[Transcript] – An Interview With “The Smartest Physician On The Planet”: Crazy Biohacking Stacks For Cognitive Function, Microdosing CBD, The Rolls Royce Of Jet Lag Hacking & Much More.

Affiliate Disclosure

Transcripts

Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/lifestyle-podcasts/health-optimization-medicine/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:19] Updates: Upcoming Podcast Q&As and Events

[00:03:10] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:50] Guest Introduction

[00:08:25] The Blue Homemade Nootropic

[00:11:30] Being the Smartest Physician Alive

[00:12:36] Health Optimization Medicine (HOMe) and Health Optimization Practice (HOPe)

[00:27:55] Dr. Ted's Book About Artificial Intelligence and “Connectomes”

[00:32:52] Podcast Sponsors

[00:35:41] The 7 “Pillars” Of Dr. Ted's Practice

[00:59:43] The “Rolls-Royce” For Hacking Jet Lag and Tips for Optimizing Circadian Biology

[01:12:14] Dr. Ted's Guidance on Diet

[01:22:35] Closing the Podcast

[01:24:36] End of Podcast

Ted:  And I asked myself, “Who's taking care of that basic cell?” And the truth is one is. One of my really big beefs is that we have become to DNA-centric. DNA only can tell you what's the possibility that can happen. There's a big misconception right now that carbohydrates are bad. No, it's actually not that. The biggest missing in macronutrient in the human diet, Ben, is–

Ben:  I have a master's degree in physiology, biomechanics, and human nutrition. I've spent the past two decades competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet from SEALFit Kokoro, Spartan Agoge, and the world's toughest mudder, the 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure races, spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science, search the globe for the world's top experts in performance, fat loss, recovery, hormones, brain, beauty, and brawn to deliver you this podcast. Everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful, and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride.

I've got a great podcast episode coming your way today with a guy who is not only one of the world's most intelligent physicians based on his IQ, but a guy who's doing some amazing things in the health industry, Dr. Ted Achacoso.

So, this one is going to blow your mind. Before we jump in, by the way, I haven't been doing many podcast Q&As lately, although I do have some podcast Q&As coming up pretty soon with a brand-new podcast host. You can wait with bated breath about that. But because I haven't been doing the Q&As, I haven't been doing a very good job letting you know where I'm at in the world.

So, at the time that you're listening in this podcast, I'll be headed down to Austin, Texas. I'll be in Austin, Texas from April 24th all the way up through the 29th, that this fabulous event called Paleo FX. Paleo FX. I will be sure to link to Paleo FX in the shownotes for today's show over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/drted. Or if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/calendar, you can see everywhere I'm going to be all over the world get in, check out all the details, etcetera.

Another place where you can catch me is South Carolina. I'm going to be coming down to South Carolina to talk about stem cells and functional medicine that'll be at the end of May. May 29th, I'll be down there in South Carolina. If you'd like to come to that event, I'll link to that one in the shownotes as well. And then, finally, the end of June, if you'd like to come join me and my family in Switzerland for two weeks at a liver detoxification and biological medicine retreat, we do have a couple of rooms available at that retreat and you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/ted, where the shownotes are for today's show, and I'll put a link to that as well. So, those are all the exciting places that I'll be that you can be at too.

This podcast like all podcast is brought to you by the most wonderful website in the world if you're looking for healthy stuff to buy Kion. Kion is my playground for all thing's health and wellness. I don't know if you've tried our coffee before, but if you want a party in your mouth, grab our wonderful coconut chocolatey nutty goodness energy bar and then get yourself bag of our antioxidant-rich pure clean mold-free 100% organic coffee and have yourself a bar, and you can actually dip the bar in the coffee if you just want a complete Kion adventure. It's amazing. It's good. You get 10% off our coffee. You get 10% off our bar. You get 10% off the aminos, the flex, the fat loss formula. Everything we have at Kion if you just go to getkion.com. GetK-I-O-N.com. And the code that you can use over there for 10% off anything is BGF10. That’s BGF10 over at getkion.com.

Hey, folks, my guest on today's show, if you could see the video today, actually, has a blue tongue. He has ingested a homemade nootropic that I'll let him tell you about after I introduced to you who this guy actually is. His name is Ted Achacoso. Ted, am I pronouncing your last name correctly?  Is that Achacoso?

Ted:  Yes, as it's spelled. Perfect. Thank you.

Ben:  Nailed it. I'm good. Yeah. Ted is a physician. He's actually quite a unique physician. Not only is he rumored to have one of the highest IQs in the field of medicine, which I'll let him tell you about, but he got a college graduate in biology when his 18. Became an MD when he was 22, and he actually operates a clinical practice called Health Optimization Medicine and Practice also abbreviated HOMe. And he's using a very holistic approach to treat human biology that probably goes beyond what you might be aware of already when it comes to functional medicine. Meaning, he is using a mash-up of everything from computational what's called neuroethology and biomathematical modeling of nervous systems. He uses metabolomics, epigenetics, bioenergetics, does a lot with the gut microbiota something called exposomics. If you don’t know one of these terms are, you will by the end of today's podcast, and also delves quite a bit into chronobiology and evolutionary medicine.

He kind of bounces back and forth between Manila, Philippines and Washington, DC. He's the scientific adviser and medical adviser to a host of different companies, investment funds, does a lot in medical informatics and artificial intelligence. He wrote one of the first-ever books kind of outlining neural circuitry database for living organisms and so, he's very, very good at piecing apart the kind of the computeresque function of the human body and also the fact that we're a living breathing bag mashup of flesh and blood and tissue. So, if you have not yet read any of what this guy is written and you've not yet visited his website, you need to. I'm going to put a link to everything that he does and everything that he has done, including books that he has written in his website if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/DrTed, as in D-R-Ted. BenGreenfieldFitness.com/DrTed. So, Dr. Ted, welcome to the show, man.

Ted:  Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful introduction.

Ben:  You're welcome. Can you fill us why your tongue is blue?

Ted:  Yes. A couple of years ago, my lifelong interest has been on nootropics. And a couple of years ago, I was fast with can there be a short-term nootropic that you can take to rev up your brain for a few hours? So, I got into thinking and that took a lot of research. And at the time, the study on the effect of short-term memory–on short-term memory of methylene blue came out, but it was a very high dose like a hundred milligrams in humans and it was very effective. And then, I took a look at nicotine and I took a look at CBD and I said, “Well, why can’t I produce a troche where you can–the initial design was a gum. And I said, “Why can't I produce a troche to this?”

Ben:  And for people who don't know what a troche is, can you mention what that is?

Ted:  A troche is actually–it's kind of like a sublingual, but it's more like a buccal. You insert it between your upper and your gum.

Ben:  Like a tobacco snus almost.

Ted:  Yes, yes. And you don't want the saliva actually to get in it because you wanted to get it directly in your bloodstream and the brain, right? So, you don't swallow. And turns out, we were giving samples of this in California recently and there was a VC who actually took it and she said, “Oh, my God, the taste of this is really awful. Is that, I'm never going to recommend this for investment.” And I'm not looking for investment, right? And then, the next day, the person who gave her the troche said, “I thought you didn't like it. Why are you using it?” He said, “This thing tastes like hell, but it's sure fucking works.”  So.

Ben:  Methylene blue is very amazing. I mean, well, it's a pretty potent antioxidant. I think the one thing, and correct me if I'm wrong here, is in higher doses, it can kind of act as a pro-oxidant so you can't use it too much. But for like–well, about how long does the nootropic effect stick with you? ‘Because I've found that it gives you several hours it seems.

Ted:  Yeah. This combination, you could explain your–you can expect your brain to rev up for about two to three hours, and then you will have a calm down.

Ben:  How much nicotine and CBD are you mixing with it?

Ted:  Nicotine is only one milligram because I'm highly sensitive to nicotine and I said, “I'm not going to put two milligrams in.” Just one milligram and you can divide it into four. So, you could actually take 0.25 milligrams of nicotine. So, it's not that bad.

Ben:  And how much CBD?

Ted:  CDB is about five milligrams.

Ben:  Okay. Yeah. So, nice microdose.

Ted:  Yeah. It rounds out the edge that's produced by nicotine. You know what? Nicotine can actually rev up your brain quite sharply.

Ben:  And it gives a lot of people kind of the jitters. That's a very cool stock. I've never put those three compounds together before, but I'll have to note that and try that out because I have access to all three up in my pantry. So–

Ted:  Yeah.

Ben: –I'll give that a go. Now, the other thing that I think is quite interesting is that I've seen rumors on the Internet is that you have a very high IQ. That you may be one of the most intelligent physicians around, and I certainly my research for today's interview, listened to some other interviews with you and read some of your work and you do seem to function pretty well cognitively, but is that true? Have you ever had your IQ tested?

