July 18, 2019

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/lifestyle-podcasts/switzerland-podcast/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:38] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:32] At the Swiss Clinic Healing Retreat

[00:06:25] Increasing mTor By Taking Kion Aminos

[00:10:21] Best Protocols for Eliminating Heavy Metals and Toxins and Measuring Success

[00:18:38] Relief from Exercise-Induced Rhinitis

[00:21:29] Threshold Between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic State

[00:28:12] Latest Science on Carnivore, Ketogenic, Vegan Diets?

[00:35:17] Dangers of Wi-Fi, Cellular, 5G Signals

[00:43:49] Follow on Question on EMF

[00:47:26] Vaping, Particularly CBD

[00:49:35] Viome Results Recently Discussed on The Podcast

[00:53:29] Podcast Sponsors

[00:57:05] Cause of Low Ferritin

[01:00:22] Beginning of The Process of Detoxification from Heavy Metals and Toxins

[01:03:59] MTHFR Gene Mutation

[01:06:40] Ben's Interest in The Realm of Anti-Aging

[01:13:33] Carbon 60

[01:15:57] Should fats be combined with starches?

[01:20:11] How can skinny guys gain muscle mass?

[01:24:53] Massages

[01:28:32] Recovery from Exercise and From Injury

[01:32:28] Airplane Mode on Cellphones

[01:33:25] Raising Strong and Healthy Young Adults

[01:41:23] End of Podcast

Ben:  On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast: Probably, the most interesting thing about that was I tested myself and I was actually an antenna when holding my phone. I feel that the protein-restricted no animal type of cleanse is pretty supportive of the whole detoxification. Of course, the problem is that ever since the Agricultural Revolution, we've been training young people on how to be in roles that, essentially, will in the future be automated by robots.

Hey, I have a unique podcast episode for you today. As many of you know, I've been in Switzerland for the past two weeks, doing everything from colonic hydrotherapy to foot reflexology, dry cupping, something called matrix regeneration therapy, hyperthermia, a bunch of different treatments that I wanted to explore to see what kind of elements of European biological medicine are used over there in the treatment of things like cancer and lime and mold in that process of immersive journalism, so to speak. I also went through my own little liver and colon cleanse, which I felt fantastic following. While there, I managed to get into a room with 26 other attendees who joined me on that retreat and did free-for-all Q&A which I recorded for your listening pleasure today.

Now, if you are interested, by the way, in European biological medicine and doing some retreat or a detox like this yourself, although, I have not personally yet decided if I'm going to be going back to the Swiss Mountain Clinic next year just because of other obligations. It's certainly a place that I will be engaged with on repeated visits, but don't know if I'll be going next year. However, you can go anytime you'd like. My friend, Robin Openshaw, puts on clinics there that are led by physicians. You can just sign up for one. Her website is over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/SwissMountainclinic. If you go over there and you don't see any dates for retreats that she's putting on that worked well for you, you can also just contact the Swiss Mountain clinic directly and they'll book you. Tell them I sent you over for the VIP treatment. Their website is just swissmountainclinic.com.

This podcast is brought to you by something that we actually talked about during the show. That is Kion. Kion is my company. It is a company that I founded as a way to take all the ideas that I have for pure efficacious shotgun formulations of supplements and functional foods, along with content and inspiring challenges like our recent meditation challenge and the fasting challenge that we did. We've done a cold water shower challenge. We also have wonderful content there on the blog, some very, very good content lately about how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Anyways, that's all over at Kion. I'm going to give you a 10% code that you can use on anything over there. Its BGF10. The website is getkion.com. It's BGF10 at getkion.com.

This podcast is also brought to you by Organifi. The last time that I talked about Organifi, I got a text message from their CEO, Drew Canole, telling me that he really appreciated the fact that I did the entire commercial and gave you the discount code for Organifi using an Italian accent. So, to keep Drew happy, because he told me he really enjoyed it, I will once again tell you about the green juice from Organifi. What is a green juice? You take a coconut, a water powder, and a lemon, and all sorts of alkalizing greens, like spirulina and the wheatgrass, and you put it all together. It's like you are eating salads but none of the chopping or the cleanup or the mess. You also don't pay $15 of your hard-earned money to go to the juice store when you get it yourself in your own home. There you have it. That's Organifi. Wonderful, wonderful green juices, red juices, gold juices. They have them all. You get 20% off anything from Organifi. You just go to Organifi. That's Organifi with an “i.” organifi.com/ben. Probably, my favorite thing about the folks at Organifi is they also have waffles. They have waffle Wednesday in their office. I think it's Wednesday. You can't go wrong with that. The code is BENG20. organifi.com/ben. Use code BENG20.

Enjoy today's show. You'll be able to find all of the show notes over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/swissclinic1. That's bengreenfieldfitness.com/swissclinic, the number one.

Welcome to the official Swiss Clinic Healing Retreat out here in the Swiss Alps. For those of you listening in on the show, I have 20-plus odd or so. You're not odd. I mean, 20 odd, the number. Of attendees here at this Swiss Clinic healing retreat. We've all been doing colonic hydrotherapy all day and liver detoxification and all manner of other odd Swiss Alps protocols. If anyone sounds drunk, they're not. They're just well-lubed up the butt side. Possibly, mineral depleted, and full of questions. I know that some of you have questions. For those of you who do, you can just come on up, ask your question. We've got one right here. Come on up. You can say your name if you would like or not. It's up to you.

Robin:  Hi, Ben. It's Robin. I have a question about your Kion Aminos. My question is two parts.

Ben:  Geez. Shameless product plug.

Robin:  Perfect aminos, any one of them. My question is how you use them. If you take them every day, like five or ten, aren't you increasing mTOR by doing that versus just taking them around a workout? That's the one question. Then, if you take them every day, let's say five or ten, and you're keeping track of your protein macronutrients, you only have, say, more than 50, 60 grams of protein and you have 10 amino pills, would that be 10 grams of protein? Two parts.

Ben:  The second part of your question is the easiest to answer because it's very straightforward. One gram of amino acids is one gram of protein. Period. That's simple. If you have 40 grams of amino acids in a day and there's five grams in a serving or one gram in a tablet, that would count towards, say, that 60 gram protein goal that you were going for. As far as the mTOR is concerned, any protein can be mildly anabolic. It can upregulate mTOR pathways. Essential aminos have been shown to do that. Now, I've said this before, but if you are in a fasted state, they are non-insulinogenic. They're not going to spike blood glucose. But, they will, if you're looking for pure cellular autophagy, the longevity enhancing effect that you would get by being in a fasted state. They would increase anabolic pathways and limit cellular autophagy. As opposed to branched-chain amino acids, the high amounts of isolated leucine in those would actually be insulinogenic and upregulate the mTOR pathways. If you had to choose the lesser of two evils, it would be essential amino acids. But, if you wanted the pure mTOR deactivating effect of being in a completely fasted state, you would avoid anything. There are researchers like Dr. Satchin Panda and folks like Dr. Rhonda Patrick who will take that to the nth level and even limit coffee, anything that will cause an upregulation of the so-called cretin hormones, anything that would spark digestion. Even bitters, technically, for that reason would take you out of a fasted state. Those aren't as anabolic as just like pure protein. My recommendation is if you're fasted and you want to do a hard workout and you don't want to catabolize muscle to take that 10 gramish of aminos in your fasted state and exercising in that fasted state is going to give you so much cellular autophagy, especially if you do as I recommend and continue to fast for a little while after you've done morning exercise. I think the pros outweigh the cons.

The one thing I should say is that if you're doing a hard workout in the morning in a fasted state, I've seen some under condition from people who fast for too long after that morning workout. About the longest, I'll go if I've done a soul-crushing morning workout is about an hour before I'll actually have breakfast or some calories or even like a superfood coffee where maybe it's not a ton of calories, but you're putting some nutrients in the morning to string you along until lunch. I think, the idea of couching like a 16-hour intermittent fast, along with an intense fasted exercise session, even if you're taking aminos before that exercise session, is still going to create some issues from an endocrine standpoint, especially in females. It's a good question, though.

Eric:  Hey, Ben. Eric from Vienna, Virginia. Question on detoxification. Since heavy metals and chemicals and pesticides seem to be so ubiquitous for everyone, what are some of the top one or two protocols and processes for eliminating heavy metals and toxins? Then, how do you measure success?

Ben:  I like the idea of not having beer and burgers all year long and then going off to a retreat like this and doing your big reboot as the big spring cleanup for all the damage you've done all year long. I think a better scenario is to, as we see in many religious cultures and in the health practices of a lot of cultures, this is big in Eastern medicine as well, some kind of a regular more focused detox that might involve anything like a Ramadan fasting protocol or an Orthodox Church type of fasting protocol in specific seasons. Or, as I do four times a year, something like a Valter Longo approach, like doing a prolonged diet of restricted calorie intake. Or, even better, some type of a panchakarma approach. This is my favorite thing to do. Four times a year, I use that Valter Longo type of approach of restricting calories to about 40% of what I'd normally eat. That's based on the studies that he's done that just four times a year, you get an increase in lifespan that's very similar to what you get from a pure fast or from long term calorie restriction. But, I don't necessarily do the meal prep kit that he makes, the prolong kit. It's great. I've looked at it. It's pretty nutrient-dense as far as packaged foods go. It's some of the better of the options. I instead use more of a panchakarma ayurvedic cleansing approach, which is kitchari stew along with celery juice. You do a little bit of ghee. There are some grapefruit and some olive oil, very similar to the cleanse that we're doing here at this retreat. Then, I do typically something like this once a year. I've done Dr. Dan Pompa's True Cellular Detox. I've done this retreat. I've done some fasting protocols. I like to have one time of year where I take a little bit of a deeper dive. That would include environmental detoxification. There's no Wi-Fi here. We're out in the Swiss Alps. We're getting fresh air. There's not a lot of non-native EMF. We're drinking amazingly clean water. There's a lot more you get out of living in this scenario than you might by doing your own overhaul at home.

