Theo sits down with board certified neurologist and #1 New York Times Best-Selling author Dr. David Perlmutter. https://www.drperlmutter.com/ This episode brought to you by… Uncommon Apothecary https://ua-cbd.com/ Use code THEO at checkout for 15% off Skillshare For 2 months free visit https://skillshare.com/TheoVon Grey Block Pizza 1811 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica, CA http://bit.ly/GreyBlock Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/MakinIt_BishopGunn Gunt Squad www.patreon.com/theovon Name Aaron Jones Aaron Rasche Aaron Wayne Anselmi Adam Cox Adam White Alaskan Rock Vodka Alex Hitchins Alex Person Alex Petralia Alexa harvey Amelia Andrea Gagliani Andrew Valish Angel Perez Angelo Raygun Anthony Schultz Arielle Nicole Ashley Konicki Audrey Harlan Audrey Hodge Ayako Akiyama Bad Boi Benny Baltimore Ben Ben Deignan Ben in thar.. Benjamin Streit Brad Moody Brandon Hoffman Brandon Kirkman Bubba Hodge Carla Huffman Casey Roberts Chad Saltzman Charles Herbst Christopher Becking Christopher Stath Cody Cummings Cody Hanas Cody Kenyon Cody Marsh Crystal Dan Draper Daniel Chase Danielle Fitzgerald Danny Gill David Christopher David Smith David Wyrick Donald blackwell Doug Chee Drew Munoz Erin Weatherford Faye Dvorchak Felicity Black Felix Theo Wren Gaz Cooper Ginger Levesque Grant Stonex J Garcia J.P. Jacob Rice Jamaica Taylor James Briscoe James Hunter Jameson Flood Jason Haley Jason Price Jeffrey Lusero Jenna Sunde Jeremy Johnson Jeremy Siddens Jeremy Weiner Jerry Zhang Joaquin Rodriguez Joe Dunn Joel Henson Joey Piemonte John Kutch Johnathan Jensen Jon Blowers Jon Ross Jordan R Joseph Wuttunee Josh Cowger Josh Nemeyer Justin L justin marcoux Kennedy Kenton call Kevin Best Kevtron Kiera Parr Kirk Cahill kristen rogers Kyle Baker Lacey Ann Leighton Fields Logan Yakemchuk Luke Danton Matt Kaman Matt McKeen Matthew Azzam Megan Daily Meghan LaCasse Mike Mikocic Mike Nucci Mike Poe Mona McCune Nick Butcher Nick Lindenmayer Nick Roma Nick Rosing Nikolas Koob Noah Bissell Passenger Shaming Peter Craig Philip James Qie Jenkins Rachael Edwards Ranger Rick Robert Mitchell Robyn Tatu Rohail Ryan Hawkins Ryan Riley Ryan Walsh Sarah Anderson Scoot B. Sean Frakes Sean Scott Season Vaughan Shane Pacheco Shona MacArthur Stefan Borglycke Sungmin Choe Suzanne O'Reilly Taylor Beall The Asian Hamster Tim Greener Timothy Eyerman Todd Ekkebus Tom Cook Tom Kostya Travis Simpson Tyler Harrington (TJ) Victor Montano Victor S Johnson II Vince Gonsalves William Reid Peters Zach Buckman Zak StufflebeamSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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You know, every now and then an older man will come into your life and kind of teach you a little bit about yourself.
You know, teach you a little bit of something.
Teach you how your skin feels a little bit.
You know what I'm talking about?
Teach you what's going on inside of your body deep in there.
And that's what I'm talking about today.
A lot of times if you think about your stomach, what the fuck is going on with it?
So here today, we have a beautiful man, and he's the author of the book Grain Brain.
Now, he's a scientific kind of guy, so he ain't going to juggle for us, bro.
But he'll definitely, he has more knowledge than I do.
And so that's why I'm excited that he is here today.
He's the author of Grain Brain, which has more than 1 million copies in print.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Perlmutter.
So what is gluten, Dr. Pearl Mutter?
What is it?
So gluten is a protein.
It's found in wheat, barley, and rye.
Okay.
And it's the rage right now.
And gosh, we wrote about it five years ago in Grain Brain.
And at that point, that was pretty darn disruptive.
I want to tell you that people suddenly, you know, you threaten give us this day our daily bread and people have a conniption.
People trip out.
All my Jewish buddies first started tripping.
They were like the first friends that I had.
They make gluten-free matzah.
Well, they started losing, like they were like losing it.
And so then I was like, what's going on here?
You know?
And I mean, I've read more about it in your book, but I just wanted to hear like for a layman's like, you know, like, if I saw gluten somewhere, would I know it's gluten?
No, that's the thing.
It's hidden in foods.
You know, you find it in condiments and ketchup.
You find it all over the place.
It's tricky.
It's like almost like a...
I don't know, but it's stealthy.
It's that Ted Bundy of the Bread Program, really.
I'm going to have to let you own that one.
I'm not going to go there.
But that said, I wouldn't say as aggressive as Ted Bundy.
But having said that, it's sinister.
It lurks in the background.
And, you know, when you face all of the chronic degenerative conditions that we face now in this world, the World Health Organization tells us that chronic degenerative conditions are the number one cause of death on planet Earth.
We have to ask ourselves, what's the mechanism there?
And the mechanism is inflammation.
Okay, what's causing inflammation?
High sugar diet, not enough fat, things like gluten, food allergies.
Those things literally have to come off the table.
Now, I was reading in your book that, and this blew me away, that people who have diabetes are twice as likely to have Alzheimer's.
Let's contextualize that.
We live in a country where 5.4 million of us have already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
Number one.
Number two, there's no treatment, none whatsoever.
And matter of fact, in November of 18, a study came out in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, showing that the drugs that doctors are using to treat Alzheimer's are actually making them worse.
Wow.
As opposed to neutral.
They're actually declining more quickly.
So how is that even a thing?
Anybody could make up that drug against Starburst.
I would say what you just said, that's the whole show.
How is that a thing?
Think about it.
I mean, yet, you know, it's proved by the FDA.
It's useless and, in fact, making people worse.
And people are spending a billion dollars in America to buy these drugs, putting their faith into these drugs to help mom or dad or husband or wife.
And I've been there.
I've been there with my dad who died of Alzheimer's.
Yeah, I read that in your book.
Yeah, my stepfather has it, and my mother has two.
And it's horrible.
And it's mostly preventable.
Right.
And that's what we shout about.
We shout about what you said is that diabetes is related.
Okay.
You know, when 80 million Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic, it's not a genetic issue.
All of a sudden, that's just happened the past 50 years.
It's because we've changed our diet.
Now we're eating more sugar, and this is a disease of sugar and refined carbohydrates and less fat.
And all of a sudden, everybody becomes diabetic.
That may increase your risk for an untreatable Illness, Alzheimer's, two to fourfold.
Wow.
Then you're really screwed.
So that's really, so if you have that in your family, I mean, these are really things you need to look out for because Alzheimer's can take, when does it usually kind of strike people, Alzheimer's?
The beginning stages of Alzheimer's, what sets the stage for when you can't figure out what's going on around you, happens in your 20s and 30s.
Jesus.
That's your audience.
And that's a very important concept.
That it's not when you're my age and you suddenly can't remember the grandchildren's names and you name it.
Because that's what we think it is.
You bet.
By then, you're already down the road.
A lot of literature shows that if you look at markers of inflammation in the blood, they predict Alzheimer's 30 years ahead of time.
Wow.
And how do you get inflammation markers in your blood?
You eat the wrong diet.
So it's not like people say, oh, I had a heart attack.
Well, it's not like you're walking down the street minding your own business and then all of a sudden this thing attacks you out of the heart attack happens because you ate the wrong food you didn't exercise you have some genetic issues etc you set the stage for a heart attack you set the stage for alzheimer's and i'm here to tell your audience that there are changes to make today yeah to lower your risk because when you get there when you get to a place where the doctor finally says you've got this there's nothing you can do man so
yeah so it's one of those things you have to start early yep and i said 20s and 30s well when do you start setting the stage for diabetes adolescence childhood uh you said it when you're born actually the changes begin when before you're even born when you're in utero depending on mother's lifestyle choices has a huge role to play on whether you're going to be diabetic whether you're going to be overweight which is a risk factor as well wow so so i'm just thinking to myself like
you know if i'm just hearing this you know like a lot because a lot of our listeners are 20 in their 20s and 30s and you know some of them may be diabetic may not um but they're usually a lot of good people a lot of active people that want to make their lives better overall that seems to be our audience so what are like some easy ways out of the gate that you think you know um is it just a rich thing sometimes i feel like just the rich can be able to you know really have a nice thing it's just the rich because you have to buy something right you got to go out and buy a new pair of
sneakers really now i don't know how rich you have to be or you get them out of a bin whatever you need to do or you go barefoot the bottom line is step one is you got to exercise you got to get moving you got to get your butt off the off the couch and you've got to get at least 20 to 30 minutes a day of aerobics add some resistance exercise to that fine but you got to get your heart rate up and uh to what number i don't know i usually tell people 180 minus your age do the math and if you if you can't do the math then you really need to exercise
you bet you do and why do you want to exercise well the relationship between exercise if you look at the epidemiology of it shows those people who have higher rates of exercise have lower rates of alzheimer's but beyond that exercise changes gene expression and codes for the body to produce a chemical called bdnf that tells your brain to grow new brain cells who knew you know when i was i hate to say when i was your age but when i was your age uh we were told that we were uh given a certain number of brain cells
and then as we every beer we drank we lost 30,000 whatever it was you lose X number of brain cells because we didn't know that you grow new brain cells and how do you grow new brain cells by exercising by taking a fish oil supplement by using turmeric in your cooking this turns on the gene pathway you can change your gene expression grow new brain cells and and stave off alzheimer's what's so hard about what i'm saying here right it's really basic and so do you think there's like a psychology
to um like sometimes whenever you get into a a path in life whether it's an eating pattern or a and you know it's detrimental you know that the end is heck yeah doesn't end well is there some term for a psychology that makes you stay in that path almost out of spite or something you know there are a lot of terms one is mindset okay that your mind is set in fact i had oddly enough at the interview this morning and the question was how does mindset come into play for
health health decisions your mind isn't set you can change your mind and the more you change your mind and then do the right thing the better that pathway becomes the more reinforcing it will be uh the other thing i talk about is inconvenient truth you know al gore talked about the inconvenient truth of climate change i did a cbs this morning program a couple of months ago and they said and dr promot has a new book there's a new book talking about gluten and carbs and all that but we reached out to the sugar industry and
they told us we should eat more sugar because decades of research and in my mind it was hashtag why that's fantastic hashtag wtf right isn't that what it's saying why that's fantastic yeah okay good so uh in my mind and then then the lady gets on she said and this morning i had well last night i had truffles because they're in season truffle pasta and with a jelly-filled donut or something and again it's an inconvenient truth what i'm saying to your audience today is an inconvenient truth why because we all have a sweet tooth
oh yeah we all would love to eat sweet and pasta it's comfort food because it stimulates the part of the brain for instant reward dopamine surge and you're momentarily content but oddly enough that diet distances you from the executive center of the brain that lets you make better decisions plan for the future be more compassionate and empathetic for yourself for the next person and for the planet wow so the more we distance ourselves from impulsivity
the better decisions we'll make we'll get on an exercise regimen we'll stay on it and we'll choose to eat better foods that will enhance that feed forward that's really interesting because so because impulse is that it's that it's almost just like that it's like that dirty magnet that's in us and it just wants whatever the first whatever the easiest quickest hit is done and then you need more of it you need more of it because it's a dopamine surge stimulates the opiate receptors in your brain done you know you you've done your thing And
now you need more.
