January 19, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/drde/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:48] Podcast Sponsors

[00:04:45] Episode and Guest Intro

[00:07:13] Scans and Body Fats, etc.

[00:11:17] Liver King issues with fat

[00:14:25] A meta-analysis on growth hormone deficiency in adults

[00:18:16] Regenerate the thymus gland in your body

[00:25:37] What's the best way to know if you’re taking enough growth hormone?

[00:28:31] Could growth hormone could be less problematic with adequate flavonoids?

[00:36:19] Podcast Sponsors

[00:38:43] cont. Could growth hormone could be less problematic with adequate flavonoids?

[00:45:13] How Ben got started with endurance training

[00:56:36] Live Q&A from Instagram

[01:14:01] Upcoming Event

[01:16:14] End of Podcast

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

Dr. De:  Your body will attack whatever it does not know what it is. So, the principle from steroids to legally or illegally prescribed or whatever, whatever, whatever, when you're putting these things into your body, your body then can attack it. And, that's what causes the cancers and autoimmunity and yaddi, yaddi, yadda and the leaky guts and all that stuff. And, I'm really not for that. And also, you age a lot quicker with that stuff.

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

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Hey, the podcast episode that you are about to hear is with Dr. De, Marcos Andrade. Now, this guy runs a facility called Biohax, B-I-O-H-A-X in Miami, Florida, kind of like a biohacking wellness facility. He's a real expert in things like hormones and steroids and peptides and blood work. And man, in this discussion, we open up the Liver King controversy. We answer a bunch of questions on Instagram live, and we really just had a fun time chopping it up, as they say. So anyways, the shownotes for everything that you're about to hear, you can find at BenGreenfieldLife.com/D-R-D-E. It's BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe.

Alright, enjoy the episode. As usual, you can leave your questions, your comments, and your feedback for Dr. De or myself at BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe. Alright, here we go.

Hey, hey, hey, we're live. Magic of technology. Me and Dr. De.

Dr. De:  What's up, my brother?

Ben:  Miami with my homie. And, that's all the wrapping you guys get for the whole podcast. This is going to be interesting to set the stage for folks. I'm in Miami doing a string of meetings and talks with really cool people and I decided to drop and talk with a relatively new friend of mine, Dr. De, Dr. D-E at this place called Biohaxs that will fill you in on biohacks, B-I-O-H-A-X-S. And, I will also, just so I get this out of the way, I don't forget about it, I'll take shownotes for you guys at BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/D-R-D-E.

We've got Instagram live fueled up so we can take questions from our audience. But, before we do any of the Q&A and everything to be thinking about some cool questions that you guys want to ask, I thought maybe you guys could get to know a little bit more about Dr. De and what he does. We're also recording this for his show. So, he may have some questions for me.

But dude, we did a brief Instagram live like maybe what, two months ago, something like that. And, we talked a lot about steroids and hormones and peptides and all kind of like the biochemical things, which was interesting. So, I rode a scooter down here from the beach, which is great. I love riding a scooter through cities. I think I could have totally been a bike messenger in another life by delivering value in my head and my mortality is enough.

But anyways, speaking of steroids and hormones and stuff, not that we want to kick this horse to death, but that whole Liver King thing. I haven't even talked about on our podcast yet, but tell me what you think about that.

Dr. De:  Okay. That's funny because I'm like, “Should I bring that up? Should I not bring it up?” Because, number one, thanks for coming through.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  And, it's such an honor to have this guy here. I really admire your work, everything he's done, man.

Ben:  Oh, thanks.

Dr. De:  And, I can't wait to see you turn 150 years old. And, I just said “I can't wait” because that means I hope I'm right there with you.

Ben:  I hope that doesn't happen because that means most of my friends are going to be dead except you, apparently.

Dr. De:  Right. But no, you're definitely going to be. We're just talking about this guy's body composition and he's super lean, which that already puts you, helps a lot with longevity.

Ben:  Well, kind of. Well, actually we get back to–we're going to rabbit hole. I can already tell. So, the thing with the body fat is on part of my trip here. I just took a car from Naples in the Miami after being up in Sarasota teaching at this event called Elements with Dr. John Lieurance. We were covering air and light and water and electricity and all the ways to optimize the body. But, I stopped off at Naples because when I interviewed Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis on my podcast, they told me about this spanking new medical facility that they launched called Fountain Life.

Dr. De:  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Ben:  And so, I went in. I did their whole battery of screenings, cancer tests for early detection of cancer called the GRAIL test and the genome evaluation, and for blood work–

Dr. De:  Calcium or CT, yeah.

Ben:  Yep, coronary CT scan, calcium scan that, and the full body MRI. And then, the DEXA scan was one of the protocols they did. I've always struggled with this. I have an extremely high metabolism and very low body fat. And, even after the DEXA scan and also at the MRI, they're like, “We don't know how good these results are going to be because your body fat is just so low.” So, what's up with the DEXA scan and low body fat? Does it just not give you accurate results or?

Dr. De:  To tell you the truth, that's the first I'm hearing this and we're talking to you guys and we're looking at a WholeLogic last-generation DEXA scan right there. It's in the other room.

Ben:  You guys have one in this facility.

Dr. De:  It's literally right there. You can see that.

Ben:  What's this place called? The Infinity–

Dr. De:  Infinity Sports Institute.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  It's one of the few in Florida. And, that's a Hologic. And, just so you guys know, we have to have a license from the state to have that machine in here.

Ben:  It's called the Hologic.

Dr. De:  Hologic. It's the brand. It's kind of like a Toyota.

Ben:  Okay. And, DEXA is dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.

Dr. De:  Yeah.

Ben:  Okay. So, it's kind of like–

Dr. De:  Good job, absorptiometry–

Ben:  Yeah, I remember some of my stuff from college and it's doing a scan of the body and it's supposed to be gold standard for body composition and body fat and lean body mass, right?

Dr. De:  Absolutely. And, you use it actually to check for osteoporosis in older people most namely after the age of 65. So, I kind of just explain it. If it can see inside the bone, it can really get an idea of fat and muscle. And no, here we pick up really good numbers. Our record here, if I'm not mistaken, is 12% on–

Ben:  For a low body fat.

Dr. De:  Low body fat on a NFL football player.

Ben:  Wait, what's your record for high?

Dr. De:  Unfortunately, there's so many–

Ben:  Does like the bioelectrical impedance? Does the body hydration matter when you do it?

Dr. De:  To a certain extent but variation is small. But, I've seen 39, 41% body fat, which is like–

Ben:  And, this thing will tell you whether it's visceral or–

Dr. De:  Visceral. Yeah, I was just going to say that.

Ben:  –know of the problematic visceral fat is high. It's an issue. Whereas, if you look at a cold water swimmer, they've got sometimes higher fat but it's all this metabolically active brown fat up around the collar bone and in areas that's not that big of an issue. So, fat is not fat from a bad standpoint all the time.

Dr. De:  True, true, true, true. The baby fat, the bottom fat.

Ben:  Yeah. But, this DEXA scan, you think like if I was too lean because you're coming on my leanness, you think it wouldn't give accurate numbers, or what do you think?

Dr. De:  No, I think it should give accurate numbers. You know what, let's do one after the show. You want to do that?

Ben:  If we have time. Yeah.

Dr. De:  Okay. Roger, can you get Eric tell him not to leave because I see him walking out the door?

Ben:  We could do a video for people. We don't have to, I just didn't want to–

Dr. De:  We'll try. We'll try. It takes five minutes.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  But anyhow. So, with your readings and for regardless of whatever but just for longevity, it's amazing that you have so little body fat on you. And then, tying it up with the whole Liver King thing.

Ben:  Yes. Back to the Liver King. Enough about my not having enough fat on my body.

Dr. De:  No, but tying it up to that, here's the thing, brother. I get so frustrated, so freaking frustrated with the fitness community talking about, “Hey, eating pizza and eating this and eating that.” And, they look chiseled, they look like they're sculpted, they look like Greek gods and not clear about what they're doing. And, that is the only person that I've come and that I've called out on social media before. I'm like, “Hey, man.” Because you're doing certain things with your shirt off like eating certain foods, et cetera. People are going to think, “Hey, this is exactly how this guy looks this way.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  I'll do that. But, I actually show people what I'm injecting at night. I'm very crystal clear. “Hey, this is what I'm taking before I'm sleeping.” Like, “I take this, I take my vitamins, I take that, et cetera.” And, just to clarify, I follow a line of bioidentical substance. I only put inside my body what my body either needs, what there's a receptor there for or what my body produces. So, if my body produces it, I'm okay with it, but it's about identical substance. I'm okay with it all the way from things like iodine, things that your body needs in order to operate just like any system, any machine.

Ben:  Okay. So, let me ask you this. People are saying that one of the issues with the Liver King besides him lying and that lie potentially fueling a lot of business for him based on his deception about how it is he truly got his body and him selling supplements that he claims got him that body when there were some other things involved as well. The other issue is people say, well, what he was doing is problematic because it's dangerous. Dangerous for the liver. Dangerous for the lipids. Dangerous for cancer risk. Now, from what I understand, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, if someone's on appropriate amounts of testosterone replacement therapy and someone is perhaps not doing a bunch of steroids and SARMs and some of the things that might be a little bit murky in terms of the potential impact on health and maybe they're doing a little bit of testosterone and peptides, let's say. Do you think that's damaging to the body to some like a testosterone and peptides protocol?

