Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 56, of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part one of the series discussing tissue oxygenation, cellular swelling, pH balance and other related topics. And in today's episode, we'll be talking about why increasing carbon dioxide production is key if we want to increase our metabolism. We'll also be discussing weather. Burning carbohydrates is the best way to raise carbon dioxide. We'll be talking about how carbon dioxide interacts with our cellular protein structure to create structured water. We'll be talking about how carbon dioxide reduces swelling and water retention, and carbon dioxide's role in circulation and preventing high blood pressure. If you're new to this podcast, then after listening through today's episode, I'd highly recommend you go back and listen through episodes one through seven, where we took some time to build a foundation as far as the bioenergetic view of health is concerned. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether that's chronic cravings and hunger, low energy or fatigue, chronic pain or joint pain, digestive symptoms or gun inflammation or brain fog or poor sleep, weight gain, hormonal imbalances, or any other low energy symptoms or chronic health conditions, whether that's diabetes or an autoimmune issue or heart disease. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll explain how these different symptoms and conditions really come down to a lack of energy, and I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do, as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned, to maximize your cellular energy so that you can resolve these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman, wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

So the common perspective when it comes to oxygenation and producing energy and just general health is that the more oxygen, the better. And that oxygen is that main determining factor there, and the main kind of beneficial gas in the air that we need and in our bodies. And in contrast, carbon dioxide is considered to be, at best, often a weight, a waste product, and sometimes a lot worse, sometimes it's considered to be harmful or or problematic and interfering with oxygenation and things like that. And the reality is basically the opposite, where, of course, we need some amount of oxygen, but as we'll dig into in order to use oxygen, we actually need to be producing a lot of carbon dioxide, and that's going to allow our tissues to get the oxygen that they need and to use the oxygen that they need. It's going to allow us to actually pick up the oxygen that we need from the air. So in reality, more of our focus should be on carbon dioxide. And within the bioenergetic community, it is a relatively big focus. As far as you know, it's normally something that's pointed out, as far as something that is favored in carb metabolism, as opposed to fat metabolism. And we'll dig into that a little bit, where carbontablism increases carbon dioxide production, but yeah, there's there's a good reason for that focus, so we'll kind of dig into that and also talk about how it applies to all sorts of real world situations, some of which center center around different aspects of edema and swelling in different areas, like pulmonary edema or edema in our blood vessels that can lead to hypo to high blood pressure and all sorts of other issues with permeability. And it also applies to some other things that we've discussed, as far as the coronavirus. And also, you know, another huge factor that's talked about is altitude and altitude sickness, and also just the benefits of altitude, all these things centered on oxygen and carbon dioxide. So it's something that's worth digging into, but just as kind of a big picture relevance here, before we dig into the details of the physiological effects of carbon dioxide, is that it can be helpful to. Uh, compare, or phrase metabolism into kind of a carbon dioxide producing metabolism, and then the non carbon dioxide producing metabolism. And as I mentioned, carbohydrate oxidation versus fat oxidation is a big part of that, where, when we're producing energy from carbs, we're producing 50% more carbon dioxide, which is important. But part of this goes beyond just carbs versus fats, because there's also the question of whether those carbs are being fully oxidized. So when there's something inhibiting the ability to produce energy from carbohydrates, we're going to be basically running on glycolysis, that first part of glucose oxidation. And not only is that not going to be producing carbon dioxide, but it's also not going to be producing very much energy. And much energy, and instead leads to a buildup of lactate. So we've kind of got these two juxtaposing situations. One that leads to a lot of carbon dioxide production and ATP production, and that's basically the complete glucose oxidation. And then, on the other hand, we have this inhibited glucose oxidation, which also tends to go along with fat oxidation as well sometimes, and that leads to a lot of lactate accumulation and much less carbon dioxide and less energy. And so that's going to come into play as we're examining these effects of of carbon dioxide and its applications, as far as basically, in what situations we're seeing these different forms of metabolism, and then why it matters. So matters. So unless you have anything else to add to that earlier part, Mike, we can start just by talking about some of the qualities or physiological effects of carbon dioxide.

Mike 6:33
I think the, I think the most important part of carbon dioxide to start is what you framed it with initially, was in his ability to increase the uptake of oxygen. And so that's explained in basically two effects that are the same process. So these effects are the Haldane and the Bohr effect. And it's basically, it's a relationship between concentrations of CO two and oxygen at different points in the body. So for example, the Haldane effect is in the high concentrations of oxygen at the lungs, the hemoglobin within red blood cells will unload CO two and take up oxygen, and then in low oxygen, high CO two concentrations at the cell, the red blood cells, hemoglobin, will unload oxygen and pick up the CO two. So basically, wherever there's a higher concentration of either gas, hemoglobin will basically start to pick that gas up. So at high oxygen concentrations, it takes up oxygen. At high CO two concentrations, it takes up CO two.

Jay Feldman 7:48
And just to zoom, just to zoom out real quick. Like, we'll get back into the details. But also just this is the main way that we respire. This is basically the process that we actually take up oxygen and and offload CO two, like, this is every time you breathe, this is, this is why you're breathing, right, right, yeah, exactly. And this is, like, kind of the mediator that allows you to actually pick up the oxygen from the air and drop off carbon dioxide, yeah.

Mike 8:12
And so even taking even a further step back is the reason why we need that oxygen. Is because, for all of our energy producing abilities at the cell, at least the main, the main energy producing capabilities, not the backup systems, which are not long term solutions, but for the primary energy producing capabilities of the cell, oxygen is needed as a final electron acceptor. Oxygen basically pulls the, I guess, the energy storing molecules, which is like your NADH and your FADH, it pulls the electrons off those through the electron transport chain, basically on oxygen to make. Was it H, 2o, CO two and ATP as they go through the electron transport chain?

Jay Feldman 8:56
I don't, I mean just, I think it's just CO, I think it's just h, 2o, and ATP there. I don't think you're producing any CO two.

Mike 9:03
Well when they create the H, the proton gradients, creating ATP, yeah.

Jay Feldman 9:07
I was just saying no CO two. There's no CO two production at the electron chain.

