Jay Feldman 0:04
Welcome to episode 79 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 and A episode where we'll be discussing whether it's beneficial to force increased mitochondrial respiration with supplements. How to determine the ideal amount of prometabolic supplements to take? What to do if you react poorly to collagen or gelatin protein powders, whether food additives like carrageenan gums, nitrates, sorbates, MSG, microbial enzymes, cultures and artificial colors are worth avoiding, and whether we need to be concerned about hyperthyroidism, and whether hyperthyroidism can be caused by over supplementing thyroid hormone. Today's episode is a Q and A episode. If you have any questions 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 send those in by email to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com that's Jay why at Jay Feldman wellness.com to check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast 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, maybe that's chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, joint pain, poor sleep or insomnia, brain fog, digestive symptoms, hormonal imbalances, or various other low energy symptoms or chronic health issues, 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 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, let's get started.

All right, so Dean asks, Does it make sense for someone to force themselves to be to better be able to oxidize glucose with things like niacinamide, aspirin and b1 and he used force in parentheses here, but kind of getting at what the question is, which is that a lot of prometabolic supplements will drive the production of of energy from glucose, drive the oxidation of glucose, and is that a good thing? Basically, if you're not already oxidizing that amount of glucose, is that a problem? Is that beneficial? Does it make sense? This is basically a question here, and I think it's really helpful question. We've talked a lot about how, in the bioenergetic space, a lot of these supplements are looked at as beneficial, and understandably so. They are generally beneficial, and because of that, they're often recommended to be used. And people will sometimes be using a ton of these supplements, and we've both talked about how we'll have people come to us and be doing worse because of all these supplements that they're on, and sometimes those basically causing some problems, more or less, because of this situation where you're kind of forcing the oxidation of glucose, so to speak. So another way to think of it, or way that I like to think of it, is that a lot of these pro metabolic supplements, and it depends on the specifics, it depends on the mechanisms, and maybe we'll talk about some of the specifics there, but a lot of them are basically pressing down the gas pedal of your car, and that's going to drive the production of energy, drive the the production of energy from fuel into the engine. And that can be a really great thing to do if you've got enough fuel, and if your engines working really well, and it can handle that. Whereas a lot of times, the issues that people are experiencing lead them to, for one, have issues with their engine where they're not properly producing energy, there's various things blocking it, or they're also not taking in enough fuel, or both, which is most common, the case, the most commonly the case. And so when that happens, if you then press on the gas pedal, you tend to make things a lot worse. You tend to drive stress, essentially in a physiological way. You're basically driving up the energy demands when there's a low amount of energy supply. And what that does is it causes stress in order to make up for the lack of energy supply, and that requires stress hormones. It requires dipping into the stress. Pathways of metabolism, and over time, causes a lot of problems. And I think again, whether it's using thyroid hormone, he mentioned niacinamide, aspirin and b1 but also caffeine, any of the pro metabolic hormones, pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA, and on from there, a lot of these will have that effect. And so there is, and I'll let you go in a second, and maybe we'll kind of talk about the balance here, and when it does make sense to use these and what kind of factors you want to consider.

Mike 5:30
I mean, I think it's all it's a matter of dose. I think like, it's under stress, using a 325, aspirin is not, you know, you're not slamming the gas pedal too hard. But I think, like, if I've seen people want to use, like, grams of aspirin a day, like, I haven't seen that work out too well for many people. And then, like, with b1 like, I notice, even for me, like, a very noticeable beneficial effect from b1 but I also aren't and not taking heroic doses of it. So I think that, you know, then a lot of times for a lot of people, a little bit will go a long way. What was the other one? You said niacinamide. Same thing with niacinamide. Like, if, if I take a huge, like, a huge dose of niacinamide, like 500 milligrams in one sitting, like, I won't feel well, I'll get, like, a weird breathlessness and be uncomfortable. But if I use smaller doses, I'll be okay. So, and I think even, I think the caps I have are either a hundreds or five hundreds. And I don't do a whole cap like I just do, I'll do a little bit. And I think for a lot of people, to progressive, and slow or gradual doesn't have to be slow, but gradual process of getting better. And there's no need to force things in the right direction. I think it's, it's more of like a gentle approach. I think works better, and that's coming from doing multiple slamming approaches and just hurting myself and experimenting with things and doing too much and causing problems. So I think a general approach of, you know, I kind of see it like a pyramid, or I describe it like a pyramid. It's not exactly a pyramid, but get the diorite, and then get your baseline, or what I call a core stack of supplements, right? Which are, you know, the general anti stress things, which tend to be vitamins and minerals, make sure that that's balanced. And then you can start to move towards, I guess, this would be considered ortho molecular approach. It's technically an allopathic approach, in the sense that you're still dumping in huge pharmaceutical quantities of of different compounds, and rather than physiologic quantities or of different compounds. So and can it be helpful in certain circumstances, like in deficiencies or in some certain circumstances, like the even dire circumstances? Yes. But I think for anybody who wants to give themselves back to baseline health, a gradual approach is probably the best course of action, and smaller doses. And, you know, finding out the amounts and the which compounds work for you, and if you have a bad experience, you know, limiting that for a period of time.

Jay Feldman 8:00
yeah, yeah, absolutely and again, there's a lot of individuality here because of some of those things you mentioned. So for example, you said 500 milligrams of b3 in a sitting will will sometimes cause breathlessness and issues for you, I've taken a couple of grams or gram and a half, maybe more, maybe a couple grams in the sitting, and not had a problem at all. And I've seen the same thing with clients, whereas others, you know, 100 milligrams, 150 milligrams, will cause some stress induction, and it's going to depend on the context of that moment, right that point in your life, that point in the day, how much fuel you have on hand, how what your needs are, all of those things are going to are going to come into play. And same thing like when we consider aspirin. So you mentioned, you know, 325 milligrams of aspirin should be, in general, not an issue, even if you are under stress, whereas a couple grams, maybe that's an issue, or a gram, maybe that's an issue. And again, I think part of that also comes down to some of the specifics here, where aspirin doesn't work the same as caffeine, which doesn't work the same as as b1 right there. We need to be considering the mechanisms for how these things are supporting us metabolically. And we can't go into the mechanisms for all of these individual supplements. And, you know, because there's, there's a lot going on here. But in general, what I would say is that, and you mentioned this in terms of the pyramid, is that first you want to make sure you've got those foundations in place. Got those foundations in place, right? You're getting enough of various nutrients. You're also getting enough fuel on board. And you're also doing the things that are removing the blocks of the things that are inhibiting energy production, PUFA, endotoxin, potentially nutrient deficiency, yeah, various irritants, anything that's driving stress or inflammation, yep, yep, and so if, and again, because if those things are not blocked, and you take a lot of any of these things, a lot of pregnenolone or progesterone or thyroid, or, you know, potentially even small amounts of those things. Or again, b1 niacinamide, caffeine, methylene blue. So if you do those things, it will be more likely to drive stress, as opposed to actually helping with your with your symptoms, or actually helping to support your metabolism, you're actually going to end up driving it in the wrong direction. So that's why it's so key to make sure you're adjusting those foundations, first removing those blocks and as you were getting at the next piece here is testing, especially with small doses of these different supplements, and really paying attention how you feel, and not just using anything because you're supposed to or because it's supposed to be beneficial, but keeping an eye on what you're experiencing in terms of your symptoms, and paying attention to any signs of stress, induction of of Yeah, you know, you'll notice signs of adrenaline, heart racing, maybe cold hands and feet, maybe irritability, anxiety.

