213. Rose Ferguson: Q&A on MTHFR Gene Mutation, Autoimmune Disease, Cognitive Decline, & More!

23:08But I think if you're going to be vegan, you really need to be very well prepared.

23:13Gary Brecka:I would agree with that. I think that the notion that just because it's not meat that it's healthy is a really misconceived notion. And veganism, vegetarianism, I don't have any problem with either one. one of those. But if you're vegan, it's super important to include things like shelled hemp seeds, for example. It's one of the highest protein concentration vegan foods that you can eat. 10 grams of protein for every single gram of carbohydrate, really high on omega-3 fatty acids, or the right ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, which is also difficult for vegans. And also, when you talk about veganism, beer is vegan.

23:48Gary Brecka:So is wheat, hops, barley, rye vegan? So a lot of the most highly modified, genetically modified crops in the world and the most highly sprayed crops in the world, glyphosate, paraquat, insecticides, are sprayed on, I would say, vegan-friendly foods. So just to be cautious about the amount of grains, cereals, wheat, hops, barley, rye, flour that you eat that is processed. if I was a vegan and I would never be vegan but if I was I would be really really cautious about my source of grains I would make sure that the grains are non-fortified non-enriched and that they're also non GMO you know we we modified these crops to make them resistant to glyphosate all right we didn't modify them to increase their nutritional density or to increase the yield of crops we modified them so that the poison wouldn't kill the plant and when we modified these plants we genetically modified them in a way that makes them very very difficult to digest so to pull nutrients out of genetically modified crops is sometimes very very difficult and so there it's a very highly genetically modified and highly processed area of food production so that would that would be another you know caution of mine and actually it's true because people who are plant-based solely are very carbohydrate very carbohydrate heavy and i'm not anti-carbs at all but if you're having like pasta every night which is the classic isn't it i have what do you eat yeah they're having pasta and this is what i mean you have to really make sure you're getting the variety and not relying on grains because as gary just said they are heavily processed they are not as nutritionally dense as they should be um so it's all about sourcing yes ma 'am Thank you.

25:42Gary Brecka:I've been seeing quite a lot of research around gluten in general and how regardless of whether you have an intolerance or not, it's bad for you and bad for your digestion. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. And I'll just do a two-in-one. Also, any thoughts about people with ADHD, kind of nutrition and the impact that can have? Oh, you just hit a sweet spot for me right there. You want to take that first with the gluten? You go for it.

26:12Gary Brecka:So, you know, first on the gluten thing, you know, what's really interesting about gluten is gluten's been around for centuries. Gluten allergies are relatively recent. You know, gluten sensitivity, gluten allergies are relatively recent. The incidence of celiac disease has skyrocketed parabolically. And you have to ask yourself, do we suddenly become allergic to a protein? Gluten's a protein. Do we suddenly become allergic to a certain protein in our diet just out of nowhere? Did just this mass of population become allergic to gluten? And I think the answer is no. I think what we've become allergic to are what is in gluten-laden foods.

26:49Gary Brecka:And so very often gluten-laden foods are treated and sprayed with folic acid. They're fortified or enriched. Fortified or enriched foods are foods that are actually sprayed with a chemical folic acid. You hear me talk about this all the time. folic acid is not a natural nutrient. It does not occur naturally in nature. You cannot find folic acid anywhere in nature or anywhere on the surface of the earth. We make it in a laboratory. And then we spray it on our food supply and we call that enriched or fortified. With attention deficit disorder especially, enriched and fortified foods can be like cocaine for a six-year-old.

27:26Gary Brecka:It will make their mind race, right? Because the vast majority, not the vast majority, about 46 % of the population can't process folic acid at all. Folic acid is in nearly all gluten-based foods. So the curiosity to me is, are we having a parabolic rise in gluten allergies? Or actually, are we having a parabolic rise in gluten-containing foods that are highly processed? And my impetus would be the latter. And the reason why I say that is true gluten allergies, true celiac allergies are relatively rare. Gluten allergies are massive. And so the actual disease of not being able to process gluten is rare, but the sensitivity of gluten is profound.