Mike 9:11
Oh, okay, okay, yeah. Oh yeah, you're right. It's earlier in the Krebs cycle. Yeah. So that's at the end of the process. At the end of cell respiration, you get those components, you get CO two ATP and water, and you use oxygen and also glucose. So basically, that's the process. It's like a controlled it's kind of a controlled combustion process, in a way, but essentially, you need oxygen for that process to occur. And the entire the the the the components of your red blood cell, the hemoglobin, facilitate the distribution between the cells in the lungs of CO two and oxygen and in your lungs are an organ that was literally created just to enable oxygen and CO two to interact, like to. Move back and forth from your body to the environment. So this entire system is set up just to get oxygen to the cell and to basically eliminate and an excess amount of CO two and then and that. But that doesn't mean that CO two is a waste product. I think that's important. Just because the the body's eliminating CO two and it needs oxygen, oxygen first electron acceptor, doesn't automatically mean that CO two becomes a waste product. CO two has a whole bunch of beneficial effects, even though the body is expelling it and expelling it to some degree. And so it also in expelling CO two the it's important to realize that it doesn't only to some degree. There's a limit. That's that the body maintains CO two, or concentration of the body maintains for CO two in the bloodstream, in the in the body, pretty much at all times. And what we're going to talk about in a few minutes is anytime you start to play around with the concentration of either CO two or oxygen, you can start to get serious issues, because your cells depend on oxygen as the final electron acceptor, and then depend as depend on CO two to be able to basically unload that oxygen from hemoglobin. So everything is working in a like a very beautiful balance together. And your your red blood cells and your lungs were systems adapted or specifically designed over the course of the evolutionary process. Whatever you believe designed it, whether it's divine intervention or evolution. Essentially, those components were designed to deliver oxygen to the cell. This whole system is designed to deliver oxygen to the cell. Is that important as far as this like for the cells production of energy, so it's just interesting, when you frame it that way, it's like the the cell basically evolves or was created with, in whatever way you want to think about it, to to to have oxygen as the final electronic acceptor. And then these processes, these like semi complex processes developed around all around that, all around delivering oxygen to the cell.

Jay Feldman 12:07
Yeah, yeah. And so to put it simply, as far as the Boren Haldane effect and that oxygenation situation is that basically the red blood cells are picking up, or the hemoglobin, specifically, is picking up the oxygen at the lungs from the air we breathe in, and exchanging it for carbon dioxide. And so if you don't have enough carbon dioxide, you can't pick up the oxygen from the lungs. So that's kind of part one. And then at the cell you you know the hemoglobin is attached to the oxygen. At that point, it's carrying it from the lungs to the cells, and it needs to exchange that oxygen again, with carbon dioxide. So if the cell is not producing enough carbon dioxide, then it cannot receive the oxygen from hemoglobin. So, so, so, again, it's like at this other point, the other part of the of the kind of cycle is that you need to have enough carbon dioxide there, otherwise the cells can't take up the oxygen.

Mike 13:01
Yeah. So you basically will get hypoxia at the cell in low CO two concentrations if you have, like, very low CO two concentrations at the like, at the cells environment, because when that occurs, then the CO two won't unload oxygen. And so it's not like, it's not necessarily that there's just a threshold and then you're hypoxic. It's more like there's a curve or a gradient where at certain concentrations of CO two at the cell, certain amounts of oxygen will are able to be released at the from hemoglobin.

Jay Feldman 13:34
Yeah, and and even very small changes in that curve make a pretty big difference. It changes a lot in concentration of carbon dioxide. For example, it doesn't, it doesn't take much, yeah.

Mike 13:45
And that's why it's important to look at the differences in CO two production with fat oxidation versus glucose oxidation.

Jay Feldman 13:52
And that's And along those lines too, that's not even that small. It's a 50% difference, which is a lot. It's like, you know, you know, you produce an extra 50% with carboxidation compared to fat. So, yeah, it's definitely a big difference there. And it makes sense again. Well, you know, putting this into context a little bit, when you're using the carboxidation, it tends to run at a faster rate. And part of the reason for that is because of the increased carbon dioxide. It allows for enough oxygen delivery to run at a higher rate. And there's some other mechanisms there too that have to do with NAD and NADH ratio, where, basically, carboxidation keeps a higher NAD to NADH ratio, which also allows it to run faster. So if you so and again, all these things are really cohesive.

Mike 14:33
You'll have more electron acceptors to be be able to accept the electrons off glucose versus the electrons off fats. So a lot of people, like, I see this argument a lot is with fats. It's like, Oh, you got X number of ATP from fat per gram, yeah, per gram, yeah. But it's like, okay, but what rate are you getting that ATP? And do you have enough? Do you have enough electron acceptors to be able to produce that ATP? And so that's and when you look at the. It's like, that's where the nuances come in. And you start looking at the difference with carbon fat oxidation, whereas carb oxidation, you're producing more. So I guess you want to look at it over a course of time, right? So per unit time, it's like, with carb oxidation, you're producing more CO two, so you're able to unload more oxygen, and then you also have a higher NAD, NAD plus to NADH ratio, which means you have more acceptors available to accept electrons and run them through the electron transport chain, whereas with that oxidation, you have less CO two. So you you would have probably a slower unloading of o2 to the cell, and then you have less available electron acceptors because of the bottleneck. What's it that complex between complex one and two, and so essentially, you don't have enough NAD NAD plus to accept the electrons appropriately for for powering beta oxidation or fat oxidation, exactly. It's that's why. That's why having carb oxidation, and that doesn't mean that you're not going to have any fat oxidation, right? There's always going to be fat oxidation. It's a matter of it's kind of a matter of amounts, and like we've talked about it before, where there's nuance to that as well. It's like at rest, your muscles are just fine using fat oxidation, and you prioritize your glucose oxidation, or your sugar oxidation, or carbohydrate oxidation, whatever you want to call it, for organs and brain tissue and the liver and whatever else so they'd like. And that's kind of a nice balance, because your you have your muscle tissue is like a large, very large amount of tissue, very much amount of living tissue. May be easier to shunt fats that tissue kind of makes sense, right? Especially because it doesn't have, it doesn't have primary oxygen, primary functions at rest. So there's, like, there's that nuance there. But overall, the goal be to shift towards carbs oxidation because of those components, despite number of ATP per molecule, what and what have you. And basically it comes down. And this is why we're talking about CO two. Here's a lot of it comes down to CO two. We've either another episode. We have talked about electron acceptors before, so I guess we can, we can link to those. But in this episode, it's the the reason why, another reason why carb oxidation is important is because of CO two. And one of the main and most important reasons is, is what you see was CO two effect increasing the cell's ability, or increasing hemoglobins unloading of oxygen to the cell. So it's like this kind of beautiful site feed forward relationship, where the more carbohydrate you burn and the more CO two you produce, the more oxygen you're able to unload at the cell. And basically the process starts speeding up. And, like, that's that is literally directly speeding up your metabolism. Like, if you want to talk about raising metabolism, that is how you do it.

