Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 72 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 a q&a episode where we'll be discussing dental health on a high sugar diet and how to determine what is blocking your energy production. And more specifically, we'll be discussing which vitamins and minerals are most relevant to dental health, how our gut and microbiome can affect our oral health, how to prevent potential dental harm from consuming large amounts of fruits or other sugar containing foods, how to determine the order of operations for making lifestyle adjustments and the first step to addressing virtually all health issues. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future Q, a episode, you can send those into Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com and that's j, A, y at Jay Feldman wellness.com where you can leave those in the comments if you're watching on YouTube and 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 reference throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether those are related to the low energy symptoms we'll be describing today in terms of oral health or any other low energy symptoms like chronic cravings or Hunger, fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, digestive symptoms like bloating or slow motility or brain fog or poor sleep or insomnia, hormonal imbalances, or virtually any other chronic health issue, chronic health condition, whether it's an autoimmune condition or diabetes or heart disease or again, virtually any other symptom that can really be tracked back to a lack of energy. 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 symptoms and conditions are really caused by a lack of energy, and I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do to maximize your cellular energy and 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.

Well, so speaking of oxalic acid and calcium, the next question is from Tom. Tom says that he's been loving the podcast. So far, he's been implementing the nutritional guidelines, and is feeling a lot more energized. Unfortunately, the fruit is giving him some erosion on his teeth, and he asked whether he asked for us to talk about oral health in regard to calcium metabolism, repairing cavities. What nutrients are supportive of oral health? Is it as simple as eating more dairy, Vitamin k2, and vitamin D, or just increasing the metabolism. And this is a very large topic. We're not going to talk everything oral health and dental health. There's a ton to dig into now, or to dig into as far as that goes. So we'll keep it rather surface level and just talk about some of the basics here, and try to keep it more on the recommendation side, or things to consider, as far as the actual application for trying to avoid issues there, or support dental health and oral health. Because these are, you know, this is a relatively common question that I'll get. I mean, I've gotten it several times, and it's also just a general concern from the mainstream when you talk about eating sugar, containing foods or, you know, and that includes fruits and juices and all of that. So there's, yeah, I mean, I guess we can talk through.

Mike 4:18
a series on it at some point.

Jay Feldman 4:20
Definitely, yeah,

Mike 4:22
it's worth a series. There's a lot to go over, right.

Jay Feldman 4:29
I mean, yeah, your basic fat soluble vitamin Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would definitely add the other fat soluble vitamins in there too. The vitamin A and vitamin E would be helpful.

Speaker 1 5:40
Yeah, I think that. I think there's a whole, there's like a kind of an interplay, right? Because your bones and your teeth aren't just like inert calcium. They're calcium embedded in collagen bones. And I think part of your dentin is, actually, is like a collagenous has some collagen structure and whatnot. So it's like collagen with the minerals. So that would require, you know, like a call, having the collagen, if you digest it well, like a collagen hydrolysate, to provide that glycine, hydroxychloline, proline, lysine, and, I think, hydroxylysine, which are like, like prime components of collagen, and then having the adequate vitamin C and copper, which are co factors for collagen production. And then having the vitamin D and the vitamin K, which allow you to basically the vitamin D increases the calcium absorption. And if vitamin K helps you basically take that calc take that calcium and move it into the places that you want to move it, whether that's the bones of the teeth, and keep it out of your like calcifying your vasculature. So that's all super helpful. And then the enamel itself, I think, has a high amount of magnesium in it, and has, like, a special use for magnesium in its structure. So obviously getting enough magnesium. So it's like, it's kind of like, have a nutrient dense diet, I would say, is the first point. And then the specific focus on Vitamin K, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, to some extent, which works together with vitamin D, and then also your your vitamin C, your magnesium. What you would want to have magnesium is involved in, like, quite a few processes with Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, and then vitamin A has, like, a lot of zinc dependent. So it's like, there's like, it's like having nutrient dense diet overall, you know, make sure plug your stuff into chronometer, make sure that you're hitting your daily targets as far as your nutrients. And I mean, not the chronometer targets, right? Because the chronometer target for vitamin C is pathetically low, which is based on, I think, the RDA, if I remember correctly, I think it's like 60 milligrams, or did they just go.

Jay Feldman 7:46
into, like 120 mil? I don't know if they moved it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:50
So that's like a quite low RDA, like I would, I tried to shoot for at least a gram coming from my diet, and that's from fruits and juices and stuff, which it seems like you're already moving that direction. And and then I would supplement with things that you may be missing. So for me, since I don't eat dairy, I'm missing calcium. So I supplement, as we just talked about, with that coral calcium and then magnesium to keep the balance. And, yeah, so there's a whole bunch of, like, basically make sure that your your nutrients are on point first. I think that's the first point to hit. Yeah,

Jay Feldman 8:22
exactly, yeah, yeah. The next piece I would mention there is the microbial side. So he talked autonomy. Would talk about the impact of gut health and the microbial balance that we want to have to make sure that we're not producing a lot of endotoxin, for example. And this all directly applies to oral health, where we have a microbiome in our mouths and on our teeth. And when that gets off balance, it does allow for pathogenic bacteria to come in that can actually drive teeth erosion and decay, and there's very specific microbes that are considered there. Specifically the Streptococcus mutans is known as the primary driver of dental decay. And so again, big picture wise, doing the general things to support a healthy microbiome is is very important, will help to protect against that, and that's why a lot of oral health based things that are supposed to prevent dental decay have antimicrobial effects. And this includes various mouthwashes that have, you know, might have essential oils or sometimes they use pharmaceutical compounds that are antimicrobial, which I would favor, you know, some of the more essential oil based ones beyond just the general things to support your microbiome. So that would be something to consider as well.

