Colon & Liver Cleansing, Water Purification & Much More

February 2, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/dr-andrew-kaufman/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:40] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:32] Guest Introduction

[00:07:37] How Dr. Andrew Kaufman became a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness in medicine

[00:10:32] What caused Dr. Andy to step back and pivot into what he does today

[00:16:27] The mechanisms in place that keeps doctors from looking for true information

[00:19:56] Medical errors is the third leading cause of deaths in the United States

[00:21:12] Dr. Andy's film Terrain and the importance of terrain and the environment

[00:27:52] Water plays a role in healing biological mechanisms

[00:29:36] Podcast Sponsors

[00:32:28] cont. Water plays a role in healing biological mechanisms

[00:41:12] Dr. Andy's thoughts and practices with regard to structured water and water fasting

[00:51:33] Dr. Andy says blood tests, and other quantification, tests are misleading

[00:57:02] What is involved in Dr. Andy's Alchemical Detox course?

[01:15:54] The True Medicine University

[01:18:35] Closing the Podcast

[01:20:00] Upcoming Event

[01:22:13] End of Podcast

Ben: My name is Ben Greenfield. And, on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

Andrew: Our bodies take this apple and turn it into human flesh, and that is a natural transformation process. And, you can use the principles of alchemy to simply describe or understand various steps in that transformational process.

Ben: Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

You might have glutes and you might have abs, what about a gut? How are your inputs and your outputs? See what you put into your body affects, for lack of a better term and phrase, your poop. And, truth is we could all be doing it better, even if we're fit. This is where a probiotic and prebiotic comes in on the regular for regularity. It turns out that everything you know about probiotics is actually wrong. It's a myth that a lot of fermented foods and beverages like kimchi and kombucha and kefir contain all the probiotics that you need. Many fermented foods and beverages either don't qualify or have a bunch of added sugars. But, there are certain types of bacterial strains that can be delivered safely through probiotics that can make their way a 100% alive and well to the end of the small intestine, then into the colon where they can offer a host of digestive health benefits, in other words, easy poops. And, these strains have been studied and they can actually work.

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Well, folks, I've been aware of my guest on today's podcast for a few years now because he's popped up all over the room when it comes to natural healing. He was a whistleblower during the COVID-19 pandemic. He's a fellow lover of homeschooling, which I, of course, have a distinct passion in considering that's what I was educated with, K-12, and how I educate my sons. And, he's also just basically a guy who is really spreading the truth right now about the world we live in today, fighting for freedom, and the vital knowledge that you need to truly care for yourself at the highest level. How to become your own health authority is something that this guy really specializes in. His name is Dr. Andrew Kaufman. Call him Dr. Andy. That's okay if we call you, Dr. Andy, right Dr. Andy?

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely.

Ben: Okay, good. Good. Just making sure. Didn't want to disrespect. Anyways though, so the shownotes for everything that Andy and I talk about are BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman, Dr. Andy's last name, K-A-U-F-M-A-N. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman. I'll link to everything that Andy does and what he's been up to, but he is a BS from NIT in molecular biology. He's got his psychiatric training from Duke University Medical Center, very prestigious medical center. After graduating for the Medical University of South Carolina, he spent many years in the medical field as a forensic psychiatrist, an expert witness. And, according to what I've learned when he learned that many of the modern medical practices were harming people not helping them, he gave up a lucrative medical career and started researching and understanding the true relationship between body, mind, and spirit and how to use nature to heal your own body. And, that's exactly what we're going to talk to you today.

So, Dr. Andy, there are so many places we could start, but I kind of think it's quite interesting that you were a forensic psychiatrist, an expert witness in medicine. So, fill me in on that and what got you into doing that.

Andrew: Well, pretty much as soon as I had learned that forensic psychiatry existed as a sub-specialty, I was instantly drawn to it because it's the opportunity to use your analytical and rhetoric skills to make an argument and it actually has a influence on people's lives and serious decisions of legal and administrative concerns. So, essentially what it is is the intersection of psychiatry and the law. And, in psychiatry, there are actually a lot of special laws to civilly commit a patient to take away their freedoms and force them to receive treatment in the hospital, for example, something that as a psychiatrist, you're given these kind of police powers. And so, this is the avenue where these things get adjudicated in a courtroom or other administrative hearing. And, human rights are, at least in paper, attempted to be respected in this process. So, I was kind of drawn to that, and it really was important in my development because it gave me the opportunity to hone my skills of investigation.

As a forensic expert, you're expected to go through massive amounts of information, so-called evidence. So, for example, if I were an expert witness on a case, let's say a murder case, for example, I was involved in a couple of those.

Ben: Okay.

Andrew: I've been given a box full of records that could include records from school, from military service, from employment. It could also include witness statements and criminal records, which could be quite extensive. It could include testing results. It could include all kinds of health records from mental health records and counseling to hospitalization, surgeries, all of this kind of thing. And, I would have to go through that mountain of evidence looking for things that speak directly to some question which I'm asked to make an opinion on. For example, “Was the defendant under a psychiatric crisis at the time the crime was committed or were their actions motivated by a delusional content part of their illness rather than something in reality?” For example, in this experience and then of course interviewing people for hours, the one time I interviewed one individual client for nine hours over two days, and you're trying to find that little bit of information that can speak to the issue and sift through a lot of things that are really unreliable or irrelevant. And, that kind of thinking helped me approach what's going on in the world today.

Ben: So, did something happen when you were in forensic psychiatry or as an expert witness in medicine that made you step back and question? And, it's kind of along the lines of a guy I recently interviewed, his name was Gary Brecka and he was telling me about how when he was doing insurance adjusting for a variety of different companies, he found that the majority of chronic disease was related to hypoxia, and he felt guilty because he couldn't really help these folks, he could just generate numbers. And, he wound up pivoting as a biologist and starting to treat people using things like exercise, oxygen therapy, and ozone therapy, and mitochondrial enhancement, and just completely switched his career once he realized how messed up the sector that he was in was. So, for you, was there a triggering moment when you realized that maybe what you were doing wasn't really doing folks as many favors as you could be doing?

Andrew: Well, there were several and it was a process. And, I did something very similar to what you just described. And, I'm now completely out of that system. But, I think a really early pivotal moment for me was when I was in my first year of training at Duke and we had this weekly journal club that was very important like it was a mandatory participation. It was called Critical Appraisal of the Literature. And, we actually looked at scientific papers that were published and picked them apart because we were aware there was a lot of bias especially in clinical research like studying antidepressants and things like that. And, we looked at this big article where a researcher who is outside of the mental health world got all of these data submitted to get various antidepressant drugs approved to the FDA. But, these were unpublished data because the drug companies only published things that make their drugs look really good. But, they have to submit everything to the FDA.

