The Root Causes of Constipation & Slow Motility | Podcast #331
Wouldn’t it be easy if you could blame your constipation on one thing? While that typically isn’t the case, your irregularity could be pointing to either one or multiple causes. Let’s watch and listen to Dr. J and Evan here, helping you learn what your gut may be trying to tell you, and what you can do about it.
Dr. J and Evan emphasized to make a few changes to your lifestyle and see if they result in any positive bowel changes. Such as more high-fiber foods in your meals: fruits, vegetables, whole grains. These steps will help you observe health changes – what works and what’s not via tests results as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:56 Slow Motility, Bowel Motility
8:06 Detoxification
15:57 Food for Detox
22:00 Vegan Honeymoon
27:40 System Approach, Solutions
30:51 Conventional Side
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house with Evan Brand. Today we are going to be having a podcast all about constipation and bowel motility issues. This is a topic that we deal with all the time with our patients, especially when we’re dealing with and addressing potential infections. This can be a common side effects. So we’re going to dive into the underlying mechanisms and what you can do what we do about it with patients. Evan, what’s going on, man? How we doing?
Evan Brand: Doing really well. If someone listening is still embarrassed to talk about their poop, then I would encourage you to shed that shit shed the shame or embarrassment. We talk about poop all day. We love it, we enjoy it. This is part of being a human number one being a healthy human number two, because if you’re not pooping, you’re reabsorbing toxins, whether that’s xeno estrogens from environmental exposure or pesticide and herbicide or mold toxins, I mean, how we get rid of our toxic waste and chemicals and things we’re making internally and that we’re exposed to is peeing and pooping. And so when you look at someone who feels bad, they have dark circles under their eyes, they have skin issues, they’re irritable, they’re fatigued, they have headaches, a lot of times constipation is one of the underlying issues with those people. And if we can just get them pooping properly good amount in good shape, good size, good consistency, good frequency, we can really increase their productivity, their energy, their mental cognition, we can get rid of sugar cravings. I mean, there’s a lot that can happen when you just regulate the bowels. So we’re going to dive in today on some of the big root causes root triggers, I’m going to go straight to number one for me, which is going to be gut infections. Now, you and I were just talking before we hit record about different gut bugs and how some people with IBS, they’ll end up IBS constipation, others end up IBS D diarrhea. And so depending on what type of infections you have, your bowels may become dysregulated.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. And so, when you have different gut stressors, slow motility can easily be a result. So you can easily see on the on the fast side, motility is too fast. Our body doesn’t have the ability to reabsorb water and electrolytes in time, because usually electrolytes and water kind of follow each other. So as the colon kind of pulls out the electrolytes, usually the water comes out with it. And so when we have slower bowel movements, right, they’re usually harder, more compact kind of stools. So if we look at like, for instance, the Bristol stool chart, I’ll pull that up on screen. So anyone that’s watching the podcast can take a look at it. The Bristol stool chart, the chart that’s used by gastroenterologist and such, but it’s just a way of kind of assessing where you’re still fit. So the typical number four is like the poopy policeman. And that’s like just a really good solid looking snake, like not overly hard not overly soft stool. That’s number one. If you go to the actual number one on the Bristol stool chart that’s like kind of the rabbit poop, right, the rabbit pellets really hard, hard to move. And then number seven is just pure liquid. So four is kind of right in the middle, and in between. So let me just show you what I’m talking about here. So you guys can visualize if you’re watching the podcast video along with it. So here is the Bristol stool charts that you guys can see. Okay, so number one, right separate heart clubs, nuts hard to pass. This is like the rabbit poop, right? That’s type one. And then it gently progresses back to two and three, right? where it starts to get more sausage shaped like it says except it gets more smoother, and that as it goes to three. And then step type four is the perfect poopy policeman kind of more of a sausage like more smooth, not overly cracked or not overly soft. And then you can see as you go to five and six, it becomes more liquid and then seven and just entirely liquid watery, no solid. And so that gives us a pretty good window. And so we usually when we have when the guts really inflamed, and we have usually a lot of toxicity in the gut, we can usually see it go to number seven where it’s pure liquid. And that’s because the body is just trying to flush things out. And when things go a little bit slower, you could still have inflammation and have type one right so you could have h pylori, that’s lowering stomach acid, you could have a lot of cebo that is meth that’s producing a lot of methane based back gases. And how do you know it’s methane is you have a lot of foul smelling gas or flatulence that’s a sign that there’s a lot of methane present. And methane can easily screw up that migrating motor complex and make the bowels go more on the slow side. But you can have the same level of infections like h pylori, or maybe histo or Giardia. And that could also cause it to go on the diarrhea side. So it just kind of depends. Everyone’s a little bit different. But we always you could have cebo you could have h pylori, you could have low enzyme and low acid levels that can easily be causing type one. But for someone else, those same infections could easily be driving steps type seven, right where it’s pure liquid. So you got to look at everyone as an individual on that. And really, you know, come up with the right plan.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and it can Alternate to write. I mean, that was my situation when I first had gut issues and I was losing weight uncontrollably when I had H. pylori and parasites and bacterial overgrowth and Candida the whole nine yards. You know, there’d be some days the gut was good. And most days the gut was not good. Luckily, I’m over that now. But man, I’ll tell you, I have a lot of empathy for people that, you know, you never know what you’re going to get, you kind of wake up and it’s like, Is today a good day or not a good day. And now that I’ve learned so much, you and I, both over the past few years about mold toxicity, that’s a big trigger for gut issues, too. So I’m get constipated, but a lot of diarrhea. And I think that’s the body’s way of trying to get rid of the toxin, but also the gut is so irritated. And you can have leaky gut from mycotoxin exposure, that that can be a factor too. So eventually, we’ll get into the gut healing phase of our conversation. I think that’s critical to healing constipation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. And so on the constipation side, there could be issues with obviously, the bowel motility has to be slow. So what’s constipation. So if you’re not having a BM, you’re not passing about 12 inches of stool in about a 24 hour period. That’s typically constipation. And there are millions of people in this country that aren’t able to have a BM every day. Now, once you start going 2 3 4 5 6 7, I see some patients that go up to seven days about a BM, that’s a problem because half of your stool is going to be bacteria. The other half is going to be you know, fiber and such. And within that stool, some of that bacteria and toxins needs to leave your body. If you’re not having that pass through your intestinal tract into the toilet, your chance of reabsorbing a lot of those toxins goes up really high. That’s definitely not good. Because those toxins get reabsorbed into your body. There could be xeno estrogens, there could be mold toxins, there could be a whole bunch of junk in there that you could be reabsorbing, and that could be really stressing out your body. So the first thing we talked about with detoxification is people talk about Detox Detox Detox, right? Well, if you’re not pooping every day, and that’s because of a gut infection or not chewing your food well enough or having insufficient hydrochloric acid or enzyme levels, or having some kind of a h pylori or SIBO issue. All of those things can easily affect your detoxification people are really focused on detox. Just by getting your digestion and your motility better. That makes a huge difference on your liver, and all your detoxification pathways, your lymphatics, your immune everything.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s funny, you’ll see women on Instagram, they’re all done up their hair and their makeup and their lipstick, and they’re like marketing, hashtag add hashtag detox hashtag tea. And they’ve got these like, I don’t know, you know how it is like, these ridiculous products that they’re marketing and they’re not talking about poop. To me, that’s the best way to detox is get poop out. I’m not going to buy detox tea, maybe like a little bit of dandelion or some who knows milk thistle, blend it in. Yeah, I mean that that’s part of it. But unfortunately, detox has kind of gotten co opted by the marketing industry. And so most people don’t even focus on that, though. You know, they’ll poop once a week, but then they take a detox tea and they think they’re doing it correctly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, my whole take on detoxification out of the gates is very simple. Okay, first, get enough good clean water in your system, to make sure you’re digesting your amino acids and all your nutrients. Well, remember, sulfur based amino acids run the majority of your detoxification pathways, along with B vitamins, right. So we need good B vitamins, good antioxidants, good sulfur amino acids. So if we’re breaking down those nutrients, well, there’s not a bottleneck with HDL levels or enzyme levels. We’re getting enough good clean water. And we’re not overly stressing our sympathetic nervous system because remember, the more we overly overly stress the adrenals the sympathetic nervous system decreases that migrating motor complex, which are the wave like contractions that move stool through your intestinal tract just like you kind of roll up the to pace roll at night, I get that toupees moving through to get your toothpaste out to brush your teeth. your intestines do the same thing. So if you can do those top three things, right, you’re on the right track. Now there may be extra things where we need extra sulfur or extra antioxidants or compounds or binders to help with mold or heavy metals. That’s true and that that would be addressed down the road but a lot of toxic patients detoxification happens hepatobiliary liver gallbladder back into the intestines and then out the intestinal tract. So we need to have really good motility and really good absorption of nutrients and a lot of good clean water to help fuel that.
Evan Brand: Yeah, good point. Good point. Yeah, so we both manufacture our own custom blends of supplements that are professional grade, and we both have a liver support that has some gallbladder nutrients built into it. That can be really helpful because, as you mentioned, with sluggish bowels, a lot of times there’s also sluggish bile production. So just helping to thin the bile, whether it’s using supplemental ox bile or muthoni, taurine, beet powder, whatever else we could do to increase bile flow that’s going to be helping and then why don’t we hit on the diet piece. I mean, I think this is the low hanging fruit that you’re having. American is still really really blowing it on, which is just the fact that they’re not doing enough good meats, good fats, good veggies, you know, your average, American might wake up and I don’t know, do a piece of toast and maybe in 2020, or 2021, it’s an avocado toast. But still, you know, that’s not the optimal thing for good poops.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, so inflammation in the diet can easily mess up the intestinal tract, inflammation in the diet can easily create inflammation in the gut. And that could either move the body more to diarrhea or more constipation. Now, for the sake of this podcast, if we start moving more to constipation, not good. And of course, you know, these foods can stress out the intestinal tract. And then when we start creating inflammation in the intestinal tract, and then we already have indigestion, and we don’t have adequate enzymes and acids, so we’re kind of burping a lot after our meals, food sits longer in our tummy, right, and we’re not in a lot of gases are produced because the foods are not being broken down properly, that’s a problem. So we got to really make sure we’re masticating and chewing our food very, very, very well, we got to make sure that increases surface area for enzymes and acids to work, we also have to make sure we’re not overly hydrating with our meals. So hydrate 10 minutes or more before meal. And then if you’re consuming a little bit of liquid with a meal, just do it to kind of help with swallowing pills, don’t do it for hydration purposes. Because water has got a pH of seven, your intestinal tracts a pH of 1.5, or two. So if you start adding a whole bunch of seven, Ph to a to a pH of two, you’re going to move that pH more in the alkaline direction away from the acid at direction. And we need good acidity to help activate our enzymes and our acid levels very important. So that’s low hanging fruit is chew your food up well. Second, is make sure you’re not overly hydrating with the food do all your hydration two minutes before.