And the more you do it, the more that receptor needs to be stimulated.
And so choice is almost behind impulse a little bit.
I mean, it's right there with it, but it's almost a gift to outride the impulse, I feel like.
Exactly.
And for a second, and then be able to.
That's what I feel for me.
It's like, okay, I just need a second and make a choice.
The moment you just did that, what you just did, Theo, is you stopped dealing and responding to your amygdala brain, your reptilian brain that said, I'm going to eat this.
I'm going to sugar this.
I'm going to punch this guy.
And instead, I'm going to decide.
That one moment is all the difference in the world.
I'm going to think about, do I really want to eat this?
Do I really want to, whatever the addiction may be?
Do I really want to do this?
And now make a more sophisticated, more human, rational decision to not do it.
You've broken the spell.
You can move forward.
Wow.
And does that get easier over time?
Absolutely.
We talked about the growth of new brain cells.
The same chemical, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, that you get from exercising stimulates what we call neuroplasticity that allows you to connect to that part of your brain.
So these things then stick.
And the more they stick, the better you get at it.
It's like learning to hit a tennis ball.
And then the better you feel about them.
Does that impulse ever switch to the other?
Yes.
We need the other impulse.
You need the other impulse because when you're back in your car out of the driveway and your mind sees in the backup camera a little kid on her bike, you hit the brake.
You don't think, well, it'd probably be a good idea to get the old brake pedal because this is going to turn out bad.
So that's when the lizard really helps.
You bet.
You need that.
You need that impulsive activity to make the right decision quickly.
But you don't need it when you're trying to figure out what foods to buy in the grocery store.
Can I make an excuse and not exercise today?
You know, exercise is something that we don't have to, we don't want to find time for it.
We want to make time for it.
If you have to find time, you say, well, I'll squeeze it in between such and such and such and such.
And then those things suddenly take over a little more time.
You didn't exercise.
You didn't meditate.
You didn't take time to make the food that's good for you.
You ate some crap that you, you know, fast food.
Yeah.
And our thinking's not good then.
It's like our, you know, it's really, we're kind of in a tough, it's a tough system.
It's like we've created this, you know, this sort of, I don't know if it's a comfort society or, or what it is, but it's, I mean, the system that we're in in a lot of places.
Now, I'll say in LA, it's easier.
It's very easier.
It's much easier for me to stay healthier here.
It really is.
Then if I'm back in other places, like I'm from Louisiana, if I'm there, it is tougher.
Like, you know, sometimes it's just tougher.
Sethio, my team said, you got to watch these, a couple of his podcasts before I come on your show.
Right.
And I got to tell you, there's no segue here whatsoever, but that's what this is about, right?
And I didn't know what to expect, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
This is great.
Are you?
Oh, absolutely.
Good, man.
Yeah.
Well, look, I'm super curious.
I mean, one of the main reasons we'll get to it is, you know, I take antidepressants and a lot of times I get tired of, you know, it makes me feel like there's this, you know, there's something that's not natural that's out there that's added this connect, this, this taper to me, this chain, you know, like almost I'm a slave in a way to it a lot of times.
And eventually, maybe one day, I would like to maybe not take them.
Now, I'm not asking you for that, you know, direction now, but I do think, I start thinking, well, where are my other brains in my body?
You know?
And so then I started thinking about my stomach.
You know, it's almost shaped in a way like, you know, it's, you know, your organs are almost like in a way to me or in my imaginative way.
I work off of imagination first kind of.
It kind of is like a brain.
So I'm thinking, well, how could I learn more about like what I put in my stomach that could then affect how my brain behaves?
And so then I was talking to my producer Nick and I was like, we got to get somebody that knows about this so that I can learn more about it.
And so that's basically where I started thinking about, you know, about having you on.
And then I only read about 60 pages of Grain Brain, but it was really fascinating to me.
Even in that little bit of time, I found some things that were really interesting.
And so I'm glad you're here today so I can talk to you about them.
Well, who knew?
Yeah.
I mean, who knew that food has such an effect on every aspect of our lives?
Let me get back to the imagination part because I was really taken by that.
You know, imagination is only a manifestation of connecting things that really happened.
Right.
You know, your reality comes together to form imagination.
Well, it is.
I know you're a neurologist first, right?
First, I'm, I think, husband and father first.
Okay, there we go.
There we go.
That's good.
But yeah, I'm a neurologist.
So you know about the brain.
I know a little bit about the brain.
Yeah, who knew?
But I would say that.
So imagination is sort of like what happens during sleep.
So during sleep, we connect real events, real memories, and we measure them against each other.
We form new ideas.
So imagination is based upon your reality, things that you have experienced or have imagined in the past.
Those things were based on things that you have experienced.
Wow.
And let's get back to this connection of the gut to the brain, not just the stomach.
Right.
Which, interestingly, I've never heard anybody say was shaped.
You were about to say, don't put words in your mouth, looks like the brain a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe if I didn't say that, that's what I'm meant.
Yeah.
So are pecans for that matter.
I think that's good.
And walnuts, too, right?
But that said, depression is an inflammatory disorder.
Now, I want that to sink in.
It's a disease characterized by higher levels of chemicals in your body that relate to a process called inflammation.
Now, you're familiar with inflammation.
You get bitten by a mosquito, your hand gets inflamed.
But those same inflammatory chemicals are upped, amped up in your body in relation to depression, in relation to Alzheimer's, autism, Parkinson's, coronary artery disease, diabetes, cancer.
All those things have inflammation along them.
All inflammatory disorders, which are so fundamentally related to not just your gut and things going on there, knowing that your gut bacteria determine what is called the set point of inflammation in your body, but even more importantly, to your food choices, because you have to understand, you know, they say that when a woman is pregnant, she has to be careful.
Now she's eating for two.
Yeah, I've heard that.
Theo, you're eating for 100 trillion, right?
Because of the future, my semen, all of that.
No, your gut bacteria.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
So they're eating what you had for breakfast today.
Those 100 trillion bacteria float around your gut.
What's Theo going to eat today?
Is it a fiber-rich, good food that we're going to be thrilled about?
We're going to replicate.
We're going to put out great chemicals.
We're going to control the production of his brain chemistry.
Right.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
We'll get back to that because you mentioned that earlier, that the things you eat affect emotionally how you're able to relate to other people.
Is that true?
Actually, that research was done right here in LA.
Dr. Emeryn Mayer did some of the pioneering work on that.
You write that down, Trump.
Emer Mayer and Mayer.
Good guy to have on the show.
Emery.
Yellow me one.
Wow, because so I could potentially be able to love people better and learn about myself better if I eat better.
I would tell you without a doubt.
So here's what we need to craft for you.
We need to craft for you a diet that reduces inflammation.
Yeah.
Fundamentally.
I feel inflamed.
Well, why do we see other inflammatory disorders along with depression?
Why do we see skin inflammation, joint inflammation, those types of things?
Obesity, which is an inflammatory disorder.
The inflammation comes from fat cells.
Wow.
So why do these things all happen?
Why do we see gross disturbances of gut bacteria?
Because they're all related.
So the trick then for you and any of the other 27 million Americans who are suffering from depression, what do we offer up?
We offer up a diet that's lower in its ability to produce inflammation.
And that is a diet that's lower in sugar, lower in refined carbs, but has fiber, which is a carbohydrate.
Fundamental point here.
People say, I'm going on a low-carb diet, and they ditch the fiber because it's a carb by definition.
Now, if you really want to push it, and you look like you probably want to push it, right?
I think so.
I don't know.
I'm about to find out.
How old are you?
I'm 38. Okay, 30. Your birthday's tomorrow.
Yep, my birthday's tomorrow.
You'll be 39 tomorrow or your 30. That's how sweet of you.
I'm going to be 39 tomorrow.
Okay.
So you want to look into keto.
You really want to look into the ketogenic diet.
It would do you a world of good, but be sure, and to any of your listeners, viewers who are thinking keto or doing keto, you've got to eat the fiber or you'll get constipated.
You'll have digestive issues.
And you've got to use potassium and magnesium or you'll get the keto flu.
Okay.
So many people bail on the keto diet because they don't do those two things.
Okay, so you're saying so a way to kind of to start and to fast track some of the things that you've been talking about that will help your system and my system.
Great pun there.
Fast track.
Track.
Do you want to fast?
Yeah, yeah, you want to fast.
Oh, you want to fast?
You want to fast.
Do you want to fast?
Well, Frolin, first, let me, because I'm slow, so I have to go through.
I don't know if I'm sure my listeners are a lot quicker than me, but they always say I'm repeating stuff.
But so a keto diet that we also add potassium and magnesium supplements.
Now, that could be vitamins.
We could get those in a store?
Yeah.
I mean, there are things, there are online brands that you can get.
that's okay to add to it with the kid.
Now, can that fiber be a supplement as well, or does the fiber...
Okay.
All right.
So if we're talking about magnesium, let's be a little bit technical here.
So chlorophyll, which is what makes things green, the center of the chlorophyll molecule is magnesium.
So anything green that you eat has magnesium in it.
That's one way to know.
So you want to get diversity.
You want to get lots of color.
You want to eat a lot of vegetables.
They have a lot of fiber.
If you really want the right kind of fiber for your gut bacteria, you use what is called prebiotic fiber.
That's onions, garlics, leeks, chicory root.
