483: Why Molecular Hydrogen Changes Everything: From Hormone Detox to Nervous System Regulation with Kashif Khan

I don't think high cholesterol is bad news. If you have oxidized cholesterol plaque forming, that's bad news. And the ingredient that fuels plaque is cholesterol. So this medical answer of cholesterol is demonized is based on the very last step of the cholesterol got oxidized, damaged and starts to accumulate.

Before we get started on this episode.

Do you struggle with bloating, cramps or stomach aches? I'm asking because lots of midlifers tell me that this is one of the things that they navigate and I've got a 30 second hack that will improve your gut health here.

Ready?

Get More Minerals now you've probably heard about using probiotics to increase good gut bacteria, and that's true. But did you know that the best gut bacteria, the ones that ease the bloating and inflammation, get rid of brain fog, keep you in a fat burning state, all need minerals to work their magic. In fact, a 2020 study found that your gut bacteria need an abundance of calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, phosphorus and several other minerals to truly thrive. Now the trouble is that most of us do not get enough minerals. And According to a 2022 report by the CDC, more than 90% of American adults have at least one mineral deficiency. And that lack of minerals, it's affecting your gut, your brain and more. So this is what I use Beam minerals for. They are made of a liquid supplement that gives you every single mineral the right ratios with fast absorption and it's super easy to take. All you do is you take a 1 ounce shot of mineral rich liquid every morning. In 30 seconds a day, you strengthen your gut bacteria, replenish your mineral stores, and because they absorb so quickly, you can literally feel them working. It's like your body and brain are turning back on. You can give Beam minerals a try. Head over to www.beamminerals.com and use code Natalie Jill and you'll save 20% off your first order.

Welcome to Midlife Conversations. I'm your host, Natalie Jill, and I'm passionate about having amazing conversations that matter to us midlife women. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated health topics and breaking them down simply so that we can optimize aging Together. I share actionable steps to help you thrive in what I believe are our best years to come. Join me as I interview the most inspiring people living their best midlife years and dive into essential topics like hormone changes, health optimization, weight management, blood sugar, emotional well being, relationships, beauty, and so much more.

If you've been listening to my show for any amount of time. You know that we've gone deep down the rabbit hole on health detective topics in midlife, especially when it comes to our hormones, when it comes to gut health, even cholesterol and heart disease and then anxiety and nervous system regulation recently. And also exploring the stuff around DNA. Well, I have made my friend Cash unknowingly to him, he didn't, he did not sign up for this when he became my friend, but has sort of become my health detective guru. He is so knowledgeable when it comes to blueprinting out what's really going on with our health, what the root, root, root, root causes. He calls it the roadmap starting at DNA. And he is so good at figuring out the reason behind the reason that things are going on with our body. I have personally blown up his phone a million times. I'm sure he regrets giving me his text number at some point, but I thought I have to get him back on the show because some of the questions I've been asking him recently are also questions I have received from many of you based on recent episodes. So today I want to dive in more about hormones, about cholesterol and heart disease, gut health, anxiety and nervous system. And then a thing that he figured out that has really, really helped to resolve a lot of this in a kind of a unique way. So thank you for being back here, Cash. I always love bringing you on and asking you all my questions.

I felt like I never left because of the text messages, so.

So I'm going to just dive right in. I'm going to start with. We had done a few episodes around DNA and we talked a lot about hormones and the same situation. I have a lot of my listeners and also clients within my programs have experience where they learn that they don't have the best detox pathways and especially when it comes to hormones. And that's made them nervous because in midlife we're told you've got to do hormone replacement, especially perimenopause, even postmenopause. And it's very scary for some. And I've shared in some several episodes about what I've done to adjust things, lowering numbers and adding in some supplements. But I wanted to get your take on this and why does it seem so, so real, like so many women that at the same time they're being told about hormones are also being told they don't have these great detox pathways.

So. So the connection between hormones and detox pathways wasn't really not seen as A toxin, first of all, right? It's seen as this thing that drives reproductive health. It's a seen as a thing that drives.

Body type, you know, muscle development, fat retention, mood. But think of a hormone as like a forever chemical. It's this thing that when you make it, until you use it, it's on, right? And also think of your body making the right amount based on what it assumes you're going to do, based on what your ancestors did. So if your ancestors were agricultural farmers that lifted and pushed heavy things, that's what your hormones think you're going to do. If your ancestors were warriors stressing their muscle all day, that's what your hormones think you're going to do. But now we all kind of do the same thing with entirely different tools that we've been given. And so there's unused hormones that, yes, become inflammatory. And so there's this big question around, how do you detoxify them? And there are pathways genetically wired into your biology that are designed to remove redundant or unused hormones. Now you take all that and put it in a context like 2025, where everything you touch and breathe and smell is a hormone disruptor. So you take this story and you overload it with additional hormones that are external. That was never supposed to happen, right? So somebody who's wired with bad detox pathways, overproduction of certain hormones. Now, in a completely different context, which human biology hasn't caught up with yet, this is why you see all of these aggressive, like crazy menopause, anxiety, weight gain, fibromyalgia, younger and younger women getting cancer, eight year old girls getting their period, it's a combination of all of it.

So when someone says a hormone disruptor creates estrogen, so let me just make an example. So something, someone says that you're doing this and it can produce excess estrogen in your body, the logical thought that a lot of women will have is, well, isn't that good?

Good?

If we're low on estrogen, don't we want that? So help us understand that.

So we, we have this belief that we need estrogen for our bone and brain and heart. And a little bit of that is true, right? But overdoing, the, overloading your body with it, it is a highly inflammatory molecule. So yes, you need it. Men need it too, right? Women also need testosterone. Men need it too. We all need progesterone, we need everything. But you need it in the right volume at the right time. Menopause doesn't happen by accident. It's not, there's no, there's the assumption is fertility is no longer a need and why keep driving this system that causes damage? And so where do all these diseases like fibromyalgia and endometriosis and fibroids and, you know, breasts come from? They come from excess estrogens causing inflammation. One, there's other courses too, but this is one of the big ones. So. Yeah, so it's this thing that at the right volume this magic homeostatic middle ground is beautiful and at the wrong volume will hurt you.