Evan Brand: I’ve got my grandfather so many times till this drink liquid with almost every bite of his food, held his Drink, drink drink, like take a bite of food and wash it down with liquid. I’m like no, like you’re literally just pouring water on your digestive fire don’t do that. So yeah, it’s it’s easy. And it actually does make a difference. I mean, you know, I’ve probably talked about that before. But it does make a difference. Like if I, I’ve got a mason jar here, my goal, if I sit at the dinner table, I will try to not have it more than like two ounces of liquid. You know, if I have a full cup, I’m more I’m liable to drink it. If I’ve just got a little bit I know, hey, this is the only liquid I have if I need a little help with the meal. Otherwise it just food, no liquid with the meal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, for me, as soon as I know, like a meal is coming, I’m gonna go just maybe take two mason jars, add some sea salt to it, I’m going to down them and then I’m good. And then you know, 510 minutes later, I can start the eating process and I chew my food out very well. So then that gets the digestive juices rolling as well. So on top of that another low hanging fruit is let’s say you eat good quality proteins or fats, and that makes you constipated. That’s almost a surefire sign. You’re not making enough enzymes or acids. So some people they really do poor with enzymes, and acids, and it reveals itself through animal products. Now, a lot of people when that happens, guess what their natural tendency is, unfortunately, either going to go vegetarian or yeah, oh, it’s the meat that’s so bad for my gods, the meat that’s in my intestinal tract for days and days. It’s rotting in there, you know, yeah, documentaries, I have to cut out the animal products. Well, it’s just a sign that your enzymes and your acids are really poor. And the meat is revealing that now what’s the solution? Now in the meantime, you may want to drop down some of the meat that you’re doing, or some of the protein or fat you’re doing, just to kind of lessen some of the stress off the intestinal tract. But the first thing we’ll do before that is we’ll add in some HCl and some enzymes, maybe even some bile salts, we’ll see how much that starts to correct it. And then if we need then we can drop the animal protein and fat down a little bit if we need. Now, if your intestinal tracts really messed up, you may have to do an elemental or a bone broth faster, or something more liquid based to make it easier on your intestine. So everyone’s a little bit different. And we have a lot of clinical experience about being able to meet someone where they’re at so we can get optimal results.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and it’s sad that the meat gets the blame, you know, and like you said, all these documentaries that will pop up on Netflix, they’re all like, majority, you know, anti meat vegetarian vegan documentaries, and then you kind of have to help clients because sometimes we’ll get clients that have not listened to enough of us where the we haven’t convinced them to get back on me actually had a vegan or ex vegan client come to me last week. She said she was vegan for six years. And she got back on me with the help of listening to our podcasts. And she says she feels better than she ever has, which is amazing. She was able to transition back onto me without necessarily a bunch of supplemental enzymes, but in most cases, yeah, we’re going to come in due to and people may say why why do I need the supplement? Well, we don’t live in a world where you’re sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking a river valley with no stress. And you know, hunter gatherer average work 18 hours a week. We’re not doing that anymore. We’re working 40 60 hour work weeks. We’ve got kids, we’ve got technology we’ve got Got smartphones taking our attention away, we’re scrolling in Bowling at chipotle looking at our phone while we’re eating, or we’re stressed from bills and mortgages and obligations and whatever and age, by the time you’re age 40 50 60, you’re not making hardly any enzymes and acids compared to when you were younger. So all those factors add up that is the answer of why why do you need enzymes to support you? And how do enzymes help you poop? Well, because when that food is digesting better, your body’s going to be able to get rid of what it doesn’t need. And if you have a lot of malabsorption problems, you know, you may see on digested food in the stool. And over time, I’ve noticed people just adding in a handful of berries a day was all we needed to really clear up their their issues. Once we got all the gut infections enzymes in, you know, infections resolved, enzymes put in if they still needed help, we’ll go into a couple other things you want to get into. But handful of blueberries, I mean, that does a lot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So it just kind of going back to some of the the vegan stuff. So I always tell my patients will in general, ie more non starchy vegetables, most paleo people eat more non starchy vegetables than vegans do. Most vegans I find have lots of processed carbohydrate, they have lots of grains, lots of lentils, or legumes and they don’t typically eat tons of non starchy vegetables, it’s it’s difficult. On the vegan side, most don’t do it right now, if you’re going to be a vegan, you need to do lots of good fats from avocado and coconuts. And you probably need some kind of an amino acid supplement from rice or pea protein or some kind of some kind of an algae kind of protein source because most aren’t doing it right if you’re going to do it that way. But number two is sometimes the vegetables can jack you up to especially if they’re raw, because a lot of that fiber or if the vegetables are higher in fermentable, carbohydrates, some can be like garlic and onions and, and broccoli and asparagus, they can be higher and fodmaps. And fodmaps can be fertilizer for a lot of the SIBO base bacteria. So if you have a lot of bad bacteria that’s producing maybe more methane, and some of those vegetables start to feed some of that methane producing bacteria that may make you more constipated too. So I’ve seen some patients do better more with the meats than with a lot of the plants. So I’ve seen it go both ways. And you know, it’s hard because if you’re let’s say you’re one person, and you had an experience where you went vegan, and you felt great, well guess what, you only have your experience, I see patients that have gone carnivore and felt great. And so because we have this perspective, where we’ve seen dozens of people do great from different things, that allows us to form a unbiased clinical recommendation on what we think is best for the patient, because we’ve seen successes work from both sides. And the question is, we don’t have a dogmatic belief in Oh, well, this is what does it well, this is why it would do it for this person. And this is maybe why it doesn’t for you. And we’re going to we’re going to move the levers around because the goal isn’t to do this thing is to get you the result. So it’s really important that if you’re working with someone, you know, kind of talking to patients that are out there, you want someone you want to work with someone that’s results driven, not process driven, meaning, hey, this, you have to do this diet, this is the most important thing, this should get you the results versus Hey, no, I want to get you these results, we’re going to try pulling some of these levers and see what happens as a result. And then we’ll we’ll go backwards from there. So just really important. You want to make sure you’re working with someone that’s results driven, not necessarily, you know, dogma driven, if you will.
Evan Brand: That’s another great soundbite. You’re just rolling out these things. I love it. This is exactly the point that we needed to hit on. Because in this day and age, unfortunately, everything is kind of a soundbite. So you go to the lectin guy, you’re going to get the lectin diet, you go to the carnivore guy, you get the carnivore diet, you go to the vegan guy, you get the vegan, and you and I don’t really have any labels for us, we’d like you said we were results driven. And so we’re able to be more flexible. I love that we’re not in a box, like these people, because once you write the carnivore book or the lectin book, you’re kind of that guy, and then you’re stuck in that box. And it’s like, oh, wait a second, I’ve got all these other people doing really good with some cooked lightly steamed veggies and blueberries over here. But you told me I need to be carnivore. So what the heck, and then it just blows your credibility. So I yeah, I don’t want to be in a box.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now I tend to lean more on the Paleo template, but I use the word template, not diet, so I can have flexibility. And there’s some patients that I’ve seen that haven’t been able to tolerate any meat, we’ve had to just lean on free form amino acids, with some good vegetables or starches that are easy to handle. And I’ve had to go to that extreme with some patients. And if my dogma was no, you must eat animal products all the time. While I may not have been able to help that Paris person so we try to have the levers that we work with. We kind of have like a foundational bias, but it’s a bias that is flexible and that we can adjust according to the patient.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And eventually I would argue that that person you’re referring to could probably get back in and they may have been able to get back here forever later.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Not the case, not a forever thing. It’s kind of a starting point where, hey, you break your ankle, you probably may have to be in a wheelchair out of the gates. And then we progress you to, you know, some crutches and they put you on a boot and then you just maybe Walk slowly, you don’t run and now you start jogging and majesty, right, there’s a progression and how you how certain things heal? Well, it’s the same thing, the four year digestive system that’s not quite as outward, it’s inward, right and how it looks and performs. But you can feel it just the same as an outward injury to your foot or hand.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m gonna keep this thing going a little more philosophical than action based for a minute, just to to further this conversation, which is that let’s say someone goes to the bookstore. It’s funny, everything’s changing with society, isn’t it now it’s the Amazon bookstore, the Kindle bookstore, it used to be the real physical brick and mortar, there’s still a need that exists out there. I know there are some. So you go into the store, right, and you go to the diet section, and then someone picks up like, the, like I said, the Paleo book, The lectin book, The carnivore book, they do that, and then they get different or weird results. And then they kind of just give up, and that’s why they get so opposed to the word diet, or they get so opposed to the idea of changing the way they eat to change their symptoms. But the problem is, all these people writing these books are missing all the other root causes. So just because Jane didn’t do well, with a lot of meats, she might give up on meats, like you said, or she saw the documentary and give up on meats, but she never worked with somebody like us. So when we have these clinical tools that we have, where we’re going to be measuring the stool measuring the urine and looking at different infections. If we could just resolve those for Jane, get some of the enzymes back in clear the infections, guess what now she does great with the meat. So it’s sad, because there’s so many people that may have tried stuff like this, but they got so turned off with the non amazing results that they thought it was the diet to blame. But it wasn’t it was just the root causes. And like you said, the indicator is it sort of for us, it’s a clue Oh, that happens when you do meets, that doesn’t mean give it up. That means let’s figure out why. And the H Pylori could be the big one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s true. And I call it the vegetarian or vegan honeymoon. A lot of people that do go vegan, they can feel great their first year, it all depends where they’ve come from if they ate a lot of processed food or crappy food. And they’re eating lots of organic vegetables, and maybe some good healthy or plant fats like olives, or avocado or coconut oil. And they’re just getting a lot of organic food in their system, they may feel a lot better now over time is essential fatty acids and amino acids start moving more in the deficient side. And a lot of those fat soluble vitamins like a d k start moving downward, they’ll start having more problems over time. And that’s kind of I call it the vegan honeymoon where they’re kind of chasing that honeymoon. They’re like, I don’t feel as good as I did last year. And they kind of get stuck. And usually it’s a protein, fatty acid kind of issue, or maybe even a carbohydrate issue too much carbs. And then you got to look deeper. So getting back to the constipation part right, we have the six hours that I used to work with my patients. And we kind of start with that as a framework, removing the bad foods, or placing the enzymes and acids to the first two hours. And we adjust the diet accordingly. So it could be cutting out cutting down a lot of the fiber or a lot more cooking or going lower fodmap. or cutting out salicylates or females or going on to a moon, it could be a combination of all of that could be an elemental diet, of course, adding in enzymes and acids. And bio, especially if the stools are floating more, that’s a sign that we’re not breaking down fat, so we may adjust those first two hours. And if we’re having bowel movement issues, I may add in things like ginger, or bitters or D lime any, we may have to even add in some natural things like trifle or magnesium to really get the bowels moving. It just depends. I don’t like to add in bow movers unless I really can’t move the bowels with those first two hours, right. If I can’t move the bowels with those first two hours changing the diet and changing enzymes, acids and bile support, then we may lean on things to kind of get the ball moving. But I always want to see how the body responds before we have to add those things in first.
Evan Brand: Well, you make a great point. And even clinically, the things you would recommend to be used directly for moving the bowels those things are still a hell of a lot safer and more effective than some of the conventional stuff you’re going to get. So I mean, if you go to your conventional doc and they refer you to the GI doc and you’re diagnosed with let’s say IBS, C constipation, IBS type issue, there’s going to be some type of a pharmaceutical involved and there’s likely going to be side effects with that. And once again, it’s not the root cause so in your case like you mentioned clinically, you may not go straight to the magnesium hydroxide to help move the bowels by adding water to the bowels However, there’s so many people deficient in magnesium anyway that you could be actually fixing simultaneously fixing an underlying mineral deficiency plus helping to move the bowels. So the cool thing about what we do, is there a positive side effect so we can kill multiple birds with the same stone?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, I’d much rather use a nutrient than like an abrasive herb like Cena or Cascara Sagrada, right? No one has a deficiency of that, but they may have some deficiencies in some of these magnesium so that can be helpful. Now if I get bowels moving out of the gates, usually one or two months in, I’m going to try pulling back on some of these compounds to see if the bowels can move on its own. So it just depends, right? We’re getting the body hydrated, we’re chewing better. We’re working on eating and a non stressful environment, we’re getting enzymes and acids better. We’re cutting out the inflammation. And we may be changing some of the format, the building and the food. So all of those things are moving so many levers. So when I work with patients, patients are like, want to know like, what’s the solution for this? What’s the solution for that? It’s like, I don’t know, I’m going to just give you what I’ve seen to work. And we’re going to do eight or nine or 10 things out of the gates. And we’re going to see what works. But in general, to know exactly which one it is, it’s really hard because you’d have to like make one change, wait a couple of weeks, make one change, wait a couple of weeks. And it would take patients years to get better versus weeks and months. And so we make a whole bunch of changes at once. And then we monitor and we check in on those changes.
Evan Brand: Yeah, good point. So just to give a little more clarity, somebody who’s listening, like what does that even mean? Eight or nine changes. Oh, my God, that’s overwhelming. No, I mean, it could be Hey, look, we’re going to give a little more enzymes and acids, we’re going to pull this food out, we’re going to get you to do a little bit more water and a cleaner water source, we may throw in a little bit of this extra mineral, or maybe a little extra vitamin C, you’re going to do a handful extra of some blueberries, you’re going to make sure you’re getting enough adequate movement because you’re a sedentary job. So we’re going to get you a standing desk. And now you can stand up and move around, we’re going to get you to do a 10 minute walk a day, we’re going to get you to you know, take a couple deep breaths, we’re going to get you to chew your food better, we’re going to make sure that you’re not sitting in, I don’t know a crazy loud restaurant with like, you know, speakers blasting, you know, techno music in the background, we want you to just settle down, we want you to go to bed on time. I mean, yeah, those things give you 5 10 15%. And then by the time you add it all up, you’ve got really good success.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, you’re not chewing your food. I’m sorry, you’re not hydrating when you’re eating right? All these things matter. And maybe getting a little bit more sunlight, right? All these things matter. And so that’s why it’s so hard to be like, well, what’s the solution? for this? It’s like, well, there’s a lot of things that can be a contributing factor, it could be 10%, for this 5% for that 20%. For that it’s very rare that this one thing is at 90 100%. Sometimes you get big, like you just make one simple change. And you the next week you check in with the patient. They’re like, well, I’m 80 or 90% better, it’s like whoa, that’s a home run, that can happen too. But we don’t count on it. And that’s why we do things kind of in a systematic fashion of what’s going to be the low hanging fruit and then we kind of move up from there, right? You got to build up the foundation of the house once the foundation solid, now you can you can build up, the foundation is not solid, then you have a whole bunch of problems that have happened with with the building of the house as you start going up.
