0:02 This is the most effective treatment
0:03 that's ever been shown in treating the
0:05 leading cause of death and disability,
0:07 which is high blood pressure. It also
0:09 reduces insulin resistance. It can
0:11 enhance cognitive capacities. And you
0:13 also see it affecting things like
0:15 depression and anxiety. It's called
0:17 fasting. And there's more. Fasting
0:19 introduces not just a chance to lose
0:21 weight. It also mobilizes visceral fat,
0:23 which is the fat around the belly and
0:24 the organs, which is giving off
0:26 inflammatory products that's causing
0:28 heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and
0:29 many people are maintaining higher
0:31 visceral fat than what they should be.
0:34 So, I've spent 40 years helping people
0:36 get healthy. And I can tell you that I
0:38 think you should be fasting every day.
0:39 >> So, tell me about that then. But also,
0:41 isn't the game here just to not eat as much?
0:42 much?
0:43 >> Well, here's the problem.
0:45 >> Dr. Dr. Alan Goldhammer is a pioneering physician
0:46 physician
0:47 >> who spent his life helping thousands of
0:49 people reverse chronic disease,
0:50 >> eliminate medication,
0:52 >> and reclaim their health using one of
0:54 the most ancient healing tools known to humanity.
0:55 humanity.
0:57 >> Today, we live in a world designed to
0:59 make you fat, sick, and miserable, where
1:02 76% of people are overweight or obese,
1:03 and where people think that health comes
1:05 from pills, potions, and powders. And
1:07 yet, most of us are ignorant of the
1:09 proven health benefits of fasting. In
1:11 fact, if you look at all the chemical
1:13 changes that happen with exercise, they
1:15 also happen with fasting. Things like
1:17 increasing BDNF, a neurochemical protect
1:20 in the brain from Alzheimer's disease.
1:21 >> And what about water fasting?
1:23 >> So, people that have not been successful
1:25 resolving their conditions with
1:26 medications, including patients with
1:28 polycystic ovarian syndrome, have been
1:30 profoundly affected by water fasting.
1:32 And we'll go through fabulous research.
1:33 But one thing you want to realize is
1:35 that all human beings have the capacity
1:36 to fast.
1:38 >> Okay. So, let's run through the unique
1:40 selling points versus any other diet or
1:44 intervention. Let's do it.
1:46 >> I see messages all the time in the
1:48 comment section that some of you didn't
1:49 realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you
1:51 could do me a favor and double check if
1:52 you're a subscriber to this channel,
1:54 that would be tremendously appreciated.
1:56 It's the simple, it's the free thing
1:57 that anybody that watches this show
1:59 frequently can do to help us here to
2:00 keep everything going in this show in
2:02 the trajectory it's on. So please do
2:04 double check if you've subscribed and uh
2:06 thank you so much because in a strange
2:08 way you are you're part of our history
2:10 and you're on this journey with us and I
2:11 appreciate you for that. So yeah, thank you
2:18 Dr. Alan Goldhammer.
2:19 My first question is who are you and
2:21 what have you spent the last four
2:25 decades of your life doing and why? you
2:27 I've spent my entire life really focused
2:31 on one topic and that's this idea that
2:33 you know health results from healthful
2:35 living. I got interested really young. I
2:39 was a uh in elementary school and I had
2:40 decided that I wanted to pursue this as
2:43 a career and when I finished training in
2:44 the United States I had an opportunity
2:46 to go to Australia and I studied with a
2:47 guy named Alec Burton who was the
2:49 world's leading expert in the use of
2:52 medically supervised water only fasting
2:54 and I saw things there that weren't
2:56 supposed to be happening. People were
2:59 getting better. I saw people with
3:00 chronic diseases like high blood
3:03 pressure resolving their hypertension
3:05 getting off the medications. And so we
3:07 began to carefully evaluate patients
3:09 with hypertension.
3:11 In this study, 174 consecutive patients
3:14 with high blood pressure and 174 people
3:15 normalize their blood pressure without
3:18 the need for medication. After we
3:19 published that paper, we went on and
3:21 we've published a couple dozen papers
3:24 now uh on the use of diet and fasting in
3:25 the literature and we've written a book.
3:27 It's called can fasting save your life
3:29 which summarizes our work and other
3:31 people's work on this use of fasting to
3:33 help uh the body do what it really does
3:35 best and which is heal itself if you get
3:36 out of the way.
3:39 >> So fasting the the word has become
3:41 incredibly popular but there's a variety
3:44 of different types of fasting. So what
3:46 what is the type of fasting that you
3:49 spend most of your time doing working on
3:50 administering to patients?
3:52 >> Right. Well, fasting is the complete
3:54 abstinence of all substances in an
3:56 environment of complete rest.
3:58 >> So, what does that mean? That means
4:00 >> that means that you're actually resting
4:01 while you're fasting in order to get
4:03 therapeutic fasting to be most
4:05 effective. And the reason is if you're
4:07 very active when you're fasting, your
4:10 body has to produce more glucose in
4:12 order to carry on the extramuscular and
4:14 brain activity. And the only way that it
4:15 does that after glycogen reserves are
4:17 depleted is through a process called
4:19 gluconneogenesis where the body breaks
4:21 down lean tissue. So when you're
4:24 fasting, if your goal is to maximize fat
4:27 loss and minimize lean tissue loss, it's
4:29 important that resting be a part of the protocol.
4:30 protocol.
4:32 >> Um it's true if people are more active
4:34 when they're fasting, they'll lose more
4:37 weight, but that extra weight won't be
4:41 fat. It'll be lean tissue. So, so what
4:44 happens to the body when someone fasts
4:46 and can you give me like an hour by hour
4:48 or a playbyplay in terms of what
4:50 actually is the sort of physiological
4:52 sequence of events that are beneficial
4:54 for one's health?
4:56 >> So, it's a really interesting fairly
4:59 wellstudied and complex physiological
5:02 adaptation that human beings make to
5:04 fasting. Normally your brain burns glucose
5:05 glucose
5:06 >> which is what I get if I have a piece of
5:08 bread or a a bar of chocolate
5:12 >> or if you uh break down protein uh which
5:14 can also break down into glucose which
5:15 is what happens after 24 hours of
5:17 fasting you've depleted your glycogen
5:19 stores your the sugar stores in your
5:22 muscles and so then the body in order to
5:24 get the glucose it needs has to either
5:26 convert to burning fat or break down
5:28 muscle in order to form glucose. What
5:32 the human being does is it converts its
5:33 main burner of glucose, which is the
5:37 brain, from burning sugar to burning
5:40 fat. Now, if it didn't do that, you
5:42 could fast about a week. You'd enter
5:44 starvation, deplete your protein stores,
5:47 and you'd starve to death. Because you
5:50 can convert your brain to burning fat
5:54 instead of sugar, a 70 kg male can fast
5:56 about 70 days.
5:58 Now, that doesn't mean they should fast
6:00 70 days, but they could fast up to 70
6:02 days because your main burner of
6:04 glucose, your brain, um, will convert to
6:06 burning a completely different fuel,
6:08 which is fat. So, let me see if I've got
6:10 this correct. So, if I'm t on a typical
6:12 American diet, I'm going to be eating
6:13 lots of things and my body's going to be
6:14 breaking that down into this fuel source
6:17 called glucose. If I stop eating the
6:18 glucose, my body has this sort of
6:20 evolutionary switch where it's going to
6:23 start burning my fat and turning that
6:25 into this thing called ketones, which my
6:27 brain can run on as well. That's
6:29 correct. And you have about 24 hours of
6:32 glycogen stores or sugar stores in your
6:34 in your muscles in your liver. So when
6:36 you stop eating, for the first 24 hours,
6:38 you're still able to produce glucose
6:40 from your glycogen stores. But once
6:42 you've depleted your glycogen stores,
6:44 now you're you're stuck. You either burn
6:47 fat or you break down lean tissue. Now,
6:49 because the human brain is so
6:51 ridiculously large, I mean, it's two and
6:53 a half times a chimp's brain. Just it's
6:56 a huge glucose burning machine, you had
6:59 to have a way of being able to use some
7:01 kind of other fuel for that brain.
7:03 Otherwise, the first time spring comes
7:05 late, all the human beings would have died.
7:06 died.
7:09 >> Mhm. And so this biological adaptation
7:11 was clearly important for our survival
7:12 in large part because we have
7:14 disproportionately large brains that
7:16 burn, you know, ridiculous amounts of
7:18 glucose. Just because the body does it
7:20 as a survival mechanism doesn't posit
7:21 that it's necessarily healthy, though, right?
7:22 right?
7:24 >> Absolutely. Uh and what we've done
7:26 though is we've taken this biological
7:29 adaptation which by definition would be
7:31 you know something the body's capable of
7:33 doing safely and efficiently and
7:36 utilizing it in a very unusual situation
7:37 and that's where people have
7:39 consistently been exposed to dietary
7:41 excess. You know in the world of our
7:42 ancient ancestors getting enough to eat
7:44 and not getting eaten was the biological
7:47 imperative of life. It was difficult to
7:48 get enough to eat. In fact, most human
7:51 beings that were born, modern humans,
7:53 probably didn't live to reproduce. They
7:55 didn't pass on their DNA. We're the
7:57 results of the winners. You know, most
8:00 people, starvation, predation, had all
8:02 kinds of challenges that would prevent
8:05 people from reaching reproductive age.
8:06 Taking a biological adaptation,
8:07 something that's natural to the body,
8:09 and applying it in a situation where
8:11 people had consistent exposure to
8:12 dietary excess.
8:14 >> When you say dietary excess, you mean
8:15 too much calories.
8:16 >> Too much calories. In fact, the diseases
8:18 that we suffer today, the heart disease,
8:20 the diabetes, the autoimmune diseases,
8:22 some of the cancer, these used to be
8:23 rare conditions that were called the
8:26 diseases of kings, it was the wealthy
8:27 elite kings that could consistently
8:29 overeat, that would get the gout, that
8:31 would get the heart disease. These
8:33 weren't common conditions that were
8:36 present for the peasants. These were uh
8:38 rarified conditions. They've become
8:40 common conditions because now people are
8:42 consistently being exposed to dietary
8:44 excess. And more importantly, we're
8:46 fooling our brain satiety mechanisms
8:48 into overeating by putting chemicals in
8:51 our food. And as a consequence, we have
8:53 a situation today where 76% of people
8:56 are overweight or obese. And the extra
8:58 fat comes with something called visceral
9:00 fat. It's the fat that tends to
9:01 accumulate around the belly and the
9:04 organs. And it's pro-inflammatory, hyper
9:06 metabolic, hypertrophic. It acts like a
9:09 tumor. You have people walking around
9:11 there, maybe they have 20 pounds of
9:12 extra atapost tissue. They have 2 lbs of
9:15 visceral fat and that visceral fat is
9:16 giving off inflammatory products that's
9:18 causing heart disease, cancer, diabetes,
9:21 autoimmune diseases. And what's weird is
9:22 these conditions are treated as if
9:24 they're completely independent,
9:26 unrelated conditions. You have to go to
9:29 a different kind of doctor to be even
9:30 diagnosed and treated with these
9:33 conditions. And yet, they all seem to be
9:35 associated with dietary excess, excess
9:36 fat, excess visceral fat, and the
9:38 inflammation that's associated with that
9:41 visceral fat. Let's run through what
9:42 happens inside the body when I start
9:44 fasting. And then I want to I want to
9:46 talk about fasting in a little bit more
9:48 specifics, but what's what's going on in
9:49 the body? So you said in the first sort
9:51 of 24 hours, 48 hours, my body is going
9:53 to switch from using glucose as a fuel
9:56 source to ketones. It's going to
9:59 predominantly shift the brain and liver
10:00 muscles are going to begin shifting.
10:02 There's it's a progression depending on
10:05 your glycogen stores.
10:07 So that you know within 16 hours, 24
10:08 hours, up to 48 hours in that
10:10 transition, you'll be going from burning
10:12 almost exclusively glucose in the brain
10:15 to burning uh predominantly uh
10:17 byproducts of fat metabolism, ketones,
10:20 and specifically beta hydroxybutic acid.
10:22 >> Is that basically ketones?
10:23 >> Ketones break down into different
10:25 components. Beta hydroxybuturic acid
10:27 becomes the predominant fuel of the
10:28 brain. It's a byproduct of fat metabolism.
10:29 metabolism.
10:31 >> Okay. And the higher your beta
10:34 hydroxybutic acid is, the more BDNF is
10:37 produced. BDNF, brain drive neurotrphic
10:39 factor is neurochemical that's thought
10:41 to be protective in the brain from
10:44 oxidative damage. So that can result in
10:46 things like Alzheimer's disease and
10:47 dementia. You know, when they do rat
10:50 studies, rats in a cage, 30 rats, both
10:52 cages, everything's identical. They give
10:54 half the rats a wheel. The rats with the
10:57 wheel will run on the wheel and they
10:59 don't get Alzheimer's disease. And they
11:00 said, "Why? What is it about the
11:02 exercise that's preventing these rats
11:04 from getting oxidative damage in their
11:05 brain that results in dementia or
11:07 Alzheimer's type disease?" And they
11:09 found it was BDNF. It's dramatically
11:12 higher with exercise. It also goes up
11:14 with fasting. In fact, it's interesting
11:16 if you look at all the cardabolic
11:18 improvements that happen with exercise,
11:20 the chemical changes that they they also
11:22 happen with fasting. And that's not
11:24 intuitively obvious because in fasting,
11:26 you know, you're resting in exercise,
11:28 you're vigorous. You might say, "What do
11:30 these two seemingly unrelated uh
11:33 phenomena have in common?" And what I
11:36 think is going on is that both exercise
11:39 and fasting undo the consequences of
11:41 dietary excess. They reduce the fat,
11:43 specifically the visceral fat and the
11:45 inflammation that leads to all these
11:47 different diseases. And so, every time
11:49 you look at the benefits of exercise,
11:51 you often times see these corollaries
11:54 with fasting. And at some point in this
11:56 fasting process, your brain your body
11:57 moves into a state of autophagy. I've
11:59 heard that word a few times. >> Yeah.