And then is there, I'm assuming there's a difference. I mean like if you're adding, call it, you're adding estradiol or you're even adding bias, which I know you're a fan of, like a combination. I'm assuming that's a very different quality, a very different usable quality than an estrogen producing disruptor. Is that accurate?

Yeah. So what happens with disruption? So let's clarify that because people don't understand, what does that mean? Endocrine disruptor, hormone disruptor, estrogen mimic, all these words you hear. So what happens is you go outside and you breathe a chemical, a pesticide, for example. That molecule enters your body and your body doesn't know what it is, doesn't recognize it, and for some reason assumes that it looks like estrogen and it allows it to then enter estrogen receptors that are in all of your tissue. So two things happen. That chemical is now in an estrogen receptor not giving the right signals, you're not getting the benefit of the estrogen. And second thing is your actual estrogens don't have enough receptors to dock into because they're being occupied with the chemical. And so now they free flow and cause inflammation to your tissues because they're not going where they're supposed to go. Right.

With estrogen mimics versus adding estrogen, you're adding estrogen so that estrogen ends up in receptor and starts doing the job of estrogen estrogen.

Right, okay, so that makes total sense. So it's, it's estrogen mimicking because it's going to those same receptors, but it's not fueling with good estrogen, it's not giving you usable estrogen that we need. So what about something like if you take something like soy or tofu, where there's definitely a divide there, where some people say, oh that's good, that's gonna. Do you think of that as a disruptor or is that actually healthy for menopausal women?

So here's when it comes to Foods. You know, a lot of the debate has to do with we forgot how to prepare things and we forgot the combinations. As opposed to the science of like separating, siloing each thing out, which is not the way it's supposed to do. So science has this.

The belief is always, let's study this thing, let's isolate this thing, right? But that's not the way the thing was supposed to enter your body. So for example, why is it, if soy is such a hormone disruptor, that Japanese people that eat natta canes for breakfast every day don't have estrogen issues because they ferment it? You're supposed to ferment soy, right? If you eat tempeh, which is fermented, soy protein value is much higher. Soy, sorry, estrogen disruption is much lower. So we forgot how to prepare the food. Now you eat commercial soy, which is not fermented, which is not sprouted, which is not soaked, which is just plant, you know, put on the plate. That's not how you're supposed to eat it. And you can, you can extend that thinking to other things. Like women are fearful of eating meat and they'll say that meat causes cancer. And I mean, there's all these studies around me causing cancer, which by the way, you can validate all those studies and they're true. But then there's all these other studies that say if you have cancer, go eat meat. Right? So which is true. Well, the truth is, how do we eat it, how do we prepare it? If you just eat the muscle, which is this, you know, first world luxury, then yes, it increases something called mtor and growth hormone, which will also fuel cancer cells. But we weren't supposed to only eat the muscle. We were all supposed to have the collagen and the ligaments and the tissue and the bone broth, which is a direct mitigator of the growth hormone. So if you eat it properly, it's perfect. Mother Nature, God, whatever you believe in already made it perfect, right? We mess things up and isolate things and make them convenient and luxurious. And so just knowing about taking a step back around, how am I supposed to prepare this stuff versus this is bad or this is good?

So kind of like when you talk about even like cooking meat, so when you, when it's burnt, basically versus broil, like just different ways. There would be another example.

If you black and you charge that blackened stuff is highly carcinogenic versus broiling it, like you said, it's not black, there's no carcinogen, right?

So it's so that's why, like, a stew or even boiling would be good. Or braising. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so that makes a lot of sense here. So just one more question around the hormone stuff. So then what we hear is, okay, well, in the. And I've done this to myself. If you don't have the best pathways for detoxification of estrogen, for example, then you could add things like dim or broccoli sprouts or calcium deglutarate. Are you a fan of that or are we just perpetuating another problem there?

So there is. So suppose you do make toxic estrogens, and suppose you do decide to go on estradiol. This was your story, right? So there's two layers to that. You now know you're fueling the fire because we already identify that you're making the wrong stuff and you don't want to be adding more. So there's two choices. You stop or you add something to support the detox to get it out of your body. The excess is the problem. Right. And so, yes, things like calcium, but there are this big question of when you have been doing this for years. So some of these listeners are just hearing this for the first time. But what about the past 20 years of the wrong habits? Right. What about the past 20 years of cosmetics and soaps and shampoos and all these fragrances that have overloaded estrogens? That is hard to deal with. And there are very few tools that do it because now the estrogen is getting stored in your fat, your tendons, your ligament, because your body's trying to keep it away from your organs to not cause damage. And now that excess burden, when you do a detox or like a liver cleanse, it's not targeting your fat in your liver and your tendons, your ligaments, your tendons going to your bloodstream, Right? So there are very few tools that can actually do that properly. One of them is a tool that you want to talk about today. Right? We'll bring that up later. But that's the one.

Yep, we're going to talk about that. Yep. Yeah. By the way, as I'm asking him a million questions at the beginning of this, that, that have come in from, from you all listeners, and then my own questions, we do, we have a solution towards the end, so don't, don't worry. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot the conversation there. But I wanted to understand all of this first. And then I'm gonna, we're gonna share what I've started using And I'm actually gonna share it to share it too. I didn't want to do it quite yet until we explain what's. What it is. Okay, so, so, so for if I'm understanding correctly with hormone replacement, it's just not black and white. If you do choose to do hormone replacement, he's not necessarily saying he's against it at all. But if you have that, the bad detox pathways, we have to be paying attention to that. And we also have to be paying attention to not just countering what we're putting in now, but also what do we do with all these years leading up to this that we've had that going on. So did I hear that correctly?

So that's moving forward, keeping it clean, but also going back and getting rid of what's accumulated that makes sense.

Okay, let's talk about heart health for a minute here, especially cholesterol, because this is another topic. So it's been very confusing to people if they have high cholesterol. And I'm talking genetic high cholesterol. So familia, the lipidemia, not that just you ate really bad for the last few years and now you've got high, but you've had a pattern of high cholesterol, me included, had it since I was a kid. And there's a few genetic markers that necessarily aren't going to react or respond well to statins. And that's. That also gets confusing. So I wanted a couple questions in here. One, I think, I personally think statins have gotten over prescribed, but I wanted to get your opinion on statins. Are they a complete no for everybody or can some people do them or. And should they? And what about people that can't tolerate statins and have that genetically high cholesterol?