Ted:  It used to be monitored by the US intelligence. I won't tell you anymore what they are. People are familiar with them. Because I was measured many years ago as–when there were four billion people on the planet, I was one in a billion, so there were four of us. Now, there's eight billion, so I know only of the fifth who was added, and so there is probably going to be eight of us. Who knows? I probably don't make it to the list anymore.

Ben:  Were you using your methylene blue though when you took the test?

Ted:  No. No. That was raw.

Ben:  So, there are so many things I want to talk to you about and in so many areas that you delve into in your clinical practice, but I think probably the best place to start would be, you have this abbreviation called HOMe, Health Optimization Medicine, and also this abbreviation called HOPe, Health Optimization Practice, can you kind of delve into what those are and the back story of how you came up with that clinical practice term?

Ted:  Sure. Health Optimization Medicine or HOMe is intended for physicians, right? Health Optimization Practice is intended for healthcare practitioners. And the reason why I develop those two programs is that there will be more HOPe practitioners than there will be HOMe. And what I'd like to do is to include the whole framework of health management in a disease management practice.

So, 10 years ago now, can you imagine? I just finished a two-year training. I retrained in Paris. I got board-certified in anti-aging medicinal medicine over there. At that time, the US was lagging behind in nutritional medicine, so I decided to train–retrain myself in Europe. I was an interventional neuroradiologist at that time, where I used to say that I poke brain for a living. But when I came back, all of these sciences were coming in, right? Epigenetics, bioenergetics, exposomics, microbiota, chronobiology, evolutionary medicine and I said, “Well, this have increasing impact on my clinical practice.” So, I said, “How do we include this?” First, it was just for my own personal practice, and then I was able to actually clarify the framework enough that many physicians became curious how was I incorporating all of these new sciences that were never taught in medical schools into my own practice. And at that time, I also saw that a science called clinical metabolomics was already mature. It was moving away from the research and already encroaching into clinical practice.

Ben:  Metabolomics being simply studying the metabolites that would be produced during different chemical processes in the body.

Ted:  Yeah. And those metabolites are now detectable, right? When I was in medical school, we could not detect any of those metabolites. The other thing that–

Ben:  And, sorry to interrupt. When you say metabolites, you're talking about what you might see like on say like an organic amino acids test? Like purines and inorganic acids–

Ted:  Yes. Yes.

Ben: –and free fatty acids or lipid mediators, etcetera.

Ted:  Mitochondrial metabolites, microbiota metabolites, toxins in there. So, all of these can be measured in blood and urine, for example, and mostly urine.

And the other thing that I was looking at, Ben, in a very serious mode was that we are actually very good at treating diseases. That diagnosing and treating diseases at the organ level, right? And they have their specialized cells. But now the technology has moved forward, it allows us to take a look at what's going on at the basic cell or the fundamental cell. You know that one that has a nucleus mitochondria, microtubules, cell membranes, etcetera and I ask myself, “Who's taking care of that basic cell?” And the truth is, no one is. And the reason for that is that we did not have diagnostics at that time, right?

So, you could do a liver function test, for example, or you could do a fasting blood sugar test, and all of this is like a patient comes to you, then the patient already has a flat tire or the engine has already overheated, right?

Ben:  Right.

Ted:  And you go do a diagnostic, “Okay, what's causing the flat tire?” You can replace the tire entirely like in an organ transplantation, right? Or you can determine what's causing the overheating of the engine. Like for example, you have hyperthyroidism and you decide to lop off part of the thyroid. However, as physicians, we were never taught how to maintain the health of body. We’re just always fixing flat fires and overheated engines, but we actually were not taught how to do car maintenance.

Ben:  Right. Preventive medicine.

Ted:  And the reason for that is that we don't have–yes, preventive medicine. We don’t have the proper dashboard for it. I called it the car dashboard analogy. When in the Model T, the dashboard was simply an ampere meter to show the number of amperes that you had for your battery and it had no key. That was the Model T dashboard, but now we have the modern dashboard that can detect, for example, your tire pressure, right? And can detect your engine temperature even before they overheat, and that's a dashboard that we have for Health Optimization Medicine, right?

And it’s because of the development of the science and technology that were able to peer inside the cells that we’re now able to do this and did not want any resistance from illness medicine, right? I want this to be part of the spectrum. Here is how you do the health maintenance of the patient or I call them clients because they're not sick, right?

Ben:  Right.

Ted:  And here's how you do disease management for the patient. So, when a patient now comes, I generally maintain their illness medicine doctors, right? You had retained your own cardiologist, your own endocrinologist and so on. All I do is I know what your diseases are, I take a look at the drugs that you take, I set it aside and I only take a look at the basic health of your fundamental cell, right? And we're right there at the bottom. It sees the basic cell underlies all of the specialized cells in the body, right? The muscle cells or the myocytes have their own mitochondria, they have their own nuclei microtubules, etcetera. They are specialized cells, but in the basic sense, there is a fundamental cell there that no one takes care off.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  And that's how I was able to do the integration into Health Optimization Medicine.

Ben:  Okay. So, from a practical standpoint, what does this look like? Are you saying that when a patient comes in, you're actually tracking all the different metabolites that the cells are producing and then micro adjusting those or are you giving the patient some kind of a program to adjust those themselves? Or how does it actually work from a practical standpoint?

Ted:  It’s actually very simple. Number one, you measure the metabolites of the entire network.

Ben:  And is that a blood test or urine test or?

Ted:  Urine test usually, but usually, it's combined with a blood test so you can determine also the plasma amino acids. Because proteins, generally even protein hormones–I was listening to your peptide podcast last weekend and they are determined only by blood. You cannot really do them now via urine.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  The steroid hormones or lipid-based metabolites, you can detect via urine.

Ben:  So, this sounds similar to like the ION Profile with 40 amino acids that you'd get here in the US like by Genova Diagnostics with blood test–

Ted:  Yes, skin test. In fact, I use–

Ben:  With a urine test.

Ted:  Yeah. In fact, I use Genova Diagnostics quite a bit for their NutrEval, which is urine and then the plasma amino acids, and I also get their food allergies–food sensitivity testing and their sub testing.

But the process is really very simple. You get those tests. You take a look at the metabolites that are there. You move the metabolites. This is what I call network-wide range shifting, right? You move the metabolites to the ranges when you were between 21 and 30 years old because that's considered the golden period for you, right?

Ben:  Between which age range did you just say?

Ted:  21 and 30.

Ben:  So, in both men and women, you're looking to optimize the reference range for the labs that they're getting hormones, everything for what you'd see between a 21 and a 30-year-old.

Ted:  And 30-year-old, yes.

Ben:  Interesting.

Ted:  And yeah, there are three sorts of like optimization ranges. The first one is given by Thierry Hertoghe. He was a pioneer in hormone balancing and he used 25 plus minus two standard deviations. And then, there is United States, of course, Mark Gordon, said it's the median between 20 and 30 years olds. And then, of course, Achacoso. What is I say have to say? I say it's the 50th to 75th percentile of the values between 21 and 30 years old.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  So, yeah. So, these are the ranges that we use. Right now, since we're still establishing the 50th to 75th percentile, I'm generally using the 25 plus minus–the age 25 mean, plus minus two standard deviations. And that's the way–but you cannot move just a single like, for example, testosterone alone or estrogen alone. That's where we got stopped. Like 30 years ago, we gave estrogen alone and suddenly, we got breast cancers, right?

Ben:  Yeah. And just a second. Before you delve into that, that NutrEval test that you talked about, I know that testing is like urine amino acids, and all your omega fatty acids, and a lot of your oxidative stress markers like glutathione and coenzyme Q10 etcetera along with metals and minerals. But from what I understand, that one doesn't test hormones. You're doing a separate test for hormones and–

Ted:  I do a separate test, I send it to a separate lab.

Ben:  Do you like a urine test for hormones?

Ted:  I generally don't do urine test for hormones except if they do a 24-hour collection.

Ben:  Okay. Like a DUTCH test, for example.

Ted:  Yeah. A 24-hour collection would be actually a good measure, right? I generally use the blood for the hormones themselves. Ideally, you use the blood for hormones for the initial testing and then you follow up with urine because then you could see what the utilization of the hormone is, right?

Ben:  Right. Okay.

Ted:  So, if you start giving hormones to your patients.

Ben:  Okay. Got it. So, you were saying about hormones, you can't just look at hormones?

Ted:  Yes, you can’t just–you can just give testosterone or you can just give estrogen because they're all in a network, right? For example, if I give you the steroidogenesis or the pathway for the production of steroid-based hormones like your sex hormones, they come from cholesterol and they’d become pregnenolone, and then you produce a progesterone, you produce cortisol, you produce aldosterone from DHEA, and then you have testosterone and then estradiol.

