Jay Feldman  0:00  
Welcome to episode two of the bioenergetic view. In today's episode, we'll be going over why Kiran Krishnan says that coconut oil can be harmful for your gut microbiome, and why we think he's wrong. We'll be talking about Morley Robin's perspective that the thyroid does not run the body and whether we agree. We'll be discussing Josh and Jeannie Rubens, the real food gangstas claims that the adrenals regulate the thyroid, and we'll be talking about Alan Aragon's perspective that seed oils are not harmful, as well as the importance of gut motility and getting the right blood work. As always. Let us know what you think in the comments, and with that, let's jump right in. Okay, a

Danny  0:37  
bioenergetic view. Episode number two with Mike, Fave and Jay Feldman. Mike, how is the Philippines?

Mike  0:45  
The Philippines is the same as usual, nice and sunny, nice and hot.

Danny  0:49  
You're bathing in a tub of longans and lychees. Is

Unknown Speaker  0:52  
that right?

Mike  0:54  
That's actually a surprising thing about this place, is that at least in the cities, the fruit quality isn't that great overall. I mean, if you go out to the provinces, the province areas, it's pretty good. But here it's like, especially if you go to the grocery stores, like, they have some fruit, but a lot of it's still isn't right. So it's a it's interesting. And obviously the the the juice game here is also not that great. And I think that's the same for Ecuador, right? Jay,

Jay Feldman  1:22  
the juice isn't great, but the fruit is all good and fresh and ripe. I'm surprised to hear you say that, because I know when we were in Costa Rica, I mean, everything was ripe. We had a lot of like the rambutans and, you know, fresh watermelon, mangoes, dragon fruit, really good orange juice, like some of the best orange juice I've ever had there. So I'm surprised to hear that.

Danny  1:42  
Do you think maybe, maybe, Mike, you're just too much of a gringo, and you can't really figure it

Mike  1:46  
out that's possible. I mean, so, like, they have, like, the wet markets here. So we, we do go to the wet market to get fruit sometimes, but as far as it did, like, everything here is seasonal. So like, you can get mango seen here, and it's that's really good, and that's, I like that a lot. But the soursop here is kind of a pain, like, sour stops a pain to cut up and eat, because, like, the way the fiber is, and all the seeds and everything, the bananas are always good. Most times the papayas aren't 100% right. They're, like, hard. They're not, they're not really, like, ready to go, which is a bit disappointing. And the pineapples are good here, but they go bad in like, one day, like one one day, it's not good, and you have a couple hours it's ripe. So yeah, but I think during the like, earlier in the summer, it was better, and then kind of over the course of the summer, it wasn't as good. But when we went to the when we're in the province, the food, the fruit, was great, like we were getting, like, pineapple and papaya and everything was fresh and was already cut things like that. And they, they don't really have citrus fruit here, like all that's imported from the US, except for, uh, pomelos. But the pomelos are, like, kind of a huge pain to, like, cut open and stuff, and then, I don't know, I just don't like them as much as I like oranges or things like that. So they're, like, closer to grapefruits. Sometimes they're super sour. So

Danny  3:06  
Jay told me that you were bathing in pineapple. So that's false for anti aging purposes. That's not right, right?

Unknown Speaker  3:12  
No, no, it

Mike  3:13  
was the two grams of transdermal estrogen. That's the true anti aging stuff.

Danny  3:18  
Oh, so you're on the blueprint. Now, I didn't know that. That's crazy

Unknown Speaker  3:25  
episode. Yeah,

Danny  3:26  
it was so convincing. Now

Mike  3:28  
I read the blueprint of multiple times, and I've just decided that, you know, it's Brian Johnson. It's not repeat, not repeat anymore. I'm hopping on the next bandwagon. That's

Danny  3:38  
incredible. Good for you. Good for you. And then Jay, you've moved into a blue room, and you're out of a mold free house. And how does that feel?

Unknown Speaker  3:45  
Yeah, it's

Jay Feldman  3:46  
good. I mean, it's been a headache just moving and packing, unpacking all that stuff, but trying to figure out this, this office space, but, but, yeah, it's, it's good. We're happy to be in this house, which, yeah, the last one had just mold everywhere, which wasn't why we left, but it's nice to not have that. And, yeah, this is a nice spot.

Danny  4:06  
Did you notice any health effects or anything? Could anything detectable? Because

Jay Feldman  4:11  
it's so hard to say, because there's always so many factors, but I did feel like over time, there were some effects, you know, some effects in terms of congestion and like, breathing, lung type things, sleep, headaches, like, there's some things like that, but it's so hard to identify what that. That's what it was. It didn't start out that way. You know, it was kind of a gradual over time. So I guess time will tell. With with more time in this new house, got

Danny  4:38  
it with moldy it's like you're breathing in what the toxic, like the aldehydes and stuff that it's putting out into the air, is that the idea, you know, I

Mike  4:45  
think it's also the spores, right? Yeah, got it for me. I get brain fog, like, I'm, like, very fast when I'm in mold. My, my relative's house here, the bottom floor has mold problems. It's like, as soon as you walk in, you smell the earth, and you know that it's it like it's moldy in there, and it's like damp, like super wet. And every time I'm in there, like, I've just, I start getting brain foggy. If I'm in there for more than a couple couple minutes, like couple hours or so, I start to really feel like, sometimes we have dinners there, nothing at all, nothing. A pineapple.

Danny  5:18  
Bath won't cure but we'll have to move okay, we'll get to anything else before we move on. Guys. No, okay, let's get to the around the internet. And the first video we're going to comment on is a nutrition with Judy, and she's talking to Kieran Krishnan, who's a mega spore biotic fame. And they're talking about why you shouldn't consume coconut oil. A little bit about coconut

Nutrition with Judy  5:41  
oil. I know that. You know, you've mentioned that coconut oil, even MCT oils, may not be beneficial for the gut microbiome. It's such a revere food lately. You know, with ancestral foods, the highest fat in it, can you talk about why it may not be like such a good fat and oil to use?

Kiran Krishnan  6:00  
Yeah, and it's a combination of both the the type of fatty acid and the effects that it has, obviously, the the lauric acid and all that are really strong antimicrobials. So coconut oils kill bacteria in an amazing way. They they're the powerful antimicrobials, and when you consume them, they will act like antimicrobials in your gut, so it's going to kill off more bacteria during the digestive process and release more of that LPS, right? And because it has such a high concentration of fat, your body produces something called lipid rafts to go through the gut lining and pull that that nutrient fat into the into the circulatory system. And because it's doing that, the LPS the end of also a fan, yes, yeah, go for it. So it accidentally also pulls in a bunch of Ender

Jay Feldman  6:49  
costs. Go for it. So I think it might be helpful just to do it in like, minute chunks, because there's so many different points that he brings up. Yeah. Are you cool with that, or do you want to go through the whole thing? No. I

Danny  6:59  
mean, go, go for it. Okay, so,

Jay Feldman  7:04  
I mean, just like the two points he's made so far, the first is that coconut oil is a powerful antimicrobial, and as such, is going to kill bacteria and lead to the release of LPS. I think we would all mostly agree with that, except powerful, I think is a little bit of a stretch. I think it's pretty mild as an antimicrobial. I mean, most things that we consume that are natural, so to speak, whether we're talking about different forms of saturated fats, we're talking about coconut oil, we're talking about polyphenols and fruits or cooked vegetables or anything like that, those all have gentle antimicrobial effects. It's not the equivalent of taking an antibiotic or some sort of supplement that's like a more intense antimicrobial. So that's just something to consider. It's not like this is causing major it shouldn't be causing major die off effects if you're using a teaspoon or two of coconut oil. But the other thing I wanted to mention so well, I guess we'll get into the lipid refs in a moment, because he he will talk about like, I'll get into that more detail. But the other thing I wanted to say is, if there's a lot of harmful bacteria to be killed off, that alone is an issue like that is not caused by the coconut oil. If you're dealing with major bacterial overgrowths and coconut coconut oil is helping to reduce that, I would definitely regard that as a positive thing if it's done in like, a healthy context.

Speaker 1  8:20  
Got it so just before you continue to continue dead. Yeah.

Mike  8:24  
The other thing I want to mention is that coconut oil is absorbed really high up in the intestine, so like we're talking in the stomach, in the duodenum, which is the earliest portion of the small intestine, the bacterial counts in those areas should not be high. You shouldn't really have a large volume of microbes living in those particular areas the intestine, because they're dedicated towards absorption. The area you're going to see larger amounts of bacteria is going to be towards like the ileum, which is the last portion of the small intestine and then inside the colon. Coconut oil really shouldn't be making it so far down in that direction overall, especially because it's a large portion of it is medium chain triglycerides, or medium chain fats, which are absorbed through like a passive fashion. They don't necessarily need to form a chiral micron or lipid lipid raft and then move across the the intestinal barrier. They don't need the bile acids. So in that situation, like to make an argument, at least when I'm looking at this, make an argument that coconut oil disturbs the microbiome, is kind of questionable, because it shouldn't even be making it so far down into the colon part. Particularly, most if you're going to be like on a high fat carnivore diet with very minimal fiber and things like that, and you having large volumes of coconut oil, perhaps, maybe, but in the in the in the in the context of a normal diet, I think that'd be less of an issue overall. Um, so, yeah, that that's a that was a big that was the first thing, uh, from my perspective, where I was like, okay, that it depends on where we're talking. Got it.