Dr. De:  Okay. Really, this is my favorite topic. And, number one, let me just clarify with people what are my credentials. So, I went to traditional medical school. I have a doctor in medicine. I stopped my residency. I didn't really agree with what–after medical school, I did a postdoc in metabolic research at the Cleveland Clinic here in Florida.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  So, I actually worked with 1,000-pound patients. I've seen those. I always loved metabolic stuff. So, I've seen patients like that and to working with some of the top athletes in the world now. So, I have a pretty big–

Ben:  But, do you have your spinning certification? That's the most important thing in the fitness industry.

Dr. De:  Not yet.

Ben:  Okay. Well, you're mildly credible. Go ahead.

Dr. De:  Just so everybody, I'm not a licensed traditional doctor but I am board-certified and alternative medicine and I combined my MD and that's where we are today. And, I run Biohax, which has a bunch of licensed professionals.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  So, anyways, point is I will die for what I'm going to say right now with what your body produces, which is the testosterone and peptides like great peptides like GHK copper, which is found in the saliva, urine, and plasma in the blood.

Ben:  Your body already makes.

Dr. De:  Your body makes it and needs it. And, for example, you start to see an increase in cancer because of the downregulation, the production of GHK. And, the GHK is not even a fitness peptide, it's for skin and hair and nails.

Ben:  Yeah, it's even used topically in a lot of hair growth and skin care treatment.

Dr. De:  Yeah. And, it's basically the 911 for injury. So, you get a cut and your genes all of a sudden upregulate GHK for it to come. But, as you age, the production declines and therefore you even see an increase in cancerous activity.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  “Wait, holy smokes. Did you just say the lack of peptide can promote cancer?” Absolutely. There's a meta-analysis on growth hormone. Brother, it's wonderful. It's what, 11,191 participants. They did a retroactive study, so they looked at past studies. They didn't do a new study, so they looked at PubMed, web of China, and I can't remember two more large databases and they collected all these growth hormone studies and they showed that in adults. This is actually the title what I'm going to say right now. Maybe not verbatim, but in adults, with adult growth hormone deficiency, which many of us have, the replacement of growth hormone helps in preventing cancer. And, I'll wrap it up with–

Ben:  If you have a growth hormone deficiency.

Dr. De:  Deficiency. But, now there's another study called the TRIM trial, which stands for thymic regeneration, immunerestoration and insulin mitigation. And, even for social proof, not scientific proof, Forbes already has done article on this nature. It was originally published in the aging cell and they used DHEA, recombinant growth hormone, and metformin, which is a–I don't like metformin. They use this and they actually show that they can slow down the aging process, which is amazing.

Ben:  Significantly. And, by the way, I still want to get back to what it was the Liver King could have been doing that you feel could have been actually dangerous or harmful. But, I remember because I like to look, and you know this, Dr. De through natural lens as much as possible, I say, okay, well they use the synthetic or pharmaceutical. Not that those are all bad, but would there be a natural way to achieve this? And, I remember when the TRIM trial came out and I stepped back and thought, okay. Well, let's say somebody doesn't want to use growth hormone, maybe they don't have a deficiency, maybe they have downregulated growth hormone receptors because their diet or there's some issue related to them not necessarily needing to take growth hormone. Well, what about things like natural raw fermented dairy or colostrum or even some of the growth hormone-based peptides like CJC, ipamorelin?

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  And then, I looked at the DHEA, I don't have much of an issue with. Even my wife, she takes very small amounts of DHEA. I think it's fantastic, especially for perimenopausal and post-menopausal women. Guys go back and forth on that. I see some guys seem to do well on it. Some double women seem to do really well in 10 to 20 mgs of DHEA.

Dr. De:  Yeah.

Ben:  So, that one, I didn't have a huge issue with. And then, the metformin was the other component I thought, well, gosh, I mean, between low-level physical activity, cold baths, lifting weights and blood glucose disposal agents like berberine or dihydroberberine, bitter melon or apple cider vinegar, whatever, you could probably–I would have liked to see a sidearm not that they would have done this, it would have been too complex where instead of growth hormone and metformin and DHA maybe they try colostrum and the blood glucose disposal agent and physical activity and maybe some DHEA or something like that. But, I remember when that study came out, there might be a way to do this naturally too.

Dr. De:  But, here's the thing. The growth hormone, I don't think they used it in the study per se because of the direct benefits of the growth hormone, but they use–it's funny with somebody that was here earlier today, I actually went over the study so it's kind of fresh in my head. They use it for the ability to regenerate the thymus gland. So, that's when you can come in. Yeah, I mean, forgive the colloquialism here but screw the growth hormone. You have to use growth hormone. You can use thymosin alpha, thymosin beta for example.

Ben:  Peptides.

Dr. De:  Peptides.

Ben:  Those are great, but a lot of people use those during COVID and long haul vaccine and saw great results.

Dr. De:  Right. Or, even organic meats and so forth, things that you can–

Ben:  Like thymus extract.

Dr. De:  Yes.

Ben:  Or sweetbreads, right?

Dr. De:  Yes. And guys, just to be very clear, my life philosophy, honest to God, it's not feasible, but move to the Amazon and live in the middle of nature and get true sun and decrease my chemical burden, which is something here I'm super passionate about. Before taking a bunch of stuff, I'm like, “How much chemicals, how much excitotoxins are you exposed to? Where do you live? Do you live next to these crazy towers of glyphosate land?” All the kind of stuff. So, that's my real inclination. But, we live in the middle of a cement jungle, which he just wrote a scooter through. And, it's like, “Okay, these things are impossible. We're talking to attorneys and busy moms and so forth” that it's like, “Okay, ma'am, your vitamin D is abysmally low. You're getting osteomalacia because you're under 15 vitamin D.” So, it's like, “Okay, go out in the sun from this time and this time.” “Oh, I'm not going to do it.” “Okay, fine, supplement.”

So, just so we're clear, if I can one day actually get this all naturally–and, that's why I admire you, brother, because you're more isolated, you're doing this in a way more natural way. And, not because you're here but hats off. But, for those that can't, like the art of regeneration of the thymus gland which I actually just did the CTA and the calcium score not too long ago and they actually wrote embryological remnants still visible, the thymus gland on my case. I was so happy because I'm like, “Oh, crap”–

Ben:  Is that abnormal to have embryological remnants of the thymus gland would normally degrade by your age?

Dr. De:  Yes.

Ben:  Wow.

Dr. De:  So, yeah, in medical school, they trick us. So, first-year medical school and there's doctors listening out there. See, if you remember this, they'll usually in anatomy first semester, second semester, they'll give you an X-ray of a baby's chest and they'll put an arrow and say, “Which structure is this?” And, you're like, “The professor stupid.” And, it's the heart, man. And, you put heart and go to the next question, then everybody gets that. Almost everybody gets it wrong.

Ben:  Because it's the thymus.

Dr. De:  It's the freaking thymus.

Ben:  Wow. Hey, what about the idea of red light on glands for glandular activation? I have a red light. I have a few and two different companies have told me that I should use the red light on the thymus to strengthen the immune system and increase thymus gland activity. So, it's pure anecdote because I've never seen any studies on photobiomodulation for glandular activation of the thymus, but I do it. And, just because I got the red lights out anyways in the morning. I just put it over the lower part of the collarbone in the center.

Dr. De:  I think it makes perfect sense. I'm a big firm believer of photobiomodulation. You'll see, like I told you, our new facility. It's going to be red-light galore.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:   But, that makes a lot of sense. And, the thymus gland, I mean now I'm going to go off on a whim here a little bit. But, it seems it even has some extra, let's say, sensitivities to the environment. Even spiritual, there's a lot of–if you google “thymic tapping,” like people that used to tap their thymus in the path to release fear or release emotions–

Ben:  It's one of the tapping points in “The Tapping Solution” book. The eyebrows and the–Nick Ortner‘s book. I interviewed him a long time ago. But, one of the areas that you tap is the thymus. My family and I, we all do tapping every morning. We don't do this whole sequence, but what we do is we do a gratitude practice, meditation, breathwork, and memorization of a passage of scripture. And then, at the very end, when we're all settled down, I have everybody choose a spot. For me, it's over the heart. And, we tap for about 30 seconds because based on the concepts of neurolinguistic programming, which is what the whole tapping solution is based around, along with activation of some of those certain points, if later on in the day when you're stressed or you feel as though you need to settle down or return back to that meditative state without doing 10 or 15 minutes of breathwork and Bible reading and prayer to get there, you tap on that same area and it allows you to set this haptic cue that brings you back into that feeling of relaxation.

So, right now, I guarantee, if we were doing active tracking of my heart rate variability like using a ring or a metric or whatever, when I tap right over that area because I've been tapping for three years every morning right after meditation, my body goes, “Oh, hey, it's time to settle down.” So, there's something to the whole tapping component.

Dr. De:  No way, dude. That's super cool. I'm going to incorporate that–

Ben:  Yeah, that book, “The Tapping Solution,” a lot of people like it for stress. I thought it was silly at first honestly, you just tap areas. But, there's another book that's very similar called “The Healing Code.”

Dr. De:  I know that, yeah.

Ben:  It was just this idea. I think that has some tapping into it as well.

Okay. So anyways, this is all fantastic information, but back to the Liver King. To close that loop, what do you think he was doing that would have been dangerous that you think, “Oh, regardless of what kind of body it gets you, this is stuff you shouldn't really F around with in most cases?”

Dr. De:  So, I actually saw an e-mail circulating. I don't know if it was true. Let's assume it was true so I can use it as examples.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  I saw testosterone, assuming it's bioidentical. Okay.

Ben:  Which is not problematic.

Dr. De:  No, no, your body's producing it. Your body requires it. Your hormones need to decline for you to age. That's really how it works. It's not the other way around. You age and then your hormones decline. It's the other way around.

Ben:  Aging is a result of hormone declination if we're going to make that word up.