So, if you just move any one of them. Like for example, you increase the pregnenolone, increase the DHEA, you are already going to cause a corresponding rise into testosterone.

Ben:  Mm-hmm.

Ted:  So, you cannot just–if you, however, increase testosterone just like that, it will cause a negative feedback to the brain and say, “Well, I'm not going to give you luteinizing hormone anymore because you have enough testosterone in your body, and that's the bodybuilder–their post-psychotherapy because that whole axis is suppressed. So, we have to consider the entire network when you're doing, especially hormone balancing.

And also, in nutrient balancing, you have to move everything. For example, an example of a network that I'm very conscious of in nutrient balancing is, for example, the anti-oxygen regeneration pathway, right? For example, there's a vitamin E that actually has to be regenerated by vitamin C, and then by alpha lipoic acid, and by Co Q10. So, you cannot just increase vitamin E willy-nilly without increasing the rest of the items in the anti-oxygen regeneration pathway because they will affect each other.

And a big example of this is there's a study done many years ago. It was an 80,000-subject study on prostate cancer and the effect of vitamin E and selenium, and it failed. Well, of course, if you shove vitamin E there without increasing the corresponding elements in the regeneration pathway, you're just creating a pool of oxidant, you know?

Ben:  Yeah.

Ted:  Yeah. This is called–you can cause an oxidation by pulling in a lot of oxidants in there that cannot move to the next antioxidant.

Ben:  Right.

Ted:  So, that's what I mean by network-wide range shifting. You cannot just shift one. It’s either you shift everything, everything else right–

Ben:  Yeah. That we even had a podcast about that last week about when you use high amounts of alpha-tocopherol from vitamin E in the absence of the natural tocotrienols that you'd find in it that you can actually create almost like a pro-oxidant effect. So, yeah, it's very interesting once you start to isolate compounds and treat with single compounds. When you're looking at a blood test or urine test, that's usually a very myopic way to approach things. But it's also very complex. And I know you have a background in artificial intelligence, for example, in the use of computational theories on this. Or are you incorporating any of that in your practice in kind of using AI engines or anything like that to assist this process?

Ted:  No, just the network perspective. The AI perspective would probably come next to develop an automatic reading of these things that are more appropriate for clients and experience that I've had, but the key parts of the network perspective are the same. There are major nodes in a network and there will be minor nodes, such as there are Googles, Amazons on the internet, right? And you should be careful of those because when you take out one of those, the rest of the nodes are going to shift drastically.

So, just using a network perspective in this particular way of detection and correction of imbalances. See? Illness, medicine, diagnosis and treats disease. Health Optimization Medicine simply detects and corrects imbalances. The correction, we're doing now at the level of the metabolome, but it's a framework. So, if you can prove that biophysics, you have markers for biophysics, then we down to that level of biophysics, right? If the level of quantum biophysics come in, then we go down to that level. It's just a matter of bridging the gap between the organ among the organ and then the specialized cell, the basic cell, and now, you could go to the metabolome and biophysics, etcetera. So, it has become a clinical framework really to be able to include all of these new developments in the new sciences that effect Clinical practice.

Ben:  Now, with this idea of AI though, what was that that you did do? Because you wrote this book about, I think you called it a connectome for an organism, and I didn't quite understand what that meant. What was that book about?

Ted:  No. Actually, I was looking–I was one of the crazy ones where when I entered into the lab here in medical informatics lab, my mentor, who started the entire–who pioneered the entire field of medical informatics globally, asked me two questions. He said, “Is consciousness computable?” I said, “Yes,” and then he said, “Is beauty computable?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “In this lab, you only get to choose one question.” I should have chosen beauty, Ben. I could have made lots of money with that one, but I chose consciousness. And with that, I actually took catalog all the synapses that were [00:28:53] ______ by a worm called Caenorhabditis elegans or C. elegans, which is the workhouse now of anti-aging, right? They use it to turn off anti-aging genes and so on.

And I built the entire catalog so that you're able to manipulate all the synopsis and to see what the networks are doing, right? And the guy, of course, who started the electron micrograph to Sydney Brenner, he won his Nobel. I sent him my book and all I got was an index card that said, “Thank you so much for all of your hard work.” But interestingly, Ben, that book was actually panned by the gods at M.I.T. more like, what is this guy who’s a physician, what does he know about biomathematics and computing? 10 years later, they issued an apology saying that my assertions in that book were correct, but I was no longer in the field, right?

And then, recently, I saw that they were reading this book again. So, many people were reading this book again, so I called up a researcher. I said, “What's the attraction? Why are you reading this book again?” “Oh, don't you know, Dr. Ted, you built the first connectome.” So, now there's a name for it. I called it neural circuitry database before, but now it's called all the connectome, and now people are reading it because what used to be called connectionist network is now called deep learning. So, it's all on the label in the marketing now, Ben.

When I was doing the work, it was called connection assistance. Right now, it's being called deep learning.

Ben:  That’s interesting.

Ted:  Yeah. And that's my relationship with networks, so I'm very network conscious. I was one of those who gave a plenary speech in ‘92 and I said, “One of the things that you have to be careful about in networks like the Internet is network stability,” right? And my example there is if I fart in California, no one ever has to find out whether or not I farted here in Washington, DC because it's irrelevant information, right? And you could see how the Internet rapidly destabilized, right, with all of this information that's around that's not verified and so on. And so, this is what I'm sensitive to. Even in the tests of the metabolites etcetera, like, what is the clinical significance of this metabolite?

And for those of you who don't know, your listeners who don't know, there's actually a human metabolome database. I know all of you are familiar with human genome database because it's more popularized, but that's one of my really big beefs is that we have become too DNA-centric. DNA only can tell you what's the possibility that can happen, right? But when you're at the level of metabolome, you're actually seeing what's happening based on the physiological and environmental influences. You could see the influence of toxins, you could see the influence of lack of sleep, you could see the influence of poor eating and so on, so it's more clinically relevant to say something to your client or to your patient about it rather than looking at the genes.

Interestingly enough, for example, I had patients or clients who came to me and said, “Dr. Ted, we want to get tested for the Alzheimer's gene because three of our aunts have Alzheimer's.” And sure enough, these are sisters. They both had the alleles for the Alzheimer’s gene. And interestingly enough, the recommendation of the company–this was a company out of Luxembourg, I have already been giving those supplements to them three years earlier, right? So, this is quite an interesting validation of what the whole Health Optimization Medicine practice can do.

Ben:  Oh. Well, hello. I want to interrupt today's show to tell you about Four Sigmatic. You're no doubt familiar with these wonderful mushroom extracts that come in these handy dandy packets that you can drop into a cup of coffee, cup of tea, hot water. If you’re like me, before I take a nap, you can just dump them straight into your mouth. I do that with their reishi mushroom. There's one thing that helps me to fall asleep for an afternoon nap and not wake up groggy. It's the adaptogenic mushroom reishi, which has been studied and shown to decrease sleep latency and activate a better sleep architecture, and this is a mega dose. This is 1,500 milligrams of a high-potency reishi mushroom extract for every single serving. You can sip it before bed, you can double dose on a stressful day. It also has things that help your immune system in it, like rose hips and Tulsi, and they even throw a little bit of mint in there for your gut. This stuff is fantastic. I've always got some in my bag.

Reishi. Reishi. It's the Four Sigmatic reishi elixir, and Four Sigmatic has given 15% off anything from their website. Their coffees, their chaga, their reishi. You name it. You just go to FourSigmatic.com/BenGreenfield. That's F-O-U-Rsigmatic.com/BenGreenfield, and you're 15% discount code is BENGREENFIELD over FourSigmatic/BenGreenfield. I feel like I'm saying my name over and over again, but that's the nature of the podcast. I'm not narcissistic. These are just the discount codes.

This podcast is also brought to you by these wonderful, wonderful shorts. They're unbreakable. I wear them to the beach all the time. I wear them on my house. I wear them to do kettlebell swings. They are made of this proprietary two-ply nylon fabric. It's one of the most durable fabrics out there. They fit your body amazingly. And this company will even do custom cuts to suit every body type and usage if you want a custom pair of shorts or a custom design jacket, boardshorts. You name it. They're called Birdwell Beach Britches. Birdwell Beach Britches.

They were inspired by the sails off the coast of California. They've been making them down there since 1961 for surfers. Now, they're making these things available to the entire general public. Outside magazine, dubbed these things the 501s of the beach. They just look amazing, plus because they're unbreakable, they come with a lifetime guarantee. Anything goes wrong, send them back. They'll repair them or just send you a new pair, very simple. And you get 10% off your first Birdwell Beach Britches purchase with that lifetime guarantee and free shipping for any order over $99. Very simple. You go to Birdwell.com. B-I-R-D-W-E-L-L.com and use discount code BENG at checkout. That’s discount code BENG at Birdwell.com. Pick up your first pair of birdies and see why they've been an American icon since 1961.

