Longevity is easiest to misunderstand when it is treated as a race against time. This conversation with Dr. Josh Axe points toward a steadier frame: healthspan is built by the signals we repeat, the stress we recover from, and the evidence we are willing to respect.
Full transcript with timestamped links back to the original YouTube conversation.
Maybe fish oil is not all it's cracked up to be. I would say they now estimate like 90% of fish oil on the market's rancid and oxidized. What are some of your favorite seed oils and why are seed oils so important? Getting the right seeds, walnuts, pumpkin, sunflower, flax. In times when you need more omega6, also adding in evening primmers oil in a really pure source can be really helpful. One of my other favorites and I heard you once call this a natural ompic and it's walk us through what is and how does that work on the body? It's the molecule your gut was designed to make. The problem in today's world is that our guts are completely disrupted. Talk to me about the cell membrane. What is it? Why is it important? And and what are some things people need to do in order to start healing their cell membrane? So if you have low energy, it's not from lack of sleep or lack of nutrients. It's because your mitochondria is not functioning correctly. And we need to protect and make ourselves more resilient in today's world because disease and health issues and toxicities, they are directly impacting our cells and our cell membrane. If you had to give me your top five or seven or any number you want to pick of longevity foods or mitochondrial foods, what are some of your favorites? [Music] What if nature had an ompic? We're going to talk about that today. What if seed oils are actually good for you? And what if some fish oils are bad for you? Well, we're going to cover those topics and so many more on today's episode. We're going to cover a lot of different supplements and foods and detoxification
supplements and foods and detoxification protocols I've never talked about on the show today. And today, I've brought in one of the world's leading experts, Jess Kain B. She is the co-owner of Body Bio. And we're going to dive deep into all these topics and so much more on today's show. Jess, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Well, I'm excited to talk. I know that you have uh spent a lot of your career and not only your career like you you learned from your parents and your grandparents about cellular health and not a lot of people can say that they've been in an industry since birth. No, it's it's true and it's it's been like ingrained in my life since we were born. My grandfather was always the biohacker that was taking us out to a farm, taking us to get specific meats, taking us to find organic produce when we couldn't get it nearby. So he was always kind of weaving this through our life and this idea that food is nutrition and food is medicine was so important to us growing up. You know, I love it. You know, one of the things that I discovered when my mom had cancer and I spent just thousands and thousands of hours researching how to help my mom heal was I started getting turned on to something called Budwig protocol. The protocol. Yeah. And so with the Budwig protocol, as I was doing all this uh research and understanding the the mechanism by which it worked in the body, she believed that one of the keys to healing cancer was flooding the cell with oxygen. And in order to get oxygen in the cell, you had to repair the cell membrane. Yep. And this is something I've heard you talk about very frequently. In fact, you probably as much as anyone I've ever heard talk about health Yeah. has really focused on this one area of the cell, the cell membrane. Talk to me about the cell membrane. What is it? Why is it important and and what are some things people need to do in order to start healing their cell membranes? I think Joanna Budwig was an incredible researcher and her focus was really on the levels of omega6 and three and I think she'd be astonished at the way we treat seed oils. Now these are essential fatty acids that we need for our cells. I think where she missed the mark was actually what makes up our cell membrane or phospholipids. Essential fatty acids are part of it, but the predominant part of our cell membrane, which is a bipid layer that acts as this very delicate
layer that acts as this very delicate bubble, just like the bubbles that your kids blow, super delicate bubble that protects all of these organels within the cells like the nucleus and the mitochondria and the endopplasmic reticulum and all these things we we forget about from biology in high school. They're super critical and important. I mean, your mitochondria is literally your energy production. So if you have low energy, it's not from lack of sleep or lack of nutrients. It's because your mitochondria is not functioning correctly. And we need to protect and make ourselves more resilient in today's world because disease and health issues and toxicities, they are directly impacting our cells and our cell membrane. Yeah. Well, Janna Budwig actually did did one of the things that her theory was was you have to heal the cell membrane and that is due to both getting essential fatty acids and the phospholipids. And so her meal was this combination of And this is what my mom did every day. That's right. Uh yeah. Well, it was flax seed y with uh fermented pork. And cork is a type of highfat um fermented dairy almost like a cottage cheese meets a yogurt something like this is more more concerned in Europe. And so she believed that getting those fermented phosphoippids that you would find in the full fat raw organic dairy and combining those with the essential fatty acids you're going to find in the flax. And so what a lot of people don't realize, I know as you've taught people too over the years, is that like when people think about uh the essential parts of our body, there are essential fatty acids, there are essential amino acids, part of what makes up our cells are and it's a close combination of essential fatty acids and these phospholipids that actually again make up our cells and but there really are no essential carbohydrates, you know, and so now even though I do think we need carbohydrates uh to be our healthiest in the right proportions, but overall Paul, these things are so critical and one of the things that you've really focused on is making sure people are getting these things that are essential. Yes. In their diet. Walk me through what do you think some of the most essential things are in our diet that most people are missing today.