28:11Gary Brecka:And so the idea that we just became sensitive to this protein, which has been around for centuries, all of a sudden in modern day society, the big data would say it's something that modern day society is doing to the food that the gluten's not. And so this has to do with how it's processed. So I would avoid fortified or enriched foods. With regard to attention deficit disorder, I'm just going to plug my gene test. You should do a genetic methylation test. Or whoever's suffering from ADHD should do a genetic methylation test. Because this is not an attention deficit disorder. It's an attention overload disorder.

28:46Gary Brecka:It has too many windows open at the same time. It's an inability to successively break down thought at the same pace that we create thought. which creates a very clouded mind um yeah i mean on the gluten front as well because of the way it's even farmed like you know dwarf wheat it can it has it's not the same gluten that we were eating and also the the nutrients in those grains it's like it doesn't even have the nutritional value that it used to have and on top of that when i see people and they say yeah but i feel better because i've cut out gluten i'm like yeah but what have you actually cut out you've cut out cake sausages crappy bread crackers you know burgers crackers the food stuffs that you've cut out are also not particularly positive and so when you cut out the gluten you remove that food those sort of foods from your your world you're going to feel better um but i do think i definitely think the gluten just because of the grains we're eating now that as you say so processed that's what causes the issue not so much the gluten which is why some people who absolutely swear that they cannot eat gluten, well, you'll see them having a bit of sourdough with butter and they're okay because the way that sourdough is fermented so the bacteria do a bit of the work for you before it gets cooked.

30:04And so, yeah. And the other thing is that actually, in theory, everybody should be able to tolerate gluten. It's a protein. We should be able to break it down. So if it's something that's come, is new, what's changed and do you need to come, going back to things like leaky gut, do you need to do a bit of work on your gut? and then try reintroducing it. But, I mean, to be honest, I don't cut it out. I don't like cutting food groups out, but it is a good one to remove. And people suddenly feel clear-headed. They feel they don't have digestive issues so much. So it's worth experimenting on your, you know, you can remove it and see how you feel.

30:38Gary Brecka:It's interesting if you look at broad epidemiological studies, like countries like Russia, where it's an actual felony to grow genetically modified foods. So if you grow genetically modified crops in Russia, you'll go to prison. in the United States we genetically genetically modified the vast majority of our crops again so they can be resistant to glyphosate paraquat and other insecticide and pesticides and so you know I think a lot of this has to do with the chemical laden nature of these foods and not necessarily with the protein itself you know so it's like we we spend a lot of time blaming the butter for what the bread did.

31:14Yeah.

31:16Gary Brecka:Did you have a question right here in the middle? Yes, sir.

31:22Gary Brecka:Malia's getting her exercise today. She's doing really well. Thank you. I've done your 10X gene test actually just last week. No, a couple of weeks ago. And thanks to Dana White for promoting you, actually. So the first gene came out compromised. and I would like to hear from you what exactly is going on yeah so um you're talking about the MTHFR does the one yes affectionately called the motherfucker gene we've said canteen Lou and so we can say mother it stands for methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase just so you know the the MTHFR gene mutation is one of the most common gene mutations in the world.

32:09Gary Brecka:About 46 % of the population, men and women, have this gene mutation. It is an inability to methylate, to break down, to process folic acid, and to a lesser extent, folate. And while that doesn't sound like a big deal, folic acid is the most prevalent nutrient in the human diet now because of fortification and enrichment. And if you have an inability to break down the most prevalent nutrient in the human diet, not only does this accumulate in the blood, you have a deficiency in what your body needs, which is called methylfolate. The fascinating thing about this gene mutation is it is the worst gene mutation to have, but the easiest gene mutation to fix.

32:50Gary Brecka:Supplementation with methylfolate or folinic acid can completely return this gene impact to zero. It can neutralize the MTHFR gene mutation. Three days ago, well, four days ago now, the US FDA actually just approved a prescription strength of folinic acid for the first time for autism and for postpartum depression. I find it really interesting that we are prescribing the methylated form of folate to treat postpartum depression, which is caused by the folic acid that we give to pregnant women. So 90 % of OBGYNs, when a woman gets pregnant, will tell you, you need to take high doses of folic acid because that prevents a neural tube defect.