Kiran Krishnan  9:57  
So not only is it causing more release of endotoxin, it's. Causing more absorption of the endotoxin beyond the leaking through. So there's a couple of studies now that have shown that are published of all of the sources of fat, and that coconut oil has the most endotoxic effect. So it's not just a hypothesis. It's shown in published clinical trials that it causes more inflammatory leaky gut than any other fat there is okay, can you pause

Jay Feldman  10:23  
there? Yeah, so there's two things I want to mention here. One, leaky gut is very different from the endotoxin absorption that's occurring in response to the lauric acid in the coconut oil. So there are these studies, and he talks a bit more about this. We'll, I'm sure we'll dig into it more, but there are all these, are these studies showing that lauric acid relative to unsaturated fats, it's not like you have studies looking at all different types of saturated fats. And rather, I think this is going to be pretty similar throughout different all different saturated fatty acids. I don't think this is going to be unique to lauric acid in the coconut oil. However, in this studies looking at lauric acid from coconut oil, what it does is it increases the absorption of endotoxin, but it's not by causing intestinal permeability. What it does is it causes, essentially the the it mobilizes the lipid rafts and increases their absorption of the endotoxin and fats. And this is a translocation through the cells of the intestinal lining. This is not going between the cells. This isn't causing intestinal permeability. It's not causing the absorption of any other food, molecules, or, you know, bacteria or anything. This is a what I will essentially like. What we'll get to is basically a detoxification pathway to get rid of the endotoxin that's in the intestine. But this is not through any sort of intestinal permeability. So that's a really important distinction to make, that the lauric acid here is not causing leaky gut, as he was saying. And then, yeah, the other point I was just saying is that he was acting as though, like there's these studies that have looked at all these different fatty acids and their effects, and coconut oil is this unique one. But really the only studies that I've seen looking at this compare coconut oil with fish oil and, you know, some sort of vegetable oil or something. But I don't think there are any looking at different types of saturated fats, for example. So that was my

Unknown Speaker  12:09  
two points here.

Unknown Speaker  12:10  
Got it.

Kiran Krishnan  12:11  
A lot of it is just adaptation using it. You know, we mentioned earlier that, you know, your populations adapt their your microbiome will adapt to the types of foods that are within your geographic region. And this is extremely clear when they've done microbiome studies on on tribes in the Savannah and Africa versus Papua New Guinea tribes versus North Americans, Europeans, they find vastly different microbiomes in these people because of the different geography and the different foods that they have access to. So when you think about a coconut, you know, the vast majority of people listening to this, watching this, are of European descent, right? Your ancestors never saw coconut in their existence, right? Coconuts are equal equatorial foods around the equator, right? So someone like me who comes from India and Malaysia and has and Southeast Asian countries where coconut is really abundant in everything we eat and do, my microbiome is probably more adapted to dealing with it than someone of European descent.

Mike  13:15  
Any comment. I mean, it's just, there's not like this argument is it's not really a argument to heavily focus on, because it's not, you can't prove it or disprove it. It's just kind of a theory. So it's, you know, you could say whatever you want with this specific argument, I mean, but I think that, do some people from European descent have problems with coconut products? Yes, but I don't think it's just because there's European I think there's also quite a few European people who do fine with coconut products as well. And then I don't think it's there's like, any argumentation against the idea that the foods that you're eating and on a regular basis are adjusting your microbiome. I think that that is, like, relatively clear and understood, right? And I mean, you see that with clients coming from a carnivore diet, doing stool tests and then going on bioenergetic or coming from plant based or things like that. I think this, this piece of the argument is, like tangential overall. I think the bigger question to hone in on here is, like, what is actually going on with coconut oil inside the intestine and then the lipid raft piece? For me, that's what I want to really focus on. Because I think that this goes for other saturated fats. Because I think inside the bioenergetic sphere, a lot of people are talking about, oh, well, maybe, or the arguments against saturated fats are, oh, maybe saturated fats are increasing endotoxemia. They're increasing the amount of endotoxin now we're seeing inside the blood, and the mechanism is the lipid raft process. Now what Jay kind of already described is the lipid raft. Is when fats are moving into the intestine, they form these kind of like micelle type things, or called chylomicrons. So it's like all the fats organized so that the heads are outside, because they can interact with water, and the tails, the fatty acid portions are inside, and endotoxin can kind of. To ride with that. So the endotoxin will move in with that piece, and it happens more so with saturated fatty acids than you see with with monounsaturated poly so I think with coconut oil, yeah, you're seeing that. The nuance piece here, though, is that it's not, there's not an argument that you see more endotoxin coming in with saturated fats. That's true, at least in the studies that we have available. The the nuanced element here is that you actually don't see such a massive inflammatory response when you have the endotoxin coming in with the saturated fats. And why is that? So? Essentially, the saturated fats are directing that endotoxin to liver cells, not the liver immune cells, the macrophages, the copper cells, to the regular liver liver cells. And they will they will start the hepatocytes. They will start to detoxify that endotoxin so it's actually protected. And in animal studies, when you give saturated fats, or you give chylomicrons, which are kind of like the bundles of the fats with the bile acids that have been emulsified together, or you give lipoproteins so to the animals before you expose them to endotoxin, their survival is way better, significantly better overall, because those things in the bloodstream, in the digest track, bind up the endotoxin, and they serve as detoxification mechanism. The other thing that happens is endotoxin in the body triggers the production of lipoproteins, LDL, HDL, all these different lipoproteins. And why does it do that? Because it's going around and mopping up the endotoxin that you're exposed to, bringing it to the liver, and then the liver is detoxifying it. So it's actually a protective response. And with this, that's not necessarily why I think the saturated fats raise cholesterol. I think there's other mechanisms that would be tangential to what we're talking about here. But I think, yes, you see more endo endotoxin coming in, but you also don't see this massive inflammatory response. I think that, if anything, it's protective overall. And then Danny, you actually introduced me to these studies from the podcast you did with Georgie, but in the Nanji studies, when you give rats alcohol and then you give them saturated fats, they actually do way better, like one of the study, they continue to give alcohol and then they gave them saturated fats, and the liver, the livers of the rats, like continue to heal. And the reason that that is so specific, so important in this context, is because the way alcohol damages the liver, besides the metabolism, alcohol being problematic, is that the alcohol damage actually damages the intestinal lining. So it actually causes the intestinal lining to break down a bit and allows endotoxin to move into the portal vein and go to the liver, and then that endotoxin damages the liver directly. So if you want to look at a model of high amounts of endotoxin, and you want to see like it, how like, what is making it worse, or what is making it better, you would use alcohol, and you expose the different types of fats. And essentially the polyunsaturated fats do the worst, particularly Omega sixes, and then the the saturated fats perform the best. And some of the saturated fats that they tested were beef tallow, I think MCT so medium chain triglycerides, which you find in coconut oil, and then palm oil and things like that. So yeah, that for me, that's the biggest question. As far as like, are different populations adapted to coconut oil or not? I mean, I don't know how you could prove or disprove that, so I'm not necessarily interested in arguing that point. Like, but as far as like, does the microbiome adjust with different diets in different areas? Yeah. I mean, we, I think we all agree on that those those

Danny  18:35  
pieces, yeah, before going to your background, you might just be reacting to some impurity in the product that you're using, or something that would be like, a way more likely explanation,

Kiran Krishnan  18:46  
you know, so that's an important distinction,

Jay Feldman  18:53  
just to, like, add on to the evolutionary side. So he's first off. He was saying that as evidence for his claim that some people might be better adapted to coconut oil and would not have this mechanism occur. He's saying that different populations that live in different areas have different microbiomes. But as you were kind of alluding to Mike, you can just eat a different diet and it will change your microbiome immediately. This isn't like a deep genetic thing that's been determined over hundreds of 1000s of years, this will you can change your butt like microbiome dramatically in a very short period of time. So this has nothing to do with your heritage or anything like that, in terms of whether or not your consumption of coconut oil is going to increase endotoxin absorption and again, as we'll get to as they continue, this isn't particularly unique to coconut oil, as you were saying, Mike, any increase in fat is going to increase absorption of endotoxin through the catalytic microns. And really the difference here is whether the lipid raft mechanism is going to be at play, which is more so with saturated fats than unsaturated. But again, anytime you're increasing fat, it will increase endotoxin absorption. But as again, as we're saying, this is. Isn't a bad thing. This is a part of the detoxification effect. And if you instead leave the endotoxin in the intestines, that's going to be way worse, because that will cause intestinal permeability, or leaky gut will cause intense inflammatory reactions. And so instead, you're transporting the endotoxin through protective mechanism, mechanisms, protective pathways to detoxify using the lipoproteins, specifically HDL, like you were talking about Mike, using the color microns themselves. If you introduce them, they're extremely protective. So yeah, just a number of of issues, I think, with with this idea. But

Danny  20:31  
go ahead and to your point, Mike has changed his microbiome with the blueprint. So we reposted hundreds

Mike  20:38  
of pills a day. You should see my bifidobacteria levels good for good. Danny, before you start, I do want to just mention one more thing is that the the medium chain triglycerides, and this is something that I think is a good distinction to make, is important. I'm pretty sure the medium chain triglycerides don't really form the lipid rafts as much as the longer chain fats, like palmitic acid. He's going to get

Jay Feldman  21:01  
to that in a second. Mike, if you want to let him, because he talks about that, right? Because she asks about MCT oil. Go

Mike  21:07  
ahead. In

Kiran Krishnan  21:08  
the ideas, maybe if enough Americans eat coconut all the time, the next couple of generations will be better adapted to it. But we do know that when you're ill adapted to the food can have deleterious effects, especially when it's a powerful antimicrobial and

Nutrition with Judy  21:24  
done MCT oils. Because, you know, a lot of people drink those coffees with the MCT oil, it doesn't have the same effects as just true coconut oil.