are missing today. I think we're really devoid of healthy fats and oils. I call them healthy fats, but really you and I know they're oils, right? They're they're things that are not solid at room temperature. Um, and I think that the war that we've taken on polyunsaturated fats is damaging our health because I think we need these essential fats. People are now afraid to eat raw seeds. I mean, raw seeds are critical. They're so important to our health because we don't make essential fatty acids in the body and phospholipids. You know, people have become they can't digest eggs. They're avoiding meats or they're eating only meats. And so we're going with these very kind of extreme versions, I think, because we have so much access to so much information these days. And often times that information is it may lead us down a path that may not be providing our body with the essential nutrients that they need. Well, you know, to your point, one of the things I hear people say a lot, and I try and always put a disclaimer with it is that, hey, stay away from seed oils. That's not true. Yeah. That's a false narrative. You want to stay away from highly processed, ultrarocessed seed oils. Exactly. But think about, you know, and I've studied a lot of ayurveetic medicine like they used a lot of sesame oil. Um, you know, you look at I mentioned the Budwig protocol, a cancer, one of the best cancer protocols out there. They're using flax seed oil. And so I think a lot of these oils and then I also think about medicine. One of the things they do for women's hormones is something called seed cycling. So there are certain seeds you consume like pumpkin seed uh to support. There you go. Progesterone, others for estrogen like flax. So what are some of your favorite seed oils and why are seed oils uh so important? Um, I I mean I am a true believer in if you look at the essential fatty acid pathway, the two mother essential fatty acids are linoleic acid, which you know you've got the war against right now and alpha linolenic acid and the downstream metabolites of those are EPA and DHA. It's very rare that you're going to get enough EPA and DHA from flax. So, that's when people start supplementing with fish oil. you supplement with too much fish oil, it's going to throw the whole pathway off. And so taking a a step back
pathway off. And so taking a a step back and just looking at it from the source of how do we get the right amount of linoleic, the right amount of alpha linolenic, and the right amount of fish oil from diet, I think is so critical. And getting the right seeds, walnuts, pumpkin, sunflower, flax. Um, in times when you need more omega-6, also adding in evening primrose oil in a really pure source can be really helpful on the and that's one of those progesterone boosters. Like I remember my wife Chelsea when she's getting close to giving birth with our last two kids. Uh, she started doing actually evening primrose oil or borage oil at the very end of of pregnancy. What why does that work? It helps to actually stimulate. I mean, our cell membranes and and particularly our very membrane rich liver are where hormones are produced. And so, we need these fats that are so critical to the cell membrane to produce those hormones to regulate those hormones. But, in particular, EPO will help induce uh labor. And so, it it really is a very powerful when used correctly, these nutrients are so powerful. And I think sometimes we just don't think of them that way. we we kind of throw supplements out or or maybe say like the food that I'm eating is so heavily processed that we've like become disillusioned and kind of separated from our food. And I think that's a really important thing is to bring it back and realize that these things are really building our body and our health when you put them in your body. Yeah. You know, I think for the the narrative around omega-3s, I I do think we need way more omega-3s. So, I so I do want to I want to throw that out there. But I think that somebody doesn't have to worry about eating a handful of you know put like this morning I was doing um I always try and eat based on my uh body constitution and so I do something in Chinese medicine where I look at the health of my tongue. I see an acupuncturist regularly as well look at blood work as well and so like I'm doing black sesame right now because it's really good for blood building. That's one thing I'm trying to do in the season. And um and so I just took a big tablespoon in this morning. I I also got hemp seeds. I've got flax seeds. I so I do a fair in pumpkin a lot
seeds. I so I do a fair in pumpkin a lot of pumpkin seeds and so I do quite a few seeds and um you know I I think one other sort of thing I wanted to mention again is is that I think so many people have just sort of moved away from nuts and seeds alto together yes due to the narrative around seed oils but again it's the processing that is damaging a lot of these essential fatty acids as you're talking about it is and I think we've we've covered you know a decent amount on essential fatty acids the other really integral part of the fos of the cell membrane is phosphoippids. So, two different things. The main sources of phosphoippids are eggs, meats, soy, clean soy. Um, uh, fish, some fish have it in them. Uh, salmon can be rich in it. Eggs are my like predominant recommendation. Egg yolks. This this kind of like let's eat the egg white. I love when I still see on on a menu an egg white. I'm what's the value in that? I mean, there's just barely any nutritional value. It's the yolks that you want to get. And my grandfather used to take the the Budwig protocol and he would do a raw cottage cheese probably because of this this dairy, mix in egg yolks, usually about six egg yolks, then he would put the flax seeds, the pumpkin seeds, whatever seeds he was taking at that time on top of it, and that was his breakfast every day. That was powerful. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. So amazing. You know, I uh one of one other thing I wrote that was really high in phospholippids, which is eaten a lot more in Japan and uh countries in the Pacific Islands, but it's fish row. So, caviar. Oh, yeah. Incredibly high. I think caviar is really powerful in that other than breast milk, it is the only naturally occurring source of specialized pro-resolving mediators. So, it's providing phospholipid form DHA and EPA. So your fish oil, but in the purest form, in a phospholipid form that's going to get through, that's what makes a liposome. So it's going to get through the bloodstream into your little cells to be really integrated into our cells. But it's also providing these very powerful anti-inflammatory molecules
powerful anti-inflammatory molecules called SPMs. And SPMs are fascinating because they regulate our immune response. And so it's getting in very deep to actually produce a healthy inflammation response in the body and act as like a natural anti-inflammatory. And so caviar is one of my favorite recommendations. Anytime you eat sushi, make sure you get some salmon row. I give it to my kids. We eat it in our house. It's so much better in my opinion than taking anything that's processed in terms of a fish oil. I think it's just a absolute power food. Yeah. You know, I uh I read a study and they were comparing uh fish oil to a another compound. And I believe it was fish row that's high in um well what's interesting is is fish oil is high in EPA DHA but fish row has EPA DHA and something called ETA a type of omega-3 and it was found to be more anti-inflammatory than EPA or DHA which is pretty profound and I think you know when you look at fish row it's such a delicacy it's it's fairly expensive but part of the reason is you know people would consume in this Japanese culture and Asian culture because it was just the most powerful healing food they could eat the most nutrient-dense food And often times we see some of these foods, whether it be an organ meat or something like fish row. And essentially it's like a vitamin. I mean it's these are incredible incredible superfoods. I I want to go over something that I think I've heard you mention before and that is maybe fish oil is not all it's cracked up to be. I think that we have uh separated ourselves right from that that food sourcing and and looking for an easier solution and the highly processed fish oils, you know, from being in manufacturing the the processing that things can go through. I would say they now estimate like 90% of fish oil on the market's rancid and oxidized. They're using heat extraction. They're using heavy solvents. They're using a lot of chemicals. And essential fatty acids are really delicate, which is why they're best coming from a whole food source or a source that's organic and carefully treated. And so I think
