Transcript of Episode #162: 81 Minutes Of The Best Biohacking & Longevity Advice Featuring Dr. Josh Axe PART 2

I was diagnosed with a serious spinal infection and told I may never walk again. So I did not walk on my own for an entire year. I was in bed pretty much 24 hours a day. Outside of the 2 hours, I would literally crawl on my hands and knees and get in a pool.

Do you feel that your level of connection with God and your positive attitude and your outlook was a key factor in your healing?

Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I believe really strongly in is faith-based healing. Think about what Jesus said in the Bible. Jesus never said, eat this food, you'll be healed. He said, your faith or your belief, that's what healed you. The conventional blood tests are looking at so little, and there's almost no depth at all. You know how many people I know that have had blood tests done and they've been said, you're totally fine, and then a few weeks later they were diagnosed with cancer? A few weeks later, somebody had a heart attack. You know, there was a Nobel Prize winner in the 1950s named Otto Warburg, and he said, I now know the cause of cancer. It's 2 things.

Here's an interesting question: how much do you actually know about the way your everyday habits are supporting how you age? We hear so much about longevity right now— sleep, Protein, strength training, nutrition— all of these things matter. But there's another layer that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should. What's happening inside your cells? Your mitochondria produce the cellular energy that your body relies upon every day. And mitochondrial dysfunction, that's considered a central hallmark of aging. And that's why I've been so interested in the work Timeline does with Mitopure. Mitopure is their pure and patented form of urolithin A, It supports mitochondrial function and cellular renewal by activating mitophagy, your body's natural process for clearing out damaged mitochondria. But rather than just tell you about it, Timeline wants you to think about your own longevity habits. So they've created a longevity quiz that takes just a few minutes, and it looks at some of the everyday habits that can support healthy aging. And the best part, if you complete the quiz, Timeline will send you a free sample of MitoPure gummies. So take the quiz, Learn a little bit more about how you're supporting the way you age and try MitoPeer for yourself.

Go to timeline.com/jameli to take the longevity quiz and get your free gummies. That's timeline.com/jameli. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. I am in my favorite studio. I've been in a lot of studios all over the United States, hopefully soon the world, but this is my favorite. And I'll tell you what, I'm starting to feel at home in here with my friend. I appreciate the hospitality and allowing me to be here with you. And this is our second interview, and we have something special coming on top of this for everybody. But I came down here in February and had a high expectation, and when I left, it was far beyond what I would've ever dreamed of. And the friendship and the back and forth was such a huge bonus. And I'm thankful to call you a friend, a brother, and the things that I get to share with you, learn from you, which is just astounding. And I told you before, I've been learning from you for like 15 years now, and you had no idea. But the work that you do prior and continue to do, it's heartwarming, it's helpful, and it showcases who you are and what you stand for.

And you stand for everything that I stand for. And so, it's, it's so nice to sit here and converse with you, relate with you, and share you with my audience. And you already have a huge audience. It's just the level of gratitude that I have for you, just for who you are. It's amazing. Family man, brilliant knowledge, wisdom, and what you do. Now, he has a new book coming out with Dr. Will Cole. It's called Heal Your Cells. And It's one of many of the things that you've put out. I can't give you enough love and accolade, my friend. So, welcome, part 2 with Dr. Josh Ax.

Hey, Dylan, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, excited to talk all things health and nutrition and everything else today. So, thanks again.

I love coming to see you down here. It's awesome, and I hope to have many more with you. So, as always with you and I, we're limited on time, so I'm going to drill you today for everything that I can. You know how we do this, so we're going to go all over the place. But, I do want to start with Heal Your Cells because I was able to start reading it and I got an advanced copy and I find that you have taken it to another level. Mitochondria is the big buzzword these days and everybody talks about it, but I don't know how much they really know. Give me the background on how you formulated the book and why.

Yeah, I think the big thing that we looked at was, uh, what— how do we reverse irreversible conditions, you know? And part of this was birthed out of— but some people know this, some people don't— but about 3 and a half years ago now, I was diagnosed with a serious spinal infection and told I may never walk again.

Mm-hmm.

And I went into a doctor's office, uh, actually was flown there. I was on my back, and he said, Josh, you'll likely have to have your spine fused. And, um, and, and, and be permanently disabled. And for me, it just wrecked me for about 24 hours until I really spent time in prayer and felt like God said, listen, you're gonna be okay. And, and then I thought, you know what? Um, I'm gonna do everything I can to heal, but I need to figure out how to heal irreversible conditions because I would go and do research online and I thought, okay, well, this doctor told me one thing, but, you know, let, let, let me, let me go and find people that reversed this condition. And there was almost nobody. Now, I did find one person, one person who was able to fully reverse this type of the damage done from this sort of spinal infection. One thing that was hard is I knew someone else, or I know someone else who had the same thing happen and they had to have their entire spine fused.

Wow.

And so I said, okay, well, what's actually happening? Well, there's an infection in my bone, so I need to get rid of the infection and then I need to create regeneration to where that tissue is completely new and healed and younger. And how do I do that? So I started doing research and one of the things I came across was Oxygen. The more oxygen I could get to the area, the better that area would heal. And then I read about, okay, what about blood flow in a similar way? Okay, the more blood flow I can get there, the more stem cells I can get there, the better it can heal. Okay, what else creates tissue regeneration? Well, I got turned on to this peptide called BPC-157, TB-500, this sort of blend, and that creates something called angiogenesis, which is new blood vessel formation, new oxygen to an area, tissue regeneration and healing. And so I said, you know what, I'm just going to do everything I can. And by the way, Dylan, I walk for an entire 10 months and then 2 months on a walker. So, I did not walk on my own for an entire year.

I was in bed pretty much 24 hours a day outside of the 2 hours I would literally crawl on my hands and knees and get in a pool. I mean, that's how bad I was for an entire year. And, this is, again, just 3.5 years ago. And, I decided— and so, I said, I'm just going to do everything I can to heal. And so, I started doing all the things we've talked about. I was doing everything from methylene blue IVs to all kinds of things. But, I did learn what made the biggest difference and what made the most impact. And, I continually did— a few things were big for me. I did hyperbaric oxygen, so really driving oxygen deep into my body. I did those peptides and I ate very, very cleanly. And then, I just continued to move and did sometimes hot and cold therapy, getting more blood flow to the area. I did that consistently for a year.

Mm-hmm.

And then, I started walking and then I started getting rid of pain. And then, the doctor told me, He said, at your very best, you'll have chronic pain every day the rest of your life. Well, now it's been 3 years since then. I have zero chronic pain. I am in the best shape of my life. I feel great. I'm walking around, you know, throwing my, you know, 2-year-old and 6-year-old daughters in the air in the pool, and I just feel fantastic. But God used that situation to teach me how to heal ourselves for cellular healing. And I thought, you know, I want to take this exact same principle and teach people How do we support healing everything from autoimmune disease to cancer to these diagnoses that people get and they don't know what it is, old injuries that never healed, how do we heal those things? So, the book, I really walk through how do you heal anything.

I love that. And I always say, I don't believe in any way, shape, or form that there's no incurable disease or injury, infection, et cetera. I believe that God gave us a cure for everything. He already knew what was gonna happen ahead of time. So, he knew. Do you feel that your level of connection with God and your positive attitude and your outlook was a key factor in your healing on top of the modalities and things you were doing?

Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I believe really strongly in is faith-based healing. And I think there's good research on this in terms of prayer and your belief. I mean, think about what Jesus said in the Bible. Jesus never said, eat this food, you'll be healed. Do this, you'll be healed. He said, your faith or your belief, that's what healed you. And I found this in so many patients that if they really believe in that they're going to be healed, more often they will be versus those that don't.

Yeah.

And so, I absolutely believe it is the most important part of healing is prayer. In fact, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer and given less than a 40% chance to live, the first thing we did is got down on our hands and knees and prayed and said, God, Would you please heal my mom? And, and then we started believing that and visualizing. Yeah, my mom even went so far as to, you know, picture herself 20 and 30 years in the future with her grandkids at Disney World. I mean, just, you know, seeing and believing and moving towards that future. You know, I do want to say that I came across a study quite a few years ago, and I remember from this study, so there was a, there was a scientist who was breaking down why he believed that you can, why the placebo effect works and how to even amplify the placebo effect. And the placebo effect is where you believe something and even if, like, so if you have a sugar pill, if you believe that it's helping you, most of the time it will.

Yeah.

Which is crazy, but the most important part of the placebo effect is being able to visualize that future and believe it's going to happen. So, you see and you know exactly what it is you want. So, if you're saying to yourself, hey, I'm £30 overweight and I'm a type 2 diabetic and I have insulin resistance. If you're picturing yourself and saying, you know what? I can see myself 1 year from now, £30 lighter. I'm looking at my A1C numbers and my fasting blood glucose and those numbers now, I went from a 6.8 down to a 5.4. And they're seeing that number, they're seeing their body, they know that that's the single most important part of that. And think about how the Bible teaches us. I'm even thinking about how God used this with Abraham. He said, you know, Abraham, look at the stars of the sky, look at the sand on the ground. Like, that's how numerous your descendants are going to be.