Mike 9:49
Yeah, and I think that a lot of the fruit polyphenols have actually shown to be have some benefit, as far as like altering the the. Oral microbiome. So I'm less inclined to think that, and especially my own personal experience, that the fruit juice itself, like just by itself, is causing the issue as far as, like, erosion of the teeth. Now, a lot of fruits can have a lot of acids, so my my solution with this type of stuff is generally to have my fruit juice and the whole fruit and the dried fruit that I'm going to eat, to have it with an actual meal, so that I'm eating the fruit and I'm having the juice and then, and then, you know, have my calcium carbonated in there, like my coral calcium, like we talked about, maybe some magnesium, and then maybe some B vitamins in that smoothie. And then I'll wait to fit like, 1015, 20 minutes, and then I'll have my meal, which will have my protein and my vegetables and my fat. So that for me, for an example, for anybody, this could look like, you know, 12 ounces of juice split between pomegranate and pineapple with some guava and then a calcium carbonate in there, and I'll make a smoothie out of that, maybe throw some B vitamins. Then I'll wait to 10 to 15 minutes, and then I'll have four ounces of steak. I'll have, you know, two two ounces of broccoli, three ounces of carrots, and then I'll have 10 grams of macadamia oil and on my vegetables with some salt, and maybe I'll have some ketchup on the side because I'm still four. And then, like, that'll be, that'll be how I situate the meal. It's like, I taking in all the sugar and all the carbohydrate and the acid and whatnot, but then afterwards, like, I'm eating the vegetables and the protein whatnot. And I haven't found that to, like, cause any issues with my teeth at all, especially considering I eat, like, maybe 400 grams of sugar a day, on average, three 350 to 400 or between 304 100, somewhere in there, depending on my workouts or, you know, it fluctuates, but essentially, I haven't found any issue with with with doing that for my teeth. Now, when we when I first came to Pete. And I think this happened to both of us. We were living together. When this happened, we actually got pretty bad tooth erosion to start.

Jay Feldman 12:09
Gum erosion rather than teeth, right?

Mike 12:14
Yeah, it was like dumb erosion, yeah, gummers recession, but I definitely had some tooth erosion as well, because my after that happens, like, my part of my teeth actually remineralized. And you can see where they remineralize, because, where they remineralize there's like, like, a little like, there's like you can see, like, around the edge, around, like, right around, I guess, the the arch of the tooth, you can see like, a brownish area, and that's actually from the remineralization. And whereas before, like it was out, and it was very sensitive, so that that happened, I still drank fruit juice throughout the entire period of time, what I adjusted was I didn't I wasn't sipping juice all day long. And at that point, when we were having is also drinking milk. And since I don't tolerate milk, well, could have been a negative effect of my microbiome. Well, because the allergenic response to my body and inflammation in my intestine like damaging my body's ability to regulate my own microbiome with the dairy. So for me, like once, I stopped drinking milk, and the other thing I was using a ton of granulated sugar, like I was adding granulated sugar to the milk. And in a because I saw Danny Roddy, you know, video doing that. So I was like, Oh, that's a great way to get carbs. But I was doing that, and I was having the juice, and I was sifting them throughout the day. So I was like, constantly, like, influxing the fruit juice and the sugar and the milk, like, is like, mainlining it all day long. And so that's when I was having my worst tooth erosion when I went to just having four solid meals a day, the how I just previously described, I stopped getting too erosion. My tea stopped being sensitive, but I still continued to eat 300 400 grams of sugar a day. It just like was at the meal, and then I didn't snack in between. And we've talked about this before, with the three hour gap, with the migrating motor complex and all that type of stuff.

Jay Feldman 14:04
Yeah, so there's a couple different points there. You had mentioned, for one, spacing out meals being something that was particularly helpful. And as you said, Yeah, we have talked about that before, specifically in terms of digestion and, yeah, not constantly grazing. Which one thing that that can definitely do is allow enough time for our saliva to interact with our teeth. And there are a few other factors that can go on there that we'll leave to discuss another time that can help with with dental health. And then the other thing you mentioned was less of the granulated sugar, which, as you also said, part of the reason why that could have been helpful is because when you're having sugar in its form and fruit, or even in maple syrup or honey, you have a lot of polyphenols and bioflavonoids in there that have antimicrobial effects and protect the sugar from being consumed by the bacteria. So that can make a big difference as well. Of course, you have nutrients there too in most. Those cases. But yeah, so those are all good things to mention. Some a couple others I would mention, as far some real practical things. Did you want to say something?

Mike 15:12
I just want to say that the bacteria are producing acids from the sugars that they get a hold of. And now the initial theory of tooth decay with sugar causes bacterial growth to produce the bacteria produce acids, and then the acids degrade to the teeth. And it's like a much, much more complicated process than just bacteria assaulting your teeth, like there's multiple factors, and that's why, that's why it's not a simple like, a one off answer, right? Like, because you have your nutrient status, you have your own body's processes, and then you have the regulation of the bacteria in your mouth from the immune system. And then you have, like, what, how that interacts with the foods that you're eating on a regular basis? And then you have the bacteria producing acids. Like, there's so many different pieces to hit it at all comes down to diet and lifestyle manipulation and maybe some targeted approaches, you know, for the gut or for the mouth or whatever it is. But there's, like, there's a lot more to the story than just, oh, streptococcus mukins is just having, like, raging insurgency in your mouth and taking over your teeth.

