Episode #161: What’s Making You Sick: Cholesterol, Mitochondria & Chronic Disease Featuring DR. WILL COLE!!

0:00But healthy people don't need pharmaceutical drugs. It's not a great business model to get people healthy for a certain industry. Funny story here, maybe not so funny. In prison, I learned that ibuprofen was the answer to everything. I think we all need to do, especially in this age of AI, to be prohuman is to get out there, to reach out to people, because there's a loneliness epidemic. I think it was out of MIT that found that people that use AI to write essays, which so many people do. It was associated with a 55% decrease use of the brain. Dr. Cole, are you indicating that crushing LDL's not optimal for cellular health? I know. Shocking. I would say that's one of the worst things you could do. It's probably easier to change someone's religion than the foods they eat. People would come so ideologically tribal about it, right? They make it their personality. Do you want to know why nothing seems to help you with constant cravings? GLP1 is the hunger hormone that everyone's talking about. But your gut was designed to make it on its own. However, it needs the right signal. Bitter receptors in your gut and mouth are directly tied to GLP1 release.

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2:03to claim your free digestive bitters with your first 90-day probiotic subscription today. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dillon Jamelli podcast. So as you can see, I am back in Nashville. I'm actually in our good friend, Dr. Josh Axis Studio. And I will tell you, today's already been amazing. I have been working on this interview well since November. Since I met my guest back then, we've been trying to figure this out and it's been a long time coming. But we know God's timing is impeccably perfect. And there was a reason for this. And I feel absolutely amazing about the discussion that we're about to have. And it is, like I say, at real honor to have my guest here today, he is one of the biggest beacons of light. Not just in biohacking, just in health and wellness and the whole entire space. Now he's a leading functional medicine expert. And he consults people around the globe. And he's one of the most recognized

3:04functional medicine doctors and experts that you will ever see. He's got a new book coming out. It's called Heal Yourselves. I have already been privy and blessed to read some of this. He's got one of the best podcasts known to man. I know that you've heard of it. It's the art of being well. I can't give him enough accolade. There's only so much that I can say before we get into this. I am honored, pleasureed, and just cannot wait to introduce my guest, Dr. Wilcole. Thanks, man. I need you as my hype guy on the daily, just like us in my morning meditation mantra. I just want Dylan speaking my... I'm also married to Golden Doodles and two kids. And he gram five. One walks on the beach. I love it. I'm known for my intro's bro. I get lucky here and there on what I do. So no, man, look, like I said, we've been trying to set this up for a while. Yeah, I apologize. I'm hard to nail down sometimes.

4:04I'm just like an introvert that lives in the woods. And like you said, it's divine timing. It's got time. It is. I live through a calendar anymore. And I go seven days a week and still can't do things properly. So I get it. But it is... I meant what I said. It is a real honor to sit here and speak with you today because I respect so much of what you do. It's not just the knowledge that you carry. It's the will, so to speak on how you do things and what you overcome, what you deal with daily. And you're drive to improve people's lives. Now, you know, functional medicine for me is everything. When did you discover functional medicine and why did you make it your life's work? Well, we go up by different names, right? I mean, functional medicine, I think, is a subset of root cause medicine, right? It's a subset of seeing the body is integrated. I've seen it in a moment and it would be integrative medicine,

5:07right? Integrative medicine and functional medicine have a lot of overlap. Of course, there's gonna be differences as far as maybe one's a bit more conventional, maybe one not. But all of this is really part of a larger, I think, perspective of how we see the world. My passion of health goes way back. I mean, I grew up in a home that was kind of revered, looking at root causes and why we having the epidemic rise of chronic health issues. My dad was in the health space, was a body builder in the 80s. And I thought it was normal to have your dad lubed up with baby oil with a turquoise beetle with my mom in this camcorder trying to get the poses right and going all to the competitions. Turns out it's not normal to have your dad do in that at all. But the, not to say that the, I mean, you're from this world too, it's not to say that the body building world is all healthy, but my dad was interested in health and body building. It wasn't to serve the maniacally-mean measuring food and everything. It was interested in health and also this body building.

6:11So it just, we definitely lived differently at home. Then my friends, I ate differently at home than my friends did. We went to the local food, health food co-op at the time and there wasn't the options that we have now. There was limited, I mean, health spaces change so much. So we're talking about the 1980s, 1990s, like growing up, that was my world. Was just, we went to the farmer and got the raw milk before it's now raw dairy is like a trend. But this is a 1990s, it was an honor system. We put a few dollars in the bucket and draw our own milk out the local farmer. And yeah, I just was crunchy, I guess you could say, at the time. And then that became a personal passion. It wasn't just because something my mom or dad did at home, I made them kind of look average because I became kind of obsessive as a teenager in a good way, not in a negative way. But just passionate about, I guess, would be a better word. Passionate about foods and human optimization

7:13and health sciences. And I guess you could say biohacking before biohacking was the thing. I used my first paycheck to go, I worked at a finish line, you know, the shoe store at high school. I worked at finish line. So I made money at the finish line at 17, 18 years old and would go to the health food store and buy the latest herbs or supplements or whatever that I'd be reading about. And then that just evolved from a personal passion to want to be formally trained in this. When I went to an integrated medicine school called Southern California University of Health Sciences. And I heard of a guy who had gone to my school to get to your question more pointedly. His name was Dates Crosion who had gone to my school who was older than I was. But he was talking about this very niche specific subset of health, health sciences called functional medicine. And even today, Dr. Crosion is one of the kind of leaders in the space on the academic side more than anything. And that's how I would say it got granular for me instead of it just being about health sciences. It was like, what was this gonna look like

8:15more practically for me? So I just, yeah, I moved back to Pennsylvania where I'm from from California where I went to school. And I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic 16 years ago. And it wasn't because of some genius move. It was, I lived in the woods and nobody else did. And I had to figure out logistically, how could I get labs? How could I get protocols? How could I, because I'd be writing about it online? Because I love to write. And I like to educate people through writing. So I was one of those early guys. This is 2009, 2010, writing about functional medicine and articles of an internet was completely different then. I mean, there was no algorithm. It was just you put this information out there and it touched people around the world's lives. So then one thing led to another of people different in different states and countries needed to figure things out. We didn't even have the language of telehealth 16 years ago. We called it a virtual functional medicine practice because that was the best I could come up with, just kind of explain how I could get someone in, you know, Idaho poop test.

9:17Like just figuring out problems. It was a figuring out solutions to problems that I saw and people wanted access to this health information, this field of healthcare called functional medicine. And I was the one that God worked through. I love it. I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Blant several months ago and we got into like the key core foundations of functional health. But I want to ask you, because I don't even know if I asked him this and because I was so enthralled into the depths of everything that he did, how would you personally, Dr. Will Cold, define what that actually means? Because you know, people have their own thoughts about functional medicine and what it is. What in reality if you can simplify it and then expound upon it, what is it? Yeah. And Dr. Blant, I mean, he is, he is, I would say our industry recognizes him as kind of the Godfather of actual, like he's the guy that the name, functional medicine,

10:18he's the guy that popularized it. And such a humble guy too, right? Dr. Blant, like you meet these legends that are just, they could be kind of different in person. And we see that sometimes too with people, in a space where they're different in person than they are. And he's not, he's like, he's the same, he's just such a humble guy. And sharp, like it's so mentally sharp. So brilliant. So if I had to boil it down, first thing is we interpret labs using a different reference range. So anybody that's watching this or listening to this will know when they get their labs, there's their number and then there's that reference range, this X to Y interval, we get that from a statistical bell curve, average of people who go to labs. And people that go to labs aren't the healthiest population. So there's a lot of people that intuitively know something's off here. My weight gain, my anxiety, my digestive problem, my hormonal symptom, whatever you're dealing with, your health goal that you want to do a dress, you want to address. They go to the doctor and the,

11:18and the labs come back quote unquote normal. What they're unintentionally being told is that, that there are a lot like the other people that they're being compared to. The labs are there to rule in pathology and to diagnose a disease and match it with a pharmaceutical drug. That's largely what it's for. So it's not looking at optimal health. So in functional medicine, we're looking at optimal, not average. Where does, where does long lives live? Where does vibrant wellness, where does the body function the best? That's where we get our name functional medicine, the functional range of labs. This is the most important thing to do. Name functional medicine, the functional range of labs. The second thing we, we run more comprehensive labs. So this is things that are, what are the upstream root components to why they have the issue? So there's many examples to this, but again, the labs that are ran in the conventional model are ran to give the pharmaceutical drugs largely. They need for specific diagnostic ICD-10 coding

12:19and things like this. So it's this sort of medicinal matching game and that's sort of determining what labs are ran and what labs aren't ran to determine diagnosis. Labeling and diagnosing it, someone is important. But we asked the question, which is the question that's being explored in the scientific literature when you look at different health issues. Why do we have this problem in the first place? It's not a pharmaceutical deficiency. So looking at things that science is exploring like underlying gut problems, like environmental toxins, like nutrient deficiencies, like hormonal imbalances that are more complex, like chronic stress and unresolved trauma and having these conversations that can't be directly ran on labs, but need to be looked at. And then biotoxins, like mold and bacteria and viruses and parasites, a confluence of factors. But they are, they're superfluous from a conventional model. Like why would we run it in mainstream medicine? Why would we run a gut health test or environmental toxin tests if the end result's still gonna be that medication? But we asked the question, why you have the problem in the first place

13:21is really actually important. So you can a, address it in heal. But then secondly, there's a lot of context in nuance at play. So for example, like the thyroid, there's a lot of, all they need to give you scintoroid, levathy, rocksin or some sort of thyroid placement hormone is a high TSH and a low T4. All right, there's a lot of underlying thyroid problems that are a misjudge by just running those two biomarkers, but even if those are off, is it under conversion of T4 to T3? Is it autoimmune Hashimoto's or not? Is there a high reverse T3? These sort of break analog, the whole point being, the whole, the body's a lot more complex than just one number on a lab, right? So to be so reductive and say, just this number and this medication, a lot of people fall through the cracks of that sort of pharmaceutical matching game. And then the third thing we do differently in functional medicine is we realize we're all different. God made us all different. It's bio-individuality. And kind of the thyroid's a good example there.