and carefully treated. And so I think it's really about the treatment of them that's so critically important. And that that's been my hot take on fish oil that I've really challenged people to say, you know, it's it's not this panacea that people think it is, what it's doing in our body because fish oil is great and I think it's really important, but let's a try to get it from the right sources and b let's also match it with the right essential fatty acid balance so we're not throwing the balance way off and making sure we're getting the other polyunsaturated fats that are really important. I I think there's a lot of wisdom there. Here's the way that I would put it. one, you know, I will say omega-3s still statistically when you look at all the studies, I mean, and and there are a few large just massive massive scale studies on fish oil. Almost probably there's more efficacy for fish oil than almost any other supplement. Yeah. In terms of it benefiting people. Um, so I do think fish oil is beneficial. However, I don't think it's near as beneficial as eating a salmon fillet. Yeah. And to your point, because of that, and I think for some some people, they're getting a benefit from fish oil just because they're so grossly inflamed and there's such a level of deficiency of the omega-3 fatty acids that even though they're getting an omega-3 that's missing some of the co-actors and is processed in a way, they're still getting a benefit just because there's just such a a gross imbalance in the American diet today. However, to your point, if you're eating wild sckeye salmon, you're getting it with these other phosphoippids, you're getting it with aazanthin, you're getting it in this sort of matrix of amino acid of protein. And we know that food functions together as a whole, not isolated typically. It needs to have these other co-actors for the body to utilize it at its greatest source. So, the best thing people could do is start eating more salmon, more mackerel, more sardines, more of these foods on a regular basis. And then if you are going to do a fish oil supplement, do something that's less processed. I actually tend to like a uh you know a very highend cod liver oil or something like that or buying fish row
something like that or buying fish row powder or something like that. So I do think that there are some brands and some things that are better than others, but I definitely think that there are to your point, we do this with a lot of things. I think that that getting the food is always better than the supplement. We love supplements. you should get supplements, but the food is always better. Or getting it in a a whole food form. Like I've talked about this a lot with vitamins and supplements. It's like there's so many synthetic vitamins out there. If you're going to take a multi, take one that has uh that's taken from food and has other food in it. And I know this has been a big focus of your your career as well is helping people get supplements that are more in a food form, bioavailable, right? What are the supplements? And and I always focus much more as we discuss on cellular health. That's where we are building that resilience. And so you'll often hear me talking about how the world that we live in today is affecting our cells. I think the we get away when we have the conversation about, you know, toxins and cellular health. The the bigger picture and the more important thing is how do we make ourselves more resilient? And you can do that through specific foods. You can do that through specific supplementation these days. and you can make yourself stronger so that you produce hormones better, you age better, you live healthier, and you feel really good. And I think that's that's critically important. It's a foundational aspect that we are not talking about enough. And so that's why I focus so much on it. Wow. One of the things I read about in your story is you got put on birth control really early on in life and that really had a negative impact on your health. You know, it astonished me. I So I recently did my my first mammogram and that's you know, you have a whole other conversation about mammograms. I'm not sure it's it's for me. I also have tried thermography which I really liked. I tried this new new scan where they were using water um that I thought was fascinating but it it caused me to pause. So the the nurse said to me, "Have you ever been on birth control before this is before the mammogram and uh I said yes, I was on birth control for a few years when I was 16. Uh to regulate my periods. I love that they put you on it to regulate your periods, not what's the root cause of the dysregulation of your period. Um
of the dysregulation of your period. Um and I said why? And she said, "Well, because it's a carcinogen." And I I just stopped myself and I said, you know, I I don't think I want to do this. I'm I'm not going to to do this procedure. And I walked out and I I realized, you know, it's it's a crazy world that we're living in that we're putting kids on birth control to regulate periods or help with acne. And it caused this slew of issues for me from depressive symptoms and anxieties, different health issues. I ultimately went off of it quite quickly. But how many women do you know that go through the cycle of trying the dip or pvera shot, the injection of something, the IUD that is disrupting pathways when really we could be looking at natural cycles, seed cycling, getting to the root cause of why these children's hormones are disrupted in the first place, looking at their cellular health as like seeing how their diet is. And so these kids, I think, you know, I feel quite passionate. I have a daughter who's 6 years old and it's it's a scary world and I think it caused me ultimately to downstream have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Yeah. Um I think it caused a lot of issues within insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. Um these are things that I fix fixed through food and supplementation and just changing my habits. But I I was fairly lucky at 30 years old to be told, okay, you have PCOS, you have insulin resistance, you're going to have diabetes in about 5 years. I walked out of the office, I called my grandfather and I said, "Okay, I got to change some things." Like, my 20s are done. I now need to fix some things. Within three months, I was pregnant with my first baby. Wow. So, I think that sometimes we we wear these labels and we think that this is what we have. And I just always want to encourage women go deeper. Go deeper than that diagnosis and see what's causing it in the first place. That's so good. Yeah. I I I've spent a lot of time researching birth control. I'm probably one of the most outspoken people against the damaging effects. You know, one thing they don't put on the the labels here is the nutritional deficiencies. B vitamins, right? There you go. Big time. I mean, almost every B vitamin your body's deficient in
