Doctor Reveals the BEST Diet to Boost Energy, Build Muscle, and Optimize Health | Dr. Mercola

And why fasting will benefit people, because it removes the substrate, the fuel for the oxygen-tolerant bacteria. You don't give them fuel, they don't reproduce, they don't multiply. Interesting. Low-carb diet will help. Joseph Marola, best known as the founder of health information website, mola.com. He is a physician and a New York Times best-selling author. He was voted the Ultimate Wellness Game Changer by Huffington Post. What would you say is the ideal diet? Is it just a diet that's prioritizing our gut health? You just can't do the ideal diet initially. No one can. You really need to have [Applause] that. Dr. MCA, yes, thanks for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here. Yeah, I'm loving your energy so far. Yeah, great. Yeah, it's great. Um, so I want to start out with this interesting chart that I found actually through David Perlmutter, who was on the show as well. Sure. And he talked about our ancestors' diet and how 75% of their diet might be, give or take, was fat, 5% was carbs. Today, that's 60% carbs and 20% fat in the modern diet that we have today. What does that say about how our diet has dramatically shifted, and what does that mean for our health when we go from 75% fat and 5% carbs to 60% carbs? Well, that's a great question. I've been studying health for a long time, many decades. It's over four decades now, probably closer to five decades if you, if you don't include my professional career. So, uh, a large portion of that study was, it did, intended or focused on understanding the answer to that question. You know, what is the ideal macronutrient composition? And I think the supposition that 75 to 80% is not accurate at all. It's, it's far from accurate. And, uh, it's probably closer to 30%. 20% is too low. Although astonishing, you go to a very low percentage of diet, both extremes, that the diet seems to work. Really high fat, very low carb works, and very low fat, very high carbs works. And there really, oh, sure, the Kushi rice diet with the 1920s. I mean, they were, they were curing obesity and diabetes like crazy. What are cultures that have a very high carb diet? I haven't studied that, but I'm just saying biologically, you can go from both extremes. And I don't think either of those are healthy. They, they, you can produce results. Low carb, keto produces results, and I advocated. I've had a number one best-selling book, Fat for Fuel. Y. So I was in that camp. I'm not in that camp anymore. I, uh, I did hear this. You, you used to be keto? Oh, I am anti-keto in space. And I can tell you very specifically, in detailed molecular biological terms, why I, please, because you were, you were advocating keto for, for a, and then now some, now, please understand that some of the cells in your body do need to metabolize fat. No question. If they didn't, you'd be dead. Your heart, your muscle, and the special cells in your colon, some of the most special cells in your body, they have to operate on beta oxidation and, and generate energy that way. Because in the process of generating that energy, I, I'll go into that a little. There's so many things we can talk about. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to, I want to focus on answering one question at a time. So, and I forgot where I was at with this. Why did you stop doing keto? Oh, why I stopped doing keto? Because it, it, it's, it's fatally flawed. It, it, I have a new book coming out. It's called Cellular Health, The Unified. No, it's Cellular Health, The Unified Theory of All Disease. That really explains all diseases. And it's not, I've evolved this theory based on the shoulders of giants, people before me that understood this, that were great thinkers and really identified biological principles with the core, the foundation of all health. And one of those thinkers was Ray Peat. Peat passed away about two years ago. I don't know if you've heard of him before. Yeah, many people have. It, it's really astonishing, astonishing that that's the case. He was not a person that sought celebrity in any way, shape, or form. He's was an anti-celebrity person. But those who, who understood health, really found him. And I heard of him 30 years ago, and I avoided him because I just thought his ideas were so wacky. He, what were his ideas? His ideas were, his primary idea were that some hormones were a problem, like he's really opposed to estrogen. I, and I tend to agree with it. So that's really counterintuitive for many people, even bioidentical estrogen. But the other big thing is linoleic acid or seed oils, how, how perniciously dangerous they are. And I absolutely agree with that. And this is actually how, even though I've heard of him for 30 years, his, his, he was a high-carb guy. He was more into the 50%, 60% range. And I happen to think that that's right. Uh, and, but it didn't make any sense. And, and part of the reason it doesn't make sense is for all of us that we just look at the superficially with a limited understanding of biology, we say, well, listen, diabetes is a problem. It's a problem with blood sugar. You have elevated, elevated sugar. Well, it's not the sugar that's the problem. The sugar is an, an innocent bystander. Very similar to if you have a fire, and you've got, someone calls a fire department. Thank God the firemen heard that they put out the fires. But you could make a pretty strong correlation that firemen are strongly correlated with fires. Let's get rid of the firemen, which is almost identical to what's happening with glucose. Glucose is not the problem. Glucose is the answer. It is absolutely the answer. Explain, because that's going to cause some controversies for sure, but it's the truth. If you have any hope of ever achieving your maximum amount of mitochondrial energy production, you have to do it with glucose. And, and I'll tell you the primary issue, and we have to dive a little bit into molecular biology to explain this. So you've got the mitochondria, which is generates almost all the cellular energy, about 85%. 50% occurs into the cytoplasm in a process called glycolysis, which is anaerobic metabolism. That's the, uh, type of metabolism that primitive bacteria used. And it's also, uh, called the cancer metabolism. So if you take the substrate with 75, 80% of fat, that means you have to be burning fats. There's a consequence for burning fats. If it, these electrons come off after burning fats, primarily, see, first of all, glucose and fats are both metabolized in the cytoplasm to acetyl-CoA. And that is just a two-carbon molecule. And that's a substrate. It gets transported across the mitochondrial membrane into the mitochondrial matrix through the citrate shuttle. And in there, the Krebs cycle, it essentially is broken down to electrons, and they're carried in two methods, one with NADH and then the other with FADH2. These are electron carriers. They're envelopes around the electrons. So the electrons are then transported into the inner mitochondrial membrane where they are, are metabolized. And there's five proteins in that membrane, complexes, we call them one to five. And the first one is complex one, second one is complex two, and complex two has FADH2. And when you get FADH2, which is generated when you metabolize fat, you get a surplus up, and you, they bottleneck up, and they can't go through, and they cause something, a concept called reductive stress. And reductive stress is simply electrons are negative, negatively charged. So that if you add the charges up, they're reduced because it's negative, right? So you got the surplus of electrons just stopping those electrons from flowing through it, ultimately shifting out to the last complex, which is ATP synthase, and generating ATP. And if they stop before then, it's a disaster because those electrons back up and they, they want to attach to oxygen. Ideally, they're attached to oxygen at complex four. And that, and when those, that happens, there's that magic, it forms water and ATP, exactly what you want. But if it happens before, it forms reactive oxygen species. And, and that causes damage. So it creates secondary oxidative stress. So that's what happens. And because of that, you will get decreased cellular energy. You will get hypometabolism. You will get hypothyroidism. And you, and you'll, you'll get damage. You will, you, you just cannot achieve optimal health with a high-fat diet. It's, it's biologically impossible. Biologically impossible. It doesn't happen. What would your thoughts be? Because if we were the cells, the mitochondria were optimized, not I mean, some of the cells absolutely have to have beta oxidation, muscle cells, heart cells, and the colonocytes. But the other cells require glucose. What would your response be for those people that were eating a diet that wasn't really serving them, maybe sugar or whatnot, which is well, almost the entire diet of the American, American culture, right? 