12:00 >> Yeah.
12:01 >> What is that?
12:04 >> So autophasia or autophagy is how the
12:07 body gets rid of scinsesscent cells and
12:10 and waste products and cancer cells and
12:12 you know it kind of eats up that debris
12:14 and does the housekeeping. And there's
12:17 some things that increase autophagy and
12:19 one of those things is fasting. Um you
12:22 know if you take uh rodents for example
12:24 and you let them eat ad libbitum they
12:27 live as much as they want. They they
12:29 will uh live to a certain amount of time.
12:31 time.
12:32 If you take those rats and you
12:35 periodically fast them you can increase
12:39 their lifespan from 30% to 100%. Even
12:40 though the diet's the same, just with
12:42 periodic fasting or with systematic
12:44 underfeeding, if you limit instead of
12:46 giving them as much to eat as they want,
12:48 you feed them at 60% of what they would
12:50 eat if they ate unlimited amounts and
12:52 you can dramatically increase their
12:54 lifespan. It's and it's an interesting
12:57 way of looking at it. From my viewpoint,
12:59 though, they're looking at it wrong.
13:01 It's not that fasting doubles your
13:04 lifespan. It's overfeeding cuts it in half.
13:05 half.
13:08 >> Mhm. By overfeeding the rodents, they're
13:10 developing fat, visceral fat. They get
13:12 the inflammation and you cut their
13:14 lifespan in half. So what fasting is
13:16 doing is allowing them live their full
13:18 span by getting rid of the consequences
13:19 of dietary excess.
13:21 >> So isn't the game here then just to not
13:22 eat as much
13:23 >> versus fasting?
13:27 >> Absolutely. The idea is to avoid excess
13:29 intake that results in excess fat that
13:31 results in excess visceral fat. The
13:33 problem is it's very difficult to do
13:35 that when they are putting chemicals in
13:37 your feed that fool your satiety
13:39 mechanisms and lead to overeating.
13:41 >> Satiety mechanisms being mechanisms that
13:42 tell you whether you're hungry or not,
13:44 >> right? Whether your brain signals you
13:46 accurately that the amount of calories
13:49 you have. If you, for example, just sit
13:52 down and and eat your fill of whole
13:54 plant foods, you eat a certain amount
13:56 and then you feel full. But if you put
13:58 certain chemicals in the feed, you'll
13:59 eat significantly more before you
14:01 trigger those satiety mechanisms and
14:03 feel full. Those chemicals that we put
14:06 in our food are salt, oil, and sugar.
14:08 Salt, oil, and sugar are not food.
14:10 They're hyperconentrated components
14:12 derived from food that are put back into
14:14 food. And we put them into food to make
14:16 food taste better. And what tasting
14:19 better actually means is it results in
14:21 more stimulation of dopamine in your
14:23 brain. Dopamine is the neurochemical
14:25 associated with pleasure. The more
14:27 dopamine, the more pleasure, the more
14:29 you like it. And so it turns out that
14:31 higher caloric density foods or foods
14:34 that have chemicals like salt, oil, and
14:35 sugar in the food will stimulate more
14:37 dopamine in the brain. And that's
14:38 because your brain evolved in an
14:40 environment of scarcity. It involved
14:42 where it was difficult to get enough to
14:44 eat and avoid being eaten. And so richer
14:46 foods had more value. And so that people
14:48 that recognized the value of more
14:50 concentrated foods tend to live to
14:53 reproduce and pass on their DNA. Today
14:55 we live in a world where we've um
14:57 corrupted the whole system. And so now
14:59 we have unlimited amounts of
15:01 hyperconentrated foods with these
15:03 chemicals like salt, oil, and sugar. So
15:05 when you eat those foods, you will
15:07 overeat. The only question is how much
15:09 and what are the consequences?
15:11 >> Should we be intermittent fasting or
15:12 should we just be restricting our
15:15 calories? Are they the same thing? Well,
15:17 there's different tools available to
15:21 allow for us to eat ad libbitum but
15:24 still meet optimum nutritional intake.
15:26 One tool is intermittent fasting. That
15:28 is or timerestricted feeding which we've
15:30 practiced for 40 years which is
15:32 basically don't eat 3 to 4 hours before
15:34 you go to bed at night. So instead of
15:36 eating right up till the time you go to
15:39 sleep, you withhold calories after the
15:40 last meal so that you have 3 to four
15:43 hours of fasting um every day. That
15:46 gives you a 12-hour fast every day. And
15:48 if you're trying to lose weight, some
15:49 people believe you could extend that
15:51 fasting period another 4 hours in the
15:53 morning, do some exercise in the
15:55 morning, preferentially burning fat. And
15:56 so that would give you a 16- hour fast
15:58 and limit your feeding window to 8 hours.
15:59 hours.
16:00 >> And what's the benefit of that?
16:02 >> Some people find by limiting the feeding
16:04 window, um, they can limit some of the
16:06 overeating that a lot of eating is being
16:07 done for reasons other than being
16:09 hungry. Sometimes people at night, you
16:11 know, they've had a big dinner and now
16:12 they're eating additional food, not
16:14 necessarily because they're hungry, but
16:16 because they're bored, they're tired or
16:17 they're fatigued. And sometimes when
16:19 they're fatigued and they eat and they
16:20 feel stimulated, they think, "Oh, they
16:21 must have been hungry." When in reality,
16:23 they were tired. Our suggestion is when
16:26 you're tired, go to sleep. And uh when
16:28 you're bored, you know, engage in
16:29 productive activities. And when you're
16:31 hungry, then you eat. And if you limit
16:33 your feeding window to 8 hours, some
16:35 people find that it's a helpful tool at
16:37 minimizing some of the overeating. Now,
16:38 it's not going to work for everybody. If
16:40 you have very high caloric needs, you
16:43 know, you're a competitive athlete, 8
16:45 hours uh feeding window, particularly on
16:47 high nutrient density, low caloric
16:49 density foods, may not give you enough
16:51 feeding window in order to get the
16:52 calories that you need. When you're
16:54 trying to burn 3500, 4,000 calories a
16:56 day on very low caloric density foods,
16:58 you may need to have a 12-h hour feeding
17:00 window in order to be able to get the
17:02 calorie density need. But for most of us
17:04 that are trying to maintain or lose
17:06 weight, having a narrow feeding window
17:09 uh may prove to be of of some benefit.
17:11 >> When I'm in a ketogenic diet, or when I
17:14 guess I'm fasted, which is very rare,
17:16 why is it that my cognitive performance
17:18 seems to be significantly better?
17:20 Because when I people have heard me say
17:21 this so many times, but it's so true.
17:24 When I'm eating, you know, a normal
17:26 western diet,
17:28 my ability to articulate myself and
17:30 think and be creative seems to be
17:32 diminished. Whereas when I'm avoiding carbohydrates
17:34 carbohydrates
17:37 um and sugar, I seem to be able to think
17:39 and talk better.
17:41 >> I think again it may not be that the
17:43 ketones are helping you think better. It
17:45 may be that the sugar vacasillations are
17:47 are interfering with your cognitive
17:49 function. For example, when people eat
17:50 particularly refined carbohydrates,
17:52 their insulin levels go up, drive the
17:54 sugar down. they end up with low blood
17:55 sugar levels which can interfere with
17:57 cognitive function as a consequence of
17:59 this vacasillation that's taking place
18:01 with their blood sugar levels between
18:02 insulin and glucose. When you go on a
18:04 ketogenic type of an approach or you're
18:07 in a fasting state, you're everything's
18:09 very stable as far as glucose is
18:10 concerned and insulin is concerned.
18:11 >> Okay. So, you don't want to be on the
18:12 sugar roller coaster if you you're doing
18:13 important work.
18:15 >> Being stable seems to help uh uh people
18:18 in their cognitive function. So, but
18:20 people talk a lot about juice fasting.
18:21 And I don't know, there's something
18:22 about when people say that they're on a
18:24 juice fast, I always think, god, you're
18:26 going to be missing important nutrients.
18:28 You're not going to be getting the same
18:30 quantity of protein necessarily. Maybe,
18:31 I don't know, your gut microbiome is
18:33 going to pay the price if you're
18:35 restricting yourself from having certain
18:39 things. Is juice fasting
18:42 advisable? Is it a healthy approach? So
18:44 juice fasting isn't technically fasting
18:45 because fasting is the complete
18:47 abstinence of all substances. It's a
18:50 it's a modified form of eating. So it's
18:52 a diet that's high in sugar, very low in
18:54 fiber, virtually no fiber on on these
18:57 juices. Where it can be helpful is
18:59 people that are trying to make dietary
19:00 changes and they're addicted to the
19:02 artificial stimulation of dopamine in
19:04 their brain that comes from the use of
19:06 their highly refined diets. They're
19:07 trying to make a change. They're trying
19:09 to make a break. And because it's sweet
19:11 and very appealing, they'll drink the
19:13 juices, they'll get their 6 or 800
19:15 calories, they'll feel relatively
19:17 satiated, and it allows them to avoid
19:19 the greasy, fatty, processed foods that
19:20 sometimes they're trying to get away
19:23 from. Um, personally, I think that water
19:25 fasting has advantages over juice
19:28 fasting in terms of the magnitude of the
19:30 detoxifying effect, the impact that it
19:32 has. But the advantages to juice fasting
19:34 or what they call juice fasting is that
19:36 it can be done without modifying
19:37 medications. you're still in a feeding
19:40 physiology. It could be done safely by
19:41 people without having to be in a
19:42 controlled setting like you would for
19:45 water fasting. So there's advantages to
19:47 the intermittent or modified fasting
19:50 approaches. It's not the basis of the
19:52 research that we've published which is
19:53 actually water only fasting. We're
19:55 fasting people on water only from 5 to
19:56 40 days.
19:58 >> 5 to 40 days. So tell me about that
20:01 then. So who exactly would you prescribe
20:03 a 40-day water fast to? And presumably
20:05 in those 40 days they have nothing but water.
20:06 water.
20:08 >> Right? Patients that are fasting in our
20:11 facility are on uh fractionally steamed
20:14 distilled water only. That's the only
20:15 thing they take. They're not taking
20:16 supplements, medications.
20:17 >> What is that fractionally?
20:18 >> Well, you know uh distilled water. So
20:20 it's purified water, highly purified
20:22 water. So in our case, we're using
20:23 distillation. Some people use reverse
20:25 osmosis, different ways of getting all
20:27 the hydrogenated hocarbons and the
20:28 chlorine and everything out of the
20:30 water. So just essentially what rain
20:32 water would be if the environment wasn't polluted.
20:32 polluted. >> Okay.
20:33 >> Okay.
20:35 >> Now in in in fairness, not everybody's a
20:38 good candidate for that type of uh
20:40 fasting. In order to determine if you're
20:41 a good candidate, obviously you have to
20:43 review the medical history and make take
20:45 a look at what people are doing in terms
20:47 of their medical treatment, particularly
20:49 in terms of medications, basic
20:50 laboratory testing to make sure kidney
20:52 and liver function are intact or capable
20:54 of adapting to fasting. And when people
20:57 fast, they need to rest. If people are
20:58 active, we've already mentioned they'll
21:00 increase their weight loss, but that
21:01 weight will be derived from breaking
21:03 down lean tissue. We want to minimize
21:06 lean tissue, maximize fat, particularly
21:08 visceral fat. It's also important that
21:10 they be monitored because people do have
21:13 issues that can be aggravated by
21:15 fasting. Fasting presents a dehydration
21:17 response. There's a physiological
21:19 dehydration that occurs with fasting.
21:22 There's uh changes in electrolytes. So,
21:23 you need to make sure that people are
21:26 being monitored appropriately. And then
21:28 the most important part probably is they
21:30 need to be reffred uh progressively reed.
21:31 reed.
21:33 >> Yeah. So when when they're eating after
21:35 the fast if they go back to too rapid a
21:36 refeeding you can get into problem with
21:38 post-fasting edema. You can get
21:40 refeeding syndrome. That could be a very
21:42 serious or even potentially you know
21:44 fatal problem that can be completely
21:46 avoided by following a reasonable
21:48 protocol of a realmentation after
21:51 fasting which we is is the reason why we
21:53 encourage patients that are doing
21:55 fasting to do it either in a controlled
21:57 setting or under some supervision so
21:59 that they don't make u catastrophic
22:00 errors in terms of how they do it
22:03 >> when it's that length when it's long.
22:05 >> Well uh water fasting we're doing
22:07 fasting anywhere from 5 to 40 days. So
22:09 anywhere in that range, you want to make
22:11 sure the person's a good candidate that
22:12 they're fasting in a controlled setting,
22:15 that they rest and they refeed properly.
22:17 So a person that has say a 20-day fast
22:18 would have 10 days of controlled
22:20 refeeding. It'll take about half the
22:22 length of the fast to properly
22:24 reallament after the fast so that you're
22:26 ready to go back to hopefully a whole
22:28 plant food SOS free type diet.
22:30 >> And when you say SOS, you mean sugar,
22:31 salt, and oil for context.
22:33 >> Yeah. SOS is the international symbol of
22:35 danger, but it also stands for the
22:37 chemicals added to food that make people
22:38 fat, sick, and miserable. And those are
22:40 salt, oil, and sugar.
22:42 >> What kind of candidate would come to
22:45 your clinic to do a 5 to 40day water
22:46 fast? What are the symptoms they have?
22:48 What are the diseases, illnesses that
22:49 they're suffering with?
