October 19, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/joseph-mercola-podcast/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:32] Dr. Joseph Mercola

[00:03:34] Vitamin D and COVID–19

[00:22:17] The modern American diet, linoleic acid, and mitochondrial damage

[00:34:14] Dr. Mercola's diet

[00:47:17] More about linoleic acid

[00:58:52] The correlation between EMF and linoleic acid consumption

[01:05:44] What is IHT – intermittent hypoxia training?

[01:14:34] Dr. Mercola's masterclass

[01:16:03] End of Podcast

[01:16:35] Legal Disclaimer

 

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

Joseph:  What we believe the mechanism for damage from EMFs is because it catalyzes the release of calcium inside the cell because the levels of calcium outside the cell are 50,000 times higher. So, when it goes into the cell, it's a powerful signaling molecule. What does a signal cell do? It tells cells what some of the things are and increases the release of super oxide and also nitric oxide. And, those are two molecules that they get even close to each other. They, I mean, instantaneously form some, this reactive nitrogen species called peroxynitrite. And, that is really, really damaging. Probably collectively far more damaging than hydroxyl radical because hydroxyl radical only lasts about a billionth of a second. This peroxynitrite lasts a thousand times longer. So long that it can actually migrate outside of the mitochondria, outside of that cell, and go into another cell mitochondria and hang around that long.

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

Alright, folks. In today's episode, which I recorded for you onsite with the great Dr. Joe Mercola down in Florida, we had a wide-ranging discussion on everything from the dangers of vegetable oil to intermittent hypoxic training to how this dude's beaten young bucks in arm wrestling and a whole lot more.

Dr. Joe first joined me on two episodes that I'll link to in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Mercola3. It's BenGreenfieldLife.com/Mercola the number 3. We had one episode on killing fat cells and fixing mitochondria and growing superfoods. We had another one on EMFs and cell phone radiation and protecting yourselves from EMF exposure even though we give you an updated how-to on that in today's show. Dr. Mercola, he goes way back. He's a doctor of osteopathic medicine with a real holistic approach. He's somewhat controversial as you'll learn about in the first 10 to 15 minutes or so of today's episode. But, for the longest time, as a board-certified family physician, he practiced medicine and he's written contributions and extensive experience in patient care. He was granted fellowship status by the American College of Nutrition. He's a best-selling author. He has everything from books about COVID-19 to “The No-Grain Diet,” to the bird flu hoax, to “Effortless Healing,” a whole bunch of different titles. He has a huge background in health, wellness, and technology. Runs the very popular website you may have come across before called Mercola.com; has multiple awards. I mean, I'm at his house and he just has plaques and awards all over the wall for all of the work that he's done in medicine and health and beyond. And, he just tirelessly works to disseminate important health information around the world, which sometimes turns him into a lightning rod and also earns him a lot of numerous awards and honors. And, he's a very interesting guy as you're about to learn if you've never heard him chatting before.

So, anyways, sit back or walk or lift or whatever it is you're doing right now and get ready for a great episode with Dr. Joseph Mercola.

Alright, we good? That was a fun little setup. Open the kimono for folks. Joe and I decided to try and do an entire podcast with no tech crew, no videographer, no scheduling, just lounging on the couch with our shirts peeled off.

Joseph:  That's right.

Ben:  This might be the first dual shirtless episode that I've done in quite some time.

Joseph:  Yeah, it reminds me the last time I was with you personally was when we were in my chair in Arizona, Phoenix, somewhere. And, we went to a lunch and we just decided, “Okay, this is going to be a shirtless table.” 

Ben:  I remember that. We were the vitamin D table. You've always been big on vitamin D. And, by the way, I should get this out of the way before we even start. If you guys want the shownotes, I'll put them at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Mercola3. That's Mercola with the number 3 because Joe, this is the third time that I've interviewed you. We did an interview on all sorts of things. I remember we talked a little bit about vitamin D and then we had a whole interview about EMF. I would love to revisit that a little bit today as it pertains to linoleic acid particularly, not to scare people away with big words too early in the show. And then, today, I've returned to your compound in Florida. And yes, you have quite the lifestyle down here that includes plenty of shirtlessness. And, you've always been pretty big on vitamin D. I mean, you got a plaque wall over there about you being a sunshine doctor or something like that.

Joseph:  Well, for this entire century. So, it's long before COVID-19. Actually, my passion about vitamin D is somewhat precipitated some of the challenges that I have by mainstream media because since we last connected, I had the honor of being named the number one spreader of COVID misinformation 2021.

Ben:  That's better than being named the number one spreader of COVID.

Joseph:  That's right. Yeah, by the White House, Biden and the head of the National Institutes of Health. So, this is the best honor I've ever gotten in my life.

Ben:  Did you get a plaque or a trophy or a mask something like a gold–plated mask?

Joseph:  I did not get that, but yeah. Partially, that was precipitated by the influence I built up over a quarter of century having the website, but also my passion about vitamin D. And, I actually had written my first peer-reviewed article this century published in Nutrients, which is a pretty high-impact nutrition journal. 

Ben:  And, this might happen to people who are watching or listening to this podcast. If you click through to your website from say Twitter or some other sites, it will say you're about to enter an unsafe website.

Joseph:  Yeah, 50 sites.

Ben:  Disinformation of phishing. Is that [00:06:15] _____ another mechanism?

Joseph:  No, they're doing that. They're putting these warnings up there to make the public believe that I'm uncredible source. Incredible source.

Ben:  Incredible, I like incredible. That's the best way to think about it.

So, when something like that happens, I'm just curious, you don't have to spill all the business secrets on the podcast, but does that have a pretty big impact on site visitors on business?

Joseph:  Yeah, it did. It's actually exposure. Yeah, yeah, it definitely helped us in many ways because we had been essentially buried for the most part in this Google algorithms. And, all the exposure brought my book, “The Truth About COVID–19” to number one and it was my best-selling book ever.

Ben:  Could you actually buy that book on Amazon?

Joseph:  Oh, yeah, yeah, you could. They never took it off. So, it was number one on USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and all the metrics account, but of course, New York Times.

Ben: Yeah. I read that book when it first out, it's fantastic. Yeah, but obviously pretty controversial.

Joseph:  And, that was two years, what, over two years ago now and it was highly controversial and people claim me of lying through the book. But, two years later, nothing's been disproven.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we could obviously go down the COVID route.

Joseph:  Yeah, we know we need to.

Ben:  Blue in the face, but back to the vitamin D piece which got us on this thread. So, was your argument that there's a specific impact of vitamin D on the immune system that would [00:07:40] _____?

And, by the way, the reason I asked this question is just a few days ago, one of our mutual friends, Georgi Dinkov, he's more of a friend of yours. I follow his stuff. I haven't had him on my podcast yet, but he published an article showing that about 4,000, 10,000 international units a day of vitamin D was one of the best things you could do to both prevent and survive GI cancer.

Joseph:  Yes.

Ben:  I'm dealing with cancer in the family right now and I immediately sent that off to my family member because it's a very cheap and readily available supplement. It's also available via the sunshine, but you originally doing your research on it related to the immune system.

Joseph:  Well, I don't do lab research, but basically you investigative journalist that goes and files information and interviews the world–class experts. I've interviewed almost every world–class researcher about vitamin D over the years. And, one of the fundamental benefits it has is it radically reduces not just colon cancer which is well documented but pretty much all types of cancers, is very positive at preventing and treating cancers. Very similar to linoleic acid is being the exact converse in increasing the risk of every cancer.

Ben:  Yeah, you walk around with your shirt off a lot [00:08:51] _____ on the beach yesterday. I know you're a big sunshine hunter, would you say that's the best way to get vitamin D or do you supplement with it also?

Joseph:  I haven't taken a swallow of vitamin D supplement over 15 years.

Ben:  Really?

Joseph:  Yeah, and yet my vitamin D levels are consistently over 100 nanograms per milliliter.

Ben:  A hundred.

Joseph:  A hundred without swallowing–

Ben:  What's your response to the people who are like,
“Oh, it's going to cause calcification if you have too much vitamin D.”

Joseph:  It's just not true.

Ben:  Is that a myth or is there any truth behind that? Why do people say that?

Joseph:  Well, you have to be very, very careful when you swallow vitamin D orally.

Ben:  Oral supplementation.

Joseph:  Oral supplementation because there's no feedback going on.

A lot of the research that was published initially suggested that there was they correlated all these benefits to vitamin D, but most of your research, it wasn't that vitamin D level. People were taking vitamin D supplements, so almost all that elevated or vitamin D levels related to sun exposure merely. So, that's really served as a biomarker for sun exposure because there's other benefits other than ultraviolet B radiation, which only comprises about 4% of the spectrum of sunlight. And, that's this specific wavelength and frequency that causes your body to convert 7–deoxy cholesterol to vitamin D.

Ben:  Now, is it true that there are certain genetic factors that might limit that conversion from occurring because I've seen people like–

Joseph:  Sure, there are.

Ben:  Kashif Khan from the DNA Company, he's talked about that before on my podcast about how some people might have higher need for oral supplementation.

Joseph:  Yeah. And, there could be–more typically with the SNPs, it's the vitamin D receptors, but there are other variables that you can do that make a big difference. One of them is vitamin K2 and then the other would be magnesium.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, a lot of people who aren't taking up magnesium, once they add it, then their vitamin D looks tend to normalize.

Ben:  Now, the form of vitamin D, as a matter of fact, I was just texting last time with another guy. I'm interested in having him on the show. I haven't yet. Dr. Tyler Panzner who does a lot related to genetic SNPs. I think he might do a little bit of work with Joe Cohen for SelfDecode if I'm not mistaken. He says that there's a form of oral vitamin D–

Joseph:  Joe Cohen was at our table in this month.

Ben:  That's right. That's right. He was also there. Cholecalciferol as an oral form that's more expensive but much more bioavailable and increases vitamin D levels within just a couple weeks.

Joseph:  I think that's just a term for vitamin D.

Ben:  Yeah. When you supplement with it, I believe a lot of times it's a hydroxy vitamin D form. It's less bioavailable than this cholecalciferol. I could only find one company. I forget the name of it. If I can hunt it down and put it in the shownotes, I will. That actually uses this cholecalciferol form. The reason this is interesting for me is because according to Dr. Khan [00:11:46] _____ vitamin D conversion from sunlight, which makes sense because when I used to race Ironman, I was out in the sun 8 hours a day. And, I test, the levels were 30 or 40. And so, now, I take around 2,000 units a day or so and my levels are typically up 70s to 90s, 100s a year.