100%? Yes. And they decided to pivot into keto, maybe they tried it for two months, or three months, or maybe years, and they lost incredible amounts of weight, which is one of the biggest causes of disease. Do you not see a benefit there for those types of? There's definitely a benefit, but it's a partial benefit. It's short, it's shortsighted. The reason it works, and it does work, it's indisputable. You cannot argue with those facts. But, but the issue is, how does it work? It works because you're removing the substrate, the fuel for the, there's two, well, the fuel for certain bacteria in your colon that are going to destroy you. See, my whole theory, it's relatively simple. You're not making enough energy. This is why we have to focus on how to optimize your mitochondrial energy production. Because if you're not making enough energy, there's a consequence of that. And the biggest biological consequence that virtually no one understands, no one, is you have to have an environment in your colon that is devoid of oxygen. No oxygen. Why? Because that's a special environment that harbors a very special type of bacteria. Technically and biologically, it's called obligate anaerobes. But that's a difficult name to remember and it confuses people. I forgot. Yeah. So it's easier to call them as oxygen-free bacteria. Got it. No oxygen. I do great. Give me a molecule of oxygen and I'm dead. I mean, literally, it's almost at that level. So there's another set, the other one would be facultative anaerobic bacteria, which is hard to remember. So we call it oxygen-tolerant bacteria. And these oxygen-tolerant bacteria, see, when, when you, when, when you don't have enough energy, and I'll, I'll explain in a moment, the, um, you, you lose the capacity to exhaust the oxygen from the colon. And how does that occur? Right. Well, you probably know some of the most rapidly reproducing cells in the body are in your colon. Three to five days, that's a high turnover rate. Your red blood cells are three months, right? 90 days. So very high turnover rate. And if you're going to make a new cell, what do you think that requires? About be some energy, right? If you don't have a lot of energy, you're not going to have the energy to create those cells. So what happens when you don't create? And there's two primary cells that are in the colon, one is the colonocytes, and the other are the, the goblet cells. And when you, those cells go down, there's a big problem because those cells are necessary to, absolutely necessary to keep that oxygen tension really low in the colon. And how do they do that? The colonocytes are one of the cells that require the, uh, fatty acid metabolism, beta oxidation. And they, they get that fuel. You know, it's not from the food you eat, only indirectly. It does, it's actually from the food you eat, the fibers. You, you can't digest the fibers, they're indigestible, right? So the bacteria in your colon, this is where it all boils down to the microbiome. You know, we're all kind of taught the microbiome is is the key of health. I kind of dismissed that for many years until I started to have these understandings and realizations that it is. It absolutely is. It all has to do with mitochondrial energy. So if the colonocytes start disappearing, they can't multiply fast enough because they're not enough energy. Then the bacteria that, that, the, the oxygen, oxygen-free bacteria, the good guys, these are called beneficial bacteria. They, one of the reasons they're beneficial, they make some short-chain fatty acids. You might have heard of one of them, butyrate, beta-hydroxybutyrate, similar. And then propionate and acetate. And these are fuel for the colonocytes. They take that, use beta oxidation, and they use and to burn that fuel, and then they suck in oxygen, they deplete the oxygen in the colon. It's a great thing. It's exactly what you want. But that doesn't happen when you got oxygen in there because you've damaged the cells, usually through four factors we're talking about in a moment, because that, those four factors, EMF being one of them, and I just say, you know, estrogen or chemicals that activate estrogen receptors, and, uh, linoleic acid or seed oils, omega-6. So all of those can independently by themselves destroy mitochondrial function. And when you have any of those factors going on board, then the, the energy decreases, the colonocytes start, stop multiplying, and so do the goblet cells. And what do the goblet cells? They produce a substance called mucin. Have you heard of mucin before? No. Okay. Mucin is like, if you ever, you have a bicycle, right? Or get a puncture in it? Yeah. You do. You ever seal that with a, right? That's what mucin is. It's sealant. So you've, I'm sure you've heard of leaky gut? Yes. So it seals the leaky gut. Exactly what it does. Got it. Okay. So almost everyone has leaky gut. They have a hole, a puncture in there from what happens when you, the bad guys? Well, just, there's so many pieces of the puzzle to explain. But, but both the, the beneficial bacteria, the oxygen-free bacteria, and the pathogenic or the oxygen-tolerant bacteria, they're both gram-negative bacteria. And it is a part of being a gram-negative, they have in their cell wall something called endotoxin. Some people, it's also biochemically identified as lipopolysaccharide, LPS. And this is embedded in the cell wall. When you, this is the long-winded answer to your question. Yeah, I will get there, but there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle. You just can't say. Very complex. Yeah. Is very complex, but, but simple if you, if you take it slowly, right? So, so the goblet, wait, wait. So the energy is not there, so the goblet cells are down. Oh, oh. So when endotoxin is out, there's a, there's a basal level of endotoxin. No, the difference. This is where I want to go. The difference between those two bacteria I just explained, the, the oxygen-tolerant one, the pathogenic bacteria, because they can tolerate oxygen, they have more of an energy substrate. So they have more resources to deal with. And the endotoxin that they make is far more toxic, far more toxic. The ones from the oxygen-free anaerobes, it makes endotoxins, but it does almost no damage. No damage. And this is the key to understand that there's a difference in the virulence of that endotoxin. I'm sure you've heard of endotoxin before too, but you didn't understand how it worked. It's the key to the whole system. And it's the answer to your question, which I'm getting close. I'm getting close. Almost there. Almost there. But you got to understand these other factors, or it makes no sense. So the, um, so the endotoxin builds up, and it makes one of the consequences of endotoxin, it punches holes in the colon, causes leaky gut. That's what causes autoimmune disease because you have literally physical holes punched through the colon, right? And proteins come in, and that's what autoimmune disease. You get proteins leak through in your gut, and your body's immune system responds appropriately, and you, you get autoimmune disease. It's all related to the gut. All related to the gut. And this process I'm describing, and ultimately related to the inability to produce sufficient mitochondrial energy. Okay. So you have that circumstance, and then it, you get to this self-perpetuating cycle because the, the goblet cells, you're not making as many as you need, and that, you can't make the mucin fast enough to cover those holes. So when you have a hole that's uncovered, same