Dr. De:  Exactly there. You put it together. And so, yeah, you need that. I think I saw CJC, which is a very popular peptide, et cetera.

Ben:  So, growth performance releasing or growth hormone-secreting peptide?

Dr. De:  Well, it was CJC with ipamorelin. So–

Ben:  Okay. So, which is great pre bad for–I'm comfortable with people using that like cycling through that. Yeah. I know a lot of people that do.

Dr. De:  Yeah. And, just a little side note, my personal favorite of that family is the test–

Ben:  I did that for a couple of years. I don't even do a lot of peptides now just because I simplified. I just decided, you know what, I could spend all my day with the needles and stuff, extra five minutes with needles in the morning, five minutes hugging my kids. I cut out a lot.

But, for a while, and I got some decent muscle mass doing this without too much training, I did tesamorelin in the morning pre-fasted workout and then ipamorelin and CJC 1295 in the evening to support sleep and growth hormone release, five days on, two days off. I did two 10-week cycles for two years in a row, so a total of 40 weeks on that stuff. And, stamp of approval from me, you feel unstoppable. And again, the only reason I stopped was like, gosh, all these minutes of doing this and filling the needles and doing that is all kind of adding up. And, I'm not like a professional bodybuilder or something.

Dr. De:  Yeah. No, that's true. And yeah, sometimes it does get annoying to prep all that stuff. So, that's okay.

And then, I saw the growth hormone and assuming it's proper 193 amino acid sequence and bioidentical. That's okay. I'm a big fan of it and this is a medical advice, but I personally take it myself. I give it to my parents. I give it to my wife. I think it's phenomenal.

Ben:  You do. Total side question. Do you think if I started taking growth hormone I would put on muscle?

Dr. De:  100%.

Ben:  Really?

Dr. De:  100%.

Ben:  Do you see it pretty consistently? I've thought before but then I'm like, “Yeah, I don't know if I want to or I need to,” but it's not like testosterone where if you start on it, you're not on it for life type of thing, right?

Dr. De:  So, I care a lot about blood work and then the numbers that you see there. I personally think somebody amends testosterone somewhere between 750 to 1,100, you're great.

Ben:  750 to 1,100.

Dr. De:  Yeah. What is good too is better–

Ben:  That's assuming your free testosterone is–

Dr. De:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben:  I think the best metric I've seen is free testosterone if you multiply that by about 14 to 16 and you're falling in like that 750 to 1,100 range and that's pretty good for free testosterone. So, that would be sex hormone binding globulin is relatively low, free T is high, testosterone is elevated and it's not getting converted into estrogens.

Dr. De:  Yeah.

Ben:  Now, when we're talking numbers back to growth hormone, let's say that someone has something they want to track to indicate to them that they might be taking too much growth hormone or they need growth hormone. Is that IGF that you would look at?

Dr. De:  So, IGFBP-3, especially.

Ben:  IGFBP-3.

Dr. De:  Yeah, IGFBP-3 will be a really good indicator. And then, if you're following proper–so, in the U.S., to be able to prescribe growth hormone, there's a few guidelines you need to follow. So, number one, you could prescribe for the growth deficiencies series like Turner's syndrome, et cetera, achondroplasia, dwarfism, et cetera or wasting states or cachexia when person has HIV, cancers and so forth with the doctor deems it's necessary. And, that's truly what oxandrolone or Anavar is supposed to be used for for those kind of states as well.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  And then, which–

Ben:  Oxandrolone and Anavar, that's above growth hormone though. That's bigger guns.

Dr. De:  So, we're going to talk about that in a second because I saw those things. But, those are of the nature in Liver King's list. It's supposedly. I'm not saying it is the list that's what's circulating. So then, you have adult growth hormone failure, which is another modality–

Ben:  That would be a reason, a medically indicated reason to take growth hormone.

Dr. De:  Right. And truthfully, you should do MRI studies, et cetera. It's not just, “Oh, here, I think you have this failure and you can go ahead.” So, you look at IGF-1, but that's still not sufficient. IGF-1 BP3, which is blood work, and then you would actually get into imaging and so forth. So, they're pretty picky on how you guys do it.

Ben:  Okay, I'm not derailing you as I asked you these questions as we go through this, am I?

Dr. De:  No.

Ben:  Okay.

So, another question regarding growth hormone and we can get back to the Liver King and some of the other stuff that you saw. I believe it was Mark Gordon who does a lot of talk in the endocrine world who I heard mention the fact that the issue sometimes with the carcinogenic potential of growth hormone, and I briefly mentioned this earlier, is a lack of the density of proper growth hormone receptors.

And, he indicated that a lot of these flavanol-related compounds, particularly things like quercetin and fisetin, which are often used in the anti-aging industry as supplements, upregulate growth hormone receptors throughout the body to the point where it becomes more fully saturated through the body and you actually reduce carcinogenic potential if you're taking whether quercetin supplement or a fisetin supplement. You find quercetin like red onions and apples and fisetin strawberries, but kind of like resveratrol, you have to take a lot of it.

Dr. De:  Right.

Ben:  So, I thought that was interesting that there was indication that growth hormone could be less problematic if you have adequate flavanol intake from things like quercetin and fisetin and diet.

Dr. De:  And, this is being 100% genuine. I can't see where growth hormone as a carcinogenic potential.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  But, I do agree with the receptor theory and using some of these flavonoids, et cetera, to upregulate receptors. And, that's the infinite argument for those that are pro-growth hormone to some people say, “Hey, take it in the morning.” And then, the people against it will say, “Hey, but the receptors aren't upregulated. You'll see them more at night.” Take your iodine for your thyroid at night because the receptors are also upregulated, et cetera.

Ben: Yeah, It helps a lot of people sleep too, right?

Dr. De:  Absolutely. I love iodine, Lugol's iodine.

Ben:  Well, I was talking about growth hormone, but iodine also helps you sleep, huh.

Dr. De:  A Lugol's iodine. I'm a huge fan of that. Yeah, yeah.

Ben:  Interesting, I didn't know that.

Dr. De:  Well, because it regulates metabolism. So, if the person has–and, the quick trick, you wake up in the morning, don't even get out of bed, take a thermometer, put it under your armpit, and then check your temperature during the day. If there's variations there, it could be an indicator of your adrenals being off, thyroid being off.

Ben:  That one called the Dr. Broda Barnes test, I think, that temperature valve for iodine. It might be what it is.

Dr. De:  I don't know the exact, but yeah, it's been around. It's an old functional medicine, I think.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  But yeah, it's not like iodine is going to help everybody but if the person's a little metabolically and regulated that the little iodine drops at night could work. I don't miss it. I don't miss it. But, going back to the growth hormone. So, I can't see huge carcinogenic potential in it and I'll give you a few examples. The years you have highest levels of growth hormone and all hormones to tell you the truth are the years you look at a cancer map or cancer distribution studies, you have the least amount of cancer. But, as your hormones, all of them decline, you have more amount of cancers in your life, you have more diabetes, you have more heart disease, you have more, et cetera, et cetera.

And then, fasting also, which won Nobel Prize, right, calorie restriction. One of the things that it does, it increases growth hormone levels. So, it's like, “Wait a minute, I thought we didn't like growth hormone.” But, your body's producing it. I can't understand how if your body produces something, how is it going to cause cancer to you? It doesn't get through my skull. I have a degree in biology and went to the doctor–

Ben:  I think the concern that people have is taking supra optimal amounts that go above what the body normally produce–

Dr. De:  That's a different story. So, let's talk about what you asked me a few minutes ago. Looking at, let's say, IGF levels, one of our labs, I think it goes from 17 to 536. I think you're nuts if you're going over 400. Me, particularly, I'm around 270 to 80 and that's great.

Ben:  For IGF, yeah. A doctor once told me that when he looks at the sweet spot, he likes somewhere in the range of 80 to 200 for IGF. Like above 200, he gets concerned. Below 80, he gets concerned. I don't know if that's–

Dr. De:  I think that's a little bit more conservative, but yeah, okay, that's fine. I honestly believe that those IGF levels need to be optimized, which by the way, what does IGF stand for? Insulin-like growth factor. Insulin-like, well, what does it do? Well, it helps also supplementation of with IGF as well, which I think that was on Liver King's e-mail too, IGF-1.

Ben:  You mean that the Liver King was reporting his IGF-1 results or supplementing with IGF-1?

Dr. De:  Yeah, because it was this whole e-mail or something like that. And, he's writing to somebody, and then he wrote down everything he was taking. The IGF, I mean, and we see really cool stuff. Somebody, I'm a big fan of, I don't know him, but he doesn't support–well, right now he's the king of the sport that I do, jiu-jitsu. And, he was having some gut issues and he published on his Instagram this, so I think it'll be okay for me to mention this. Ryan Gordon, this guy is amazing jiu-jitsu and he has gut issues. He took a bunch of peptides. IGF, I saw, was in his cocktail. It's really regenerative. These things really, really help.

So, going back to the Liver King's list, the peptides I think are great, the testosterone is great, the growth hormone is great. But now, you get into the not-so-nice things. You get into what I believe I saw there was stanozolol, which is Winstrol.

Ben: Okay.

Dr. De:  I believe there was oxandrolone in the end of R2, I'm not sure. But whatever, that whole family, when you start getting into things–

Ben:  Yeah, what is that family?

Dr. De:  Because people are going to be like, “Steroids.” Okay, what's a steroid? Vitamin D is a steroid, guys.

Ben:  That's a good point.

Dr. De: Right? So, your pregnenolone, androstenedione, aldosterone, which regulates blood pressure in your kidneys, they're all steroid.

Ben:  Progesterone.

Dr. De:  Progesterone.