Evan Brand: Good point. Good point. And this is the whole reason that we do a workup and we run people through a sort of a system. You call it a system approach. Because if you come in and you go to the doc, hey, I’ve got constipation. Pharmaceutical laxative, see you later. If you come to us constipation, it’s like, Huh, Interesting. Interesting. Okay, let’s figure out why. And if you ask why enough and you do the proper testing, you’re going to get to that why. So I just want to make sure we’re always comparing and contrasting because you ask, you know, Bobby, who hasn’t pooped all week what he’s going to do for his constipation, he might go to Walgreens, he’s going to go to the laxative section. Oh, I found this laxative. This one looks good. Let me drink some of this stuff. Oh, yeah, I poked Problem solved. It’s like, huh, yeah, you solve the constipation problem, but you didn’t solve why that’s happening in the first place. So I just, it shouldn’t have to be revolutionary to think root cause, but it still is not the mainstream. So until it’s the mainstream, our job is not done.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And so when for most conventional, like gastro people, for instance, they’re just like, hey, motility support, here you go laxative support, here you go. It’s very rare, you may get one that say, hey, let’s do a Siebel breath test, maybe that, and then what after that, maybe they’re gonna just recommend, hey, you know, do this quick little diet thing, because a lot of the conventional fodmap diet still have a lot of grains and other crap in there. So you may not change the inflammation. And they may throw some Rifaximin or neomycin at you, boom. And then now maybe you have a fungal overgrowth or something on the backside, because they don’t do or address the gut bacteria, right? And then that can create other rebound overgrowth down the road. So let’s say you have a very progressive kind of forward thinking gastro Doc, maybe that’s what happens that I just mentioned, but most that’s going to be hey, here’s your motility enhancer. And you know, you got to just learn to relax and meditate and hey, maybe taking antidepressant a lot of time. That’s it. So you’re kind of stuck. And that’s just the insurance space model. When you have three to five minutes with a doc, that’s typically all they’re going to recommend for you. They don’t have enough time to really dive in deeper. And that model doesn’t give them the ability to dive in deeper. So you really need to see a functional medicine doctor to really have the ability to go deeper and get to the root cause.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I get so frustrated with that term, integrative it just makes me angry because I’ve had so many people and I know you have to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clients and patients that have said I’ve worked with this angle. Right of guy, Mike Oh, integrative What did he do? And you know, they kind of market it as it’s like so forward thinking, but like you said, it may be the Rifaximin at most. And then guess what a lot of these people they have antibiotic resistant infection. So we’ll test them and guess what the SIBO situation is still going on. Maybe they have parasites or like you said, there’s a fungal overgrowth component to it as well, their guts leaky, their guts inflamed. Now they’ve got all sorts of other problems as a side effect of hitting this Rifaximin. In some cases, it can help maybe play whack a mole a little, it may knock some things down, but they still have enough problem when they come to us that we need further work. So I get frustrated with this integrative idea. Because and I know there’s good intention behind it. But as you mentioned, with that model, the way the model exists, it doesn’t doesn’t allow enough time and there’s not enough advanced testing, like we’re doing to to fully get to the bottom of it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. And once you kind of talk to your conventional medical doctor, and you say, hey, walk me through your thinking on what you think the root cause of this could be. Usually it kind of reveals their that they really don’t know. Because if you’re just providing a drug to treat the symptoms, well, obviously, they’re not worried about the root cause because it’s Band Aid down below, right? So we kind of look at everything in my line, kind of as the SSS approach, right? You have the underlying stressors here, could be physical stress, chemical stress, emotional stress, food allergies, bacterial overgrowth, sibo, right, all of these stressors, increase our stress bucket, and then the body systems start to dysfunction, hormones, digestion, immune detoxification, as the system starts to dysfunction, then you have all this, the symptoms happen down below. And so conventional medicine just band aids, these symptoms down below, they don’t ever go upstream. So you got to have conversations with your doctors that talk more about the upstream issues. And so we try to nullify all of the underlying stressors, make sure foods good chewings, good, hydrations. Good. And then we’re going to do tests that look at the function of the systems. So it’s a lot different of approach. So if you’re working with someone, you know, you want to be able to ask the right questions, what do you think the underlying root causes are, and as a patient, make sure you walk into it with an open mind that there’s probably not one underlying issue, it’s probably a bunch of things that are spread out, that are part of the underlying cause, from a stress standpoint, and the body system standpoint that are emanating the symptoms downstream?
Evan Brand: Yeah, well said Well said, that’s a great, great visualization, and you have permission to have 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 things going on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s the key, that’s that that’s the missing assumption, you could have a lot of different things. And then as you walk through with the clinician, and you’re making changes, you need to not go into it as Oh, I made this diet change and the supplement, I don’t feel better yet. It’s okay. There’s always a plan B, a Plan C, a plan D, a plan E. And if the answers down here, and E and F and you, you quit and get discouraged that B and C, then you never get a chance to kind of go deeper. So just as patients are listening here, always make sure you have that ability to kind of just like, have a good attitude and keep on progressing down the line.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and you can’t blame them on me. This is the way that people have been conditioned over decades and decades of conventional medicine, but it still does frustrate me when someone will approach us whether it’s a friend or a family member or something and they’ll say, Hey, you know, I’ve got autoimmune. I’ve got sjogrens or I’ve got alopecia or I’ve got, you know, diabetes type two. What’s wrong with me? Like, why did this happen? Where did this come from? It’s like, Where do I even start? You stay up till 1am? You posted a picture the other day on your Facebook page? Have you eating an ice cream Sunday? Yeah, never get exercise. I know what you do. You sit all day, you don’t get outside and you’ve never had a tan in your life. So you’re afraid of the sun. If you do go outside, you lather yourself in sunscreen chemicals. You don’t eat organic, you’re super stressed. I mean, you know, so when people ask, well, what’s wrong? Why is this happening? It’s almost like, Oh, are you ready for this? Because I’m about to open up Pandora’s box here. And I’m going to tell you 20 things of what’s happening, I’m gonna tell you 30 things of why this has happened to you. So it’s just a reeducation really, of telling people look, it’s there’s not a one smoking gun, rarely to you and I find one smoking gun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep, I 100% agree. It’s nice every now and then where you kind of get a home run and functional medicine, when you kind of make a couple of changes. And it’s like boom, and you blast it out of the park. It’s always a good luck little ego check. Because you know, you work with a lot of difficult patients over over time. And so it’s nice to get a couple of home runs every now and then. But if you work with a good clinician that has the right algorithm and kind of goes through the things goes to the options that give you the greatest chance of success out of the gates, and then work to the things that give you the less success at the end, then you have the greatest chance of success as a patient early on. And you set the foundation for greater healing over time. So I think that’s really the most important mindset is clinically go with the high percenter options.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I’m not being a bully here. And I’m not making First of these people, I’m just saying, we really need to re education. You know, you you people eventually come out of the woodwork at at you when you and I do what we do and they’re not ready for the red pill. They’re not you know, they’ll ask what’s wrong me? Why do I have diabetes? Or why do I have this headache? It’s like, ah, are you ready? Are you ready? Because there’s there’s a lot to uncover. There’s a lot to unpack.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think most people once they’ve kind of gone through the conventional medicine model, and they’ve kind of said, Hey, all right, well, I just don’t want to be relying on laxatives or enemas my whole life. What’s next? Usually, once there’s, they kind of have this level of like, okay, these are the only options I have from conventional medicine. There’s a level of openness that occurs from that, where they’re like, Alright, what’s next? What’s next? I’d see functional medicine and nutrition is helping people all the time, what’s next outside of this because they just kind of have this yearning that there’s got to be something more. And I think that’s creates a level of openness and readiness to.
Evan Brand: Good point. Good point. Yeah. I often say people have to hit rock bottom or they have to be miserable enough to listen, I mean, you and I’ve heard countless stories of husbands and wives that are stubborn and they want to eat the pizza while the other spouse has to eat the grass fed steak and sweet potato that grass fed steak sweet potato tastes better anyway. So I don’t know what they’re doing. But But anyway, they’ve got to have their own issue right? And then finally, once the other person once they get miserable enough, then finally they’re they’re willing and you don’t have to drag them into this whole thing as much.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, I totally agree. Well, if you guys are listening, and you enjoy the podcast here, put your comments down below. Really appreciate the thumbs up and a share. We also reviews are great JustinHealth.com/iTunes, EvanBrand.com/iTunes. It’s great. If you feel free to head over to EvanBrand.com you can schedule an appointment with Evan anywhere in the world. Vice versa with myself Dr. J at JustinHealth.com. We’re here to help y’all. And I appreciate you guys listening and just feel free to share this content with some friends or family that can benefit. Again, we’re clinicians that have had 10s of thousands of patients experience kind of combined, and we want to provide actionable information with y’all so you can take action and get your health back in your hands. So we really appreciate you guys being listeners and attending.
Evan Brand: Take great care yourself. We’ll be back next week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks.
References:
Audio Podcast:
https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/the-root-causes-of-constipation-slow-motility-podcast-331
Ketosis and Safe Natural Sweeteners | Podcast #210
If you’ve exceeded the pleasure that you’re getting out of pizza, cake, wine and everything else, diets may not just be suitable, as they are temporary. In order to get that lasting change, you really need to engage in a lifestyle shift.
In today’s podcast, Dr. J. invites Thom King to share his experience and insights that led to his writing of the book “Guy Gone Keto”. Watch as they tackle about the effects of sugar to our body, safe and natural sweeteners, how meat have more nutrition than vegetables and all other good things. Sharing is caring!
In this episode, we cover:
00:41 The Springboard of Discipline: Engaging in a Lifestyle Shift
08:23 Healthy Sweeteners
10:56 Effects of Sugar Intake Frequency to Insulin or Blood Sugar
16:57 Allulose, Stevia and Monk Fruit
21:17 Sugar Alcohols
23:04 Benefits of Ketogenic Diet on Thyroid
48:15 Metformin
33:46 Importance of Journaling
Thom King: Dr. J., such pleasure being on here. Thank you for having me and uh– this is truly an honor.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well thank you so much. So, let’s just dive in a little bit and just talk about your book. What inspired you to write this book, “Guy Gone Keto” and– and what are the top 2 or 3 things that you’re hoping for the readers to– to pull out of it?
Thom King: Uhm– well the book was a– the book kind of draw organically so, I had, you know, I– I own a– a food manufacturing business and a– ingredients supply company. And we supply sweeteners to sports nutrition companies, I love those companies, uhm– actually supply and manufacture ketogenic-friendly foods. So, I was in Vegas for trade show and went out with uh– with a customer. And they bought dinner and I way overdid it as usual. Uhm– went back to my room with a– beautiful luxer, and– could not stand to look at myself in the mirror. I was 35 lbs. overweight, I– my blood pressure was like 190/99 and I– I felt like a tremendously huge fraud because I’m catering to the– to that particular industry and not following at all so, at that point, sort of the pai– the pain of my, I guess dishonesty, the pain of my, you know carrying extra weight and being sluggish, and not following any type of discipline, I’ve exceeded the pleasure that I was getting out eating the pizzas and the cake and the wine and everything else, so at that point, I’m like, “Look, I need to make a lifestyle change”, so I really started doing a lot of journaling. And I was doing data collection on my weight, my blood pressure, temperature, I mean, all of the data points that I could find. And– err– and also like, use it as a springboard for discipline, so after about a 6 to 8 months period, I basically had a book on my hand. So, I just took it to it to an editor and, we added a day and it’s really– it’s more about my journey–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –on making a lifestyle change than it is keto. And, so the take home, I would say for your listeners on this, uhm– the points that I wanted to– I– I guess bring up in the book are– it– you can’t actually have a diet like, diets are really temporary–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –solutions.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: In order to get lasting change, you really need to engage in a– in a lifestyle shift.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: Uhm that’s one thing, and then the second thing is, why does it take to– to make a lifestyle shift and what are those– what are the components of the discipline uhm, you know, that’s required.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good points. Yeah, I mean, when I work with patients personally, we’re always talking about what’s the template, right? The template kind of gives us the flex– flexibility with our macronutrients, uh– some people may not need a– a keto template. I think most, tend to go better with a– you know a lower carb kind of paleo template so to speak. And typically, when your carbs get low enough your start spitting ketone as an alternative fuel source. And then, there you go, you have the keto diet is kind of off of that so we can adjust macronutrients in– in a bunch of different ways. But I think the commonality that needs to be present in all diet or lifestyle shift is where you need high amount of nu– nutritional density. Lot of nutrients per bite, we need an anti-inflammatory diet, right? Not with the junky omega-6 uhm– fats and the trans fats, and a high sugar stuff, and then we also need low-toxicity organic, you know, low hormones, all those good things. Any thoughts in that?
Thom King: Yeah, a lot– a lot is the definitely coming up for me. Uhm– and so, when you know, when you’re working with your patients, and– you know, you’re [clears throat]– when you say dense micronutrients, I mean, are you referring to– like more– like I would say, uh– like carbohydrates or vegetables, leafy greens, preciferous vegetables, you know, that– you know that have like those micronutrients, and then also you know, the– the fiber. Is that the– is that what you’re talking about in–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –this nutrition?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, so, of course like, uhm– vegetables, bone broth, uh– organ meats are incredibly nutrient-dense. If we really look at a lot of the nutrient-density– you know scales that are– that are more out there today, they kind of favor a lot more of the vegetables. But when you’re really lo– and– and they also hinder. They have a negative impact for salts and saturated fat which isn’t really fair because that kind of negates the nutrients that are actually found in an animal products. But once you kind of control for the sodium and for the saturated fat, and you just look at the nutrient, you’d be surprised at how much nutrition’s in like, bacon, or high quality uhm– meat, especially organ meats. It’s pretty insane. Uhm– if you look at the amount of– let’s just say, uhm– nutrition that’s in like, 8 ounces of grass fed meat, you’d had to have 15 cups of kale to equal it. So yeah. So–
Thom King: Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –we’re looking at the vegetables, we’re looking at the high quality uh– meats, and even organ meats to a possible, ’cause those are super nutrient-dense.
