Vitamin D Expert: The Supplement World Is Giving The WRONG Advice! | Dr Stasha Gominak — Transcript
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- 0:00The vitamin world is giving the wrong
- 0:02advice. For instance, if you do not know
- 0:04what you're doing with them, they're
- 0:05just as dangerous as any drug you could
- 0:07put in your mouth. The next thing is
- 0:09supplementing with vitamin D is not the
- 0:11same as being outdoors [music]
- 0:13because we absorb it through our skin.
- 0:14But what we've been told is don't ever
- 0:16let the sun touch your skin. And another
- 0:19example is when we're deficient in this
- 0:21vitamin, our brain actually forgets how
- 0:23to sleep.
- 0:24And I know that because I'm a
- 0:26neurologist and I wanted to tell the
- 0:27world about what my patients and I had
- 0:30discovered together about making sleep
- 0:32better. And billions around the world
- 0:34have a sleep problem, but no one's
- 0:36treating it. And the usual sleep
- 0:38treatment is behavioral. Like blackout
- 0:40curtains, go to bed at the same time.
- 0:42But that is not something that's helped
- 0:44the people who wind up with me. They've
- 0:45tried all that already. And I've taken
- 0:47care of 28-year-olds who just had a
- 0:49stroke.
- 0:50>> 28, sorry?
- 0:51>> 28-year-olds. We associate stroke with
- 0:54being old and having diabetes and
- 0:55hypertension and heart disease. No. So
- 0:57then I did a whole bunch of sleep
- 0:59studies because we found some of the
- 1:01exciting things by [music] accident that
- 1:03turn out to have to do with vitamin
- 1:05deficiencies and deficiencies that have
- 1:07developed from being indoors too much.
- 1:09[music] And we're starting to feel the
- 1:10effects of that. You're like, "Obesity."
- 1:12But there are no obese squirrels in my
- 1:14backyard. The only obese animals are
- 1:16cats and dogs [music] that we keep
- 1:17inside. And then we found out most of
- 1:20the sleep disorders are really linked to
- 1:21the gut and microbiome. And we could go
- 1:23into that, but one of the interesting
- 1:25thing I learned was vitamin D is a
- 1:26hormone. There was a mistake made in
- 1:28calling it a vitamin.
- 1:30>> Well, I'm very curious to learn about
- 1:32all of this. And also, you've come up
- 1:33with this protocol called the right
- 1:35sleep protocol. Can you walk me through
- 1:37it?
- 1:37>> Absolutely. Here's the first part of it.
- 1:39So,
- 1:42>> This is super interesting to me. My team
- 1:43gave me this report to show me how many
- 1:45of you that watch this show subscribe.
- 1:46And some of you have told us, according
- 1:48to this, that you are unsubscribed from
- 1:50the channel randomly. So, a favor to ask
- 1:52all of you, please could you check right
- 1:53now if you've hit the subscribe button.
- 1:55If you are a regular viewer of the show
- 1:56and you like what we do here, we're
- 1:57approaching quite a significant landmark
- 1:59on this show in terms of the subscriber
- 2:01number. So, if there was one simple,
- 2:03free thing that you could do to help us,
- 2:05my team, everyone here, to keep this
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- 2:09over year and week over week, it is just
- 2:11to hit that subscribe button and to
- 2:12double-check if you've hit it. Only
- 2:13thing I'll ever ask of you.
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- 2:17do. I'll make sure
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- 2:20we fight harder and harder and harder
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- 2:30Really appreciate it. Let's get on with
- 2:31the show.
- 2:36Dr. Stasha Gominak.
- 2:39For the people that have just clicked on
- 2:40this conversation because they like the
- 2:42title, they're interested in the subject
- 2:43matter,
- 2:44what did what did they going to get from
- 2:46sitting with us and listening to us? How
- 2:47is their life going to improve?
- 2:49>> A completely unique and new way to look
- 2:52at why they are not sleeping well, or
- 2:56why they have medical problems. I hope
- 2:59they will come away with the impression
- 3:00that
- 3:02I want to find out if my brain chemistry
- 3:04is normal or not normal for sleep.
- 3:07>> And you were a clinical assistant
- 3:08professor of neurology at Stanford
- 3:09University Hospital, and also you did a
- 3:12neurology residency at Harvard Medical
- 3:14School.
- 3:14>> Yes. I grew up in California. I became a
- 3:17biochemist, and then I wound up being
- 3:19interested in medicine because
- 3:20biochemistry is being applied to humans
- 3:23in medicine. So, I became a physician,
- 3:25and then I went into neurology, and I'm
- 3:27a neurologist, and then by accident,
- 3:30somebody insisted
- 3:32that they wanted a sleep study, and this
- 3:34was in 2004. Now,
- 3:37>> So, you became you were a neurologist,
- 3:38you became a doctor, and then you fell
- 3:40in love with sleep.
- 3:41>> Yes.
- 3:42>> How many patients
- 3:44have you worked with on the subject
- 3:47matter of sleep? What's the wide range
- 3:49of
- 3:50symptoms that they were experiencing and
- 3:52problems that had just to get a sort of
- 3:54context on the variety and broadness of
- 3:56your experience.
- 3:57>> Probably 2,000. Since leaving neurology
- 4:01practice, I started a online business
- 4:04where I became a sleep coach.
- 4:06I'm estimating that I have affected
- 4:09another 5 to 6,000 people. And that's
- 4:11because I have a workbook that we're
- 4:14going to talk about. I have set out a
- 4:15series of steps that you should do. And
- 4:18that those steps are based on brain
- 4:20chemistry.
- 4:21>> Mhm.
- 4:22>> Not on you do it wrong, which is what is
- 4:25all over the internet. You are just
- 4:27doing it wrong. The usual sleep
- 4:29treatment is behavioral.
- 4:32Blackout curtains,
- 4:34white noise, go to bed at the same time,
- 4:37recognize your bedroom as a quiet place
- 4:39for sleep, etc.
- 4:42That is not
- 4:44something that's helped the people who
- 4:45wind up with me. They've tried all that.
- 4:47They've tried everything. So, what are
- 4:50the range of symptoms?
- 4:53The first experience was with women who
- 4:56had headache.
- 4:57One of my patients said, "These drugs
- 4:59you're giving me haven't worked. I want
- 5:01a sleep study."
- 5:03She had sleep apnea. She was young and
- 5:06thin. She did not look like a fat older
- 5:09male with a fat tongue, which is what we
- 5:12were being sold at that time. The people
- 5:14with sleep apnea have a fat tongue. It
- 5:16gets in the airway and they need to wear
- 5:19one of these things over their face at
- 5:22night that blows air up their nose.
- 5:25She put on the CPAP device. She came
- 5:27back 2 months later. Her headaches were
- 5:29gone. She'd had a daily headache for
- 5:31like 5 years.
- 5:33>> It worked.
- 5:34>> Yes.
- 5:36And I was like, "Well,
- 5:38no. There's no way."
- 5:40Because headaches are really a brain
- 5:42stem function problem. I have this whole
- 5:44construct in my mind and it's a
- 5:46biochemical problem.
- 5:48So, I think maybe it's allowing her to
- 5:51stay in deep sleep longer
- 5:54and she's making the chemicals that I'm
- 5:56focusing on that allow her head pain
- 5:59switch to go into the off position,
- 6:02which is where it's supposed to be. It's
- 6:03supposed to be off until somebody hits
- 6:05you in the head and then it turns on.
- 6:06Hers is just turning on spontaneously
- 6:08all the time.
- 6:10So, then I did a whole bunch of sleep
- 6:12studies in young healthy females who had
- 6:14daily headaches. They would frequently
- 6:16say something like, I wake up at 3:00
- 6:17a.m. and I can't go back to sleep.
- 6:19I wake up at 3:00 a.m. and my sleep is
- 6:22lighter after that. I wake up at 3:00
- 6:25a.m. with a headache. And then I have,
- 6:27let's say as an example, a little
- 6:29Mexican lady who comes in from northern
- 6:31Mexico. She's now living in Texas with
- 6:33her kids. She had never had headaches
- 6:36until she moved up and she's living with
- 6:37one of her grown kids and she's coming
- 6:39to see me for headaches. We happen to
- 6:40have a beach house in Mexico for a
- 6:43period of about 14 years. So, I would go
- 6:46down there and I would think, what's
- 6:47going to happen to these people that
- 6:48have sleep apnea who don't have any
- 6:49electricity and they're living in
- 6:51palapas that are made of sticks with a
- 6:53thatched roof. They're still doing the
- 6:55same thing that they were doing 2,000,
- 6:584,000 years ago and you can't tell if
- 7:01the little viejitos, the little old
- 7:03people are 60 years old or 80, they
- 7:06might be 90. They're not fat.
- 7:09They're not tired. Their
- 7:11great-grandfathers.
- 7:12I begin to realize this is about living
- 7:15outside. Humans were meant to live
- 7:18outdoors like every other animal. We
- 7:21have decided that we are special, but
- 7:23we're not special. We're Our
- 7:24biochemistry is like every other animal.
- 7:26Okay, so these two These inputs are
- 7:28coming all at the same time and I'm
- 7:29puzzling over
- 7:31these sleep studies. That first gal had
- 7:33sleep apnea.
- 7:35But most of the women that I sent for
- 7:36those studies, they did not have sleep
- 7:38apnea or it come back on the the page it
- 7:40would say no significant apnea. There
- 7:42was a significant score, how many times
- 7:44you stop breathing during the night. And
- 7:46then the next part is
- 7:48what do they have that's wrong with
- 7:50them? That came about a year and a half
- 7:53later when the pulmonologist says, "I
- 7:55don't know if you've noticed this, but
- 7:57your population has a really unusual
- 8:00finding. Most of them have
- 8:02delayed rapid eye movement sleep,
- 8:04no rapid eye movement sleep, or they
- 8:07have rapid eye movement sleep apnea,
- 8:09meaning they only stop breathing in
- 8:12rapid eye movement sleep.
- 8:14>> What's rapid eye movement sleep?
- 8:16>> So this is called a hypnogram.
- 8:18And on this bottom axis is time.
- 8:22On this axis is a representation of what
- 8:26phase of sleep you are in.
- 8:29And it turns out that when we enter
- 8:30sleep, we go through what we call two
- 8:33lighter stages of sleep. The first phase
- 8:37that we enter is here, it's wake.
- 8:41Couple times this person woke.
- 8:44May not even be aware that they woke up,
- 8:46went back to sleep. But we enter sleep
- 8:48in light sleep sleep one and light sleep
- 8:50two. These are called that because when
- 8:52the sleep experts started studying this
- 8:54in 1970,
- 8:56that's relatively recently,
- 8:58you could easily awaken someone out of
- 9:00these phases, okay? And it has a certain
- 9:02brain wave pattern generates.
- 9:05And then they go into a phase that's
- 9:07called deep sleep or slow wave sleep.
- 9:11Everyone who has a sleep tracker device,
- 9:14which is very common these days, is now
- 9:16becoming familiar with I have this much
- 9:19deep sleep, I have this much rapid eye
- 9:21movement sleep. Deep sleep is really in
- 9:24the sleep industry called slow wave
- 9:26sleep because the brain waves are these
- 9:29slow
- 9:30big pattern.
- 9:32We always go
- 9:34through a couple of light sleep phases,
- 9:38and then we go into rapid eye movement
- 9:40sleep, and then we go through light
- 9:41sleep phases, and then we go to deep
- 9:44sleep. Now, the pivotal question that I
- 9:47asked the pulmonologist,
- 9:49"Why would my patient have
- 9:52stopped breathing?" That's what apnea
- 9:54means. "Why would they stop breathing
- 9:56only in REM sleep?"
- 9:58I thought this was an anatomic problem.
- 10:00And he said, "Well, we get the most
- 10:02paralyzed of all in REM sleep."
- 10:04And I went,
- 10:06"Paralyzed?
- 10:08Holy crap!
- 10:10You mean I'm I'm paralyzed while I'm in
- 10:12bed?
- 10:13What if I stop breathing? What if my
- 10:15brain doesn't ever
- 10:17not like un-paralyze me? That's
- 10:20terrifying.
- 10:21And it turns out every animal, including
- 10:24fruit flies, who we're doing sleep
- 10:27studies on, get paralyzed in sleep.
- 10:30We get the most paralyzed in rapid eye
- 10:32movement sleep when this part
- 10:35needs to get repaired,
- 10:38it gets paralyzed, too. That means you
- 10:40have to have an anatomy that stays where
- 10:42the tube that you're trying to breathe
- 10:44through stays open
- 10:47while you are unconscious
- 10:50and trying to repair everything in this
- 10:53area.
- 10:54And I want to pull out the brain to let
- 10:56you know where this is happening and why
- 10:58it's so important. This part that's
- 11:01white is called the brain stem.
- 11:04This part is actually fully in control
- 11:07when you are asleep.
- 11:09There's a little switch up here that
- 11:10goes boop.
- 11:11"Steven, you're not conscious anymore."
- 11:14The brain is still extremely active.
- 11:17In fact, the waveforms
- 11:20that they record from up here look the
- 11:23same in rapid eye movement sleep as they
- 11:25do in wake,
- 11:27suggesting that all sorts of things are
- 11:28happening, like you wake up abruptly cuz
- 11:30some a noise happens,
- 11:32and you're in the middle of a dream.
- 11:33You're traveling. You're flying. You've
- 11:36You've got huge colors going on.
- 11:39Your brain is extremely active during
- 11:41this time,
- 11:43but you're not aware of it. And this
- 11:45part right here,
- 11:46it is running your heart rate, your
- 11:48blood pressure, it has paralyzed you.
- 11:51This is where the autonomic nervous
- 11:54system comes in. The sympathetic nervous
- 11:56system and the parasympathetic nervous
- 11:59system are centered right here. They are
- 12:02meant to be the automatic driver of all
- 12:06the processes that you use during the
- 12:08day,
- 12:10and they run sleep.
- 12:13This process
- 12:15that we're talking about here is fully
- 12:18run by the brain stem.
- 12:20>> So, the sort of sleep wake cycles.
- 12:22>> Exactly. The sympathetic is called fight
- 12:25flight. The other one, the
- 12:27parasympathetic is called rest and
- 12:29digest.
- 12:31It also is experienced as a state of
- 12:34calm.
- 12:35Okay? It is also
- 12:37what happens when we have an orgasm.
- 12:39There are things that are happening in
- 12:41the brain stem that feed back to why do
- 12:43they fall asleep? Why do the guys fall
- 12:45asleep on top of her?
- 12:47Probably because it actually might
- 12:49increase the likelihood of
- 12:51fertilization. Maybe it has a survival
- 12:54risk.
- 12:56These are all unconscious things that we
- 12:59don't We aren't trained to connect
- 13:01together, but once you get into the
- 13:02parasympathetic nervous system,
- 13:05it turns out that the parasympathetic
- 13:06and the sympathetic are also very
- 13:08involved in what's happening here. And
- 13:10the basic idea is the first half of the
- 13:13night, and you'll see that we've also
- 13:14broken it into 1 2 3 4 5 cycles, usually
- 13:18of about an hour and a half. The first
- 13:20half of the night till about 3:00 a.m.
- 13:22is mostly run by the sympathetic side.
- 13:25>> Which is the fight or flight side.
- 13:26>> Yes. So, when you're well balanced and
- 13:29you have a completely normally operating
- 13:31brain stem, you will have a couple of
- 13:33branches of REM sleep. But my patients
- 13:37did not have any REM sleep at all in the
- 13:39first half of the night, and in fact,
- 13:42they might have been lucky to have a
- 13:43little have a little half an hour here
- 13:44between 4:30 and 5:00, if at all.
- 13:48The second half of the night, from 3:00
- 13:50a.m. to 7:00 a.m., is run by the
- 13:52parasympathetic side.
- 13:54That means, if you look at it in a
- 13:56certain way, you could say, "Well,
- 13:59wait, maybe they've lost the
- 14:00parasympathetic driver
- 14:02for the second half of their night."
- 14:05Seeing all these sleep studies that did
- 14:07not have this phase of sleep, they're
- 14:10actually 1/6 of the amount of REM sleep
- 14:13they should have. And as I go back
- 14:15through all the sleep studies, I
- 14:16realize,
- 14:18"Well, wait, don't we kind of do mood in
- 14:21REM sleep?"
- 14:21>> What do you mean, do we we do need?
- 14:23>> When trying to link the comments that my
- 14:26patients have made and the drugs that I
- 14:29give them,
- 14:31I realize I've been giving out
- 14:32antidepressants to this group of young,
- 14:35healthy women with headaches, because
- 14:37they frequently say, "I'm in a terrible
- 14:39mood."
- 14:41So, they can't remember. Isn't there a
- 14:43body of literature about memory being
- 14:46made permanent during REM? Yes, memory
- 14:48is linked and mood is linked. If I'm
- 14:51allowed to go back to sleep, if I have
- 14:53the proper brain chemistry to allow me
- 14:56to fall back into REM sleep, I will wake
- 14:59in a better mood. Those are the sorts of
- 15:02things that the patients will tell you
- 15:04if you ask about it, and if they're able
- 15:06to fall back to sleep.
- 15:09Because my group did not have sleep
- 15:11apnea and could not wear CPAP masks,
- 15:13what's wrong with them? Why aren't they
- 15:16in this phase of sleep? This is a
- 15:18neurology problem. This is not a
- 15:20pulmonologist, this is not about
- 15:22breathing. This is about this brain stem
- 15:25and what is the chemistry of this? So,
- 15:27then I go to the anatomy and then I find
- 15:29out what are the cells in this brain
- 15:32stem area
- 15:34that make us paralyzed.
- 15:35>> Just to make sure I'm with you. You're
- 15:36You're asking that question because you
- 15:38figured out that
- 15:40the women who are struggling with
- 15:41sleeping and getting headaches
- 15:42have less of this REM sleep, which is
- 15:45associated with being paralyzed. So, the
- 15:47question you then asked is
- 15:49what are the chemicals that help us
- 15:50become paralyzed?