Joseph:  Yeah. I would suggest a slight modification of that. In fact, I was just updating my script for my new master class that I'm composing this, which is a design to empower people with the resource needed to survive the next coming crisis, I believe, which will be here at some point, not too distant future. But, if the module was in sun exposure and then when you're seeking to optimize your vitamin D levels, if you don't have access all the time, of course, you're going to need a neural supplement. But, on the days that you do get out there, don't take your vitamin D supplement, you're already getting it from the sun.

Ben:  Even if you have that genetic issue with the conversion? 

Joseph:  I'm not convinced of that because you're getting a pretty high level. Two thousand is not the normal dose for oral dose for most people. It's usually closer to 8,000, which is a typical adult.

Ben:  So, for some people and I know some functional medicine docs who will prescribe a vitamin D for 50,000 units of intramuscular–

Joseph:  I don't–not recommended at all. Not recommended, yeah.

Ben:  Why don't you recommend an approach like that?

Joseph:  It's a parenteral intramuscular injection and that the only way that's done is typically through vitamin D2, which is a plant-based version not this healthy–Michael Holick who is probably the premier vitamin researcher is fond of it, most of the others are not.

Ben:  Is there anything to be said for that strategy some people use especially plant-based diet enthusiasts to put mushrooms out in sunlight to harness concentrate vitamin D in mushrooms?

Joseph:  This concentrate actually converts it. It converts similar to steroids–

Ben:  Okay, similar to [00:13:47] _____

Joseph:  Yes, but it doesn't make vitamin D3, humans make vitamin D3. Animals make vitamin D3. When you irradiate lanolin, which is the primary almost exclusive raw material used to create vitamin D supplements–

Ben:  You mean lanolin from sheep?

Joseph:  Yes.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  That's how they create vitamin D is they irradiate lanolin with UVB. And, that creates vitamin D3. When you make it from mushrooms, you create vitamin D2.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Which is, I think, called ergocalciferol.

Ben:  But if, yeah, you take ergocalciferol or D2, you can still elevate your D-level supplement, right?

Joseph:  There is some benefit to it because there's a cross-reactivity in the receptors, for sure, but it's not as good as a D3. It really isn't. It's fast and inferior.

Ben:  I grew pink oyster mushrooms last year. I had little ride blocks out in the forest and I grow them and I take them, put them out the picnic table at the patio, and leave them out in the sun all day. They're like vegan bacon, basically.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah, sure.

Ben:  So, the crisis that you just referred to, I don't want to necessarily allow you to drop that and leave it behind. You're talking about an economic crisis or something else?

Joseph:  Everything. Well, very similar to what we have with COVID, is so much worse; lockdowns, suppression, personal freedoms are lost, just tyrannical oppression by the government, authoritarian control, loss of personal freedoms.

Ben:  Would there be a trigger for that like another pandemic or something like that?

Joseph:  Yeah, there's going to be some ostensible trigger or it could be a false flag like what they did with 9/11, but something will trigger. It could be losing the grid. It could be another clearly infectious pandemic that it's high on our likelihood. But, they've kind of–really, I mean, this was just a trial run. I mean, they've been getting worse and worse every, every two, three years. They try their tricks. And, they've gotten more sophisticated and smarter with time, of course.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, it's no surprise.

Ben:  I mean, I feel like I'm a little bit more of a prepper on paper than you are out of the forest and you building a farm in Idaho with water systems and off-grid and everything, beach in Florida–

Joseph:  I have not shown you everything yet.

Ben:  Alright, maybe I haven't seen the bunker, but I got to ask you. You're doing an entire master class. I think you said it was 50-plus modules and hours and hours of content, but without having to do the entire master class right here in the podcast. Were there a few key things that you think people should do to prepare for something like this?

Joseph:  Yeah. One we just talked about, exposure to the sun rather than swallowing vitamin D supplements because there's so many other benefits that being exposed to sun would be two primary ones. Well, it increases the production of melatonin. Not in your pineal gland but in these subcellular spaces in your mitochondria where it's absolutely needed because that's where most all the reactive oxygen species are generating energy production.

Ben:  I thought bright light suppress melatonin.

Joseph:  In the pineal gland.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Not in the subcellular mitochondrial space in the mitochondria. And, that's where you need melatonin.

Ben:  So, if you have elevated levels of melatonin–

Joseph:  This is by Russel Reiter who's the primary researcher.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, he knows a lot of mitochondria. But, what you were saying is if sunlight is elevating melatonin during the day, there would not be a sleepiness-inducing effect and it would instead just allow for the anti-inflammatory effect of melatonin on the cell membrane.

Joseph:  And more antioxidant than anti-inflammatory.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Yes. And, it's what happens. Yeah, this is why even if you can't get that because many people are unable to get sun exposure in the winter and most everywhere in the United States, then there's other strategies because it's the near-infrared frequency that generates that. So, you can do a near-infrared sauna, not far because far won't cause that to occur.

Ben:  If it's one of those [00:17:33] _____ that's a combination of near-infrared and far-infrared, do you think that suffices? Some people say that the angle of the photons from the far-infrared will negate the effects of near-infrared.

Joseph:  I don't think so. I've not seen literature to support that. I suspect that would be a benefit if he had a sufficient threshold in infrared exposure.

Ben:  Yeah, okay. Now, some people would hear you say, well, there's going to be a crisis so get out in the sun like it sounds kind of silly. So, the reason behind that would be to prepare your immune system to better–

Joseph:  Your overall resilience, health resilience because look what happen if you weren't healthy in COVID.

Ben:  Yeah, certain people.

Joseph: A lot of people died.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Joseph:  So, the healthy you are, the more you'll be able to be resilient. So, I think that's probably one of the most foundational things is to get sun exposure. And, it's virtually been eliminated from our consciousness in the culture and actually, the exact converse has been embedded in it because almost all the dermatologists are warning people that the sun causes cancer. Well, you know what, Ben, the sun does not–

Ben:  I saw a book that just got published. I think title of the book is “Get the F out of the Sun.”

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  And, it's literally just about how this idea that a lot of health freaks have championed that sunscreen is full of carcinogens and that the impact of sunscreen is more deleterious than exposure to sunlight is something that is leading a lot of people down the road getting skin cancer from sun exposure. Is there anything to be said for dangerous potential of sunlight when it comes to excess radiation like UVA?

Joseph:  Well, sure. There's no question that you never want to get sunburned. That would be foolish, but you really need to explore the fundamental reasons why sun exposure would cause cancer, why would it trigger cancer.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  It's because of the other most important strategy which we alluded to earlier, which is linoleic acid which is ostensibly an essential fat. And, I can make a stronger–

Ben:  Explain that to people, linoleic acid.

Joseph:  Linoleic acid is–

Ben:  And, by the way, it's different because there's also alpha-linolenic acid, which is like a less of a polyunsaturated fatty acid.

Joseph:  No, no, no, it's actually more.

Ben:  It's more polyunsaturated but it's–

Joseph:  It's omega 3. Linoleic has two double bonds. I think maybe linolenic has two double bonds. It probably has two.

Ben:  I think alpha-linolenic has more double bonds than linoleic acid, I believe.

Joseph:  Yeah. Most of the omega 3s–

Ben:  Less damaging. ALA is less of a problem than linoleic acid.

Joseph:  Well, ostensibly they stated because it's omega 3, alpha-linolenic; whereas, linoleic which is 80% of the omega 6 fats. When you're talking about omega 6 fats, you're almost always referring to linoleic acid.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  But, it's excess of this. In the right quantities, the quantities that were essentially in every human on this planet prior to the Civil War, you will not get skin cancer if you had that level of linoleic acid in the tissue.

Ben:  Low levels of linoleic acid.

Joseph:  Yeah, like 2%. The average person to say is 12%.

Ben:  Can you measure that?

Joseph:  Yeah, you can, absolutely.

Ben:  Really? Is that, what is it called, the OmegaQuant or the Omega–

Joseph:  Well, it will give you a barometer. It's not OmegaQuant, you have to do a fatty acid profile.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  But, the optimal way would be a tissue fat biopsy, which isn't that hard. It's better than muscle biopsy.

Ben:  Alright. So, let's say people aren't going to get the biopsy, I guess the biggest elephant in the room here is when you use a term like linoleic acid and the fact that high concentrations of it would increase the possibility for damage in response to sun exposure, what would be some of the primary sources of linoleic acid in the modern American diet?

Joseph:  Well, the primary one is processed foods. I think it was two-thirds of the calories the American students are from processed foods. So, in the primary, but there is of course industrially processed seed oils, which was started around the American Civil War.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  And, they didn't–

Ben:  That's why you said the Civil War because that's when seed oil processing began to increase.

Joseph:  Right.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Absolutely. And, it didn't become popular until the 20th century.

Ben:  What was about the Civil War that caused that to happen?

Joseph:  It was just industrialization.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  And, we developed a technology to do it. We didn't previously never had it.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  And, in the 19th century, 99% of the fat that we consumed, 99% came from animal sources. No linoleic acids yet.

Ben:  Really?

Joseph:  And today, about 70%. It's been a while since the data. It's either 70 to 90% of the fat that Americans consume is from seed oils.

Ben:  Wow.

Joseph:  Totally flipped.

Ben:  Wow. Now, prior to that flip, what about some of these oils, I don't know if these would have certain concentration of linoleic acid like extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil–

Joseph:  Yeah. Well, those are minor ones. That's typically the question that most people have. It's because they're sensibly viewed as healthy oils, Mediterranean diet and such. If you had a healthy variety, and the range is from 3 to 20% of an olive oil can be linoleic acid–the lower the better, of course. 3% is pretty darn safe. The problem with it is, Ben, and this is also what I'm saying for olive oil is also true for avocado oil is that 80 to 90% of the commercial oils, avocado and olive are adulterated.

Ben:  I've heard that before with TJ Murphy, The Olive Oil Hunter. He exposed that on my podcast. I was shocked.

Joseph:  Yeah. Well, he may have. I'm sure he did expose it but it was exposed many, many years ago.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, you're pointing out at least. Yeah, the great oil live hoax.