The daily detox, though, is what I think is the most important. Living a life in which each day you are cleaning up the body. For me, what that looks like is when I'm at home, and I try to hunt this down when I travel as well, I'm in the sauna almost every day, getting a deep sweat. I'm in there half-hour, as I was telling someone earlier at lunch today. There are pools of sweat in the bottom of the sauna when I get out because I'm doing yoga flow and moving my body. I have a dry skin rush in there. I usually finish by brushing the skin, which is another form of detoxification. It brings blood flow to the surface of the skin. I do a coffee enema at least once a week when I travel. I travel with these little coffee enema suppositories called Glytamins. Those have a similar effect as a coffee enema. I have some of the more French protocols at home. I have a mini-trampoline or rebounder. I have a vibration platform. I'll often stand on those type of things in my little Pomodoro breaks as I'm working throughout the day. I'm constantly keeping lymph flow going. I'm constantly causing detoxification through the body's main detox organ or the biggest detox organ, at least, the skin, getting that coffee enema once a week.

I think those daily practices or weekly practices move the dial to the point where you're getting that daily detoxification. As far as measuring it, we had here at the Swiss Clinic more of a connective tissue measurement using what's called mass spectrometry. That was OligoScan that we did. That's a very quick method. I have not studied its accuracy compared to hair, compared to a urine provocation test for metals, which can be dangerous if you have a lot of metals because that can free up metals and cause them to circulate through the body. You want that overseen by a physician, the protocol for a urine provocation test. Or blood test, like Onegevity owned by Thorne. They just rolled out their home heavy metals kit. That's a blood spot kit. I've done that one a few times. My results tend to be pretty similar from scan to scan. Even the oligo scan here pretty much agrees with what I've seen on hair, on blood, on urine. What Dr. Dan Pompa uses in his True Cellular Detox is a urine test for a specific marker. It starts with an M. I don't recall it off the top of my head now. It's a very simple urinary measurement where you're literally urinating into a small plastic cup. Then, you dip a stick in there and it's giving you a measurement. I want to say it's myeloperoxidase. I think is the one that it measures, which is an indicator of heavy metal status. There are a few different ways to do it. Right now, what I've been using the most is that little box that Onegevity sends out, just because it's simple. I forget if it's at the thorne.com website or if it's on the Onegevity website. Either way, if you were to google “Thorne heavy metals test,” that's a very simple kit they send to your house, a little dashboard that lets you keep track of your results over time. For me, anything that keeps me from having to go to the doctor or the lab, I just dig home protocols for a lot of these tests as much as I can get them.

The urinary amino acids profile called the NutrEval by Genova Diagnostics, that's a fantastic profile because you get a bunch of markers of toxins, fungus, etc. You also get amino acid. You get micronutrients. You get fatty acids. It's like the shotgun approach. That's one that I run often hand-in-hand with a comprehensive blood panel because the comprehensive blood panel doesn't look at a lot of these major, or a lot of these minor, these micronutrients and some of those other markers. That's like a gold standard test, in my opinion. As far as self-quantification goes, my big test that just about all my clients do that I run on myself, are the three-day gut test from GI Effects, which is parasites, yeast, fungus, along with the specific herbal protocols and pharmaceuticals that those are responsive to, so you know how you would actually address those. I do the NutrEval test, which is the full micronutrient panel. I do the big Onegevity blood panel that I worked with WellnessFX to design. They just call it the Greenfield Longevity panel. It's your full thyroid, all your hormones, everything like that. Then, the other ones that I like are, once in a lifetime, a genetic test, unless you're going all CRISPR on your ass and snippet of my genes and things are changing. You do that once, a full genetic test. If you go to 23andme, you're not going to get all your snips. But there are other companies like Bob Miller's Tree of Life, or I recently interviewed the DNA company. There's also Dr. Dhanani who I also interviewed. There's a lot of companies that are testing more snips. There's even Health Nucleus in California. They'll do the whole genome sequencing. I like some of those better than 23andme because you need access to more snips. Then, the other one that is more genetic base, that I think is more of a quarterly, if you can afford it, or at least twice a year, even once a year is helpful, is a microbiome analysis of the gut. Either Viome or Onegevity, I think, are the two best tests for that. That's like the range of tests that I'll typically run on, folks. There are other markers I track like HRV, sleep, etc.; but that's the standard protocol most folks get when they first come to me, as far as everything I like to see. Those are the same protocols I run on myself for a full panel.

Evo:  Hi, Ben. I'm Evo from Belgium. My question is since about a year ago, I noticed that my nose starts running during exercise, especially while running or sprinting. Apparently, this is called exercise-induced rhinitis. Do you have any suggestions to relieve this condition?

Ben:  It's funny. I had an exercise-induced flare-up once when I took a bunch of probiotics and I went to exercise because exercise will upregulate your histamine response. I take probiotics. This was in the heat too, which doubles that histamine response because you have all that blood flow in your body's trying to cool itself, and the histamine pathways one way that it does that. I would hazard a guess that anything that would block histamine production in a situation like that would be helpful. Dr. Ben Lynch has a product called HistaBlock that blocks some of those histamine pathways. Quicksilver Scientific has one as well. There are a few out there if you were to google histamine blocking supplement. The one that I have, that I take whenever I plan on having more than one drink of alcohol, my son has seasonal allergies here and I've given him a couple as well, is that that HistaBlock enzyme. That's the first thing I would try. It would be something like that.

I would also be very careful. In my freediving course, I was taught that we should avoid dairy to increase our breath hold time because dairy will thicken the mucus and cause congestion. One of my sons had exercise-induced asthma when he was playing soccer as a child. We got rid of milk, dairy, cheese, everything went away overnight. I think that was partially because of the mucosal congestion that dairy can cause. Some of those elimination type of paths prior to exercise could be helpful as well. Dairy is really the biggie. That would cause me postal congestion. Anything that's going to cause a little bit of an autoimmune response could do that. You could go get a food allergy panel like a Cyrex food allergy panel and check it for sure. Like Array 10C, you've got like there are over 180 different food antigens that one screens for. It's pretty good. That's why I sent my plate back today at dinner to take the green beans off it because that's the one vegetable I'm actually allergic to, that I actually create an immunoglobulin response to. Even when I wear this continuous blood glucose monitor, my blood sugar spikes when I have green beans because I actually have this sympathetic nervous system response to it. I've never tried to see what would happen if I ate green beans than I exercise; but I assume I'd probably have some coughing, some wheezing, and probably a little bit of congestion, maybe something like the rhinitis that you were experiencing, some type of an accelerated-histamine response.

I would look at dairy and other food allergens. I would also consider short-term, some histamine blocker.

Marty:  Marty from Canada. My question is is there a threshold between the sympathetic state and the parasympathetic state? How do you know that consciously when you cross over one to the other?

Ben:  There is not a threshold. This is one of the areas where thinking of the body in terms of black and white can get confusing. In exercise physiology, when I took all my exercise physiology courses and we went to the lab and people would put on indirect calorimetry gas masks and run up and down on the treadmill, or really not up and down, mostly up, on the treadmill and gather gases produced and oxygen consumed to approximate when the quote threshold occurred at which you switch over into your carbohydrate zone from your fat-burning zone. When you actually look at the data, there is no point at which your body goes, “I'm going to start burning all carbs now.” It's 80% fat, 20% carbs, 75% fats, 25% carbs, so on and so forth. When you get to the point where you're literally collapsing off the back of the treadmill and there are two attendants there to catch you as you fall off the back in a really intense VO2 max test to exhaustion and you look at the data, there is still percentages of fat being burnt at that intensity. We hear the word “threshold” and “crossing over” and can sometimes assume, “Well, this is the point which I'm burning all carbs,” or, “this is the point which I'm burning all fat.” That doesn't really happen.

Now, with the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, the idea with that is, as we've learned during another lecture at this retreat, your autonomic nervous system is going to, via the vagus nerve, send a signal to your heart. That signal is specifically sent to the SA node of the heart. It basically regulates the electrical activity of the heart. Good vagal nerve tone, a healthy autonomic nervous system, and good balance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system dictates that the vagus nerve talk to the SA node is going to be very clear. You're going to have mild variations in the amount of time between each beat of the heart. That would, then, be called a high heart rate variability. That is interplay between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. That is your body's ability to be able to lower or raise the frequency of that signal. In heart rate variability data collection, it's called the low-frequency signal which would imitate or reference the sympathetic nervous system in the high frequency, which would reference the parasympathetic nervous system. When you're feeding those signals into the heart, it's interplay between the two branches. In an ideally tuned autonomic nervous system or in someone who has what we would call high vagal tone, you can switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic very quickly. You do not want to necessarily be the dialed in yogi who is in a complete parasympathetic state but who cannot run from a lion when the lion jumps out. You want to be more like, I forget the name of this weightlifter.

There's a whole book about this Olympic weightlifter who would sit quietly in the corner of the gym until his time to lift the bar had come. And he would slowly stand from his cross-legged position where he'd been breathing in a very parasympatheticly driven state. He would stand, he would walk to the bar, and he would take a breath and you could see the hair on his arms stand up and the veins in his neck begin to bulge, and he would just rip this weight off the ground. He was a world champion weightlifter. He was a Russian guy. That's a perfect example of being able to switch back and forth or transition from parasympathetic to sympathetic very gracefully. You always have feedback from both the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system feeding into the SA node of the heart. Your goal is not to eliminate one or the other but to, instead, be able to up-regulate or down-regulate, primarily using breathwork. Really, that's the best way to do it, to use breathwork to activate the nervous system so that you can enter into the state that you want to enter in. An example of like Wim Hof-esque fire breathing or that yogic fire breathing type of protocol. Holotropic breathing has these elements to it as well. You're getting very sympathetic where you're charging up the body, you're creating warmth, you're creating blood flow, you're down-regulating cytokines, you're up-regulating the immune system, you're pushing your body more into that sympathetic drive. When you do something like alternate nostril breathing or box breathing, or four seven eight breathing. Really, anytime you're exhaling more than you inhale, you are up-regulating the parasympathetic nervous system. I think breath is really the most powerful way to transition from one to the other. But, you never want to be parasympathetic dominant or sympathetic dominant.