- 15:52>> Yes. And what are [clears throat] the
- 15:53cells that
- 15:54take us into these? What What is the
- 15:56chemistry of that since I'm so focused
- 15:58on biochemistry? There's actually a
- 16:00deficiency in a neurotransmitter that
- 16:02our moving doors means that we've lost a
- 16:04neurotransmitter that we must have to be
- 16:07normal humans. And the reason why they
- 16:09don't know it is because there are no
- 16:11drugs that duplicate acetylcholine.
- 16:13There are no drugs.
- 16:15But ultimately, what we found out
- 16:17together was that vitamin D makes the
- 16:20enzyme
- 16:22or the protein that makes a certain
- 16:24reaction happen that makes
- 16:26acetylcholine.
- 16:27Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter,
- 16:30the chemical
- 16:31that the autonomic parasympathetic side
- 16:34uses. We hear all the time about
- 16:36epinephrine and norepinephrine or
- 16:38adrenaline and noradrenaline. That's
- 16:40what happens when somebody rear-ends
- 16:41you, your blood pressure goes up, your
- 16:43heart rate goes up. That's all dominant
- 16:46here. If you're wearing a sleep tracker,
- 16:48you'll you'll see that there's a measure
- 16:50of what's called heart rate variability
- 16:52that goes up as the parasympathetic
- 16:55becomes dominant.
- 16:56>> As the rest the rest and digest.
- 16:58>> Exactly. So, all of the messages that we
- 17:01have to increase the heart rate or
- 17:02decrease the heart rate or to have a
- 17:04bowel movement or be constipated or to
- 17:08digest our food, those are all
- 17:10eventually run by a chemical.
- 17:13And our body and our brain use these
- 17:16chemicals to send messages. This is
- 17:19actually a chemical deficiency state
- 17:22that happens when you move indoors.
- 17:25Sunscreen,
- 17:27computers, and air conditioning all
- 17:29started in the 1980s. And the reason why
- 17:32it's not as evident to you as it is to
- 17:34me
- 17:35is that I was alive before the 1980s.
- 17:38There were two kids in my class of 300
- 17:41that were overweight.
- 17:43They didn't go on diets. They didn't
- 17:46have any trouble sleeping. They weren't
- 17:47on antidepressants. The things that
- 17:50weren't common when I was a teenager
- 17:53that are common now are striking for
- 17:56those of us who are this age because we
- 17:59know it wasn't like that.
- 18:01What we've been told is it's toxins in
- 18:03the food. It's that we aren't doing it
- 18:05right. I don't think those are things
- 18:08when you say I'm not doing it right,
- 18:10then you should be able to tell me how
- 18:11to do it right. And that's what a lot of
- 18:13these podcasts are about. How do I
- 18:15change what I do so I can feel rested
- 18:18and be at the peak performance of my
- 18:20life. That interests a lot of people.
- 18:23I would claim that there's a deficiency
- 18:25state in the background that you can
- 18:26actually fix.
- 18:28And you can fix it, but it's through
- 18:29vitamins.
- 18:31And the our ideas about vitamins are
- 18:34wrong, completely wrong. We've been
- 18:37taught that vitamins are not important
- 18:41or vitamins are very important, but
- 18:43they're easy to use. They'll never hurt
- 18:45us. Uh you just take a certain like
- 18:48who's your recommendation? What's the
- 18:50vitamin D recommendation dose that this
- 18:52guy's giving out?
- 18:54We've been told things that are actually
- 18:55not true, and medicine hasn't taken
- 18:58responsibility for the fact that this is
- 19:01the the core of biochemistry.
- 19:03It was done by physicians. These
- 19:05original research articles in the '40s
- 19:08and '50s that the word vitamin was used
- 19:11was done by medical experts.
- 19:14It's unfortunately been given to the
- 19:17government to give recommendations. It
- 19:19should never be in the hands of the
- 19:20government. The government doesn't know
- 19:22anything about our biochemistry.
- 19:24So, the supplement industry at the
- 19:26moment is a mess, and I say that only
- 19:28because
- 19:30I have seen dramatic things happen to my
- 19:32patients that
- 19:35are not what I expected, and vitamins
- 19:38are a form of biohacking. They're just
- 19:40as dangerous as any drug you can put in
- 19:42your mouth.
- 19:43If you do not know what you're doing
- 19:45with them, bad things will happen to
- 19:47you, and unfortunately, frequently those
- 19:49bad things are the same thing you had
- 19:51before you took the vitamin.
- 19:54Therefore, you should pay attention to
- 19:56what you're feeling.
- 19:58So, the pathway that I've built that's
- 19:59on my website now has a a second half
- 20:02that's a journal. You have to keep notes
- 20:05of what's happening to you.
- 20:06>> How many people are
- 20:08are experiencing sleep problems in your
- 20:11point of view?
- 20:11>> Billions. It's around the world. There
- 20:14are sleep study centers in every country
- 20:17that has electricity.
- 20:19In Germany, in Japan, in Brazil, and
- 20:21they're all publishing how abnormal the
- 20:25studies are. This is not what it looks
- 20:28like.
- 20:31They rarely
- 20:33send out an article saying that we have
- 20:37less REM because
- 20:40they don't have an answer for why. I
- 20:41just happen to be the only one currently
- 20:44on the internet
- 20:46that has a different way of looking at
- 20:48it.
- 20:48>> Well, I'm very curious to learn about
- 20:50all of this. I've never heard someone
- 20:51say to me before that vitamins are
- 20:54linked to sleep issues.
- 20:56>> Absolutely.
- 20:57>> Um it's typically, you know, put on the
- 20:58sleep mask and close the blinds and make
- 21:00sure it's cold in the room. So, this is
- 21:01incredibly interesting to me.
- 21:02>> Let me add one more thing so I don't
- 21:04forget.
- 21:05You and Matt Walker talked about
- 21:06chronotypes.
- 21:08>> Yeah. There are many dogmatic statements
- 21:10that are being made about genetics and
- 21:12sleep that are not necessarily wrong,
- 21:16but they're also not necessarily right.
- 21:18And I had the same training that you
- 21:20that you get from Matt Walker. He's
- 21:22doing animal training. We say dogmatic
- 21:25things based on certain studies that we
- 21:27do.
- 21:28And then my patients
- 21:32don't behave that way.
- 21:34My patients turn out to
- 21:36you know, this person has been working
- 21:38to take this to an extreme. So, the
- 21:40chronotype story is you're either an
- 21:43early bird or a night owl.
- 21:45And you had shared that you're a night
- 21:47owl
- 21:48and your girlfriend
- 21:50is an early bird, okay? And
- 21:52what is being taught is that that is
- 21:54your genetic makeup.
- 21:57Although there are genetic mutations
- 21:59that lead to certain timing of sleep, it
- 22:03turns out everybody I was doing this
- 22:04vitamin stuff with would revert back to
- 22:07fall asleep at 10:00 and wake up at
- 22:086:00. Even the people who were working
- 22:11nights their whole life.
- 22:13This woman that I'm seeing who has on
- 22:15disability now because she got a
- 22:18terrible disease
- 22:20that I believe is because she worked
- 22:23nights. When she is at home on
- 22:24disability for several years and I'm
- 22:26still caring for her for that disease,
- 22:29she's still sleeping during the day.
- 22:32Well, why would she sleep during the
- 22:33day? And now I have a whole run of
- 22:35patients who say, "I guess it's because
- 22:37I always work nights."
- 22:39It turns out that humans really can't
- 22:41work nights if they have normal brain
- 22:43chemistry. Why? Because we're day
- 22:46hunters.
- 22:47We are supposed to be asleep in the
- 22:48night, and that is our biochemistry.
- 22:51There are lots of animals that are
- 22:52designed to be awake at night. Owls.
- 22:54That's why they use that as a symbol.
- 22:57And if you do the right thing with their
- 22:59chemistry, and if you insist they spend
- 23:02more time outside,
- 23:05then they actually revert to falling
- 23:08asleep at 10:00 p.m. and waking up at
- 23:096:00 a.m. It's very difficult to operate
- 23:13unless you're international like you are
- 23:15to be falling asleep. There are people
- 23:18who fall asleep at 4:00 a.m. and wake up
- 23:19at noon. That is a very difficult
- 23:22problem to operate within the normal
- 23:25population cuz the rest of the world
- 23:27doesn't operate that way. And when you
- 23:28think about it a little bit, we actually
- 23:30have certain standards of when we start
- 23:32work and when we end work. And that's
- 23:33the same all over the globe. So, there
- 23:36were things that happened to me that
- 23:38surprised me
- 23:40and they became consistent, okay? And
- 23:44those are some of the things that we're
- 23:45going to talk about and that's what made
- 23:46me think, you know, this is around the
- 23:48world and it happened at a specific
- 23:51time. There are many diseases that
- 23:53started to be reported in the middle
- 23:55'80s.
- 23:56You guys aren't aware of it because you
- 23:58think it's normal now, but ADD, ADHD,
- 24:02depression, things that are affecting
- 24:04child- childhood development, which we
- 24:06could discuss at a different time.
- 24:09Fatty liver.
- 24:11Certain things like, oh, increase in
- 24:14diabetes. The things that were diseases
- 24:17that had been described, they're all
- 24:20Some of them are old diseases that have
- 24:21increased in incidence, but some of them
- 24:23for the first time, fatty liver was
- 24:25first described, non-alcoholic fatty
- 24:27liver, first described in the '80s.
- 24:30ADHD similar.
- 24:32So, during the time that I don't know
- 24:35why we have this epidemic, I'm still
- 24:37thinking toxins because that's what
- 24:39we've been told, pesticides, glyphosate.
- 24:43And then,
- 24:45we get into the area of vitamin D. And
- 24:47how did I find out about vitamin D? Why
- 24:50was I sort of forced against my will
- 24:52to step into the vitamin D politics,
- 24:55which is a horrible morass?
- 24:58>> There should be a button just down below
- 25:00here. And if it says subscribe, you're
- 25:02already subscribed. If it says subscribe
- 25:04bar, that means you're not yet. And if
- 25:06you're not subscribed, please could you
- 25:07do us a favor and hit that button. It
- 25:08helps the show more than you know. And
- 25:10according to the algorithm, you're
- 25:12someone that watches our show, but you
- 25:13haven't yet hit that button. Thank you
- 25:14so much.
- 25:16So, explain to me, your your assertion
- 25:18is that vitamin D is fundamentally
- 25:20linked to a lot of the sleep disorders
- 25:21and deficiencies that we see. How How
- 25:24can you prove that to me?
- 25:25>> I think I would prefer to give you these
- 25:27two examples.
- 25:28>> Okay.
- 25:29>> Because the people who are listening,
- 25:31these are the two extremes, but it'll
- 25:32cover a lot of the people that are
- 25:34listening.
- 25:34>> Okay.
- 25:35>> The first is, let let's call her
- 25:37Madeline.
- 25:38>> Madeline.
- 25:38>> She's
- 25:3932 years old.
- 25:41She's a redhead. That turns out to be
- 25:43important.
- 25:44She's 100 lb overweight. She just had
- 25:48her first pregnancy 3 years ago, and she
- 25:50had been told that because she had
- 25:52endometriosis and polycystic ovarian
- 25:54syndrome, that she would never get
- 25:56pregnant. But she got pregnant. She's
- 25:58very happy about that. She had
- 26:01uh gestational diabetes, which means she
- 26:03had diabetes during the time that she
- 26:04was pregnant with her son.
- 26:06And now she is pretty much a wreck. She
- 26:11has daily headache, which is why she's
- 26:12seeing me. She's on about nine drugs.
- 26:15She has several kinds of pain. She has a
- 26:18terrible pain down the front of her leg
- 26:19that she's been told is endometriosis
- 26:22growing on one of her nerves. She has
- 26:25terrible burning in her feet.
- 26:27She has terrible reflux. She poops once
- 26:30a week.
- 26:31She feels like she has to get up and go
- 26:33to the bathroom several times a night.
- 26:35She thinks that's why her sleep is so
- 26:37interrupted.
- 26:39So, I'm treating her for her daily
- 26:41headaches and her pain. And then, I
- 26:43start to think about sleep. And because
- 26:46we've been trained that fat people are
- 26:49fat because they're fat slobs, because
- 26:52they eat wrong, because they don't
- 26:53exercise. It's their own fault.
- 26:57I don't even think about the fact that
- 27:00many of these things might have a common
- 27:02source.
- 27:04And that she's been tortured by this her
- 27:06whole life. So, I send her for a sleep
- 27:08study. She gets on CPAP.
- 27:11Over the time she's on CPAP, she gets a
- 27:13little bit better. Her sleep is better,
- 27:14she feels better.
- 27:16And then I stumble into vitamin D, okay?
- 27:20Now, we're going to set that as an
- 27:21example of the most horrible set of
- 27:24things you could have, perhaps.
- 27:26And another example,
- 27:28and we're going to watch what happens to
- 27:29these two women over time. The second
- 27:32one we'll call Natalie.
- 27:34And Natalie is tall, statuesque, she's a
- 27:38triathlete.
- 27:39She is also seeing me for daily
- 27:41headache. She grew up in a family that
- 27:44is of Italian origin. She is dark tan.
- 27:47She swims, she's athletic, she's outside
- 27:51all the time in the summer.
- 27:53Five years ago she had her first child,
- 27:55her daughter. She did well, no problems
- 27:58with her sleep. Two years ago she has
- 28:00her son. And since her son was born, she
- 28:03has not been able to go back to sleep.
- 28:04Even when her son goes back to sleep,
- 28:06she can't.
- 28:07She feels tired, she has postpartum
- 28:10depression.
- 28:11She had gestational diabetes. Like,
- 28:15she's doing everything perfectly. She
- 28:17knows everything there is to know. She's
- 28:19done paleo and keto. She is very well
- 28:22informed by the things that doctors tell
- 28:24her to do. And now her sleep is also
- 28:26abnormal, and she had a few headaches in
- 28:29high school, but now she has daily
- 28:30headache, too.
- 28:32So, there's a 5-year span here where I'm
- 28:34doing CPAP masks and sleeping pills, and
- 28:37those are some of the stories.
- 28:41And it's not just limited to women, but
- 28:42I especially want to point out that
- 28:44women are more affected because of they
- 28:46have the babies.
- 28:48So, the next thing that happens is 5
- 28:51years into it, I've got this beautiful
- 28:5218-year-old who's about to go to
- 28:54college. She comes to see me for daily
- 28:56headache.
- 28:57She has a sleep study
- 29:00that shows none of these phases of deep
- 29:03sleep.
- 29:03>> So, she's having no deep sleep?
- 29:05>> No deep sleep. And every
- 29:0815 minutes or so,
- 29:10my interpretation is her brain is trying
- 29:13to get into these one of these deep
- 29:15sleep phases, and she wakes up to light
- 29:17sleep again. So, every time of the brain
- 29:19tries to do this, it breaks the white
- 29:20sleep light sleep light sleep light
- 29:22sleep. She thinks that she's asleep the
- 29:25whole night.
- 29:27This shows that she's asleep the whole
- 29:29night.
- 29:30But, her sleep study over my 5 years of
- 29:32experience is horrifying because it's
- 29:35not just, "Oh, she's missing a little
- 29:37REM." She has no deep sleep at all. This
- 29:39is a brainstem
- 29:42disorder of chemistry that's going to
- 29:44mean she might meet me 10 years from now
- 29:47with a stroke. I've taken care of
- 29:4928-year-olds who just had a stroke.
- 29:52>> 28 Sorry?
- 29:53>> 28-year-olds. We associate stroke with
- 29:56being old and having diabetes and
- 29:58hypertension and heart disease. That
- 30:00means I'm looking at this and for the
- 30:02very first time, I have actually started
- 30:04to see the diseases that my neurology
- 30:07patients come in with
- 30:09and their relationship to sleep. By the
- 30:11end of the 5 years, I'm doing sleep
- 30:12studies on anybody who will let me. So,
- 30:14I'm doing little kids, I'm doing moms,
- 30:16I'm doing dads, I'm doing every single
- 30:18neurologic illness that comes in.
- 30:21They're all abnormal. All of them.
- 30:24This implies that the reason why you get
- 30:26a disease is because your sleep is not
- 30:30restorative.
- 30:32That implies that I should think about
- 30:33the body as
- 30:35Golly, I know people who live to be 75
- 30:37years old and don't have a doctor.
- 30:40They were my grandparents. And then they
- 30:42started to get medical problems about
- 30:43age 75 and then they died at 85.
- 30:47Why aren't we looking at it that way?
- 30:49Why aren't we saying, "Oh, this means
- 30:51your repair system that's designed to
- 30:53completely repair everything in your
- 30:55body every night?"
- 30:57And you talked it with um Tara
- 31:00Swat about lymphatic drainage, these
- 31:03things that happen while we're sleeping.
- 31:05It is what makes us last.
- 31:09Like we're not made of Teflon, we're
- 31:10made of these biological materials and
- 31:12they repair themselves every night.
- 31:14That's a miracle.
- 31:16If you view it through that lens,
- 31:19then you start to question why is
- 31:22medicine doing what it is. I'm trained
- 31:25to ask questions for the thing the
- 31:27person walks in for. Let's say burning
- 31:30in the feet.
- 31:31>> Okay.
- 31:31>> And I'm trained to make a little list of
- 31:34the diseases that have
- 31:37resulted in that,
- 31:39and then give a drug for it. And if we
- 31:41don't find a drug that reverses it,
- 31:43which we haven't for burning, but I'm
- 31:45going to tell you why,
- 31:47then we give a drug that numbs the pain
- 31:50a little bit.
- 31:51>> We just kind of plaster over the cracks.
- 31:52>> We're putting Band-Aids on these things
- 31:55instead of saying, "Well, what do you
- 31:57think led to this?"
- 31:59>> And this glymphatic drainage point I
- 32:01think is a really important one because
- 32:03what when I understood this glymphatic
- 32:04drainage idea, it had a profound impact
- 32:09on my relationship with sleep. I would
- 32:11argue more so than anything else.