So firstly, I don't think high cholesterol is bad news. Right? If you have oxidized cholesterol plaque forming, that's bad news. And the ingredient that fuels plaque is cholesterol. So this medical answer of cholesterol is demonized is based on the very last step of the cholesterol got oxidized, damaged and starts to accumulate. But why is there cholesterol in your body? Your body is using it to fight inflammation. So it's a very important tool. Your body is using it to make hormones. Very important tool. Your body is using it to fuel fatty tissue like your brain. Which is why you see this direct correlation with statin prescriptions and Alzheimer's and dementia. Right? It's like you're stopping production of the key ingredient that your body needs to fuel your brain. So I would tell you that only 11% of high cholesterol has anything to do with food. 89% has to do with inflammation and your body using it as an anti inflammatory tool. So knowing that, really the answer is cholesterol was designed as a tool to fight inflammation. But our ancestors had acute inflammation, they got injuries. Our ancestors got stabbed by a sword when they were in battle. They dropped something on their foot while they were farming and the cholesterol would fix that acute injury. And it was actually highly beneficial to have what you have these rare genetic traits that maintain high cholesterol levels, which means you're better able to recover and repair, right? So no surprise because when we look at your brain, you're a bit of a warrior in your brain, which you're also a warrior in your response to injury. You're designed to be a warrior, right? So that now we take that profile and put it in today's reality where the inflammation is chronic and it's being caused by toxins as opposed to injuries. The cholesterol molecule was not designed to come in contact with toxins. And so the toxin also damages the cholesterol molecule and which allows it to be left behind and build up. So now if anyone's told they have high cholesterol, the next question is, please check my calcium score. If there's no plaque and calcium score is low, consider it a blessing. You can't meet anyone who's lived past the age of 90 that doesn't have high cholesterol. They all do, which is one of the reasons why they live so low. Right? But as soon as you start to have calcium score ticking up and plaque forming, now you're getting to disease centric measurements where you need to work on that separately from the cholesterol. So as an example for you, there's a gene pathway called PCSK9, which is the breakdown of the cholesterol receptor, which is how you get the cholesterol into the tissue and you break it down a little too fast. And so you have more free flowing cholesterol molecules in your bloodstream. Not because you're making too much or you're eating too much, you're underutilizing it. Because once again, you're a warrior and your body wants access in the moment to be able to repair, right? So it's actually meant to be a beneficial trait. Your secret sauce is don't cause inflammation, don't have toxins in your body, don't oxidize the cholesterol and don't use a statin because you're not making too much, you're not binding enough. So as an example, there's a technology called a PCSK9 inhibitor, which is an injection you get at your doctor which just slows the PCSK9 gene down to stop breaking the receptor down. And as opposed to trying to suppress production, which is bad for your brain, bad for your hormones, you just get better at getting into the receptor, which is actually what the problem is. Right. And so yeah, so I have a.

Few questions here, so I want to back up for a minute and I'm going to come back to the PSK9 inhibitor because that's an important thing. If you don't have calcium, you have a calcium score of 0, which I personally did, so I'll share that. But there's other advanced tests like a clearly, for example, or they even like a vaso lab where they do the artery in your neck, which can show like 10 years in advance, which for that one I did actually show something like a very trace amount which is like a 10 year risk, not a, not an immediate risk, a 10 year risk. So when. So do you advise that people that have like these genetic markers or that one, should they be doing those advanced tests? Are you a thought of just the calcium score is like the only indicator. What are your thoughts there? And then also can you just talk a little bit into about like apo B or apo little A because I know those can be excessive exceptions as well.

Yeah. So it's when you talk about molecule size, that's again disease centric thinking, meaning that why did the plaque form? There's certain smaller cholesterol molecules that are easier to get into the tissue and accumulate faster. But that's all post you already caused the problem right now because most of what we hear about apoe APOB and the molecule size and all that, that's a doctor studying disease. What we're saying is we can start way earlier, we don't need to worry about that stuff. Let's start way earlier, which is if there's no inflammation, the cholesterol and there's no toxins, the cholesterol doesn't get oxidized, so it doesn't really matter. Right. If we're looking at that stuff, we're already too far ahead. And so in terms of calcium score, I think it's an indicator of where you're at right now. And if the cholesterol is putting a disease risk, which means once again you don't need to worry about the statin quite yet. Let's work on reducing the toxic burden. Let's work on potentially a couple peptides that help clear up the plaque because there are peptides that will do that. And then let's work on the cause. Where is this source of inflammation? Is it your toxic estrogen that you weren't aware of? Is it what you're breathing and where you live? Do you live near agriculture breathing in pesticides? Is it that your home has mold in it? Is it that you are overly stressed and your cortisol is causing systemic inflammation? Is your gut broken? So that's really the work to be done. Where did the inflammation.

That makes a lot of sense. So I hear what you're saying because you're saying by going and looking at an advanced thing like a clearly or so that might be helpful. I get what you're saying in medical world tenure out. But if we're ignoring all the things that got us to here, which is not just diet, he's saying this has nothing to do with diet. Actually this is like all the other things that we're talking about. I mean it could have to do with diet, but it's not about just eating low fat or anything like that. If you're saying instead of saying let's go chase the past, let's go now, make sure we don't create that moving forward and then we don't have that 10 year risk, is that accurate? Okay, that makes sense. So that makes total sense. Okay, so now let's talk about that PSK9 now. So I actually have that, that DNA and I know a lot of people have that have that gene and there is actually a prescription out there. I think there's one, it's called Repatha, which is made to be a PSK9 inhibitor. The issue I've heard with that is it's like a one size injection for everybody. So whether you're a 300 pound man or 100 pound woman, it doesn't matter. It's this one and you cannot, the way that it's built, you can't just do like a trace amount. So for some people that could drop them too low, that could be dangerous. Do you know much about that?