Oh, that's from Louisiana.
All the coffee.
There you have chicory in it.
They diluted it in the day, especially in World War II.
But dandelion green.
But you can go to the health food store and stand at the counter and say, I want some prebiotic fiber.
I'm not saying probiotic.
I'm saying prebiotic.
And they have prebiotic fiber that's made from acacia gum.
That's the tree in Africa.
It secretes its gum, sustainably harvested.
It's the best prebiotic you can find.
Thanks.
Organic.
It secretes its gum.
It's twice chewed then if you get it, you know?
I guess.
That might be a bad joke.
What we can do, though, is we can put a list of like a basic kind of starter set of diet under this YouTube that would be, I think, really helpful to people.
But let's talk about more that involves inflammation that you can leverage for depression.
Okay.
Okay.
So we want to do everything we can.
Diet is key.
Okay.
Exercise, 20 minutes of aerobics a day, key.
Being on schedule is really very important.
Try and do the same thing every day that you possibly can.
Not just what you eat, but when you eat.
Try to eat your last food at least three hours before you go to bed.
Okay?
So you want to be sleeping when you're sleeping, digesting during times that you're awake.
You want to make sure you're getting good restorative sleep, like eight hours a night.
That would be really important.
And dare I say, you want to limit stress.
And what does that mean?
Everybody's talking about, I want to limit stress.
So I don't do certain things.
I don't engage in certain things.
Stress can be watching the evening news.
Stress can be on social media where we're being told we're not good enough.
Because social media pounds you with ideology that we're not measuring up, that everybody else's life is better.
You look at their Instagram posts.
They're having the best time.
Why is my life not so great?
So stop comparing ourselves to other people.
That's the biggest stress inducer I think of in our modern time.
So get of this merry-go-round where everybody else looks like they're having, I got news For it.
They aren't.
They're all having a great time.
Their lies are wonderful.
They aren't.
Yeah, they're not sharing the truths a lot of times.
Which would probably, if they did, it might even alleviate some people's stress to know that we aren't the same.
Do you really, so you really, yeah, I guess in your lifetime, you've probably seen, and I don't think you're much older than me, but I bet in your lifetime that you've seen, has that really shocked you, the way that social media stuff has become that much of a stressor?
Absolutely.
And I'm a lot older than you.
I'm 64. You look good for 64, Dr. Perlmutter.
I'm trying.
Yeah.
It has shocked me and my son, Austin Perlmutter, also an MD, to the extent that we've written a book about it.
Wow.
And that's coming out in January of 2020 called Brainwash.
A, we're calling attention to this issue, and B, we're providing the response, what you can do to offload this stuff.
How you can sleep better, why exercise is important, how the food that you eat speaks to your genes, giving your genes information to reduce inflammation or increase inflammation, your choice based upon what you eat.
But to identify this very obvious way that we are being manipulated on social media and in our digital worlds, not just for producing this feeling of low self-worth, but providing the quick clickbait answer to satisfy, look, I'm overweight, buy this thing, lose weight quickly.
And all these ideas for quick and sudden, that's redundant, ways to satisfy ourselves, getting back to the impulsivity part of the brain, where we're saying, look, stop.
If you think you need to buy stuff every day on Amazon because that makes you feel better, stop.
Wait 24 hours and then buy it.
If this is a quick fix for your problem, take a deep breath.
But don't be misled by what you're seeing on digital media as to what your value is.
So Facebook shouldn't determine Theo's value.
What you think of yourself.
You talk about depression.
What goes on in terms of manipulating your online choices is a situation that absolutely creates depression.
And so like, give me an example of that.
So what goes on, like the things that I do online and how I behave on there and what I see on there, you mean, can immediately make me feel a certain way?
Absolutely.
Because what it's doing is it's catering your brain to continued relationship with the amygdala, the reptilian brain.
Immediate response.
You feel bad about yourself for this, buy that and you're done.
You've satisfied that.
You get the dopamine hit as soon as it arrives the next day on Amazon Prime or they drop it in your back air with a drone or however the next new way of you satisfying that urge.
And then it came and you suddenly realize, I need more.
I'm not content.
Whereas contentment means you have enough.
That's the prefrontal cortex.
You have achieved a place where you don't need more.
You've achieved a place of happiness, of empathy and compassion for other people, of being able to calm yourself and make appropriate decisions about your life and make decisions about your life and about caring for your neighbor, about caring for people who are different than you are, and about caring for the planet.
Wow.
So that care, it's amazing that so much emotion can come from what we eat.
I could definitely see how, like, if you had less inflammation, you'd probably, so less inflammation means less stress.
Absolutely.
Okay.
And so less stress, of course, then you're going to be, it's going to be easier for you to be patient with someone.
It's going to be easier for you to be more understanding.
It's going to be easier for you to take that extra second to like kind of make a choice.
So you're not just being that reptile.
But it seems like all the advertising and everything these days, we're like catapulting humanity towards just using that reptilian brain.
That's right.
So we've got to stop that.
Do you think we can?
I'm going to do my best.
And Austin Perlmutter is doing his best to put the information out, brainwash by what people can do.
And, you know, one other really important part of the program is reconnecting with nature.
And that can be having a plant in front of you when you're doing a podcast, or it can be walking in nature and breathing better air.
What about candles even?
I notice when I have candles around that I feel so much different than when I have regular colours.
You know, candles are a visual.
We are attracted to fire.
It's very calming.
But in addition, there are scents of candles, which hopefully are natural.
And that's another reason that forests, being in the forest, really reconnect us.
That's a very deep and primitive part of our brain that you're activating.
Yeah.
Man, it's crazy to think kind of like just where we're headed then, you know?
I read in your book that there's like sometimes you think like, okay, I'm having this thing that my ancestors had, this primitive sort of diet, and it was about wheat.
A part of it was about a wheat or something, but that the wheat that we have now is nothing like the wheat that they had then.
Well, I might be paraphrasing.
Let's put it in perspective.
Our ancestors didn't have wheat.
Okay.
So wheat only came into the picture 14,000 years ago, to be generous, which means for 99.6% of our time walking this planet, we didn't have wheat.
Wow.
We didn't have barley.
We didn't have any of that stuff.
That's when agriculture began.
And, you know, the size of our brain increased threefold from 2 million years ago up until about 14,000 years ago.
And then it stopped?
Then it's declined 10% since then.
So think about that.
So, you know, everybody credits agriculture with all these great advances in humanity, the development of cities and our true social networking.
But in reality, it has represented the greatest change in human diet ever.
So, you know, that sort of segues to the so-called paleo movement.
And I think to grasp that, you really have to understand that food is information.
What do I mean by that?
That the foods you eat, yeah, it nurtures your gut bacteria.
We talked about that, which is hugely important in and of itself.
But it also sends important information about your environment to your DNA.
You are controlling the expression of your DNA based upon the foods that you eat.
So if I eat healthy stuff, I'm letting my DNA know that I'm in a healthy environment and that everything's okay.
And then your DNA creates antioxidants.
It helps chills out.
It sets a beach.
It makes chemicals to grow more brain cells.
And it lets you feel better about the world.
Oh, just like a uncanny.
Tartan tinies didn't grow in nature.
Yeah, sweet tarts.
Sweet tarts.
I remember those.
Or sugar Tootsie rolls.
Yeah.
You're reaching back.
Milk duds.
Neck away from the milk.
It goes up right there.
Right, that was perfect.
Dude, that's crazy, bro.
I know.
Wow.
We take a poetic pause here.
When you do that, you eat that food.
So you have the artificial colors, the artificial flavors, lots and lots of sugar.
That sends signals to your DNA that amplifies the production of inflammatory chemicals, reduces your production of antioxidants, and compromises your detox pathways.
So you're eating poison, and at the same time, you're compromising your ability to get rid of poison.
So you're setting yourself up for disaster.
Now, when can you have some poison?
Like, when can you, like, sometimes, look, man, if I've been on a flight to New York and I've walked by that Dunkin' Donuts, bro, I got to have one.
You know, I can't even, and they got the lady over there looking.
The ladies, Theo, there's a lot of advertising.
Three or four different colors, redden and bright colors.
I want you to realize, to take a step back and think that that's playing on you.
That's playing on that quick dopamine surge.
Are they going to get, who's in charge?
That lizard.
That's what you ask yourself.
What I do, look for a mirror.
Look yourself in the mirror.
Look in your eyes and ask yourself one question.
Who's in charge?
Larry Duncan.
Usually, bro, I go straight for that dunk at night.
Yeah, I mean, I'm just dunking those.
They get me.
A lot of times things don't get me, though.
A lot of times things don't get me.
But can you celebrate once in a while?
I mean, you can't.
Absolutely.
Do you ever celebrate?
Like, you have a birthday cake if it's someone's birthday?
Not so much.
Right.
You know, my cells didn't know that it's your birthday tomorrow.
They don't know that yesterday was St. Patrick.
Whatever is a holiday.
Every day could be a holiday.
I'm sure it's somebody's birthday every day, right?
Yeah.
Your cells don't know it's Thanksgiving or Christmas.
They don't take the day off.
So again, from my perspective, having dealt with patients and their maladies for all these years, having dealt with a father who died of an illness that's related to lifestyle choice, and my mother as well as a cigarette smoker, I realized that your choices matter a whole heck of a lot.
When Theo says you look younger than 64, I'm thinking keep at it, stay with it.
But beyond that, get the message out.
Do the best you can to get the message out for other people because people are absolutely struggling.
You walk through that airport, whatever time of day it is, and you look at what people look like.
A, most people are overweight and look awful.
And B, they're not happy.
And C, what I've learned and what was motivation for this new book is people are lonesome and unconnected.
Yeah, that's what we talk about a lot of people.
We do what we can to let people feel comfortable with reconnecting to others who are different from them, who look different, whose ideas are different.
And we stop.
We listen to what that person has to say.
You know, you ever heard the saying, you know, if you're going to judge somebody, you have to walk a mile in their shoes before you say something about them.
You know why they say that?
Because then when you judge them, you're already a mile away and you have their shoes.
So, I mean, you know.
I like that.
Now, where do you go?
Where do you go with that?
I stumped you.
Yeah, I think I am stumped.
So now you talked about prebiotics earlier, and we'll put a couple of those on, and you can go to your health store and ask what they are.
So you recommended for a kind of a, not a fast track, but to get started in a place that would have a diet that is better for you, that would cause less stress and cause less inflammation in your body, would be a keto diet with magnesium and potassium supplements and some prebiotics.