14:22You could have 100 people with a high TSH, but the actual cause of it's different from person to person. So that's where to understand the art and science of you is really my passion professionally. And we use food as medicine. We use natural medicines as medicine, herbs, botanicals. We use emerging therapeutics like peptides. We use mind body dealing with the mental emotional spiritual facets of it. All of this stuff's being explored in the scientific literature. We're just trying to aggregate what data we do have and then use common sense, even if there's not a randomized control trial. No, that's wild. That's also science to what moves the needle? What's the most effective option in that person's life that causes the least amount of side effects? And actually for most chronic health problems, it doesn't have to be any side effects. Because God gave us everything we need anyways. So it's just applying science in a common sense holistic way. And I always say that God gave us a cure for everything.

15:22There's something there. And are you new all this coming well ahead of time? So there's something there. And that's why I am so drawn and have been to functional medicine because I know that there's an answer, but we just have to find it and have to be willing to dig. Yeah. You know, one of the biggest problems that I had over many years before I even knew what the health functional medicine was all the blood panels that I interpret for bodybuilders related to testosterone deficiency is normally the start steroid users and everything, but not necessarily. And this quick desire to jump on TRT and I'll explain where I'm going with this. So for me, it was like, well, how about we look and see what's causing you to have a deficiency? For example, if your SHBG is high, we get that down. We then free up bound testosterone. Boom, you're fixed. So you do a lot of digging, right? So if somebody is like, I am lost or do quick to jump on prescription, you're coming in and saying, hey, look,

16:23we're going to find the core problem here and maybe keep you off said medication and put you on this treatment. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. And medications, some people need to be on pharmaceutical drugs. So we're not anti-medication, but it's that litmus test. What's the most effective option that causes the least amount of side effects? So maybe that medication is a piece of the puzzle. Some people need to be on pharmaceuticals. But oftentimes it's both and not either or approach. And maybe in the short term, they need to be on medications to manage the disease which are managing symptoms. But then longer term, maybe that, yes, you need that medication for a season of your life. I'm thinking of like diabetic medications, right? It's like, type, yeah, if somebody has raging blood sugar, yeah, get on that, whatever medication they have you on. But then why, what's the long term goal? And there's lots of other examples, like autoimmunity, maybe you need to be on the prednisone or the biologic in the short term. But then what's the long term goal here? So that's, well, let's see what the body's capable of. And for as many people, the medications become obsolete

17:25or at least the very minimum reducing the need for as many medications to be as targeted as possible. But healthy people don't need pharmaceutical drugs. No. So yeah, it's not a great business model to get people healthy for certain industries, but it is important for people. It is a good business model. If you're out, if you're, if your goal is to help people and believe me, if we worked all day long 24 hours a day, there's so many people to help. I know. There's so many people to help. And my passion is to make functional medicine accessible, affordable for people to democratize, to decentralize this stuff because it's so important. I see what it does in people's lives. I just realized I flung my glasses across the, it's like blocking glasses. They're blocking the ground. So throughout my life, I have experienced so many different things have been blind to certain things because of interruptions or my mind being where it shouldn't be.

18:26And the funny story here, maybe not so funny, in prison, I learned that I be profan was the answer to everything. I don't care what that, what it was. Whatever you went in there for, no granted, it's minimal what you can get in there. But my point is, no matter what, what you had, that's what you got prescribed. Now when I got out and then I started to remember, okay, now every time I go to the doctor, it's the same story. Like if I am not feeling well, this is why I started to tell my mom, when she'd ask me, or you know, I'd call and say, I don't feel good, are you gonna go to the doctor? It's a no. And this was before I discovered anything wasn't involved about it. And I'd say, no, because every time I go, all they're telling me is, here's some amoxicillin or augmentin or whatever, Z-pack and get on there. And it's not, I'm still staying sick for seven days. So why am I gonna go take all of this stuff and go into a Jeremy doctor's office to see him for five seconds? And they don't even know, aside from my first name, anything about me.

19:26So if somebody comes to you, I have two questions. One, would they be replacing their primary caregiver? That'd be you. And then two, how can you compare and contrast that five minute session of not asking you anything about yourself to what they get with you? Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I'm in telehealth. So I'm not ever replacing someone's local primary care physician because there's limitations to telehealth, right? Humans need physical exam sometimes, right? They need certain things that the art of medicine needs to be there. So we coordinate with their local doctor or a local specialist when needed. But we're providing them functional medicine support and perspective and guidance on their labs and how they feel and their health as a whole and how to get them better. So it's collaborative when we need, I've been on many a conference call with their local doctor when needed because they're local doctors, the people that are managing their medications oftentimes, right?

20:26So it's like, I'm providing my perspective and saying, look, this is our goal here. This isn't always needed. I don't wanna over complicate this, but sometimes when you deal with more complex cases, I am very much cognizant of the fact when people have multiple doctors, that's multiple opinions. Yeah. And they don't, they don't have to be all conventional doctors. They could be some conventional, some other whatever alternative doctor. And then me, you can have too many cooks in the kitchen sometimes. So I wanna get us on the same page and be like, let's be collaborative because we all, hopefully our goal is to be for this person and what does this person want for me to advocate for them and to be sort of their clinical quarterback in some way to integrate all the best tools within their toolbox. And then, yeah, we're spending a lot of time with them. And like an initial consultation with us is about an hour and a half, could be longer, going over labs an hour and a half, maybe longer. So it's, yeah, it's definitely, and that's just why this is not an indictment

21:27on any one doctor in that conventional mainstream model. It's the system, right? The average doctor visit, like you said, I think it's like seven minutes as the average doctor is visit in the United States. How can you have deep meaningful conversations in seven minutes? It's not going to happen. So this is not, and most of my colleagues in functional medicine are actually conventionally trained. Most of the physicians that have been trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine, which is what the, all the physicians at the Cleveland Clinic's Functional Medicine Center, most functional medicine doctors are trained through IFM. They're in the same, they're still in the same model. So, but they have a passion to learn about human health and they didn't learn about it in conventional medical school. But their hands are tied behind their back in that model because it's not set up for healthcare, it's set up for disease management. So I want to be clear, this is not like us versus them or this sort of tribalism. This is just a different paradigm. And many of my colleagues still work within this system and do what they can. And kind of give little bread crumbs of information

22:28in that seven minutes and just say, read this. It's basically the advice. Go read that, listen to this podcast. I can see you, because they don't have the time. But I'm outside of that model. So I can kind of spend as much time as I need to on my team and I. So it's a blessing. It's a really a blessing. It's a sacred responsibility for me. When I think of over the years, all the amazing people that I get to be a part of, it's such a special, special thing. I always compare it to like going to great clips and getting a haircut. And then they got to get like 40 people in in a day. And you're going to get a great clips cut when you go in there. And then that's what it is. You can tell them, hey, I want it done this way and they're going to cut it as short as they can every time. Right? I've been to great clips before. Yeah. Have you ever been to sports clips before? I have. You get a little back massage. So strange. So strange. It's like, I don't, should I be getting this massage right now? I'm going to marry. I have a dedicated barber that I go to that like lines my face. And I get a barber shop facial. It's like, it's just like, it's just like, it's just relaxing. But you know, but what sometimes all we need

23:28is a good sports clip spa session. I love it. I'm boozy like that. I mean, I got you, man. But you know, do you go do that? You get what you get now. If you, and I'm not throwing shade at doctors either, that's their setup. That's like what they know. And I think a lot of doctors go in with the right mindset. This is what we want to do. But then what are you going to do when you're taught a certain way? Oh, yeah, it's a paradigm. I mean, the, there's a study. It was, it's about 10 years old or so. Maybe a little bit less than that. That found that the average, these are pediatric in residents, I think is what it was. Pediatric residents that the average doctor that's conventionally trained would fail a basic nutrition test. Yeah. I mean, but yet this is like the height of irony because the most of the people that all PCPs, GPs are going to see, even rheumatologist, gastroenterologist, it's lifestyle driven. I mean, and that, I think we're, they're trying to change that. I mean, the current HHS is trying to change that. And there are lots of big schools, medical schools,

24:30have signed on to up the amount of hours. It's still not enough. But I, they're trying to change it now because we can't. I mean, just, it's basic common sense. You're spending your whole career talking to people. You need to, you don't have to be nutrition experts. You don't have to be an RAD as an, as an MD. But you at least need to have some basic knowledge of why that person is dealing with what they're dealing with. And it's not a pharmaceutical deficiency. Mm-hmm. You know, and that's what I, is always troubling to me. It's like when you go into the regular doctor, you don't get asked basic questions. What's your stress level like? How's your sleep? What's your activity level like? Unless there's something super, super severe, you don't really get into that. And it's impossible to go in there and have them remember you. It's kind of like a major university. I didn't do well at a major university with four and 500 kids in the classroom because you're just kind of another number. And then I switched to a private school and it was more intricate, excelled, deansless student. But before it was like, man, I can read magazines back here.