thing that happens with your bicycle tire. What happens to the pressure in the tire? Same thing. The oxygen from the outside, right, into the colon. You got all these micro holes all over the colon, oxygen pouring in, destroying your beneficial bacteria, destroying it. And you can not, it's like impossible to reverse that. It is. It is until you fix the cause of the problem, the foundational cause of every disease, which is the inability to create cellular energy. Got it. So go ahead. That's it. So you, you low carb. Okay, now I'm finally able to answer your question. Why low carb benefits people, and why fasting will benefit people? Because it removes the substrate, the fuel for the oxygen-tolerant bacteria with negative, with virulent endotoxin. You don't give them fuel, they don't produce, they don't multiply. All the fiber is the carbs. Low-carb diet will help. That's why it helps, because you're not feeding the bad bacteria. But there's a consequence. It's a price to pay. It is. If you go low carb or low calorie, which maybe even worse, and the combination is devastating. Yeah. You will, you, you will destroy your health. Yeah. Because you, you, you get hypometabolic, your thyroid function disappears. And they will improve 100%. Almost everyone improves with this. But after time, they start to decline. That's what you have to look at the long term, because it's not the answer. The answer is is to, is to maximize your cellular energy production. And then you can resolve that issue, which is at the core, is the absolute core. Yeah. So thank you for allowing me to indulge in that long explanation. Seems like the whole process was needed to to explain. I mean, now that you've heard it, it's, I mean, how could you to answer that prematurely or shortly? It does it injustice. It would never understand it because it's a lot. It's a complex puzzle. Yeah, but it's relatively simple when you understand the pieces. It boils down to how important our gut health is ultimately. And you're saying keto long-term, at least, is not for our gut. It will destroy it. Got it. Yeah. It can't do anything but. So would you say, kind of going back to the ancestors' diet and and our typical Western diet, what would you say is the ideal diet? Is it just a diet that's prioritizing our gut health? Is that the kind of goal? I think that is the goal, but it's not focused on that. But, but the principles of that ideal will 100% support it. Because the, the, any ideal diet will remove and, and it's by diet, I mean lifestyle, because it's more than diet, but food is a huge part of it, for sure. But exercise is part of it. Sun exposure is, there's a lot of things actually. The reason I explained the low carb increasing the, the FADH2 at complex 2 in mitochondria causing that bottleneck of reductive stress. Interestingly, there's two other problems that you see commonly. Do you know what the most common drug prescribed in the United States is? This is post-COVID. Opioids? No, that's that's bad news. Those are these are more common. It's called statins, right? They inhibit an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase. And that enzyme is responsible for making cholesterol. And it definitely shuts down cholesterol production in the liver, but it also shuts down another really important molecule. You know what molecule that is? No. It's called CoQ10. And that molecule is necessary to transfer those electrons from complex 2 to complex 3. And that is the reason why we have such devastating complications from statins. That's why it kills a lot of people because they don't know what I just shared with you. Because you can avoid most of the side effects of statins if you take CoQ10 because you're not preventing the production of the valuable molecule by your liver. So it's the same mechanism as low carb. Statins and low carb have the same mechanism. And if you have that and anything else that reduces mitochondrial energy production, and you have blocks in and have reductive stress in the mitochondria, I just realized this just last week that one of, I'm sure you'll agree, anyone who's into health will agree that going into the sun is a beneficial thing unless you're a dermatologist. Yes. But, but in some ways they're correct because they have a very limited and superficial view of health. And they are accurate. Going into the sun will harm and damage you. No question about it. The average person. I agree 100%. But there's still not optimal biology. Why is it harming people? Because mostly because everyone's fat is loaded with literally 10 to 20 times as much omega-6 fat, very highly perishable, highly oxidizable fat in this embedded in all cell membranes. And your, your skin is really close to the sun. That's those rays, that UV can penetrate a few millimeters. It hits that skin, it generates something, these oxidative metabolites like malondialdehyde and 4-hydroxynonenal, all these reactive aldehydes. And they're, they just damage the biology. And they, those are the causes of cancer. So they are correct. There's no question that the sun increases the risk of cancer, basal cell and squamous cell primarily. Um, but doesn't increase melanoma, interestingly. It doesn't. The other thing it does, though, it actually hurts biology in a much deeper way that never really appreciated until last week because of this reductive stress I just explained. Well, there's another factor I forgot to mention. Most people don't know. We've heard of photosynthesis. I forgot about this. Photosynthesis? No, I mean, that was a Nobel Prize winner, I think. That plants have the ability to capture sun's energy and it converts it to a substrate. Glucose is what it makes, and it makes oxygen. It's a byproduct. Consumes CO2, makes oxygen and glucose. That's photosynthesis. There is a human equivalent of photosynthesis. It's called, there's two names for it. One could be biologic photovoltaics, sort of like a human solar collector, because it is a solar panel. You may even have one in your home. Photons come down, they hit this electrical surface that essentially converts those photons to electrons. And you could take those electrons if you had DC, it could charge your battery directly, right? And that would be very similar to what your cell is doing. Your body is doing. There is a similar biological mechanism in in your body that takes those photons from the sun, converts them to electrons in the extracellular matrix, and transits them directly into the mitochondrial membrane into the electron transport chain. It's free electrons. So you're getting cellular energy directly from the sun. That occurs. So if you go in the sun, you're going to get more electrons. And that is not a good thing if you've got reductive stress. And do most people have reductive stress? Yes. I would say maybe over 90%. Times. And what is the amount of levels? Levels, obviously people be decimated, close to death, versus minor? Sure. What is the amount of sunlight that's required for it to be a negative impact? That's a good question. Really good question. It depends. There's, just like vitamin D, you know, how much sunlight did you get? Me, vitamin? There's a lot of variables. And they answer that question, day, time of year, season, latitude, altitude, uh, cloud cover, a lot of variables. So, but generally, if you're getting half hour, an hour, it could be problematic for some people. It's very fair skin pigment of, of the skin is another variable. Uh, it could be a few minutes, literally a few minutes. Even if you're wearing sunscreen though? Well, you, sunscreen is somewhat a foolish approach. I've heard your opinion on this. Okay. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really foolish. I mean, if you're going to, not that you should always get, have sun exposure, but perhaps it isn't. Yeah, but if you're going to avoid the sun, either go in the shade or wear long-sleeved clothes, you know what I mean? You can block most of it with clothing. So the, the, the, the, the ultimate answer is how, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. The ultimate answer is how, uh, long you're in the, but I got, sorry, I got distracted. Uh, what, same, tell me the question. Sun exposure, what's the right amount? That, oh, the amount. Okay. So the amount, it really probably is just, uh, I would say 10, 15, 20 minutes. But the ideal amount, if you're healthy and you don't have this reductive stress, is probably an hour a day at solar noon. And the time of the day is really crucial because there's a big difference between 9 o'clock and solar noon. Got it. Or three or four o'clock, you know what I mean? It's not as extreme as midnight, but there's a big difference. I mean, there could be a 100,000-fold difference. And interesting. Yeah. Okay. Because isn't the problem though also that most people lack vitamin D? Like if you measure vitamin D levels for most people? Yes. That was my passion for over two decades, for sure. I published on that. So you're not against sunlight? It's just you want to make, you want to make sure people. I, I, I'm one of the biggest proponents of sun exposure, but I recently recognized that that was probably naive in some ways and not understanding the biology. That the type of sun exposure that, that, that I thought most people, well, I still believe it, they need it. Problem is, they can't do it because if they did, they get sick. Is this the same reason why those people who are doing low carb, keto, when they eat the carbs, they get sick? Because they're feeding the, the oxygen-tolerant bacteria, the pathogenic bacteria in their gut. That's why they have a problem because they have a disruption of the microbiome. So it's similar. And it's not, now, in this case with the sun, it's different. The problem is in the mitochondria. It's not in the microbiome problems there. But it's not causing their symptoms. Yeah. So I'm still confused. So like, let's, you want people to get sun, but you don't. So what, we want them to get sun when they're healthy? How do you know if you're fully healthy? And a great question. What are the measures that allows people to know that? Yeah. One of the measures is, is are the classic ones would be insulin sensitivity. So, um, that is a fasting insulin. Are you familiar with that? Yeah. So ideally should be below three. And so ostensibly, people eat a lot of carbs, it's not, you know, they have diabetes, right? You have a high-carb diet. Uh, I can tell you, I was taking about 50 grams of carbs a day for many years, and I'm up to 500. Taking more. 500 grams. Okay. Of carbs. Yeah. And my insulin level was undetectable. Was fasting, it was less than 1.4, which is pretty low, right? Right. So you can eat a lot of carbs and you can get healthier, much healthier, if you're eating the right carbs and you're healthy. Now, you would never want to eat that much many carbs because you would be, would get destroyed. You, you have to, you, you have to address those four factors that are destroying the mitochondrial function. Because if you don't, your bacteria are going to prevent you from enjoying the benefits of a healthy diet. That's why so many people have problems with vegetables. Now, there's some problems in vegetables. I'm not a fan of all vegetables, but we need vegetables. Yeah, we need vegetables and we need carbs. I think I think starch carbs are a little bit healthier, but there's certainly micronutrients that are present in vegetables that aren't in starch. It's, it's relative. It's kind of like almost like sugar in some ways, but, but it does provide an unbelievable source of carbs. The average person, you're going to have health complications if you're not going to eat at least 200. It's a bare minimum, barest a minimum. And if you don't get those carbs, there's a consequence. Your, your brain requires glucose. Yes. You can survive on lactate and ketones, right? You can reduce the requirement for glucose by up to 70%. Yeah. But if you don't have glucose, you will be dead in minutes. You go into a hypoglycemic coma and you're dead. You have to have it. Yeah. So if you don't eat it, people who are fasting for 30 days, they're not dead. Where's the glucose coming from? Your body's making it. You know how it makes it, right? Glucose. Yeah. How does it make glucose? What do you mean? You're talking about from when you, if, if you're, if you're not eating the glucose, say someone who's fasting, they would be dead if they didn't have it. So how did their body, how does their body get glucose because they're not eating it? I mean, it's the extreme. The body is converting it to ketones, right? If they're doing a keto diet? No, they need glucose. They are. Yeah, they are. They're, they're creating ketones and beta oxidation of fats. That's one of the side effects is ketones. They will rise, and that is a fuel for the brain. It goes with the MCT transporter, right, through the blood-brain barrier, and it fuels the brain. No question. It reduces the, the requirement for glucose by 70% ketones and lactate. But it still needs glucose. You have to have glucose, or you're dead. So how does it get the glucose? I don't know. Would you like to know? Yes. Okay. So there's a hormone you make, you actually several of them. There's three. There's called glucagon. Is the first one that is released. And then there's cortisol, and there's adrenaline. And these are called stress hormones. And the stress hormone does one primary thing. These are called, uh, uh, gluconeogenic. They're actually called, if you look at cortisol, it's classified as a gluconeogenic hormone, stress hormone for sure. But its primary purpose is to make glucose to rescue your brain from dying. It does it at a price, though. It sends a signal, primarily goes to your liver, and it makes it there. But it needs substrate. It can't make it out of thin air. You can't just breathe oxygen and think you're going to make glucose. No, it needs substrate to make glucose. And it's that process is called gluconeogenesis. And the process to make that, the raw material, it converts the substrate it uses are your muscles. It converts your sacred muscle tissue that you've worked so hard to acquire and sacrifices it to make glucose. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So not great for muscle builders. No. And the other consequence of low, you'll find it very common, really powerful people too, they have that are taking testosterone replacement, they're like their testosterone in 300, 200 when it should be a thousand. A thousand is pretty high though for an average person. No, well, I'm 70. Mine's a thousand. Really good for you. Yeah. Why? I'm not bragging, but once you understand health and you understand that you need maximum mitochondrial energy, and the ideal way to do that is to optimize your glucose wisely, not foolishly, not to go out and run 250 grams of glucose when you don't know what you're doing. You have to do it in a very specific, safely. But once you do that, and you give your mitochondria the substrate it requires to generate maximum energy, then your biology improves. The reason why testosterone goes down because you don't need to be fertile and reproductive if you don't have enough energy. Your body's not stupid. It's not going to make the hormones you need to reproduce if you're not have enough energy to reproduce. It doesn't waste. Doesn't waste. Yeah. I know people are thinking of this, which is so what? Going back, what is the ideal diet for people? Is there such a thing? I can give you the no one. You just can't do the ideal diet initially. No one can. Okay. No, but that's not true. If you're, if you're an average American, you can't because you'll be injured. It's just like, you, you shouldn't go out in the sun right away. You have to fix the cause of the problem because your biology is damaged. So that if you did the right thing, ate the ideal, you're going to be damaged. Okay, maybe we could start there then. How do we fix the root problem initially? Yeah, that's, that's the unified theory of health that I came up with based on the shoulders of giants like Pete. So you need to address there's three primary factors. And then we discussed the endotoxin. Those three primary factors cause the, the microbiome to become decimated. Ultimately, you have to repair the microbiome, but you have to stop the three factors. Okay. The most pervasive one, the most pernicious and pervasive mitochondrial toxin. What would you guess? Omega-6. That's it. Got it. You got it. Boom. Yes. You got it. Omega-6. And you know, I talked a lot about that on my website, mola.com. On the homepage is this 90-minute video I made that goes in great detail because there's, it deserves a 90-minute video because it's so important. But that's one, that's the primary one that was the earliest one that came about in the American time of the American Civil War. And where are we consuming most of the omega-6? For well, any processed food. Almost. Okay. It's the most common. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be french fries or donuts, which are pernicious, but almost any food that's sold in a grocery store, you know, because they do not. You want to have saturated fat. You want to have saturated, for sure. You just don't want any other fat. What happens if you're cooking in olive oil and you overheat it? Does that turn into omega-6 as well? Olive oil is another, another story. I'm not a big fan of olive oil. Oh, okay. At all. For cooking or in general? For in general. So even if you have a salad, it increases, it increases insulin resistance, increases, lowers metabolic rate, and it converts your saturated fat, primarily stearic acid, into oleic acid by activating an enzyme called, it's a delta-9 desaturase, or it's also called SCD1. And it is not good. And the, the evidence supporting that is flawed. It's primarily based on the fact that there are some good things in olive oil, but you can get those good things without taking the oleic acid. How would you get it? There are polyphenols in and, and terpenes in olive oil that gives it its flavor and taste, and those are healthy for sure. And there are some benefits to olive oil, but it's in the polyphenols. Isn't it also the just, but it's not the oleic acid? It is not the oleic acid that will, that will impair your health. It's a monounsaturated. It's called a MUFA, monounsaturated fat. So poly are bad. Omega-6 is poly, has two double bonds, right? Olive oil or linoleic acid has one. Still bad. Not quite as bad, but almost. I don't eat it. I don't have. I used to think macadamia was the only nut that was useful because it's the only one that doesn't have virtually any linoleic acid, but it's full of oleic acid, which was commonly thought of as healthy, and I don't, I don't agree with that supposition. And actually, so this is, you know, this is all theoretical. Where's the science? Where's the studies? Many of these studies don't exist. I've actually just spun up a mitochondrial lab with the finest assays to measure mitochondrial function. So we're going to be proving these things. We're going to get data from many, many people and prove these and publish it. Because there's a lot more studies now proving that olive oil, as long as it's extra virgin olive oil, is actually beneficial. If you look at most of the zones, that is flawed data. It is. And, and even fundamentally, I mean, this is well-documented. I remember 60 Minutes in the '90s having episodes on this. 80 to 90% of olive oil and avocado oil are adulterated with seed oils. They're adulterated. So yes, you can get non-adulterated olive oil. It's expensive because it, it takes a lot to harvest it properly, but you'll be paying a lot. And there's no restaurant, virtually no restaurant around that's going to be using olive oil in their, in their. Yes, for, where, where do you get the seed oils? Well, it's in restaurants. Almost any food that's going to prepare food for you commercially, which is a restaurant, is going to be loaded with seed oils. Almost everyone. It's the sauces, it's in the salad dressings, in everything. So you're saying if it's incredibly pure, it is good? But you're saying it's just the industry? No. Well, that's for most of them. That's the argument that destroys what you just said. Uh-huh. That's because 80, 90% of it is, is adulterated. It's a seed oil. But for the 10% that isn't, same, just grow out of your backyard, harvest properly, and ideally, and that is good for you. That, the, well, no, I don't think so. The terpenes and the polyphenols are, but not the oleic acid. And even then, that's the, yeah, I would not take it. There's not a lot of published data. We're in the process of generating, doing the, the, the metabolic studies to demonstrate and show it. Okay. Yeah. So I'll be publishing later this year on that. Got it. Got it. Okay. So you mentioned omega-6. What are the other two? Good question. The next culprit that came along was estrogen. Obviously, it's a hormone that we all have. But then they had synthetic derivatives developed. And where there's lots of complications from those. And we got the birth control pills. And then they have, well, even worse is the best hormone out there is progesterone, but they developed synthetic progesterone. They call it progesterone, but it's called progestin. It's synthetic and it's pretty bad itself. But, but the estrogens, they actually, every one of these things, and EMF is the third, and endotoxin, four destroyers of mitochondrial health. They all have the same mechanism. You know what that mechanism is? No. There's no way you would. Why would you know? There's no reason you should know. But it's interesting that they all work the same way to destroy your health. They cause, they interact with the cell membrane through a receptor in the membrane. And there are all different receptors for, uh, endotoxin is something called the TLR4 receptor. And it, and when it activates that receptor, it causes calcium from outside the cell, which is about 50,000 times higher than inside the cell, to go inside the cell. And it increases superoxide, which is reactive oxygen species, and nitric oxide, which is another reactive oxygen species, actually nitrogen species, sorry. That's not reactive. It's RNS. So either way, when those two molecules combine, they form something you probably haven't heard of. It's called peroxynitrite. You never heard of that, right? Yeah. So that is a damaging molecule. And that is what destroys mitochondrial function. It just, it, you've heard of hydroxyl free radical? No. Okay. Well, that's probably really devastating. People who study biochemistry know that that's the most dangerous. But it only lasts a billionth of a second. And it, uh, this peroxynitrite lasts about a thousand times longer. So it can travel a billionth of a second, only travel like a small distance, like a, the distance of a protein. So it does, it stays localized. Where peroxynitrite can go between cells, into even other cells, and different mitochondria. So it causes havoc all over the body. It's a little less, but collectively it's much more. And that's what destroys, that destroys mitochondrial function. And what are the biggest things that are disrupting these? Well, let me, let me, yeah. So the other things that contribute to estrogens, it's not just estrogen, it's plastics. Microplastics, especially. Well, microplastics, it's just because it's bigger surface area, but it's still plastics. Why? Because in plastics, part of the process of making, they actually integrate the actual chemical structure itself are these plasticizers like BPA and phthalates. Thalate. Thalate is actually integrated. Some of these plastics. And those are really well-documented, potent estrogen receptor activators. So that's one, one. And then the other would be, uh, the traditional pesticides like DDT and flame retardants, PBDEs. You know, these all activate estrogen receptors. Yeah. So you've got this pernicious activation of estrogen receptors, which causes increased peroxynitrite. And then most recently is EMF. And I've written a book on that, which is probably the best book written on it. Yeah, I'd love to talk about that. Um, before that, just talking about microplastics, as you mentioned, it's pretty scary actually. It seems like to have been a big trend, and then now it's becoming, there's a lot of studies published on it. There was a new one, I don't know if you saw. I think it was on your blog, and it, it was the University of New Mexico, and it did a study on men. It said that 100% found microplastics in their testicles. 