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