25:30Nobody even know, you know, it doesn't matter. Right. And that, that attention to detail and knowing somebody is so important and vital. And that's why somebody like you, you can't take a million clients, I'm sure, but you know intricately about each individual, like their life story almost, right? Yeah. And I am weirdly rainman sort of, I don't know what this, I'm my neurodivergence I guess, but I remember the most random things about their health, but it's indelible. It's like indelible. It can't be taken away. I can remember a patient 16 years ago that was random facts about their life. But the great thing about telehealth and the way that we've, I've seen what works and what doesn't work as far as protocol and then how to convey protocols to people and how to scale this to help more people. So we have these group models and they also lowers the cost too, because like you said, there's only so many hours in the day. And we can put people in these amazing cohort groups because that also brings community to this, which it's so isolating when you don't feel well

26:33and you're going through a chronic health problem where you're just suboptimal health and you're a ghastlet in your hometown. It is a blessing to be able to a help more people in this sort of group telehealth model, but also to have community. I like minded people that will identify each other and encourage each other and to know you're not alone. That's medicine too. Yeah, and that's what I was going to say. You know, negative people always have a problem for a solution, right? You know, that's true. And, but if you get into a positive environment or around positive energy and people, it will provide a sense of comfort, which will then in turn help you to heal. Oh, 100%. I mean, there's holes in the blue zone sort of societies, but one of the things that no matter what's talking about blue zone or not, the research is clear that community is tremendously therapeutic, positive community. But as positive community can be a medicine, negative community can be a slow poison.

27:36I got a lot of flaws, my friend, as we all do, but one thing that I take a lot of, and I don't like to use the word pride, but a lot of joy in is that people tell me when I come into a room, I bring a positive energy, and I didn't always have that. And when I started to bring that, that positive energy helps heal other people. Even something they're having a bad day. Totally. Yeah, I mean, it's at people like, like roll their eyes with the phrase, hold space. But actually for someone that's sick or at least not feeling well or suboptimal health, to hold space for somebody and not in a vapid social media way, but in a deep meaningful way of human to human knowing you're not alone, it is like the amount of times, like there's probably, it's rare when I would have an initial telehealth consult and that person not stop. Not because I said anything, just because you are holding space for someone that's like so made to feel like they're crazy.

28:39That's going through things like chronic Lyme, remote, or autoimmune problem or fertility, whatever. So it's such a sacred responsibility. And you don't have to be a doctor or health care practitioner to do that to another human. I think we all need to do it, especially in this age of AI, to be pro human is to be, to get out there and to reach out to people and because there's a loneliness epidemic. I want to relate that transition into how AI and just other aspects of this isolated state, how it affects total health. Now I was talking about this the other day and I said, look, COVID was a reason, because there's a difference between reason and excuse. COVID was a reason where we had to be isolated, but then relating it later now where there is no restriction, that's an excuse. Say, oh, well, COVID causes no. There was a reason at the time.

29:39Now you're using a crutch and an excuse to kind of be standoffish, not communicate. Here's what I've found. And I want to know from a doctor's perspective that sees this daily, because I'm just an integrative practitioner type of background, I guess, so to speak, but you're a full-fledged doctor that has all of that clientele. What I see is that more and more people have an inability to communicate, which is causing more mental health, more physical health, and more stress than I've ever seen in my life. And I'm seeing a lot of people that don't know how to talk with others, that then causes all of this hatred online and these people that type and do negative things. And I swear to you that this has occurred over time of people not actually getting out and talking to people communicating. Do you feel that we're going in a direction that where health is declining and part of that cause is the lack of the ability

30:40to be around people to communicate and more were kind of hidden and isolated away? Yeah, I do. And then, yeah, the post COVID work from home phenomenon, I think is playing a role into that. Yeah, I think in our phones beyond COVID, but yeah, COVID was just an inflection point of all of that. It just exacerbated everything that was there before. And yeah, in some ways, we returned to normal, but in some ways, we've, with the age of AI and the technology accelerating at rapid rates, we were, if you ever saw the Pixar film, Wally before, it's like 19 years old now at this point, 18, it's prophetic in many ways, a kid's cartoon, a human's very little bone density, lots of adipose tissue, lying down, incedentary, stuffing their body, their faces full of food, staring at a screen all day. This is before iPhones, this, I mean, before all the tech, maybe not before iPhones, but the early days of iPhones, let's just say that,

31:42that this movie came out, that it was art imitating life in the future form. There's a lot of actually science fiction stuff that are tapped into this stuff too. Yeah, it is a massive problem. And then the screen comes off and then for a second and there's a glitch, what's, how do I even operate in real life? Because we're so, and researchers have a term for, it's cognitive offloading. We are allowing machines to think for us. So we have lacked resilience, we lack grit, we lack diversity, we're afraid of diversity of thought, we lack, we're so intolerant because the algorithm sort of feeds our own confirmation bias. So yeah, it's a significant problem. It's impacting relationship, the health of relationships, it's impacting people's physical health. And it's obviously impacting societal health, the ripple effect of all of that. It's too much of a good thing. The technology can be a blessing, but it's just, it's too much of it. We live in a world of everything's gotta be extreme,

32:43right? So everybody's gotta just go all out. How old are you? I'm 42. Okay, so we're very similar in age. So we've gone through a lot of the same time frames then because I'm 44. So, you know, I always feel blessed and comforted that I was able to get around without a GPS system. I was able to go and use payphones when I had to and do things that now would seem insane. But if you, what would happen if the energy grid shut down or there was no internet for months or no cell phones? Because I remember, I mean, I'm sure you do the same time. We didn't have cell phones till I was 14, 15 years old. So there was a pager or it was just a, you make a phone call. Yeah, and look, I'm conscious of the fact that like people that are younger than us are like, man, we are just two contendentious old guys that are just like, oh, the change, we don't like the change. But the reality is, this is different. Yes, part of it, I can hold both truths at the same time. I am a contendentious old man at 42 years old.

33:45But it's also, if you look at all age groups, the experts in this space will tell you, this is nothing like ever before in human history. When has technology ever become conscious? Well, that's the conversations right now. When has technology, when, and ever before in human history will technology be smarter than humans? That's the conversations that are happening right now. So yeah, it's just a quite a different beast. And the word beast is very appropriate here because it's, yeah, it's, I'm convinced if we should just go back to the late 90s, early 2000s, at a certain point, please. And this isn't just because of our youth. This is just like, okay, technology was good. It was solid. Quality of life was decent. You can have too much of a good thing. You can be completely indulgently overfed with something. And that's where I think we're at. There's nothing inherently wrong with AI. Look, your Google Maps is AI, series AI, your Woop and Aura ring, your Woop band, your CGM is AI.

34:47There's not inherently evil, but how it's being done in this sort of massive, large language models. The acceleration is on that's happening today. Yeah, it's divorcing us from nature and ourselves and it's pretty malignant ways. I force people to get on phone calls with me. You know, people now they're trained to, is it okay if I call you? Is it okay? And I'm like, we need to talk. I don't want to buy my home or a car over a text message. Like it, it, it's become to that. And like I always tell people, I have been through everything I've talked about this in detail. I keep it as real as can be. When I, I went through this where I had to go back in time, when I got myself into trouble, this was 2010. And I would, I had to go to prison to, and everything in there is completely 15, 20, 30 years behind. I had no cell phone. I had no, no way of listening to music other than a CD player. Wow.

35:48That sounds kind of fun. Yeah. Well, I mean, aside from the, the surroundings and everything, it was kind of a good thing for me to then remember. And it trained me humility to go, man, here's what it's like to be reduced to nothing, but also here's what you have to do in these circumstances. How do you do it? Like I didn't have, there were times where I didn't have weights or anything, you should see, but I was, I was creating ways to train and work out and to do things like nobody has to do today. And my mind was working. Yeah. You would think you'd go in there and become ignorant or like this crazed animal. And I used that time, but it taught me something. And what it taught me was, man, you got to be prepared. And I think at the minimum, because people take things for granted right now, they're not prepared for anything. No. I always tell people, you went to bed one day and you woke up and were told you can't leave your house, you can't go here, you can't do this, you can't do that. So don't think that can't happen again. Oh, yeah. I think COVID in some ways really broke a lot of people.