Jay Feldman 16:21
Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a lot going on. And so in talking about some other things to consider, beyond having time between meals and not focusing or not getting so many carbs from from granulated sugar, a couple other things that might be worth considering. One would be rinsing your mouth after meals. Another would be that when you are having something that you know, especially when you're already having sensitive teeth, and then if you're going to have something like juice, or if you're having something that has a decent amount of sugar in it, that is granulated sugar, if you're having soda, you can use a straw, or, again, rinse after. If you're having something else with a lot of granulated granulated sugar. You could try rinsing after again. This doesn't address all the different factors going on that can affect or prevent dental erosion, but can make a difference. And another treatment, you could say that I've heard of quite a few anecdotal experiences of it being beneficial. Is is doing oil pulling, but something like coconut oil and that that can be pretty effective. There's some research looking at certain prometabolic supplements and anti inflammatory supplements, like aspirin, being able to support or protect the protect the teeth from erosion. So that would be something to consider in general relationships with, like thyroid and dental health and those kinds of things.

Mike 17:52
Yeah, I think xylitol, like, as, not as something that you actually eat, but like xylitol, like a gum that's not, you know, not bad is it can help with the teeth, because it inhibits biofilm formation. So that's like a kind of a known one. And then I think, as you mentioned, too, using some type of mouthwash that has like, essential oils, like the older mouthwashes, I think Listerine was based off of these. Was based off of having, like these different essential oil compounds like menthol and salicylate and like, low, low, like lower amounts, like not even one, 2% amounts, because they're really potent. Yeah, so that can be helpful. I mean, Listerine burns my mouse. I don't like it at all, but.

Jay Feldman 18:34
yeah, the original Listerine, that's like the orange yellow one, is made with essential oils, but it's also a high amount of alcohol. So that's why it burns so much. Yeah, yeah.

Mike 18:43
I don't think you need to have a ridiculously high amount, because the alcohol is actually irritating to the mucosa and drying. Yeah, yeah. You could probably make some type of coconut oil with a low amount of essential oil. Like, you could take some coconut oil, put it like, you know, heat it up a little bit, not so that you're, like cooking it, but just so it's in a less solid form. And then maybe add in a couple drops of maybe oregano oil, not amount that you burn, just the amount to emulsify in the oil. And then maybe a little olive leaf or or some cinnamon, some cinnamon and oregano, or the cinnamon, lemongrass, like that may taste good actually. And then just, you know now you'd have, like, a little thing that you could oil pull with. You'd have the coconut oil as which has the medium chain triglycerides that have an antimicrobial effect, as well as having the actual the essential oils which aren't damaging, like the alcohol. So that's something that you could do. And then chewing Xylitol gum, although with the xyle at all. I wouldn't recommend, like, just chewing gum all day long, because then you're constantly stimulate stimulating that digestive process. So what I would say is eat your meal and then have xyladol Gum a couple minutes after, because once you have the food inside your stomach, like chewing will stimulate the digestive juices once it's actually full with protein, especially. Actually, if you set your meal up, how, how I had it situated, where you have your juice and fruit and whatever carbs, first, wait your 10 to 20 minutes and then eat your meat and protein and have a little bit of gum. Desire it all gum when you're done. But I think the overarching big picture too is and then, obviously, brushing your teeth in the morning at night can be very helpful. But the overarching big picture is making sure that you're eating like a solid diet that's not irritating you, that's covering all your nutrient bases. Because when you think about this like and this is something I think that came specifically with Wesson a Price's work is that the people in in the populations he studied didn't actually have tooth decay, and that was because their diets were so nutrient dense, and they were eating foods that weren't problematic. And as soon as they got vegetable oils and high granulated sugar and margarines and refined grain products and whatnot, their oral health, as well as the rest of their health, went to absolute crap. So I a lot of it, I think the bulk of it comes down to diet. And then these other, these other strategies can be, can be helpful, for sure, the last piece I want to talk about really quickly is, and this is like known in the paleo and the the Wesson, a price foundation sphere. But heavy grain consumption can contain things like phytic acid that has a negative effect on the mineral status in your body, as well as things like oxalic acid, which we talked about with spinach. So I would say avoiding foods that are actually like pulling minerals from your body, and then having foods that are actually adding valuable minerals to your body that you tolerate. So the most mineral dense foods that you can have is going to be your beef, your eggs, your fish, your dairy, your fruit and, um, like, and your seafood, and then any types of specific vegetables that you tolerate, like, that is the MO and then tubers, right? I guess that's vegetables, but there you have your potassium, you have your sodium, you have your calcium, you have your magnesium, you have, you know, a whole host of vitamins and minerals. Like, that's the best way to get all that stuff. And then you can fill in some of the gaps with quality supplements that you tolerate. Well, that's, I think, the most simplest, easiest strategy to to manage any type of, pretty much most health problems in my experience. Obviously, there's some targeted stuff depending on the situation, but that's like the foundational level, I would say.

