Morley Robbins on The Copper Iron Sugar Connection Part 1 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00um hey guys kriben Govender from the gut health  gurus podcast I've got a background in food
2. 0:07science and today I have a third time visitor the  podcast the first three Peter morely Robbins welcome
3. 0:17to the show look I'm just thrilled to be here I  appreciate the O opportunity to have yet a third
4. 0:24either either you've got lots of questions or I  just have too much to say I don't know what it
5. 0:28is but well I'm really excited today to have you  on and EXT extremely grateful the the main reason
6. 0:37that I wanted to have a chat is because a mutual  friend of ours Martha Carin oh mentioned to me and
7. 0:45it's been sending some papers and some information  about a special type of enzyme which we're going
8. 0:50to get into as we continue this conversation but  I just wanted to start off by just asking Moy is
9. 1:00there anything because we're now in 2024 I think  it's been a while since we chatted last time but
10. 1:08is but is there anything that you've kind of  maybe changed your mind on or something else
11. 1:15that's peing your interest at the moment that's  that's a wonderful question um every day is a
12. 1:24new discovery as you probably can imagine [Music]  um what's what's actually fascinating is it isn't
13. 1:34that I've I've changed anything at this point I  mean the we're really we're revolving around the
14. 1:42copper iron Dynamic which is revolving around  oxygen status we've talked about that I think
15. 1:48what's what's really come to light in a more  intense way is just how disregulated our iron is
16. 1:59in our body I I think the scale of it is uh it was  described in an article I read this morning as the
17. 2:07Trojan Horse and it's a beautiful description of  it because we can relate to that we we know that
18. 2:14story yeah oh yeah I know that Trojan Horse  story Well here here's the wicked part you're
19. 2:20you're a nutritionist you're very Savvy about  the microbiome you must be if you're talking to
20. 2:26Martha Carlin who's a genius around microbiome and  she's probably she'll probably be the only citizen
21. 2:35scientist to win the Nobel Prize that would be my  theory but uh there's there's a delivery mechanism
22. 2:45for iron that I just learned about a few weeks  ago it's like oh my God so you've heard of sugar
23. 2:54and you've heard of insulin and we're going to  talk about these hormones in a minute but what I
24. 3:01read recently just a few weeks ago uh and this is  a a a 1983 study which should make our sphincters
25. 3:09tighten up so that's 40 years they knew this 40  years ago that when insulin presents to a fat
26. 3:18cell there's a two to threefold increase in Iron  uptake in that fat cell did you know that D I
27. 3:31didn't know that it's like that that sends a chill  down my spine and and it's I don't think it's just
28. 3:40fat cells I think it's any cell muscle cell organ  cell gut the inas sites think about that and so um
29. 3:52but what's fascinating about it is it's a silent  trojan horse for delivering iron is use of sugar
30. 4:04I mean it's like it's wow and they've known this  for 40 years but no one talks about it and and
31. 4:15the thing is i' I've you know you're saying has my  thinking evolved or what am I focused on I really
32. 4:21have boiled it down iron causes aging and copper  causes longevity that's it and if you can really
33. 4:36internalize that and act on that you're going to  do pretty well but if you start dancing with the
34. 4:43the pundit of the day and start getting lost in  all of their verbiage you you'll lose sight of the
35. 4:49the big picture and that's really what I'm trying  to do is you know I keep um I guess what what do
36. 4:56the U the chefs call it reductionist you red I'm  reducing reducing red I keep trying to reduce the
37. 5:03thought to its Essence and and that's kind of  what I've gotten to iron is aging and copper
38. 5:09is longevity and it's it's amazing how little  the scientists and the practitioners know about
39. 5:18iron it's like it's like you're almost going  back to First principles or oam's razor that
40. 5:26kind of concept but I'd like to just go back a  little bit so what's what's your thoughts on the
41. 5:32significance of this study that you're talking  about so insulin so just go through a scenario
42. 5:39so you consume sugar or some sort of something  that influences the insulin response and then
43. 5:47what's the implication of this iron uptake and  why does it happen how much time as much time as
44. 5:57you like um you're you're probably familiar with  Robert lustig he wrote a really entertaining book