every B vitamin your body's deficient in selenium, zinc, and if you think about the B vitamins and the selenium, that that is a major driver for hypothyroidism. So, there's so many women taking uh birth control in their teens and early 20s, then they end up with hypothyroidism and PCOS. two of the single biggest I mean you know when I was coming out of school they didn't tell me oh every woman you see is going to have hypothyroidism and PCOS but I mean the amount of women the the numbers are just staggering and this is leading to more and more infertility issues today and as you point insulin resistance pre-diabetes weight gain all those issues and even hypothyroidism I mean that's that's something I've now struggled with and I have a hereditary disposition towards it you know I think we all have this kind of Achilles heel And and that's our our weakness. That's our health weakness. And often times things get triggered at the cell cellular level. When this bad stuff and the bad diets and the processed foods and all these these things are breaking down our cell membrane, the bad stuff's getting into our cells. It's altering our epigenetics. It's changing our bodies to maybe be impacted by that Achilles heel earlier than others. And so in my 30s I also struggled with with hypothyroidism and and looking at you know TPO antibodies and why are they increasing and inflammation levels and all these things and it's been a fascinating learning experience. Yeah. The MTHFR sort of mutate uh variant I think that part of what pushed people up genetically into experiencing those issues h has to do with birth control. think it's it's really kind of like sh I mean literally just forcing women into that issue and then again all the conditions we talked about are part of that and I do think methylated B vitamins are great. I think that that women can really benefit from those but to your point as well I think that there are so many other things they need to do. One of the biggest areas I think women are and men are deficient in due to today's environment is uh good probiotics. I mean good bacteria in the gut. You know, there's a Stanford study that said that
there's a Stanford study that said that if you supplement with probiotics, your absorption of B vitamins doubles of what they actually find in your bloodstream. Yeah. So, I think that's another issue is the absorption issues. I think there's absorption of the gut microbiome. I think there's an absorption issue of what you talked about in terms get in your blood, but they're not getting actually into the cell. And that's something I know the cell membrane is so important for is sort of helping bring things in the cell. And for everybody who's listening here, you know, the cell membrane, you want it to be um elastic. You want it to be and what happens is a lot fluid and a lot of times it's becoming hardened. What are some of the biggest things today that are harden hardening our cell membranes that are sort of keeping those toxins in and and not allowing oxygen and nutrients to get in? Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right? Well, get my at-ome testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health adviserss to help you understand your results. The truth is, your doctor's probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. This new testing flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. I'm currently offering a simple at-ome blood test that actually tests for the right things. And just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of your results. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to my bloodwork. com. Now, oxidized polyunsaturated fats, so rancid seed oils. Uh, so definitely avoid those. the the form that you would find in, you know, a Kentucky fried chicken fryer. Yeah. Uh on your shelf, the canola oil, don't use that in your home. Cook with with good quality seed oils. Try to avoid it as much as possible. So, I think eating the right essential fatty acids, balancing it with avoiding uh toxic seed oils and processed processed oils, uh
oils and processed processed oils, uh glyphosates, herbicides, pesticides, uh that are disrupting our cell membrane. They're disrupting our our gut microbiome as well. They're disrupting the beneficial bacteria that should be in our gut that we are no longer uh experiencing in a similar way to antibiotics. Many drugs can actually damage the cell membrane and induce mitochondrial dysfunction. And then toxins, heavy metals, chemical exposures, the hundreds of thousands of chemicals that have been exposed that we learn 50 years later that it's doing X, Y, and Z and it's removed from the market. But so many of these chemicals have just been introduced and they are wreaking havoc on our cell membrane and our cells. Yeah. And what this is causing for a lot of people is again when you your cell membrane it's the gatekeeper. It's letting things in, it's letting things out. If that's damaged again your cells become toxic and also deficient because you're not getting those nutrients, those vital nutrients you need in and I again I think for everyone listening there are it's not always we've heard the principle you are what you eat. In reality you are what you absorb, right? are you absorbing what your what is going into your body? We see this with hormones, hormone panels. It's like, okay, uh there are a lot of women who get blood work done and their doctor comes back and said, "Hey, your blood work's fine. You're within range." But women still don't feel right. And I think part of it even has to do with modern day blood work of not actually being able to look at maybe what's inside the cell versus what's outside the cell. What's happening there in terms of overall overall health. One blood work panel I love to do is um I I do want to also sometimes test for mitochondrial health. Which one do you do? Um it is called true health. It's more of a it's a lot of different markers. So I mean part of the way we look at mitochondrial health is a number of things. There's um like a pyrovate test. There's homocyine. There's a number of things that are kind of looking at um what constitutes that. And then NAD + that's another important one. This is one I've I've heard you talk about quite frequently is is the benefits of
frequently is is the benefits of um NAD +. I have a pretty hot take on NAD because I think if you start it without actually taking care of cellular resilience and cell membrane health, it's useless. So I think you're you're kind of putting a steamroller into the mitochondria and you're like making the mitochondria do something that it's not almost ready to do because the mitochondrial membrane's disrupted, the cell membranes disrupted. It's a very large molecule. So having it even taken up into the cell requires a healthy cell membrane. And so I think it's really critical to make sure you and it's hard to test. You can't test for healthy cell membranes. It's difficult. Yeah. Um and it's expensive and it's labor intensive. You need very specific labs that are looking at cell membrane markers. Um it's getting better. I'm hoping to improve that over time. But one thing that's really important is just to make sure that you you have the right cellular resilience before doing NAD, particularly the IVs. People are getting nauseous, very nauseous and not feeling well when they get these NAD plus IVs. And I think part of it is, and here's how I put it. By the way, I experienced this myself. I I started taking a I took NMN early on and didn't really know I noticed an improvement, by the way. I mean, that was probably one area. And this I think I took I had a spinal infection, didn't walk for a year. This was a couple years ago. And I had to get on IV antibiotics for about four weeks. And um and as I started learning, probably the biggest area of damage with an IV is you think antibiotic, oh that's going to damage the gut, but if it's in an IV, the biggest thing it damages is your mitochondria. Yeah. And so I started doing everything I could to support mitochondria health. And NMN was something uh which is an NA part of the NAD + family that I noticed an improvement with. Uh and then I got turned on to and started taking something called um NR. Um, and the NR I noticed an improvement with, but I started feeling nauseous when taking it. And part of it was I was taking it twice a day. I was taking a ultra like a very high dose. Yeah. And the way that I would describe what I felt was I felt wired but tired.