Joseph:  Yeah, 60 minutes [00:23:26] ______.

Ben:  [00:23:30] _____ was similar?

Joseph:  Yeah, almost identical. Yeah. And, the issue is that almost everyone were probably the rare anomaly, and not that we're just both being shirtless but we're both very low in linoleic acid.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Because we've known about this and consciously avoided it.

Ben:  Yeah. For me, at least nine years. It's been ruthlessly eliminated from my diet.

Joseph:  Yeah. And, why is it so important? Because these seed oils, they get embedded cell membranes and they have a very low turnover rate. They're not preferentially oxidized as fuel at all, they are stored in your tissue where saturated fat would be burned much quicker than PUFA, polyunsaturated fats.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  If you're really, really diligent and hyper-obsessive-compulsive but avoiding them, you can lower it to almost to normal levels in about three years. That's about the earliest. Otherwise, it's–

Ben:  That's that long if you've been following a standard processed food diet.

Joseph:  Yes.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  And, it could be longer. I think five years would probably be safer for most people, maybe in six or seven.

Ben:  What is it about the combination of that and sunlight that would make sunlight more dangerous?

Joseph:  Well, it essentially serves as the primary source of oxidative stress in your body.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  These bonds are highly susceptible to oxidative damage. Now, just one linoleic acid is two simple double bonds. When it's exposed to free radicals in your body which are normal, they're signaling molecules typically generated in the mitochondria, things like superoxide dismutase and even nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxy free radicals, they damage those double bonds and they convert it to something called OXLAM, which is oxidative linoleic acid metabolites–

Ben:  What you call an OXLAM?

Joseph:  OXLAM.

Ben:   OXLAM.

Joseph:  Oxidative linoleic acid metabolite, which are primarily–

Ben:  Linoleic acid metabolite.

Joseph:  Yeah. They're primarily reactive aldehydes. Things like malondialdehyde, 4–hydroxynonenal, BioXcel–

Ben:  These are a lot of the things that some functional medicine docs will test you for.

Joseph:  Yeah. Well, they should.

Ben:  You're not going to need to do a detox.

Joseph:  Yeah. And, what is the almost exclusive source of these guys? Linoleic acid.

Ben:  Really?

Joseph:  Yeah, exactly. And, people are worried about ages, advanced glycation end-products, but the primary source of ages are linoleic acid metabolic.

Ben:  Really?

Joseph:  2,300 times more–

Ben:  And, most people would say the combination of sugar with a heated protein.

Joseph:  And, most people would be wrong. I mean, I could show you. The study has been out for 20 years. Yeah, it's linoleic acid. So, I'm sort of dancing around that to answer your original question, that's why is to contribute to cancer. So, these OXLAMs are the primary reason. It's not because they increase inflammation. There are a lot of people who suggest to avoid eating the omega 6s because they increase inflammation because linoleic acid acids, the next metabolites converts the arachidonic acid, which is a precursor for many pro-inflammatory eicosanoids and prostaglandins but that's not the mechanism. The mechanism is it increases OXLAMs. And, these oxidations go through the roof and essentially destroys your mitochondrial prematurely because there are specific fats in your mitochondrial and inner membrane like cardiolipin, mentioned further. They're responsible for forming that curve within the mitochondrial.

Ben:  And, that's not the membrane around the cell?

Joseph:  No, no, it's in–

Ben:  The membrane around the mitochondria.

Joseph:  Yeah, the inner mitochondria.

Ben:  Right, right.

Joseph:  And, vast majority of the fat in there because of the perversion of our diet is cardiolipin–

Ben:  So, the dietary intake of your fat can influence the type of fats that are on your in your mitochondrial membrane.

Joseph: 100%.

Ben:  And, your diet can directly impact in your mitochondrial membrane composition.

Joseph:  Yeah. And now, I told you I wrote this review paper on vitamin D for nutrients while I just had another review paper published just this year just two months ago. It was a narrative review of linoleic acid damages. They have pretty aggressive viewers. They had four of the peer reviewers and one of them was just gave me the argument that linoleic acid has to be healthy because it's in breast milk.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, I obliterated and destroyed this argument because I went back and found a study published in 1950 where they've had this group of people who had 5% of the content of breast milk in these women in 1950s was linoleic acid, which is much below what it is today like closer to 50 —

Ben:  Based on the women's diet.

Joseph:  It's a radical increase. I mean, that was 75 years ago. So, what they did in the experiment, they getting pure soybean oil or something, just almost pure linoleic acid and they doubled it within two weeks.

Ben:  Okay. So, they artificially elevated levels of linoleic acid in the breast milk in the study based on the findings.

Joseph:  Yeah, because it's just a reflection. His argument was totally invalid because that would mean that [00:28:39] _____ in the breast milk, it's okay.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  No, it just accumulates whatever your body's feeding. It's the same thing with cardiolipin in your mitochondria. And, actually in a dialogue with some high-level Canadian clinician who believes that this isn't true. Because the common belief within conventional science is that 80% of the fatty acids in cardiolipin are linoleic acid. They think that's healthy.

Ben:  Is that 80%?

Joseph:  Yeah. They say 80 to 90%, yeah. And, I don't dispute that.

Ben:  Now, is that because 80 to 90% is supposed to be or it's currently 80 to 90% based on the modern American diet?

Joseph:  Right, because we've been doing this for over 100 years.

Ben:  [00:29:26] _____ their mitochondria membrane wouldn't have such high levels of linoleic acid.

Joseph:  Yeah. If there's a measure of your lives, yours or mine, it's not going to be much.

Ben:  I was thinking about measuring the. Yeah, you got to get biopsy.

Joseph:  Yeah. I'm not sure of the methodology [00:29:40] _____ fatty acid concentration, but it's a resource. I mean, not something you can do–

Ben:  But, surely if you were to get that omega index score, which is far more common and available and you were to have a high omega 6 index to omega 3, it would be a pretty decent clue–

Joseph:  I would disagree. It's not so much the ratio. You really need the absolute value. So, there are other tests. I mean, you could do a fatty acid profile through Quest or Labcorp. There are other companies that provide pretty powerful data like NutrEval. NutrEval gave you that too.

Ben:  Okay. Yeah, NutrEval or the Metabolomix is a test by Genova Diagnostics. It's very similar to the NutrEval.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. So, what would you do if you were out at a Brazilian steakhouse with a whole-food salad bar? I assume linoleic acid because it's not like–I mean unless you're extremely cautious, you're going to be able to completely avoid it. Is there something you can consume or do afterwards?

Joseph:  Yeah, there are foods–ultimately comes down to the food selection that you're having. And typically, animal foods would be. Not all animal foods.

Ben:  What I'm thinking is what if you eat linoleic acid. Because I've heard Dr. James DiNicolantonio talk about glycine or spirulina. I've heard other people talk about activated charcoal.

Joseph:  Well, the activated charcoal would be [00:30:56] _____ because that's going to bind everything and help you excrete it. But, assuming you wanted assimilated, the best thing to do would be take vitamin E. And, I think almost everyone–

Ben:  Vitamin E?

Joseph:  E, yeah.

Ben:  Interesting.

Joseph:  It's a very potent inhibitor of peroxidation of the fatty acids.

Ben:  Any specific form of vitamin E?

Joseph:  Yes. Yeah. 80 to 90% of vitamin E is pure junk and it could make you worse.

Ben:  I had a conversation with Dr. Barrie Tan from Designs for Health about this. He was championing the idea of a variety of mixed tocopherols or tocotrienols. He said the annatto plant was an example of something–

Joseph:  Yeah. Like annatto and I haven't carefully examined it, but the general principles are, first of all, you want it to be the natural isomers. Well, you don't want a synthetic and almost all of them are synthetic. And, how do you know it's synthetic? There's two isomers, the right and the left, the D and L. The only isomer you want is a dextro, D. So, the D isomer. If it says D/L, it's synthetic. Throw it away.

Ben:  Interesting.

Joseph:  Yeah. So, that's one. And then, it shouldn't say acetate after because that's another synthetic. So, D alpha, tocopherol acetate, classic. You go into almost any drugstore, that's what they'll have. You just do not want that.

Ben:  Are there certain dietary sources more readily available than annatto?

Joseph:  Yeah. This is a great question. I mean, the best dietary sources are seed, nuts. It's like the nature of kind of put it in there. So, it's really hard to get it. You almost have to take a supplement. And, you don't need a supplement for it the rest of your life. Once your seed levels oils are down like both of us, you may not need vitamin E at all and just the stuff you're going to get in normal foods is fine.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  But, if you're 99.99% of the population, you're going to really want it.

Ben:  I'm sure people are now wondering about your diet. And, I mean, we just had what for breakfast, rice and oatmeal with some egg yolks and some berries. It's interesting because I feel like if I would have had breakfast with you maybe five years ago, you were pretty low carbohydrate, doing a lot of [00:33:09] _____. So, tell me what's changed with your diet because that was a pretty good breakfast we had this morning.

Joseph: Well, it's sort of an extension of my appreciation, deep fundamental appreciation of the dangers of linoleic acid. And, I definitely want to go back to some of the other issues of cancer because there's some stats I got to share with you that are just mind-blowing. But, this deep appreciation of the dangers of linoleic acid, then I started wondering, well, who understood this a long time ago? And, it turns out Ray Peat.

Ben:  Ray Peat.

Joseph:  Was one of the main biologist–

Ben:   Old school longevity, yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah. Was warning about this in the 1980s. And, I had known of his work since about the 1980s and absolutely discounted it because it was so bizarre, so weird. I thought he was a flaky knucklehead biologist, didn't know what he was talking about. But then, if he knew about linoleic acid, there's got to be something up his sleeve. And, I started looking at him and examining what he was talking about and it blew my mind. And, I greatly regret that I just understood his brilliance literally, he's an iconic classic legend in my view, and understanding mitochondrial function, how to optimize it. And, we would need three to four hours to go into that so we don't have the time to do that, but just take it for granted. This is going to be part of the things of the course is that just brilliant. He can help people understand how to optimize biological function and is not with beta-oxidation of fats in mitochondria. I was wrong, totally wrong.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  The ideal one is glucose. And, the best source of food–

Ben:  You meant consuming adequate amounts of glucose.

Joseph:  Well, glucose is a fuel. You can get it from different ways. Ideally, you want to get it–the glucose is bound to fructose as a disaccharide.