- 32:13There's actually a colleague of mine
- 32:14who's currently sat out there, right?
- 32:16And I have an emoji that I sent to her.
- 32:18She's called Georgia Gibson. I have an
- 32:20emo- She She likes to work very hard.
- 32:22And I sent her this particular emoji of
- 32:24this this I I can't even remember if she
- 32:26told me what the cartoon was, but it's
- 32:28these little fish that come out and
- 32:29clean the big whale.
- 32:30>> Yes.
- 32:31>> What's the What's that called?
- 32:32>> I don't remember, but I know what you're
- 32:33talking about.
- 32:34>> Okay, I'll put it on the screen. It's
- 32:34from like a movie, but everyone in the
- 32:36comments is probably going to know what
- 32:37I'm talking about. But, I sent her this
- 32:39emoji just to remind her that she needs
- 32:40to sleep cuz she needs to wash her
- 32:42brain. That's what I say.
- 32:43I say to her, "You need to wash your
- 32:44brain." Which means go to bed. When you
- 32:46go to sleep at night,
- 32:48these cleaners you want you know again
- 32:50again I'm I'm animating this in a way
- 32:51that's not scientifically accurate, but
- 32:52these cleaners come out and clean up
- 32:54your brain. They wash it all and they
- 32:56clean it and they scrub it and they make
- 32:57it all back to normal again. So, if
- 32:59you're not sleeping, then
- 33:00you're going to get some kind of build
- 33:01up of crap.
- 33:03And that could lead to disease or you
- 33:04know other worse things down down the
- 33:06line.
- 33:07>> Yes. I
- 33:08That's a perfect description of it
- 33:10actually and that's about the level of
- 33:11what we know. So, the 18-year-old with
- 33:14no deep sleep,
- 33:16she comes back and say, "Hey, this drug
- 33:18you gave me for my headaches made my
- 33:19headaches better, but I'm so tired." And
- 33:21I'm looking at her sleep study going,
- 33:23"Holy crap, no wonder she's tired. Okay,
- 33:26this is really really bad and this is
- 33:28invisible. Absolutely invisible to the
- 33:30rest of the physicians cuz she looks
- 33:32perfect." So, I do a B12 level and a
- 33:35thyroid test because I have no idea what
- 33:38to do and the B12 is profoundly low.
- 33:41Low enough that it shows up as abnormal
- 33:43and a little red, okay?
- 33:45Now, the the weird part about this is
- 33:48I've never done a B12 level in a
- 33:49headache patient since I've been doing
- 33:51headaches as a part of neurology, which
- 33:53is a large part of neurology.
- 33:55I then start to give B12 recommendations
- 33:57and I do B12 blood tests on all the
- 33:59patients who I have in my little stable
- 34:02of I've done these sleep studies in
- 34:04them. They still are not sleeping well
- 34:06unless the sleeping pill works. So, for
- 34:08about a month I'm doing B12
- 34:11tests and then one of my patients says
- 34:12to me, "My doctor said my vitamin D was
- 34:14low. She gave me vitamin D and my wrist
- 34:17pain went away." And I had no clue and I
- 34:20thought, "You know, I'm just doing blood
- 34:22tests anyway, which I never did in my
- 34:24headache patients. I'm just going to
- 34:25throw that in."
- 34:27I was completely naive
- 34:29and because I was naive, I was not
- 34:31afraid to do this, but I did vitamin D
- 34:34levels and B12 levels in a group of
- 34:36about 500 patients between September and
- 34:40December of 2009.
- 34:44And I gave you the background because I
- 34:45had all these thoughts buzzing around in
- 34:47my head. What are we looking for? We're
- 34:48looking but for something that it
- 34:50controls the brain stem. Now, they're
- 34:53going from August or September to
- 34:54December. That's in the fall. So, if
- 34:56you're going to make D in the summer,
- 34:58which is when we're supposed to make it
- 34:59cuz we're out in the sun, that's all I
- 35:01knew about D is you make it from the
- 35:02sun. It's about bones.
- 35:05They were all low.
- 35:07All of them are low. Two of these guys
- 35:09that are on CPAP come back. They're both
- 35:11have headaches. They both say the same
- 35:12thing to me in the same week. You know,
- 35:15I've been wearing the CPAP mask for a
- 35:16whole year. My headaches hadn't gone
- 35:19away, but that little note you sent me
- 35:21last time I was in here when you did my
- 35:23vitamin D level and you told me to get
- 35:24vitamin D. I took that for about a
- 35:26month. My sleep got better and my
- 35:28headaches went away. Now, I happen to
- 35:31know that all the D's were low.
- 35:33But D's about bone. Why would it have
- 35:35anything to do with sleep? So, I go to
- 35:37the
- 35:38PubMed. That's my resource now. I hang
- 35:40out with PubMed all the time.
- 35:42>> Which is
- 35:43>> That's where you register all your
- 35:44articles that we publish. 2009, I put in
- 35:47two search terms, vitamin D and sleep,
- 35:49and there are no hits.
- 35:52And then, I put in vitamin D in the
- 35:54brain, and I wind up going to articles
- 35:57by a guy named Walter Stumpf, S T U M P
- 36:00F, who's been writing about vitamin D
- 36:02for 30 years, who has actually published
- 36:07that there are vitamin D receptors in
- 36:09this little stripe along the back of the
- 36:11brain stem that paralyzes us. Like, he
- 36:14knows the name of this nucleus. He has
- 36:17shown articles where the vitamin D
- 36:18receptors are in this nucleus that
- 36:21paralyzes us and in the nuclei that are
- 36:23the clock nuclei that determine what
- 36:27time it is, what time we go to sleep,
- 36:29when we make these transitions.
- 36:32The brain always knows exactly what time
- 36:34it is.
- 36:35Those areas have vitamin D receptors.
- 36:39That means vitamin D is doing something.
- 36:42That means I'm very interested in
- 36:44thinking if
- 36:46this vitamin D
- 36:48is low, like if they say 30 to 100 is
- 36:51normal and my patients with sleep
- 36:53disorders and neurologic problems
- 36:55have vitamin D levels in the low 30s and
- 36:57below, is there a vitamin D level, not a
- 37:00dose, but a brain or a blood level
- 37:06that I can measure that might make them
- 37:08sleep better. That would be phenomenal.
- 37:10Should we go down this vitamin D road? I
- 37:12know nothing about it. I start sending
- 37:13people for vitamin D levels and giving
- 37:15them vitamin D and I start reading.
- 37:18Walter Stump has already put together a
- 37:20beautiful belief system around vitamin D
- 37:22is the hibernation hormone.
- 37:25It allows animals to adapt their body to
- 37:28tolerate winter when there's no food. It
- 37:31tells their body to do things like the
- 37:34thyroid hormone lowers the metabolic
- 37:36rate of all the cells in the body.
- 37:39The weird part is this is written about
- 37:41beautifully by Walter Stump and because
- 37:44he has a whole belief system that tells
- 37:47what you should expect, he's also
- 37:50published many articles. The first
- 37:53article is in 1982 about
- 37:56brain stem. He publishes articles about
- 37:58postpartum depression, about
- 38:00infertility, about
- 38:03obesity. He's telling us what epidemics
- 38:05are going to happen, but it's before it
- 38:08happens because the sunscreens coming
- 38:10out in '85
- 38:12and the middle of the air conditioning
- 38:14computer. And when I'm talking about
- 38:16this during COVID, it becomes much more
- 38:18exaggerated, okay? COVID has brought us
- 38:21all indoors and we're starting to feel
- 38:24the effects of that even more
- 38:25exaggerated. So, Walter has this idea
- 38:27set, I call him up. Luckily, he's
- 38:30retired and he takes my phone call. And
- 38:33I say, "Hey, you don't know me, but I'm
- 38:36this clinician in Texas and I have this
- 38:39clinical observation that I've done all
- 38:40these sleep studies on people.
- 38:42Their brain
- 38:44that should be sending them through
- 38:46these particular steps is not. You have
- 38:49shown that their vitamin D receptors all
- 38:51over the nuclei that should be running
- 38:52this.
- 38:54Has anybody written about sleep and
- 38:56vitamin D? And he says, "No, but it
- 38:58makes perfect sense. It's the
- 38:59hibernation hormone. What else would you
- 39:01do? You sleep longer."
- 39:03And it turns out that when our D goes
- 39:05very low, our brain actually forgets how
- 39:07to sleep.
- 39:09That's the easiest way to describe it.
- 39:10That gal that I showed you, she had not
- 39:13only vitamin D deficiency as the primary
- 39:15deficiency and with secondary deficiency
- 39:17we're going to talk about,
- 39:19but their your brain just becomes
- 39:20completely scattered and it's what it's
- 39:22supposed to do because the the D is
- 39:24doing a specific thing.
- 39:27It took me a while to figure out. There
- 39:29are articles that actually took Walter's
- 39:31articles and said, "Hey, there are these
- 39:33D receptors. What hormones do that's
- 39:35unique is the hormone goes inside the
- 39:38nucleus
- 39:40of the cell
- 39:41and the nucleus has the DNA and it binds
- 39:44the DNA.
- 39:45And it has a special vitamin D receptor.
- 39:47That's what Walter was measuring. When
- 39:49it hits that receptor, there's a
- 39:51specific protein that that DNA
- 39:53expresses. That means that little piece
- 39:56of DNA comes out, it makes this protein.
- 39:58The protein that it makes is an enzyme
- 40:01that makes acetylcholine.
- 40:03So, that means I can trace through the
- 40:05scientific literature all the way from
- 40:07the receptor to the articles that used
- 40:10that that showed that it was
- 40:12an enzyme called choline
- 40:13acetyltransferase. Now,
- 40:16the next part is really important
- 40:18because what I want out of this is that
- 40:20Madeline
- 40:21and Natalie both get better.
- 40:23Okay? This This biochemistry is my
- 40:26thrill.
- 40:27But,
- 40:28what the listener wants is, how do I get
- 40:31better?
- 40:32Now, since I started this and the first
- 40:35time I started giving vitamin D was in
- 40:372010,
- 40:38this is now
- 40:4116 years later.
- 40:44Is vitamin D
- 40:46any better understood or given out? No.
- 40:50The science is phenomenal. The
- 40:52recommendations for the doctors
- 40:55don't go there. The endocrine society
- 40:57are supposed to be the experts in
- 40:59hormones. D is a hormone.
- 41:02>> I think that's an important point, which
- 41:03is a lot of people think of vitamin D as
- 41:05some kind of uh what we think of it as a
- 41:06vitamin, but you're telling me it's it's
- 41:08a hormone.
- 41:08>> It's the most bizarre thing I've ever
- 41:11run into in medicine. It's really
- 41:12bizarre.
- 41:13>> Which was part
- 41:14>> There was a mistake.
- 41:17There was a mistake made in calling it a
- 41:19vitamin.
- 41:20It is made on our skin.
- 41:24Now, it turns out animals frequently
- 41:25lick their fur.
- 41:28And they get their vitamin D that's made
- 41:30in their fur
- 41:31from licking their fur.
- 41:33Some of it's absorbed, but the thing
- 41:35that's unique about us and pigs,
- 41:37domesticated pigs, is we're bald.
- 41:41That means most of the time we're making
- 41:43it on our skin. It's never supposed to
- 41:45be from the food. It was not ever about
- 41:49the food for us.
- 41:51We don't lick our skin.
- 41:55Therefore, we absorb it through our
- 41:56skin. And we can actually have salmon.
- 41:59The salmon has vitamin D in it. That's
- 42:01the salmon's vitamin D.
- 42:03It's not our vitamin D. It's like saying
- 42:05you eat salmon, you get salmon estrogen.
- 42:07That should be enough estrogen for you
- 42:09to have a normal period.
- 42:11That's crazy. If your ovaries are not
- 42:13making enough estrogen, you won't have a
- 42:15normal period, okay? They called it a
- 42:17vitamin, and in the night early '80s,
- 42:20medicine decided vitamins were for
- 42:22lesser humans.
- 42:23Therefore, D get pushed into that pile,
- 42:27and it got
- 42:28given over the counter. Now, the
- 42:29fascinating part about that is
- 42:31it turns out to be a good thing that
- 42:33it's over the counter because the lay
- 42:34public,
- 42:36once they hear that their whole health
- 42:39is actually tied to this, and that
- 42:42they've been doing what their doctor
- 42:44recommended, which is to use sunscreen
- 42:46and stay out of the sun,
- 42:48and the original recommendation, cuz I
- 42:51was there in that early '80s, was don't
- 42:54sunburn.
- 42:56Every sunburn that's a bad sunburn that
- 42:58you peel from will age your skin, even
- 43:00if you're 10.
- 43:02>> Which is not true enough.
- 43:03>> That's true.
- 43:04>> It's true, yeah.
- 43:04>> That piece is true. Now, the weird thing
- 43:06is that has been morphed over the last
- 43:0940 years into don't ever let the sun
- 43:12touch your skin. People are smart. If
- 43:15you tell them that they can use
- 43:17sunscreen wisely, and it blocks the
- 43:20ability to make vitamin D, and it has
- 43:23turned into the combination of sunscreen
- 43:26plus being inside much more than we ever
- 43:28were before. When you had air
- 43:30conditioning, people slept out on the
- 43:32roof in Saudi Arabia. That means you
- 43:35spend much more time outdoors, and it
- 43:37also turns out there's a particular
- 43:40move in health and wellness, which is
- 43:43about the many forms of wavelengths of
- 43:46energy that we absorb that are given to
- 43:49us by the sun that are not UVB. UVB is
- 43:53the wavelength that makes D. There are
- 43:56Your podcast about infrared?
- 43:59Very, very important. That means there
- 44:01are many wavelengths of energy, and the
- 44:03more time we spend outdoors, the more
- 44:07our body actually uses those wavelengths
- 44:10in our biology. Because medicine is so
- 44:14conservative and so slow to change, they
- 44:17basically poopoo any new ideas. So,
- 44:20hyperbaric oxygen, laughed at. Infrared,
- 44:24laughed at. Made
- 44:26made fun of, and therefore you could
- 44:28actually have your license taken away.
- 44:30Since COVID,
- 44:32since doctors are now doing things
- 44:34across video, I am safer in my little
- 44:38place making my comments, making my
- 44:41statements. They're made up stories.
- 44:44>> What is a made-up story?
- 44:45>> My telling you my belief system
- 44:49is a made-up story.
- 44:51This is really an important idea.
- 44:53I thought that everything written in a
- 44:55book is true.
- 44:57As soon as the publications come out, as
- 44:59soon as I can go to PubMed,
- 45:02I thought those things written down were
- 45:04true.
- 45:06Absolutes. And then you stay in medicine
- 45:08for 30 years and you realize the things
- 45:10that you were taught
- 45:12are not truths anymore. Well,
- 45:15that means they made up those stories.
- 45:18They do a scientific experiment. You and
- 45:21I are looking at the data,
- 45:23but there's always a conclusory
- 45:26My conclusions from this data are
- 45:29Those are always made-up stories. And in
- 45:32fact,
- 45:33they're always humans making up stories.
- 45:36You and I
- 45:38are not listening to stories that ants
- 45:41make up
- 45:42or that cats make up. We're very
- 45:45human-centric.
- 45:47We're studying things that are stories
- 45:50that humans make up.
- 45:51>> And we're arriving at a conclusion based
- 45:52on some factors that we can see, which
- 45:55is, you know, often causation, or
- 45:57correlation, sorry, and not necessarily
- 45:59causation.
- 46:00>> Correlation. Very important. We all have
- 46:04a belief system. You and I are building
- 46:07a belief system here. I told you that
- 46:09Walter Stumpf had a belief system. The
- 46:11reason why I'm using those terms is
- 46:14I was really pissed off at the
- 46:16pulmonologist when I realized
- 46:20that woman with the sleep apnea, she
- 46:21wasn't a fat middle-aged male with a fat
- 46:24tongue. How dare they? Here are these
- 46:27women, they have headaches, they're
- 46:28suffering.
- 46:29How dare they make up this story?
- 46:32And then I began to realize
- 46:35they made up those stories, that was
- 46:36their best guess.
- 46:38>> Mhm.
- 46:38>> That is every single person who sits on
- 46:40this side of the table, it's their best
- 46:43guess.
- 46:44All of us are or you wouldn't have us on
- 46:46here, very enthusiastic about our guess.
- 46:50But it's very important to realize that
- 46:52every belief system means you see the
- 46:54world through that, but it always has
- 46:56blinders.
- 46:57>> Mhm.
- 46:57>> There are things that you won't be able
- 46:59to see because of it as well.
- 47:02Then you must move into a point of view
- 47:05which is I need to stay flexible. What
- 47:08if new information comes?
- 47:10>> Yeah.
- 47:10>> Okay? So,
- 47:12the deep belief system at the moment is
- 47:15that it's a vitamin.
- 47:17And there's a huge political fight
- 47:19within the medical literature. It's very
- 47:22weird.
- 47:23>> The deep belief system, what do you
- 47:24mean?
- 47:24>> Medicine has decided that the only way
- 47:27you can get any important information is
- 47:29to have
- 47:30a control group,
- 47:32a study group.
- 47:34The study group gets
- 47:35X, a drug, in this case vitamin D,
- 47:39and you compare the outcome of both
- 47:40groups.
- 47:41>> And what does the other group get? The
- 47:42placebo? Basically, they think it's a
- 47:43drug, but it's nothing.
- 47:44>> Yeah. And then you compare the outcome.
- 47:48The problem is
- 47:49in no biological pathway is there only
- 47:51one variable. There's never one
- 47:53variable.
- 47:55And that means when you give one a
- 47:58hormone,
- 48:00you also need to know
- 48:02that hormones are always in done by
- 48:06blood levels, and that the normal state
- 48:09for the human body and every biologic
- 48:13animal, including plants,
- 48:15is that hormones stay in a tight little
- 48:18narrow band. Too much and too little are
- 48:20both not good. Goal always goes towards
- 48:22the middle.