Jay Feldman 22:21
Yeah. And just to add a couple other specifics also, so you're mentioning the Xylitol gum you can do. You can get xylitol in it's like pure form and looks like sugar. You can just do a rinse with it, so you're not chewing the gum as much, which I don't think it's a big deal either way, but that would be an option that you could do as well you could. And then a couple other things I wanted to mention was one, antibiotic use being effective for tooth decay, which I think just go, you know, lends support to the role of of the microbiome in dental health and also the metabolic health. I mean, the the role of the microbiome in metabolic health, and then the role of metabolic health and metabolic health in dental health. So that would be something else to consider there. Yep, all right, so the next couple of questions are pretty directly related, so I'm going to we'll answer them both basically together. So VIV had asked which order is best to address things as far as nutrition versus movement versus sleep versus supplementation, and then Akua, I hope pronouncing that correctly, asked, how would you go about figuring out what is blocking your energy production, whether it's endotoxin, nutrient deficiencies, PUFA, etc? Is there a way of narrowing down what the bottleneck is? So we did actually talk a little bit about this toward the end of the fatty liver series. So I do think that's worth listening back to, as far as sorting out what to do. But the reason why these questions go hand in hand is because I would say the best order for addressing things tends to be dependent on what is going on on the energy production side, and what is having the largest effect there? And those things will vary person to person, but there are a few things to consider. So the first that I would say is that when it comes to things like nutrition and movement and sleep, there is a certain foundation that would need to be in place to achieve a certain level of health, and that would be the case regardless of the order and whether you need it to look to supplements or doing anything specific in either case. So of course, that makes it a little bit tough to tough to say, because it's individual. But I guess what I'm saying here is that we need to have some baseline level of all of those. And as far as which I would be looking to address first, normally, when I'm considering these things, especially if I'm working with someone, one way I'll determine is just looking at lowest hanging fruit, what things are the farthest from optimal. And what's going to make the biggest impact. So if someone is coming from a standard American diet, then that would definitely be the place that I'm that would be focusing on, whereas if someone is sleeping four to six hours a night, that might be the first place I focus on. In general, it doesn't have to be an either or right. I mean, those things a are going to go hand in hand. As you improve your nutrition, you should be able to fall asleep easier, stay sleep easier, get tired at the right times, all that have better circadian rhythm, and then vice versa. If you're sleeping better, you should be able to metabolize carbs better and have better insulin sensitivity and have more energy to cook. And you know, all these things cycle together, you know. And if you're as far as movement goes or sunlight goes, if you're taking the time to go outside and take a walk in the sun for a certain period of time of day, that will help with your sleep and that will help with your energy for eating better and on from there. So they all go very much hand in hand. But I think what this largely comes down to is so I guess where it started was lowest hanging fruit. What's going to make the biggest impact? But then what are the major driving factors affecting any individual? What are the main things that are driving their pathology or causing the symptoms that they're experiencing? Because those are generally the area to focus on. So my thought here, as far as narrowing the bottleneck for one, comes back to experimentation, right where, if somebody remove, you know, like removing harder to digest foods, if that results in significant benefit, or somebody finds that when they particularly eat things that are harder to digest, that they feel particularly worse. I think that's a good sign that that might be one of the most important factors. When it comes to other factors, like nutrients or polyunsaturated fats, these tend to be more longer term in their effect, which can make it harder to determine whether that's the case, especially with something like PUFA, with something like nutrient deficiencies, of course, if you have a severe nutrient deficiency and you replace that nutrient, you should see, generally, some short term benefits. So a lot of it does come back to that experimentation. I'll let you jump in, Mike, if you have maybe some better way to thread these things together.