Mike 10:46
I think, a big one for a lot of these substances, and people take it, you push the gas pedal. And I know for niacinamide, breathlessness is a huge one. But then also the anxiety, and then for aspirin, I have seen people absolutely wreck their stomach taking heroic doses of aspirin to try it and like taking it on a regular basis, because they saw on the on some forum or an article that x grams of doses of aspirin does XYZ, there's always there are side effects to a lot of these things, even vitamins at pharmacy or super physiologic dosages, you have to be careful. A lot of people that I've worked with don't respond well to the b1 100 complex vitamins because the dosage on all of the B vitamins is too high. And there are, like, for example, some of the methylated B vitamins interact with enzymes involved with dopamine and norepinephrine and other compounds and other neurotransmitters, and you start pushing the the balance or the pedal in one direction too hard, and you people start to get weird symptoms. So it's important to find the correct dose and and moderate that dose for yourself, and also certain compounds. You know some you may not respond well to niacinamide, but you do okay with thiamine, and you do okay with aspirin, or maybe you do okay with methylene blue, but you don't do well with coffee. Like, these are all of these options. All of these things are potential options. Now you want to be hitting your vitamins and minerals and macronutrients on a regular basis. That's, that's, there's no question there. But whether you go into like, farm, like, like, high, doses of things. Well then you have to start saying, Okay, what am I? You know, am I tolerating this or not? And then to maybe determine why you're not tolerating or not, or just don't do 500 milligrams or a gram of niacinamide three times a day. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of individuality, and you have to that's something that a lot of times you have to figure out through your personal experience experimentation.

Jay Feldman 12:44
Yeah and I do think there can be a place for three grams of niacinamide a day, or a couple grams of aspirin a day. You mentioned some of the potential issues with aspirin in terms of its intestinal or effects on the stomach as well and I think you've mentioned in the past, we've talked in the past about how glycine and vitamin C are generally protective against any of those damaging effects. So those are things to consider in that case. But yeah, there's a lot of individuality again. There are some people who will take 100 milligrams of niacinamide and feel anxiety, and others who will take a gram of niacinamide before bed and it helps them sleep. So generally, as we mentioned, foundations first and then, I do think there is a place for these things, again, starting with small doses and potentially working up depending on, again, what you're experiencing and what your needs are, and making sure that you're understanding the mechanisms for these different supplements and why you're using them, as opposed to just using them because you're supposed to, or because somebody mentioned At one point. And yeah, I think that there's great potential in using them when those foundations are in place and you're at a point where you can step on that gas pedal a little bit, and maybe you've adapted so far into a stress state that you need some help digging your way out. And sometimes super physiological doses of vitamins like b1 or b3 can help, especially if there's a deficiency prior. And sometimes high doses of some of these other things can help too, and sometimes regular doses can help. But again, there's a place for these things, and at the same time we the if there are blocks going on, we don't want to just add them on on top of those. It will just make it worse and drive that stress further. But if you're at a place where you're starting to do pretty well. A lot of your symptoms are improving. Maybe you've used small doses of these to help along that way. There might be a point for increasing doses of them after that point again, when you're starting to do well, but maybe progress has slowed. It's not like you're experiencing new symptoms or worse symptoms, but rather, it's just we're looking for further improvement or progressing at a faster rate, those are situations where I might use these outside of specific instances, right where high doses of niacinamide or aspirin can help for fungal infections. Let's say so outside of those specific instances, these would be some, you know, some context again, I probably wouldn't be doing high doses of niacinamide or aspirin for a fungal infection unless those foundations weren't. Ice anyway, so yeah, kind of applies in both senses.

Mike 15:04
Yeah, I agree. I don't have much to add to that one.

Jay Feldman 15:08
Well, let's move on then. So hope I'm pronouncing this name right, Saira or Sira asks about protein sources while avoiding collagen. She says, is gelatin safe? And this is a something that I've seen quite often, where people will react poorly to collagen or gelatin protein powders, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. And there can be a multitude of reasons for that. Sometimes it has to do with the quality of the product. Sometimes it has to do with some sensitivity to histamine or something else along those lines, or even some issues with glycine, if someone's dealing with maybe oxalate issues, which, again, I think is relatively rare where this would actually be an issue, but can happen. So there's instances where someone might react poorly to those things. There's also, again, in some poor product, like some not good quality products, there might be contaminants, potentially. Also, there's some some discussion that there could be some endotoxin inside the collagen or gelatin. So I think the simplest thing here, which kind of goes back to something we talk about a lot, is that if you're not reacting well to it, avoid it, don't, don't continue using it at the time. And if that is the case and you're not able to do collagen protein powder or gelatin protein powder one, you can always try the other one. But you can also try to get these things from food, which is something that, in general, I recommend trying to do first anyway, prior to the powders, because you have the possibility of contamination and whatnot. So making bone broths, or making any meat that has a bone in it or has a lot of connective tissue in it, will be a good way to get that gelatin protein, the collagen protein in your diet. Some people also react poorly to those, again, maybe some of those same issues, in which case you could use like a glycine supplement. Most people are fine with that. That would be kind of my last option normally.

Mike 17:03
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is she said just for protein sources. So I mean, you have all types of fish, you have all types of seafood, you have chicken, you have or lean cuts of fowl, and then you have all types of red meat, and then you also have dairy and you have whey protein and eggs, there's a eggs, there's a there's an endless number of protein sources. You don't have to use collagen or gelatin. I don't really use much collagen or gelatin because I don't do well with it. And even the collagenous cuts, they don't 100% sit well with me. So I mean, there's, there's a ton of different options available if you're wanting, I mean, you pretty much cover the spectrum for collagen and gelatin. Sources collagen, hydrolysate gelatin, like bone broth and cooking meat on the bone, and then glycine supplements. The main benefit of the collagen and gelatin is the glycine content and then the minimization of some of the other amino acids. But if you're not tolerating any of those options, well, there's a whole bunch of other protein sources that are just fine to work with on a regular basis.

Jay Feldman 18:11
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we would never say that you want this to be your primary source of protein anyway, right? This is something that's important, yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to have those other amino acids in there as well, the ones that are in the muscle meat or in the dairy or in the eggs. But we want to be balancing that out with the highly glycine rich protein sources. Again, glycine. They also have hydroxyproline in there and proline and normally Some, yeah, some other benefits to them as well, but those being the main ones, and so, yeah, it is important to make sure you're getting a source of at least glycine. We talked in the past about that balance between glycine and methionine, that's that's such a big focus. And basically, the detrimental effects of excess methionine can be reversed just by adding in some glycine. So if you're not able to tolerate the foods that contain collagen or gelatin and you're not able to tolerate the protein powders that are collagen or gelatin based, then a glycine supplement would probably be worth, worth trying at that point.

Mike 19:12
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the that would be the best course of action as well.