- 48:23In the lay experience, this is why we do
- 48:26blood levels of testosterone, if we give
- 48:29you testosterone supplement. If we give
- 48:31you estrogen, in thyroid, even lay
- 48:34people know
- 48:35my aunt would get crazy when her thyroid
- 48:38was off, and it could be too high or too
- 48:40low. D is exactly the same.
- 48:43Yet,
- 48:45they do these studies based on a fixed
- 48:47dose.
- 48:48So, it doesn't matter what the level is,
- 48:51what time of the year, how much sun
- 48:53they're getting, they're all getting
- 48:544,000 IUs.
- 48:56>> So, they could be having too much or too
- 48:58little.
- 48:59>> No blood levels are taken.
- 49:00>> So, you're saying that it should be
- 49:01personalized the amount of vitamin D.
- 49:02>> Absolutely. Any hormone that you take,
- 49:05if you compare, that's why the Endocrine
- 49:07Society is so important. They know
- 49:10in 2004 when they gave the final
- 49:12recommendation for the doctors in
- 49:14practice, they know that the studies
- 49:17that have been done so far are rarely
- 49:19done in the way a hormone should be
- 49:22studied. And they say that in their
- 49:24report. They spent a whole year looking
- 49:26at this chemical, all the research
- 49:27that's done. And they say, "You know, we
- 49:30don't really have any good studies. We
- 49:32don't have any clinical studies like
- 49:34mine, for instance, where where relating
- 49:37the dose that we give the person to the
- 49:39blood level that's achieved. Therefore,
- 49:43you would think they would say, "We need
- 49:45more studies." No, here's what they
- 49:46said. "Therefore, you should not do
- 49:49vitamin D levels, and you should not
- 49:50give recommendations about vitamin D,
- 49:52taking it or not taking it. You should
- 49:53just avoid the whole conversation
- 49:55because
- 49:57what's going to happen when you do a
- 49:58vitamin D levels, you're going to call
- 49:59me up
- 50:00and you're going to say, "What dose
- 50:01should I give? The D level is this." And
- 50:03we don't know.
- 50:05So, they've said, "Don't be curious.
- 50:07Don't do it."
- 50:09That's insane.
- 50:10Now, that means the lay public is coming
- 50:13to me and other people on the internet
- 50:16and they're coming to podcasts like this
- 50:18to learn about it. And there are a lot
- 50:19of conflicting
- 50:22attitudes.
- 50:23I may be one of the biggest recorder in
- 50:27my brain, which is not in a data dump
- 50:30that I can put into an article,
- 50:32of how to manage vitamin D levels, what
- 50:35you should do, what you should do with
- 50:36dosing. And that's one of the things I
- 50:38have in this workbook that we're going
- 50:39to talk about.
- 50:40>> Every talk to me founders, they all
- 50:41carry the same belief that the biggest
- 50:43threat to their small business is having
- 50:45a bad product. It's not. The biggest
- 50:47threat they face is hiring the wrong
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- 50:51hires put the handbrake on growth and
- 50:53rapidly infect company culture. And I
- 50:55get it. When you're starting out, you
- 50:57need eight players to grow your company,
- 50:58but you don't have 40 spare hours to
- 51:00spend sifting through interviews. So,
- 51:02you hire fast to fill the seat, but this
- 51:04ends up costing you even more in the
- 51:05long term. What any small business
- 51:07actually needs is a reliable and
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- 51:10without stalling momentum. That's where
- 51:12our long-term sponsor LinkedIn and
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- 51:39If you're thinking about starting a
- 51:40business, one of the first decisions
- 51:42you'll have to make is actually one of
- 51:44the most important, which is where do
- 51:45you build that business? Our product
- 51:47team who manages everything we do from
- 51:49our conversation cards to our diaries
- 51:51has always used our sponsor Shopify.
- 51:54There are a few reasons for this, but
- 51:55one of the big ones is that when you're
- 51:57running a business, you really need your
- 51:59own store and your own customer data.
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- 52:40I'm very curious about Madeline and
- 52:41Natalie still.
- 52:43>> Great.
- 52:43>> What happened to Madeline and Natalie?
- 52:45>> For 2 years, I'm talking to Walter on
- 52:47the phone, and I start giving vitamin D
- 52:49to my my patients, and I learn that
- 52:53every single person needs a unique
- 52:54amount.
- 52:55Very scary.
- 52:57I mean, everybody else is saying, "Oh,
- 52:58take 5,000, take 10,000, take 20,000." I
- 53:01take 100,000 once a month, okay?
- 53:04And I find out also that if you get past
- 53:08about a level of 60,
- 53:10that's when they come back and say, "You
- 53:12know what? My sleep is better." Now,
- 53:14importantly,
- 53:15I still was operating under the
- 53:17false belief that there's only one
- 53:19variable, okay? I came up in medicine
- 53:22using drugs. That means you match the
- 53:24drug to the complaint. Oh, that one
- 53:26didn't work, and then we do this one,
- 53:27and then we do this one, okay?
- 53:29I'm ashamed that I looked at it that
- 53:31way, but that was my training. So, I
- 53:34thought vitamin D was going to fix
- 53:35everything. Within the next 6 months, my
- 53:37patients start to come back and say
- 53:39horrible things like,
- 53:41"My joints ache all over." And my
- 53:43doctor's about to send me to the
- 53:46rheumatologist who does autoimmune
- 53:48diseases."
- 53:48>> Like arthritis?
- 53:49>> Exactly. Then the next person comes in
- 53:51and says, "I've got this terrible
- 53:53burning in my hands and feet."
- 53:56And another woman comes in the same
- 53:58month with burning in her hands and
- 54:00feet. Two women, same month, they have
- 54:03nothing in common except they both have
- 54:05headaches and they've been doing vitamin
- 54:07D with me for 2 years. And they say they
- 54:09want to know, "Is this related to that
- 54:12vitamin D that I've been taking with
- 54:13you?" And now I'm very freaked out
- 54:16because I'm afraid that what I've been
- 54:18doing, even though their sleep is better
- 54:20and we're all happy about that,
- 54:22headaches were better, now they're a
- 54:23little worse again,
- 54:24is I've put them in a situation where
- 54:27they are now using more of whatever
- 54:30these building blocks are and I've I've
- 54:32actually forced them into another
- 54:34deficiency state. I'm making them make
- 54:36more repairs and now they're deficient
- 54:38in something else and I don't know what.
- 54:41Now, a patient walks in with a book.
- 54:44This is why I'm telling you that my
- 54:45patients are the ones that taught me all
- 54:47this stuff. And I'm telling you these
- 54:48embarrassing stories because they come
- 54:51in and they say, "Did you do this to
- 54:53me?"
- 54:55That's very uncomfortable.
- 54:57And I don't know, but I feel a
- 54:58commitment that I better find out. And a
- 55:01woman walks in with a book that's called
- 55:04the pain-free promise of pantothenic
- 55:07acid. God forbid it's another vitamin.
- 55:10So,
- 55:11I happen to have developed over the same
- 55:14time period this weird buttock pain.
- 55:17I can't sit down to talk to my patients
- 55:20at the end of the day because my butt
- 55:22hurts. So, I feel like I have the same
- 55:24thing. So, I read this book.
- 55:27It says pantothenic acid
- 55:29is a chemical that makes this thing
- 55:32called coenzyme A.
- 55:34Coenzyme A is responsible for making
- 55:36cortisol.
- 55:37I think
- 55:39I don't think that's causing this
- 55:40burning, but this is something I need to
- 55:42know about. And cortisol is big in
- 55:45sleep. We talk about cortisol all the
- 55:47time, the timing of it. And it's huge in
- 55:49inflammation. I go to the vitamin store,
- 55:52I find pantothenic acid. The book says
- 55:54400 mg is the right dose. So, I pick up
- 55:57the 400 mg and I go to the B complex. I
- 56:00find something called B100, which means
- 56:03there's each one has got 100 mg or 100
- 56:07micrograms. I go home with these two
- 56:09things.
- 56:11I start taking them.
- 56:13And I give recommendations to the anyone
- 56:15who comes in in that one week
- 56:18where I have a sleep study,
- 56:20they have a new complaint.
- 56:22I give a recommendation of B100 and B5.
- 56:25What the book did was it sent me to the
- 56:27references. The articles that she
- 56:30references are from the 1950s
- 56:32in this creepy
- 56:34lab next to the Iowa State Prison
- 56:38where they're doing these creepy
- 56:39experiments on prisoners before it
- 56:41becomes illegal. They published this
- 56:43article saying, "If you block
- 56:44pantothenic acid for 2 weeks,
- 56:47you see four things. They can't sleep.
- 56:51They have belly complaints, bloating and
- 56:53all sorts of things. They have a funny
- 56:55puppet-like gait and they have burning
- 56:56in their hands and feet."
- 56:58And I go,
- 56:59"This is wonderful." So, that was one of
- 57:02the motivations. So, the cortisol link
- 57:04to pain
- 57:06and the burning in the hands and feet.
- 57:09Now, I got it in my head that I've made
- 57:11them
- 57:13use more of the B vitamins.
- 57:15>> So, let's just pause there. So, you're
- 57:16saying that by asking your patients to
- 57:19take more vitamin D, you're saying that
- 57:21the body has also started to use more B
- 57:24vitamins, which means that by taking
- 57:25more vitamin D then I'm deficient in B
- 57:28vitamins.
- 57:29>> Yes.
- 57:29>> And so, when you use vitamin D,
- 57:31you also use more B vitamins.
- 57:34>> There's another point that I'm about to
- 57:36make, but you summarized it perfectly.
- 57:39So, the next [clears throat] question
- 57:40would be, "Okay, I'm taking 400 mg cuz
- 57:42that's what it says in the book, and
- 57:43that's the only dose that was on the
- 57:45shelf in the vitamin store."
- 57:48I get to the end of the week and I
- 57:49realize I have restless legs, and my
- 57:52restless legs has been much worse this
- 57:54week. This is probably too big a dose,
- 57:57and I stop the 400 mg and everything
- 57:59goes away. My butt pain goes away like
- 58:01in a day.
- 58:02>> 400 mg of
- 58:03>> B5.
- 58:05>> Okay.
- 58:05>> So, pantothenic acid is called B5.
- 58:08All the patients who come back say,
- 58:13"Were you trying to kill me?
- 58:15This 400 mg here, I got so agitated.
- 58:19I stopped it after 2 days. I felt like I
- 58:22was crawling out of my skin, and I
- 58:23couldn't sleep at all. If you block B5,
- 58:26you get insomnia. That means it has
- 58:28power in sleep.
- 58:30D has power in sleep.
- 58:32But it turns out if it has power in
- 58:34sleep, your body has a very specific
- 58:36amount that it wants. If you give it too
- 58:38much, it's not happy. If you give it too
- 58:41little, it's not happy. And it turns out
- 58:44that instead of giving you one thing
- 58:47when it's low and another thing when
- 58:49it's high, which is what I would have
- 58:50anticipated, it goes back to the same
- 58:52thing. When it's not happy, it just
- 58:54stops sleeping. Now, a couple of them
- 58:56come back and say, "You know, I stopped
- 58:58the 400 mg because I was so agitated I
- 59:00couldn't sleep at all, but I stayed on
- 59:01B100. I feel great. My sleep is perfect.
- 59:05My pain is gone." And I said, "That's
- 59:07what happened to me."
- 59:09It's just like too weird.
- 59:11This chemical is doing something, and
- 59:13it's acting what I would say to my
- 59:14patients is, "Be very careful with this
- 59:16because I don't really know what dose
- 59:18you'll need.
- 59:20If it's too much, it'll act like
- 59:21caffeine and it'll keep you up at night,
- 59:23okay?
- 59:24Then, the next thing that happens is a
- 59:26gal comes in and says, "You know, you
- 59:28gave me that B100.
- 59:30And I I ached all over. I would get up
- 59:33in the morning and I'd go
- 59:36And she said, "You know what? I broke it
- 59:37in half
- 59:39and I'm taking that and I feel great."
- 59:40What you'll see here is B50, which is 50
- 59:43mg of each, but all eight Bs
- 59:46has 50 mg of
- 59:48of B5 in it. It turns out, if you've
- 59:50been taking D for 2 years, you've
- 59:52actually worked your way into a place
- 59:55where your body has been using more Bs
- 59:57and you are now very profoundly
- 59:59deficient. But she did not take 2 years.
- 1:00:01She was a new patient to me. She had not
- 1:00:04been on D for that period of time. The
- 1:00:06reason why this discussion is important
- 1:00:08is there are millions of people who
- 1:00:10started taking D in COVID
- 1:00:12who by the fourth year after taking it
- 1:00:15started to have burning in their hands
- 1:00:17and feet. They're not even taking it
- 1:00:19anymore. They took it from 2020 to 2023.
- 1:00:23Their levels got into the 60s. Their
- 1:00:25doctor said, "Hey, 60 is enough. Stop
- 1:00:27taking the vitamin D." But they still
- 1:00:29show up with the B vitamin diagnoses and
- 1:00:32they go to their doctor and they say,
- 1:00:33"Oh, well, you've developed lupus. Oh,
- 1:00:34or you have this. Oh, or you have that."
- 1:00:37These are all diseases that have been
- 1:00:39described already, but they haven't been
- 1:00:41described as B vitamin deficiency
- 1:00:43states, which is bizarre, but that's the
- 1:00:45historical point. All of the literature
- 1:00:48says, "B5 deficiency doesn't exist
- 1:00:50because it's in every food."
- 1:00:53Now, I'm reading that literature and it
- 1:00:55says
- 1:00:56thiamine, which is B1, has a poop
- 1:00:59bacteria source and a food source.
- 1:01:02B2, poop bacteria and a food source.
- 1:01:05All of them come from the poop.
- 1:01:08>> What do you mean come from the poop?
- 1:01:10>> These eight chemicals called B
- 1:01:12all of them are made by bacteria
- 1:01:16and we absorb them. Everybody knows that
- 1:01:19we have the wrong microbiome.
- 1:01:21And we've all been told that it's
- 1:01:22toxins, antibiotics are the major thing
- 1:01:25that are blamed, but we now have a huge
- 1:01:27body of literature about the microbiome
- 1:01:30being abnormal. Here's
- 1:01:31>> microbiome?
- 1:01:32>> Yes. The other weird part about it is
- 1:01:35there are these guys in Oklahoma, GI
- 1:01:37surgeons, who are giving poop
- 1:01:39transplants.
- 1:01:40>> Give me context on what that is.
- 1:01:41>> They take poop from one person and they
- 1:01:43push it up the other person's butt. Like
- 1:01:46we've spent 100 years saying stay away
- 1:01:48from the poop, it's bad for you. Don't
- 1:01:50go from the poop to your mouth, okay?
- 1:01:52We've made this idea that the bacteria
- 1:01:56we're fighting against them. They're
- 1:01:58trying to take us over and they're bad
- 1:01:59and we're fighting against them.
- 1:02:01But as people are dying of
- 1:02:04things like Clostridium difficile, which
- 1:02:07C. diff is the way it's shortened,
- 1:02:09they're dying of C. diff infection and
- 1:02:11they're doing poop transplants
- 1:02:13and they live.
- 1:02:15It turns out that the eight B vitamins
- 1:02:17were first described as bacterial growth
- 1:02:19factors. They are chemicals that one
- 1:02:22bacteria is able to make and it
- 1:02:25pushes it out of its cell
- 1:02:27into the environment. And this one next
- 1:02:29to it, that's a different one, goes,
- 1:02:31>> [gasps]
- 1:02:31>> "Goody, give me that." And those guys
- 1:02:35live together as a group, a commensal,
- 1:02:37meaning each one of them derive benefit
- 1:02:41from having the other one there. So
- 1:02:43there are four big groups of bacteria
- 1:02:47that is the normal human microbiome.
- 1:02:50Well, why are there four? Why is it
- 1:02:52always this four? And how come we only
- 1:02:56know
- 1:02:57about 2% of them? We're saying all these
- 1:03:00things that the microbiome is wrong.
- 1:03:02Turns out we only know 2%
- 1:03:04of 200 bacteria that are normal
- 1:03:08occupants from the mouth, from the lips
- 1:03:10all the way to the anus. We only know
- 1:03:122%.
- 1:03:14But we have the genetic footprint of
- 1:03:18every single one. We are able to take
- 1:03:20them out of the poop or out of the small
- 1:03:22intestine or out of the mouth and we can
- 1:03:25say these are the genetics and we've
- 1:03:26named all of them. So we know there are
- 1:03:27200.
- 1:03:28>> Okay.
- 1:03:29>> And the article that they write is, you
- 1:03:31know, it looks to us like
- 1:03:33the reason why this foursome of groups
- 1:03:35hang out together is because they all at
- 1:03:37least need one B vitamin
- 1:03:39and they produce at least one.
- 1:03:41So they all have
- 1:03:43a relationship to the B vitamins and we
- 1:03:46should start thinking about the
- 1:03:47microbiome
- 1:03:49as the production system that supplies
- 1:03:52the B vitamins to the body. I didn't
- 1:03:54find that article until after.
- 1:03:56But here I am back again with one big
- 1:03:59question. These two women with the
- 1:04:01burning in their hands and feet. Why did
- 1:04:03they get B vitamin deficient? If the B's
- 1:04:04come from the food
- 1:04:06they've had the same diet all along and
- 1:04:08I don't I haven't controlled their diet.
- 1:04:10I haven't made them change their diet.
- 1:04:12Why did all of these people come back
- 1:04:14with these complaints?
- 1:04:16The one thing we know is many of them
- 1:04:19have IBS symptoms which are a signal
- 1:04:21that the bacteria isn't right.
- 1:04:23>> IBS? What's that?
- 1:04:24>> Irritable bowel syndrome.
- 1:04:25>> Yeah.
- 1:04:26>> Diarrhea, constipation, bloating, my
- 1:04:27belly isn't right.
- 1:04:29>> Yeah.
