MSM for joints, a superfoods blend. And what's really cool too is it has, it has the herbs, the adaptogens as well. And so it truly is that once a day, daily Ultimate Essential, what attracted.

You to the brand?

So like you said, like many companies have approached me to do similar things and I've said no, because I've looked at the label and I've just said, you know, the nutrients are missing in this product. Like there's very, very little bit of copper, there's not good magnesium, there's not good multivitamin in here. It's missing so much. Why would someone pay and why would I recommend a premium product if it's lacking in nutrition? But the fact that also because it has clinically effective doses of CoQ10 is one of my favorite supplements. Like I've been publishing on it for like 15 years and, and it's not like a sexy supplement, Coq 10, but it has so many good clinicals. And like you said, after a week two, I noticed the benefits from it, the energy, the digestion, the focus. And so once I understood that, okay, it has a great profile that I can get behind, but it also tastes really good, then I was sold.

Yeah, the thoughtfulness around. When you look at any type of a multivitamin mineral, the CO factor of specific key nutrients is essential in order for them to absorb. Right. Absorbability is really key. And I think that this is what makes it differ from a lot of the other trending brands that are out there. So let's just call them out. How does this formulation differ from brands like AG1 and other formulas?

So this formulation differs because numerous things. So there's many different minerals and vitamins in here at I would say clinically effective doses that aren't in the leading greens brands. That would be things like, like. So take for example IMH B1 is 33% more than your typical leading greens brand, we won't mention. But over two times the B2, over two times the magnesium, over three times the selenium, four times the chromium, five times the copper and seven and a half times the manganese. So that's a lot of different vitamins and minerals at much higher doses in IMA. But also there's branded ingredients too. So veg D3 which is from a sustainable source from algae. And veg D3 has clinicals too showing that it increases vitamin D in the blood. Most plant based vitamin Ds don't have clinicals to show that it increases D in the blood. It has quadrifolic which is a very, very bioavailable form of folate which most companies don't do. It has methyl cobalamin which is a better absorbed form than compared to cyanocobalamin, selenomethionine which is a great form and magnesium glycinate which is a good form. Yeah. And copper and manganese citrate which are good forms as well. So and chromium picolinate which is the most studied form of chromium. So you have not only seven nutrients at higher levels, but you have these branded ingredients and really good forms of vitamins and minerals.

So everything you're discussing, so things that have supported with vitality, with energy, with our immune system, adaptogens for stress, for bone health, for our muscles, for our brain, our cognitive function, anti inflammatory ingredients, gut function, pre pro and postbiotics. Like and yes, it tastes good. Like it's not something you're not plugging your nose to get this one down. There's like this acai berry flavor with like a note of chocolate. I guess if you had to own in. Right. Would you describe it the same way?

Yeah, it's exactly. You get this earthy flavor with hints of chocolate and then that berry acai flavor at the end which is really nice. And to have that many ingredients with, especially with superfoods, typically it doesn't even smell good, but I made smells great.

Yeah. My son actually took a few sips of it and he was fine with it. So that says a lot. And I'm still doing a test, so I'm noticing a difference in the quality of my hair, which for women, especially men too, as we age, I just. That's a big shout out for people who are wanting something for that. Talk to us about some of the clinical trials and the third party testing that IMAID has done.

Sure, sure. So right now we have a 30 day result, interim result of a 12 week randomized clinical study. And basically 93% of participants noted improvements in energy, 73% noted improvements in physical performance, and 60% notice improvements in digestion, bloating, hair, skin and nails like you just mentioned. So to already have within 30 days, that type of benefit is very, very significant. But also you don't see brands that have, are actually putting, putting, you know, money behind it from a clinical perspective.

Right. And like I said before, the supplement industry is becoming like the wild west. There was a woman earlier this year, I got her off of 60 supplements, 60 plus supplements. Right. Some of the things she needed to be on other things were trending on Instagram, other things she heard that were really great for longevity. Just stuffing these things into her body, not even knowing if there were things that she needed. Right. So this takes away the need for the, that super easy to travel with. You just scoop it into a glass of water, it shakes and blends really easily. There's no chunks or anything like that, which is lovely. What is the Beckham Stack?