Jay Feldman 19:17
Perfect. All right. So the next question is from Xavier, and he's asking about food additives, specifically, MSG, carrageenan, lecithin, citric acid, ascorbic acid, nitrate, sorbates, Xanthan which is xanthan gum, I'm assuming. And he's saying he asks which ones of these are harmful and which ones are fine. And we did an episode in the past talking about a few of these. We talked about citric acid, ascorbic acid and soy less than specifically, it was episode 39 but i'll link back to that in the show notes, so I'll go back and listen to that in terms of our answers for those and just just for a bit of context. First in terms of those, it's it's one of the situations where they can be potentially harmful, but those ones tend not to be so harmful that they should be avoided at all costs. But a lot of that's going to depend on your individual situation, and that is the case with some of these additives, but not all of them. I would say some of them are worth avoiding entirely. So the first of those would be carrageenan, and this is one that is pretty well known for its toxic effect. It's not allowed to be in foods in, I want to say, all throughout Europe, maybe just the UK. Of course, it is allowed to be in foods here. But anyway, there's, there's some knowledge about its its issues, some concerns about being carcinogenic, but also it's pretty reliably able to drive inflammation, especially in the intestines. In the gut, it's a pretty major driver of gut inflammation and irritation. And yeah, it's that's seen pretty ubiquitously, and I've seen it have that effect in the amounts that are in foods. And quite a few people where it's almost like a poisoning effect that it really, really will can dramatically induce some inflammatory symptoms and really set someone's symptoms off for sometimes several days or even a couple weeks. And some people who are particularly sensitive. For reference, also, carrageenan is normally found in dairy products, ice creams, sometimes like cream cheese or creams. It's used as a, I want to say, a stabilizer, and yeah, so it's, that's generally the main place you'll find it. You'll find it some other packaged foods as well. So it's something you want to keep look for, if you look out for if you're checking a label. But yeah, what this is one that would fall in that category for me, of ones that I would really, really go out of my way to avoid it. It's also, again, anytime you're finding commercial ice cream, especially soft serve, it's probably going to be in there. You can normally find ingredients online or at the place that you're getting it from if you ask for them. But yeah, something to certainly be aware of, and one that I would go out of my way to avoid, for sure.

Mike 22:09
I would try to avoid all of them if possible, and stick to as much Whole Foods as you can, of course, in a sense that if you're gonna have juice, 100% juice, if you're gonna have fruit and fruit, if you're gonna have meat and meat, if you're gonna have, you know, dairy, then dairy, whatever it is like to just have the singular ingredient, or if you have mixtures of things to to avoid all of the stabilizers, emulsifiers, preservatives, etc, I would say the ones that are i I personally, I think that the other thing too, is when they list ingredients on a product, the first ingredients are nor, at least in the United States, the first ingredients are normally the most prevalent ingredients, and then the last listed ingredients are usually the least. So like for example, there's a company here called Tate's bake shop that makes chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chip cookies ingredients are all fine, except they have xanthan gum as the last ingredient or one of the last ingredients. So it's a, like, a marginal amount. I still think it's problematic, however, like, I don't think that marginal amount is terrible, but I wouldn't wreck like, overall, I still wouldn't recommend those as be, like, the main carb source for somebody. I think, I think pretty much all of these are problematic. And I know for certain people, the citric acid is especially allergenic. And I think Georgie posted a study about that, which I actually have on my computer here, about the citric acid coming from the asperologist Niger mold and then being contaminated. And I've seen quite a few people react poorly to it. I react poorly to it, um. And then the list, I think the least worst on here that I've seen so out of all of them that I'm like, the least worried about would be like a lecithin, like, uh, this. I think there's like a sunflower lecithin that some of the chocolate companies add to their chocolate as an emulsifier, yeah. And normally soy lesser than Yeah, or soy less than Yeah, not terrible, but it's still not ideal. There are chocolates that don't have that, but overall, I would try to avoid most of these if you can, um, and especially, especially ms, MSG carrageenan, citric acid is really hard, but yeah, citric acid nitrates I would, I would avoid in your meats, those are actually listed as carcinogens because of the interaction of the the nitrates with the meat produces certain compounds that have been like, known to be carcinogenic towards the stomach and gastrointestinal tract and the colon specifically. So that's, I think, some of the association between processed meats and is because of the nitrates that they add to them. So I would avoid that really, a lot of these things even artificial colors and like the different dyes and stuff they put in food, like a lot of those things are just. Straight garbage, like the industrial add additives are just, pretty much just garbage added to the food. So I've really tried to avoid it as much as possible and stick to the as best as you can, to the like the food source being just that food source. So orange juice is just orange juice, if you can. You know you're just buying steaks. There's no phosphate, sodium phosphate in your seafood, like, I would avoid all of that as much as possible.

Jay Feldman 25:27
Yeah, I'm just so a few things you mentioned, I want to come back to. So one you mentioned, like the listing of the ingredients and how Normally, these are the last ingredients, right? These additives tend not to be the main things, right? These are farther down. That being said, very small amounts of some of these can be still allergenic, still cause major problems, as you're talking about, for example, citric acid coming from mold, which we talked about in that episode 39 those mold toxins can be a huge problem, even in really tiny amounts. Again, same with carrageenan, same with gums, even if they are some of those last ingredients, they can still all be problematic that being said, and I know you were saying it, so it's best to avoid these. And I think that's true, although, of course, when we're looking at best, there's so many factors to consider. And I know as an example, you will eat those Tate's cookies. Sometimes, I have no idea how often you're eating them currently, or like, when the last time was that you had them. So if you want to chime in there, feel free. But I know those are something you would go to when you were looking for some variety, looking to mix things up. Things up, just you were particularly hungry that day when you're at the grocery store, whatever it is, I want to speak for you, but those are things that I'll do too sometimes, not that there's Tate's cookies out here, but, you know, equivalent things. What you know, maybe ice cream is a good example. Again, if you look at Haagen Dazs ice cream, you've got milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, that's pretty much it maybe a tiny bit of salt or something, and they don't include the gums or carrageenan or anything like that in their main flavors. And that's, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, of course. That's not just eating the milk separate from the eggs, but there's nothing wrong with mixing just individual ingredients that are all good things, and it's not the worst thing either. We talked about this in that citric acid ascorbic acid episode. If, if your only source of decent quality juice is, you know, contains a bit of citric or ascorbic acid, and you feel okay with it, it's probably better than not getting any, depending on what other foods you have available and what the other options are, maybe the only fruit you have in the winter is canned peaches or canned lychees or something, and they have some citric acid, again, that's probably better than not eating any at all. So it's always contextual. And while I agree it would be great if our foods didn't contain any of these, the reality is that a lot of them do, and also that we don't always have the benefit of just having those best individual quality ingredients, not to mention that sometimes we want to eat something that is unique and and is a combination of those things, and we don't always want to make it ourselves, in which case, I think we can make good choices depending on how sensitive you are to these things and how damaging each one is individually. And so again, that like, that's kind of I want to go through each of them individually a little bit, and just explain, like, where they fall in that ranking or in that spectrum of, yeah, this is a food that I know isn't great, but it's okay to have occasionally, versus, I really wouldn't eat this because of this ingredient. Do you have anything you want to add or or revise from what I said?

