Shownotes
Joel Greene is a nutrition researcher, biohacker, and the founder and CEO of VEEP Nutrition System, launched in 2009 as the world’s first commercially available nutrition program built around gut-microbiome optimisation.
Over the course of more than five decades in the health and fitness world — beginning with early strength training, experimentation with MCTs and keto diets in the 1980s and 90s, intermittent fasting, and eventually gut-microbiome research — he developed a distinct “immune-centric” model of nutrition and longevity. Greene is the author of The Immunity Code — a book proposing that long-term health, fat loss, metabolic flexibility, and anti-ageing stem not from arbitrary calorie-counting or rigid diets, but from nourishing and balancing the gut biome, supporting immune function, and using dietary diversity and timing as tools.
His work involves consulting with nutrition companies, programming for corporate wellness, speaking and publishing extensively, and advocating for a paradigm in which gut health, immunity, and metabolism are deeply interconnected.
> During our discussion, you’ll discover:
(00:12:37) What problems was he trying to solve with his book
(00:17:33) How does the immune system govern the body's inflammatory responses
(00:21:30) Probiotics vs prebiotics
(00:26:18) The validity and accuracy of gut health tests
(00:29:24) How Joel Greene thinks through health challenges
(00:34:49) Will removing a certain macronutrient group improve your health
(00:42:38) Why is excess iron in the body an issue
(00:47:06) Different sources of lactoferrin
(00:52:22) Using copper to increase iron levels
(00:56:04) The sugar diet
(01:00:46) Any interesting new longevity molecules on the market
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Transcripts
Welcome to the VP Life Podcast, the show
Speaker:where we bring you actionable health
Speaker:advice from leading minds.
Speaker:I'm your host, Rob.
Speaker:My guest today is Joel Green, author of
Speaker:The Immunity Code and the Way, and a
Speaker:pioneer of immune-centric nutrition whose
Speaker:work has completely reframed how many of
Speaker:us think about metabolism,
Speaker:aging, and the gut immune access.
Speaker:Expect to learn why excess iron and the
Speaker:Fenton reaction may be the hidden driver
Speaker:of oxidative stress,
Speaker:ferroptosis, and accelerated aging.
Speaker:How lactoferrin, food-first strategies,
Speaker:and the smart use of tools like IP6 and
Speaker:phlebotomy can help control iron while
Speaker:supporting gut and immune health.
Speaker:And Joel's latest thinking on metabolism,
Speaker:muscle gain, sugar diets, and how his
Speaker:deep range fits into the bigger picture
Speaker:of long-term health and performance.
Speaker:Now, on to the
Speaker:conversation with Joel Green.
Speaker:Good morning, John.
Speaker:Thank you for being here
Speaker:and joining us on the podcast.
Speaker:I know it's early there, so yeah, thank
Speaker:you for being flexible.
Speaker:Like I mentioned, or fair, this is a
Speaker:conversation I've been pretty sacked out
Speaker:for a while now, so yeah, like I said,
Speaker:bit fanboyish, but what can I say?
Speaker:So I suppose I first heard
Speaker:about you, learned about you,
Speaker:when a lot of people did back when you
Speaker:first appeared on Ben Green's Perfels
Speaker:podcast, or was that kind of circuit
Speaker:2020, 2021, somewhere around there.
Speaker:In any case, yeah, like I said, you
Speaker:pretty much framed, reframed everything I
Speaker:sort of understood about sort of biology,
Speaker:and especially as it
Speaker:pertains to nutrition.
Speaker:And again, sort of, I spent five years in
Speaker:textbooks, and then sort of took a long,
Speaker:deep sort of soul searching, looked at
Speaker:everything and thought, why?
Speaker:Anyway, that's me, of course.
Speaker:And I know that while there are many on
Speaker:our audience who are likely familiar with
Speaker:you and your story, there
Speaker:are probably those who aren't.
Speaker:So yeah, just your backstory, we have
Speaker:plenty of time for the details.
Speaker:Over to you.
Speaker:Yeah, well, first of all,
Speaker:thank you for having me.
Speaker:It's a pleasure, and
Speaker:looking forward to the condo.
Speaker:Just kind of briefly, my backstory,
Speaker:I just, my mother was, my mother was just
Speaker:a failed competitive athlete, I think, in
Speaker:the sense that she never really competed,
Speaker:but she was hyper competitive.
Speaker:And so she always encouraged us or me.
Speaker:And so just from the time I was five, you
Speaker:know, fitness was part of my life.
Speaker:Growing up watching Jacqueline, and then
Speaker:I was kind of my family's personal
Speaker:trainer, like, you know, trying to get
Speaker:him to do calisthenics at age seven, and
Speaker:then get them to run around the block.
Speaker:And I got into weightlifting about fourth
Speaker:grade, where I just took apart a hammock.
Speaker:And I just started kind of because my
Speaker:brother used to beat me up all the time.
Speaker:So I thought maybe if I could do this,
Speaker:you know, I could, so I started just
Speaker:doing curls, whatever I
Speaker:could figure out with these bars.
Speaker:And I actually started gaining a little
Speaker:bit of muscle oddly, you
Speaker:know, like in the fourth grade.
Speaker:So and then I wanted to
Speaker:be fast in the fifth grade.
Speaker:And so I started going to the blacktop
Speaker:during the summers and sprinting, because
Speaker:I really wasn't very fast.
Speaker:And the running craze kind of blew.
Speaker:So this is way back.
Speaker:This is like way back during the 70s.
Speaker:So the running craze kind of bloomed, and
Speaker:I got into running, and I could see that
Speaker:my quads were coming out as a kid.
Speaker:I didn't really
Speaker:understand like what that was.
Speaker:I just thought it was cool.
Speaker:So I was always into it.
Speaker:I was always tracking bodybuilding really
Speaker:kind of just, I would just say you're
Speaker:prototypical consumer, like if you could
Speaker:just stamp like, you know, like sycophant
Speaker:consumer, that was me.
Speaker:And so I was lucky enough to go to high
Speaker:school in San Jose, California, where at
Speaker:that time during the, I guess it was the
Speaker:mid 70s, late 70s, early 80s.
Speaker:But a treasure trove of Olympic athletes
Speaker:trained at this local junior college, you
Speaker:had the gold medalist in the discus, Mack
Speaker:Wilkins, you had Bruce Jenner, you had
Speaker:you know, all these
Speaker:Olympic athletes training there.
Speaker:And there was a spillover to my high
Speaker:school because my high school coach was
Speaker:himself an Olympic level pole halter, who
Speaker:was pretty renowned in the
Speaker:area as the best vault coach.
Speaker:And so all the Olympic athletes would
Speaker:come over to train there.
Speaker:So we had quite the quite the advanced
Speaker:weight training program.
Speaker:I mean, it was it wasn't bodybuilding.
Speaker:It was it was Soviet style power, Soviet
Speaker:style training, like like cleaning jerks,
Speaker:and you know, stuff like that.
Speaker:So and my big thing was, yeah,
Speaker:yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:My big thing was I had a growth spurt
Speaker:right about one of us right about age 12.
Speaker:And I shot up to six
Speaker:to by the time I was 12.
Speaker:And I was 160 pounds.
Speaker:So I was so skinny.
Speaker:I was I was I was I was embarrassed to go
Speaker:to school, like because I was so skinny.
Speaker:So I always wear long sleeve shirts,
Speaker:because I didn't want
Speaker:anybody see how skinny I was.
Speaker:And so I just started going to the gym
Speaker:every night and just doing
Speaker:what the power lifters were doing.
Speaker:So I was just doing cleaning jerks, you
Speaker:know, like, like nonstop.
Speaker:And it just became part of my life.
Speaker:So I became your
Speaker:prototypical bodybuilding.
Speaker:Sick of fan.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I was just I would devour everything
Speaker:and anything in the magazines.
Speaker:And, you know, starting in the early 80s,
Speaker:when Tom Platts exploded, and, you know,
Speaker:just I just tracked everything.
Speaker:And back then, the interesting thing was,
Speaker:the way that information was
Speaker:disseminated, you didn't have
Speaker:influencers, which you
Speaker:had was the magazines.
Speaker:And then the magazines kind of promoted
Speaker:who they wanted to be stars.
Speaker:And so you had this
Speaker:controlled information source.
Speaker:And so you had this this thing of like,
Speaker:you know, well, how do
Speaker:I get to look like you?
Speaker:What do I have to do?
Speaker:I'll do whatever you do.
Speaker:And of course, it was
Speaker:all a giant deception.