Ben:  As you define like honeys and fruits.

Joseph:  Absolutely, yeah. Honey and ripe grapefruits.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  But anyway, that goes in and optimizing that. So, that's how I became aware of this. And interestingly, I just give you a brief history because I integrated his approach earlier this year. I was pretty healthy. I mean, pretty healthy for the most part. So, once I did it, I was having about 150 grams of carbs like you, but I upped it to about 400 to 500. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to be at 400 or 500, you have to have a high level of activity, you can't have insulin resistance if you do it [00:35:41] ____.

Ben:  That's what I understand is part of the Ray Peat approach is high energy flux, meaning marrying adequate carbohydrate intake. Even as high as what you're saying, you're working yourself up to that 400, 500 grams with activities that would increase glucose transporters doing some walking or staying physically active or getting sunlight or engaging in lifestyle activities that would be the opposite of not eating many carbohydrates being cold hungry and libidoless, slightly inactive.

Joseph:  And low testosterone.

Ben:  Yeah. And low testosterone which I had to deal with when I was following ketogenic diet.

Joseph:  Most everyone does is classic. And, it's just an absolute perfect classic illustration of the fact of inadequate cellular energy to make the testosterone. The answer is not testosterone placement, the answer is to fix the problem. So anyway, I did this. I dropped 10 pounds in weight. My body fat went from 15% down to 12%.

Ben:  You tripled your carbs and you dropped that amount of weight?

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  Wow.

Joseph:  It went from 15% to 12%, done by the inline. I think, it's the inline body measurement which I think is the best.

Ben:  InBody.

Joseph:  InBody. Yes, it's InBody. It's almost identical with  DEXA with none of the radiation.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, if you want to really know what your body is I would do the InBody for sure. So, those went from 15. That was 15 a year before and then 12.

Ben:  Sure.

Joseph:  My HSCRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, I couldn't get it down below 0.8, which is still healthy.

Ben:  Yeah, it's called marker of inflammation for people who don't know.

Joseph:  Yeah. And, I got it down to 0.18. By fasting blood sugar, it went down 10 points.

Ben:  Wow, wow. Why do you think that is? That's paradoxical that your blood glucose would have decreased when you tripled your carbohydrate.

Joseph:  Because your blood sugar is not necessarily related to the amount of carbs reading. I mean, it is related, but it has to do with the metabolic health.

Ben:  Are you're talking about the potential for a high cortisol response [00:37:48] _____?

Joseph:  Yeah. When you don't have enough cortisol.

Ben:  Causing a paradoxical rise and glycogenolysis and increase in blood glucose because your high cortisol due to lack of metabolic–

Joseph:  Yeah. That's what Georgi Dinkov helped me understand is that, yes, there's not an excursion to glucose levels. You have a very steady glucose level in your low carb, but it does it because your body wants to stay alive. If you go into low blood sugar levels, you will die.

Ben:  The same reason that someone who's even eating a low-carb diet would have extremely high blood glucose level after workout or after a sauna or after a cold plunge because there's a transient rise of glucose in response to stress. With those activities, you tend to see long-term blood glucose stabilization because the impact of those activities [00:38:31] _____.

Joseph:  Well, stabilization is only due to the secretion of cortisol and other stress hormones like glycogen, not glycogen.

Ben: But, honestly consistent carbohydrate depletion would cause the body still need to have glucagon, would still need to cause an elevation in blood glucose due to the stress that that elevation of blood glucose has to come from the liver and from muscle and eventually muscle fiber breakthrough.

Joseph:  Well, it's the other way around. The liver is a processing. The amino acids are sacrificially extracted from your muscles, your bone, and these really important tissues and they're shuttled to the liver in a process called gluconeogenesis to create blood sugar.

Ben:  What do you say to people who say, “Well, why not just increase dietary protein?”

Joseph:  You could do that, but it's a very expensive way to do it and there's some side effects because you create a lot of extra ammonia and that goes really hard in your kidneys and many people are suffering with kidney challenges.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  The ideal amount of protein from my understanding and you certainly have your insights on it but it's about 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.

Ben:  Yeah, 0.55 is the minimum, above 0.8 gram per pound, not kilogram, grams per pound, you tend to see of a lot of diminishing returns unless you're extremely high in weight lifting, in a body build. Some bodybuilders will still build and assimilate at 1.2 grams per pound plus, but that's pretty rare. That's a rare population.

Joseph:  And, that there's a downside to that.

Ben:  Yeah. So, 0.7, that's a good approximation.

So, based on that, I do want to get back to linoleic acid and cancer by the way, but I'm just curious, what's a typical day of eating look like for you besides the rice and goose eggs and the blueberries and the watermelon we have for breakfast this morning?

Joseph:  Well, the eggs, the egg yolks that we have are from the chickens or the geese that I raised. And, they're fed very special diets.

Ben:  Geese.

Joseph:  The geese?

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah, the geese.

Ben:  I mean, why geese? Why not just chicken?

Joseph:  Well, we initially got it because wanted them to eat the weeds. They eat a lot less food than chickens because they most eat the grass.

Ben:  Is the egg profile similar as far as the fatty acids–

Joseph:  No, the egg profile is much radically improved. Yeah, because they don't eat typical feed, they're mostly vegetarian. So, their result, their linoleic acid is much–

Ben:  So, lower omega 6 and lower linoleic acid in their eggs.

Joseph:  This is why chickens and pigs are not really great foods to eat. They are ideally but they're monogastric animals, they only have one stomach. And, as a result, they're just like us, and any linoleic acid that they're given tends to accumulate in their tissues. I don't care if it's organic free-range chickens or pigs, they're almost all given grains, which are loaded with linoleic acid. They're very, very high.

Ben:  [00:41:26] _____ sometimes.

Joseph:  Absolutely. It's very unusual. I mean, if you raise them yourself, you can avoid it.

Ben:  A little surprised a lot of people will hear.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah. So anyway, what I normally have. I love ripe fruit. It's probably the majority of my carbohydrates is ripe fruit. So, I'll start the day with, it depends if it's a rest day or it's a sauna day, so I'll do three, four, maybe even more 4 pounds of cut watermelon, not the ripe.

Ben:  And, ripe is because more important to you than say the resistant starch that you would want from unripe. And, for you it's because of that blend of glucose and fructose.

Joseph:  Right.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Yeah. So, that's what I do. And, I've had some kidney damage as result of mercury extraction done 30 years ago. So, I challenged with that. So, I cannot go high. I really rarely go over 105 grams of protein a day.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  So, I'd have some lamb. It would be my primary meat. But, I only have 3 ounces of lamb. That's it.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Relatively small amount. So, my protein comes from other sources primarily.

Ben:  What do you weigh approximately?

Joseph:  180.

Ben:  Okay. So, you're not too far below 0.7 grams per pound, approaching at 105 grams.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. Okay.

Joseph:  Yeah, because I'm a big believer of you and this is the first time you've been to my place but I'm so impressed with your exercise routine. It's radically modified. We want time to talk about it, but believe me, I will acknowledge you in the course because you're such a classic illustration of implementing what I believe is. And, I've been passionate about as you have been since 1968.

Ben:  Yeah. You were part of the big marathoning craze [00:43:15] _____.

Joseph:  Yes. When I had most of it wrong and I'm gradually evolving and refining my progress, my perception of that and you radically help in that area with respect to. Because it's all about movement. It really is all about movement. You got to nail that you are not a bodybuilding musclehead, which a lot of people because if you do excessive resistance training–

Ben:  Not anymore.

Joseph:  Yeah. If you do excessive resistance training, you will die.

Ben:  True. Yeah.

Joseph:  It's great stuff but it's small doses.

Ben:  That's a rabbit hole too much but that's part of that J-curve that James–

Joseph:  Yeah, reverse J-curve.

Ben:  Yeah. Reverse J-curve meaning that not only do you reach the law of diminishing returns when you get to about 180 minutes of high- to moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise, but the law of diminishing returns for what would be considered like intense heavy weightlifting is even lower than that.

Joseph:  Much lower, yeah. Anything lower an hour, a week could be problem. And, I saw you work out today and maybe you did about 5 to 10 minutes, maybe not even that. Maybe zero because I mean, you were working out which you're working out that intensely.

Ben:  What I do is I'll do a few lifts but then I do mobility, I do–

Joseph:  Yeah. It's almost all mobility which is beautiful

Ben:  Get down off the ground, a little foam rolling. So, even though I'm sometimes in the gym for an hour or two, I typically might reach 20 minutes or so of actual weight training during that time. When I'm at home, it's just that ARX—

Joseph:  Your weight training isn't that intense. It's not like you're pushing–

Ben:  No, it's not. Yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah, you're not in the pain.

Ben:  I think it's better for the joints also. If I go heavy, it's not heavy, it's either blood flow restriction bands to trick the muscles and they're thinking they're lifting a heavy weight or a moderate weight lifted super slow, which I think carries with it much, much more longevity in sport and lower risk of [00:44:56] _____.

Joseph:  You really have dialed in. I have great respect for what you've been able to–the knowledge and practical skills you put together over your lifespan. So, congratulations on–

Ben:  Oh, that's my jam. That's my passion.

Joseph:  I know, I know.

Ben:  Strength condition. That's what my degree was in.

So, back to the diet, you've got things like the goose eggs, we got the rice, the oatmeal, the berries, the ripe fruit, what about organ meats, meat, things like that?

Joseph:  Oh, yeah, yeah, organ meat. You don't need much. I mean, maybe have 10 grams of organ meat a day, small amount. And then, I have raw milk for sure and I have a lot of white rice, Basmati white rice because it's–

Ben:  White rice versus sweet potatoes or yams or purple potatoes.

Joseph:  You could use potatoes. You have to be somewhat careful. I'm not about potato base, but I was having red potatoes, small red potatoes not russet potatoes. But, you have to be really careful and cook them incredibly well. I pressure cook mine because there's a starch that can form and we don't have the enzyme capacity to adjust those starches easily so it passes through our small intestines, the large intestine, forms as fuel for the bacteria in your colon–

Ben:  You mean if you're consuming tubers without doing some pressure cooking.

Joseph:  Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't know if I have any tuber other than potatoes. 

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  And then, they have to consider the oxidate issue too. But, if you're pressure cooking them, you [00:46:25] _____.