Thom King: Right. And so, you also mentioned like, anti-inflammatory, like properties of particular food? And, so, I found in uh– you know, in– in a ketogenic lifestyle, particularly uhm– you know, with me, it’s that I’ve been giving a lot of my– I guess fats– some of my fats, put a lot of my proteins from dairy. [Clears throat] you know, whey protein, KCN, and– and stuff like that. What– what are your thoughts on– on dairy and inflammation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think, whey proteins are one of these proteins that tends to be– it’s lowering KC in about 99% KC free and also 99% lactose-free. So most of the negative effects that you’re gonna see in dairy are gonna be in KC and they’re gonna be in lactose, right? You hear lactose intolerance, people can’t break it down. They get bloaty or gassy.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then KC tends to be the more inflammatory component. So, when you do whey protein, you don’t like get that. Whey proteins are great– are great precursor to glutathione which is just like awesome master antioxidant because the amino acids are so– uhm sulfur-rich. And uhm– you know, I think there’s a lot of like, what’s tonight price talked about, you know, activator X, which is just Vitamin-K2, it’s commonly found in ghee or grass fed butter. So, I think if you’re doing like, those good he– healthy, higher quality dairy thing is better. I think some people tolerate, you know, the milk and the cheese, better is well, especially if it’s raw, unpasteurized, those kind of things. I don’t even do well with that, I get bloaty and gassy. So, I think it’s really individual but if you’re gonna do the dairy, it– you know, you wanna make sure it’s raw, unpasteurized. But I think the– the butter and the ghee tend to be awesome, really good.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you find– do you find that fermented dairy is easier to tolerate?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I think fermented dairy is gonna be better. But just because you want, you’re gonna have more B-Vitamins and– and more vitamin-K2 and such. I– it just tends to be have more enzymes. Those enzymes are gonna help with the processing of lactose, processing of the KCN. So just kinda like, predigest it a lot for you. So, they– and that’s kind of a benefit, but when I’m dealing with patients like, I’m cutting dairy out initially, but then that’s one of the first things we’ll have back in are gonna be like ghee and then butter. And ghee is just like a more clarified, filtered-out butter. It’s just les K– less KCN, less lactose.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, don’t you need– you need Vitamin-K2 in order to– to be able to absorb Vitamin– uh– Vitamin-D3, right? Is that right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah but, connect the D3 and then A and then– uhm– Vitamin-K2 is really important. It kind of help escort the calcium into the bone. So, we wanna have healthy, strong bones as well. And then on that note I wanted to highlight uhm– ’cause you’re in– in the– in the sweetener industry, and I know that, you’re kind of like, you’re looking at things like stevia–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you– yeah monk fruit which are really interesting, and I’ve seen a lot of uhm– different videos where people are testing their blood sugar and I’ve seen it not actually go up, I’ve seen it actually drop a bit. What’s been your experience with kind of a healthier sweeteners that are out there?
Thom King: Well, so, I’m like huge on that a collection. And so, part of that data collection is I pull blood continually so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: I’m trying to see where my blood sugar levels are, I’m trying to see where my ketone levels are. So, and– and plus, since I provide ingredients, you know, to food manufacturers, I always make sure that I’m testing you know some of our sweetening systems and even the compounds we carry on myself. So, like I feel confident when I go in the lab but, you know, that what I’m– what’s going out to the consumer is, you know, is– uh– you know, is healthy or at least they’ve he– healthier options. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –I’ve– what I’ve done is I’ve– I’ve pull blood sugar, you know, after consuming Aspartame and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –I’ve pull blood sugar after consuming uh– Sucralose. Uhm– I blood– pull blood sugar levels with stevia and monk fruit. And I’ve found that stevia and monk fruit don’t affect my blood sugar levels whatsoever–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: However, like Aspartame and Sucralose does. And I’m not sure if it’s because of the uh– like dextrose or maltodextrin that they use to, you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –to– you know to– to cut it. Or uhm– another theory that I had and I think that this might not be too far off is that, your body– you know, your body recognizes things that are– exist in nature. And you have the ability to metabolize those particular things are recognizes it. And I think when you put something that’s been chemically manufactured like sucralose which is a– chlorinated sugar molecule, uhm– you know, or– or Aspartame which is a modified phenylalanine. You know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: –your body doesn’t recognize those. You know, it’s like, “Hey, this is super sweet, why do I do with this? I don’t know what it is”. So, you do get the– you do get the benefit of calorie abatement. Uhm– but the downside is that your body doesn’t really recognize it and you– it– what’s it say– uh– insulin response. Uh– what the– what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I think I’ve seen some of the same date. I’ve known some of the functional medicine docs that have done like, you know, they– on their YouTube page. They said, “Hey, you know, let’s– everyone, let’s a study and let’s test your blood sugar, you know, fasting 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. Let’s compare regular meal then let’s add a little bit of stevia to your coffee or to whatever that drink is, mo– and then monk fruit”. And I’ve seen, you know, it’s not a scientific study, but you know, these studies cost millions of dollar to do–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –in a formal setting, so I think this is– this is even better because it is instantaneous.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’ve seen people test their blood sugar and then they post their data really showing it didn’t go up, if not, dropped.
Thom King: Hmm…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And my– my big concern is I think it’s– I think it’s a viable alternative, and it’s something that I use sparingly.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The question is, is there like a dose-dependency where you frequently added so much, or maybe there starts to becoming a problem because you are telling your brain sweet. Now in punctuated periods, you know, 20% of the time, 10% of the time, it’s probably okay– do you find if it’s– if it’s frequent all the time that you’re starting to increase insulin or your blood sugar may go up over a longer period of time?
Thom King: Uhm I have not found that to be the case with myself. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: I actually use bo– uh– we have a proprietary sweetener called KetoseSweet– uh KetoseSweet+. And it’s actually a blend of allulose, uhm– stevia and monk fruit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Allulose is that new sugar alcohol I’m seeing? Couple places do. I wanna hear on that later on. I’ll– I’ll plant the seed now, we’ll– we’ll come back to that. That’s great.
Thom King: Perfect. That’s– that’s ___[12:00] sweeteners, so, you know, and I– wha– I’d noticed this over the past few years, you know when I really, you know, became a– committed to leading a ketogenic lifestyle, that my– uhm– my desire for sweets actually went down quite a bit, and foods that I would normally have eaten before, uh– you know, before I– I started keto, uhm– just don’t– they taste way too sweet to me. Like some of the bars that I used to eat, super sweet. So, I think that your palette shifts uhm– you know when you engage a– uh– a keto diet and you don’t–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have the desire to– to have the– you know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –have stevia or monk fruit. As far as like dosage levels go, uhm– I mean, we’ve got scientific papers that we use in conjunction with you know, with a formulation, and we– err– generally suggest that people stay under 5 to 10 grams of– of stevia or monk fruit, uhm on a daily basis. Uhm– and that is a lot– that’s a lot of stevia and a lot of monk fruit. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Thom King: But– you know, at that point ’cause I’ve dosed myself to that level and I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams of erythritol, I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams of uh– uh– allulose and so, I mean, I’ve tested blood sugar levels and– you know, also, you know jotted down notes on– uh– you know, like GI effect, because if you have too many like alcohol sugars, it can definitely cause bloating cramping, diarrhea, uhm– which you know, nobody wants.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, that totally make sense. And I’m just curious, so, I like to also see– I’ve seen that as wll with the blood sugars not going up. I really like to see what fasting insulin’s doing. Is insulin for– potentially compensating at any level at all? Is insulin rising even though blood sugar’s dropping? Maybe insulin’s rising to compensate for that? I just precarious, you have any data on that?
Thom King: I don’t have any data on that. I mean, I would certainly collect data on that. Is there– is there a way to test for– for T4 and T3 uhm– like a home kit or something like that without having to go in and pull blood?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: With T4 and T3, yeah there’s a couple of lab CRT and already in Valley lab’s definitely have them. And insulin I think you— I think you probably just have to just get like a– a ___[14:21] to have that done.
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Go everything in there with– I be curious, but I– I do know that those are gonna be things that typically don’t increase the blood sugar as much. Now one thing I– I do notice though is that some people that may have a negative experience, and I’m seeing just a lot of maltodextrin and corn sugar–
Thom King: Hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And some of these sweeteners. What’s the deal with that?
Thom King: Uhm it’s cheap. [Laughs] So, any time you–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Does that defeat the purpose though? I mean, people are– are consuming these products to avoid sugar and then you have sugar in it. Which is like, “What?”.
Thom King: Well, I mean, it– it’s that– I think that that’s typical and, you know, in food manufacturing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: That– you know, [clears throat] there’s– it– it’s tough ’cause it’s the– you know, people are trying to keep an eye on their cost of good sold, right? They’re trying keep high margins and– and the food that they’re selling. And– and maltodextrin and dextrose are so cheap that it’s easy, you know, it’s easy to use that as a– as a uh– as a filler or a bulking agent. So, uhm– you know, when you– when you look at typically like a high-grade sucralose, it’s gonna be 700 times sweeter than sugar. So you can’t really put something 700 times sweeter than sugar into little pocket, uhm– because– it there be a minute such a small amount you wouldn’t be able to actually detect it. So, you do have to use in those particular situations bulking agents. And so for larger, you know– uh manufacturers that don’t have, you know a contingency of consumers, uhm– you know that lean into natural uhm– they’re not even gonna question, you know, maltodextrin. But–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: ___[16:02] getting to your– to the point of– yeah, it’s completely counter– counter productive and counterintuitive to add back sugar into something [laughs] you’re trying to cut the sugar out. Well, so, yeah, it’s ab– absolutely 100%.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It seems like on a liquid, you’re probably have more ability to– to manipulate that because it’s a liquid, right? You can use a glycerin or some kind of liquid carrier that– you know, you don’t need a certain– a– a bulking if you’re using liquid drops. So, I’m just curious, uhm– what’s the alternative if you are trying to– to get it in a powder. Which are company using what have they found to be better.
Thom King: Uhm– we use lots of different, you know, uh– uh different sweeteners and different sweetening systems depending on what uh– you know, depending on the– the functionality in the outcome that the customers looking for like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can’t we rate down the ingredients in your keto-sweet product?
Thom King: Sure. So, uh– we have a product called a KetoSweet+ and it is– it’s allulose, stevia and monk fruit. And we have it both in a powder form, and we have it also in a liquid.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is there a bulking agent with though with that at all?
Thom King: That’s the allulose. So, we usually–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: The allulose is the bulking agent ’cause allulose is only about 70% of sweetened sugar. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I see.
Thom King: — in order to get to parity with sugar, we add stevia and then we add monk fruit as well. And so what we found is that, the combination of stevia and monk fruit actually mask each other’s off notes. Uhm– which is–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Aaahh.
Thom King: –super interesting. And then, you know, adding those two high intensity sweeteners to allulose which is 70% is sweetened sugar brings it to parity. So, our liquid– our liquid– KetoSweet+, I’d say you can compare it to like DE-42 high fructose corn syrup, or like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –any of like kerol or syrup that you would like, you know at the store. Uhm– and then, the– the powders just– very-very similar to sugar. Uhm– it’s not a sugar alcohol, it’s actually considered– still considered a saccharide, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, think fermentation. So basically–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Uh– allulose exist in nature in small amounts.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: It’s been considered a rare sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: And so, basically, take a– uh– fructose molecule and you treat it with an enzyme. So think fermentation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: And then, metabolite after that is a rare sugar called allulose. So– in allulose, your– you know, your– your body recognize it, recognizes it because it exist in nature. But your– because it’s been– you know, because it’s been enzymatically treated, your body is unable to metabolize it. So, it just basically goes through urine and feces and doesn’t affect blood sugar levels or uh– ketones. And what I have found is it actually drops your blood sugar levels slightly. Uhm– and I think it’s because of the enzymes that are used to– to manufacture that. Uhm– the beauty of the allulose, is its functionality. So, it participates in mallard which is the interaction of proteins and sugar that causes uhm– or creates a ___[19:13]–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So you’re using it in the baking process when you are making cookies or a cake, you’re not gonna get something that’s like brick, you are actually gonna get something–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: –that’s you know, crispy on the outside, fluffy and moist, you know, in the middle. So, it has that functionality and, I mean, to me, this is gonna be most definitely a– a game changer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, this– this allulose– and I have a couple of dark chocolates too that I– I do consume that are very low sugar that have allulose as this kind of sugar substitute. So I am seeing that catch on. And allulose is not in the same family, it’s like a paleo like– like xylitol or erythritol–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –this is a– a polysaccharide you’re saying?
Thom King: It is. So, it’s actually a– [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah?
Thom King: It– well, it’s actually a monosaccharide.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Monosaccharide is in the sugar?
Thom King: Yeah, but it’s not– but it– yeah, it’s definitely not at all like– like an alcohol sugar like xylitol, or maltitol or any of those–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you don’t get any bloating if you consume too much?
Thom King: Uhm– I’ve dosed myself to a hundred grams, which is like err– like, 4 times which you, you know, you should be taking in, probably even more than that. And what I noticed is that, I had– it created some gas but it didn’t create like cramping or laxation. Uhm, I think that whether was happening is a level of fermentation. So, there’s probably some, you know, some bacteria in my gut that’s metabolizing it and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –off-gassing, but it wasn’t anything serious. And a hundred grams of that is a lot, like you have to force yourself to get it at your body.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’s like 3 and a half ounces, that’s– that’s a decent depth for sure.
Thom King: It is. And so, at that point, I would say don’t exceed that. I would say if you’re going to use allulose or something like that, uhm– you know, not to exceed maybe 15 or 20 grams.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Let– it makes a lot of sense. Uhm– anything else you wanted to highlight regarding other sweeteners? Is this the only major sweetener you have, or do you have any others like, what’s your opinion on like the birch bark xylitol? Any other opinions on the sugar alcohols, anything else you carry similar to that?