- 1:04:29>> Because I had assumed that D was going
- 1:04:32to fix everything.
- 1:04:33>> Vitamin D.
- 1:04:34Mhm.
- 1:04:34>> That vitamin [clears throat] D was going
- 1:04:35to fix their belly. And it didn't.
- 1:04:38There were several things that did not
- 1:04:39get better. One, their IBS didn't get
- 1:04:42better. Two, they didn't lose weight.
- 1:04:44That was really weird because they were
- 1:04:46out exercising more. They were out
- 1:04:48exercising in the middle of the day but
- 1:04:50they didn't lose weight. That means
- 1:04:51there's still something wrong in the
- 1:04:53background where they didn't lose
- 1:04:54weight.
- 1:04:55So I'm stuck with, okay, why didn't did
- 1:04:58the D fix the B
- 1:05:00thing? Oh.
- 1:05:01Oh.
- 1:05:03These were all described as bacterial
- 1:05:04growth factors.
- 1:05:06I have assumed that vitamin D was a
- 1:05:09bacterial growth factor because Walter
- 1:05:12talked about the GI tract having all
- 1:05:14sorts of receptors for vitamin D.
- 1:05:16And so I assume that the bacteria that
- 1:05:18lived inside us needed vitamin D to be
- 1:05:20normal.
- 1:05:22And therefore I assume that IBS showed
- 1:05:24up in the 1980s [clears throat]
- 1:05:26because we went into D deficiency and
- 1:05:28that D deficiency caused this IBS.
- 1:05:31There were no articles about that in
- 1:05:33humans until 2020 when COVID came and
- 1:05:36they actually started to realize that
- 1:05:38the people who were D deficient died in
- 1:05:41COVID and they started to actually look
- 1:05:44at, oh, is the microbiome playing a role
- 1:05:47in our immune system? Yes.
- 1:05:49If I give vitamin D, will the bacterial
- 1:05:52makeup of my stool change in a positive
- 1:05:56way?
- 1:05:56>> My poop.
- 1:05:57>> Exactly. Does the poop bacteria makeup
- 1:06:00change in a positive way? We know we've
- 1:06:02seen people who don't have inflammatory
- 1:06:03disorders and they have these this
- 1:06:05bacterial makeup will giving vitamin D
- 1:06:08change the population? And yes, that's
- 1:06:11the answer. Now, I realized now I'm
- 1:06:14giving two bacterial growth factors, D
- 1:06:17and now I'm giving B100 and I'm giving a
- 1:06:20large dose of all eight Bs. Remember
- 1:06:23that? Give all eight.
- 1:06:24>> Mhm.
- 1:06:25>> That means by accident I have actually
- 1:06:28given eight bacterial growth factors
- 1:06:30that are necessary for bringing the poop
- 1:06:32bacteria back to the normal human makeup
- 1:06:36that it's supposed to be that it has
- 1:06:37always come to be spontaneously.
- 1:06:41That's a really important point. All the
- 1:06:43other animals in the world, they're not
- 1:06:44obese. There are no obese squirrels in
- 1:06:47my backyard. The only obese animals are
- 1:06:50our cats and dogs that we keep inside.
- 1:06:52>> So to summarize for me, what is the link
- 1:06:54between vitamin D and the B vitamins?
- 1:06:57>> It turns out that all the Bs come from
- 1:06:59the microbiome.
- 1:07:00>> Yes, okay. I understand.
- 1:07:02>> In order to have the correct microbiome,
- 1:07:04we are actually commensal organisms
- 1:07:07with our microbiome. That means we have
- 1:07:10to provide D,
- 1:07:12they in turn provide us with B's.
- 1:07:15>> Okay. So, it's not a good thing that you
- 1:07:16gave them D then cuz then the body makes
- 1:07:18B.
- 1:07:18>> Yes, but it didn't make B on its own.
- 1:07:22Otherwise, those side effects like my
- 1:07:24butt pain wouldn't have been there,
- 1:07:26okay? So, let's bring that let's bring
- 1:07:28that into focus.
- 1:07:30The D by itself did not correct the
- 1:07:32microbiome.
- 1:07:33>> Yeah.
- 1:07:34>> So, when I took 5,000 of D between 2020
- 1:07:39and 2023,
- 1:07:40and I took it for 3 years cuz my doctor
- 1:07:42told me it was okay,
- 1:07:44but in 2025,
- 1:07:46I started to have rheumatoid arthritis
- 1:07:49symptoms.
- 1:07:50The D did not correct my microbiome. It
- 1:07:53actually made me deficient. I'm going to
- 1:07:55give you the drug for rheumatoid
- 1:07:56arthritis. I'm not going to picture it
- 1:07:58as, "Oh, you need B50."
- 1:08:01>> So, you gave B50, but then didn't they
- 1:08:02have another problem?
- 1:08:04>> Most of the time, what happens after the
- 1:08:06B50 is everything comes back to normal,
- 1:08:08the GI tract corrects. You have to take
- 1:08:11it only for 3 months. I was taking it
- 1:08:13for 4 and 1/2 months.
- 1:08:16And I started to wake up and feel old.
- 1:08:18>> Yeah.
- 1:08:19>> And everything I just parenthetically
- 1:08:20told you about the the GI tract was
- 1:08:22percolating around in my brain.
- 1:08:24And what I had told my patients was,
- 1:08:26"You know, I think we've stumbled on the
- 1:08:29growth factor that the right microbiome
- 1:08:31needs.
- 1:08:32And I think the reason you became B
- 1:08:34vitamin deficient was because it was the
- 1:08:36wrong microbiome, but when we give them
- 1:08:39what they need, they're going to grow
- 1:08:40back."
- 1:08:40>> Okay, fine.
- 1:08:41>> to grow back and
- 1:08:43they're going to do their job.
- 1:08:45>> Okay, so
- 1:08:46>> they're going to produce B50. They're
- 1:08:48going to make that.
- 1:08:49>> me summarize that. So, by giving them
- 1:08:50B50 for a short period of time, you
- 1:08:53[snorts] were kind of jump-starting the
- 1:08:54gut microbiome, and then you don't want
- 1:08:56to keep giving it to them or else
- 1:08:57they're going to become like dependent
- 1:08:59or not do their job properly. So, you
- 1:09:00want to give it to them for 3 months,
- 1:09:02let them jump start, and then they'll do
- 1:09:04their job, and then you leave them
- 1:09:04alone.
- 1:09:05>> Yes, and I want to add one more thing.
- 1:09:07The way you think about it is
- 1:09:09probiotics
- 1:09:11are bacteria.
- 1:09:13You dump the bacteria down, and you
- 1:09:15swallow it, and it goes into your small
- 1:09:16intestine,
- 1:09:18but if it does not have the growth
- 1:09:21factors that it needs, which every
- 1:09:23bacteria has its little set of growth
- 1:09:25helpers it needs to be able to absorb
- 1:09:28from the actual juice that's down there.
- 1:09:32If it doesn't have that, it can't
- 1:09:33reproduce.
- 1:09:35Every bacteria that's sitting in my
- 1:09:36small intestine right now,
- 1:09:4012 hours from now is going to be in a
- 1:09:42different place.
- 1:09:43>> Mhm.
- 1:09:43>> A day [clears throat] from now, I'm
- 1:09:44going to poop it out.
- 1:09:45Who's up here now?
- 1:09:47The great, great, granddaughters of the
- 1:09:49bacteria that are sitting there while
- 1:09:51you're I are talking. They reproduce
- 1:09:54rapidly. You have to picture them like a
- 1:09:57river. Like we're sitting in, and we're
- 1:09:59looking at the river, and the water
- 1:10:01looks like this.
- 1:10:02And 10 minutes later, the water looks
- 1:10:04the same.
- 1:10:06But, that's not the same water that we
- 1:10:08were looking at 10 minutes ago. That
- 1:10:10water is downstream.
- 1:10:12>> [snorts]
- 1:10:12>> That means the level of reproduction
- 1:10:15that they are expected to do requires
- 1:10:18constant production of these growth
- 1:10:21factors. Now, it turns out that you
- 1:10:23don't have to think about that. All you
- 1:10:25have to do is have the normal bacteria
- 1:10:28that was generated spontaneously when
- 1:10:30you were born because mom was giving you
- 1:10:32D in her breast milk, and it also had
- 1:10:35eight Bs. Those eight Bs came from her
- 1:10:38normal microbiome in the breast milk.
- 1:10:40That means you had everything you
- 1:10:42needed, and then you were out in the
- 1:10:43sun. You were born in June or July in
- 1:10:46the summer,
- 1:10:48and then you got D on your skin, and
- 1:10:51that process has replicated for 300,000
- 1:10:54years. For 250 million years, the
- 1:10:58dinosaurs had a microbiome in their
- 1:11:01intestines. This is so old, it's
- 1:11:04unimaginable.
- 1:11:05>> So, what is the conclusion here then?
- 1:11:06Cuz I do want to bring this back to
- 1:11:08Natalie and Madeline.
- 1:11:09>> Okay.
- 1:11:09>> I still haven't figured out what what
- 1:11:10you what you told them to do.
- 1:11:12>> Steven, you are so smart and it's so
- 1:11:14such a pleasure to talk to you. These
- 1:11:17are difficult points. Madeline is
- 1:11:19struggling with all these things. She's
- 1:11:21slowly getting better.
- 1:11:23Then we do the D, she's slowly getting
- 1:11:25better.
- 1:11:25Then we do the B100.
- 1:11:28And then
- 1:11:30it's freaking awesome. She starts to
- 1:11:33lose the pain that she had down her leg.
- 1:11:36The burning in her hands and feet goes
- 1:11:37away. Her sleep gets much better. Now,
- 1:11:39she's into year three and four
- 1:11:43of what becomes the right sleep program.
- 1:11:45And she's still on 30,000 IUs of D a
- 1:11:48day. That's an immense dose. Most people
- 1:11:51are taking 5 to 10.
- 1:11:53She's been taking 30,000 a day for 4
- 1:11:55years.
- 1:11:57Her D level has stayed the same.
- 1:11:59It's in the 60s. She's doing a great job
- 1:12:01of keeping everything the same.
- 1:12:03That really means that her body is using
- 1:12:0530,000 IUs of vitamin D a day for 4
- 1:12:08years. That's a very important concept
- 1:12:10because it means
- 1:12:12she is using so much more than anybody
- 1:12:17else is using in my practice. Most
- 1:12:19people are on 10,000.
- 1:12:21But she's making these amazing repairs.
- 1:12:23Her depression is gone. She's stopped
- 1:12:25three medicines that we've been using
- 1:12:26for pain control.
- 1:12:28She now gets up in the morning and she
- 1:12:29feels energetic. She's starting a
- 1:12:32program that the Texas state has for
- 1:12:34going back to work.
- 1:12:35You know, I was like, "This gal's never
- 1:12:37going back." She wants to go back to
- 1:12:39work.
- 1:12:40She is a totally different person. Now,
- 1:12:43importantly, she is not 100 lb thinner.
- 1:12:47She's still 100 lb overweight. And that
- 1:12:49is It's of the things that happen in
- 1:12:51most of my patients and clients. The
- 1:12:53body will not lose that weight until
- 1:12:55it's really made every repair it thinks
- 1:12:57is necessary. And then it decides that
- 1:13:01it's not going to need this fat anymore.
- 1:13:03>> So with her, did you take her off the B
- 1:13:06vitamins?
- 1:13:07>> The routine is that one, they have to do
- 1:13:11D. And this this will become the right
- 1:13:13sleep program.
- 1:13:14>> But they have to do D because they're
- 1:13:15not getting sunlight.
- 1:13:16>> Correct.
- 1:13:17>> We none of us really get enough
- 1:13:18sunlight.
- 1:13:19>> Correct. So and we can talk about
- 1:13:21supplement versus sun. But the D is
- 1:13:24pivotal to the entire program and it has
- 1:13:26to continue. And if you have a sleep
- 1:13:29problem or medical problems, you will do
- 1:13:32better if you get your D above 60 and
- 1:13:35keep it around there.
- 1:13:36>> Mhm.
- 1:13:36>> That is not the same as saying what is
- 1:13:39the ideal D level for a human who wants
- 1:13:42to
- 1:13:43overachieve. It is not the same.
- 1:13:46Okay?
- 1:13:46>> Mhm.
- 1:13:47>> So she's on D. She stays on D the rest
- 1:13:49of her life as long as she needs it. And
- 1:13:51she's always checking her D levels. Then
- 1:13:54she goes on B100. She happened to be one
- 1:13:56of the ones that was on D by itself for
- 1:13:582 years. If you have been on D for two
- 1:14:00or three or five years in the past and
- 1:14:03have developed B vitamin deficiency
- 1:14:04states, then you will have to go back on
- 1:14:07D with the B50.
- 1:14:09And you will do that for 3 months. And
- 1:14:11then you will stop and you'll go down to
- 1:14:12a much lower dose.
- 1:14:14That's a multivitamin. One of the things
- 1:14:17in the background that we haven't talked
- 1:14:18about yet is there are actually hundreds
- 1:14:20of things that the bacteria are doing
- 1:14:23for us that are just starting to be
- 1:14:25reported.
- 1:14:26But they have been pivotal all along in
- 1:14:28all the minerals. All the minerals that
- 1:14:30show up in a multivitamin,
- 1:14:32all the magnesium, calcium, selenium,
- 1:14:35manganese, all these things that
- 1:14:36nobody's really interested in and they
- 1:14:38all are in list on their multivitamin.
- 1:14:41All through this same time frame, people
- 1:14:43are developing iron deficiency and iron
- 1:14:46overload.
- 1:14:47And it turns out that the bacteria have
- 1:14:49been a pivotal part in our intestine
- 1:14:52speaking to our body about whether or
- 1:14:54not our iron level is low or high in the
- 1:14:56liver
- 1:14:57or in the blood system in our bone
- 1:14:59marrow or in our brain. And if you do
- 1:15:01not have a specific bacteria called
- 1:15:04Lactobacillus reuteri, you will be
- 1:15:06missing a brand new metabolite or
- 1:15:10chemical that was named after that
- 1:15:12bacteria just in the last 3 years that's
- 1:15:14called reuteri that is one of the
- 1:15:17chemical messengers that our body uses.
- 1:15:20So, that means many of the deficiency
- 1:15:22states that the naturopaths and the
- 1:15:24functional medicine people are studying
- 1:15:27are all linked to the fact that this
- 1:15:28bacterial tube has been doing all these
- 1:15:32things for us all along. And when you
- 1:15:35lost them, each individual person has
- 1:15:38its own set of specific deficiency
- 1:15:41states that must be addressed for their
- 1:15:44sleep to get better.
- 1:15:46>> This is something that I've made for
- 1:15:48you. I realized that the Diary of a CEO
- 1:15:49audience are strivers, whether it's in
- 1:15:51business or health, we all have big
- 1:15:53goals that we want to accomplish. And
- 1:15:55one of the things I've learned is that
- 1:15:57when you aim at the big, big, big goal,
- 1:15:59it can feel incredibly psychologically
- 1:16:02uncomfortable because it's kind of like
- 1:16:04being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
- 1:16:06and looking upwards. The way to
- 1:16:07accomplish your goals is by breaking
- 1:16:09them down into tiny small steps. And we
- 1:16:12call this in our team the 1%. And
- 1:16:14actually this philosophy is highly
- 1:16:16responsible for much of our success
- 1:16:17here. So, what we've done is that you at
- 1:16:20home can accomplish any big goal that
- 1:16:22you have is we've made these 1% diaries.
- 1:16:25And we released these last year and they
- 1:16:27all sold out. So, I asked my team over
- 1:16:29and over again to bring the diaries
- 1:16:30back, but also to introduce some new
- 1:16:32colors and to make some minor tweaks to
- 1:16:34the diary. So, now we have a better
- 1:16:37range for you. So, if you have a big
- 1:16:40goal in mind and you need a framework
- 1:16:42and a process and some motivation, then
- 1:16:44I highly recommend you get one of these
- 1:16:46diaries before they all sell out once
- 1:16:48again. And you can get yours at the
- 1:16:50diary.com.
- 1:16:51And if you want the link, the link is in
- 1:16:52the description below.
- 1:16:54I want to go back to Madeline. So, my
- 1:16:56question was because the research that
- 1:16:58I'm reading says that vitamin D does not
- 1:17:00cause, trigger, or create a B vitamin
- 1:17:02deficiency.
- 1:17:03>> No, it's not in the literature except my
- 1:17:05article.
- 1:17:06>> Taking vitamin D supplements will not
- 1:17:08drain your
- 1:17:09your body's B vitamins.
- 1:17:11>> Let me read my my title. Vitamin D
- 1:17:14deficiency changes the intestinal
- 1:17:15microbiome reducing B vitamin production
- 1:17:18in the gut.
- 1:17:20The resulting lack of pantothenic acid
- 1:17:22adversely affects the immune system
- 1:17:23producing a pro-inflammatory state
- 1:17:25associated with atherosclerosis and
- 1:17:27autoimmunity. This is a brand new
- 1:17:29discovery
- 1:17:30made by someone who's not a scientist,
- 1:17:33who's not working in the primary lab,
- 1:17:35who is a clinician, and the impact of
- 1:17:39this
- 1:17:40is only as strong as
- 1:17:43I can get the the ideas out there and
- 1:17:47talk about what happened to my patients.
- 1:17:49Now,
- 1:17:49>> Is it Is it plausible that there's a
- 1:17:52sort of a intermediary link
- 1:17:55um between the two? I'm reading some
- 1:17:57things here that say people are very
- 1:17:58frequently both low in vitamin D and
- 1:18:00vitamin B12 at the same time, and this
- 1:18:01is because they share the same root
- 1:18:03cause like a poor gut absorption, aging,
- 1:18:05or a restrictive diet, not because one
- 1:18:07vitamin is destroying the other.
- 1:18:10>> That's what we've been told.
- 1:18:12We've also been told that old people
- 1:18:14don't need as much sleep. And that old
- 1:18:16people get a bad gut as they get old.