Speaker:It was, you know, the huge scam, because
Speaker:all these guys were on steroids.
Speaker:And they just lied their butts off about
Speaker:it, like literally everybody.
Speaker:And so the thing was like, you could
Speaker:never actually look like that.
Speaker:Okay, you might get close, you might look
Speaker:pretty good if you're genetically gifted,
Speaker:but you're never gonna be like that,
Speaker:because they're there, they've got a
Speaker:secret you don't have.
Speaker:So I went down that track as a consumer.
Speaker:And because I was so voracious as a
Speaker:reader, whatever came
Speaker:out, I would jump on.
Speaker:So like, I remember, I think it was 86,
Speaker:there was a supplement that
Speaker:came out called hot stuff.
Speaker:And the marketing was
Speaker:very different back then.
Speaker:Like back then, the marketing was they'd
Speaker:write an entire page, and
Speaker:you would read the whole page.
Speaker:You would go long from copy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And just get sucked into it, you know,
Speaker:and so out came this supplement with
Speaker:boron and, you know, wild game and you
Speaker:know, all of these things that a lot of
Speaker:them actually worked like yo and vine.
Speaker:And stuff.
Speaker:And I just started whatever came out, I
Speaker:would just use so that led into that led
Speaker:into MCTs kind of in the late 80s, when I
Speaker:was in college at UCI.
Speaker:And then in the early 90s, the big big
Speaker:thing for me was the
Speaker:meal replacement craze.
Speaker:So metrics came out.
Speaker:And I didn't,
Speaker:I wasn't that was the the original sort
Speaker:of meal replacement in the same space,
Speaker:wasn't it just about
Speaker:well, it was it was the first
Speaker:that really thought about it.
Speaker:So that so prior to that, what it did was
Speaker:it changed the category.
Speaker:So prior to metrics, they were called
Speaker:metabolic optimizers.
Speaker:And the leader was champion nutrition,
Speaker:and other guys that were
Speaker:sticking MCTs in theirs.
Speaker:And then Dr.
Speaker:Scott Conley came out.
Speaker:And he really thought his thing through
Speaker:and he really knew
Speaker:what he was talking about.
Speaker:So his big thing was he stuck in
Speaker:glutamine and lactoferrin in metrics.
Speaker:And that was light years and I had a few
Speaker:conversations with him actually, because
Speaker:he owned a gym right where I lived.
Speaker:And so and he would work the front desk,
Speaker:like an MD working
Speaker:the front desk at a gym.
Speaker:So I just I would go in and after
Speaker:training, just kind of ask
Speaker:him like, Hey, does this work?
Speaker:And he would just he would go down the
Speaker:bio babble role, and I would just kind of
Speaker:sit there kind of glazed over like maybe
Speaker:picking up every hundredth
Speaker:word he was talking about.
Speaker:But so that led me down this road of a
Speaker:lifetime of doing that stuff.
Speaker:Which is ironic, because today where I
Speaker:sit is I you know, I go to the gym once
Speaker:or twice a week, I do that
Speaker:stuff once or twice a week.
Speaker:But it's not the main thing I do.
Speaker:And it's certainly not the thing that I
Speaker:think keeps you young.
Speaker:I think it does the reverse, I think it
Speaker:destroys the body over time.
Speaker:But the irony of that was that now that's
Speaker:where all the doctors are.
Speaker:So they've all adopted meat headology.
Speaker:They've all adopted the the
Speaker:the pattern of of, you know,
Speaker:they call they don't call it 70s
Speaker:bodybuilding, they
Speaker:call it strength training.
Speaker:Oh, no, you got to do strength training.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a Gabriel lines of the world
Speaker:that sort of approach.
Speaker:Yeah, when you break down what they're
Speaker:talking about what to do, well, what is
Speaker:it I should be doing?
Speaker:Well, strength
Speaker:training, what's that look like?
Speaker:Oh, well, see, here's a lat row.
Speaker:Oh, the thing we were doing in the 70s.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay, here's a behind the neck press.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that one too.
Speaker:What else?
Speaker:What else you got a T bar row?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that was in the 70s too.
Speaker:So bodybuilding.
Speaker:So the answer is bodybuilding.
Speaker:No, no, it's not because I
Speaker:tell you, I've been there.
Speaker:It's not.
Speaker:So about 2006, I kind of culminated for
Speaker:me, I was, I was running a company, we
Speaker:had our revenue had just shot up to like
Speaker:25 million in just
Speaker:two years from nothing.
Speaker:And it's not bad.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and like a lot of entrepreneurs, I
Speaker:was working crazy hours of crazy stress.
Speaker:And for me, the kind of hands on
Speaker:discovery was that that stuff only works
Speaker:when you're in the fitness bubble.
Speaker:Yeah, if you get out of that bubble, and
Speaker:it doesn't work that great.
Speaker:And I just I got really well, the
Speaker:interesting thing is, um, I was training.
Speaker:So I was huge.
Speaker:I mean, I was, I was just big, I was
Speaker:about 260 pounds, I was fat.
Speaker:So I was both hugely
Speaker:muscular and fat at the same time.
Speaker:Super strong muscles, like but fat.
Speaker:And so I kind of came out of that,
Speaker:rethinking things and that led to where
Speaker:I'm at today, basically.
Speaker:Thank you for that.
Speaker:That was, that was an amazing story and
Speaker:one I've heard before.
Speaker:And yeah, just speaks volumes to what
Speaker:you've been able to sort of develop over
Speaker:the years consequently, because I know
Speaker:you've fundamentally just worked all of
Speaker:this out, sort of on the back end of
Speaker:different life
Speaker:experiences that you've had.
Speaker:And I know you've obviously talked about
Speaker:this a lot on various podcasts, including
Speaker:Mark Bell's one, I believe, when you
Speaker:originally, I think was a Daisy Carter
Speaker:protocol that you originally did, and
Speaker:then you sort of got down to what was it,
Speaker:single digital body fat, and he was
Speaker:completely sort of just in disbelief of
Speaker:this fact at the time.
Speaker:Is that more or less correct?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So basically it was, it was 2007.
Speaker:I had been, I had been at it for about a
Speaker:year, just whittling down all the fat I'd
Speaker:gained during that period, working.
Speaker:And I was about 229 and pretty, pretty
Speaker:muscular, you know, but,
Speaker:but still kind of not peeled.
Speaker:And then I did the, I
Speaker:did the Daisy Carter.
Speaker:And that was probably for me, the single
Speaker:most shocking body fat thing in my entire
Speaker:life ever still to this day, because I
Speaker:went from 229 to 212 in seven days.
Speaker:And then I went into a local place that
Speaker:measures your body fat in water.
Speaker:And it was, it was either between six and
Speaker:seven, it was pretty low.
Speaker:And that was, that was after, that was
Speaker:after pigging out, like for several days
Speaker:coming off the day because the Daisy
Speaker:Carter will make you insane.
Speaker:So coming off that I was just eating
Speaker:pizza or whatever I get.
Speaker:So I'm sure I was probably lower.
Speaker:And then there was just a, I was in a
Speaker:tech stream with Mark Bell and quest
Speaker:owner Ron Pena and Carl Carlin or and
Speaker:Mark, I was telling about that and Mark's
Speaker:like, I don't believe you prove it.
Speaker:So I just, I just sent him the, the PDF,
Speaker:I called the place up and said, Hey, I,
Speaker:you know, can you give me the PDF?
Speaker:And they sent it to me
Speaker:and I just sent it to Mark.
Speaker:And so fair.
Speaker:Anyway, perfect.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what I really want to do
Speaker:today is to dig into iron.
Speaker:I know that people are always
Speaker:interested in the sugar diet.
Speaker:And to be honest, that excites me about
Speaker:as much as watching paint dry.
Speaker:We'll keep the, we'll, we'll
Speaker:aim to keep the people happy.
Speaker:And maybe we can chat
Speaker:about that a little later on.
Speaker:To start with, I think it would be, maybe
Speaker:it would be best if we just step back a
Speaker:little to discuss the
Speaker:immune system as a whole.
Speaker:I know that's fundamentally the lens
Speaker:through which you sort of view metabolism
Speaker:and health in general, and just to
Speaker:provide some context, maybe
Speaker:the rest of the conversation.
Speaker:Now, obviously, I started off with with
Speaker:the immunity code, your first book, which
Speaker:for anyone who's not read
Speaker:it is, is absolute gold.
Speaker:So yeah, get a copy.
Speaker:Now, of course, I know from here, we
Speaker:could go into 30 different directions,
Speaker:all of which are fundamentally going to
Speaker:be come back to the fact that by
Speaker:regulating the immune system of the gut,
Speaker:you can make a dent in a lot of health
Speaker:conditions and challenges.