Jay Feldman 17:54
Yeah, yeah, exactly the there's a few bottlenecks there. And basically carbon metabolism alleviates all those complete carbon metabolism, assuming you're doing it well, you've got the Nutri Well, you've got the nutrients, there's nothing blocking it. And then, you know, relative to fat metabolism and and it's so funny to hear that comparison of the ATP energy production between the two, like, per gram. And I think a good way to think of it is, yes, like, if you had 10 grams of each carbs and fats and each were allowed to run through energy production completely. You would end up with more ATP with fat. But if you had an unlimited supply of each and you had two minutes of time, you'd be producing way more energy from the carbs and from the fat. And basically, there's so many mechanisms in place here where, basically because carb metabolism increases your metabolism, you can then eat more carbs relative to fad and end up with more ATP production in the same amount of time. And as you're saying, time is a huge factor there. And that doesn't just mean that if you eat you know that if you're running on fat oxidation, that eventually you get to the same place, because everything is restricted by time. When we're talking about metabolism, or how many quote, unquote calories you can eat in a day, I mean, day is the restrictor there, you know. So for, you know, if you're running on mostly carb metabolism, you could eat, let's say, you know, an extra 1000 calories per day, or whatever it is, that's just a representation of faster metabolism and more energy, which is really going to be the it's really the major determinant, major factor when it comes to to health.

Mike 19:27
Well, per unit time, you'd be producing more ATP. And this becomes more important in our conversation later down the line, where you want more ATP because of the functions of ATP, and those functions synergize with CO two. And I'm just plugging that in here because we're going to get to that. To get to that in a second.

Jay Feldman 19:43
Yeah, yeah, it's hugely important. And just to add on to what you were saying earlier, with the fat metabolism in muscles, basically, there is a place for fat metabolism, as you were saying, and it's just a situation where there's not as much energy. It at the time. There's nothing wrong with that for muscles to use fat at rest. The problem if you don't have effective glucose oxidation as an option is that then both the areas that need higher amounts of energy at any time, like your brain, are going to be struggling and then cause all this, these stress pathways that are going to be produced as a result of not being able to produce very much energy efficiently, but then also, if your muscles do have to start to be used in a higher like higher degree capacity, yeah, yeah, capacity, then you're going to need carbs to rely on. And again, that's going to drive stress further and much quicker than if you already were running on carbs, or had the carbs available and had the efficient glucose oxidation available as an option?

Mike 20:44
So it's just like a it's an intelligent prioritization. That's kind of how I saw it, where your body prioritizes its primary functions for glucose oxidation, which is like nervous tissue function, and then organ function and things like that. And then for other things, like the lip, like your muscles, your muscles, when they don't need to be used, they will run on fats, and then when they need to be used for certain types of activities, like sprinting or lifting something heavy, it shifts over to carbs. And you can see, like the shunting of basically carbs in that capacity. And I think you can it's also kind of interesting too, because the muscles store their own source of carbs that won't necessarily, won't necessarily, like, they have, like, a little reserve. So if you have to do that activity, you they'll rely on their glycogen. But after a certain point you get and this is where you start getting stressful. Is when the muscles start to, like, burn through their glycogen and produce a lot of lactate, then the muscles will start to basically take from the livers energy supply. So you don't you only want to use that when you absolutely have to, right when you're running away from a predator, or you're you're in a fight, or whatever it is, like evolution, prioritize that. It's like at rest. You can just burn fatty acids. If you got to walk a long distance, you could just burn fatty acids and prioritize that glucose for the other functions. And so you even see this with, like, even in the low carb like zero carb spheres, it's like, Oh, you don't need glucose because your body just produces it. And we've talked about this before, it's like, no, you you need glucose so much that your body will sacrifice its own structure to produce that glucose, and then it will prioritize fatty acid burning for every other tissue except for the nervous system, or largely every other tissue except for the nervous system, just to preserve an adequate glucose supply for the nervous tissue. So it's like glucose or carbohydrate is that important, and then prioritizes everything else from there, so having ample carbohydrates actually a good thing.

Jay Feldman 22:46
Yeah, and another huge problem there is instead of, and we'll get into these feed forward reactions, but instead of nervous system that's running on glucose, where it's got this feed forward energy production going on, instead you're in the state where the only thing that's going to drive energy production is stress. And so anytime you have any extra demands, this is in a low carb state. You have to continually increase stress in a proportionate amount in order to get energy, in order to have energy production, in order to produce glucose, in order to drive energy production in the brain. And that's not a state that we want to be in. We don't want to be in a state where we're running on the absolute minimum and then anything beyond that has to be gotten through stress pathways, glucagon, adrenaline, cortisol and on from there. Instead, we want to be in a place where we're freely already producing a lot of that energy through these feed forward cycles, which involve adequate CO two production and adequate thyroid hormones and all those other things, so that you're not running at that minimum anymore, and you can handle a lot of stressors without actually creating stress. Whereas in a low carb state, you're not only already in pretty decent amount of stress to begin with, but then anything on top of that is immediately going to be stressful.