It's a gene therapy. So versus so drugs, supplements, food are highly dependent on BMI and how big you are and how tall you are and you want the dose appropriate for your body. A gene therapy isn't a dose of a drug. It's a signal to your genes to work differently. Right. So it's not the same. It's not like how much of this do you need? You need the amount that allows the signaling to your genes. Right. Which is for example, a very well known gene therapy, the COVID vaccine. Right. Everybody got the same dose because it's not about your body weight, it's about the signal required to speak to your genes. So just got it. So the same thinking. And so yeah, so some doctors take their thinking from other stuff and apply it to this. But you don't need to, it's not a dose, it's a gene therapy. Right.

So someone that actually has that gene, that therapy would be beneficial then. But someone who does not have that gene, that's where you'd have the issues and the side effects.

Exactly. So the gene variant. So everybody has a gene. Now what version of the gene do you have? So the person that has the GG allele, as it's called, the ultra fast breakdown would see incredible benefit because they're actually solving the right problem. The person that doesn't have the GG version didn't need it because they're not breaking the receptor down too fast and it's not going to really move the needle. And that person really has to go back to what's causing this elevated cholesterol in its inflammation.

Okay, that's a really important distinction there. So like when. So for example, if a cardiologist says no, that one has major side effects, it's. But what's the gene that you have? Like what's the variant of that gene? Because if you have that, it's the right problem you're solving. That makes total sense. Okay, that makes total sense. Okay, so that was my question's about heart and cholesterol. So back to the statin thing. So do you ever think a statin is appropriate for anybody?

I mean it's good for the emergency, but it's not. People that have been on Statins for five to 10 years haven't done any work on the actual problem.

So it's not going to like why do you have inflammation, what toxin is in your body? And if you didn't do that work, you're going to be on that statin for the rest of your life. And it's going to destroy you because it's bad for your hormones, bad for your brain, bad for inflammation fighting. You're going to need other medications because of that medication.

Because all it's doing is basically lowering a vanity number, but it's not actually addressing the root or create or fixing the problem. And then for the other therapies. So let's say, and we're going to talk about things you can do to go back and fix the toxic load, all of that. But if you were to do something like the repatho or something like that, you're even of a fan. Like don't do that until you absolutely have to. So when that coronary artery scan did, I do. I understand that. So it's not a preventative. It's like if you actually have, I.

Would say step one, stop thinking of cholesterol as a bad thing. Right. It's a very good thing. But cholesterol is the key ingredient for a bad thing, which is plaque. Plaque is a bad thing. That only happens if the cholesterol gets oxidized, which means there's a toxic burden in your body. So the middle.

So even if you do something like a clearly or and you show that you have something for 10 years, you.

Still have plenty of time because that's.

It's all the things you did all these years before that led to that. So this is not. That is not considered urgent. That may. As long as you're changing.

Yeah. What you're told is like, here's this warning sign and it kind of feels like you're on this trajectory towards something and you're just early. But no, you're not on the trajectory towards a disease. You just oxidize too much cholesterol. So as opposed to like worrying about what's coming, let's just do some cleanup. Work on the toxic burden and then you bypass it.

If you are struggling to eat enough protein every day.

And seriously, who isn't these days it.

Feels like we have become so protein.

Focused and it can feel like a.

Full time job counting those protein grams.

And trying to get it all in.

Now we still need whole food protein, but essential amino acids are what's inside protein that builds muscle and healthy hair, skin and nails. And Kion aminos ensures that you're getting.

All the EAAs from your protein that your body needs.

It contains more essential amino acids.

It is absorbed, utilized easier and it.

Is better for building muscle than protein. I don't know if you knew that. And a lot of the aminos that you see on the market, they are not actually all nine essential amino acids. So when you have all nine essential amino acids, you most BCAAs have only three and some other brands have only eight. When you have all nine, you are getting all of the essential ones and they are. When you look at Kion, the ideal ratio is proven by over 20 years of research. They have a very transparent formula. The exact amounts of each are given, not proprietary and you can have a 60 day money back guarantee to totally try them now. I personally love them. I've been taking them all the time. I usually fill them in my bottle.

When I'm working out.

But recovering from surgery now is becoming even more important because your body, when it's in recovery, recovery mode, can break.

Down muscle a lot faster.

So I've been really working to add in these kion aminos which is very simple to do. They taste great.

I personally love the berry flavor.

If you go to getkeon.com forward slash Natalie Jill, that's getkeon K-I-O-N.com forward slash Natalie Jill, you can save 20% and have a 60 day money back guarantee.

So you're not oxidizing it. That makes sense. That makes total sense. Okay, let's talk about anxiety and nervous system regulation because that's been another topic. And how does that all connect? I know one of the first things that Cash said to me when I first did my work with you is and I wanted to talk about all these other questions and you said, no, no, no, we've got a bigger. This is your immediate thing. You said, this is your immediate thing. This is the thing that is doing all of that. So let's talk about that.