So, this scientist analyzed all of that data published and unpublished and showed that there was really no benefit for antidepressants at all that was meaningful. And, we all agreed with the conclusions by doing this critical appraisal. But, then right after that, the same day we went to the clinics and we were still told to prescribe antidepressants without any change in our strategy at whatsoever. And, this contradiction or hypocrisy really made an indelible imprint on me. And, that was the beginning of me looking critically at everything that was going on in psychiatry and basically trying to divorce myself from the mainstream practices.

Ben: So, when things like that happen, is there a lag time do you think? I mean, when we find out something like antidepressants don't work or don't work as well as we would have thought, I certainly see mutterings about something like that, some research or piece of information or study will get released. Obviously, doctors are still prescribing and possibly even the entire medical school curriculum hasn't changed based on that, but is there an even approximate amount of time that it takes for new research to saturate in the medicines at two years, five years, ten years, never?

Andrew: Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the Institute of Medicine has looked at this, although it could be another body. And, it's somewhere on the order of 11 or 15 years before–

Ben: 11 or 15, geez.

Andrew: Finding actually gets into the day-to-day practice of a majority of clinically practicing profession.

Ben: Wow.

Andrew: And, I can give you lots of examples because there are things that I learned about many, many years ago that when I talk to people and they tell me about their diagnosis and what they're prescribed, they're still prescribed medicines that were known, not to be effective 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

Ben: Wow, that's crazy. I mean, just the amount of people that could be harmed or at least not served correctly or have money wasted in the medical system for 11 to 15 years, geez.

Andrew: There are two other really important things to speak to this issue. One is that it's very commonly told in medical school to the medical students that half of what you learn will be obsolete by the time you're out there practicing. And so, there's an acknowledged uncertainty in the information available. And then, there's also the famous professor John Ioannidis paper, probably the world's most famous epidemiologist in PLOS ONE that says more than half of all published research findings are false. So, when we're looking at the body of evidence used to practice medicine we're essentially largely looking at a combination of false conclusions as well as just plain ignorance of the overturning of false conclusions.

Ben: Wow. Yeah, I mean I, came across a study this morning about how 85% of strength conditioning research is flawed or uses flawed methodologies, which is just absolutely bonkers when you think about only 15% of what you're seeing is legitimate research. So, yeah, I would imagine that the doctors who are engaged in independent continuing education and who are actually studying up on them, this stuff themselves, which you see a lot in functional medicine, for example, that they'd be ahead of the curve. But, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, it just seems a lot of doctors are stuck in their old ways that they learned in medical school and just aren't progressing much at all whether due to being too busy or something else.

Andrew: Yeah. No, there are mechanisms in place to keep doctors from looking for true information. For example, they're extremely overworked in order to keep up with their overhead and make a living.

Ben: That you think that's intentional to keep them from actually learning, I don't know what I'll call it, the truth or whatever?

Andrew: Well, whether it was established as something intentional or not, it still serves to function in that way because if you have to, for example, see one patient every six minutes in order to make your quotas, you're not going to have time to sit down and read the research literature. And, you combine that with there is required what they call CME or continuing medical education. And, there are a certain number of hours you have to do for several different sources, by the way, like for your state licensure, as well as for your board certification.

And so, anyone trying to maintain board certification now, this is where they really capture you because there is this requirement for ongoing education and some of them even have tests that you have to take every so many years or hand in a project or things like this. And, they have to approve the materials that you use to educate yourself. So, you can't just go out there and search the literature and the science yourself, you have to use their approved sources and materials. And, it turns out that the sources of these materials are essentially these shell companies or foundations that are set up by the pharmaceutical industry to put their marketing messages in the educational material. And, this keeps you from looking outside because you're required to use these sources in order to keep your credentials active. And, if you don't keep your credentials active, then you could risk your pay scale decreasing, you could lose your faculty status, your malpractice liability, insurance premiums can go up. There are all sorts of consequences. So, you're really stuck within the system and it's very, very difficult to look outside unless you're willing to go outside the system and run your own business, not rely on insurance companies. And, that's very risky for most folks in this professional, though that's exactly what I've done.

Ben: Okay, got you. And, you seem to have really focused as you pivoted out of forensic psychiatry and being an expert witness in medicine into this concept of how our environment affects our health. And, I'm not sure if there was a triggering incident that caused you to begin to focus on the terrain and the environment in terms of your writings and your content, what you're doing now, or were you always aware of the importance of even your new film, it's called “Terrain.”

Andrew: Yes.

Ben: So, the importance of terrain, is this something that's been a growing interest of yours or where did this start?

Andrew: Well, I really came upon this empirically because I first observed the shortcomings of the mainstream allopathic medical system. And, I had lots of personal experience with this. And then, through all my investigation of the published literature, essentially confirmed that way more people are harmed by that health system than are possibly helped. And so, I had to look elsewhere–

Ben: By the way, is it is it true, sorry to interrupt, the number three cause of death from what I understand in the U.S. at least is medical errors and causing things like sepsis, for example, and MRSA and all these issues that we see coming out of hospitals which I suppose are now a very dangerous place to be?

Andrew: Well, I mean, according to Johns Hopkins University Research, they estimated, and this is more than 10 years ago, 250,000 deaths a year from medical errors. But then, there's additional data looking at deaths from prescription drugs taken as directed. And, when you combine those two together, you're well ahead of lung disease in the CDC's leading cause of deaths. But, that doesn't account for actually all the medically-induced deaths because it doesn't account for vaccines, it doesn't account for chemotherapy. So, there's other ways of looking this data and there are many different estimates, but I would say that third leading cause of death is the most conservative estimate. And, it only comes from if you're just using two published studies from the American Medical Association and from Johns Hopkins University.

Ben: Okay. Alright, got it.

So, back to what you're explaining about your journey to the importance of terrain and the environment.

Andrew: Yeah. So, once I realized that I wasn't doing very good medicating my patients and following the traditional psychiatry, I came across very fortunately from a fellow in my spiritual development group suggested to read this book by Kelly Brogan, another psychiatrist. And, she had kind of also had a similar path where she realized that mainstream psychiatry was not really a good thing and found other ways of using diet and some detoxification to address psychiatric problems. And, I tried this on my own and with one colleague and had amazing results. So, this led me on a path to just look outside the medical system at every expert that I could find who was in this space and see what kind of results they had and what kind of procedures or substances lead to good outcomes if there are more.