That would be a great start.
Lots of fiber.
Now, after you were to start this, what are signs that you could look for that it's having an effect in your life?
And that happens quickly.
Wow.
Usually a couple of weeks.
You wake up refreshed.
You want to open the curtains and let the light in.
So many things that we could talk about in terms of that.
Keep that in mind.
But people feel better, more energetic, clearer of mind.
You know, a lot of people don't realize they're a bit foggy until suddenly the fog lifts.
I realize that all the time.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'm like, man, what is, it's like there's this kind of smog in my head and it really feels physically like that, like a very thin smoke helmet.
Exactly.
No, and I don't use drugs or alcohol.
Well, in the day, we used to listen to FM radio a lot.
Yeah.
And now everything is, of course, digital.
But on an FM, on FM radio, you'd be driving your car.
And if there is lightning, you couldn't even see it, but it was way out in the distance somewhere that would strike.
You would hear it on the radio.
The music would be interrupted.
You hear the sound.
And that's what inflammation does to your thought process.
When you've got high levels of inflammation in your body, it's like that lightning going off in the background and the music gets interrupted.
So when the inflammation starts to get toned down, your memory improves and you start to see things clearly.
The fog will lift.
It happens quickly.
Then the weight loss begins.
And people look at the mirror and notice their face looks better.
People comment.
You go to your next belt loop, hole in your belt, and people start to feel better.
And it doesn't take long.
And what's good about that is, let's say it takes two weeks.
That is self-reinforcing.
I'm doing it.
I'm finally doing it.
How good is that?
I am not on a diet.
It's not XYZ diet.
We buy a book or go on, whatever it is.
I don't have to go to meetings.
I'm just eating the right foods.
My body is responding.
Because your body wants to be healthy.
It wants to resist disease.
Your brain wants to work.
Your brain wants to resist disease.
And your mood, I think your brain wants you to be happy.
you were gifted this lifetime, and you were gifted, I believe, the desire and the ability to enjoy life and not be depressed.
Depression happens when things line up and then it's feed forward.
The more depressed you are, the less likely you are to exercise, the less likely you are to make the right food choices.
With all due respect, the more likely you are to give in to Dunkin' Donuts or whatever else is bombarding your mind with ideas that this is what you should do for that immediate surge, that glazed donut that's going to give you that dopamine surge that then stimulates your endogenous opiate receptors.
And I believe that that is a big player in terms of opiate addiction, that we constantly bombard ourselves with first the dopamine surge that then makes these opiate receptors want more.
They're ready.
And of course then there's opiates.
There's opioids.
They're there, ready and willing to.
Snackable, snack size now.
I mean, back in the day, you had to smoke opium.
You know, and now they got a little snack.
They got the pills.
Yeah, vape pen, practically.
I mean, I'm surprised opioid hadn't come out with a vape pen.
And I like THC products that are shaped like pacifiers.
What is the signal we are sending to children there?
Infants.
Yeah, I mean, that's certainly an adult playtoy.
Oh, toddlers are sleeping for three days on some of these pacifiers.
I want to get back to you.
Yeah, really.
Great.
The kids sleep and everything's good.
We can go out.
But we used to have a kid.
We'd go over at his house, his boy Jeff Soviak, and they had a gas leak in their house, right?
And nobody ever knew.
And we would go over there and go to sleep.
We'd sleep on Friday.
We'd go to sleep on Friday night, like 2 a.m.
Dude, we'd get up Sunday morning, man.
We'd sleep for like 32 hours.
We had no idea that they had whatever kind of gas that is.
What the whole Jeff Soviak's doing these days?
I don't know.
I don't know where he is.
And actually, I've tried to text him and call him.
So I wish he would reach back out.
Jeff is out there.
We did an update.
We would sleep forever, man.
His whole family would be asleep.
You'd walk by his mom and be making a salad, and she would just be unconscious.
Really?
Like, yeah, they had like a, I guess it's carbon monoxide or something, something in their house.
Usually it's a pretty much more aggressive kind of event that happens with carbon monoxide as opposed to going on for a year after your butt could be.
Yeah, it might have been like a slow leak or whatever.
Yeah.
But it was relaxing.
We had mentioned about, you know, you wake up in the morning, throw open the curtains, get a lot of light in.
And I think.
So you'll naturally start to do that?
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
I think the light story is something we can touch on since there's not huge segues here.
Go wherever we want.
Yeah, no, we don't.
And sometimes we never know how these conversations are going to go.
It's like sometimes it's, you know, you just never know.
And that's what podcast listeners and I enjoy as a listener is just, you know, two people talking that don't know each other and, you know, one of them having information about something and one of them not.
Well, I'd say that, you know, we're just really getting the handle on how circadian rhythms affect the human body.
Right.
And we be, you know, we're really realizing that every cell in our body responds to the circadian day circa around dia day, circadian rhythm, that it's all of our cells, including our gut bacteria, respond to various times of the day.
There's a great book called The Circadian Code by Dr. Asachin Panda.
Be a great guest for you.
But nonetheless, I mean, he talks about how it's really important for us, Matthew Walker, too, for his book, Why We Sleep.
Oh, yeah, I actually read about half of that book.
He was on Joe Rogan, I think.
Yeah.
But about, you know, that we need to have blue light during the day, that we should get out and experience blue light, really have exposure to bright sunlight, because that really will tamp down melatonin.
And then in the evening time, we want to back down off blue light significantly.
And where are we getting blue light?
I mean, these LEDs are, we're loading ourselves with blue light right now.
We are.
But we don't want to do that at nighttime because that would suppress melatonin and keep us from getting restorative sleep.
Very underrated in terms of how important that is for you for reducing cortisol surgers, for reducing inflammation.
So getting what we call salubrious or restorative sleep is incredibly important and it's underrated.
I mean, you spend a third of your life hopefully sleeping.
Yeah.
And what about those melatonin supplements?
Those are okay to take?
I think they are.
Yeah.
But I would say before we supplement, it would be good to do it more naturally.
Right.
And recognize what is it that allows melatonin to be present or absent.
And it's mostly blue light.
Light.
So that get a lot of blue light in the daytime.
Evening comes around.
You want to back down.
If you're going to be on your computer or looking at your iPhone or whatever phone you may have, you put on amber glasses because that blocks blue light and is very, very helpful in terms of allowing your brain then to make more melatonin, allowing you to get some restorative sleep.
Now, you may have sleep apnea.
You may have periodic leg movements that are waking you up at night.
Yeah, the legs I do.
I got checked for the sleep apnea.
I don't have it.
Yeah, but you may have leg movements that wake you up.
So you're getting into deep sleep, but then your legs start to move around.
You get into a lighter stage of sleep that's not as restorative.
How would you know that?
Yeah, that's where I've spent a lot of time.
Yeah, so you may not know that.
That's why you get a sleep study.
You go into a lab and they watch.
Well, I went there.
Yeah, and it's a little odd.
It was crazy.
This dude was flirting with me.
This was that lab.
This guy started crying.
Yeah, I was like, dude, I ain't fucking sleeping.
And then they got the cameras watching you and all kinds of stuff.
But anyway, it's worth doing.
I mean, you know, there is other things like the aura ring is a great thing.
I'm going to hope to get mine in the next couple of weeks.
An aura ring, you put it on your hand, you wear it all the time, measures your level of activity, but is able to measure the depth and quality of your sleep.
Oh, geez.
You wake up in the morning, this thing downloads into your phone and tells you, hey, you got X number of hours in this stage of sleep and that stage of sleep.
And then you work with that.
And that seems reliable, that piece.
Actually, I'm interviewing the president of that found.
God, you are good.
The founder of that company next week and going to learn more about it.
So I'm very excited about it.
And anything that you can learn that can hack your body and give you tools, I'm all about it.
It's time to do that.
I mean, that's going on.
We have so much information.
Yeah, I think get your 23andMe or other online company that will give you a report of your genome.
You need that information.
You can do great stuff with Once you take that data, download it to one of many different sites.
I recently downloaded mine to Found My Fitness.
That's Rhonda Patrick.
Great site.
And I learned stuff about myself that I think is really important.
I learned, for example, that I don't metabolize or use B vitamins very effectively.
I have to have a special type of B vitamin called methylated B vitamins.
I never would have known it.
Wow.
So who knew?
But do you find that like sometimes I worry that the information, like sometimes I use an app when I go run or something, and getting that information, it takes the joy out of doing the task.
Do you ever find that?
Is that just some way my brain is?
No, no, no.
I think there's been a lot of pushback.
And I think there has to be some level of temperance as it relates to that.
I mean, I don't run with an app.
I don't run with a special watch.
And so I don't know, unless I'm training for an event.
Having said that, I do want to know my miles, my minutes per mile.
But otherwise, I don't get involved in that.
I do like to listen to music, so I find that really helpful or podcasts when I'm running.
But I think that people can overdo it.
There's been pushback with a lot of these things that measure all these parameters that it's way too much.
It's information overload.
But I will say that knowing your genome once is a good bit of information to have.
Because you could take that information and dump it onto any number of sites and learn some stuff about yourself that's really going to turn out to be helpful.
And how can you learn about your genome?
23andMe.
You spit in a text.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I did that.
So I got it set up.
You get back your data.
Yeah.
But that doesn't really helpful.
Then you take your data, you drag it on your desktop.
This says Theo's data right here.
Then there are any number of sites.
One of them is Found My Fitness, Rhonda Patrick.
She's a great guest.
Dr. Ronda Patrick, right?
She's been on Rogan a bunch.
Yeah, I thought we almost reached out to her one time.
You should reach out to her.
In fact, I got connected to her this morning.
Nice.
Only.
I mean, so I'll ask her if it's okay to connect with you.
She would be terrific.
It'd be interesting.
But she has a website.
You go to her website.
You drag the file, you drop it.
Next thing you know, you get a report, and her algorithm tells you various things that you need to know about yourself.
Wow.
How you handle dietary fat, what level of various activities you could engage in, what are your, how do you handle B vitamins?
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
There are a lot of those sites, too.
They tell you, it's great to have the data.
You know who your ancestors were.
You know what percentage of your genome is Neanderthal.
How is that helpful?
I don't know.
But beyond that, there's a lot of stuff you should know.
That we can use, yeah, especially if we can, there's another way.
It's just interesting to know there's another way to use that information because I don't even know that.
I'll help you with it.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, no, that'd be awesome.
I had a, I just wanted to know a little bit more about, do you think that people could eventually, I mean, obviously, you know, this is something people always need to discuss with their doctors, but get off of antidepressants.