33:36Gary Brecka:That's patently false. If your body cannot convert folic acid into methylfolate, it will not only not prevent the neural tube defect, it will exacerbate anxiety, depression, anxiousness, postpartum depression. My sincere belief is that the vast majority of postpartum depression is directly linked to the prenatal vitamin because the onset of, by the way, postpartum depression onsets during pregnancy, not after pregnancy, even though it's called postpartum depression. And if you look at the incidence of, if you look at the research, for example, since everybody loves research, there are virtually zero studies, peer-reviewed clinical trials, linking elevated pregnancy hormones to postpartum depression.

34:17Gary Brecka:So why do so many pregnant women get postpartum depression? The vast majority of them had the MTHFR gene mutation and took high doses of folic acid. So the long and short of it is folic acid is your enemy. you want to cut out fortified or enriched foods eat the organic version of those foods and supplement with something called methylfolate to neutralize that gene hey guys let me tell you about one of my favorite new hydration drinks now this is for distance athletes hits cardio exercisers people that sweat a lot or exercise intensely an a game is a hydration drink it has eight essential vitamins it has all of the electrolytes the entire suite of b vitamins before you freak out and read that it has 21 grams of sugar, which it does, the sugar is coming from natural cane sugar and honey, my preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise.

35:06Gary Brecka:It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation. They actually come from real citrus fruits, and the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes. So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely, A-game is your choice. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I mean I think if anyone I think that's good I mean you know without even testing I would say you should always take a methylated oh yeah yeah I think you should always take methylated if anybody is taking B complex or a B9 or B12 I would always take a methylated version just so you'd just in case you don't know as Gary said it's really how many what's the percentage of people 46 % yeah so you you know it's a lot of times you know things start with good intentions we wanted to you know people had a folate deficiency so we created a synthetic version called folic acid.

35:57Gary Brecka:A lot of people have B12 deficiencies. So we created a synthetic form of B12 called cyanocobalamin, which by the way, is also a nutrient you should never put in your body. If you spin your supplements or your protein powders, your energy drinks around, and they says cyanocobalamin, throw that in the trash, right? Cyanocobalamin is It's a cyanide-based form of B12. Yes, we take hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen cyanide. We bind it to the cobalt metal, which is B12. When you put that in the body, it's called cobalamin. Cyanocobalamin is cyanide and cobalt metal combined to make B12, cyanocobalamin. If you actually looked at the patents that protect manufacturers, that manufacture cyanocobalamin, their patent is on extracting the hydrogen cyanide from human sewage i used to show these patents on on previous um uh uh talks that i would do stage talks i would do i would actually just show the cyanocobalamin patent because if if you want to make something really inexpensively you take waste from another industry and you use that as your raw material so somebody is discarding something and you have a zero cost of product that's that's that's the panacea for profitability and so cyanocobalamin is virtually it costs nothing to produce and we mine the hydrogen cyanide from human sewage it's called sludge it's actually the discarded waste product from human sewage treatment plants and then we take that hydrogen cyanide bind it to the cobalt metal call it cyanocobalamin the body can't use cyanocobalamin the first thing your body will do is cleave the hydrogen cyanide molecule off break off the metal the cobalt metal and it will take that cobalt metal and it will put it into a physiologic transaction very necessary b12 is a metal by the way like zinc and magnesium it's not a it's not a vitamin it's a light metal um and then you're left with a floating cyanide molecule so how does that exit the body how does cyanide get out of the body well it takes zinc and magnesium and carries it out of the body so just imagine like inviting somebody over for dinner and you have a nice dinner and then before you leave they go in your closet they take your purses they take your watches take the cash out the safe and they leave that's what we do we invite these thieves into our body and they steal on the way out that's a great it's such a good way of explaining it's a really nasty analogy but at least you won't eat cyanocobalamin anymore yes sir all the way in the back

38:29hi my question is a hair lost a lot of lately my clients complain about that and also alopecia and benefits of exosomes and red light therapy. For hair loss, for alopecia. I suppose, again, the question is what's driving it. Is it for you? My clients. Your clients. Oh, okay. Because I was going to say, there are things, thyroid's a really common one that I see in my clinic. Stress is a really common one. And then I would say red light is quite useful for it. Alopecia's difficult. I find alopecia, if I'm being honest, I find alopecia complicated. So I work with the whole body, but I don't treat alopecia directly because I honestly find it difficult, so I'm glad to hear what you say.

39:20But hair loss, I look at thyroid usually.