Ben:  It's my understanding the oxalates can decrease a lot of lectin and get rid of any type of problematic starch by pressure cooking.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  I think that's the best way to do it.

Joseph:  Yeah. So, you do that and then your body can absorb the fuel rather than bacteria. The danger of bacteria doing it is that the gram-negative specifically, they can produce something called lipopolysaccharide, LPS for short, which is another term for endotoxin which increases serotonin, which the whole rabbit hole we can go down but bad news.

So, I wanted to switch back to the linoleic acid because it is in my view aside from sun exposure and movement, which are–I mean, it's hard to prioritize and also they're fundamentally foundation.

Ben:  Yeah, you don't have to prioritize [00:47:11] _____. Every day I stack earthing and grounding, sunlight, some form of weight bearing, hot, cold, water, minerals, and some type of movement mobility. That's like a typical day for me. If I can check off those boxes, all those biohacks in the world–

Joseph:  You're doing another one and you've done it for the last nine years so you don't even recall it but you're avoiding linoleic acid.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, this is astonishing information. And, I kind of knew of it but I didn't compile it into a table until after I wrote my paper. But, as I was preparing presentations, I said, “Oh, my gosh, this is crazy.” So, the amount of obesity in the 1800s was about 1%. So, per 100,000, we had about thousand people.

Ben:  1%.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  And, that's not because obesity was less reported, it was less existed.

Joseph:  It didn't exist.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  But, it's still was there because not all obesity is connected to linoleic acid, there's a lot of things that can cause it. Because even in the 19th century, they had obesity, 1%. Today, we have 40% on our way to 50%.

Ben:  And, you're referring to America primarily?

Joseph:  Well, industrialized countries in the west.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  So, we've got an increase from 1% to 40% of 40x in that time frame. Then, you go to diabetes. So, we didn't have that many diabetes. It was a lot less than a thousand. Type 2 diabetes not type 1. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease.

Ben:  And again, this was not necessarily because less knowledge of the condition existed, there were less diagnosed cases or there were underreported cases.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  This is pretty ironclad. They actually have less diabetes and have less obesity.

Joseph:  Yeah. And now, you can make a strong argument. I mean, not formal legally classified as diabetics but either diabetes or pre-diabetes, which I consider a fasting blood sugar, anything over three digits.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  That's 30% of the country.

Ben:  Anything over three digits.

Joseph:  Yeah, 100 or more.

Ben:  Oh, okay, I got what you're saying.

Joseph:  That's okay.

Ben:  You don't mean immediate post-cranial?

Joseph:  No, no, no, I said fasting.

Ben:  Okay, fasting glucose. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Joseph:  There is no danger to have a blood sugar 130, 140–

Ben:  Yeah, but for reasons I just said earlier, don't test it right after you exercise, you'll freak out and think your fasted glucose is way higher than it should be. Do it fasted and relaxed.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, it's 30% and it's gone up like 50x. No, wait, not 50x. I think it's 500x. I should have looked at the table.

Ben:  Wait, what's gone 500x?

Joseph: Diabetes.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Yeah. And, the treatment for diabetes is not glucose restriction, it isn't. Now, you can control it with a low-carb diet. That doesn't mean you're curing it at all. You know what the fundamental reason for almost all diabetes is?

Ben:  I mean, I'm going to say and going to say it's linoleic.

Joseph:  It's linoleic acid.

Ben:  Explain them why is that.

Joseph:  Because it ruins the ability in the mitochondria to allow glucose to be metabolized. So, if you can't metabolize it, then where's it going to go? It's going to be shuttled out into the cytosol and it's going to go into glycolysis.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  And, you're going to increase lactate and it just messes things up. And basically, that is the Warburg metabolism. Warburg was a guy that got one PhD in–

Ben:  [00:50:51] _____. Keep going.

Joseph:  Yeah. He's commonly attributed that sugar is a fuel of cancer and he never, never said that, and that his work does not show that. It isn't fuel of cancer at all, it uses it but it's the distorted metabolism. Now, what is the Warburg effect? It's when your mitochondria is unable to burn glucose despite the fact that there's plenty of oxygen and it goes into glycolysis. Now, when you and I put on the–

Ben:  So, normally if your mitochondria had blood glucose, there was oxygen available, would be able to metabolize that glucose to produce ATP in a healthy normal state?

Joseph:  Yeah. And so, we have an overfed on glucose or you have been sedentary for a long time. But, if we were to sprint or put the KAATSU bands on and do some intensive training–

Ben:  The blood flow restriction bands.

Joseph:  Yeah. Then, you are creating an oxygen deficit. There isn't enough oxygen to burn glucose. So, that is not the Warburg effect because you're going to create lactate, but that's what your body is designed to do. That is a rescue mechanism that's healthy. 

Ben:  Right.

Joseph:  But, if you're doing that when there's plenty of oxygen, you have a problem. That's cancer metabolism.

Ben:  Yeah. Is that because the cancer will thrive not necessarily in the presence of high glucose but because it will thrive in an anerobic high acidic state?

Joseph:  No, it's more fundamental than that. It's actually getting back to the creation of energy within the mitochondria. So, if it's shunted and you have to rely on beta-oxidation, these processes are going to create ultimately more oxidative damage. They do that through a mechanism that we don't have time to discuss and virtually no one watching this understands is it does it through the creation of reductive stress. I think you and I talked to this yesterday. Some of the mechanisms of methane glue and ozone are related to reducing that productive stress.

Ben:  Right.

Joseph:  Yeah. So, that's how they work, but linoleic acid is the exact opposite and causes reductive stress. And, that's one of the reasons that mitochondria is damaged and dies prematurely. It's all about the mitochondria.

Ben:  [00:53:07] _____ seal your argument. What's the number one argument against what you're saying regarding linoleic acid because surely you've gotten some pushback for this?

Joseph:  There really is no hardcore. I mean, other than the delusional concepts like it's in breast milk so it must be healthy, it's just an ignorance of the basic science of it. I mean, that is the fundamental component of Peat's work is low linoleic acid. It's many people who teach you don't really, I mean they mentioned it, all of them mentioned it but they don't necessarily emphasize as much as I think they should.

Ben:  If you were to look at something like epidemiological data or–

Joseph:  That's what I'm trying to do.

Ben:  That would be work in the blue zones or something like that. If you work to investigate those diets, would you find consistently lower amounts of linoleic acid, do you think?

Joseph:  Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. And, the studies have been done. Chris Kenobi who's a ophthalmologist by training has essentially quit his practice and turned into an investigative journalist on this. And, he's done great review of the world literature and 25 countries he's examined and gathered statistics and made the graphs and everything. And, I've kind of compiled that and put it into something even simpler. So, one of the most astonishing pieces of information data that I shared with you yesterday in our walk is that the incidence of heart disease in the United States was essentially unknown in the 19th century. The first reported heart attack in the United States was in 1912. Essentially, it was maybe a handful of people had heart disease in the 19th century. So, we go from that to the point that we have over a quarter million people today in the United States dying every year, dying from heart attacks. That is millions of times increase.

Ben:  Can you attribute that to one specific factor though? I mean, socioeconomic status means access to hyperpalatable foods and a more sedentary lifestyle due to the advent of technology and possibly more stress. And, there's got to be a cluster of factors that would result in that. I mean, surely you can't say all of it is related to linoleic acid.

Joseph:  Clearly not all of it. There's no question EMFs and everything too are also contributed. But, in my view, there's no other explanation for it. I mean, what else can cause it? 

Ben:  [00:55:35] _____ to India because I've been very careful in India. This was three years ago. I'd have to ask every time for the chef to come out and ask them to prepare my meal in olive oil or in ghee or butter. And, the reason for that is prior to going to India because I had to give a lot of talks over health and I noted that the increase in chronic disease particularly diabetes in India did not correlate at all to an increase in average percentage of carbohydrate or sugar and instead skyrocketed as soon as vegetable oil was introduced as a substitute oil for the common oils that are used there. So, I get what you're saying. I think it's still multifactorial, but I've seen some of the data on the increase in vegetable oil consumption [00:56:16] _____.

Joseph:  That's exactly what it is. And, Chris Kenobi has really done an excellent job documenting that. And, now that I'm thinking about it and you mentioned that, probably the biggest argument against this would be the people saying that it's no, it's all the carbohydrates.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  It's all the carbs. And, if you go to certain countries like really large countries like China, one of the biggest countries in the world, and the amount of sugars actually decreased.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Decreased, and the disease went up just following almost–

Ben:  Maybe you're at least making some friends now with the corn and grain lobbyists.

Joseph:  Well, no, no. Corn and grain are full of seeds, seed oils. That's the primary source.

Ben:   Yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah. My first book–

Ben:  Back to why the geese that eat the plants are going to be healthier than the chickens or pigs.

Joseph:  Right. Yeah, my first book in 2004, almost 20 years ago was “The No-Grain Diet,” which I wasn't thrilled with the title of that book but it actually is good. And, I tend to agree with it except for the anomaly would be things like white rice, not brown rice because brown rice has a lot of linoleic acid and [00:57:21] _____. And, you could do oatmeal if you're careful, but gluten is not your friend. And, most of them are sprayed with glyphosate, so you got to be careful. I mean, I don't think virtually anyone should be eating wheat.

Ben:  Yeah. You briefly mentioned EMF, and the same way that there might be a correlation because I'm just thinking here about the radiative effect of sunlight and the consequences of high linoleic acid consumption and sunlight exposure. It drives me nuts when I walk through the average resort and everybody sitting around eating French fries and chicken wings. Gosh, this is the worst time to be doing that. I'd preferably do it indoors out of the sun. But, when it comes to EMF or electromagnetic radiation or non-native EMF, dirty electricity, et cetera, would you have an increased susceptibility to the damages of that if you had high linoleic acid consumption?

Joseph:  Well, there's no study that shows that, but Georgi Dinkov is a mentor of mine has explained really clearly previously that people who have low linoleic acid diets have much less risk of dying from exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation from a nuclear glass.

Ben:  But, an EMF and a Wi-Fi router, that's non-ionizing radiation.