45. 6:05called fat chance he's written several books  metal um what's the one metabolism um anyway
46. 6:15he's a really prolific writer as you know but he  said something in in this article Fat Chance the
47. 6:21book was written in 2013 and it's referring to a  30-year period earlier and said we need twice as
48. 6:31much insulin to clear the same amount of glucose  as we did 30 years ago well you know a lot of
49. 6:42people have the service audible well my audible  is Dr Liz she she reads to me while we're driving
50. 6:50wherever we're going and she read that sentence  and I almost had an accident it's like what so the
51. 7:01reason why that's so important is that that means  that that copper is involved in glucose regulation
52. 7:09and and really extending the concept insulin is a  backup plant insulin's a very powerful hormone as
53. 7:17you well know but I don't think we're again I take  a somewhat contrarian view I don't think the body
54. 7:23runs on hormones it runs on minerals and hormones  respond to min disregulation and and they respond
55. 7:32to oxygen status but the body doesn't run on  hormones per se that's a very uh countercultural
56. 7:40statement but but I think what's happened is  farming has [Music] changed commercial herbicides
57. 7:50and fertilizers are very prevalent the one that's  most prevalent is glyphosate eil Ates Copper at
58. 8:00a preferential rate that's outrageous it's uh  it'll it'll keate copper a billion times faster
59. 8:06than it'll keate magnesium it will keate copper  thousand times faster than it keates zinc or iron
60. 8:16and these numbers begin to kind of gloss over we  can't relate to a billion times faster a thousand
61. 8:22times faster I mean there was a time when I could  write run an8 minute mile and my son at that time
62. 8:28my younger son yeah I don't think I don't think my  older son could have done it but my younger son he
63. 8:33ran a mile in 402 so he was twice as fast so I I  I went to the gym just to see what that felt like
64. 8:42and I almost killed myself and I realized that the  machine was doing all the work but that was twice
65. 8:46as fast a thousand times faster a billion times  we can't we can't relate to this and so when we
66. 8:54find out that we need twice as much insulin that  means we have a copper crisis that's what that
67. 9:00really means and and I think that to answer your  question why is this happening because no one's
68. 9:08minding the store no one's acknowledging mineral  concentration of the soil wonderful book if you
69. 9:17haven't read it by Gabe brown dirt to soil it's  so beautiful very very simple but very powerful
70. 9:26um study about how do we restore our soil how do  we get regenerate farming back in the mainstream
71. 9:33and if we don't know what the minerals are in the  soil we're not going to know what the minerals are
72. 9:40in the plants or the animals and therefore we're  not going to know what's going and and people are
73. 9:45so um quick to use nutrient tables you know they'  and they've got a lot of eye candy now right they
74. 9:56really cool online but they haven't been updated  since 1950s people don't realize that they don't
75. 10:03realize that that that data garbage in garbage out  it's garbage data now because a lot of things have
76. 10:10changed since the 1950s at least I think they  have and I know I think you would agree and so
77. 10:17people well I'm eating copper rich foods I'm  like they're not copper Rich anymore they're
78. 10:22not mineral rich and that's the challenge is that  the concept of min minerals is very boring it's
79. 10:32very um there there's no sex appeal and so it's  not taught in in doctor school I'm not sure it's
80. 10:39taught in in nutrition school to be honest uh  at least to my satisfaction and so people don't
81. 10:46know these basic underlying uh components of our  environment that have tremendous influence over
82. 10:54our metabolism over our ability to make energy  over our ability to signal and communicate and
83. 11:02so it's just uh I I think there's a um Gap  in our understanding about where the problem
84. 11:12really resides I'm not sure whether we've covered  in previous topics but how does copper manage
85. 11:21glucose that's a wonderful question um oh  my my computer's driving me crazy um You
86. 11:36probably never have these problems no I do  of course I do it's like it's like right in
87. 11:43the middle of my screen all right uh how does  that's all right so we have two terms that are
88. 11:50complimentary we have glucose intolerance and  we have insulin resistance they're not the same
89. 11:59thing they're they're interrelated but they're  not the they're not the exact same thing and so
90. 12:08um glucose is an oxidant it's very AB bracing  guess what insulin is it's an antioxidant not