Mike 23:54
Yeah, I think, I think, was it? Andrew Kim basically said that the low carb dietary strategy was just constantly being at subsistence, like you were just constantly at a subsistence distance level. Because the idea is essentially that you're creating just enough carb for what you need for those like primary functions on very low carb diet, and then everything else is being met with fatty acid oxidation, which is technically, like a backup pathway, especially in that context. So it's not always a backup but I mean, when you're running low carb, like that, like, like, at that level, it is like, you're constantly just running in like, like a, like, primary backup system. And we've talked about so a lot of people will be like, well, we feel this. I feel good on low carb, whatever it is. And this isn't necessarily about low carb, but it's just that the people say, Oh, I feel good about this. And it's like, I feel good when I don't have carbs. It's like, well, the what are your carb sources and that, and we've talked about that in other podcasts. We can link to that, but I guess so. Basically, CO two allows for ox the main point here, overall. Cell is that CO two allows for oxidate, for for oxygen to be accepted at the cell. You can without having adequate CO two, your hemoglobin, which is a protein that carries oxygen and CO two in the in the red blood cell, will not unload oxygen to the cell, so you need to have a higher concentration of of CO two at the cell to unload oxygen, and then, obviously, on the flip side, you need to have a high oxygen concentration at the lungs to unload CO two and take up oxygen. So that that basic function is extremely important, just for metabolism, for for like breathing overall. And that's why, when you see in situations like coronavirus or or any type of lung damage, when the lung can perfuse you basically deranged that function right when the when the alveolar membranes, which is the little, the little like air sacs in the bottom of the lungs that transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide, basically, they allow it to transport across the membrane into the blood when that gets destroyed by any type of inflammatory process, it rather than having the issue at the cell, now you're creating the issue at the lungs, where the lungs can effectively allow you to transport CO two and oxygen back and forth. So it's basically like you're when you don't have enough CO two at the cellular level, you're suffocating at the cellular level, because you can't unload that oxygen, whereas if you're suffocating in real life, you don't have enough oxygen, and you're not able to get out enough CO two at the lung level. So it's literally just that at the cellular level, it's like strangling the cells. So you need to have that CO two production. And the reason we went on the carb tangent is because carbs, and per unit of time create more CO two, which is very important, more CO two and more ATP, which is very important, and that's by function of their metabolism.

Jay Feldman 26:50
Yeah, yeah. And even, just to clarify too, even if you're getting the same like you're running carbon fat oxidation in a way that leads to the same amount of ATP, you're still going to end up with a lot more CO two, 50% more CO two with the carboxy with the carboxidation. And as you said, that's because of the, you know, some unique factors there between glycolysis and the Krebs cycle. So that's a really nice I like the strangling metaphor because the it ties in nicely with the next mechanism, as far as carbon dioxide to oxygenating effect, which is vasodilation. So the basically, our main vasodilator, which is basically something that expands and relaxes the blood vessels, is carbon dioxide. So the main determinant of circulation in this way is going to be carbon dioxide production. And again, this makes sense, because a cell and a tissue that's respiring a lot, that's producing a lot of energy and is very metabolically active, needs more blood flow to transport oxygen and other nutrients and and on from there. And so carbon dioxide acts as that signal where, when you're producing a lot of energy through efficient metabolism in whatever tissue it is, it's going to increase the production of carbon dioxide, and then when that leaves the cell, it interacts with the blood vessel in a way that creates vasodilation, dilation. It basically relaxes it, and this is probably likely due to increasing structural effect, similar to what carbon dioxide does in in our own cells. But that's semi beside the point. But the point here is that a lack of CO two not only will suffocate the cell by preventing it to uptake or from uptaking oxygen, it'll also prevent blood flow in that area by causing vasoconstriction, unless there's enough stress and enough of a demand to activate some of those backup pathways that will also cause vasodilation, like nitric oxide. There's a lot of reasons why we don't want to be going down that route, and we'll leave that for another time, but.

Mike 28:45
You can even say just to provide like the contrast is say you don't have enough CO and but before I even get there, it's kind of beautiful that with increased metabolism, you have increased CO two production, and The increased CO two production allows for increased oxygen unloading, but then it also allows for more red blood cells to reach the area by causing vasodilation. So the whole system, like it's working all together, it has a synergistic effect. So you want higher CO two, you want to be able to fully oxidize your glucose into ATP, into CO two, and have oxygen as that final electron acceptor, and then the backup pathways kind of shut down that system. So if you're not producing adequate CO two, but you still need basal dilation to the tissue, then essentially what happens is you, you, you can rely heavily on nitric oxide, which is another type of basal dilator when you rely on nitric oxide, though, is it shuts down the electron transport chain to some capacity. So it basically it your body's basically saying, we still need blood, blood flow here, but metabolism isn't good enough to to basically require as much ox. Or we don't have enough substrate, or whatever's going on, basically our we can't handle the metabolic demand here, so it sort of shuts down that metabolism a little bit, and then you start relying on on other pathways. And so basically nitric oxide directly, I think it's it directly interacts with cytochrome c and basically put moves it into, I think it's an inactive form, and red light basically, basically fixes this problem. So that red light is one of, one of the main things. I think methylene blue is another, but that that's besides the point. But basically you just have two general ideas. It's like, I have enough metabolism, I have enough CO two generation. Give me more oxygen, give me more blood flow, give me more nutrient supply, versus I don't have enough CO two production, and my metabolism is, like, I don't have the amount of metabolism I need, but I still am going to need some degree of blood, blood flow. So just, you know, give me some blood flow and give me some some nutrients so I can, just, like, make it, but I'm not optimizing that function. And that's what winds up happening when you when you've run into that backup pathway. So just overall, it's like a very beautiful system. How, you know, it's like, I have, I need more stuff, so I'm producing this mediator, which is CO two. Oh, and that mediator also happens to bring me more stuff.

Jay Feldman 31:15
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's perfect. And, and there's kind of this step wise reaction to so when you're, like, if you're not in that optimal carb metabolism state, and you're in fat metabolism, and maybe your demands are low, as you're saying, there's less of a need for oxygen, there's less of a less of a need for blood flow. So you're gonna, I mean, the tissue will kind of hang out in that space, and if it's a muscle at rest, for example. I know we keep going back to that, but it's just an easy example. That's not a problem. Totally fine. As soon as there's an extra demand, though, then that's when those backup pathways really kick in, and you need to drive and force that vasodilation and force the energy production through stress hormones. And it's great that those things are there. If we did not have those adaptive stress pathways, we would be in a lot of trouble. Basically anytime we didn't, you know, we we were in an immediate need of something, but it comes at a cost long term, and that's really the problem with relying on those pathways. All of those distress hormones involved act as signals that depress our metabolism over time. They slow down our thyroid activity, decrease the reproductive hormones and on from there, basically in various steps to decrease, decrease our metabolism. It's basically like borrowing from the future. It's putting yourself in debt. And yeah, so yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's a really beautiful system and that in that way, and another factor that goes on when we're in that stress state where we don't have enough energy available, but we have high demands. And it even happens to an extent when there are lower demands too, but not to as great of an extent, is the production of reactive oxygen species. So instead of having that very kind of clean fuel use, and that very clean kind of burn of carbohydrates you have, the more dirty burn of of fat, where it you have all these pollutants that kind of end up coming off along the way, because it's so much less efficient. And those pollutants are basically the reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species. We're gonna say something, yeah.