39:22Gary Brecka:Yes, so alopecia, which is commonly called diffuse alopecia, is actually a maternally inherited gene predisposition. So you inherit it from your maternal side, not your paternal side. So if your mom's brothers are bald, watch out. so you can actually blame your mother for this one because it's carried on the maternal gene so that's diffuse alopecia but in the absence of the genetic inheritance the predisposition for alopecia so my mom's brothers are bald so I have a natural hair thinning the worst thing that you can do is propicia finasteride right because a second leading cause of alopecia in men is something called DHT, dihydrotestosterone.

40:06Gary Brecka:So DHT is what binds to the hair follicle, eventually chokes it out, makes it thinner, thinner, and thinner, and it eventually causes the hair follicle to die. What's interesting about the hair follicles is they take about 10 years to die, to become necrotic, meaning they can't be brought back, but they're dormant for over a decade. So very often, exosome treatments applied to the scalp can actually restore the hair that you had 10 years prior going back more than 10 years is virtually impossible because now those follicles have become necrotic but also the idea of suppressing a normal hormone in the human body dihydrate testosterone for the exchange of getting hair because the byproduct of that is impotence and erectile dysfunction so most of us want healthy hair so we can get a nice chick and then we get the chick and then the plumbing's not working right so it's good it sort of like defeats the whole purpose it's like you know I want to meet a nice lady at the bar so I need a nice thick head of hair and I got a thick head of hair and nothing's going on south of the border right so so instead of using Propecia or finasteride which will crush your level of DHT to stop it from binding to the hair follicle you can do things like exosome treatment or you can apply these topically they make liquid faster ride which can be applied topically is very effective for alopecia in men and in women i would also encourage women not to take finasteride especially orally there's all kinds of hormonal dysregulation that occurs when you take these these pharmaceuticals but applying it to the scalp allows a high concentration to get to the follicle stop the dht from binding and very little of it enters the serum of the blood so you don't have the hormonal consequences.

41:47You're welcome. Yes, sir.

41:54Gary Brecka:What's the difference in your recommendations for someone who wants longevity versus someone who's sports performance? So you've got like an endurance athlete and the carbohydrate intake they might need would differ from someone who's just purely got a longevity goal. So I think the performance versus longevity equation is an interesting one right I mean because there are many things that we can do to borrow from our future and if you borrow from your future you get present day return but you have a future consequence so I see this all the time but you know as I said in the previous talk I'm the health services director for the NFL Alumni Association so we have 22 ,000 athletes in our organization I know exactly what happens when athletes that desperately need to perform borrow from their future.

42:37Gary Brecka:They take exogenous growth hormone. They take exogenous anabolic steroids, and they perform incredibly well. You know, sorry to bust anybody's bubble, but you're not 265 pounds and running a 4-4-40 unless you are supplementing with exogenous, you know, support. And so lots of things borrow from our future. We do this to our skin in the forms of chemical peels, retinol, and other kind of chemical compounds that give us a short-term benefit but for a long-term consequence. So if your focus is on longevity, then I think that you should be exercising for longevity, lifting heavy weights but not doing compound movements.

43:19Gary Brecka:Like, for example, I used to love CrossFit and I actually owned a CrossFit gym. I have no problem with heavy weight and I have no problem with speed. I have a problem with speed and heavy weight. Deadlifting for time with a 400-meter sprint in between. those are just recipes for for disaster so a longevity protocol would follow the big data right whole food diet focused on sleep really focused on your community your relationships the depth of your relationships looking at things like the harvard study the longest longevity study ever done on the planet which said that the actual depth of the relationships that you have determine your life expectancy i'm a deep believer in that the whole front row is filled with my family I take my family everywhere just a deep meaningful relationship with my family and then so I like to keep them in close proximity um but uh I actually forgot your question I'm just rambling so sorry sorry why don't you just answer it you're just loving your family what did he say longevity and then I started thinking about my wife and now I'm like I'm all lost I think obviously um And if you've got an endurance athlete, you need a lot of carbohydrates.

44:27Yes. Like blood-produced storage. Yes.