Ben:  Which is actually great as an anxiolytic. I have a little bottle of transdermal progesterone on my bedside, so I'm very anxious. I put all that in the inner arm, rub it in. I get it from Chris Shade at Quicksilver Scientific and I mostly just use it because my wife ordered and she some leftover, she didn't like it.

Dr. De:  And, increases a little sex drive.

Ben:  Anxious, a little bit of that and a little bit of CBD.

Dr. De:  And, you don't feel the sex drive too. It helps sex drive and it helps you sleep.

Ben:  I've never noticed that, no.

Dr. De:  You probably have high sex drive.

Ben:  My sex drive, but yeah, I don't know if it can get higher. Yeah. Okay. So, that's a pretty good noise. Okay. So, the steroids, it's not the problem it's a steroid, so what is the problem?

Dr. De:  So, here is the issue. And, the person and all these fitness guys, et cetera, okay. And honestly, I think this is really good advice. When you're using something that your body does not produce, here's a little principle I live by for my own health and that of my family. Your body will attack whatever it does not know what it is. And, we do a lot of inflammation studies here. I love this laboratory called Cyrex, cyrex.com. I–

Ben:  Yeah, I use that with a lot of my clients for environmental exposure of toxins and molds and also for gold-standard food allergy.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  It's amazing.

Dr. De:  They're the first ones in the market in the United States to do the leaky gut test. They were the first ones.

Ben:  Oh, wow.

Dr. De:  I have a podcast with a medical director and he's telling me about it.

Ben:  Yeah, they're a great company.

Dr. De:  Oh, yeah. So, when you're doing that, like leaky gut, all these things, I mean, except Tylenol, ibuprofen, these things your body doesn't know what it is, it can attack it. Now, when you come in with a molecule that looks like testosterone but it's not testosterone, or women for postmenopausal women were like Premarin, which stands for pregnant mare urine, so it's estrogen replacement. No, it's estrogen from horses.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  Right. So, the principle from steroids to legally or illegally prescribed or whatever, whatever, whatever, when you're putting these things into your body, your body then can attack it. And, that's what causes the cancers and autoimmunity and yaddi, yaddi, yadda, and the leaky guts and all that stuff. And, I'm really not for that. And also, you age a lot quicker with that stuff.

Ben:  Alright, families or people with kids or people with friends who have kids who like to hang out with you or people who want to have a family but don't want to work out with their family, I'm getting a little long in the tooth here. Here's what I'm getting at. I'm launching a family challenge. It's called the Boundless Family Challenge. So basically, as you might know, I just launched my book “Boundless Parenting,” and it's knowledge and years of experience from not only me and my wife but over a dozen other rock star families and parents and educators. And, as part of the launch of the book, we're going to have a Boundless Family Challenge. It's a four-week challenge. And, you're going to get all the workouts, all the instructions, all the accountability that you need to actually get fit together as a family instead of everybody just doing their own separate thing at the gym. I'll actually be sharing with you my actual tactics for how I did everything from fitness walks to a group exercise sessions, to breathwork, to spirituality, a whole lot more with my own family and it's going to be fun. So, the challenge starts on January 30th.

You can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/BoundlessFamilyChallenge to claim your seat at the family table today. So, it's BenGreenfieldLife.com/BoundlessFamilyChallenge. Hope to see you there along with your fam.

I've worked to achieve many things in life, but my greatest yet most humbling work, I think, has been with my role as a father. Parenting is blissful. It's brutal. It's far beyond anything I ever could have anticipated. My sons are now teenagers. And, the people around us who engage with them often ask if I could write a book on raising children in education and legacy and discipline and all this stuff that goes into raising a good child, a good human. Now, I didn't feel that qualified to write a parenting guide, so I gathered a team of parenting superstars, dozens of my friends; entrepreneurs, authors, neurologists, psychologists, family coaches, a whole lot more. I got all their best tools, techniques, perspectives, habits on again, everything from education, to discipline, to travel, to rites of passage and beyond, and I put it all in one massive book that's like the guide to parenting.

So, it's now available. It's at BoundlessParentingBook.com, and that's where you can pre-order your copy today. So, BoundlessParentingBook.com. It has been an absolute adventure putting this thing together. I think you're going to love it.

Okay, quick question. If there's a doctor watching, would they be laughing if you said if it's for and your body will attack it because they think that's like woo-woo science? Or, are we talking about a distinct white blood cell reaction and inflammatory response to a steroid the body may not recognize or make on its own?

Dr. De:  No. Well, first of all, I think there is going to be a doctor laughing at one point or another because–

Ben:  Yeah, some people will still laugh when you say leaky gut. And, obviously, that's been proven now. But, sometimes when you say something like attack the body, that's murky. What's that mean?

Dr. De:  So, okay, I'll put it in terms that I learned in medical school. When we discussed these topics, they would say, “Oh don't worry, there's immune tolerance.” So, your body can actually tolerate a certain amount of toxin or foreign chemical, etcetera. And then, there's always the whole premise of toxicology, it's in the dose and not too much of it. Now, after my years of studying and being exposed to this and the mix of traditional with alternative and so forth, the hoots with that, no, your body's designed in a way where it should consume things that it understands what it is.

And, I'll give you an example Gatorade, red Gatorade. Well, that red 40 inside the Gatorade, we know now today that it's connected with anxiety, it's connected with depression, it's connected with cancers as well. They're all in the family of excitotoxins. So, if you start looking at different families non-bioidentical steroids, so not vitamin D, not progesterone, not but stanozolol, oxandrolone and all these other guys, and the primobolans and all these things, you start looking at those families of things. You shouldn't be taking those. You should decrease the amount of chemical burden in foreign molecules in your body, period. I mean, that's the philosophy. Even in our veggies.

Ben:  And, it's part of that because it's difficult on the liver to push all of the synthetic compounds from a steroid protocol like that through the detoxification pathways.

Dr. De:  Well, that's one of them. So, your body detoxifies, I believe, 60% through the liver and then 20% through the kidney and then another 20% through different pathways. And then, the conjugation pathways, et cetera, the first pathways of the liver, they're highly dependent on zinc and glutathione and be complex and so forth. So, many times, we're already deficient in that stuff. You throw some leaky gut in there and then you can't absorb those vitamins and minerals and so forth. And then, you don't have the glutathione that I believe your body produces about 12 or 14,000 milligrams a day in average. You don't have that stuff and then all of a sudden, that chemical burden starts to increase and starts to increase and starts to increase. And, there you go. And then, there's some leaky gut and you can start to have neurotransmitter imbalances too and so on and so forth. And then, all of a sudden, you have a human that's starting to get unbalanced, and then to ultimately forms this ease, it's out of ease. Yeah.

Ben:  So, it sounds like this is multi-modal in terms of the Liver King, Brian Johnson. He would have things potential for neurotransmitter deficiencies, potential for impaired liver detoxification pathways, potential for an autoimmune reaction, and basically the type of things that you would experience if the body was frequently bombarded with the foreign compound that it had to metabolize.

Dr. De:  Yeah. And, I mean, I don't know the guy, but to be that size in today, that level of leanness, et cetera–here's the thing, then I ask what are the doses? Because the doses I heard something like 11,000 bucks in growth hormone a month. Man, that's like I don't care how expensive you're getting that stuff, you really got to consume a lot of that. That's all.

Ben:  I thought colostrum was expensive. Here I am and I own a company that sells colostrum and I take a scoop in the morning and scoop in the evenings because of the back of my mind I'm like, “Oh, this stuff's expensive, got to be careful. I don't want to drag my company down.” So–

Dr. De:  Colostrum is awesome, by the way–

Ben:  Oh, my goodness.

Dr. De:  When people have IGA deficiencies and–

Ben:  I love it. Nutty umami, your gut feels great, I don't want to turn a commercial for colostrum, but I like colostrum.

Dr. De:  It's good, it's amazing.

Ben:  Okay. And, by the way, you don't know Brian Johnson, I do. He's a friend of mine. He's featured in my parenting book. He's an amazing father and husband and businessman who definitely effed up in terms of his honesty. I don't think that he's a bad person.

Dr. De:  No, no.

Ben:  I think he got stuck in a lie that was very difficult for him to wiggle out of. And so, it is what it is, now he's suffering the consequences.

Anything beyond the steroids that you think were problematic or that people should be aware of to avoid that might pop up in this industry as being recommended to them if they want to get swole, bro, or lose body fat or anything like that or the steroid is the main thing?

Dr. De:  I mean, I don't care too much for these things. I wouldn't even be talking about this if it wasn't important to a lot of people that live in that social media like, “Oh, my god, these people look in a certain way,” and I really want to help these people because I was about the chubby kid too years ago. But, it's like, “Okay, how do I get like that?” And so, literally, I scroll this 30-second scrolling and going off the top of my head what I can remember, but I think just moving away from the Liver King but overall, people that look a certain way and then promote products that they're not the main variables getting you there. Sure, maybe a supplement's got them 10% there if that, or 5%, I don't know. But, when their stronger substance is there, you got to be careful. And then, even for your personal health and I understand I talk to a lot of people that are in different kinds of even bodybuilding and so forth and it's like, “Hey, man, you don't really understand the harm that this stuff does to you,” right?

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  And then, there's a confusion. So, the testosterone and a methylated testosterone, does the methylated one cause cancer? Absolutely, that's really, really, really bad. But, if you go to Google Scholar, I think there's around over 3,000 articles showing how bioidentical hormones, not only they do not cause cancer but they can actually help with many disease states.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  And, that's the whole difference, but it's such a fine line because you say, is testosterone a steroid? Is vitamin D a steroid like we just said? Yes. But, how about those? These are the distinguishing factor. And, people say, “Oh, it's because they're synthetic.” No, synthetic just means it's made in a laboratory. What we're talking about is, is it bioidentical or is it non-bioidentical?