Mike 27:17
I don't know. I know that you're gonna have a better way just because they're all interrelated, and that's what kind of makes it hard to say, Well, where am I going to start here, for for me, and, I mean, we've talked about, you know, we we discuss different situations. You know, no one's like, about, oh, this is going on here. Like, what do you think like? We definitely like, have like, a like, we work together sometimes, but so, like, a lot of times, we're actually coming from the same place. I think that's why I bring that up. And it's kind of like, as you said, if somebody presents to you with a certain symptom profile, and like, before I even get there, I guess I want to see a whole bunch of data on the situation so that I can actually pinpoint what specifically is going on. And by pinpoint, it's not like there's one food that you're eating that's completely destroying everything that's going on. There's, like, a multitude of factors, but it's, there's a there's kind of like a graph of prioritization. And I guess, I guess you can think of it as a graph, but essentially, somebody comes to you and they're having digestive issues, and you're looking at what's going on, and it's like, okay, they're going to sleep at five o'clock in the morning every day, and their diet isn't, isn't too situated. You know that there's definitely some things that can be adjusted with the diet. It's, let's change those things first, because those are the easiest, most glaring, biggest things that are causing the issue, or that could be causing the issue you don't know, see the result that happens after you've adjusted those things, and then move to the next step. And so you start like kind of broad and or sometimes it could be like very specific, but the ultimate goal is the same place where you have a foundational dietary strategy that's specific to you hammered out, and then have the supplements put on board. So you develop a toolbox, and then you start to optimize the other areas of your life that can include sleep, that can include exercise. It kind of depends on what the individual's goals are, where the individual is starting from, what the individual symptom profile is, you know, if I have somebody who's severely underweight and like, I'm not going to talk to them about, oh, we need to get in the gym. It's going to be, like, it's going to be, we need to get the weight back onto you. We need to get you rebuild your stores. You know, come out of wherever, whether it was an autoimmune disease, whether it was carnivore, whether it's one meal a day, whether it's some type of eating disorder situation, or whatever it is, or, you know, there whatever, whatever the actual deal is, you know, it's, it's so it's, it depends on where the person's really coming from. And so you take that information you and you can just experiment with the different pieces, and you're. Applying you're basically the goal isn't to just, like, give somebody some massive overhaul all at once, because it's never feasible, or not never, but 99% of the time it's not feasible to take somebody change everything about how they're doing it, how they're doing life in general, eating, sleeping, whatever it is, and then, like, give it to them. Be like, Here you go. Most of the time, it's like, moving this, moving this factor over here, moving this factor over here, and then slowly, kind of adjusting, but having the big picture in mind, it's like, we're going to create a dietary plan that saw that that's solid for you, and then we're going to build a supplement toolbox. And then if you want to work out, get the working workout going. And I think the biggest thing I see with this, and it's something I think a lot of people get frustrated by, I know I definitely did when I first started out, was that all of this takes time, because it's a constant unfolding process. And you'd be surprised the level of nuance that gets involved into it, where it's like, oh, I didn't tolerate dairy when I first started, but I did this course of oregano oil, and I changed my diet, and now all of a sudden, I'm tolerating dairy just fine. Or, Oh, I didn't tolerate juice and fruit to start because my liver was all was having some of the issue. And then, like, a couple months later, like, Oh, now, now I'm tolerating juice and fruit just fine. And I actually don't want to eat as much starch, because I prefer to have juice and fruit. And so it's like something at one point of time and be completely different. Like you can have a completely different response and another point of time because your context changed. And so you have to keep all of that in mind and adjust the dials accordingly. And so it's like, while everybody's kind of working towards the same general place, because what it all comes down to at the end of the day is having your lifestyle factors like basically taken care of appropriately, like developing intelligent and adaptable systems it that are manipulations of your lifestyle to give you the outcomes that you want. It's all the same. In that sense, how you get there is very different, and that depends on the person's individual context. And there's a lot of factors that come into their context. That could be, what are they? What happened to them in the past? You know? What? What's their genetic background? What's their hereditary background? You have somebody who's who comes from, like the Philippines, right? And they've been their family's been eating white rice for generations. They may be fine eating white rice, whereas, if I have somebody who's coming from Northern Europe and they eat white rice that gives them insomnia, like it doesn't always play out specifically into those situations like that, but it's just that's an example of like things to keep in mind and how different people respond to different things differently. And you have to be open you can't have a dogmatic rule like, oh, white rice is good for everybody. And that's why it's always hard to give, like, very specific recommendations. It's kind of like a broad, general approach with a mindset prefacing, or, yeah, prefacing that approach so that it's like, this is the frame to kind of look at things through and yeah, just the biggest thing is it takes time and patience and adaptability and trying to figure it out. Most things like you get, you'll have a see a big, significant change in probably two weeks if you start moving the right pieces. But as long as that, as far as that long lasting, like significant recovery from wherever the situation was like, it's not a two week turnaround in many, many cases.

Jay Feldman 33:25
Yeah, you brought up a lot of great points there, and a few that I wanted to touch on. So one, one is that, as you were saying, experimentation takes time, and so generally, I would say in terms of nutrition versus, you know, diet versus movement, versus sleep versus supplements. Generally, I would say that supplements, for my view, would generally come second to those other things, because, for the most part, if we can improve, you know, there's, there tend to be drawbacks with various supplements, we're always trying to choose ones with the least amount of drawbacks. But I prefer to use as little as possible on that front, because it can just get tricky, especially when you're using a lot of supplements. Sometimes they can cause certain sometimes, again, they can, if you're talking just even vitamin supplements, you can cause imbalances. If you're talking, you know, various other supplements, they can all have potential interactions and drawbacks. So generally, if possible, I tend to start with the lifestyle based things first, and then the other main piece I want to reiterate here is that the supplements would be directly based on particular symptoms that someone's experiencing. So I have so many people ask, who will ask me, like, just in general, kind of, what supplements should I take to improve my health or improve my situation, or whatever? Or they'll come to me and they're taking all these supplements, and there's kind of no reason for them all. It's just they were supposed to be good, and some supplements are generally. Good, you could say, but for the most part, that's not the approach that I tend to tend to take. I like to only use supplements for a very particular purpose, and if they aren't accomplishing that purpose, I wouldn't continue using it, because that would mean that whatever we're looking to improve must be caused by some other issue that the supplement is not solving. So yeah, I would say supplements could be rather secondary in that regard. But, yeah, you're look so but I think that's a good example, right? You're looking at the presentation of what's going on. You're trying something like a certain dietary change or supplement change, and you're looking at how it how that symptom changes, and then adjusting accordingly. Now, the other side of all this when it comes to the various symptoms, is different symptoms can be indicative of different underlying issues, which is part of why. So the question about figuring out what exactly is blocking your energy production, symptoms can be a really great indication of those things. And for different symptoms, especially in different combinations, can suggest different issues. So we talked a lot about fatty liver. So somebody is seeing fatty liver, and they're based on their lab work or based on scans or something, and then they're having some blood sugar regulation issues. While we have a good idea that the liver is not metabolizing carbohydrates, well, it's probably not storing glycogen, well, so that would be something to prioritize focus on, and we just spent a whole series discussing what kinds of things you might want to do in that case. But let's say somebody's having a blood sugar issue and they tend toward hypoglycemia, and they don't have fatty liver issues, well, then that could that would be a whole different set of a whole different approach to making adjustments. Maybe in that case, you might focus more on making sure to get more fat and carbs or more fat and protein anytime carbs are being eaten, instead of just eating carbs on their own or maybe even favoring some starches over the sugars. In that situation, again, all independent, but they're all dependent on those individual situations. But So looking at the symptoms can be a really great indication. Again, if we're seeing significant digestive symptoms, then that is a sign that we're not something's going on, either with our microbes or ability to actually break down our food. And we'd want to make sure we're addressing that in terms of, like, a sleep issue, like, if someone's not sleeping well and they have these digestive symptoms, I wouldn't be going to either really great lengths to work on, like sleep hygiene, for example. I mean, I think there's a lot of really easy to do things for sleep hygiene, but I wouldn't be getting, like, really expensive trackers or, you know, using tons of sleep supplements, or buying really expensive blue blocking glasses when there's digestive symptoms present that are very clearly there and could be contributing to an inability to fall asleep. So you have that order of operations. And I guess what I'm getting at here, in this case, is I'm that order of operations is determined based on what symptoms seem to be deepest and most, most fundamental, and are also the want to say necessarily the easiest to address, but can be the quickest to address or the quickest to rule out. Right? So when it comes to a digestive issue, there's a lot of things I might want to do before trying to address a microbial problem, to either A, provide support that there is a microbial problem, or, you know, and B rule out that it's not some other issue that's not a low stomach acid issue, because you don't want to go down the whole route of addressing a microbiome if you don't, you know if it was just a low stomach acid issue in the first place, or if it was just an overall, you know, kind of low metabolism, high stress issue that could have just been improved by increasing calories, increasing carbohydrates, decreasing stress in other ways, and miraculously, digestion, digestion is considerably improved without addressing the microbiome directly at all. So it's tough to, I guess what I'm getting at, as well as it's tough to put all of that into a into a short answer, because it requires an understanding of how of what kinds of things might be affecting your very what might be causing various symptoms, what might be causing mood disturbances, what might be causing trouble sleeping, what might be causing weight gain and but, but what I would do is work on building an understanding of those different things, and look at all the symptoms that are. You know that that I would be experiencing, look at what I'm doing is turn in terms of diet and movement and sleep and sunlight and stress, and then kind of fit those pieces together, and then start experimenting and see how things change, and then adjust as you go.