Thom King: Yeah, we carry all of the sugar alcohols, we carry xylitol, we carry–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –uh erythritol, and I mean, right now, erythritol is probably our biggest seller like we have an erythritol stevia blend, and we are able to process it in a natural powder so it dissolves into solution better, uhm– you know, companies that manufacture bars that are sort of extruded process, are able to use that sweetener, you know, ’cause it– it does dissolve uh– easier, so, in my opinion, like– so I have worked quite a bit with paleo’s, uhm– paleo’s have a tendency to increase water activity in the lower intestine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: Uhm– which is– which can lead to bloating, cramping, diarrhea, uhm– xylitol I find, I mean, when you start talking about the m– maltitols of the world.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Maltitols of the world, the laxation effect that those had is pretty extreme.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: And I would say away from those unless you have really doped up the tolerance to sugar alcohols. Uhm– xylitol is a little less, but still pretty intense. If you over consume xylitol, you’ll definitely get a laxation effect. And I would say that the least, the– the sugar alcohol that has the least amount of– of uhm– of GI impact is gonna be erythritol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: And I think I would still recommend that people stay under 15 grams of erythritol per day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the big issue with a lot of these a m– m– mo– most are gonna come from uh– GMO corn. So, you could potentially get that round up– or that– that– that glyphosate pesticide uhm– potential trace in there as well which is common with a lot of the corn processing.
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like the birch park, tends to be a little bit more of uhm– let’s just say the unadulterated form.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And we– you know, we– we have very– every one of our raw ingredients that comes in, uh– third party tested. So, and I mean, if you guys are– like any of your audience are gonna do business with, you know, with a ingredient company, you should actually 100% demand third party testing and see evidence of a thrid party testing. And part of our third-party testing is to test for like a GMO protein indicator. So, we’re always looking at, you know, we don’t anything in-house that’s GMO at all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. I’m just curious, what are you finding in the– I mean, I’m not saying you guys did this but what have you found in the past when you started testing these things, did you find any of the round-up residue, did you find any lead or metals or mycotoxins that kinda– can you give us some of the bad stuff you found, in the past?
Thom King: [Laughs] Those are awesome questions. Uhm– and that is why we started doing third party testing. So, uhm– you know, I would say 10 years ago, when we just started getting into third party testing, we would find crazy, like shovel handle, uh– glove, like all sorts of adulteration in the products that we are getting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hold on, I wanna make sure I heard that. So, like, meaning like, particulate of a shovel handle? Particulate?
Thom King: No, I mean a shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like an actual piece of it in there?
Thom King: Yeah. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, okay– I think the whole handle, you mean?
Thom King: No, probably 68 inches of the shovel handle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, my gosh! How does that happen? Like it’s crazy.
Thom King: I have no idea, or in the glove, like we found the glove, and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, got it.
Thom King: –so, I mean, a lot of these things– you– I mean– we– we do visual testing, so every– you know, all the raw– and this is back in the day. And we– we you know, we would– obviously not use those particular ___[24:51] after that, but anything that we bring in now goes into QC’s cluster. And we– you know, and we send it out for third party testing which test for heavy metals. Uh– test for Coliform, you know, various like yeast–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, bacteria.
Thom King: Or– uh– pe– uh– petrochemicals, uh– GMO protein indicators. So– we– we tested all that way, and I would say that our current blenders that we have in place, we don’t generally run into issues with them, uhm– I like to also add that everything that comes in and goes out of here runs through a metal detector. Uhm– you know, so, we– you know, we’re able to– to pull anything out that maybe the smallest piece of uh– of metal that, you know, got into it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: But, uhm– when we– so when we start vetting new ingredient suppliers, I mean it’s a pretty– it’s a pretty rigorous uh– uh– task for them, you know, they have to give us all of their documents, their organic search, we send it off for third party testing, uhm– we will bring in, you know we could just bring a load from them, and then all of that gets tested. So, uhm– I wish more companies did that, because we’ve had products coming through our warehouse once we send ’em to third party, boom, they’re out of our warehouse and it’s like, no, this isn’t what we ordered. So, everything has to fall within a spec. And I would– it was really highly encourage, your– your listeners, to– I mean, and I know that they’re probably are getting a lot of their supplements through you and you’ve already vetted those companies, well I would say, oh, my God, like, I would say that, we’re just sweeteners. So, this is like, not a big deal but when you start looking at companies that are selling supplements and they’ve got a lot of compounds going in there, it– absolutely everything should be third party tested because I know in the supplement industry, 75% of the supplements out there don’t even contain any active compounds.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. And this is a problem and that we test all of our– raw ingredients independently and I found increases in lead and some of these–
Thom King: Oh yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –raw material back, and that can happen, of course, you know, you just over time find out who the best ones are–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –where the qualities at. And then so you are also testing for like, round-up and or GMO type of contamination as well?
Thom King: Yeah, and I mean, in petrochemicals and heavy metals. So we test–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –for cadmium and lead, and, I mean, we’ve had products come in specifically from China which is kind of interesting, uhm– you know, that are showing up super high in cadmium and lead.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, we do– I do a ton of formulation for companies. So companies will send us their product then in order for us to push it through our queue– our-our RND, uhm– we’ve gotta have ___[27:35] and then we also get that third party tested. And I found that, there’s a lot of P-Protein, uhm that is out of China that is super high in lead. And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Thom King: –I think it’s just because of the amount of the petrochemicals that get better in the air and then settle out into the soils. So, uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Thom King: Yeah, so we test– we test for– yeah, we test for all of those things–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally
Thom King: Uhm– you know, and– occasionally we find something but– at the more rigorous our– our testing has become, the more we are able to weed up the suppliers that are unscrupulous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, very good. Now we talked a little bit earlier about in some of the benefits of being ketogenic earlier on the thyroid. I wanna just kinda peg you back to that because you are asking me some questions in the pre-interview like, you know, who’s gonna benefit from the ketogenic diet on– on the thyroid side? And this is a question I get a lot because you have some data– uhm, people saying, “Well, I– my thyroid gets worse or weaker on a ketogenic template and some gets better”, and I think a lot of it has to do with how insulin-resistant, how numb someone’s cells are to insulin. So the more numb you are to insulin, your body has to compensate by making more insulin to overcome that numbness. And I think that’s the big issue and kind of the physiological imbalance that’s driving a lot of issues with people’s heath and thyroid, and finding healthier sweeteners like you mentioned, getting the carbs down can really dese– uh– really increase the sensitivity, meaning it lowers the insulin–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and that allows thyroid conversion to happen better because insulin’s a big blocker of thyroid conversion if it’s too– too high. Just answer that question.
Thom King: Right, yeah. And I mean, I found that with my– with myself. So, I was carrying about 35 lbs of extra– uh– of extra weight. And I mean I was definitely insulin– uh– resistant. And so, I did show a depleted T4, uhm– you know, when I started, and then that T4 leveled out. Uhm– but I’m not sure like on a– real long-term basis, uhm– how the thyroid will be affected, I mean, I test– like I do a batch test and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: –and like I do full blood panel batch test and then I also uhm– do stool sample once a month–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: –to track my microbiome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Thom King: So, yeah, I’m like, really– so I’ve really found some interesting stuff in this data collection that I’ve– have done. But I found that the ketogenic diet really did help my insulin resistance so I became more– more sensitive but you know, another– I– I would have like a question I guess, have– have you do you have any experience with uh– berberine with your patients?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I use berberine a couple different ways. Uhm– with some patients it’s typically used in my SIBO-clearing programs where we’ll try to knock down SIBO or bacterial overgrowth.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And this– a bunch of different berberines, Goldenseal, ___[30:29], Barberry, you know, those kind of things. Obviously, yeah, berberine HCL. Uhm– but berberine’s also a really good insulin-sensitizing compound. It can really help lower your blood sugar, and– and lower your insulin levels. So there’s some really good benefits there as well.
Thom King: Right, ’cause I added that as a supplement and I almost wonder if that was, you know, if that really helped me become more uh– you know, more sensili– sensitive to uh– to insulin. And another thing too, is I’d like to hear your thoughts on– on Metformin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think uhm– berberine kind of works similar, in a similar way it helps us uh– on the insulin sensitizing side. Metformin ‘s gonna work more by decreasing like the glucose absorption in the gut, and then it also kind of shuts down gluconeogenesis in the liver. Uhm– part of that decrease in the glucose absorption though, it can also decrease the absorption of B-12. So, if you’re on Metformin or Glucophage, you really wanna be on some supplemental B-12 on top of it. Uhm– and then, you know Metaformin’s relatively natural like the extract from Metaformin comes from the French Lilac flower, so it’s–
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –it’s kind of on the natural side, uhm– but I tend to like be more impartial for like the Berberines and the other more nutrient-based insulin-sensitizing compounds. But if people are on it, you know, you just gotta make sure the B-12’s dialed in there too.
Thom King: Interesting. And do you feel like getting a B– uh– B-12 supplement with it or just increasing the amount of like– of– of uh– like organ meat would– would suffice?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would just be a– I just make sure you’re on at least a good Malt tea with some extra B-12 on top of a really good diet.
Thom King: Interesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A– a– and again you can monitor that with you functional medicine doc like, you know, I like methylmalonic acids are really good tests to look at to assess your B-12 levels. Whien methylmalonic acid goes high, that actually means lower B-12, right? Methylmalonic acid gets metabolized to succinic acid. And so you need B-12 to make this conversion happen. So if there’s not enough B-12, methylmalonic go– acid goes up, if you don’t have that B-12 that convert it. So, let’s ___[32:31] if people are gonna be on it, you wanna be careful because, you know, lo– low B-12 can cause, you know, alzheimer’s dementia-like symptoms.
Thom King: Interesting. And then so, do you find like with your patients, that– that taking– taking these vitamins and supplements orally and/or do you feel like there’s greater efficacy in IV’s?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well the– I mean, I think IV’s are good, the problem is they’re impractical for people to do daily, that’s the only issue.
Thom King: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just because uhm– you know, people got a work, they don’t have, you know, 30 or 40 minutes to get drip in there, and that can be more expensive but–
Thom King: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –uh– Iv’s here, they I think can be really good but, ideally you want good food and supplements are those easier take–
Thom King: Defenitely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s the big benefit. If I see patients that do a lot of gut issues then we will go on the– s– the sublingual B-12 side, and that can really help too because it can kind of get more of the absorption via the oral mucosal kind of buccal tissue versus the gut, and that can help too.
Thom King: Wow, awesome. [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then I’m just curious–
Thom King: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What other– like what other key things, you know, you wrote the book, Gu– uh– uh– “Guy Gone Keto”, and you also–
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –come up some of these great sweeteners. What other cool tools are out there that you found kinda as– in your transition to a healthier diet, and making a lot of these health thing you think really impacted you?
Thom King: I would have to save the th– the thing or modality that had the greatest impact or what I found was the– the– the– lent itself to the success that I had was probably journaling. So, you know, that is– w– you know– and being mindful. So, when– when I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do, grab a cup of coffee, sit down and I start to journal, and you know, I journal with real intentions of things I wanna manifest. Uhm– you know, I do some data collection like my weight and blood pressure. Uhm– so, I think journaling was really-really-really huge. And really taking time to do that first thing in the morning sets the– sets the stage for your day. And then within that, I incorporated what I called “My Arrow of Power”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Thom King: Uhm– journaling, run, cycling, you know, I do try, and then you know, every other day, I do yoga and then I finish out my workout with a meditation. Uhm– and I think that those real things can actually helped me the most.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s really good to hear, that’s excellent. That sounds like something like a little Tony Robins kind of morning progress. That’s what it sound like.
Thom King: [Laughs] I’m totally influenced by Tony Robins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s cool. And then I’m just curious too, just kind of piggyback on a couple things, where do you guys source your Allitol from the mean like– not like what company but like, wh– what’s the raw ingredient it comes from?
Thom King: You mean the allulose?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’m sorry, Allulose. I said Allitol– Allulose. Great.
Thom King: I don’t know but that’s a weird interesting compound. That’s not like the– the mix of– [laughs] of– erythritol and allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, exactly, totally.
Thom King: Uhm– so, we– so I’ve been working woth allulose for the past five years and part of it was so new, uhm that the supply chain really wasn’t there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Thom King: And we weren’t really able to verify stuff, so we won’t add– we won’t add something as an ingredient unless we’re– unless we’re 100% confident that the supply chain is solid, and also reliable like everything is– that arrives is within spec. So, the– the allulose, you know, we’ve got 3 different suppliers, and all three of those suppliers uhm– are using non-GMO uhm– corn fructose uh– substrate to– to enzymatically create the allulose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. So it’s corn fructose but it’s GMO-free and– and ___[36:11].
Thom King: Great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Are they able to separate the– the sugar from the protein component pretty well?
Thom King: I think so, I mean– ’cause when we third party test, we’re not showing any proteins. Uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh good.
Thom King: So, I mean I– I– I don’t have any reason to believe that there’s any problems with the– the– with them separating it. I know that they use like what’s called resin– resin column uh- filtration. So it pulls out like any of the pure– the– the impurities of– so– yeah, I mean we’ve been working with it for a while, and we third party test it and we haven’t found any– you know, any proteins in it to indicate that there’s, the– you know, the genetically modified uh– corn was used in that process.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So someone was gluten-sensitive and one of the ___[36:55] out, you’d feel like it would be filtered enough, it wouldn’t be a problem for them?
Thom King: Uhm- well, we’re also uh– allergen free– uh– facility, so we always test for– we test for gu– uh– you know, gluten? Uhm– and absolutely the allulose is gluten-free.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. And if they were sensitive to corn, like the corn protein like the zein protein, you feel like it’d be– it’d be filtered enough for there wouldn’t be an allerenic reaction to it?