22:51 >> Well, we get a variety of people and
22:54 ages. Um, the conditions we see are are
22:55 often the conditions that we've
22:57 published papers on because those that's
22:59 what people know us for. So one of the
23:01 most common conditions is high blood
23:03 pressure. We did a study uh with our
23:05 colleague T. Colin Campbell as I
23:07 mentioned 174 people in a row were able
23:09 to achieve normal blood pressure without
23:11 medication. We also did a prospective
23:13 study recently with a colleague from the
23:16 Mayo Clinic recently that did 20 uh
23:18 seven people completed fasting with
23:20 hypertension. 26 were able to achieve
23:21 normal blood pressure without any
23:23 medication. One required half their dose
23:26 of medication. And we had six week
23:27 follow-ups where they did well. And then
23:29 we followed them at a year and we found
23:32 that 76% of those people a year later
23:34 had maintained their weight loss and the
23:35 majority were still normal blood
23:36 pressure without medication.
23:38 >> Were they still fasting after a year?
23:40 >> No, of course they were fasting while
23:41 they were at the center. They were back
23:43 eating a healthy diet and they
23:45 maintained a healthy enough diet for a year
23:46 year
23:47 >> that they were able to maintain their
23:50 blood pressure and their weight loss.
23:51 And that's very unusual because you
23:53 don't find good long-term follow-up
23:54 showing that people are not only able to
23:57 get well but sustain those behavioral changes.
23:57 changes.
23:59 >> So it was more of it's more of an
24:01 intervention in that regard. And how and
24:03 how long were they fasted for those people?
24:03 people?
24:06 >> So the people in that study ranged uh
24:09 the average fasting was about two weeks.
24:11 So they had two weeks of fasting that
24:12 normalized their blood pressure, a week
24:15 of refeeding, and then even a year later
24:17 they the majority were able to sustain
24:19 the behavioral changes such that they
24:20 were able to keep their weight off and
24:21 they were able to keep their blood
24:22 pressure down without the need for medication.
24:23 medication.
24:24 >> And and what's going on there? Because
24:26 there's physiological changes that take
24:27 place. If I went and did a 40-day water
24:28 fast with you, there's some
24:30 physiological things that can happen. Of
24:31 course, I'm going to go into ketosis. my
24:33 my fat's going to start to become my
24:35 primary fuel source, but there's also
24:40 going to be a physiocsychological
24:41 relationship. There's going to be
24:43 something that happens in my psychology.
24:45 I mean, you talked about dopamine.
24:46 There's going to my brain is going to
24:47 change in some respect. My relationship
24:49 with food is going to shift in some respect.
24:50 respect.
24:52 >> Absolutely. If you look at the um
24:55 outcome data, for example, we've got
24:57 studies we've done with DEXA scanners
24:58 that look at body composition changes
25:01 during fasting. And so people that would
25:04 lo say fast for two weeks would lose 10%
25:07 of their total body weight, 20% of their
25:10 total fat, but 40% of their visceral fat.
25:10 fat.
25:12 >> Visceral fat being the bad fat inside the
25:12 the
25:14 >> Yeah. the 10% of fat that produces the
25:15 inflammation that's thought to
25:17 contribute to disease. Those same people
25:19 would have only lost 6% of their lean
25:21 tissue. Now what's interesting like
25:25 muscle, water, you know, nonfat tissue.
25:28 >> Yeah. So the lean tissue mass at 6 weeks
25:31 was fully recovered. So that the
25:32 percentage of their lean mass was
25:34 actually higher at 6 weeks than it was
25:37 at baseline, but the fat loss continues.
25:39 So even though they're gaining weight
25:40 after fasting because they're putting
25:41 their glycogen back in their muscles,
25:43 which is about 2 lbs, they're
25:45 rehydrating, they're putting fluid in,
25:46 they're putting fiber back in the gut.
25:48 So the scale is going up, but the fat
25:50 loss even with that weight gain is
25:53 continuing down. And so what h what you
25:55 look at is their whole body composition
25:58 begins to change and also their brain
26:00 composition too probably in terms of
26:01 their functional relationship to
26:03 themselves. For one thing a lot of
26:06 people feel that any kind of pain is a
26:09 bad thing. Any kind of pain is a bad
26:10 thing and pain must always be avoided.
26:11 If they have a pain they have to take a
26:13 pill. They have to do something because
26:17 pain's the evil you know issue there.
26:18 Athletes learn that pain isn't always
26:21 bad. that sometimes discomfort can be
26:23 associated with a positive response. We
26:25 find it's easier working sometimes with
26:26 athletes than people that have not been
26:28 athletic because they they've learned to
26:31 push their body a little bit and the and
26:34 fasting creates a hormatic effect as
26:35 well. Whereas there is some
26:37 physiological stress that's introduced
26:38 that stress is associated with a healing
26:41 response. Would it not just be healthier
26:46 if it were simple to take those people
26:48 and remove all the processed food from
26:50 their diet and then keep them on like a
26:52 Mediterranean diet with like high
26:55 protein, high fiber? Would that not be a
26:56 more healthy intervention? Because at
26:57 least then I'm not going to lose, you
26:59 mentioned there I'd lose 6% of my lean
27:01 tissue. At least then I wouldn't lose
27:03 any muscle necessarily.
27:05 >> Well, I would agree that if your only
27:07 goal is weight loss, diet and exercise
27:09 are the key. Fasting introduces not just
27:11 a chance to lose weight, but
27:12 specifically to mobilize visceral fat.
27:14 You will eventually uh mobilize that
27:18 visceral fat with uh exercise alone.
27:19 There's an advantage to getting rid of
27:21 that sooner rather than later.
27:22 Particularly for people that have high
27:23 blood pressure, diabetes, autoimmune
27:25 disease, because the sooner you get rid
27:26 of the visceral fat and the
27:27 inflammation, the sooner you can get
27:29 them off the medications. The
27:32 medications themselves present their own
27:34 problems. And people don't understand if
27:35 you have high blood pressure, you're
27:37 being medicated not for your high blood
27:39 pressure, but for the diet that causes
27:41 the high blood pressure. Literally, the
27:43 day you change the diet to a
27:44 healthpromoting diet, the need for
27:47 medication begins to reduce. And if you
27:49 don't reduce the medication adequately,
27:51 you can actually shut people down from,
27:53 you know, consequences of excess
27:54 medication. Is there a different
27:56 advantage between me doing the fast, the
27:58 water fast, versus just going on the
28:01 ketogenic diet if I was trying to reduce
28:02 my visceral fat, which is that sort of
28:04 stubbing fat around your organs?
28:06 >> Yes, water fasting is a more efficient
28:08 method of mobilizing specifically
28:09 visceral fat. And the other problem with
28:11 a when we talk about a ketogenic diet,
28:13 remember there's a lot of different ways
28:15 of getting into ketosis. You can do it
28:17 with a highfat, high protein diet, which
28:18 is commonly advocated, you know, the
28:20 dead Dr. Atkins diet, miss file rest in
28:22 peace or those kind of programs. those
28:24 have some disadvantages. High protein,
28:26 particularly high animal protein, is
28:28 actually thought to be one of the major
28:30 contributing factors to many of these
28:31 health compromises, including
28:33 cardiovascular disease and cancer and
28:35 inflammation and the rest of it. So, we
28:36 need protein. It's an essential
28:39 nutrient. You need about 10% of your
28:40 calories from protein. When you get
28:42 excess protein, you put your risk
28:44 yourself at risk for kidney disease,
28:46 cardiovascular disease, and other
28:48 problems. We need fat. Essential fatty
28:51 acids are a critical part of our ability
28:53 to be healthy. And you also need
28:55 carbohydrates. You're designed as a
28:57 carbohydrate burning machine. But you
28:59 get all the fat, all the protein, and
29:01 all the carbohydrates you need from a
29:03 whole plant food diet. You don't need to
29:04 eat large amounts of animal foods. You
29:06 don't need to eat oils. You don't need
29:08 to eat refined carbohydrates to get the
29:11 foods you need. And in fact, a whole
29:12 plant food SOS-free diet gives you the
29:14 quantity and quality of nutrients you
29:16 need without some of the negative
29:18 consequences or the risks of dietary
29:20 excess that come from these uh more
29:23 processed uh modern diets. So, if if you
29:27 were to pitch to me the unique selling
29:29 points of a water fast at your clinic
29:32 versus any other intervention, medical
29:35 or lifestyle, it would be the speed in
29:39 which you're able to burn visceral fat
29:41 and the speed in which you're able to
29:43 lower blood pressure is unlike anything else.
29:44 else.
29:47 >> It also reduces uh insulin resistance.
29:49 There is no drug that reduces insulin
29:52 resistance, but um fasting does. And a
29:53 significant percentage of our type two
29:55 diabetics will achieve normal blood
29:56 sugar levels without the need for
29:58 medication with fasting. Again, if you
30:00 do diet and exercise consistently
30:02 enough, long enough, you're likely to
30:05 get many of the same benefits. There are
30:07 some things though that seem to change
30:09 in fasting that don't change as well
30:11 with with these modified feeding
30:14 regimes. For example, fasting, you know,
30:15 when you have a computer and it gets
30:17 corrupted and you turn it off and you
30:19 turn it back on and you don't know why,
30:21 but now it works. You know, you've kind
30:23 of reboot or flashed the memory,
30:26 whatever it is. Fasting does a similar
30:28 thing in humans, it appears, and
30:29 particularly when it comes to the gut
30:31 microbiome. So you've got a trillion
30:33 creatures, well trillions of creatures
30:35 living just in your intestinal tract,
30:37 particularly bacteria, but all kinds of
30:39 organisms. They're an important part of
30:42 your digestive mechanisms, your immune
30:45 response, and
30:47 they're different depending on what you
30:49 eat. So if you're eating animal-based
30:51 diet, you have different organisms than
30:52 if you're on a plant-based diet. If
30:54 you're on a high sugar diet, even fruit
30:56 sugars and things, you get different
30:59 organisms flourishing than you would if
31:00 you're in a fasting state. In a fasting
31:03 state, there's a big drop off in total
31:05 organisms. And then when you refeed,
31:06 depending on how you refeed, you can
31:09 actually regrow those organisms and
31:10 repopulate that.
31:12 >> I'm right in thinking if you do a water
31:13 fast, you're going to wipe out a lot of
31:16 the bacteria in your gut, um, including
31:18 the bad ones, but also some good ones, >> right?
31:19 >> right?
31:21 >> And then you can reintroduce certain
31:23 foods that will bring back the good bacteria.
31:23 bacteria.
31:26 >> That's why refeeding after fasting is so
31:28 important. If you refeed carefully,
31:30 you're have a chance to reestablish that
31:32 normal microflloral balance. And that
31:34 may be why we see such good response in
31:36 many of these GI related conditions like
31:38 ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
31:40 and chronic constipation, irritable
31:43 bowel syndrome. But you also see it
31:45 affecting things like depression and
31:48 anxiety and probably they say 90 95% of
31:50 the dopamine and serotonin that's
31:51 produced by the body is actually
31:53 produced in the gut. And so the balance
31:54 in your gut microbiome may be critically
31:57 involved in cognitive function as well
31:59 as what's going on in the digestive
32:02 system itself. So we're just now
32:05 learning uh the impact that you know
32:06 fasting has and the effect that
32:08 microbiome has and the relationship that
32:10 those two things have together.
32:12 >> There was a 2024 study that found after
32:14 a 7-day water only fast levels of
32:17 harmful fuzo bacteria dropped by more
32:20 than 80% and the gut microbiome shifted
32:23 to a healthier balance. So it's clearly
32:25 doing some of the work to wipe out some
32:29 of the bad um unhealthy gut microbiome
32:31 bacteria which gives you an opportunity
32:33 to I guess reset the gut microbiome
32:35 which is really interesting especially
32:36 if you as you say you have some of those
32:42 sort of gut centric diseases. Is there a
32:44 gender component to this between sort of
32:46 men and women because obviously women
32:48 have menstrual cycles and yes
32:50 >> certain hormone fluctuations that men
32:51 don't have. So, do you have to think
32:52 about gender when you're thinking about fasting?
32:52 fasting?
32:54 >> Well, we know that women have
32:57 complicated uh systems uh in different
32:59 ways than men and they have different
33:01 diseases too that show up. Fibrocystic
33:03 breast disease, dysmenoria, menorasia,
33:05 polycystic ovarian syndrome, all of
33:07 these conditions that males don't know
33:10 anything about. Um seem to be associated
33:13 with excess estradiol uh hormones. When
33:16 estradile is high, there's a higher
33:17 association with many of these
33:19 conditions. Estradile normally breaks
33:21 down to something called estriol. It's
33:23 excreted in the urine. And what breaks
33:26 it down is the gut microbiome and liver
33:27 function. And the gut microbiome and
33:29 liver function are both profoundly
33:31 affected by fasting. For example, we've
33:33 got in studies we've done looking at
33:35 fatty liver disease. We show significant
33:37 changes and reversal of fatty liver
33:39 disease with fasting. Uh and as I
33:40 mentioned, the gut microbiome goes
33:43 through a whole kind of rebooting. And
33:44 that may be why patients that come in
33:46 with those symptoms, the fibrocystic
33:47 breast disease, the dismenoras, the
33:50 menorasia, etc. often get profound
33:52 short-term improvement and long-term
33:55 benefit post-fasting. Now, all of these
33:58 things I'd have to say fasting is great,
34:00 but unless it's a motivating factor to
34:02 make the diet and lifestyle changes, I
34:03 wouldn't be optimistic about long-term
34:06 outcomes. When we use fasting, we're
34:08 also providing intense education to try
34:11 to get people motivated to adopt healthy
34:13 diet and lifestyle habits. And it's
34:14 those diet and lifestyle habits that are
34:16 going to be necessary to sustain the
34:17 benefits. I mean, I'll give you an
34:20 example uh in lymphoma, which is a type
34:23 of cancer. Uh we published a paper in uh
34:25 the British Medical Journal uh case
34:28 reports on a young woman who had
34:29 flicular lymphoma had progressed for a
34:33 couple years. And interestingly enough,
34:35 her doctor,
34:37 her oncologist told her that diet didn't
34:40 matter. The diet wasn't related to, you
34:41 know, this particular type of cancer.
34:43 She could eat whatever she wanted to.