Mike 28:17
I mean, I'm not saying that you can't have, like, the cookies. That's why I kind of mentioned them. Like you can't have a combination products. But I think the idea would be like to just have products that your ice cream is, you're literally just cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, etc, and not go for the ice cream options that have a whole bunch of other junk added to them. So it's like this, all there are food options like that, but I would really try to just like, the way I see it is essentially like the best in health insurance policy is food. It's not, you know, Blue Blue Cross, Blue Shield, or or whatever your health insurance is. Like the the National Health Service, whatever it is, wherever you are, it's really your food quality and how you take care of yourself. And so for me, for my perspective, at least if, like, I'm going to spend my money, I'm going to spend it on, like, the best quality food that I can possibly get within my means, just be number one, because, like, my entire functioning is better when I avoid a lot of these compounds. Like, like, for example, the citric acid makes me brain foggy if I have too much of it, um, but also it, like, in the long run, I think it's just better overall, from for my health, like, I've, I do, do the Tate's cookie sometimes, but, like, I trialed a period of time where I was eating them consistently, and they're the they're starting to irritate my stomach, and I was, I was pretty sure that was related to the xanthan gum. So, yeah, there's a, it's about like, getting, like, you want to know the ingredients on the package if you're going to eat the food, and then for the bulk of the diet, like, I would say, to have, like, you know, a. The whole foods as the bulk of the diet, that would be my, my preference overall. And, you know, there's, there are these other options, but I wouldn't make them the majority. And then as far as juices and all that go, like, obviously, there's spectrum to everything. There's a spectrum of options, and we've gone through them before. So if you can get, like, not from concentrate, organic, you know, there's some non pasteurized juice options. That's obviously the best. I can't afford to drink that. You know, it's super expensive here in the US to drink that juice on a regular basis. So the next best thing is, like, there's a pasteurized juice, orange juice, not for concentrate. That's organic. So I'll go for that one instead. So it's like, you gotta, you know, you find you. You work with what you got. You have to adapt to what you have and go with the best options that you have available.

Jay Feldman 30:47
Yeah. So with that in mind, and you know, kind of going through these ingredients, one at a time again, we both agree the care gene and is one that we would avoid, pretty much universally, regardless of whether it was like, regardless of the other ingredients of the food, regardless of how much we want, and it's one that we would really avoid in terms of our striking that balance for ourselves. As far as the gums go, for me, and it sounds like for you as well, well, I guess even to step back so, so what the gums are is they're basically prebiotic fibers, which means that they're going to feed whatever bacteria or microbes that we have going on in our intestines, if you have, if you know someone listening has a microbial balance or SIBO or something else going on, these are going to be particularly problematic because they're going to feed that issue. They are FODMAPs, yeah, yep, exactly. And so if that's not an issue for you, you might be totally fine with the gums, even in moderate amounts, might be totally fine again, the foods that you're finding them in are probably never going to be ideal for your main sources of food, but as as you know, supplementary foods, occasionally, they should be totally fine. You know, it might vary based on the exact amount or the exact type. Most of the gums, I would say, are largely the same, though, whether it's like Xanthan or gum a rare bit Arabic, Arabic gum, yeah, there's guar gum, Gower gum, yeah, yeah. So yeah, they're basically prebiotics. A lot of this is going to depend on your gut health, but if your gut health is all right, I would say it falls in the kind of yellow category. It's not something I would avoid at all costs. As you said, Mike, kind of the same for you, but probably wouldn't feel great if that was the main source. Main source of your carbs, or like in involved in the main source of your carbs.

Mike 32:27
Yeah and for nitrates in your meat products, I would definitely try to avoid those as much as possible, just because of the they do have a pretty strong association with different issues inside the gastrointestinal tract, because of the reactions that are formed between the nitrates and different components in the meat and stomach acid and all type of stuff. So I would avoid those as much as possible. Like, even if you're like, for a lot of people, like, beef jerky could be a snack that you eat on the go. I would avoid it. I would try to get a beef jerky that doesn't have nitrates in it. Um, that'd be pretty important sorbates. I don't see sorbates in as much as in. I haven't seen them as much in the food options, at least personally, that I have on a regular basis. I feel like it's usually potassium sorbate, and that's usually in much more processed food. It's I haven't seen it too much in like quality juices, even like juices that aren't ideal. I still don't see too much sorbates. It's usually like the lower, like, the lowest quality brands of juices will put sorbate, citric acid, ascorbic acid, and then sulfites and like, if your juice is if you have all of that. I mean, if that's the only option you have. You know, it is what it is, but that's like, probably the last juice option I would go for if it's having all that type of stuff. So the store base, I don't see too much, but I, I don't, I try to avoid them. But I don't think that they're, they're like, as terrible as, like, carrying in.

Jay Feldman 33:59
Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It reminded me. Also, you mentioned the lecithin before, like the soy lecithin or sunflower lecithin, to me again, and this is all going to vary based on anyone's individual situation, but it's not something I would go out of my way to avoid. And something like chocolate, yeah, of course, if there was two options that were equal, and I liked them equally, and one didn't have it, I would choose the one without it. But again, really kind of something that I think is relatively minimal, unless someone's particularly sensitive. I'd probably say the same with the potassium sorbate. And, you know, I agree with you there, and in terms of the nitrates, I agree also, I would those are, those are ones I would certainly avoid. We've talked a lot about problems with nitric oxide. Basically, it directly inhibits our ability to produce energy. So kind of in, you know, in connection with what we were talking about earlier, we want to be minimizing that. And yeah. So that would include minimizing nitrates, which, as you said, also can be even more problematic because of their interaction with other compounds in the food. So, yeah, those would be ones I would avoid as well. Yeah. And then. Yeah. MSG, you mentioned MSG before as one that you would avoid pretty, pretty heavily.

Mike 35:06
Yeah, I would definitely avoid MSG. I think it has. There's a bunch of negative effects from taking glutamate in that form, and just like excessive amounts of glutamate in general, from like, a neuro excitatory perspective, and, yeah, overall, that's, and that's usually, like, there's, since there was such a huge campaign in the United States on that that's using, like, some of the lowest quality food options, right? Because the other thing too is you can gage the quality of your food to a large extent, sometimes based on what the additives are in. Are put in if you have a like, as I mentioned before, if you have a juice and they're throwing in but like, I think juicy juice does this, where it's like, it's like, citric acid, ascorbic acid, sulfites, all this type of stuff. It's like, it is crap juice. And then it's usually, like, they're usually, like, huge blends. Normally it's all apple or pear, because that's the cheapest, yes, like, first ingredient Apple, second ingredient pear, and then it's like, pineapple orange or whatever else after that. And then the bottle will list it as, oh, this is, like, you know, orange mango juice when the base is apple. That is a low, extremely low quality product, like, probably one of the worst in the market, I would say, except some of the, like, super off brands, and you can tell based on when they do stuff like that, you like, know that they're just scraping the bottom of the barrel or their product?

Jay Feldman 36:23
Yeah. And again, some people, you know, if you're talking to high quality apple juice, that is organic, especially you want that with apples, that might be totally fine with a lot of people, but normally, in the context you're talking about, we're talking about the lowest quality fruit juice, and not organic, and plus all the additives. And, yeah, those are some signs that's not a good product.