Speaker:So yeah, I'll ask the lazy question,
Speaker:which is, what problems were you trying
Speaker:to solve with the immunity code, and
Speaker:subsequently, your follow up the way?
Speaker:The primary problem is really the problem
Speaker:everybody runs into, which is, there's a
Speaker:force pushing against you over time.
Speaker:Loosely, we could describe that as aging.
Speaker:But the big picture of that is that it
Speaker:has multiple pathways for dysregulation.
Speaker:So, you know, one is that body fat is
Speaker:going up, senescent cells are going up,
Speaker:inflammation is going up,
Speaker:mitochondrial density is going down,
Speaker:muscle is going down, body fat
Speaker:characteristics are shifting into a
Speaker:pro-inflammatory pattern, all kinds of
Speaker:all kinds of things are
Speaker:happening all at once.
Speaker:And everybody faces these problems
Speaker:collectively, they haven't really been
Speaker:well defined as a group to say, okay,
Speaker:well, let's make a list and let's start
Speaker:with number one and go down the list.
Speaker:Let's do that.
Speaker:And even if they were made into a list,
Speaker:the problem you're still going
Speaker:to have is the issue of time.
Speaker:The average person, so the big secret in
Speaker:the fitness bubble is
Speaker:just two hours a day.
Speaker:I mean, no one's ever
Speaker:going to tell you that.
Speaker:But that is the C, if you were to follow
Speaker:anybody around, you're going to see
Speaker:they're putting into it.
Speaker:That's like two hours a day.
Speaker:That's like, who has that?
Speaker:Who has two hours a day?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's the problem.
Speaker:The problem is you've got
Speaker:this problem of decline.
Speaker:And then the only solution that you've
Speaker:been given to solve it is, oh, that's no
Speaker:problem, just increase time.
Speaker:Just increase time, that'll solve it.
Speaker:That doesn't work for most people.
Speaker:So for me, the issue really was just
Speaker:coming down to economy and looking at,
Speaker:well, if we only had a couple of minutes
Speaker:a day, what would be the most important
Speaker:things that we could hit
Speaker:in a couple of minutes?
Speaker:What would be the 80-20?
Speaker:It wouldn't be doing barbell curls.
Speaker:That wouldn't really be the thing.
Speaker:What would it be?
Speaker:And when you begin to go down that road,
Speaker:where you're going to wind up at is the
Speaker:intersection between the immune system
Speaker:and several different organ sets and
Speaker:systems in the body.
Speaker:One way or another,
Speaker:you're going to run into that.
Speaker:So fundamentally,
Speaker:let's start with oxygen.
Speaker:Just getting oxygen into the body.
Speaker:What's happening with most people with
Speaker:age is that the
Speaker:airway begins to collapse.
Speaker:The tissue at the back of the throat
Speaker:begins to push into
Speaker:the back of the throat.
Speaker:So you're getting apnea
Speaker:events during sleeping.
Speaker:You're getting desats during sleeping.
Speaker:You're getting stabilized
Speaker:hypoxia as a result of that.
Speaker:And that alone will sink the whole ship.
Speaker:That alone will kill you.
Speaker:Just that.
Speaker:Hypronorpha levels, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That alone will sink the entire ship.
Speaker:We don't even need to look any farther
Speaker:than that if you were going to just start
Speaker:with, well, what's number one?
Speaker:That's number one,
Speaker:really, if you think about it.
Speaker:And that converges on a key mechanism
Speaker:that essentially is a switch, helping the
Speaker:body flip its metabolic state between
Speaker:oxidative respiration
Speaker:and then glycolysis.
Speaker:When you look at that, and
Speaker:that master switch is HIF-1,
Speaker:hypoxia-inducible factor one, it
Speaker:regulates not just the general switching
Speaker:between metabolic states, but
Speaker:tissue-specific and cell-specific.
Speaker:And when you get cell-specific, it gets
Speaker:very, very interesting and compelling.
Speaker:So when you begin to look at the effect
Speaker:of that on immune cells, it can be
Speaker:massively beneficial or
Speaker:catastrophically disastrous.
Speaker:It just depends on the tissue and what.
Speaker:But in terms of our coming back out of
Speaker:the deep dive into what's our simple fix,
Speaker:it's let's fix that first.
Speaker:Why don't we fix that?
Speaker:And that converges on the immune system.
Speaker:And so that whole line of thinking, that
Speaker:way of thinking led me down this road.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:And then just specifically, what about it
Speaker:is, I suppose, just to maybe elaborate
Speaker:that a bit more for the audience, how
Speaker:does the immune system then regulate and
Speaker:govern the subsequent inflammatory
Speaker:responses in the body that then drive so
Speaker:much of this dysfunction at a level?
Speaker:So it's a big question.
Speaker:One of the key functions of the immune
Speaker:system is to sort of allocate when to use
Speaker:what we would call weapons.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:One of the weapons the immune system has
Speaker:is to induce an inflammatory state.
Speaker:Now that can be massively beneficial in
Speaker:the case of an infection, because you
Speaker:want to kill the infection.
Speaker:So the immune system can ramp up and it
Speaker:can produce free radicals and shoot
Speaker:superoxide through immune cells and
Speaker:pathogens and invaders.
Speaker:And that's a good thing.
Speaker:That's not such a good thing when you
Speaker:have billions of cells that have
Speaker:stabilized into a senescent state and are
Speaker:essentially trafficking out signals to
Speaker:recruit the immune system.
Speaker:That's not such a good thing at all.
Speaker:Because then what happens is the immune
Speaker:system sort of acts like an echo chamber.
Speaker:And it propagates these signals across
Speaker:the entire body and recruits more and
Speaker:more and more resources into dealing with
Speaker:this problem that it thinks is an injury,
Speaker:but it really it's just getting old.
Speaker:So what it is, would that be a case where
Speaker:maybe somewhere like excess fasting could
Speaker:actually be an issue,
Speaker:an actual detriment?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes, because this gets to the
Speaker:body needs to balance itself.
Speaker:It needs a balance between growth
Speaker:pathways and degradation pathways or
Speaker:however you want to put it, you know, the
Speaker:body's autophagic pathways.
Speaker:There needs to be a
Speaker:balance between the two.
Speaker:And when you see an excess of either one,
Speaker:you're going to see some kind of
Speaker:pathology either way.
Speaker:So if you see too much growth, you're
Speaker:probably going to see cancer.
Speaker:If you see too much, too
Speaker:much autophagy, too much
Speaker:action with respect to protein
Speaker:degradation, then
Speaker:you're going to see issues.
Speaker:So
Speaker:that's just homeostasis.
Speaker:So that's an interesting thing.
Speaker:I don't want to spend
Speaker:too much time on this.
Speaker:But homeostasis is such a simple concept.
Speaker:It's so simple to get this.
Speaker:It's just simply
Speaker:balance.
Speaker:Like the thing needs to be balanced.
Speaker:You can't be too much on either side.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's so simple.
Speaker:And you wouldn't know it, listening to
Speaker:the world of influencers nowadays,
Speaker:because it's all polarized thinking.
Speaker:It's all, "Oh yeah, fasting's only good.
Speaker:Meat is only good.
Speaker:Saturated fats is only good.
Speaker:Carbs are only bad."
Speaker:You know, there's this polarity of
Speaker:thought that to me reflects a bigger
Speaker:problem, a problem of thought.
Speaker:But the fact that such a simple concept
Speaker:is missing from the picture and it's
Speaker:essential just blows my mind.
Speaker:Yeah, I know it is interesting that you
Speaker:mentioned that actually.
Speaker:I mean, there are sort of, and I'll just
Speaker:use it in the literal sense, sort of very
Speaker:left and far and right leaning
Speaker:individuals just sort of on
Speaker:the vegan and the carnival side.
Speaker:And it's interesting just watching your
Speaker:poor saladinas and such over the world
Speaker:with these sort of extreme views.
Speaker:And what I've just found over the years
Speaker:is that a lot of these people with these
Speaker:extreme views on nutrition generally tend
Speaker:to fall back to the middle, whether it's
Speaker:reintroducing honey or carbohydrates, or
Speaker:what have you, or reintroducing meat.
Speaker:So many, yeah, just to sort of maybe sort
Speaker:of build on your point.
Speaker:Balance is key and it's just interesting
Speaker:to note that people with sort of extreme
Speaker:views ultimately do come back to sort of
Speaker:this fairly centered state.