Yeah, Beckham Stack is the Daily ultimate essentials and then the Daily ultimate longevity. So the Daily ultimate longevity has NAD3, DHA in there, 200 milligrams of DHA. And then it also has a CRTA technology and then it has vitamins and minerals. So it has the folate as the quadrifolic, selenium, copper, B12 and niacin. And the NAD3 has three ingredients in it, threeacrine, which is kind of like caffeine but without the side effects. It has the cuprous niacin and then it has a wasabi extract. So it's meant to boost NAD levels.

Talk to us about NAD. NAD incredible supplement that we all need.

NAD is the, let's say the stimulant for SIRT1, which is a longevity and enzyme. Basically. SIRT1 depends on NAD. And SIRT1 is all the benefits of things like autophagy, mitophagy, mitochondrial, mitochondrial biogenesis. Getting rid of senescent cells comes from SIRT1, because SIRT1 also stimulates AMPK. So those two longevity enzymes are basically dependent on NAD. And so that's why NAD is important from that perspective. And.

And so this is so key. Well, yeah, longevity from any aging marker. I mean, get it into my body. I'm here for that. You mentioned cell rejuvenation tech. Tell us more about that.

Yeah, so that has a brown algae extract called Neutralga, which is a branded ingredient and it's standardized to 35% Fucoidans. It has things like berberine in it, spermidine, trans resveratrol in there as well, and then. And several other ingredients as well. And basically the CRT8 technology, the cell rejuvenation technology is meant to be. It has H. Pluvialis in there as well, which also has astaxanthin, which is a great carotenoid antioxidant. And so, yeah, that's in both products.

So all those really incredible antioxidants that we keep hearing about for aging. Really, really well, all in one formulation in one cell supplement.

Correct. It even has urolithin A in there as well.

Really? Okay. For. For the gut. Okay. Incredible. Something I was surprised to see was MSM.

Yes.

Yeah. Tell us about MSM.

Yeah, you don't see MSM really in Coq 10 as much because they're considered old school supplements.

Yeah, like it's like something.

Correct. Not quote unquote, that's sexy. But yet they have the most clinical studies and MSM is one of those, particularly for joint health, but also allergies. So many studies have shown that actually MSM helps allergies. So that actually may be why my allergies started improving when I started taking really is actually the MSM potentially. So that is definitely one benefit that I noticed too after about a week or two.

Really? What allergy symptoms do you.

Do you have usually it's just like a lot of mucus and sometimes a lot of sneezing, things like that. And that doesn't really, really happen that much anymore.

So amazing. People are going to want to know for you specifically, what about other personal habits that you have. Are you supplementing with a lot of other supplements also?

I do take a lot of other supplements, like collagen. I will take some whey protein after a workout. I do take several other longevity supplements as well. So basically krill oil. I take cod liver oil too. If I go through, I take so many, it's like hard to like, I don't have them all memorized.

So you know, it was funny. I was thinking about you coming on. And over the past two weeks, I've really only been taking IM8. It's like, this is really refreshing. Like, I really wanted to see how it worked on its own. So I cut out a lot of the other things. It was really refreshing to cut some other things out and then now be able to add in, like, you know what, you know, if I'm sleeping poorly or if I'm exercising more at the gym, if I need more brain fuel or whatever it is. We can really, like, use supplements the way that they're supposed to be used in the body. Body. Right. To supplement what we might be lacking. Tell us about the connection between pre pro and postbiotics. We talk a lot about gut health and gut healing on this show. I think that the synergy between the three is really special.

Yeah. And so basically, postbiotics, not a lot of people understand them, and we're sort of early on in the research with postbiotics. But if we start with probiotics, basically a lot of the probiotics that, that are out on the market now, they help with gut health, they help with immune function and reducing overactive immune function. And so that's where a lot of the autoimmune issues come in. That's where a lot of the allergies come in. So actually, just taking a probiotic can sometimes help with those types of things.

Let's talk about the delivery of imaid. I think that that's really special. Speaking about the quality of your digestion, if you know that you're somebody who suffers from digestive issues, then having these pre pro and postbiotics are beneficial. But the delivery mechanism of a powder is also beneficial.