A parasympathetic dominant person is that classic marathoner or Ironman, or chronic cardio athlete, they'll send me their HRV data and it's through the roof. They have extremely high what would be called high-frequency scores. That's one of the scenarios in which a high heart rate variability is a bad thing. That's someone who is parasympathetic dominant. Sometimes, you see a sympathetic dominant athlete. A lot of times, the HRV isn't that high, but their low-frequency score is very high. That's a person who has almost no aerobic base, who's very high charged, who has very low parasympathetic nervous system activity, but they have low balance. You want to have the ideal combination of both.

In my opinion, there's not a threshold that you cross as much as a balance throughout the day in which you're entering into a little bit of more of one or a little bit more of the other depending on what the situation is. Again, even similar to that VO2 max example, when the sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive and you're running from the lion, there's still a little bit of parasympathetic activity. If there weren't, there would be no blood flow to the organs at all. It's always just a little bit of interplay. There's never any black and white threshold.

Noel:  Ben, Noel from the UK. Thank you for leading this Swiss adventure. I'm conscious, here we are in a place where the protocol is primarily vegetables and vegetarian, and you've orientated yourself towards more meat-based diet recently. Where do you think the science is currently between carnivore, between ketosis, between vegetarian, between vegan? What's the latest science really telling this?

Ben:  My son who is not doing the liver cleanse was sitting across from me at dinner and they brought me a steak. He asked me if I could cut it and I told his mom to cut it, because I don't know if my willpower is that good to be able to cut his steak and not take a little bite. As many podcasters know, and as a lot of you guys know, I've been largely following a diet comprised of good organic grass-fed, grass-finished, meat, some wild-caught fish, some underground storage organs or tubers in the form of sweet potatoes and yams and purple potatoes, a little pumpkin, some summer squash, some winter squash, a little raw honey, red wine at the end of the night, a little coffee in the morning and just a modified carnivore protocol that incorporates some more tannic rich beverages and some other little starch-based sources thrown in. I feel very, very good on that protocol. High amount of protein, high amount of red meat, high amount of dairy, high amount of caffeine, high amount of alcohol, that can be acidic. It can create a net acidic effect in the body. We know that food doesn't change the pH dramatically, but we do know based on the, what is it, it's a nitrogen excretion score that measures, the renal acid load. The renal acid load measure can tell us that certain foods actually can create a little bit of acidity in the body. The problem with that is that it can cause you to pull minerals from tissue because minerals are alkalizing. That's why we would add a pinch of sea salt to a morning glass of water. It's an alkalizing beverage.

In most cases, not all but in most cases, staying in a somewhat alkaline state or at least avoiding overconsumption of acidic foods is a good idea. There are some people who push that to the limit. I've talked to people who have gotten alkaline water machines. One woman, her son had a seizure. He was in an extremely high alkalinic state because he was just drinking this water all day long. She had turned it up to a pH of nine or 10, or something like that. You can certainly get to alkaline as well.

As far as your question about where the science is at; A, the horse I've kicked to death before in previous podcasts is that there is no one perfect diet. I eat a largely carnivore diet. I've traced my ancestry to northern European roots. I've tested my blood and my biomarkers and my gut to show that I do have a high amount of methane-producing bacteria, I don't respond well to raw vegetables, I don't respond well to cruciferous vegetables, my body feels very good as far as all my bloods go when I do get a high amount of protein. I'm also an athlete. That also helps me out as well. But, we have known, back to this idea of periods of time in which we engage in mTOR restriction just from a pure religious standpoint or a cultural standpoint that humans have known for thousands of years that going through periods of time in which you change up your diet, specifically it usually means caloric restriction or protein restriction. You see some changes from a health standpoint. If you did that all the time, you would be cold and libidolist and hungry, and you wouldn't be able to enjoy, perhaps, some of the protein-rich foods that are just part of enjoying life on planet earth, if you, from an ethical standpoint, are okay with eating fish and meat and shellfish and everything else. I think that the diet that we're following, the plant-rich diet that we're following here is supportive of enhanced cellular autophagy and detoxification. I think that anytime we're introducing a net acidic state, it would hamper detoxification a little bit. I think that it's very hard to over-consume protein on a largely vegetable-based diet because all the fiber that we're eating is, like protein, very satiating. It's also difficult to overeat in general here, aside from those fantastic, probably, pretty calorie-rich breads that they serve in the morning.

At the same time, I could see issues with following a diet like this long term, not only because you could run into some of the issues many vegans and vegetarians run into, whether it be vitamin b12 deficiencies or taurine deficiencies, or creatine deficiencies, or some of the things that you could supplement your way out of; but that you run a higher risk of experiencing on a diet that does not include any animal products. Also, you can create an issue in which you just never really get into an anabolic state. You're largely catabolic and also, your autophagy is good, you just don't want to be in that state all the time. There are also differences from microbiome to microbiome. Some of the problems with plants is they can be highly fermentable by bacteria. We can see a lot of times on a vegan or vegetarian diet, whether it's a lot of carbohydrate-dense rich chestnuts or bread, or beets, or any of these other wonderful foods that we're eating here, my blood sugar has actually been a little higher than normal here. And, it's because I'm just, by the nature of me not having access to a lot more, whatever, coconut milk. I'm actually not doing a lot of coconut milk now. For me, largely it'd be fish and roe, and steak, and things like that. But by me not having access to those and needing fill in those caloric holes with more carbohydrate-rich foods, I've seen higher, especially, postprandial blood sugar values. They still come down pretty quickly, but just they're higher. I think we're eating the right diet for where we're at. I think there are times when it's very helpful for the body to switch to a plant-rich diet, that kitchari cleanse that I do four times a year. That's sprouts and lentils and the basmati rice and celery juice. There's some ghee in there, but there's really not any animal protein. I do that as part of a cleanse. I feel that the protein-restricted no animal type of cleanse is pretty supportive of the whole detoxification.

Andrew:  Hi, Ben. It's Andrew from Lucerne, Switzerland. The clinic is very strict about elimination of Wi-Fi signals, cellular signals. I wondered if you look to the science as to how harmful this really is, whether you've got a view on 5G rollout and whether any devices or tips if you do think it's harmful that you found effective to help protect.

Ben:  It's a loaded question. I have done a podcast on that. I've talked about the book, “The Non-tinfoil Guide to EMF.” I think that's one of the better books out there by Nick Pineault who's also been on my show. I think the data's out there. I think it really is when it comes to, I was talking with Dr. Petra here at the clinic about many, many cases of leukemia and other cancers she's seen that she feels are directly correlated to the high amount of device usage, particularly by children. Bluetooth, I've seen less data on. Wi-Fi, I think there's a lot of research on. If you read a book like Nick's, he's got a lot in there, both the impact on plants and animals, as well as the impact on humans.

I'm very careful. I have my entire house hardwired. My hotel room here, because there's no Wi-Fi here, it was just like my setup at home. I have a hard-wired Ethernet cable going to the computer with an adapter. I keep the Wi-Fi router completely off. I have found that very similar to the situation that is created when you eliminate gluten, you down-regulate a lot of your peptidase enzymes and you become more sensitive to gluten. When you cut yourself free of Wi-Fi and signals, you almost become more sensitive. I find myself increasingly sensitive the more I just strip my home of almost all electricity and add some of the devices you alluded to that I'll mention. It makes a big difference, but it also makes me more sensitive, like in the situations in which there is Wi-Fi present. Some people hypothesize that, perhaps, humans will adapt, our cell membranes will adapt, our calcium channels which are affected by Wi-Fi signals will adapt to that, we'll somehow evolve to become more like cyborgs who are just very used to this cell phone in our pocket or the chip that Elon Musk beds in our arm 10 years from now, or whatever the case may be.

When you look at yeast and fruit flies, and even rodents, adaptation like that takes generations. Maybe, 10, 12 humans in the future, that might be the case. I think, for us, right now, it's not going to happen in one generation.

The type of protective devices that I personally use, I have a signal scrambling device that you guys see me walk around that big fanny pack. There's a signal scrambling device in there. It's called BluShield. Any time I'm around Wi-Fi, that scrambles it. One of my clients just did pre and post-inflammatory marker testing. He tested cytokines, CRP, fibrinogen. He just did a full inflammatory panel pre and post two weeks usage of that device and the home device that they have that you plug in and put next to your bed or in your office where there are a lot of signals. The decrease in that was profound. That was called BluShield technology. It's called BluShield. B-L-U-S-H-I-E-L-D. I'll create a link for the show notes at bengreenfieldfitness.com/swissclinicpodcast. Anything we talk about, I'll make sure to put notes in there. That's the BluShield. There's another. It's like a scalar frequency producing device that's on the floor of my office right now. I haven't seen as much testing on that. I'm trying it out right now. I think that one's called Scalar Shield, S-C-A-L-A-R shield. It looks cool. It's like an alien spaceship on the floor of my office. But I haven't done a lot of testing on that one, aside from my general HRV when I'm just standing from my office at work since I've added the blue shield and added that has gone up. I haven't tried both of them in isolation yet or one of them in isolation yet. Sometimes, that's the issue with me, I'll just toss a bunch of stuff in my office and pay attention to what happens to my body. I think the BluShield is really cool because they have a personal device you can carry, and then, also home device. They're creating a 5G device right now as well.