Mm-hmm.

So there's this power of seeing and knowing This is the future. I think that's an important part that sometimes people don't use in their favor. Another one is feeling it emotionally, like thinking about, okay, you know what, what are you going to be feeling a year from now when you're £30 lighter, you've reversed type 2 diabetes? You know, what are you going to feel? Proud. You're going to be happy. You're going to feel lighter. You're going to feel energetic. You're going to feel athletic. How are you going to, you know, so So, feeling that then, and by the way, I did this when I had my spinal infection. I pictured myself doing a triathlon again, running around playing with my girls. I pictured all that, and then I would feel just the sense of joy of that healing. And the last thing is this, this is interesting. The third thing people can do to amplify the placebo effect is have a plan of how they're going to get there. You know, because sometimes, like, you don't totally believe yourself.

Yeah.

Versus saying, you know what? If I just do this amount of protein, this amount of fiber, if I walk daily, twice daily for, for 20 minutes, if I weight train 2 days a week, you know, I will be there, right? And so, having a plan to follow, but, but that's how people can amplify the placebo effect. But I do think that generally, yes, our belief and our mindset about healing is the, the single greatest factor for healing.

You can, you can literally like pray or wish something into existence by your thoughts. I've done it multiple times. I remember the first time I learned about consolation and desolation. And when you're in that state of consolation, everything's great. And most people forget to pray when they're in that state. For me, and I don't know how you are, that's when I pray the most. And when I'm in my worst, when most people are begging for help, that's when I pray the least. And you need to have that counterbalance in your mindset. And when you're able to get in that state of desolation and something's wrong, and let it go and know that it's going to end. Because if you start telling yourself this is never going to end, it's not. It's just not. It's going to get progressively worse. So, I believe everything that you said to the highest level because I've experienced it so much. I used to have that negative, negative mindset, and then it would compound and compound. If you believe you'll heal, you'll heal. You will.

Yeah.

Um, you said something I want to ask you. So, you said you were throwing everything at your your injury, which I did with my heart too. Were there some things that worked, some things that didn't? You— did you find that maybe you did too much and you had to cut back? And like, how did you decipher what was going to work and what wasn't?

Yeah, yeah. Um, so, and by the way, I do, I do want to throw a disclaimer out there. When I say heal anything, I believe that the majority of time when it's a chronic health condition, yeah, almost every time you can heal it. There are some genetic factors, there are some things that are challenging, But generally, again, I've seen people heal, again, cancer, autoimmune disease. I've seen people even with, you know, neurological conditions see— sometimes it was a 100% improvement, sometimes it was a 50% improvement, but there was change there. I think generally I knew what would be the most effective after reading research and having some experience. But, but again, I definitely didn't know everything. Like, one of the things that did surprise me was the, the peptides.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, that was something I was surprised at how effective it was at supporting healing. I would say if I had to put in ranking order the things I physically noticed the biggest difference was, um, I would say the, the— I noticed the biggest difference was stem cell. I had stem cell injected in my facets and around the area and did an IV of stem cells. I noticed the biggest difference there. The second were peptides. Uh, the third, and I would almost In terms of rehabbing, getting back to where I wanted to be, this, this was very, very important, doing the right type of physical therapy.

Yeah.

Now, the problem is, is that I would say 90% of physical therapy is not the right type. I mean, a lot of— and it's the same thing in medicine, it's the same thing in almost in, in, in a lot of professions today, is that, you know, people really had to— like, just like I believe in personalized nutrition, I believe in personalized, uh, functional training and functional physical therapy. So, like, if you would go in and have an injury and you went to a physical therapist and they had you doing Knee extension and back extension and just the same old stuff that people have been doing for 50 years, that's just not the most effective for most people today. Versus if you go in and are doing the right type of core training, you're doing things, let's say, like for me, I had a really rotated rib cage, rotated pelvis, my hamstrings weren't active, my serratus wasn't active. And so, I worked with a really incredible therapist on retraining the way I walked and moved and got different muscles to activate. Like, when I was growing up, I played soccer and I did a lot of cycling.

Mm-hmm.

was so quad dominant that my hamstrings and butt didn't really fire enough. And so went and retrained it. But that was a really big part of overcoming injury, is finding the right type of trainer to retrain my body. And of course, I think diet is critically important, reducing inflammation. And then one— and I'll say this, I didn't feel things right away, but it definitely made a difference long term. I started noticing after so many months, I'm like, okay, my body is healing better now. doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy, you know, driving that oxygen deep into my body. You know, I came across a study that said, uh, this was done on people that had what I had. It was called osteomyelitis, and that was, um, an infection in the disc in the bone. And, um, it found that most people got antibiotics for 3 months, 6 months IV, uh, 3, uh, 6 weeks IV and 6 weeks oral. I was able to cut it down to just about 28 days total.

Wow.

Because of the hyperbaric chamber. And I did that based on, there was another study that said, They were able to do that and see the results in healing with that. So, uh, but I think those are the things that I saw the biggest difference with.

I want to get into the hyperbaric, but do you know how you got the disease in the first place?

Yeah, so, so I went in and I, I had injured my back doing CrossFit and weight training, and I had pain for years. I mean, a couple years. I mean, it just was very, very bad, and, um, to the point where, I mean, I'd have to lay down every day. This is for 2 years. It just was a lot of pain. And then I went and I got stem cell therapy. So this is where they took bone marrow, concentrated it, reinjected it into my disc and the facets around my bone, uh, the— in the joint. And I noticed like a 50% improvement.

Yeah.

I got it done another time, and then I got back to like 95, probably 90%. And so I was so close to 100%, I thought, you know, I'm gonna go do it one more time. And something went wrong. And I woke the, the next few days, I felt just— I, I felt worse after the injection, which I usually didn't feel that bad. But then, for the next few weeks, I felt worse and worse and worse, till finally one morning I woke up and I literally couldn't walk. I couldn't walk. We had to call an ambulance. They had to come pick me up, fly me from Puerto Rico to Florida. It was, uh, it was just shocking. And so, it was from a stem cell injection. Something happened, uh, to where I don't know if a mycotoxin got in there or what exactly happened, But, that's essentially what occurred.

Oh.

Now, I went and I actually, once I fully healed, I did get stem cell again, but I got it done at a clinic called Rehealth where we did cultured umbilical cord cells and was just— it was like night and day. I mean, incredibly effective. But, there's a great— anyways, but that's how it happened. It was just— and the risk was like, not 1 in a million, but close to 1 in a million. And, um, yeah, it was an unfortunate incident. Yeah.

Was that a clinic out of the country? You don't have to name it.

Well, it was, but let me say this. The clinic I went to originally was— it's the most well-known and largest and most credible, uh, stem cell clinic, uh, chain in the entire country or maybe world. So, so it wasn't like— I wasn't like— no, I was going to the top-of-the-line, U.S.-established Clinic. So, it wasn't— No.

Just a freak thing then.

Yeah. Wow.

Oh, man, that's scary. But, I mean, there's always a 1 in a million probability in anything you do, right? Yeah.

Well, and God used it for good. I mean, now I've learned so much about how to heal really challenging conditions from my own experience.

I want to talk about the HBOT a little bit. I've talked about it, but not in-depth on my show. And so, I'm curious as to kind of just explain the whole process and what one can expect from doing it. Like, what types of things would you go there to heal, or what's the expectation level there?

Well, let me tell you, I first got turned on to hyperbaric oxygen therapy when I was researching my mom when she had cancer, because my mom went through chemo quite a few years ago and radiation. And one of the things hyperbaric oxygen is used for in terms of integrative cancer treatments is recovery from, from the cancer treatments themselves.

Yeah.

Because most of the time when people go through chemotherapy, and anybody with chemo and radiation will tell you this, that there's lasting damage after they have those treatments. So hyperbaric oxygen therapy is the fastest, in my opinion, the most effective way, along with dietary improvements, to fully recover and heal from those, the, the side effects of chemo and radiation. So I started getting turned on to it there. Then my first year of practice in Nashville, this is 20 years ago, I started working with a lot of kids on the autism, autistic spectrum disorders, and I came across research on the benefits for children, uh, following a diet that was gluten-free, casein-free, a very specific diet. It was called the GAPS diet for supporting, uh, healing leaky gut. And then also getting in hyperbaric chambers was very healing to, to them and their bodies.

Yeah.