Kiran Krishnan  21:32  
So when I first started looking at it, my thinking was, it may not, because coconut oil in itself has the long chain fatty acids. Long chain fatty acids tend to be very antimicrobial. But now there's more data coming out showing that the medium chain fatty acids also are powerful antimicrobials. So my guess is they probably would now, one thing that saves the medium chain fatty acids is they are what we call direct oils, meaning they're directly absorbed into the system, rather than done so through lipid carriers in large foals, so they may reduce the amount of inadvertent bringing in of LPs, because they don't use lipid wraps the same way as long chain fatty acids do. So my intelligent guess would be and I have not seen studies comparing the two yet, but my intelligent guess would be that the MCT would be better, but it would probably still cause some, some die off and some increase in endocrine

Unknown Speaker  22:34  
final thoughts, yeah, I mean, that's, that's

Mike  22:38  
the point I was gonna get to, Is that, like you're gonna if you're not having coconut oil, if you're having butter, if you're having beef towel, if you're having chocolate, if you're having any fat that has any type of saturated component in it, which is almost every single fat, because there's not most fats aren't just one one type of fat, whether mono, poly or saturated, you're going to have some formation of lipid rafts. Is going to be a question of how much and then so like the argument would be made against almost all saturated fats. The only piece here that you could say is maybe the difference is that the medium chain fats, like lauric acid, seem to be like, I haven't seen the comparison, as you mentioned, between like palmetic versus lark, but lauric acid has been tested to be quite antimicrobial. So I guess the only the difference between coconut oil and these other fats, as far as the argument's sake would go, would be that the lauric acid and the other medium chain fats, like caprylic acid and capric acid, would be antimicrobial, and then the other amount of long chain fats, like the palmitic acid and muristic acid in the the coconut oil, would then pull the endotoxin from the killed bacteria from the medium chain fats across the intestine. But I think that I don't know, I I'm not I'm not convinced of that, especially because the medium chain fats, as you mentioned, are like, passively diffuse, and they diffuse higher up inside the stomach and and the small intestine, where you shouldn't have large counts of bacteria overall. So, yeah, I think that that's less like, I don't see that as a necessary, necessary worry with the coconut oil. The other thing is, inside the inside studies with medium chain triglycerides, they actually see beneficial effects inside some of the animal studies on the microbiome and on obesity and things along those lines, and on endotoxin levels from the modulation inside the gut microbiome and like effects in the liver and all type of stuff. So I don't think that, I don't think that it's a that that's the specific mechanisms why somebody would necessarily have a bad reaction to coconut oil overalls, just because the this endotoxin response.

Jay Feldman  24:49  
Yeah, another thing I want to throw in there so she's he's mentioned this a couple times, that this antimicrobial effect is increasing endotoxin, as if that's a problem. And we just want to read her. Great. I mean, I guess if you are, if you have a major bacterial overgrowth and you're accidentally killing it off, you might want to be aware that that could increase endotoxin. But as I was saying, for one, a lot of different foods have antimicrobial effects. And for two, if you are getting that much of an effect from a product like coconut oil that you're just using in your food, that means you probably have a pretty, pretty pretty messed up microbiome, like, it's not in a good spot, and you would want to work to improve that. So it's the same part of the like, in order to heal that situation, in order to clear out the major intestinal overgrowth, you're going to need to use some things like coconut oil or stronger to work on reducing that bacterial population. And that's going to mean that there is a release of endotoxin. It's a part of the healing like, in order to heal from that, you need to have that process in the same way that the lipid rafts that increase the translocation or the absorption of endotoxin through the enterocytes is a part of the healing process of clearing out that bacterial problem and clearing out the endotoxin. So I think it's just a complete clip in terms of the perspective and just this, you know, we're kind of myopically looking at endotoxin going from the gut to the bloodstream without recognizing that there are very different, major differences between that happening due to increases in infection, increases in bacterial overgrowth, intestinal permeability versus detoxification pathways. So that's one thing that I think is really important to note. And then one other kind of closing thought, just coming back to those Nanji studies that you mentioned, Mike, one thing that's that's really noteworthy in these studies looking at the lauric acid from coconut oil increasing lipid raft activity and mobility, is that the Omega threes have the opposite effect. So the Omega threes decrease endotoxin absorption through these meats. Yet when you look at this in a practical sense, like those Nangi studies, where you have major endotoxemia issues and liver, you know, liver issues, and all this due to alcohol, when you then provide either saturated fats, looking at palm oil or MCT oil or omega threes, the saturated ones show much lower inflammation, much lower endotoxemia, lower lipid peroxidation and dramatic healing of the liver, whereas omega threes make it all way worse and dramatically increase the endotoxemia and the liver damage and all that, despite having opposite effects on the lipid rafts. So the exact mechanism that he's citing here as being a negative thing, when you look at it play out in actual practical sense. You actually want to be encouraging that sort of absorption of the endotoxin as a protective effect in the worst situations. If we're talking about alcohol induced fatty liver disease, like a really bad situation, gut wise, a really bad situation liver wise, and despite that situation, the saturated fats are extremely protective, even though they increase the lipid rafts. And I guess I would say it's partially because of that. It's partially because they encourage this sort of detoxification pathway, in addition to protecting against lipid peroxidation and all the other effects, you know, the antimicrobial effects, all of that. So, yeah, I think it's that's how I'll leave it at that. Mike, go ahead. Yeah,

Mike  28:00  
there's two other, a couple other things I want to mention with this too. So besides the lipid raft effect that just getting into like saturated versus polyunsaturated, there are studies looking at giving rats corn oil versus coconut oil diets that were like 1% corn oil, I think 1% 3% and 20% corn oil, and then the the rest was coconut oil. The coconut oil fed rats, and they're exposing them to lethal doses of endotoxin, or or sub lethal doses of endotoxin. The coconut oil fed rats actually didn't form a response like a lethal response to the endotoxin, because the polyunsaturated fats are also the precursors for the eicosanoids. So that's your prostaglandins and leukotrienes. And so if the diet is more it has a higher amount of saturated, monounsaturated fats that don't produce psychosoids, you also won't get the inflammatory response. So it's like, there's a there's another layer of benefit. And then so in on top of the fact that you have this detoxification protective effect in response to endotoxin, then you also don't have this, substrate for tons of inflammatory mediators. And then, on top of that, you also don't get the heavy amount of lipid peroxidation. So when you're looking inside the progression from a fatty liver disease all the way to cirrhosis, they call it a multiple hit model, because you a lot of people have fatty livers and they just, they're fine. They never progress to like an inflammation and then, and then a cirrhosis, a scarring of the liver. What changes that is, if you then add a ton of polyunsaturated fatty acids on top of multiple liver insults, whether alcohol or endotoxin or things like that, what you start to find is that now you get tons of lipid peroxidation, and then you start moving towards fibrosis and inflammation in the of the liver. So that's a worsening progression. So the saturated fats can actually protect against that, because they don't peroxidize Very easily compared to the polyunsaturated fats. So you have three protective mechanisms from the saturated fats. The last piece I want to mention is there is a study where they gave they exposed rats to infection. Think it was Citrobacter rodentium. So like a specific pathogen for rats, and what winds up happening is they gave them either fish oil, corn oil or and I think they gave them one other type of fat, or it was a the other fat, they gave them a low fat diet. The rats fed the fish oil, they didn't have tons of inflammation in the intestine, but they died from sepsis because they were essentially immunosuppressed. The rats fed the corn oil had tons of inflammation, and the low fat fed rats like survived the infection and like were able to amount of regular immune response to things along those lines. So there's multiple pieces against like the polyunsaturated fat piece, even though they're not forming the lipid rafts, and you're seeing all the increase of endotoxin with the lipid rafts. And there's also multiple pieces of benefit for the saturated fats, the monounsaturated fats in this picture, they don't do the lipid raft thing like the saturated fats do, and then they also don't create the inflammatory mediators, and they don't create all the the lipid peroxidation products and stuff like that. So they're kind of like in this this neutral ground. The one thing I do want to add to this overall picture is people can still not have a good reaction to coconut oil or some of the other saturated fats. And it's not it doesn't have to be directly because of endotoxin. There could be other things going on inside the liver. If you do have a fatty liver, and you do take a large volume of saturated fats on top of the fatty liver, and the liver is already having a problem with fat oxidation, with exportation of fats, maybe there's protein issues, choline issues, et cetera, that can cause further issues for some people, and some people, and at least in my experience, find that too much saturated fat can cause an issue. So they do better with a little bit more of, like a mix of saturated monounsaturated, or if they have bile acid problems, or anything like that. So there could be other reasons. That's not just endotoxin, because it doesn't that that theory of the saturated fats being a problem because of the lipid raft doesn't seem to play out in reality. So I would consider other mechanisms. Or, as Jay already mentioned, it could be like you have dysbiosis inside the intestine, and then the coconut oil is clearing it out. The other thing coconut oil, just also to add, is really good at clearing out like Candida or fungal stuff going on in the intestine. And there are studies where they feed rats coconut oil, and it lowers the burden of Candida in the intestine pretty significantly. So there are benefits to it overall, especially in the context of a normal diet.