So your. And by the way, so many people are stuck here. So you know, if there's a lot of people that'll say I did everything about the weight loss, it didn't work. I tried this supplement as a scam. I didn't feel anything. You know, I did the red light therapy. Nothing changed. So your body has to be in a rest and recovery mode if you want recovery. And if you're in a fight or flight mode, your biology changes. And we have. It's just the same thing I said about the cholesterol that our body is designed for acute injury, not chronic. And the same thing is with stress. The human body is designed to tolerate stress. 5% of the waking day, day, most of the day is supposed to be resting. There's supposed to be some acute going for the hunt, the weather change some kind of calamity once a day. And the rest of the day was meant to be rest and recovery, right? So now we live the opposite, the 95% of stress and like if we're lucky, we're doom scrolling Instagram and in bed before falling asleep. And that's our 5%. Right? So we're living the opposite. Now if you have a nervous system that didn't experience that for millennia, and all of a sudden we live different. The only time our ancestors experienced two things, chronic stress and loss of control. That feeling of like, I can't do anything about this, it's happening to me. The only time they experienced that was either when there was battle or when there was famine, right? There some weather issue, whatever caused loss of food, or there was battle and you're gone for months and months and months and that's what it took, right? So now when you live like this, your body believes that one of those two things are happening. And it, in, in, in, it shifts your biology and your energetic priorities towards something called fight or flight. So what is fight or flight? Everything is around emergencies, you're, you're, it stops providing energy for your immune system and your guts. Your immune system gets compromised, your gut function gets compromised. Bloaty, gassy, always getting sick. Sick. It's possible to get cancer easier. There's no immune system, right? It flows blood to your fists and your feet instead of to your organs. So your organs are not getting proper nutrient delivery and they're not getting detoxified properly, which, that's a combination for inflammation, right? And you're getting blood flow here, where you didn't even need, also starts to increase your inflammation level. Intentionally maintain you at a high inflammation level so that you're able to repair from the emergency injury. If you get punched, stabbed, kicked, that you respond and repair quickly. And you don't need any of that, right? You don't need any of that because you're not in battle and you're not starving and you're not in famine. And so now when you take that context and you start to throw your hormones and your supplements and your treatments into it, the body is saying, I'm not trying to repair right now. I'm not trying to recover. I'm trying to conserve this energy for when that, that sword stabs me, that I can quickly recover. And that's the priority right now. And until the fight or flight is shut off, you'll stay like that. And so of all the people that we work with, it doesn't matter if it's like an NBA athlete or a Hollywood celebrity or a stay at home mom or dad. We always, always, always start with nervous system. And then when someone is wired like you, we spend a little extra time there, right? So, and why? Because your perception is driven by neurochemicals. Neurochemicals are driven by genetic instruction. So we all see the world differently. And some of us are wired to take on more stress and be warriors and it burns us out. Some of us are wired to perceive way more stress than others and actually be fearful and not want to do things and get frozen. Some of us are wired to imprint more emotion than others and remember what things feel like and it hurts all the time. Some of us are wired to give things more meaning than other people give it. So there's a heavier weight to stuff. So all these unique traits of our neurochemicals put into a world like 20, 25 where you're constantly triggered by everything and it's never stopping. Nervous systems are fried and in that context, fight or flight, that has to be resolved before you start working on other stuff.

So how if that is somebody, how somebody's truly genetically wired like, like myself. And it's like that's how we feel best, right? Like, so that is like the problem solving, the urgency, the all of that feeling. Is it about stopping that or is it about balancing it and saying, okay, you get that's like a certain percentage of your day, but now you have to work the rest of the day to get out of that?

I think it's a couple of things. It's firstly recognizing that nobody's right and wrong. It's all perception and we see things differently. So first step is just knowing how your brain works, right? And when you, when you have opinions and you behave a certain way and you get, don't get along with someone, but you get along with somebody else. Why is that? What are you seeing that. That other person? To see somebody operating at a very high level of detail that's always frustrated by the person that forgets to turn the lights off and leaves their socks on the floor, right? Maybe they don't see the detail you see. And so just understanding that is step one, who am I? What do I see?

Step two is once you know who you are, what is the superpower in that? What were you designed to do? Are you the emotional leader of the tribe? Are you the warrior that leads the tribe forward? Are you the risk adverse person that prevents everyone from making mistakes? Lean into your superpower, but also know that you're not supposed to do anything, everything. So what are your weaknesses? And it's okay to know what they are and to either delegate that to someone else or take a supplement to support that at or to know that this is not what I do. Let me focus and be a specialist in what I'm good at. So this awareness of how your brain is wired. And then I would say the last piece is structure, which is take someone like you who is wired to actually need more challenge and more stress than other people to feel the same level of productivity. You need structure. You need to know that what are the top three things I actually need to do tomorrow? And that's it. Because if I don't nail it down, I'm gonna burn myself out. Your brain is just willing to say, yes, yes, yes, and do, do, do, and fry your body.

So. And that's honestly what I've done. Since learning this from you, I. I think I've had a big change where my personality hasn't changed. Like, that's still a big part of me. I just, it's very. It's just a small part of the day. So I don't do as many meetings or as podcast interviews or whatever. It's like a. Because I know my brain will go all in on those things and creates that. So I select that. And then I spend many hours at the end of the day in the opposite place. So it's. I mean, not just my workout. It's being in my sauna. It's like we're going to talk about breathing stuff in a few minutes, but just really, like, intentionally, like, do I walk and listen? What am I doing on my walk? Am I taking a work call? No. Or am I going to listen to something that's calming and like.

So.

Because I'm not a meditator and I'm not the. Go do all the things that we were told to do. If you have a dysregulated nervous system.

Yeah. And that's it.

So that's sort of what I love.

Yeah. The. What we think. Think a productive day looks like is go everywhere else in the world. Everyone thinks Americans are crazy. Right. And it's. It's not wrong to achieve. But it's not supposed to be on all the time. It's supposed to be once in a while.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So I've made. Been very intentional in trying to change that. Now, how does stimulants fall into this? Because that's the other thing. This personality tends to think, well, if just more caffeine, I'll get through more. Or like, how does that make this problem worse?

Yeah. Because caffeine, adenine doesn't give you energy. It just turns off your ability to know how tired you are.

Yeah. Adenosine hormone gets blocked from entering your receptors. You just literally can't feel tired even though you're fried. And what that does is. Okay. A cup in the morning, no problem. It's actually great. Coffee is full of polyphenols, Very healthy. As long as it's mold free.

Living off of it, your adrenals are going to be fried. And that's what burnout looks like. That's where your nervous system can't sustain what you're doing. And you're lying to yourself with a mask called coffee.

Or even worse, energy.

Yeah. Oh, horrible. Yeah. Yeah.

Not to speak to extremes, but like we're seeing kids die from energy drinks, literally. Right? Yeah. The body was not meant to move like that and. And be.

No, it's intense. It's intense. Okay. So if you're my next question. And this is what's going to lead into what I really wanted to talk about here today is my. After learning a lot of this, then I felt overloaded. I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do? Like take 20 million supplements? Because we didn't even talk about gut really here. But everything's going also through your gut. So my question. And I know Cash is definitely a fan of supplements. He's not anti supplements. But I was like, there's gotta be a better way. And so he had brought up this idea of hydrogen. And we're going to pivot into that for a minute because I've had guests on before where we talked about hydrogen bottles or hydrogen tablets and that's what I was doing before started talking to you about another level. So can we. I want to pivot into hydrogen. And why you're such a big fan, but why the breathing over a bottle or. Or tablets. And while we're doing it, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Literally. Because I have it next to me and I'm gonna put it on because every time I talk to you about this, I'm like, wait a minute, why aren't I doing it right now? So it's literally gonna go on and I'm gonna do this while we are talking. It's gonna. So you can. You can.