You're working in not just this clinical metabolomics, but like I mentioned in the intro, you kind of have like seven pillars that you use.

Ted:  Yes.

Ben:  In addition to those, your other six are epigenetics, microbiota, mitochondria, exposomics, chronobiology, and evolutionary medicine. I'd love to briefly touch on each of those. I know you also want to get into like some practical aspects because you have some very cool kind of biohacks you do yourself that go beyond just turning your mouth blue, but can you kind of give the overview of each of these other pillars of your practice? I think it’d be very interesting for folks.

Ted:  Sure. The main pillar, of course, is clinical metabolomics just because that's where you do the detection and correction, right? So, when you do detection, for example, of the metabolites and you use the labs like Genova and other laboratories out there that can perform metabolomics testing, in fact, Ben, I pushed for the–there are less than 10 of the comprehensive commercial laboratories worldwide, and I pushed for the building of one in Southeast Asia. It already did a soft open last June of last year, but that's the main pillar. And if you want to do therapeutic metabolomics, then if you could see, for example, you're deficient in the following cofactors like B6, 9, 12 and so on, it actually comes with the recommendation of how much to give the patient or the client. So, that's the core of the–so that's one of seven, and then if you go to, for example, epigenetics. Epigenetics is a really wonderful and interesting science that has come to encourage in clinical practice, and it’s simply defined genes are not your destiny, right? And there are you're able to change genetic expression without changing the gene sequence themselves. In other words, you can change the way by which your genes are getting read.

And how do you do this? There is an epigenome. Meaning, your DNA is actually wrapped around proteins called histones, right? And depending on particular substances, like for example, chelators, they can actually turn on and off certain genes for you without actually affecting the gene sequence itself, right? Or for example, the famous case is Angelina Jolie, right? She found out that she had a breast cancer gene and she had her breasts lopped off. And actually, that can be resolved. With epigenetics, it changed shut off certain cancer genes, etcetera. And what's interesting, Ben, is that it is heritable. You can inherit this. So, if you live a healthy lifestyle before you even get pregnant, all of those cancer genes that you shut off, your child will actually inherit them. So, it's a different mechanism of inheritance altogether. So, that's epigenetics.

And many of the foods that we eat are actually epigenetically influencers. The resveratrol, for example, or garlic or even sulforaphanes from broccoli, these are called histone acetylators. They shut off certain cancer genes and they turn on certain protective genes, right? Whereas, turmeric and so on, these are methylators. So, we can influence the genes and their expression not by a CRISPR technology or anything like that to–

Ben:  Right, you're instead altering the expression. So, in your practice, are you doing–are you basically doing a genome sequencing and then making nutritional recommendations or supplement recommendations for lifestyle adjustments that would diminish the potential expression of genes that might be deleterious?

Ted:  Not yet, Ben. And the reason for that is actually quite simple. Well, it's expensive. The second reason for that is actually that–for example, [00:39:59] ______ myself an example. I have always been low on vitamin B, okay? And what do you do? When you see and your metabolomics says that you’re low in B9, you just give it as a supplement, right? And then, I confirmed this with a genetic test that shows that, well, okay, I'm actually a slow methylator. So, that's a key is that you can do something immediately with metabolomics test for you don't know whether or not the gene is going to get expressed in a genetic test. So, I'm a little bit more reserved about it–

Ben:  Right. But you could take steps one could argue. Like there’re beneficial bacteria that you could take in a probiotic form that would increase expression of folate or folic acid. Like use something with lactobacillus strains and to take a methyltetrahydrofolate, things along those lines.

Ted:  Yes. But as I said, you could also make the deduction from a metabolomics test. I'm not saying don't take it. I took [00:41:03] ______ to verify what my metabolome was saying, and I saw lot of genes were actually suppressed by my current lifestyle. So, that's epigenetics, and then the other pillar is bioenergetics, where we focus on mitochondria. In fact, this is a thing that I got known for.

I was on a plane going to Iceland and this passenger said, “You’re the mitochondria doctor.” Actually, I'm not. But what's important there is that people always forget that we're always in symbiotic relationship with our environment, right? So, we breathe out carbon dioxide and water, the plants take it in, and with sunlight, then gives us oxygen for us to breathe. So, it's a system that's actually very much tied into an environment. We're also yoked to sunlight and so on in terms of our circadian rhythms, but that bioenergetics, we focus on that lack of energy.

If you imagine a city, Ben, that suddenly lost energy or power, what happens, right? It shuts down. Garbage is not collected. You get cancers or Parkinson's. There is no military that can be deployed because there's no energy to power them up, so you get cancer cells. So, energy is actually a fundamental perspective when you're looking at the more or less the bioenergetic anatomy of the person, and that's–you have a hundred quadrillion mitochondria. I mean, and those are basically bacteria that are living inside your cells. You have an average of about 500 of them per cell except for red blood cells higher in the brain and in the liver, one to 2,000 per cell. So, someone ought to take care of them, and we take care of the Health Optimization Medicine, right?

Ben:  Yeah. So, with mitochondria, are you pretty much using something like the Genova NutrEval test to look at–

Ted:  Yes. Yes.

Ben:    –markers of mitochondrial health? And then, I know that you have some tips you want to give us when it comes to photobiomodulation and hydration strategies and things like that, but then, basically, you're prioritizing stuff like that if you see mitochondrial dysfunction or markers that would indicate mitochondrial dysfunction?

Ted:  Yes, I do. You know, Ben, for example, in photobiomodulation, right? We used to think that it was the complex fourth mitochondria that actually absorb the light via chromophore, etcetera, turns out is the wrong wavelength. And just two years ago, it was elucidated that actually red light actually makes the water around the ATP synthase, which is the gear that produces–that uses of the gradient, the proton gradient to produce ATP, right?

Ben:  Right.

Ted:  It makes the water around it runnier so that it can spin faster. And now, we see that we've moved away from a perspective of light actually getting absorbed by mitochondria into actually like getting absorbed by the water and making it runnier. So, these are the kinds of things that since you know this now, then you can prescribe, like for example, infrared light to your clients or to your patients.

Ben:  Right. One of the best things you can do for your mitochondria is wake up, drink a giant mason glass jar. This is what I do, giant mason glass jar of I use hydrogen-rich water that's structured so it's very, very well absorbed. And then, I stand in front of a light panel while I'm working on my emails for about 20 minutes, and it's a great way to charge up ATP synthase at the beginning of the day. I mean, it works fantastically for mitochondria.

Ted:  Yeah, that's one of the hacks. As I said, it's a simple hack. You don't need to take any supplements for it. You just flip on the switch of a light and you're wonderful.

Ben:   Yeah.

Ted:  But you have to be mindful of your water intake. As you said, drink hydrogen-rich water. I have a remineralized reverse osmosis water that is actually vortexed into structured water.

Ben:  Mm-hmm, yeah.

Ted:  So, another hack that you can do is say you could use your infrared light. You actually put your water on top of that infrared light for about 20 minutes and you actually have a structured water.

Ben:  It does. The only reason I don't do that is because now that I drink hydrogen-rich water in the mornings, [00:45:33] _______ that hydrogen gas] will kind of diffuse out of the water after about 10 minutes, and so I drink it pretty soon after I pour it. But, yeah, if you wanted to and you were listening in, yeah, you can take a little pinch of sea salt and put that in a glass jar. And if you have one of these light panels or even the sunlight, put it out there and either go out and do some nude sunbathing in the morning or else use one of these light panels right after you've had a whole bunch of that water, and it's an amazing way to support your mitochondria.

So, you've got clinical metabolomics, you've got epigenetics, you've got the mitochondria. Those are three of the pillars.

Ted:  Yeah. By energetics, yeah. Then we have microbiota. You have the microbiota or what I call the gut immune system.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  The biggest change from my time in medical school to now, Ben, is really that we were taught before it's the bone marrow. Right now, we know it's the gut that's the largest immune system in the body and it's the microbiota–78% of your bacteria are actually in your gut, and they teach your immune system what's foreign, not foreign and so on.

And that's why you see in patients, for example, who are born by cesarean section because they didn't have the proper inoculation with the vaginal organisms. By spontaneous vaginal delivery, they are prone more to allergies and other immune diseases because there’s improper activation of the immune system. Now, this information was not available to us before. It's only available to us now, right? What they more enlightened OB-GYNs are doing now is that if they're doing spontaneous vaginal–they’re doing cesarean section, they put in a gauze in the vagina and then they deliver the baby by cesarean. And then, as the head is coming out, they rub the gauze in the face.

Ben:  Oh, really? Interesting.

Ted:  So, yeah. Hopefully, to do that in a proper inoculation.