Danny  32:27  
This seems kind of like classic when the dietary ideology is not working, or for the person they have to go to more like obscure things like, oh, maybe coconut oil is toxic, or maybe vitamin A is toxic, like this kind of reeks of that to me, but yeah, wasn't there? I have a paper saying that the prime mechanism of endotoxin is lipolysis, and so if you, if you're not approaching things with the bioenergetic sense in mind like you'd miss a lot of the things that were occurring, from the lipid peroxidation to the prostaglandins, and it would be, it would be like, hard to approach all this stuff, because you'd be flipped in a bunch of areas and and you'd kind of have this myopic view, like they're kind

Unknown Speaker  33:13  
of progressing here. That's

Mike  33:15  
the that's like. So I've had a couple clients ask me about this specifically, and I think the the important piece, or the context to keep in mind here is that the gentleman who is speaking is a microbiologist, and like his view and lens with which everything he is looking at is that is microbiology so and microbiome, and he produces supplements for the microbiome and all that type of stuff. So I think it's it is always important to understand the frame with which the person is thinking about things, because that will give you an idea of like, are they considering these other factors? And it doesn't seem like he is considering these other factors. It's like he's coming from this ancestral perspective, which is kind of tags along with the carnivore diet piece, plus the frame of of being a microbiologist, and then Danny, something that I do want to mention, this is a little separate than that that you brought up. But some coconut oils are extracted with solvents like hexane. And in my experience, if I've had, like, crappy coconut oils that have been that had those solvents, I've had way worse, like the runs from it, whereas other ones, like higher quality ones, I seem to do okay with. And here in the Philippines, there's a lot of like, crappier coconut oils extracted with hexane. And I've had some pretty interesting experiences eating dishes cooked with those so

Danny  34:33  
well. I think apparently you can tell if you have a hot pan and you put on the coconut oil, it should give off an odd smell if there's hexane in the product. And so before ray, ray had said that on some podcast, and I knew exactly what he was talking about, because I had that experience multiple times, like smelling something like weird, plasticky type of smell. And so I think there is definitely something to that. Jay,

Jay Feldman  34:59  
yeah, just had. Other things I wanted to mention very briefly. One was just that, if I don't know what kieran's dietary suggestions are, and I don't know what what Judy's current suggestions are regarding coconut oil or anything else, but if someone was actually concerned about these pathways being like a major impact on gut health or health overall, the solution would be a low fat diet, and within that fat, you would want to have high PUFA and low saturated fat. I know that's not something Judy's recommending. I don't know what Kieran recommends, but yeah, I just wanted to make that point that any increase in fat will increase endotoxin absorption through different means, different pathways, as we mentioned, and specifically saturated fat over PUFA. And so if you're concerned about that, you would want to suggest to suggest a high PUFA to saturated fat ratio, and you would want to suggest low fat diets. And I don't think, I don't know what Kieran suggests, but I know Judy doesn't suggest that. Of course, she wasn't the one saying that. She's just interviewing him, so it doesn't mean she agrees. But just wanted to throw those things out there. The other thing I wanted to mention that we failed to mention going in is, of course, this isn't personal toward either Judy or Kieran. We're happy to have both of them on discuss these things. We obviously are not, you know, particularly familiar with the views of kieran's views dietarily outside of this video. So yeah. I mean, this is just talking about this excerpt of a video we can't comment on, on anything beyond that.

Danny  36:20  
Yeah, got it. Well, let's get to our next clip. This is our buddy, Morley Robbins. Let's

Mike  36:27  
waiting for this one all my life.

Marley Robins  36:29  
And guess where all of the steroid hormones are being made? They're being made in our adrenal glands.

Speaker 1  36:37  
So where's all the attention in medicine? Thyroid? Thyroid makes one hormone. The adrenal glands make 50. That's

Marley Robins  36:45  
what makes perfect sense to obsess about the thyroid, is give people lead people to think that the thyroid runs the body. It does not. That's an absolute why, and have people ignore the adrenals. Well, there isn't. There's no such thing as adrenal fatigue. It's mitochondrial dysfunction of the cells that make up the adrenal gland. And that's I just learned that this morning. I

Danny  37:11  
am empathetic to him saying that medicine is wrong about most things, so I think he's definitely right there, but, yeah, but

Jay Feldman  37:21  
when does medicine say that? They

Danny  37:22  
never say all the thyroid, yeah, it's a bit of a straw ban.

Jay Feldman  37:28  
Well, just he wasn't talking medicine. He was talking about, I think the Bioenergy

Unknown Speaker  37:33  
medicine, yeah, it was things.

Mike  37:35  
It's so, like, the whole perspective, it's, like, it blows my mind. So first we, like, we say it's not the thyroid, and then we say it's the adrenals, and then we say that it's a problem with the mitochondria in the adrenals, and then, but like, you first discounted the thyroid, which is a key for mitochondrial function. So just the whole thing is, like, this weird, confused circle that doesn't really make any sense. Again, it's not a personal task listening to this. I'm just like, What is going on this morning.

Danny  38:07  
Mike, chill out.

Jay Feldman  38:12  
Okay, understandably, so

Danny  38:14  
what I feel like this is essential to understanding kind of the bioenergetics stuff, but the relationship between the thyroid, the hypothalamus, the pituitary, the adrenals. How do you guys see that? And where do you think Morley is making a mistake? Well,

Jay Feldman  38:32  
so the first thing I I mean, there's a couple things. One I want to just write, like, state his argument, point by point. So he's saying, like, forget what he says. Like, okay, so I guess first point modern medicine focuses everything's on the thyroid. Next point is the adrenal produces. The adrenal glands produce 50 hormones. The thyroid produces one. And it's a lie that the thyroid runs the body. And instead, he's kind of making the assumption that it's the adrenals that do, but within the adrenals, there's nothing to do with the adrenal fatigue. It's mitochondrial dysfunction. So that's like our points that we have here. And one thing that I think is worth mentioning is that the thyroid is not the we have talked about this. You know, Mike and I just put out a thyroid series, and we discuss how the thyroid is not a root cause either, right? The thyroid function and activity is a product of the general energetic state of the body, what is going on in the mitochondria throughout the body, and not just the adrenals and a number of other factors, you know, nutritional status, all these other things. So it is true that I wouldn't consider it as the thyroid runs everything, and that we need to focus solely on the thyroid. But rather, the thyroid is a good representation of what's going on underneath. But you could also look at what's going on with adrenal steroid production too. If you're seeing a lot of cortisol, that's also a helpful indication as well. So I think there's, there is a point of validity there, which is that we shouldn't be only focusing on the thyroid. I think the other point is, we shouldn't be focusing on any organ function, because we want to consider what's actually going on on those underlying levels and the signals and everything on top of that will be shown through hormone production. And looking at the thyroid activity is really helpful. And I will say, when looking at all of the hormones, and when looking at, you know, top down, what's going on above the energetic level the thyroid is affecting everything else, like it is way it is. In some ways, you can consider it as a master regulator that's going to affect the production of other hormones. It's going to affect mitochondrial function, it's going to affect gut function, and on and on. So it is important to consider in that way. So I guess that's my first thoughts, Danny, what was your question? Exactly?

Danny  40:44  
Well, I was when he brought this up, and I think I originally clipped it because he's making a claim of how the thyroid, the hypothalamus, the pisbutaria, the adrenals, interact, and I think it's that's really critical to understand, like, like you said, if you have high levels of cortisol, through understanding, when the thyroid is suppressed, the hypothalamus, pituitary adrenals start to rev up, like that. That's really important to understand. But yeah, like nobody's saying, oh, micro, focus on the thyroid gland itself. There's a, like, a macro thing that's happening, like the mitochondria stress response modulators and the inflammatory cytokines that the cells are producing, activating the stress systems, etc.

Unknown Speaker  41:30  
But I don't know, what do you think, Mike,

Mike  41:33  
I think that it's like, it's all one system, right? Like, basically all the hormonal things that we're looking at are messages between the cells saying, Hey, this is what we have going on. And so when you're looking like, when I'm looking at the whole when I when I look at this, I see a whole system. I see the adrenals, I see the thyroid, I see what's going on with the gonads. You're like, looking at all these different things to kind of read the messages that are that the body is saying, what the cells are saying to each other, and get a sense of what is the overall context of the system. So like, if you're seeing somebody who has thyroid dysfunction, and then they're having elevated cortisol, and then DHEA is low, and then you're looking at, I don't know, maybe prolactin is elevated as well, and then, like, gonadal function is not going so hot. It's like, they're under stress. What is and then the question is, like, where is that stress coming from? Is it dietary? Is it, is it lifestyle related stress? Is it related to, you know, is it something going on there? Were they exposed to some type of toxic exposure? Do they have some type of chronic infection? Did they just come out of, like, an extremely difficult work period, like looking for, what are all these other areas that we have control over, to see what's affecting the system overall, and trying to correct those foundational pieces all together, and then maybe use some support along the way as well to, like, kick the system into gear. So that's the for me, that's what when I'm looking at it, that's what I'm seeing. I'm not like saying, Oh, it's just all the thyroid. It's just the what blows my mind about this is that you, if you're going to say any you're going to make a question about any steroid hormone, right? So you're going to make some argument about any type of steroid hormone, and then first discount the thyroid, like thyroid hormone and thyroid function. That doesn't make any sense, because the thyroid is what's pushing cholesterol into the cell, and then it's what's pushing cholesterol into the mitochondria, and then that cholesterol in the mitochondria is being converted into steroid hormones. So if thyroid function is not going well, then all of the other steroid functions are not going well. It's likely they are not going well. There's no so like to then to discount the thyroid and then bring it focus on the adrenal, because there's this number of hormones there, and that number of hormones there, which is kind of irrelevant to the overall irrelevant to the overall picture. It's like, completely besides the point. It doesn't even it. The thyroid is what's determining the production of some of these things, to a large extent. So yeah, that for me, when I'm looking at that, I'm like, I just it's missing the mark. It's not seeing the under all picture, and it's not understanding what thyroid hormone is actually doing. And to further bring a question about like, oh, it's the mitochondrial function of the adrenal gland. It's like the thyroid is what's inducing respiration in the mitochondria, inducing production of new mitochondria, all of these types of things. It's regulating mitochondrial function directly. So just discount thyroid and then make an argument about mitochondria, again, is just completely missing the mark, and indicating that, yes, you likely just learned it that's that morning, because he's he's not seeing all the different pieces and that that, or understanding what they're actually doing and and also putting it within a bioenergetic context, understanding like the the the value of energy, and seeing Like the adrenal hormones are there as a system to help manage energy deficits and stress and stress pathways. Thyroid hormone is, is there to make sure that you have a that it's a signal that you have adequate amount of energy overall and to increase energetic production. It's like these systems are, are like they it's not that they're opposed. Opposed to each other, but they're, they're the context with which they get upregulated, are opposed each other, and it's actually important to

Unknown Speaker  45:05  
look at both. Yeah, that's

Danny  45:07  
so important. What you said the dual factor, the dual cofactor, nature of thyroid, the hormone of respiration, and then the hormone of steroidogenesis. And that's, I think, really integral to understand. Jay, what else do you think?