36:49It's like, I still see them today. It's like they're not the same. Like that sort of group think, really messed with some people's brain and the sort of the, I think, taking advantage of people's weak minds because I think the technology makes all of our minds weaker. It does. There's a MIT, I think it was out of MIT that found that people that use AI to write essays, which so many people do. There is a 55, it was associated with a 55% decrease use of the brain. That's a significant piece. Just 10 to 15 minute use of a AI chatbot significantly decreases perseverance and discernment and critical thinking skills. We don't critically think we just, whatever answer we get, we just accept it as a gospel. And then, and we were talking about this, preview off on a different conversation of just consider the sources. Like what are they even pulling to tell you the answer? Yeah. And look, it's changing so rapidly. So who even knows in a year or two, five years how this is going to look?

37:50Well, and you remember too, because I mean, we probably went to college and stuff at the same time. You couldn't cite Wikipedia then. That's a source. You had to learn that APA format. You had to cite, I'd be like, man, I don't even know what to do here. Half the time, but because you'd have to sit there and really think for like a day or two, how am I going to write this paper? Yeah. Before you even started. I know. And that's schools that gave iPads and laptops out. They stopped teaching kids cursive. All this stuff's coming back. And I think that's this overlining in this sort of AI dystopian future. I think that the human spirit, the analogue, there will be an analog, analog Renaissance of people wanting to see, or be around other people, wanting to actually pick up pen, pick up paper, actually write out read physical books, unplug, get in nature, and get with other humans. I think that will be like nature and we're a part of it. It's going to survive one way or the other. Well, you kind of see too a lot of younger generations now.

38:50They, when they see things that we did, they want to, they make comebacks because people want to see what it was. And it's, you know, for me, it was when video games started requiring a college course to play them. That's when I was like, oh, we got a problem here. Yeah. I mean, seriously, I like two buttons and a joystick, you know, I mean. And this is like, you know what we talk about, COVID, COVID woke a lot of people up. Like they doth protest too much. People that weren't questioning orthodoxy, how many people do we know? Just started questioning. And I think this sort of, the way the AI is being used today, and this sort of anti-human accelerationist movement is waking people up too. And I think that's one of the reasons why you see this rise of young people, Gen Z and millennials flocking to church, to A.B. with other humans, but also they're craving something real. I think Gen Z are the highest church attendees now.

39:53I mean, that should tell you something. The generation that is the most attached to their phone is going to church more than anybody else. That's all you need to say. When God is able to get into somebody's heart and penetrate what's surrounding us, we're wired to want him. We're wired to love and we're wired to want that word. Once you taste it, you know how people will say, if you do a drug or whatever you're addicted, no. Once you taste God's word and feel it in your life, it's impossible to not get it. Especially when everything else is so fake. Yeah, it's just like a hologram. It's a cheap counterfeit. Yeah, 100%. And we were talking before and I've talked to you about this now a few times that becoming God first was when my life completely went upside down. When I came to the realization, and I'm relating this to health too, because this all ties into health. When you are self-serving and it's all about,

40:53oh, it's all about Dylan or all about Will, you become miserable and then you become unhealthy because that misery turns to stress. That stress turns into the desire to figure out who you are and why do I not feel good. And before you know it, it cascades down into this, like, depths of hell, I guess essentially. Do you fall under the same premise I do that aside from being God first, it's the characteristics that he provided that make us the healthiest, the gratitude, the appreciation, the love, correspond to health. Oh, yeah. It's science is just catching up with antiquity. Science is catching up with God and all the things that's talked about in scripture. Now there's randomized control trial showing, the medicine of gratitude, the medicine of compassion, the medicine of all of these things of taking in the ineffable with nature, this Shin Muno-Ku research out of Japan and South Korea of getting out in nature and God's creation.

41:53I call it God art. There's, yeah, it's all this stuff, like the spiritual stuff, the what, or we people, somebody said that the religious stuff actually has studies showing that people live longer. I mean, there's a study out of, I think it was Harvard, the people that had a regular faith practice that were part of a faith community. It was associated with a 33% decreased risk of all cause mortality in a 16 year period. They people that have a faith walk or relationship with God, part of a positive community have a lower high sensitivity, see reactor protein inflammation markers. I mean, Dr. Lisa Miller, a friend of mine, she's a researcher at Columbia. She scans brains of people that have faith in their life. They have increased resilience and grit, which is what we need in our mad world today. We need resilience. And you see that on social media when there's a lack of resilience and a lack of grit. This sort of offense, the people are addicted to being offended

42:54and being triggered. It's this offense culture, outrage culture. And we just such, we lack such tolerance for other people that are different. And I know religious people can be lack tolerance too. Oh yeah. But so you have to cultivate this for yourself. It's no one's gonna do it for you. That's the point of all of this. But it is way better. I would say the, maybe this is a shot, it's talking same, but I think church is, church as a whole. It's imperfect. You'd be okay with that. It's not all perfection. It's filled with imperfect people. But the worst part of it's still better than the best of the world. Yeah, I agree. And I always say this, and I always do this because I start talking and it would come across like, oh, well, he never screws up or I curse a lot. I do a lot of things. But if you look in the Bible, God always picks somebody for a certain reason, but they generally had some things that were doing pretty rough. Yeah. King David had his lover's husband killed.

43:55And the Bible says he was a man after God's own heart. So yeah, some ruthless people saw killed Christians for a living and became the writer of most of the New Testament. And I always say, don't judge anybody. I had somebody write me two days ago and tell me that everything I said didn't mean anything and that I talk because I had earrings on. And I said, well, my professor never indicated to me. And when I studied at Harvard, that my earrings were going to lower my IQ level. But that's the type of negative things that people live in. And my concern is, there was nothing anybody can say that could hurt my feelings at this point. I just don't give a shit. I got to that point where I'm stone cold. But my concern is for other people that don't know, that don't have that mentality I do. And then too, when you have three time during the day or night, and that's what you're doing in your free time, is like throwing stones at people are being negative.

44:56They're going on social media, right? Yeah, like, what are you doing with your life? And where is it going? And how is that affecting your kids and the people around you and your health and your mind? Yeah, that's what my mind actually goes to. When I do see like a negative, because I've been through a few of those over the years. But the, and then there's like the low grade trolls, but then there's like the troll, like, troll empire war occasionally that will happen. But so it comes up and down. But you just think, okay, man, I use it as a meditation of compassion for them. It's like, you must be very sad and isolated and unhealthy. Like healthy people don't treat other people like that. No. No, actually very sad miserable people, cheap people like that. So, yeah, it's not always easy. And I, it's it's it's it's it's also an exercise, just for me to unplug and be like, this is really not real life. But her people, her people as they say, but thank the Lord healed people, healed people. Yeah. Or healing people, healed people. We're all in the process of healing.

46:00So it is quite the thing, but there's this keyboard warrior bravado, right? It's just like the, they can hide behind this phone, the anonymity of it all, things they would never say to your face. Typically cowards would never do that. I mean, they were just, they can be brave behind that sort of digital courage that they have. It's funny because like if some of the people that have taken shots at me, because I used to get upset when I first started YouTube, I had millions of subscribers in like a year, I didn't know what was even happening. Oh, wow. Yeah. It really, it still hurts my feelings to be honest with you. It's, I have to, it's a process. So it's a, I'm sensitive and I want people to like me and I have good intentions. So I'm like, well, they're misreading what I'm saying. Or I see that it works like, I'm, I, because I see labs improve. So why are you against that? Yeah. So I am not perfect at it. But it is, when I say this is a practice, it's a practice of compassion and saying, yeah, my feelings are hurt that this person's misinterpreting or committed to misunderstanding me.

47:00But I'm going to show them compassion anyways. I always, I try to be the bigger person. I will say that what I do sometimes is use it as a, me and my wife get to like look at this person and we laugh because she gets offended and gets upset when they take shots at me. It's very defensive of the way. And I never wanted my, my grandkids or kids to see that type of stuff. But I always say, look at this and we laugh. And it's like, I wish these people knew like, you're the bottom of my jokes for spending, thanks for spending your time on me. Like I appreciate it. Yeah. I'm out here trying to make a difference. So I don't let it bother me, but I do understand what you're saying because of the work you're doing. My even advice to you would be is, hey, you know, that just means I'm making an impact one way or another. That is true. I mean, yeah, if you're not pissing somebody off, you're doing something wrong. Yeah. And that's just it. And my whole goal is to get people to hear me whether they like me or not because somehow some way, if they're listening, they're hearing something you're saying. And you know what? I don't know about you,

48:00but I've had things that I either thought were crazy or pissed me off and then I went back around and was like, huh, maybe I missed that or maybe I should re-look at that again. Totally. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because sometimes it's like why I had to go to intentions, but I didn't mean to say it like that or I get what they're saying and I try to be self reflective and be like, yeah, I could do better and use it as a learning experience. That does happen sometimes too. More often times than not, it's not, right? It's like it's like you're literally twisting everything I'm saying out of context. The context of nuance is oftentimes lost with social media, especially with, you know, I'm sure you've seen this phenomenon too, even with this episode right now, the concept of reels or TikToks or like short form videos, we're talking for an hour, an hour, and a half, whatever. They people mistake like a 13 second clip for an entire conversation. It's like, do you not realize that that is like you, that those videos are never gonna be full context,