Speaker:And Joel, I'd like to sort of maybe take
Speaker:a little bit more into that, into the gut
Speaker:side of it quickly before we carry on.
Speaker:Now, I know obviously sort of the gut
Speaker:being sort of the hub of the immune
Speaker:system to an extent anyway.
Speaker:A lot of your work sort of that you've
Speaker:put out there revolves heavily around
Speaker:sort of rebuilding the gut and that you
Speaker:aren't generally speaking a fan of
Speaker:prebiotics and that you would,
Speaker:probiotics, excuse me, that you generally
Speaker:sort of prefer prebiotics as a whole.
Speaker:Obviously, again, within the industry and
Speaker:there's always been a
Speaker:push for probiotics.
Speaker:And I'm in two months about that.
Speaker:I deeply admire the work of Dr.
Speaker:Mark Ruschow, who you might know of, and
Speaker:he is a very sort of probiotic
Speaker:forward-facing and he's very adamant that
Speaker:they are effective at helping
Speaker:to modulate the immune system.
Speaker:I know at least having listened to other
Speaker:podcasts you've done that you share,
Speaker:maybe someone to have a
Speaker:different take on that.
Speaker:Could you sort of just guard us through
Speaker:your thoughts on probiotics versus
Speaker:prebiotics in general as it pertains to
Speaker:the gut and maybe the
Speaker:immune system more broadly?
Speaker:Well, the merger point
Speaker:in the road is bacteria.
Speaker:That's all we're talking about is taxa
Speaker:and representation of species.
Speaker:That's what we're talking about.
Speaker:The question is, how do we get there?
Speaker:That's the only thing
Speaker:we're talking about.
Speaker:So to say that probiotics work is to say
Speaker:that certain taxa can
Speaker:exert beneficial effects.
Speaker:Duh.
Speaker:I mean, we all know that.
Speaker:Everybody knows that, right?
Speaker:So it's just how do we get there?
Speaker:What's the optimal way to get there?
Speaker:Keeping in mind not the
Speaker:short term, but the long term.
Speaker:And that's a problem.
Speaker:That's a big problem though, because
Speaker:we're in an industry
Speaker:that equates results to...
Speaker:We're in an industry that has no regard
Speaker:for the impact of the most important
Speaker:variable, which is time.
Speaker:It doesn't exist.
Speaker:Time does not exist.
Speaker:You listen to the most high level
Speaker:influencers and they'll talk as if the
Speaker:outcome we get now is going to be the
Speaker:outcome we're always going
Speaker:to get because we got it now.
Speaker:And again, that's going back to this
Speaker:paucity or poverty of
Speaker:thinking that is just...
Speaker:It's similar to homeostasis.
Speaker:When you begin to inventory, why aren't
Speaker:you taking this into account?
Speaker:There's no good reason.
Speaker:There's no good reason.
Speaker:Only stupidity.
Speaker:So the issue becomes,
Speaker:okay, so there seems to be sort of a
Speaker:youthful profile that more or less seems
Speaker:to be consistent among young people.
Speaker:And you see a lot of Bifidobacteria,
Speaker:healthy representations
Speaker:kind of in this respect.
Speaker:And it's quantifiable to some degree.
Speaker:So the question is, how
Speaker:can we proximate that?
Speaker:How can we get there?
Speaker:I'm not against probiotics at all.
Speaker:I think that they can
Speaker:be incredibly helpful.
Speaker:I'm just against their indiscriminate
Speaker:use, particularly among consumers,
Speaker:because as soon as you tell consumers,
Speaker:hey, our clinical results showed an
Speaker:improvement of blah, blah, blah, blah,
Speaker:blah, taking our probiotic.
Speaker:First, they're probiotic.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, then they become chiclets.
Speaker:They become like M&Ms
Speaker:or just gummies.
Speaker:They become like just candy.
Speaker:And the net result of that, once we
Speaker:insert the variable of time, is that
Speaker:you're probably going to do more harm
Speaker:than good long-term.
Speaker:A lot of SIBO problems now are the result
Speaker:of a lot of probiotic usage going back.
Speaker:And so the question becomes, what's the
Speaker:optimal way to get what we want?
Speaker:And the really
Speaker:surprising thing is how powerful food is,
Speaker:to completely, completely retune the gut
Speaker:in very short periods.
Speaker:And this is empirical in its nature.
Speaker:Going back to 2009, there are studies
Speaker:that show that you can rapidly recolonize
Speaker:the gut in just a few days with food.
Speaker:So with that in mind,
Speaker:as a generality, if food is so powerful,
Speaker:where do we need probiotics?
Speaker:And that becomes a
Speaker:medical issue then, I think.
Speaker:And I do believe the rightful home of
Speaker:probiotic strain usage is probably with
Speaker:practitioners who can look at something,
Speaker:look at a GI map and say, "It seems like
Speaker:maybe if we added this
Speaker:strain for a few weeks."
Speaker:Now that, to me, is really intelligent.
Speaker:That's really smart.
Speaker:And I think that's kind
Speaker:of the right way to do it.
Speaker:It's just really a question of what's
Speaker:going to do more harm than good.
Speaker:And it's probably the
Speaker:indiscriminate use of probiotics.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Just speaking of those tests quickly,
Speaker:there are a bunch of them
Speaker:out there, various labs.
Speaker:Well, as you
Speaker:mentioned, there's the GI map.
Speaker:There are a bunch of them.
Speaker:What do you think about their validity
Speaker:and their specificity?
Speaker:Again, now that we're just on this track,
Speaker:I'd just love to get
Speaker:your thoughts on this.
Speaker:You often hear practitioners on podcasts
Speaker:talk about the fact that they sent off
Speaker:two samples of the same piece of stool to
Speaker:the same company, and they would have got
Speaker:back completely different results on
Speaker:their GI map or their whatever.
Speaker:I mean, the gut is your
Speaker:game, let's be honest.
Speaker:Do you have any thoughts
Speaker:on GI testing in general?
Speaker:Do you think it's there yet?
Speaker:Or is it still a bit of a north star
Speaker:we're trying to get to?
Speaker:I think it could be useful.
Speaker:I think it could be useful.
Speaker:I think the mistake is to see it as
Speaker:the gospel.
Speaker:I think it's a mistake to
Speaker:calcify it into like, "Oh, ha!
Speaker:Well, this is me.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Nothing more to know."
Speaker:What I never hear are seldom, very
Speaker:seldom, what you'll hear is a breakdown
Speaker:of mechanistically,
Speaker:"How'd you get that answer?"
Speaker:When you begin to ask,
Speaker:you'll get crickets because
Speaker:I've found a lot of
Speaker:practitioners don't know.
Speaker:They actually don't know
Speaker:how they wrote that answer.
Speaker:When you begin to break that down, what
Speaker:you find is that many of
Speaker:those tests rely on a single gene.
Speaker:They're looking for one gene, the 16RS
Speaker:ribosomal RNA, and they have a database
Speaker:that they're matching
Speaker:that gene up against.
Speaker:The outcome you're getting is only as
Speaker:good as your database.
Speaker:Then there are several
Speaker:problems within that.
Speaker:We could list what those problems are,
Speaker:but just suffice to say that a good
Speaker:example is acromancia.
Speaker:I think in the last couple years, there
Speaker:have been several new
Speaker:strains discovered of acromancia.
Speaker:One of the most common things that I hear
Speaker:is, "Oh, I did a GI map
Speaker:test and I have no acromancia."
Speaker:My response to that
Speaker:usually is, "Yeah, you do.
Speaker:They just can't test for it."
Speaker:"No, how do you know that?"
Speaker:"Because you'd be dead,
Speaker:probably, if you didn't."
Speaker:Yeah, it's more than just
Speaker:meanest failure in existence.
Speaker:The truth is there's probably dozens of
Speaker:strains we haven't yet found.
Speaker:To get a GI map test back, and it says,
Speaker:"Oh my gosh, I have no acromancia.
Speaker:I better go start taking
Speaker:pendulum or some tool like that."
Speaker:Well, again, it's like,
Speaker:"Mm, yeah, you probably do."
Speaker:It's just the tests
Speaker:don't have that in there.
Speaker:They don't have these undiscovered
Speaker:strains in the database.
Speaker:That's the answer.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:I often think that this is a sort of
Speaker:wildlife-ure approach.
Speaker:It reduces it to the bare basics and then
Speaker:just sort of builds upon that instead of
Speaker:trying to sort of isolate variables that
Speaker:we don't have access to.
Speaker:I really like the way you frame and
Speaker:conceptualize things.
Speaker:To be honest, I'm not very bright.