Mike 33:18
well, I was gonna say, Do you want to burn natural gas? Do you want to burn coal inside your house, right?

Jay Feldman 33:22
Exactly.

Mike 33:23
Yeah, yeah. So like, burning carbs would be burning natural gas with, especially with when you're burning carbs appropriately, right? You're not moving it towards like a lactic acid fermentation state. You're moving it more towards the like aerobic respiration. When you're doing that, you're essentially burning natural gas. And what you were saying was CO two helps to protect against the reactive, reactive oxygen species, and also, I guess, optimize cell respiration, whereas with beta oxidation, you actually start putting out a whole bunch of ros. And when we talked about, when we talked about the fire in a bottle, SCD, one, all that type of stuff, his theory there was, like, the idea was that beta oxidation, or burning fast created a lot of ROS and that, and it like, turned off insulin signaling, and then that was ideal. That was where he wanted to be, and that was in the context of weight loss. And what, basically what we're saying here is, and I just brought that up in case, because I think that's like, it shows just kind of the ridiculousness around that. But the idea, essentially here is that you, again, you stream glucose through cell respiration, with oxygen as the final electron acceptor, you produce ATP, you produce CO two, and you produce water. And then CO two optimizes the optimizes cell respiration. It allows it to work more effectively and eliminate, react or decrease reactive oxygen species. And then it also causes. Is basal dilation, and it allows oxygen to disassociate from hemoglobin and reach the cell. So again, now we're seeing three, like very primary components, like just having this work effectively, is like the fat. And eventually, when you start putting everything together, and this is something that Ray P, like, heavily talks about, this is the foundation of pretty much everything is making, getting the cell to adequately oxidize sugar and produce ATP CO two and water.

Jay Feldman 35:32
yeah, yeah, and yeah. And in talking more specifically about the reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species situation. So when you have that dirty fuel of the fats, which, again, is not such a problem, at low demands, it really doesn't create such an issue. But at high demands, it does when you really have to force it, and it leads to the production of these things that then cause all sorts of damage. They basically directly damage the cellular structure and the DNA and on from there, and create all these backup pathways to be activated. And when we're like so as you were saying, when we're producing CO two, for one, it prevents the generation of those reactive oxygen species, at least in that context. And there's actually a really good quote talking about this that was saying, it says it was established. This is from a study looking at carbon dioxide and reactive oxygen species, and it says it was established that CO two led to the better coordination of oxidation and phosphorylation and increased the phosphorylation velocity in liver mitochondria. The results clearly confirmed the general property of CO two to inhibit significantly the active oxygen form generation in all the cell types. So they're just talking about it basically increasing the capacity for metabolism and the speed of metabolism, and also preventing the generation of reactive oxygen species. And then another huge factor here too, is that when we're looking at this optimal glucose metabolism and optimal ATP production, we end up with a lot of ATP, a lot of CO two. And when you get to the point where those things are at adequate levels, there are breaks on the system that work through reactive oxygen species. It's basically the cell's way of saying, I've got enough energy. I don't need to produce anymore, and so it produces some of these reactive oxygen species in a parallel way to what happens when there's low ATP. But things are not done efficiently, like high rates of fat oxidation, or if you have endotoxin or nitric oxide blocking up these pathways. But one of the major differences here is the presence of CO two which actually protects the cell against the reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species by converting them to less harmful components. And so it basically acts as an antioxidant in that way. And there's also benefits to having the ATP there as well, which is just an important discrepancy to make because, or to point out, because you do still have some reactive oxygen species produced in that very high energy state that still allows for some of those downstream processes. It allows for those adaptations that increase mitochondrial biogenesis and all the other things that are generally beneficial but that we don't want to necessarily force, but it does so with the protection of carbon dioxide and ATP, which is a major difference.

Mike 38:21
Yeah, so the important point there is actually context, is how it's like, where's where? What state is the cell, when this is happening, and how is it happening, right? That's really important. You don't, because a lot, and you see this in the research, where you see this with claims, it's like, Oh, it does x y and z, so it must be good, because x y and z is good. And it's like you have to put x, y and z, what in the context. And that's like when you talk about the ideas like a, m, p, k, or sirtuins and all that, all those types of arguments, or even nitric oxide arguments.

Jay Feldman 38:51
Autophagy, mitochondrial biogenesis.

Mike 38:54
And that's where you that's where you have such a specifically, what you always bring up with your and especially in our conversations, the gripe about hormesis, because it's like you can either do it through inducing stress, or you can do it through inducing optimal metabolism and getting into optimal and it doesn't necessarily do the same thing. I want to make that distinction there. But when you're in optimal metabolism, when you undergo some of these processes, it it's not, it's not necessarily stressful because of this, what the the resources the cell has at that optimal metabolic state, right when you have that ATP available and that CO two available, and you you're not relying on these backup channels and functions, you're able to essentially handle things that would have, would be can technically considered stressful situations because of the energy availability. So it that context is really important when it comes to discussing these things, and that's why the whenever we talk, like whenever we get into hormesis, you have you, in case anybody wants to know, Jay has a tangent on hormesis. It where Don't, don't talk to him about hormesis as a good thing, because it that's like, that's like, his one thing that gets his gears a little bit.