Ben:  Yeah. I wished I'd known about that. When Jessica had a C-section, we wound up doing a lot of breastfeeding, of course, and the kids spent a lot of time outdoors in the dirt because we were digging up the whole backyard. Getting rid of all the grass and planting a garden when they were born. So, they got a pretty healthy biome exposure, but that's a very good idea. Are you doing much in the way of–there are a lot of companies like longevity and in viome, popping up now doing these whole microbiome sequences? Are you getting into that at all?

Ted:  I used to Genova's GI Effect.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  Because it's a lot more practical for me to take a look at it. They already have a good summary. If you have an inflammation, if you have a–there are standard markers now that are being recognized by illness medicine. Like for example, calprotectin is a marker for intestinal bowel disease. You could take a look at the immune status very, very quickly. You could take a look at pathogenic organisms. And you could see the–

Ben:  I like that one because it's not a genome analysis, it just gives you direct measurements of your fecal secretory IgA and pancreatic enzymes, etcetera. It's less data, but it gives you, from an immediate clinical standpoint, a whole bunch of actionable information.

Ted:  See, when I developed that home framework, Ben, this was on my mind. So, a patient is sitting or a client is sitting in front of you, what the fuck do you do, right?

Ben:  Mm-hmm.

Ted:  I am not going to get into the didactics of everything else, I'm just going to take a look at what your basic cell is doing and what do we do about it, right?

Ben:  Yeah.

Ted:  So, they do have–so you can balance those, and what's nice about this is they do have the genetic sequencing. Now, you could get the expanded list and you could see it, but what they have in there too is your sensitivity to natural antibiotics. Like for example for berberine or oregano oil or uva ursi and stuff like that, and you could give those as an alternative for your patients taking–

Ben:  Right. It tells you which parasites or yeast or fungus you have are sensitive to which specific herbal compounds, which can be very useful if you know that that oil of oregano that you're taking is ineffective, but uva ursi would be even–it definitely helps you not waste your time or your money, so I do like that test. Now, what about exposomics? What are exposomics?

Ted:  Exposomics is the sum total of your exposure to your own lifestyle and to the environment, and includes even your exposure when you were in utero. Meaning, when you were still being gestated, right? Or while your mother was in pregnancy with you. So, it includes like your alcohol exposure. Like fetal alcohol syndrome, for example, for mothers who drink, right? And then, when you get older, your exposure to your tobacco, your lifestyle, if you run–Ben, I used to run six-minute miles and my hsCRP was through the roof at the time, my body was so inflamed. But the thing about exposomics is that it shows how your environment interacts with your genome to produce something called a phenome. Not I didn't say phenotype, right? It's called a phenome.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  So, this will include now your toxins. And that's why I like the–a Genova for this is that it includes, for example, your exposure to gas fumes. Like, for example, if you sit in traffic all the time. In Manila, we sit in traffic all the time. I'm there 30 days every quarter, and you should come, Ben. But you don't want to sit in traffic for–my clinic is like 0.6 miles from my hotel and it takes me 45 minutes. So, it will show–

Ben:  Yeah. Well, I want to come down there sometime. One of my key employees works in the Philippines based out in Manila, so I do plan on coming down at some point. But you actually test the exposomics using that same NutrEval test we’re talking about earlier for lead and mercury and arsenic, etcetera.

Ted:  Yes. Mercury, yes. And the nice thing about that is that the–for example, when they test for mercury, they don't test your serum. They open up your blood cells and see how much mercury is in there. And I remember this when I was taking my board exams in Paris. I was asked, “So, what is this magnesium? What do you do with it?” It was intracellular magnesium, right? And they asked me question, which was I assumed was rhetorical. He said, “Why do you, Americans, like testing for serum magnesium? It doesn't mean anything.” And that stopped me. It's like, yeah. Actually, it's just a means of mechanism of transport if we get serum magnesium, right? But if you take it from a cell, then you actually see how much of magnesium is getting–

Ben:  Right. [00:52:36] ______ buccal, like a mouth swab can give you this idea. Yeah.

Ted:  Yeah.

Ben:  The interesting thing about the exposomics though is that that ties back into the epigenetics. Like if you look at like tobacco smoke, for example. You smoke, you change your methylation of a few different genes, and that actually can permanently affect genetic expression in your offspring and effect their methylation capability. So, that's some pretty important stuff to actually be looking at yeah.

Ted:  Yeah. In fact, there's a wonderful slide. The images out there on the internet, where there's a mother who's smoking, and then she's passing on her genes and her epigenetics to her daughter and her daughter's daughter because their reproductive cells of the daughter’s daughter will have it. So, you're affecting three generations. There's the grandmother, the mother, and the grandchild will from the smoking grandmother actually shows the effect of epigenetics. It's actually pretty cool.

Ben:  When you're looking at exposomics, are you incorporating any specific tactics that clear up toxins like a detoxification protocol that would involve certain supplements or medications or techniques?

Ted:  Yes. I actually do–in terms of detoxification, Ben, my focus right after giving you your supplementation, right? I gave you a targeted supplementation. If you don't need vitamin A, we don't give you that. If you don't need C, etcetera. In fact, I have custom packets here. It is morning, noon, and night. And patients would say, “Hey, Dr. Ted, I promise I'll eat properly, etcetera,” but from experience, Ben, you know that they never do. You take your supplements, right? So, after that, the main focus that I do is actually focus on the gut and do a gut cleanup, and I have a gut cleanup protocol because you eat every day.

So, I give them particular ways of actually how to eat and timing of the eating and so on and so forth, and the quality of food that you eat to minimize toxins. And then, give them, of course, lifestyle advice. Like for example, you go to fresh air environment. If your methyl tert-butyl ether is high, you could check out whether or not they are getting takeout food from plastic containers or from styrene containers. Because you could see the metabolite, they're rising also. When you're on the go and people are still using Styrofoam cups and stuff like that, they ingest that. So, you could already give lifestyle advice just from looking at those toxins that are in there.

And interestingly, Ben, one of the most neglected toxins out there is light. Phototoxicity. I know that people are aware that blue light will fuck up your sleep and so on, but in my room, essentially when you wake up, you essentially program your lights to emit more increasing blue lights until the middle of the day, and then more increasing in the red frequency as the sun sets.

Ben:  Yeah, I kind of do that. I use some blue light in my office, but because it can be a little harsh to the retina with the flicker, etcetera, I combine it with red light. So, if you can use like a red incandescent bulb and then also have like one of this blue-light producing devices so you get–basically, you're just trying to match the full spectrum of sunlight as much as possible. Obviously, getting on the sun is the very, very best thing in the morning, but you're right. A lot of people think blue light bad always, but it's really at night that it's bad, and getting it during the day, especially along with these other infrared spectrums is actually quite good for your circadian rhythms.

Ted:  Yes, and I'd like to emphasize this again. We only think that lifestyle factors are in what we eat and what we drink and so on. We don't consider environmental modification as part of that. We have created an environment that's no longer suited to our make and model. Our avatar, our meet avatar is of a different make and model from the world that we have created. We are Paleo people. We’re hunter-gatherers, then we created this extremely modern world. So, there's an impedance mismatch between the world that we've created and what our bodies are actually suited for.

And in Health Optimization Medicine, you would like to match what your body is suited for, but hey, we're intelligent beings. We have the proper technology to do it or at least the beginnings of. Why don't we modify our environment to suit that of the make and model of the human body, right?

Ben:  Yeah.

Ted:  So, you can modify the lighting system in your house, you could change your drinking water, you could have an air filter to clean up the air in your house with a proper humidifying setting.

Ben:  Yeah. And even noise pollution is, of course, a big issue as well. That's another one to pay attention to. And I think a lot of people don't view those type of things as toxins, but they certainly can add up over time.

Ted:  Ben, you have highly intelligent listeners in a noise pollution and I would just like to challenge one of them to please invent me what I've always wanted. I want an earplug that actually cuts you off at a particular decibel. So, far, I haven't found one in the market. You could hear everything up to a particular decibel and then after that, it cuts you off at that decibel.

Ben:  Yeah, there is one. It's called the–I believe it's the focal or the focus or something like that. I'll find it. I actually own some. They were designed for rock concerts to allow you to hear the rock concerts, but then they block out everything else past a certain frequency. They're very expensive ear plugs. They're like a $30 set of earplugs, but they actually work pretty well. I'll see if I can find them and put a link to them in the shownotes if I remember where I got them. They're actually up on my bedside right now, so I could probably go up there and find out and add those to the shownotes. But yeah, that's a good idea. They do make them in the–

Ted:  Because here in DC, when you cross the street, and we have the second-busiest fire station the country and, man, we have pitched sirens here. Unlike in Europe, they use dee-doo-dee-doo that sounds low pitch, right? Here in the United States, we have a very high-pitched sirens and I want them cut off because I end up really plugging my ears with my fingers. But anyway, just for noise pollution.