34:46 But nonetheless, she decided to come in
34:48 uh rather than go through chemotherapy
34:50 and underwent fasting. And we did 3
34:51 weeks of fasting during which time you
34:53 could literally feel these tumors
34:55 disappearing. um she had her follow-up
34:58 CT scan uh and at a year we we submitted
35:00 this case report and it was interesting
35:02 because BMJ said well maybe she got
35:04 lucky and yes it progressed for 2 years
35:06 yes it went away in 21 days of fasting
35:09 but maybe you know it was just naturally
35:10 the time for it to go into remission a
35:12 small percentage of lymphoma patients do
35:14 go through spontaneous remission so they
35:15 said why don't you follow her for three
35:17 years and see whether she can sustain
35:20 that because we can treat lymphoma with
35:21 drugs and the tumors will go down but
35:22 they tend to come back and that's the
35:24 problem it doesn't really reduce
35:26 necessarily all-c causeed mortality
35:28 because the condition isn't actually
35:29 resolved. So, we followed her for 3
35:31 years and I told her that she had to
35:33 stick strictly to the dietary protocol
35:35 or it would be fatal because I'd track
35:37 her down and kill her. And she did stick
35:40 to the diet and at 3 years we have uh CT
35:42 evidence that she was cancer-free. And
35:44 we submitted that uh to BMJ. And
35:45 interesting enough, at first they
35:48 rejected the followup that they invited.
35:51 And uh we kind of appealed that and
35:53 eventually they did decide to to publish
35:55 the follow-up and then we followed her
35:58 for 10 years and she continues to be
36:00 cancer-free and she continues to follow
36:03 a whole plant food SOS-free diet and she
36:05 went public with her story. She told uh
36:07 uh some podcasts about what her
36:09 experience was. And so we got a lot of
36:11 lymphoma patients coming to True North
36:12 Health. And now we've published a case
36:15 series which is a series of lymphoma
36:16 patients including one particular
36:18 gentleman was even more progressive. It
36:20 was a stage 4 already metastasized into
36:23 the bones. He had failed chemotherapy.
36:27 He also did well and we did a 3-we fast
36:28 with him. Interestingly enough, his
36:30 oncologist was quite antagonistic
36:31 because he was concerned the fasting
36:33 would make him too weak for treatment.
36:35 But he came in, he did the treatment,
36:36 did well, went back to the oncologist
36:38 who said, "Wow, that's really
36:40 impressive. Why don't you go back and do
36:41 some more of that?" He came back, we did
36:44 another 39-day fast, and he was able to
36:45 get dramatic improvement. And again,
36:47 those those uh studies have been
36:49 published in peer-review journals. The
36:50 >> But he didn't go into remission
36:54 >> with uh lymphoma. Uh it would be
36:55 considered remission, but it's not a
36:58 cure. It's just like you can't cure
37:00 lymphoma anymore than you can cure
37:02 obesity. You can lose the weight and
37:03 keep it off, but you if you go back to
37:05 doing the things that cause it, it's
37:07 coming back. You can't cure high blood
37:08 pressure. You can normalize the
37:09 pressure. I've got people who have been
37:12 normal pressure for decades now. But if
37:13 they go back to eating the greasy,
37:15 fatty, slimy, salty, processed food,
37:18 it'll come back because you're managing
37:19 it. You're not curing it. The whole
37:21 concept of a cure is a little bit of a
37:23 misnomer. In medicine, you know, cure
37:25 just means you're alive 5 years after
37:26 treatment. Doesn't mean that you've
37:27 actually resolved the underlying cause
37:30 of the condition. interesting.
37:32 interesting.
37:36 And we have um 120 plates here, which is
37:39 how much food someone would be passing
37:42 up if they did a 40day diet. So that's
37:46 how many meals that they would miss on a
37:49 40-day water fast, which is a lot of
37:53 food. Staggering when you see it.
37:54 >> Yeah. And it's a lot of work for the
37:56 body to digest that food. And when you
37:58 take that work away, uh, those energies
38:00 are able to be diverted to dealing with
38:02 some of the accumulator problems that
38:03 people have built up, whether it's
38:05 excess fat and visceral fat, it's
38:07 diabetes, it's autoimmune diseases where
38:10 the body's actually attacking itself. I
38:11 don't know if most people realize that,
38:12 but in autoimmune diseases like
38:14 rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative
38:16 colitis, ankylosing spondylitis, these
38:18 conditions, it's actually your immune
38:20 system that's attacking your tissues.
38:23 And the theory is that a lot of that is
38:25 because you have the immune system being
38:27 compromised by gut leakage where people
38:30 have uh leaky tight junctions in their
38:31 intestinal tract. They're absorbing
38:32 materials and then genetically
38:34 vulnerable people, the immune system
38:37 becomes uh hyperreactive and begins to
38:39 attack its its own tissues. You know, if
38:40 it attacks your thyroid, we call it
38:43 Hashimoto's thyroiditis. If it attacks
38:44 your joints, you might call it
38:46 rheumatoid or osteoarthritis. different
38:48 names for different inflammatory
38:51 conditions all triggered by leaking of
38:53 materials into the intestinal tract.
38:54 When you go on a fast, first of all,
38:56 you're not eating and so there's not the
38:59 inflammatory uh oxidative damage and
39:00 free radicals that are causing the
39:02 leaking to begin with. And second of
39:04 all, the body's healing comp uh
39:06 processes are able to be accentuated and
39:08 so the gut leakage is able to heal.
39:11 after you heal the gut and go back to
39:13 eating diet that's not full of free
39:15 radicals. You're not smoking, you're not
39:17 drinking alcohol with all of the free
39:19 radicals from peroxidation of alcohol,
39:21 you're not eating highfat foods and and
39:23 particularly heated fat fat foods and
39:25 fried foods etc. There's not the
39:28 onslaught of oxidative damage and now
39:30 you can manage those conditions with a
39:33 whole plant food SOS-free diet. Now that
39:34 doesn't mean they're cured. If they go
39:36 back to eating the other foods, they're
39:38 going to flare up their condition. But
39:39 to the degree they're willing to eat
39:40 healthfully, they can manage their
39:43 condition without the medications uh
39:45 often times that are very powerful and
39:47 have often long-term side effects. When
39:49 someone does a a water fast with you, if
39:51 they're doing a 40-day water fast, do
39:53 you make sure that they get electrolytes
39:56 and vitamins and other things? Are there
39:57 are there other things that you have to
39:58 give them?
40:00 >> No, we're just giving them water, but we
40:02 are monitoring their their electrolytes
40:04 and their blood levels to make sure that
40:05 their reserves are being recycled
40:07 adequately and they're normal. If if for
40:09 example potassium gets below a certain
40:11 point or sodium gets a below a certain
40:13 point then we go back into a refeeding
40:15 mode. We're given broths and juices and
40:17 other materials in order to re uh to
40:20 refeed them. We don't allow them to
40:22 develop symptoms secondary to
40:24 deficiency. Now what's interesting is
40:26 potassium for example norm potassium
40:28 might be 3.5. Uh fasting tolerances
40:31 would be 3.0. If it goes below 3.0 then
40:32 we're going to we're going to terminate
40:34 the fast. But generally people are so
40:36 efficient at recycling their nutrients
40:38 during fasting that they stay within
40:40 normal limits without us having to do
40:41 premature termination.
40:43 >> And when you finish a long fast like a
40:46 40-day fast, what are the or even a
40:48 shorter fast like a 5day fast? What is
40:51 the protocol for
40:52 refeeding them? >> Mhm.
40:52 >> Mhm.
40:54 >> What what what do you give them? What do
40:56 you avoid? What's the speed in which you
40:59 give them calories again? They get a day
41:01 of fresh fruit and vegetable juices for
41:03 every week of fasting, more or less. So,
41:05 they're going to get about 600 calories
41:07 of fresh fruit and vegetable juices if
41:09 they had a three-week fast for about 3 days.
41:09 days.
41:11 >> What's the thinking here? Like, what's
41:12 the underlying thought?
41:14 >> Mhm. The idea is that we want to
41:16 introduce initially food without fiber.
41:17 So, if there's any digestive challenges,
41:20 that's short-lived. Uh we want to
41:21 introduce food starting in the morning
41:23 rather than at night. So, if there's any
41:24 challenges, it doesn't disrupt their
41:26 sleep. uh we want to make sure that
41:29 they're rehydrating and uh getting some
41:31 glucose without necessarily overloading
41:34 their capacities once they've acclimated
41:36 to the juices which are relatively easy
41:38 to absorb and bring up blood sugars
41:40 relatively quickly moving them out of
41:42 the uh fasting phase into more of a
41:45 feeding phase. Then we'll introduce raw
41:46 fruits and vegetables which introduce
41:48 some fiber. And then we'll introduce
41:50 more concentrated foods like steamed and
41:52 starchy vegetables until by the length
41:54 half the length of the fast refeeding
41:56 they're back to a whole plant food SOS
41:57 free diet. The kind of diet that we want
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44:12 what about healthy people? Healthy
44:14 people come to you as well and do
44:15 fasting. It's not just people that have
44:17 these sort of severe health
44:19 predicaments. I think I'm pretty
44:22 healthy. Is there a reason or a benefit
44:24 to someone like me fasting? You know, we
44:26 did a study actually on this very
44:28 question about what happens to healthy
44:31 people that fast. And although there's
44:33 tremendous improvements in sick people,
44:35 it turns out when you look at the
44:36 cardiumabolic risk factors, when you
44:39 look at even things like weight and uh
44:42 percent body fat and visceral fat on
44:44 healthy people, people that are within
44:46 healthy limits, there's additional
44:47 improvement. Their blood cholesterol
44:49 drops even lower, their blood pressures
44:51 drop lower, their percent fat drops even
44:53 lower. In fact, proportionally,
44:55 the people that get the most benefit of
44:57 fasting are healthy people that are
44:59 doing it preventatively, but they tend
45:01 to need short fasts, not long fast.
45:03 You're not necessarily taking a healthy
45:05 person doing a 40-day fast. These are 5
45:08 to 10 day periods of time rather than
45:10 the very longer fasts. They're usually
45:11 because there's a condition that takes
45:14 that long to resolve. We want to fast as
45:15 short as possible, but long enough to
45:16 resolve the problem. If you come to me
45:19 with blood pressure that's 210 over 100
45:21 capped on on five medications, you're
45:22 likely going to need a longer fast than
45:25 a person that's 140 over 90 without medication.
45:25 medication.
45:28 >> If I'm a healthy person, how frequently
45:30 and for what length should I be thinking
45:31 about fasting, if at all?
45:34 >> I think you should be fasting every day for
45:35 for
45:36 >> 12 hours. >> Okay.
45:36 >> Okay.
45:39 >> And then, you know, we don't know what
45:41 the ideal is. That's one of the things
45:42 we're going to be doing in this in this
45:44 study is trying to figure that out. But
45:45 what we do in practice is we have people
45:48 fast once a year for a week. If they're
45:49 clinically stable, they don't have any
45:51 healing crisis, their numbers all good,
45:53 that's it. We move on. And even that
45:55 week of fasting though has a profound
45:57 effect on healthy people. I might
45:58 mentioned though that most people that
46:00 think they're healthy, when you actually
46:02 objectively look at their biomarkers,
46:04 aren't as healthy as they think. Many
46:05 people are maintaining higher visceral
46:08 fat, higher inflammatory markers, higher
46:09 lipid levels than what they probably
46:11 ideally should be, even though they're
46:13 asymptomatic. They say somewhere around
46:15 2 to 2 and a half% of people are
46:18 actually objectively measuring out as
46:20 healthy. Some studies say as much as 12%
46:21 depending on the standards that you're
46:22 using to define health.
46:24 >> So speaking directly to the viewer now
46:26 who sat at home and there's a reason why
46:27 they clicked on this conversation. They
46:29 they found the subject matter in the
46:30 title or the thumbnail somewhat compelling.
46:32 compelling.
46:34 If you were speaking directly to the
46:35 different personas of people listening.
46:36 So you've got maybe someone who is
46:38 healthy, someone who is maybe got a
46:40 little bit of weight on that they might
46:41 want to shift, someone that's got
46:43 specific diseases and has been given
46:45 diagnosis and maybe is given pills.
46:46 Going through these different personas
46:50 one at a time, how would you prescribe
46:53 water fasting to them and what would you
46:55 sort of tell them the benefits for them
46:57 would be if we're thinking about these
46:59 different personas? So starting with the
47:00 the person on the left side of the
47:05 spectrum who is largely healthy but is
47:06 interested in maybe how it will make
47:08 them feel or whatever. So for the
47:10 healthy person the main benefit that I
47:12 see of fasting is it's a forced period
47:15 of rest and introspection. You get a
47:16 certain clearing of the pallet. We've
47:18 actually done a study like this. It's on
47:20 our site where we looked at the
47:22 sensitivity to sugar, the sensitivity to
47:23 salt. It's actually enhanced during
47:26 fasting. And so by fasting once a year,
47:28 people kind of recalibrate their pallet
47:30 and it makes it easier for them to make
47:31 better choices. Sometimes there's been
47:32 some slipping and sliding along the
47:35 dietary regime as people go along during
47:37 the course of the year. It reboots the
47:40 gut microbiome. It tends to uh enhance
47:43 cognitive capacities as well as probably
47:45 brain serotonin and dopamine levels. It
47:47 can affect people's mood states and just
47:49 how they feel about themselves and the
47:51 world around them. It's obviously not as
47:53 dramatic as when you take a person
47:55 that's in agonizing pain or dability and
47:57 you see those dramatic changes.
47:58 >> What about then if I want to just lose
48:01 some weight? What protocol should I use
48:03 for water fasting and what kind of
48:05 results would I expect to see in what
48:06 time frame?
48:08 >> We never know exactly how long a
48:10 patient's going to fast until we see how
48:12 they respond to fasting because fasting
48:15 itself is as much diagnostic as it is
48:17 therapeutic. But usually we can get a
48:20 pretty good idea. Like for example, I
48:21 always like to try to get people as
48:22 close to their optimum weight as
48:24 possible, whether it's with diet and
48:26 exercise or with fasting. We don't think
48:28 maintaining extra fat is a good thing.