100%. MH. That's pretty scary. Yeah. How do we minimize for the average person? What are some of the steps that we can take to minimize the consumption of microplastics? Well, you want to limit your exposure to plastic, you know, seems pretty hard though these days. It's pervasive, but it's not that hard. You can radically limit it by over 90% easily. So cosmetics would be a real common one, especially women. They use these cosmetics. They're loaded with these, not just plastics, but the same things that that stimulate these other chemicals because it's not just plastics, it's any chemical that stimulates receptors, which you're concerned about. So probably in many women, that's the biggest exposure to many cosmetics. Yeah, the makeup. Even if it's like organic makeup or all these trends that are coming out, not saying that it's all bad. There are some that are good out there, and I haven't studied enough to make a recommendation, but yeah, you have to be really careful. What, be careful. Makeup, makeup for sure. And then plastic putting your food or cooking your food in plastic, you know, you just don't want storing your food in plastic, you know. And there's certain types of foods that are more risk, you know, like hot fats and stuff that that could because these plasticizers are fat-soluble. So if it, there's no fat in there, it has less likelihood to go into it. But if you got it's the high, higher temperature and the, the more lipid-soluble it is, the worse it's going to be. Got it. Because most of these chemicals are lipid-soluble, fat-soluble. Yeah. Yeah. What are some other tips, I guess? Water, not drinking in plastic cups. Waters, but you know, can leave your bottled water, leave bottled water on the sun, you know, prescription for disaster. It's full of plastic. And then, you know, the, the more flexible the plastic, the worse it is. Like those plastic milk jugs, those are the worst. No. And you can buy, I'm guilty of this. I buy raw milk. I buy raw goat milk. And ideally, you get it in glass, but there's virtually no raw milk farmers who will put it in glass. They put it in plastic. So the way to mitigate that is you freeze it because it's a temperature-dependent process, right? And, uh, so if it's in the freezer, or at least cold, it's less likely to transfer those phthalates and, and the other plasticizers that are in the chemicals in the plastic. Yeah. It's, it's pretty hard like these days, I feel like to. Yeah. So there's things you can do too. So sauna would be another good strategy to to get them out. Exercise. So good for any, for a wide variety of reasons. I mean, that's an integral part of being healthy is exercise. Uh, ideally, you do it in the sun. Can you, can you move? If, if you don't have reductive stress. Yeah. So just sweating out toxins that. Yeah. And you could, if you were running, and I used to do that for many decades, actually, I didn't need to do a sauna. So people who sweat profusely do not need to go into a sauna. They're doing their own sauna. Got it. Because it comes out in the sweat. There's certain things you can do to catalyze that somewhat too. Uh, but that would be one. Uh, and I think again, you have to be careful because these interventions have to be calibrated and just not done indiscriminately as a magic bullet. But there's a hormone called progesterone, which I'm sure you've heard of, and it's a very, very potent anti-estrogen and anti-cortisol that many people benefit from. But it's not the first step because you have to correct the diet first. If, if you don't do that, then it can be problematic. Yeah. But, but if you are, especially in conjunction with a transitional approach, it's nothing less than magical. But, and it, it specifically addresses the estrogen receptor because it's absolutely anti-estrogenic. I've also heard blood donation can be beneficial for getting rid of some of the microplastics. Obviously, it's also good for iron as well. Well, mostly iron. I, I don't know that it's good. It might be good for removing other, other items that tend to accumulate with age. I personally donate 2 ounces, no, 4 ounces of blood every two weeks. Yeah. Every two weeks. Yeah. I draw my blood every two weeks and I just take another four ounces and dump it. Wow. So you recommend that for, for? I think it's a strategy to donate more blood to to be able to do that. Yeah. I, ideally, a blood, a pint of blood is a lot. That's 16 ounces. So, yeah, I'm.

I'm doing it pretty slow, you know. Like, I do it less than every two months, so it's tolerable. So the slower you do it, the easier your body physiology can tolerate. Yes, EMF. Yeah, this is a newer topic that a lot of people are talking about. Um, for people who actually don't, maybe don't even know what, what is EMF and how does it impact our health today? Well, EMF is a set of frequencies, uh, that are generated synthetically. I mean, you could say EMF is, it's, it's the light from. I mean, it's a broad spectrum. Some of it is biologically valuable, like sunlight is EMF, but there's a set set of frequencies, typically, uh, in the gigahertz range or even megahertz, that's that's millions or billions of cycles per second, that interacts adversely with the, uh, our biology. From a mechanism I mentioned earlier, it hits the cell membrane and it activates these receptors. In the case of calc, of EMF, it's a BGCC or voltage-gated calcium channel receptor, and that causes the same thing, ultimately increasing peroxy nitrate, causing mitochondrial damage, and the whole panoply of side effects, the same thing. And just ultimately destroying your colonic bacteria, the good guys, the beneficial guys, the oxygen-free bacteria, and making more of the oxygen-tolerant, which just perpetuates this massively increasing downhill cycle spiral of worsening health that at some point becomes almost irreversible.

And I've got a good question for you. No one, please understand, no one, virtually no one. We're in a room of, not a room, but an event where maybe two or three thousand people that are pretty knowledgeable of health, and I would venture to say there are, if there are a handful, if there are five people who know this, I would be shocked. So, what is the most common cause of death? There's actually two answers to this from my perspective. These modern days, are you talking about before? Right now, today? Today, yeah. Um, suicide? No, no, that's an important one, depression, reasons for that, but no, it's not suicide. Conventionally, you would think heart disease or cancer, right, would be number one and two. But as I was doing the research for this book, I, I started to understand that people die from endotoxin, and that's a disease called septic shock. And because I've interviewed people like Paul Marik in the past, and he's the person who developed the AM protocol for vitamin C and septic shock, he popularized that strategy and saved a lot of people's lives because the mortality rate for septic shock is really high, it's like 80 or 90%.

How do people die if they have those endotoxin problems? Well, it goes into septic shock. It's a literally shock. You, you just, you destroy your whole body system, it goes into collapse. Ultimately, it's like very similar to COVID where you go into cytokine storm, massive inflammation all over the body, and you, you go to organ failure. You know, kidneys shut down, everything. It's just awful. Yeah, but the most common cause of death, I believe, is septic shock, and it's not included anywhere in these statistics. But if you look and find out, you'll find two, 300,000 people every year die from septic shock, acknowledged. And what is it for heart disease? How does that compare? I think 400, four, four, 50, maybe 500, somewhere between four and 500. It's more, but it's just, it's up there. You're saying not a lot more? Not a lot more. And cancer is a little bit lower. But then right behind them is septic shock, and these are acknowledged, this is admitted. It doesn't take into fact that many of the cancer deaths, maybe even a majority of them, ultimately are a result of septic shock, but they're categorized by the trigger, which would be cancer or heart disease, right? So the number one cause of death, septic shock, which all boils back to losing your mitochondrial function, having that shift in the microbiome, making, facilitating the production of these oxygen-tolerant bugs that produce toxic endotoxin that ultimately lead to your premature demise.