91. 12:20just a hormone it's an antioxidant it's trying to  calm down this this Beast of a a food substance
92. 12:29and the there there is no one article there's  no billboard that says here's the answer to
93. 12:38your wonderful question about copper and and  glucose but there's a thousand different hints
94. 12:44in the literature and one of the one of the more  powerful ones is you know 1986 article by Leslie
95. 12:53C he'll be 90 years old this year he's an MD  PhD he's a a cardiologist by training he's a
96. 13:02copper expert and he wrote a wonderful article  for your listeners uh in October of 2022 called
97. 13:12um chronic copper deficiency for those who  aren't quite sure what this whole thing is
98. 13:20about and so if you have if you don't have  enough copper iron's going to build in your
99. 13:25system right that they've known that since 1920  that's a wellestablished biological thing and so
100. 13:33in in 1986 Dr C was studying two men who had  hypoglycemia high glucose and he was really
101. 13:43trying to understand what's causing it and he  made a very powerful observation that um children
102. 13:55with MES disease mes is a a genetic defect where  these children and they they usually die by the
103. 14:04time they're three years of age they don't have  the copper pump the atp7a pump to move copper
104. 14:12into the enzymes to help regulate the bind  and so they they have next to no copper in
105. 14:20their tissue and so he made some point that comp  that children with mink disease are glucose intol
106. 14:31wow that that connected some pretty big dots  there and and then you find out that [Music] um
107. 14:41there's you may have heard of the triop of  diabetes uh it's three conditions there's
108. 14:49retinopathy neuropathy the nerves especially  in the lower limbs get very buzzed out and then
109. 15:01nephropathy the kidneys go out well those  three those three conditions are taking
110. 15:09place in tissue that is insulin independent  insulin doesn't work in those three tissues
111. 15:18doesn't work in the retina doesn't work in  the nerves and does not work in the kidneys
112. 15:22it's absolutely my wow and so there's a  another there's a backup mechanism for
113. 15:31regulating sugar being traded off with sodium to  get the sugar into the tissue but it requires the
114. 15:41presence of an enzyme called a scorbite oxidase  most people have never heard of it but a sorbate
115. 15:49oxidase is a copper dependent enzyme so if  copper is not present to regulate that flow
116. 15:54and we're getting into Vitamin C metabol olism  not ascorbic acid vitamin C very different beast
117. 16:04and so we start getting into Realms of research  that most people are not familiar with and and
118. 16:11then I think the the third is um the third  hint if you will again is we know that suop
119. 16:21plasma is the master antioxidant of the body  and and its priority Focus is to keep oxygen
120. 16:33and iron at Bay keep them properly regulated  so they don't cause oxidative stress and it
121. 16:42does this through the action of an enzyme called  Ferro oxidase very very important en I think I
122. 16:50think it regulates a third oxidant sugar and and  the reason why I say that is that uh in another
123. 16:59article by Dr CL he talks about actually  it was in this this article from 1986 um
124. 17:08what happens in the state of uh hypoglycemia  high blood glucose is it blows up the suula
125. 17:17plasma molecule and then the copper comes out  and gets oxidized goes from copper 1 to Copper
126. 17:262 and it's immediately bound up by albumin  but albumin doesn't have the same metabolic
127. 17:33properties as curo plasma and so there's there  are many different references to Copper status
128. 17:42and sugar status and that uh notion of cerulo  plasma blowing up was also written up in a 2019
129. 17:53article by two scientists from Russia  so it's not just old news it's new news
130. 18:00and uh in a corollary fashion people are  probably familiar with estrogen and they
131. 18:10know that estrogen Rises as we get older it's  it's well established what else is rising as we
132. 18:18get older iron so iron's going up and estrogen's  going up what's not being accounted for is what's
133. 18:29not being accounted for is copper and cerulo  plasma so if if cerulo plasma is the master
134. 18:37antioxid and when culo plasman goes down because  copper status is going down as we H and the body's
135. 18:49got to go to the backup plan so if iron is rising  and there's not enough copper to run solul plasma
136. 18:57body's going to rely on estrogen I think the  same Dynamic is taking place with on the sugar
137. 19:03side if ceral plasma is not present the body has  to default to insulin that's the backup plan and