48:30 We think for every pound of excess fat
48:32 you have on your body, there's all kinds
48:34 of downstream consequences. And so if a
48:36 person's say for example 20 pounds
48:38 overweight, they think I they feel best
48:40 at say 150 pounds, but they're 170
48:43 pounds. We know that they could it will
48:45 take them about 3 weeks to to lose that
48:47 weight because people lose an average of
48:49 about a pound a day. So I wouldn't have
48:51 any concern assuming everything else
48:53 looks okay fasting that person for 3
48:56 weeks. I'd be concerned about fasting
48:58 them into an emaciated state. I don't
48:59 want to get them very weak. I don't want
49:00 to have them debilitated. I don't want
49:02 to get them depleted. And so we're going
49:04 to monitor them carefully to make sure
49:06 that we're well within their their
49:08 reserves. But, you know, a person that's
49:10 that's a bit overweight that has maybe
49:11 their blood pressure is a little bit
49:12 higher, their blood sugar is a little
49:14 bit higher, maybe they have some joint
49:16 pain, maybe they have some various
49:18 symptoms. We want those things to
49:20 resolve. So, we're going to estimate how
49:22 long do we think this person's going to
49:24 need to fast to get to the point when
49:26 they feed they'll keep getting healthier
49:27 rather than sicker.
49:29 >> Can you explain these four graphs to me
49:31 here? There's some four graphs that come
49:32 from work you've done.
49:35 >> Okay. Well, this is outcome data that
49:38 comes from um studies that we've
49:40 published and this basically is looking
49:42 at the percent body weight change. And
49:44 if you look at the bottom graph, you'll
49:46 notice it's over time. >> Yeah.
49:47 >> Yeah.
49:49 >> Okay. So, we're looking at the
49:51 percentage body weight change during
49:52 fasting. And you notice during
49:54 refeeding, it actually comes down a
49:57 little bit more even though people are
49:58 re-elementating. They're losing fat.
50:01 They're regaining water and muscle. And
50:02 then they're able to maintain that
50:04 percent body change. This is 65day follow-up.
50:05 follow-up.
50:06 >> So, on that for people that aren't
50:07 watching the video right now and are
50:09 just listening to audio, what what is it
50:11 essentially saying happens and in what
50:14 period of time with what protocol? So in
50:17 this particular uh study, these people
50:20 lost about 10% of their body weight over
50:23 an average of uh two weeks of fasting.
50:26 They refed for a week at the facility
50:28 and then they were followed up 65 days
50:30 later and at 65 days later you'll notice
50:33 they'd maintained their total body
50:34 weight change and then just a little bit
50:36 more and now they'd been back to eating
50:39 and exercising. In the next uh graph,
50:41 percent body weight. This is the
50:42 visceral fat mass.
50:43 >> And visceral fat, again,
50:46 >> visceral fat is the 10% of the fat that
50:48 makes up the fat that typically
50:49 accumulates around the belly and in many
50:51 organs. It's the fat that's
50:53 hypertrophic, hyper metabolic, hyper. It
50:55 it produces inflammation. It acts like a tumor.
50:56 tumor.
50:58 >> So, there's two types there.
50:59 >> There's subcutaneous, which is on the outside,
51:00 outside, >> right?
51:00 >> right?
51:01 >> And then there's visceral, which is in
51:03 the inside. And the stuff in the inside
51:04 is the worst.
51:06 >> It's fat that wouldn't normally be
51:08 there. Here's the problem. You evolved
51:10 in an environment of scarcity. Storing
51:13 fat is so critical to survival in a
51:16 world of uh deficiency of or of defic
51:18 depletion that the body does everything
51:20 it can to store fat because the people
51:22 that store fat in a natural setting,
51:25 they live to reproduce. In the modern
51:26 world, it's become a disadvantage
51:28 because we live in this very unnatural
51:29 environment where you can get dietary
51:31 excess. And so even though the body is
51:33 designed for an environment of
51:35 deficiency, it's responding with that
51:37 genetic programming. And so it stores
51:39 fat even though it's not healthful for
51:41 you. As far as the body's concerned,
51:43 spring might come late. The more fat you
51:45 store, the better. And as a consequence,
51:47 that visceral fat is associated with
51:49 these diseases of dietary excess. In
51:51 fasting, the body preferentially
51:53 mobilizes that visceral fat. It gets rid
51:54 of it. Just like if you go on a fast and
51:56 have a breast tumor, you lose 10% of
51:58 your body fat. You don't necessarily
52:00 lose 10% of the tumor. You might lose
52:02 50% of the tumor. you might lose the
52:04 entire tumor because the body's has some
52:06 intelligence to it in terms of how it's
52:08 mobilizing these tissues. You can take a
52:10 person, an animal for example, and
52:12 starve it to death. Um, and if you
52:14 measure its nervous system, you'll find
52:16 the nervous system isn't depleted even
52:18 when it's starved to death, it will
52:21 preserve those tissues in preference to
52:23 the uh the visceral fat or the fat
52:25 tissues. And so this graph is showing
52:27 that visceral fat not only comes down
52:29 during fasting but it keeps coming down
52:30 and it continues to come down with
52:33 refeeding. And this particular graph
52:36 here this is blood pressure. So again
52:37 blood pressure comes down is during
52:40 fasting. It comes down even lower with
52:42 refeeding. And people are a that are
52:44 following diet and lifestyle changes are
52:45 able to maintain that pressure without
52:49 medication. So if you look at our study,
52:50 people that started with stage three
52:53 hypertension, so they're 180 or higher
52:55 systolic blood pressure, they lost an
52:58 average of 60 points uh on systolic
53:00 blood pressure, not counting the fact
53:02 that the baselines were often taken on medication.
53:04 medication.
53:05 Um and the final graph here that you've
53:08 got uh is percent in lean mass. So lean
53:10 mass also go down in fasting because
53:11 >> lean mass again,
53:13 >> lean mass is your your fluids, your
53:16 muscle. Lean mass goes down but then it
53:17 recovers during refeeding and
53:20 re-elementation and the percentage of
53:21 lean mass which includes your muscle
53:23 mass at six week followup was actually
53:25 higher in those patients than it was at baseline.
53:25 baseline.
53:27 >> Are they exercising there
53:29 >> during recovery? They are not during fasting.
53:29 fasting.
53:32 >> Okay. And you mentioned PCOS earlier on
53:33 when we were talking about the
53:35 implications for women. Have you ever
53:37 done any studies or had patients come to
53:39 your fasting clinic that have symptoms
53:41 of PCOS? Yes, we treat uh we've had, you
53:43 know, dozens and dozens of patients with
53:45 polycystic ovarian syndrome and it's a
53:47 condition that responds consistently to
53:49 fasting. It also responds to diet and
53:51 lifestyle change, but understand many of
53:52 the people that have made the diet
53:55 changes but are not been successful are
53:57 then referred to us for fasting. We
53:59 always want to try the diet first
54:01 because a lot of things resolve just by
54:02 getting a person on a good diet and
54:04 exercise program. and PCOS for people
54:05 that don't know. I'm sure a lot of men
54:07 don't know about PCOS, but some of them
54:09 will because they might have fertility
54:10 problems with their partner. My
54:12 partner's been very public that she has
54:16 PCOS. Um, and she's found that the
54:19 ketogenic diet, removing sugar from her
54:21 diet, has had a profound impact on
54:23 recalibrating her menstrual cycle.
54:25 >> Her menstrual cycle was very um
54:27 inconsistent, irregular, could be up to
54:29 60 days or longer or not at all. And
54:32 then when she removed sugar from her
54:34 diet and um carbohydrates, it's now perfect,
54:35 perfect, >> right?
54:35 >> right?
54:38 >> So it's like every 28 whatever days it
54:40 is. And so I was wondering if you know
54:41 there's lots of women that suff
54:42 suffering with a variety of different
54:45 hormonal challenges or things like PCOS
54:48 if you have any case studies from your
54:51 clinic of that resetting their menstrual
54:53 cycles or you know reversing the
54:55 symptoms of PCOS.
54:57 >> Right. It's not uncommon for us to have
54:59 women that, for example, have their
55:01 plumbing's good in terms of their tubes
55:02 and whatnot, but they're having
55:05 difficulty initiating pregnancy. They
55:07 fast, they reboot, and sure enough,
55:08 within a cycle or two, you know, they're
55:11 able to achieve pregnancy. And it's not
55:13 unusual to have people that have uh
55:16 disrupted uh dysmenoria, menorasia, etc.
55:18 within usually not the very first cycle,
55:21 but the second cycle will normalize uh
55:22 function. And I think the reason for
55:24 that is the hormones and stuff that for
55:26 the next cycle are already kind of set
55:28 up and where you see the change is often
55:30 you know at that 6 week follow-up.
55:33 >> So let's be clear because if you fast it
55:34 it is a form of stress on the body isn't
55:36 it? From everything I know about sort of
55:38 evolution. If you're fasting your
55:40 menstrual cycle is probably going to
55:42 stop if you're doing an extended fast
55:43 because your body sends a signal to say
55:45 listen we don't have the resources in
55:48 here to to give a kid life so we're
55:50 going to shut down. If you take yourself
55:52 below optimum weight or below optimum
55:54 fat, yes, that's true. Disre, you know,
55:56 uh, disruption of menstrual cycle
55:57 happens with excess weight loss of any
56:00 kind or rapid weight loss. Um, but for
56:02 the patients that were fasting, often
56:03 times it's quite the opposite. They're
56:05 able to actually normalize their
56:07 hormonal cycle. And as I mentioned, it
56:09 may be the conversion of estradiol to
56:10 estriol because of improvement in the
56:12 gut microbiome that's responsible for
56:15 normalization of that and other hormonal
56:17 issues that maybe we haven't even been
56:18 able to measure yet. Because your your
56:20 body needs energy to do to perform its
56:23 menstrual cycle. That's like it's am I
56:25 right my thinking there that if the body
56:27 senses you don't have the energy to have
56:30 a baby it's going to shut down your
56:32 menstrual cycle because having a baby would
56:33 would
56:35 >> I think if it doesn't have the reserves.
56:37 So if you're in the thing is many
56:39 patients though even though they're
56:41 fasting they aren't in a depleted state
56:42 and so you don't see universal
56:44 disruption of menstrual uh function
56:47 because people are fasting. Um, but you
56:48 know, athletes often times see it when
56:50 their percent body fat goes too low,
56:53 they will become a minoric.
56:55 >> Do you see when someone comes to your
56:56 clinic and does one of these extended
56:58 fasts that there's other areas of their
57:00 life that also improve that are
57:03 completely sort of like unrelated to
57:06 the benefits from the fast and I'm
57:08 talking about willpower here and their
57:09 ability to motivate themselves and be
57:11 disciplined and persistent. And
57:13 >> there's I don't think there's any
57:15 question that those factors are
57:17 involved. You know, it's also just
57:18 education and fear. People think if they
57:20 get on a plane in New York and they flew
57:21 to California, they would die of
57:23 starvation over Colorado, they think the
57:25 pretzels that they ate saved their life.
57:27 And once people have fasted for 5 days
57:30 or 10 days or 40 days, the idea of
57:32 having to skip a meal doesn't seem quite
57:34 so terrifying. You know, if there's not
57:35 something that they that's healthful
57:38 eating, they just skip the meal until
57:40 the next one. and they're not afraid of
57:42 the of the that they're going to die or
57:43 that they're going to enter starvation
57:45 or they're going to have depletion. A
57:46 lot of people have a lot of fear in
57:48 their head that's completely uh
57:50 illogical, unnecessary,
57:51 and harmful.
57:53 >> It's so true. When you tell me that
57:54 someone can actually fast for how what's
57:56 the longest a person could fast for?
57:58 >> Well, without severe consequences.
58:00 >> They say that a 70 kg male could fast
58:03 about 70 days, but the longest we fast
58:05 people is 40 days. And what happens is
58:07 you get beyond 40 days, everything gets
58:09 a little bit more delicate. You have to
58:10 be a lot more careful with electrolyte
58:12 balance and other things. And so 40
58:14 days, understand is only 1% of our
58:17 patients. The vast majority are fasting
58:20 between 2 weeks and 4 weeks. So it's,
58:22 you know, it's 10 days or 14 days or 20
58:24 days. That's where the big bell curve
58:27 is. You have a a small uh number of
58:29 people that need to fast longer than that.
58:30 that.
58:31 >> And you see this as a medical
58:32 intervention. You don't see this as
58:34 something that these people should be
58:37 doing on a frequent monthly basis. You
58:38 see this as a medical intervention for
58:40 people with specific issues predominantly.
58:40 predominantly.
58:42 >> I think that everybody should fast every
58:45 day for 12 hours. I think that everybody
58:47 including healthy people would probably
58:49 cons should at least consider fasting
58:51 once a year for a week and that anybody
58:52 that has a condition where it's
58:54 appropriate to fast should fast however
58:55 long it takes to resolve the condition,
58:58 however frequently it takes to get well.
59:00 So we do have some patients that were
59:02 fasting two or three times during a year
59:03 because they can't fast long enough the
59:06 first fast to to resolve the condition.
59:07 Uh but you know they don't have enough
59:09 reserves to be able to do you know a
59:11 longer fast. So we will we will do it
59:12 periodically until the condition resolves.
59:13 resolves.
59:15 >> And what are the safety concerns with
59:17 water fasts?
59:19 >> Yeah. Well, the biggest uh and most
59:23 obvious concerns are orthostatic
59:24 hypotension. When people are used to
59:27 having high blood pressure and you lower
59:28 their pressure, their brain's used to
59:30 higher profusion levels. So, when you
59:31 drop the pressure, they can get dizzy
59:33 dizzy at first until they get used to
59:35 having normal blood pressure. And you
59:36 don't want people falling over and
59:38 fainting and, you know, breaking
59:40 something or having a problem.