Jay Feldman  45:21  
Yeah, so there's a couple things I want to want to mention. One, as you said, Mike, it sounds like we're operating on quite a loose definition of learning here. I think also is important when it comes to the next video as well. And normally I don't think it's worth talking about an argument like this, or talking about somebody making these sorts of statements, but we get sent these things all the time, and people get really eat these ideas up. And so just as a something that I think I need to say, if somebody is trying to make an argument that something is more important because of some sort of numerical factor, that it is involved in more processes, or more enzymes or more hormones, I would consider that with quite a bit of skepticism, because it means nothing for in terms of what's actually going on physiologically. In this case, the thyroid does not produce one hormone. It produces at least two. If you want to consider t3 and t4 could also consider t1 and t2 and, you know, others, but so, so. And the point that the adrenal makes 50 hormones has nothing to do with whether one is more important than the other. Like it is if someone is trying to also make the argument that some mineral runs the body or is more important than another mineral because it's involved in more enzymes, or something like that, I those things are just entirely irrelevant when in terms of trying to compare importance of different nutrients and things like that, and has very little to do with what's what's going on on the ground level, in terms of physiology, in terms of health. So that's and that's the only argument he's relying on here in terms of why the adrenals matter more than the thyroid, which is kind of his his point as the the other thing I wanted to mention, as you were saying, Mike is so he was saying that adrenal fatigue doesn't exist, and instead is mitochondrial dysfunction in the adrenals. And even if we just want to isolate things like cortisol and adrenaline, when we're talking about adrenal hormones, those are not their production isn't just regulated by what's going on in the adrenal glands. It's regulated by what's going on systemically. If your blood sugar is low, if your muscles are running out of fuel, or aren't producing energy Well, or your liver wherever else, or considering all the other hormones you know that are like ACTH and things like that that are going to affect adrenal output, like those things are all again, I don't think we like the characterization or idea of adrenal fatigue, either, but to then isolate it to mitochondrial dysfunction in the adrenal glands themselves is again, entirely missing the point of what's actually going on in the human system inside the body. I mean, and it's this this is the way that a lot of these sorts of arguments are made, is it's a myopic reductionist. Look at what's happening in this organ, and this organ is more important than that organ, and look at how this mineral is involved in all these processes. And again, we're totally losing sight of the big picture and how these things are actually relevant and and, yeah, this sort of argument, I think, is the perfect example of that.

Mike  48:24  
Yeah, the research. Go ahead. Danny, go ahead.

Danny  48:26  
I was gonna say just to go a little bit further, like, when a person has lower thyroid function and they're under the duress of constant stress, the the layers of the adrenal glands will erode over time, right? So, like, the outer layer produces, like DHEA and progesterone, I think, and then maybe the inner more layers can produce aldosterone and cortisol. And so I think, I think the the capsule is like eroding over time under intense stress. But that's not the same as adrenal fatigue, because what when I was talking to a naturopath. A long time ago. He read a book called um William Jefferies, safe uses of cortisol, and it was like his Bible. And he when he found that I had high cortisol, he tried to prescribe me cortef, or he did prescribe me Cortis. And the whole idea was to let my adrenals rest. But the the sad thing was, I was freezing cold at the time, and I think my pulse was like 40 or 50 or something, so it's just um, so I definitely familiar with the idea of adrenal fatigue, but um, I mean, even more, Lee is saying that's wrong, but go

Mike  49:30  
ahead. Well, the thing too is that you that you're saying Danny, that I want to like I highlight specifically is that the layers that produce produce DHEA, do erode, but the layers that produce cortisol don't actually really erode that much into old age, so what you wind up getting is unopposed cortisol as you age. Unopposed. Glucocorticoids, unopposed mineral, mineralocorticoids, so aldosterone and cortisol. Now the thing about DHEA is DHEA directly opposes many of the neg. Effects of cortisol. So when you're when your body release, when you're under stress, and your body is releasing cortisol, it's also releasing DHEA. So it's basically you have both these hormones. The cortisol goes and kind of mobilizes resources, lowers inflammation through your immune immune suppression mechanism, and then DHEA, kind of like, prevents it from getting too far right, creating too much damage. It's like, this nice backstop. It's this, it's a protective mechanism. But as you get older, you don't have that anymore. So you just release cortisol. You start shredding your tissues up. You start, like, moving towards immunosuppression. And that's why some of the authors that that Pete cites talks about, like cordi, like the aging process being characterized by like the glucocorticoids and the adrenal hormones overall. So like, optimizing for those is not ideal, especially, especially coming from the bioenergetic context. When you're looking at them as like they are literally the hormones of stress. They're there for all those scenarios that you mentioned Jay to basically, if the body doesn't have enough energy at that moment, or it has an extreme demand, whatever that is, to like, meet that challenge. And the problem is, is long term upregulation of that damages other tissues, because it's basically like, it will shift resources to the important tissues. It'll remove resources from the less important tissues, like the gonads and like the digestive tract. And then it's like, it releasing resources from stores of the bodies you are breaking down the body. This is directly opposed to raise hypothesis of energy and structure interdependent at every level. Or it's the antithesis of it, right? So it's essentially, let's break down our structure so that we can provide this energy. And it's like, now you don't have more structure to produce or Garner energy, because you're constantly breaking it down with these hormones, so that, yeah, it's a to like, I don't think focusing on the adrenals or like the adrenal fatigue piece is key. I think, if anything, when you're looking at the adrenal fatigue stuff, you're seeing like somebody who has been chronically stressed out, and it's almost like in han selia's a general adaptation syndrome, they are at that fatigue point. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they have adrenal fatigue. It's like entire body fatigue from running on these adaptive pathways and corrupting the metabolism along the way. And Jay, you and I recently did the released episode talking about the effects of the stress hormones in the mitochondria where acute exposure to stress will raise adrenaline, raise cortisol, and then those actually can stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and upregulate fatty acid oxidation inside the mitochondria of the cells. But if that goes on at too high a level or for too long, then what happens is the mitochondria just degrade like they literally break down. They they become and then they have to undergo a mitophagy, so they break apart, and then you basically have no energy production. And I think that's what you're seeing with the fatigue piece and the mitochondria being actually like a really key element of this, which goes back to the central point of energy being central to everything that you have going on in the cell.

Jay Feldman  53:01  
And that's such a contrast to from, again, zooming out, like the idea of energy being a driver of health, in comparison to a model of health where you're trying to determine what land or hormone or mineral or vitamin is more important than the other or than another. Like, what a and what an odd way to consider health, like, what question are we answering here? Which gland is more important? Like, what? What is what is that,

Danny  53:27  
you know? Like,

Jay Feldman  53:28  
which mineral is more important? Magnesium or zinc? Like, what? What are we talking about here? Like, this is such a, such an odd conversation to be having, or question to be asking, what is this view of health that we're talking about? Well,

Danny  53:41  
that's why we just need to talk about insulin and blood glucose. Those are actually the most important things,

Jay Feldman  53:48  
right? Evil glucagon. Yeah.

Mike  53:50  
I think the goal is, like, you know, what you guys are getting at is to kind of, like, incorporate everything together and understand that, like, all of the nutrients are needed to Summit, like, in some amounts and for the system to function. And there are some things that are problematic, like what we were talking about with endotoxin being directly antithetical to energetic function through driving lipolysis, like you mentioned, Danny. So it's like, it's not like it's just the microbiome, or it's just the adrenal glands, or it's just the thyroid, or it's just that you it's like, iron is the devil and you need all this copper, or vitamin D is gonna, like, it's rat poison or something like that. It's like, you want to see all of these things. So, like, when you're looking at vitamin D, you're looking like, where's your vitamin D? Where's your calcium, where's your parathyroid hormone? What is your status for your calcium status, or bone for all this type of stuff. What is your status in terms of stress and versus energetic production? So what's going on with the adrenal glands? What's going on with thyroid what's going on with gonads? And then you're looking at what's going on with gut function. Is there problems there? Is that creating endotoxin? And you're basically trying to figure out, like, where is the where are the chinks in the system, and how can we correct these? This. Overarching piece, so that the system has enough resources and it doesn't have the blocks on it, so that things can run appropriately. Because if the idea here is that, if given the right resources in the right context, the body will and the metabolism will run appropriately, it's not trying to, it's not trying to not run well, like, that's it's not like there's just this genetic problem with all of us, and we're not functioning well. It's like, I think, when I think Danny, you're the one who actually said this on one of the help on one of the generative energies, like Hans Selye was, was talking about like, He's surprised that people even live like that. Organisms are even able to live with all of the stressors that they're exposed to, and so it's like taking away those things allows the system to function appropriately and to build resilience. And things along those lines, and you need them, you know, the magnesium cure, or whatever the deal is like, No, you need magnesium. You also need calcium. You also need vitamin D, you also need vitamin K. And too much of some of these things, like overdosing them likely to be a problem. So, like, that's the thing is, like putting it comprehensively and understanding all the pieces of the system and seeing where the where the chinks are.

Danny  56:06  
Yeah, well, said that was Albert st Georgie said that he was surprised, excuse me, for even alive at all. But one other thing, and I know we're probably being a divorce at this point, but everything that Morley talks about, from copper to the adrenals to magnesium, those things are basically impossible to understand without thyroid. Like, if thyroid enhances the absorption of copper, like, thyroid enhances the retention of magnesium, you know, thyroid down regulates the need to use your adrenals, like, and so it's really running everything I've seen of more or less it's really running without a foundation, but that's most of the health world, so it can be too down on more. Shall we move on? Or, Yep, yeah,

Jay Feldman  56:48  
and it'll be very, I mean, the same conversation.

Danny  56:51  
Okay, let's zoom out here. Okay, so this is Josh Rubin, real food gangstas. Here we go.