Yeah. So this tool is one of the few things that I found over and over and over again. Doesn't matter. What we're working on seem to benefit. And that was one of the big questions is if you go through your genome or you go through a functional medicine assessment and you really understand all of what's going on in your body in the context of 2025, you're going to end up with a pile of supplements you have to take. Right. And I have a drawer Full of stuff.

And I know I look funny right now.

Sorry, Kash, but I have to breathe.

It while we're talking about it.

You look amazing. It's.

It's the new fabric.

Yeah. So there's this question of. I have a drawer full of supplements, which I do, but most of them I don't use every day. I use them intermittently as needed. There are a few things I do every day. And a big part of that is because I breathe hydrogen daily. Right. And I've learned that it replaces so many things. So a lot of people don't know is that we run a clinical practice also, which I. We deal with patients. I'm not a doctor, but we have a team of doctors. I advise on the genetics, they do the therapeutics. I. And when it comes to, like, these miracle outcomes of, like, we reverse somebody's Alzheimer's, we reverse somebody's Parkinson's, somebody who's been on thyroid medication for 10 years doesn't need it anymore, always. Hydrogen was the main tool that was used there. And it's kind of odd, like, hey, how does it fix this? But also this. Also this, because all of these things are kind of rooted in the central hub of inflammation. These are just different ways of it expressing. And so we have been using it. So the primary area where we've really seen amazing outcomes is in women's health because it's so hard to get toxic estrogen out of the body. So hydrogen is literally the smallest molecule in the universe. We don't know of anything that's smaller. Right. And so because it's so tiny, it has this unique ability to cross every membrane, get into any tissue, get past your blood brain barrier. And remember how I was saying earlier that these toxic estrogens, they end up getting stored in your fat and your tendons, your. These are areas that don't get detoxified. And this is why, you know, you have a lot of fat in your breast, which is why toxic estrogen can cause breast cancer. This is why women going into menopause have, like, the stiff shoulders and lower back pain and knee issues. And because that estrogen gets stored there, but those areas don't get detoxified. And so hydrogen, because it's so tiny, it can go to all these places and clean things up that don't normally get clean. And it's tiny, but it's also intelligent, so it knows what part of your body to prioritize based on signals of where there's high levels of inflammation. So it's tiny, goes everywhere but also goes to the place that needs the most support. And so it's kind of like this autopilot molecule that just knows what to do. And the key to all this stuff is everybody's seeing hydrogen all over the place. You know, there's all these influencers talking about drinking, et cetera. All the science you see that's been published from Japan mostly around, you know, reversal of cancer, reversal of heart disease, et cetera, has to do with heavy dose, which is what you're doing, breathing it. That's the big unique thing people need to know.

Okay, so let's. So high. So if I understand correctly, it's the smallest molecule, and it is the one thing that can really get into all of those cells, all those areas and clean out. So you're. It's. It's a cleanup. It's a cleanup process from the past. Is that. Did I say that?

Yeah. So that's one of many things it does, but that's one. That's a very important. Yeah.

Okay, now what is the difference? So when we hear things like about the water bottles. Let's start with that. And I. And I've definitely featured. I did a show about the water bottle. I did a show about tablets, about hydrogen in general. Like, are those just. Do they work? You just need a lot more of that. Or like, what. What is behind, like, the bottle on the tablet?

The same thing. It differences dose. So the tablet. So what you're doing right now, it's a tablet, is equivalent to. To about 20 seconds of what you're breathing, right? Yeah.

Wow.

And water is useful. You know, the water bottles. Here's the unique challenge is you can drink. It's. What's the same molecule, same everything. You can drink 1 1/2, 2 liters of water a day. Right. That's the norm. Right.

Okay.

We breathe 11,000 liters of air a day. And so if you were to sit there for an hour or two, depending on or even sleep with it, the volume that you could intake, you can't compare to what you can intake from water. And normally this would not be something anyone talks about. But hydrogen is one of the few things where there's no maximum. There's no upper limit, so you can't overdose. The more you do, the better. It just keeps working and working and working and working. So because there's no maximum, we want to intake the maximum them. And you breathing it for an hour is like drinking gallons of water. Right. So. And we just can't compare. So that therapeutic level benefit you Know, drinking a water bottle while you're traveling is a good way to maintain things. But if you're dealing with preventing Alzheimer's, getting rid of breast cancer, trying to have optimal libido and energy in your 70s, you know, you might need a higher dose is what we're saying.

Okay.

So when I.

When he first suggested this to me, I was already doing the tablets and the water bottle. So I. That was.

That's.

That's why I asked that right now, which I still do when I travel now. So now. Cause I'm not bringing this whole. The unit with me when I travel, obviously. But he. When I first started doing the breathing, the first time I did it, I couldn't really do even. I think it was like 15, 20 minutes. And I got nauseous, and I messaged you, and you said, that's good. You said, that means we have a lot of. Can you speak? Because I don't feel that at all right now. But can you. What was the reason that speaks to.

Exactly what we just said? You've been drinking the water, you've been taking the tablets, but you didn't really get to the possible detox load that you could until you breathed it. Now that you breathed it, you're pushing the toxins out so fast that it made you feel sick. Right. So we'll.

Yeah, mildly. I mean, it wasn't terrible, but I felt. I definitely felt a little dizzy and nauseous.

So this is typical. It's called a Herxheimer's response. The toxins coming out cause inflammation as they come out. And so hydrogen is so quick to push toxins out that we often will tell people, take a binder in your first couple of weeks. So something like biotoxin binder from cellcore or activated charcoal of sorts, because the things are coming out quicker, faster than your biology can get them out. So you need to add support. Some people don't mind. They just go through the pain. But I would say take a binder a little bit, but that's testimony to how much stuff didn't come out from the water you were drinking, the tablets you were taking.

Right. That's so why it's. And it. But it didn't take long of doing this, and then I didn't feel that, and now it feels like I actually feel more energized after I do it.