Jay Feldman 40:09
Which, and it's somewhat, somewhat true, I spent a lot of time writing, you know, some really long articles about my issues with that concept and, and it's funny, you bring that up. I mean, obviously it's directly relevant to this, but it's relevant. It's the re the reason why it matters so much is because, and people don't realize how many of the arguments in favor of various things come back to this argument of hormesis, which is the idea that a small amount of stress is good because it causes a beneficial adaptation. And that people use that argument for fasting. You know, they'll say, like, obviously our ancestors would go through periods of famine, and they had to adapt to it. And obviously that means it was, it was a good thing. So we should do the same thing. You know, the people in favor of fat burning will say the same thing. People in favor of talking about nitric oxide or resveratrol or fish oil. I mean, it goes on and on. Even endotoxin people say is beneficial, and it's, it's, I see it as kind of the crux between the, like, the two different views of metabolism, really, where one is that you want low metabolism, high reactive oxygen species and all of those adaptations that come from hormesis, and then the opposite of, I would say, you know, basically the bioenergetic view, where You want the opposite of all that. So, yeah, I am in favor of anti hermesis.

Mike 41:25
Yeah, it's just, it's just, like, the ideas behind, especially some of the those, like, Oh, our ancestors, our ancestors did this. So this is how like, and we develop these backup pathways to deal with it. So it must be good. Like, I think that whole framing is just off. And then, and it's like, the idea behind it, like, the Gen the overarching concept behind is like, Oh, this is what happened in the past. So it must have been good. Like, that doesn't mean it's optimal. Like, then, I think that's where you want to start framing things. It's not like, oh, XYZ happens, so it must be good. The question should be, is, like, what's the optimal? What's optimal in context. And I think that's something that when we first found Ray, when he was talking about, oh, context, this context, that context, this like, at first, we didn't 100% get it, and then we started to look into things more. And that's where, like, the idea of context and the situation, and situational effects becoming really important, and understanding things within, within the current situation, and understanding things within a larger picture. Because if you don't have that larger overarching picture, if you don't see things as this beautiful system that all works together, and that's, that's the nice thing about it is like it kind of is a little it kind of is a theory of everything. As far as health stuff goes, it really brings things. That brings things down to some key central point so that you don't and the key center point being proper metabolism. Production is CO two production of ATP, and it goes with Gilbert Ling's hypothesis, with ATP being the cardinal absorbent. But essentially, if you don't have that framing for things, if you're not working from that context, then you can see all these different things and all these different effects and from all in all these different scenarios. And if it's like, oh, this does this here, and this, this is here. And if it does it, does it here, so it's good, then it also does it here, so it should be good as well. You start getting into that mindset. And then you just start getting a hodgepodge, or like this mosaic of, oh, these things must be good without, like, creating a formal overarching picture. You're just sort of, like, looking at the individual components without any you're like, looking at a, like, a spot on the map without having the whole map. And I think bioenergetics gives you that whole map.

Jay Feldman 43:36
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's when you have all of the reductionism, everything from like, insulin causing insulin resistance and diabetes, to cholesterol causing heart disease, to the questions of, does Ray peat approve of this food or that food? It's, it's like all this, you know, it's the same thing of just not, you know, not, not putting that bigger picture together, which is, okay, I'm not. It's not like everyone has to start somewhere.

Mike 44:01
It takes time. Yeah, because, and that's, that was what I was pointing out initially, is we didn't have the big picture at first. And we, we came from all the different iterations of fasting, low carb, keto, carnivore, whatever. Like we and we talked, we talked about that. And I don't know when you released it or not, but, or if you already, if you released it yet, but it's we talked about that in our, like personal journeys where we tried all these different things and we got lost on these not even lost, but we were just like, making our way on these different pathways because we didn't have an overarching view. And then when we stumbled upon Ray, we literally stumbled upon ray through Danny Roddy, together that we started understanding a larger overarching picture with, like, a kind of theory of everything that allowed us to filter information through and understand context and put things together. So it became really important. And then the other thing is, is the picture is kind of simple, like it seems complex and whatnot. The core of what you what we need to understand, what are I don't want to tell people what they need to understand, but the core of what I think is important to understand. Of the picture is that when you start looking at like, every the function of the body and everything, if you break it down to the cell, which is the smallest, technically, the smallest unit of like, I mean, it can go a little smaller, but like, the smallest functional unit, I guess, is a way to define it. And you see what happens at the mitochondria on energy production. And you like, try to optimize things around that. And you start looking at the systems as overlaying on top of this, this energy metabolism. Then you start to, you start to, like, really, get, like, a beautiful picture, and you start to see things with the board Haldane effect, and you see just how important they are. Where you start to see that when you have high CO two concentration, you can unload oxygen. And then things start to make sense. From there, it's like, oh, so, like, the production of CO two isn't just this useless waste product, because that's what we're taught in school, right when we go through the Krebs. Cycle and the electron transport chain, like we all got this in biology. Or if you took biology in high school, or if you took college level biology, the beginner course, they go through this and DNA replication, and then sell division like pretty and I guess in as much depth as they can with that. But they go in decent depth and but basically, CO two is always classified as the waste product. But then you start learning about all these other effects later on, and you're like, oh, wait, maybe it's not. And then, and then, when you start putting metabolism as the central focus around which things are functioning, and not genetics, then you start to really like you start to really see things in a in that overarching picture, and you start to be able to say, oh, it looks like the lungs and hemoglobin and red blood cells function around energy metabolism at the cell. It's like these structures in the body, these organs were were organized around delivering oxygen the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain to its position. It's like, that's no it's pretty crazy to think about in that overarching picture. It's just like, wow. Like the organism literally developed entire huge organs to to allow the system to work appropriately.