Mike 39:36
Yeah, I think the first step with all this is you need to develop awareness of yourself definitely. And you need to, you need to be aware of, you know, like, start making connections about yourself, and start opening up your mind to the idea. And this is something that I see, like, pretty consistently. It's like, wow. I've heard this so many times, wow. I didn't think my diet could be affecting me in. An XYZ way, yeah, and it's, it's always like, like, somebody's like, oh, I have insomnia. And then I take out potatoes, and they're like, I've slept the best I have in in a year. It's like, because it's about putting those, those pieces together. And I think one of the most helpful things for me, and it's so simple, right? It it was basically sitting down, or let for me, it was laying down because sitting cross legged was never comfortable for me, like, but, yeah, so laying down and then essentially just taking 510, 15 minutes to scan my body and get used to feeling the different areas of my body and feeling what's what's kind of going on. And then that's when I was able to figure out what was going on with my own stuff, with research and other information. But I had the awareness first so I could key in to the different things. So for example, when I would have my digestive issues, or I was working in the hospital and my posture was super uncomfortable. My neck would start to really hurt, and like somebody was taking an ice pick into my neck here. And so what I started to realize was, when I was in the hospital, I have staples over my liver, two staples, and then I also have scar tissue from when they took out my gallbladder. I was reacting negatively to either standing up for long periods of time the excessive amount of EMF that's present in the hospital and its effect on causing muscle tightening. And then I was also, at that period of time, I was eating large amounts of of of beef tallow, but a very waxy beef towel, so it had a high amount of Stearic acid, so without the gallbladder, I wasn't digesting it, then the solid stearic acid and its effect on changing my bile acids, which, because I don't have a gallbladder, are constantly leaking to my intestine, would cause an intestinal contraction, and that or inflammation, I guess, and I would cause abdominal contraction. And as I would contract the side that would contract the most would be my right side, and in my my pull posture like I would just like a girlfriend would make fun of me. She's like, you're like, all hunched over and you're all to one side. Because I was literally crippling on myself from that, from the contraction the musculature and the digestive irritation. So I started to try and figure out, what is the relationship between the contraction of my abdomen, maybe something I'm eating, may I know it get worse every time I got into the hospital. What could explain that? And then trying to, like, figure these things out, and then going and spending time doing the research to determine them that was okay. What's the effect of electromagnetic frequency on muscles? Oh, electromagnetic frequency, it can increase the opening of voltage gated calcium channels, which causes, uh, excitatory response and contraction. It's like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And so it's like, I started getting reactions to that. And there's like, what happens with an excess of Stearic Acid? What can that do? Well, since it's super uh, hydrophobic, it causes the bile acids to adjust to become more taurine conjugated, and then those can irritate the colon, and I'm more likely to have that irritation because I don't have the gallbladder. So it was like I felt the symptoms. First I had the digestive symptoms. I had the contraction in my posture. I know my history, that I had the surgery that I don't have the gallbladder, so I kept those contextual variables in mind, and then I was trying to figure out research of like, like, hypothesizing, oh, what could, what could this relationship be like, looking for the connection and being open to the fact that maybe it was something completely off the wall. Maybe it was something super simple. Maybe I had developed scar tissue for my surgery, and that was, you know, I have scar tissue my abdomen, and it's like, yes, when I started releasing my scar tissue, my digestive symptoms were like, night and day. That was one of the first things, because the scar tissue is basically impeding my intestinal movement. It's like something very simple. It didn't have to be this, oh, the bile acids and taurine and something like, something like that. It was like, Oh, you have scar tissue your abdomen from your surgery. And just like visualizing the fact that, okay, these strands of scar tissue can be pressing on my intestine, inhibiting peristalsis, causing all types of issues. And this was after the reason this came to this because we had, at this point, Jay and I had run gut protocols on ourselves for SIBO and dysbiosis and this and that. And like, we had done a number of them, it was like, I still was having a symptom. So it was like, at that point, it ruled it out as like, okay, it's probably like the gut, if there is a gut dysbiosis and has to be caused by something else going on, because I've taken so much Burberry and oregano oil at this point that nothing in there should be living. So it was, it did. I think awareness is the first point, and having an open mind to being like, to making connections to things that you know you may not have initially thought about. And the other thing there, you have to be careful with this too, right? You, because you don't want to make like, some absurd connections and do experiments on yourself that can. Cause problems, which I definitely did to myself, and that's why I'm recommending against that. But the awareness, then having the open mindedness, and then the next step, I would say, is making a risk benefit analysis on what you're actually gonna do and not being attached to that outcome. Because if you're very attached to this idea of I need to get better right now, then you are and you're believing that this one thing is going to just change the game for you right away. I think that puts you in a kind of, like a scarcity mentality, where you're more likely to become, like, develop an urgency and and like, a Yeah, like, I guess an urgency or a fear of like, if I don't do this, I'm not going to get x result. And I think it's more about trusting the process and understanding that, like believing in yourself, like I am going to figure this out. I am going to move in that direction. I'm going to be aware. I'm going to keep the open mind, instead of looking for this quick fix, this silver bullet that's just going to solve the problem. And if I just do this, if I just take this round of antibiotics, it's going to knock out all of my gut issues I've seen that cause more problems than I've seen it solved. In some cases, sure, it works, and everybody has an anecdote on their their course of Bactrim that just completely wiped out their IBS. But in a lot of cases, I've seen it actually like harmed people, and I was one of those people that harmed by my own experiments. So yeah, those, it's the awareness, the open mindedness, like keeping things into perspective, not getting in that scarcity mentality, doing a risk benefit analysis, and then kind of be opening, being open to that, to the process of figuring it out and and taking the time and and trusting that you will, you trust yourself and that you'll figure it out at at some point, whenever that is, that's kind of, I think, the biggest way to go about it.