Joseph:  It's not, but they're real similar. So, what happens? We believe the mechanism for damage from EMFs is because it catalyzes the release of calcium inside the cell because the levels of calcium outside the cell are 50,000 times higher. So, when it goes into the cell, it's a powerful signal molecule. What does a signal cell do? It tells cells what some of the things are, it increases the release of superoxide and also nitric oxide. And, those are two molecules that they get even close to each other, I mean, instantaneously form some. This reactive nitrogen species called peroxynitrite. And, that is really, really damaging, probably collectively far more damaging than hydroxyl radical because hydroxyl radical only lasts about a billionth of a second. This peroxynitrite lasts a thousand times longer. So long that it can actually migrate outside of the mitochondria, outside of that cell, and go into another cell mitochondria and hang around that long. So, as a result, the longer it stays around, it hangs around it, it's almost as damaging as in hydroxyl but hydroxyl is more damaging but it lasts a thousand times longer.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, anyway–

Ben:  So, there's calcium influx into the cell. So, how would linoleic acid cause an increase in that already present calcium influx into the cell?

Joseph:  Well, that's how EMF we think does it. And, there's pretty strong evidence for that. It turns out that linoleic acid has the same molecular action. That's what it causes. It causes calcium to go into the cells. And, not only does it create the [01:00:12] _____, it causes–and, I didn't put this in my paper either because I didn't connect the dots. Life is busy, you just forget to do some. But, this is an important component is that there's another way that linoleic acid contributes to increasing cancer is that through this calcium influx. But, the other thing that's almost in many ways very similar because it has, I think, the same number of double bonds is estrogen. Estrogen is not your friend. It is not a postmenopausal woman's friend. This is dangerous, dangerous molecule.

Ben:  You mean excess estrogen?

Joseph:  No. There's almost virtually no indication if you take an estrogen.

Ben:  Right. But, if your body is naturally producing–

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah, you need some, you need some. Yeah.

Ben:  Why is that?

Joseph:  This calcium influx is one but it's one of the primary contributors for cancer. No question. Excess estrogen. And, not only do we get it from supplements and well-intentioned but misinformed physicians prescribing it, but we get it from xenoestrogen.

Ben:  Yeah, xenoestrogen.

Joseph:  Xenoestrogen, phytoestrogen.

Ben:  How much of it is the excess estrogen versus the progesterone to estrogen imbalance like low levels of progesterone–

Joseph:  Well, that's a big part of it, you're unquestionable. Now, we talked earlier about the major danger of low carbs cause your body to release cortisol and cortisol just shreds your muscle protein. Well, guess what one of the most effective cortisol blockers are.

Ben:  Progesterone?

Joseph:  Progesterone.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah, it just annihilates–

Ben:  It's kind of funny. Even a lot of guys, and there's this entire book written about this. I forget the doctor who wrote a book about anxiety use progesterones and [01:01:50] _____ in children who have ADD and ADHD, but Dr. Chris Shade actually who turned me on to this said, “Hey, stress out at the end of the day, a little anxious, having trouble turning the brain off, just put a little progesterone on the inside of the forearm and almost immediately feel this drop in anxiety, this calming effect.”

Joseph:  Yeah, you could, but typically, we're looking for longer-term solutions so you have to be really careful because that will work short-term but long-term, it's not a good idea. It has to be absorbed or connected with a long chain fat to get absorbed because you just swallow progesterone pill which you can't really do. You can buy [01:02:23] _____ powder, you buy DHA powder, you can't buy progesterone powder.

Ben:  I've just always recommended 3% transdermal progesterone.

Joseph:  I don't think it's a good idea long term because I did that. The guy who recommended it initially was John Lee yeah who passed away in '70s.

Ben:  John Lee and then Dr. Michael somebody wrote the anxiety book [01:02:40] _____.

Joseph:  Yeah. It's shipping a long chain fat and ideally administered orally or you could do it sub-transmucosal through a suppository either vaginal or rectal. But, I can give you the link to a company that I really like that I think does a really good job of it. 

Ben:  Oral progesterone.

Joseph:  Oral progesterone.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  Yeah. I wouldn't do transfer. I mean, it's okay for a while but what I neglected to mention is that when I was using it in my practice, it worked almost for everyone in the first few months. But then, three, six months, it felt [01:03:14] _____ to it.

Ben:  Yeah. I've heard there's a little bit of anaphylactic response, especially the transdermal. And again, I would use it very infrequently just [01:03:22] _____.

Joseph:  But, for a woman, it reads–and, I would make a strong argument for many men, especially low [01:03:29] _____ that progesterone could be a real benefit to them increasing their testosterone level.

Ben:  Yeah. And, I'm pretty chill as you saw me on the intermittent hypoxic yesterday–

Joseph:  Oh, my gosh, you impressed [01:03:40] _____.

Ben:  Yeah. I know that's kind of geeked-out exercise stuff for people, but tell people about that intermittent hypoxia, just briefly explain what that is.

Joseph:  Well, we have a device that can–it's a medical-grade device. So, it produces really pure clean oxygen. The oxygen level in the air that we breath is about 20%. This device can dial that back down to as low as 9%, which is kind of dangerous. But, is also attached to a pulsed oximeter, a medical-grade pulsed oximeter, not the one you buy for $25. It's cost 20 times that. And, it accurately measures your PO2 levels. So, it can monitor to see what your blood oxygen concentration is. And, if you can get down to the low 80s and keep it there, that's a really powerful stimulus to produce–

Ben:  Not all the time.

Joseph:  No, no, no.

Ben:  You mean short-term?

Joseph:  Short term. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With this device, it essentially gives you pulses of, in our case, it's about 15% oxygen concentration, which is not much different than room air which is 20%. But then, you do that for seven minutes or you can change the time, but essentially, five to seven minutes, maybe 10. And then, you go for two minutes, you pop into hyperoxia where you get oxygen concentration like 30 room air or higher like 34% like we got. And then, it just generates all these intriguing hormonal and metabolic benefits, especially if you're doing it with a mask on because you're getting this administered through an oxygen mask.

Ben:  And, you're just sitting in the chair even though you told me beforehand you're like this is going to feel Wim Hof breathwork [01:05:19] _____. So, I sat there for the first 10 minutes or so, didn't notice a lot. And then, gradually my fingers began to tingle, I feel that slight oxygen hunger when it dropped, and then you get that rush of oxygen when it comes back in just like you're doing breathwork. This machine's doing it all kind of like for you because I was laid back on an eye mask and playing NuCalm in this deep meditative state would almost get trance-like every time it dropped the oxygen. The actual title for this would be IHT, intermittent hypoxia training. And, this unit that you use, are you able to share the brand?

Joseph:  Yeah. I'm currently using Cellgym.

Ben:  Cellgym?

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  Okay.

Joseph:  It's probably has a different name now because in the process of changing things. So, it's mostly designed for commercial use because it's pretty expensive, but it's a powerful thing. Hopefully, they come up with home units at some point in the future. But, you can to get that benefit but you can get similar benefits. You're not going to get the IHT benefits but just the NuCalm app by itself, which we like. It's kind of pricey.

Ben:  You mean you can meditate with that.

Joseph:  For meditation, yeah. It has some good set of earbuds.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  But, you do use with NuCalm. There's only one channel that works. I mean, two. You like the nap one too but the rescue channel.

Ben:  The Rescue channel.

Joseph:  The Rescue channel. All the [01:06:35] _____.

Ben:  I have a whole podcast about the NuCalm. I'll link to in the shownotes again at BenGreenfield.com/Mercola3, M–E–R–C–O–L–A–3. The NuCalm is an app that has these trance-like sounds that are unlike anything I've ever heard.

Joseph:  Yeah, they're 3 gigabyte files.

Ben:  And, you're right, if you're going to use anything, go to the Rescue tracks and the 50, the 70 or the 120-minute Rescue tracks are amazing.

Joseph:  Yeah. My favorites are the 100 and then the 50.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  And, it's something I do every day with pretty much every day. I would say five to six times a week.

Ben:  The Cellgym or the NuCalm or both?

Joseph:  Both.

Ben:  Both together in a gravity chair you have set up. That's a game-changer.

Joseph:  Yeah.

Ben:  I was telling you that Dr. John Lieurance, shout out to our friend, John, he has this thing called Shiftwave chair in his office, which vibrates as you breathe in and breathe out in timing, correlation to your breathing. That would be pretty amazing [01:09:28] _____.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah, it's for sure.

Ben:  Yeah. I haven't gotten this chair but thinking about it.

One thing that I thought of as you were describing the deleterious impact of the combination of linoleic acid and EMFs is ever since talking to you about your first book in the podcast, “EMF*d,” and I still think people should go back and listen to that episode. I started anytime on an airplane or in an Airbnb with a ton of different Wi-Fi signals coming in, pretty much anywhere besides my house which like yours has the hardwired internet, low EMF, and all the dirty electricity mitigation filters in it. I take a magnesium, I take NAD, and I take hydrogen. Those are my top three that I'll take when I'm in a high EMF environment because the magnesium seems to offset some of the calcium influx and the hydrogen and the NAD are selected antioxidants. 

Joseph:  Well, NAD is really an antioxidant.

Ben:  Alright. Well, the NAD would be more for kind of the DNA repair or protection.

Joseph:  Yeah. So, I would modify that somewhat now because I think exogenous ketones are really useful. I'm not a big fan of people going into ketosis themselves because the process of going into ketosis is stress response.

Ben:  You mean ketosis without the use exogenous ketones like fasting or starving yourself in this?

Joseph:  Yes.

Ben:  Yeah, right.

Joseph:  Or time [01:08:45] _____ intermittent fasting. So, you don't really want to create ketones yourself initially, especially if you're metabolically healthy, but you can take exogenous ones. And, like Frank–

Ben:  Frank [01:10:59] _____.

Joseph:  Yeah. I mean, those would be classic examples. They can really help. 

Ben:  KetoneAid.

Joseph:  KetoneAid, right. Yeah. So, that can be really useful if you're getting exogenous. With respect to NAD precursor, NAD, I mean you don't want to take NAD yourself. It's very expensive. It's unnecessary. But, I think the ideal one, this is one of my key points is niacinamide by itself. It's simple, inexpensive. You can get year supply for $10.

Ben:  Different than niacinamide.

Joseph:  Totally different. Well, they're both called vitamin B3, niacinamide is the one that cause your flush. NAD, what is that? It search for nicotinamide and nucleotide. The nicotinamide is another term for niacinamide. It's not niacinamide [01:09:43] _____.

Ben:  Oh, interesting.