49:02but they expect you to get all the answers. The whole point of the video is to like go listen to the full conversation for the context, but we're so like pacified to be spoon fed information that we just again can't hear anything as a culture without being offended. It's happened to me a few times in my career and it's wild to me because people just assume the worst in other people. There's two things that I will say about that one is, and you and I don't do this, but there's a lot of people that do, and that's because their social team is telling them to do this where they send them this way, you gotta hook them with this or say this or do that, and I don't like that. I don't do it, I refuse to do it. I've had a lot of people I work with, they get mad at me, and I'm like, dude, if they wanna listen to me, they'll hear me, I don't need to do all of that. We don't intentionally try to do it, but it does happen sometimes because it's 13 seconds, 30 seconds. Yeah, it's wild to me. But some people just, they hear what they wanna hear, and that's one of the reasons why I make people talk to me, or I leave voice notes like you and I started doing, because when you write something in text or email,

50:06you can't hear tone. I've looked at stuff before, and my first reaction was like, man, are you talking shit? Are you being disrespectful to me? And then I stopped responding right away to stuff before I reread it, because there's been times where I've had to really go apologize, because I totally misread it. And if you and I are in a hurry, or are mine somewhere else, and we skip words, sometimes I skip words. And it's kinda like, I just see something that's gonna make me mad. Yeah, the same thing, yeah. That's horrible. That's coffing about offloading of us too, right? We just are like, just give us the cliff and expression of this short text, please. We have our attention spans, like, that's the importance of communication. Yeah, and talk. Yeah, you're right. So let's talk a little bit about the book that you wrote with Josh. I told you, I wrote you last night, we talked a little bit today. I got to read the first few chapters of it, because I just got it. And it is so well done because of the perspective,

51:10and what you're covering, and the depth of what you're doing. I kind of shared this with you earlier, but I didn't get into it totally. So my whole life, my mom was an English teacher, and my dad was like a strict math guy. So those were my subjects. I hated science, and I mean, to the point of, I had to go take biology at a summer class in college and still got a C minus. Because I just didn't want, I didn't want to be there. I didn't listen. And now my whole life is centered around science. Yeah, how so? Most importantly, I went to Harvard and studied cellular health at night, and I actually took a certification course to be a cellular health expert. Amazing. But this is all stuff I learned in the past two years. So you're a full-fledged expert. So when I start reading your work, I'm like, man, the depths, I have a few, like, more detailed questions for you. So there's buzzwords in health, just like anything else. So right now, more than ever, it's mitochondria, gut, like these are buzzwords.

52:13But when we're looking at a cell, the most important parts of a cell, and you correct me here, I look at it from what I understand, and would we not want to put some focus on the cellular membrane with just protecting the cell, because there's no mitochondria without protection, right? So is that something that should be taught? To be clear to say? Yeah, I think you're right. The mitochondria are having their little, like, time in the sun right now, like, but it's, you know, this sweet little descendants of bacteria, and we should give them some love. But you're right. All of it's important. God made all of it. But I mean, yeah, life begins on the membrane, and the fluidity, the perfect level of fluidity, allowing the good stuff nutrients to come in, the receptor-siped to be sharp, to grab the hormones, to allow the byproducts of energy, and then he toxins to be pushed out of the membrane. It all depends on the integrity of the cellular membrane, this beautiful phospholipid-biped membrane. It's profoundly important,

53:14and obviously a significant part of the book. And it's at the heart of a lot of the longevity research, right? I mean, the information model of understanding aging, or the information theory of aging, that meaning that the cell and its information largely to do with a membrane problem, because that's that breach, that sort of gatekeeper, if the DNA has these sort of micro damages, and there's some epigenetic confusion going on there, those sort of two ends, this guardian angels of the genome are trying to clean things up, but this whole breach is because the membrane is that proverbial gate that's been breached, and those mitochondria are becoming leaky, or releasing these reactive oxygen species, and again, the pathways are trying to keep up. The body is trying to preserve, but the kind of the serotones have lost their way, and all of it has to do with the membrane.

54:15The membrane really is the one of the seminal, let's just say the seminal event, I was a loss of integrity of the cell membrane, when it will cause a cascade of problems throughout the body, and if one cell becomes dysregulated or has lost, it's sensitive identity, or what research is called, X differentiation, it's the brain cell, it's a brain cell, or the liver cell forgot, it's the liver cell, and that's where chronic disease begins. One cell becomes that, and then infects, infects, quote unquote, it affects all the cells around it, and that's where you have organ dysfunction, and you have the label of the disease, but every disease or every suboptimal issue that somebody has with a specific organ, it begins with the cellular dysfunction, which begins with, to your point, some sort of cell membrane issue. So if we have a mitochondria deficiency or problem, is that cellular membrane health related? Yeah, they're inextricably related, you have to have a breached, I think you could argue this,

55:17and you could find someone to disagree with you, but I would say that, sure, that's not hard to find, but I would say that it's a pretty accurate statement that you'd be hard pressed to find someone with mitochondrial dysfunction, they didn't have a membrane problem first. So what is the most important aspect of keeping our cellular membrane healthy? What does it require to be optimal? Well, researchers, it's a lot of, when I say it's a lot of things, I don't want to complicate it, it's a lot of potential tools within the toolbox, but researchers estimate that majority of our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years, but yeah, our world has changed dramatically in a finite period of time. So I would say it's a few things that we need to decrease that mismatch, that chasm between genetics and epigenetics. One is gonna be the foods we eat. That's a significant piece. What foods love your body back and which ones don't? And because of this chasm, this mismatch between genetics and epigenetics,

56:18even healthy foods may not be the best food for you. There's a lot of bio-individuality to under the umbrella of nutrient-dense whole foods. What foods are the most optimal for you at this time in your life? So looking at foods, not just what you eat, but when you eat, researchers call a lot of the cellular dysfunction. And what I mean by that, again, the ripple effect that is what is a chronic health problem? All chronic health problems, autoimmune problems, cancer, heart disease, or just you having brain fog fatigue, is a cellular health problem just to make that clear for people. It's not just what you eat, but when you eat, they call it, the researchers refer to a lot of these chronic health problems as chronobiological, meaning that there's some, we're eating too much too often. We're not giving the body ever a break. And the cell cannot have time, it does not have time to clean itself up. The third thing would be light. Like we talked about this previously, but this sort of dirty light that was constantly surrounded

57:19by blue light technology back to that. It's impacting our circadian rhythm. And the light from the sun and the nighttime helps to set our own central clock of the SCM part of the brain. And that's connection to our every cell everybody has its own cellular clock, peripheral clock, if you will. So this constantly being surrounded by our screens and light, artificial light from technology and being inside, it's impacting our cellular confusion to the cells become confused. And that's accelerating that cell clock. Next piece I would say would be man-made environmental toxins, herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals, heavy metals. And then biotoxins, I would say would be another one that's going to be molded, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Those things are never pathogenic variations, or toxic variations of these are never healthy. But I am convinced that going back to the man-made, I think the EMF piece exacerbates a lot of this stuff,

58:21specifically with mold, where yes, toxic mold is never not toxic. The Bible talked about it thousands of years ago in Leviticus. But it's exacerbated because of EMFs in our homes and the constant, an endation with electricity and technology. And then the last piece I would say is stress, trauma, and spiritual disconnection. It's the mental emotional spiritual thing. It's all of that stuff. It's the confluence of factors. That for some people, maybe it's more stress and trauma that's causing their cell become dysregulated. They're membrane to be more rigid. Their cell to become more inflamed. For other people, it may be more microplastics. For a lot of people, it's going to be the entourage effect to perfect storm of variables. And that's where in my line of work, health, history, and labs really illuminate why they have these problems. But it's going to be probably, it's going to be, for most people, one of those things that I talked about, and obviously it could be any number of things underneath those categories.

59:21Does cholesterol play a role in cellular membrane health at all? It certainly does. And I would put that in the sort of nutrition level of it, absolutely. I mean, we need healthy fats in cholesterol. Go figure. And one of the top pharmaceutical drugs is shutting that off. Go figure, which is why that same class of medication also increases cellular dysfunction and increases type 2 diabetes and increases neurocognitive decline. Because when you shut down pathways, the God made those unintended consequences sometimes go figure. When mankind pretends to be God, there's unintended consequences. I'm not to say there's not a place for doing that sometimes, but there's unintended, there's unintended and sometimes intended consequences. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why everybody that's on a cholesterol-lowering medications, that in drugs specifically, should be on Cocute 10, should be taking a phospholipids like a phosphatidocolean or phosphatidocerein, some sort of phospholipid membrane,

1:00:23because you need to replace with the body's shutting down. Because of a pharmaceutical drug. Dr. Cole, are you indicating that crushing LDLs not optimal for cellular health? I know. Shocking. I would say that's one of the worst things you could do. Yeah. Is shoving your cholesterol down artificially low? Every cell of your body, that phospholipid membrane that we're talking about, where all this hormonal receptor sites are, where the cell communicates to other cells, it needs healthy amounts of cholesterol. And the liver is what's making predominantly. That food plays a role in that. And genetics plays a significant role. That's some people are going to have more, some people are going to have less, but our body needs it. And it's like blaming the fireman for the fire. If somebody has abnormally high cholesterol, why is the body producing more? It's because oftentimes the body's needing to repair the cell membrane and all the other things that the body uses cholesterol for because of the damage of modernity. So, and that's why when you see the study