wired but tired. And I would describe like if I took my phone here and if I put like a computer charger in it rather than a phone charger, it was like it was almost like I was getting so much energy that it was overriding my circuits. And then all I did was I cut my dose way down, 150 milligrams. And then I'm like, "Oh, now I feel really good." But 450 or 500, I felt terrible. But when I lowered the dose, all of a sudden I was like, "Wow, now I feel feel great." And I would argue it was too much for your system. Your mitochondrial membranes were damaged, which happens through those IVs. Your cell membranes damaged, and you're flooding that cell and those mitochondria with all of this NR, NMN, NAD that it's converted to, and they can't keep up with it. And so you felt that like frantic frantic some people might feel anxiety when I've done an NADIV the long one that takes you know the five hours to do. Um you feel I felt it like cardiovascular. Oh yeah a lot of people and that that affected me. I was actually doing it for bofilm reduction in the gut. So there's some research about using NADIVs and and reducing biofilms. And so that's why I was actually doing it. And I think sometimes it's great as part of a detox protocol. You might feel uncomfortable for a short time. And I' I've I've experienced the same thing. I've not felt this myself, but I do know when these methylated B vitamins, people started taking those, if people are taking too high a dose or somebody has a a lot of mitochondrial damage, they'll feel the same thing. They'll feel that wired but tired, maybe a very very low-grade nauseousness there as well. Yeah. But that's that's a very similar thing. Your cells cannot handle your mitochondria, the amount of energy you're trying to pump into them at one time. Yeah, it's true. And this is why, you know, I'm a big fan of organ meats and glandulars, getting liver and a lot of these things in the diet. One, you know, if somebody would have gone into a medicine cabinet uh a thousand years ago, they would have found things like herbs and mushrooms and glandulars. I mean, they've been used since the beginning of history. And you're not getting necessarily mega doses, but you are getting not only the B vitamins, but
are getting not only the B vitamins, but all the co-actors and choline. And some of them have small amounts of those f phosphoippids that are great for the body. So, I'm a big fan of those as well. What are some of your if you had to give me your top five or seven or any number you want to pick of longevity foods or mitochondrial foods? What are some of your favorites? eggs, steak, you know, organ meats, um raw dairy. Um is probably a contentious one, but it works for for me, it works for my family. Yeah. Um salmon row, uh not necessarily salmon row, any fish row, clean fish row. Yeah. Um I think is a superfood. Um and I'd probably say those nuts. Those raw were all nuts. Yeah. And I think you have to make sure you're able to digest them. For the people who eat an egg and they can't digest, work on your gallbladder. Get to the root cause of why that's happening in the first place. How's your liver detoxification? How are your bilelow pathways? And so I think that's a really important part that needs to be a part because I'm talking high fat, high protein products, those are the longevity foods that I focused on. But for a long time after my third baby, I actually couldn't digest those fats very well. Yeah. I I this is such an important discussion and this is something that I frequently talk about is just the importance of personalized nutrition because everybody is different and sometimes at different life stages you might digest something well versus not. I think a lot of it has to do with the emotions you're experiencing. Different emotions tax different organ systems. So if you are worrying a lot and then that's going to stress the stomach, well then foods that your stomach is primarily having to digest, that's going to stress that. or if you're living with frustration, impatience, anger, that's going to affect the gallbladder. So, you're going to need some help there. Um, and of and there's of course there's genetic components. There's other things that sort of all tie into this idea of personalized nutrition. One of the things that I love that I've seen you recommend very frequently for people
you recommend very frequently for people with the who aren't absorbing fat soluble vitamins well to your point in different types of fatty acids is tudka. Yeah. So so talk to us about what tutka this is something by the way I'm excited I see it growing in popularity. I love it. This was used in Chinese medicine thousands of years ago but it was actually a very rare supplement because of where it comes from. But talk to us about Tutka. Yeah. Hundreds of years ago in Chinese medicine, it actually came from bear or bull bile. Yeah. And so it's a true glandular. You know, it's it's extracting something from that animal and using it for medicinal purposes. And so it would have been used rampantly that way. Now we make it synthetically, which often times we say we don't want synthetic things. In this case, we do. And it is very effective and powerful when it's synthetically made because we don't want to hurt animals in the process of of extracting this. Super powerful. It works to improve bile flow. It's a bile acid that is so critically important. And I think in today's world and we we think about like detoxification, we think binders, we think detox