So that's where I first got turned on to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And then with my own condition, I did deeper research. And so basically what hyperbaric oxygen therapy is, is you get in this chamber, and what it does is, uh, you— they used to fill the tank with oxygen, the whole thing you're laying in, um, but now you can just wear an oxygen mask. It's a lot safer because when you fill something with oxygen, it can be more— there's a risk of, uh, things becoming flammable.

Mm-hmm.

So now you can just wear a mask, and so that risk is diminished by, you know, by a great amount. Uh, so you're breathing in oxygen, and then it's pressurizing almost like you're going underwater. Very deep underwater. So, you're getting oxygen in your body, and then there's a great deal of pressure. What the pressure does is it causes the oxygen, it breaks it up and makes it essentially smaller, and then it drives it deeper into your tissue. So, there's certain areas of the body that don't get as much oxygen.

Right.

So, like your bone, your disc, a lot of organs, they don't get as much oxygen as they do when you're younger. And so, the more you age, the less oxygen you get to some of those areas. So, what it does is it literally forces and drives oxygen into these areas. You know, there was a Nobel Prize winner in the 1950s named Otto Warburg, and he said, Mm-hmm. I now know the cause of cancer. It's 2 things. It's a lack of oxygen in the cells, and it's sugar, because cancer feeds off of fermentation. And so, whenever I'm working with cancer, those are the 2 things I'm looking at. Okay, we gotta get rid of sugar in, in the most part, in, in feeding, anything feeding cancer, and we need to drive oxygen Into the cell. But, hyperbaric does that better than anything. Now, I do want to say there are other great ways to drive oxygen in the body. Deep breathing is great. There's a type of exercise called EWOT, exercising without oxygen or with lower oxygen.

Mm-hmm.

So, you can put on a mask and breathe in, you're just getting less oxygen than normal. And then, afterwards, all of a sudden, your body brings in more oxygen and drives it a little deeper into the body. Um, so, so there are other ways that are free. You don't have to have a hyperbaric chamber, but doing, you know, different breathing techniques and just generally exercise is good for, for driving more oxygen into your body.

I have a question. So I wrote a paper in college, this was like 2001, and, you know, the internet was very minimal at the time, and I was writing it on trying to cure diseases that were only having suppressive therapy. So, I was looking at AIDS, like HIV, herpes simplex, things like this.

Yeah.

And, I came across a German web study that showed that they were able to kill these diseases by smothering them with oxygen. And, I was thinking, wow, I found the greatest thing ever. And, still here we are today and it's something like this that you're talking about. Some people look at that like it's crazy or that it doesn't work and then there's people that have used How effective is it at, like, is there any merit to that, that it could smother and kill a disease?

100%. I mean, I think if you think about cancer almost like you would a parasite or a fungal infection, there is a level of when you're driving oxygen, those cells have a harder time surviving. I mean, a lot of them are anaerobic. I mean, they don't, they feed off of sugar, they don't need oxygen versus if you can drive more oxygen, it changes that environment. So, in my— I have a brick-and-mortar, I have a physical location in Nashville, in the Franklin area of Nashville, called the Longevity Clinic. And so, we treat and take care of a lot of patients with issues like Lyme disease, parasitic infections, mold, long COVID. And, we have a treatment in there, it's called EBOOzone. So, where oxygen is O2, ozone is O3.

Yeah.

And so, it's a form of oxygen or ozone. And, what we do is you take somebody's blood and you put it through this filter. It filters out the infection and then it puts ozone into the blood of the person and then we put the blood back in the person. It's about a 90-minute session. But, when we do that therapy over, let's say you do it 3 or 4 times with somebody, I mean, the results that people see, again, with the things we talked about like Lyme or Epstein-Barr virus or CMV, and even seeing results with, you know, to your point, herpes and some of these other types of viral infections, they really are tremendous. And so, there's 2 things. I think there's a great benefit of hyperbaric oxygen therapy of driving oxygen deep into the bone and the organs and those tissues. There's also great benefits of doing ozone combined with that.

Yes.

Where you're actually going in and ozone acts like an antimicrobial. It acts as a natural antibiotic or antiviral. killing a lot of these different types of pathogens.

You're setting me on another journey here to get into this more, but I, I firmly believe it, and I know I didn't stumble upon that back then for no reason. I, and I knew that at the time, but it was kind of like, you know, I'm 20 years old and whatever, you know, people looking at me like I'm crazy. How, how often can one do that, the hyperbaric chamber? And is it, is it something that somebody should consider even if they maybe don't have anything negative going on? Is there other health benefits?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's absolutely used for longevity today. I mean, that's why I'm personally, why I personally use it now. is I'll get in a chamber for supporting longevity.

Yeah.

Of course, I mean, let me— the area where it's actually most effective in terms of research is if anybody has ever had a serious burn. It's, I mean, that's why they're in hospitals today, hyperbaric chambers. If somebody has a burn or gangrene or anything like that, I mean, it, because it kills infection.

Yeah.

When you drive oxygen in the area, the tissue can flourish and heal so much better. Athletes will use it for recovery quite often. But overall, I mean, we tend to use hyperbaric oxygen therapy for cancer support recovery. We tend to use it for, again, chronic infections. We've talked about anybody who's had a stroke, anybody that's had a concussion, any sort of thing where we want to drive more oxygen to the brain. But you can use it for almost every type of condition. Everybody's going to benefit from more oxygen driven into every cell, tissue, and organ of their body.

Would you find that to be effective on people that have heart conditions, maybe heart failure or blockage or anything? anything like that, would that have any efficacy at all?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, again, more oxygen, better, better function and healing for, I think, numerous, numerous conditions. Now, I do think if I have somebody with heart issues, diet is the most effective thing, right? So more fiber, more protein, a very metabolically friendly diet, high omega-3s, and then a lot of foods like pomegranates and apples and blueberries that are going to be very, very supportive of You know, protective of the cardiovascular tissue. And then even herbs like garlic and turmeric and rosemary are very effective as well. So, so if I am taking care of somebody with like high ApoB, high Lp, that's the sort I put them on, kind of very similar to a Mediterranean diet, along with lots of things like pomegranate and garlic, and it's very, very effective.

Yeah, I'm going to get in. I want to, I want to talk about a cellular health diet with you in a second. I got one more question. If you were ranking modalities or things that people could use for healing, 'cause there's so many things now.

Yeah, there's a lot.

I mean, and things for longevity, and it's confusing, and people are saying a lot, well, we have to have millions of dollars to do this and that. Yeah, some of these things are expensive. You— some of these things you can't buy for your home. You got to go someplace to use it. But maybe give me your top 3 that you think hold the most value or merit for people to consider for longevity, For healing, things of that nature, would you put the hyperbaric in that top 3, or what are you looking at?

Well, if it's okay, let me do 2 categories. Let me talk about the ones that are free and foundational and the ones to build on top of that.

Please.

Listen, you can get radically healthy without all of the latest biohacks or therapies and these things. And, the biggest needle movers there are— there's a couple things you got to fix. Cortisol and insulin are very important. And so, with cortisol, it's building peace. It's waking up and reading your Bible, it's spending time in prayer, it's going on walks, it's just doing things to just build a peaceful spirit, connecting with community, but that's going to help balance cortisol. When it comes to insulin, eating a diet that's high in protein and fiber, basically meat, fruits, and vegetables, meat, fruits, and vegetables, meat, fruits, and vegetables. You know, if you can do that, you're going to get radically healthy.

Yeah.

And then, get good sleep. So, those are kind of the top 3 things, I think, for most people that are going to be the most efficacious, and then movement, walking, weight training, some form of exercise. You don't need to go and lift a bunch of weights all the time. Now, that's great, but just move. Okay, now on top of those things, um, I would say, listen, I, I really believe so much in personalized medicine, so I think it depends on the person.

Yeah.

I think the one that I tend to have a lot of people do up there pretty frequently, the most, with almost everybody benefits from, is probably a PBM Red Light Better panel. I mean, getting, getting red light Supports mitochondrial health, cellular energy. I think most people probably need a much higher dose than what they're getting with one of those panels or not. They could probably do 30 or 40 or 45 minutes in front of it rather than a shorter period of time. So, I think that that is a really phenomenal type of therapy. After that, I would say, oh, it's so hard for me to kind of say just what my favorites are. We have something in our practice called a Hockett, which is a sauna where your full body is enclosed in a sauna and your body gets a little bit warmer than in a sauna, and you're getting transdermal ozone while you're doing it, and you're getting PEMF. You're getting like 8 different therapies at once. Wow, never heard of that. So, that's pretty cool. But, but, but if you don't have that, then I would say infrared sauna.

Yeah.

I mean, in fact, infrared sauna might be number one. I mean, in terms of— because there is so much great clinical research on Infrared sauna. There are so many benefits of heating the body, increasing circulation in the body, and what that does for detoxification, what it does for hormones, what it does for heart health. So, so if I had to go back and restart this, I would say infrared sauna, or the next level above that's Hockett, that you can find in certain advanced functional medicine clinics like the Longevity Clinic. But that's number 1. Red light therapy. And then number 3 probably is hyperbaric oxygen therapy in terms of my favorites. And then I think, I think IVs.

Yeah.

are beneficial for some people as well, but I would say that the ones I just mentioned are my top 3.

Okay. So, this is why I love these conversations. Next question. Since you brought up sauna, this is one of the ones now that I'm seeing more questions asked on. Infrared was really popular for a long time. That's all you really ever saw. But now, I'm seeing more of the—

The classic.

The classic is kind of coming back into the picture.

Sure.

And, it wasn't. I mean, it's always been there, but it seems like infrared dominated. In the past 2 or 3 years, I've really started to see more of a pushback to the classic and still the infrared. What are the differences? And which one do you think, is it sufficient for where maybe one person would benefit more with the other, or do you find one to just always be better?

Yeah, no, no. So what I would say is, if you're getting in a classic sauna where you're getting the temperature up there around 180, 190, I mean, you're getting the temperature up higher. Um, you're going to sweat more.

Yeah.

In there. And overall, it's going to create probably a greater level of detoxification. Okay. Just via— because you're just sweating more profusely. But the heat stays more on the exterior. Okay. Still greatly beneficial, but the heat doesn't get driven as deeply. One of the benefits of infrared is with those infrared lights and wavelengths, they're penetrating deeper into the body. And so, there is going to be more mitochondrial support with infrared. If somebody has a low body temperature, like, like if I have a patient with hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue or, or cold extremities, I prefer infrared sauna because we are really trying to drive heat into their body. And, um, and this is a principle of Chinese medicine, by the way. When you look at something like hypothyroidism, their body temperature is always in the 97s, not the 98s.

Mm-hmm.

And, and their body is not— mitochondria not generating enough heat and body temperature So, they're cold all the time, their hair's thinning, you have all these issues that are related to poor mitochondrial health. So, infrared sauna for me is superior there.

Yeah.

I generally prefer infrared for most chronic health conditions, but if it's for pure detoxification and wanting more cellular exchange, like fluid exchange, I would say that the classic saunas would win out. But overall, listen, they're both phenomenal. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. If I had to give an edge to one, I'd do infrared by just a hair, but they're both phenomenal.

I like that old classic smell, like, you know, from when we were younger, because that was all that was around.

And yeah, you smell the cedar. It's therapeutic. Now, my infrared sauna I have from Sunlight, I mean, that's— that is, uh, they're using cedar in there as well. Yeah. But because those classic saunas, that heat is so much more, you know, I, I love going in there and, you know, pouring the water on the rocks. I mean, there is something very even therapeutic, uh, even emotionally for me about that, because I just have great memories, like going with my dad. We were You know, and, and getting it done. So I think they're both wonderful.

The Holiday Inn parties, I remember, and I'd go in there in like 7th and 8th grade, and that nostalgic smell. I have a concern sometimes with highly trained athletes that get in there that are already sweating a lot, losing a lot of electrolytes, because I mean, I love to sweat, but it's become like a problem for me personally because it's so much electrolyte loss and fluid loss between all the cardio and then something like that.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's where with athletes— so again, this is some Chinese medicine I'll kind of bring into this— is that, you know, they're, they're— let's say you have a professional football player. I mean, their body is generating a lot of heat. If you have somebody who's weight training all the time, their body's generating a lot of heat. And over time, that might put them in what Chinese medicine would be calling a little bit more yang dominance, and that can be more inflammatory. And those people might benefit from cold plunge. sometimes. And, I think getting in a hot sauna if they've already been sweating, let's say they're doing 2 a day out in the summer, going and getting a sauna more, it's going to lead to dehydration. It's not ideal. But, I'll just say that is a small segment and subgroup that may not benefit nearly as much from sauna.

Yeah.

Whereas, my patients I take care of, it's a lot of autoimmune disease, a lot of hypothyroidism, patients with cancer or things like that. I mean, generally, They need more heat and more circulation.

I agree. The first sauna I ever bought was a Sunlight one in 2013. I just was researching and that was one of the only companies even around back then. And then, I've had one at every place I've lived because every time we move, I can't take them with me. So, I've had several really nice ones and I'm firmly with you there. I miss the traditional, but I stick to the infrared. I find for the heart and everything for me personally. So, I wanna talk about, on the cellular side, you know, we've talked a lot about, like, how to really treat ourselves well, but I'd like to get into a cellular health diet. Like, what kind of foods are going to provide the best structure and health longevity for our cells? And what— I've also heard this term cellular hydration. So, I'd love to get into that too, but let's start with the diet and then talk about what is cellular hydration and how do we even go about doing that?

Yeah, well, in terms of the diet, the first thing I wanna say is, So I think everybody's a unique individual and you need a diet customized for you. One of the things that Dr. Cole and I did in the Heal Your Cells book is we lay out the ideal cellular diet based on your condition. So people take a quiz and will learn, hey, do you have one organ aging faster than the other? And this is really fascinating because most people have one organ.

Yeah.

Like, I'll just share, like, I had a family member, my father-in-law, who died early, at 60 years old, died of, a cardiovascular event. And, you know, muscles healthy, brain health, all of those organs very healthy, but one organ aging faster. And that's true for most people. I think about Dr. Cole, very similar. His dad had the same thing happen. And for me, like, I really want to do everything I can to help people uncover which organ is aging prematurely and reverse the age of that organ.

Mm-hmm.

And so, what we do in the book is we lay out, okay, if your heart is aging too quickly, here are the exact foods and supplements to do. If your brain is aging too quickly, if it's your immune system, if it's your hormones, if it's your gut health, if it's your thyroid, we help identify that in the book and then customize it for those people. But generally, when we think about mitochondrial health— but generally, when we think about cellular health, one of the most important components there is your mitochondria. Another one would be your cell membrane.

Yep.

And then your nucleus. And so, looking at these— and then your lysosomes would be another one. So, it depends on the area of But, let's focus on mitochondria and the cell membrane. When it comes to mitochondrial health, pomegranates are probably the number one food. I mean, beef liver would also be up there, wild-caught salmon would be up there. But, there's a compound in pomegranates and they're in other foods to a lesser degree, but raspberries and walnuts called ellagic acid. And, ellagic acid can turn into something called urolithin A. is something that creates mitochondrial biogenesis and is great for creating mitochondria and creating more health in your mitochondria. So, pomegranates are going to be very, very high on that list, as are berries, are going to be very high on that list. Your cell membrane is made up of fatty acids and fat.

Yes.

So, in that case, I would put salmon and sardines at the very, very top of that list because of EPA and DHA, and then extra virgin olive oil. So, when we hear you are what you eat, It's mostly true about fat and protein. And so, I would say it's really what I talked about earlier. It's a— the ideal diet is low glycemic, nutrient-dense fruits.

Yep.

It's vegetables, and it's very nutrient-dense meat, especially things like wild-caught salmon. I mean, that is— those are the foods most healing for the cells of most people.

Dr. Ax, are you telling me that vegetables are okay to eat? Because I hear these things. fearmongers telling us they throw out these, these things at you that don't want you to eat them and everything like that. I see that often and it drives me nuts. Could you clear that up?

Yeah, I mean, from a personalized diet standpoint, there is a small subgroup of people, if they're having, uh, something called SIRS— it's, it's, it's a systemic inflammatory response syndrome— if somebody— and again, this is like 1% of the population, uh, or if somebody has very severe mold toxicity, those people may do better for a period of time. I'm not saying forever, but for a period of time on something like a carnivore diet.

Yeah.

Because what happens is if you're eating meat only, meat doesn't ferment.

Yeah.

Okay, versus fruits and vegetables, uh, can cause these. And most of the time what people are having is a histamine response, or at least in a lot of cases, right? And so, or even a form of SIBO where there's this intestinal over— this bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine, and so the body's over-responding. Well, when you switch to meat, Meat, it doesn't do that. It calms that for a time, but you should get the body to the point where you can slowly reintroduce foods.

Right.

Like, I would start with pears and blueberries and sweet potato, things like that, that are very— avocado, that are easier to digest and move those into the diet. But no, I mean, listen, for at least 90% of people, they should be eating vegetables.

I agree. I agree. One of my staples. I am finding over the last 3, 4 years, because I told you I drink pomegranate juice daily.

Yeah.

That is like the super— I, I don't like the term superfood, but that, if I was going to say, that would be like my number one.

Yeah.

It really would. Do you find that too with pomegranates?

Well, here, here's what I would say. Um, most of the time I don't like fruit juice, but if you're working out, in the middle of a workout, that's the time to do it.

Yeah.

Okay, if you're going to do a juice, that's the time to do it. And pomegranate is probably the most therapeutic juice out there from a cardiovascular standpoint. The other one I would put in there for athletic recovery that's really phenomenal is tart cherry juice.

Yes.

And so, there's great research on that improving sleep, improving, you know, melatonin. I mean, I really, really think that that's fantastic as well. But those are the 2 I tend to prescribe or recommend the most is pomegranate and tart cherry in terms of juices. But I also typically encourage people to take those during their— drink it during, right, right before, during, or within 2 hours of working out.

That's when I do the pomegranate, 'cause I don't drink fruit juice at all. I only do it for plaque in the arteries is why I did it.

Yeah, it's fantastic, especially if people have high ApoB or Lp from cardiovascular markers, it's wonderful.

You know, when I do it, after the long cardio sessions I do, I do it right after because I want some carbs. And I don't like crave to eat carbs. And that's like my go-to, and I mix it with electrolytes right after I get done with like the heavy, heavy, heavy session.

Yeah.

And, it's perfect. And, it's rather kind of hydrating and satiating for me. It is great. And, I'm not slamming gallons of water from being so thirsty because it accumulates, it makes you feel heavy, and it's not the greatest thing in the world.

Yeah. Well, you talked earlier about or asked about cellular hydration.

Yes.

And, our cells need— what tends to create the most cellular hydration is sodium and potassium.

Yes.

By just getting the right ratios of those. And, and for a lot of people, we're getting those up. By the way, sugar also does. I mean, there's a number of things that help kind of bring more fluid in the cells and out of the cells. Having a healthy cell membrane, healthy fatty acids, I mean, that's also important. But, um, and having cortisol where it should be. If cortisol stays too high, that can cause some hydration issues. But most people today are not getting enough potassium. I actually think that's the most important thing.

Really?

I know we went on this whole sodium kick. And, I do think that there are some people that could use sea salt more liberally. And, I think that it's probably not as— it's definitely not as problematic as the American Heart Association said it was in the past, especially when we're talking about real sea salt. However, I think I would have preferred people being more conscious of getting more potassium in their diet than they would have even sodium because I think especially when we're talking about cardiovascular disease—

Yes.

More beneficial. And, I don't think you typically want to get that as much from a supplement. I mean, you can. I mean, there are some electrolyte powders that have more of like a 1-to-1 ratio and there's more potassium. That's where I would typically land and recommend for most people. But a lot of it depends on activity. If you have an athlete that is sweating profusely, they do need to get a little bit more sodium.

Yeah.

I mean, there's no doubt about it. I used to do triathlons and I needed to do— you need to do quite a bit of sodium or you actually could die. I mean, there are people that drink only water and you don't want to do that. But, um, but most people are not deficient in sodium.

Yeah.

Most people are deficient in potassium, and you're going to get potassium primarily from certain types of fruit. I mean, kiwis are incredibly high, of course bananas, but, but, but fruit tends to be high in potassium, the highest food. Coconut, of course, watermelon, um, and then potatoes, especially sweet potatoes, and then beans. I mean, those are the foods that are the richest in potassium. And, and I mean, a lot of people are not getting enough fruit, enough sweet potatoes, or enough beans. And so, yeah, I, I do think that potassium is a bigger issue when it comes to cellular hydration. What sodium tends to bring more causes you to hold more fluid.

Yeah.

And potassium typically causes you to flush out more fluid. It's sort of like this sodium-potassium, like, pump and exchange that's happening there.

I used to teach people one of the reasons that they were holding and accumulating water taking growth hormone was sodium-to-potassium ratio. And that, like, bodybuilders at the time couldn't even figured out.

Yeah.

And I said, look, you're supposed to get 4,700 milligrams of potassium. They'll say 3,500, but ideally 4,700. And sodium should be at like the 2,300 to 2,400, that ratio. And that's standard, I— and like you said, with, with athletes. So a couple things on my end that I've noticed. One mistake that I made that I recently corrected was drinking RO water without Without putting back the minerals in it, that was dehydrating me. So, I was drinking water and drinking a lot, which I thought was good for me, and I was actually dehydrating myself.

Yeah. Well, let me say this. I think— I still think reverse osmosis water is fine. I— so, this is debatable, but I don't think— there's something called a TDS score, and it's total dissolved solids. And, that's looking at how many minerals are in your water. This is just my personal opinion. I don't believe you actually should have minerals in your water. I think you should be getting your minerals from food, from fruits and vegetables primarily. Uh, I mean, and there's other food, there's plenty of other foods that have, you know, but, but I do believe that that's where you should be getting most of your hydration. But a lot of people that are doing— I remember in college when I was working as a personal trainer, uh, you know, I was taught to drink a gallon of water a day, right? Everybody's walking around with their big gallon of water.

That's ridiculous.

Almost everybody walking around with a gallon of water.

So goofy.

And, um, and that's probably a little bit overkill. Now, I do think you want to get quite a bit of water.

I agree.

But that's probably a little bit too much.

So I switched to Ophora water. Have you heard of that? Ben Azadi turned me on to them, but I, I'll have to show you.

Is it a hydrogen water or more of an alkaline?

Yes, both.

Yeah, I like— I, I, I do. Now listen, I, I do not think hydrogen water is some cure.

No.

But, but I do think it's beneficial. I think it's a great little extra thing you can do.

Yeah.

And so I like hydrogen water.

It's our whole home. thing now. It's got ozone, hydrogen, everything. It is structured water.

Yeah.

Is what it does. It structures the water. I'm even going to get it in my swimming pool soon.

Amazing.

Yeah. So, to get rid of the chlorine because I have salt water now in the pool, but even that is pretty—

Well, most people when they think of salt water, they think that there's no chlorine in it.

Yeah, it's not—

Well, it's about 60% less, I believe. So, it is less water, but for some people, because there's so much salt there, it's a little dehydrating if you have to keep your pool really, really warm.

I'll tell you though, man, it feels silky when you get out as opposed to that chlorine.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We have on our pool filter now, and when we're building a home, we'll do a higher upgrade than we have now, but we do a UV light filter and we do— it's a salt chlorinator. It's saltwater pool, but it definitely makes a difference.

I'm so glad you brought potassium up though because that's one of the things I've actually studied quite a bit. Heart palpitations when you have electrolyte imbalance.

Yeah.

Right? And, I, I've struggled with that where I finally have figured out how to correct it. Avocados for me are huge on potassium, one of the things that I get a ton from there too.

Well, the thing that's great about avocados is they're high in potassium and magnesium.

Yes.

And, those are the 2 most important nutrients with any type of, you know, arrhythmia.

Yeah. And, and people don't realize even the slightest imbalance is really damaging for multitudes. It's not just heart rhythm, but it's important to get adequate amounts and to monitor. Yeah, you know, so when you're looking at a blood panel, because I know you look at a ton, yeah, what are some of the telltale markers for you that somebody has poor cellular health?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I think so. So yeah, so let me hit on the cellular health and then some of the other most important markers that are out there. So when I'm looking at cellular health, one thing we do is we can kind of look at like a mitochondrial score And, you can look at coenzyme Q10 levels. That's a really important nutrient for overall mitochondrial health. You've got things— there's actually a score, not a lot of blood tests do this, more looking at your pyruvate and sometimes lactate.

Yeah.

I mean, that can be pretty important for mitochondrial health. Um, I mean, I think one of the most important ones, probably my single favorite, is doing what we call an omega-3 index. And, that's in part going to impact the cell membrane. And so, we talked about every cell's got the cell membrane. If the cell membrane is— you want to want it— you want it soft and spongy and resilient. If that's— and if that's the case, if it's kind of soft and spongy, it lets the right things in, lets the wrong things— or gets the things— helps detoxify. What happens over time is people oftentimes, their cells become hard and rigid. That membrane becomes hardened, and you don't want that. So, uh, this omega-3 index I think is a good indicator of that. Um, there's another type of score I like looking at, uh, markers, and they're related to oxidative stress. Right? So oxidative stress causes the cells to age more quickly, increases cancer risk, heart disease risk, every condition you can think of. So there's one I really like called F2-isoprostanes, and this is looking at basically if any of these fatty acids in your body have been oxidized and damaged.

So it's an— it's probably the gold standard for looking at oxidative stress. There's another, another one called 08-DG, uh, 008-HDG. that I really like, and that's also looking at oxidative stress. So I like these oxidative stress markers. But yeah, I like looking at the mitochondrial markers, the cell membrane markers, the oxidative stress markers to give me an indication on cellular health. You know, when somebody— uh, I have 2 clinics. I have my physical clinic here in Nashville. I have people flying from all over the country to see us at the Longevity Clinic. I also have a virtual practice with health coaches that do, um, you know, that that look at people. We do blood work there as well. Um, and there also look at high sensitivity, high sensitivity C-reactive protein.

Mm-hmm.

And that's really looking at cellular inflammation. I think that's incredibly important. And then the other one, and this is related to cellular health as well, is looking at any type of insulin resistance, you know, uh, you know, a, uh, an A1C score, uh, looking at fasting glucose or fasting insulin. Those are very important. I think from a cellular health standpoint, the ones I mentioned are probably the ones that are the most important. But, I'll tell you the other thing though. One of the things I've noticed on doing thousands and thousands of blood work panels is that most doctors are not looking for the right markers.

Yeah.

They're doing your conventional CBC and CMP, and the reason they do those tests is because that's what insurance covers, and they're very cheap. Running those markers costs I'm not overexaggerating, pennies.

I know.

You know, versus when I'm talking about the scores that I look at, like an omega-3 index and mitochondrial health and CoQ10, all these others, these are more expensive markers, but they matter more. They help me get to the root cause more of seeing what's going on. So I also like looking at micronutrients, like what is somebody's vitamin D or their magnesium or their zinc or their vitamin B12? And most doctors are not running panels— look, ferritin— most doctors are not running panels looking at these micronutrients. And, when you look at those, that is really critically important because if I have somebody that's low in vitamin D or somebody's low in magnesium, almost no doctors test for magnesium.

None.

And, if you actually know, like we do a test I really love at our clinic here in Nashville called the RBC magnesium. It's looking at the actual magnesium in your cell. So, when most people, doctors today run and they do any nutrient test, they're looking at what's in your blood.

Yeah.

Okay, well, you can— a lot of times your gut can get things into the blood, but oftentimes it won't get into the cell. And so, that is really the most important thing. So, I have seen such amazing miraculous results in patients that come in and they've got— like, I had a woman who had just chronic acne issues and skin issues, and her zinc was absolutely to the floor and her omega-3 index. And, she'd even been taking fish oil supplements. We got those levels corrected, acne completely gone.

Yeah.

Completely gone. And, same thing, PCOS. Crazy results there. Men, same thing. They've never had their zinc tested. If zinc is low, vitamin D is low, certain other nutrients, your testosterone just cannot— it tends to— you have this hormone, this sex hormone-binding globulin that basically binds to your testosterone.

Mm-hmm.

So, you may have a testosterone level, and I saw this this week in a blood panel. The man had testosterone levels in like the— it was like low 900s. But, it was all bound up, and so his free testosterone was almost— it was so low that his body couldn't use it. Yep.

That was one of my first telltale things that I always look for when someone comes to me and says, I need TRT. I said, that's the first marker I look at is let's look at your SHBG.

Yeah.

Because if that is high, we fix that, you're probably going to see an increase drastically right away.

Yeah. And, there are nutrients like zinc. Here's one, boron is huge for this, vitamin D that will free up that testosterone.

Yeah, and it's, it's a very, very, very big problem that most people just overlook. And I love what you said because the CBC and the CMP, you look at those and that's kind of where the doctors stop unless you go in and request for something. And then oftentimes they'll say, well, why do you want that? And I tell people, go find a different doctor or just do it yourself. Yeah, that's right. Because that shows you a very, very minuscule baseline. And then it's, well, these look okay. And oftentimes they're really not because you and I both know this, the scales just keep going like this, the averages. Like for testosterone, for example, I see that it's saying 200 is an acceptable score now, like right at the bottom level. And I'm sitting here going, that is the lowest quality of life for most people.

Yeah.

When a man's testosterone is that low. When they— when they— when Quest and LabCorp throw out their ranges, what is that actually based upon?

Well, it's typically looking at other people. It's, it's the, the population of people going and getting lab ranges, getting their lab work done. And by the way, that group tends to have more health problems.

Yeah.

And looking at those as averages. So those are looking at if you are in disease state, not what the optimal ranges are. I mean, the most classic example of this, an easy one, would be vitamin D, right? They say as long as you're 30 or above. Now, some doctors say 20 or above. All right, and so let's say you're at 31. They'll say, hey, you're good. But optimal is probably 50 to 80.

Mm-hmm.

And most people are, you know, let's say you've got an autoimmune disease or a thyroid problem, let's say Hashimoto's thyroiditis or low testosterone or whatever, name almost any condition, and you're at 31, that's too low. I mean, you should absolutely be higher than that. I mean, in fact, there is evidence on if you have cancer, You should be closer to at least 70, if not 80 or 90. I mean, that you should be much, much higher for fighting cancer. So some of it depends on the individual. So there's not always this sort of hard number you should be, but for most people, they're too low.

Yeah.

And so that's what we— and so when I have other people bring in their blood panels, I interpret that completely different than their typical conventional medical doctor. And we're able to look at all these different markers together and really help people heal and reverse their condition because we are looking at the markers differently. And then have different recommendations based on that.

Would you say it's fair to say, because this is kind of— I'm throwing this number out there, but would you say it's fair to say 95 to 90% of the answers to problems lie in the more intricate testing as opposed to just the basic panels?

Yeah, absolutely. Now, again, yeah. Now, again, Yes. I mean, I mean, I mean, the reality is, is that the conventional blood tests are looking at so little, and there's almost no depth at all. They're just— again, they're just looking to see— listen, I know, you know how many people I know that have had blood tests done and they've been said, hey, you're totally fine, and then a few weeks later they were diagnosed with cancer? A few weeks later somebody was diagnosed with or had a heart attack, or, or, or maybe it's a year later, but a serious health event. This happens all the time.

Mm-hmm.

And the, the reason is, is they're not not looking— they're not running the right tests and markers, and they're not interpreting them properly. And then of course they're not making the right recommendations either.

Yeah, I just budget it into my, my yearly planning that I'm doing 3 to 4 panels a year. I mean, it may be overkill for some, but I have a condition.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would say generally if somebody's getting once a year, I mean, at least getting the right type of blood work. But again, not your conventional stuff that unfortunately insurance pays for. You want to get the panels done that are more extensive looking at cellular health.

Absolutely. It— the, the all lies in the details and the numbers. The data is everything. I always tell people, don't tell me how you feel, because how you feel can change on the drop of a dime.

Yeah.

So, and I think too, some of the most important things are deal with stress and handle your sleep. I think that those are some of the key components to causing disease And causing all of these different chronic conditions that we see as well. But I, I like too that you brought up food as medicine. I've, I've said that now for quite a while too. I think that once we start to dial in diet on a personal level to see what works for you, I, I put that at the top of the list for key components to becoming healthier long-term because that's something you can control really forever. Right, what you're putting into your body. So, but past that, I'm curious. I'd like to get a, a Dr. Ax current protocol. So, could you give us like, and the reason why that you are doing this, are you on any peptides and what are your primary supplements that you take daily right now?

Yeah, for my personal use.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I would say from a dietary standpoint, I do very, very well on a Mediterranean diet. I mean, that's sort of my body thrives on it. Um, I'm also a big fan of a Biblio diet.

Yeah.

Like, you know, Jordan Rubin and I wrote a book on that, and I think for many people that's the right diet for them. But from a— I, I, I am a— I, again, I've just really looked at my own diet, and I've found that, uh, doing high protein, a lot of fish— I do the best with fish, and I do really well with chicken. And so, I do fish and chicken primarily. Once or twice a week, I'll do like, like a grass-fed burger or some sort of red meat, and I do okay there. So, I do high protein, I do higher fiber. So, I do a lot of— I do quite a bit. I probably do 1 to 2 pieces of fruit a day.

Mm-hmm.

I do a lot of pomegranates, a lot of blueberries, a lot of blackberries, a lot of kiwis. Those are probably— and apples and pears. That's probably what I do the most for fruit. I do a lot of sweet potato.

Mm-hmm.

And, in terms of oils, I mean, the 2 I use almost exclusively for myself is extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil. I take most of my stress on my liver. That's the way that I've— so, and different people tend to have different stresses on different organs in terms— and it's based on the emotions you experience. So, in Chinese medicine, I'm going with Chinese medicine here, I'd be considered more of somebody that when I'm dealing with stress, I tend to respond with frustration if I come across a roadblock or I want things to happen faster. That all affects the liver. And so, uh, coconut oil in particular, uh, is, is easier for the body to digest and break down than other oils because medium-chain fatty acids kind of have a much shorter process of being used for energy in the body.

Yeah.

So I do pretty well with that. But somebody with cardiovascular disease and more heart stress, I wouldn't recommend coconut oil as much for them. I would recommend much more just stick to extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil.

Yeah.

Uh, and then, you know, I do, I do, I do some some beans on occasion too. But that's my diet. I mean, I mean, pretty much. And then supplement-wise, uh, I take the supplements now based on the advanced blood work panel I had. You know, I struggled with really low energy coming out of this chronic infection for 2 years. I was just exhausted all the time. Finally, I did this advanced blood panel myself, and I found I was very deficient in vitamin B2. This is riboflavin. Now, I would have never taken riboflavin as just a random supplement, but my blood work showed I needed And I'll tell you, that caused my energy to go from a 6 to a 10.

Really?

And like, it just fixed it. Yeah. I mean, that single supplement. So, I take vitamin B2. I take— every day, I do a type of protein that's high in stem cell and bone broth and that sort of thing. So, very collagen-rich protein powder. I do— trying to think. I do an omega-3 supplement. I do a superfood supplement that has like beet juice powder and pomegranate and things like that and a lot of greens. And that regularly. I do a turmeric supplement. And then it's based on how I'm feeling. If I'm feeling like my joints need support, I'll do turmeric. If my immune system needs support, I tend to do astragalus or olive leaf. Do you do berberine at all? No, I mean, I don't have any— I don't think my insulin's an issue.

Yeah.

And that's why I wouldn't. And I only recommend berberine, when I recommend it, it's for a period of time, and then I cycle people on and off of it. 'Cause it's very cooling to the body. It's also antimicrobial. But, I do like it a lot for people with insulin resistance. It's one of the number one compounds that I recommend on a regular basis. And then, I take a B complex just based on I have MTHFR and I kind of looked at that. And, that's for the most part. There's a couple other things I do.

Do you do senolytic or creatine or anything like that?

Oh, I do creatine. Yeah, I do 5 grams of creatine a day. Sorry, there's all kinds of stuff I throw in my smoothie. I'm trying to even remember what I put in there every morning. But I think that those are— and then I do a magnesium glycinate at night.

Yeah, me too.

But for the most part, and then in the winter I do vitamin D. I'm getting so much sun, I get so much sun in the summer, I just don't do it. But the rest of the year—

What about K2? Do you do any of that?

Yeah, when I take my— the vitamin D I have has K in it.

Okay. 'Cause I know when I get asked that question, I always forget 3 or 4 things since the list is normally generally long. But I, like you, like there are certain things that I do cycle on and off of. I think people sometimes fall into this, oh, I have to do this forever. And some of the things maybe, but some not so much. So yeah.

And I don't do peptides all the time. I just, I do them if I feel like I need them.

Yeah.

You know, so if I have, for instance, an injury I'm trying to overcome, I, I'll definitely do BPC-157, TB-500, and GHK-CU, that blend. Um, I mean, that's the one I've done the most. I mean, I've done Epitalon.

Yeah.

I've done MOTS-c and SS-31. for mitochondrial health. And so, I've gone through. And then, I've done NAD+, like a niacin. I've done those as well. Oh, by the way, one other supplement I take religiously, and it's another one I've noticed a phenomenal difference in my health, and it's called GlyNAC. I've never heard of it. It's N-acetylcysteine plus glycine, but it's glycine plus N-acetylcysteine.

Yeah.

And, I found that because I have, I mentioned, more liver stress than anything else, Glutathione for me has just been incredibly helpful for my health. I mean, the things I've noticed the biggest difference with— by the way, I also take NMN, but the supplements I've noticed the biggest difference with are, for myself, the riboflavin, the NMN, and the GlyNAC. Absolutely, I've noticed improvements.

I take NMN as well. And, you know, I had elevated ALT and AST for like 2 and a half years.

Wow.

And I mean elevated, like 200s. And I had a FibroScan with Siggi and all of these, and everything was perfect. And he was telling me I had the liver of an 18-year-old, and I couldn't get it down no matter what I did. And you know what did it in 2 months? Glutathione.

Yeah.

Knocked it down into the normal range.

Yeah.

And it was— I went through the wringer and tried everything. And then NMN, of course, you know, a lot of people don't understand the precursors for NAD and the importance of taking a precursor as opposed to just taking straight NAD.

Yeah.

And that goes to the cellular side. One of the things I'm really glad— not to go backtrack, but I'm glad you brought up cellular membrane. I brought this up to Will yesterday and I said, you know, mitochondria gets all the love, gets all the commotion and the talk, but the cellular membrane is what's protecting it and is kind of like, well, if we don't have a healthy cellular membrane, we certainly don't have healthy mitochondria. So I ask you, I'm getting to a point on this, is what do you do Is it phospholipids that help to take care of the cellular membrane?

Yeah, I would say, yeah, I mean, it's a number of things. Phospholipids are important. Omega-3 fatty acids are important. I mean, I would put those 2 probably at the top, but also just reducing oxidative stress is very important as well. So polyphenols and different types of antioxidants, even glutathione, these things will protect the cell membrane to a degree. But, you know, phospholipids are found primarily in caviar. So, fish eggs is where they're probably the highest amount. You can find some phospholipids in salmon.

Yeah.

You can find them in egg yolks, but they tend to be found in eggs, but fish eggs are the highest. So, yeah, phospholipids are these really incredible type of sort of fats with— phospholipids are these sort of incredible anti-inflammatory or more protective types of fats that can help make up your cell membrane, And then, yeah, the omega-3 fatty acids. I think those are, those are the 2 things I would recommend for people looking to build a healthier cell membrane.

Aside from salmon, which I know is you and I both our favorite fish, are there any other fish that you recommend or that you personally eat?

Yeah, I mean, anything that's omega-3 fatty acid rich. I mean, sardines are going to be the next in line that are incredibly helpful. Uh, after sardines, you know, mackerel is a really, really great omega-3 rich fish. I mean, tuna is. I know people are concerned about mercury levels, you know, with— but, uh, really any type of fish that's going to be high in EPA and DHA.

Do you have a concern with overconsumption of fish at all on mercury side?

I am far less concerned than most people.

Yeah.

And, the reason I say— now, listen, I'm not going and recommending people go and eat a bunch of swordfish or not worry about it at all. But no, it's not something I I— let me tell you why. There was a study, and there's multiple studies, but there's one study I'm thinking about in particular where they went and they had women who ate a lot of fish, so they had higher mercury in their diet, versus women who didn't. And they looked to see, okay, who had the healthier kids? And it's the women that ate more fish. Think about Japan today. You know how much— do you know how much raw and wild fish they eat there?

Yeah.

Good for you. A lot. And they, they don't, they don't have problems. And what they, what they believed in the study was that when you were having things like salmon and tuna, you're getting higher doses of omega-3s, you're getting certain types of amino acids, you're getting sometimes even, you know, these antioxidants like astaxanthin. And those— the benefits of supporting your own detoxification and getting rid of the mercury that's in there in the first place, the neuroprotective properties, the reducing of inflammation the benefits outweigh the risks or the problems associated with the metals that are in there. There's also, by the way, I just want to say a difference between metals that are bound in fish and metals that you're exposed to in things like lead-based paint. They're not the same metal.

Right.

They're different. And so, your exposure to this sort of metal that is in a food naturally or like arsenic that's naturally found in a certain level in rice and apples, The risk of that is almost nothing compared to a much higher risk if people are getting metals from herbicides or paint or other exposures. There's a difference between those types of metals.

Excellent. See, I didn't know that. That's a good breakdown. One of my favorite fish, Okay.

I mean, we have a noon stop, so I mean, we can go another 10, 15, I mean, whatever you want to go, but—

Yeah, I'll just, yeah, I'll run a couple more.

This is a great interview. I know, I totally—

It's like, fuck it, we'll just roll.

Yeah, I totally lost track of time too.

No, I was watching, I thought, you know what, fuck it, man, let's just roll.

No, that's fine.

I'll just keep you longer.

Yeah.

One of my favorite, kind of a guilty pleasure that I overconsumed was Chilean sea bass.

Oh yeah.

Got a little expensive, got a little too often, but I mixed that in every once in a while. What are your favorite types of salmon to eat? I get that indulgence with the king salmon. I didn't even know, I just stuck with sockeye because I don't like the Atlantic one at all. And I don't do farm-raised, but man, they ran out of sockeye and they had a Copper River one once and then that king, and it is just, tastes like butter.

Yeah, I mean, generally, you know, the Copper River is known as the sort of the crème de la crème of salmon. So there's no doubt about it. I mean, I tend to do sockeye. I like the taste of sockeye, but I love king salmon too. I don't have too much of a preference there, but I do a lot of salmon.

Yeah.

A lot. Yeah, my girls love salmon. I mean, I would say it might be the most commonly consumed meat in our house, maybe even above chicken and beef. I mean, we eat a lot of salmon, but we cycle through all of them. We do a lot of different, but I, you know, growing up, my parents made salmon patties at least probably one night a week.

Really?

And so, you know, now they would use use, you know, they would get canned salmon, and it was probably pink salmon. They used, you know, eggs, saltine crackers, the classic saltine crackers. And my dad would chop up onions, and we would make these salmon patties, and I loved them. I loved them growing up. So now I make my own version, very similar. I get the wild, you know, sockeye salmon, and I will do eggs. And I get Mary's— I tend to use these Mary's Gone Crackers.

Yeah.

And I'll crush those up. And then, yeah, I do the pastured eggs, and I'll cook those up either usually olive oil or a coconut olive oil blend. And I love those, you know. I mean, I just, it reminds me of my childhood, but those are, I mean, you know, and that I used to teach, I used to go to Costco or Whole Foods and I would teach shopping classes to my patients. We would go up and down the aisles. And so I would recommend that as a recipe for a lot of the patients to try is that classic recipe.

What about, well, I wanna go to chicken and beef, 'cause I just wanna know what you have, you know? 'Cause I, on chicken, I will do occasionally like skinless thighs.

Yeah.

I don't care for breasts, 'cause I feel like they're so dry, but I like the chicken tenders.

Yeah.

And, you know, when I wanna go lower fat days, I just load up on those. So I wanna know which ones you prefer. And then also, if let's say you, 'cause, you know, we're grown men, I mean, I eat 12 to 16 ounces of chicken at a time, and it doesn't feel like much. Now I'll put avocado in there to fill me up more so that I have a fat in there with it. I kind of mix them together with veggies. But tell me the chicken you like, and then protein, like, absorption, or how we're able to process it. Is with 12 ounces of chicken, I mean, we're looking at 70-some grams of protein. Are we— is that too much at once?

Yeah. So when it comes to chicken, uh, we do, we do a lot of chicken thighs, and we'll throw those in a, uh, we throw in— we have an air fryer at home, and so we'll throw those in the air fryer sometimes, and that's and do it that way. I mean, I'll do breaded chicken at home, but we'll do like— I do a mix of— it's actually like, uh, this gluten-free flour with rice, and then, uh, I actually will sometimes do coconut shreds. It just depends on if we're making chicken Parmesan or something else. But yeah, but we'll make these chicken tenders at home. Um, I mean, that's probably the most often what we do. Or we'll do— or sometimes Chelsea does this shredded chicken into the Crock-Pot.

Mm-hmm.

And then we'll do those with with like, as tacos.

Yeah.

So that's probably how we do chicken the most. In terms of the protein digestion, here's— there's a really great PhD that I follow online. His name's Dr. William Wallace.

Yeah.

And he puts out a lot of good research on this, or posts the latest research and gives his— and just gives his viewpoints on that. And where you can eat 75 grams of protein, some of, not all of that will probably be used towards muscle building because your body couldn't absorb that much at one time. It's not to say it's not going to affect your metabolism and maybe be beneficial for some people, but overall, I mean, again, we know the absorption typically is probably somewhere between 25 and 45, you know, grams of protein likely is what somebody could absorb in one sitting.

Yeah.

So, so like, if you're trying to put on muscle, you'd be better off off eating 5 meals a day at, you know, 40 grams.

Yeah.

Than you would be 3 times a day at 70 grams each, probably, if you're trying to build. And we know this because, I mean, bodybuilders and people in health and fitness have done this for years.

Yeah.

So, so typically people are probably a little bit better off spreading it out, but some people don't want to. I mean, you know, it is a lot of work to spread it out. Now, and now I do want to say this, I don't think that all of a sudden at 35, grams, your body just cuts off and doesn't do any more.

Right, right.

So, I think there's probably some incremental absorption from that, the next 35, but the first 35 is really where the, the greatest amount I believe is happening.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

And I see, I don't know how much salmon you eat at once, but normally I do about 12 ounces, and you think again, it's like 70, 75 grams of protein.

You know, I'm probably doing more 6 to 8 ounces at a time, um, and I try and do, I probably do probably 4 meals a day. What I try and do is I try and do I do 40 grams of protein 4 times a day. That's sort of what I feel like my body does well with. I'll eat breakfast, I'll eat around my workout like a protein shake with, you know, fruit and things like that, or some oatmeal, and then I'll eat 2 other meals. But, I do about 40 grams. I'm just about a little over £170. And so, I do—

So, you're going right.

Probably 0.9. That's just what I feel like my body tolerates as well with.

Yeah, definitely. I used to do 1.5 and 2 when I was really training heavy.

Oh, yeah. do—

I don't know, I weigh 175 and I normally get about 230, right around there.

Yeah, yeah.

I go pretty heavy protein on mine. One more question for you. This is not diet related, this is foundational. Now, you know that I speak on mind, body, and God, and I put God as my foundation of all aspects of life, but especially when it comes to health, well-being, everything. Do you agree with that? And if so, how has God foundationally helped you to become the healthiest that you can be?

Yeah, well, I think that the most important thing for myself and for my family is, is putting God first and faith first. And because God created us, and we believe— I believe that we, that we were created to, uh, glorify God and enjoy him forever. And so with that, like, my entire purpose in my life comes from being a child of God, knowing I'm his child. I was created to live for eternity, and I'm called to be his hands and feet here and act like Jesus. That's about Serving others, it's loving others, it's discipling others to be more like Jesus, myself following Jesus so I can be more like him. So everything comes out of that. So, and this is why, if anyone's ever listened to my podcast, they'll hear me talk about God. Like, I have decided I'm not going to have like my God life, you know, my faith life over here, you know, on one side of the room, and my business life on another side of the room, and my family No, for me, it's all woven in together because I believe that if I were to help lead one person to Christ, and that's for them to become more like Christ and become more loving and generous in that relationship, that is a greater success than me, I don't know, winning an award or making $1 million, whatever it is.

Like, I think that that is a greater success of helping people both come into relationship with God and helping people live more in alignment with the way God created us to live. And so, I am, you know, that's, it really kind of penetrates and influences everything that I do. And when it comes to health, you know, again, I've worked with tens of thousands of people, working with them with chronic conditions, everything again, from cancer to autoimmune disease, to, you know, to children, to elderly. And, and I do believe that people's faith is one of the single greatest factors in their health. You know, uh, there are studies around community and connection, uh, and in terms of the importance there, but living not only with community and connection, but one with a purpose. When I think about longevity, there are studies showing that when somebody retires and doesn't have a purpose after retirement, uh, that their lifespan is cut short.

Mm-hmm.

There's studies showing if somebody doesn't have community, their lifespan is short. And, those are 2 of the greatest factors that cut people's life short. Well, now imagine you're part of a community that's purpose-driven for the most meaningful thing possible where you're going to live for eternity.

Yeah.

And so, I think it's incredibly important for health. I think it's incredibly— and outside of the relationship side of things, which is the cornerstone and most important thing, even Even following good daily habits and rituals that should be towards making you more like God and growing you closer to Jesus, you know, whether it be taking communion or reading scripture or confessing your sins or praising God and worshiping, you know, any of these daily rituals that are part of whether it's the Protestant Church or Catholic Church or Orthodox Church today, I think are so beneficial in healing. for, uh, for all of us, for our physical health, but more importantly, for our spiritual health. So, there's a lot more I could say there, but for me, you know, one of the things I— so, even when I— we take care of patients, we do, like, in our, in our physical clinic, like, we, we pray for patients and we do everything we can to support them in, in experiencing and facilitating spiritual healing that then impacts the physical body.

The richest I've ever been was when I became the richest in God and having Jesus in my heart. And, I will tell you, man, no matter what, it opens up the broadest spectrum of real reality of what life is and what we are intended to be. And, when I was able to find that and understand what God is love means that we were created to love and that that's where our hearts are.

Yeah.

For me, man, it's like the things that we do I feel are God's work, but the is just getting into someone's heart and putting him there, even if they're not with him, they don't believe in him, don't follow him, placing it there. So where you think about it and you feel it, and once they feel it, it's hard to say no. It is. And foundationally for me, and I know for you, that is the end-all be-all. That when I found that foundation, it's like I look in the mirror now and I feel good about myself because I know where my heart is. It doesn't belong to me anymore. anymore. Belongs to him.

That's great.

So, and, and you know what else? You know this, when you find him, he finds a way to bring you to other people that love him so that you can then give it to others. So one of the big things I want to thank you for is doing this with me and sharing that with everybody else. I will never ever back off. Just like you said, there is no split this with business and, and God on the side. That's who we are and that's what we share. And I'm just so proud and thankful to share it with somebody like you who's so strong and profound and speaks it and lives it. I see it in your family, I see it in your pictures, I see it in your posts, and I absolutely love it when I see it. I don't always comment, but I freaking love it. And, and I really appreciate you, my friend, very much.

Awesome. Well, Dylan, thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure coming on your show, so thanks so much.

Your book is coming out September 8th, correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so Heal Your Cells, we're going to link that in the description. Where else can everybody follow you?

Yeah, I would say my podcast, the Dr. Josh Ax Show, social media, just @DrJoshAxe. And, uh, yeah, again, it's a— it's, it's been an honor.

I love coming here. I hope to come back soon. Thank you for everything, the hospitality and the friendship. I, I appreciate it all, my friend.

Thanks, Dylan.

All right, everybody, that wraps up another one, so stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and Dr. Josh Jax signing off.