I knew you're going there, and I would say that let's make this our goal, you and I, get you off of medications.
We'll work.
Give it a year.
Okay.
All right.
How cool would it be for you on your program to say, you know, I've been off whatever it is you're, I don't know, have you told your audience what you're taking?
Yeah, I think, I don't know.
Yeah, I just switched to something else vibrant or something.
So how cool would that be that you say, I did this, this, and this, and I've been off my antidepressant for X period of time?
I'll try.
You'll work with your doctor.
I am not your doctor.
You'll work with your doctor.
But we'll talk about some lifestyle issues that may pave the way for letting that happen or not.
Wow, dude, that's crazy.
I guess I'm in.
It would be silly for me to say I'm not in.
You know, I'm always talking about doing things different and taking some contrary action.
So I'm ready to do it.
I think maybe that's even why you're, you know, one of the reasons, you know, for me, why you're here today.
You know, I mean, selfishly, but that'd be awesome.
Totally reasonable.
You're not the only one who's watching this.
That's a good point.
Sorry to interrupt the episode, but, you know, I've got to let you know something right here.
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Gang.
We had a couple questions too from listeners that called in.
So let's get to a couple of those.
What's up, Theo?
Dr. Pearl Mooter.
Gang, gang.
Gang, gang, bud.
Coming at you from an oil rig in Oklahoma.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I'm reading the book right now, Grain Brain.
Really interesting stuff.
Not all the way through it, so I apologize if I say anything wrong.
But, you know, then I go on the news or something and I find the Northwestern study about eggs and cholesterol and how it's linked to heart disease.
So my question is just kind of how do we sift through what's good knowledge and bad knowledge?
How do we kind of get to the bottom of it?
But thanks for coming on the show.
Thanks for talking about it.
Makes a lot of sense.
I'm really enjoying the book.
So y'all take it easy.
Gang of the gang, man.
What's his name?
Ben.
So Ben asked a great question.
So a study just came out saying that higher levels of cholesterol consumption or egg consumption are linked to all-cause mortality as well as risk for coronary vascular disease.
So eggs are bad again?
Pardon me?
Eggs are bad again?
Let me finish because here's my response.
There you go.
Higher egg and cholesterol consumption hikes heart disease and omelet in me right now.
Yeah, me too.
And let's talk about that.
What does it mean?
How did they do the study?
They asked people, what do you eat, which is notoriously an interesting, maybe not the best way of determining what people are truly eating.
People want to answer their questions right.
They want to lie.
And they determine cholesterol consumption based upon certain, their frequency of consuming foods higher in cholesterol.
And I think it's a good study.
I think it tells us some important information, but it doesn't address quality.
The quality of the eggs that people consume is very important.
Oh, really?
There is no alchemy that happens when chickens eat garbage in a factory and then produce eggs.
And if you want to see a simple example of that, go to a farm, a regular farm, get an egg, go to the grocery store and buy an egg, crack them both open, and just look at them.
Totally different.
What do you see?
Yeah, one of them is a little bit darker.
The yolks are a little bit richer.
Someone has some coloring in it in it.
And the other one just looks like we could have made it if we had a couple hours.
Yeah, and there you go.
And the same thing deals with meat consumption.
I mean, do I believe that in general meat consumption is a health risk?
I do.
Do I think the China study, Dr. Colin Campbell's book about risk for colon cancer, one of the things you mentioned, increased with meat consumption?
You bet I do.
I do.
But the point is, this is asking a person or large groups of people, do you eat meat or do you not eat meat?
End of story.
You're the one category or the other.
It's not asking, do you eat meat that you get at the grocery store that came from a factory where they fed these cattle garbage, genetically modified, sprayed with who knows what antibiotic treated on and on, versus do you eat meat that's grass-fed from animals that are roaming free and not exposed to toxins?
Yeah, because traumatic, because then you're just getting secondhand inflammation from the meat.
100%.
You got that when you nailed it on the head.
Jesus, man.
So that's the point.
That's the interesting thing.
Yeah, how is the cow feeling?
They should write that on there on the back of the thing, you know?
Lance was doing well, you know, and everything.
But it would be like saying, we're going to do a study to determine if alcohol consumption is good or bad for your heart and not determining any difference between whether that alcohol comes from a glass of organic red wine versus some rot gut scotch that you buy at a convenience store.
It's all alcohol.
No, it's not.
It's all meat.
No, it's not.
I see.
So I think it's really important to look at this information.
I think it's very valid.
I think Ben's question was good.
But having said that, we've got to do a science that looks at quality of the foods that people are eating.
Would I say that eating eggs from the grocery store might not be a good choice?
Yeah, I would say that.
Same thing with the meat.
I wouldn't eat that stuff.
Wow.
And I think, to be fair, more vegetarian of a diet is a good choice.
We are now at a place of one meal a day being plant-based.
And moving forward, our next book is talking about OMD, one meal a day being plant-based.
Wow.
And so now when you say, so people can switch if they need to from a lot of these, because a lot of people, you know, we're in regular towns, you know, like in my town growing up, like, I don't know if I was there, if I would, I mean, maybe I would have access to these things.
First, I would have to seek them out.
I could probably get like fresher meat because there's like a lot of venison and that sort of stuff.
It would just, I'd have to call a local distributor and find out what their route is and how they usually go about delivering stuff.
But you're saying that that's a smarter move to organize something like that than to just be going to the grocery store and get it.
I want to repeat what you just said.
Yeah.
And it was very important.
Your viewers need to hear this.
And that is you're going to have to seek it out.
And that is the difference between finding time to do something and making time.
It's about priority.
So if we're going to prioritize food, and we should, prioritize exercise and prioritize sleep.
Yeah.
That's the key to health.
That's the key to getting rid of depression.
It's the key to reducing our risk for chronic degenerative conditions moving forward.
Those things have to move to the top of the list because after all, you know, if you don't have your health, then nothing else matters.
Yeah.
And we have this, there's this feeling these days, you're just going to kind of, it's hard to know.
It's hard to feel the long term in the short term.
You know what I'm saying?
You know, in my world where, you know, a lot of our work deals with Alzheimer's disease, We now recognize, as we talked about a while ago now, that the changes begin in your 20s and 30s.
And you don't know that until you listen to people who are studying that and who are making that information known.
I hope this person is not driving, right?
Well, hopefully, he is, dude.
He's probably stressed if he is.
This could be inflammation.
No, he's in the right seat.
His question was related to dementia.
Hey, what's up, Theo?
Gang, gang.
What's up, players?
Out here in Daytona for spring break, but I wanted to get my question in for that guy, the brain guy.
I forgot his name.
But anyways, I went to go see a doctor a while back.
They said my B12 levels were really, really low.
So low, in fact, the guy said that it attributed to giving me bad headaches because I get migraines and headaches.
And he said that if I don't start taking B12 and taking them seriously, I can have early onset dementia in my 30s.
Yeah.
Can I ask you a question?
Oh, no, we can't do it.
It's not live.
Okay.
Sorry.
I'm sorry, Dr. Promote, we didn't tell you that.
Yeah, people submitted these yesterday.
Well, let's respond to that.
A, one would wonder why in the heck did his doctor check his B12 level?
And I would say probably had nothing to do with his headaches.
It had to do with this, I don't mean technical, the size of his red blood cells.
The lower your red cells are, the larger, I mean, the lower your B12 level is higher, bigger size your red blood cells.
Because they're stressed out?
No, it has to do with their construction.
But that said, he's not alone.
There are a lot of people going around with a low B12 level.
The brain is desperate for B12.
So where do you get B12?
Well, you get it from organ meats.
You can get it from vegetables if the vegetables haven't been washed, like organic vegetables that, dare I say, might have a little dirt on them.
Right.
So go to these farmers markets and hit these things up.
Make that part of your week if you can.
But here's the biggest reason I believe that people have low B12 levels.
It's because of the overusage in our society of these acid-blocking drugs.
So we need stomach acid to activate what's called intrinsic factor.
Intrinsic factor helps us bind B12 and absorb it.
Everybody thinks that they have indigestion.
They ate some kind of sandwich.
Tums all day.
All day long.
You see commercials.
A guy's trying to eat a sausage sandwich and the sandwich turns away from him because they don't get along.
Oh, I remember when I worked on this farm, we would make these like little tum burgers.
We get three of them and stack them.
Don't tell me that.
Yeah.
All right.
So case in point.
So when you inhibit stomach acid, you compromise B12 absorption.
Your B12 level goes down.
So his doctor is giving him, recommending B12 orally.
I'm not his doctor.
Right.
But if a person had that low a B12 level, I don't know if how low it was, but we would definitely start with some injections.
Okay.
So yeah, so that's something you could also possibly do is, you know, whenever you go back to your doctor, talk about also injections.
Make sure you're not taking too much calcium or too many TUMs or those type of anti acids.
Well, it's also, yeah, it's also helping stop the acid, which you need to help process the B12.
Beyond the calcium-based, these other types of acid blockers, like what?
Well, proton pump inhibitors, if I may say, also drugs like Zantac and Nexium and Pepsid AC, these OTCs, over-the-counter drugs, which people take.
Everybody thinks because they get an upset stomach after they eat some food, they need to pop an ant acid.
Well, if you're getting an upset stomach after you eat a food, you sure as heck shouldn't be eating that food.
There's a mechanism in place that says if you eat food that's not good for you, you're going to get an upset stomach.
You should pay attention to that.
Not try to cover it up by taking an acid-blocking drug.
We need stomach acid.
That's what activates our ability to absorb B12.
It activates our digestive enzymes.
The last thing in the world you want to do is inhibit your stomach acid unless you have something, some other issues.
Zollinger-Ellison syndrome for those tech weenies who want to know about really get in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That sounds like the damn dark arts.
You don't want to tell us.
No.
Z-E.
Oh, if that guy shows up, dude, we're going to probably whoop his ass.
I'm going to say that.
Sorry to use that kind of terminology.
I think it was two guys, first of all.
Okay, one of them was a long time ago.
Oh, it's two on one, dude.
Somebody, yeah.
Us three could take them.
Yeah, us three could take him.
You have something, Nick?
We got another question.
Okay, great.
Hey, Theo.
Hey, David.
I was wondering, as a neurologist, David, what's your opinion on treating depression, anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, with psilocybin?
That's a terrific question.
That's a terrific question.
We just lost one of our comedians a couple weeks ago who ended up taking his own life and he hung himself.
I hate to say that because it almost sounds even grotesque almost saying that.