44:29Gary Brecka:But your program is more about fasting. It's more about how do you get the correct amount of carbohydrates to perform at a high level in endurance sports, but also do it in a way that's healthy? That's a great question. So, you know, when you talk about endurance athletes, there's a difference, right? Because it's all about intake and utilization, right? So when intake meets utilization, you have homeostasis. When intake exceeds utilization, you have imbalance. And so I'm not a fan of very high-carbohydrate diets because I actually don't live a high-carbohydrate lifestyle. I do do intense exercise, but in very short periods of time.

45:10Gary Brecka:Hits cardio exercise for me is 20 minutes. And so your utilization matches your intake. Most people eat excessive carbohydrates, but they actually don't have the energy expenditure to burn those carbohydrates. It is absolutely necessary for performance athletes to take in high doses of carbohydrates. It's very, very hard to be a ketogenically powered endurance athlete. It's virtually impossible. Lance Armstrong tried it for a while and it was a disaster. So in performance athletes, using high glycemic carbohydrates right prior to enduring performance is almost a must. Um, but for the average, for most of us that are not endurance athletes, you know, if our intake exceeds our utilization, um, we have issues.

45:56Gary Brecka:You know, we talked about this before, you know, people that live at altitude, for example, have a tendency to have longer life expectancies. Why would living in less oxygen give you a longer life expectancy? Because your oxygen intake meets your oxygen utilization. So you have less oxidative stress. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really true when you're doing endurance, you know, you have to refuel and, you know, you have to feel correctly for your muscles to work you need the glycogen in the muscles for it to work so it's exactly that it's what you said it's input and output um and they should balance um so and i think and i also think actually there are periods in people's lives when endurance is good it sort of pushes the body and i think then but i think like anything if you do it to the max for a long time then it starts to blunt that long you know that health span potentially um but i I think for some people and at different periods of life, you know, endurance is easier to do.

46:51Oh, sorry, we're getting... Okay, we've got a couple more minutes left.

46:55Gary Brecka:Let's get... Yes, ma 'am, right here in the front. Thank you. My question was about Alzheimer's and dementia. So my mum's got PICS disease, and she's had it towards the end of her life. But going forward, I'd like to know your thoughts about inheriting this and how you can potentially prevent it or avoid it through diet? There are some genetic predispositions to early onset cognitive decline, specifically Alzheimer's, and some predispositions for dementia and even Parkinson's. But your genes are not your destiny. And we know now that Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes. It's insulin resistance in the brain.

47:41Gary Brecka:In fact, if you Google type 3 diabetes, you'll see that that is Alzheimer's. And, you know, the brain is crack addicted to insulin, right? And so most people, I mean, sorry, it's crack addicted to sugar. Most people don't realize this, but it's not just the pancreas that makes insulin. The brain also makes its own insulin. And it is such a voracious utilizer of insulin. I forget the percentage, but it's a vast percentage of the carbohydrate in your body is actually utilized by the brain. when you have a high glycemic profile high blood sugar and high insulin over a prolonged period of time what this leads to is something called neurofibrillary tangles neurofibrillary tangles eventually lead to something called amyloid plaques which are plaques that build up in the neurosynaptic junction they impede the communication between nerves it's a complete fallacy that people that have alzheimer's or dementia are losing their memory they're not losing their memory They are losing access to their memory.

48:39Gary Brecka:And access can be restored. At no time is the hippocampus actually losing its memory. It's losing access. It's losing the communication to prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain. And so we call this memory loss. But it's actually not memory loss. If you've actually known somebody that has Alzheimer's, if you've had that misfortune, in all stages of Alzheimer's, even the most advanced stage of Alzheimer's, there's times where they do things called sputtering. so you've walked into their room 15 or 20 times you're their only child they didn't even recognize you they don't remember anything they have flat affect they have a blank stare and then all of a sudden they talk to you and they say something so cognizant they'll say do you remember that day that we took the boat out and we caught that fish and aunt betty was with us and you know and we went back and we had a drink at this place and we went back to the house and you're just your mind is blown because for that moment there's such clarity and such cognizance it shows you that the memory is still there, the pathway to the memory is what we need to regain access.

49:38Gary Brecka:So if I had a predisposition to Alzheimer's, dementia, or any early form of cognitive decline, which is eventually a neuroinflammatory disorder, I would actually highly focus on keeping my glycemic profile as low as possible. I would really focus on being insulin sensitive, not being insulin resistant. I would try to keep my hemoglobin A1C, the three-month average of my blood sugar, below 5.2. And I would really focus on keeping my insulin in the single digits. So you can do that through a myriad of ways, controlling your carbohydrate intake, intermittent fasting, because that is what is going to extend brain health and keep your cognitive function as long as possible.