Mike 36:42
It's like, apples all over the world just all brought together in one big vat, and then they just it, yeah, I would if, if that's all you have available, and you you're gonna have juice you don't tolerate starch. Well, you know, like, sometimes it is what it is. Like, I've definitely had lower quality juice, like, when I've had to fly in the airport and stuff like that, like, I was drinking Minute Maid and stuff, which isn't the best either, but it's better than nothing. Um, but yeah, I would a lot of times you can tell that it's, and you'll tell with the taste, like, like, if it's so uniform, or it tastes a little fake, or it's or the taste is just, like, not super sweet, you can really tell. But, yeah, I would try to, I would try to move towards, like, the higher quality options, if you have that available, definitely. And they're becoming more widespread too. Like, you can get palm pomegranate juice in a lot of places now, and that's ingredients on that is literally just pomegranate juice and water, like concentrate in water.

Jay Feldman 37:38
And again, it's, it's about finding that balance, right? So I have done that same thing where I would go with, like, even the simply orange orange juice, you know, at the airport, because that one's supposed to be even better than the others. And I would feel pretty bad if I had that kind of, like, that quality orange juice, or Tropicana, or Minute Maid again, or simply, which is non GMO, whatever else they say. So in that case, I would even just go for something sugar based. I would either get like a lemonade or like a tea or something and add sugar to it. I would prefer to just have that than to have the low quality orange juice, because I feel better with that. I feel better with that than getting something with something with high fructose corn syrup also. So it's about testing out those different things, finding that balance and also having an understanding of the ingredients, so you can make better informed experimentation.

Mike 38:22
Yeah, I would say that what you want to see for a lot of products, as I mentioned earlier, is just like that singular ingredient. So if it is orange juice, it should be orange juice. There shouldn't be or orange juice concentrate in water, if there's ascorbic acid, okay, whatever you know, if you're in the airport or whatever it's, all you have available, your grocery store, your strap for cash, whatever the deal is. Okay, that's fine. But if you start seeing like, like, if you're gonna go get grape juice, and there's like, 15 ingredients on there, it's like, how hard was it to just bottle grape juice? Guys? You just squeeze the grapes, put them in the bottle. Like, okay, you need to preserve it and put some vitamin C, but like, what like, if they're doing all this other stuff, then you know, those are usually bad indicators about the quality of food. And then again, like with ice cream, you're going to have more than one ingredient, because it's not just frozen cream, right? But when you're looking at those ingredients, like, we know what cane sugar is, we know what cream is, we know what egg yolks are. We know what salt is, but it's like, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate, FDC, yellow number seven. Like, when you start seeing all that stuff, it's like, Okay, now we're in. Now this is garbage quality if they're gonna have to add all this type of stuff. So it's best to avoid when you start seeing that, and go for options that have less ingredients and ingredients that are more widely known and that are easily recognizable. And then, obviously, there's the whole non GMO, which would be ideal and organic. And then with juices, the not from concentrate stuff. But again, like I would say, the base quality to get to reach towards, is the. Options that don't have all these industrial additives, even if it's not organic. Like, because a lot of people come to me, oh, like, I have to do this 100% organic. It's like, No, you don't. You don't have to be 100% organic. Like, is it better? Yes, but what do you have available to you? What's your RE What are your resources? Like, what can you afford? And go from there, what is the best option that you can afford for you, and what is the best option that in your certain circumstance, like I work, I have a client right now who works as a as a truck driver, it's like he's not going to be able to meal prep every day, and he's not going to be able to eat, you know, you know, organic 100% of the time, but if he has high quality beef jerky, if he has some quality whey protein that he bought online, and he has some quality like collagen protein, and then he has quality chocolate, when he goes to the truck stops or or gas stations, or some of these other markets, whatever it is the there's options there where he can say, Okay, I'm going to get POM pomegranate juice, and I'm going to get this orange juice, And I'm going to make a blend, and the ingredients the ingredients aren't terrible, and he still feels better than eating out restaurant food. So it's like, does it have to be 100% organic? No, does it have to be the most perfect, pristine food option? No, but it's the best for try and make the best decision given the circumstances that you have. So it's a spectrum, absolutely.

Jay Feldman 41:21
And you touched on the organic piece. And again, there's so much that's going to vary there based on the type of food, the type of juice, like the fruit that it's coming from. And so there's a lot of factors to consider. I don't know if we've talked about that specifically before, if not, maple, have to do that. Talk about that in the future. But yeah, there's a lot to consider. And again, these, these additives are one of those. But as you're saying, too, it's a matter of, in a lot of situations, doing the best with what you've got, but also understanding what but that best is, what are those best options? So to circle back to a couple other food additives, just to get into some specifics here, the MSG, we agree, problematic, excessive glutamate being a major excitotoxic problem, and so, yeah, that would be one that we'd want to avoid. And then you mentioned, like, artificial colors a couple times. You mentioned, like the yellow, and there's a few others and and these are ones that I would also go out of my way to avoid, again, falling probably similar in that similar to the carrageenan MSG category, I would really go out of my way to avoid the artificial colors for one it's just how frustrating. It's like there's literally no need for them, and there are natural options that are just from food, that you can be used, that can be used for coloring, and don't have any even controversy around them being toxic in the same way. So yeah, but there's a lot of concern about the artificial colors being toxic and and having various problematic effects. And something that I know, I know of several parents and clients who are parents who mentioned that they can see huge change in their children's behavior when they have something that is colors. Of course, it's generally worse quality food, so there's some confounding variables there as well. But yeah, that's that's one that'll go out of my way to avoid, and is also quite frustrating, since it's so unnecessary to have colored food. But that's just how it is.

Mike 43:18
Well, especially there are a better colored options. Like, I know there's all the organic brands will put in like, different like, vegetable extracts for colors now, exactly, yeah. So it's just like, they're just scraping the bottom of the barrel to produce the lowest quality products available for with that type of stuff. And it's just, it's, it's disappointing to see food manufacturers doing things like that. The one product that i The one thing I want to mention that is always a hard No, no matter, like, what else the other ingredients are in a food. If I pick up a food and I see any vegetable oil in there, it's automatically a no. I don't care what I would rather fast than eat that that a lot of the vegetable oil, like, whether it's different types of chips, whatever it is, even if there's a small amount, if it's a dip or whatever, it's just like, Nope. That's, I don't care if there was no industrial additives of canola oil or soybean oil or sunflower oil, whatever is added. Just not that's a hard No.