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  That's really the distinguishing factor.

Ben:  Okay. So, it's not the synthetic nature, it's the biocompatibility with the body.

Dr. De:  Exactly.

Ben:  Body and nature of it.

Dr. De:  Exactly.

Ben:  Yeah. It's an interesting comment that you make about the social media because I've certainly been involved in social media and have a public-facing persona for many years ever since I was in bodybuilding. And, I got called out when I was a bodybuilder. I could not afford anything. I was tuna fish. I was protein. My farts could knock out an elephant. And, I had no money. I would get home from my classes at the end of the day, I would open up four tuna fish cans. I would put relish or ketchup on them. I would eat those. I would go to the gym. I eventually got a sponsorship from A.B.B. Bodybuilding who would send me a little canned protein shakes, which is just like chemical cocktail. And then, I would go to the grocery store and buy as much of the meat that was on sale as I could.

Dr. De:  I hate to interrupt you, you're not a big fan of the protein shakes either?

Ben:  Well, it depends. Nowadays, there's lots of great options. I mean, heck, the same company I own that does colostrum does an amazing like whey protein powdered smoothie. But, it depends. If you look at Ensure, the number one doctor-recommended brand for people to have a nutrient replenishment in the hospital, when you actually look at the label, it's back to the red number 40 type of Gatorade stuff you're talking about. So, the protein, it depends. There's some clean brands out there but it depends. Back in the day, whatever I had was not clean.

And then, I eventually was able to afford creatine, just pure creatine monohydrate and then energy drinks because I got free energy drinks from my gym. And, that was it and people like, “Oh, you're on the gear, you're on this, you're on that.” I'm like, “You should see my checkbook.” I can barely pay rent but it came down to hard work and putting in the blood, sweat, and tears. Same thing when I got into triathlon. I have one more example and maybe we should take some questions from folks. In triathlon, the way that I retired from being in the gym industry and operating on my own brick-and-mortar personal training studios was I was obsessed at that point, gotten out of bodybuilding. I was very into Ironman Triathlon. I didn't have much time. I was working literally 14 hours a day as a personal trainer, but I understood metabolism because I had a master's degree in exercise physiology and I understood that there were two different pathways to increase your mitochondria. You have the CGMP pathway and the more aerobically driven pathway. It slips my mind at this point.

So anyways, there's two different ways to train for endurance. Either a polarized training approach with long slow training, like long slow aerobic training, tons and tons of hours building the aerobic engine, the so-called Maffetone approach. And then, there's the other approach–

Dr. De:  What approach?

Ben:  Phil Maffetone. He's one of the godfathers of aerobic training and you take your heart rate and you find out where the lactic acid begins to accumulate. You subtract 20 beats from that and that's like your aerobic training heart rate. And, it's like 80% of your training is done with the long slow aerobic approach but that requires a ton of time like you got to drain for 18, 20, 25 hours a week and you're staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool and hunch over on a bike all the time. I didn't have the time for that. I literally did not have enough hours in the day, but I really wanted to do Ironman. So, I did the majority of my training indoors in highly controlled environments. I did almost everything as high-intensity interval training to trigger the pathway that I knew could be triggered if you went hard with long recovery periods.

And so, a sample swim for me would be I get in the pool, quick warm-up, 1,000-meter repeats as hard as I could freaking go, blood coming out the eyeballs and then my bike ride would be, for example, I'd be on a CompuTrainer and that there was this guy named Troy Jacobson who had these workouts called Spinervals workouts where you had to amp yourself up for this and get yourself mentally ready because it was soul-crushing workout but then it's over in 45 minutes. Same thing, I bought Troy Jacobson's Runervals workouts, which were 20- to 30-minute treadmill routines. And, I would do a couple of the 20, 30-minute treadmill routines, a couple of the hard bike rides, about three swims, then on the weekends, I would find out my exact race pace and I would just go at that race pace thinking that, okay, I'm going to get my body in that race pace zone and I would do about a two to three-hour ride, I would do about a one to two-hour run, and I would do around a 3K swim. And so, once you added it all up, I was training about 10 to 12 hours a week for Ironman and I was qualifying for Ironman Hawaii World Championships every year and I was top in my age group. And, I wasn't a pro, but I was one of the top of the top age grouper guys.

And, what I did was over the course of a year, I thought, “Well, my sons are about to be born, I want to move into the house and be homeschooling my kids and be a stay-at-home dad. And, there's no way with my current scenario of training at the gym all day and then coming home and collapsing on the couch exhausted I'm going to be able to raise a family with these twin boys my wife is pregnant with.” So, at that point, I was successful enough in the gym industry because I was doing all these biohacking. I was an early adopter of all the technology. I was geeked out. I love this stuff. We had high-speed video cameras and platelet-rich plasma injections and indirect calorimetry. And, all my partners were physicians, so we had a really good outreach into the medical community and we had all the triathletes and the executives and people like that coming in for training. So, I was already making six-plus figures a year as a personal trainer running two gyms. So, I was getting hired to go around the country and speak to trainers at fitness conventions about how to make money with a gym. And, I was telling you about all the different tactics that I use and partnering with the medical community. And, this is the equipment that has a really good ROI once you invest in it.

And so, I was carving a name for myself as a trainer who you go to, when nothing else works. So, it was 2008, I got voted as America's top personal trainer and I was in the limelight. But, at these conferences, I was hearing things about, “Oh, online businesses,” forming affiliate relationships with other people in the community. I thought JV was when you aren't good enough to make the big basketball team but it's actually the joint ventures. And so, I spent nine months. I get home from the gym. You can ask my wife, I'd stay awake till 3:00 a.m. building my own website, learning how to program, learning how to code. I got into how to buy ads on Facebook and Google. I hired my first VA after listening to Tim Ferris's four-hour work week when I was driving to a triathlon one day, I thought, “Oh, I can outsource, I can hire people.

I pulled out a Craigslist ad in the Manila Philippines and hired my first VA, Marge, who's still working for me after all these years.” And then, what happened was during Ironman Triathlon race week in October, by that point after nine months of sleeping three hours a night, I had created an online training program with all the digital downloads for here's how to eat, here's how to train, here's how to use all my methods to allow you to cross the finish line of an Ironman Triathlon with a big smile on your face but without having neglected your friends and your family and your careers and your hobbies and everything else.

And then, I figured out how to create an affiliate link for that using an old program. I don't even know if it still exists called ClickBank. And, people could sign up to be an affiliate for my program. So, all these triathlon websites and triathlon authors would basically help promote my program for me. I spent those nine months going to every big triathlon forum that I could. And, in my signature, I had a link to the website and where my email list collecting thing was. And, I would spend, this was my whole Friday, eight hours on a Friday just in forums. This was old school back in the day. It was kind of like Reddit.

Dr. De:  Right.

Ben:  So, those forums. And, you post in the forums and you'd have your bio that people could click on after you post it. So, it's been my whole day almost doing AMAs to really make a name for myself in the industry. And then, what happened was I was racing Ironman Hawaii, I even went so far as to pre-schedule all my tweets because I was kind of early adopter of Twitter, and this was 14 years ago and I pre-scheduled my tweets to tweet out and be like, “Hey, I'm at Mile 112 with a bike ride. I used the triathlon dominator plan to”–so, I was kind of going to get shot in the foot if I had a flat tire or anything went wrong. So, I threw all my eggs into the basket. And, what happened was during that week through all of that was available. I even had a company in Texas who would dropship and fulfill and print the physical book and the physical DVDs and everything for me. I made $50,000 over the course of the week of the Ironman Triathlon after I crossed the finish line. And, it was at that point that I was like, “Oh, I can take information up inside my head. I can put it out there for people and I can sell it. And, I can do this from home in my underwear. And, all I got to do is study and learn cool things that I like anyways and then tell people about how to do it.”

And so, I had the podcast and the blog and the newsletter. And so, that was when I quit all my training studios and gyms and started doing a lot more of what I do now, which is consulting and advising and media and the podcast and everything. But, back to the social media thing, I realized that, oh, hey, if you're going to promote a certain program, there's no way I could have done that and lived with myself and been training 30 hours a week and told people just train 10 to 12 hours a week to do Ironman.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  For bodybuilding, right, do all the steroids instead of just creatine and tuna fish. But, coming full circle, I hadn't planned on telling that story but I started to tell it and then I got caught but whatever.

Dr. De:  It's a great story.

Ben:  So anyways, if you can figure out how to look at a social media influencers' labs, their wearable data, if they're not willing to share some of that stuff, then raise an eyebrow. And, I think that was the issue with the Liver King was he should have been fully transparent upfront and been like, “Hey, I'm on all this stuff. I'm also following these nine ancestral tenants” liver and bone marrow and [00:54:17]  _____. They're wonderful. I do all that stuff.

Dr. De:  Yeah.

Ben:  They're not, like I don't do those crazy barbarian workouts and stuff, but yeah.

Dr. De:  No. And, he seems like a great guy, man. He was a wonderful guy, I mean. But, just using as an example for–

Ben:  You know how to read the chapter in my parenting book that was written by him because I have 30 different parents and his–what he does with his sons like liver and bone marrow every meal and they'll fast all day and then do a hard workout at the end of the day and his kids will eat steak. He's very, very odd. He's kind of like another guy in the book named Joe de Sena, the CEO of Spartan.

Dr. De:  Really?