Speaker:I doubt that.
Speaker:I seriously doubt that.
Speaker:I tend to just look towards using
Speaker:frameworks to try and understand complex
Speaker:topics and data sets.
Speaker:Then, yeah, maybe it's just a result of
Speaker:looking at information from that point of
Speaker:view, but I always end up trying to find
Speaker:flaws in a given model, a
Speaker:stress test the best I can.
Speaker:Well, to me, I can then form an opinion.
Speaker:I can then try and find
Speaker:limitations based on that
Speaker:opinion relative to that model.
Speaker:I can then sort of make cross-reference
Speaker:things and try and come to some sort of
Speaker:logical conclusion,
Speaker:whether it's correct or not.
Speaker:I know that's a fairly convoluted, but
Speaker:it's kind of served me well.
Speaker:Of course, it doesn't mean I'm right.
Speaker:It's just the way I think through things.
Speaker:I'd love to sort of explore the way you
Speaker:think through things and whether you
Speaker:think there are any sort of limitations
Speaker:to the model that you've put forward when
Speaker:it comes to helping people work through
Speaker:various health challenges.
Speaker:I'm sorry, that was probably 10 questions
Speaker:in one and very convoluted, but I'm sure
Speaker:you follow the logic.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I like it.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:I kind of approach things
Speaker:from a macro perspective in that
Speaker:there's a bit of a dichotomy with respect
Speaker:to how do we get the answer?
Speaker:People always want to
Speaker:know, what's the answer?
Speaker:What's the answer?
Speaker:We're led to think that the
Speaker:individualized factors just are the
Speaker:answer, that they're so overpowering that
Speaker:the only way that I can know me is I got
Speaker:to go do all these tests that tell me me.
Speaker:Just in my experience, what I have found
Speaker:is it's the generalities
Speaker:where all the horsepower is.
Speaker:If you take five massive generalities,
Speaker:like let's take vitamin D levels, let's
Speaker:take hypoxia, let's take the microbiome,
Speaker:and you see where I'm going with this.
Speaker:You can just kind of go down this road of
Speaker:things that are just generalities.
Speaker:Then you take someone who their metabolic
Speaker:state is and optimal
Speaker:isn't what they want it to be.
Speaker:We just apply the
Speaker:generalities to them consistently.
Speaker:What you will see are these massive
Speaker:game-changing improvements
Speaker:that are life-changing.
Speaker:That's not getting to the level of like,
Speaker:"Well, I see you're
Speaker:missing a genetic snip for it."
Speaker:It's not getting to that level.
Speaker:It's just taking the generalities.
Speaker:So I generally tend to approach things
Speaker:like, "Let's fix the low-hanging fruit.
Speaker:Let's go after that and
Speaker:then see where we're at."
Speaker:Then usually with what's
Speaker:left, that's called medicine.
Speaker:Usually with what's left, now we're
Speaker:talking about things that don't fit the
Speaker:generalities, things that require very
Speaker:types of specific tests.
Speaker:That's really for doctors to do.
Speaker:I think that's great.
Speaker:I think that's where it should be.
Speaker:But all that to say, it's that what we're
Speaker:missing here is that in the simple
Speaker:things, the big things, the generalities,
Speaker:there's so much horsepower, so much power
Speaker:for change that you should really,
Speaker:collectively, it makes sense to take a
Speaker:look at those things first
Speaker:and then see where we're at.
Speaker:That's just how I approach things.
Speaker:The other piece of the
Speaker:equation for me is math.
Speaker:I've just found historically that
Speaker:everything boils down to math.
Speaker:Everything boils down to
Speaker:the law of large numbers.
Speaker:Everything boils down to
Speaker:percentages and probabilities.
Speaker:That lends me to think in a couple
Speaker:different directions.
Speaker:One is that it's very difficult to know
Speaker:anything with certainty.
Speaker:It's just very difficult to know it, but
Speaker:the mind loves certainty.
Speaker:The mind loves,
Speaker:"Ah, yes, this is it."
Speaker:You really see that in the social media
Speaker:sphere where you have influencers that
Speaker:speak with salesman-like certainty on
Speaker:topics they don't actually understand.
Speaker:Then a few years down the road,
Speaker:completely revise their stance.
Speaker:That's called a learning curve.
Speaker:What would serve them and everybody else
Speaker:better is to just begin to introduce some
Speaker:maybes in there and some mightbees and
Speaker:possibilities rather than
Speaker:speaking with abject certainty.
Speaker:We're always up against degrees of
Speaker:probabilities, probabilistic space.
Speaker:We can begin to say things like, "Well,
Speaker:we're creating very strong probabilities
Speaker:that we might get the
Speaker:outcome that we want."
Speaker:I'm just really just cloaking math talk
Speaker:by talking like that, but
Speaker:that's how I approach things.
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:I just had to ask.
Speaker:I love the way you build on
Speaker:the data that you've always gotten.
Speaker:It's just so elegant the way you are able
Speaker:to frame and construct relationships.
Speaker:A bit of a selfish question, but anyway.
Speaker:I recently had the chance to chat to Dr.
Speaker:Thomas Seafreet.
Speaker:I'm sure you're familiar with, and for
Speaker:those in the audience who aren't or maybe
Speaker:haven't listened to that podcast, he's
Speaker:currently championing the idea that
Speaker:cancer is fundamentally a metabolic and
Speaker:mitochondrial disease.
Speaker:That's by regulating glucose metabolism
Speaker:in some way, shape, or form, you can
Speaker:essentially starve cancer cells
Speaker:selectively and reduce the need to some
Speaker:extent for additional or
Speaker:adunctive cancer therapies.
Speaker:Obviously, his work is based in the
Speaker:backbone of what Otto Warburg did, I
Speaker:think probably around a century ago now.
Speaker:In any case, he's obviously a big
Speaker:proponent of
Speaker:carbohydrate reduction in general.
Speaker:Unfortunately, we ran out of time.
Speaker:I wasn't really able to ask him about his
Speaker:thoughts on how different types of fatty
Speaker:acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids,
Speaker:saturated fats, et
Speaker:cetera, might affect his model.
Speaker:I'm not a cancer biologist.
Speaker:I'm strictly the imagination, but when
Speaker:you look at his glucose ketone index,
Speaker:which I know he's now making more
Speaker:publicly available for people to
Speaker:understand their own metabolic health,
Speaker:it's very much
Speaker:focused on the macro level.
Speaker:It doesn't seem to really
Speaker:focus on the fatty acids.
Speaker:I know this goes into the order of
Speaker:operations side of it as well.
Speaker:But what do you generally think about
Speaker:when you start talking about fatty acids
Speaker:in particular and the
Speaker:immune system in the gut?
Speaker:What do you think about
Speaker:this approach in general about
Speaker:removing one macronutrient, be it
Speaker:carbohydrates, to
Speaker:improve the health of a system?
Speaker:And then, yeah, if you've got any
Speaker:thoughts on maybe how we overly rely on,
Speaker:I suppose that's the C to all debate.
Speaker:Let's leave that if you, yeah, the first
Speaker:part would be great.
Speaker:Again,
Speaker:the variable that's missing
Speaker:in my opinion would be time.
Speaker:So you could inject that question in
Speaker:under the eugis of the variable of time
Speaker:and say, "Hey, what about for a little
Speaker:bit of time if we
Speaker:restrict this macronutrient?"
Speaker:We might see some very significant
Speaker:improvements depending on
Speaker:what we're talking about.
Speaker:However, when you begin to look at the
Speaker:long term, which is what
Speaker:we always have to look at,
Speaker:there are a couple of magnetars that are
Speaker:always pulling at us.
Speaker:Okay, one of them is insulin.
Speaker:And it's very difficult to obtain real
Speaker:and lasting health without insulin
Speaker:functioning optimally.
Speaker:Really, you're not going to.
Speaker:That's just the answer,
Speaker:unless insulin's functioning.
Speaker:Because it's so pleiotropic in its
Speaker:nature, it affects so many things.
Speaker:So the problem you get into with that is
Speaker:that in order to properly stimulate
Speaker:insulin, there's an inventory or a suite
Speaker:of hormones that need regular stimulation
Speaker:through foods, through macronutrients.
Speaker:And they oppose each other.
Speaker:So I've spoken quite a bit about the
Speaker:example of glucagon
Speaker:because it's kind of in our face.
Speaker:But it's a fun one to pick on because
Speaker:glucagon has been the
Speaker:hero of a low carb movement.