1:01:23is implicating these microplastics and forever chemicals in the lodge and the arteries, and the body's creating an inflammatory response to try to get the microplastics to ferment chemicals, forever chemicals out. And that's what's causing heart attack and stroke. And a lot of the subset of people, yes, the body's going to create more cholesterol to try to repair stuff. So, it's, we are blaming the wrong thing. Would you say that it's fair and not in all, but some conditions that people are born with may in fact be there for a reason? Yeah, absolutely. We have to, what's the body telling us? These labs, these symptoms are oftentimes perverbal check engine lights. Why is the check engine light on in the first place? There's a lot of beautiful compensatory mechanisms. It's beautiful adaptations. The body's trying to actually do something, but because we are out of alignment with nature, and that's, you know, it sounds a little woo-woo, but we're out of alignment with something we're intimately, we co-evolved with,

1:02:24what we're created with, that's the problem. And then we're saying, okay, now we're smarter than that nature is that we're going to shut down this pathway and that's, and then that causes problems. You need to be on a medication for the side effects of the first medication. No, I never valued nature or the surroundings until I realized, and I read more in scripture, and then I moved to Arizona, got on the pathways, started appreciating even when I lived in Maui, like the sunsets, and when I realized that the appreciation of God's creation, not man's earth, like God's beauty, even when I go through to California, and there's a lot of homelessness and garbage there, there's still the mountains and these beautiful topography everywhere that I'm looking at, and I'm like, wow, there's still a lot of good here that was created, but when you have that, again, gratitude, man, it just opens up different parts of your brain, like it really, really does. And so I think that that's important, there's nothing woo-woo about what you said. I know people say that, but they don't get it.

1:03:26That's not hippie-ish, there's, it's reality. It is reality, yeah. Yeah, no, it's absolutely right, it is, but we're so divorced from it, I think, many people are divorced from that reality. So I got a couple other questions that I really wanted to touch on with you. One, I wanna relate some issues that I had in C, since you're kind of an expert on this. So I have never been able to wear a wearable for an extended period of time. I wore an Apple watch for a while, and granted I had to wear it really tight because of the tattoos. Woke up one morning, could barely move my wrist. My pinky was swollen to where my wife panicked. We went to the emergency room, had to stop wearing it. Twice I've worn rings, like an or a ring, and then a ring con, started to have really weird heart rhythms, started to have really bad headaches. The Apollo Neuros, the only one I've been able to wear, but even that, I can't wear consistently. My body has not responded, and I've seen that with other people,

1:04:28is that, and also, sleepin' with your cell phone by your bed at night, and things like that, that people think is crazy. Are these EMF-related, are they realities, and what are some telltale signs that we're having issues? Yeah, that's interesting. I, we see a lot of more people that I would say have more sensitive responses to that, and yeah, it's not the majority. Certainly, to be clear, it's not the majority of people that I would say see that, but it can. And these are, I think this is really a sign that even things like, or you could say, oh yeah, this is very low grade EMF, right? Or any low grade exposure of something. But I think it shows you in many different ways, this cumulative bio-accumulation, if you will, of EMFs, it's a little bit there, a little bit there, a little bit there, and it's like, and then you never have reprieve from it. You always have it on, and it's constantly sending the signal to parts of your body. Yeah, if you're saying, yeah, you wear non-EMF ring,

1:05:29like the non bio-hacking ring, and you're fine with it, the only variable is that the ring part isn't like it's not like cutting off circulation, it's an actual frequency issue. Yeah, we are inundated by man-made polarized EMFs, and not enough God EMFs from nature, which nature creates these non-polarized EMFs. So yeah, there's gonna be limitations to that, right? It's like you said, maybe some you can and just don't wear it all the time. I like keeping things intuitive, so I like the data in the short term. But I think for the average human being, they actually don't need to wear these things all the time. No. I like data, but you need to get to the point where you're building enough resilience and enough intuition, enough resilience physiologically and enough intuition on a mental emotional spiritual level that you just know. My HRB is probably here. You're my sleep squad, you're basically here.

1:06:29That's agency on your health. So it's a learning tool because so many people are divorced from their bodies in the short term, but yeah, you don't need that man, you're beyond that. No, I think it's good to check it, then start to live your habits, and then check again, say, okay, I made some changes and see it. You know what else? I forgot to bring up years. I used to wear one earbud here in ear pod, and I started to get this weird swelling in my face, and I went to every doctor I thought I had cancer, I thought there were so many things wrong with me, I was looking into. My tattoo artist told me about the earbud, stopped wearing it, all the swelling finally went away. I don't know of any studies on this, but I'd be curious to know. It probably is mild if anything. Is do you think the tattoos have a conductivity difference? That could be too. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know about that. It does mechanistically, it's not making sense to me right now, but I'm just wondering because you have the amazing sleeves. Thank you. Yeah, so I'm just wondering that, I don't know.

1:07:29Yeah, there's potential there too, and that's a good point that I never thought of while I was getting them done, that there could be. So yeah, I think that that's becoming a problem more so because more people are reliant, and there's more wireless products than there's ever been since we've been alive, I mean, since the history of man as far as we know. Yeah, if you were off the grid and you just had one little band or whatever, it's no big deal, but it's something's got to give and our body is crying out for a preve. I want to ask you because you brought this up, and I found this to be one of the most important, like mechanisms that we look at of data pieces. And so I always go to VO2 max as being one that's really important that we look at, but now I'm really starting to see that HRV is really being focused on more. And so when I, when I didn't know what HRV was, I remember my score was like low, and I was like, sweet, you know, like, this is great. And I looked it up and was like, oh, shit, this is not good.

1:08:32It's one of these cases where high is better. Right, right. So could you explain what it is and why it's better to have a higher score? Yeah, it's, in short, it's the body's ability to regulate itself. And for the heart rate to be low, then high and then come back down, it's a way that I use to measure parasympathetic tone. Because a lot of people have poor vagal tone, and they have this sort of larger, like, dysregulated, hyperbigilant response. And you can't measure parasympathetic tone that I know of, clinic, like as far as easily accessible, other than HRV. HRV is one of the best evidence-based ways to know. Let's improve vagal tone. And what does that look like? So when I'm integrating things like breathwork and meditation, when I'm integrating things like transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation and toning the vagus nerve, you will see HRV improve. And I just mentioned, or C-E-O, I mentioned you off camera. I see E-O, I said to get this vagal nerve stimulator and his HRV improved quite nicely.

1:09:33And I see that time and come again, with telehealth patients. But you have to be consistent with it. These acts of the parasympathetic. And for one person, it can be just like healthy boundaries in your life and like maybe getting away from technology and lowering your stress levels, that can improve HRV. For the next person, it may be improving electrolytes, right? Improving magnesium, potassium sodium, which will help kind of help for some people, improving your sleep hygiene can improve HRV. And for some people, there's other tools. But it is an improvement of, it's a biomarker to gauge nervous system regulation. And it's a long, it's really indirectly a long-gevity bunker. You know, and you brought up that parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system and, you know, being able to switch, right? And able to come out of that sympathetic state. When I first got the aura ring, my HRV was like in the 40s. And I went through the nervous system reset. Now it's been what, three months. And I retested everything. And now my HRV was always high 80s, low 90s.

1:10:36Amazing. More than double just, I think, I mean, obviously I've been sleeping a little bit better too. But I think a lot of that was that getting out of that fighter flight mode. Because I think once you get stuck there, I mean, you're doomed. Like until you fix it, you're just stuck. Yeah. And the tool, the right tool to improve your vagal tone, the right tool to lower that hyper-visional and fighter flight response is the tool that works for you that you can stay consistent with. Because, and there's so many different paths for different people, right? For some person, it could be cold plunging, right? Too much cold plunging could throw it off and make it worse. But like the dose, the dose makes the medicine, just like the dose makes the poison. All of these, a lot of these adversity mimetics, right? The things that researchers showed up regulated topology actually can't also help with HRV. Exercise, building the muscle, that's a romantic effect. That also can improve HRV. But the dose matters. Regaining overstressing the body is not good. But understressing the body isn't going to be either. So finding that sweet spot for you to kind of get some grit

1:11:38will improve that heart rate variability. OK. Well, I want to switch gears now, because you brought up cold plunge. I want to talk, this is one I often disagree with people on. OK. And I'm fine with that. I don't care. Yeah. I want to talk about modalities, I think, is what I'd like to get into. And I'll start with the cold plunges being one that I would group into modalities or different types of treatment therapy. What are your thoughts there? Do you find that it is beneficial or do you find that it is kind of overhyped? Or what do you feel about that? Well, pretty much anything on social media is overhyped, except the truth. Right. So I think that it is overhyped, but it's an amazing tool. OK. Right? So I should say this. It depends on who you're listening to. I've seen it overhyped. I flung my foot like walking again. So it's a, it's a hermetic fact, right? It's a hormesis. The concept of hormesis comes from this.