There are a lot of other things you can do. You can go as far as painting certain rooms with Faraday paint. You can move your bed if you're over a geothermal hot spot. I did a podcast with Brian Hoyer. He's called a building biologist and hired him. He came to my home and did a full walkthrough and found all sorts of things that could be fixed. I didn't go to the farthest degree that I could. I actually didn't use Faraday paint. I didn't repaint areas of the house where he said there were cell phone towers emitting signals through the walls that were pretty hefty. I didn't paint yet. It's on my radar but the price tag. I had other things to worry about. The other thing he recommended was he looked at a lot of hotspots. I find that interesting, because even here in the lecture that Olfe gave us when we were walking us through the clinic here in the Swiss Alps, there are areas. Sedona, Arizona is a similar region. Some of the Native American springs in the US have regions like this where the earth emits a higher level of healing frequencies, a higher than a Schumann resonance type of frequency.

There are, apparently, according to this building biologist who'd had to walk through my home, areas where that frequency could be damaging the human biology, areas our ancestors would have avoided because they figured out that those were spots where people didn't feel good. I've seen less research on that, but he did make a recommendation like move your bed over 20 feet. There's a hot spot right here on the corner of the bed and you're sleeping on this eight hours a night for a 30 or life. You shouldn't be on top of this hot spot. I didn't paint. I didn't move my bed, but I incorporated just about every other recommendation that he had. Probably, most notably, the thing I noticed the most when I went through my house with one of those acoustimeters. You can buy in Amazon, walk through your house yourself and test things. That dirty electricity filters. I went to the Shielded Healing website and bought one for every room of the house and installed those. Their filters, if one outlet has it in there in a room, and all the other outlets are on the same, I think on the same breaker, then, you're good to go. You don't have to put one in every outlet of the house, just one in each room or one in any outlet that's connected to a specific breaker. That one was made by Shielded Healing, dirty electricity filter. We also have solar panels. They sell a switch. They don't sell a switch. They sell a filter. That filter is the switch. That switch is the solar from, what I believe is, DC to AC. That limits the electricity produced there, the dirty electricity produced there in the solar switch.

The acoustimeter, probably the most interesting thing about that was I tested myself, my right hand. I had my son. I held out my iPhone away from the acoustimeter on the other side of my body with my left hand and then held my right hand towards the measurement device, and my son held the measurement device and tested me. I was actually an antenna when holding my phone. As soon as I set down my phone and we retested, it was a near undetectable level of EMF coming off my body. That's the scary part to me, when you're holding your phone, your phone is using your body as a signal. I realize that it's not a fun thing to hear, that kind of information doesn't make me popular. It's something to be aware of. Even here, I like the idea that most of the rooms here, where we have our cellphones in airplane mode. I love my smartphone. I've got audiobooks on there. When I do have access to Wi-Fi, I'll go to Wi-Fi. I'll download as many because I don't want to use my whole cell data plan, so I'll just download a ton of audiobooks and podcasts. Then, I can listen to them all in offline mode. When I'm walking around here with my headphones in or whatever, my cellphone's in airplane mode, but I'm still getting a ton of use out of it. I put books on there and Kindle. There's a lot of cool things about a smartphone that goes beyond just the signal. I certainly use mine a lot, but most of the time, it's in airplane mode.

Andrew:  Still following question about EMF. Is there a reliable way that we can measure the impact of EMF to us? Personally, Joe Mercola once talked about maybe something with the channel, the ion channels.

Ben:  Yeah, you can measure it. Joe's got device. He's measured me a couple of times. As would be the case, I've forgotten the name of the device that he uses. He's basically measuring the frequency of the body. Essentially, a higher score is better. It's like a scale of 1 to 10, and people who are exposed to a lot of EMF, they're like a five or a six. I think he mentioned it on his podcast with me.

Robin:  Yeah, the Phase Angle.

Ben:  Thank you, Robin. Yes, it's the Phase Angle measurement. The Phase Angle measurement is what he does. Like I mentioned, my client who installed the BluShield, he did inflammatory measurements. He's very EMF sensitive. His sleep also went through the roof when he installed those BluShield devices. It was impacting his sleep. It was impacting his inflammation. I don't doubt there are some people that are, just like some people are mold sensitive or gluten sensitive, or lactose, or carb sensitive, or whatever. Some people are EMF sensitive. It may have to do with the resilience of the nervous system too. It could be this comes back to HRV and the more vagal nerve tone that you have, the better you are able to handle those things, which, once again, solidifies the recommendation to be somebody who's good at breath work, who sleeps well, who has good relationships, who takes cold showers, who does all these things to assist with vagal nerve tone, because that might actually confer protective effect against some of this stuff.

Male: [00:45:25] _______

Ben:  I use a air tube for Bluetooth. I get it from DefenderShield. It's a Bluetooth device, but the receiver hangs here, not done by your head. Then, tubes extend from that device up from that device to your phone. It's also like if you walk away from your phone, the signal goes dead within five or 10 feet. It's only really useful when you're pretty close to your phone but you don't want to be tied into a cable. Most of the time, I'll use that. There's the air tube wired headset that you can also use. The problem with that is that, I don't like, it's the type of buds that have a high bass. If I'm exercising, which is what I'm doing a lot of the time when I'm listening to my phone, I can almost hear my footsteps pounding in my ears and it's almost confusing and annoying. Generally, if I'm exercising using my phone, I just use the G-bass Apple wired headphones that came with the phone. Then, I buy these little things called Yurbuds, Y-U-Rbuds, off of Amazon. And, I put those on. I stick them on the end of the phone and that keeps the iPhone headphones in my ear because those things slip out. They're very slippery. That keeps them in my ear when I'm exercising. Yeah, it's still a wire, but my phone's still in airplane mode. It's not an issue. That's about it. The only time I break that rule is sometimes I'll go to expos or conferences, like Health Expo's, Fitness Expo. I just want to go walk the floor but I also have calls I need to listen into or an audiobook I'm working through or whatever. In many cases, I have one of these tiny little invisible Bluetooth devices. I'll use that sometimes when I'm just walking through just don't want to mess around with cables and I can still just push a button and talk to people. It's just easier. But not very often. I think Bluetooth is the least damaging, but I still don't even use that very much.

Robin:  Hi, Ben. It's Robin. Question about vaping. I take CBD, but it seems when I wake up in the middle of the night, vaping seems to be the one method that just I feel instant relaxation and could get back to sleep quickly. But I often cough and it often burns. It's making me concerned about what I'm doing and its safety. I'm curious if you have any thoughts about it.

Ben:  Vaping liquid. First of all, they hit you so fast, which is good. That's the idea with vaping, it just hits you right away. You don't have to wait for encapsulation to dissolve. It's even faster than the sublingual. The sublingual is pretty fast. The sublingual is 15 minutes. I personally use the oil. I rarely use the vape pens. I have a few of those vape pens from BioCBD. Yes, it's like an oil. You put the oil in your mouth and hold it. For me, that works pretty well. A lot of the vape pens use propylene glycol. I'm not a huge fan of that stuff so I always look for that. A lot of the actual pens burn at a higher temperature, so you get a little bit more of that burnt feel in your throat. I think there's a little bit of carcinogenicity in those higher temperatures of vape pens as well. Some good vape pens will have temperature settings, where you can actually adjust the temp to a low, medium, or high vape. I've got one that you can use for grass, for wax, for oil, for anything like that. You can actually adjust the temp straight from your phone. I think it's called Atlas, something like that. It's like the Cadillac of vape pens. That one's nice because I can adjust the temperature. Some of these pens burn into high temp and the ones that have propylene glycol. I'm not each fan of. I'd avoid them. The pure CBD vape pens, a lot of them are too bad. The one from BioCBD, they mixed that with a bunch of other relaxing compounds. I've got lemon balm and something else like the chamomile.

Robin:  BioCBD?

Ben:  BioCBD, yeah. They do vape pens oils, stuff like that. I generally just dissolve the liquid under my tongue, go that way.

Female:  Hi, too. LA. You have probably enough time to address the, I think, was the Viome results that you had. I know there was a lot of, just because we brought up the topic of protein, so there were some issues that they found about your metabolism of protein. Given that, where we were just talking about how much protein you intake, do you have any concerns about what they were finding and how might you address those?

Ben:  They were finding some of the–I guess, the genetic microbe expression for protein-digesting bacteria was low or altered in some way. I was literally just looking over those results on the plane trip over. The long story short is that some type of protein-digesting enzyme would be a good idea for me. Just like a full spectrum protein-digesting enzyme, the use of bitters. A lot of that stuff I already do. I have to admit that when it comes to companies that produce enzymes, MassZymes is one that's pretty popular. I could take a bunch of those before I'm eating steak and fish. And after seeing those results, it'd probably be a good idea for me.

My steak house is a block bag, just got that much bigger. Because I travel and when I travel, a lot of times, it's on the house for whoever hired me to come travel. They're usually paying for my meals or whatever. So, usually, I'm working at my hotel. I google steakhouse, look for whatever on Yelp has the highest reviews near me. I go to the steakhouse and I sit there, I saddle up to the bar and watch the game on TV, chat up a few folks at the bar, order a big ribeye. But inevitably, I know I made a cocktail because all the steak houses have amazing cocktails. I usually want a glass of red wine with my steak as well. That's like a twofer on the alcohol. I, usually, when they bring out that wonderful breadbasket, we'll have a little bit of the bread too. Then, steak. Currently, when I go to a fancy steak house, I've got the HistaBlock, which I mentioned earlier, for the alcohol because I'm going to have two drinks. I take a couple of HistaBlock. This is actually the stack I said. I work with a lot of CEOs and stuff. They're always at these big steakhouse dinners. So we do two HistaBlock, the two Kion Lean. That helps clean out the liver as well with the rock lotus extract in that. And the bitter melon, if you're grabbing that bread, will help to lower the glycemic index of the bread. Speaking of the bread, four of the Gluten Guardian. Gluten Guardian, dipeptidyl peptidase- digest all the bread. I got HistaBlock. I got Kion Lean. I had Gluten Guardian. I've got the four charcoal capsules back at my hotel on the bed stand to take right before I fall asleep. So, now I got to add into that whole Ziploc bag the protein-digesting enzymes. It's just better living through science, right?