Jay Feldman 44:14
Yeah, I will. I'm going to throw in a couple exceptions on my end. So one is that sometimes you'll see talking about first versus last ingredients. Sometimes you'll see, like a really small amount of an oil at the very end of the ingredient list. And if you know it's like less than the amount of salt or less than the amount of some spice or something, they're using it for some reason that it's not like the main, the main part of the food. You can also look at the label and see how much fat is in there. So as an example, I know sometimes with with certain dried fruit, they'll add a really tiny bit of sunflower oil, I think, to, like, keep it from clumping together. And if you look at the label, it'll show, you, know, 30 to 40 grams of carbs, zero grams of fat. You'll see that the the oil is the last ingredient. Normally, there's only, like, one or two ingredient or two or three ingredients, anyway, so that would be situation where I want to be. So. Concerned about that oil, I would try to find an option without it, but that would be a situation again, where I would say, it's not such a concern. And you mentioned that you'd rather fast instead of eat something that is vegetable oil for me, would probably depend on how hungry I was and what the food was, but fast, yeah, and it depends also, like I've had times where I've unknowingly eaten a decent amount of vegetable oil at a restaurant, or what I assumed was that and felt terrible after the, you know, the entire next day, potentially. And so that's something, you know, I would definitely go out of my way if I have choices. Sometimes, if I'm, you know, if there aren't choices, it might be something I go with. But again, I go out of my way to make sure that I have choices and bring food for most of the situations. Of course, there are exceptions, and sometimes I'll have some, and it's, you know, and I feel okay after two it really varies. But I'm, I'm with you in the sentiment, and the vast majority of the time,

Mike 45:55
I don't think I've ever had a spot where I was like, for like, it was either eating or like, not it was either eating something with vegetable oil or not eating. I think there's, I've always had the oper. I've either brought food with me, or there was other options around that I could kind of make it work, right, whereas, like, I could, there was a juice for me to buy, or there was, like, a soda that wasn't terrible as far as cane sugar or maybe had citric acid, but I was okay with that. And I was like, still able to to do something, or I had, there's like, beef jerky or something that didn't have oil, because, like, a lot of times will be like, traveling and in airports or gas stations, there's still, like, they still have, like, even gas stations now are getting, like, grass fed beef jerky in there. Even when I was like, driving from New Jersey to Florida, I was like, along the way in the south, we were stopping in these little these just country gas stations, and there's grass fed beef jerky. So it was, even if I didn't have food prepared, there's still a lot of great options. And then they were also had some pretty good juice options, which I was surprised. You know, it wasn't terrible. And then there are always sodas in the gas stations too, so, but I would always, I generally prefer to go with juice. I don't drink too much soda.

Jay Feldman 47:08
Yeah, there's, there's been situations traveling through Latin America where I've it's been either eat something with with vegetable oil or don't eat so, oh yeah. But, and also situations all you know, as you said to where there's no quality there's no good quality juice, there's no good quality beef jerky, things like that. And have to make some some other choices, again, because because of what's available. But those situations are very rare, very few and far between. And I tend to prepare pretty well for these things. But yeah, things like that happen anyway. It's it's all about having the knowledge and making those choices and making those choices and making the best choices, and experimenting and seeing how you feel when you make certain choices. And then, you know, for next time, yeah, there's a couple other food ingredients I wanted to touch on that are specifically dairy based. And sometimes I get some questions about these. Sometimes also just things that I bring up with my clients that they're not so aware of. One of them is the enzymes used for cheese, where, traditionally, cheese was made with what's called Animal Renee, where they're getting basically enzymes from animal products. And more industrially, they tend to use microbial enzymes, and those microbial enzymes can have some irritating effects and allergenic effects, much like what we've talked about in terms of something like citric acid. And so some people are totally fine when they have a cheese that's made with microbial enzymes. Some will react poorly to that. And so I always recommend the animal Renee over the microbial enzymes when that's an option, and then paying attention how you feel when you have one or the other, just as again, something to pay attention to there can be allergenic and irritating, and then the last one in terms of food additives overall, but also specifically with dairy. And I guess this also applies to other foods as well. Is all the probiotics and cultures that they're now adding to a lot of foods, because probiotics are just universally healthy. It doesn't matter what strain or what types or anything or the amounts, you just throw it in food, and it makes the food healthy nowadays. And so those are things that I would be very weary of. There's, I've seen quite a few instances, and some for myself, where people react poorly to those cultures. They again cause digestive irritation, which sometimes, when we talk about that, somebody might think like so what you maybe you just feel slightly like a little bit of discomfort or something for a bit. But these are things that can contribute to other issues. It can drive microbial problems, or you end up with microbial imbalances. You can drive endotoxin production. You can cause weight gain and swelling and water retention. There's real effects of these things beyond just feeling a little bit bad for a period of time, if you do so, I'm very wary of any probiotics or cultures that are added to any food. And when it comes to dairy, you want to be aware of these in yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, i. I think those are the main ones, but sometimes they add them, I think, to other ones as well. So definitely want to be aware of those with something like cottage cheese, there's, I don't remember what the name of it is, but there's, like, a traditional culture or bacteria that they normally use, and that one seems to be pretty benign, but sometimes they add other ones in for the probiotic benefits. So that's one I'd be wary of. Again, with yogurt, because of those cultures added, I think that there are some possible issues there. And I tend to lean toward other forms of dairy. And then with kefir, the kefir that you're finding in the store is normally, I want to say they pasteurize it and then add probiotic, quote, unquote, probiotic cultures, cultures after, yeah, those are all questionable as well. It's very different from getting a true raw kefir that, again, you're still potentially rolling the dice a bit. You're still getting whatever cultures are in normally, it's grains, I believe that they use to create the kefir. Sometimes they can have a lot of benefit, sometimes they can have drawbacks. But the point here being that this is another set of ingredients that I would be aware of and be semi weary of, and I would tend to lean away from. And we've talked in the past about just probiotics as a whole, and how they are not just universally benign and beneficial, and they can cause quite a few issues. They can actually cause intestinal overgrowth with the types of cultures that are being added in. So you can have SIBO with the probiotic culture by eating the probiotic or taking it.

Mike 51:16
So I've seen that with kombucha. I've seen people slam kombucha a lot, they'll they've getting, they get SIBO from the yeast that they put in there, or, I guess, sifo Whatever.

Jay Feldman 51:27
Yeah, yeah. Or I'm sure that maybe the bacteria too, but yeah. And again, it's going to depend on the type of kombucha and what exact cultures are used. And some could be particularly beneficial, and some might not. So sometimes it's a matter of researching a particular strain. Sometimes it's a matter of just paying attention, how do you feel, and, yeah, making choices with these things in mind.

Mike 51:47
I've never seen a Keffer in a in a grocery store use Keffer grains. It's always listed species, and a lot of the kefirs that I see in the store are just garbage quality, right? They it's like, all the strains and yogurt and a whole bunch of other ingredients and gums. I've never been able to, I haven't seen one personally where it's like, which is the initial kefir recipe is just put, at least from the, I think the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, was just take, like, go or sheep's milk and put it in a bag that was like, like the like a sheep's milk. It was like the stomach of the sheep or the goat or whatever they had it hung up, they put it in there, and then they let it, like, sit on the door for extended period of time, and then it would ferment and sour. And that was how the kefir was formed. Now it's pasteurized dairy. Throw in a whole bunch of other ingredients. So that is, you know, Mango kefir, or whatever it is. And then, um, put add the cultures afterwards. This, like, list of specific cultures, which I have no idea why they choose the ones that they choose. And they don't even list the strain, the specific strains on them most times. And then, like, add a whole bunch of guns and additives so that, like, looks great and it like, super sweet and has all this, like, a whole list of other ingredients and whatnot. Yeah, I tend to stay, I would, I would say, like, higher quality yogurts would from the grocery store probably be a better option than any kefir. So if you weren't trying to have any fermented dairy.