59:42 Dehydration is an ametic effect of
59:43 fasting and it's important part of
59:46 stimulating the healing crisis. But you
59:47 also don't want to get somebody so
59:49 depleted that they get into, you know,
59:51 cardiac dysriythmia or they have, you
59:53 know, problems. And that's why we
59:55 monitor people twice a day and we make
59:57 sure that, you know, they maintain uh
59:59 balance. You know, one of the things we
60:00 did in can fasting save your life is we laid out all the protocols of fasting so
60:02 laid out all the protocols of fasting so a person could really understand what's
60:05 a person could really understand what's going on in fasting. You know, what the
60:07 going on in fasting. You know, what the benefits are, but we also wrote it so
60:09 benefits are, but we also wrote it so that their physicians would stop
60:10 that their physicians would stop thinking they're crazy because they're
60:12 thinking they're crazy because they're interested in doing something like that.
60:14 interested in doing something like that. Because at first blush, this sounds like
60:16 Because at first blush, this sounds like kind of crazy that you're going to have
60:19 kind of crazy that you're going to have a person do take nothing but water for a
60:22 a person do take nothing but water for a prolonged period of time and somehow
60:24 prolonged period of time and somehow that's going to be a good thing. But
60:26 that's going to be a good thing. But when you really look at the science and
60:27 when you really look at the science and you look at the experience we've had,
60:28 you look at the experience we've had, you found that when it's done according
60:30 you found that when it's done according to protocol, it is a safe and it can be
60:33 to protocol, it is a safe and it can be an effective intervention at giving the
60:35 an effective intervention at giving the body a chance to heal itself.
60:37 body a chance to heal itself. >> What are the big misconceptions about
60:38 >> What are the big misconceptions about fasting that you encounter consistently?
60:41 fasting that you encounter consistently? Well, one thing is people think that
60:43 Well, one thing is people think that you're going to become depleted because
60:45 you're going to become depleted because they don't understand the recycling
60:47 they don't understand the recycling capacity of the body when fasting is
60:48 capacity of the body when fasting is done properly and that they're going to
60:51 done properly and that they're going to deplete their muscles and that the
60:53 deplete their muscles and that the weight they lose in fasting is
60:55 weight they lose in fasting is immediately regained after fasting. So
60:56 immediately regained after fasting. So there's no, you know, beneficial
60:58 there's no, you know, beneficial reproportioning of the body composition.
61:01 reproportioning of the body composition. And they're driven by the fear, uh, and
61:04 And they're driven by the fear, uh, and I think instinctive fear that, you know,
61:05 I think instinctive fear that, you know, we're designed to be intimately
61:08 we're designed to be intimately concerned about getting enough to eat
61:09 concerned about getting enough to eat because in a natural setting, that's a
61:11 because in a natural setting, that's a constant biological imperative. You're
61:13 constant biological imperative. You're always struggling. Try to get enough to
61:14 always struggling. Try to get enough to eat. And because we live in a constant
61:16 eat. And because we live in a constant state of deprivation in a natural
61:18 state of deprivation in a natural setting, the use of fasting was never
61:21 setting, the use of fasting was never anything other than a survival tool,
61:22 anything other than a survival tool, some an adaption the body could make
61:24 some an adaption the body could make only under force, not by choice. But it
61:28 only under force, not by choice. But it is interesting that every major
61:30 is interesting that every major religion, the Jews, the James, the
61:32 religion, the Jews, the James, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Christians, the
61:34 Hindus, the Muslims, the Christians, the Buddhist, all have a deep respect and
61:37 Buddhist, all have a deep respect and tradition about fasting. There's a
61:39 tradition about fasting. There's a reason because it changes the way you
61:41 reason because it changes the way you feel about yourself and the world around
61:42 feel about yourself and the world around you.
61:43 you. It's so linked to spiritual traditions
61:46 It's so linked to spiritual traditions like meditation and clarity of mind and
61:48 like meditation and clarity of mind and spiritual experiences
61:50 spiritual experiences >> and I think because it is difficult to
61:52 >> and I think because it is difficult to do that you know some of the benefits
61:54 do that you know some of the benefits you mentioned earlier maybe part of the
61:56 you mentioned earlier maybe part of the you know part that are hard for us to
61:58 you know part that are hard for us to quantify.
61:59 quantify. >> Yeah. What is the most important thing
62:01 >> Yeah. What is the most important thing we haven't talked about as it pertains
62:02 we haven't talked about as it pertains to fasting that we should have talked
62:04 to fasting that we should have talked about?
62:05 about? >> We haven't talked about the different
62:07 >> We haven't talked about the different kinds of mechanisms which might be going
62:09 kinds of mechanisms which might be going on in fasting uh that sometimes people
62:12 on in fasting uh that sometimes people are interested. We talked about weight
62:13 are interested. We talked about weight loss. You know, that that's kind of an
62:15 loss. You know, that that's kind of an obvious one. If you don't eat, you're
62:16 obvious one. If you don't eat, you're going to lose weight. But there's also a
62:18 going to lose weight. But there's also a naturicetic effect. The body gets rid of
62:20 naturicetic effect. The body gets rid of the excess sodium accumulated in the
62:22 the excess sodium accumulated in the body. Uh and that has a profound effect
62:25 body. Uh and that has a profound effect because literally people will lose
62:27 because literally people will lose several pounds of fluid a day early on
62:30 several pounds of fluid a day early on in fasting just because the body's been
62:31 in fasting just because the body's been holding on uh to this in order to buffer
62:34 holding on uh to this in order to buffer the effect of sodium. Sodium, you know,
62:35 the effect of sodium. Sodium, you know, you think about it. You take a
62:36 you think about it. You take a tablespoon of it's a medic. It'll make
62:38 tablespoon of it's a medic. It'll make you throw up. If you take enough of it,
62:39 you throw up. If you take enough of it, it'll kill you. it'll actually have
62:41 it'll kill you. it'll actually have there's an LD50 with it even though it's
62:43 there's an LD50 with it even though it's an essential nutrient in small amounts
62:45 an essential nutrient in small amounts in excess quantity it's associated with
62:47 in excess quantity it's associated with hypertension and not to mention obesity
62:50 hypertension and not to mention obesity and you might say well why would sodium
62:52 and you might say well why would sodium which has no calories make people fat
62:57 which has no calories make people fat and it's because sodium stimulates
62:58 and it's because sodium stimulates what's called passive overeating so if
63:01 what's called passive overeating so if you eat till you're full of anything say
63:03 you eat till you're full of anything say brown rice you just eat till you reach
63:05 brown rice you just eat till you reach your satiety you don't want anymore
63:07 your satiety you don't want anymore >> everything else being equal salt that
63:08 >> everything else being equal salt that rice up and eat till you're you'll eat
63:11 rice up and eat till you're you'll eat more before you feel satisfied. And
63:13 more before you feel satisfied. And people say, "Yeah, cuz it tastes
63:14 people say, "Yeah, cuz it tastes better." But that's what tasting better
63:17 better." But that's what tasting better means. It means it results in more
63:19 means. It means it results in more dopamine stimulation in the brain. So
63:20 dopamine stimulation in the brain. So your brain is going to get fooled with
63:22 your brain is going to get fooled with salt. And if you take some foods, like
63:24 salt. And if you take some foods, like for example, bread, the staff of life,
63:26 for example, bread, the staff of life, 1500 calories a pound before you turn it
63:28 1500 calories a pound before you turn it into a butterboat and spread coagulated
63:30 into a butterboat and spread coagulated cowpas all over it. And you remove the
63:32 cowpas all over it. And you remove the salt, oil, sugar, and yeast. What do you
63:34 salt, oil, sugar, and yeast. What do you get? It's called matzah. And it's
63:36 get? It's called matzah. And it's punishment on Passover. Nobody's getting
63:38 punishment on Passover. Nobody's getting fat eaten matzah. But they're certainly
63:40 fat eaten matzah. But they're certainly having trouble with bread and bread
63:41 having trouble with bread and bread related products. And it's because the
63:44 related products. And it's because the the the wheat and the water become a
63:47 the the wheat and the water become a carrier agent for these chemicals. Take
63:50 carrier agent for these chemicals. Take beef, boil it, and gnaw on it. Do you
63:52 beef, boil it, and gnaw on it. Do you like plain boiled beef? Not so much.
63:54 like plain boiled beef? Not so much. It's a carrier agent for the sauces, the
63:56 It's a carrier agent for the sauces, the salt, the the things that that it's
63:58 salt, the the things that that it's carrying to the pallet. So, we're using
64:00 carrying to the pallet. So, we're using ultrarocessed foods as carrier agents
64:03 ultrarocessed foods as carrier agents for these chemicals. And that's why
64:04 for these chemicals. And that's why we're in trouble. 70% of the calorie of
64:06 we're in trouble. 70% of the calorie of the average person is ultrarocessed
64:08 the average person is ultrarocessed foods. And we haven't even talked about
64:10 foods. And we haven't even talked about the chemicals and other things besides
64:11 the chemicals and other things besides the salt, oil and sugar, the
64:13 the salt, oil and sugar, the emulsifiers, the other things that are
64:14 emulsifiers, the other things that are thought to affect gut gut microbiome
64:16 thought to affect gut gut microbiome etc. So the naturetic effect of fasting
64:19 etc. So the naturetic effect of fasting is a kind of rebooting effect that gets
64:21 is a kind of rebooting effect that gets rid of the sodium. We haven't talked
64:23 rid of the sodium. We haven't talked about detoxification. If you take a fat
64:25 about detoxification. If you take a fat bopsy of human beings,
64:26 bopsy of human beings, >> a what?
64:27 >> a what? >> A a fat bopsy, a biopsy, you take a a
64:30 >> A a fat bopsy, a biopsy, you take a a piece of fat or a piece of tissue and
64:31 piece of fat or a piece of tissue and you analyze it, what you find is there's
64:33 you analyze it, what you find is there's hundreds of different chemicals, PCB,
64:35 hundreds of different chemicals, PCB, dioxin, pesticide residues, heavy metals
64:38 dioxin, pesticide residues, heavy metals in everybody to varying degrees. People
64:40 in everybody to varying degrees. People have different degrees of vulnerability
64:42 have different degrees of vulnerability to that. In fasting, the body rapidly
64:44 to that. In fasting, the body rapidly mobilizes those materials and eliminates
64:46 mobilizes those materials and eliminates them. In fact, that some people have
64:47 them. In fact, that some people have said, "Oh, it's so does it so
64:48 said, "Oh, it's so does it so efficiently, you shouldn't fast." that
64:50 efficiently, you shouldn't fast." that the body doesn't know what it's doing
64:52 the body doesn't know what it's doing and it would put it out too quickly and
64:53 and it would put it out too quickly and it overload your system and so don't do
64:56 it overload your system and so don't do it. But the reality is the body this is
64:58 it. But the reality is the body this is a biological adaptation. It does a good
64:59 a biological adaptation. It does a good job of mobilizing the materials and
65:01 job of mobilizing the materials and eliminating them. If you take that fat
65:03 eliminating them. If you take that fat biopsy and you say what where did all
65:05 biopsy and you say what where did all those fats come where did all those
65:06 those fats come where did all those toxins come from? As much as 90% of some
65:09 toxins come from? As much as 90% of some of those toxins came from eating animal
65:11 of those toxins came from eating animal foods which biologically concentrate
65:13 foods which biologically concentrate those pollution in their environment.
65:14 those pollution in their environment. And then when you eat the animal food
65:16 And then when you eat the animal food you get its entire lifetime accumulation
65:18 you get its entire lifetime accumulation of toxins. And so when you fast, you
65:21 of toxins. And so when you fast, you kick in the system you use to get rid of
65:23 kick in the system you use to get rid of that stuff. And every time you do it, it
65:25 that stuff. And every time you do it, it gets better. And so these are things
65:28 gets better. And so these are things that don't necessarily happen to the
65:30 that don't necessarily happen to the same degree with our juice fasting or
65:31 same degree with our juice fasting or our modified feeding regimes. We talked
65:34 our modified feeding regimes. We talked about the autonomic nervous system. This
65:36 about the autonomic nervous system. This is the part of the nervous system that
65:38 is the part of the nervous system that controls all the stuff you don't think
65:39 controls all the stuff you don't think about. Like for example, um if you were
65:42 about. Like for example, um if you were to go out running and your heart didn't
65:44 to go out running and your heart didn't speed up, you would be in big trouble
65:46 speed up, you would be in big trouble and potentially die. But it doesn't it
65:49 and potentially die. But it doesn't it doesn't happen because your heart
65:51 doesn't happen because your heart automatically speeds up and pumps more
65:53 automatically speeds up and pumps more blood that you need. And that's
65:54 blood that you need. And that's controlled by the autonomic or automatic
65:57 controlled by the autonomic or automatic nervous system. It has two parts, the
65:59 nervous system. It has two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.
66:00 sympathetic and the parasympathetic. They have to be in balance. And we've
66:03 They have to be in balance. And we've invented hundreds of healing systems to
66:05 invented hundreds of healing systems to try to rebalance the autonomic nervous
66:07 try to rebalance the autonomic nervous system. Massage, bio feedback,
66:09 system. Massage, bio feedback, homeopathy, chiropractic manipulation,
66:11 homeopathy, chiropractic manipulation, osteopathic manipulation, acupuncture,
66:14 osteopathic manipulation, acupuncture, relaxation, bof feedback. How do you
66:16 relaxation, bof feedback. How do you think all these things make people feel
66:18 think all these things make people feel better? At least to some degree, it's to
66:20 better? At least to some degree, it's to the degree they help rebalance the
66:22 the degree they help rebalance the autonomic nervous system. The most
66:24 autonomic nervous system. The most powerful way to rebalance the autonomic
66:25 powerful way to rebalance the autonomic nervous system in my experience is
66:28 nervous system in my experience is fasting. Fasting is a profound impact on
66:32 fasting. Fasting is a profound impact on this autonomic sympathetic
66:34 this autonomic sympathetic parasympathetic balance.