protocols, fasting, you know, removing these things from the body and bile acids are also removed when you use things like binders and in different detoxification protocols. Bile acids are really critically important to make sure your liver is processing fats correctly. And so we like to add more in. And I talk about this a lot in different protocols for detoxification because it really helps the liver to process better and it helps with gallbladder health, which is where your bile is stored and flowing through. And so, you know, particularly for people who have had their gallbladder removed or had gallbladder issues, it's critically important. I like to also mix it with oxile. Oxbile is a product that many different companies make and I think they have different uses. There are different forms of bile acids that are needed. And so for people who don't have a gallbladder, they often times also need oxile. Now what would you say in terms of when would you recommend TUDKA versus when you would recommend Oxbile? Yeah. So, TUDKA has a lot of like neuro neurodeenerative benefits. Um, it works
neurodeenerative benefits. Um, it works on the cellular level by being what's called a chemical chaperone. So, it'll actually help to go and break down toxins and remove them from the body. Um, and so I like to use TUDKA as part of detoxification protocols or many physicians are using it as part of neuro neuro issues. So if they are dealing with a neurodeenerative disease, they might be using TEDka. It was actually being researched as a drug um particularly for ALS. I think they abandoned uh the actual drug trial in like phase three or four that they got to. Um I don't know if I agreed with the way that they put it together, but I think it it can be very beneficial when used in for neurodeenerative benefits. And then oxile is more of your everyday if you have gallbladder issues. more of the one that you're going to use. Uh particularly I I like ones that are mixed with digestive enzyme, pancreatic enzymes like pancreatin that are going to help break down those fats and fat absorption. That's great. You know, I have recommended Toddka and Oxile for pretty much every patient with their gallbladder being removed or gallbladder issues. Every single person on a ketogenic diet should be doing Oxile and Toddka%. And then anybody just dealing with uh when I do blood work, if we see low poor fat absorption, like low vitamin D levels, because I I just had a patient like this last week, their vitamin D they when they came in was like 10 and it was creeping up, but it still wasn't as high even after getting taking a vitamin D supplement, spending time in the sun because their absorption was so poor. And so Toddka Noxile, that's going to help with the breakdown, the absorption and support vitamin D. So again, I think a lot of times to that point, and this is something I know that you've really been outspoken about, is that it's not just about taking this a supplement or eating a food, it's about how well you're absorbing it in through your gut microbiome and then in through your cells. It's just critically important. And so I I love that you've been outspoken about that. By the way, Toddka, one other unique thing about it is the T at the beginning of a part of that is torine. And this is an amazing amino that so
And this is an amazing amino that so that that people can really benefit from. Yes. From from energy production. It's naturally found in the heart. So, it has that heart and nervous system benefits. So, I Anyways, I'm a big fan of Toddka. It's one I take it a lot. Anytime I'm eating a meal that has higher fat. Me, too. I I'm taking a Tedco Spile supplement. Yum. You've done a great job with so many other products you've helped get on the market. One of my other favorites, and I heard you once call this a natural ompic, and it's butyrate or butyric acid. walk us through what is butyrate and how does that work on the body? Butyrate is fascinating. It's the molecule your gut was designed to make. The problem in today's world is that our guts are completely disrupted. Yeah. Butyrate is a postbiotic. It's the byproduct. It's the end product when you're feeding the gut the right prebiotics and your gut has the right probiotics and keystone strains of those probiotics. And so oftentimes after antibiotic use, after um you know glyphosate exposures, which even if you do everything you can to eat organic, you are still going to have herbicide and pesticide exposures. Well, I read a recent study that said 99% of us have it in our blood or urine. I mean, very high a lot of these chemicals. And think about our children being born with that exposure because the the parents have it, the mother has that exposure. The children are now being born with higher exposures. And we're seeing it even in in cord blood. I mean, they're seeing it in the stem cells as well. Um, so we have this this kind of disruption happening to our microbiome. And we are seeing less butyrate production than ever before. And butyrate is an awesome molecule for regulating immune function, metabolism, blood sugar regulation, increasing GLP-1 production naturally in the gut instead of just throwing it exogenously into the gut. And I think that in general it seems to help people with surface level. It's helping with bloating and regularity and blood sugar regulation. If you're wearing a CGM, you'll see that. But in general, many people need this short - chain fatty acid because we're actually not producing enough in our guts anymore.