And so, I did uncover a lot of different practitioners over the course of several years studying this and studying their methods. And, it was only after kind of collecting the procedures and materials that led to the most healing that I saw this pattern that it was essentially a lot of detoxification and nutrition. And, all these materials were found in nature. And then, when I began looking into things like pleomorphism, for example, and looking at the microbial world and what it does in nature and how nature essentially heals from illness itself when we have poisoned land or deforested land, for example. Everything kind of came together that there is really a balance that is established and maintains itself through all these homeostatic mechanisms in nature. And, it always tries to restore itself to a state of optimal health, and that all of the procedures and materials that show empirically to lead to that kind of healing all support the natural functions of restoration, healing, and rehabilitation.

So, I kind of came to this formulation over time. And, of course, the term “terrain theory” was already out there in the ethos but it really resonated with me when I heard it. And, it really applies to my message.

Ben: Yeah, the terrain theory is something that I recently discussed with a guest named Robert Slovak who talked a lot about the origins of human existence on coastlines and the relationship between humans and seawater. And, he was very into the idea that if we replenish the body with constituents that are very, very near to the electrolyte content of plasma that that's one example of how the terrain is everything. And, we kind of unpacked that pretty well in that podcast. That would be a good one. By the way, if you're listening in right now, go back and listen to that podcast with Robert to learn a little bit more about this idea of terrain theory.

But now, you're doing an actual film project based on this entire concept. Tell me about the film project, Andy.

Andrew: Yeah. Well, “Terrain,” the film, is a project with Marcelina Cravat who is an amazing filmmaker. And, we met up early during the pandemic years and kind of hit it off away. And, she was just super curious and wanted to know what's really going on with all the science, what really helps people heal, the same burning questions that most of us have. But, she was willing to read any book I suggested and then get back to me with a hundred more questions. And, we developed this kind of collaboration. And, through her process of learning about the reality of science, underlying germ theory and viruses and how health really works, she created this film, documenting everything she learned and including some very key contributors along the way.

So, it kind of tells the story of her transition or shift from the old way of thinking being a patient at the local clinic and getting vaccines and antibiotics to a totally different way of thinking about health, taking responsibility, realizing what is really causing your health problems, how do you restore yourself and maintain health. And so, we present this an overview of that whole shift process. And, it's not just a scientific documentary, it's encompasses the entire human experience in the context of the last couple of years, at least 2020 through the end of 2021 when we finished up the film production.

Ben: Okay, got it. Now, this film, I've had a chance to–your team sent it over for me to review and there's all sorts of little bonuses and you go into all these different categories. But, I'd love to unpack a few of the concepts in the film just so people can start to understand this whole concept of terrain using some very practical examples.

And, by the way, for those of you listening in, I'm working out with Andy's team, a special link and a code for you guys to be able to get access to this film if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman, K-A-U-F-M-A-N. I'll put it all over there.

But, you talk about water a lot. I don't know if you knew this, Andy. My dad is in the water filtration industry. My brother works with him. My dad started off in coffee and coffee shops and wound up finding the number one thing that influences the flavor of lattes and coffees and espresso in addition to the bean quality was the water, and he started repairing espresso machines and changing up the water filtration technologies and a lot of these coffee shops and then wound up moving on to farms and homes and all sorts of stuff. So, from about the age of 16, I've seen my dad take a deep dive in the water and I have a keen interest in it as well. But, I would love to hear your take on water.

And, first of all, you say that water plays a central role in healing biological mechanisms. What's that even mean? What's the central of water in healing biological mechanisms?

Andrew: Well, sometimes I get ahead of myself with the technical language. But, water has always been taught to me and to virtually everyone else in the context of biology as being a completely passive substance in the background, kind of the air around you right now but not even the oxygen part, just the inner argon or nitrogen that doesn't get absorbed into your body. And, that actually, it turns out, couldn't be farther from the truth.

Now, it's also common knowledge that the body is composed of about two-thirds or less for most individuals who are chronically dehydrated, but about two-thirds water by weight. But, it's not generally thought about that 99 out of every 100 molecules in your body is water. And, the reason why there's that disparity is because water molecules are smaller and lighter than many of the biological molecules that make up the other 1%, things like proteins and carbohydrates and nucleosides. So, water is really what we are made of principally. But, the other thing that is quite fascinating is that the water in our body is not the same as the water in our drinking glass or in our sink, or in the swimming pool.

Ben: Well, folks one of the biggest predictors of how long you live and how good you feel while living is your metabolic health. Metabolic health is difficult to measure, but the single best way to measure how your daily decisions are impacting your metabolic health is indeed by tracking your blood glucose. Monitoring my blood glucose, one of the most important things I do to maintain peak vitality and longevity. I can find out everything, how does ice cream affect my blood glucose, cold, an argument, an email, you name it. Poor blood glucose control is associated with short-term outcomes like daily energy levels, weight management, and even sexual function. But then, there's chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease and Alzheimer's, all of which are related to blood sugar levels.

So, that's where this company called Levels comes in. Levels has an app that interprets your blood glucose data, provides you a simple score after you eat a meal, allows you to see how different foods affect you, and then gives you this personalized diet that's right for you. Obviously, you don't need me standing beside you or Levels to tell you that stick of cotton candy that you're eating at the fair is going to spike your blood glucose. But, maybe you don't know what the difference between say eating or not eating before you do a sauna session would create or say lifting weights at the gym and having whey protein versus rice protein. There's all sorts of little things you don't think about that you can really dig into at this Levels app.

So, go to levels.link/Ben and they're going to give you two free months of the Levels measurement when you use my link, levels.link/Ben.

So, I do red light. I just got done doing 10 minutes ago. It's amazing. Full body red light, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, sometimes both. But, the science behind red light therapy for supporting thyroid function, for supporting testosterone production, for supporting collagen, elastin, boosting cellular energy via triggering the mitochondria, healing damage cells that have been under oxidative stress, helping with sore muscles, helping your joints to bounce back fast as you can get back in the gym faster, red light does this and so much more. But, not all red lights are created equal. The one that I use has undergone third-party testing, it has safety marks from nationally recognized testing laboratories, it's made from one of the highest quality materials, including medical grade components, and it is, in my opinion, the best of the best and gives you the highest dose in the shortest period of time. It's called Joovv, J-O-O-V-V.

I use their Elite, it allows me to treat my entire body in 20 minutes front and back. They also have Joovv Go, which you can take on the go. Any of the Joovvs , you get a steep discount on. How? Go to Joovv.com/Ben. That's J-O-O-V-V.com/Ben to pick up a Joovv today, J-O-O-V-V.com/Ben. Quality true medical grade, safety testing, and results from this stuff. Joovv.com/Ben.

And then, by the way, I'm sure a bunch of people heard you say that and it resonated, but they probably don't really, really fully understand. So, I'm going to say it again, and then I would love to hear your explanation. When you drink a glass of water, that's not what it looks like when it's in your body. It's basically what Andy's about to explain. So, go ahead.