Ben:  Yeah. Okay. So, I know you get into–I know we've got a lot of stuff to talk about. I want to hit on a few other things. You get into chronobiology and evolutionary medicine as well. Those are like your sixth and seventh pillars, but what I would love to do because I'm sure this stuff will kind of work into that is, I would love to ask you a few specific questions related to a few very interesting things that you do that I'm intrigued with. For example, you have what you describe as kind of like the Rolls-Royce of jet lag hacking, which is, of course, linked to chronobiology. You travel a ton between Manila and Washington, DC and your other travels and conferences. I would love to hear you describe your jet lag protocol.

Ted:  Okay. I rely heavily on hormone balancing, Ben, and that's really the Rolls-Royce of jet lag therapy. So, imagine me coming in from Washington, DC and going to Manila. Right now, there's a 12-hour time difference, right? So, midnight here, I will be having lunch there. And, of course, my gut is asleep and microbiota is also jet-lagged and they would be asleep. So, what I do is I actually work on seven major neuroendocrine nexuses. So, I hacked my melatonin. Of course, my melatonin goes in at nighttime over there, and my growth hormone, I actually inject. I pulse it four times a day because, for men, there's a natural pulsing action of a growth hormone in men. In women, it's more slightly a bleeding tendency. They do have some minor pulses, but in general, they have a more stable level of growth hormone than for men. So, when I get there, Ben, maybe I had to keep patience right away.

So, I even inject in front of my patients. I said, “If you want me to have this kind of performance in front of you and have a clear head in terms of treating you,” I inject in front them, and also to remove their fear of injecting, right? So, one patient said, “Dr. Ted, it's just an injection. It's not surgery.” And then, I actually use–my thyroid hormone goes in the morning. Because when you wake up, your thyroid hormone level rises, right? It wraps up your body, and your skin is actually supposed to be hit by sunlight. And what many people don't know, Ben, is that when we were in medical school, we were taught that ACTH or the adrenocorticotropic hormone should induce you to produce cortisol was only produced in the brain.

It was just as recently as five years ago when they found out that melanocytes in the skin actually have proopiomelanocortin, which can actually produce ACTH and induce you to produce cortisol. So, sunlight is supposed to hit your skin in the morning and he will wake you up. So, your thyroid hormone or your cortisol levels actually rise almost instantaneously, right? So, you time it at the time that you actually want to wake up. So, I have four doses of decreasing cortisol, and I only do this for about five days.

Ben:  And so, you’re dosing–after a period of heavy jet lag, you're actually dosing with cortisol?

Ted:  Yes, I am dosing with cortisone.

Ben:  And that's an injection?

Ted:  No, no. No. This is a hydrocortisone tablet.

Ben:  Okay. Got you. Those are prescription only I assume?

Ted:  Yeah, tablets. Yes, they are prescription. And then, of course, if it's a day for injecting your testosterone, I inject [01:03:19] _______ testosterone twice a week. Very low dose. It's 50 milligrams subcutaneous. It's just 100 a week, right? It was just elucidated recently that men actually have two curves in a month of their testosterone levels. It's two weeks in duration, whereas, women, it's usually 28 days, right? So, there are actually two peaks in a month for men, and we try to simulate that physiologically.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  And that goes in the morning because testosterone will wake you up also. And then, for each meal, you have to make sure that your enzymes are actually supported because your gastrointestinal system is also asleep, right? So, you have to take your gastrointestinal enzymes and also, that's where I take my spore probiotic during those meals. I raise my spore probiotic intake during that time.

Ben:  Yeah. I have a similar protocol. I use the Thorne Bio-gest and then the SEED Probiotic, which has some other antioxidants and some pomegranate seed extract in it, so you get a big release of urolithin A, which is very protective for your mitochondria. And I combine those two plants. I don’t use those all in the home, but when I'm traveling, I'm a huge fan of the gut support. It also helps with the whole kind of traveler’s constipation piece.

Ted:  Yeah. A friend of mine, Kiran Krishnan, who has Microbiome Labs, he has this spore probiotic, which they're testing in the UK and they have tested. They've come back with clinical samples. That's what I use. I think here in the US, it's called a MegaSporeBiotic.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but they also–I think that they also produce it as a thrive probiotic or something like that.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  You have to make sure–one thing that I do, Ben, aside from making sure that I take my enzymes in meals and my probiotics, etcetera is that I have one meal that's relatively constant in the time zones. So, here, I'm in Washington, DC right now and I eat my dinner at around 7:30 p.m. So, if I'm in California or in your neck of the woods, I would be eating around 4:30 p.m.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  And if I'm in Europe, I'll be eating around 10:30 p.m. and in the Philippines, I would be eating around 7:30 a.m. So, there is one anchor meal that anchors me in the different time zones, otherwise, I would really be fucking up my gut microbiota–

Ben:  Yeah, that's something I do too. Like even if I land in like Tokyo and it's 2:00 p.m., I'll wait until 7:00 p.m. for any meal at all, because food is so good [01:06:21] _______ circadian rhythms. And I do a lot of intermittent fasting, but after I've been traveling a lot, I really do prioritize breakfast when I'm at home, because if I can get breakfast in sometime between about 8:00 and 9:30 a.m., it also does a really good job at rebooting my circadian rhythm, so that works well.

Now, what about–I think you had mentioned to me that you're using erythropoietin and some kind of oxygen concentrator. Is that part of the jetlag protocol or is that something different?

Ted:  I actually read aerotoxicity a while back and it's come back in the news where the cabin air in planes, since we both are in airplanes a lot, is actually mixed with engine air, Ben, and I hope you know that. So, you're actually breathing slightly toxic air when you're inside an airplane.

Ben:  I know. It’s like you’re a prisoner.

Ted:  And as I’ve–Yeah. And so, what I do is that I have an oxygen concentrator. You can buy a portable one. If you want to have an oxygen concentrator is that I actually breathe into about 20 minutes three times a day, if I can do that. Otherwise, I do it right before bedtime. I do 40 minutes right before bedtime. Now, the EPO is an experiment of mine because I'm a big fan of micro dosing, right? What if we microdosed hormones and I said, “Well, what are the ones that we lose as we age?” We lose our oxygen-carrying capacity really. And so, I said, “Well, okay, why don't we address a part of that, which is why don't we increase even just very slightly the number of red blood cells that you have so I have more oxygen-carrying capacity by virtue of having more red blood cells?” The standard dose for EPO is around 400,000 IU in a single injection weekly, and I am doing a small injection of 400 IU daily. And I've done this for two years, because one of the things that I do, Ben, is I try everything on myself first before I try it on my patients or clients. So, I know exactly what they're going through, and I've done this with everything. All hormones and all supplements except for estrogen, okay? So.

Ben:  Yeah. And with the EPO with this oxygen concentrator you're using, can you actually buy without a prescription like a portable oxygen concentrator that you could pack into your travel bag?

Ted:  Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ben:  Huh, interesting.

Ted:  They're approved for travel.

Ben:  Huh. Is that the type of thing someone could just like get on Amazon or do you need a prescription or?

Ted:  No, no, no. You can get in Amazon. You could just type in portable oxygen concentrators and outcome the portable ones.

Ben:  That's a very good idea. So, you travel with that. You don't use it on the airplane, but you use it when you've arrived to wherever you're going?

Ted:  Yeah, when arrive–when I'm going or when I'm on a layover, right?

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  Since I carry it in my person or when I'm in a layover.

Ben:  Okay.

Ted:  Which is usually the case, right? There's no straight flight from Washington, DC to Manila.

Ben:  Yeah, it's a very good idea. I never thought of that.

Ted:  Yeah.

Ben:  Okay. So, you microdose with EPO and using an oxygen concentrator, and then you're also using some of these peptides and hormones. You're playing around with light and then with food. Anything else interesting that you do for your circadian biology?

Ted:  For my circadian biology, of course, this is what I call the sleep hygiene, right? I have a saying, which I created 10 years ago. I tell my patients and my clients, “Your day begins at the time that you sleep, it's not at the time that you wake up.” This actually predisposes them to treat their sleep as the first item in their list rather than something that's last and disposable. So, then, it assumes importance to them, right? So, choose a time that you sleep, make sure that you put your phone in a basket outside. That’s my regular advice now, with totally darkened room and so on. And the temperature of the room, etcetera, all of those, of course, are environmental modifications that you can do, and those are well known in order to hack a sleep.

One of the peptides that I use. For example, I have an Oura Ring and I track my deep sleep. If I see that my deep sleep is getting out of whack, then I inject myself for a few days with a deep sleep-inducing peptide, which simply increases your Delta sleep, right?

Ben:  Yeah, the DSIP.