Jay Feldman 47:20
Yeah. Yeah. And that that picture provides, I mean, a lot of context and and just clarity. I did want to mention so that that episode hasn't come out yet, and it'll come out after this, the one about our stories, but you gave a sneak peek there, but you had also talked about Gilbert Ling's theory and cardinals absorbance, which is another thing that's worth talking about when it comes to CO two. So ATP is known as the like primary Cardinal absorb adsorbent. And what this basically means for people who aren't familiar with this idea is that the cell structure is made up of proteins, and instead of the idea that it is just like that, the cell is just a sac that contains all these proteins and different components, you know, all the all the different organelles and everything, instead it's it's one kind of cohesive structure that's built around these proteins, where these proteins have a negative charge associated with them that allows them to structure water into instead of just a liquid form, more of a gel form. So you can think of it as something like jello or an egg white, where, as opposed instead of it being like liquid water, it would separate itself from water, like if you took a cubic jello and put it in a glass of water. It doesn't like, just dissolve, dissolve into the water. It has its own structure to it, and so part of this, his whole theory that he's put forth, is basically that our cells function in much the same way, and they don't need to rely on some particular membrane and pumps along the membrane. But instead, it's a more cohesive view, and there's, there's a lot of evidence for it that we aren't going to dig into right now that, but it's more cohesive view that depends directly on energy, basically where the energy that we're producing in the form of ATP, and also potentially in carbon dioxide, directly interacts, it adsorbs to the protein structure of the cell, which increases the structure of the water, which allows the cell to function better and exclude certain components and include others. And so when it comes to carbon dioxide, another huge kind of benefit or physiological effect has to do with swelling and edema, and this applies to a lot of different situations that we'll dig into later on. But on the base level, there's a couple of components here. So one, and this is something that Ray P just talked about, not as much Gilbert Ling is. The fact is, the idea of carbon dioxide acting as an adsorbent, and again, I haven't seen Gilbert Ling discuss this at all. I haven't seen any direct evidence for this. I. But assuming that carbon carbon dioxide does have that effect, it would directly contribute to to improving the structure and complexity of of the organism, but the structure of the cell and which would also make sense, considering that carbon dioxide does function as a Lewis acid, which would have that acidifying effect on the protein structure, which is basically equivalent to it having an adsorbing effect. And so that's one part. Another thing that repeat has talked about, which I think is important to highlight, is that when carbon dioxide is produced and leaves the cell, some of it will leave the cell as just carbon dioxide, but some of it is going to combine with water to form carbonic acid, and that carbonic acid will ionize to bicarbonate, which can then bind with particular minerals in the cell that we don't really want to be there in high concentrations, and that's sodium and calcium. So basically, carbon dioxide would carbon dioxide plus water leads to the carbonic acid, which ionizes to the bicarbonate, and then would potentially combine with sodium to become sodium bicarbonate, or combine with calcium to become calcium bicarbonate. And that would actually have two bicarbonates there and then that would leave the cell in that form, which would help to remove sodium and calcium. And the reason why this comes into play is because sodium and calcium. So for one, sodium kind of takes water with it, and so this actually helps to remove free or bulk water from the cell. In other words, it helps to reduce swelling. So anytime we see a swollen cell, it's a cell that has allowed a lot of sodium and water in and so by removing the sodium and calcium, it would help to decrease that water and reduce swelling. And so that's one kind of important factor there. And then again, the carbon dioxide directly interacting with the protein structure, increasing the complexity and driving, or increasing the structure, driving an increase in basically energetic capacity, which would also exclude the sodium and calcium, yep, through the production of ATP, production of ATP, but also assuming that the carbon dioxide has an adsorbing effect too, then just the carbon dioxide itself could also Okay, okay, in that context, yeah, yeah, but definitely the oxygenation and vasodilation, All of those things would help, too with producing ATP.

Mike 52:23
So to pull away the excess water that the that this bulk water that the cell doesn't need when it excludes the calcium and the sodium as it moves them extracellularly As as opposed to intracellularly.

Jay Feldman 52:36
Yeah. And so while there might not be, I mean, it makes sense biochemically that those things would happen. And while there isn't, there wasn't research that I've seen that was directly showing those effects of it, of it pulling out the sodium and calcium. We do see it in certain contexts where we know that in context of low CO two such as hyperventilation and altitude sickness, and like pulmonary edema, and basically any situation that involves a lot of edema and swelling, we see low carbon dioxide. And one of the main medications that's used for that situation is Acetazolamide, which increases carbon dioxide and helps to decrease the edema and swelling. So that's some, at least some evidence, more or less indirectly, that carbon dioxide would be helping to remove the sodium and calcium in a direct fashion. But we know, even if that's not the case, we know that indirectly would be doing so by supporting metabolism, supporting oxygenation, which would still have those anti swelling, anti edema effects. And the reason why I want to highlight that is, you know, somebody who doesn't experience like physical swelling that they see might not care so much. They might be like, Why does that matter? But swelling and the fluctuation of water content is one of the main features of health, where have like ourselves, being able to contain structured water and not not the bulk water, and not be swollen is like kind of one of the main depictions of healthy metabolism, and the opposite the edema and swelling is present in almost every degenerative state, from like heart disease to diabetes and on from there.

Mike 54:16
Well, anyone could see it in any inflammatory state, right? You get a bee sting. You get, whatever you have, like that local damage produces swelling, partly from immune function, but also from the damage itself. This organizing the cellular structure from the inflammatory response, right? So it's like, it's like in the chronic disease states, those swelling effects that you see just from local injuries become systemic, and that's why you start to besides actually having issues with transport of fluids and diseases like heart failure. Heart failure is characterized by basically energy and energetic failure of the circulatory system. So you're seeing that swelling, like on a grand scale, that inflammatory swelling state. On a grand scale.

Jay Feldman 55:02
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and there's some cool research showing this exact thing as well. They're supporting this that basically, high energy goes with a lack of swelling and edema, and anything that drives swelling and causes sodium to come into the cell, disrupts our ability to produce energy, and is only able to happen when there's already a lack of energy. And, yeah, and so there's, you know, it's all again, kind of this beautiful system that, again, swelling is a part of in that degenerative state, and a lack of swelling is is also involved in that, in that healthy state.