Speaker:And if you go down that road far enough,
Speaker:what you'll see is that actually by
Speaker:overstimulating that, and by not
Speaker:stimulating other hormones, particularly
Speaker:insulin now to connect in through key
Speaker:types of carbohydrates, you
Speaker:actually get insulin resistance.
Speaker:And then the result of
Speaker:that is hyperinsulinemia.
Speaker:So sort of briefly in the muscles, one
Speaker:might argue though, that the macular
Speaker:glucose bearing effect,
Speaker:what would you say to that, that long
Speaker:term ketosis drives this peripheral
Speaker:insulin resistance, but it's typically
Speaker:just within the muscle.
Speaker:Yeah, I would say that probably doesn't
Speaker:hold up to scrutiny for
Speaker:some very good reasons.
Speaker:One is that
Speaker:in order...
Speaker:So I did a debate with
Speaker:Sean Baker that never aired.
Speaker:And I really...
Speaker:I was going to ask about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I really crushed this particular aspect
Speaker:of it, which was to look at like, is
Speaker:long-term ketosis really even something
Speaker:we'd want to consider?
Speaker:And I don't know how deep you want to go
Speaker:down this road because it's quite
Speaker:complex, but I would offer no for lots of
Speaker:reasons that nobody's talking about, but
Speaker:just to kind of sum it up.
Speaker:So long-term ketosis, we're going to need
Speaker:a fuel source for that,
Speaker:which is oxaloacetate.
Speaker:So you're going to need
Speaker:that for a subtle CoA.
Speaker:Normally your source for oxaloacetate is
Speaker:glycolysis, but what's going to happen is
Speaker:that when you're doing oxaloacetate for
Speaker:extended periods, you got to switch to
Speaker:the liver to produce it for you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, the issue that you get into there
Speaker:then is you get a mismatch between the
Speaker:TCA cycle and fatty acid oxidation.
Speaker:So you begin to get kind of an incomplete
Speaker:oxidation that happens.
Speaker:And then that incomplete oxidation will
Speaker:lead to a spillover of very specific
Speaker:types of acyl carnitines into the serum.
Speaker:And some of these moieties or very
Speaker:distinctive types of acyl carnitines are
Speaker:going to drive
Speaker:systemic insulin resistance.
Speaker:And it's all a result of basically you're
Speaker:creating this backlog within the
Speaker:mitochondrial membrane of transporter
Speaker:mechanisms that aren't, and then that
Speaker:spills over into the serum.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so, and it really gets to
Speaker:is the liver equipped to supply a
Speaker:glycolysis to the entire body on an
Speaker:extended basis, you know,
Speaker:to every cell in the body.
Speaker:And I think we can make a pretty good
Speaker:case that it's not that, that, you know,
Speaker:you begin to see over time, these
Speaker:disparities between fuel sources and
Speaker:things that are
Speaker:required to sustain this state.
Speaker:And then you begin to
Speaker:see a buildup of things.
Speaker:So again, the missing variables time, if
Speaker:we will just insert time as the master
Speaker:framework and then begin to accept the
Speaker:notion that this is a dynamic
Speaker:system, not a static system.
Speaker:And that is the massive logic error in a
Speaker:lot of these arguments is that the
Speaker:assumption is we're
Speaker:dealing with a static system.
Speaker:It isn't.
Speaker:What it is, is it's a system that seeks a
Speaker:dynamic equilibrium.
Speaker:That's what we're talking about here.
Speaker:And so in a system that
Speaker:seeks a dynamic equilibrium,
Speaker:you can get in my book, the way I talk
Speaker:about this, I call it the forces of time.
Speaker:It's accumulation.
Speaker:You can get an accumulation of something.
Speaker:You can get a degradation of something.
Speaker:You can get a compensation of something.
Speaker:You can get attenuation of something.
Speaker:So all of these forces
Speaker:of time begin to play out.
Speaker:And in the case of oxaloacetate,
Speaker:acylcarnitines, and, you know, all of
Speaker:these sort of intermediates required to
Speaker:sustain ketosis over time, you begin to
Speaker:see a buildup of certain things that you
Speaker:can make a very good case will drive
Speaker:systemic insulin resistance.
Speaker:And in some cases,
Speaker:perhaps it's not recoverable.
Speaker:Okay, I'm going to relisten to that,
Speaker:especially that last part.
Speaker:Thank you for that.
Speaker:That's definitely a sort of solidified a
Speaker:few thoughts in my head.
Speaker:Joe, I'd love to talk
Speaker:about metabolism all day.
Speaker:I really would.
Speaker:And maybe I can convince you to join me
Speaker:for another episode at some point.
Speaker:A bit deeper into that.
Speaker:But I think just of the sake of brevity
Speaker:and time, I'd love to
Speaker:sort of jump into iron.
Speaker:Young Gut Ultra, I know that's a new
Speaker:product you've launched.
Speaker:It's exciting.
Speaker:And it looks to solve the problem of sort
Speaker:of excess iron brought up in the body.
Speaker:Now I know there's a
Speaker:lot to dig into here.
Speaker:And maybe we can start with why excess
Speaker:iron is an issue, maybe from the
Speaker:perspective of the Fenton reaction, maybe
Speaker:it's a sort of a decent
Speaker:sort of lens to view it from.
Speaker:But yeah, why did you sort of choose to
Speaker:focus on iron as an issue with developing
Speaker:that product, I suppose?
Speaker:Yeah, it wasn't really so much out of a
Speaker:need to deal with iron.
Speaker:It's more out of a need to deal with very
Speaker:specific problems that are intractable
Speaker:for everyone over time.
Speaker:One of those problems has to do with the
Speaker:impairment and degradation of the
Speaker:peroxisome membrane within the
Speaker:intracellular space.
Speaker:So if you're in the audience and you're
Speaker:not familiar, peroxisomes are an energy
Speaker:organelle within the cell.
Speaker:And they're kind of
Speaker:co-partners with the mitochondria.
Speaker:There's this notion that the mitochondria
Speaker:kind of exist at the top of the hill, you
Speaker:know, by themselves.
Speaker:And it doesn't really
Speaker:hold up to scrutiny.
Speaker:It's more like a co-emperor sort of
Speaker:situation at the top of the hill where
Speaker:the peroxisomes of the mitochondria form
Speaker:a single system and they very much peddle
Speaker:the bicycle together.
Speaker:So the issue you get into with age is
Speaker:that there are these transporter proteins
Speaker:in the mitochondrial
Speaker:membrane called PEX proteins.
Speaker:And they begin to malfunction.
Speaker:And so part of the function of the of the
Speaker:peroxisomes apart from energy production
Speaker:is to basically dismutate hydrogen
Speaker:peroxide down into water.
Speaker:The hydrogen peroxide by itself can be an
Speaker:extremely important signal molecule as a
Speaker:free radical within the cell.
Speaker:It's very much
Speaker:involved in insulin signaling.
Speaker:The problem is that if you get too much
Speaker:of it, it really kind of becomes maybe
Speaker:just by again by virtue of math, by
Speaker:virtue of sheer weight and sheer numbers,
Speaker:possibly the most detrimental free
Speaker:radical in the body.
Speaker:Now on an individual basis, it's not
Speaker:nearly as damaging as something like the
Speaker:hydroxyl radical or superoxide when
Speaker:superoxide goes wonky.
Speaker:But because there's so much
Speaker:of it, it's really a problem.
Speaker:And so what happens with age is that you
Speaker:get a buildup of hydrogen peroxide in the
Speaker:cell and at the same time we tend to
Speaker:build up iron with age.
Speaker:That's bad.
Speaker:That's very bad because hydrogen peroxide
Speaker:can mediate through iron a reaction
Speaker:called the Fenton reaction that produces
Speaker:a very damaging free radical
Speaker:called the hydroxyl radical.
Speaker:And you get a lot of you get a lot of
Speaker:cell damage from this.
Speaker:You could make the whole argument that
Speaker:that's where your
Speaker:gray hair is coming from.
Speaker:Is that it tends to torch the
Speaker:polyunsaturated fats
Speaker:in the cell membrane?
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:In addition to, well, in particular,
Speaker:the mitochondrial membrane
Speaker:takes a lot of damage from that.
Speaker:So that's a huge problem that needs,
Speaker:we're all going to face.
Speaker:And like, let me just make it simple.
Speaker:Everybody wants to
Speaker:fix for their gray hair.
Speaker:What's the fix?
Speaker:We got to fix this problem because it
Speaker:isn't just your gray
Speaker:hair that it's affecting.
Speaker:Your gray hair is just a marker for how
Speaker:fast the damage is progressing.
Speaker:So that's a big problem.