Joseph:  The actual molecule of NAD is composed of niacinamide, not niacin. Yes, you can convert niacin to niacinamide but it's not as efficient.

Ben:  You can just stuff niacinamide and get similar effect.

Joseph:  Like 50 milligrams. You don't want to take 500. More is not better. There's a Goldilocks dose.

Ben:  Yeah. I actually just tweeted about that especially someone with four metal donors or an MTHFR deficit or a high state of inflammation. High amounts of NAD can actually be harmful in a situation like that.

Joseph:  Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I pretty much take niacinamide regularly. I think that's one of the core things. I mean, vitamin E, most people need niacinamide, a small level two or three times a day, 50 milligrams. And, that is the best precursor [01:10:29] _____ circadian rhythm optimization, exercise because NAMPT is the rate-limiting enzyme, but you have to have the fuel once you've activated NAMPT to–

Ben:  The infrared sauna, fermented foods. There's a few things that [01:10:39] _____.

Joseph:  Yeah, yeah. So, that's really good stuff.

Ben:  Alright, there's a video floating around of you out there and I want to hunt it down, put it in the shownotes of you crushing a young man in arm-wrestling.

Joseph:  Yes, indeed.

Ben:  Is that video out there?

Joseph:  Yes.

Ben:  Can I add to the shownotes?

Joseph:  Absolutely.

Ben:  Okay, alright. So, note to my editor, hunt it down, put in the shownotes, Dr. Joe Mercola arm-wrestling Dr. De from Miami. What's your secret? How did you get strong enough to beat a young buck in arm wrestling?

Joseph:  Well, I have been embracing Peat's work for about six months at that time. So, my mitochondria–

Ben:  Ray Peat?

Joseph:  Ray Peat. Yeah. 

Ben:  Okay, yeah.

Joseph:  My mitochondria were tuned. I mean, I'm not only metabolically flexible but I had ultimate fuel in my mitochondria glucose. But, an additional thing I was doing was the KAATSU, the blood flow restriction training. I've been doing this for about six years. And, what that does is it activates type 2 fibers, specifically the endurance fibers that you get from high intensity and stuff. And, you could tell if you watch the video that he kind of–which is exactly what you expect, his type 1 fibers failed.

Ben:  Exactly. It's very long competition. He had the initial push on you but as soon as his fast twitch muscle pooped out, you could see that you just kept recruiting and recruiting.

Joseph:  Yeah, it's right. And, my fast twitch fibers were much better trained, much better because that's what KAATSU does.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  And so, I just went on and on and on.

Ben:  Not to mention lactate buffering. Yeah.

Joseph:  That's right, lactate buffering.

Ben:  Yeah. That's impressive video. Let me put them on the shownotes.

Joseph:  I surprised a lot of people. It was really my fitness achievement for this year. I mean, I've done 400-pound deadlift before, 650-pound leg press, but I'm most pleased with that.

Ben:  Yeah, that's impressive.

We've only scratched the surface of your body of knowledge but you've alluded to this masterclass a couple of times. How soon can people expect that to be out?

Joseph:  I'm hoping by the end of the year. And, it's going to be really, really inexpensive.

Ben:  We're recording in September of 2023.

Joseph:  We're targeting $5 a month.

Ben:  Oh, wow.

Joseph:  Yeah. I want this to be available to everyone.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  Yeah. The purpose is to prepare people for what's coming because I've been doing this for 50 years and I've compiled a lot of knowledge. And, it gets confusing because there some of this, some there.  I feel it's my personal responsibility to put it all together, make it clear as it can be. It takes me 10 to 20 hours to make one of these modules.

Ben:  Yeah.

Joseph:  So, I'm really excited about it. It consumes almost all my free time.

Ben:  I would love to learn from you, man. I mean, a lot of people ask me who my mentors are and I can't say that I have a specific person who I talk to on the phone or anything like that, but you've definitely influenced me a lot. So, I'm super grateful for you and grateful to be. I know you're down for a three-peat. Three-peat with Ray Peat.

Alright. Well, folks, again, the shownotes are going to be a BenGreenfieldLife/Mercola3 including the arm–wrestling video if you want to see that. His masterclass is out. I'll stick it in there as well if that's out by now. And, if not, I'll put in retro later on. And, thank you so much, Joe, for doing this. Thank you to everybody for listening in. Until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Joe Mercola signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com. Have an amazing week.

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.

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Dr. Joe Mercola first joined me on the episodes:

• This Doctor Has A “Stealth Strategy To Stop COVID Cold”: A Breaking Interview With A Controversial Alternative Health Figure On Vitamin D, COVID-19, Sunshine, Vitamin K2, Magnesium & Much More!.
• The Shocking Truth About You Getting “EMF*D”: 5G, Wi-Fi & Cell Phones – Hidden Harms & How To Protect Yourself
• KetoFasting: The Dark Side of Fasting & Ketosis (+How To Use Cyclic Ketosis To Fix The Issues)
• How To Reverse The Damage From Cell Phone Radiation, Hidden Sources Of EMF, The Best Way To Measure Your EMF Exposure & Much More With Dr. Joseph Mercola!
• High-Fat Fudge Balls, The Best Fruits For Blood Sugar, Egg Allergies & More With “Fat For Fuel” Author Dr. Mercola
• Killing Fat Cells, Fixing Mitochondria, Growing Superfoods & More: The Official, Much-Anticipated, Mind-Blowing, Geeked-Out Podcast With Dr. Mercola.

And now he's back. Dr. Mercola has always been passionate about helping preserve and enhance the health of the global community. As a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO), he takes a “whole-person” approach to wellness, helping you develop attitudes and lifestyles that can help you Take Control of Your Health. By sharing valuable knowledge about holistic medicine, regenerative practices and informed consent principles, he has become the most trusted source for natural health information, with a legacy of promoting sustainability and transparency.

Dr. Mercola is an osteopathic physician who, similar to MDs, finished four years of basic clinical sciences and successfully completed licensing exams. Hence, he is fully licensed to prescribe medication and perform surgery in all 50 states. Also a board-certified family physician, he served as the chairman of the family medicine department at St. Alexius Medical Center for five years. Moreover, he has written over 30 scientific studies and reports published in medical journals and publications. With his written contributions and extensive experience in patient care, he was granted fellowship status by the American College of Nutrition (ACN) in October 2012.

Dr. Mercola is a best-selling author, with a total of 15 books written so far. His most recent book, “The Truth About COVID-19”, is a national bestseller on Amazon, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publishers Weekly. Three of his books have also been included in The New York Times Best Sellers list, namely “Effortless Healing“, “The No-Grain Diet” and “The Great Bird Flu Hoax.”

Born and raised in the inner city of Chicago, Dr. Mercola was a very active child whose fascination with health, wellness and technology led him to pursue medical school. He studied osteopathic medicine at Midwestern University, where he also learned how to truly learn and never stopped since. All the while, he was able to maintain an active lifestyle, seeing its positive impact on his overall health. He even competed in the Chicago Marathon and finished in just over three hours.

With a thirst for knowledge and experience, he worked at a physician’s office as a pharmacy technician, and later at the Illinois Eye Bank. He also worked at the Kidney Bank, after being inspired to help people with, or at risk of, kidney disease through preventative methods. In 1985, he performed routine checkups, school physical exams and saw chronically ill patients as the sole practitioner at a private wellness clinic in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Determined to find better answers, he began exploring the world of natural medicine in the early 1990s, and slowly started to integrate healthy diet and exercise into his patients’ lives. After observing that these methods were working, he completely switched his focus to a preventative, holistic approach, and that was the start of it all. Dr. Mercola founded Mercola.com in 1997 as a portal for up-to-date natural health information and resources that can help readers and subscribers adopt better lifestyles and achieve optimal health. It’s one of the first health websites that focuses on holistic medicine and is now routinely among the top 10 natural health websites.

Mercola.com also strives to expose corporate, government and mass media hype that diverts people from what is truly best for their health. It serves as a harmonious community for educated and open-minded individuals who belong to a variety of populations — from homemakers to health care experts — all seeking to improve and maintain their state of health and determined to change the modern health paradigm. Originally based in Hoffman Estates near Chicago, Illinois, Mercola.com now operates in Cape Coral, Florida, and has a remote office in Manila, Philippines.

Dr. Mercola’s tireless efforts to disseminate important health information has earned him numerous awards and honors. In 2009, he was named the top Ultimate Wellness Game Changer, which awards “100 innovators, visionaries and leaders in 10 categories who are harnessing the power of new media to reshape their fields and change the world.” He also has received prestigious awards from Emord and Associates P.C. for his contributions to holistic medicine, including the Sacred Fire of Liberty Award, Excellence in Health Journalism Award and the Freedom of Informed Choice Award.

During our discussion, you'll discover:

-Vitamin D and COVID-19…07:29

• Dr. Mercola is passionate about the benefits of vitamin D
• Dr. Mercola's vitamin D report
• He was named the number one spreader of COVID misinformation in 2021
• The Truth About COVID-19 by Dr. Joseph Mercola
  • The book was number one on USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Times
  • Highly controversial
• Dr. Mercola argues that there is specific impact of vitamin D on the immune system
• The impact of vitamin D on cancer
• The best way to get vitamin D is through exposure to the sun
• Podcast with Kashif Khan:
  • Why You Worry About Stuff, Wake Up Earlier Than You Want To & Get Bored Easily: Unlock The Secrets Of Your Genes To Reverse Disease, Slow Aging & Achieve Optimal Wellness, With Kashif Khan.
• Difficulties with the conversion of Vitamin D
  • Vitamin K2 and magnesium can help with that (use code GREENFIELD10 to save $10)
• Podcast with Joe Cohen:
  • How To Decode Your Genome, Unlock The Nitty-Gritty Details Behind Your DNA, Discover Your Good Genes, Your Bad Genes & More.
• Cholecalciferol – an oral form of vitamin D
• The days you expose yourself to the sun, you don’t need a supplement
• Functional medicine doctors will prescribe vitamin D 50,000 units
  • Dr. Mercola doesn’t recommend that
  • 8000 units is the normal dose for most people
• Ergocalciferol or vitamin D2 is generated from plants
  • Sources like fortified foods, bread, UVB mushrooms, etc.
• Only humans and animals produce vitamin D3
• Vitamin D2 is not as good as vitamin D3
  • Vastly inferior
• Dr. Mercola predicts another crisis similar to COVID
  • Tyrannical oppression by the government, authoritarian control, loss of personal freedoms
  • There will be a sensible trigger
• Ben has an off-grid farm in Idaho
• Sunlight is elevating melatonin during the day
• Antioxidant effect on cellular membrane
• Exposure to infra-red light
• Exposure to the sun increases resilience
• Get the F*ck Out of the Sun by Lauryn Evarts Bosstick
• Is there a danger in sunlight?
  • Never allow to get burned
• You will not get skin cancer if you have low level (2%) of linoleic acid in the tissue
  • The average person today has 12 or 16