Jay Feldman 46:51
And, and then one thing I would, I would want to make sure to to emphasize there as well, is taking the time to try to learn about the symptom and the processes involved, so that you have more direction as far as the experimentation. I know you were saying that there are things that you can do that can hurt yourself, and you want to keep an open mind, and so you don't want anything that says that they can help your symptoms to just you don't want to just jump on to that, because that's definitely a recipe for getting thrown in all sorts of directions and really being unsure where to go, so taking the time to actually try to understand, to the extent that you can what you know, what you can about that issue and what it could signify, along with that which you talked about this too, is keeping the long term in mind, as opposed to the situation where you need a quick fix. You need it to be fixed yesterday. And this is, this is such a like trying to get out of the mindset that this is this problem needs to be fixed immediately, and instead keeping in mind that that generally the quick fixes are, are the ones that don't stick long term, and when we're looking for the quick fixes is when we can get thrown off in all sorts of directions, as opposed to doing the things that actually build toward the result that we're looking for that actually is a longer term result. So I think that that leads to much better results as well.

Mike 48:18
Yeah, yeah. I definitely agree with that. And just Yeah. And another thing I want to just quickly, briefly mention is that there's times where I was like, in severe discomfort, digestion wise, or whatever it was. And I think something that always helped me was knowing that no matter how uncomfortable I was like, that it was going to be transitory. And I would just like, be super uncomfortable, and I would, like, I couldn't eat anything. I like, I was grabbing my brains out because I because, like, of some experiment I tried, and just in a bad, bad place, like, as soon as my digestion would go, my mood would go out the window too. But there was, like, a piece in my mind that I always kept from knowing in previous times, because you build up reference experience as you go through all this stuff. But I always knew that the worst times were transitory. And the other thing I always tried to keep in mind, and I this is something that I constantly talk about with people, is that your physiology dictates your mind state and your states, and so if there's extremely powerful to know that if your gut is all messed up, that that is very likely to really damage your mood and your interaction. So the people around you to be to say, like, Hey, Jay, you know, I ate something. My gut is not good at all. Like, my mood is complete crap right now, man, so that you're letting them know, like, hey, something's going on, and then people are more likely to be receptive to be like, well, you know, can I help you out with anything or or to know to leave you alone, or know that if you, like, are snappy about something because your mood is all messed up, because your gut is twisting inside of you, which would make a lot of sense, that you would have a bad mood with that, that like, Look, I know like he's got something going on. Like, it just. Kind of what the deal is. And then also, if you know that what you have going on is affecting your mind state in a kind of negative, like a kind of negative way, because your your mind state and your thoughts and all your actions and all your bodily functions and whatnot in general, all tied together, you can't be in like complete crap state and just have, like, an optimal mental function and all this type of stuff. I don't think it's like, I don't think that's possible, because it's so tied to that energy production and what's going on at the cell so it, it's, it's just to when you know that in the back of your mind, like, whatever this is happening right now is like affecting my mind state and my thought processes, then you, then you can sit there and learn, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna make any decisions in my current state. And I might be frustrated with Jay right now because whatever, some dumb reason, whatever it is you didn't put my orange juice back in the refrigerator, that this isn't a real circumstance, but like, just an idea, like some something dumb happens, something small that people like to get angry about, and I've seen it with family. I've seen my girlfriend. I've seen myself where it's like something dumb triggers you, and it's not that that thing is making you upset, it's that your state is making you upset, more likely to be triggered. So when you understand that, then you're just like, Oh yeah, I'm getting triggered by things because I'm not feeling well, and then you don't have to react to it. You just take a deep breath, and you're just like, well, this is going to pass. Maybe I just need to be left alone, or whatever the deal is. And and it the thing is, it will pass. It does pass. Like it the pain or the discomfort or the suffering, or whatever it is like as you start to learn, and you start to move, and you start to make you can you get out of it? And some The problem is it just kind of feels like eternity while you're there, but it's if you know it's transitory, and you know it's affecting how you are. I think it becomes easier to manage.