Speaker:And that was the motivation behind it.
Speaker:The other thing was that when I first
Speaker:really laid into this focus of how can we
Speaker:modulate a few switches in the immune
Speaker:system to get massive results?
Speaker:One of the key variables in that is
Speaker:lactoferrin because lactoferrin, I guess
Speaker:the best way to describe it is that it's
Speaker:kind of like the glue
Speaker:of the immune system.
Speaker:It sort of holds the whole thing together
Speaker:and it acts as an intelligent
Speaker:intermediary with the immune system.
Speaker:So it sort of acts as the
Speaker:glue that drives homeostasis.
Speaker:And in my first iteration of this back in
Speaker:the 20 teens, there
Speaker:wasn't really a way to do it.
Speaker:We didn't really have
Speaker:human lactoferrin back then.
Speaker:And so it's going to be my next question.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So the focus was, go ahead.
Speaker:No, I was just going to say the
Speaker:difference there being the difference
Speaker:between human lactoferrin and then
Speaker:obviously bovine and
Speaker:other forms of lactoferrin.
Speaker:Why is lactoferrin coming from bovine
Speaker:sources or other sources?
Speaker:Maybe such an immunological issue.
Speaker:Why is it sort of less preferential than
Speaker:finding the, I think it's Iphira, is that
Speaker:the brand of human lactoferrin?
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So bovine and human
Speaker:lactoferrin are very similar.
Speaker:It depends on who you're reading.
Speaker:They're somewhere
Speaker:between 68 to 77% identical.
Speaker:So that's not bad.
Speaker:That's pretty good.
Speaker:The difference is binding sites.
Speaker:So bovine and
Speaker:lactoferrin has five binding sites.
Speaker:Human has three.
Speaker:But the issue you get into really becomes
Speaker:one that it's a foreign protein.
Speaker:So lactoferrin is a glycoprotein.
Speaker:And you run a bit of a risk for an immune
Speaker:reaction like the body would
Speaker:have to any foreign protein.
Speaker:So where lactoferrin, generally speaking,
Speaker:human lactoferrin is meant to be the
Speaker:master regulator of the immune system,
Speaker:bovine lactoferrin can
Speaker:actually trigger the immune system.
Speaker:Now, I want to be fair, that's not true.
Speaker:Probably in a majority of cases.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like bovine lactoferrin
Speaker:can be highly beneficial.
Speaker:So I don't want to sit here and just go,
Speaker:"Eh, mine's the only stuff that works."
Speaker:But no, bovine lactoferrin can
Speaker:be highly, highly beneficial.
Speaker:In fact, it's one of the reasons why
Speaker:dairy is really so beneficial in the long
Speaker:term for so many reasons.
Speaker:That just triggered off
Speaker:a firestorm right there.
Speaker:But we'll let that go.
Speaker:I can hear all the anti-dairy
Speaker:crowd just going, "Ah, click."
Speaker:But all that to say that
Speaker:there's a thing called glycosylation.
Speaker:So I'm trying to tailor
Speaker:this to the audience here.
Speaker:I don't want to...
Speaker:Yeah, we've been pretty deep here.
Speaker:So let's just go there.
Speaker:So much of the information and
Speaker:communication in the body happens based
Speaker:on what are called PTMs or
Speaker:post-translational modifications, which
Speaker:are things that happen after
Speaker:transcription, after making proteins.
Speaker:They're modifications to the proteins.
Speaker:One of those modifications is adding
Speaker:sugars to those
Speaker:proteins to form glycoproteins.
Speaker:And then those sugars, depending on their
Speaker:structure, essentially act as a second
Speaker:messenger system or a
Speaker:communication system.
Speaker:So the specific structure of those sugars
Speaker:carries information.
Speaker:And so lactoferrin...
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:Sorry, would that include ATEs as well?
Speaker:Just out of interest?
Speaker:Yeah, all glycosylation related
Speaker:activities are information carriers.
Speaker:So in my first book, this was actually
Speaker:going to be a chapter and I gave up
Speaker:because there was no way to do it.
Speaker:It was a book talking about PTMs.
Speaker:It's just way too much.
Speaker:Suffice to say that apart from DNA,
Speaker:there's a whole information-bearing
Speaker:system in the body based on the structure
Speaker:of sugar proteins, glycoproteins.
Speaker:So anyways, all that to say that
Speaker:bovine lactoferrin and human lactoferrin
Speaker:share a lot with respect to
Speaker:glycosylation, but
Speaker:there's also some differences.
Speaker:And those differences translate into very
Speaker:practical things like
Speaker:how absorbable is this.
Speaker:And the human lactoferrin just is always
Speaker:going to be more absorbable
Speaker:than the bovine lactoferrin.
Speaker:You're going to need more of the bovine
Speaker:to get the same results.
Speaker:In fact, so in milk,
Speaker:the best estimate so far is that there is
Speaker:1.5 to 2 milligrams per gram of bovine
Speaker:lactoferrin in milk.
Speaker:So at a kilogram level, roughly 150 to
Speaker:200 milligrams of bovine lactoferrin, but
Speaker:then the absorption is not the same.
Speaker:So in other words, like in my young gut
Speaker:ultra product, there's 200
Speaker:milligrams of human lactoferrin.
Speaker:To get that same dose in bovine
Speaker:lactoferrin, you'd need
Speaker:a kilogram and a half.
Speaker:That's a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then I'm sorry, I jumped some
Speaker:completely sidetracked here, but then how
Speaker:is lactoferrin, I suppose, sort of
Speaker:solving broadly
Speaker:speaking, the ion problem?
Speaker:So lactoferrin, the interesting thing
Speaker:about lactoferrin is that
Speaker:it drives iron homeostasis.
Speaker:So if you have too little iron or too
Speaker:much iron, it tends to push the pendulum
Speaker:back towards the middle.
Speaker:So lactoferrin, it's a member of the
Speaker:transferrin family, which
Speaker:are iron binding proteins.
Speaker:The thing about lactoferrin is its iron
Speaker:binding capacity is so astoundingly high.
Speaker:It's hundreds of times
Speaker:higher than your ferritin.
Speaker:And so lactoferrin,
Speaker:it's like a sponge.
Speaker:It has this amazing
Speaker:ability to soak up iron.
Speaker:Kind of a simple way to put it.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:And then, yeah, I suppose there are other
Speaker:few competing molecules out there on the
Speaker:market, things like IP6 phosphate, or I
Speaker:suppose the main mechanism is probably
Speaker:phyto-gasol to some extent
Speaker:binding up iron in the gut.
Speaker:And then obviously, you can go down the
Speaker:copper route to which I know Morley
Speaker:Robbins has done a pretty deep dive on.
Speaker:I mean, I think he's based the latter
Speaker:part of his career around that.
Speaker:And the idea that by regulating coppin,
Speaker:ceruloplasma, you can sort of convert
Speaker:excess ferrous iron, let me get this
Speaker:right, I think, to ferric iron.
Speaker:And then that can then be transported,
Speaker:combined to transferrin and then get
Speaker:yanked out of the bloodstream.
Speaker:What do you think about that as an often
Speaker:not a competing product or competing
Speaker:theory, but as an odd competing mechanism
Speaker:to sort of regulate iron, the idea of
Speaker:just sort of increasing copper intake?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:first of all, I don't want to do a
Speaker:disservice to his work.
Speaker:Just anecdotally, what I've heard is that
Speaker:he's had some very good outcomes.
Speaker:And I'm not 100% expert in his work, so I
Speaker:don't want to misspeak.
Speaker:As I understand it, which I will say up
Speaker:front has room for error.
Speaker:So please correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker:So a significant portion of the actual
Speaker:protocol involves dietary modifications.
Speaker:And when I look at those dietary
Speaker:modifications, what the net, which I
Speaker:haven't heard anybody talk about, that
Speaker:they're going to do is you're going to
Speaker:produce a shift in the gut taxa that
Speaker:favors bacteria with
Speaker:iron binding cytoform.
Speaker:So what you're going to get is this
Speaker:variable that doesn't get
Speaker:talked about a lot, which is that,
Speaker:and this gets to the phytic acid thing.
Speaker:As you increase certain taxa in the gut,
Speaker:like the phyto bacteria,
Speaker:they bind iron in the gut.
Speaker:And then in terms of your IP6 problem,
Speaker:that actually prevents that
Speaker:from binding iron in the gut.
Speaker:So shifting the gut taxa can have this
Speaker:tremendous impact with respect to a
Speaker:number of variables that we could kind of
Speaker:anecdotally attribute to
Speaker:quote unquote the protocol.