50:21Gary Brecka:Listen, there's what I share on this podcast. And then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here. But my VIP community, that's where the real magic happens. Picture this. You're struggling with energy crashes, brain fog, or just feeling like you're not operating at your peak, and you don't know where to get real answers. But here's what really sets this apart. You're not just getting my insights. When I have incredible guests on the podcast, VIP members get to submit questions for a private podcast segment. So that world-renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge, tailored to your specific situation.

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51:34Gary Brecka:Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I mean, I think fasting is really key here and making sure you take breaks in between food. Because if you're eating, grazing, snacking is such a, it's an epidemic. It's crazy. And what that does is it keeps your blood glucose up. That keeps your insulin up and it never comes back to baseline. So in order to get that insulin sensitivity, keep your eating window tight. whether that's 10 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, but then in between the meals really don't graze. It's a mind over matter thing. You don't need to graze if you're having complete meals.

52:08You won't need to graze. And the other thing that I would say is sleep, getting that glymphatic reset. So if sleep is really poor, because that's where the plaques can build up if you're not getting proper sleep. So really trying to clear those plaques out when you're having a good glymphatic reset. So prioritize sleep.

52:24Gary Brecka:Very high correlation between sleep deprivation and early onset Alzheimer's. You know, Ronald Reagan used to brag about only getting five and a half hours of sleep a night. And we know what happened to Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher used to brag about only getting five hours of sleep a night. And we know what happened to Margaret Thatcher. So I'll end by saying something that's very, very controversial. But this is, it's gonna be very controversial. But I will tell you this, I am as resolute and certain of this from the big data in the mortality research that we did for 22 years. And we developed something called the variable basic table, which is the table that's used to predict all life expectancy now.

53:03Gary Brecka:So all annuities, all life insurance, reverse mortgages is based on this mortality table. In this mortality table, we used no randomized clinical trials. We used no clinical data from big pharma. We didn't study chemicals, synthetics, or pharmaceuticals. We actually studied big data on death and disease process. and there is an enormous correlation between the use of statins and early onset cognitive decline, Alzheimer's, and dementia. I'm not a physician. I am not licensed to practice medicine, so I can't give medical advice. But if someone I knew or loved had a predisposition to Alzheimer's, I would not allow them to be on a statin drug.

53:47Gary Brecka:Very often what you will see within the immediacy of a few weeks of stopping statin medication is a return of the cognitive function, like a light switch went on. And it's very controversial because we have not studied purposefully, in my opinion, very corruptly, we have not studied the long-term impact of statin use on cognitive function. But you see an increase in amyloid plaques, an increase in neurofibrillary tangles, an increase in neurodegenerative disorders, a decrease in memory, a decrease in focus and concentration. The vast majority of the brain is made up of cholesterol. Cholesterol is manufactured by the liver.

54:24Gary Brecka:It is not a toxic compound in the human body. In order for cholesterol to be toxic, something has to cause it to be toxic. It has to be oxidized. Cholesterol on its own is not dangerous. Driving it down into the low double digits is what we found in big data, one of the leading causes of the parabolic rise in Alzheimer's. A lot of people I know are going to find that very controversial. I've had many, many, many an argument with a physician about that. But I will tell you that is patently true. And in another 10 years, the clinical research through artificial intelligence will prove that. Okay, so one more question.

55:00Gary Brecka:Yes, ma 'am.

55:04Gary Brecka:First of all, I love this audience, because I say really controversial stuff, and nobody gets up and walks out. I literally I literally have doctors like get up and walk out of my... The thing with the statins thing too is that the data does show that when you look at who it actually works for when it's been prescribed, when you take out all the things, you get down to N1 in 25 ,000 or something. You know, it actually is, if you go and look, even for treating high cholesterol, it doesn't, it's a very peculiar one. And I can, if that's not, you know, that's what the data shows. And I'm not a physician either, but you go and have a look.

55:36And it's really interesting that it's the most prescribed pharmaceutical.