- 1:18:20It is my belief now that it is
- 1:18:23there is an absolute link between the
- 1:18:25production of D. I don't have the
- 1:18:26articles for this even though this is
- 1:18:28dogma at the moment that our production
- 1:18:30of vitamin D goes down as we get older.
- 1:18:34So, if you look back to that person who
- 1:18:35was 75, who didn't get sick until they
- 1:18:38were 75.
- 1:18:41>> [snorts]
- 1:18:41>> Their skin production, even though
- 1:18:43they're still out there with their truck
- 1:18:45farm and still raising their own food,
- 1:18:47their skin production rate of vitamin D
- 1:18:49goes down and this is probably true for
- 1:18:51every animal.
- 1:18:52And then, as their D goes low, they lose
- 1:18:55their microbiome and then they die of
- 1:18:57one of the multiple diseases that are
- 1:18:59linked to this multiple deficiency
- 1:19:01state. It's a different lens to look
- 1:19:04through that says
- 1:19:06there is actually
- 1:19:08a system that allowed us to live without
- 1:19:11medical problems that weren't either
- 1:19:13related to epidemics of childhood
- 1:19:16illness or starving to death. And as
- 1:19:19long as we had good diets, you can
- 1:19:21actually look at 1945 to about 1985 and
- 1:19:24say, "What was the ideal for the humans
- 1:19:26that lived rurally in the United States?
- 1:19:29Did they live to be 75 years old and
- 1:19:31then get diseases?"
- 1:19:33So, it's my claim that those people
- 1:19:35didn't go to the doctor cuz there
- 1:19:36weren't any around them.
- 1:19:39And then, things started to happen to
- 1:19:40them. And instead of looking at it
- 1:19:43through the lens of this disease means
- 1:19:45this drug,
- 1:19:47that instead we say we should
- 1:19:49pre-preventing this by paying attention
- 1:19:51to what vitamin D does in the body
- 1:19:54and what the B's do in the body.
- 1:19:57And ultimately,
- 1:20:00that is linked to most of our diseases.
- 1:20:03>> Okay, so I'll read the conclusion of
- 1:20:04your study
- 1:20:05>> Okay.
- 1:20:05>> which was published in 2016. I
- 1:20:07hypothesize, and it's important to say
- 1:20:09this [clears throat] is a hypothesis,
- 1:20:10that the parallel epidemics of abnormal
- 1:20:12sleep and abnormal intestinal microbiome
- 1:20:15are linked to one another through
- 1:20:16vitamin D deficiency. Proper
- 1:20:18supplementation doses of vitamin D plus
- 1:20:20all eight B vitamins appears to return
- 1:20:22the intestinal microbiome to normal in 3
- 1:20:25months. Reinstating the normal
- 1:20:26microbiome not only treats IBS symptoms,
- 1:20:28it returns the supply of vitamin
- 1:20:31B's to their natural daily doses. The B
- 1:20:34vitamins are neither good for us nor
- 1:20:36unnecessary. They are good for the
- 1:20:37person who needs them and only until the
- 1:20:40normal source picks up again. Both sleep
- 1:20:42disruption and pain can be caused by
- 1:20:44large doses of B vitamins once the
- 1:20:46intestinal microbiome has returned to
- 1:20:48normal. The B vitamins are very
- 1:20:50biologically intertwined both in their
- 1:20:53intestinal production and cellulose
- 1:20:55cellular use. This suggests that B
- 1:20:57vitamins aside from B12 were not meant
- 1:20:59to be used individually and trying to
- 1:21:01restorative sleep with normal supply of
- 1:21:03the building blocks of cellular repair
- 1:21:04has the potential to repair the
- 1:21:06pro-inflammatory state seen in
- 1:21:08association with atherosclerosis.
- 1:21:12>> Atherosclerosis.
- 1:21:14>> As well as the hyperandrogenic
- 1:21:17state of associated with hypertension,
- 1:21:18heart disease, and stroke. It appears
- 1:21:20that given the proper essential elements
- 1:21:22for normal sleep, the body is designed
- 1:21:23to repair every physical injury that
- 1:21:25occurs during normal daily use and may
- 1:21:27even retain a memory of long deferred
- 1:21:30repairs. So, essentially you're saying
- 1:21:32that um
- 1:21:33if you can return the body's vitamin D
- 1:21:36and and B levels to normal
- 1:21:40then the body will kick back up and
- 1:21:41start producing
- 1:21:43the um
- 1:21:45everything it needs.
- 1:21:46>> Yes.
- 1:21:46>> But, I guess the scientific consensus at
- 1:21:48the moment is saying that there's not a
- 1:21:50link between vitamin D
- 1:21:53and a vitamin B Well, it's saying that
- 1:21:54vitamin D does not cause a vitamin B
- 1:21:57deficiency.
- 1:21:58>> Correct.
- 1:21:58>> And you disagree with that.
- 1:22:00>> Absolutely.
- 1:22:00>> And could it be the case that there's
- 1:22:03some intermediary link? I.e. If I take
- 1:22:06if I take lots of vitamin D, it disrupts
- 1:22:09my magnesium production and the
- 1:22:11magnesium production is having an impact
- 1:22:13on vitamin B and could it be the case
- 1:22:15that it's something else?
- 1:22:16>> Yes, of course.
- 1:22:18>> Okay.
- 1:22:20>> And in fact, it's way more complicated
- 1:22:22than you and I have talked about.
- 1:22:25And where you finally arrive is actually
- 1:22:27at coenzyme A deficiency.
- 1:22:30And that is a very important chemical.
- 1:22:33It runs our mitochondrial health and our
- 1:22:36ability to make energy and it's linked
- 1:22:39to all the
- 1:22:40degenerative diseases, etc. So,
- 1:22:44it's not that
- 1:22:47I don't understand the
- 1:22:49idea that once you're a hammer
- 1:22:52everything's a nail because that's what
- 1:22:54I was told by all of my colleagues that
- 1:22:56you're trying to explain everything.
- 1:22:59It's that I saw Madeline go back to work
- 1:23:02and we haven't even talked about what
- 1:23:04happened to Natalie.
- 1:23:05>> What happened to Natalie?
- 1:23:06>> Natalie got better and actually
- 1:23:09>> How?
- 1:23:10>> She first with the D, like most of the
- 1:23:12patients, she started to sleep better,
- 1:23:15but at the end of 2 years she stopped
- 1:23:17sleeping better.
- 1:23:18She actually lost weight, which was the
- 1:23:21case with several of the women that were
- 1:23:22postpartum who had complained about
- 1:23:25that.
- 1:23:26So, in some my interpretation was in
- 1:23:28someone who is less affected than
- 1:23:30Madeline was, the D B50 combination,
- 1:23:34especially in the setting of being after
- 1:23:36the pregnancy, is really all somebody
- 1:23:39who is relatively normal with the start
- 1:23:41of their life needs.
- 1:23:43And then she got better. Her
- 1:23:47antidepressant went away. Her postpartum
- 1:23:49depression cleared. Her high heart rate.
- 1:23:52So, the other thing that we didn't
- 1:23:53mention is many of these women who are
- 1:23:55very interested in exercise and doing
- 1:23:58exercise had high heart rates of 110 or
- 1:24:01above sitting quietly and had not been
- 1:24:04like that before. Their high heart rates
- 1:24:06come down.
- 1:24:07So, she came back to being her normal
- 1:24:09self again.
- 1:24:11>> And did she have to come off the vitamin
- 1:24:12B?
- 1:24:13>> She only took it for 3 months.
- 1:24:15>> Okay. And she
- 1:24:16>> she did a multivitamin and then
- 1:24:17eventually almost everybody needs to be
- 1:24:19off the multivitamin completely. It is
- 1:24:22my belief that if all of this happened
- 1:24:25spontaneously in every other animal on
- 1:24:27the planet,
- 1:24:28then we shouldn't have to take
- 1:24:30supplements, either. The squirrels are
- 1:24:31not going to GNC to buy supplements.
- 1:24:35That means if there's a mistake made,
- 1:24:37like we move indoors, and we give back
- 1:24:41what is needed to get the normal
- 1:24:43microbiome,
- 1:24:44then you should assume that your body
- 1:24:48will go back to supporting itself.
- 1:24:51>> And that leads she's good again?
- 1:24:52>> Natalie's back to being
- 1:24:54a triathlete and doing great.
- 1:24:56>> If we zoom out for a second, what is the
- 1:24:59advice you'll give to all of my
- 1:25:00listeners now? There might be millions
- 1:25:01them all over the world, some of which
- 1:25:03are struggling with sleep. Some of them
- 1:25:04just want to, you know, optimize their
- 1:25:06sleep a little bit. What is the the over
- 1:25:08overarching advice, the thing that all
- 1:25:09of them could could do to make sure they
- 1:25:10sleep better in your view?
- 1:25:12>> One, do the behavioral and cognitive
- 1:25:15stuff first. Make the blackout curtains,
- 1:25:17do the whole thing.
- 1:25:19If you haven't done that with eye cover,
- 1:25:22then go ahead and do that. And if that's
- 1:25:24all you need, do not mess around with
- 1:25:27supplements.
- 1:25:28Two, if you've already done the
- 1:25:30behavioral changes,
- 1:25:33then go to my website, read about the
- 1:25:35ideas, or listen to this podcast, and
- 1:25:38see whether or not the ideas there feel
- 1:25:41like they apply to you.
- 1:25:43>> You've come up with this protocol called
- 1:25:45the right sleep protocol. What is that?
- 1:25:48And can you walk me through that?
- 1:25:49>> Sure. So, the right sleep program is
- 1:25:52a process of taking your D to a certain
- 1:25:55level,
- 1:25:57supplementing B12 if your B12 is at a
- 1:25:59certain level below a certain level,
- 1:26:01taking B50 for 3 months,
- 1:26:04and then taking a multivitamin.
- 1:26:07And that is until your body says, "Gee,
- 1:26:09I might need more
- 1:26:11Bs."
- 1:26:13This is a diagram,
- 1:26:16and you have a beautiful stepwise
- 1:26:18a visual assist here.
- 1:26:20The first
- 1:26:223 months, if your B12 is low, you will
- 1:26:24take B12 as a separate supplement. And
- 1:26:27keep in mind there's a lot to be learned
- 1:26:28about multivitamins. For instance,
- 1:26:31many multivitamins say multivitamin on
- 1:26:33the front, but they actually have the
- 1:26:36equivalent of B50 in them.
- 1:26:38They have 50 mg of all these B vitamins.
- 1:26:41In fact, if you go to an expensive
- 1:26:42vitamin store, they put up the doses of
- 1:26:45Bs.
- 1:26:47The doses of these vitamins are
- 1:26:49extremely important for the way you feel
- 1:26:52every day.
- 1:26:53If you get it right, you feel energetic,
- 1:26:55perky, and wonderful all day. If you get
- 1:26:57it wrong, you feel awful in the same way
- 1:26:59you did before. You have to look at the
- 1:27:00back. You have to learn some of the name
- 1:27:02of these vitamins. Most people are not
- 1:27:03at that interested in that. If you want
- 1:27:05to get better, that's what you have to
- 1:27:06do.
- 1:27:07So, the first step is you're taking all
- 1:27:09four of these, then
- 1:27:12in the second step
- 1:27:15for a period of usually 3 to 4 months,
- 1:27:18you're still taking B12 if you were B12
- 1:27:21deficient.
- 1:27:22You're still taking vitamin D and you're
- 1:27:24adjusting your vitamin D dosing based on
- 1:27:27recommendations based on your D levels
- 1:27:29that you're doing every month. And I
- 1:27:31show you how to get them done properly
- 1:27:33because the vitamin D levels that your
- 1:27:35doctor is doing are not accurate,
- 1:27:37unfortunately, nor do they know that or
- 1:27:40care.
- 1:27:41And you're still taking a multivitamin.
- 1:27:43Then
- 1:27:45after [clears throat] the 3 months
- 1:27:47that are depicted here
- 1:27:50it turns out if your sleep is much
- 1:27:52better
- 1:27:54you will actually get to a place
- 1:27:56where
- 1:27:59your body will stop sleeping well again.
- 1:28:02And it turns out that your brain is
- 1:28:04asking for more
- 1:28:06additional Bs.
- 1:28:08The basic bottom line is the sleep is a
- 1:28:11thing that once you learn how to use it
- 1:28:14and once you learn the concept that
- 1:28:16if in the third or fourth month of this
- 1:28:19program, my sleep gets much better
- 1:28:23and then in the sixth month it gets
- 1:28:25worse again, what you should take from
- 1:28:27that is my brain really knows how to do
- 1:28:29this. It was able to get me to sleep
- 1:28:33from 10:00 to 6:00 with one brief wake
- 1:28:35up,
- 1:28:36went back to sleep, didn't get up to
- 1:28:38pee, and I have no pain when I wake up
- 1:28:40and I feel energetic all day long. It
- 1:28:42knows how to do that.
- 1:28:44When it doesn't do it again 2 months
- 1:28:46later, the message is not, "Oh man, I
- 1:28:49knew it wouldn't work." Cuz everything
- 1:28:51else I've tried didn't work. Instead, it
- 1:28:53means
- 1:28:55what my brain is asking for is something
- 1:28:58else. Then
- 1:29:00you address that.
- 1:29:03On my website, I also have multiple
- 1:29:06videos of Q&As addressing questions
- 1:29:09like, "I'm in the fifth month and this
- 1:29:11happened to me, etc."
- 1:29:13So, what I would give as advice is one,
- 1:29:17supplementation is only good for you if
- 1:29:20there's something wrong with you that
- 1:29:22you're trying to correct.
- 1:29:24Two, keep a log of what happens to that
- 1:29:27thing
- 1:29:28because we tend to forget. All my
- 1:29:30headache patients forget that they had
- 1:29:33headaches when they go away. That's
- 1:29:35challenging to a clinician because they
- 1:29:37come back and they say, "Yeah, I still
- 1:29:39have headaches." And then their husband
- 1:29:42says, "Wait, we were in Vegas 2 weeks
- 1:29:44ago and you said we didn't you didn't
- 1:29:45have any headaches at all."
- 1:29:47And she says, "Oh, I know, but they're
- 1:29:48back now." We view it as it should have
- 1:29:50fixed me and now it hasn't. This is a
- 1:29:53different belief system where the answer
- 1:29:55is
- 1:29:56your brain is asking you for something.
- 1:29:58Interpreting [clears throat] what it's
- 1:29:59asking for is difficult, but possible.
- 1:30:02>> So, number one was
- 1:30:04>> if you do not have something wrong with
- 1:30:06you, do not mess with supplements,
- 1:30:08especially D.
- 1:30:09>> Number two is keep a look.
- 1:30:11>> Read more, think about it. Think about
- 1:30:14it a little bit. Think about whether or
- 1:30:15not there are things that are bothering
- 1:30:17you.
- 1:30:17>> Okay, number three.
- 1:30:18>> Number three is if there's something
- 1:30:20bothering you, then decide you're
- 1:30:22actually going to take some time
- 1:30:24and you're going to learn about a system
- 1:30:26which allows you to give supplements
- 1:30:29that lets your body be fully replete,
- 1:30:32which means fills up all the
- 1:30:34deficiencies and that your final outcome
- 1:30:37will be great sleep, great repair, and
- 1:30:41you will be doing things that will allow
- 1:30:43your body to prevent
- 1:30:45degenerative illness.
- 1:30:47>> you just, you know, why don't I just,
- 1:30:49instead of taking supplements, will be
- 1:30:50this, be that, be the other D, whatever.
- 1:30:53Why don't I just go outside in the sun
- 1:30:55and have a better diet?
- 1:30:57>> I think that's a great
- 1:30:59question and
- 1:31:01here's the problem.
- 1:31:02>> So, I've got, you know, I've got all
- 1:31:03these things, these wonderful things
- 1:31:04here.
- 1:31:05I've got
- 1:31:07I've got some kimchi, which is good for
- 1:31:08the gut microbiome, I've heard. I've got
- 1:31:10kombucha.
- 1:31:12I've got
- 1:31:13some yogurt thing here. I've got I can't
- 1:31:15even pronounce that.
- 1:31:16>> Sauerkraut.
- 1:31:16>> Sauerkraut.
- 1:31:17And I've got some kefir. Why don't I
- 1:31:18just
- 1:31:20have all this stuff, which is great for
- 1:31:21my gut microbiome, and then go outside
- 1:31:24and spend spend the morning in the
- 1:31:25sunshine getting up improving my vitamin
- 1:31:27D levels. Presumably, this is going to
- 1:31:28help my gut and the sunshine is going to
- 1:31:30help my vitamin D. Voilà.
- 1:31:33>> I think you could actually do that. If
- 1:31:35there's not much wrong with you, I think
- 1:31:37that's the better path, frankly.
- 1:31:40Supplementing with vitamin D is not the
- 1:31:42same as being outdoors.
- 1:31:44>> Okay, explain that to me.
- 1:31:45>> same.
- 1:31:45>> What do you mean it's not the same? How
- 1:31:46is it different? Cuz my doctor did a
- 1:31:48blood test recently and I did two blood
- 1:31:51tests, one at Nico Health, #hard,
- 1:31:52#investor.
- 1:31:54Um Nico Health and
- 1:31:56the Nico Health test that I did said I
- 1:31:57was vitamin D deficient, which doesn't
- 1:32:00surprise me cuz I live in this dark
- 1:32:01bunker.
- 1:32:02I don't I never leave the Drive Thru
- 1:32:03studio. People just walk in and I live
- 1:32:05in here and I eat in here and I
- 1:32:06But I am vitamin D deficient, it said.
- 1:32:08So, I went to the store and I just
- 1:32:09started taking vitamin D. I assume
- 1:32:11that's fixed it.
- 1:32:13Why is vitamin D supplementation
- 1:32:15different from being out in the sun?