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, I know this is difficult or it's hard to wrap your head around at first. But, let me give you a practical example from my friend, Tom Cowan, on this.

So, we've all had experience with a water balloon. So, let's say a water balloon would be similar to your skin outside the water in your body. Let's say your calf muscle, for example. Now, if we take a pin and prick the water balloon, what happens? The water squirts out in the form. Now, if we take a pin and puncture our calf or puncture a cell for that matter, which is really a microscopic water balloon in a sense, the water is not going to squirt out like that. Now, I'm not talking about if you accidentally hit an artery and it pumps out because we all know that that can happen, but I'm talking about just by relieving the pressure of the water inside, it doesn't squirt out like in a water balloon. And, that's because the water is actually in a totally different phase of matter. Actually, it turns out that is somewhat like a gel or a liquid crystal. And, this occurs specifically in biological surfaces or against biological surfaces, but also in other places in nature. And, there are many ways to energize water into this gel liquid crystal type of stuff.

Ben: Yeah. And, I'd love to hear some of your tips for creating that scenario. But, just because it's difficult for people, I think, to understand this idea of water being a gel, there's actually a great book I read about this called “Quench.” I haven't interviewed the author of this book about the idea of water and its gel form being present in many fruits and vegetables and produce, for example. But, if you were to, let's say, make chia seed slurry, take chia seeds and dissolve them in water and you get this nice stomach nourishing gel or if you were to, I don't know if everybody's ever had a CMOS gel before, it'd be another example. You can make it yourself. You get CMOS and you hydrate it and you blend it and you get this nice gel-like structure, aloe vera gel would be another example. Just think about those textures and then imagine that your cell isn't like the sloshy liquid water, it's more of that gel-based format that allows for a lot of the delivery of nutrients in and out of the cell and the proper flow of electrolytes, et cetera. And so, you were about to explain, Andy, how we actually optimize the formation of that kind of water in the body itself.

Andrew: Right. Well, let me first say that there might even be a more mundane example to understand what we're saying about a gel because we might be familiar with Jell-O, especially if you've been to the hospital–

Ben: Yeah, a good point.

Andrew: They really like to feed you Jell-O there. And, what is Jell-O? All it is is gelatin, which is a protein made from ground-up cow bones but it's also in our bones and tissues. It's related to collagen and it's that mixed with water. And, we have to heat the water to make Jell-O to help the water interface properly and dissolve the gelatin protein. But, it's really the interaction between the water and that gelatin protein, which is hydrophilic that creates the gelled form of the water. So, it's actually quite similar to what's inside of our body and you know how that the edge of the Jell-O mold also it doesn't have a skin on it, a membrane, but it still keeps its shape because it's in that gel structure. And so, our cells and tissues in our body are very similar to that and we see how they maintain our shape. Now, some things are maybe made of metal or harder materials like bones, but all our other tissues also can be very firm like just flex your muscle and feel it. There's no metal in there, that's kind of gelatinous water that you're really feeling.

So, the way that this happens inside your body that the water turns into this fourth phase of water or easy water or structured water, there are many names for this gelatinous type of water is very simple. Two things generally take place. One is that the water is near what's called a hydrophilic or a water-loving surface. And, that would be almost all of your tissues including the inside of a blood vessel walls, for example, and all of the kind of tubes and networks in your body. And then, the presence of sunlight in the form of infrared light, which penetrates right through biological tissues and it's the kind of light that we can see at night using night vision goggles and it is really ubiquitous. So, you have to have a special chamber to actually prevent infrared light from getting in. So, just with being exposed even indirectly at night time to the sun and having these hydrophilic surfaces allows your body to create this amazing form of water, which really carries out all the function of water which I can expand upon.

Ben: Okay. And, I get this question a lot. When people are, let's say, eating foods that are in a gel-like format, let's say Jell-O or chia seed slurry or a fruit or something like that or cucumber or people are drinking water that apparently has a little bit more of this H2O bonding or H3O bonding, I think it is, like structured water, Vortex water, the type of water that the doctor, what's his name, the guy up at University of Washington who does the water research, you know what I'm talking about?

Andrew: Dr. Pollack.

Ben: Yeah, Dr. Pollack with the cells and gels book. If people are drinking that type of water or eating it, is that sufficient to allow for the gel to form properly in the human cell or do you still need to do some other thing like you mentioned light exposure, et cetera, to get the water into its ideal gel-like format within the cell or around the cell?

Andrew: Right. Well, this is a little bit more complicated than that because our bodies do this all on their own. They take any water that comes into our body. And, if they're able to, there are some things we do which interfere with this. And, that's how it relates to illness. But, our body does this all on its own if we don't get in the way.

Now, in terms of drinking water that is in this state or closer to this state, we are starting to find some benefits to this. There are definitely benefits that have been seen in plant growth. And, we're getting some early data of studies in humans, but I wouldn't say it's definitive but for me, it's enough data to decide that for my family and I, all the water we drink is energized or structured by a device that I've researched. And, we'll use that water preferentially even if I'm not 100% sure it will make a big difference in the long run.

But, more importantly, what we want to do is make sure that we don't interfere with our body's ability to have the water in this way because it turns out that really if there's either not enough water in our body or the water is contaminated with toxins or pollutants or waste products that it limits the water's ability to form this pure crystalline structure. And, the crystalline structure is necessary for the functions of a locomotion of the blood vessels and of maintaining the membrane potential or the voltage like little batteries in our body. So, if we have a toxic lifestyle and/or we're dehydrated, our body is going to be very limited to be able to form this kind of water, and then we're going to have problems in our ability to carry out the body's functions.

Ben: Okay. Alright, got it.

What's the way that you structure your water? Do you have a special type of filter that you use?

Andrew: Well, I use a device called the Analemma Water Wand. And, this was–

Ben: Somebody just recently sent me a bunch of those. I make a big morning glass of water with hydrogen tablets and a little bit of electrolytes and some vitamin C. They say that if you stir the water–it's kind of silly for me because I have a whole house structured water filter, but I'm just using this just out of curiosity and also when I travel. Apparently, you stir the water with this wand for 30 to 60 seconds and it somehow structures the water.

Andrew: Yeah. It's a very fascinating device. And, the reason that I use it is because of the degree of testing and scientific analysis that's been done independently of the device. But, it's a little bit unique because what happened is that its creator, Dolf Zantinge who's really a scientist, studied how water gets structured in nature but outside of organisms because he found structured water in nature and in some natural streams or springs or reservoirs. And so, he has tried to mimic this process starting with, actually, I'm not positive what water he starts with. I believe it's a natural water source. And, he puts the water through this process over an entire year and then puts a small aliquots of it into these quartz cuvettes, which the quartz allows the structured property or energy to be transferred to another body of water. It can't be a glass tube.