Mike 55:35
There's one piece that I wanted to add here, too, when you were talking about the idea of Cardinal absorbance and then the gel state, just to, like, create a picture of what that actually looks like. So basically, the cardinal absorbent, whether, if it's ATP, which is the main one that I think Ling discusses, but if Pete also references, or talks about the idea of CO two actually being a structuring component, like a protein structuring component, which is what the Cardinal absorbents do to some extent. If that's the case, then essentially what happens is ATP or or CO two interact with the proteins. And you can sort of think of proteins as like a string of marbles. If you have the marbles and you all throw them together, the different forces of the marbles will basically change shape and not marbles, excuse me, magnets. If you have, like, a string of magnets together, the forces of the magnets will all interact together, and it'll create a certain shape out of those magnets. If you change the charge on one side or one spot of those magnets, then you can change the entire structure of that protein shape so the adsorbents essentially interact with the protein structure in such a way that it allows different areas of the proteins to open up or to relax to some extent. And when the proteins relax, it allows different minerals to bind in and the in the interaction between the proteins and the minerals with water creates that like enhances that structured water shape, because structured water, the idea of structured water is, I think, something that Gerald Pollock expands on. And when Gerald Pollock's talking about structured water, there needs to be certain circumstances in order for the water to structure and basically create exclusion zones. And essentially it involves different charges, so the different charge differentials, so like, some areas are negative and some areas are positive. And basically what happens is, when you have the cardinal absorbance, they allow for this to occur. They interact with the proteins to create these different these charge differentials that allow the water and ions and proteins to structure it in a certain shape. And so it for at, for at, for CO two, to be a cardinal absorbent that would allow the the exclusion of sodium and calcium from those shapes, which is essentially what happens, not necessarily, or that's the theory of what essentially happens, which is supposedly to replace the idea of this membrane that pumps things in and out, which is, in a little bit, they basically just determine that. That doesn't necessarily make sense, if you and that's what a lot of what Ling's hypothesis talks about, is that there's just no basis, even on the energetic level, for these idea of these pumps in that sense. And what the proteins do bind in then is your potassium or your magnesium, your intracellular ions. So what's basically creating this structure, of this organization, throughout the entire system, is the production of energy, the production of ATP, and possibly the production of carbon dioxide. So just to have the cell structure, because if, if you don't have cell structure, right, what do you have? You have a bunch of water, a bunch of amino acids, and some some some minerals, some solutes, some ions, right? That's all you have. You could just have like a you could have a bucket of water and calcium dissolved in the water and some proteins, and you okay that, but that's what you have, right? What makes the difference for the cell and the body is that organizing effect of the energy on those different components. And I mean, you can make extensions from that as like, what is life type of stuff, but essentially, the energy, at least from my understanding of like, Pollock, P and Ling, is the energy is organizing all these different components together in a certain way that allows for the creation of cellular structure, but it's all dependent upon that energy. And so that's why, like, everything comes down to the bioenergetics. And basically you start at the individual cell, and then things start gradually increase from there. So then you have a group of cells, then you have a tissue, then you have an organ, then you have an organism. However you want it like that's basically. You get taught in your biology class, right? The different organizations or the different layers of of structure in the body, but yeah, so it all starts at that level, and then everything else, like extended up from there, yeah, yeah. And I know it's, like, a little dense.

Jay Feldman 1:00:19
Right, No, but no, but it's, I mean, it's, it's, it makes a huge like it adds, it adds context. And again, like coming back to carbon dioxide, is the carbon dioxide plays a major role here, whether it's just in the direct energy production or also its potential effects as a carnal absorbent, which, again, would make sense as it being a Lewis acid, and being able to withdraw electrons from that protein structure, creating that length and ability to interact with the water further and increase the structure. So, yeah, it's, I mean, it's a huge component here. And I think all these things together help to create a nice picture of health versus non health and the role of CO two. One other thing I just wanted to touch on real quick was, along with the swelling being one of these major aspect, major aspects of degeneration, and like the start of the stress cycle, is that following swelling, you have beyond just the death of certain cells, if, if the swelling is bad enough, you then have the like fibrosis and calcification that occurs as a direct result of that swelling, and that is just adding on those layers of of kind of stuckness in the stress state. In the same way that we have these layers of stress hormones that add on and build up and push you farther. In that way, the fibrosis and calcification are kind of, on a more physical level, things that are going on that kind of stick things up and again, sort of going back to to carbon dioxide as being one of those things that would protect against all of that, and a lack of carbon dioxide as being one of the main things that would drive all those things.

Mike 1:01:52
So the fibrosis is literally just like the lay down of protein struck or protein structure without the function and anything behind it. It's kind of like a useless structure, like filler structure, to some extent, and that will, that will further impair the movement of the fluids, or blood flow, or anything like that. Or you see, like fibrotic areas have like, will have decreased blood flow and and all, basically everything. So that, that's where you see the those are, like the and then, essentially, after fibrosis, you have calcification, right? So it's like inflammation and swelling, and then after with extended with that, or, or, like, the state is bad, then you start to get fibrosis. And then after fibrosis, you start to move into calcification. And like, it kind of makes sense when you look at the whole process altogether, like that. Why it progresses in that way, and when you're at those more extreme stages, like it directly impairs the whole structure because you don't have the ability to, like, say, you had a fibrotic area on your leg, the areas that weren't fibrotic around that area, or that were like this, lead to that area may have an issue with getting adequate blood flow right, or even the fibrotic area would have issues with receiving adequate blood flow. And then, if you don't have adequate blood flow, then how are you going to deliver your oxygen and your glucose to the cell? And how is CO two gonna cause basal dilation if you have a decreased blood supply, or the blood supply is constricted in the fibrotic areas, yeah. So it's like, the like, those are that fibrosis and calcification are kind of like the end stages of those inflammatory processes.

Jay Feldman 1:03:36
Yeah, yeah. And it all starts with the edema. It's like, the those are kind of more permanent, and none of it's necessarily permanent, but more toward permanent or deeper layers of kind of like forced contraction and inability to relax, and edema is the start of that swelling. And edema is that first point of not being able to relax and and when it comes to like blood vessels that's causing vasoconstriction, and then when you add layers of fibrosis and then the calcification that's like a semi permanent, constricted state. Yeah. All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Stay tuned for part two of this series, where we'll be diving into lactate, pH balance and some real world applications as far as these concepts are concerned, and these real world applications include altitude sickness, hyperventilation and covid 19 as well as other respiratory illnesses. If you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a like or comment if you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening elsewhere, please leave a review or a five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast, and are very much appreciated. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you're dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether they. Are related to the topics that we discussed today, whether that's high blood pressure or edema or other cardiovascular issues, or if it's any other low energy symptoms, like chronic cravings and hunger low energy or fatigue, digestive symptoms like gut inflammation or bloating or brain fog, or if you're dealing with poor sleep or insomnia or weight gain or hormonal imbalances or any other low energy symptoms or chronic health conditions. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll walk you through the main things that you can do from a diet and lifestyle perspective to maximize your cellular energy and resolve these symptoms and other conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman, wellness.com/energy, and with that, I'll see you in the next episode.