Thom King: Yeah, I do, well, ’cause we test for proteins and there’s no proteins– there’s no proteins left in there, so I would– I would feel confident thst, uhm– yeah, that, that people, they are sensitive to that but not, you know, be affected by it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. Well, we’re gonna have to put some links down below where people can find the KetoSweet+ formula–
Thom King: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else Thom you wanted to highlight for the listeners here?
Thom King: Uhm– no, not really. You– we were the– the questions you asked worked totally through, and I appreciate that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I appreciate you comin’s on. Anything else you wanna leave to listeners with for just– how– how they can find more about you and more about your products too?
Thom King: Uhm– well if you want to get a copy of the book, and we also have uh– we released a line of ketogenic uh– condiments like ketchup, barbecue, sauce–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, cool.
Thom King: And– teriyaki sauce. And so, if you just go to guygoneketo, you can find all of that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Thom King: Uhm– you can reach me through that too. Uhmm– all of the social medias under this Thom King, T-H-O-M, K-I-N-G. Uhm– reach out to me if you ever got– if you ever have questions. If they want to buy the KetoSweet+, I think kwe– the KetosSweet+ is available on the guygoneketo site. It’s also available on steviva.com, that’s S-T-E-V-I-A “dot com” that’s we have all of our compounds on there available for retail. And if they wanna see what kind of madness we’re up to in the– in our lab, they can go to iconfoods.com and follow us on linkedIn and you can see some of the craziness that goes on in our lab, things we’re inventing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. And is it possible the coke with the KetosSweet+?
Thom King: Oh, absolutely, yeah. So, it does– it does actually participate in maillard at lower temperature, meaning that uhm– like with sucrose or table sugar, you– you’d probably about a hundred and forty-five–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –to a hundred and fifty-five as when it starts to caramelized, and you’re gonna noticed that you’re gonna get that a little sooner with the uh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: –with allulose, probably in the 130 to 135 range.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Thom King: So, probably wanna bake it and cook at little lower temperature for a little– e– extended period of time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Thom King: But then, you know, other than that, yeah, you can– cook and bake just like you would for a sugar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome Thom, well, thanks for all the great information here today, appreciate it. And you have a phenomenal day.
Thom King: Thanks, you too Dr. J., thanks for having me on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Bye now.
Thom King: You’re welcome.
References:
Brain Health and Nootropics with Evan Brand | Podcast #203
In improving brain health, don’t take the quick fix. There’s more to talk about than just taking supplements. One must deal with diet, lifestyle, and digestion. More importantly, the more one helps the gut, and the more one’s going to help the brain.
Today’s podcast talks about steps in improving brain performance, natural nootropics, medicinal compounds, and pseudo pharmaceutical compounds to help improve cognitive function and brain performance.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:46 Steps to improve brain performance
03:42 Get the gut right
16:07 Get the inflammation down
18:32 Focus on your diet
32:03 Resveratrols and alcohols
34:27 Pharmaceutical nootropics
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey! It’s Dr. J in the house. Evan Brand, how we doing today?
Evan Brand: Hey man, life is good. I’m ready to talk with you about the brain. I’ve been tryin’ to figure out if my brain is messed up, or what. So you’ve been giving me some good advice. We were reviewing lab results together off the air so, it’s always fun. It’s less fun when you have to dig into the trenches on your own but it’s still fun. So I– I appreciate your time this morning.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, absolutely. I’m really excited to chat with you about a whole bunch of things we can do to
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m gonna take what you said just a step further ’cause people may have said– they may have heard, “Oh,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-huh.
Evan Brand: –of stooling your intestine. What we find is that these
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So first thing is get the food right,
Evan Brand: Explain that– explain real quick. That’s pretty mind-blowing concept for people. You mentioned– m– manufacturing B-Vitamins in your gut, and that being impaired due to dysbiosis.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so– healthy good bacteria actually– eat your poop or actually
Evan Brand: Uhm…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –right? So, it– let’s say this is the amount
Evan Brand: Yeah, here’s the thing that’s kind of annoying with the whole methylation conversation is, people come up with their MTHFR genetic defect and they walk around with it with like some type of label, like a, “I’m MTHFR, oh my God!”. And they act like the protocol has to be so different. Justin and I basically treat everyone as if they have methylation issues. All that means, is we’re gonna use higher quality nutrients. We’re not gonna use a folic acid we’re gonna use to activated folate. Maybe you need a little bit higher amount. But so many people get a diagnosis where they look at their gene and they see one snip off, and then like, “Oh my God, can you work with me, I have MTHFR”. Like it’s gonna change much. How much percent do you think it really changes in the whole equation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm– doesn’t change that much. I mean, a lot of the things that we’re doing kind of already a- b– are built in and around that, right? So of course a lot of the synthetic folic acid were making sure any supplements’ not gonna contain that, right? Or it’s not gonna contain junky B-Vitamins that you may see in like a 5-hour energy drink. Number 2, we’re cutting out fortified foods that are gonna have folic acid in it. Things like orange juice, things like your grains, right. These are the big fortified folic acid foods. Again the government found out a long time ago that, hey, you know, folic acid’s gonna prevent like these neural tube birth defect. Uhm– the problem is, you still have a– a large set of population that can– that’s still cannot activate that folic acid and con– convert it into you know, folinic acid to LMTH– LMTHF folate, and some can actually create some of these dangerous cancer-like metabolites. So, we wanna make sure we eat like, good quality animal
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And my thing is, this a rabbit hole for those areas, and
Evan Brand: Yes. Well it is now sexy too, and, uh– one of our mutual friends and colleagues Jay Davidson, uh– he’s a chiropractor who
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and also a lot of the herbs we may use to go after some of the gut stuff, will have some anti-
Evan Brand: I love saying that. I love saying like, “Hey, we’re gonna kill things that might not even show up on the test.” For example, like maybe we’ve got a false negative of a parasite, but we did this protocol to kill the bacteria, but the herbs to kill the bacteria also have anti-parasitic benefit, so maybe, we got rid of something that you didn’t even know was there that was affecting you. So that’s the fun thing. Now, let’s go back to the topic of the brain. You mentioned a few things. You mentioned the cat’s claw. Cat’s claw can be considered something that can help the brain. You mentioned ashwagandha, you mentioned adaptogenic herbs. You and I love adaptogens. Wo know, that whether we’re talking holy basil, or Rhodiola, or American ginseng, or, you’ve got like Korean ginseng, there’s a many-many ginsengs. These all help in terms of modulating cortisol. And– that’s course up your brain. If you’ve got levels of cortisol that are too high or too low, it kind of mimics the same thing. And this is why you don’t wanna guess because– you know, we’ve seen people where they– they’re exhausted, and we think, “Oh my God, this person must have low cortisol.” But then you test it and it’s actually high all day. And we’re thinking, “Oh, good thing we didn’t throw this person on a bunch of licorice because they’re cortisol is already so sky high.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: [crosstalk]… I was just gonna say but, if they read online– adrenal fatigue– licorice, I mean it’s almost like a– it’s a– I mean it’s almost like a gut reaction
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s nice to know your pattern, especially if there’s reversed cortisol patterns that’s helpful because
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m always impressed with your brain, like your brain– I– I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with you where your brain wasn’t working properly like you’re always able to articulate well, you’re always able to like zoom in and zoom out. I’ve always like, looked up to you for that. It’s super cool to see somebody that has a good functioning brain because
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I appreciate it and I think, number 1 for everyone listening, get the inflammation down, that’s number 1. Make sure your food’s nutrient dense choline,
Evan Brand: Yeah–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –Maitake.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m doin’– I’m doing Shiitake and Reishi
Evan Brand: I would even argue you could add in like some lion’s mane too. I’ve been having–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah–
Evan Brand: –really good e– experiment, it’s up and running, with like a mixture of the lion’s mane, the reishi maitake shiitake, and then a little bit of ginkgo, kind of a bonus just for the blood flow aspect. ‘Cause we know that you can help increase the blood flow in the brain with
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: People talk about dopamine and serotonin but– I think, just as much as GABA, acetylcholine is like a forgotten neurotransmitter, and people don’t talk about it. But they should because if it breaks down too fast, your memory won’t be as good. And if you take huperzine, you can keep the acetylcholine in the brain longer, theoretically improving learning and– learning and memory.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What other ways can we increase acetylcholine outside of taking it, outside of the– the huperzines, or the
Evan Brand: I would say focus on the diet piece too, right? Like you could– you could– you could oversee supplement with like Alpha-GPC like the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so you’re fatty fish, uh– your egg yolks, uh– your liver,
Evan Brand: Ahh…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –really-really important cognitive function. And when you deal with MTHFR issues, making sure there’s adequate choline, and the diet is very important. Also building blocks for bile, like really having enough biliary support. Because bile is really important for keeping SIBO at bay, right? Bile salts or bile acids– the acids produced, when, you know, the acidic environment produced when bile is stimulated and secrete in form the gall bladder can really prevent a lot of SIBO overgrowth. That’s why with SIBO, it’s a common environment that
Evan Brand: Yeah, well we know, there’s a link to the thyroid too, you know, if you’re hypo– you’re under functioning with your thyroid, that can affect your brain. Also, I’ve seen some stuff about just– you could just– look at the link between hypothyroidism and say gallbladder issues
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, anything if there’s a hormone imbalance that’s gonna affect energy typically, when energy’s low uh– focus and cognitive will be low. It’s very rare that someone is tired but has good brain function. Meaning, memory, retention, you know, verbal fluency, right, a– they’re typically connected. You need a baseline of energy for your brain to be functioning well. So if there’s low thyroid or low adrenal, that definitely needs to be addressed. There’s other herbs we can use, bacopa is another big one that helps modulate a lot of our dopamine, and serotonin neurotransmitters. We know dopamines’ really important for focus, right? Uh– it’s also can be burnt up, it can be converted downstream to adrenaline. So if it was adrenal stress you can burn up dopamine and convert it to adrenaline. Dopamine’s also needed for TRH release in the hypothalamus. TRH is the thyroid releasing hormone. It goes from the hypothalamus to the pituitary. The pituitary then makes TSH which is thyroid stimulating hormone which then talks to our thyroid to make T-4, little bit of T-3 and then T-4 gets converted periphery and add this– add the– thyroid receptor cells uh– ___[22:16] as well.
Evan Brand: Try to think of any other things I haven’t mentioned from a– from our supplement perspective. Did you mention the Omega? [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s the– the amino acid I think
Evan Brand: You say DHCA but you meant DHA.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, yeah– DHA. De– de–
Evan Brand: Yeah, we– super important for kids, you know, we got a lot of parents listening. We have a lot of– a lot of parents that bring kids to us, and
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah.
Evan Brand: And then of course what is the doctor do, they put the kid on like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I mean, Justin and I– [crosstalk]– Yeah, it’s not good. It’s not good. I mean, you’ve– you and I have seen so many cases kids, where like, I– I just actually saw a kids this morning, uh– a little girl, she’s 11 years old, she’s sort of put H-pylori, she had 4 different parasites, like 6 or 7 different bacterial overgrowth, she had candida overgrowth as well. An the mom’s like, “Well, where did all these come from?”. You know, of course we asked about antibiotic history and all that, but the kid can’t focus in school, the poops aren’t good, I mean, the behavior’s not good, they’re moody, it’s like, man! If we could just get every kid in the world, get their gut in shape, the world would be a better place. I mean, these things don’t discriminate. It don’t matter if you’re 2 years old, or– 200 hundred years old. You could still have bugs.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Now other compounds that are great. Ginseng is excellent, that kind of falls in the adaptogenic category. I’d also put ashwagandha, and
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –on top of that. And then of course for inflammation like the uh– the– this– this–
Evan Brand: I would agree, yeah, and it’s– uh– probably
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –versus like some conventional glyphosate sprayed grapes. You mentioned the fish oil, I mean–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly.
Evan Brand: –we could– we could technically probably say that fish oil would be something for the blood flow because it is–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: –thinning the blood a little bit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It is thinning the blood and then, your other anti-inflammatories like Curcumin as well I think are also very helpful because they help reduce inflammation and they can have some immune modulating qualities. So I like that, I mean, if you’re gonna reduce inflammation that’s gonna have a cognitive benefit. If you can reduce inflammation in the brain like some of these–
Evan Brand: Yeah I would say CBD, kind of a dial. I use it almost
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Benefits, yeah.
Evan Brand: To– tons of good benefits kind of balancing out your CB-1, CB-2, uh– receptor sites, you have everywhere in the body. Now some people, you know, for talking like for pain perspectives, CBD alone doesn’t help that much with the pain, they may need a little bit of THC, but you’ve gotta be in a state where you can access the THC. There’s like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –with CBD oils. Some may argue there is such thing as an endocannabinoid deficiency like, we know cannabinoids are naturally in breastmilk so we could argue that we’re built to have these. But I still think the other root cause is you gotta hit those first, you know. If this helps you, great. But make sure you still like, fix your gut. I could’ve taken all the CBD in the world but I still had IBS ’cause I had gut issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, what about
Evan Brand: I don’t know if CBD modulates it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I’m looking here, and right now, it says THC has been shown to stimulate β-Endorphin production. And I imagine CBD may as well. So I’m looking at a couple articles right here, yeah–
Evan Brand: Or maybe CBD– maybe– [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –by triggering their release of β-Endorphin, yes.