Ben:  These are these cats are cut from a different cloth. So–

Dr. De:  Wait, here's the thing. People chase performance now. I honestly believe if we live with the Spartans, the movie “300” for those of you that–I honestly believe those guys probably look that way and they were probably freaking 50 years old and tough as nails and so forth because they were eating different foods, they were living in a different environment, not exposed to all this stuff. So nowadays, I think, we, as humanity, we were saying, “Something's not right.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  It's not that the fish is sick, it's the aquarium is sick, the environment is sick.

Ben:  There's this nostalgia for the good old hunter-gatherer days. I have no desire to go back and live in Spartan. It'd be horrific; disease and hunger and guys coming at you with swords in the streets. We live in a very magical privileged era.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  And, that's kind of like a lot of people say it's about biohacking. The idea is we're trying to figure out how to marry ancestral tenants using technology and other tools with a modern industrial lifestyle, so we reduce the evolutionary mitch match and damage from all the EMF and the lack of sunlight and everything while at the same time take advantage of the fact that we can go to a grocery store and buy 700 calories and a little pint of ice cream. And, that's at our fingertips, and all we got to do the next day is go to the gym and turn in the muscle. And, that's ancient men would have killed for that, right? I'd be like, “What? Not only are you giving me a free hour in the morning to go to the gym but I can eat a protein dairy pack growth hormone-inducing ice cream at night.” We live in a cool era.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  We just got a few little uphill battles to fight from a health standpoint.

Dr. De:  Absolutely, man. I agree with you. But, I think us personally looking for that performance and clean performance. And, like I said, if in the beginning, I really believe that if I could, I'd isolate myself and just get it as just pure, just raw health. But, I live in a cement jungle.

Ben:  Let's take some questions from Instagram. What do you think?

Dr. De:  Let's do it.

Ben:  By the way, all the shownotes, I'll put at BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe. Somebody says share a bit about BPC 157.

Dr. De:  Oh, that's a good one.

Ben:  Yeah, you probably know more about it than me, Dr. De, because you fuss around with peptides, I think, probably more than I do. But, BPC 157, body protection compound like the other peptide you mentioned, GHK copper peptide, the body makes it.

Dr. De:  Yup, absolutely.

Ben:  It's secretion gastric juices. It's amazing both orally and injected for inflammation and particularly orally seems to work really well in the gut. And, my favorite way to use it right now besides if I get a joint issue and I want to inject subcutaneously with an insulin syringe around that issue with BPC 157, which I do keep in my freezer and will reconstitute if I get injured is there's a new company, they're called LVLUP, L-V-L-U-P out of Australia, they developed this thing called gastric healing formula. It's like BPC 157 and a whole bunch of other natural anti-inflammatory and gut-healing peptides and compounds. So, I've actually been starting to use that and it feels super gut nourishing. I think they just launched the company because I just got a bottle recently. But, what do you think of BBC 157?

Dr. De:  I'm actually taking a pretty darn high dose of injectable BPC right now because in jiu-jitsu, I got somebody went from my knee and when you hear the crepitus and the meniscus like you're going upstairs, you get.

Ben:  Yeah, I get that in my knees sometimes.

Dr. De:  Oh, my god. No, but I'm like, “Oh, my god, I hope I didn't jam my meniscus.” Anyways, BPC is great, found in the gut, really good for musculoskeletal and gastric issues all the way from Crohn's to which is really good by the way with KPV too, KPV and BPCs were really, really well.

Ben:  Do you think BPC would work because a lot of people are getting a whole rectal delivery mechanisms? If you had colitis or an issue like that, I think BPC, if somebody developed into a suppository would be effective.

Dr. De:  Absolutely. And, you see–

Ben:  I wonder if anybody's doing that right now. I talked to Dr. John Lieurance up there in Sarasota. He's into putting everything in suppositories. BPC 157 suppository, you heard it first here, folks.

Dr. De:  So, I think it's wonderful for any gastric GI repair and also for musculoskeletal repair. And, it goes really well with some stuff. And even, I'm going to drop one here, I'm going to touch base on something really controversial right now.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  Semaglutite, a lot of people talk about semaglutide–

Ben:  Oh, my gosh, my friend took semaglutide. He's my friend up in Spokane. He took it and we went out to eat at this amazing restaurant and he didn't eat anything. I'm like, “Dude, are you okay?” He said, “I'm nauseous. I don't want any of this stuff.” And, I saw him the next day and we're at a coffee shop with all these amazing baked goods and chocolates, didn't eat anything. He went for a week and barely anything at all. Lost a bunch of weight. And, after I saw that peptide in action, is a peptide, semaglutide.

Dr. De:  I didn't know. It is. Yeah, it's for amino acids. But, it's not a natural peptide that is not produced in the body. Just real quick on that, it's not natural but BPC is GHP–

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  GHK, but not–

Ben:  GHK. Having witnessed firsthand with semaglutide does though. I think if you're lean and active, I would be darn careful with that stuff. But, if you're obese, I mean, to me it's like, “Dude, give me a gastric bypass surgery” I think that stuff seems–I think it may be associated with a little bit of gastric distress possibly.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  It seems like metformin, a lot of blood glucose disposal agents. But, man–

Dr. De:  But, number one, instead of semaglutide, consider perhaps tirzepatide, which is the newer one. They're both GLP-1 inhibitors.

Ben:  Say that one again.

Dr. De:  I don't know if I can pronounce it right. Tirzepatide or tirzepatide.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  It's also called Mounjaro as semaglutide is called Ozempic.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  But, regardless if you get it compounded with BPC, that's the way to go.

Ben:  And, is that oral or injectable?

Dr. De:  It's injectable.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  Yeah. And, the nausea is way less especially if you put BPC into it.

Ben:  Okay. I'll hunt down the name of some of these things we're talking about. I'll put them in the shownotes for you, guys, at BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe because I know some of them sound like “Star Wars” characters, C-3PO and R2D2.

Alright, what else we got? You got a question on your end?

Dr. De:  Yeah. The–

Ben:  NAD. Does increasing or injecting NAD daily decrease your body's natural production of NAD similar to a testosterone injection? I don't think that I've seen there's a negative feedback loop for NAD.

Dr. De:  Me neither. And, I–

Ben:  Now–

Dr. De:  I don't think there's many studies on it, first of all.

Ben: There's the recent study on NR that showed that in a pre-existing cancer model that supplementing with NR in not super hefty doses could actually accelerate the tumor growth. Now, a lot of people took down the headlines NAD causes cancer, NR causes cancer. No, it's kind of like the old China study where this guy wrote a book about how excess protein causes cancer but neglected to inform folks of the fact that the rodent models used in the study were injected with the toxin that causes cancer than given high amounts of protein. And, any of these studies that show something, you could probably say something similar growth hormone, right, in a pre-existing cancer model where a tumor is already present, certain things can accelerate the growth of that tumor that in otherwise normal healthy individuals would not be an issue.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  By the way, talking about cancer, one of the main pathways that really promotes the growth of cancer is mTOR, mTOR, which when you–and so, that's why fasting's so good because–

Ben:  Excessive mTOR.

Dr. De:  Yeah, excessive mTOR.

Ben:  A lot of people flip out and they're like, “I don't eat steak because that can give me cancer, and that diet, I think that's an issue.” We're talking about face-feeding all the time with excess amounts of protein. That's where you got to be careful with mTOR.

Dr. De:  And, by the way, that was the best explanation I've heard on that NR study, by the way. So, on the NAD, I don't know of any negative feedback on that one.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  Oh, I got another question here.

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  “What dosage and type of testosterone do you recommend for a male over 40 years old?” I mean, a general answer for that and our docs here are the ones that do the dosing for that but I would say it has to go off of your blood work. And, I mean, as a general rule of thumb, what I mentioned before, you having optimized levels of somewhere between 700 to–

Ben:  Okay. Let me ask you this. Let's say someone wanted to take the bare minimum dose of testosterone whether it be a scrotal cream or injection or whatever to feel good but they weren't even concerned about get up to 750. They're just like, “I want to see what testosterone feels like and I may want to try this out for a few weeks and I want to take the bare minimum dose to see what it feels like.” Is there a certain milligram dosage that you think someone could try in a scenario like that? For males specifically.

Dr. De:  That's dicey because I've seen here from what our docs do and so forth. I mean, some guys, freaking 75 milligrams a week and it shoots up.

Ben:  75 milligrams a week is far less than most people would take.

Dr. De:  It's standard. I mean, let's say standard American dose for male testosterone is 200 milligrams a week.

Ben:  Yeah, okay.

Dr. De:  Right. You see that a lot which I think that many cases is pretty high. I personally I do around 125 a week. I don't need much. And then, I've seen guys consume a lot of it. It's all going to depend on that blood work.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  But again, keeping your free testosterone, which is the most important thing optimized because lots of times people are taking a lot, and then their SHBG is super high, they're not controlling that.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  So, go off the blood work, and don't go too crazy.

Ben:  Yeah. I keep a little bottle of testosterone cream in my fridge. And, the dosage says take three squirts and do three in the morning and three in the evening. I do half a squirt in the morning and half a squirt in the evening. Approximately, I think what it comes out to is around 5 milligrams per day, which I would consider to be almost a testosterone microdose. So, I take about 35 to 40 milligrams of testosterone a week and I feel great on that. And, I think my levels are 700, something like that. So, it's a little baby dose and I feel pretty good on that. And, I also like multiple times I've been traveling and haven't had it with me or whatever and stopped it and I've noticed anything as far as a big come down effect.

Dr. De:  Yeah.

Ben:  So, I kind of like the idea of teeny tiny microdoses, which is cool compared to an injection or a pellet. If you have the scrotal cream, just a tiny, tiny little dap.

Dr. De:  Yeah. It's like the guy's doing once a week injection of 100 milligrams testosterone. I think that's ludicrous. It's too much. It's like. And then, that's when you feel a calm down.