- 1:32:17>> There is a lot of literature about by a
- 1:32:19gal named Stephanie Seneff
- 1:32:21who says that the vitamin D that we make
- 1:32:23on our skin skin is sulfated, which is
- 1:32:25different than the vitamin D we're
- 1:32:27taking as supplement. And it has a
- 1:32:29different behavior in the body. Number
- 1:32:31two, it turns out there's a lot of
- 1:32:33literature that shows that vitamin D is
- 1:32:35not the only thing made by UVB hitting
- 1:32:37your your skin. And what it's hitting is
- 1:32:39cholesterol.
- 1:32:41And that cholesterol is changed as
- 1:32:42chemical called D 3. But there are
- 1:32:46probably 15, 20 other chemicals that are
- 1:32:50being made at the same time.
- 1:32:52>> Okay.
- 1:32:53>> They are not being taken with that pill
- 1:32:55of vitamin D3. That is a separate
- 1:32:57literature that's just gotten really
- 1:33:00some attention in the last 10 years.
- 1:33:03There are all these other things that
- 1:33:05prevent inflammation, that do things to
- 1:33:08your skin, that were actually being made
- 1:33:10by the sunlight that you're being
- 1:33:12exposed to, that protects you from the
- 1:33:15damaging effects.
- 1:33:16>> So, why can't someone who is really
- 1:33:18struggling with their sleep, why can't
- 1:33:19the prescription just be
- 1:33:22improve your your diet?
- 1:33:23>> Have you tried that with patients where
- 1:33:25you said You've not?
- 1:33:26>> One of the reasons why these are
- 1:33:29effective
- 1:33:30>> The the the
- 1:33:31>> the fermented foods, okay? Fermented
- 1:33:33food means you're eating rotting food.
- 1:33:37That's not the way we call it because it
- 1:33:39sounds disgusting, okay? But bacteria
- 1:33:43are growing in here
- 1:33:44>> Yeah.
- 1:33:44>> and they're secreting things like B
- 1:33:46vitamins and reuteri. They're making a
- 1:33:50yeast bacterial mixture. So, there's
- 1:33:52fungus growing in there, there are
- 1:33:53viruses in there, there are many
- 1:33:55microbiomes.
- 1:33:56>> Microbes.
- 1:33:57>> Microbes, thank you.
- 1:33:58>> Huh, look at me.
- 1:33:59>> [snorts]
- 1:34:00>> Look at me.
- 1:34:00>> You're awesome. That means you're eating
- 1:34:03bacteria. You're basically eating a food
- 1:34:06that has to be 50 in it.
- 1:34:07>> Which is great.
- 1:34:08>> Yeah. So.
- 1:34:09>> So, why don't you give that to your
- 1:34:10patients?
- 1:34:11>> Because I have no idea what the time
- 1:34:13frame will be for this having that
- 1:34:16success for you. This is the easy way.
- 1:34:19This is the fast way. This is the way I
- 1:34:21can tell you that I've had more
- 1:34:23experience with my clients over time.
- 1:34:26And if you want to fix something that's
- 1:34:27really badly off, by the time you get a
- 1:34:29sleep disorder
- 1:34:30>> that can't see cuz they're just
- 1:34:32listening on audio, you're pointing at
- 1:34:33the vitamins.
- 1:34:34>> I'm pointing at the vitamins and the
- 1:34:35step-wise approach, which is right
- 1:34:37there.
- 1:34:37>> and easy approach.
- 1:34:38>> Exactly. And if you don't want to use
- 1:34:41supplements, I would support you all the
- 1:34:43way.
- 1:34:43>> In doing what?
- 1:34:44>> In going outside, just what you
- 1:34:46described. I think the healthier
- 1:34:49approach to all of our diseases is to be
- 1:34:52outside much more and to include these
- 1:34:56fermented foods.
- 1:34:57>> Now, on this point of being outside much
- 1:34:59more, some people live in cloudy places,
- 1:35:01you know, I spent a lot of my life
- 1:35:02living in places like London in the UK.
- 1:35:04And there's not much sunlight.
- 1:35:05>> Right.
- 1:35:06>> So, what do I do about that?
- 1:35:07>> Remember how I said that Madeline was a
- 1:35:09redhead?
- 1:35:09>> Yeah.
- 1:35:11>> That turns out to be important. So,
- 1:35:13melanin is the pigment that humans have
- 1:35:15in their skin. You have more than I do.
- 1:35:18I put more melanin as I stay out in the
- 1:35:21sun more and I tan.
- 1:35:22>> Mhm.
- 1:35:23>> [clears throat]
- 1:35:23>> That melanin is absorbing energy. It's
- 1:35:26there to protect you from overexposure
- 1:35:29to sunlight and damaging effects on the
- 1:35:31DNA of your skin.
- 1:35:33The redhead gene usually comes with
- 1:35:36freckles, which means that there is only
- 1:35:38little tiny parts of the skin that have
- 1:35:40melanin.
- 1:35:41And the redhead gene came about in the
- 1:35:43far north
- 1:35:45Viking Scotland.
- 1:35:48And those places don't get much
- 1:35:50sunlight. That means it cleared out the
- 1:35:53blocker
- 1:35:54of the thing that collected that energy
- 1:35:58and allowed people who lived in very
- 1:36:01overcast environments to make D because
- 1:36:03the melanin didn't block the conversion
- 1:36:06to vitamin D and all these other things
- 1:36:08that it does.
- 1:36:08>> So, redheads actually have a bit of a
- 1:36:10superpower when it comes to their
- 1:36:11relationship with the sunshine. They can
- 1:36:13make significantly more.
- 1:36:15>> That depends. Now, if you pick up all
- 1:36:17the Scotsmen
- 1:36:19and you put them in Texas and Oklahoma,
- 1:36:21which is where I live, and many of the
- 1:36:23people there
- 1:36:25have red hair and they came from
- 1:36:26Scotsmen. The problem is they're now in
- 1:36:29an environment with very high sun
- 1:36:31levels. It's very hot in the summer and
- 1:36:34they cannot tolerate the level of sun.
- 1:36:37That means if you get to a point on the
- 1:36:39world where you pick up big populations
- 1:36:42and you move them into another weather
- 1:36:43type, they have not had enough time to
- 1:36:45adapt. There are things about melanin
- 1:36:48amounts
- 1:36:50and our survival that make a difference.
- 1:36:53So, I still recommend that supplementing
- 1:36:56with D is not the whole answer.
- 1:36:58Supplementation in and of itself is not
- 1:37:00what we want. What we want is our kids
- 1:37:02to be outside much more. There are now
- 1:37:05new learning environments for kids where
- 1:37:07they're out in the forests,
- 1:37:09where they're not enclosed in school
- 1:37:11rooms.
- 1:37:12>> There's some interesting stats I found
- 1:37:14which says that 90% of Americans spend
- 1:37:16close to 22 hours inside every day. That
- 1:37:20was from USA Today. And roughly 20% of
- 1:37:23Americans never go outside, regularly
- 1:37:26spending 24 hours indoors.
- 1:37:29And downstream from vitamin D, there's
- 1:37:31not just sleep disruption, there's lots
- 1:37:32of problems, isn't there?
- 1:37:33>> Yes. I can start listing them and
- 1:37:36they're all related in the background to
- 1:37:38what we've talked about, but diabetes,
- 1:37:41even though you've had lots of really
- 1:37:42interesting shows about that, diabetes
- 1:37:45is happening in parallel
- 1:37:48with the sleep disorder. It's not caused
- 1:37:50by the sleep disorder. It has similar
- 1:37:52chemical in the background.
- 1:37:54There are many types, but diabetes just
- 1:37:57means there's a mismatch between the
- 1:37:59amount of insulin from the amount of
- 1:38:00sugar.
- 1:38:03Let me say that I'm not trying to say
- 1:38:05that America doesn't eat badly. America
- 1:38:07eats badly. I was just in Europe and the
- 1:38:10eating patterns in the US are terrible,
- 1:38:14but
- 1:38:15there are other things that are playing
- 1:38:17a role and diabetes shows up. Remember
- 1:38:20how Madeline had gestational diabetes?
- 1:38:24And so did this wonderful Natalie who
- 1:38:27did everything we told her to. Why would
- 1:38:30Natalie show up with gestational
- 1:38:31diabetes when she's not fat?
- 1:38:34Her
- 1:38:35supply of this thing called coenzyme A
- 1:38:38is not enough to keep up with supplying
- 1:38:41the child and herself. So, for a while
- 1:38:44she really has a deficiency state and
- 1:38:46you start to see it. We've learned to
- 1:38:48measure the sugar. And the measuring the
- 1:38:50sugar is one of the signs of a
- 1:38:53deficiency state that's in the
- 1:38:55background that actually affects 100
- 1:38:57things in the body. It makes
- 1:38:59acetylcholine which allows our whole
- 1:39:02autonomic nervous system to sleep nor to
- 1:39:04react normally. So, it affects all of
- 1:39:06those things that we do is when we're
- 1:39:08training and
- 1:39:09it also affects cortisol levels. You
- 1:39:11must have coenzyme A to make cortisol.
- 1:39:13You must have coenzyme A to make
- 1:39:15melatonin.
- 1:39:16>> So, the things linked to vitamin D are
- 1:39:18everything from bone disorders,
- 1:39:19autoimmune diseases, mental health,
- 1:39:21brain disorders, cardiovascular,
- 1:39:22metabolic issues, immune infections, and
- 1:39:24then certain cancers. I I I imagine at
- 1:39:26this stage in the conversation the
- 1:39:27audience are very much looking for like
- 1:39:29actionable advice. So, we've talked
- 1:39:32about the the right sleep protocol,
- 1:39:35which is this sort of vitamin approach.
- 1:39:37And then the other approach is to get
- 1:39:40outside in the sunshine more.
- 1:39:42>> And you don't have to be in direct
- 1:39:43sunlight. You have to be in direct
- 1:39:45sunlight to make vitamin D on your skin.
- 1:39:47>> Okay.
- 1:39:48>> But, you should limit the amount that
- 1:39:50you do, so you do not burn your skin.
- 1:39:51>> Mhm.
- 1:39:52>> And it's important [clears throat] that
- 1:39:53UVA, if you're going to use a sun
- 1:39:55um um
- 1:39:56go to a tanning salon, if they're using
- 1:39:59UVA, you are not making vitamin D from
- 1:40:01that. So, there are different kinds of
- 1:40:03beds.
- 1:40:04UVA will still tan you, but it will not
- 1:40:07make D.
- 1:40:07>> So,
- 1:40:08you don't have to be in direct sunlight.
- 1:40:10So, if I'm at a window and I can't see
- 1:40:11the sun and it's overcast, am I still
- 1:40:14making vitamin D?
- 1:40:15>> No, you can't make anything through the
- 1:40:17window.
- 1:40:17>> Okay, so what I go outside, I can't see
- 1:40:19the sun cuz there's clouds, I'm still
- 1:40:21making vitamin D?
- 1:40:22>> Maybe.
- 1:40:23It can be that you will actually still
- 1:40:25get a burn, okay? That is from UVA and
- 1:40:30UVB penetrating that cloud.
- 1:40:32>> Okay.
- 1:40:33>> So, that does mean that you can make
- 1:40:35some vitamin D on a day that it's
- 1:40:37cloudy.
- 1:40:38And the only way to know how much
- 1:40:41vitamin D you are actually making is to
- 1:40:43do your vitamin D levels over time.
- 1:40:45>> Looking at some data here, it says that
- 1:40:47um you can make a little bit of vitamin
- 1:40:49D during overcast times. Um up to 80% of
- 1:40:52you UV radiation still penetrates light
- 1:40:54cloud cover, so you can absolutely still
- 1:40:56make vitamin D, though it might take a
- 1:40:58few minutes longer than it would on a
- 1:40:59completely clear day.
- 1:41:01When it's thick, dark, and overcast uh
- 1:41:03or dense storms or clouds, that can
- 1:41:04block up to 70 to 90% of UVB rays. On
- 1:41:08these days, it's incredibly difficult
- 1:41:09for your skin to produce any meaningful
- 1:41:11amount of vitamin D.
- 1:41:13You know these like lamps that they put
- 1:41:15on desks and stuff? Can you get vitamin
- 1:41:16D from that?
- 1:41:17>> No, but let me let me make you a point
- 1:41:18here that's not in my field, but in the
- 1:41:21infrared field.
- 1:41:24There are so many other wavelengths of
- 1:41:25energy that you receive when you're
- 1:41:27outside. So, you can be sitting on a
- 1:41:28porch where you're not in direct
- 1:41:30sunlight, and you are still receiving
- 1:41:32infrared. And infrared is one of the
- 1:41:35most important
- 1:41:37uh wavelengths that we know about that
- 1:41:39penetrates the body several centimeters
- 1:41:42and actually gives energy to the
- 1:41:43mitochondria. Our bodies
- 1:41:46are like little batteries that we
- 1:41:48receive energy from sunlight and we can
- 1:41:51do that sitting on the porch without
- 1:41:52being in direct sunlight and
- 1:41:55fire also, the reason why it looks red
- 1:41:57is because it has infrared, and
- 1:41:59incandescent bulbs, which we've now
- 1:42:01stopped using.
- 1:42:03>> So, what's the advice here?
- 1:42:04>> Some people believe that you should use
- 1:42:06incandescent bulbs on a lamp that's on
- 1:42:08your desk. The problem is
- 1:42:09>> bulb?
- 1:42:10>> It gives you rays of light like LED
- 1:42:13is an electron
- 1:42:15um producing light source, which the
- 1:42:19government has
- 1:42:21suggested that is better than
- 1:42:24incandescent lights. It's very difficult
- 1:42:26to buy incandescent bulbs, like the
- 1:42:27bulbs that we used to use.
- 1:42:29Now, you'll get halogen or LEDs and they
- 1:42:33do not give off infrared light energy.
- 1:42:37>> So, an incandescent bulb is the
- 1:42:38old-school glass light bulbs and the
- 1:42:40kind Thomas
- 1:42:41Edison used to use. It creates light by
- 1:42:43running an electrical current through
- 1:42:44metal filament until it gets so hot that
- 1:42:47it glows. Because it relies on raw heat,
- 1:42:48an incandescent bulb bulb behaves
- 1:42:50exactly like a miniature fire or a tiny
- 1:42:53piece of the sun. Hmm. So, yeah, those
- 1:42:55incandescent bulbs are hard to harder to
- 1:42:57come by these days, but yeah, my fiance
- 1:42:58she's a big fan of them.
- 1:43:00>> Yeah.
- 1:43:00>> And she's trying to fill our house with
- 1:43:01them.
- 1:43:01>> Yeah.
- 1:43:02She's right.
- 1:43:03>> So, is there anything else, you know, I
- 1:43:05also got these prebiotics here.
- 1:43:07Prebiotic probiotics. A lot of people
- 1:43:08say that you should take prebiotics
- 1:43:10probiotics. Have you tried giving them
- 1:43:11to your patients?
- 1:43:12>> I was on probiotics and so were my
- 1:43:13patients when we started and it had not
- 1:43:15corrected the microbiome. It was just a
- 1:43:17try. We're going to dump the bacteria
- 1:43:19down there and maybe they'll get back to
- 1:43:21normal, okay?
- 1:43:23That is what a probiotic is considered.
- 1:43:26They have the actual bacteria
- 1:43:28freeze-dried and you eat the bacteria.
- 1:43:31Kind of gross when you think about it as
- 1:43:32being
- 1:43:33poop bacteria, but that's what it is,
- 1:43:35okay? Now,
- 1:43:37what prebiotic has that's different is
- 1:43:39that you feed the bacteria
- 1:43:42and they feed you.
- 1:43:44That's really what happens. What I love
- 1:43:46about this is
- 1:43:48there are different things that they're
- 1:43:49feeding the bacteria.
- 1:43:51We're kind of interested in what they
- 1:43:52think.
- 1:43:54How do we know what they think? Well,
- 1:43:56what if I change to carnivore?
- 1:43:59And all of a sudden my belly gas goes
- 1:44:02away.
- 1:44:03>> The carnivore diet where you just eat
- 1:44:04meat?
- 1:44:05>> Carnivore you eat mostly meat. Let's say
- 1:44:0690% meat.
- 1:44:09And most of my belly complaints go away
- 1:44:11and I poop regularly, then you've just
- 1:44:13been very successful at making your
- 1:44:15bacteria very happy.
- 1:44:18What if the next client who I have
- 1:44:21is a mostly plant-based?
- 1:44:24Then I have to change the way I think
- 1:44:27and the way I help them and encourage
- 1:44:29them to recognize that when we're
- 1:44:32feeding mostly plant-based, we have a
- 1:44:34different set of bacteria. Now, let me
- 1:44:36propose something to you.
- 1:44:39Humans cover the globe like cockroaches.
- 1:44:43We are very successful.
- 1:44:45And we have a hugely varied diet.
- 1:44:48I would claim that that means
- 1:44:51you should eat the diet that works for
- 1:44:53you.
- 1:44:55The place where you see something that
- 1:44:57is really important for the US is the
- 1:44:59original articles about vitamin
- 1:45:01deficiency states
- 1:45:03were in two groups that ate a pure
- 1:45:05carbohydrate diet. So, the claim right
- 1:45:08now for most of the people that are
- 1:45:10interested in healthy diets is if you
- 1:45:12eat a fully carbohydrate diet, you're
- 1:45:15set up for failure in a million
- 1:45:17different ways. And then they talk about
- 1:45:18the diet you should eat. There are two
- 1:45:21incidences from the 1940s
- 1:45:24where the first vitamin deficiency
- 1:45:25states were described and both of them
- 1:45:27turn out to be purely carbohydrate
- 1:45:29diets.
- 1:45:30One of them was in the Japanese prisoner
- 1:45:33of war camps and the Bataan
- 1:45:35[clears throat] Death March in World War
- 1:45:38II where they had rice, rice, rice.
- 1:45:42That's it. And they're outside all the
- 1:45:43time. They're not vitamin D deficient.
- 1:45:47They're discovered to have beriberi and
- 1:45:49beriberi is an old disease described in
- 1:45:51Japan when you take off the rice casing.