Evan Brand: Oh, cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s article– there’s articles on this, that CBD and THC. Now the problem with THC is, you know, you’re gonna have some cognitive stuff–
Evan Brand: Ahh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: People like ___[30:05] that really good benefits using DLPA–
Evan Brand: I love DLPA.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: — DL-Phenylalanine which is a– a– it is a– kind of isomer uh– Phenylalanine which is a precursor to the thyroxine that goes more down the β-Endorphin pathway. Yeah, I’m looking here: the CB-2 re– the CB-2 receptor agonist can invoke the trigger and release of β-Endorphin. So kind of a dial uh– compound. So, I think you’re seeing this increase in β-Endorphin which is a natural anti pain, anti depressant compound. We get β-Endorphin– the runners high, right? That’s β-Endorphin that worked out high, that’s β-Endorphin. Remember, that molecules’ 19 amino acids long. So we need protein to make it. So DLPA and or just good free form amino acids are gonna be important, good protein absorption, good digestion. And the CBD, potentially could help improve that stimulation. But again, I– I’m ver– when I hear the word “stimulate”, I’m very careful because– it s– stimulate what? So, there’s a building– it comes from something, right? So we wanna make sure the building block to make it are also present as well. I hear “stimulate”,
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Gotta be careful.
Evan Brand: Yeah you make a good point. Always go into the root. The amino acids are great. ___[31:19] is a huge–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Doing both is probably better, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I– I’m– I– I– I wonder if the THC maybe it helps β-Endorphin more ’cause like I said, some clients report as soon as they add in just a tiny amount. The pain relief is way better. So, maybe CBD does it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, the big thing is, with the THC, you have the– the psychoactive components there–
Evan Brand: Yup. So those are question here about, “Is it okay to get resveratrol from red wine or is alcohol ruin the benefits?”. I mean, it is so ridiculously silly that you can do that from wine. I mean, that’s like freakin’ marketing from the alcohol industry. There’s a study I’ve got here from PUBMED. They call it the analysis of resveratrol, in wines, and they’re looking in all these different types. For example most of the red wines tested, they were getting .36. This is 0.36 milligrams per liter of wine. We’re talking less than half of one milligram per– per liter of wine! I’m sure there’s some to have higher, but that was like the average. They found that–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And again, I mean, when they do this studies, they’re probably not testing organic wines–
Evan Brand: True.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and they probably looking at the quality of the wine. So, let’s just say if you’re like– like– your companies out there that are– are lab testing they’re wine and– and tryin’ to make sure the– the quality is higher. So if it’s organic, and the alcohol content’s lower– so I know like Dry Creek wines, they do some lab testing where they choose lower alcohol content and it’s organic. You probably may have more of those compounds in it, but I wouldn’t say, hey, if you wanna have a glass or two– wine every now and then, I don’t think it’s a big deal. Just choose higher quality ones but I wouldn’t– say to yourself, “Hey this is gonna be the only place I’m gonna get this extra resveratrol”. I would probably supplement
Evan Brand: Right. Like a– say, you were
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I think you have a lot of food that have just negative
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –I would just say make sure we just have the– the quality aspect dialed in with the alcohol that you’re consuming.
Evan Brand: Yup, well I know we’ve got to run– we’re both uh– late for our clients so we should probably wrap up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, let’s just hear one last thing here.
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Let’s just talk about the– the pharmaceutical nootropics. So you– we have things like modafinil approach ___[34:32], which really is used for like uh– narcolepsy or like, just falling asleep during the day a lot, uh– that can be helpful on the cognitive side but it’s a drug, there’re some not so nice side effect. So you really gotta be careful, right? It can cause sore throats, headaches, vomiting, hallucinations, we gotta be careful with that. We have some of the– the racetam compounds as well, which can fit into that GABA kind of receptor site in the brain that can improve some cognitive stuff there. 5, 400, 800 milligrams a day can be helpful but again there’s some side effects. Uhm– it can interfere with blood thinning, it can cause insomnia, it can cause agitation anxieties, so you gotta make sure you keep an eye on that. And then we have things like
Evan Brand: Yeah, I– I had friends addicted to
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s interesting because I have seen a lot of information online saying it’s not addictive, but then you see also–
Evan Brand: People saying it can be–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What’s your take on it, what did you see on your research?
Evan Brand: Oh, I don’t care who says that it’s not addictive. It’s freakin’ addictive my– my buddy who was addictive to it for a while. He was using about, you know, high dose of it. About a gram or 2 per day. And if he ran out of it, he did not sleep. He had panic attacks, he had uncontrollable shaking, I mean, when you hit that GABA receptor that hard, and then you pull out this phenyl GABA, you do not feel well. Anxiety, panic attacks, heart palpitations, etc. A mutual friend of ours Wendy Myers she’s talked about using
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and if you need, just try to use some more of the amino acids, L-theanine or just GABA by itself first.
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm– so that– that’s kinda your best first step. Anything else you wanna add here Evan?
Evan Brand: I– I would just say, you know, test, don’t guess. We talked about a lot of supplements, you could easily go on
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Wise words my friend.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care, bye.
References:
Analysis of resveratrol in wine, from PubMed
The Keto FX Summit – Get Your Keto Questions Answered – Podcast #172
References:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani welcomes back Keith Norris, co-founder of the Keto f(x) Summit in today’s podcast. Listen as they share great information about the Keto f(x) Summit and drop some knowledge bombs about ketosis and the ketogenic diet.
Know about the many benefits of having a Ketogenic Diet and find out how this type of diet can help in improving overall health and other conditions like cancer and seizure. Learn about some tweaks that you can make in this diet and explore how it affects thyroid and liver health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
02:24 Ketogenic diet and Cancer
13:44 Tweaking the Ketogenic Diet
20:11 Ketogenic Diet and Thyroid Issues
22:15 Ketogenic Diet and Liver Health
25:30 Ketogenic Diet and Collagen
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. We have a phenomenal guest back in the flesh. We are live here at YouTube. We got Keith Norris, cofounder of Paleo f(x), also cofounder of the Keto f(x) Summit, which is live now. So if you have not subscribed yet, click below in the description. There will be a link for you. If you’re listening on a podcast as well, just click that link and you’re good. Lots of good knowledge bombs that will be dropped over the next two weeks. The Summit just started yesterday and we got some videos going out daily. So make sure you grab it so you get that drip, drip, drip in the inbox every day. Love it. So, Keith Norris, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?
Keith Norris: Justin, it’s great to be on, man.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Love it. Well, I was excited to be part of the Summit. I know we chatted uh—last month and my talk will be coming up on February 6. So my listeners, make sure you subscribe so you’re ready for my talk next week. And anyone listening to this show right now, give us a big thumbs up, give us a big share. Again, a lot of people don’t quite have their arms wrapped around ketosis and ketogenic diet. And this is the best summit that’s gonna bring in all of the experts all across the world to get you some bite-size information so you can start applying this and getting your help better.
Keith Norris: Yeah. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there, Justin. It is you know, I mean, we see this. We see a lot of the information
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. And today, we’re gonna just chat about kinda your top 3 to 5 favorite things that you learned coz you were interviewing all these people. And again, this is not limited to all the other goodies but
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Keith Norris: Yeah. Well, you know, Dom can get to it a hell a lot better than I can.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: I can give you the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: Though, uhm–Dom and I were at NASA a couple years ago. Uhm— we were at a roundtable and that roundtable discussion was about how to keep astronauts safe and healthy on an extended uh—period in zero gravity conditions. We’re limiting gravity conditions and this is all about sending astronauts to Mars. Uhm— what we currently know right now as we can keep astronauts fairly safe for you know, about a year but they degrade rapidly and even after a year they degrade pretty far.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris. And why do they degrade?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Keith Norris: So how do we prevent that? Uhm, so I was at the uh—I was at that roundtable talking about eccentric exercise.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Dom was talking about using the ketogenic diet to keep us from___. And there’s a number of reasons why. Number one is muscle sparing, right? So that’s a big plus. But one of the—one of the biggest plus is the fact that it’s protected against the onslaught of radiation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris: And what a lot of people don’t realize are these astronauts
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Really?
Keith Norris: Yes. So uhm—because there is— because they are inundated with so much radiation. With the ketogenic diet, there is actually protective of healthy cells against the onslaught of radiation. And Don obviously goes into the science of all this. I’m not the science guy but he goes into the science of why that works. But the trickle-down effect of that is people who are undergoing radiation treatment for cancer, for instance. So there’s a twofold—there’s a twofold benefit with the ketogenic diet as__for cancer. Number one, if someone’s going to radiation treatment, radiation treatment is essentially a corporate bomb of all cells, right? And it just—so there’s colla—there’s a lot of collateral damage during that process of healthy cells. In ketogenic diet it’s very, very protective of these healthy cells.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Let’s talk about the—go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead.
Keith Norris: Yup. Also, I’m gonna say that just about every cancer out there feeds off of glucose, right? So if you starve the body of glucose utilizing the ketogenic diet, that’s the flipside of that. So that also aids in the treatment of cancers. So it—that was one very, very interesting topic that we discussed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. And also, neurologically, you know, a lot of the brain cells uhm—you know, they run off of glucose to a certain degree, but as you get more insulin resistant, meaning yourself get more numb to that hormone insulin, then the brain, certain parts of the brain have a problem utilizing that glucose fuel. So getting some of those ketones up can help wake up some of those brain cells that have not been able to access glucose. And also the plaque that forms in the brain from inflammation, the enzyme insulin degrading enzyme is really important cleaner for cleaning up that plaque. And if you’re too busy making insulin, then your body is dealing with the metabolism of insulin versus the metabolism of the plaque in your brain. Can you chat— did you go in any of those neurological aspects with Dom, too?
Keith Norris: Yeah. Dom did as well. And uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great.
Keith Norris: You know I would hate to try to butcher what he will—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: I’ll tell you one thing that’s super, super interesting about this. And this would—this comes back to what our plates actually look like when we eat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: So NASA is very interested in this diet as well because you can’t imagine like to send my cell phone into space, that’s an astronomical cost.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Really?
Keith Norris: Yeah. It’s astronomical in the amount of fuel that it requires to send something in an orbit. So if you can cut essentially the amount of uh—food that you’re sending up into orbit, that’s a massive—a. it’s a space safe and b. it’s
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow!
Keith Norris: That’s a massive
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. And then also the fact that ketones have a natural appetite suppression type of effects, so it really hits those satiation signals in the transverse lateral part of the hypothalamus that—that signal satiation, uh— which is great. And we know carbohydrates typically don’t have that signal specially refine ones. That’s why you know, everyone can go back to their college days with a— maybe ate a whole pizza to themselves or think back to the pringles commercials of the
Keith Norris: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Where it’s once you pop you can’t stop, right?
Keith Norris: That’s right. You know, Rob Wolf went into this to a great degree talking about how our food manufacturers manipulate our own wiring or dopamine.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-uhm.
Keith Norris: And you know, our dopamine response to food. Uhm—Evan gives a great example of a—an eating contest, right? So uh— for instance a guy that challenges to eat—I don’t know what it was—it was like—like 8 gallons of ice cream. It was ridiculous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Keith Norris: Well, how did he do that? Because after certain while even with the best tasting ice cream you can imagine, obviously, you’re going to get pushback from the body. You’re gonna quit, stop.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: So how did he power through that? He ordered a plate of extra crispy, extra salty fries so he would eat some ice cream, shell a few fries, reset the taster, so to speak. And now he was able to eat more ice cream, right? And food manufacturers know this and they are in business to sell you food and to get you to eat more. So this is how they manipulate the whole fat-sugar-salt to eat. Another example uhm—Doritos came out recently with a—I can’t remember what the exact uh—anyway there’s— there’s different levels of heat in these chips and every—I would bet it is a based on mathematical uh— probability that they have what they call like I don’t know, like an atomic heat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris:.. in the chips. So that—so now it’s is so now it’s gamification of eating. So people are eating all these chips, right? And you know, “Hey, I got
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know Rob has also talked about—yeah, that’s phenomenal. I know Rob’s also talked about the—the inflammatory component, too, where you know, you may eat foods that have a higher degree of inflammation whether it’s with their fatty acid profile or because of food uh—allergy components in there. And that can actually increase your sugar levels via cortisol, via stress hormone that could also prevent you from burning fat for fuel
Keith Norris: Yeah. He did. And many people went through the discussion of—so the question being if the ketogenic diet goes off the tracks, where does it go off the tracks? And it’s— when it does go off the tracks, it’s not with the diet itself, it’s with the application. So generally what happens is a type A personality who’s already hard drive in you know, just probably not sleeping well, working too hard yada yada yada too much stress on the body now adapts the ketogenic diet and they’re not gonna ease into it. They’re gonna go full force into it. And what is at result? That’s another stress from the body. It’s more cortisol. It’s more disruption in the body and uh—yes, so, you know, people— if it does go off the rails, that’s a big portion or a big probability of why it went off the rails.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And that’s the big this is the application component. Coz a lot of people listen to this and you know like, “Well, I don’t think that’s for me.” Well, here’s the thing that I noticed with a lot of people that I work with is number one, if someone’s on a higher carb type of you know kick, metabolically their bodies are more of a sugar burner. So as we shift back to being more of a fat burner, they may get a little bit a kickback as it takes a few weeks to kind of Keto- adapt. But what I tell people, even if you feel— even if you feel little bit better with more carbohydrates, think of ketogenic diet as like a spectrum. You’re probably going to feel better being 80 to 70, you know, 70-80 90% more in that direction on the ketogenic side. You may not be 100% but just pushing it more in that direction, you can still see benefits. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing, is that true?