our guts anymore. Yeah. I know in ayurveetic medicine, they had this uh many many of you have heard of it, clarified butter ghee, and that today that's probably the highest source you're going to find of naturally occurring butyricaryric acid. But it's great to take as a supplement, I think, for those that are deficient in it. And I think if you're a person who's dealing with chronic constipation, GI issues, it's something to look for. And there are there's some good blood work. I know that we've done different types of gut panels looking for it. And and many people are deficient. Probably over half have some level of butyric acid deficiency. Yeah. And it's I what I'm seeing now are incredible studies on the role of that butyrate as a molecule plays in cardiovascular health, in mental illness, in mental health. that gutbrain axis is so critically important and it's it's really an amazing molecule that helps to decrease the inflammation response and regulate the inflammation response in the gut which is so critically important with so many GI disorders we're seeing today. Yeah. If you're constantly tired, gaining weight for no reason, or feeling mentally foggy, these could be signs of a thyroid issue like hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's. The good news is there are natural ways to support your thyroid through the right foods, herbs, nutrients, and daily habits. And if you or someone you love is struggling with thyroid problems, I've created a free resource just for you. You can head on over to draxe thyroidclass. com to discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally. That's draxe thyroidclass. com. Your journey to better energy, focus, and healing starts now. You know, we talked a fair amount about pesticides and glyphosate, how damaging these are to the body. We have so many toxins that we are exposed to on a regular basis that we're finding in the bloodstream, in the gut microbiome. And so, one of the steps that I've encouraged people with in healing is, you know, detoxification. You know, I I believe that people need to focus on detoxification,
detoxification, restoring cellular nutrients, and cellular energy. I think those are three of the most critical things people can do. And I know these are things that you've felt strongly about as well. Let's talk a little bit more about doc detoxification. We talked about the importance of things like uh bile. That's an important detoxifier. There's a lot of herbs that can support different liver pathways. We talked about B vitamins. We can touch about on some of these more in a minute, too. But I want to take talk about binders for a minute. What are your beliefs about binders? Are there any you really like? Any you are kind of on the borderline of any you're like do not take that or it's overused? I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on binders when it comes to detoxification. I prefer naturally occurring binders, those like chlorella, apple pectin, modified citrus pectin. I like those when used sparingly. I think that we have seen with the rise of social media a lot of practitioners that do not approach detoxification in the way that you are. Supporting the cell nutrients, supporting cellular energy. What we're seeing is this mass removal, bind and remove fast the body and detox it. This just causes more circulating toxins. Yes. And even if you're sweating and you're having regular bowel movements and you're trying to get these things out of the body, they're not often able to. And so we often see when people start these binders, they don't feel well. And particularly for those who are really chronically ill, they feel 10 times worse. Yeah. And I think the problem with most binders on the market is that they are going in and binding to the very things that your cells need to heal and restore and provide cellular resilience. these bile acids, the phospholipids. One binder that's used tremendously in mold toxicity, choleistyramine, directly binds to your membrane phosphoipids and removes them from the body. We're breaking down the protective measures that our cells need in order to heal and detoxify properly. Let me tell you my biggest problem with my the binder that I have the biggest
my the binder that I have the biggest problem with. Yeah. And it's overuse. It's definitely activated charcoal. Yeah. By far. Now, here's the thing. I have people, patients, if they're going through having their silver fillings removed, oh yeah, I have them do activated charcoal. If they have a major major mold issue and we need to do a short-term detoxification protocol, I have them do activated charcoal. But there are so many people today or of course there's things like food poisoning, alcohol poisoning. I mean, take activated charcoal. But to your point, they bind to every mineral. They bind to phosphoippids as well. They cause constipation. So So they really sort of halt your detoxification in a way, especially if you overdo it. So listen, do not take activated charcoal unless you're doing a short-term detoxification that is for something really serious. There are so many binders that are way better, more natural. And to your point, two of my favorite binders, chlorella, and I love pectin. Yeah. Love pectin. And there's studies on on especially citrus pectin for anti-cancer, apple pectin for health of of uh bowel movements and for the gut microbiome. So those probably are my two favorites that I just absolutely love. Now I know you have said you're not as a big a fan of humic fulvic and maybe shellagit as others and I I'd love to hear why and and understand why. It's one that I I like in certain instances when mixed with highdose probiotics, but would love to hear kind of from your take on maybe why you like or don't like that and any other binders too. I don't know if what your thoughts are on zeolytes or others on on maybe the benefits there. I think a lot of these things like zeelites because you'll you'll get into a war with people over using zeelite with children and um I encourage them to look into those companies that have created those zeolytes and and kind of the the structure of those companies and the multi-level marketing that is being done uh to convince people that these things are needed for our children. When you use that zeolyte, those toxins are still just circulating in the body. They're not actually being removed from our children. And so I I feel very
children. And so I I feel very passionately about giving kids healthy nutrients and healthy fats to grab onto those fats soluble toxins and remove them through bowel movements or through sweat, through movement, through fascia movement. Um and so I I really like to approach it from there. Humic and fulvic I have a mixed feeling towards mainly because I think if you're looking at like a really pure high quality chilit, you're getting good minerals and vitamins with that. the processing of the humic and fulvic plants. I think there's there's pretty much like three main locations where they're being processed. This is heav heavy chemically treated heavy processing that's going on in order to make these supplements that you now see everywhere in so many different supplements. Yeah. And I just think it's this it's the same thing as the fish oil conversation, right? It's in a few years we're going to look back and see how like maybe this isn't providing the nutrients to the body that it it's claiming to. And I just don't think the research is there for it. Yeah. One of my experiences has been we actually found a really good source of humic and fulvic and shellaget that are like from the earth. And so and I I wrote a book years ago. It's called eat dirt. And part of the idea there was we're finding certain things in the soil that we need specifically types of microbes. And I think predominantly the greatest benefit is when it's done locally. You're going to your local farmers market. You're getting those little brown specks on the carrots, right? And and you're being exposed. And of course honey, that's a whole another conversation. The amazing benefits there. But I I do think there are some benefits as uh I do think there's some benefits there when when done with well it's like any supplement. I mean my my belief about supplements is is the majority of them are mediocre at best and not helping you know and some are even harmful. I mean there's studies on calcium carbonate like isolated calcium and it greatly increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke because think about this if you take an isolated calcium supplement and calcium isn't absorbed well calcium has to have magnesium and phosphorus and boron and vitamin D and