You know, if you talked about some of the baselines that are negative for us, what are some of those things that we're commonly exposed to that are causing negative harm? In terms of EMF, is it like 5G networks? Is it? No, no, that's a good question. It's a really good question. I wasn't sure where we were going with this, but there's, there's two primary ones, okay? It's all the beautiful thing about this is it's almost always in your realm. It's your cell phone, which is a cell phone to basically a cell, cell phone tower transmitter in your pocket. Yeah. So many people go to bed with their cell phone on next to the nightstand. That's insane. And almost equally as bad, maybe even worse in some cases, there's a Wi-Fi transmitter. So you have control over these. This is a good thing. So, you know, some people justify their ignorance of this because their neighbor has a Wi-Fi. Well, that's fine. It goes, it goes off pretty radically, you know, the pr, the distance. And I, I think it's, no, magnetic fields are one over the square root. I don't think I think it's a linear decrease. I don't think it's exponential, uh, but it goes down soon. So you can get, you're seven, 10 feet away, it becomes biologically almost minimal. But if you have a Wi-Fi router with a lot of power, then that could circumvent things. But essentially, you can control. You can turn off your Wi-Fi. Actually, I even better than how to have Wi-Fi in your house, I don't have any Wi-Fi. It's a pain. It's inconvenient.

And how do you get internet then? Like, if you have to work on your computer or something like that? Well, you know, I've been in, I took my first programming class in 1968. I've been passionate about technology for a long time and computers. Uh, I was online in 1978, online on the internet actively. And, uh, I had my first website in 1997, before Google, before Yahoo. No, it was Yahoo. Well, Yahoo was there for sure. Yeah, Yahoo was there. There were, there were others. Um, and Google was exemplary. I mean, they were just miles ahead difference. But anyway, during those days, the only way you got online was a safe way. It was through a cable. And and early on, it was through the telephone line with the cable modems, you might have heard of those. Uh, was slow dial-up. What another was called? But now, it wasn't until the 21st century, literally less than two decades ago, that we had a widespread adoption of wireless technology. I mean, we had cell phones, but not like the way we have them now. Was, and it was literally Apple that catalyzed both with the iPhone and, uh, also wireless connections with their, with their network networks. Before it was all ethernet cables. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah. That's, no, no, that's a C, that's a cable modem, but that was through the phone wires, right? The ethernet was the how you would transfer the signal. And initially, it was through a cable modem, and that's actually today. I mean, you're getting it, but it's usually through cable, it's not through the phone wires. It's a whole separate circuit that you're using. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so you can transfer that cable to any device in your house with an ethernet adapter. So that's what you do right now if you ever want to. Do. Yeah, okay. Put it in my phone. I mean, some, I mean, sometimes you don't have a choice because you can't. I, I, I use the Apple operating system, so I don't, uh, have a Mac. I have an Apple iPhone, but that gives me the disadvantage of not being able to get my text messages on my desktop computer, which sucks. But so I had to turn it on to get text. But I, I virtually don't text anyone. I use a much superior form, but it's not widely adopted. It's called Signal. It's more private communication. It's, then encryption. Yeah, yeah. And the value of that, I can do that on my desktop. It has a wired connection. Okay, got it, got it.

So actionable steps for people is, don't sleep with your phone next to you. Turn off your Wi-Fi at night. Put on a timer. You can physically turn it off. Okay. And other things like a real powerful strategy, some, especially if you're sensitive to electrical currents, um, is you can turn up the power to your bedroom at night. Yeah. It's a little less convenient. There are, uh, solutions that you can actually have a wireless, like a almost like a garage opener that will turn, put a device in your fuse box and, uh, it will shut it off for you. Got it. Boom. Got it. Yeah, that's, that's pretty basic for most, because most people sleep right next to their phones. Yeah, you just, that's simple. Now we'll get rid of the bulk of it, right? The rest, you know, you can get into shielding and things too, but that, that's the big one. You never want to sleep with your phone on next to your bed. If you, I mean, occasionally do it by mistake, that's why. But there's no reason to. You know, at least put it 10 feet away, 15 feet, as far as you can get it. It's not good. It's not pretty. Yeah. And that's why you have an epidemic of diseases. I mean, like heart disease, it essentially didn't exist in the 19th century. It did. The first recorded case of heart attack in the United States was 1912. Was it really 1912? Is that because we had better technology to measure it, or was it? No, no, it just didn't exist. We didn't have the poisons. Remember the first mitochondrial poison in perniciously pervasive levels was acetol? 1870, 1880. Interesting. Yeah.

Another topic that, that I'm particularly interested in is grounding. I, you talk about this in your book as well, and barefoot walking. This is actually kind of huge these days. I find, especially in Korea, my, uh, family is all into doing hikes barefoot. It's pretty, it's pretty wild. Is it in Korea? They're doing it. This is in Korea, they're doing that. Okay. Well, they should continue to do it. Here in the US, it's not as good. It's not as big. Yeah, no, it's not as good. What do you mean it's good? It's beneficial. Oh, how come? I'll tell you why, because the electrical utilities in North America are greedy. They chose not to install a return wire back to the utility station substation. As a result, that return is facilitated, is put into the ground, and that creates these high voltage transients, which are biologically dangerous. It's called dirty electricity, which doesn't exist anywhere else as it is for North America. But is that spread all around? If you want to go barefoot in the mountains, that's still going to be, if you're in a very remote area, you could exclude it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The other way around it is to go to the ocean. The ocean is such a big sink that you're going to de-stress it. But what happens with grounding? You know, I've been friends with Clint, over. I suspect you know who he is. No, I don't. Oh, really? He's, he's the guy that popularized it. Yeah, he is. Earthing, he calls it. Got it. Yeah, yeah. He's been doing it for decades. I've known him for about 15 years, and I explained to him because I figured out how it works. It's not the way he says he, he believes and teaches. You can ask, even ask ChatGPT how grounding works, and they have its explanation in there. It's just astounding. But they do, he believes that you, it works because you're picking up electrons from the earth. It can go both ways. You can pick them up or you can discharge it. I'm pretty confident it's the other way around, that you discharge the electrons. And why is it important? Because of what I mentioned earlier, we have reductive stress. We have this surplus of electrons that gets backed up that doesn't allow your electron transport to work. And when you discharge that, it's just if you brushed your feet or you walked on a, a rug in a low humidity environment in the winter, right, and you touch a metal doorknob and you get a spark, right? That spark is not because you're absorbing electrons from the doorknob. No, it's because you're removing them from your body. It's discharging. They're leaving your body, which is a very good thing, because surplus electrons are a problem. They're a huge problem if they're not used properly, if they back up your electron transport.