-The modern American diet, linoleic acid, and mitochondrial damage…26:29

• The main source of linoleic acid is processed foods
• Processed seed oils
  • Started around the American Civil War
  • Did not become popular until the 20th century
  • In 19th century, 99% of the fat that we consumed came from animal sources
  • Today 70-90% comes from seed oils
• The problem with olive and avocado oil
  • 80-90% of commercial oils are adulterated
• Podcast with T.J. Robinson:
  • What Olive Oil Should Taste Like, The Scary Truth About Olive Oil, Can You Cook With Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Much More!
• Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil
• Linoleic acid is the primary source of oxidative stress in the body
  • Damages the double bonds and convert it to OXLAMs (Oxidized Linoleic Acid Metabolites)
• Dietary fats and their impact on mitochondrial health
• The dietary intake of fat can influence the type of fats in inner mitochondrial membrane
• Dr. Mercola's video: Linoleic Acid — The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet
• Dr. Mercola's peer-reviewed study on linoleic acid
• The argument that linoleic acid is healthy because it is in breast milk
  • Linoleic acid in breast milk has increased significantly over the past 75 years
  • Due to changes in the modern diet
• Nutreval test
• Vitamin E is a very potent inhibitor of peroxidation of the fatty acids (use code BEN15 to save 15%)
  • Avoid synthetic vitamin E
• Podcast with Dr. Barrie Tan:
  • Why Your Vitamin E Supplement Could Be Harming You (& The “One Plant Wonder” Alternative That Could Be The Single Most Powerful Molecule If You’re Stranded On A Desert Island).
• The best dietary sources of vitamin E – seeds and nuts

-Dr. Mercola’s diet…41:43

• Deep fundamental appreciation of the dangers of linoleic acid
• Warnings about linoleic acid in 1980's by Ray Peat
  • Recommends adequate carbohydrate intake with activities that increase glucose transporters
  • Better than avoiding carbohydrates and not being active
• Dr. Mercola increased his carbohydrate intake
  • Got very good results
• Carbohydrate depletion can lead to increased blood glucose levels
  • Due to the body's response to stress rather than the direct effect of carbohydrate intake
• Increasing dietary protein
• Ideal amount of protein is 0.7g per lb. of body weight
• Dr. Mercola’s breakfast
  • Chicken or goose egg yolks
• Chickens and pigs are often fed with grains loaded with linoleic acid
• The majority of his carbohydrates comes from ripe fruit
• Dr. Mercola rarely goes over 105g of protein a day
• Ben’s exercise routine
  • Foam rolling
  • Blood flow restriction (use code BEN to save 5%)
• Other food Dr. Mercola eats
  • Organic meat
  • White rice (brown rice has a lot linoleic acid)
• Be careful with potatoes because of starches that are hard to digest

-More about linoleic acid…55:48

• Sunlight and movement are the foundation
• The amount of obesity in the 1800s was about 1%
  • Today it is about 40%
• At the same time, diabetes went up 500 times
  • The cause of diabetes is linoleic acid
  • It ruins the ability in the mitochondria to allow glucose to metabolize
• The Warburg metabolism
  • Your mitochondria are unable to burn glucose despite the fact that there's plenty of oxygen
  • It goes into glycolysis
• Mechanisms of methylene blue and ozone are related to reducing reductive stress
  • Methylene blue (use code BEN to save 5%)
• Chris Knobbe has done a great review of the world literature in 25 countries
• The incidence of heart disease in the United States was essentially unknown in 19th century
  • The first reported heart attack in the United States was in 1912
  • A quarter million people today in the United States die every year from heart attacks
• The No-Grain Diet by Dr. Joseph Mercola
  • Gluten is not our friend, we shouldn’t be eating wheat

 

-The correlation between EMF and linoleic acid consumption…1:06:22

• People with low linoleic acid diet have much less risk of dying from exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation
• Linoleic acid can increase calcium influx into cells which can be very damaging
  • It can increase the risk of cancer
  • Excess estrogen is also a rick for cancer
• The major danger of a low carb diet is it causes body to release cortisol and cortisol just shreds muscle proteins
• The most effective cortisol blocker is progesterone
  • Potential solution for ADHD
  • Not good in the long-term
• Simply Progesterone 2700 mg bottle dose is about 30 mg/day, typically ten drops taken before bed as it is also a GABA agonist resource

-What is IHT – Intermittent Hypoxia Training?…1:13:08

• Dr. Mercola has a medical grade device that can generate pure clean oxygen
• It can monitor to see what your blood oxygen concentration is
• The oxygen level in air is 20%, the device can lower it to 9%
  • Intriguing hormonal and metabolic benefits
• cellgym IHHT
  • Currently very expensive, but very beneficial
• NuCalm
• Podcast with Jim Poole:
  • How To Simulate A Full Sleep Cycle In 20 Minutes, The Best Stress Biohack That Exists, Vagus Nerve Stimulation & Much More!
• Shiftwave
• Podcast with Dr. John Lieurance:
  • The Crazy Future Of Medical Biohacking: Skull Resets, Suppositories, Nasal Sprays, Nebulizers, Sound Therapy & More With Dr. John Lieurance.
• Ben’s top 3 supplements when in high EMF environment
  • Magnesium
  • NAD
  • Hydrogen
• The benefits of exogenous ketones
  • KetoneAid 
  • HVMN
• NAD is expensive, Niacinamide is inexpensive
  • 50mg of Niacinamide daily (Goldilocks dose)
• Dr. Joe Mercola arm-wrestling a young man
  • The secret to Dr. Mercola’s strength
  • The blood flow restriction training activates endurance fibers

-Dr. Mercola’s masterclass…1:22:06

• Wants it to be available to everyone
• The purpose is to prepare people for what is coming
• Probably $5 a month
• mercola.com

-And much more…

Upcoming Events:

• Couples Collective: October 25th – 29th, 2023

Couples Collective is an exclusive and immersive way to explore health, wellness, and mindset with your significant other. Jessa and I will be leading a health optimization and relationships workshop, alongside many other awesome couples. This is a small event, and access requires you to interview with event-holder OWN IT to ensure a right fit. However, for those who are said fit, this event is designed to bring you into deeper union within your relationship and onward into greater connection with your life, love, health, and happiness. I'm looking for 6 to 7 powerful couples to come join me at the event – are you one of them? Learn more here.

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

Resources from this episode:

– Dr. Joseph Mercola:

• Dr. Mercola's Books:
  • The Truth About COVID-19
  • Effortless Healing
  • The No-Grain Diet
  • The Great Bird Flu Hoax
  • EMF*D: 5G, Wi-Fi & Cell Phones: Hidden Harms & How To Protect Yourself
• Dr. Mercola's Vitamin D Report
• Vitamin D Paper
• Dr. Mercola's Video: Linoleic Acid — The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet
• Dr. Mercola's Peer-Reviewed Study On Linoleic Acid
• Simply Progesterone
• Dr. Mercola Arm-Wrestling
• This Doctor Has A “Stealth Strategy To Stop COVID Cold”: A Breaking Interview With A Controversial Alternative Health Figure On Vitamin D, COVID-19, Sunshine, Vitamin K2, Magnesium & Much More!.
• The Shocking Truth About You Getting “EMF*D”: 5G, Wi-Fi & Cell Phones – Hidden Harms & How To Protect Yourself
• KetoFasting: The Dark Side of Fasting & Ketosis (+How To Use Cyclic Ketosis To Fix The Issues)
• How To Reverse The Damage From Cell Phone Radiation, Hidden Sources Of EMF, The Best Way To Measure Your EMF Exposure & Much More With Dr. Joseph Mercola!
• High-Fat Fudge Balls, The Best Fruits For Blood Sugar, Egg Allergies & More With “Fat For Fuel” Author Dr. Mercola
• Killing Fat Cells, Fixing Mitochondria, Growing Superfoods & More: The Official, Much-Anticipated, Mind-Blowing, Geeked-Out Podcast With Dr. Mercola.

– Podcasts And Articles:

• Why You Worry About Stuff, Wake Up Earlier Than You Want To & Get Bored Easily: Unlock The Secrets Of Your Genes To Reverse Disease, Slow Aging & Achieve Optimal Wellness, With Kashif Khan.
• How To Decode Your Genome, Unlock The Nitty-Gritty Details Behind Your DNA, Discover Your Good Genes, Your Bad Genes & More.
• What Olive Oil Should Taste Like, The Scary Truth About Olive Oil, Can You Cook With Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Much More!
• Why Your Vitamin E Supplement Could Be Harming You (& The “One Plant Wonder” Alternative That Could Be The Single Most Powerful Molecule If You’re Stranded On A Desert Island).
• How To Simulate A Full Sleep Cycle In 20 Minutes, The Best Stress Biohack That Exists, Vagus Nerve Stimulation & Much More!
• The Crazy Future Of Medical Biohacking: Skull Resets, Suppositories, Nasal Sprays, Nebulizers, Sound Therapy & More With Dr. John Lieurance.
• 1 Cheap & Easy Underground Training Method For Growth Hormone Release, 5 Biohacks to Increase Strength in 60 Seconds, 7 Exercises for the Eyes to Radically Enhance Stamina & Speed
• The Official KAATSU Episode: Everything You Need To Know About How To Use Blood Flow Restriction For Muscle Gain, Injury Recovery, Testosterone, Growth Hormone & Much More!

– Other Resources:

• Vitamin K2
• Magnesium
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin E
• Magnesium
• NAD
• Hydrogen Tablets
• KetoneAid 
• HVMN
• Niacinamide
• Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil
• Foam Roller
• Kaatsu BFR Bands (use code BEN to save 5%)
• US Wellness Meats
• Methylene blue (use code BEN to save 5%)
• cellgym
• NuCalm

Episode Sponsors:

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