But he was, even according to the guy who dropped him off that evening, he was doing as normal as he ever is.
He'd gotten off some medicine and was getting back on without talking to his doctor.
So that's what it seems like people are equating it to, some crevasse in that moment mentally where he just couldn't escape it.
But anyway, back to his question.
Yeah, this is very pertinent.
Yeah, it's an excellent question.
We're seeing some, dare I say.
Do we want to explain, yeah, psilocybin?
So it's a hallucinogen.
Right.
Okay, yeah.
But we're seeing with specifically relation to psilocybin, some, dare I say, some very positive response in terms of serious depression and things like PTSD.
I think we're early in the research, though it's been going on a long time.
I think the real dedication to the research is in its infancy, and I'm all in favor of looking at it further.
I mean, you know, this began in the 60s and 70s.
And in the 90s too, dude, in Covington, Louisiana.
I mean, that's where I was.
It was well on its way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was passing through.
I'll say that.
Is it something that you've ever tried?
Have you ever experimented with psilocybin?
Have I ever tried mushrooms?
I have.
Yeah.
And did you find it from like in this, did you already have your knowledge base so you could kind of examine it like that?
I did not.
I mean, my current knowledge base, no.
This was years, this was in college.
So it, you know, in terms of contextualizing for me, I can't say that it did that.
In terms of, you know, letting me see the world in a different way, I would say it was only, it was momentary.
So that said, you know, I don't know what the future holds for me, but you know, when you see books now on the New York Times bestseller list, Michael Pollan's book, I think that there's a lot of information there that we need to look at because I think there's some value there.
And I think the rejection of hallucinogens from a therapeutic perspective was done for the wrong reasons.
You know, I think the declaration, the war on drugs, and how that everything got out of hand during the Nixon era really set back the possibility of this being.
All drugs became this stigma.
You bet.
So I don't take anything off the table that's going to help people, especially as it relates to depression.
You know, anywhere between 40 to 70 percent of suicides are in people who have significant issues with depression.
And let me just make one point that you will work with your doctor moving forward, unlike what may have happened to your comedian friend.
But, you know, we'll try to maximize those other things to give you support in terms of your lifestyle.
Yeah, I'm curious.
Yeah, look, I'm excited about trying this.
I tried one diet before for a while.
I can't remember what it was.
You're doing paleo?
Oh, paleo for a while.
And it was good.
Sometimes I could barely even see, though.
I think one time I didn't eat for, that might have been fasting.
You fast for five days.
I was at a best buy.
I couldn't see, but about six feet.
That's really all you need to see at a best buy.
You buy whatever's there, six feet in your field of vision, and that's good enough.
And go back next year because what you bought is now obsolete.
Actually, you got to buy the extended warranty amount.
Whatever you buy, you can buy a USB drive, and they're getting an extended warranty for 19 years.
Oh, I'd have bought 12 extended feet of sight if I could have been that joint.
18 feet, who knows what I would have found.
But it kind of just wants to minimize the store.
It's kind of nice to minimize the store and make it smooth.
Blue light, if you were.
Very much blue light.
You want to suppress that meltona so you're dialed in.
Yeah, you know what I'm even noticing, even when I go out to like, if I'm at a bar or club, there's a lot more people who are out on mushrooms in like in low doses, whereas it used to be people were high or people were drinking.
It's becoming a more common thing.
I'll see a group of friends and, you know, they're just hanging out and chatting, but like, oh, we took some mushrooms.
It's becoming more of a not, I don't even know if it's experimental, but almost more managed.
You know, the term microdosing came out about five years ago.
Yeah.
And then it became more man.
I feel like people started to see, oh, this is more manageable, and it's maybe being delivered in more manageable supplements.
So let me then contextualize my statement.
And I would say that I am, my statement should not be generalized to the recreational use, but more in terms of a therapeutic intervention under supervision.
I think there's a lot of potential there to really make things happen in a much shorter period of time as opposed to years and years of psychotherapy.
It has a potential for that.
And that was not a commentary on the recreational uses.
Oh, no, I don't think that anybody, I don't think anybody would take it like that, but thanks for clarifying that.
Nick, was there anything else?
I had a question about sugar.
Is there a real difference with your body from natural sugars in fruit to like refined sugars?
And you that agave bad boy.
I read that a little bit.
That's your jam, huh?
You bet.
Yeah.
So I'm often asked that question.
What is, you know, people say, oh, I had honey that came from bees that meditated every hour and it's great.
It's sugar.
Your body reads it as sugar.
You know, I'm from Florida, so orange juice is a big thing there, right?
And a 12-ounce glass of orange juice, whether it's from Florida, whoever, or California, is nine teaspoons of sugar in a 12-ounce glass of Florida.
34 to 36 grams of carbohydrate.
That's before you've had your croissant or bagel, which are our fan jams.
You bet.
And that's breakfast.
Your blood sugar surges, then it crashes, and then 10 o'clock in the morning, you're in trouble.
You're back at Best Buy again or Costco.
Just loitering.
I know.
Loitering.
How is loitering not a disease, dude?
There's some people who just like loitering.
Loitering is a great thing.
I got, you know, just to take in the moment, to be present, be money.
That's a good point, actually.
But that said, you know, your question is very good about eating fruit.
And this notion of six to eight servings of fruit a day, it's way too much fructose and glucose.
You got to go more green.
You got to get on the other side.
You bet.
What about fruit juice?
Sorry, just to clarify.
Oh, that's freshly squeezed.
Look, a freshly squeezed orange juice has the same amount of sugar as Coca-Cola.
Jesus.
What's the mystery here?
Everybody says, oh, yeah, but it's got vitamin C. I mean, please, you're going to offset nine teaspoons of sugar with the 80 milligrams of vitamin C in terms of being good for you?
That's the trade-off?
I don't think so.
You know, have water, have carbonated water, have fruit-flavored water.
There are lots of them out there right now.
I just tried a new one and I thought it was great.
So like for breakfast, man, I just don't want to not be able to, I mean, I feel like it's going to be hard.
What can I eat then?
Well, you might try skipping breakfast.
Well, you might try having your first meal of the day at noon or one o'clock.
Yeah, I'm smarter if I skip breakfast.
I noticed my brain works better.
Well, if you eat, let's say you eat at one o'clock.
That's when you, so you had dinner the night before at seven.
You've gone all that time fasting.
Then you have a meal that's called break fast.
Right.
You broke your fast at one o'clock in the afternoon.
Right.
You build up those ketones.
You're stressing your DNA a little bit.
A low-grade stress, we call that hormesis, amplifying your longevity genes, turning on pathways, NRF2 pathway for those who care, to increase your antioxidant, increase detoxification, decrease inflammation.
It is the home run.
Wow.
And who knew?
I don't know who invented three meals a day, but somebody one day said, three meals a day, that's it.
If you don't do that.
Probably Bob Evans.
I don't know if you've ever been to a Bob Evans steakhouse or not, or that breakfast joint, but he's had at least four meals.
I know Bob Evans.
I bet they wanted to say four.
If they could, they would.
You know, the midnight snack.
That would be the worst time in the world to...
I had one last night.
So, what do you have in the middle of the night if you have to have something?
You're hungry.
You have to have something.
Now you go to sleep.
You can't, though.
You got to sleep, man.
What did you?
It's just driving you nuts.
If I ever had to eat something aside from pea, I'd say I would probably eat half an avocado.
There you go.
Yeah.
I like that.
And maybe fill the little hole after you take the seed out.
Fill the hole with olive oil and then a little sea salt.
That's my favorite.
I can eat that and be one and done.
Dude, my dad used to put mayonnaise in avocado.
And he would take the middle out and put mayonnaise in that sucker and eat that thing.
Mish it up, and the next thing you know, you're guacamole.
I didn't even think about that.
Yeah, he never mixed it, though.
Kind of lazy, I think.
But he would just like put it like a thing of mayonnaise in there.
But he was old, though, too.
My dad was 70 when I was born.
He was an old man.
Wow.
So he had that senior.
Do I get the same genes as I would have if my dad was like 35 when I was born?
Well, interesting.
You get the same genetic code, but there are nuances of gene expression that change during a person's life that are passed on.
In fact, you have changes in your gene expression that you've inherited from your grandparents.
We've recently seen some studies that show significant changes in the offspring of male mice who've been exposed to nicotine.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
So, you know, how we live our lives, not only how we treat our kids, but they inherit a lot of stuff from us.
If they'll smoke, they'll poke.
That's what I used to hear.
But if you were trying to meet girls, if you were trying to pick up girls at a bar or something, it's like, oh, the smoke, the girls that are smoking are usually down for some type of intercourse.
But that's just an old, apparently it pertains to mice, too.
What else do we want to ask?
Nick, did you have anything else?
I don't have a, let me just say, I don't necessarily have a response for that, but I'm noodling it right now.
Gluten-free noodle in my mind.
Were you saying the mice with nicotine had extra babies?
Is that what you said?
No.
What I said was that there were changes in DNA expression when mice were treated with nicotine that were passed on not only to their offspring, but to their offspring's offspring.
So your lifestyle choices are going to impact not only your kids, but your grandkids.
Jesus.
I want to apologize to my grandkids right now for anything that I've done.
Yeah, it really is.
Gee, that's what we should leave.
The will should also have a huge disclaimer in it.
And by the way, here's the poor choices I've made.
I'm just money for your rehab.
Like a Scarfax.
Here's all the poor choices that I made.
Can you get them?
I'm going to get the URL for that.
There, there we go.
Somebody probably already took that one.
Probably did.
Somebody probably just took it.
Somebody's probably.
I have one more question.
There's one more video question I think we should get to.
You mentioned like the six to eight servings of fruit, and I'm wondering with the food pyramid, is that like some people have like a theory it's more nefarious where it's like all lobbies did that.
They fought to get there.
Tribute the food in there.
So it's that.
It's not just bad science that we've learned from.
Well, it's bad science, with all due respect, that was put out by industry.
And so what we learned, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in the late 60s and recently recapitulated in the New York Times front page, was this incredibly powerful influence that the sugar industry had over what doctors would publish in medical journals.
That's where all the idea that fat was bad came from.
They wanted to castigate fat so that you would have to fill in your calories from sugar and carbs.
And they manipulated the scientific data so that doctors bought into it.
They said, heck, it was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Meanwhile, we've now learned that in the late 60s, early 70s, those well-respected researchers were paid off.
And that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people globally.
Because when America adopted this fat phobia, when around the world, everyone wanted to be like Americans.