Yeah. And what's really too helpful is the digestive enzymes. I've never taken a digestive enzyme before, and I think that's potentially why my digestion is so much better on this, too. It helps you digest the fats, the proteins, the carbs that we're getting. And so I think because a lot of our food is lacking in a lot of the cofactors and vitamins and minerals, now we're having a harder time digesting them because of.

Of that.

And so to have those digestive enzymes in here is probably why 60% of people are noticing improvements in digestion and bloating.

I love that you brought that up. So I would say that the number one thing that my clients are surprised when I put them on is a digestive enzyme. They've never taken one before. They haven't heard of, heard of it before, but your digestion literally is like the root of all of your health, Right. As well as your gut health.

Yeah. It's how you extract all the nutrition from the food. So if you can't digest pasta, you're not going to be able to get the vitamins and minerals that are in there.

They really haven't missed anything.

No.

Right.

Yes.

All right. Amazing. So, as we wrap up, a lot of people tell us a little bit about your. Your. Your daily routine.

Sure. Yeah. I'm try to get 10, 15 minutes of morning sunlight. Even on a cloudy day. I always get asked this, like, well, if it's cloudy, what do I do? You're still going to get three times the light as indoor lighting. Maybe not, not this nice of lighting that's happening here, but you still get lighting on a cloud, a cloudy day. And so I think just walking 10, 15 minutes in the morning to get that sunlight to set your circadian rhythm. So you can actually secrete melatonin when you're supposed to and at the amounts that you're supposed to. So you can even fall asleep and then hydrate with some electrolytes, get some IMA in you as well to get all those vitamins and minerals, get that protein in you. I typically like to do 30, 50 grams of protein in the morning. Usually I have like, like some four pastured raised eggs. Maybe I have some meat, maybe I don't that day. Usually I like to wait a little bit later for my digestion to kind of kick in before I have more meat, but that's kind of my morning routine.

Yeah. And what are the rituals throughout the day? Do you, do you practice? I'm asking as a, you know, we have men on the show often. Not as, not as often as I'd like yet. But what are some of the rituals that you find really help keep you like, you do so much in your life and you show up online mind so well and with all the science and, you know, research that you're doing, what are some staples that you need in your life in order to perform your best?

I think everybody needs to have like some type of hobby and to try to get outside as much as possible. So I try to play basketball 20, 30 minutes a day just to get outside, just to kind of, you know, get in my own thoughts, get a rhythm, get some exercise in, or just go for a walk. I think that's really helpful. Mentally, physically, I think we all need some type of movement. But if you can get outside too too. I think that's even better. So I think taking breaks as well, I don't think you should work more than an hour and a half at a very high intense pace without taking a 10 minute break. And even sometimes I'll take a 20, 30 minute power nap, that, that can help too. I don't, I don't do it like all the time, but sort of people think like, oh, I need to be on this grind all the time.

Yeah.

When actually if you just recover a little bit, you throw in 20, 30 minutes of recovery throughout the day, you're going to be so much more, you're gonna perform a lot better, let's say.

Are you setting a timer for yourself?

No, I just, I just, I, I just wake up. Like if I take a nap, you're saying like I'll just wake up after 20, 30 minutes. That's all I need.

I followed up with that question because, you know, here we are talking about an incredible superfood supplement. Supplements work as well as your lifestyle does. Right. So I just wanted to hear from someone who is such a pro in the industry what some of your rituals were. You are on the medical advisory team, you're on the scientific board also. So what are some things that we can look forward to? For my ibate.

Yeah, so we're working on a collagen. We're going to probably do colostrum creatine and some other like really interesting supplements as well. Whey protein, plant protein, that will come out in 20, 25, later, end of year. So that's things that people can look forward to.

Beautiful. All right, so if you're listening and you're curious, go to im8health health.com they provided a code for today's show, which is Monash Sharma 10. But tell us where people can find you.

Instagram. I'm Most active at Dr. James DCK and then my website is Dr. James DCK dot com.

Fantastic. Can I have you back to talk about all your books and all these excited things that you're working on?

Excited to come back for sure.

Thank you.