Jay Feldman 53:18
Probably, I still generally recommend leaning away from the yogurts, unless you unless someone is confident that they do really well with it. I've seen even the best quality. You know, Greek yogurts from grass fed cows still lead to water retention weight gain, especially like abdominally things like that. So I tend to recommend leaning away from it. But again, some people do fine. So it can all it can all vary. Yeah, yeah. And you had mentioned, I don't know if I maybe I missed it, but they do use a grain when they like certain types of grains, when they do the when they create the kefir and they in, yes, traditionally.

Mike 53:53
In the traditional bag that they would ferment it in, there would be kefir grains, which is essentially like the the biofilm, colonies of bacterias and yeast that form from the fermentation of the milk. And you don't remove the grains. They stay in the bag, and you just put that. You just keep putting the milk back in there, and it'll ferment it. And they like, kind of builds up over time. Obviously, if you have too much grain, you remove it. I mean, I I tried kevra for a while, so I had grains, and I would was taking raw goat milk, and I was mixing it with the raw goat milk, kepper grains, and then I would finish, and I'd put that in, you know, I I would take, I would drink all the fluid. I would add the raw goat milk in, and it would ferment again. I didn't have all, you know, the the sack, or whatever that they use traditionally, but Adam mason jars, that's what I was doing.

Jay Feldman 54:41
yeah, I know we bolted it some, some raw heifer for a while. Mine was from a local goat farm, and I felt like it seemed to help clear things out at the time.

Mike 54:49
The first time I did it, I had the, I literally like crap, my brains out for, like, the first so I took it, I did the Keffer, um, I think. Did, like, a four ounce glass to start, which was way too much. And it just like, as soon as it hit my stomach, like, literally, an hour later, I started sweating. I was like, Oh, why am I sweating? And then it hit me, and I was like, out to out to lunch. And I was like, I had, I had to, like, go home, because I knew it was gonna be bad.

Jay Feldman 55:19
Yeah, yeah. It's definitely something to be careful with.

Mike 55:22
That was super strong. And that was from a raw that it was raw kefir I purchased with kefir grains from an Amish farm. So it was, like, the real deal. Like, like, there was grains inside the kefir that I purchased, I and, like, in the little glass, like, I had some kefir grains. It was very strong,

Jay Feldman 55:41
Yeah. And just for reference, because I wasn't aware of this, the the grains, it's just the cultures. They just call it grain because it resembles, like, little grains.

Mike 55:49
Yeah, the colonies look like little rice grains.

Jay Feldman 55:52
Yeah, it's just bacteria and yeast, like cultures. It's not actually grains, like, like wheat or something like that.

Mike 55:59
Yeah, no, it's not. It's just the bacteria and yeast.

Jay Feldman 56:03
Yeah, just called grains. Okay, do you have anything else to add in terms of food additives or other harmful food ingredients?

Mike 56:11
I can't think of any off. I was trying to think of some off the top of my head, titanium dioxide or silicon dioxide and supplements are things that I would highly recommend avoiding. I don't think magnesium stearate or microcrystalline cellulose are terrible, but I would really try to avoid the titanium dioxide. And I've worked with quite a quite a few clients, and including myself, where the supplement, like additives, jacked up their stomachs and like, gave like, all types of intestinal irritation. I just want people to to also know that, like silicon dioxide is in a sense, or kind of like powdered glass. So I would that's what kind of how I describe it. And I've and I've been seriously irritated by it, so I avoid pretty much all supplements that have that. And then sometimes I think capsules, the caps, the encapsulation, like the actual capsules, can be problematic for people, so I tend to recommend opening them. And it just depends on the person. Some people are tanks and they don't feel anything, and others, it's like their symptoms come just with, you know, a small amount of of flow agent or anything like that.

Jay Feldman 57:19
Yeah. And there's also the concern with the silicone and titanium dioxide, that there's a industrial contamination because the way that they're produced. So yeah, those are things to consider. And yeah, with supplements, I tend to lean toward powders and things that have no other ingredients when possible, even though it's less convenient, I think it's, it's it's generally worth going that that direction?

Mike 57:42
Yeah, and there are some companies that like pure encapsulations, Nutri bio, I know, like ideal labs, his Georgie doesn't add, like, too many bad additives or anything like that. Um, health natra, I think forefront has some stuff that doesn't have, like, the extra additives. And then there's a company pure bulk so all of those are bulk supplements, and bulk supplements, yeah, um, but all of those companies, you know, they don't have a lot of additives. You can buy straight powders, or their liquids, or the formulations that they have don't have, like, a lot of junk in them. But again, even with those companies, your mileage will vary in your tolerance, like, there's some supplements, even from those companies that I just do not do well with, and I like regardless of what it is like, I'll take a pregnant alone from one company versus pregnant alone from another company, and the ingredients on pregnant alone from one of the companies will wreck me, whereas the other one. I take it as a powder, and I have no problem. So it really depends on your tolerance to different things, and you have to test it always comes down to individually testing.

Jay Feldman 58:46
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I don't think any other ingredients come to mind for me, but I'm sure we'll both think of a bunch afterward, and we'll have to include them in the future.

Mike 58:55
Okay

Jay Feldman 58:57
All right, so the next question, again, I hope I don't mess this name up, Aditya. She says, or he says, Can you make a video on hyperthyroidism? Nobody talks about it in the community, and we haven't even done an episode or series yet talking about hypothyroidism or thyroid health or thyroid function as a whole, which I'd like to do at some point. And but I wanted to just touch on this one real quick. And I think the first piece that I would say here is that the reason why people generally don't talk about it very much is because I think it's very rare compared to hypothyroidism. And I think a lot of the symptoms and lab values attributed to hyperthyroidism often are still signs of hypothyroidism. And I know that's something that Ray Pete has talked about quite a bit, but bit, where, generally what people are looking for, and they're talking about hyperthyroidism, is adrenaline type symptoms like really fast heart rate, sometimes fatigue and weakness, excessive hunger and things like that. Wasting. What's that?

Mike 59:58
like? Wasting? There's. Yeah, checks, yeah, associated with it,

Jay Feldman 1:00:02
yeah. And as an example, I know that Ray has talked about how he was in a similar state as that. He felt like he was eating, I think he said 10,000 calories a day. He was also pretty active at the time. He had, like, a manual labor type job, and taking thyroid actually allowed him to decrease that considerably, and he felt way better and didn't have those same, quote, hyperthyroid symptoms. By taking thyroid, which, of course, would not improve hyperthyroidism, it would make it worse. And so I think what we're kind of seeing here is that when someone is severely, severely hypothyroid, or very hypothyroid, you can see a couple things. One is you can see a strong suppression of TSH on the labs due to stress. And we talked about this in the past, how stress in and of itself, the stress hormones will do a couple things. It'll decrease the conversion from t4 to t3 and it will also suppress TSH. And so you can have a very, very low TSH, not because you have good thyroid health, but because you're under a lot of stress, and you're actually severely hypothyroid. So that's one piece to consider, of course, also the tendency towards stress hormones will increase with hypothyroidism. So again, if somebody is always in an adrenaline state, that can be because of just kind of, you know, like raise the example of repeat that can be because of hypothyroidism, not hyperthyroidism. Now all that being said, of course, hyperthyroidism does exist. And you can have the general I would say, you've got the autoimmune cause, the Graves disease, and that does exist, and it is a legitimate issue, in which case, I think it comes back to really an autoimmune problem more than anything else, in which case I would reference back to our autoimmune series, which basically all that information would apply to this sort of an autoimmune state and potentially reversing or stopping or improving it. So that would be my main thoughts there. I will say the other thing too is that you can obviously get into what you could call a hyperthyroid state by taking too much thyroid or too much t3 or too much t4 again.