Hey, I want to interrupt today's show. You are listening to a show that was recorded on the Swiss border, between Italy and Switzerland. Of course, Italy, as you may well know, is known for its olive oils. It's wonderful spicy thick rich olive oils that, dang it, you can't really find the equivalent of in most grocery stores in the US. Furthermore, what's sad and frightening is that even five-star restaurants in Napa Valley are now cutting half and half their extra virgin olive oil with the so destroying canola oil or other versions of vegetable oil.

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Robin:  Hi, Ben. It's Robin and I'm wondering if anything about low ferritin and what might be the causes of it. Mine started initially a couple years ago very high. I donated blood and then it stayed in the range of 50 or something. Slowly, it's been dropping. Then, it went from 17 to 10 to 9. Now, it's going up at drop. But now, it looks like my hematocrit, it's starting to affect my hematocrit and my hemoglobin. I have no idea what it will be about.

Ben:  Usually, my concern is more, especially in men, high ferritin often combined with high iron, because as I discussed in my podcast with Dr. Mercola, you're essentially looking at peroxide radicals created from the excess iron. If ferritin is low, a lot of times, that's something I look at from a dietary standpoint. The consumption of foods that would elevate ferritin which is an iron storage protein. Meat, that's rich in heme rich iron would be one of the better ways to do that, like good grass-fed grass-finished organ meats, red meat, etc. within moderation, obviously. You don't want to overdo anything due to the mTOR activation we talked about a little bit ago.

 Aside from that, one of the only things that could cause that is very high red blood cell turnover, meaning doing a lot of endurance, doing a lot of chronic cardio, overtraining. I know you're not a professional athlete or anything like that. I'm not sure how much you were training or how much red meat you were eating, but that's the only thing that I know of.

Now, there's a form of ferritin called ferritin pyrophosphate that I've seen some people use very successfully to bring their ferritin back up if it's low. There's a company called Floradix, F-L-O-R-A-D-I-X. You can buy this. It's like a liquid shot. It actually tastes really good. You can get off Amazon. I would caution, especially, again, you guys out there, if your ferritin tests, let's say on a lab reference ranges a little bit low and iron is maybe medium or slightly below medium, I would necessarily rush out, as I used to think that you should, to take a bunch of iron or to take a bunch of ferritins because it turns out that that may actually be an age-accelerating factor and may increase your risk for things like hemochromatosis and peroxide radicals. For a woman, a little bit less of an issue, but I'd look at red-meat, potentially ferritin supplementation. I don't know what your iron is like, but iron bisque glutamate is a non-constipating form of iron. Because a lot of iron supplements are constipating. Thorne has one called iron bisglycinate. That's often what I'll use if somebody has low iron, that's what I'll recommend to them. Sometimes, you pair that with something like the Floradix, the ferritin pyrophosphate supplement.

That's [01:00:03] ______ that I can give you, although I should say there may be other reasons for low ferritin that I'm unaware of. I know in many cases ferritin is something that is closely correlated to gut health. So, that might be another thing to look into. I know some of the markers often used to track things like gut inflammation, so, yeah.

Eric:  Ben, this is Eric. In the first part of the podcast, we talked a lot about detoxification. How does one know that they're actually ready to begin the process of detoxification of heavy metals and environmentals? And is there a specific measure, like blood tests, urine tests that you could confirm that your metabolic pathways are ready for that kind of process?

Ben:  That's a good question. I mean, I've heard some practitioners say that impaired methylation might inhibit your ability to detox and that you'd want to take care of methylation issues, like if you took like a genetic test and you carried the SNPs responsible for you not methylating properly like you had the so-called MTHFR gene. That would be one to look into, like make sure you have adequate methylated folate from yolks and liver or like a methyltetrahydrofolate supplement. That might be one thing.

I would say other things that could limit it would be like when you think about toxins being released primarily through the skin, especially for a lot of your heavy metals. And then just about anything that passes through phase 1 and phase 2 liver detox would be the urine, the stool, and then also the skin. So, if you have, let's say impaired renal function, that might be something to look into, like make sure your kidneys are actually healthy. There are tests that you can run for that, like urine marker test for kidney function. You could look at also just general gut health. Let's say you struggle heavily with constipation, or you struggle with even something like, say, prolapse, or pelvic floor disorders that could make doing things like an enema protocol or coffee enema potentially very uncomfortable or almost impossible. That would be another thing to look into. Just be like general anatomical health of the colon and the pelvic floor.

Most people sweat just fine. I really don't think. I mean, I suppose some people have like hyperhidrosis and can't sweat, but you'd still eliminate things via your urine and your stool. So, you look at methylation. You could look at kidney function. You could look at stool function. Most detox protocols are already loading you up with things that support phase 1 and phase 2 liver detox. Most also usually include some kind of a binder. Here at this particular retreat that we're at, we're doing more like liver treatments than we are like hefty supplementation protocols.

Many of the supplement protocols, like I use, for example, a Chris Shade's PushCatch Detox from Quicksilver Scientific, and that's like a phase 1, phase 2 detox support that you take. That's like a liquid shot on an empty stomach, and then a half hour later, you take a bunch of a binder, like an activated charcoal. And so, if you didn't have access to something like that or hadn't done something like that prior to a detox like this, you'd probably get a little less out of it because your phase 1 and phase 2 detox pathways aren't quite working as well as they could be.

Those are a few of the things that I would look at. I don't think there's anyone specific test. But obviously, if you test high in heavy metals, or you test high in liver enzymes, for example, you've identified yourself as a candidate for whom a detox protocol would be appropriate. And as we all know from getting tested here or from tests we've done previously in the past, I've talked to many of you and a lot of you are here because you tested high for metals, or because you had impaired liver function or some reason like that. But those are a few things I would look at.

Diane:  Ben, this is Diane. I'm just following up on Peter's question, and it's about the five-letter acronym that everybody's heard of but no one really knows what the heck it is. What is an MTHFR gene? What is an MTHFR mutation? And should anyone care?

Ben:  Yeah. Probably, the best resource on this is Dr. Ben Lynch and his book “Dirty Genes,” and also his company StrateGene, which tests not only for that mutation, which is called the methyltetrahydrofolate reductase, I think is what the R is, mutation. But also tests for eight additional mutations like nitric oxide pathways, like glutathione pathways. And the reason he tests for those particular genes is they're the ones that most often impair some type of metabolic function, or accelerate aging, or inhibits detoxification. The MTHFR gene is one that would impair methylation, which essentially affects DNA expression. The addition of a methyl group to a compound in a body is responsible for a host of different metabolic functions. So, essentially, you're talking about impaired metabolism when you have an MTHFR mutation.

Does that kind of answer your question? I mean, it's pretty straightforward. It's the impaired ability to methylate. It would absolutely affect your supplementation protocol if you had an impaired ability to methylate because in many cases, you get a lot of your sources of folic acid converted to homocysteine, which can be an inflammatory marker. So, someone with an MTHFR mutation, who is supplementing with folic acid or eating a lot of folate sources, who does not also have some type of methyl donor present, for example, like a multivitamin with methyltetrahydrofolate, they would actually be creating excess homocysteine.

There are other compounds that can assist that pathway, like a bioavailable form of folate, such as you would find like organ meats, for example. That can help out a little bit. Like a synthetic form of folic acid is usually bad news bears for someone who has that MTHFR gene. But dr. Ben Lynch, I interviewed him a while ago and we went in pretty good depth about all these so-called dirty genes. But essentially, for impaired methylation, one of the best things you can do is use like a bioavailable form of methyltetrahydrofolate, a lot of organ meats, some amount of dark leafy green. Stay away from synthetic folic acid. Those are some of the things that can help.

Allison:  Hi, Ben. It's Allison. My question is, are there one or two things you can talk about that are kind of on the horizon in the anti-aging sphere that we haven't quite heard about that have piqued your interest?

Ben:  Yes, absolutely. Okay. So, some of the cool things I think are up and coming that we're going to see talked about a lot. Some folks are already exploring these areas, some not quite so much. So, for example, any form of NAD. That's going to continue to explode in use and popularity because it's so effective and because NAD levels decline so rapidly and so significantly as you age. And since that's a crucial part of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, you're talking about limited mitochondrial function, especially as you age. That's why it's huge in anti-aging circles, and generally, amongst people, and now a growing number of athletes who just want to enhance mitochondrial function.

So, NAD patches, NAD IVs, nicotinamide riboside capsules or NR capsules because that's actually able to be converted into NAD even after it goes through gastric absorption, sublingual NMN, sublingual forms of NAD, all of these will continue to grow in popularity.

Another one would be deuterium-depleted water, because we know that the isotope deuterium, which we are more and more exposed to, whether it's due to radiation, whether it's due to herbicides, whether it's due to pesticides, whether it's due to high amount of sugars and starches in the diet which can impair beta-oxidation or burning of fats. And we know that the body produces its own deuterium-depleted water when you're burning a lot of fats as energy.

Basically, I think that these DDW water generators, DW bottled water which currently costs like 11 or 12 bucks a bottle because it's freaking imported from, I think primarily, Romania, and to a certain extent Russia right now. So, it's hard to get, it's expensive. I think it'll become far more affordable. And kind of like hydrogen-rich water has exploded in popularity of late. I think deuterium-depleted water will be very, very similar. I just started ordering it from Robert Slovak, that water researcher who I interviewed because he has it available in two-liter canisters. So, I can add that to my hydrogen water generator and basically be drinking hydrogen-rich deuterium-depleted water, which is great because deuterium, it's basically like a form of hydrogen but it's massively heavier. So, it displaces hydrogen. It will disrupt the electron transport chain because of that. So, if I'm getting extra hydrogen at the same time, water that's depleted in deuterium, that's like the best of both worlds.