And, when you stir it, there are ways to measure that now that water is structured, specifically there is a unique absorption pattern that separates it from bulk water that you can test in a laboratory setting. For example, Dr. Pollack has published the standards on that. So, when you stir water with this, not only does it become energized or structured, but actually it maintains its structured state even when exposed to radio frequencies, cell phones, smart meters, things like that. And, it's been tested up to a full year and it's stable over that time. So, it's a little bit unique.

Now, other technologies probably haven't been fully tested. So, there may be other ways to do that. But, he did take the step to do this kind of testing.

Ben: Okay, got it. But, no filters or anything like that, you're mostly just using this stick to stir a lot of the water that you drink?

Andrew: Yeah. Actually, I believe this is from your dad's company. I have a spiral hose pipe attachment for watering the garden or raising vegetables and things like that. And, I've planned my own experiment in the spring and I know that this kind of experiment has been done successfully with other devices, but I'm going to put grass seed in my lawn and water half of it with this device and the other half without it with just the same hose and water. And, I'm going to monitor the density and the rate of growth and see what the difference is.

And, interestingly in other studies like this, they've actually found even improvements in the mineral content of the soil, even when rainwater was structured and given to tomato plants versus rainwater that's not been structured.

Ben: Fascinating. Okay. So, when you're using these type of devices, and by the way, I do like the concept they make those kind of things for shower heads for the end of hoses, for the whole house if you want to do the whole house, and I try and structure most of the water that I use. I always make sure I get rid of impurities first, so you're concerned at all about that, you're using carbon block or reverse osmosis or anything?

Andrew: Absolutely, yes. I'm in a city on City Water, so I use a reverse osmosis filter. But, that is the first and most important thing is that you're not drinking poisoned water, absolutely.

Ben: Okay. Alright, got it. So, when you're using all of these tactics for the water, do you add anything to the water? Are you a fan of adding back in minerals? Some people learn to like the hydrogen tablets in water, are you messing around with any of that? Are you just going with pure water?

Andrew: I'm just going really pure water. The only thing I do add is my intention of gratitude generally speaking.

Ben: Okay. Alright, got it. Yeah. That's something that I know can be a quantum principles affect some of the some of the structuring the water in a very interesting way and some people think it's woo-woo, but it's not going to hurt. That's for sure.

Andrew: Well, there's a there's a really fascinating experiment that you can do at home actually that has been–

Ben: Really?

Andrew: It's been replicated. Yeah. You don't need a structuring device to do this actually, you could just use regular tap water. But, what you do is you mix, let's say, a quarter cup of rice in a full glass of water, you do it three glasses, same thing. And, you do this for a couple of weeks, every day one glass, you say “I love you” to, one glass you say “I hate you,” and the other glass you ignore.

Ben: Okay.

Andrew: And, after two weeks, see what changes occurred because there will be breakdown of the rice but it will occur in different ways in the different glasses just based on your intention and how you're related to that water.

Ben: Fascinating. Okay. So–

Andrew: It really is fascinating.

Ben: So, with the water, the other thing that you get into is–I want to talk about this whole idea of an alchemical detox because I know that's another thing that came up in in the terrain project. But, this idea of just drinking water like water fasting, do you encourage water fasting? And, if so, how and why do you pull that off?

Andrew: Well, water fasting is perhaps the purest and certainly one of the most powerful ways to heal because this is what all animals do in nature in order to heal. When they're sick, injured, they fast. We've all observed this to some degree. And, the same thing is true for you. And essentially, what it does is it allows your body to purify its water from all these contaminants and thus restore full function. And, there's even in the mainstream literature, there's tons of evidence of the effectiveness of this. I've done it myself several times including a 26-day extended water fast. And, it's something that I definitely talk about and in fact developing with my apprentice Dr. Grayson Dart a water fasting supervision clinic.

Ben: Okay. And, how's a water fast actually work? How many days do you go? And, what do you feel like as you do this? I'm just curious. We haven't talked about water fasting a lot before on the show.

Andrew: Sure. Yeah. Well, the minimum time to call it a fast would be 24 hours. But, that's not really long enough to address a serious health concern. Although it may still be helpful, you may feel energized, and have some moderate benefit. So, we're talking about really if you want to get into some major healing, I would say it has to be 10 to 14 days minimum, although 21 days seems to be from experience a major threshold that you have a life-changing experience if you do 21 days or longer. But, you get into what's called a ketosis metabolism starting around seven, eight days. So, you can have several days in that kind of a healing state if you do sort of a 10 to 14-day fast. So, that would be kind of too–

Ben: It's a long time.

Andrew: Well, I mean, time is all relative. It's safe to fast for three or four months actually. And, many people have done that especially people who are very overweight confess that long very easily, but we're all capable of going that long without any starvation or major health consequences.

Ben: Do you do that yourself very often that this longer 10 to 14-day water fast?

Andrew: Well, it's not good to do it terribly often because you need to have your body needs to kind of completely recover from it before you do it again. When your body goes through that level of healing, it's a lot of things to undertake. And, the reason why you have to rest while you're fasting is to allow your body to use all its energy for that purpose. And so, you don't want to put your body through that kind of procedure again so soon unless it's a necessity like that, you're addressing a life-threatening illness and you may need to fast several times to recover completely.

So, some folks recommend waiting six to nine months before doing another long fast. Now, if you're doing shorter-term fasts, then it's no problem to do them on somewhat a regular basis. For example, if you wanted to fast one day a week, you could certainly keep that up and it would not have any adverse effects in terms of nutritional depletion or anything like that.

I did one about a month ago that was eight days, and I wanted to actually go a full two weeks, but I had unfortunately too many business obligations to extend it and I had to cut it short a little bit. But, it was still very beneficial.

Ben: You ever test your blood or anything before or after to see if there's any noticeable changes or anything in particular that really stands out in response to a water fast?

Andrew: All my experience as a physician has led me to conclude that blood tests are very misleading.

Ben: Really?

Andrew: So, I really never use any kind of diagnostic testing. I find that you can always figure out what's going on by simply talking to someone and asking the right questions.

Ben: Really?

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely.

Ben: So, I guess, I don't know, let's say something like vitamin D. How would you quantify vitamin D blood levels with talking?

Andrew: Well, I wouldn't have to look at their blood, I would look at their health, and I would ask them about their lifestyle, what they're eating, are they spending time outdoors, where do they live. And, it'd be pretty easy to know if they were getting a sufficient vitamin D either from a dietary source from being out in the sun also were they getting enough saturated fat and cholesterol in their diet in order for their body to have the raw materials to make vitamin D. And then, there are other hormones that are related to vitamin D also being synthesized from cholesterol. So, I would look at those issues and things like testosterone, for example, because often when there's problems and deficiency in one that it's the other.