Mike  56:58  
The adrenal glands regulate the availability of minerals and fuel at slash energy to provide the thyroid with fuel slash energy to burn. When the thyroid uses this fuel slash energy, it is able to produce and convert thyroid hormone in the liver from inactive thyroid hormone t4 to active thyroid hormone t3 from there, your cells are able to use these bioavailable minerals stored energy in t3 to support your cells and producing energy ATP plus CO two, anytime energy is produced at the cell level, you strengthen vagal tone, the vagal break and your body's ability to auto regulate the effects of stress on thyroid health, cortisol functions in a negative feedback loop with the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Once it enters your bloodstream, its presence signals to your hypothalamus and pituitary gland to slow down. These organs also regulate thyroid hormone reduction, so that slows down as well. Stress hormones affect the enzymes that convert t4 to t3 and if you guys want me to stop reading, let me know remember that free t3 is the active form of the hormone that I like to think of as the gas reverse t3 is the inactive form of the hormone that I like to think of as the breaks. When stress is high, we convert more of our t3 into reverse t3 rather than free three. Free t3 this imbalance essentially puts the brakes on all of your metabolic processes, slowing them down and causing hypothyroid symptoms also released during chronic stress or immune cells called cytokines. These make thyroid receptors less sensitive to thyroid hormone, which means you are taking thyroid medication. Thyroid levels are normal, but you're still suffering hyposymptoms cause extra excess estrogen to accumulate. This excess increases thyroid thyroid binding globulin, which is a protein that allows thyroid hormone to travel through the blood. When thyroid hormones are attached to thyroid binding globulin, they remain inactive. So t4 can't be stored in your tissues or converted to free. T3 Wow, that was like a weird hodgepodge of ideas that were contradictory to each other in the same statement.

Danny  58:57  
I mean, the basic thing is that the the glands regulate the availability of minerals and fuel energy to provide the thyroid with fuel energy to burn. That's like the Yeah, yeah. That's the main thing, right? Yeah.

Jay Feldman  59:07  
And then the other thing she was talking about, like Cyto, he was trying to the idea with the later things is that the cytokines and cortisol and whatnot are also something like related, related to or regulated by the adrenal glands. But, yeah, I guess we'll get to that second. So yeah, the first idea the adrenal glands regulate the availability of minerals and fuel slash energy, to provide the thyroid with fuel slash energy to burn, and that this is then going to allow the thyroid to produce the hormones. So first, I mean, a couple of things that come to mind here. One is, the adrenal glands are not the primary regulators of the availability of minerals and fuel or energy. If you're if you don't have enough fuel available or don't have enough energy being produced, then yes, the adrenal horn, like the cortisol and adrenal will be produced, but those will actually interfere with thyroid hormone production and conversion anyway. So. So if you're relying on the adrenal glands to liberate minerals like aldosterone, through aldosterone, something like that, or to provide fuel or energy, it's actually going to directly inhibit thyroid hormone production and conversion. So in reality, the regulation of the thyroid has, I mean, fuel is very rarely going to be a limited factor in the thyroid gland or energy production there so much as hormonal regulation. What sorts of things are going to regulate, whether the thyroid can effectively produce hormones, whether TSH is going to be produced and stimulating the thyroid to produce hormones. Like those steps of regulation for the thyroid indirectly are related to the adrenals, but again, it's very indirect. And if the adrenals are actively providing minerals and fuel or energy, that's going to directly interfere with the processes that regulate or allow for thyroid hormone to be produced. So I think that that statement is just but, but also it's completely

Mike  1:00:53  
opposite. It's completely opposite, but also

Danny  1:00:56  
by increasing things like perthyroid hormone to break down your skeleton, to provide them like in a catabolic process, right, right? Yeah, you

Jay Feldman  1:01:03  
should not waste, yeah, well,

Mike  1:01:06  
and you'd be wasting your potassium because you, you're you'd be up, ready, up regulating aldosterone to retain sodium, if anything, this makes zero sense. Why would the body? Why would the body be running on an adaptive hormones, via stress hormones, they don't have enough resource available, and then upregulate metabolism, like through thyroid function, if anything, what I think you see on the flip side is that when you start to run on the adrenal hormones, you start to see down regulations of thyroid function. Or when thyroid function starts to decrease. You start to see up regulations in adrenal function, not the other way around this, this argument here is saying that it's saying that you're when the the adrenal glands release minerals and fuel, which would be stored from you, from your stores, that that is then driving thyroid function, that I don't know that that is. But then down the line, he says that quarter the stress hormones have a negative effect on on thyroid and like later post, which is counter to this, unless I feel like I'm reading it incorrectly. So that's the that's what doesn't make sense to me, like it's they're two completely competing ideas. Yeah,

Jay Feldman  1:02:17  
totally. And if the whole idea is that the adrenals are the main things that are regulating your availability of minerals. Why is there such a focus from this crowd on consuming massive amounts of things like magnesium, like just get your adrenals active to to, you know, create that available magnesium for your thyroid to function

Unknown Speaker  1:02:35  
from your skeleton. Oh, that, Danny, I

Danny  1:02:38  
said, from your skeleton. Yeah, there's a breakdown.

Mike  1:02:43  
I think the main thing that's regulating availability of minerals and fuel is your diet is like the things that you're taking in on a regular basis, that that's ideally what you want to be the main regulator. You don't want to be not eating enough, or being under such stress that you need your adrenal glands to liberate the substrate and then also the cofactor simultaneously for you to run your metabolism. That is like the antithesis of what you want to do, and

Jay Feldman  1:03:09  
it will directly oppose the metabolism, because it's a stress pathway, like part the whole reason why these pathways exist is so that if you're not getting enough calcium or you're not getting enough glucose or whatever else, and your adrenals have to be active to release those things. It will turn down your metabolic rate directly, because that is a sign of stress, a sign of a bad environment. And so yeah, it's directly in opposition. And as you said, Mike, later on in the post, then he talks about how cortisol does impair thyroid on conversion production. And he talks about that with the stress hormones that affect conversion of t4 to t3 and he mentions the cytokines that also, I mean, he talks about them reducing thyroid receptor sensitivity to thyroid hormone, but they also directly impair thyroid hormone production and interfere with TSH production and whatnot. So, yeah, it's, it's the first paragraph. Seems like it's, they're like the main idea in the beginning, as you said, Mike is in complete antithesis with the rest. But it's in complete agree with agreement with what Morley said. And I think that that he's just, you know, taking a page out of Morley's learning book.

Danny  1:04:14  
If we were to answer this question really specifically, wouldn't it be like the Cardinal adorbent, like things like CO two, or ATP that are structuring the water and those are regulating the minerals inside and outside the cell,

Jay Feldman  1:04:27  
yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and, as you're saying, also thyroid, right? You mentioned that before, if you want to retain magnesium, you need to be producing enough ATP, which is going to be our dependent, dependent, yeah. And, of course, as microsync Two diet, I mean, you want to be getting these things from your diet, not from liberation from the adrenal hormones.

Danny  1:04:45  
Yeah, it's pretty succinct. Go

Mike  1:04:47  
ahead, Mike, that's actually a really important point. Danny, that I think is gonna get is gonna be more in the health sphere, maybe not in, like, the next couple years, but a little bit down the line as people continue with this. NAD. Stuff they're talking about. When you start going through the research, I think what you like when I start looking at the regulation of the different hormones and some of these different genetic pathways that are always talked about, like PPARs or PTC, one Alpha, or all this type of stuff interacting with mitochondria, some of the main signaling molecules that are super important with that are ATP, ADP and amp, and so like, the change of those things inside the cell are directing all of these different pathways. And basically all that's saying is, hey, we have x amount of energy available. So it's like, if you have to get to amp, it's like, we really don't have energy. And then you have all these adaptive pathways come back on. And then even in one of the weight loss the like obesity papers that Jay and I talked about, the authors were arguing that the reason why, in obesity, despite having like, like, tons and tons of substrate coming into the system, a lot of fuel, that the people are actually having, like, low energy production, that they still have an appetite, is because the cells are still registering low ATP concentrations. So the leptin resistance is basically just that the cell the stronger signal than leptin for appetite is actually ATP availability at the liver. And so I think, though that's going to be something that's going to be talked about more and more, starting to see like it's actually what the energetic state of the cell is dictating all these signaling pathways, and if that, if the if that's not working, if there, if there's, if the energy isn't present at the cell appropriately, then you're going to get all this types of dysregulation, instead of heavily focusing on like the hormones, like diabetes is another great example, right? You have all these weird competing hormones, where insulin is high and glucagon is high, and cortisol is high, and all this stuff is all out of whack. And it's like the real problem is, like, what's going on in the cell on an energetic perspective? That's

Danny  1:06:49  
why, like, an obese person can be starving at the cell level, right? And they're getting all these odd signals to continue eating and thing, yeah, okay. Any other things to say about that before

Unknown Speaker  1:07:01  
we move on. Got it. Okay. So

Danny  1:07:03  
bioenergetic basics. Today we're going to talk about gut motility. So this can directly connect with last week when we talked about stress. And so, Jay, how do we even frame this? How do we even approach such a complicated

Jay Feldman  1:07:14  
subject? Well, I liked your quotes. Do you want to start with those? Yeah.

Danny  1:07:18  
Okay, so this first one's from Hans Selye, and he says the gastrointestinal tract is particularly sensitive to general stress. Loss of appetite is one of the first symptoms in the great syndrome of just being sick. And this may be accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea or constipation. And then I think this is from hypothyroidism, the unsuspected illness by Rhoda Barnes. And he says, In hypothyroidism, digestion in the stomach and intestine is delayed the concentration of acid and enzymes involved in digestion may be diminished. Motility of the gut is reduced, and food is propelled more slowly along the track. Absorption through the intestinal wall is slower. So I mean, we all work with people, and I think one of the biggest revealing things is asking them about their digestion and specific like, sometimes I've noticed that I'll say, like, are you constipated? And the person will be like, No. And they'll be like, how can this do you have per day? I'll be like, oh, one or less, one or less than it's like, oh, yeah, that's, that's constipation. So it's, um, I think it's extremely revealing about what is happening with the purchase metabolism based on if they have diarrhea or constipation or they're constipated in the morning, but they have diarrhea later in the day. Like those types of things can be super useful for just understanding basic metabolism.