Ben:  And, I feel you can match the natural diurnal variation of testosterone just a tiny little bit in the morning. And, maybe as I get older, I'll increase it a little bit but I feel great just doing teeny tiny bits.

Dr. De:  Absolutely.

Ben:  Alright, let's go with a couple more questions, and then we've got a sushi date here, you guys. “So, do you have a good site or brand for peptides?”

Dr. De:  Compounded through a doctor. That's what–

Ben:  That's what I vote. Now, some people will say peptide scientists has decent peptides. I think you'd be careful with anything you're injecting in your body. I used to do some tailor-made pharmacy but they're out of business now. CanLabs up in Canada that's Jean-Francois Tremblay, I know he does good stuff, my friend Dr. Matthew Cook in San Jose, and my friend Dr. Craig Koniver at Koniver Wellness. The cool thing about Craig is he'll do a 30-day pack. He pre-fills all the syringes and just sends it out. So, you don't have to worry mixing or dosing–

Dr. De:  Oh, really?

Ben:  Yeah. And obviously, you got to do a telemedicine consultation with them and get established as a patient. But, Craig's got some cool stuff. I have a lot of clients who work with Craig.

Dr. De:  Yeah. I mean, if you're going to do peptides, here's my bottom-line answer, go work with a doc and get it from credible pharmacy. I can tell you guys some pharmacies. I like Wells Pharmacy. I like Create Pharmacy. They have really good stuff. But, yeah, you go work with the doc and be careful. Again, goes back to that premise not to put anything your body doesn't know inside of it. If you're going to put BPC, that's not exactly that string of–it's a pentatricopeptide, right?

Ben:  Okay.

Dr. De:  15 amino acids, then that's a problem.

Ben:  What about tesofensine peptide? Somebody asked about that one.

Dr. De:  Tesofensine, not a big fan of that. So, tesofensine is SNRI type medication. I'm not just thinking it, it upregulates–it's for weight loss, right? So–

Ben:  Well, yeah, it suppresses appetite. And theoretically, I've heard that it has a little bit of a thermic effect like–

Dr. De:  Do you know it's isolated from cocaine?

Ben:  I didn't know it's isolated from cocaine. So, here's my tesofensine story.

Dr. De:  I don't stimulants.

Ben:  I have a bottle of it in my fridge. I have another person who's close to me who is somewhat sensitive to these compounds. They took one capsule of what is the equivalent of the bottle in my fridge and they were up for three days without sleeping but not good energy, super jittery nervous energy. I took one and felt fantastic except I didn't want breakfast, which I don't like because my smoothies taste amazing. I was like, “Oh, man, I don't even my like smoothie.” And so, I still have that bottle in my fridge. Been there for six months. I think a capsule about once a week when I want to just crush through a morning and not think about food and have a good workout. And, it seems to work as advertised, but it's very powerful. I think it probably like modafinil works on some of the dopamine and serotonergic pathways.

And, I think, gosh, if you want to trigger some of those pathways or have that feeling of being unstoppable for a few hours, the one that I now is called paraxanthine, P-A-R-A-X-A-N-T-H-I-N-E. It's a brand new Shawn Wells, my friend who's a formulator. He developed it. It's in this brand new energy drink called Update. And, Shawn sent me a few capsules of paraxanthine. It's like modafinil or Provigil or the drug that the “Limitless” movie was based off of. But, rather than keeping up for 24, 48 hours, it wears off after about four to six hours with no crash. And, it's really interesting. It increases like swagger and confidence and energy. It's very cool. So, as a matter of fact, I like it so much, this Update energy drink company. Once I found out they were putting paraxanthine in their compound, I had a chance to try it, drank it. You even sleep well on it. You could take it like 10:00 p.m. and still go to sleep if you wanted to and have really good sleep cycles.

I invested in this Update energy drink four weeks ago. Sometimes I'll do that when I really like a company and I try some of them like, “Oh, this is going to be a game changer.” So, I tried that. It's called Update energy drink. So, really shameless plug, we have paraxanthine. It's pretty cool stuff, Update.

Dr. De:  But, the tesofensine, it's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It's a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. It's a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. So, I was thinking about that for a second. It was super strong and it's a stimuli. I'm not a big fan of stimulants especially if you have a metabolic issue where you need to–

Ben:  I have cocaine in my fridge and break open the capsule and just snort it. Yeah.

Dr. De:  There you go. Almost the same thing.

Ben:  Okay. Let's see. Okay, we're getting kind of long in the tooth. So, let's go with one more. But, let's pick a good one.

Dr. De:  Somebody asked where we're getting our glasses.

Ben:  Where we're getting our glasses. Ra Optics is where I get mine. Where do you get yours?

Dr. De:  These don't come from a very biohacky place. Prada.

Ben:  Prada. At least you're styling. That's what I did with my first set of blue eye blockers. I got a set of frames that I really liked and then had the lenses cut. This is back before they blew up. Okay. Somebody says, okay, electrolytes. “Are electrolyte powders safe to ingest if it's synthetic like potassium chloride citrate or other salts of macro minerals as opposed to bioavailable electrolytes?”

What I look for in electrolytes is A, not the Gatorade stuff. So, I like it as clean as possible, just the minerals in it. I use three brands of electrolytes that I like. One is called Protekt, which is made by this guy I like to support, Nick Norris. He's a Navy SEAL. He helps out a lot of other Navy SEALs. He's got a whole foundation. I interviewed him on my podcast when I was in San Diego and it's like a liquid electrolyte in really good flavors like lemon and watermelon. That one's good.

I like this company. It's all over the place right now called LMNT, which is L-M-N-T. But, my favorite and they've even used this–I interviewed a guy, I didn't release the interview about this. They've used this electrolyte complex and done full blood trans or plasma transfusions in dogs and the dogs have functioned just fine by replacing all their plasma with this electrolyte solution. It's harvested from phytoplankton bloom in the ocean and filters called Quinton. I don't know if you've heard of this stuff, Q-U-I-N-T-O-N. There's a hypertonic formula you take in the morning, an isotonic in the evening. I think of all the electrolyte formulas. It's damn expensive. But, if you want the best of the best minerals and electrolytes that Quinton stuff is amazing. You can buy it in bulk. It comes in a big glass bottle. I think Water and Wellness sells it.

So, if you go to my pantry right now, I got Protekt, I got LMNT and I got Quinton. And, for me those are the top three electrolytes besides just Celtic salt or Colima salt or whatever salt I happen to travel with.

Dr. De:  Yeah. I mean, I defer to that question to you because you're a wealth of knowledge with everything that's out there in these products and so forth. But, I personally did–now I fell off the bandwagon a little bit with it and I feel it, which is Soleil water. Big fan of Soleil water.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  I mean, huge fan of that. And, a little lime and–

Ben:  I used to do the Soleil salt chunks where you take it, you put in a glass bottle, you put on the sunlight and you make infrared light-infused Soleil water.

Dr. De:  Yeah, it's the best. And then, some super, super, super high-quality coconut water. And, I don't go too crazy on that stuff. But, as long as it's clean, the company doing it the right way, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You need the electrolytes, guys. Athletes, for example, we're super picky with our athletes. I mean, we're looking at their electrolytes and minerals. It's such a big mistake that especially you can see it in your workout. Sometimes your workout is like, man, I'm dying through this workout sometimes, but you'd be surprised.

Ben:  Yeah.

Dr. De:  Or, for example for preventing lactic acid, some sodium bicarb. So, take some capsules sodium bicarb right before you work out and go and some–

Ben:  Brand new. Like baking soda pre-workout, take it in small doses, taper it over time leading up. So, which is a pain in the ass. But, if you remember doing it, you just put a bunch of baking soda in water and kind of sip it leading up to your workout. The lactic acid buffering properties of that or sodium citrate are amazing. And, a study just came out today was in tennis players showing awesome performance improvements with just cheap ass baking soda like Arm and Hammer, aluminum-free baking soda.

Dr. De:  A study came out today.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, I mean, it was released in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

Dr. De:  Oh, wow.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, I just saw it today but it was a November study. Yeah, November study.

Dr. De:  Wow, that's awesome.

Ben:  So anyway, so it's not an electrolyte per se but sodium citrate or sodium bicarbonate.

What do you think, man? Should we bring this thing in for a landing?

Dr. De:  I'm in the mood for some food, bro. We spoke a lot about food.

Ben:  I'm hungry right too, I got a scooter across Miami to go up sushi. Hey, look, you guys, we're going to push this one out on the podcast so you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/DrDe, D-R-D-E. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/D-R-D-E. Over there, I'll put shownotes. We use a lot of big names and big titles, but I have a great team, they hunt all this stuff down, they put in the shownotes for you. So, this will come out in a couple weeks. You guys check it out. Dr. De, where's the best place for people to find you?

Dr. De:  Biohax, B-I-O-H-A-X. And, you can go to our website, same thing biohax.com.

Ben:  Alright. Cool, sweet. Alright, here we go folks. Sushi time. Thanks for watching.

Dr. De:  Boom.

Ben:  We love you.

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 Torah 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.

 

 

Your body doesn't know what it doesn't know.

What I mean by that is that if you introduce a foreign substance, your body's immune system will mount a response – and often, that response can have negative health consequences.

From steroids to even everyday legal compounds, these unrecognizable elements may lead to severe autoimmune disease, gut problems, and cancer. Supplements and chemicals can also make you age faster because they interfere with your natural biological processes, temporarily or even permanently altering them.