1:12:39I've heard this is that you fact check me all with you on social media is that the mythology around hormesis was this king, ancient king thought that someone was going to poison him. And if you know anything about royal history, there was a lot of poisoning of kings and queens. So this king would take a lotus of a poison and if he ever got poisoned, it ended up being his mother that tried to poison him, which is also very historically accurate, that he, someone wanted him out, right? And he didn't die because he was like microdosing this poison. So that's the dose makes the poison is sort of the mythology of hormesis. So cold plunging is as a hormesis, a hermetic effect, sauna is a hermetic effect, the ketogenic diet is a hermetic effect, fasting mimicking diets, fasting and fasting mimicking diets like the ketogenic diet are hermetic and in nature, high intensity interval training, reheat or I reduced exertional high intensity interval training, all hermetic, they are adversity mimetics. How can we utilize things that are stimulating

1:13:42adversity that would be in nature to make yourselves more resilient? That's the theory of how these things work from mechanism of action standpoint. So cold plunging, the dose matters. Yeah. So what's the temperature? What's the time and who are we talking about? So that bio-individuality really matters there. So cold so relative, right? Look, for someone that's like never been, you could say something in the 70s Fahrenheit, which no aficionato like biohacker alpha type personality, it would never say that it's cold plunging, but 60s to 70s Fahrenheit, freaking cold. It's not a swimming pool. It's a miserable, it's not a good time. But that could be enough of a medicine to lower someone's core temperature and improve their RAM and deep sleep in HRV. Yeah. So this sort of aggro alpha cold, the more frigid, like if you're not getting frostbite, it's not working. It's that's not the way, right?

1:14:44So I think these are modifiable factors. So like microdosing and pulsing these things and for some people like build it, starting off low and slow and building up over time can be great. I had one patient that came to mind, choose a woman. So then you hear all this research on conversations online and it's like, oh, most of the research on this stuff is done on men, which is true. Women have higher levels of kids pepting, which makes their body more sensitive to these hormetic effects, that is true. But then the reductive absolutist approach is saying, well, they all, these things, women can't do it at all. Well, there's so much, like have you met women, there's so many different types of women, like, what is she going through? Who is she? What's her labs look like? What's her health profile look like? What's your stress levels? All these variables, what her hormones look like. And then what's the time and temperature that she's in? So she had, this lady specifically had autoimmune issues. She had different inflammatory problems. And the world would actually know who this person is.

1:15:44I can't say, because the patient comes to the job need. So a really famous person. So she saw remarkable results from cold plunging. So when we start off very conservatively, high temperature, low time. So she was, I think in the low 60s, nothing aggressive. So it could be a cold shower, probably. I don't know how cold people showers are, but low 60s, very low time. And then over time, we would like, in-shop by seconds, time and temperature, changing that. And then it was a Friday, right? And she felt really good. She was like, titrating the time. And every time she increased the time, lower the temperature, she felt better. And, or you could just switch one of those. You could just increase the time and keep the temperature the same. So there's an art in science to this. Over the weekend, she was like, wow, if a little is good, then more is better. She got a snorkel, when do you call those? Like a snorkel mask. Skoobah mask. Yeah, scuba mask. Like a, yeah. And she stuck her head underneath the cold plunge

1:16:46and made a huge flare up from that, because you don't want to do that. So that just shows you that, yeah, you could say, well, it's all bad. But to me, it's so much beautiful nuance to these topics that it's depends on who we're talking about. This is why I love you, because you do things from this approach where it's so personalized and it recognizes that it's a one-size-fits-non-approach. I always say I'd rather eat shit than get the cold plunge, because I just, I've jumped, not even jumped in there, and it's, I'm always been overly cold, like, grew up in a cold climate, and for some reason my body's always kind of been more cold. Or you're a lean guy, too. You have a high metabolism. I could see, do you not need it, or not, if you do, then microdose that stuff and have a higher temperature. Relatively higher temperature. I'm cold shower, more akin to a cold shower. Yes, I'm the guy that heats his pool in the summer in Phoenix. Yeah, okay, there you go. Seriously.

1:17:46But I do see some merit there. I don't like it when people go in there after they wait train. I certainly know. And I've seen people arguing for recovery, and I'm like, listen, you're just ruined in the whole workout. Yeah, other than if you have someone as an injury, I guess would be the only reason for that. But yeah, no, it's like, yeah, you're supposed to be rebuilding muscle after a time. And these micro tears, yeah. That's one of the things I was complaining to you about earlier was this extremism that, and I can't stand the way that it goes with foods, especially. And we got into a lot of diet discussion earlier, but I want to actually break down some foods as opposed to full-blown like keto and carnivore diets. I want to look at some foods that I feel like get really trashed, but then the ones by one side and one side will just go to the grave and want to kill you if you say something bad about their food that they're eating. I want to talk to you about a couple and I want your thoughts, because I've actually, I've been extreme like eight, a bunch of these, and then I got turned off because people told me how horrible they were and killing me

1:18:48and then I kind of went back to moderately having them. So I had oatmeal every day for like 20 some odd years and then people got into my head and telling me, oh, it's the worst thing you could ever eat. And I didn't eat it for years. And now I've kind of, a couple days a week after really intense cardio, like I'm talking 90 minute sessions for a good carb after. And I pair it with like an over-easy egg and some avocado like I get the fats and proteins in with it. And I've felt pretty damn good like after re-implementing that. Yeah. So let's start with oatmeal and let's say that we're having the cleanest one we can without glyphosate, no sugars, no, just I'm talking pure either regular rolled oats or steel cut oats. What is your feeling on those? Yeah, I think they're slowly poisoning themselves if they say they're going to say that. Yeah. Yeah, oh my gosh, man, right? It's like, I've heard it said and I think it's true. It's probably easier to change someone's religion than the foods they eat.

1:19:48People become so ideologically tribal about it, right? They make it their personality. That so back to that sort of truth is somewhere in the middle or the truth is what bio-individual to that person at this point in their health journey does that food love them back or not? I could pick every food under the umbrella whole nutrient dense foods. Best food medicine for one person can cause a problem but in the next person. So you name me any food out there pretty much. Fruit, amazing. Can spike some people's blood sugar or it could be a high-fod-map fruit if they have seabot. If bone broth, I love bone broth. It can be high histamines, it can flare somebody up. If somebody people have a gluten sensitivity, gluten can cross-react. It can be cross-contaminated with oatmeal but also the protein in the oatmeal is similar enough in structure to gluten that it can, it's called cross-reactivity. It can, the immune system for someone has celiac or someone that has MS has gluten sensitivity.

1:20:49It says if that person had never gone gluten-free, if they have oatmeal, even if it's certified gluten-free oatmeal. So I'm then on top of that, the glyphosate piece. And if it's not glyphosate free, the whole point being, if I, you cannot hang your hat on like this is a good, because I could punch holes in pretty much every nutrient foods, because I've seen it. I've seen it work great, because you're right. It could be nourishing, it could be grounding oatmeal. It could be a great source of complex, like a good whole grain carbohydrate. And then the next person that causes an issue. And what part of that whole food causes an issue will be different from person to person. So I think if you get, that is a organic non-gemo, obviously, glyphosate residue free oatmeal, the steel cut for someone that doesn't have a problem for all the different things, it could be a great tool. And I think like rice is another example that I do fine with rice. I don't do great with oatmeal, but that's my bioinitality.

1:21:49Right? It's like, what's the carb source, and that could be grains, it could be legumes, it could be fruits, it could be a starchy vegetable, what works for you? You're going to have to find something that works for you. Obviously, there's low carbon, no carbon approaches, also have their time in place for all of these. There's just so much nuance and context to this. But I think oatmeal certainly is not the devil's food. It's just a matter of does it love your body back or no? And you know, spinach was another one I was going to bring up because of the oxalates. Yeah, you're going to offend some people with spinach. Well, good lord. I mean, I get it if you're like overconsuming it or if you're eating it wrong, things like that. Like full on Popeye, like cans of it. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I say the same thing. It's the same thing. These sort of fear mongering around plant anti-nutrients. Oh, I hate that. We've lost the plot. And is it, like I deal with people that have auto-immunity all day long, I can have that conversation, but to make that a universal statement on everybody is like,

1:22:50whoa, the United States does not have a chronic health problem because of their overdoing spinach. Like we have bigger problems in the world. And if you're picking on poor spinach, you've lost the plot. You're such, you're so isolated from the real world that yes, it is a pertinent conversation for some people, but that is a small subset of people. Yeah. And how you prepare that food matters too. Steaming that spinach breaks down most of the oxalates anyways. So, and how much spinach are these people really eating? I'm not what I'm saying. Like I don't love any food that certainly not spinach that I want to be having some freaking pounds of it. My mother-in-law is close. She has a salad that's like massive, and I look at her, like how are you doing that? She, if anyone's overdoing spinach, it's my mother-in-law. Man, I grab a handful and cook it with my vegetables that I have every day. Yeah, I brace down most of the oxalates. Yes, and it's like, when I stopped having it, I started to notice some problems, and when I started having it again, I started to notice, okay, and my blood panel showed it. It's been an end of one experiment.