So, it would basically be focused on understanding what the individual's health concerns are and then looking for the causes of those things and helping them by teaching them the information to correct it. You can get a blood vitamin C to go into an ideal range by taking synthetic vitamin D3. But, every time you put that into your body, your body sees it as a foreign substance, not as a food nutrient. And, you have an inflammatory response and it's not even all of the vitamin D components, it's just one purified out. So, is that really going to be an optimal way to improve your body's health? So, I'm not saying this is something you recommend, but it's not the way I look at things.

Ben: Now, would you say the same thing for, I don't know, urine testing or stool testing or salivary genetic testing, things like that as well?

Andrew: There's really not any diagnostic testing whatsoever that I ever recommend or think has value.

Ben: Okay, interesting. So, you don't hear that often these days in terms of quantification. There's even people who will do, I don't know what you think about this, electrical analysis, an AO scan or a body scan or some type of an electrical analysis of meridians and chakras and things like that. Would you say the same thing for those type of quantification protocols?

Andrew: Well, the main basis that I've criticized, for example, the false diagnostic tests for COVID was because they were never actually validated. And, a validation study is where you basically show does something measure what you say it measures. And, I've not found most of these kind of tests that you've mentioned to have undergone any kind of basic validation. So, they don't have a known error rate or other characteristics. So, there's no way to judge the validity of their information. But, let me further expand that even if these things are validated and are the gold standards.

So, recently someone I knew was pregnant and thought that they had a miscarriage but weren't sure and their midwife put them through this series of blood tests. Now, I'd heard about this from medical school, and if you look up in any OB book, this is the gold standard of how to tell if the pregnancy in your belly is still alive. You get three blood tests that are called quantitative beta HCG that's the pregnancy hormone, but in this case, you're just not a yes or no test, it's the actual amount of this hormone in the blood. And, it's supposed to be going up during in the first trimester of pregnancy. And so, you get three samples, each two days apart. And, if the trend is the numbers going up, then the pregnancy is good. And, if the number is going down, then you have essentially a miscarriage that hasn't come out yet.

And so, she did this test, it showed a miscarriage. And then, she went for an ultrasound and it showed the baby was alive and healthy. So, if she relied on this test and decided to get an abortion to clean out the dead material in her womb, she would have ended up killing an alive baby growing inside of her.

Ben: Wow, crazy.

Andrew: Yeah. So, that's how I don't want to have that kind of a situation. And, we could have done something very simple like listen for the baby's heartbeat to find out if there's a baby in there.

Ben: Yeah, yeah, interesting.

Okay. So, let's say that one was going to proceed with water fasting and whether or not they were going to test or quantify. This seems to be pretty related to this other concept that you seem to cover quite a bit in terms of the terrain and the environment. And, that's what you call an alchemical detox. I don't think I've seen that phrase before, alchemical detox. What's that mean?

Andrew: Well, alchemy is this ancient science that many of the famous scientists and philosophers that were taught about in school studied, but it's not taught about except for the fantasy of turning lead into gold. But, what alchemy really is is it's a way to understand changes in nature like transformations.

For example, let's say that we eat a food like an apple. Okay, so we take an apple, which is in a certain form in nature. It has a red skin. It has flesh, a stem, et cetera, seeds in the middle. We put that in our body, our body transforms that apple into something totally different. It becomes part of our flesh. Maybe some of it comes out in our stool. But, when it does, it doesn't look anything like an apple unless we have some maldigestion syndrome. So, our bodies take this apple and turn it into human flesh. And, that is a natural transformation process. And, you can use the principles of alchemy to simply describe or understand various steps in that transformational process.

And, once I learned about these steps and the way of looking at things in nature through this simple formulation, I saw that it applied to healing transformations because when you're in a state of illness and despair and disharmony and then you take steps to bring about true healing, which involves not just doing physical things but also addressing psychological and spiritual existential issues, you go through this process where you transform into a healthier state. And hopefully, that is a complete transformation to meet your goals. But, even so, it's still a change. And, these steps that are described in alchemy are inevitably involved.

So, after observing that, I simply applied this kind of understanding to all of the detoxification science and knowledge that I have. So, the course really is teaching a comprehensive understanding of the principles and practices of detoxification in general. And, by the way, including a whole module on water, but it's understanding them in the context of these alchemical transformational process that you will go through from the start to the finish of your own personal healing and detox program.

Ben: So, what would the alchemical detox actually look like? What would somebody be doing on a sample day of something like this?

Andrew: Well, the course kind of teaches you how to establish your own customized protocol to address a variety of health issues. And so, once you got to that stage, then you would basically have a plan and it would involve a number of things. So, if you're going to go through a typical healing protocol, it would take a minimum of about a month's time. It could be extended depending on what you're doing and how much your health is affected. And, it'll involve several components like there'll be a special diet that you'll be on which allows your body to cleanse. And, that could be fasting, which you don't eat anything. It could be a liquid type of diet where you're just having juices or it could be another kind of cleansing diet. Usually, that involves just a vegan diet, but occasionally there might be a combination where there's some kind of nutrient-dense food added to it. And so, it depends on your unique situation. Then, there'll always be a component of hydration to make sure that you're properly hydrated and that your needs for water may go up during your cleansing to help your body flush out toxins. This is definitely true during a water fast.

My last water fast by the end I was drinking 6.5 liters of water in a 24-hour period, which is far more than I would need to drink going through my regular day-to-day unless I'm doing some heavy lifting or something.

Ben: Okay.

Andrew: And then, there would always be an elimination aspect to the program because if your body is going to loosen up these toxins that it's been storing or that have been causing disease in parts of your body, it needs to get them all the way out. So, usually involving the bowels or the skin or other organs of elimination.

Ben: Okay, got it. So, when it comes to this alchemical detox, you talk about healing solvents. And, I'm curious what a healing solvent is and how that would be used as a part of this protocol.

Andrew: Sure. Healing solvents are essentially oily liquids that we are familiar with many of them, but I know that they're not generally formulated this way. But, they include castor oil, essential oils, DMSO, coconut oil, and turpentine, which is really my favorite for really intense healing situations.

Ben: Okay.

Andrew: And, what my theory is or my hypothesis, and I don't have studies to test this, but I do know that using these healing solvents in various ways has resulted in amazing recoveries from serious illnesses, things like lupus and other things, cardiovascular disease, et cetera, we could talk about that.