Speaker:But it's really possibly to some extent
Speaker:has to do with just
Speaker:simply shifting the gut taxa.
Speaker:That's kind of the theory I'd offer on
Speaker:that with respect to copper.
Speaker:The thing is,
Speaker:lactoferrin can also bind copper.
Speaker:And I would just offer that the master
Speaker:regulator of iron naturally
Speaker:in the body is lactoferrin.
Speaker:So if I were to approach the problem, I
Speaker:would kind of start with what exists
Speaker:naturally, which is not to say that maybe
Speaker:he's not having fantastic results too.
Speaker:So I don't claim to have the market
Speaker:cornered on solving the lactoferrin iron
Speaker:problem or the iron problem.
Speaker:So that's what I would say.
Speaker:Yeah, that's perfect.
Speaker:And of course, no disrespect to Molly,
Speaker:though, I'm actually getting more on the
Speaker:podcast in a few weeks.
Speaker:So I'm just always interested in speaking
Speaker:to individuals obviously with opposing
Speaker:but similar sort of understandings of the
Speaker:problem, just looking from a different
Speaker:lens and just trying to
Speaker:get a broader picture of it.
Speaker:I mean, ultimately, all rosary trim.
Speaker:And I suppose one could also just stick a
Speaker:needle in the ROM and just do some sort
Speaker:of venus section as well.
Speaker:I'm sure that is
Speaker:effective as well as anything.
Speaker:But yeah,
Speaker:Joel, you'd be amazing.
Speaker:And I just want to be
Speaker:respectful of your time.
Speaker:But I've got a few rapid-ish fire
Speaker:questions that I'd love to
Speaker:go through if that's okay.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:To keep the sugar diet crowd happy.
Speaker:I know you've covered this
Speaker:on your Instagram recently.
Speaker:And seemingly, it has more to do with I
Speaker:suppose, one of my other protein
Speaker:restriction, although as we chatted about
Speaker:earlier, if you sort of remove a
Speaker:macronutrient entirely, you're going to
Speaker:get a massive sort of swing in
Speaker:metabolism generally speaking.
Speaker:And I know that there's obviously an
Speaker:issue there with high fat diets sort of
Speaker:triggering an increase in FGF21
Speaker:hepatically, which is why maybe that's
Speaker:not the best way to
Speaker:sort of protein respect.
Speaker:But just overall, I suppose, what's your
Speaker:take on the sugar diet?
Speaker:And do you think it's efficacious?
Speaker:I know time will be available, but yeah.
Speaker:So first question,
Speaker:can quote unquote the sugar diet work to
Speaker:help you lose body fat?
Speaker:Answers, yes, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is there anything new there?
Speaker:No, nothing.
Speaker:That's been known for decades that just
Speaker:take any macronutrient to
Speaker:zero and you can see fat loss.
Speaker:Mechanistically,
Speaker:personally, I don't think any of the
Speaker:reasons apart from protein restriction
Speaker:are what's going on.
Speaker:The two big reasons
Speaker:nobody's really talked about.
Speaker:Number one is glycolysis.
Speaker:So again, this gets to kind of my
Speaker:worldview, which is math
Speaker:always drives the equation.
Speaker:In a carbohydrate restricted state, you
Speaker:have less substrate
Speaker:available for glycolysis.
Speaker:And so you're going to have less
Speaker:glycolysis in general.
Speaker:When you reintroduce substrate into the
Speaker:equation, remember, we're talking about
Speaker:trillions of cells here.
Speaker:Every one of them can run glycolysis.
Speaker:So when you have more substrate
Speaker:available, you're going
Speaker:to increase glycolysis.
Speaker:Glycolysis will shred you up.
Speaker:That's why sprinting works.
Speaker:That's why high altitude training or high
Speaker:altitude kind of
Speaker:hypoxia works to lean you up.
Speaker:It's been proven.
Speaker:So cancer patients know
Speaker:this glycolysis leans you up.
Speaker:So when you increase glycolysis through
Speaker:increasing substrate,
Speaker:you're going to get lean.
Speaker:The other variable that no one's talking
Speaker:about is just simply that you're
Speaker:recolonizing the gut.
Speaker:And I think it's something that a lot of
Speaker:low carb influencers have stumbled onto
Speaker:and they don't even know it.
Speaker:And it's just simply
Speaker:that I've experienced this.
Speaker:When you recolonize the gut rapidly,
Speaker:there are very specific proteins that are
Speaker:related to fasting and fat loss.
Speaker:One of them is ANGLP4, PT4, or FAFE,
Speaker:fasting induced adipose factor.
Speaker:That is a protein that is secreted during
Speaker:fasting that actually
Speaker:drives fatty acid liberation.
Speaker:And what you will find is that that same
Speaker:protein can be
Speaker:stimulated by the microbiome.
Speaker:So when you increase taxa during a fed
Speaker:state that produce this protein,
Speaker:you drive fat loss.
Speaker:It actually helps prevent fatty acid
Speaker:storage and drive fatty acid release.
Speaker:So you can actually drive fat loss
Speaker:through the microbiome through mimicking
Speaker:fasting through that.
Speaker:So you have glycolysis and you have the
Speaker:recolonization of the microbiome along
Speaker:with protein restriction.
Speaker:So those are three variables that all
Speaker:work together all at once.
Speaker:And so that explains things, I think
Speaker:pretty well, would be my answer.
Speaker:Okay, that's perfect.
Speaker:And do you think maybe a bit more that I
Speaker:spoke not really, it's not like we
Speaker:haven't talked about anything technical
Speaker:to stay listy honest.
Speaker:And when somebody is going through some
Speaker:sort of disease statement, maybe when
Speaker:there's some impaired match or conjugal
Speaker:function, there's an elevated sort of
Speaker:cell dangerous responses at work.
Speaker:There's obviously in those states is
Speaker:going to be impaired oxfoss down
Speaker:regulated use of fatty acids.
Speaker:Do you envisage that being maybe a
Speaker:potentially effective strategy for people
Speaker:who do have some sort of matcha conjugal
Speaker:impairment to sort of bypass that block
Speaker:in energy production, it'd be in the
Speaker:short term while you're dealing with
Speaker:maybe the underlying issues.
Speaker:Yeah, I certainly think so.
Speaker:I think it could be.
Speaker:I would just say it's
Speaker:certainly something to try.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Last one, and then I'll let you go.
Speaker:Any new molecules you're particularly
Speaker:excited about, just generally speaking,
Speaker:not giving away any
Speaker:trade secrets or IPF course.
Speaker:Yeah, there's...
Speaker:So we're in the burgeoning era of
Speaker:precision fermentation.
Speaker:Basically, we can get bacteria to make
Speaker:very specific immunoglobulins or proteins
Speaker:or different things we want it to make.
Speaker:And where this gets really interesting is
Speaker:in the replication of milk proteins.
Speaker:So lactoferrin is kind of the most
Speaker:conspicuous example, but there are other
Speaker:ones that are blowing up.
Speaker:They're not blowing up.
Speaker:You're going to see...
Speaker:What you're going to see is the
Speaker:introduction of additional co-factors of
Speaker:unique things that are present in
Speaker:mother's milk that are additive with
Speaker:respect to the equation of
Speaker:optimizing the metabolism.
Speaker:And it gets back to
Speaker:mother's milk is growth serum and it
Speaker:triggers all the right things in all the
Speaker:right way when you're young.
Speaker:And it makes sense that there could be
Speaker:some significant benefits to
Speaker:replicating aspects of that.
Speaker:And through precision fermentation now,
Speaker:we're seeing kind of a release of that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Perfect answer.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Cheryl, like I said, you've been a star.
Speaker:This is a conversation I've been wanting
Speaker:to have for a while.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:I appreciate your time and hopefully
Speaker:we'll be able to do this again soon.
Speaker:Just to finish off,
Speaker:where can people find you?
Speaker:Should they wish to connect, learn more
Speaker:about what it is you do, your work, your
Speaker:company, Veep, et cetera?
Speaker:Yeah, probably the best
Speaker:place is my Instagram.
Speaker:So that's real Joel Green.
Speaker:And then my link tree has
Speaker:all those goodies in it.
Speaker:And then I'm trying to
Speaker:grow my ex, my Twitter.
Speaker:I just don't post often enough, but if
Speaker:you want to follow me,
Speaker:same thing, real Joel Green.
Speaker:And then our URL is a veepnutrition.com.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Joel, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker:Thank you, Rob.
Speaker:I really enjoyed the convo.
Speaker:Really great.