1:23:50Yeah, and not comparing yourself to other people. Here's my thought. You tell me what you think. I think, actually, I know in some circumstances, people look for whatever kind of things they can make to get polarizing content. Then they put out something because one study or one reaction showed that this did this and that, and then they start doing it over and over to where they believe their own bullshit. And they say it so many times, they believe it. Like they really do, and it becomes like part of who they are. And I think like you said, we were talking about this offline. I think most of these people that talk like, that's not all of them, they, it worked for them. Yes. So then they apply it to everybody. Like they, it was their healing journey, and then they speak in superlatives. So then the nuance and context is lost. So when you have 10 hours a day for 16 years of all gods, different types of people, from all different biographic and socio-economic backgrounds and different microbiomes, different genetics, you, there's a very, there's a few basic common sense things,

1:24:54but then beyond that, again, under the umbrella of nutrient dense whole foods, you have to keep an open mind and be intellectually flexible. Because you'd be proven wrong all day long if you hung your hat on like, this is the magic cure all for everybody. It's from a macronutrient, micronutrient, and then specific, even under the subset of keto or metatraini and or paleo, there's so many different types of foods to focus on. Like we were talking about before. Like keto, cocaine is keto. It doesn't make cocaine healthy, right? Or like all this sort of packaged, low sugar, no sugar stuff, technically keto, but does that make keto bad? It's like, no, there's a tool for that. There's a time for that, there's a person for that. And there's a way to do it. So I know we're running low on time. I want to personally invite you for a part two and three because I have one. Thank you. I'm just going to throw that out on air right now. Okay. But I want to finish with something here that I just kind of thought of. So I was going to ask you something kind of like staple supplement

1:25:55boring related. I'm going to name some stuff that could potentially cause some shit. Maybe not. And I want you to answer, I will do like four or five of them that are just popping into my head on your thoughts. Sure. And then I want you to ask me, what's the most important thing that I've ever done? Just popping into my head on your thoughts. Sure. And I want you to just tell me, yeah, it's good. No, it's not maybe a quick reason why. Sure. Creatine. I get the caveat for all of it. I'm horrible at rapid fire. Sorry, apologies. The caveat is it depends, right? Yeah. So I'll give you a pros and cons. Pro, I love the research around it. It's one of the most well researched, if not the highest research supplement in the scientific literature, brilliant. Lots of myths around it. People have our otherwise healthy or just need support. It's a great tool. The science around the neuroprotective brain enhancement. Love it. The dose for some of those studies requires a bit more, not all of them.

1:26:56I see you've start off low and so build up over time. It's drawing a lot of water to the gut. So it can cause digestive problems and digestive upset if overdone. And overdone is bioindividual. So I think it's good. You can focus on food first and just get some good grass fed beef in and you're eating solid amount of meat. You're getting a decent amount of creatine anyways there. So time and place to get the efficacious dose that the researchers are looking at. You probably most people would have to supplement with. And I think it has a great place from an energy metacondrial support. It supports methylation too, which I've seen it help with home assistant levels. So I think it's it's good overall. Some caveats electrolytes. Great overall. It's one of the most I would call it a low hanging fruit to a lot of people's issues. Now most people are getting enough sodium if they're eating the standard American diet

1:27:57because it's an ultra processed foods high sodium. If you're not eating the standard American diet, you're not be probably on getting enough sodium potassium magnesium. And actually the research shows you need about two to three times government recommendations to help with cellular communication. So back to heal yourselves and want to talk about with Dr. Axe in the book is that cells need to communicate starts with that membrane, which we talked about earlier. But also the sweet electrical conductivity that cells use to communicate is in part driven by sodium potassium and magnesium. So we need those babies to be optimized and you probably need more than you think you do. The problem isn't the sodium potassium and magnesium. It's the fillers and additives and the quality of the ingredients used. Not the actual active ingredients themselves. So I brought that up because a lot of these are sodium bombs that they're filled with sodium and sodium chloride. They lack potassium and magnesium. And a lot of them will substitute potassium citrate for potassium chloride. And if you're deficient in potassium, you need the potassium chloride, which is what's medically prescribed.

1:28:58Not the citrate, which is more for like what kidney and liver function and things like that. So I wanted to bring that up too. And then looking for sugars and fillers within that. Yeah. Oh, I'm pretty. Yeah. Look, I use I formulated one for longevity. Our acts called cellular hydration and use whole foods. We use Celtic sea salt, which is mineral rich. Yeah. It comes with celery. It comes with coconut water and watermelon extract. So it's just from whole foods that are rich with these gel water, if you will. It foods are hydrating. So if you're eating fruits and vegetables, the matrix of these fruits and vegetables actually are hydrating chia seeds or another one gel water is the compound. So you can actually use foods to very much support cellular hydration. And we just made it convenient for people with cellular hydration. Yeah. Got it. Melatonin. Controversial. Controversial. Yeah. Overall, do I put it at the top of my list, what people need to be taking now? I've seen research from certain doctors out there that it really can be a great tool

1:30:04from an antioxidant standpoint and really be neuroprotective kind of reset sort of the cell clocks, if you will, with the central nervous system clock. I don't feel the need for most people to be on it long term. Do I think it could be part of a protocol pulsed for a period of time to help people from an antioxidant neuroprotective standpoint? I think there's enough data out there to show it may have its place. I think to microdose, it's small dose judiciously if somebody's traveling, if somebody is moving across time zones to help with resetting that sleep-wake cycle. I think that's more or less how I would utilize it. I personally don't utilize it. I don't need it at all. My son who's in college, he likes it. If he's having a random, wants to go to sleep and get improved, he tracks it on a ring, he'll occasionally use it. I think people can lean on it a bit too much, but I don't think the fear mongering around

1:31:10it is really helpful either, like saying, you'll become dependent or your body won't make it on its own. I just think that's a bit strong of a statement. I got recommended high-dose melatonin and when I say high-dose melatonin, I'm talking about mega. Yeah, that's the kind of protocols I was talking about earlier. I did it for three weeks and I have never slept like that in my life and I also felt like I had a night out of drinking every day. I couldn't wake up. I stopped taking it then I was able to sleep more. That's what I mean. A pulse cellular clock reset and then the eye, it's not like you're not taking this mega dose forever now, Ray-Man. Okay, I got two quick ones for you. D3 with K2. Paramount. Yes. Paramount. Yeah, I look at labs all day long. Most people are deficient in these fat soluble vitamins on a cellular intercellular level. They should be. We want vitamin D to be at least 60 to 80. It could probably be a bit higher for some people and then K2 is another often overlooked fat soluble vitamin that cells need to regulate themselves, to regulate inflammation, support

1:32:13immune system, support heart health, brain health. So yeah, and I would pair that with mainly from food sources, vitamin A, true vitamin A from retina, from things like organ meats, grass fed beef, 100 percent. Fissual, yeah. Last one. And when I ask people, like every proficient practitioner and anybody really with their top five like staples are, I always ask them and this one is always number one is magnesium. But my question is not so much about the value of magnesium. It's the different forms of magnesium. Yeah. Yeah. Well, nature, I, I, the research around some of the compounds like the magnesium thoranate comes to mind where it can pass to the blood brain barrier. I think, and I'm aware of you researchers out there that are doing research of other forms of magnesium combined to these amino acids that can pass to the blood brain barrier too, but three and eights one that gets all the buzz. I think that we should mimic nature as much as we can in a lot of life.

1:33:14And nature would have given us, does give us through foods multiple different forms of magnesium. So magnesium complexes, I take one called mag 18 also, a formula with, with longevity racks, which pairs magnesium with D3K2, which actually work synergistically. Like they help each other. They help the bio, biovalability. So whether you take that one or another one, I would say a magnesium complex is going to be the way to go. Sometimes I will do like a higher dose of magnesium thoranate for telehealth patients. And I've seen that help. So I'm not saying you only have to a magnesium complex, but I would say foundationally that's going to be the ideal. You've got to show me that one. I will. I will. Yeah. Okay. Well, my friend, I can't believe that that went that fast. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. I know that I know that I was going to be extremely, extremely good. I didn't know it was going to be this good. Wow. Thank you so much, Beth. Thank you for making the time for me. And, you know, us getting here to do this absolutely amazing. I really want people to check out your book.

1:34:16I've helped a lot of people with a lot of books. I read books all the time because they get sent to me. This is the best one that I've been sent yet. And that's some stiff competition, man. That means a lot coming from you. I know how much you are immersed in this world. So thank you. So intelligently and it's easy to understand, written. So when is the book releasing? It's September 8th. So probably when people hear this and less they hear it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Heal yourselves all the information. I have up my work is at drwillcold.com. Make it head to books. It's there that linked for Heal yourselves and longevity or acts. My podcast, which you're going to be on. It's called the art of being well. Yeah. But thanks for giving me the opportunity. Absolutely. Well, I'll link everything in the description for you to follow you. To get this book, to get to your podcast. And like I said, brother, just an absolute pleasure to have you here. So thanks to Josh Axwell fast. Josh acts for giving us the studio friends. Let friends borrow their studio. And he's letting us like my squad be squatter studio.

1:35:18That's right. True friends give. Right? That's right. We love you, Josh. So that being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jamelie and Dr. Will Cole. Sign it off.