55:39Gary Brecka:It might have something to do with the fact that it's a trillion dollar industry. Yeah, maybe. I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah, it's possible. Yeah. So you've mentioned yesterday that you don't prepare a long time keto diet. Would you explain why? And my second question that my friend is pregnant now, but she has graves before. And she has done a recent blood test and her TPO and trap are high. So, and all the prenatal supplements are containing iodine. So my question, is it safe to take it? Or what do you think about it? So she has thyroid peroxase antibodies. She has the TPO antibodies.

56:24Gary Brecka:So the first question I would be asking is, what called the immune system to the thyroid? Remember, the immune system doesn't just show up for no reason and kick down the door of a cell, right? It's like if this building never caught fire, the firemen would never show up. If it did catch fire, the firemen would show up. So the question is, what called the immune system to that location? Very often in the case of thyroid, thyroid has a special affinity for heavy metals, especially mercury, but also palladium, cadium, nickel, boron, I mean cadium, nickel, and lead. And so these metals, which, by the way, are usually low detection in the blood, Heavy metals don't just hang out in the blood and wait for you to urinate them out.

57:09Gary Brecka:They gravitate out of the blood and they enter the tissue. The thyroid has a special affinity for heavy metals. When heavy metals embed themselves in the tissue, it calls the immune system to that site. And when the immune system arrives on that site, because it's hypervigilant, very often the consequence of heavy metals embedded in the thyroid is that it lights up the immune system and it causes an autoimmune response. And then what we say is the immune system would hire for no reason at all. It just manufactured antibodies to your thyroid one day for absolutely no reason. You went to bed, you woke up, the immune system went haywire, and now you have this disease, Graves' disease or Hashimoto's disease, because your immune system doesn't know the difference between friendly tissue and foreign tissue.

57:52Gary Brecka:I would argue that if you don't know the reason for that, that we should be doing the testing for the big four. And I call these mold mycotoxin, parasite, virus, and heavy metal. in nearly every case that we have done a search for those four things you find the cause of what called the immune system to that location so that's where i would um begin yeah i agree that's what we see oh in the keto diet long term so um ketosis is very very safe everybody in this room came into this world on a keto diet the first 48 hours of uh you know colostrum mother's milk is entirely ketogenic the vast majority of our brain is ketogenic we can survive on fats indefinitely remember there are two essential fatty acids they are essential for life there are nine essential amino acids they are essential for life there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate so again if you just marinate on that thing that for a second there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate so carbohydrates are not essential for life there is no carbohydrate that we need to live or to survive.

58:57Gary Brecka:That being said, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't eat carbohydrates. It's just that we should be the most judicious with our carbohydrate choices. So ketosis is when your body switches from burning sugar as a source of fuel to burning mainly something called beta hydroxybutyrate as a fuel source. And beta hydroxybutyrate is a very clean fuel source. When it burns, your body makes a type of water intracellularly called deuterium depleted water. If you really want to have some fun, just Google deuterium depleted water when you get home and you'll be fascinated at the implications. You know about deuterium-deplated water?

59:31Gary Brecka:You'd be fascinated at the implications of this light water in cellular biology. Because our cellular biology, specifically our mitochondria, makes 100 gallons of intracellular water every single day. It's hard to conceive because you only drink maybe a half a gallon of water a day. So how do you make 100 gallons of water a day? You make water in the mitochondria the same way we make it in space. You take two hydrogen, one hydrogen, or two hydrogens, one oxygen. you bind them together you have a water molecule so you create it out of the gases it passes through the mitochondrial wall and then it gets used in something called the krebs cycle which is what generates the energy source that human beings are powered from called atp and so um in short term it's it's an excellent way to reset the system type 2 diabetics people with hypertriglyceridemia very high triglycerides they do extraordinarily well on ketogenic diets The challenge with a ketogenic diet, it is virtually impossible to maintain over prolonged periods of time.

1:00:28Gary Brecka:A keto diet is not a diet that you can date. You have to marry it. You cannot cheat on it. You have to be in a committed relationship. This is my favorite one. People are, I'm doing keto all day, and then they get to the evening and they eat a tub of ice cream. And so then they're high fat, high protein, high carbohydrate, high sugars. And because it's hard to maintain, you have to know what you're doing. But it is really effective. so I will use it a lot with cognitive issues actually, you know, because it's really good. It really helps if someone's got cognitive. I mean, it's very good for ADHD and things like that, but it's hard to maintain it.