Mike  1:08:29  
But what do you think? Jay, yeah, I agree. I

Jay Feldman  1:08:32  
think there's two main things to talk about here. One, why is it important that the two, what does good gut motility look like? Because, as you were saying, most people don't know that they're constipated or that going to the bathroom having a bowel movement every other day is not ideal. So just you know, firstly, as far as the importance, I would say that this is helping us excrete and clear out various things that we don't want to be keeping in our intestines. This includes bacteria and bacterial toxins. It includes things that we're excreting through the bile, like estrogen, and if our motility is slow, it allows for the reabsorption of a lot of those things and a lack of excretion of those things. It also tends to go along with a very inflamed test in a low thyroid state, as Rhoda Barnes was talking about, general stress as as Han solier said. So motility can be a really, really good marker of someone's general state of health. And when our motility is slow, it also allows for bacterial overgrowth. So it's one of the main things that again, underpinnings here are things like low thyroid and diet issues, but when we have the slow motility, it allows for bacteria to proliferate because they have more time to consume the foods that are coming in. It also allows them to grow higher and higher in the intestines. And so yeah, it's a very fundamental issue, whether we're dealing with any sort of plethora of possible symptoms, brain fog, estrogen issues, histamine issues, digestive issues, of course, skin, energy, everything is going to be affected by the situation. So that, yeah, that would be my kind of short take as far as importance. And as you were getting at Danny, I think for most people, good motility looks like two to three ball movements a day, maybe two to four, depending on the individual consistency wise, we don't want to be on the loose side. We don't want to be on the hard side. I think the Bristol scale chart is helpful, you know, being right in the center there. And, yeah, I think this is as you know, as you were mentioning, something that's an extremely common issue and a pretty fundamental

Danny  1:10:30  
one on the blueprint, Mike says he's getting 16 bowel movements per day. What do you think about that? Too many.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:38  
Do you think? I

Mike  1:10:39  
don't know. I think that was in the that was, that was in the optimal category. That was an optimal value. You know, cholesterol at 8516

Danny  1:10:49  
solid,

Mike  1:10:53  
anything less than that is the generation, yeah.

Danny  1:10:55  
Well, I just add into this, yeah. Like, I mean, so approaching a bowel issue with a person, how do you guys generally do that? Is it normally, obviously, like, controlling the food intake would be the first place to start to make sure the person wasn't eating anything horribly irritating, things like vitamin D status affect digestion. Things like, obviously, thyroid status, and using those gentle fibrous foods like the bamboo shoots or carrot or mushrooms. Is there any or using Cascara in an acute way to alleviate constipation, just quickly? What do you guys

Mike  1:11:33  
think? I think that there's a couple things that I I see problematic or that cause problems digestly for people. And I'm gonna, like, kind of break it apart based on the different dietary ideologies, because I think that's where I see a lot of people come with, like, really significant issues. So the first one is with, like, carnivore diets, or are keto diets, or like, low carb, high fat diets, in those types of diets, the what I the problems I tend to see is, if you're eating a ton of protein, like a ridiculous amount of protein, which a lot of people tend to do on those diets, and you don't really have much fibrous foods, what you wind up seeing happening is you get a bunch of the amino acids from the proteins getting putrefied inside the colon, and then you get a bunch of toxic compounds that get produced. So some of those things are like ammonia or hydrogen sulfide or pea cresol or anything along those lines. And I think that causes a bunch of issues inside the intestine, particularly the colon, and it also causes like overgrowth of different pathogenic bacteria as well. So I tend I've seen quite a few people come off of carnivore diets with very skewed dysbiotic microbiomes and with, like, heavy gram negative bacteria, which are the bacteria that house endotoxin. In those situations, the bowel pattern you either tend to see is, like constipation or like explosive diarrhea, like, like tons of loose stools throughout the day, and I think both of those are problematic. So the constipation is, I think, because the metabolites from the protein are driving dysfunction metabolically in the colon, like energetic dysfunction, and then the explosive diarrhea is when bile acids, large amounts of bile acids, hit the colon, it triggers a serotonergic response that's super irritating, and then that drives like that, that uh, that diarrhea component. So the from the low carb carnivore perspective, I that's where I think that some of the digestive problems come in. The other thing I want to mention, this is slightly tangential, but there are some studies showing that really high fat intakes actually impair mitochondrial function inside the intestine by driving large amounts of like fat oxidation that create ROS and things along those lines. So just too much fat going into the intestine creates plus protein causes can cause energetic dysfunction of the intestine and then issues inside the colon and the microbiome on the flip side, on like a heavy plant based diet, or a really heavy grain based diet, for like, a standard American diet, in my experience, tons of grains tend to cause digestive problems for a lot of people, and that can manifest as constipation over time, and like bloating and things along along those lines. And I think that some of the grains are, like, very irritating to the intestine and maybe hard for, like, the intestine to move, move things through for a lot of people. So in those circumstances, minimizing that, I think, is like, getting off the heavy amount of grains is super helpful. A lot of the grains are indigestible. They have, like, a very difficult to digest food matrix, they contain a lot of problematic compounds. Then the other one that I see is some people don't do that well with starches. And I know that, like starches in general, and that's something that for me, that was a huge, huge game changer, was switching more towards sugars, and that was something that I directly learned from Pete, like thinking like Dr Pugh was mentioning. He didn't do that much starches in his diet. And I was like, Well, that's very interesting idea, because a lot of people come from these low carb diets, like, oh, I don't do well with carbs. And it's like, no, you probably just don't do well with grains or starches or something like that. But the starches for me changed bowel transit time as well. So on a fruit based diet, you, you, I think you tend to like fruit and meat and seafood, and if you tolerate dairy, I think you tend to see people like have better digestive symptoms overall, whereas heavy grains or too much meat or high amounts of fat start to create those different problems. So I would, for me, the first thing to look at is food sources and making sure that you're eating things that you tolerate, that don't adjust the bowels in like, a very negative way, aren't super irritating, and then you're not doing things like slamming tons of fat and tons of meat without having some of the fibrous foods and things like that to go along with it, or like slamming a bunch of grains. And as far as, like, the effects, I kind of reiterate what you say, Jay is essentially if you are having really slow bowel movements and dysbiosis every time you're putting something in your mouth, if you're if it's driving that process, it's like, almost like, I think there's an old idea of, like, auto intoxication, where the food is actually being converted into metabolites that are problematic. So you want things to be moving through at a good pace. That's just it. There's like, this sweet spot, because rank diarrhea, like tons of loose stools with that's like painful urgency. Burning is indicating intestinally irritation, which is driving serotonin, and then really slow, like bowel movements and heavy constipation is indicating problems with metabolism and probably reabsorption of a bunch of toxic compounds. So it's like finding a dietary component that fits in the middle and allows you to go on a consistent basis. That's for me, that's priority number one. And I'll I'll leave the I'll cut it there.

Danny  1:16:47  
There are definitely identifiable personalities between those two digestive symptoms that the person that's very constipated seems immune to like everything, and they seem very an advanced state of hibernation.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:01  
But Jay, what do you think? Yeah,

Jay Feldman  1:17:05  
I think these, of course, what we're getting into is there can be multiple causes here, multiple drivers of these different states, and it depends on a number of factors, but just kind of a few things to consider if someone's dealing with issues on this front one would be getting enough carbohydrates and enough fiber, depending on your state. Again, if you're dealing with major overgrowths, fibers could be a major issue, but if you're on a low carb diet, that'll cause issues with the intestinal cells causing basically lack of energy and a lack of motility. But also, there's a place for fiber. Of course, the carrot salad is one that's talked about a lot, but it can also be fiber from fruits or cooked vegetables, again, depending on the individual state, but that's something I would consider. Another is enough fat. So Mike, you know, you always discuss how you were mentioning too too much fat can be an issue, but also too low fat can be an issue. We need enough fat to stimulate bile flow, which helps, basically, to have an antibiotic effect in the small intestine, and helps to make sure we digest fats well and also have enough motility. So we do want to be getting some amount of fat. Too low of a fat diet can cause intestinal issues and slow motility. The a couple other things I would mention. One is making sure to space out meals well if you're dealing with these issues. So we don't want to be fasting. We don't want to, you know, go 16 hours without eating, and that's not going to be great for motility. And then at the same time, we don't want to be constantly grazing. That also interferes with the migrating motor complex, which is the main muscular activity that moves food through the intestines. So we want to space our meals out, you know, at least three hours when we're in the state. Again, there's always a million exceptions, but just kind of a general idea the last two I'd mentioned. One is considering microbial issues, different types of SIBO or other bacterial overgrowth, which can be avenues to work down if you're doing with again, either side of the motility issue spectrum. And then the last would be low thyroid, which ideally we're rectifying by adjusting diet and lifestyle and all those other things. But sometimes it's bad enough that we'd need to use some direct support there, and that can really make a big difference digestively. So yeah, that would just be a number of things to consider if someone's dealing with, again, either the constipation side or the like loose stools too fast motility side.

Danny  1:19:16  
Yeah, that fat leading to the bile acid type of diarrhea like that. I noticed that so quickly, but I thought it was like, detoxification, so I just went with it. It was, like, the problem with having a completely incorrect model of what was happening, but, um, I'd always try to, because a lot of the low carb people were like, oh, you can't eat enough fat, you know. It's like, so amazing and magic, you know. And I'd add on lots of coconut oil, and it would just send me the bathroom almost immediately. Almost immediately, but I thought it was because of infection, so it just wasted years. So anything else to say about this or move on?