But, what I think happens is is that since our body is made of water and that there are many of the toxic substances which are man-made which are not dissolvable or soluble in water, and these build up a greasy sludge inside of our body in various places. Just like they would be in a clogged pipe in your sink. If you've ever cleared one of those, you see that along the walls of the pipe is this greasy sludge. And, I think a similar kind of substance accumulates in your body and can cause lots of problems with health. And, that these solvents are able to dissolve it away but in a biologically compatible way because all of these solvents come from plants in the natural world. And, they can dissolve it away, so your body can completely eliminate it. And, this is a procedure that allows you to recover well from many diseases.

Ben: Would that sludge be biofilm or something like that? Do we even know?

Andrew: Well, I mean, I haven't actually discovered the substance or really named it, but it may be similar to that. I'm not sure if that is an oily substance or not, but anyone who's done an enema or a colonic has seen some of this material or by various other kinds of protocols with laxatives [01:04:39] _____–

Ben: Just like colonic mucosa or something like that when you see these stringy things kind of coming out the butt after an enema or something along those lines.

Andrew: Yeah. No, I mean, I think that that is waste products that build up on the surface of the inside of your intestines. And, they're kind of sticky and they don't come out so easily. So, when you start doing cleansing procedures, your body goes into this mode where it starts putting this stuff out more. You'll experience this if you do one of these that you'll have foul-smelling things that are unexplainable in the toilet or even many times seeing worms in the toilet depending on what's going on with your health.

Ben: Now, with the colonics or the enemas, for example, one concern that people have about those is that they could nuke the good bacteria in the colon or clean you out too much. What do you think about that idea? And, do you have some way to replenish good bacteria if so?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, this is definitely a risk for colonics. I mean, colonics have to be used only intermittently and for certain situations in a very time-limited manner like two or three and then none for six months kind of thing because they can cause those problems. And, that is very different from an enema because you're using a high volume of water under pressure and it's going all the way up to your small intestine.

Now, when you're using a regular enema, you're using a much smaller volume like 1 liter or less. And, it's only going really into your rectum and sigmoid colon not very far at all. And, I don't really think there's any risk from doing that unless you're putting poison water or some other kind of poison because just having some–

Ben: Or, perhaps coffee or something like that that has contaminants in it.

Andrew: Well, yeah, so it is important if you're going to do coffee enemas that you use organic coffee. I mean, it still may not be the healthiest thing for your gut, but that's for a different purpose. And, coffee enemas is actually something I'm a big proponent of because there's amazing data on it, but it is once again, a time-limited use. You're not going to do coffee enemas forever, you're going to do it for a period usually two to four weeks in order to improve your liver function. And then, you don't need to do it again and until next year or maybe not at all. Unless you're doing a serious protocol for a life-threatening cancer or something like that, you may do it for a more extended time. But, it's a time-limited procedure. With regular water enemas, there are some people who are so chronically constipated that they're unable to reactivate their bowels or they're unwilling to go through the tedious long-term commitment to bring that about. And, using a daily enema is not been harmful in my experience. In fact, really can help stimulate good elimination.

Ben: Now, what about the liver? I mean, because what I understand is the coffee enema, for example, can really help to move things through the liver and the gallbladder as well as far as a bile dump. I think they've even quantified or shown in some type of a scan, the amount of bile that's released in response to a coffee enema. But, do you have anything particular that you recommend for the liver or the gallbladder beyond something like that.

Andrew: Well, there are in fact another module in my alchemical detox course is on the liver because this is an issue that's commonly a barrier to healing. And, what happens is that because of our lifestyle that many of the things we're exposed to cause liver congestion, which is the same process that leads to what people know is a fatty liver and eventually cirrhosis of the liver. And, these are mostly processed food additives and carbohydrates. They are alcohol, of course, and pharmaceuticals are the biggest insults to our liver. And, the liver gets clogged up and can't process as much of the waste over time. And, this can cause all sorts of problems.

So, one thing is it causes things to bypass and go to the skin, so a lot of skin conditions as well as allergies and asthma are worsened because the liver can't process these poisons accordingly. Of course, you talked about the stones that we get and that's especially when you combine this problem with dehydration you increase the risk and certain dietary factors. So, all these things can be addressed through various procedures that don't involve any surgery or antibiotics or anything like that.

Coffee enemas is one very effective way to address the liver, but it's not something that you just do a coffee enema and forget about it, you want to also give your liver some rest. So, you want to avoid wheat meat and dairy for a period of time. Those require the most energy from your liver for digestion.

Ben: Really, meat does, huh.

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. And, not saying that it's not healthy to eat meat, but it does require a lot of effort from your liver to process all the nutrients. And so, when you're working on your liver, you want to rest your liver as much as possible so it can go into healing mode rather than being stuck in digestion mode. And then, later on, when you're finished that and you're rebuilding the liver, that's when you want to maybe eat liver because then it gives your liver the exact right nutrients to rebuild the liver in a pure way wherever it's been damaged.

Ben: Yeah, that's the whole kind of like supports like idea, right?

Andrew: Yes, yes. But, there are other things to do. There's a certain specific nutrients that your liver needs to function optimally, so you want to include those in your diet, things like flavonoids, for example, sulfur-rich amino acids like cysteine and methionine to help make glutathione and other compounds. So, you want to include specific foods containing those nutrients or some people even recommend supplements like MSM for sulfur or you could take a conjugated cysteine tablets. I'm not a fan of those–

Ben: Conjugated cysteines, is that like an acetylcysteine?

Andrew: No. So, an acetylcysteine is a precursor and that would be something else that you could include to repair the liver. And, if you ever have an accidental poisoning, you definitely want to take NAC and acetylcysteine, and vitamin C. And, if you combine those two things with water and milk thistle, chances are you could probably survive almost any poisoning.

Ben: Water and milk thistle plus what?

Andrew: NAC and vitamin C.

Ben: Okay. So, if you had some kind of poisoning, you would do NAC, vitamin C, milk thistle, and water, and that would flush the body really well?

Andrew: Yes. And, there might be other things you could–that's when the poison's already inside your body. If it's still in your gut, you can use a binding agent like charcoal or zeolite or bentonite clay also to prevent it from being absorbed into your body. But, once it's in the body, those things could save your life from almost any kind of poison.

Ben: Wow, that's fascinating. I haven't heard of that combination before. Really interesting. And, by the way, for those of you listening, I'm taking notes here that I'll put at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman, K-A-U-F-M-A-N.

You also appear to be a fan of shilajit. I noticed that you talked about that in the alchemical detox. What's going on with shilajit?