138. 19:12it there's a certain elegance and symmetry to that  model it's not like I have a hundred articles to
139. 19:19back it up I'm really relying on my intuition  but my DOT connecting having read about 10,000
140. 19:29articles now over 15 years to try to piece all  this together it makes more sense to me from a
141. 19:37operational standpoint this idea that hormones  run the body that's never made sense to me from
142. 19:43the get-go and so it's um it's a very disruptive  idea but I think it it has more Integrity if you
143. 19:52will looking at it from that standpoint that's a  very interesting summation it's almost you've gone
144. 19:59through a process of deduction reasoning morly on  multiple studies on your own reading intuition so
145. 20:08that's that's amazing I think it makes complete  sense what you're saying so how do how do people
146. 20:13actually so if if all like estrogen's going up  insulin the Reliance and insulin is increasing
147. 20:23as we age how do we mitigate and also you know  how do we manage these hormones better is there
148. 20:33any strategies that people can take from those  insights to actually make a difference to their
149. 20:37own lives absolutely I mean first and foremost  what we have to do is lower our stress right and
150. 20:44and when I say stress um there's like a thousand  different forms of stress but m c classified
151. 20:55four different categories of stress we have  physical stress you just fell down a flight of
152. 21:02stairs you were in a class that's physical stress  environmental stress we've got all sorts of toxins
153. 21:08in our water and our air in our food down the um  we have metabolic stress we don't have the right
154. 21:18nutrient profile in our body you we don't have the  we're not able to run the metabolic pathways and
155. 21:25when as soon as the pathways don't work right  there's going to be oxidative stress which is
156. 21:31probably the greatest stress of all and then the  fourth stress is psychological or emotional stress
157. 21:39and when when you use the word stress that's what  people think of is emotional stress what people
158. 21:45need to know is as soon as you go into a state of  emotional stress you are creating metabolic stress
159. 21:52at a physiological level and you're operating  out of fear and fear treat Trigg very powerful
160. 21:59hormones triggers cortisol and adrenaline but  it's also triggering noradrenaline if if you have
161. 22:07enough copper to make it and people don't think  about the cortisol and the adrenaline response and
162. 22:15that response creates hypoxia and and when you say  the word hypoy you think Mount Everest top of M
163. 22:26Everest when that it's there's another form of it  called functional hypoxia or down inside the cell
164. 22:36there's not enough bi available copper to activate  the oxygen to create water to release energy so
165. 22:44how do people deal with this if they've got to  lower their stress they're what stresses you
166. 22:49out may not stress me out and vice versa yeah um  because we're all different right right you've all
167. 22:58had different experiences but we all do have our  perception of stress bills to pay gotta get along
168. 23:07in relationship gotta deal with our colleagues  what have you gota you know got to deal with our
169. 23:14neighbors and bigger Community got to deal with  the insanity of the world right world's a lot
170. 23:19different today than it was last time we talked  it's a it's a crazy world out there and it doesn't
171. 23:25seem to be getting any calmer so we've got to be  able to kind of get all that Under Wraps uh We've
172. 23:32we've got to lower the the amount of iron in our  tissue it's just again a um good rule of thumb for
173. 23:44iron is to take your age and multiply it times  365 so I'm 71 times 365 I've got about 26,000
174. 23:59milligrams of iron coing through my body you can  make the adjustment on on your age well I we're
175. 24:07designed for 5,000 5,000 I've got I've got five  times that and so my right and ey we go look to
176. 24:18Red Cross on a regular basis to stay on top of our  iron status because that's going to help us manage
177. 24:26our ox oida of stress you know gotta you got to  have a good diet you've got to um you need to have
178. 24:35supplements that we talk about in the root cause  protocol and in the last couple years one of the
179. 24:42uh supplements that I really put a lot of emphasis  on was copper and I developed a copper supplement
180. 24:49called recuperate and no I've not become a  supplement [ __ ] I just I just know that there's
181. 24:55a very serious shortage of this bioavailable  mineral on the planet and so I've decided to you