Keith Norris: Yeah. Oh, totally. And you see this across the board from the experts talking about it. And I think one of the things, too, that I that I picked up is that nobody has to rush into this, right? Unless you have a condition like epilepsy or—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Keith Norris: We need to shift quickly. But just for body comp, for overall health, we have time to ease into this. It doesn’t have to be a punch in the face and you don’t have to go through that you know, the severe carb flu and anything like that. You can ease into this. And the other thing is you’re not gonna get it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Keith Norris: We just want to take progressive steps, progressive steps, progressive steps. Give yourself some leniency because one of the— one of the things also when you talk to these experts and I’ve noticed this myself and the people that I’ve trained is whenever you start shipping somebody into the ketogenic diet, they want to subconsciously just because of how we’ve been smacked with the fear of fat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. I’ve heard—I’ve heard Dom talk about it and maybe he talked about it in your interview with him, but the ketogenic diet kinda started off 90 to 92%, fat 6-8% protein, 1 to 2% carbohydrate and this is primarily with kids that had epilepsy.
Keith Norris: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now one of the things they found is there was an Igf-1deficiency going that low protein for that long period of time. So these kids were like having stunted height things like that. I know Dom I think did posit some research over I want to say Duke where they up the protein to about 20 to 25%. They increase the Igf, which is beneficial to someone that’s growing or wants to maintain muscle mass, but they were still able to keep all of those ketogenic benefits. So there’s like that 20 to 25% threshold of protein that seems to be that upper level where you can still keep the benefits. So some people
Keith Norris: And I would say also that uh—you know, so the question came up quite a bit of uhm—ca you do vegan keto?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm. Great question.
Keith Norris: Can you? Obviously, you can. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: You can do that, but uhm—to rope back into the low protein side of things, there is a danger there, right? So, I mean you know if you’re if –if you’re gonna absolutely have no animal products whatsoever, you can pull it off. You can pull
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It sounds familiar.
Keith Norris: Yeah. So, now this is a bodybuilding community, a heavy-duty bodybuilding community that uses the ketogenic diet. And uhm— if you— when you look at their protein intakes, it’s not very high it’s about .8 per .8 g per pound of lean body mass, right? So they’re not even taking the full—full body weight. They are looking at lean body mass. And when you— when you run through the calculation, that’s not a whole lot of protein, right? And that’s how—that’s how they set their macros. They set it with protein first using the uh—the amount of lean body mass you carry. But still, you know the uh—the old idea that uh bodybuilders need just massive amounts of protein, they’ve proven that wrong and they’ve proven that wrong for many, many years. He’s been in the game for quite a while.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So that’s 8.8g
Keith Norris: Yup. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So let’s say you’re 200 lbs and let’s say maybe that’s 10-15% let’s say 15 to 20% fat. So you’re sitting around maybe 160-165 lean and then you do the math on that, that’s what? A 130 g of protein or so a day?
Keith Norris: Yeah. That’s—that’s not a lot compared to traditional bodybuilding requirements.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Keith Norris: They’d probably double that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So that’s about 4 to 6 ounces of protein three times a day.
Keith Norris: Yup. It’s not a whole lot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Interesting.
Keith Norris: By body building standards, anyway.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And yourself, how—what are your macros like and how much protein you get in a day? Maybe around 200g, 160?
Keith Norris: Yeah. You know, it fluctuates day-to-day because you know, I’m really—I don’t ever measure macros really at this point now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Keith Norris: I’ve gone through that period. I’ve done my measurements. I kind of know how it how it feels to be in. Yeah. So, uh– I don’t know. I know it varies and it varies every day but I can tell you the thumb rules that I use. I always opt for the fattiest cuts possible in my meats.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: So that’s—that’s number one. I’m gonna have meat, but it’s gonna be the fattiest cut I can, given the option, right? So I find—so just this weekend, I was out. Uhm in a very nice restaurant in San Antonio and uhm—I’m looking through the menu, I’m going, “Okay, how am I gonna navigate this?” I saw a rib eye.
Justin: Oh, love it!
Keith Norris: So I tell the waiter, “I want the fattiest rib eye that the chef can find in the back.” Of course he looks at me like, “Are you crazy?” I’m like, “ I want the fattiest rib eye that you can bring out.” So it’s just uh little tricks like that that you learn along the way. You know, how can I add fat into my intake and uhm where can I do that, where can it taste better. And uh—that’s how I roll. So I’m beyond the uh—beyond the actual measuring. But there is a—there is a place for that. For people just coming into this diet, right? Because I’ve done this work for years. I mean, it’s just part of who I am. But somebody just coming into this diet is gonna have to do some weighing and measuring and tracking to get—you know, to get a feel for this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And the way I kinda do it is very similar. I typically tell my patients uhm—a palm to a fist to a full hand of protein per meal. That’s gonna be dependent upon how active you are, how stressed you are lifting weights, etc. Two
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you know, uhm—just you know, create a high level of anxiety every time you eat doing it that way. You always get your hands right there, right? So it’s easy to see. Keith Norris: That’s what we wanna do. We wanna move as quickly as we can to this being just a very, very, natural diet where you don’t have to think about it. It just—it just is. We want you to be able to end up to the point where you’re—you kinda know. You already go into a restaurant, you kinda know I’m probably gonna have to order à la carte, which I do quite often, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: I’ll just order—order stuff à la carte and you just know the questions to ask.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we got some questions coming in. So, listeners if you’re checking this out, leave us a chat here. We’ll try to answer your question. Just keep it uhm— relevant to ketosis. Uh— someone talks about here, “How do you prevent ketosis from blowing your thyroid?” I’ll grab that one first, then I’ll get your opinion. Number one, some of the early research on ketogenic diets and low thyroid used a lot of polyunsaturated fats. So we gotta be careful with those because polyunsaturated fats, if heated, can usually oxidize and rancidify. Uhm—fish oils, those kind of things. So if we’re eating whole fish, that’s fine. But if we’re adding in good high-quality saturated fats, uhm—they’re much more heat stable, less chance of oxidation. And a lot of people I find have thyroid issues because of insulin resistance. So if you have a thyroid conversion issue or excess inflammation because of insulin resistance, a ketogenic diet can significantly help that. There are small percent of the population that may have lower thyroid symptoms as they go more ketogenic. We typically can see them coz they are already leaner, but that for me, that’s my default starting point is a lower carb in that ketogenic spectrum. And then if we have issues, we can—we can progress the carbs, operate it and dial it in. Your thoughts, Keith Norris?
Keith Norris: Well, I was just gonna say that Justin, you went into that very discussion.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: And during—during your interview. So I was uh—you know, for the ___, I question, be sure to watch what your interview. Also, be sure to watch uhm—Ross’ interview as well. So L Ross’s with the uh—with the uh—she’s with Mark Sison’s group. Uhm—and uhm—she—I believe she still has__podcast.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, very cool.
Keith Norris: In
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s the question we get a lot about ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting and female hormones and thyroid.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m gonna refer everyone. Make sure you subscribe down below and get access to that. Coz that talk is gonna be next week. So make sure you sign up so you can get access to it. And then also, another the person writes in, “How important is liver health when doing ketosis? Uhm— my take on it is number one, carbohydrate is gonna be the most you know, excess carbohydrates is gonna be the most damaging thing to the liver primarily fructose. It up regulates these enzymes and the liver called the JMKY enzymes uh—jump for short, very inflammatory. And that’s where we kinda have that non-alcoholics the steato hepatitis. That’s the fatty liver from excess carbs.
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I find ketogenic diet incredibly liver protective as long as we’re trying to eat grass-fed organic, pasteur fed things. The fat can accumulate a lot of toxins so more organic. And then the other question I get all the time I wanted you to take on it is, “Oh,
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because when your kidneys are already weak, your protein, it’s not gonna cause the issue, but it’s gonna be a stressor on the liver—on the kidneys to begin with. So, doing super, super low-protein, super high-fat can help with icy liver and kidney function. Your take?
Keith Norris: Yeah. I was just gonna second everything you said. Very protective for those organs and in something that uh— that just hit me when we’re talking about liver, this is completely tangential to that particular question. But, I guess Chris Kresser. Chris Kresser is another speaker in the summit. And I asked him about organ meats and especially liver.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: And his take on that is you know, even with the __raised animals, even in that situation, the liver does not necessarily hold toxins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: It’s the job of body fat to hold toxins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: Uhm so, I guess my point is whenever we’re talking about eating especially animal fats, let’s try to move. And I know—I know it’s not doable for everybody in their situation right now but as soon as you can, start migrating over to humanely raised paster raised animals and try to get out of the whole capital of the confined animal uhm—what the hell is it—something operation— feeding operation—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Feeding operation. Yup. Yup.
Keith Norris: So conventionally raised meats. So, let’s try to move towards grass-fed, grass- finished
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% And this question I get a lot. Sam writes in here, but I actually get this intel from someone that spoke at your Paleo f(x) conference last year. So we’ll put a little plug for Paleo f(x) that’s coming up the end of April down in Austin. But Jordan Rubin spoke and he talked about the amino acid profile in collagen as having less effective of increasing gluconeogenesis. And that some of the things we worry about when we eat excess protein is some of that convert into sugar and pulling us out of a ketogenic state. What’s your take on maybe you know smaller amounts of collagen
Keith Norris: Yup. For that very reason, uh—Michelle generally keeps a
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Keith Norris: And uh—what I do, so that’s already pretty collagen heavy because we use a lot of chicken or she does.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Keith Norris: She uses a lot of chicken feet and that but I also add collagen powder to that mix and blend it up. So, yes, uh— for that very reason, I will add extra collagen into my—and so that does account for a good portion of my protein intake.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Yeah. Well, people are thinking about protein in their head kinda draw a line between like muscle meat protein, organ meat protein—
Keith Norris: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:– and connective tissue ligament tendons high you know in cartilage. So kinda draw that line. So the big thing is that we want very careful of the excess muscle meat.
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s why you are doing the rib eye where
Keith Norris: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, by the way, quick question for me. This is kind of a selfish question. Who has the best
Keith Norris: Austin—I don’t know. I was in San Antonio at the Dominion in San Antonio’s where is where I was. Uhm—you know when I’m in Austin, I’m a barbecue guy. And if we’re talking barbecue, I will give you this tip, Justin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Keith Norris: Go to Freedmen’s.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Freedmen’s— awesome.
Keith Norris: Yeah. The bar downtown uh—at some 24th and St. Gabriel I think. Somewhere in that area. It’s a bar but they have an expert uh— grill master there. And the barbecue is just insanely off the chain. So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, love it.
Keith Norris: So when I’m in Austin, I’m a barbecue guy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. Here are my top three for Austin: Perry’s downtown on Seventh Street.
Keith Norris: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The
Keith Norris: Uh-huh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: __Chavez. And I’d say the Roaring Fork for number three. The Roaring Fork used to have grass-fed steak three years ago. They pulled it off the menu but those are my top three. And if you go to Three Forks, get the Kings Butter. Uh—it is just absolutely—
Keith Norris: Ahh. Nice. Yeah. And if Perry’s had pork chop, whoo—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, Friday that pork chop, man. And too bad, they got a little bit of barley malt glaze in it.
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s like 0.01% gluten. I’m like, “Dude, you got to figure out a way!”
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But I just go there with some activated charcoal and some enzyme DPP 4 enzyme uh to knock it out.
Keith Norris: Right. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Totally.
Keith Norris: That’s great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Any other last questions, comments, anything else you want to mention here, Keith Norris, about the summit or anything else?
Keith Norris: Man, I would just really, really encourage people to dive into this deal. I mean 20 experts all whose interviews are between an hour an hour and a half. It’s just so much knowledge and so much information. And each one of these interviewees is offering
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it.
Keith Norris: After the night, it’s going to go up. It’s only gonna go up a little bit. It’s gonna go up to 99. But
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. He went, “Yeah, you indeed.” It was a normal Dom d’Agostino conversation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely love it. And I subscribed as well. So I’m getting the videos email to myself personally and at my lunch break, I’m firing them up and I’m going through it on because it’s a lot of clinical knowledge. So if you’re a practitioner listening—
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s still phenomenal information for you to be able to apply and as a— as a patient or someone coming that’s __on this, there’s gonna be so much information. It’s gonna be like tricking out of a firehouse but
Keith Norris: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know Rob Wolf does an amazing job and I know uh—Dom does as well. So lots of information, great teachers. And also, I want to plug Paleo (f)x again a lot of these people in this summit are going to be speaking at Paleo (f)x So if you feel a connection with any of the people here, the next best step is to sign up for Paleo(f)x and make a trip down to Austin before it gets hot and see some of these people in person.
Keith Norris: Yeah. Coz it will
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m glad you put the seminar a month earlier this year with Paleo. That’s great.
Keith Norris: Yeah. Because even in May, it’s starting to get a little steamy here. Yeah. We had to fight the__ to get that April day. But I think we got them –we got them locked in. We’re a big enough event now where we have some __, some muscle behind this. Uh—but yeah, the good thing about
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent.
Keith Norris: that you get from—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We’re gonna put the links below for Paleo(f)x and Keto (f)x. So, if you guys are interested, that’s the next logical step. It’s a no-brainer. Just subscribe and just get the information first and at least kick tires. And then you’re wanna go the whole 9 yards. Keith Norris, it was awesome having you on the show, man. Uh—
Keith Norris: Absolutely. Take care, Justin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care, Keith Norris.
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