So, I think DW, I think NAD, I think some forms of autoimmune control, like we know over 50 million Americans right now have autoimmune disease, and we know there are things out there that can assist greatly with autoimmune issues. I mean, obviously, diet is one of the biggies. But supplements like mistletoe extract, mistletoe IVs, that's one thing that–you can't even really get a good form of mistletoe without a prescription right now in the U.S. But in Canada, in others, there's one form of mistletoe that you can get. Similarly, would be like low-dose naltrexone. That's another thing that's very, very good for modulating the autoimmune system. It also flies under the radar, but I think we'll see that and mistletoe more heavily used in alternative medicine.

A lot of the stuff, keto, CBD, infrared light, we are aware that a lot of that is popular anyways. Possibly, some of the treatments that we're doing over here at this retreat, like some of the European biological medicine treatments, I think different forms of hyperthermia that go beyond saunas, I could see those very much catching on. Apparently, I have a lovely three-hour session tomorrow morning where I'll be sweating like a pig. But apparently, it's wonderful for detoxification.

Any of these things that enhance mitochondrial health, and in many cases, are stacked together, like using infrared light, but also at the same time using something like methylene blue, which will enhance your absorption that UV light, by the mitochondria, upregulates cytochrome C oxidase, produce more ATP. I think stacking different supplements and modalities with biohacks will be another thing a lot of people do, like niacin, lion's mane, psilocybin stack with your sauna, or a methylene blue stack with your infrared light therapy. Many people who are getting NAD IVs, using NAD patches will combine those with a coenzyme Q10, or some type of a high-dose vitamin C or vitamin complex mix. So, I think some of that stuff is cool as well. I recovered a little bit of that in my podcast with the biohacking guys from Finland.

And then I think EMF mitigation might be another big one, mitigation of the biological fallout from 5G, from Wi-Fi, just from general non-native EMF exposure overall, like we've talked at this retreat about different devices that produce almost like a frequency that will scramble some of those signals, different devices that can help to heal the body after exposure to some of those signals, the continued use of dirty electricity filters, more and more people hardwiring their internet, doing like a building biology analysis of their home, switching to a form of light that's more biologically friendly like incandescent light, paying attention to air and air quality, paying attention to some of the water quality that we were just talking about.

So, yeah. I think some of that stuff will be big. And then who knows what's going to happen with stem cells. That's another thing that exploded in the past couple of years. I personally really like the idea of these very small embryonic-like stem cells or adult pluripotent stem cells, the idea that you can harvest your own blood, stress it, upregulate the amount of stem cells that are produced, and then readminister that along with exosomes. So, you don't have to get your own adipose tissue taken out, you don't have to harvest your bone marrow, you don't have to go to Mexico or Panama to get a placental expanded cell. You're just taking your own blood, increasing the stem cells, adding exosomes as a signaling molecule of that, and then putting it straight back into the body. I think procedures like that compared to just like harvesting stem cells and injecting them are probably going to be a lot more palatable for folks. So, yeah. I could probably go on and on, just brainstorm about a bunch of stuff, but those are a few that come to mind, at least right away.

Male:  So, my question is regarding Carbon 60, some folks that are producing [01:13:38] ______ to be 270 times more powerful than, for example, vitamin C, and it's great at enhancing mitochondrial function, soothing the guts, helping with detoxification. Just curious if you've tried it or if you just have any thoughts on its efficacy.

Ben:  Yeah. C60, also as buckyballs, I think buckminsterfullerene was the discoverer of it if I'm not mistaken. For the reasons that you've just outlined, it is something that–there's quite a bit of chatter about right now in terms of the supplementation, biohacking, anti-aging sector. Typically, it is combined with olive oil because from my understanding, there's some amount of toxicity if it's not mixed correctly or administered in the right doses. And so, you can find it right now on Amazon. You have C60 usually packaged with olive oil as a supplement.

I currently have on the podcast deck, so to speak, a guy lined up who is kind of like the world's leading researcher right now on C60. I'm waiting until after I interview him and get to ask him all the right questions about dosage, about purity, about sourcing, about mechanism of action to decide whether or not I'm going to try it. There's a short stint like five years ago where I bought some–it was off one of these websites that had researched about C60 and tried it. And I didn't notice anything right away, but I also wasn't doing a lot of self-quantification of just parameters like inflammation, for example, or doing a lot of testing in response to it.

But of the few molecules that are technically not produced by the human body, so it's not something that we make, but it seems to have a very beneficial effect, particularly on mitochondria. It's one of those few things that I have a hard time if the dosage is proper finding a lot of bad things about C60, and a lot of good things about it. So, although I'm not supplementing with it yet, it could be–I think I'm interviewing this guy in like two months. And after I interview him, I'll probably start to look into supplementing with it if the data is convincing enough after I talk to him. It's kind of one of those stay tuned, but I'm pretty bullish on it. So, we'll see.

Female:  I remember hearing on one of your Q&As quite a while back talking about how you shouldn't eat fat, even healthy fats with starches, and I remember the subject came up. Well, would you then not put butter on a sweet potato, right, or olive oil, or eat chocolate with berries? I was surprised that even those kinds of seemingly healthy combinations I remember being–or I thought I remember being talked about could cause fat oxidation and insolence by–

Ben:  Yeah. Primarily, that's in reference to, A, potential oxidation of cholesterol particles if cholesterol is elevated in response to a meal simultaneous to blood glucose being heavily elevated, and B, formation of lipopolysaccharides which can essentially act like endotoxins in gut tissue with a high-fat, high-sugar meal. Now, in particular, this is the thing you're most at risk of with a high saturated fat meal that's combined with a high glycemic index carbohydrate.

Okay. So, like a big fatty cut of steak, sorry everybody, with a giant basket of sweet potato fries. That is something that could actually cause oxidation of cholesterol and lipopolysaccharide formation, especially in people who have compromised guts, or already have like an elevated cholesterol response, or even have a genetic response to saturated fats that renders them to have a higher inflammatory response to saturated fats. Having something like–let's use another example. Let's say you eat a carbohydrate, but it's a low glycemic index carbohydrate, let's say millet grain with olive oil, which is relatively low in saturated fats along with a low glycemic index carbohydrate. That is less of an issue, as is something that's high glycemic index, but low glycemic load. Meaning, even though it does spike your blood glucose a little bit, it's a very transient blood glucose spike.

So, let's say you have like a site of watermelon gazpacho with your salmon, for example, like a nice fatty cut of salmon with a watermelon gazpacho, or handful of blueberries, or something like that. That also, not that big of an issue, but something very starchy, high glycemic index in combination with a very fatty rich meal. That's why ice cream is one of the worst things that you can eat if you're concerned about your general health because it is just basically oodles of, in most cases, saturated fats, also dairy, in many cases, which causes an enhanced inflammatory response in a lot of people with sugar.

That's why I make my own ice cream. It's collagen, it's egg yolks, stevia, a little cacao. I blend some coconut milk in there. Usually throw in some cinnamon, typically a couple spoonfuls of nut butter. And so, it's great, but it's basically a lot of really great fats, but without any of the sugar that could cause the potential gut issues. I had a half-pint of ice cream and I am wrecked, and I don't feel well. I can mow through a lot more than a half-pint of that stuff and feel, aside from the calorie count, pretty amazing. So, yeah, it's high saturated fat with high glycemic index or very starchy carbohydrates that you want to be careful with, which is, unfortunately, a pairing in many elements of westernized diet.

Think about your Thanksgiving dinner, your steak and fries, your hamburger, et cetera. So, yeah, order your hamburger on lettuce and substitute something like pesto or berries for the sweet potato fries. I'm surprised very few questions about exercise, or movement, or biomechanics. You guys know that's actually–my specialty is not medicine. My specialty is movement. That's my degree is in biomechanics and exercise physiology. That's what I can actually speak most intelligently about, but I rarely get questions about that. I don't know why. People just want to pop pills.

Male:  Alright. So, this is a follow-up to that comment. How does a skinny guy apply a good biomechanics and nutrition to gain muscle mass?

Ben:  Yeah. Hard gainer. And I also am somewhat of a hard gainer. Typically, you used something very similar to a periodized approach that a typical bodybuilder would use to put on mass. And this is exactly what I did when I put on 35 pounds in college. I got up to 215 pounds, and it was basically almost like a Dan John type of stronger by science approach. You look at a program like Westside Barbells, or 5×5 protocol, or Dan John's protocol, or one of Mark Rippetoe's starting strength protocols, and you're essentially just doing heavy loading.

It's a lot of barbell work. It's a lot of low rep, high weight work, not a lot of volume, and you're essentially building a foundation that doesn't put a lot of mass on your body. It puts a little bit of mass on your body, but it increases bone density, increases the integrity of your structures, increases your ligament, your tendon strength, et cetera. And then you progress from that. Usually, you'd spend anywhere from three to four months on that protocol, and then you switch to more of a hypertrophy protocol where you're upping the volume, you're doing multiple sets of 10, 12, 15 reps to absolute failure, but you're building a foundation of mass and strength first, not starting with the lightweights and progressing with the heavyweights.

It's almost like you're starting with the heavy loading, proper biomechanics, learning the big compound lifts, like leans, squats, benches, push press, all the basic, almost like Olympic lifts or standard weight lifting exercises. And then you're stacking on top of that the actual muscle building where you're progressing to–instead of five, sets of five squats, you're progressing to five sets of twelve squats with often a slightly lighter weight. So, you essentially are putting mass first or strength first, and then your hypertrophy, you're building on top of that. For example, when I was bodybuilding, what I started off with was just three times a week full-body strength training protocol, just like super heavy. I was in the gym for two hours. And then eventually, that turned into more of a body split approach where I was just like targeting certain muscles, but using more of that five sets of 10, of 12, of 15, et cetera.