182. 25:03know and there are other people that are doing it  I'm not the only one but I I couldn't stay on the
183. 25:08sidelines any longer so I think it's important  for people to know that if they're relying on
184. 25:15nutrient tables and you know historical sources of  copper you might want to reinforce that might want
185. 25:23to supplement that and So within the the root  cause prog we focus on three Minerals Copper
186. 25:31and iron and magnesium and what is important for  people to understand is that we lose uh in a state
187. 25:41of acute stress we lose magnesium very quickly  in a state of chronic stress we lose access to
188. 25:47copper and we've got it we we must have copper and  magnesium to make energy and what's getting in the
189. 25:55way of copper magnesium design and so it trying  to simplify the model as much as possible to get
190. 26:03people to realize that they can get on top of this  they can control uh their personal environment and
191. 26:12begin to bring greater balance in homeostasis  back into their being so it sounds like all the
192. 26:20foundational aspects of root cause protocol are  still in play is there any is there any changes
193. 26:28you've made to the protocol or any adjustments  um we're always exploring I think one of the
194. 26:35adjustments that we will clearly make this year  is Martha's sugar shift than it's amazing product
195. 26:41amazing product wonderful wonderful product um  and we're we're adding things like red light
196. 26:49therapy which makes obvious sense what we're  trying to be really careful of and I think you
197. 26:55can appreciate this along with your uh followers  is we could easily have 75 components and we just
198. 27:03overwhelm people so we're really trying to be  respectful of of how we add to the to the base
199. 27:12but the the the bulk of the stops and the bulk of  the starts are identical today to what they were
200. 27:19when you and I last talked right so still those  foundational aspects which are pretty solid yeah
201. 27:26and and remind us remind us quickly of the the  tenants of the recour protocol cuz I think some
202. 27:32listeners might have no idea what we're talking  about yeah um so the the origin of the root cause
203. 27:41protocol was it was actually an article by Ray  Pete on iron toxicity I can't remember when he
204. 27:47WR was like 2010 or something like that it  was amazing article and towards the end of
205. 27:52the article he made a very important observation  he said to my knowledge no one has ever come up
206. 27:57with a recipe to increase cerulo plasma I thought  that's what I'm going to do I love that that's a
207. 28:04great idea and and so the the root cause protocol  began with two stops and two starts but the focus
208. 28:13was on building more bioavailable copper and now  it's got about a dozen stops and a dozen starts
209. 28:22but the purpose behind it is to still increase  the bioil ility of copper make it usable why
210. 28:31because you can't make energy without copper  you can't clear exhaust without C 45% of our
211. 28:38connective tissue 45% the tendons the ligaments  cartilage the blood vessels all of these different
212. 28:49tissues you've got collagen is strength  and elastin is flexibility you got to
213. 28:59knit those two proteins together in order  to give tissue its Integrity strength and
214. 29:05flexibility well there's only one enzyme that  does it it's called lysil oxidus makes all the
215. 29:13connective tissue work properly um color  you know can't live without it right well
216. 29:20there's one enzyme that makes it posit it's  called melan melanin everything from yellow to
217. 29:29Black it's activated by another enzyme  called tyosin and what is tyrosin it's
218. 29:38got two copper atoms inside it and so you  can't color the human body you can't color
219. 29:44any any atom unless you have copper  acting on that enzyme function and
220. 29:51so um you ask what's new I'm I'm Gaga about the  spleen everyone focuses on the liver on the right
221. 30:04side I'm preoccupied with the spleen on the left  side it it's the hidden organ do you know what
222. 30:10color the spleen is supposed to be no idea yeah I  didn't I didn't didn't know either deep it's like
223. 30:19it's the color of eggplant right deep dark purple  and the deeper and the darker the purple the more
224. 30:28vitality and the more energy it's got and I had  a a surgeon share with me recently he said Morley
225. 30:39I've never seen a purple spleen wow and so so  what does that tell us well it means that the
226. 30:47organs can get Vitiligo think about ligo in our  skin right yes not just Skin Deep it's organ deep
227. 30:56and if the organs don't express the right color  they don't have enough energy they don't have