And so you. You. What you're gonna feel is, so here's the equation of aging and disease is how much cellular energy do I have and how much inflammation do I have? What is the toxic burden? What is all the nonsense in my body causing inflammation? And how much energy in my cells to be resilient against that volume to recover? Right. And the challenge is, as we age, our mitochondria deplete, they shrink, and they die, and the toxic burden goes up. It accumulates. And so this equation goes like this, and that's where you get disease, and that's where you start aging faster. It's really that simple. And so hydrogen is one of the few tools that works on both sides of this equation. It's pulling the toxins out, but it's also increasing cellular energy, which is why, after breathing, you do feel good. You know, there's. I came back from LA the other day. I was on this, like, podcast tour, and it was a little intense, no sleep, whatever. And so I. I had to come back to my Monday work schedule, and I didn't feel it. I wasn't feeling good. So I started with hydrogen, and all of a sudden, I was ready to go. Right. So it's increasing energy, reducing the inflammatory toxins that is the opposite of aging, right?

Yeah.

You know, it's funny.

So. So now that I have this, if I'm not traveling, I do it every single night. And I have, like, my. My routine at night, so. And a lot of this started from you. Honestly, Cash. But it's. It started like. We. My husband and I, are super strict about the blue lights at night. So at night, we don't have. We're either wearing blue light blockers, or we don't have any of the main lights on. In our house, we have amber lights, or red light is the only thing that we have. But I have these massage chairs. I know they're the best thing I ever bought years ago, but I put the hydrogen unit right next to it. So what I'll do is I'll go in the sauna first. I go in the infrared, and I sweat, because I like to sweat. Shower. Then I'll go get in the massage chair. Not with any blue light on. And I'll breathe this for about an hour, is what I've been doing now. What's funny, because I don't feel nauseous. I feel great on it. But there was two nights that I'm like. The whole time, I'm like, I don't. Why am I still ramped up? Like, I don't feel anything. And what I noticed was the little thing was unplugged. So I was just sitting there with the thing in my nose without any hydrogen so, so it's both ties. I was like, what is wrong with me? I need a checklist to make sure it's all happening. But it really does a difference. It kind of calms me when I do it, but. And I noticed those nights where I thought I was doing it and I wasn't, it like, I didn't work. So it's also. It can energize you in the right times, or it can also calm.

That's exactly what I mean, is that it's such an intelligent molecule that it will give you whatever the priority is. So if you do it in the morning, it's going to energize you. If you do it in the evening, it's going to help you sleep. The molecule knows what biology needs the most support at any given time, and that's where it goes and offers support. So it clears toxins, reduces inflammation, increases energy to that system. So that system is working better. And so it doesn't make sense because we think of like, this makes me sleep, this makes me wake up. Those are two different things. But it's not doing either of those things. It's addressing the actual biology that's supposed to do that thing and make it do a better job. That's what it does.

Makes sense. Do you know how often do you do this?

I would say three times a week. Ish.

Okay.

I. My mom, I have her do it twice a day. You know, my mom was bedridden with arthritis. She had cognitive decline issues. And she's good now. Like, she's, she's in amazing shape now. She goes to the gym every day and she's in like her late 70s, you know, so she does it twice a day. I do it three times a week. I would like to do it every day. My challenge is my kids always take it away from me and they want to do it. Oh.

Because they're using it too.

So my, my older son, who's now starting university next year, finally cares about school. Right. And so he finds that his concentration, focus and recall and like, how he's able to learn is better if he breathes this stuff. So he's always. And so I just don't have access at the right time. So I might have to get another machine.

And you said you can't overdo it. So like if, like. So I do an hour a day, approximately, which is. You said it's good, but you said I could even sleep in it if I wanted to. I haven't done that yet. But is it better? Like the More you do, like, do you do. I want to try.

The more the better. I have. For example, right now, now I'm working with a stage four cancer patient, so she sleeps with it every night. I'm working with a guy who's an old friend. His dad has Parkinson's, so he sleeps with it every night. And it was about, I would say, three weeks into it, he said there's noticeable change in his dad's nervous system and cognitive function. And by the way, everything I'm saying here, there's published studies on this stuff, but I can. Then I can share published studies on Parkinson's reversal, Alzheimer's reversal, cancer reversal. And it's.

Which we hear about the tablets and bottle too, but so, but I'm. It sounds like they're taking that research and saying this, which is true, but it's just not. You're not getting the. The super charged amount like you're just getting a.

This happens in every industry where there's some initial groundbreaking science and it was sourced, proven and published. And then it gets commercialized and a piece of that science as a truth gets applied to some gimmicky retail product. Right? Same thing in the fashion world. You know, Givenchy has some dress on the Runway that's $20,000, and by the time a year goes by, there's a $20 version of it in Walmart. Right. And it's the same in every industry. So that the science is all true, but there's confusion over the dose that's required to get those kind of outcomes. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the water bottle. It's better to drink hydrogen water than to not drink hydrogen water. But the intent, the studies you see around somebody that had like stage four cancer, sent home to die, and then all of a sudden, two years later, they're fine. That, that comes from high dose breathing.

Now, what I know, like on the machine I have from you, one side is hydrogen, the other side is oxygen. I have not done the oxygen yet. Why would someone want to do the oxygen? Or is that important?

So the primary intention is to breathe the hydrogen. If you breathe the oxygen and hydrogen at the same time, it makes something called Brown's gas. So 66% hydrogen, 33% oxygen, and then there's a slightly different outcome. So think of it in the simplest terms. Think of hydrogen as a tool that makes all of your body's job work better. Right? And then think of oxygen as a tool that just doing the job. So oxygen goes in and kills viruses and creates energy and cleans up your body. So oxygen is like an in time moment tool doing the job. And hydrogen is helping your body do the job better. So that's the difference. That's why we. I really like this machine because most of the hydrogen machines, so the way it works, the technology is you have water and there's a membrane. And the membrane only allows pure molecular hydrogen to pass through the other side. So that's what you're breathing. But the machine that you're on also has a second membrane that also allows oxygen to be extracted. And you can choose to breathe both. And so suppose somebody's really feeling down, breathe the oxygen. It's really going to be a pick me up. Suppose you got a, a cold or flu, breathe the oxygen, you're killing that virus faster. So it's more like an in time thing versus hydrogen is a biological upregulating thing.