Ted:  Yeah, yeah.

Ben:  Yeah, I talked about that in my podcast with Jean Tremblay Francois, that last peptide podcast. He’s into that too.

Ted:  Yeah, I've been using these peptides, Ben, for about eight years now. It's only getting into the mainstream consciousness right now, but they are in existence.

Ben:  Is that something you can safely use all the time or do you need to be careful with your sleep architecture using something like DSIP all the time?

Ted:  What I do is I take a look at my sleep data. And since I can't put myself to an EEG all the time, I do have an EEG here at my house, but I just rely on my Oura Ring to take a look at how I'm sleeping. And then, if my deep sleep is really going way too low, then I start injecting until it actually comes right back up and then I stop. So, it's more regulated by my data in real time rather than continuously using it.

Ben:  Yeah, interesting. Okay, got it. A couple of the questions I wanted to ask you in the time that we have, food is, of course, very important. I know that you do quite a bit with dietary prescription, dietary tracking in your own diet, what are some of the major takeaways you could give to people in terms of unique things you're doing with your diet or the biggest things you found to be dial movers.

Ted:  Okay. Ben, 10 years ago, I already instructed my patients these things. I said, it's very difficult to change what you eat. And for new clients, it's really, really difficult, right? So, I tell them, “Make me a promise. If you cannot change the way you eat, at least give me a time where you actually eat.” So, I call it an eating window rather than a fasting window because fasting sounds so deprived, right? So, give me an eating window. And before, the studies on mitochondria said that a 12-hour fast is actually sufficient to induce mitochondrial biogenesis. So, I encouraged my patients to do a 12-hour fast, and then I said, “Okay. Why don't you do a carbohydrate fast until noon,” so that's 16 hours, right? “So, that you could mobilize the fat that's in there?”

And there is a study that actually consulted for in Europe where they actually did this, but what I did was I actually incorporated growth hormone injection in the morning. A very small dose of growth hormone injection in the morning before they went on a brisk exercise for 40 minutes, and I’ve increased the lipolysis, especially of the visceral fat. I mean, that study was actually quite well done. And as I like to tell other doctors, “Because a journal isn't written in English doesn't mean that it's not valid,” right? You have to learn how to read your Russian or your French or your Spanish or have them translated anyway.

So, time regulation, which I know you do intermittent fasting, etcetera, but I want everything to be complete within a day because I'm concerned about my client. I don't want my patient to remember, A, is today fasting day or a non-fasting day, right? I want my patient to remember, okay, from this time to this time, I can eat. First, I allow them to eat whatever they want and then they feel so much better, and then they say, “Okay, what else can I do?” So, there's a snowball effect, which is actually great, right?

And then, for those who actually have food sensitivity testing, right? I remove those foods that they are sensitive to right away to decrease their intestinal inflammation and decrease a leaky gut, right? So, for me–

Ben:  How about you personally, how are you eating?

Ted:  I eat in what I call–and this is the first time I'm going to say it out loud, is that I do what I call micronutrient optimized, macro-nutrient targeted eating. So, micronutrient optimized means I get myself tested and see what micronutrients I am deficient in, and I supplement those, right? Because there is no way that I could catch up with that with food because I know what my lifestyle is. Then macro-nutrient targeted diet means that I target my intake of the macros according to my activity of the day. So, if I'm doing weights today, then it's more protein-oriented. If I'm doing–I'm just sitting around doing computer work, then it will be more fat-oriented, right? And if I'm doing a lot of aerobic–carbohydrate-oriented.

And the way I tell this to my clients is actually make your fattiest meal as your first meal so that your lipolysis continues, right? After intermittent fast, make your second meal, which is if you're doing the first meal at noon, your second meal is around 4 o'clock, make it high fiber carbohydrates.

There's a big misconception right now that carbohydrates are bad. No, it's actually not that. The biggest missing–the most rapidly disappearing macronutrient in the human diet, Ben, is actually fiber and fiber is a carbohydrate. So, have a high fiber carbohydrate second meal, and your third meal, which is around 7:30, you can have a proteinaceous diet.

Ben:  Yeah. Unless you have IBS or other inflammatory gut issues, I found that some of the insoluble fiber presents difficulties for quite a few folks. Like a lot of the dark leafies and raw vegetables and things like that.

Ted:  So, you introduce those slowly, right? You introduce those slowly to–and see. But you know, Ben, from experience, even with [01:17:18] ______ sensitivities or after their blood is drawn for sensitivities, I immediately take them off all milk and milk products and all green and green products.

Ben:  Mm-hmm.

Ted:  And for people with arthritis, I notice that even if they don't get tested within six months, the pain has actually diminished significantly. But I don't want to say one of the key things about Health Optimization Medicine is that we have no claims. We simply detect and correct imbalances inside your cell in the metabolome, right?

Any beneficial effect like removal of pain, etcetera, that's the beneficial side effect to us that's why we don't have any quarrel with illness medicine, right? I don't like to quarrel with them. I am saying that we are the health maintenance component, you are the–we are the health management component, you are the disease management component, right? Of a spectrum of health.

Ben:  Are you one of these people that puts a lot of crazy stuff into your morning coffee?

Ted:  Yes, I am. I am. Initially, it was a simple black coffee and then I started putting in–everyone puts in some MCT oil. Now, I put MCT oil powder. MCT oil gives me the runs. Even one-fourth teaspoon will do it to me, but the powder is all right with me. I put powdered cellulose about, a scoop of powdery cellulose, which is an insoluble fiber. It doesn't cause gas or bloating or anything like that.

Ben:  Why do you put that in your coffee?

Ted:  Because the average requirement for fiber is about 34 grams a day, and I would like–I try my best to reach my 34 grams a day so I could poop nicely. With the change in microbiota in travel and everything else, the kindest thing that I could do is actually to provide my body with a scaffolding by which it could–the microbiota would actually something about. And then, I put in a scoop of collagen fiber. I know that you know about that, so yeah.

Ben:  Yeah, that's a cool mix. And by the way, I should tell you something. I don't think I've talked about this on my podcast before, but I found that vagus nerve function and activation of the sympathetic nervous system that occurs, especially during travel and when you're stressed out, seems to have an impact on the ileocecal valve and also, on relaxation during bowel movements. And upon a little bit of research of late, it turns out that acetylcholine and choline precursors help out quite a bit with that particular issue. And if you're stressed out and traveling a lot, like a mega dose of choline seems to help out quite a bit.

And there's even this supplement I recently discovered called Parasym, as in like parasympathetic, and it was developed by somebody who originally relied upon nicotine to kind of almost like induce a bowel movement. They’re using like a nicotine patch over their ileocecal valve, and then they realized that like large doses of acetylcholine could have the same effect. And I tried that out and it was almost like too much. Like I literally just like filled the whole toilet bowl during my last part of travel, but something was working. So, I'm actually, I'm kind of researching right now, but just as an aside, that seems to have quite an effect as well kind of targeting the vagus nerve and some of these acetylcholine receptors.

Ted:  I actually take acetylcholine daily and that's because that's part of my hack for my brain function, right? I'd like to maintain my neurotransmitter levels. My levels of dopamine, for example, I take Mucuna Pruriens about three times a week. To maintain my levels of acetylcholine, I take either Alpha GPC or acetylcholine every day. I take 5-HTP nightly anywhere from 25 to 50 milligrams for the serotonin metabolism. And dopamine gets converted to epinephrine anyway, so that's how I do things.

If you want a medical hack for raising your dopamine and focus levels, you could start using drugs like Selegiline, for example, which will inhibit the degradation of your dopamine.

Ben:  Yeah, like deprenyl.

Ted:  Yeah, deprenyl. You could do that. You know what my favorite hack is, Ben, when I really have to focus and have to finish a lot of stuff, I microdose LSD and I take one-fourth tablet of deprenyl and that puts me in the zone practically the whole day.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. LSD or even P-LSD, which you can get from the Lysergi website. That's pretty powerful stuff. I always have a little bit about my fanny pack if I need to power. I'm very careful because I don't want to imbalance my dopamine and serotonin levels, but about I would say once every three to four weeks or so, I'll use that and it really helps me power through like a creative analytical day. It's very interesting stuff.

You know what? There is so much more that we could dive into, and I really want to encourage people to go to your website. Even if they're a physician practitioner or just a non-physician who's very interested in kind of this idea of preventive medicine and the very unique approach that you have to it, so I'm also going to link to everything we talked about from your methylene blue CBD nicotine stack to some of these tests that you're running to–by the way, I found those earplugs. They're called V-Modas. V-Moda earplugs, and I'll put those in the shownotes as well.

So, if you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/drted, I'll link to Ted's website and everything that he's doing and also, everything that we talked about in the show because this is one of those episodes' kind of a treasure trove of interesting information and you are one interesting cat, Dr. Ted. I want to thank you for coming on the show.