And they dropped their dietary fat, but not everybody.
I mean, we saw places, for example, like France, where they continue to eat butter.
They use a lot of olive oil.
And their rates of cardiovascular disease are lower, rates of cancer are lower.
And to this day, it remains that way.
That people in various places like Europe, Italy as well, eat a lot of fat.
You know, the Mediterranean diet that everybody's.
That's what I hear about a lot.
It's so great.
It's a diet that's high fat.
You put olive oil on everything.
We travel with olive oil.
Wow.
And I eat about a liter a week myself of olive oil.
Jesus.
And the reason we travel with it is because when you go to a restaurant, most of the time you say, can you bring me some olive oil?
It isn't.
It's canola.
Yeah, they give you canola.
Isn't that the weirdest?
You think I'm going to put this on?
If it's a salad?
If it's 51% olive oil, they're allowed to say it's olive oil.
Wow.
Like if it's 51% whole grain, they're allowed to say this is whole grain cereal, whole grain pasta, whole grain bread.
But do you see those things starting to change?
Like, are we going to, because I feel, as much as it's so funny, half the day I'll feel like, man, we're all fucked.
We're all addicted to all these foods and all these things and society's fucked.
Then the other half of the day, I will think, you know what?
There's such a rebirth of people learning right now through long-form entertainment like podcasts instead of just short-form quips that are advertiser supported like on larger networks, right?
That we're in an age of enlightenment kind of where if you want to be enlightened and you want to learn, you still have to take action physically, but if you want to, that it's there.
So it's like, it's so crazy.
Half the day I feel one way and half the day I feel the other.
But isn't it wild that it's legal to have so many other things that are so addictive, but they're not really branded that way?
Well, I choose to – Oh, I absolutely do.
And I don't like what I see around me.
That's for sure.
But, you know, I think it's better for me to light the single candle as opposed to cursing the darkness.
I mean, truthfully, you read Grain Brain.
There's a lot of cursing in the darkness that goes on there because I don't like what people do to manipulate you.
Right.
And it's unfair and making things addictive that you would never have suspected.
Online gambling.
You know, all these things.
Oh, yeah.
I was at a casino this weekend.
And when I'm in there, it's when I thought about it.
I was like, I can't believe.
I mean, the casino must have made $15 million this weekend, the one I was at.
I was like, I just can't believe that this is legal because even though it's fun for a little bit and I get how the dopamine hits and stuff, it would seem like it just is not good for people overall.
It isn't.
And it keeps them locked in where we start our conversation today, keeps them locked into their reptilian amygdala brain of impulsivity and not thinking of consequences.
People can be addicted to online shopping.
You know people like that.
Oh, pornography.
I mean, I'm about 95 days off of pornography.
Well, think about that.
That appeals to you instantaneously, and then there's a click.
Just like to go on Amazon and buy something instantly, a drink.
And here you are.
You haven't slept.
You've traveled.
And you see Dunkin' Donuts.
It's playing upon your susceptibility.
You are so vulnerable at that moment.
And bingo, there they are.
And I know I shouldn't be eating this crap, but I do.
Yeah.
Because it's there and the lights and everything.
And so my dark arts.
That's what we call the dark arts.
And we always have is where you are being manipulated into doing something you don't really want to do, you know, or really, you know, excess, you know, that sort of thing.
Well, Theo, half the battle is calling it out.
And so that that's what our new book's about, is calling it out so you can look, suddenly realize these people are taking advantage of me.
They are manipulating me.
They're manipulating my eyeballs and my bank account for their advantage, not for you.
Though it's guised as looking like it's good for you, it'll help you whatever, fill in the blank.
And that's what I want.
I want to lose weight.
I want to have a more expensive car.
I want a blank.
They'll help you with clickbait.
It's done.
But in reality, it has nothing to do with you.
It's all about them and their bottom line.
And our mission is to call it out.
Because as soon as you recognize it, then you have different experiences.
Then suddenly you say, hey, I'm not giving into this.
Who's in charge?
Is my reptilian brain in charge saying I'm going to do it?
What the heck?
I have no control.
Or did Theo finally say, uh-uh, not this time.
I'm going to make the right decision.
Yeah, because it's so funny.
Like, I like fruity pebbles, right?
I don't haven't eaten them in years, right?
But I like them.
But what I like even more is not getting fucked over by somebody.
So once I know, then it's like, okay, I would eat these, but even more so, I hate somebody tricking me or taking advantage of me.
And now that you're aware of that, you can make a change.
Right.
Let me, you bring up an interesting point, and that is fruity pebbles or anything else that's sweet.
Yeah.
We love sweet.
Do I love sweet sitting here talking to you?
Heck yeah.
Would I love to eat sweet foods?
Why?
Because my brain and your brain and everybody else on the planet's brain is wired to like sweet.
Because sweet told our ancestors two things.
It told us that the food was safe and that the food was ripe and had the most nutrients.
It also told us that there's three things, that winter is coming.
When does fruit generally ripen?
You know, wild fruit, wild blueberries, end of the summer, early fall.
Eat sugar, what does that do?
Insulin rises, what does that do?
Body fat, what does that do?
Lets you survive in the wintertime where you don't have food.
So our sweet tooth led to our ability to survive.
Now that same mechanism is being exploited by every Dunkin' Donuts, everybody that wants you to eat their fruity pebbles.
Oh, yeah.
Whatever it is, they're appealing to your sweet tooth.
That's a dopamine hit that most people can't turn away from.
Who knew?
But you know now.
That's the point.
I know I know, but I just, I wish I didn't know.
No.
Knowledge is key.
No, it is key.
It is key.
Even though I don't want it to be, it's like at a certain point in my life, I just have to make some choices that it's like, you know, I want to be able to live longer so that I can, you know, not only experience life, but also like be a part of good stuff and like, and learn more.
And like, and this is it.
It's like I'm starting to see, you know, friends.
I see friends, you know, I had a high school reunion a couple years ago and I was like, damn, this dude's almost dead, you know?
Freaking little Daniel's almost dead.
That dude looks 65 years old.
You know, he's over there eating paydays and chilling out.
You know, like, you got to tighten up.
Keith Barcy.
Yeah.
Here's what, Neko, here's what.
Those are good.
Yeah.
Here's the good thing that's going on here is here's a guy who you who you're learning about life and you're doing the very best that you can.
Right.
You're talking to people, you're learning, but well beyond this being just about you, you're sharing this with the hundreds of thousands of people who are also having issues, trying to understand what in the heck it's all about and empowering them with this knowledge then to make better decisions.
You know, the word doctor doesn't mean healer.
It means teacher.
Right.
It means giving out information.
So you're doing a heck of a thing here.
You really are.
You're helping a lot of people.
Well, thanks, man.
That's nice of you to say.
Yeah, we do a lot of stuff.
I mean, and our listeners do a lot of stuff.
I mean, they call in with real questions, you know, they're concerned.
They, you know, I mean, I think we are in this age.
I think I see it a lot through our podcast of people wanting to, you know, they don't want to be a victim anymore of, you know, corporations and of advertising and just starting to realize, you know, I think some of that is starting to come to an end in some ways.
Yeah.
And, you know, Theo, what it does is it isolates people ultimately.
They become just ends of one, walking around on their own, isolated, locked into their smartphone and not interacting.
And we need everybody.
We need you.
We need everybody to reconnect to each other.
So we're actually in the process of putting together a website called reconnectglobal.com, where we're going to have essays from people who talk about this, how we can reconnect to our gut bacteria, how we can reconnect to the signaling of our genome, how we can reconnect to the prefrontal cortex and become more empathetic, how I can reconnect to people around me, to my neighbors, to my community, to other countries, though they may be different from us.
That's cool.
How we can connect to the planet.
Yeah, to just have some understanding, to want to be healthy, to operate at our fullest, because I believe at our core, we are very good.
We have to embrace diversity.
We talk about, of course, The gut bacteria.
The more diverse your gut bacteria, the more resilient your body is to dealing with the onslaught of stress of our modern world.
But the more diverse our culture is, same thing.
The more diverse we are as people, the more we're able to handle adversity.
You know, I had an interesting discussion.
That's interesting.
Yeah, I had this discussion with a guy who's involved in Amazon restoration and preserving the diversity of the flora and fauna in the Amazon.
And we realized we're saying the same thing.
He's saying, we have to preserve the plants and animals because diversity is what's going to keep the Amazon alive.
And I said, same thing with our microbiome, that we have to have diversity of bacteria to keep us healthy, and we have to have diversity of humans so that we can be resilient and survive.
Well, I see a lot of people, you know, doing sex.
Everywhere I go, people are, you know, I don't even know what color people are anymore.
So it seems like there's definitely some good bit of diversity the more I go around America.
Yeah, and I think, yeah, like I come from a culture where, you know, like my area was just kind of black and white and times were a little different then.
But now when I go back home, I feel like it's a lot different vibe.
And, you know, I feel like most of America gets along pretty well, it seems like.
I think they politicize that it's not a lot of places and they amplify that.
To me, it seems like on the news.
But most of the places I go, it's not really the reality that I see and feel.
Well, we are programmed, hardwired, to really make a decision when we see somebody's eyes for the first time or their face for the first time.
The instantaneous decision is friend or foe.
Right?
I could imagine, yeah, I can see that.
Instantaneously friend or foe.
And we have these then we color that decision based upon our life experiences.
Is that person friend or foe?
And I had an interesting experience that I came off a plane, Dallas, Texas, and went down the escalator.
And there was a woman wearing a burqa.
And it was right after a terrorist thing had happened.
And, you know, as we all do, friend or foe, and my mind said, foe.
You know, step back, this person.
And I realized that that's an impulse from my amygdala.
It's an instantaneous impulse.
I am absolutely going to override that impulse and recognize it for what it was and do my very best to override that and speak to people.
And it's the same thing, yeah.
Like you're saying, it's diversity.
It's like same thing with making the choices that we put in our stomach.
It's making the choices that we see in front of us, just taking a moment and trusting our instincts.
When we pre-judge, that's the definition of pre-judice.
It's where it comes from.
And we pre-judge based upon these engrams that are built up in our minds from early life experiences that, you know, to a significant degree are placed there by our parents and what they thought, you know, what their world was like.
And when I grew up, you know, the world was, we were, you know, we were not taught, but things were very polarized.
Oh, yeah.
And we have to do our very best to embrace diversity and just open up our hearts.
Yeah.
And yeah, you know, the amygdala is going to make a decision.
We don't have to go with that decision.