228. 31:02integrity of their function and it's just it's  like it's so cool to think of it that way and so
229. 31:11um copper plays these many faceted roles in the  body that nobody knows about and and so it's the
230. 31:20Achilles heel you talked about aam's razor you  know let's focus on the let's focus on the the
231. 31:27least likely uh component that's going to have  the biggest impact and that's bable copper and
232. 31:35it has this in insane relationship with iron it  goes back to the beginning of time and it's just
233. 31:43it's not understood in the right circles the the  the practitioners the nutritionists the doctors
234. 31:52the the nurses the whoevers don't realize this  very powerful interplay between what are these
235. 32:00they're called redo active minerals they're only  two copper and ion both have a relationship with
236. 32:08oxygen that Redux is reduction oxidation the  passing of electrons back and forth throughout
237. 32:17the body you you understand that but the thing  is it doesn't just happen it's regulated it's
238. 32:25managed and C is the general and iron is the foot  soldier and you don't have to be in the military
239. 32:34know generals have more brass more stars right  made of brass and what's brass made of copper
240. 32:4288% copper and so copper runs the show but  nobody knows that and especially the gut and
241. 32:50this is where Martha and I go Bonkers is She's  always telling me about the bacteria running the
242. 32:56the I said yeah but they they don't work unless  they've got a battery and she's go okay you got
243. 33:01me there right okay we go back we we have these  Jane curtain you know Dan aurade conversations
244. 33:08and we've we've come to finally accept that yeah  you can't you can't without the microbiome and
245. 33:14the minerals it doesn't work and so that's  that's the beauty of bringing you know Minds
246. 33:21together to say how do we solve this problem  completely I I think each each aspect has its
247. 33:28own place to play and there's probably things  that we haven't even discovered yet so it's
248. 33:34a great position to be to keep an a relatively  open mind to learning these new discoveries as
249. 33:41they emerge yeah so the the next the next thing  I I think it's clearly it's clearly highlighted
250. 33:50out how important copper is but I'm sure that the  audience are thinking okay there's one one one way
251. 33:59to get more copper is to to have a supplement  something like your supplement are there any
252. 34:04food based interventions that people can use  you know um yes but let me let me qualify it
253. 34:14um I was reading an article about a month ago  from 2017 it was profiling the epidemic of
254. 34:26chronic kidney disease in India with their rice  farmers and they use glyphosate and glyphosate
255. 34:39again Gates copper which will lead to intense  oxida stress which leads to what's called kidney
256. 34:46disease because of the iron accumulation that  results but in the article in the introduction
257. 34:52they said it would be useful to tell you about a  recent study done in France France was vehemently
258. 35:03opposed to glyphosate going back to the very  beginning against the law to use glyphosate in
259. 35:09France but in this 2017 study about Indian rice  Farmers they make mention of the fact of a study
260. 35:17previous study the profiled that 99% of French  people have glyphosate in their urine that's a
261. 35:26very chilling effect that means it's in the air  that means it's in means it's in the water that
262. 35:34means it's everywhere and so people have simply  got to wake up to the fact that organic farming
263. 35:41doesn't mean what we thought it meant back  in the 60s it meant something now 60 years
264. 35:47later it's a joke do you know that organic  farmers are allowed to use glyphosate now
265. 35:54God because it's got carbon in it so anything  has carbon is okay it's Brave New World and so
266. 36:05historically sources of of copper rich foods  would have been organ Meats grass-fed organ
267. 36:14Meats Seafood Ms especially nuts seeds leafy  green vegetables these are all known dentals
268. 36:27you know here's a here's a a good uh short  him any food that's been turned into GMO was
269. 36:37a good source of copper corn soybean sugar  beets alphalpha why do you think they did
270. 36:46that it's like you know it's just it's it's  wild K like we're up against we're up against
271. 36:58a really evil empire yeah and we just have to  be and I'm laughing not because I'm dismissing
272. 37:05it I'm trying to have I'm trying to be  playful about it it's like oh my God if
273. 37:09we got if we got really morose we just get so  depressed about it it's like wow they really