Mike  1:19:51  
No, I think we covered it. I'm good. Okay, so tips and tricks, so I'll give my tip and trick.

Danny  1:20:01  
I was talking to somebody probably three or four times, and they weren't resistant to getting lab work, but they weren't necessarily about it either. But anyways, they they got their TSH, their vitamin D, their prolactin, their parathyroid hormone

Unknown Speaker  1:20:17  
and

Danny  1:20:19  
shoot total cholesterol. Anyways, getting those was extremely valuable for this person's situation, their cholesterol was like 450 or something, which isn't the highest I've ever seen, but is definitely up there. And so we were talking in like hypotheticals, you know, the first few calls. But I thought this was such a good call to action and suggestive of what to do. And so I'm not saying lab work is perfect. It is highly fallible, you know, and I don't think they should be treated like something that's perfect, but it can't identifying a low vitamin D, identifying high cholesterol, which is usually suggestive of lower metabolism. That's really valuable in this situation. And we weren't spinning our wheels the first few conversations, but it definitely would help to have this even earlier. And so I would say getting those basic lab tests, which I think the lab tests that I listed off are like $70 at Merrick health.com no affiliation. I think it's just a it's a no brainer, and it can, it can, like a person could go get those lab tests and they could learn things that they would not learn spending a month on forums and groups, you know what I mean, like, it would be empirical information about their own body, and it would just be so much more valuable than talking with somebody or anything like that. So I highly encourage getting lambdas.

Jay Feldman  1:21:44  
Mike, that's a great one. Another thing that would just tack on there real quick is just because your doctor said, like, does a panel and says everything's fine, does not mean that there's not things that you can determine from looking at that lab work. Because a lot of times, not only do they miss things, but also they're not looking for the right things. The ranges are ridiculous and things like that. So

Danny  1:22:01  
but well, just to piggyback on that, I had an old lab test that the TSH was three, and I think my cholesterol was like 260 and the doctor wrote good, and I was going to him, because this was, like, so long ago, there's like, 2007 and I was like, I was literally going to him, because I was so cold, and it just signed off on two suggestive markers of a metabolic hypofunction. But continue. Jay,

Jay Feldman  1:22:28  
no, that was it. Yeah, good. They.

Mike  1:22:33  
I think I had some really weird experiences with that where, like, I've gotten somebody's labs and So say, for example, they're like, have diagnosed hypothyroidism, and I get their labs, and the only thing that the doc, first of all, the doctors, DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT t3 or t4 values. They only want to look at TSH, and they don't want to look at art reverse t3 or anything like that. And then the person comes back, they're on thyroid therapy. Their TSH is like, you know, one point something, with their levothyroxine, their t4 monotherapy, and then cholesterol is high, but like, t3 is at the absolute bottom of the reference range, and reverse t3 is high, and then cholesterol is high, and then the recommendation is the statin. And it's just, it's like, mind blowing, because it's like, it's like the thyroid therapy is not working, and they have all the classic symptoms right on their cold there, it's a woman, she's losing hair, like, things like that. It's like she has a thyroid issue. Like her thyroid is not the thyroid problem has not been solved just because TSH is now less than two No,

Danny  1:23:34  
like she has so like, seems like in deficiency issue.

Mike  1:23:39  
That's the thing. Like, the idea that if it's in range is fine, is like, every time, like, when, if I'm looking at labs with somebody, I'm talking about, like, quartiles of ranges. Like, where are you what quartile of the range are you in? And then, like, the other thing is, a lot of times what I see is doctors look at singular values, and they're not even, like, looking at things in conjunction. So it's like, if I'm looking at, if I have, if I get a full panel, and I can see everything and them seeing, like, Okay, what's TSH and prolactin together with thyroid function and cholesterol, and looking at all of that together, oh, I have cortisol, and I have DHEA s and I have testosterone values, like, and then I also have a prolactin value, like, what is going on there, like, looking at all of these pieces together and understanding, like, there's different pieces of the range that are important to understand, instead of just like, Oh yeah, it's, you're good. You're just, like, looking through all it's good. Like, there's been, like, glaring problems that I found in lab work that people's, like, even functional medicine doctors, like, they do all the testing. They literally do all the testing, and they don't interpret it. It's doing it. It's so expensive to do the gut microbiome and the nutra Val and the all the hormone testing, and then you don't, you don't even read it. Nothing gets done. It's like you just do the recommendations that the nutrival says, or whatever the GI effect says. Like you just follow those. Recommendations. It's mind blowing. It's mind blowing for me.

Jay Feldman  1:25:04  
Yeah, I've seen that a number of times too. That was why I mentioned it. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. Yeah, go ahead, Jay,

Mike  1:25:11  
do your Yeah, Jay, I'll go last my tip and trick,

Jay Feldman  1:25:14  
all right, so my tip and trick, this is something that I end up talking about often with clients, and is outside of the general scope of diet and and, you know, supplements and things like that, but often has a major effect on psychological health, and often sleep too, when people are struggling with falling asleep or they're struggling with anxiety or anything along those lines. And I also just think it's something that, in general, is important for for for health and healthy mindset, and that's taking time during the day without stimulation. So having, I would say, at least 20, but ideally at least 30 minutes of time where you don't have any inputs of media, you know, no social media, no music or podcasts. I mean, music might be okay if it's if you're not really focusing on it, but just having some time to let your mind wander process things, get a little bit bored. I think in the modern era of technology and whatnot, it's something that we are really deprived of. And for one, I think a lot of times what happens is we don't have that. And then someone goes and lays down on the pillow at night to go to sleep, and their minds just racing. And there's a number of reasons for that, but I think this can be one of them, and I think it's something that also can be something that really boosts creativity and thoughtfulness and just allows you to reevaluate things when you have time and space for your mind to to wander and process. And so yeah, that's my my tip is, is some time without simulation, I think some good times to do it, maybe in the morning, like, if you can keep your phone off for as long as possible when you wake up. I think anytime you're doing like, chores around the house, you know, turn off the TV, turn off your phone, whatever it is, and take 30 minutes while you're doing the dishes or something, to just get a little bit bored and work through that initial phase and kind of let it happen, even though it's a bit uncomfortable, and see what comes out of it, taking a walk, whether it's, you know, with your dog, or just on your own or with a partner or something. I think, I do think it's helpful to have this time alone as well. But you know, however you can make it work in your in your life, brilliant. Yeah, really, good. Yeah, yeah.

Mike  1:27:21  
I don't have too much to add to what you said, Jay, but I will. I'll bring my tip and trick. So mine's more, more of a mindset type of thing. Something that I run into with a lot of clients is the idea like talking about what discipline actually is. And so what I the general idea that I see with people around discipline is they tend to think that you just so, like, say they're setting up a diet, or they're doing supplements, or they're trying to, like, follow through on something they set out to do, is this idea I have to grit through, bite my teeth down, and move forward and just, like, ignore all these other things and just keep going. Like, that's what discipline is. And I, in my experience, that is actually not effective, like just trying to will power through it or be motivated for it. That's I find that's actually, like the least effective way to think about it. So there's two ways that I I kind of frame this with people, and that I think is much more helpful overall, is so the first one is, rather than trying to just like grit through all these circumstances that are pulling you in different directions, I think a better idea is to try to shape your environment and adjust the context with which you exist so it's easier for you to do things in an appropriate fashion. So you're basically like constructing your environment and a very, a very simple example, like something for for myself, right? Very easy. One is with social media, right? If the social media feeds like Twitter or Instagram or anything like that, they're super easy to get addicted to soup like you start you open, you start scrolling, there goes 40 minutes. So just an easy way to get around that is, instead of like, I'm just not going to do it next time, I'm just not going to do it next time, just delete the apps off your phone and then, and then log out of it off your computer. And so what happens is, in my experience with humans in general, is if there is a barrier to doing something, then you have time to make that decision, and then you're also less likely to do it. So if you have every time, if you're setting a goal that you don't want to spend all this time on social media, just as an example, give a better one after but this is the first one that came to mind, then what you do is you make it harder to use it, instead of just thinking, I'm just not going to use it's there. I'm just not going to use it. So when you're starting to, like, log in and go through the process and it's super annoying. Like, yeah, I shouldn't do this anyway, and it's easier to put it down. Another example is around foods. It a lot of, like, if you're starting to adjust your diet and you want to incorporate healthier foods or things along those lines, instead of just like, having all this, you know, a lot of people, when they first start to have a lot of like, junk type things in their house. Because if you get rid of that stuff and you replace it with like, you don't just get rid of it and not have anything, but replace it with other things that are feasible and that you like, and that you will actually eat. When you go to eat something instead of like, reach, you won't reach for something problematic, because you will only have those things there. And it's like, could you go get something that's problematic? Sure, but the energy that it takes to go and do that thing is much more difficult than just having the good food. And that could be even like having some good food prepared in your refrigerator so that you're not ordering food, because it's easier to go get it out of the fridge than it is to order it. So adjusting lifestyle like that, I think, is better than gritting your teeth and pushing through. And then the second piece with the with a discipline element is, the other thing is, I think people tend to think, and I think I was like this at one I definitely was like this at one point as well, is that you just need to, like, always stay the course. And if you veer off course, like, you create all this judgment and shame for yourself. And I think that the true, like, a true element of, like, following through or discipline, is when you get off course. Don't worry about it. Just get back on. So you hop off, come back on. You hop off, come back on. And that's like the you're just refocusing yourself to this, to this place. And don't worry about everything behind, everything that passed, if you went on vacation, or this or that happened, because then you create this large barrier to just getting back to where you were before. So those two things adjusting your environment so that you can be successful, instead of trying to, like, push through all these things, pulling you in different directions. And then also, instead of, like, worrying about the past, just coming back to the center, to where you were to the what was working for you, even if this or that happened, I think is probably, in my experience, I've seen the best results of people reframing that for themselves. Yeah,