If the amygdala says, I'm going to reach out, I'm going to buy, I'm going to do this, I'm going to eat this, we take a step back, we bring online a higher level of thinking, and we ask ourselves, is this an appropriate decision?
Am I being manipulated?
Am I being manipulated?
Am I just lizarding?
Probiotics, what is that?
Because I started taking those, chewing those, the gummies, and I like them, man.
Well, you like them.
What do you mean you like them?
I like them.
I feel like they are good.
I like them.
Having a little snack.
So you could say, there you go.
You could say, I like them.
The most I ever had was four.
Okay, okay.
You could say, I like them from the amygdala, meaning I like them because they're sweet and I like that and I'm done.
Yeah, the chewable ones.
Or you could say, I like them because.
That's what I want to know.
Why do I like them?
So you like them because you bring your prefrontal cord to say, I like them because I now know that having probiotic organisms in my gut helps with diversity, helps with gut function, helps reduce inflammation, and I'm buying into that science.
Yes.
Having said that, then probably the gummy part of the probiotic gummy would not be the way to go.
So you're eating them because they're a little treat, right?
You're not, you know.
I mean, I want to have probiotics.
I started thinking like, I got to make my stomach healthier, you know?
So you want to get a good probiotic, and there's some good brands that we can talk about, but you want to get one that has long shelf life, that gives you 30, 40, 50 billion organisms, that has a lot of diversity of organisms, 10. Like a damn aquarium inside of me.
More than that, yeah.
So you really want to look for those factors, and there are plenty of good products out there, but I think that's a very reasonable thing.
And then be sure that you culture these guys as well as the ones that already live in there by having lots of prebiotics in your diet.
And you can get some great probiotics from eating fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut and fermented vegetables.
So you don't have to always buy a probiotic pill or in this case, gummy.
You may want to pass on the gummies.
I mean, I'm not trying to be brand specific here.
I don't know.
But like, say, if you're in a bind and you get in a tough spot, can some probiotic gummies help you out?
Yeah, I don't know how bioavailable those probiotics are going to be.
Right.
So you really, again, you want to look for certain parameters within, you know, that brands are going to satisfy, making sure you're really getting what you think you are.
Okay.
But understand that if you're eating the gummies, you're eating the gummy part, not the probiotic part, probably.
Right.
You think there's some probiotics in there?
They have to put something.
Who knows?
La-di-da.
There's no oversight as far as that goes.
Who looks at that and says, yeah, not only are they in there, generally, read the label.
And oftentimes what they're going to say is 10 billion CFU, meaning colony forming units, at the time of manufacture.
And if you see that, that's not the product for you.
You don't want something that when they manufactured it 18 months ago had this.
Now it's got nothing.
You want that fresh hitter.
You want to have something that says 30 billion CFUs guaranteed for 12 months after the date that is stamped on that product when it was manufactured.
So you take it six months later, it's been on the store shelf, you had it at home, and now it's still going to kick your butt in terms of having good probiotics.
And so eating better will lead me more to be my best self.
There's really just no denying it, it seems like.
It's a take-home message, but it's all about taking that moment, bringing online your higher level of thinking about what's best for Theo and who's in charge.
And what are my instincts?
What are those that are in my stomach?
So instincts are some things that are programmed.
Sweet is an instinct.
Sex is an instinct.
You know, feast, flight against a potentially threatening issue is an instinct.
So, you know, we talk about...
Well, trust your instincts to some degree.
But sometimes our instincts can get us into trouble.
You know, somebody says something to you and you punch them in the face instinctually, well, they may have been talking to the guy standing behind you.
Right.
Right.
Or they may have thought you were some, whatever.
Right.
And so that's an instinctual response, an amygdala-based sudden reaction that we need to temper.
I think back.
I mean, I'll never forget standing in the line of all places at Best Buy.
Oh, yeah.
No, it was Costco.
It was Costco.
And I had an instinctual response that I regret.
And you could say what you want to me.
I'm okay with that.
But somebody said something to my wife.
And it didn't, luckily, it could have been worse.
And I was, I have to say, I was very down on myself for not reigning that in.
I should have been the bigger person and reined it in, and I didn't.
But it's a lesson.
So sometimes those instinctual responses can harm you.
And instinctually, we should eat sugar all the time because instinctually we are told that it is good for us.
It's telling us winter's coming and that the fruit is safe and ripe.
We override that with our higher cortical function telling us, no, we don't want to eat a lot of sugar.
Instinctually, everybody wants to have sex with everybody.
Yeah.
And no matter what.
And, you know, in our modern society, that's not necessarily going to be good for you.
Oh, you can't even masturbate in your car anymore around here.
There used to be a time I wasn't aware of that.
So something happened in line and you got an altercation.
Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.
And anyway.
But that was your instincts.
It was my instinct.
But I checked it right at the right moment.
And I actually thank a sensei, a teacher from years ago, martial arts teacher, who worked with me with that, that got me to the level and would kind of actually would hit me in the face and kept me from responding and would say something, you want to hit me back?
Come on, hit me back.
And training me not to respond.
And I got to that point and that engram was activated and then I backed down.
And I was very grateful for that training because it took me to the edge.
You know, it's funny because I had an experience.
I was in, I think, Berlin one time with a girlfriend.
We were traveling and we were on this bike tour.
You know, you go on bike tours when you're going to tourists sometimes.
And some guy was like going down a bike path really fast and he like hit my girlfriend's bike like really hard.
And when I looked at him, I could tell immediately he'd like done it on purpose.
He weren't really in the way.
Maybe he got angry with tourists.
He didn't like living in the city.
Who knows?
But my first instinct was to pedal off and fucking kill that guy.
Get a knife out of an imaginary knife suddenly in my hand.
Like I was going to fucking kill this dude, you know.
But I didn't, right?
I didn't do that.
I just stayed there.
You know, I made sure she was okay.
But I've always regretted, maybe not killing him, but at least driving over and jumping and just, you know, tackling him and at least.
But think about it now from the perspective of the fact that you were able to rein yourself in.
That is absolutely huge.
Think about it.
That you could rein yourself in at that moment and not do, and you could rein in the amygdala and say, I'm not going to do it.
And that should be a sense of pride that you have.
But I felt like it was a wimp.
I felt like a wimp, though.
You're not a wimp.
You know that.
You need that man to prove that you're a wimp or not a wimp.
Who is he?
How should he enter into your life?
Hopefully dead, I wish.
But yeah, but I mean, yeah, I got to let it go.
I guess I still have a resentment against that man.
It's good to feel it, though.
It's good to take yourself out of the moment and experience it.
That was what that deep breath was just about, because you went back to that moment and it again challenged you.
You know, your adrenaline level is up, cortisol level is up, fight or flight, which isn't necessarily good for you.
But to let it go, to feel it, experience it, take that purging breath, clearing breath, and move on.
You're a better person for that.
And the fact that you reigned it in then, that is huge.
You pat yourself on the back for that one.
Pat that dude on the back really hard with a knife.
And anything else, Nick, that you have?
Oh, yeah.
So we have six doctors.
Celebrity doctors.
Right, Nick.
Fia, feel this one out here.
Yeah, we've got six celebrity doctors, and we'd like you to rank them just in your love for them, your respect for them.
And for the people listening, we've got Deepak Chopra, Dr. Ken Jong, Dr. Drew, Dr. Oz, Che Guevara, and Dr. Phil.
Who should we listen to, you know?
Well, to light the single candle and not...
I've known Deepak for I guess 28 years.
I dreamed about Deepak Chopra last night, oddly enough, and this morning I told my wife I dreamed about Deepak.
We were having dinner.
I think he's centered.
I think he's one of the coolest individuals I know.
So I love the guy.
Number one.
Well, let me continue.
They'll work on the ranking.
Mehmed Oz, I think, is fantastic.
I'm a medical advisor to the Dr. Ozho.
Been on that program, I guess, three or four times.
I respect his desire to be a little bit out there, to challenge the mainstream, and to really apply a level of objectivity to things that are a little bit off-center.
And I highly respect that.
I know him as a person and His wife, and his wife's parents.
Is he a neat man?
He's a cool guy.
Wow.
I like him a lot.
And we actually just were with his mother and father-in-law two weeks ago in New York.
And they're terrific people.
Dr. Drew, super cool.
I mean, here's the guy.
He's acted too.
Yeah, he is.
I highly respect everything he's about.
His inquisitive mind is breathtaking.
His depth of knowledge, but depth of validation when he has an idea, I think is super cool.
The other three, I don't know who's top middle there.
That's Dr. Ken Jong.
He's now a comedian and comedic actor, but he wasn't.
Oh, that's right.
He was a doctor.
I only know him from the comedy perspective.
Yeah.
Doctrine wasn't going so good if he bailed out.
Yeah, but apparently this part is working out well for me.
I've heard him on the comedy channel, or one of the Sears Radio channels.
So from that perspective, I respect his comedy.
Che Guevara, I'm not sure.
I think we're kind of in a different arena.
And with all due respect, I think that Dr. Phil might be in a different arena, not being a medical doctor.
But then again, you know, things that both...
He was a bouncer, wasn't he on the Oprah show?
Well, his show is all about psychology.
Oh, that's right.
So, you know, both Deepak and Mehmedaz are MDs.
Deepak was an endocrinologist, very well-credentialed.
Mehmedaz practiced cardiovascular surgery, as you may know.
So my ability to relate to them based on my training, I think, is much greater.
But, you know, clearly they both are exploring areas that are not particularly in the field of medicine, but absolutely should be, like spirituality in the case of Deepak.
And certainly Mehmet goes to that place as well.
So what can I say?
We'll leave the answer at that.
Who do you think is sexier though out of Dr. Oz and Dr. Drew?
Who what?
Who's sexier, you think?
Well, I don't know what kind of shape Dr. Oz is in.
I think he's lean and mean.
Dr. Drew dedicates himself to that.
He's ripped.
I don't know.
I think Deepak is sexy, actually.
I do, because Deepak does what he wants.
He wears what he wants.
And I think he's very attractive from the perspective of being artsy in that regard.
And I find artsy to be very attractive.
Gang, there you go.
Deepak, it is, man.
Dr. Pearl Mutter, thank you so much for being here.
Been a pleasure.
It's been really, really interesting.
Thanks, Pio.
Oh, I got a year of dieting now to do.
This is going to suck.
A lifetime.
Oh, shit.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of my life out.
I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking break and let myself on wine shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will stay here just for you.
And I will run away to the base.
Gonna run away to the land.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
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And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
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So great.
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John Main.
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