The other component is, of course, the calorie component. If you're a skinny guy who wants to put on weight, usually your protein intake is at least 40% and you are eating a lot of calories. A lot of people think that's going to make them fat, typically with lean guys, hard gainers, you don't see that as much. I was eating 6,000 calories a day and maintaining 3% body fat when I was bodybuilding just because I was lifting so much and converting that into muscle. So, it's higher protein intake, tons of calories, and then lifting heavy at first and transitioning into more of like a hypertrophy type of phase.

That's the way I would approach it. And right now, I'm kind of in a muscle gain phase myself, but I'm also trying to maintain my cardiovascular endurance at the same time. So, for me, it's like I have a heavy lifting day, and the next day is more like high-intensity interval training, working on a few trouble spots, working on like the glute med, and the core, and some of the areas that tend to need a little bit more TLC, and then going back into heavy lifting the next day, and just going back and forth and back and forth. And then, a lot of the aerobic stuff is just like going on long walks while making phone calls and stuff like that, and that kind of keeps you from gaining much fat while you're eating that many calories.

So, yeah, it's generally how to do it. As far as supplements go, creatine is good. It's excellent for that. HMB and ATP, that's a pretty good stack as well for adding on muscle. You can look up both of those. HMB and ATP peptides right now are enormously helpful for muscle gain and simultaneous fat loss, like tesamorelin, ipamorelin is another, IGF-LR3 is another. These are all peptides that you could order, inject with an insulin syringe, and I mean, they can accelerate the process like gangbusters. So, that's another thing to look into would be the use of peptides. So, yeah, a little bit of better looking through science, a little bit heavy lifting and eating a lot of food. Yes, sir?

Male:  Ben, have you had success with other types of massages except the typical deep massage?

Ben:  I was telling you guys earlier, I was crying today during my massage because I told her, “Go deeper, go home.” I just breathe through it and go to a happy place. I've always felt better with deep tissue massage. And I know there's a lot of therapists probably listening to the podcast who are going to argue about facial damage or connective tissue damage, or the same people who say, “Don't use the hard foam rollers, use the soft ones because those are just kind of mobilized and introduce blood flow to the fascia without mashing your muscle against your femur, or without causing connective tissue damage, or something like that.”

I get the argument, but just subjectively, I can tell you that I always stay the most injury-free and feel the best biomechanically when I get deep and freaking really deep, deep, deep tissue massage. I mean, I was talking about this on another podcast recently. Once a week, I get a really long massage. Wednesday nights, like around 9:00 p.m., I have a massage therapist come to my house and she's there for two and a half to three hours. So, I go to bed like 11:30 or midnight and I lay on my Pulse Centers' PEMF table. I jack that thing up to the highest intensity it can go. So, my whole body is–essentially, that's like opening and closing my cell membranes.

I'm essentially exercising my cells and increasing blood flow while I'm laying on that thing. I've got a speaker on either side of my body just blasting myself with healing frequencies. I use Michael Tyrrell's Wholetones. That's my track of choice. I basically got sound healing going at the same time. I have of course like essential oils that I'm diffusing. And typically, I'm using like an almond oil with essential oils as a–I'm using the almond oil as a carrier, and then essential oils mixed into that.

I order this essential oil mix from this company out of Ashland, Oregon called Essential Oil Wizardry, and they have one that's called–it's a pain control formula. It's not icy hot. It's like–I forget. If you go to their website, it's like their main one for muscle pain. It's like a menthol type of solution. And then I get their other one. It's called the–it's like the three wise men. It's like gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And for some reason, those just make me feel amazing in that almond oil carrier.

And then I basically smoke, essentially, the equivalent of a joint. I could take a few hits on a vape pen. So, I get a little THC in my system. And then I take a microdose of ketamine, which is basically like an anesthetic. And then I just go dead to the world, and she works on me like a limp rag doll for like three hours. It's the most amazing part of my week. I don't know. My wife would probably say I should have other most amazing parts of the week, but that's a highlight of my week because the next day, all I can do is just like walk and sauna and swim. My muscles are sore after that, but then two days later, I feel like a 16-year-old boy, like everything just moves free, like there's no pain anywhere. It feels amazing. And I just go eff up my body and lift and run and train for the next six days, and then she comes again on the next Wednesday. So, that's my style of massage. I get the argument against deep tissue massage, but I'm just saying. That's what works for me.

Female:  I'm wondering what you recommend to enhance recovery from exercise, and also to heal faster from injuries.

Ben:  Probably, the top things that I use right now, I have a vial of BPC 157 and TB-500 peptides in my fridge, and will inject a mega-dose systemically. It doesn't have to be near the joint, but I mean like a mega dose systemically. So, I'll use like 2,000 of BPC. And I think it's like 3 or 4,000 of TB, whereas standard dose is like 200 micrograms of BPC. So, I just blast myself with that. Typically, I'll take 12 to 15 capsules of Kion Flex, which is–it's like a shotgun anti-inflammation formula with turmeric, and cetyl myristoleate for your synovial fluid, and some proteolytic enzymes, just all the stuff that helps to accelerate healing, double up on my amino acids, I get ton of essential amino acids as well. I'll use about 40 grams if I'm injured.

I use a lot of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. I have the Pulse Centers, like I mentioned earlier, that same I get a massage on. It comes with little coils that you can plugin and just wrap around a knee, or wrap around a shoulder, or any joint that's kind of beat up and sore. I do a lot of infrared sauna and a lot of Joovv light. I just blast myself with light. So, I'm warming the tissue, increasing blood flow without necessarily running or weightlifting or something like that. Do a lot of water and non-weight-bearing type of exercise, typically like yoga, swimming, et cetera.

Typically, I'll dump several pounds of magnesium bath salts. I get these bath salts from ancient minerals that I'll–they're huge heavy bags, and I'll put two of those in the tub, and fill it up with very hot water, and I'll stay in there for about 20 minutes, but then I leave the bathtub full because you let it out in the evening before bed. And then in the morning when I get up because I want to get the most–the salts aren't cheap, right? And if I'm going to put two whole bags in there. So, in the morning, I'll get in and just jump in the bath again. It's a little colder, but I won't shower after I do that so the magnesium stays on the skin and continues to absorb.

And then if it's a spot treatment, the last thing that I really like to do is electro-stim. But I learned this from a guy who would use this protocol a lot on Tour de France cyclists. I think he worked with Team RadioShack, Jeff Spencer. And he would put a topical anti-inflammatory, like arnica or magnesium. I don't think he had topical CBD, but that would be another option. And then you put the electrode patches of a Compex, or a Marc 2, or any other electro-stim device on top of that oil because that current is going to drive the oil more deeply into the tissue, and because the electrical current can be a little uncomfortable. If you jack it up to a frequency, that's really going to cause a lot of blood flow. Once you've got the lotion and the electrodes on that, you wrap that with ice. So, essentially, you're able to jack up the electro-stim to a higher level when you have the ice on there. And you can do that two to three times a day for about 15 to 20 minutes, and that's really, really good at accelerating the recovery protocol as well.

So, they're a few things that I do. Some people really, really swear by fasting. I do agree that not eating a lot of inflammatory foods is good, but you need to strike a balance between like not have enough nutrients in your body, which fasting–I realized that fasting will shut down inflammation and increase cellular autophagy, and maybe help with healing a little bit. But personally, when I'm injured, I don't like to fast, unless I'm so injured, I just can't even move or exercise or something like that. So, I think it's better to just eat really good quality, clean healing foods, turmeric, and bone broth, and berries, and high antioxidant foods, things like that.

Female:  Hi. My question is for Dean, at home, and he had a question about cell phones, whether you could leave them by the bed in airplane mode, or if it was better to shut them down totally.

Ben:  I think it's okay. One of my friends who works for Apple told me that when your phone is in airplane mode, Apple still has a way of locating your phone, which would mean there's still some kind of a signal present, or maybe–I don't know my electronics enough to understand whether or not there'd be some way for them to find it, like some internal chip that only transmits a signal if they beam a signal to it, or whatever. Maybe he's wrong. But airplane mode is pretty safe. I mean, I have an Acoustimeter and I've tested my phone in airplane mode. I told you earlier in this podcast about how the phone leaves the body as a signal, and I don't get a signal when it's in airplane mode. So, I think you're fine, as far as I was concerned.

However, you talking about the phone made me remember that Andrew, who's not present because he had to go into his son's graduation somewhere else in Switzerland and left us today, he did email me with a question, and I told him I would reply to it on the podcast. So, here is Andrew's question. First of all, he says, “Our two fantastic boys, Scott and John, are 12 and 11 years old.” Hi, Scott and John. What's going on, guys? He wants me to give them some advice, or give some advice to parents of kids just about to reach their teenage years. “What are key things parents can incorporate from all of your research to have them grow strong and healthy as they become young adults?”

I don't know if this is more like how kids should eat healthy and train question versus how to just grow a good young human in this day and age. But I'm going to go with the ladder because it's been on my mind a lot, now that I'm unschooling my own boys. I think it was Yuval Noah Harari, and I may have totally butchered his name, who wrote in the book, “21 Lessons For The 21st Century” about how the well-equipped human of the future will be able to adapt on the fly in a very resilient and non-stressed-out manner to things like job displacements via elements like artificial intelligence and automation, being able to create a new career for themselves on the fly, being able to think on their feet and make decisions very creatively, and not necessarily think inside a box, or think in terms of predictable patterns.

Of course the problem is that ever since the Agricultural Revolution, we've been training young people on how to be factory workers, how to be farmers, how to basically be in roles that essentially will, in the future, be automated by robots because if you think about it, really much of the educational system is designed to churn out a little robot. And of course, there are forms of education like Waldorf and Montessori and some very good private schools that do have a great deal of play, and creativity, and alternative problem-solving, and real-world experience woven in.

But I think that the best way for a child to learn is to experience life, to learn through life. That's the way we're now raising our boys. Their entire mathematics and woodworking and nature curriculum this summer is building a tree fort. I have a guy coming over to the house twice a week because I'm not so great at woodwork and I'm not a builder, but he's training them and me to a certain extent on just basic building knowledge, like how to actually construct a well-designed building using math and using things like woodworking skills.