Andrew: Yes. Well, shilajit is a really important form of trace minerals because of the way we now grow food where we're not growing it on our own land and we're not putting the animals in our waste back into the soil that essentially after two growing seasons you're removing many of the minerals from the soil. And then, the food is going to another location, so nothing ever replenishes the minerals. And, pretty much all the food we eat is devoid of these minerals and they're about 50 or so trace minerals that we need. And, it turns out that most of the proteins in our body use these trace minerals, these metals. So, for example, hemoglobin we know that has an iron in it and the iron is the part that binds the oxygen, so it's critical. And, there are many of these though, things like manganese, copper, zinc, molybdenum, some of them you may not have even heard of but our body uses these things, but we don't have them. And instead, we have toxic metals that were exposed to things like lead, hexavalent chromium, and aluminum from vaccines, and food storage containers.

And so, our bodies, actually and this has been shown scientifically, will substitute these toxic metals because it's better than nothing but our proteins can't function optimally. So, shilajit is essentially decomposed ancient plants but just the part of them that contains the minerals. The other part has been biodegraded back into CO2, probably.

Ben: Yeah.

Andrew: Mostly the carbon, right? So, we're left with these minerals and they're conjugated to fulvic acid, which is what plants used to suck the minerals out of the soil and deliver it to their leaves and stems. And so, if we were eating plants that had the minerals, it would be in this form, but this form is essentially like a tare kind of earthen soily, humus-type substance.

Ben: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I've used it before in a liquid and also on a tablet. It's very interesting indeed. I mean, you feel a little bit of energy from it too. Isn't Russia called the Conqueror of Mountains or something like that?

Andrew: Yes, yes, it is. And, mumio is the Cyrillic name for it.

Ben: Okay.

Andrew: That meets means Conqueror of Mountains, absolutely.

Ben: Fascinating.

Andrew: And so, yes, because if you're devoid in these minerals, which we all are, then your body's physiology is not optimal. And, when you replenish them, you can notice various types of improvements, all kinds of things improve sexual function, improve growth of hair, skin and nails, improvement of edema, swelling of tissues as some folks have reported. All these kinds of improvements can occur once you replete yourself with minerals.

Ben: And, this is obviously all kind of–it's all organized if someone were to go to your alchemical detox course. I think it's called True Medicine University is your website. And so, you walk people through how to do the colon, how to deliver, when to take the shilajit, all these things.

Andrew: Yeah. So, for all of these procedures, first of all, there's a video lesson that I teach you about all these things and then we have tons of reference documents as well as all of my written protocols which are there in very, very detailed. So, it includes how-to guides, tips, places to record your progress and plan out your own detox, plus exactly the protocols that I've developed that I teach to my clients that you can either use as a template to customize or you can use them exactly that way, but it's really designed so that you can learn everything from all of the theoretical background information to the clinical evidence for these various substances and procedures, all the way to the very practical how do I do this, what kind of materials do I need to buy, what are the tips and tricks to overcome troubleshooting. And then, also everyone who's in the course gets access to a special telegram group for students only where I answer questions about the material on a daily basis.

Ben: Okay. Alright, cool. And then, the film project, that's something different, that's something that people can go and watch on a different website, the “Terrain” project.

Andrew: Yes. Yeah. Well, the “Terrain,” the film is a regular movie. In fact, much to my surprise, it's just been listed on Amazon Prime, so you can actually go to any hotel, anyone's home in the world pretty much and get on the computer or the TV and can stream it on Amazon. So, this is a major breakthrough to get this to a much, much wider audience. And, we negotiated with them to have the cheapest price available. So, it's only 99 cents actually to watch this film.

Ben: Okay, cool. So, I'll link to that as well so you guys can check it out. Actually, it's a really great film and builds on a lot of the concepts that Andrew just kind of didn't get a chance to take a deep dive into today but gave us a real good preview of. And, I'm even thinking about perhaps because I like to do a little bit of a detox at the beginning of each year. I'm thinking about trying out this alchemical detox myself just as a little bit of immersive journalism. If I do, I'll let you guys know how it goes.

We're just about out of time here, but what I want to tell folks listening in is that if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman, I'll link to Andrew and his alchemical detox in this film and everything else that he does. And, any last words that you would like to share with people regarding their internal terrain or detoxification or anything like that while I have you on, Andrew?

Andrew: Well, I just want to really leave an overall guiding message which is that each and every one of us are really capable of taking charge of our own health and healing and learning this information or working with someone who really knows it to help educate us and taking your own steps. You don't need to be dependent on the system, you don't need to take poisonous pills or injections, you don't need to get sliced open, you just need to learn how to use these natural approaches and take control of your life and you can really do everything you want to do and have amazing results.

Ben: Amazing. Alright. Well, cool, I will link to all this at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Kaufman, K-A-U-F-M-A-N. Andrew, you're doing some really helpful things in the health industry, so thank you for what you're doing and keep up the great work, man.

Andrew: Alright, thank you so much for having me on, Ben.

Ben: Alright, folks. Till next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Andy Kaufman signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com. Have an amazing week.

Just imagine a hotel surrounded by nature, vineyards, and gardens, this forest classified as a historical garden in a very special country at a hotel located in the oldest demarcated wine region in the world. Imagine this place has a state-of-the-art spot, 2,200 square meters, 10 treatment rooms, an indoor pool with underwater sound and chromotherapy. Imagine a kitchen team that brings to the table not just delicious food at this place but values environmental sustainability and wellness and local sensitivity and global sensibility. Imagine being able to be bathed in luxury and being able to be local, to buy a local and to eat local, not caged off of some fancy tourist but it's a part of the community and part of the torar of the region.

Well, that's exactly what you experience in Portugal at their Six Senses luxury retreat. And, I'm going to be there for a special event that you can read up on at BenGreenfieldLife.com/SixSenses. It's called the Boundless Retreat. And, at BenGreenfieldLife.com/SixSenses, you can see everything we're doing. Every day starts with a healthy farmhouse breakfast, morning movement session with me, you get access to three different 60-minute spa treatments that you can choose from throughout the day, indoor pool and vitality suites, meditation, sound healing, an alchemy bar with Kokodama and yogurts and pickles and sprouts workshops, retreat meals all made from locally sourced organic produce, Q&As and sing-along sessions with me. This is going to be an amazing remarkable once in a lifetime experience. You get four nights full board accommodation in a deluxe room there at the facility. And, this thing, as you can imagine, is going to fill up fast. It's in Portugal at the Six Senses retreat in Portugal.

Again, all the details are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/SixSenses. And, the dates are February 27th through March 3rd, 2023, February 27th through March 3rd, 2023. I hope to see you there.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh entertaining, well-informed, and often outside-the-box approach to discovering the health, and happiness, and hope that we all crave. So, I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And, if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. It means a lot.

delible imprint on me. And, that was the beginning of me looking critically at everything that was going on in psychiatry and basically trying to divorce myself from the mainstream practices.