1:01:01And also I would say, you know, I know that fibro and carbohydrate are essential for, but they're really, really important for the gut and for our microbes. They're essential for the microbes. So, you know, I think I do know, and it comes back to really basic stuff of how do you want to live your life and do you want to be measuring and counting? And I think it's an amazing tool to have in the toolbox if you need it. I think so, too. It is, isn't it? Yeah. You know, rather than a lifestyle, I think.

1:01:29Gary Brecka:I mean, that's what saved Dana White's life, right? He had fasting triglycerides of 800. My daughter's sitting right there. I'll never forget the day. She's also a nurse. I called her out twice now. But I'll never forget the day that, you know, she was with me three years ago when we drew Dana White's blood. She was the nurse that took his blood. And I'll never forget, you know, when you draw somebody's blood, You set the tubes on the counter for half an hour, then you put them in a centrifuge and you spin them down. And I was sitting, Dana White was sitting in front of me, and she was around the corner.

1:01:58Gary Brecka:And she goes, oh, my God, Dad, Dad. And she was pointing at the vial of blood, and she turned it upside down and had already coagulated. So his blood was solid at room temperature. Fasting triglycerides of 800 is almost a medical emergency. So you should have been a fly on the wall when I had the conversation with Dana, where I said, you have so much fat in your blood that I'm going to put you on a high-fat diet to lower the fat in your blood. He was like, you know, like, what are you talking about? It makes no sense. You're going to eat 75 % of your calories from fat, and then all the fat is going to go out of your blood.

1:02:34Gary Brecka:He's like, that makes no sense. I go, I know, but it'll work. And that 10-week ketogenic reset, I truly believe was life-saving for him. So it can be an amazing way to restore cognitive function and reduce inflammation. to lower triglycerides, but you do want to start reintroducing carbohydrates, especially things like fermented vegetables and things which are really, really good for your gut. I also think it's quite good to try these things to get your metabolic flexibility, to see what works for you. I think it's really, you know, I mean, I love trying different. I think it's interesting to learn from your body and also to get into a ketogenic state takes time.

1:03:10So people who do it for, you know, to get into a true ketosis takes time and you can feel absolutely awful for a few days. They call it keto flu. So if you're going to go through all that and only do it for 10 days, I'd suggest you do it for a bit longer and sit with it, feel it, see how it feels, try it on, see if it works for you, and then perhaps bring it back just so you have mild ketosis.

1:03:32Gary Brecka:And can I just give one more tip on the keto diet? So because you brought up the keto flu, the keto flu comes from the fact that in ketosis, your kidneys use four times the amount of sodium to process fatty acids, beta-hydroxybutyrate. than when you have carbohydrate as a fuel source. So your sodium need quadruples is critical to supplement with a mineral salt, like a Baja Gold mineral salt. By the way, if you guys haven't gotten a free shaker of Baja Gold, please, on your way out, there's 600 of them back there. Grab them and take them home. They're free. But it's absolutely critical to significantly increase your sodium intake on a ketogenic diet.

1:04:10Gary Brecka:If not, you will get the keto flu. Okay, so would that stop it then, doing that? I didn't know that. It helps it deaden its drugs. Oh, that's so interesting. You won't get the keto flu if you take it. See? We learned something new today. Awesome. Thanks, Gary. So one more question, then we'll wrap up. Yes, ma 'am.

1:04:28Gary Brecka:That's okay. What would be a good protocol to get rid of heavy metals and how long we should follow that for? So did you do my genetic test? I bought it. Okay. So if you bought my genetic test, That's the only reason why I'm asking is you bought my genetic test. I also gave you a month free of my VIP community. In my VIP community, I wrote an eight-week guide to mold detox and a 12-week guide to heavy metal detox. It's very specific. I tell you what gut binders to use, how to test for the metals, because the vast majority of testing for heavy metals does not give you the correct metals in the blood.

1:05:05Gary Brecka:There's something called an oligo scan that scans for metals in the tissue, and there's something called a provoked urine, which is the best way to test for heavy metals. So all of that is in there. And if you follow that, you can detoxify from all of the heavy metals. And it's free since you bought the test. Guys, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much.