And then on the hydrogen there's different settings. Like I have mine on, it's just H600Is. That.

Means the flow rate and how much hydrogen you're getting. So a lot of the bottles, for example, flow at about one third of that rate. So the volume you're getting is also less. So the total dose of vault water versus breathing is less. But. But the saturation is also less because what's called the diode, the ability to actually make the hydrogen what you can fit into hydrogen drinking bottle is a little bit small, so it doesn't have the same output. Right. So yeah, so that's the right flow rate for the therapeutic benefit.

Okay, got it. Can you overdo hydrogen? I know I think you said you can't, but can you?

The only overdue is in the first two weeks. Your toxic load may make you feel sick. Sick. And that's not hurting you. That's not the hydrogen being overdosed. It's like there was just a lot of cleanup work to do and it doesn't feel good coming out. Right. So but you can't overdo. And in fact, what I tell people is start at 15 minutes a day, make sure you don't feel sick. Once you've done that for three or four days, try and get to like 30 minutes and make sure you're still not feeling sick. Once you do that for three, four days, try and get to an hour. And when you're doing an hour and you don't feel sick now you can do 10 hours if you want. It doesn't matter. Right? Right. Yeah.

Wow. And have you ever done like an all day stitch, like have you ever just sat there with it while you're working all day?

I've done an all day eight hour master class where I was breathing it the whole eight hours. Right. And I've also slept with it. So there was a time where I got hit with a pretty nasty virus and so I slept with it and it was amazing.

Yeah. Okay, that's wild. Oh, gosh. Okay, so with, with Hydrogen Cash, did you, have you been able to like go less on your supplements? Like did you get to. And like what type of supplements did get. Were you able to get rid of.

I basically got rid of everything except for things that are like nutrients. So I still take salt, I still take creatine, I still, depending on the weather, take vitamin D. Right. And I'll still take a cardiovascular support thing just because I don't have good cardiovascular genetics. Right. I don't think I really need it anymore. But what I don't take anymore is all my detox stuff stuff, my mitochondrial support, my hormone balance, my mood regulating stuff. I don't take my sleep stuff anymore. So the majority of that drawer is empty. Now if I came home from like a crazy trip or I had extreme stress, whatever that night, I might still take my sleep supplement. Right. But as a day, I take very little now. In fact, I basically have one shot of stuff in the morning and that's about it. So long as I'm making sure I got at least three days of hydrogen, that's week.

So you could take those things that you wanted to, it's just, you don't need them. You're saying because this is doing the heavier work.

Yeah. So in the first two months I didn't stop my stuff. I kind of weaned off while this was weaning up. But once my biology got to the place where all these systems are firing so well, I didn't need it. I can feel the difference. I can feel that when I used to get, when I used to fly to the US and eat American food while traveling, which isn't the best, you know, bread chemical stuff, that my skin would get irritated, that I would feel it. I don't feel that anymore. Right. So I also know I don't, I don't need the stuff that I used to need. Right. So my gut is flatter, my gut microbiome is flourishing. Better. I can feel it. Right. I'll still go through a twice a year gut microbiome repopulate, but I don't need it every day all the time anymore.

Yeah, makes sense. Oh my Gosh. Okay. I know I've asked you 20 million questions today.

As always, I'm sure, I'm sure gonna.

Have more questions for you because I, Because I always do. Every time I learn from you, it leads to more curiosity, which So I love that you come on. And you, you're so helpful for me. You all. I'm gonna. They're gonna link a few things up for you, a few resources below so you have that information. But I also, because I already. I already know there's gonna be a lot more questions about this depending on when you're listening to this.

This.

You probably can still do this. On October 16th. October 16th, we are going to host another class together. You maybe have been on a class with me and Cash before. We've done them around DNA. We're going to be doing one specifically about hydrogen. That way we're going to go a lot deeper, specifically on the science of hydrogen. You can figure out if that's something that would make sense for you. You'll be able to ask your questions, all of that. And, and he'll also share on there how you can get one of his units on. On the session. And I, and I think it's, it's. You're gonna be able to get it better, faster, less on the session. So that's. I advise you to come to the session to learn about it. And we're gonna link all that up in the show notes. If you're listening and you're not in a place to go look at show notes. If you go to midlifeconversations.com forward slash breathe the word breathe. Midlifeconversations.comforward slash breathe. I'll make sure I forward that link to wherever the class registration is so you can easily find that.

That.

Thanks so much, Cash. Anything I missed that you want to make sure people know or why you want to make sure they come to this class?

I only talked about one or two of the things it does, even just for your knowledge. You'll be blown away when I tell you everything. You'll be like, how is this possible? Why? Like, why doesn't everybody know this? That's what you're going to start to think. I'm going to really go deep. And I researched it myself. I saw the outcomes, but I didn't know why. So I started to study, study, study. I was blown away by. And this is why, of all the stuff out there, this is one of the few things I talk about, right? Because it doesn't matter what you're working on. It seems to help everybody with everything in a very healthy, clean way where there's no maximum. So I guess all I would say is just in terms of being blown away by what this universe even makes possible, you'll be shocked when you hear. So I would say enjoy the conversation when it comes.

Awesome. So don't just go looking for a random hydrogen machine. You all come to the class, learn, and then that way you at least know what to look for and you'll have more questions and we'll be able to answer them. Thank you so much Cash. I always love chatting with you. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to Midlife Conversations today. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and tag me Natalie, Jill Fitz and our guests on social media. The best way to support the show is by leaving a review. Send a screenshot of your review to support NatalieJill fitness.com for a free digital DSR journal download. And just a friendly reminder, I'm here with a microphone, not a medical degree. Half of the time I'm sharing things that I read on the Internet or learned just as you were learning it while I'm interviewing the guest. I'm not an MD or your therapist or your mom, though I do give excellent mom style pep talks. This podcast is purely for entertainment, curiosity and educational purposes. When in doubt, please ask your own doctor. For advertising inquiries, contact Sales Administrator at category three CA and this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek advice from your physician. Some episodes of midlife conversation may be sponsored by products or services and I may receive compensation for advertisement of your purchases through affiliate links.