Jay Feldman 51:51
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that that helps a lot. And that kind of is another way of like saying to have hope, to be thinking long term, to Yeah, to be thinking positively. I don't like putting it, putting in that, in those terms, but yeah, I agree with what you saying. I can definitely help from that mindset side and recognizing, as you said, also that our mindset can be, you know, our mindset and physiological health, so to speak, are, it's a two way street. There's not real, not really separation there. And I'll link back to an episode where we talked through that in a little more detail. And I think that that was that that's helpful context here, if someone's interested in that concept a little, you know, in a deeper sense, yep, all right. And before we wrap up this episode, I did want to try to provide a more concise answer, following our off the cuff answers to those last couple of questions regarding how to figure out what's blocking your energy production and the order with which we should be addressing the various aspects of our health. And what I would say first is that we want to start by evaluating where we're at currently. And this is where that awareness really comes in, that Mike was talking about. And at this point, we need to be considering the various symptoms that we're experiencing, various where we're at, as far as different lifestyle components, in terms of where our diet's at, how well we're sleeping, how much we're sleeping, how we're managing our stress, how much movement we have day to day. And then also considering other aspects of our health, like our temperature and pulse and potentially lab work as well, and considering various indications that could point to what might be most fundamental in in causing the current situation that we're in causing our current symptoms or conditions or whatever it is, and then, based on that evaluation of where we're currently at, we would want to then address the most fundamental aspects of our health that need addressing. And this would involve a lot of the things that we talked about, especially earlier on in this podcast, in terms of regulating blood sugar, making sure that we're eating enough and proper macronutrient balance that we're eating really easily digestible foods. Again, these are some of those lower hanging fruits that I was referring to earlier. And again, sleep would be a major component here, as well, just all of these more fundamental pieces of our health before the the next piece or the the final piece, which would be to address the kind of less fundamental, more surface level, or more specific aspects of our health that are more directly related to the symptoms we might be experiencing. So whether we're experiencing an issue of dealing with our skin or digestive symptoms or hormonal imbalances, whatever it is at this point, we would then consider doing things that are more specific to those issues. And the reason that we would do in this order is because when a lot of times, when we address those more fundamental aspects that are not already in a good spot, and, you know, doing things that are supporting our metabolism, then we, you know, when we correct those things, we often end up resolving a lot. These other issues without even needing to do anything that's rather specific to those symptoms. So a couple examples here. For one, if somebody were to come to me, and this has definitely happened before, with very unstable energy levels throughout the day, either they're crashing throughout the day, maybe in the afternoon, or they've just got really low energy throughout the earlier half of the day, and then, you know, by the time night comes around, they've got a lot more energy. So, you know, if someone had come to me kind of with that presentation, and this is, again, just taking one symptom out of context, some of the things I might look to first would be how well this person is regulating blood sugar? Are they eating enough? Are they, you know, do they have a consistent sleep schedule? And I would address those things first, and those all might be enough to resolve this energy issue. And if those things aren't helping, then I would look to, you know, some more specific things that are unique to these symptoms. So maybe that's having a snack before bed that has enough carbs and fats and salt to help bring down the stress hormones and allow this person to relax and get to sleep, and then that might help resolve these energy issues. Or maybe it's making a point to get more sunlight in the morning to help reset the circadian rhythm. This was something that we talked about in previous episodes regarding sleep, so I'll link back to those. Or, you know, at this point, I might also consider something like B vitamins or other pro metabolic supplements earlier on in the day to help increase energy and have more consistent energy throughout the day. And so that would be kind of the step wise fashion that I would be, that I would be looking at things, how I would basically be identifying the bottlenecks and what the best approach would be, from my perspective, to go about addressing those, those issues. All right, so with that, we'll wrap up this episode. If you did enjoy it, please leave a like or comment. If you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening elsewhere, please leave a review or five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast, and are very much appreciated. As you well know, today's episode was a Q and A episode, and if you have any questions that you'd like us to answer on a future Q and A episode, you can leave those in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube, or feel free to send me an email at Jay Feldman wellness.com that's j, A, y at Jay Feldman wellness.com and if you are dealing with any of those low energy symptoms that we've discussed today, whether that is related to dental health or maybe the inconsistent energy I was just referring to, or troubles sleeping as I was just referring to, or if you're dealing with any other low energy symptoms like Chronic pain or weight gain or various digestive symptoms or brain fog or hormonal imbalances, or if you're dealing with any other low energy symptom or any chronic health conditions, then I'd highly recommend you 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 are really caused by a lack of energy. And I'll also 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 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.