Okay, how does he think about that? He thought about, I, I had a phone call with him to explain. He didn't adopt it. Yeah, yeah. But I guess regardless, it's, it's a great thing to do in general for people that want to remove inflammation and all sorts like that. Another thing you said is the benefits of reflexology in terms of the particular points that it can, you can hit when you're closer to the ground. Explain a little that a little bit in terms of what are the benefits of reflexology and when you're barefoot walking? Well, a few, few points here. The reflexology is based on acupuncture meridians and energy flow. So you're hitting these points and you're like getting a little mini acupuncture treatment. But the problem with barefoot walking is if you're doing it on a surface that is not natural and forgiving and compressive, uh, and and and adjusted to your feet, then it actually causes problems. And I, I actually experienced it. I developed a bunion because I thought barefoot walking was the cat's meow, and 98% of the time is without shoes. And that was a mistake because most of the time I was inside, and my inside was full of tile floors and really hard, surf, unnatural surfaces. Even though it was stone, it was still tile. And, you know, our ancestors did not walk on tile floors, right? All day long. And there's a consequence for that. Now, if that, if I would, if my house was sand or dirt, I would have been fine. But it wasn't. So you have to be careful. You have to be careful. But in theory, it's correct, but you, it has to be on a natural surface. Got it. So it has to be, yeah, soil, grass, yeah, sand. Yeah. And if you're in an environment or a country that doesn't have dirty electricity, that's the ultimate. It's really good, right? But if you have a high reductive stress, it's still good, you know? Well, actually, it will, if you're grounding, that's a good thing because you're relieving the reductive stress. That's why it's so good. That's why grounding works because it, it causes those electrons which are messing with your mitochondria, they ultimately increase your ability to produce energy from your mitochondria. Fascinating. That's how grounding does it.

I have these barefoot shoes because that's becoming more of the fashion trend these days. Is it Marks? Mark's, uh, no, the brand that I have is Vivo barefoot shoes. I don't have it on right now. But, uh, what are your thoughts on the impacts of that? Is there any benefit to barefoot shoes if you're trying? It's the same issue. You really need to have that contact with the surface. I'm concerned about them personally. I don't think, I don't think they're that good. Well, first, you're not going to get grounded because they're, they're like neoprene or rubber. They're an insulator. Yeah, they're an absolute insulator. So you're not going to get grounded at all. But you're not going to support your system. So it's actually a negative. You're saying versus wearing normal, normal shoes that are supportive? Yeah, okay. Yeah, because you're, unless you're going to walk barefoot on earth, then I would not do it. Interesting. Okay. Because the reason why I got it was that our shoes normally are pointed, and it's not giving. Non-pointed. I get some Brooks, they're like that, that are really wide toe boxes, like triple E. They're one of the few ones that makes them. They had very supportive shoe. Okay. Uh, so you can get shoes. You're right, this narrow toe box is a problem. Absolutely a problem. That's why I've got triple E shoes, and I don't have wide feet. It just, you need that expansion for your toes. Absolutely. And you can do it with this. So there is some benefit, but I think overall, I'm not, I don't believe that it's over the net, net positive. It's not, it's probably not negative. Interesting. Okay. So you may be, I might have to reevaluate my shoes now. But it's okay, that's what life is. It's a journey. Require more data and you reevaluate. Right, right. And don't become resistant to to rethinking. That's the kiss of death. You always have to evaluate new data.

Similar to sleeping on the floor. Yeah. Good thing. Is that something that you try to do? Or if people don't? Well, my mattress is this. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So it's really connected to the ground. No, I have a bed. It's called a slat support system. It's a German, really high-end German bed. I like this. The, it's, if there's no wood, I mean, there's no steel, metal in it. It's just all wood. So the mattress, the support system is really intriguing. So I do that with a two-inch mattress. God. What are the benefits of that for people? I just think it's better for your spine. It takes a while to get used to it, but it's just better for both. Is it more of a spine thing? Or is it something ideally, if for sleeping, you can talk about that? You can just sleep on your back. I think that's better. Ideally. And even compounding that, integrating that with, um, mouth taping, with mouth taping in order to breathe through your nose, yeah, rather than your mouth. You, the forces you to do it. Now, obviously, if you have a cold, you're not going to do it. You'll be dead because you have to breathe through your nose, right?

So before we go, I'm curious to know what are some of these future technologies or trends that you're particularly excited about that maybe people aren't really talking about? Like, what do you see in the next five years or 10 years that people are going to be talking about? Oh, no, it's not five or 10 years. It's within a year. Within a year. Yeah, next year. What are we going to be talking about? Uh, I'm working on it now. I'm actually doing the science. I developed a research lab to prove this stuff and I bring it to the public. But I have the ultimate biohacking intervention, and it's all designed to improve my mitoch, not mitochondria function, but radically improve the microbiome to get that back to where they need to be to help displace the oxygen from the colon in conjunction with the dietary recommendations. So it's, it's a whole process and strategy. But with respect to specific technology, because that's more, more of an intervention, it's not much of a technological intervention. It's, it's innovation for sure, but it's not a technology. Technology is the synergistic collaboration with artificial intelligence, using them as a tool to help you make wise choices. The technology has existed. It's just been developed recently, uh, to have real-time emotional conversations. You remember the movie Her? Yeah, that exists today. Talking about GPT-4 or Z? Yeah, that's one. But you could even take it to the next level. GPT-4o has a pretty good ability at expressing emotion. But you can go even further in detecting emotion. It's not there yet. It will be. So when you combine that with, and a very low latency, you know, two millisecond latency, you combine that with as a tool with a resource that has access to all your biological data, how the food you've eaten, what your weight, what your goals are, what their status of your mitochondrial function, and gives you reminders throughout the day, that's the ultimate. It's essentially having a doctor or your mother in your pocket 24/7, 24/7, continuously. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's here. This year. This year. That's pretty powerful. Yeah, that's what, that's what I'm introducing. Exciting. I actually have a patent now. Oh, you do? Global patent. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'd love for you to get it back on when that's actually out. It's going to be out soon. Let's have you back on.

Dr. Mara, where can people find you? Where is the best place to learn more about the work you're doing? Yeah, it's my website. It's a hard name to remember. Marcola.com. M.com. Rca.com. And yeah, that's where it's at. That's where we're doing. I've got a new book coming out, Soul Health, The Unified Theory of Disease, and it'll be out really soon. Can people pre-order it? Yeah, they could probably pre-order it next week. Yeah, which should be the beginning of May. Perfect. I'm hoping, no, I'm sorry, June. Yeah, yeah. It may even be out in June, which is an outrageous reach because we, I just finished the draft today. Maybe July. Well, we can put, we've had a really good pushing team. So from draft and, you know, the editors got it today. So perfect. All right, we'll make sure that's out and we'll link below. Dr. Mola, thanks so much for coming on the show. You're welcome. [Music]