66:35 parasympathetic balance. >> And I think one of the most profound
66:37 >> And I think one of the most profound effects honestly is effect on taste neur
66:41 effects honestly is effect on taste neur adaptation. As I mentioned, we did a
66:43 adaptation. As I mentioned, we did a study on your how you taste things. And
66:46 study on your how you taste things. And when you go on a fast, good foods start
66:48 when you go on a fast, good foods start to taste good. When you first come off a
66:51 to taste good. When you first come off a conventional diet, this kind of food is
66:53 conventional diet, this kind of food is disgusting, tasteless, schwill. People
66:55 disgusting, tasteless, schwill. People have no interest in it. They can't
66:56 have no interest in it. They can't imagine how anybody could choke it down.
66:58 imagine how anybody could choke it down. >> What kind of food?
66:59 >> What kind of food? >> Well, whole fruits, vegetables, you
67:01 >> Well, whole fruits, vegetables, you know, simple foods without salt, oil,
67:03 know, simple foods without salt, oil, and sugar added to it. They just can't
67:04 and sugar added to it. They just can't even imagine how anybody could eat that.
67:06 even imagine how anybody could eat that. But after fasting, whole plant foods
67:08 But after fasting, whole plant foods start to taste good. And the longer you
67:11 start to taste good. And the longer you eat them, the better they taste. you get
67:13 eat them, the better they taste. you get to the point where you actually would
67:14 to the point where you actually would prefer to eat whole plant foods rather
67:16 prefer to eat whole plant foods rather than the salty, greasy, fatty, processed
67:18 than the salty, greasy, fatty, processed foods that everybody else is eating.
67:21 foods that everybody else is eating. So, these are these are big changes that
67:23 So, these are these are big changes that occur in fasting that are not
67:25 occur in fasting that are not necessarily as easily objectified from a
67:27 necessarily as easily objectified from a research standpoint, but have a profound
67:30 research standpoint, but have a profound difference on how people feel and how
67:31 difference on how people feel and how they live their lives. Yeah, I noticed
67:33 they live their lives. Yeah, I noticed that as well when I when I was on the
67:34 that as well when I when I was on the ketogenic diet, I noticed that um the
67:37 ketogenic diet, I noticed that um the things that I would usually get cravings
67:38 things that I would usually get cravings for, suddenly there was no no cravings
67:42 for, suddenly there was no no cravings at all. And funny enough, when you're
67:44 at all. And funny enough, when you're talking about taste changing when I was
67:46 talking about taste changing when I was on a ketogenic diet, things tasted
67:48 on a ketogenic diet, things tasted sweeter. And I don't mean I actually
67:50 sweeter. And I don't mean I actually don't mean because obviously I wasn't
67:52 don't mean because obviously I wasn't really eating much sugar. It was
67:53 really eating much sugar. It was actually some sugar-free drinks just
67:54 actually some sugar-free drinks just tasted significantly sweeter. They were
67:56 tasted significantly sweeter. They were zero sugar drinks, but clearly because
67:58 zero sugar drinks, but clearly because of some of the sweetness in there, they
68:00 of some of the sweetness in there, they I almost couldn't drink them. But when I
68:02 I almost couldn't drink them. But when I came off the ketogenic diet and I
68:03 came off the ketogenic diet and I started having carbohydrates again,
68:06 started having carbohydrates again, those drinks didn't taste so sweet
68:07 those drinks didn't taste so sweet anymore.
68:07 anymore. >> But it's your pallet that changes. The
68:09 >> But it's your pallet that changes. The ketogenic diet is a fasting mimicking
68:11 ketogenic diet is a fasting mimicking diet. It mimics some of the effects of
68:13 diet. It mimics some of the effects of fasting, not the least of which is
68:14 fasting, not the least of which is changes in taste, what's called taste,
68:15 changes in taste, what's called taste, neurotration, or sensitivity.
68:17 neurotration, or sensitivity. >> And it's not carbohydrates that
68:19 >> And it's not carbohydrates that desensitize you. It's refined
68:21 desensitize you. It's refined carbohydrates.
68:22 carbohydrates. >> Mhm.
68:22 >> Mhm. >> And so if you get people on a whole
68:24 >> And so if you get people on a whole plant food diet, you know, fruits and
68:26 plant food diet, you know, fruits and vegetables, whole whole simple foods,
68:28 vegetables, whole whole simple foods, they they maintain that acuity of taste.
68:30 they they maintain that acuity of taste. But as soon as you put them back on
68:32 But as soon as you put them back on refined carbohydrates, the processed
68:34 refined carbohydrates, the processed carbohydrates, then they begin to go
68:36 carbohydrates, then they begin to go back into the dietary pleasure trap.
68:38 back into the dietary pleasure trap. >> Got you. This one change has transformed
68:41 >> Got you. This one change has transformed how my team and I move, train, and think
68:43 how my team and I move, train, and think about our bodies. When Dr. Daniel
68:45 about our bodies. When Dr. Daniel Lieberman came on the Dio, he explained
68:47 Lieberman came on the Dio, he explained how modern shoes with their cushioning
68:50 how modern shoes with their cushioning and support are making our feet weaker
68:52 and support are making our feet weaker and less capable of doing what nature
68:53 and less capable of doing what nature intended them to do. We've lost the
68:55 intended them to do. We've lost the natural strength and mobility in our
68:57 natural strength and mobility in our feet and this is leading to issues like
68:59 feet and this is leading to issues like back pain and knee pain. I'd already
69:02 back pain and knee pain. I'd already purchased a pair of Viva barefoot shoes.
69:04 purchased a pair of Viva barefoot shoes. So, I showed them to Daniel Lieberman
69:06 So, I showed them to Daniel Lieberman and he told me that they were exactly
69:07 and he told me that they were exactly the type of shoe that would help me
69:09 the type of shoe that would help me restore natural foot movement and
69:11 restore natural foot movement and rebuild my strength, but I think it was
69:12 rebuild my strength, but I think it was planticitis that I had where suddenly my
69:14 planticitis that I had where suddenly my feet started hurting all the time. And
69:15 feet started hurting all the time. And after that, I decided to start
69:16 after that, I decided to start strengthening my own foot by using the
69:18 strengthening my own foot by using the Vivo barefoots. And research from
69:20 Vivo barefoots. And research from Liverpool University has backed this up.
69:21 Liverpool University has backed this up. They've shown that wearing vivo barefoot
69:23 They've shown that wearing vivo barefoot shoes for 6 months can increase foot
69:26 shoes for 6 months can increase foot strength by up to 60%.
69:28 strength by up to 60%. Visit vivarefoot.com/doac
69:31 Visit vivarefoot.com/doac and use code diary 20 from my sponsor
69:34 and use code diary 20 from my sponsor for 20% off. A strong body starts with
69:37 for 20% off. A strong body starts with strong feet. And I guess what is the
69:39 strong feet. And I guess what is the what is the the next step if someone is
69:42 what is the the next step if someone is curious? What do you what would you
69:44 curious? What do you what would you recommend they they do? Well, we have a
69:46 recommend they they do? Well, we have a I think a a really valuable uh free
69:49 I think a a really valuable uh free service for your viewers, and that's
69:52 service for your viewers, and that's that if they go to our website and
69:54 that if they go to our website and complete the registration forms at
69:56 complete the registration forms at trueorthalth.com,
69:57 trueorthalth.com, >> I offer a free phone conversation with
69:59 >> I offer a free phone conversation with them to tell them whether this might be
70:01 them to tell them whether this might be something they should be considering and
70:02 something they should be considering and try to point them in the right
70:04 try to point them in the right direction. If they're really interested,
70:06 direction. If they're really interested, they can read our book, Can Fasting Save
70:07 they can read our book, Can Fasting Save Your Life, and it will tell you and your
70:09 Your Life, and it will tell you and your doctor everything you need to know about
70:11 doctor everything you need to know about what it takes to safely get into a fast
70:14 what it takes to safely get into a fast through a fast and what the benefits of
70:15 through a fast and what the benefits of fasting are thought to be.
70:18 fasting are thought to be. I'll link all of that below for anybody
70:20 I'll link all of that below for anybody that is curious and wants to learn more.
70:24 that is curious and wants to learn more. Um if and just as a sort of a disclaimer
70:26 Um if and just as a sort of a disclaimer if people are doing
70:30 if people are doing water fasting they should seek medical
70:33 water fasting they should seek medical advice and medical um support. They
70:36 advice and medical um support. They should see seek a consultation from
70:37 should see seek a consultation from someone who knows what they're doing
70:38 someone who knows what they're doing before just trying to do this at home.
70:40 before just trying to do this at home. >> They want to make sure they're a good
70:41 >> They want to make sure they're a good candidate with history exam and lab.
70:42 candidate with history exam and lab. They want to make sure if they do fast
70:44 They want to make sure if they do fast they're fasting in a restful state,
70:46 they're fasting in a restful state, staying hydrated properly and that they
70:48 staying hydrated properly and that they refeed carefully because it can be a
70:49 refeed carefully because it can be a serious problem if you don't do it
70:51 serious problem if you don't do it properly.
70:52 properly. Is there a particular case study that
70:54 Is there a particular case study that comes to mind when you think about the
70:56 comes to mind when you think about the power of fasting? I know you talked a
70:58 power of fasting? I know you talked a little bit about the lady that had
70:59 little bit about the lady that had lymphoma which I read about in the
71:00 lymphoma which I read about in the British Medical Journal in I think it
71:01 British Medical Journal in I think it was 2015 was published. I
71:04 was 2015 was published. I >> I think even more powerful than
71:05 >> I think even more powerful than individual case reports are these
71:07 individual case reports are these studies that we've done involving dozens
71:10 studies that we've done involving dozens and in some cases uh almost 200 people
71:13 and in some cases uh almost 200 people uh and the consistency of the data. this
71:17 uh and the consistency of the data. this works is the most effective treatment
71:19 works is the most effective treatment that's ever been shown in treating the
71:21 that's ever been shown in treating the leading cause of death and disability,
71:22 leading cause of death and disability, which is high blood pressure and its
71:24 which is high blood pressure and its consequences. If a person has essential
71:26 consequences. If a person has essential hypertension and they fast long enough,
71:28 hypertension and they fast long enough, they're going to normalize their blood
71:30 they're going to normalize their blood pressure. And if they're willing to do
71:31 pressure. And if they're willing to do dangerous and radical things like eat
71:33 dangerous and radical things like eat well, exercise, and get to bed on time,
71:36 well, exercise, and get to bed on time, they can sustain those results.
71:39 they can sustain those results. We have a closing tradition on this
71:40 We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a
71:41 podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing
71:42 question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the
71:44 who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is quite a tricky
71:45 question left for you is quite a tricky one, but it's interesting.
71:47 one, but it's interesting. It is, what is the biggest lie that you
71:50 It is, what is the biggest lie that you think is ruining most people's life?
71:53 think is ruining most people's life? >> I think one of the biggest mistakes is
71:55 >> I think one of the biggest mistakes is that people think that health comes from
71:57 that people think that health comes from pills, potions, powders, and treatments
72:00 pills, potions, powders, and treatments instead of healthful living. Health is
72:02 instead of healthful living. Health is the direct result of healthful living,
72:03 the direct result of healthful living, and that means diet, sleep, exercise.
72:07 and that means diet, sleep, exercise. But they're hard, especially in the
72:09 But they're hard, especially in the world we live in where, you know,
72:11 world we live in where, you know, everything I see is trying to play with
72:13 everything I see is trying to play with the neurotrans chemicals in in my brain
72:16 the neurotrans chemicals in in my brain >> to get me to be addicted and to
72:18 >> to get me to be addicted and to >> Well, people are trying to sell the
72:20 >> Well, people are trying to sell the pleasure trap. They're trying to tell
72:21 pleasure trap. They're trying to tell you what you want to hear, not what you
72:22 you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. What you want to hear is
72:24 need to know. What you want to hear is that there's a way to not do hard
72:25 that there's a way to not do hard things, but still get good benefits. And
72:27 things, but still get good benefits. And what you need to know is how to do hard
72:29 what you need to know is how to do hard things so you can be successful.
72:32 things so you can be successful. >> I think that's like the defining trait
72:33 >> I think that's like the defining trait of the 21st century is like your ability
72:35 of the 21st century is like your ability to do
72:36 to do what you know you should for long-term
72:39 what you know you should for long-term benefits, not short-term benefits. I
72:40 benefits, not short-term benefits. I think like delayed gratification is
72:41 think like delayed gratification is maybe the defining trait of the like the
72:43 maybe the defining trait of the like the 21st century. I mean, we we've all heard
72:46 21st century. I mean, we we've all heard of like the those cookie experiments
72:48 of like the those cookie experiments they did on those kids to see which kids
72:50 they did on those kids to see which kids would take the cookie and which ones
72:51 would take the cookie and which ones would wait for two cookies later. But
72:53 would wait for two cookies later. But it's I think the further in my life I've
72:54 it's I think the further in my life I've gone, the more I've realized that
72:55 gone, the more I've realized that actually like every self-help book ever
72:57 actually like every self-help book ever written could be one page and it could
73:00 written could be one page and it could just say like delay gratification. Like
73:03 just say like delay gratification. Like do the thing that is in the best
73:05 do the thing that is in the best interest of long-term you versus
73:07 interest of long-term you versus short-term you.
73:08 short-term you. >> I think that there's three
73:10 >> I think that there's three characteristics that everybody uh should
73:12 characteristics that everybody uh should aspire for. Whether it's a mate, whether
73:16 aspire for. Whether it's a mate, whether it's a employee, or whether it's a
73:18 it's a employee, or whether it's a friend, what you really are looking for
73:21 friend, what you really are looking for is honesty, integrity, and intelligence.
73:24 is honesty, integrity, and intelligence. So honesty means they're going to tell
73:26 So honesty means they're going to tell the truth.
73:27 the truth. >> Mhm.