When I was a young man, my parents actually kind of have this. Because I was home-schooled K through 12, my job was supposed to be, until I pulled a complete 180, shocked and probably upset my parents a little bit and decided to go into exercise physiology and play collegiate tennis and just forego what I had originally been getting groomed to do for two years prior to that. I was just supposed to go live with this Microsoft computer programmer and he was going to teach me all about video game design. I was at the [01:37:03] ______ taking apart my hard drive and repairing my computers and using a little video game design tools that I found online. I was going to go apprenticeship with this guy and just learn to be programmer, without going to college but basically just hanging out with this dude, and he'd teach me how to program, teach me what I need to know.

In a couple of years, my kids are going to go work at a superfoods farm in Hawaii for three months. They're going to learn how to grow plants, how to make tinctures and powders and all sorts of amazing compounds out of them. And when you look at something called the cone of learning, which you can google and look up, the very, very worst way for a human to learn is through books. As a matter of fact, the Farnam Street newsletter, which I subscribed to, which is a fantastic weekly newsletter, just chockfull of wisdom and books they've discovered in ways that people learn. In this last issue, just this past Sunday, they included an article about why books don't work. And also, to a certain extent, why lectures don't work.

That transmission of information without experience is shockingly ineffective. You asked someone about some massive book that they've just read, and often the amount of things or takeaways they can tell you from that book spans about 30 seconds, and that's about it. Whereas books that actually have interaction, experiences, things that you must learn or experience or teach as you go through that book, they educate you far more effectively. And as a matter of fact, above the cone of learning, above books is movies and documentaries, like it's better for your child to watch a movie about American history than to read a book about Abraham Lincoln.

And of course, at the very top of the cone, or the two things at the top of the cone are actually experiencing that. That might be putting them into a theatrical play, where for two months, they're actually preparing for a play, all about Abraham Lincoln, or going and visiting the Mount Rushmore or some site of American history. And at the very top is teaching, like putting your child into a situation where they'll teach.

So, River and Terran now, on a monthly basis, are teaching a cooking class in our local community where kids show up. They buy a ticket. River and Terran teach them how to cook a recipe, and there's a video camera, and there are handouts. And that, compared to them reading a cookbook, compared to them watching Top Chef or MasterChef, even compared to them cooking in the kitchen would be the very, very best way for them to learn because when you know you have to teach it, you learn at a dramatically more efficient pace.

So, I think that the best way to equip a child is to have them learn via life experiences, not necessarily from books, although those can be a supplement to learning, and to ensure that they are able to make decisions on the fly in a very resilient, free-thinking manner. And some of the better books for this, and I'll finish with this, would be the book, “Unschooling to University,” a relatively new 2018 title. So, it's relevant. Any of John Holt‘s resources, as well as John Holt's website, which you can find online by just googling John Holt. And he has a fantastic website that goes into, essentially, the failures of the modern schooling system and how a child to learn instead. The book “Free to Play.” “Free to Play” is an excellent book that goes into how some institutions have indeed reinvented themselves to allow children to learn through just free creative play. And that book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” isn't really that bad either.

Those are a few resources though that I've read and that I used. So, I know this just kind of turned into a podcast on education. But yeah, those are some of my thoughts for Andrew. And again, hello to Andrew's boys.

I think that's probably good. I know you all have been detoxing like champs all week. You might be a little tired. I want to go for a walk, or relax, or meditate, or do what you're going to do tonight before yet another wonderful morning in the Swiss Alps. So, thanks for being a part of this podcast. And all of you listening in, thanks for listening. You can, of course, leave your questions, your comments, your feedback at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/swissclinic1.

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.

 

 

In this podcast, recorded during the Swiss Clinic Retreat that I led in the Swiss Alps two weeks ago, we cover a host of questions from attendees. If you listen in and want to attend the Swiss Clinic yourself, you can join one of Robyn Openshaw's 2 to 3 week guided retreats that she arranges there by clicking here or you can contact the Swiss Clinic directly to arrange your own customized visit on your own schedule by clicking here.

Strap yourself in and prepare for this massive Q&A that includes the following:

-Are you increasing mTOR by taking Kion Aminos throughout the day vs. around a workout? [6:25]

• 1 gram of amino acids = 1 gram of protein
• Any protein can be anabolic
• Exercising with 10 g of aminos is more effective than in a pure fasted state

-What are the best protocols for eliminating heavy metals and toxins, and how do you measure success? [10:20]

• Process vs. Event. Daily detox is far more effective than a yearly or quarterly
• The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo
• Ben's Kitchari recipe
• BGF podcast with Dr. Dan Pompa
• BGF podcast with Dr. Satchin Panda
• Ben's personal protocol
  • Sauna treatment every day
  • Coffee enema weekly
  • Rebounder and vibration platform
• Biggest detox organ is the skin
• Mass spectrometry
• Onegevity
• NutrEval by Genova Diagnostics
• GI Effects 3 day gut test
• Wellness FX
• Once in a Lifetime Genetic Test
• Tree of Life
• BGF podcast w/ Dr. Kharim Dhanani
• Microbiome analysis: Viome or Onegevity

-How to find relief from exercise-induced rhinitis [18:40]

• HistaBlock
• Avoid dairy

-Is there a threshold between the sympathetic and parasympathetic state? [21:30]

• There is no threshold
• Autonomic nervous system sends signal to the heart via vagus nerve
• Good balance between the two dictates the vagus nerve communication with the heart will be clear
• High HRV is indicative of healthy balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
• Breath work is highly efficacious

-What is the latest science on carnivore, ketogenic, vegan diets? [28:15]

• There is no one “perfect” diet to follow; it's highly individualized
• Be aware of your ancestry and adjust your diet accordingly
• Periods of caloric restriction are very beneficial
• Ben does a Kitchari cleanse 4x per year

-How dangerous are WiFi, cellular, 5G signals? [35:15]

• BGF podcast w/ Nick Pineault
• The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMF's by Nick Pineault
• BGF podcast w/ building biologist Brian Hoyer
• Shielded Healing dirty electricity filters
• Will humans evolve to tolerate these hazards?
• BluShield signal scrambling device (use BEN for a 10% discount)
• Acoustimeter
• Holding your phone makes you a conductor of EMF
• Phase Angle measurement (recommended by Dr. Mercola)
• DefenderShield Bluetooth device
• Yur Buds

-Ben's thoughts on vaping, particularly CBD [47:25]

-Ben's thoughts on the Viome results recently discussed on the podcast [49:35]

• BGF podcast on Ben's Viome test results
• Kion Flex
• When eating at a steak house:
  • HistaBlock
  • Kion Lean
  • Gluten Guardian
  • Charcoal capsules before bed

-What is the cause of low ferritin? [57:06]

• High ferritin is usually the concern
• Look at diet adjustments
• High red blood cell turnover
• Ferritin pyrophosphate – Floradix
• Increasing intake of iron could be risky for men

-How does one know they're ready to begin the process of detoxification from heavy metals and toxins? [1:00:20]

-What is a MTHFR gene mutation and should anyone care? [1:04:00]

• Dirty Genes by Dr. Ben Lynch
• Stratagene, Dr. Lynch's company
• Impaired metabolism
• It would affect a supplementation protocol

-What has piqued Ben's interest in the realm of anti-aging [1:06:40]

• Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD)
• Deuterium depleted water   (use GREENFIELD for 10% off)
• BGF podcast w/ Robert Slovak of Water and Wellness
• Auto immune control
  • Mistletoe extract
• Keto, CBD, infrared light
• Hyperthermia
• Awareness of mitochondrial health
• Mitigation of EMF
• Stem cell treatments

-Ben's thoughts on Carbon 60 [1:13:30]

• An upcoming podcast will be on the topic

-Should fats be combined with starches? [1:16:00]

• Potential oxidation of cholesterol
• Formation of lipopolysaccharides

-How can skinny guys gain muscle mass? [1:20:15]

• Similar to a body builder's approach (stronger by science)
• Dan John's 18 Week protocol
• Creatine
• Peptides

-What kind of massages Ben recommends [1:24:55]

• Deep tissue massage is very beneficial; injury-free
• Every Wednesday, 2.5 hr. massage
  • Essential oils
  • Music w/ healing frequencies
  • Essential Oil Wizardry
  • BGF podcast w/ Dr. Nick Berry

-What do you recommend to enhance recovery from exercise and recovery from injury?…1:28:30

• BPC 157 and TB500 peptides
• Amino acids
• PEMF therapy
• Infrared sauna
• JOOVV light
• Water and non-weight bearing exercise
• Magnesium bath salts
• Fasting (with caution)

-Is airplane mode on our cell phones safe, or should we turn them off completely while we're sleeping? [1:32:25]

-What can parents do for their pre-teen children to become strong and healthy young adults? [1:33:45]

• Unschooling to University by Judy Arnall
• John Holt
• Free to Learn by Peter Gray

-And much more…

Resources mentioned in this episode:

– The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo

– Ben's Kitchari recipe

– BGF podcast with Dr. Dan Pompa

– BGF podcast with Dr. Satchin Panda

– HistaBlock

– The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMF's by Nick Pineault

– BGF podcast w/ Nick Pineault

– BGF podcast w/ building biologist Brian Hoyer

– Shielded Healing dirty electricity filters

– BluShield signal scrambling device

– Acoustimeter

– BGF podcast on Ben's Viome test results

– Dirty Genes by Dr. Ben Lynch

– Stratagene, Dr. Lynch's company

– BGF podcast w/ Robert Slovak of Water and Wellness

– Dan John's 18 Week protocol

– Essential Oil Wizardry

– BGF podcast w/ Dr. Nick Berry

– Unschooling to University by Judy Arnall

– Free to Learn by Peter Gray

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