When I was in Miami recently, I decided to drop in (specifically, on a scooter I rode from the beach) and talk to a relatively new friend of mine, Dr. Marcos Andrade, who goes by Dr. De. We met at the facility in Miami that Dr. De founded called Biohax. The services at Biohax include complete biochemical analyses with panels designed to look at different concerns such as performance, mood, and toxin exposure. Based on those results, the “health magicians” at Biohax apply what they call their “4R Strategy” to remove inflammatory agents, replenish micronutrients, reinoculate your gut, and recover through sleep and therapeutics.

Dr. De and I did a brief Instagram Live together at the end of last year, during which we talked about his areas of expertise, including steroids, hormones, peptides, and more. Although he doesn't practice medicine right now, Dr. De received a Doctorate in Medicine (M.D.) in a hybrid program from the U.S. and Europe at the Medical University of Silesia in Poland. He then obtained an MBA from Nova International Business Administration with a concentration in Finance. Lastly, he went on to complete a research fellowship at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic in Weston Florida in the department of surgery and metabolism. So, needless to say, the guy is legit.

Through his own journey of self-improvement, Dr. De began to understand the impact of his biochemical footprint on his life outcomes – inspiring him to found Biohax and its mission: helping others become their best selves. His goal is to create a worldwide system of talented health professionals that can help people everywhere live healthier and more fulfilling lifestyles. By providing valuable services tailored for each individual, Dr. De hopes that together they can achieve a life filled with purposeful potential.

In this discussion with Dr. De, we open up the Liver King controversy (a topic I haven't spoken about on a podcast yet), growth hormones, how to regenerate your thymus gland, and much more. We also answer more Instagram Live questions. I hope you have as much fun listening as I did recording!

During our discussion, you'll discover:

• Biohax
• Elements of Vitality
  • Q&A at Elements of Vitality
• Podcast with Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis
  • Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis & Ben Greenfield Reveal New Anti-Aging Biohacks & Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine You’ve Never Heard Of Before.
• Fountain Life Precision Diagnostics: 
  • Full Body MRI with Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Early Cancer Detection Test
  • Whole Genome Sequencing
  • AI Coronary Artery Scan
  • Executive Blood Panel
  • DEXA Bone Density Scan
• DEXA scan and low body fat
• Infinity Sports Institute
  • Hologic DEXA (Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry) for body composition

-The Liver King issues with fat…11:31

• Dr. De’s frustration with the fitness community
• What people are saying about the lies and claims of Liver King
• What the Liver King does is dangerous for the liver
• Testosterone replacement therapy

-A meta-analysis on growth hormone deficiency in adults…13:49

• Dr. De’s credentials
• Biohax
• Replacement of growth hormone helps in preventing cancer
• GHK-Cu, found in saliva, urine, plasma, and blood is basically the 911 for injury
• Alitura (use code BG20 to save 20%)
• TRIIM trial – Thymic Regeneration, Immune restoration, and Insulin Mitigation
• Forbes article on the TRIIM trial

-How to regenerate the thymus gland in your body…18:19

• Alternatives that Ben recommends:
  • Colostrum
  • GDA (Glucose Disposal Agent)
    • Dihydroberberine
    • Bitter melon extract
    • Ceylon cinnamon
    • ACV
  • Physical activity
• In the study, growth hormone was used for its ability to regenerate the thymus gland
• Peptides like Thymosin-α
• Organic meats like thymus extract or sweetbreads
• Red light on glands for glandular activation
• Sunlight
• Thymic tapping
• Ben's family does about 30 seconds of tapping every morning
• The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner
• Podcast with Nick Ortner
  • Tapping & EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique): Pseudoscience, Quackery or Wildly Effective Healing Modality?
• The Healing Code by Alexander Loyd

-What was the Liver King doing that is dangerous?…23:28

• Stanozolol (Winstrol)
  • When you're using something that your body does not produce, your body will attack whatever it does not know; that's what causes cancers and autoimmunity
• Oxandrolone
• It's not the synthetic nature, it's the biocompatibility with the body

-What’s the best way to know if you’re taking enough growth hormone?…27:19

• Bloodwork
• Cyrex Array
• Free testosterone – 750 to 1100 range
• IGFBP-3 is a good indicator
• Guidelines on how to prescribe growth hormones

-Could growth hormone be less problematic with adequate flavonoids?…30:52

• Dr. De doesn’t agree that it's carcinogenic
• Receptor theory and flavonoids; flavonoids upregulate receptors
• Quercetin
• Fisetin
• Lugol's iodine
• Topical Progesterone (use code GREENFIELD10 to save 10%)
• CBD
• Cyrex Array

-How Ben got started with endurance training…46:44

• Phil Maffetone approach to endurance training
• Podcast with Phil Maffetone
  • Episode #135: Interview With Health & Endurance Expert Dr. Phil Maffetone
• Majority of training was done indoors
• Troy Jacobson's Runerval
• Voted America's top personal trainer in 2008
• The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
• After listening to Tim Ferris' The 4-Hour Work Week while driving to a triathlon one day, Ben thought, “Oh, I can outsource, I can hire people.”
• Pulled out a Craigslist ad in Manila, Philippines, and hired first VA, Marge, who's still with Ben after all these years
• Joe de Sena

-Q&A from Instagram…56:04

1. Share a bit about BPC-157?
   • A body protection compound
   • LVLUP Health
   • Dr. John Lieurance
   • For any gastric GI repair, also for musculoskeletal repair
   • Compounded with BPC:
     • Tirzepatide as Mounjaro (GLP-1 inhibitors)
     • Semaglutide as Ozempic (GLP-1 inhibitors)
2. Does increasing or injecting NAD daily decrease your body's natural production of NAD similar to a testosterone injection?
   • I don't think that I've seen that there's a negative feedback loop for NAD
   • BGL podcast Q&A 452: Does NR or NAD Really Cause Cancer, The Latest On THC & Your Brain, “Super-Ager” Brains, Artery Unclogging & Much More.
3. What dosage and type of testosterone do you recommend for a male over 40 years old?
   • Dosing has to go off of your blood work; It all depends on that blood work
   • Ben microdoses with testosterone cream (compounded by Dr. Craig Koniver)
4. Do you have a good site or brands for peptides?
   • Compounded through a doctor
   • Dr. Jean-Francois Tremblay
   • Dr. Matt Cook
   • Dr. Craig Koniver
5. Where do you get your glasses?
   • Ra Optics
   • Prada
6. Are electrolyte powders safe to ingest if they're synthetic, like potassium chloride/citrate or other salts of macro minerals as opposed to bioavailable electrolytes?
   • Protekt (use code BEN to save 15%) by Nick Norris
   • LMNT
   • Quinton (use code GREENFIELD to save 10%)
   • Salt
   • Soleil sparkling water
   • Coconut water

-And much more…

Upcoming Events:

• Six Senses Retreat: February 27, 2023 – March 3, 2023

Join me for my “Boundless Retreat” at Six Senses from February 27th, 2023 to March 3rd, 2023, where you get to improve on your functional fitness, nutrition, longevity, and the delicate balance between productivity and wellness. Complete with a healthy farmhouse breakfast, yoga spa sessions, and sound healing, you learn how to live a boundless life just like me, and I'd love to see you there. Learn more here.

• Keep up on Ben's LIVE appearances by following bengreenfieldfitness.com/calendar!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

– Dr. De:

• Biohax

– Podcasts And Articles:

• How To Biohack With The Elements of Air, Fire, Water & Earth: V-Cells, Dosing Methylene Blue, Melatonin For Inflammation & Much More.
• Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis & Ben Greenfield Reveal New Anti-Aging Biohacks & Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine You’ve Never Heard Of Before.
• Tapping & EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique): Pseudoscience, Quackery or Wildly Effective Healing Modality?
• Episode #135: Interview With Health & Endurance Expert Dr. Phil Maffetone
• BGL podcast Q&A 452: Does NR or NAD Really Cause Cancer, The Latest On THC & Your Brain, “Super-Ager” Brains, Artery Unclogging & Much More.
• The Peptides Podcast: Everything You Need To Know About Anti-Aging, Muscle Gain, Fat Loss & Recovery Peptides.
• A Rock-Climbing Navy SEAL Talks Ibogaine, Meditation Tactics, Parenting, Purpose & More: The Nick Norris Podcast.
• A Take-No-Prisoners Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance in Life: Part 1.
• Sunlight Makes You Skinny & Blue Light Makes You Fat: 11 Ways To Biohack Light To Optimize Your Body & Brain.

– Books:

• The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner
• The Healing Code by Alexander Loyd
• The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

– Other Resources:

• Colostrum
• Dihydroberberine
• Bitter melon extract
• Ceylon cinnamon
• ACV
• Thymus Extract (use code BEN10 to save 10%)
• Sweetbreads
• Quercetin
• Fisetin
• Lugol's iodine
• Topical Progesterone (use code GREENFIELD10 to save 10%)
• CBD
• Protekt (use code BEN to save 15%)
• LMNT
• Quinton (use code GREENFIELD to save 10%)
• Salt
• Soleil Sparkling Water
• Coconut Water
• Alitura (use code BG20 to save 20%)
• JOOVV
• Ra Optics
• Fountan Life
• Infinity Sports Institute
• Cyrex Array
• Troy Jacobson's Runerval

Episode sponsors:

Joovv: Get an exclusive discount on your first order of my favorite in-home light therapy devices. Just go to Joovv.com/ben and apply code BEN.

BiOptimizers (Magnesium Breakthrough): The 7 essential forms of magnesium included in this full spectrum serving help you relax, unwind, and turn off your active brain after a long and stressful day so you can rest peacefully and wake up feeling refreshed, vibrant, and alert. On top of the promo code ben10 for a 10% discount, you can unlock a special gift with purchase – for a limited time only. Go to magbreakthrough.com/ben now and get your gift.

Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Dr. De or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!