- 1:45:54So,
- 1:45:55ultimately they gave back meat and
- 1:45:56vegetables and beriberi is described as
- 1:46:00heart failure, non-healing ulcers of the
- 1:46:03legs,
- 1:46:04bright shiny red skin and burning in the
- 1:46:06feet that we see in the elderly in the
- 1:46:08US all the time in the hospital.
- 1:46:12That is now ignored, but you can
- 1:46:16actually get to a state where you're
- 1:46:18feeding only carbohydrates, but now the
- 1:46:20lens you're looking through is I was
- 1:46:22feeding my bacteria a purely
- 1:46:24carbohydrate diet. I therefore selected
- 1:46:27for bacterial populations
- 1:46:30that were not producing the B vitamins
- 1:46:32that I needed. It's seeing it through a
- 1:46:34slightly different lens.
- 1:46:35The same thing about pellagra, which is
- 1:46:38actually a niacin deficiency in adults
- 1:46:41and children that were institutionalized
- 1:46:43in the South of the United States in the
- 1:46:45'30s and '40s and fed corn gruel as
- 1:46:49their only food. So, there's still a
- 1:46:53piece of information there that is your
- 1:46:55diet absolutely affects who lives inside
- 1:46:58you. And once you have a purely
- 1:47:01carbohydrate diet for many years and
- 1:47:04you're D deficient, it is very likely
- 1:47:06you're going to have to do something
- 1:47:07more aggressive.
- 1:47:09Either change your diet and do fermented
- 1:47:12foods and change to a meat and plant
- 1:47:15diet.
- 1:47:16And you're going to have to watch what
- 1:47:17your body does. And if you're not able
- 1:47:19in And my claim would still be the sleep
- 1:47:22that you have should still be your best
- 1:47:26measure of whether you succeeded in what
- 1:47:28you'd like to do.
- 1:47:30>> And again, to track your sleep, there's
- 1:47:31lots of different ways to do that.
- 1:47:32Obviously, none of them are perfect, um
- 1:47:34but you can buy sleep trackers and those
- 1:47:36kinds of things and
- 1:47:38see how you're doing.
- 1:47:39>> Yes, and I would also say use your sleep
- 1:47:42tracker. I don't use mine regularly
- 1:47:44because I get obsessed by it. I I start
- 1:47:46to think
- 1:47:48oh, I only had an hour and a half of REM
- 1:47:49and I'm dying and I just get spiral
- 1:47:52downward, okay? So,
- 1:47:54what your body is saying to you is still
- 1:47:56very important. I didn't have sleep
- 1:47:57trackers when I was seeing all these
- 1:47:59things that were happening to Madeline
- 1:48:00and and Natalie. I would listen to what
- 1:48:03they said about their sleep.
- 1:48:05>> I imagine a lot of people clicked on
- 1:48:07this conversation because they are
- 1:48:08struggling with sleep or they have a
- 1:48:09partner or friend or maybe just because
- 1:48:11they want to optimize their sleep a
- 1:48:12little bit. And what I've really taken
- 1:48:13away is that um a lot of sleep-related
- 1:48:16issues start in the gut microbiome.
- 1:48:18>> Yes.
- 1:48:19>> to try and fix the gut microbiome and
- 1:48:21how we fix the gut microbiome is can be
- 1:48:23dietary.
- 1:48:24>> Yes.
- 1:48:24>> through supplementation.
- 1:48:26But we want to try and do it through
- 1:48:27diet first and fermented foods.
- 1:48:29Um
- 1:48:30and then the other thing is sunlight
- 1:48:31plays a big role. You're smoking again.
- 1:48:34>> You did a fabulous job.
- 1:48:36>> Oh, you're so sweet. Um the other The
- 1:48:38other thing is sunlight plays a big role
- 1:48:39because it produces vitamin D and
- 1:48:41amongst other things, which also can
- 1:48:43improve that balance and help us sleep
- 1:48:44better.
- 1:48:45>> Yes.
- 1:48:46>> And we also want to try all the stuff
- 1:48:47that everybody talks about. Matthew
- 1:48:48Walker talks about temperature
- 1:48:50>> Yes.
- 1:48:51>> eye masks and all that kind of stuff. I
- 1:48:52guess the big insight here is that
- 1:48:54vitamins play a really important role in
- 1:48:56sleep.
- 1:48:57>> Yes.
- 1:48:58>> As you've seen through the thousands of
- 1:48:59patients that you've
- 1:49:01spent time with and helped to restore to
- 1:49:04a healthy sleep state.
- 1:49:05>> Yes. It's a beautiful summary.
- 1:49:07>> What is the most important thing we
- 1:49:08haven't talked about that we should have
- 1:49:09talked about? Is there anything at all?
- 1:49:11>> We have skipped the people who have been
- 1:49:14told they have
- 1:49:17a disease, narcolepsy,
- 1:49:20or sleep apnea,
- 1:49:22um where they're told there's a specific
- 1:49:25This is a genetic thing,
- 1:49:27and you have to do these specific
- 1:49:28things.
- 1:49:29For instance, for narcolepsy,
- 1:49:32this is an attack of sleep that takes
- 1:49:34you out and you become I'm sitting here
- 1:49:36talking to you
- 1:49:38and I fall asleep.
- 1:49:40That turns out to be
- 1:49:43treatable in the same way.
- 1:49:45>> You're saying a lot of it can be about
- 1:49:46vitamins.
- 1:49:46>> Yes, you can sleep deprive anyone to the
- 1:49:49point of falling asleep when I talk to
- 1:49:50you. All you have to do is, you know,
- 1:49:52two or three nights that you miss and
- 1:49:54you can still become taken down by an
- 1:49:56attack of sleep. That really is what
- 1:49:58narcolepsy means. That means medicine in
- 1:50:01its attempt to classify things have said
- 1:50:04this is a disease,
- 1:50:06and the idea that they are all about our
- 1:50:11body falling out of its normal state.
- 1:50:16What's different about people who have
- 1:50:18that
- 1:50:19a specific diagnosis like sleep apnea
- 1:50:21and narcolepsy is they are unlikely to
- 1:50:24be able to cure that with going outside
- 1:50:26and kimchi.
- 1:50:27They are at an end stage. Your body was
- 1:50:31really set up to be able to deal with
- 1:50:34different diets, getting up in the
- 1:50:36middle of the night to take care of your
- 1:50:37baby, traveling long periods of time,
- 1:50:40all these stressors that we've had for
- 1:50:42the last 300,000 years. It was set up to
- 1:50:45do that and to get back to sleeping
- 1:50:48again.
- 1:50:50And people live for long periods of
- 1:50:52time. That wasn't the average, but there
- 1:50:54were people that lived to be 75 years
- 1:50:55old 20,000 years ago.
- 1:50:58That means that's the best we can do.
- 1:51:00If you have a disease of your sleep
- 1:51:03switches, you are really severely
- 1:51:06affected, and my experience would say
- 1:51:10that that person is not going to be able
- 1:51:12to approach it by just going outside and
- 1:51:14doing kimchi.
- 1:51:15That person's going to need some extra
- 1:51:17help and they're going to need sometimes
- 1:51:20professional help with someone who's
- 1:51:22seeing it through this lens.
- 1:51:25Because they go through changes. They
- 1:51:27For instance, when when you get them a
- 1:51:28little bit better
- 1:51:30so that they're sleeping at night, they
- 1:51:33actually start to have nightmares.
- 1:51:35What that means in a setting like that
- 1:51:37is they've actually gotten into REM
- 1:51:39sleep
- 1:51:41but they haven't gotten perfect
- 1:51:43chemistry so that they sleep through the
- 1:51:45REM
- 1:51:46phase, finish up, go into light sleep,
- 1:51:49and then go to the next. They've
- 1:51:51awakened so they can't keep themselves
- 1:51:53in REM. There are transition states
- 1:51:56where they actually feel like they're
- 1:51:57getting worse. So there are all sorts of
- 1:51:59things that I've been able to see that
- 1:52:01are not talked about at the sleep
- 1:52:03meetings, that are totally fascinating,
- 1:52:05that are halfway better
- 1:52:08and that people can cure their
- 1:52:09narcolepsy. I have one gal right now
- 1:52:12who just called me to become a client.
- 1:52:15She has narcolepsy and she has
- 1:52:17completely cured herself by using
- 1:52:20nicotine patches around the clock.
- 1:52:24Why? Because there is only one drug that
- 1:52:27duplicates acetylcholine completely and
- 1:52:30it's nicotine.
- 1:52:32So she stopped smoking and she uses
- 1:52:34nicotine patches. Nicotine is the
- 1:52:38duplicate of acetylcholine.
- 1:52:40Acetylcholine allows us to focus, pay
- 1:52:42attention, be distracted and come right
- 1:52:45back during the day. It is in control of
- 1:52:48our ability to concentrate. At night, it
- 1:52:51allows us to get into REM sleep. That
- 1:52:54one chemical does wake and sleep. Does
- 1:52:56it in different parts of the brain.
- 1:52:59That means she is using something that
- 1:53:01has been terribly vilified. Tobacco is
- 1:53:04considered to be the cause of all evil.
- 1:53:07It turns out, oddly enough, the guys
- 1:53:10with Parkinson's disease who smoked
- 1:53:12throughout the last 30 years have been
- 1:53:15shown to do better because Parkinson's
- 1:53:16disease is an acetylcholine deficiency
- 1:53:18state first.
- 1:53:20>> To give a bit of background on, I guess,
- 1:53:21the the problem we've really talked
- 1:53:22about, um I have this little paragraph
- 1:53:24here which I thought summarizes the
- 1:53:26nature of the problem and the sleep
- 1:53:27epidemic. It says, "While While
- 1:53:29industrialization first disrupted our
- 1:53:32natural rhythms by moving society
- 1:53:34indoors, the true explosion of sleep
- 1:53:35disorders occurred in two modern phases,
- 1:53:38a medical boom in the 1980s and a
- 1:53:40digital epidemic in the 2000s. In the
- 1:53:421980s, the formal recognition of sleep
- 1:53:44medicine and the intervention of the
- 1:53:46CPAP machine diagnosed millions with
- 1:53:49obstructive sleep apnea, sparking a
- 1:53:51surge in clinical treatments. The
- 1:53:53medicalization transformed into into a
- 1:53:55cultural crisis by the 2000s as
- 1:53:58sedentary indoor lifestyles starved us
- 1:54:01of natural daytime sunlight. Sunlight
- 1:54:03exposure is vital because its
- 1:54:05high-intensity brightness resets the
- 1:54:07brain's master internal clock and
- 1:54:09suppresses daytime melatonin, which
- 1:54:11establishes a definitive biological
- 1:54:13countdown for deep sleep at night.
- 1:54:16Deprived of this anchoring cue and
- 1:54:19bombarded by a 24/7 hustle culture and
- 1:54:21smartphones pumping blue light into our
- 1:54:24bedrooms, society succumbs to a
- 1:54:26devastating double-edged sword. Too
- 1:54:27little sun by day to synchronize the
- 1:54:29brain and too much artificial light by
- 1:54:31night to allow it to rest. The modern
- 1:54:33circadian mismatch culminated in an
- 1:54:36acute spike during the 2020 pandemic
- 1:54:38lockdowns,
- 1:54:39solidifying an era where our indoor
- 1:54:42environments are fundamentally at war
- 1:54:43with our evolutionary sleep biology."
- 1:54:46>> I love that. Who wrote that? Is that AI?
- 1:54:50>> It was AI that wrote that.
- 1:54:51>> Yeah. Now, that's the fascinating part
- 1:54:53of this. AI doesn't care whether or not
- 1:54:55my colleagues think I'm crazy.
- 1:54:58AI is not affected by what the Endocrine
- 1:55:01Society says about D. AI is just giving
- 1:55:05us
- 1:55:06the raw data, okay? Then, if you put in
- 1:55:08there something like, "What does Dr.
- 1:55:10Gominak think about whether or not um
- 1:55:13sun exposure is the whole story for
- 1:55:15sleep?" You'll start to see my stuff
- 1:55:17leaking through there saying, "Yes, it's
- 1:55:19true that the pineal gland makes
- 1:55:22melatonin and that that's part of how we
- 1:55:25get to the 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. But,
- 1:55:28it's also true that vitamin D has
- 1:55:30receptors in the brainstem.
- 1:55:32That means that we are at the edge of
- 1:55:35about mhm a big change where some of
- 1:55:39these ideas that we talked about today
- 1:55:41that are very deep and very wide are
- 1:55:44going to be there available in a
- 1:55:45beautifully written way by AI. And I
- 1:55:49think in this particular case, we've
- 1:55:52jumped around medicine and its craziness
- 1:55:55and its conservative feeling.
- 1:55:58It's been taken over by
- 1:56:01an
- 1:56:03an electronic thing that's not affected
- 1:56:05by our cultural ideals of who's smart
- 1:56:08and who's not.
- 1:56:09>> What is the central idea that you
- 1:56:10believe that most of the mainstream
- 1:56:12industry don't believe? I will I will do
- 1:56:14as you say and I will ask the AI.
- 1:56:17>> Most of the sleep disorders, including
- 1:56:19sleep apnea and narcolepsy, all the ones
- 1:56:21that the neurologists have described,
- 1:56:23are really related at basis by D and
- 1:56:27multiple things that are made by the
- 1:56:28microbiome that the microbiome and the D
- 1:56:30deficiency are very much linked and that
- 1:56:33there are hundreds of things that are
- 1:56:35playing a role in our sleep switches
- 1:56:37that are supplied by the microbiome.
- 1:56:40>> So, I'll I'll summarize that as how many
- 1:56:41of the sleep
- 1:56:43disorders
- 1:56:45caused by the microbiome.
- 1:56:50I'm using Gemini Pro, which is
- 1:56:53the most advanced model. I always use it
- 1:56:54for fact-checking and stuff. So, it
- 1:56:57says, "You are completely wrong." I'm
- 1:56:58joking. It didn't say that.
- 1:57:02>> [laughter]
- 1:57:04>> It says, "Yes, the connection is
- 1:57:06massive. While we can't say the
- 1:57:08microbiome is the sole cause of every
- 1:57:10sleep disorder, scientists now know that
- 1:57:13a damaged gut is a major hidden driver
- 1:57:15of poor sleep."
- 1:57:17Because both the melatonin pipeline
- 1:57:19starts in the gut.
- 1:57:20Manufacturing the calm down chemical is
- 1:57:23in the gut. And the cortisol alarm
- 1:57:25system is linked to the gut. The
- 1:57:28trickiest part of the microbiome sleep
- 1:57:29connection
- 1:57:31is that it it is a
- 1:57:33bidirectional loop. A bad microbiome
- 1:57:35causes poor sleep. Poor sleep alters the
- 1:57:37microbiome.
- 1:57:39So, while anatomical issues, like a
- 1:57:41narrow airway causes sleep apnea, or
- 1:57:43light mismatch, like the lack of near
- 1:57:45infrared light, play huge roles, fixing
- 1:57:47chronic insomnia often requires healing
- 1:57:49the gut just as much as fixing your
- 1:57:51bedtime routine.
- 1:57:52>> The lack of near infrared light. That's
- 1:57:55amazing. Medicine will not
- 1:57:58[clears throat]
- 1:57:58be talking about that anytime soon. It's
- 1:58:01too wacky.
- 1:58:02It's too woo woo.
- 1:58:05And yet,
- 1:58:06that means those ideas are available to
- 1:58:08us.
- 1:58:10>> We have a closing tradition on this
- 1:58:11podcast where the last guest leaves a
- 1:58:13question for the next guest not knowing
- 1:58:14who they're leaving it for. And the
- 1:58:15question left for you is more Yeah, I
- 1:58:17guess it is a question.
- 1:58:19It says,
- 1:58:22"Describe the best day of your life."
- 1:58:27Ooh.
- 1:58:32>> I I'm going to have to stick with what
- 1:58:34pops into my mind first,
- 1:58:36which is relatively recently.
- 1:58:39Uh we were in
- 1:58:42Seville, I think. And it was very hot.
- 1:58:46And my husband and I have been traveling
- 1:58:48for three or four weeks together, which
- 1:58:50is the longest time we've spent together
- 1:58:51in a long time, and we were sitting
- 1:58:53playing Canasta
- 1:58:55outside underneath an umbrella that had
- 1:58:58little
- 1:58:59misters, and we were just sitting there
- 1:59:02playing Canasta together.
- 1:59:04And
- 1:59:05it's not about it was not about
- 1:59:07accomplishment, it was about
- 1:59:10having this marvelous circumstance where
- 1:59:13we're just
- 1:59:15hanging out together
- 1:59:17and having a very pleasant time
- 1:59:19together.
- 1:59:20That was my
- 1:59:21my best day
- 1:59:23in recent memory.
- 1:59:26>> [snorts]
- 1:59:26>> Dr. Stasha, where should people go to
- 1:59:28learn more
- 1:59:29from you?
- 1:59:30>> drgolmanac, no period after dr.com,
- 1:59:34and I have a YouTube channel where I
- 1:59:36have lots of I have a whole series of 50
- 1:59:39things called sleep chats
- 1:59:41where I talk about
- 1:59:43if I have carpal tunnel syndrome, will
- 1:59:45right sleep program help me? If I have
- 1:59:47this, will right and why?
- 1:59:50>> I'll link all of that for you below. So,
- 1:59:52everybody can go to those resources.
- 1:59:53They'll be in linked in the description
- 1:59:55below of this episode.
- 1:59:57Thank you so much.
- 1:59:59>> Thank you. It's been wonderful.
- 2:00:00>> to you,
- 2:00:00Stasha.
- 2:00:01>> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
- 2:00:03where they know exactly what video you
- 2:00:05would like to watch next based on AI and
- 2:00:07all of your viewing behavior, and the
- 2:00:09algorithm says that this video is the
- 2:00:12perfect video for you. It's different
- 2:00:14for everybody looking right now. Check
- 2:00:16this video out, I bet you you might love
- 2:00:18it.
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