Mike 1:01:57
I don't think I've ever seen that. Though

Jay Feldman 1:01:59
I see people have have significant stress symptoms, heart rates over 100 you know, resting heart rate, you know, high 90s or 100

Mike 1:02:09
But from overdosing t3?

Jay Feldman 1:02:11
Yeah. I mean, these are high doses, probably, I'm talking high doses, you know, 150 micrograms or more, or something like that. But,

Mike 1:02:19
oh, those are heroic doses.

Jay Feldman 1:02:20
Or maybe 100 micrograms or more. Yeah, so there's, there are certain t3 based protocols that sometimes might warrant that. But even on, even on descatered thyroid or, like a sinoplast type thing, synthetic t3, t4, even on low doses of t3 even very low doses again, three micrograms, a few times a day, five micrograms a few times a day. Sometimes just having too much in an individual dose will cause a so I think there's two presentations. One is just, it'll cause an increase in stress hormones without causing like, what you would see as hyperthyroidism on labs, where someone will not be able to tolerate that small amount of t3 let's say they'll fall into that stress state very, very very easily, and it's really hard to have to kind of titrate that dose up really quick, really slowly, while working on the foundations to help to increase tolerance, so to speak, or capacity for thyroid and for stimulation. But I've seen also where someone has some mild hyperthyroid symptoms. They're taking a lot of thyroid, and their TSH is fully suppressed, you know, like 0.00 or they always say, like, less than 0.01 or whatever it is that they're testing apparatus can can measure. So I have seen those situations where someone feels better, you know, they're on too high of a dose, and they feel better when they reduce it slightly, finding that sweet spot. Yeah, I don't think it's particularly common, but I've seen it happen.

Mike 1:03:41
I haven't seen it become like, overt hyperthyroidism, though. I've seen people like, with super suppressed CSH, and I've seen people not tolerate the thyroid, like thyroid hormone well, although running some of those, like, bodybuilders run ridiculously high doses of thyroid hormone to cut, and I've seen them get really I've seen on people get bad responses from that. But like, for people, like, who slowly titrated up their thyroid dose, like, I haven't seen them go into like, overt because, like, hyper, hyperthyroidism, and a lot of at least, what I see in the hospital when I've seen is, like, emergencies, like, yeah, like, like, their heart rates are, like, 140 and 150 and they can't put on they can't keep on weight and like, they have, there's a lot of other stuff going on.

Jay Feldman 1:04:24
Yeah, I'm talking much more mild symptoms, of course, much more mild hyperthyroid states.

Mike 1:04:28
But in those, I think a lot of those situations, though, the people who I've seen with, like, actual hyperthyroidism, like, it wasn't because their thyroid was just functioning so well that it was putting out thyroid putting off thyroid hormone, t3, t4 because they had like underlying pathology with and a lot of times, like with Graves' disease, there was like destruction of the thyroid gland with release of thyroid hormone. So the question was more along the lines of, like, figuring out what the trigger was less. Less than just blasting the thyroid, because that's what they wind up doing from the modern medical perspective. And now, what I will say is, when I have seen people with after they've gotten their thyroid radio ablated or or they've used different compounds like the What's this, methymaxis, all I think, is what it is, where it essentially will shut down thyroid hormone function. All types of problems happen after that, especially heart related problems. And I had, like, had a patient last week with that in the hospital where she, like, went into heart failure after they basically radio plated her thyroid her and they put her on some, uh, a Synthroid, and then, which is just synthetic t4 only, and she was extremely hypothyroid, she before she had it, and when she was hyperthyroid, they couldn't get her heart rate down. And now her heart rate was like bradycardic, so slow. And now she was going like she was developing heart failure, because and heart failure can be associated strongly with, like, a low t3 and some there was something going on in that family, wherever they were living, because the all of them had thyroid issues. Like every the husband had thyroid issues. He had. The doctors had actually put him in a, almost put him in a mixed edema coma, with the medications from suppressing his thyroid so much, and they had to reverse it. And then the sun had also had had thyroid issues and also heart issues. So whatever they were being exposed to on a regular basis, and I only get genetics, but I think whatever they were being exposed to on a regular basis, like where they were living, whatever it was was causing some type of issues with all their thyroid glands and leading them to develop like these, these problems, essentially. But yeah, every, every single person I've seen from my N equals one experience. Who have had their thyroid glands destroyed and then put on replacement therapy have developed serious issues like down the line. And I think that's partly because the problem wasn't solved. It was like, you have this serious inflammatory immune response going on called damaging the thyroid, and then they go into like hyperthyroidism, from the like, from the body's response to that, and then it's like, okay, we're just going to destroy your thyroids. Now you're not hyperthyroid and replaced, but you still never corrected the underlying pathology. So now you don't have a thyroid, you're on synthetic thyroid hormone, which a lot of these people, considering their state, are unlikely to convert into active t3 which is dependent upon body state. So now they're like, hypothyroid with that problem. And it's just when they were hypothyroid, there was medical emergency there. But I also like, I question the I you know, I was when I saw their presentation, and what had happened? Like, 50 years old. They were in there. This one guy was in his 50s, and absolute heart failure and, like, serious neurological issues, just like, it's crazy. And as that, he's like, yeah, it all started after they they destroyed my thyroid. And he's like, they did it to my mom, they did it to my sister, and they have the same problems as me.

Jay Feldman 1:08:02
So yeah, I've seen quite a few issues. I've had quite a few clients who have either had radioactive iodine therapy or thyroidectomies entirely due to supposed hyperthyroid situations. And yeah, definitely is a struggle afterward to get back to decent health. And as you're saying, these tend to be autoimmune situations. And if that is the case, the autoimmune issue is the problem, not actually the hyperthyroidism. And so again, I would reference back we did a whole series talking about autoimmune issues and what really causes them, and with that in mind, how to actually go about improving and reversing them. Not that it's an easy path, but it is. You know, there's certainly a lot that can be done without just the removal of the organ that is in under the autoimmune attack, so to speak, or complete suppression of the immune system, which is normally the the two routes.

Mike 1:09:05
Yeah. I would agree with that 100% just even from what I've seen in the hospital, people who have undergone these different therapies, therapies.

Jay Feldman 1:09:17
Yeah, yeah. All right, I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you did, 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. Today's episode was a Q and A episode. 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 you can send those in by email to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com that's j, A, y at Jay Feldman wellness.com to check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast Test 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 is chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, digestive symptoms, brain fog, poor sleep or insomnia, or hormonal imbalances, or various other low energy symptoms or chronic health issues 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 explain how these different symptoms and conditions are really caused by 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.