Ted:  Thank you. An old cat, but my telomere age is 32. I'm 57.

Ben:  That's pretty good. Yeah, I'm 37 and I'm at 20, but I would love to be in my 30’s when I'm when in my 40’s, so yeah, it's a good goal to shoot for. So.

Ted:  Well, one of my best patients, who has been with my care for about eight years now, he's 71 and his telomere age is 22, so there's hope yet. Thank you very much, by the way, and I do this all the time in all my lectures. I thank all the podcasters–

Ben:  Oh, thanks.

Ted: –for preparing the minds of all the people–of the listeners to be ready, in fact, for Health Optimization Medicine. I mean, without you, guys, it's very hard to educate the people, so thank you for the work that you do.

Ben:  Awesome. All right, man. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And again, folks, shownotes are BenGreenfieldFitness.com/drted, and until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Ted Achacoso signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

Dr. Ted Achacoso attained a college degree in biology at the age of 18 and a doctor of medicine at the age of 22. He is the founding pioneer of the clinical practice of Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMe/HOPe), which is the detection and correction of imbalances at the level of the metabolome.

He was mentored by Thierry Hertoghe, the founding pioneer of anti-aging medicine and nutritional medicine (Dr. Ted is double board-certified, Paris) as well as William S. Yamamoto, artificial intelligence researcher and the founding pioneer of Medical Informatics. He was also mentored by D. Wayne Silby, the founding pioneer of Socially Responsible Investing and Finance and by three Philippine pioneers in interventional neuroradiology, neurology, and pharmacology/toxicology.

Dr. Ted is based in Washington, DC, maintains a tricontinental HOMe practice (North America, Europe, Asia), and performs HOMe/HOPe lecturing and mentoring to doctors and practitioners. He provides international corporate consulting activities involving nutritional supplement formulation and the establishment of metabolomics, mitochondria, and microbiota laboratories. He strongly suspects that this world is an illusion projected as a hologram by the human biocrystal, and pushes to create deliberately sustainable, happy dreams instead of nightmares.

Dr. Ted has trained, researched, and worked in many different fields:

  • Interventional neuroradiology and pharmacology in Manila;
  • Medical informatics and artificial intelligence in Washington, DC;
  • Scientific advisor to local venture and global institutional investment funds in Bethesda, MD;
  • As Founder and Chief Technology Officer of a group communication and collaboration software company in Rosslyn, VA (He created the first wireless mobile groupware);
  • As a quant trader for an incubator hedge fund in Rehoboth Beach, DE;
  • In Anti-Aging Medicine and Nutritional Medicine in Paris, Brussels, Monte Carlo.

His representative body of work includes a book containing the first-ever neural circuitry database (or the first-ever “connectome”) for an organism (C. elegans), journal articles, US patents, software, grants, and recorded interviews, webcasts, and speaking engagements in the areas of:

  • Artificial ethology, computational neuroethology, biomathematical modeling of nervous systems, and computability of consciousness;
  • Medical informatics, medical decision-making, connectionist systems, and expert systems;
  • Computer-assisted imaging, edge detection algorithms, and telehealth;
  • Virtual group dynamics, communication and collaboration methods including the first wireless groupware systems;
  • Parallel, cluster, cloud, and distributed emergent computing;
  • Predictive complex adaptive system modeling of financial time series.

**Here are a few of my upcoming public appearances:

Click here to see more details about these and other upcoming events!

During our discussion, you'll discover:

-The homemade nootropic Dr. Ted took before the interview with Ben…8:30

-Whether or not Dr. Ted is really the smartest physician alive…11:35

  • He's pretty darn close (1 in a billion)

-What is Health Optimization Medicine (HOMe) and Health Optimization Practice (HOPe)…12:45

  • HOMe is intended for physicians; HOPe is intended for practitioners
  • The goal is for there to be more practitioners than physicians
  • Ted was an interventional neuroradiologist (spoke brains for a living)
  • Retrained in Europe in nutritional medicine in 2009; fields such as epigenetics, microbiota, etc. were becoming popular in the U.S.
  • Metabalomics: Studying the metabolites produced during different chemical processes in the body
  • Technology allows treating actual fundamental cells, versus symptoms at the organ level
  • HOMe represents a more sophisticated “dashboard” to examine the body
  • Our metabolites' “golden years” are between the ages of 21-30
  • Separate test for hormones (ideally blood)
  • Why you can't treat/adjust just hormones
    • They're all in a network
    • Causes imbalance, brain receives and gives improper signals
  • Network perspective vs. artificial intelligence

-Dr. Ted's book about artificial intelligence and “connectomes”…27:55

  • He was made to choose between studying the computability of consciousness and beauty
  • Was banned by the powers that be at M.I.T. (later apologized)
  • Now referred to as “Deep learning” (marketing is king)
  • We're too DNA centric

-The 7 “pillars” of Dr. Ted's practice…35:45

  • Clinical and therapeutic metabalomics: detection and correction
  • Epigenetics: “Genes are not your destiny”
  • Bioenergetics (mitochondria): Symbiotic relationship with our environment
  • Microbiota (gut immune system)
    • 78% of your bacteria are in your gut
    • They teach your immune system what's foreign, what's not
    • People born via c-section are more prone to allergies, immune diseases
    • Some c-sections, gauze is dipped in vagina, then rubbed on the head after birth
  • Exposomics: The sum total of your exposure to your own lifestyle and environment (including in utero)
    • Shows how your environment interacts with your genome to produce phenome (not phenotype)
    • Detox protocols:
      • Targeted supplementation
      • Gut cleanup
      • Phototoxicity (blue light isn't all bad)
    • V-Moda Fader Earplugs
  • Chronobiology
  • Evolutionary medicine

-The “Rolls Royce” for hacking jet lag and tips for optimizing circadian biology…59:50

  • Hormone balancing
  • One “anchor” meal that is constant between time zones
  • Erythropoietin
  • Sleep hygiene:
    • “Your day begins at the time you fall asleep”
    • Treat your sleep as the first item on your list, not the last thing you do in the day
    • Oura ring for sleep tracking (deep sleep inducing peptide)

-Dr. Ted's guidance on diet…1:12:20

  • “Eating window” vs. “fasting window”
  • Complete everything in one day
  • Snowball effect (eat first and feel good, then get to work)
  • Remove sensitive foods right away
  • Ted's personal diet: Micro-nutrient optimized, macro-nutrient targeted
  • Make your fattiest meal your first meal; second meal high fiber and carbs; third meal have protein
  • Ted's morning coffee:

-And much more!

Resources from this episode:

Dr. Ted says regarding his IQ: I range from 186 (bad day) to 210 (good day) in the various tests, but I average 190 on Wechsler (15 Standard Deviations) and I average 196 (16 SD) on Stanford Binet on repeated tests, thus, one in a billion rarity calculation for me for both (see online table here): https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx

With my range of results and an 8 billion population, my range of results still have the target values  (195 for Wechsler and 201 for Stanford Binet) for a 1 in 8 billion rarity, hahaha! As you can see here, Mensa cut-offs for both Wechsler and Stanford Binet tests (as equivalent of the Mensa test, which is percentile-ranked) is 130. So really, not the 200 club as it is erroneously known: https://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores/qualifying-test-scores/

– Health Optimization Medicine website

– The BioBalance Institute

– Dr. Ted's Facebook page

– Ay's Neuroanatomy of C. Elegans for Computation

– Pharmaceutical grade methylene blue

– CBD

– Nicotine

– Ion Profile with 40 Amino Acids by Genova Diagnostics

– DUTCH hormone panel

– GI Effects Comprehensive Profile – 3 Day Stool

– JOOVV Photobiomodulation Panel

– V-Moda Fader Earplugs

– Thorne Biogest + SEED Probiotics

– Portable oxygen concentrator

– Oura ring (code: GREENFIELDOURA)

– The peptides podcast with Jean Francois Tremblay

– MiCacao chocolate and Omica Organic Stevia Ben adds to his coffee

– Parasym Plus

– Mucuna pruriens

– 5-HTP

Episode Sponsors:

Kion: My personal playground for new supplement formulations. Ben Greenfield Fitness listeners receive a 10% discount off your entire order when you use discount code: BGF10.

Four Sigmatic: I’ve been using Four Sigmatic products for a while now and I’m impressed by the efficacies of their mushroom products. I use them. I like them. I support the mission! Receive 15% off your Four Sigmatic purchase when you use discount code: BENGREENFIELD

Birdwell Beach BritchesQuality is our Gimmick isn’t just our slogan, it’s a commitment we honor with every stitch we sew. 100% money back guarantee. Get 10% off your order, PLUS free shipping on any order over $99 when you use discount code: BENG.

 

 

 

 

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *