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

Think gluten is your enemy? The real culprit behind your sensitivity might shock you, and it’s hiding in almost every processed food labeled as “enriched” or “fortified.” In this unfiltered nutritional Q&A, Rose Ferguson and I answered questions on chronic disease, cognitive decline, metabolic dysfunction, gut-skin-brain connection, metal toxicity, and more! Join the Ultimate Human VIP community for Gary Brecka's proven wellness protocols!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Get Rose Ferguson’s book, “Juice+Nourish: Energize, Cleanse, and Find Your Glow with 100 Refreshing Juices and Smoothies“ here: http://bit.ly/47c4wV8 Listen to "The Wellness Breakdown" on all your favorite platforms! Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/4hy6iTW Connect with Rose Ferguson Website: http://bit.ly/3JfRuN9 YouTube: http://bit.ly/4hDx4dK Instagram: http://bit.ly/4hDx5yk TikTok: http://bit.ly/48KlURZ Facebook: http://bit.ly/48J0zZ8 LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/3J49VEv Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa EIGHT SLEEP: SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW MASA CHIPS: 20% OFF FIRST ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y VANDY: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: https://bit.ly/49Qr7WE AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S BIOPTIMIZERS: “ULTIMATE” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/4inFfd7 RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC TEST: ⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps 00:00 Intro of Show 03:11 What supplements are best for my teen at boarding school? 06:58 If I need 150g of protein, how much can come from shakes? 16:33 Can nutrition help reverse conditions like rosacea? 21:51 For vegans, what lesser-known things should we consider? 25:42 What nutrition supports people with ADHD best? 31:31 What does the MTHFR gene mutation mean for health and how does it affect folate processing? 38:31 Is hair loss or alopecia normal, and can exosomes or red light therapy help? 41:52 How can endurance athletes balance carbs, fasting, and health? 47:00 How can we affordably prevent or manage Alzheimer's? 55:49 Why avoid keto at night, and is iron safe if ferritin drops? 01:04:30 Can heavy metals be fully removed, and how long does it take? Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions. Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Gary Brecka?

  Welcome to the Nutritional Q and A. I'd love for you to introduce yourself. I'll introduce myself.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  My name is Rose Ferguson. I am a nutritionist and a functional medicine practitioner, but at heart, I'm a clinician.

• 0:10Gary Brecka?

  My absolute favorite thing to do is to interact with the audience. I'd love to open it up for some questions.

• 0:15Speaker 02

  You need to get 150 grams of protein. Do I have trouble with? Is it all right to supplement that with protein shakes?

• 0:23Speaker 01

  If you are going to use protein powder, make sure it's a really good one.

• 0:26Speaker 03

  I'd love to know your take on nutrition and how it reverts issues like rosacea.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Find the driver, what's driving it? Is it stress? Is it health?

• 0:35Gary Brecka?

  Hydrogen water, proper hydration, 91 essential minerals, and having good microbiome.

• 0:40Speaker 04

  My son is at boarding school. I don't have as much control over his nutrition as I'd like to. What are the things you would suggest?

• 0:47Gary Brecka?

  In terms of supplementation, you know, I'm not a big fan of supplementing for the sake of supplementing. I'm a huge fan of supplementing for deficiency.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  I also think a multimineral is really useful because if they are dodging the veg.

• 1:10Gary Brecka?

  Welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. This one is special recorded live from the Health Experience in London, UK with nutrition expert Rose Ferguson. We sat down for an incredible live Q and A session with the audience to talk about the truth behind modern diets, nutrition myths, and what it actually means to eat for health and longevity. Rose brings a wealth of experience from working with everyone, from everyday people to elite performers, and she has a refreshingly simple approach to food that cuts through all the noise. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by what you eat or how to start, this conversation will help you find clarity and confidence in your nutrition journey. Let's get into it with the amazing Rose Ferguson.

• 1:51Gary Brecka?

  Wow, I almost feel like I just should just stay in the seat. I see a lot of familiar faces, guys. Welcome to the Nutritional Q and A. I'd love for you to introduce yourself. I'll introduce myself. And then my favorite thing is we'll open it up for questions.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Okay, hi everyone. My name is Rose Ferguson. I am a nutritionist and a functional medicine practitioner. I have a master's in advanced nutrition and research and practice. I'm the founder of Our Health Club and the Five Day Plan, but at heart, I'm a clinician. That's what I do. It's the cornerstone of my work. I've been in this for a long time, so I've seen lots of changes, and it's a real pleasure to be here.

• 2:36Gary Brecka?

  Thank you so much. My name is Gary Brecka. I'm a human biologist, a researcher, a biohacker. I was a mortality expert for 22 years, which was a very, very dark part of my career. I see a lot of familiar faces, and my absolute favorite thing to do is to interact with the audience. So why don't we open? It's a nutritional Q and A. I'd love to open it up for some questions about nutrition. Yes, ma'am, in the back. Do we have a microphone? Or you can just scream and I'll repeat it.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Hi, I've got a son. Hi, my son is at boarding school. He's a teenager, and I don't have as much control over his nutrition as I'd like to. So what are the top five things you would suggest I should, you know, be giving him to supplement with?

• 3:25Gary Brecka?

  So in terms of supplementation, you know, I'm not a big fan of supplementing for the sake of supplementing. I'm a huge fan of supplementing for deficiency. You can do a genetic methylation test on him, and that will tell you exactly what his body is deficient in, what his body can and cannot methylate, what his body can and cannot break down. And then you can use what's called a methylated multivitamin. I'd really suggest you use mine, but you don't have to. But that is a game changer. And in terms of just basic nutrition, obviously, you know, the secret to longevity, and I absolutely want to hear your opinion on this, is eating whole foods.

• 4:07Gary Brecka?

  So teaching them the difference between what is a highly-processed food and what is a whole food. What's really interesting about processed foods, especially in young children, prepubescent teens and young children, is eating highly-processed foods not only changes your palate, it changes your desires. It, you know... Processed foods are meant to drive the addiction to processed foods. I mean, they are designed to be addictive. In the United States, 74% of our nutritional research is funded by Big Food and Big Pharma. We're in the process of getting that corruption out of our nutritional research. I chair Bobby Kennedy's Maha Action Committee, and our big focus is to actually stop that.

• 4:49Gary Brecka?

  But this is why we have a food pyramid that says that Lucky Charms is more nutritious than grass-fed steak. Does anybody believe that Lucky Charms is more nutritious than grass-fed steak? Well, that's... Oh, you do? Good. One honest person back there. I just had a bowl of Lucky Charms on the way here. But go ahead.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say, it's really difficult. I think also the other thing that I would say around children is relationship with food. You know, if you're looking at the long-term health of a child's relationship and the way that they eat, their relationship with food, which is absolutely skewed by UPFs, it's also making them comfortable to feed, because I see so much restriction going on. So that's what I've been thinking long-term. I also think a multimineral is really useful, because if they are dodging the veg in the canteen, then their mineral... I mean, vegetables are already reduced in mineral content, so I would definitely make... I would think about that, perhaps. And I would do... I wouldn't stress... I wouldn't, for you, I wouldn't be stressing about it. They'll be fine, they're really resilient.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  And I would hope that the school are feeding them their... I'd hope that they're making... taking time to feed them the best that they possibly can. And then, when you have your child back, then you can do what you can do. But I wouldn't stress that you only have so much control, and I wouldn't make it... I'd be, yeah, really looking after the... keeping it positive, I suppose.

• 6:10Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm. Canteen is such an English word.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Canteen. Well, you know, when you say canteen, you just imagine fish and chips.

• 6:18Gary Brecka?

  I've drank from a canteen. Well, and just for the record, in the States, a canteen is a little tin thing that you keep water in.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Canteen in this country, it just sums up ideas of plastic trays going along a line with sort of gray peas, some cold soggy chips, fries.

• 6:36Gary Brecka?

  Okay. We would call that a cafeteria.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, exactly. Cafeteria to everyone who's not British.

• 6:42Gary Brecka?

  Sure. Are there any other questions? Yes, sir.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  With my age and the amount of training that I do.

• 6:50Gary Brecka?

  You look really fit.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 6:53Gary Brecka?

  If you guys can't see him, he's very fit.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  I've looked in, researched in that I need to get a hundred and fifty grams of protein per day, which I have trouble with.

• 7:06Gary Brecka?

  Yes.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  So I'm wondering, is it all right to supplement that with protein shakes? And if so, how much would you suggest?

• 7:17Gary Brecka?

  To sound entirely self-serving, but I would supplement that protein equivalent with perfect amino. So for example, you can take a scoop of perfect amino or five perfect amino tablets. It is the equivalent of twenty-nine grams of whey protein. So you'd have to consume twenty-nine grams of whey protein to get a single serving of the amino acid equivalent you would get in a single serving of perfect amino. This won't break a fast, so it won't add to your caloric intake. And it's ninety-nine percent bioavailable. And you're highlighting a problem that a lot of people have. I spoke about this in my last talk, especially women, who have a very difficult time meeting their protein equivalent without going over their macros, the total amount of calories that they should consume in a day.

• 8:00Gary Brecka?

  Also, a lot of women have a hard time just eating that bulk of protein. So if I were you, I would take your protein deficiency, equate that to twenty-nine grams of whey, and use that as a measure of how many servings of perfect amino you should take every single day. It will be a game changer for you. I believe that if you're exercising in a fasted state, that you have to take something like a perfect amino before you exercise. Again, it won't add to your caloric intake, will not break your fast, but it will give you the amino acids that you need to keep from metabolizing lean muscle tissue.

• 8:38Gary Brecka?

  It doesn't matter how many times you take it during the day. You can take two or three servings in a day. It would be the equivalent of close to 90 grams of whey protein. So if you took 30, three servings in a day, even though you're getting no caloric impact, it would be the equivalent of taking in almost 90 grams of whey protein. So if you're trying to avoid the bulk, or you're eating in a narrow feeding window, or you have a difficult time meeting your protein equivalent, it's an excellent way to augment that. Because even if you're eating in a narrow feeding window, you're intermittent fasting, you can supplement with perfect aminos outside of that fasted window because it doesn't break a fast. Most of the time, we define breaking or not breaking a fast as whether or not the liver is involved in metabolizing compounds. So as soon as the liver is engaged, your fast is broken.

• 9:23Gary Brecka?

  And the reason why the liver's not engaged is because you're using all nine of the essential amino acids. If you don't have the essential amino acids, your liver can't make them. We can make all of the rest of the amino acids, the 22. The liver can actually take one amino acid and it can actually reformulate it into the non-essential amino acids. So your protein equivalent is really driving your need for essential amino acids, the ones that you need to get by food or supplementation. Of course, did you want to also answer that?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Well, no, I mean, I think people are always surprised that I think protein shakes or protein powders or essential aminos are a really good thing to include. Most people are too busy. You know, let's be realistic, who actually sits down and has eggs every morning, has time to make a steak at lunch, and then do some chicken for dinner? Not every, I don't have time to do that. And I think if you are going to use protein powder of any sort, make sure it's a really good one. But I do also think when it comes to protein, so I love, I think getting a variety of proteins. So using plant proteins, while they're not as bioavailable, they also come with fiber, and fiber is also really key. So just adding things in wherever you can, whether it's a few nuts here, or you know, you can just keep adding in, and that does nudge the numbers up.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  But as Gary said, if you're looking at your caloric intake, then that might nudge you over. But I would also argue that calorie intake, when it comes to nuts, a lot of it is not digestible. So, you know, people who get stressed looking at the caloric number on, you know, of nuts, the benefits from the fat and the protein and the fiber. Are absolutely outweigh the calorie count, you know, it's not like eating a Snickers. It's just not that. Snickers do have peanuts.

• 11:06Gary Brecka?

  The old...

• 11:11Gary Brecka?

  Peanut butter, peanuts are not nuts.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  No, they're legumes.

• 11:15Gary Brecka?

  Peanuts are legumes, they're seeds.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:16Gary Brecka?

  It's sad that they're called peanuts, because it sounds like they should be a nut.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:21Gary Brecka?

  But they're not, they're actually a legume, they're seeds. Peanuts also are one of the highest foods in mold and mycotoxins.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:30Gary Brecka?

  So, you know, if you can, I would actually just cut peanuts and peanut butter out of the diet. Nut butters are a much better way to go. You know, if you've ever actually cracked open a peanut shell, you know, and taken the peanuts out, and you feel that nice soft velvety surface on the inside, okay, that's a mycotoxin. And so, you know, ochratoxin A, aflatoxin A, aflatoxin B, some of the most aggressive mycotoxins that get into the human body, enter through peanuts. You know, we eat a lot of nuts in my house, and I made the mistake of actually storing them in these big tall glass containers, I would buy them in bulk. And, you know, it would take days, or sometimes even weeks, to eat my way down to the bottom of those.

• 12:11Gary Brecka?

  And I did a test called a vibrant wellness test, which is a urine test for mold, mycotoxins, and other things, and I was shocked at how diligent I am with my diet, that nearly the whole family had this very specific type of ochratoxin, ochratoxin A and aflatoxin. And I traced it to the peanuts, or to the stored nuts. And so now I buy them, still in bulk, but just not such a volume at a time. And I dry store them, and it's fine. But, you know, peanuts are just one of those things, they're legumes, they're seeds. They have very, very high lectins, which some people don't do very well with, they can destroy your gut.

• 12:53Gary Brecka?

  Lectins are things that actually have, they're almost like bacteria with little spines on them. And they cause micro fissures in the gut. Remember, there's only a single cell layer protecting your inside environment from your outside environment, one cell. One cell layer on the inside lining of your gut. It's very easy to disrupt that single cell layer and develop something called leaky gut. And peanuts are a large cost of that.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I have so much leaky gut in my clinic. I'd say that, you know, because it is, it's unbelievable. It's this single cell and, you know, you think how fragile that is and it's like alcohol, stress, low sleep, antibiotics, and then also, yeah, like mycotoxins, they all disrupt. And then the symptoms, I think most people, if you haven't done any work on your gut by the time you get into your 30s, 40s, you probably will be suffering with some sort of IBS, digestive symptoms, aching joints, fatigue, headache, skin issues.

• 13:47Gary Brecka?

  Autoimmune.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Autoimmune, exactly. So, you know, I think it's something that really, if you never have, you should start, you know, do some, do a bit of work on your gut. Give your gut some love.

• 13:56Gary Brecka?

  Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, we could go down, all down the gut microbiome and the gut pathway. But, you know, what's fascinating is, years ago, I read a book called, by Dr. Pearl Mutter. It was called Grain Brain. He wrote another one called Gut Brain Connection. And it really, really opened my eyes to the science between the connectivity between the gut and the brain, the gut and the skin, the gut and autoimmune conditions. I talked extensively about this in another one of my lectures, but, you know, 85% of all autoimmune disease, all, the entire category of autoimmune, whether it's multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's, Chagrin's, all of these autoimmune diseases that we believe are life sentences, right? Once you have the autoimmune, you have to subscribe to a lifetime

• 14:41Gary Brecka?

  of medication because there's nothing you can do about it. 85% of these are idiopathic. They are of unknown origin. And I don't believe that anything is idiopathic in the human body. We may not know the origin, but they're not idiopathic. And the vast majority of these, if you trace back to the first domino that fell, it had a gut-related issue, mainly related to leaky gut. You know, the things that are inside of the intestinal tract, inside the luminal area of your intestine, are external to your body. They're meant to be outside of the body. Yes, that tract runs through your body, but it's meant to keep things external from your internal environment.

• 15:24Gary Brecka?

  And so when that gets disrupted and it leaks, 70% of our immune system is sitting right here. Why is 70% of our immune system surrounding our gut? Because that's where all the action is. And when your immune system is in a low-grade fight for a prolonged period of time, it perverts. It perverts its function. It loses focus. And it leads to the genesis of so many autoimmune diseases, which is hard to even describe. Yeah. Yes, ma'am. If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need Perfect Amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, in a precise form and

• 16:05Gary Brecka?

  ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as weight, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation, and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need Perfect Amino. Now, let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. So my question, I spoke to Rose yesterday about this, but I'd love to know your take on nutrition and how it could perhaps reverse issues like rosacea.

• 16:45Gary Brecka?

  Great question. Do you want to take it first?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Well, we spoke about it yesterday. I was talking about low-grade inflammation and just that, you know, and I said to you, find the driver, what's driving it? Is it stress? Is it gut health? So, yeah, I think, so we talked about it yesterday. You want Gary's idea, don't you?

• 17:02Gary Brecka?

  I think so. I think rosacea, like so many other skin conditions, eczema, psoriasis, you know, it's interesting when you, when you start to look at the research on a lot of these conditions, you find very specific strains of gut bacteria are absent. So, for example, in more than 80% of the autistic population, there are two specific strains of gut bacteria that are absent in their gut. It's not 100% of the time, but it's very, very consistent, very high correlation between gut bacteria and autism, the actual makeup of the flora. And this is also true in eczema and psoriasis, because the skin is not just a barrier, it's also a gateway.

• 17:45Gary Brecka?

  You know, a really good rule of thumb is don't put it on your skin if you wouldn't eat it. It's hard to stick to that rule, but it's a good way for us to think about the kinds of things that we're applying to our skin. Rosacea in particular, which is microvascular circulation and subdermal layer of the skin, it has to do with something called vasomotor circulation. It has to do with the venules in the capillary. It's usually related to a lack of drainage, which means that it's not draining because it's inflamed. If you think that the vast majority of the vasculature in the human body is as small or smaller than a human hair, we've talked about this too. Seventy percent of your circulation is not done by your heart. The entirety of the circulation from the subdermal layer of your skin to the dermal

• 18:30Gary Brecka?

  layers that go all the way up and feed the dermal layer of the skin, which is right below the seven layers of dead skin, none of that has any pressure in it. So it is actually not done by our heart. It's done by this activity called vasomotor. So things like hydrogen water, proper hydration, all ninety-one of the essential minerals, and having a really, really good microbiome are excellent ways to address rosacea. And for that matter, eczema and psoriasis, these are internal issues manifesting in the skin.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Do you think hot and cold contrast therapy would be good?

• 19:09Gary Brecka?

  I think hot and cold contrast therapy is amazing, right? Because hot and cold contrast therapy, you know, vasodilates and vasoconstricts. You know, we don't think about exercising our vascular system, but the vast majority of our vascular system is muscular. So there's three types of muscle in the body, right? We have smooth muscle, we have skeletal muscle, we have cardiac muscle. Cardiac is only in the cardiac muscles, only in the heart. But smooth muscle is what lines sixty-three thousand miles of blood vessel in your body. And this is a three-layered tier of muscles that are crisscrossed over each other. They vasodilate and they vasoconstrict. If they couldn't vasodilate or vasoconstrict, you couldn't move blood around seventy percent of your body. I always liken this to a snake swallowing a mouse.

• 19:50Gary Brecka?

  And so anything that helps vasomotor circulation is going to be really, really good for your skin, including rosacea. So what are the things that help vasomotor circulation? Red light? Therapy, contrast therapy, hot and cold therapy, hydrogen gas, minerals, hydration. You know, so many of us are so chronically dehydrated that we've actually lost the sensation of thirst. So, the body has a really interesting way sometimes of signaling when it's in trouble. And one of the ways that it signals that it's in trouble is it stops signaling. Right? So, if you've ever known somebody who's about to have a heat stroke, they actually get cold to the touch and they stop sweating. If you've actually ever gone to a restaurant and you've gotten to the restaurant and you're

• 20:33Gary Brecka?

  voraciously hungry when you get there, so you order everything on the menu, and by the time the food comes out, you're not even hungry anymore. Like, how did that happen? Because when your blood sugar is falling, you get very hungry. Once your blood sugar has fallen, you are no longer hungry. So, the body has ways of protecting yourself. When we used to forage for food, if you couldn't find food, it would shut off the sensation for hunger. The same thing happens in chronic dehydration. You know, if you can go an entire day without your body reminding you to drink, that is a sign of chronic dehydration. I know so many people that can go a whole day, she's pointing at her girlfriend, she's like, "Right here."

• 21:09Speaker 01

  There is so many people like that.

• 21:10Gary Brecka?

  I was just telling her.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  They don't drink at all. And they're like, and you know why lots of them stop drinking is because they don't want to go to the loo.

• 21:17Gary Brecka?

  The loo?

• 21:18Speaker 01

  They don't, the loo, the toilet, the restroom.

• 21:21Gary Brecka?

  Is the loo near the canteen or is it like, on the opposite side of the canteen?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  I'm giving you like a whole, like this is the English colloquialism, the bathroom.

• 21:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, the bathroom, yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  The bathroom.

• 21:32Gary Brecka?

  By the way, when you guys do business deals here, it's called a scheme. We put people in prison for schemes in the United States. So, I'm just getting used to the whole English way of talking.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Is that what they say when you're doing a scheme?

• 21:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  I would take that as a scheme.

• 21:44Gary Brecka?

  Yes, ma'am.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Thank you. Hi. For people on a vegan diet, there's the obvious ones, the things to think about that people always talk about. Is there anything that both of you have that you would love to kind of put out there as things that I, we could be thinking about?

• 22:04Gary Brecka?

  Absolutely.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think if you are doing plant-based, also Mike, I've very rarely seen someone doing it well. If you're gonna be plant-based, you need to know what you're doing and it is all about preparation because if you, yeah, just to maintain those levels, it's particularly protein is particularly tricky sourcing it when we're talking about the provenance of where you're getting your nuts from, your legumes, your soy, you know, what are you eating to get that protein in? So I would just be really well read in how to do plant-based art properly. And the other thing I would be really, really, really, still well clear of is any of those processed plant foods with a green thing that look healthy, they are, I honestly feel like they're evil because they say they're really healthy and they are really, at least

• 22:49Speaker 01

  when you buy Haribo's, you know you're buying sweets or candy. See, I'm getting there.

• 22:54Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  But when you, when you buy, the plant-based world of processed ready meals is evil. You know, I honestly think that because it is pretending to be healthy and see, I start ranting about it. But I think if you're gonna be vegan, you really need to be very well prepared.

• 23:12Gary 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 in veganism, vegetarianism, I don't have any problem with either 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, you know, when you talk about veganism, you know, beer is vegan, so is wheat hops, barley, rye, vegan. So a lot of the most highly modified, genetically modified crops in the world and the highly,

• 23:57Gary Brecka?

  most highly sprayed crops in the world, glyphosate, periquat, pesticides, are sprayed on, I would say, vegan-friendly foods. So it's 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 modified these crops to make them resistant to glyphosate. All right, we didn't modify them to increase their nutritional density

• 24:41Gary Brecka?

  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 it's a very highly genetically modified and highly processed area of food production. So that would be another caution of mine.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  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? 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. So it's all about sourcing.

• 25:37Gary Brecka?

  Yes, Mia.

• 25:42Speaker 06

  I've been seeing quite a lot of research around like gluten in general and how regardless of whether you have an intolerance or not, it's bad for you and like bad for your digestion. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. And I'll just do a two and one. Also, any thoughts about kind of people with ADHD, kind of nutrition and the impact that can have?

• 26:03Gary Brecka?

  Oh, you just hit a sweet spot for me right there. You want to take that first with the gluten?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  You go for it.

• 26:11Gary 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, did we suddenly become allergic to a protein? Gluten's a protein. Did 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. And so, very often, gluten-laden foods are treated and sprayed with folic acid.

• 26:55Gary Brecka?

  They're fortified or enriched. Fortified or enriched foods are foods that are actually sprayed with the 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. 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.

• 27:39Gary Brecka?

  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 to gluten is profound. 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...

• 28:20Gary Brecka?

  You know, 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 gonna 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. It is 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.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, on the gluten front as well, because of the way it's even farmed, like, you know, dwarf wheat, it has, it's not the same gluten that we were eating. And also, 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."

• 29:24Gary Brecka?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  You know, burgers, crackers. The foodstuffs that you have 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 world, you're gonna feel better. 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, you know, the way that, you know, sourdough is fermented, so the bacteria do a bit of the work for you before it gets cooked. And so, yeah. And the other thing is that actually, in theory, everybody should be able to tolerate gluten.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  It's 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 cut, you know, 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, I, to be honest, I don't cut it, 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 yours, 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 actually a 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 modify 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 spend a lot of time blaming the butter for what the bread did.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Gary Brecka?

  Did you have a question right here in the middle? Yes, sir. Malia's getting her exercise today.

• 31:23Speaker 07

  Thank you. I've done your 10x gene test, actually, just last week. And, 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?

• 31:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, so, you're talking about the MTHFR.

• 31:49Speaker 07

  That's the one, yes.

• 31:50Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Facationally called the motherfucker gene. Can I say motherfucker from the stage?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  It was asking for it.

• 31:56Gary Brecka?

  We've said canteen, loo, and so we can say motherfucker. It stands for methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, just so you know. The MTHFR gene mutation is one of the most common gene mutations in the world. 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

• 32:39Gary Brecka?

  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. Supplementation with methylfolate or folic 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 USFDA actually just approved a prescription strength of folic 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

• 33:20Gary Brecka?

  to treat postpartum depression, which is caused by the folic acid that we give to pregnant women. So 90% of OB-GYNs, when a woman gets pregnant, will tell you, you need to take high doses of folic acid because that prevents neural tube defect. 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, by the way, postpartum depression onsets during pregnancy, not after pregnancy, even though it's called postpartum depression.

• 34:03Gary Brecka?

  And if you, 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. So why do so many pregnant women get postpartum depression? The vast majority of them have 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, HIIT's cardio exercisers, people that sweat a lot

• 34:47Gary Brecka?

  or exercise intensely. And 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. 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. 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.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I mean, I think if anyone, I think that's good. I mean, wouldn't, you know, without even testing, I would say you should always take a methylated.

• 35:32Gary Brecka?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I think you should always take.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  If anybody is taking B complex or a B nine, a B 12, I would always take a methylated version. Just so you'd eat, just in case you don't know, as Carrie said, it's really, how many, what's the percentage of people?

• 35:45Gary Brecka?

  Forty-six percent.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  You, you, you.

• 35:49Gary Brecka?

  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, um, folic acid. A lot of people have B 12 deficiencies, so we created a synthetic form of B 12 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 or your energy drinks around and they says cyanocobalamin, throw that in the trash. Right? Cyanocobalamin is a cyanide based form of B 12. Yes, we take hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen cyanide. We bind it to the cobalt metal, which is B 12. When you put that in the body, it's called cobalamin.

• 36:30Gary Brecka?

  Cyanocobalamin is cyanide and cobalt metal combined to make B 12, 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.

• 36:55Gary Brecka?

  Talks that I would do, stage talks that 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 if 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 that your body will do is cleave the hydrogen cyanide molecule off,

• 37:38Gary Brecka?

  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, it's not a vitamin, it's a light metal. 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 of the safe, and they leave. That's what we do. We invite these thieves into our body and they steal on the way out.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  That's a great, that's a good way of explaining it.

• 38:19Gary Brecka?

  It's a really nasty analogy.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 38:21Gary Brecka?

  But at least you won't eat cyanocobalamin anymore.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's genius.

• 38:25Gary Brecka?

  Yes, sir, all the way in the back.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Hi. My question is hair loss. A lot of lately, my clients complain about that, and also alopecia, and benefits of exosomes and red light therapy.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  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 gonna 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. What do you, 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. But 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 propecia 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, dihydrotestosterone, for the exchange of getting hair, because the byproduct of that is impotence and erectile dysfunction.

• 40:48Gary Brecka?

  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 sort of 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 instead of using propetia 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 finasteride, 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.

• 41:31Gary Brecka?

  There's all kinds of hormonal dysregulation that occurs when you take 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. You're welcome.

• 41:50Gary Brecka?

  Yes, sir.

• 41:54Speaker 07

  What's the difference in your recommendations for someone who wants longevity versus someone whose 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?

• 42:08Gary Brecka?

  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, 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. 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

• 42:50Gary Brecka?

  and running a 4440 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 you know, other kind of chemical compounds that give us a short term benefit, but for a long term consequence. So if your, if your focus is on longevity, and then I think that you should be exercising for longevity, lifting heavy weights, but not doing compound movements. 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.

• 43:33Gary Brecka?

  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. But I actually forgot your question, I'm just rambling.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  He's talking into you.

• 44:13Gary Brecka?

  Sorry, why don't you just answer it?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  You're just loving your family.

• 44:16Gary Brecka?

  What did he say, longevity? And then I started thinking of my wife and now I'm like, I'm all lost.

• 44:21Speaker 07

  Actually, when you, if you've got an endurance athlete, you need a lot of carbohydrates, like blockage your storage?

• 44:28Gary Brecka?

  Yes.

• 44:28Speaker 07

  And, but your program is more about fasting, it's more about, it's how do you get the correct amount of carbohydrates to be perform at a high level in endurance sports, but also do it in a way that's healthy and...

• 44:42Gary Brecka?

  That's a great question. So, you know, when you talk about endurance athletes, there's a, there's a difference, right? Because it's all about intake and utilization, right? So when, 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. You know, HIIT's 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.

• 45:24Gary Brecka?

  It is absolutely necessary for performance athletes to take in high doses of carbohydrates. It's very, very hard to be a ketogenic powered endurance athlete. It's virtually impossible. Lance Armstrong tried it for a while and it was a disaster. So in, in performance athletes, using high glycemic carbohydrates right prior to enduring performance, you know, is almost a must. But for the average, for most of us that are not endurance athletes, you know, if our intake exceeds our utilization, we have issues. 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.

• 46:09Gary Brecka?

  So you have less oxidative stress.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it is, it's really true. When you're doing endurance, you know, you have to refuel and, you know, you have to fuel 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 and they should balance.

• 46:26Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  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, if, 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. But I think for, for some people and at different periods of life, you know, endurance is easier to do. I'm sorry, we got you.

• 46:53Gary Brecka?

  Okay, we got a couple more minutes left. Let's get, yes ma'am, right here in the front.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 46:58Gary Brecka?

  You're welcome.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  My question was about Alzheimer's and dementia. So my mom's got Pick's disease and she's had it, she's still towards the end of her life, but going forward, I'm trying to, I'd like to know your thoughts about, you know, inheriting, inheriting this and how you can potentially prevent it or, you know.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Avoid it through diet.

• 47:23Gary Brecka?

  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. In fact, if you Google type 3 diabetes, you'll see that that is Alzheimer's. And the brain is crack addicted to insulin. 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.

• 48:03Gary Brecka?

  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 neuropsychiatric 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. And access can be restored. At no time is the hippocampus actually losing its memory. It's losing access.

• 48:47Gary Brecka?

  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 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 we went back and we had a drink at this place and we went back to the house?" And your mind is blown because for that moment, there's such clarity and such...

• 49:30Gary Brecka?

  Cognizance, it shows you that the memory is still there. The pathway to the memory is what we need to regain access. 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

• 50:12Gary Brecka?

  fasting, because that is what is going to extend the brain health and keep your cognitive function as long as possible. 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 our private podcast segment. So that world-renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge

• 50:56Gary Brecka?

  tailored to your specific situation. This section is under the private podcast section in the Ultimate Human community. And speaking of exclusive, you're getting my personal protocols, the exact tools I use for water fasting, gut optimization, and morning routines that have taken me decades to perfect. This isn't theory, this is what works in the real world. The community launches challenges throughout the year where you get direct access to me and my network of experts. It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than $100 a month. Your health is your wealth, and this investment pays dividends for life. Join the VIP community at theultimatehuman.com/vip and step into your ultimate potential. Now, let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  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, you won't need to graze. And the other thing that I would say is sleep, getting that glymphatic reset.

• 52:13Gary Brecka?

  No question.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  You know, so if sleep is really poor, you know, 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 at night, and we know what happened to Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher used to brag about only getting five hours of sleep at 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 going to be very controversial.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Okay, pretty.

• 52:47Gary Brecka?

  But I will tell you this, I am as resolute and certain of this from the big data and 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. 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.

• 53:34Gary Brecka?

  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. 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.

• 54:19Gary Brecka?

  The vast majority of the brain is made up of cholesterol. Cholesterol is manufactured by the liver. 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 gonna 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. Yes, ma'am.

• 55:05Gary Brecka?

  First of all, I love this audience, because I say really controversial stuff, and nobody gets up and walks out. I literally have doctors like, "Get up and walk out of my..."

• 55:12Speaker 01

  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, doesn't it, it's a very peculiar one. And I can, if that's not, you know, you know, that's what the data shows. And I'm not a physician either, but you go and have a look, and 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.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, that's...

• 55:43Gary Brecka?

  I'm just throwing that out there.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's possible.

• 55:46Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 03

  So you've mentioned yesterday that you don't prefer 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?

• 56:20Gary Brecka?

  So she has thyroid paroxys antibodies. She has the TPO antibodies. So, 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 they, 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, in the case of thyroid, thyroid has a special affinity for heavy metals, especially mercury. But also palladium, cadmium, nickel, boron, I mean cadmium, nickel and lead.

• 57:02Gary Brecka?

  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. 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, 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 went haywire 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,

• 57:45Gary Brecka?

  Graves' disease or Hashimoto's disease, because your immune system doesn't know the difference between friendly tissue and foreign tissue. 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.

• 58:05Gary Brecka?

  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 begin.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. That's what we see.

• 58:19Gary Brecka?

  Oh, and the keto diet, long term. So ketosis is very, very safe. Everybody in this room came into this world on a keto diet. The first 48 hours of, 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 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. 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.

• 59:04Gary Brecka?

  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 depleted water? You know, 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?

• 59:48Gary Brecka?

  You make water in the mitochondria the same way we make it in space. You take two oxygen, 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 in short term, 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. A keto diet is not a diet that you can date. You have to marry it.

• 1:00:32Gary Brecka?

  You cannot cheat on it.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's a

• 1:00:35Gary Brecka?

  To be in a committed relationship.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  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 is, 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 cogni-, I mean, it's very good for ADHD and things like that, but it is, it's hard to maintain it. And also, I would say, you know, I know that fiber and carbohydrate are essential for, but they're really, really important for the gut and our microbes. They're essential for the microbes. So, you know, I think, I think, I do know, and it comes back to really basic stuff of how do you want to live your life?

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  And do you want to be measuring and counting? And I think it's a really, I think it's an amazing tool to have in the toolbox if you need it. It is, isn't it? 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.

• 1:01:35Gary Brecka?

  My daughter's sitting right there. I'll never forget the day that 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 a 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 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

• 1:02:19Gary Brecka?

  that I'm going to put you on a high-fat diet to lower the fat in your blood." You know, like, what are you talking about? Makes no sense. You're gonna eat 75% of your calories from fat, and then all the fat is gonna go out of your blood. 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, to reduce inflammation, to lower triglycerides. But you do wanna start reintroducing carbohydrates, especially things like fermented vegetables and things which are really, really good for your gut.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  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. So 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 gonna 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 feel. You know, try it on, see if it works for you. And then perhaps bring it back, just so you have more 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 to, when you're on, have carbohydrate as a fuel source. So your sodium need quadruples. It 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 uptake your sodium, increase your sodium intake on a ketogenic diet. If not, you will get the keto flu.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so would that stop it, then, doing that? I didn't know that.

• 1:04:14Gary Brecka?

  Stops it, dead in its tracks.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so interesting.

• 1:04:16Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, you won't get the keto flu if you take the keto.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Okay, that's super.

• 1:04:18Gary Brecka?

  See? We learned something new today.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary, yay!

• 1:04:23Gary Brecka?

  So one more question, then we'll wrap up. Yes, ma'am?

• 1:04:28Gary Brecka?

  That's okay.

• 1:04:30Speaker 06

  What would be a good protocol to get rid of heavy metals? And how long we should follow that for?

• 1:04:37Gary Brecka?

  So, did you do my genetic test? Okay, so if you bought my genetic test, the only reason why I'm asking is if 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. 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.

• 1:05:21Speaker 06

  Thank you so much.