73:28 >> Mhm. >> Integrity is they're going to do the
73:30 >> Integrity is they're going to do the right thing. And intelligence means
73:32 right thing. And intelligence means they're going to do things right.
73:35 they're going to do things right. >> Mhm. And that applies for ourselves,
73:38 >> Mhm. And that applies for ourselves, right, as well. Would it be honest and
73:40 right, as well. Would it be honest and have high integrity and be intelligent
73:42 have high integrity and be intelligent with your own decisioning?
73:44 with your own decisioning? >> I think those are the characteristics
73:46 >> I think those are the characteristics that determine uh both uh success but
73:49 that determine uh both uh success but more importantly happiness.
73:52 more importantly happiness. The people that I meet that are happy
73:54 The people that I meet that are happy have uh high degrees of all three of
73:56 have uh high degrees of all three of those things. Some people are very
73:57 those things. Some people are very intelligent but they don't necessarily
73:59 intelligent but they don't necessarily do the right thing. Some people are
74:01 do the right thing. Some people are honest but you know they'll tell the
74:03 honest but you know they'll tell the truth but they won't necessarily tell
74:05 truth but they won't necessarily tell the whole truth. So, you know, you have
74:08 the whole truth. So, you know, you have to have all three, I think, to have a
74:11 to have all three, I think, to have a high degree of uh probability to
74:12 high degree of uh probability to success.
74:13 success. >> And what are you working on at the
74:14 >> And what are you working on at the moment? What's keeping you busy at this
74:16 moment? What's keeping you busy at this moment in time?
74:17 moment in time? >> We're uh in the process of getting ready
74:19 >> We're uh in the process of getting ready to launch a major study. We're going to
74:21 to launch a major study. We're going to enroll between 2 and 3,000 people for
74:23 enroll between 2 and 3,000 people for the rest of their life. And we're going
74:24 the rest of their life. And we're going to track them and try to see if we can
74:27 to track them and try to see if we can avoid the average 16 years of dabbility
74:29 avoid the average 16 years of dabbility that that greet people at the end of
74:31 that that greet people at the end of their life. We believe with diet, sleep,
74:33 their life. We believe with diet, sleep, exercise, and periodic fasting, we can
74:35 exercise, and periodic fasting, we can avoid the dability that's so common and
74:38 avoid the dability that's so common and that make the last 20 years of people's
74:40 that make the last 20 years of people's lives the best years of their life
74:41 lives the best years of their life instead of the worst.
74:43 instead of the worst. >> You know, you said at your clinic you 1%
74:47 >> You know, you said at your clinic you 1% of patients do the 40-day fast.
74:50 of patients do the 40-day fast. What who are those patients? What are
74:53 What who are those patients? What are they suffering with? What are they
74:54 they suffering with? What are they struggling with? Because that's pretty
74:55 struggling with? Because that's pretty extreme.
74:57 extreme. One woman was a dentist who'd had a
74:59 One woman was a dentist who'd had a traumatic brain injury secondary to
75:00 traumatic brain injury secondary to getting hit by a t a pole, an outdoor
75:02 getting hit by a t a pole, an outdoor pole at a at a, ironically enough, a
75:05 pole at a at a, ironically enough, a continuing education conference. And she
75:08 continuing education conference. And she developed a headache. And she'd had
75:09 developed a headache. And she'd had constant daily head pain from 8 to 10
75:12 constant daily head pain from 8 to 10 every minute of every day for 16 years.
75:15 every minute of every day for 16 years. And she came in and fasted for 41 days
75:18 And she came in and fasted for 41 days during which time she resolved to a
75:20 during which time she resolved to a large extent her headaches. She refed.
75:22 large extent her headaches. She refed. She had some prodal symptoms, minor, you
75:24 She had some prodal symptoms, minor, you know, symptoms. and then did a second
75:26 know, symptoms. and then did a second 40-day fast six months later. And now
75:28 40-day fast six months later. And now it's been 12 years. She has no
75:30 it's been 12 years. She has no headaches. So in her case, she was
75:32 headaches. So in her case, she was motivated by like a lot of our patients,
75:34 motivated by like a lot of our patients, pain, dability, and fear of death. And
75:36 pain, dability, and fear of death. And they were willing to do anything in
75:37 they were willing to do anything in order to be able to get well, including,
75:39 order to be able to get well, including, you know, a long period of fasting.
75:41 you know, a long period of fasting. >> Um, so the people that fast a long time
75:43 >> Um, so the people that fast a long time often times are very motivated
75:46 often times are very motivated individuals, mostly motivated by, you
75:49 individuals, mostly motivated by, you know, physical health goals. Not always.
75:51 know, physical health goals. Not always. Some people are are doing fasting for
75:53 Some people are are doing fasting for spiritual or other types of practices.
75:55 spiritual or other types of practices. But most of the people we have are just
75:57 But most of the people we have are just people that have not been successful
75:59 people that have not been successful resolving their conditions with diet and
76:01 resolving their conditions with diet and lifestyle change with medications and
76:03 lifestyle change with medications and drugs. And you know there they say that
76:05 drugs. And you know there they say that it should be the true north health
76:06 it should be the true north health center the last resort. One of my uh
76:09 center the last resort. One of my uh colleagues uh may he rest in peace John
76:11 colleagues uh may he rest in peace John McDougall used to say we were the
76:13 McDougall used to say we were the punishment. And if he had a patient that
76:15 punishment. And if he had a patient that he would do the dietary changes with,
76:17 he would do the dietary changes with, but it wasn't successful at fully
76:18 but it wasn't successful at fully resolving the problem, he would
76:20 resolving the problem, he would apologize to them and say, "I'm so
76:21 apologize to them and say, "I'm so sorry, but you need to go to
76:23 sorry, but you need to go to Goldhammer's place. Good luck to you."
76:26 Goldhammer's place. Good luck to you." >> Cuz he thought that was one of the more
76:27 >> Cuz he thought that was one of the more difficult things that people were ever
76:28 difficult things that people were ever asked to do. I think it is the most
76:31 asked to do. I think it is the most difficult thing you ask people to do.
76:32 difficult thing you ask people to do. Not the fasting. That's not that
76:34 Not the fasting. That's not that difficult. What's difficult is to go
76:36 difficult. What's difficult is to go back and live in a world designed to
76:38 back and live in a world designed to make you fat, sick, and miserable and
76:40 make you fat, sick, and miserable and try to live healthfully and live with
76:41 try to live healthfully and live with integrity and deal with the social
76:44 integrity and deal with the social outflux of being successful.
76:46 outflux of being successful. >> And as I said, a lot of times the people
76:48 >> And as I said, a lot of times the people that I see that have the easiest time
76:49 that I see that have the easiest time are the ones that aren't necessarily the
76:50 are the ones that aren't necessarily the most sociable kind of people.
76:53 most sociable kind of people. >> Thank you so much for the work that you
76:54 >> Thank you so much for the work that you do because it's it's it's fascinating
76:56 do because it's it's it's fascinating and you you're providing another
76:58 and you you're providing another alternative treatment to people who are
77:01 alternative treatment to people who are very often out of out of choice. Before
77:03 very often out of out of choice. Before I came here today, my wife said, "Don't
77:06 I came here today, my wife said, "Don't be nervous to talk to him because it's
77:09 be nervous to talk to him because it's just like, you know, I speak a hundred
77:10 just like, you know, I speak a hundred times a year to 50 to 100 people."
77:13 times a year to 50 to 100 people." >> And I and I said, "Yeah, Jennifer, it's
77:15 >> And I and I said, "Yeah, Jennifer, it's just like talking to 50 to 100 people
77:17 just like talking to 50 to 100 people except doing it every day for 400
77:19 except doing it every day for 400 years."
77:24 >> Thanks for getting the word out. >> Well, no, my my audience are
77:25 >> Well, no, my my audience are open-minded. They're smart. They're
77:26 open-minded. They're smart. They're savvy. They're curious, I hope, as well.
77:29 savvy. They're curious, I hope, as well. So it's it's really fascinating and I
77:32 So it's it's really fascinating and I think you know when we think about these
77:35 think you know when we think about these longer fasts we often focus on the
77:37 longer fasts we often focus on the physiological changes that are going to
77:38 physiological changes that are going to take place like we talked about the
77:40 take place like we talked about the glycogen reserves being depleted and the
77:43 glycogen reserves being depleted and the ketone bodies and all these things and
77:44 ketone bodies and all these things and the betham mah hydroyate or whatever
77:47 the betham mah hydroyate or whatever that big word was but I actually think
77:49 that big word was but I actually think there's the really unappreciated part of
77:50 there's the really unappreciated part of all of this is the psychological change
77:52 all of this is the psychological change that takes place when you realize that
77:53 that takes place when you realize that you can accomplish something but also as
77:56 you can accomplish something but also as you said when you're you sort of
77:57 you said when you're you sort of rebalance and reset your your dopamine
78:00 rebalance and reset your your dopamine levels and um when you your your chain
78:05 levels and um when you your your chain your taste adapts to the fasted state
78:10 your taste adapts to the fasted state and how that can
78:12 and how that can act as an intervention, a psychological
78:15 act as an intervention, a psychological and physiological intervention just to
78:16 and physiological intervention just to reset you a little bit. Every year I I I
78:18 reset you a little bit. Every year I I I do ketosis at least once, maybe
78:20 do ketosis at least once, maybe sometimes twice or three times. I have a
78:21 sometimes twice or three times. I have a ke ketogenic diet and it is it's like a
78:24 ke ketogenic diet and it is it's like a it's like a tremendous reset of my
78:26 it's like a tremendous reset of my habits. So like resets my habits. It
78:28 habits. So like resets my habits. It resets my urges, my cravings. So
78:30 resets my urges, my cravings. So >> think about when a patient goes to a
78:32 >> think about when a patient goes to a medical doctor and they say, "Oh, I have
78:34 medical doctor and they say, "Oh, I have high blood pressure." And they say,
78:35 high blood pressure." And they say, "Listen, we promise you if you do
78:37 "Listen, we promise you if you do exactly what we tell you, we guarantee
78:39 exactly what we tell you, we guarantee you you'll never get well. You'll be
78:42 you you'll never get well. You'll be sick the rest of your life and you'll be
78:43 sick the rest of your life and you'll be on these drugs forever." And there's not
78:46 on these drugs forever." And there's not a one I've had so far that that turns
78:48 a one I've had so far that that turns out to be true for.
78:51 out to be true for. It changes their entire paradigm
78:53 It changes their entire paradigm >> when they get overcome the problem that
78:55 >> when they get overcome the problem that supposedly is helpless and hopeless and
78:57 supposedly is helpless and hopeless and nothing can be done.
78:59 nothing can be done. >> Changes their it changes their view of
79:02 >> Changes their it changes their view of reality.
79:02 reality. >> Of course. And I mean what you're
79:04 >> Of course. And I mean what you're speaking to there is learned
79:05 speaking to there is learned helplessness where if someone tells you
79:07 helplessness where if someone tells you there's nothing you can do then you do
79:08 there's nothing you can do then you do fall into I mean the studies show this
79:10 fall into I mean the studies show this you fall into a state of learned
79:10 you fall into a state of learned helplessness where you actually stop
79:12 helplessness where you actually stop trying to help yourself and you submit.
79:14 trying to help yourself and you submit. I was reading I was actually reading a
79:16 I was reading I was actually reading a study the other day about rats who who
79:18 study the other day about rats who who fell into a state of learned
79:19 fell into a state of learned helplessness because uh
79:21 helplessness because uh >> Oh, and they won't even
79:21 >> Oh, and they won't even >> they won't even try anymore. Yeah.
79:23 >> they won't even try anymore. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, that's a really good
79:24 >> Yeah. Well, that's a really good example.
79:25 example. >> Yeah.
79:26 >> Yeah. >> The same happens with humans. If you if
79:27 >> The same happens with humans. If you if someone tells you something something
79:29 someone tells you something something can't change, you're stuck. You're
79:30 can't change, you're stuck. You're [ __ ]
79:31 [ __ ] >> When you're ready to have a
79:32 >> When you're ready to have a life-changing experience, we'd love you
79:34 life-changing experience, we'd love you to be our guest.
79:35 to be our guest. >> Come to the center. Do a bit of a fast.
79:37 >> Come to the center. Do a bit of a fast. I'm telling you, you're a great
79:38 I'm telling you, you're a great candidate. You'll have a intense but,
79:40 candidate. You'll have a intense but, you know, positive experience,
79:42 you know, positive experience, >> okay? And uh we'll make sure that if you
79:44 >> okay? And uh we'll make sure that if you walk in, you walk out.
79:46 walk in, you walk out. >> Okay, good. That's a prerequisite of my
79:48 >> Okay, good. That's a prerequisite of my visit. Thank you so much, Dr. Coleman.
79:50 visit. Thank you so much, Dr. Coleman. Keep doing what you're doing.
79:51 Keep doing what you're doing. >> Thank you.
79:52 >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
79:53 >> Thank you. >> Make sure you keep what I'm about to say
79:54 >> Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you
79:57 to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you to come even deeper into the diary of a
79:59 to come even deeper into the diary of a CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is
80:02 CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is a brand new private community that I'm
80:04 a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many
80:06 launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you
80:08 incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that
80:10 are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the
80:12 are on my iPad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never
80:14 conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behind the scenes
80:15 released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guests and also
80:17 conversations with the guests and also the episodes that we've never ever
80:19 the episodes that we've never ever released and so much more. In the
80:22 released and so much more. In the circle, you'll have direct access to me.
80:24 circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show
80:25 You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and
80:27 to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of conversations you would
80:29 the types of conversations you would love us to have. But remember, for now,
80:31 love us to have. But remember, for now, we're only inviting the first 10,000
80:33 we're only inviting the first 10,000 people that join before it closes. So if
80:36 people that join before it closes. So if you want to join our private close
80:37 you want to join our private close community, head to the link in the
80:38 community, head to the link in the description below or go to
80:39 description below or go to daccircle.com.
80:45 I will speak to you there. [Music]
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