phosphorus and boron and vitamin D and all these things for proper absorption. And so if it's not absorbed, it stays in your bloodstream. It actually causes calcification, the hardening of your arteries, hardening of your cell membranes. And it's it's very harmful. And so this is why my entire career, my one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin, felt so strongly about this as well. If you're taking supplements, make them food based supplements and do everything you can to get things that are actual food. When I think about the supplements I take, they're mostly foods. Like this morning when I woke up, I took a multi-glanular. I took, you know, liver, heart, kidney, adrenal. Um, I took turmeric. I took phosidylcholine, uh, which was in a, you know, this phospholipid supplement. I did, uh, a protein powder that was made just from bone broth that you make at home that's dehydrated. Um, I took a superfood powder. It was beet juice powder and and chlorella and spirulina. My point is is that like when you and I are taking supplements today, most of them are actually food. Yeah. Right. They're they're actually food. But for a lot of people, when you're going and taking these synthetic supplements in high doses, they're probably not good for your kidneys. There could be some side effects there. And this is why sometimes you'll see studies that show if you take a multivitamin, it makes no difference on your mortality, no difference on your health because these things are not being absorbed. And so that's one of the things I've loved and why I wanted to have you on the show is I think that absorption piece, especially when it comes to cell membrane. And I've talked a lot about the absorption via the gut. Mhm. But we haven't had a lot of conversations on the show about the absorption in the cell and how important that is. Yeah. It's it's pretty esoteric. We don't think about our cells very often, but the the point of a lot of these minerals and um foods are they need to get to the cells. They need to get to the mitochondria for mitochondrial energy production and ATP production. And that's what drives our energy stores. And so making sure we are providing ourselves with the bioavailable nutrients to really propel cellular health forward to make your cells more resilient to make them
cells more resilient to make them healthier. It's going to benefit everything and it's going to provide a better foundation for aging, for dealing with chronic disease, for living healthy, for producing healthy babies, for fertility outcomes, all of these things. One of the last things I want to ask you about are minerals. This is another thing I know that you've you've talked about uh and created products around is multi-minerals. You know, I think vitamins generally historically were much more popular. I think with the rise of magnesium in its popularity and zinc, people are more aware of, oh, I need these minerals as well. I'm a big fan of people like Weston A Price and Royal Lee, you know, these you Dennis that went to different uh communities, tribes, and looked at, hey, what what is what what what's going on with this group of people that has zero tooth decay that had areas of their health that were better than, you know, we have in America today. And one of the things that Western A Price looked at was he believed that for most people there was a great deficiency in fat, soluble vitamins specifically, Yeah. and minerals. Yep. Why are we so mineral deficient today? And what are some things people can do in order to regain and sort of repopulate the amount of minerals that they have in their body? I see a biological dentist. I make my kids see a biological dentist. And um I think like so many parents today, you you do all the things for your kids and you're trying to be as healthy as possible um without being too, you know, myopic about it and creating healthy eating patterns and healthy understanding of our food sources. My daughter had a cavity, my six-year - old daughter. So I take her to the dentist and I said, "Dr. Silver, why why is this happening? I'm doing everything right. I'm using the right toothpaste. I'm I'm making sure she has minerals in her food. I'm making sure she has a balanced diet. I'm making sure she has the right fats. all of these things. He said, "It's not about you. It's about how she was built in uterero. It's about your mineral stores. We are deficient in minerals. These kids today are deficient in minerals." He said, "My practice 20, 30 years ago was all adults. It's now 80%
years ago was all adults. It's now 80% children." Wow. Because we have all these panicked parents and and holistically minded parents, crunchy parents who were wanting to take their kids to the equivalent of a functional medicine doctor when it comes to a a dentist. And the dentists are now seeing more children than ever because our ch our kids are just mineral deficient. Yeah. Wow. I really love liquid minerals. I love um sea sourced minerals. Yeah. Um I really think that they're more bioavailable in the body than powdered. It's easier to get into our kids as well. I'll often just put drops in their water. Make sure they're getting the right electrolytes as well that aren't covered in flavorings and sweeteners and all of these things so that they just get used to to absorbing them and eating them. So, one of my favorite ways to start the day in my household is a raw milk smoothie. I use a bone broth, chocolate protein, and I make sure that it doesn't have a ton of different sweeteners in it. When I choose my protein powders, I'll do some essential fatty acids, some balance oil. I put some phospholipids in, and I put a big squirt of liquid minerals in, macro, micro minerals, and that blend that's found in seawater that should be in our soil. But because of all the practices that you and I know are happening within agriculture and the lack of regenerative farming, Yeah. we're seeing less nutrient deficient food than, you know, 50, 100 years ago. Oh, yeah. It's amazing when you look at how much less nutrients certain foods have uh than they did 100 years ago. It's really shocking. And this is why I think supplements are important for a lot of people because they're just such a great deficiency. Food should always be first though. I mean, I think that's one of the things I do want to say for anybody as we talk about we've referenced some supplements here is supplements are for supplementing the holes in your diet, okay? And in modern in in sort of our our modernday living. Um, so do everything you can. Listen, uh, you can take a cod liver oil and a fish oil, but first and foremost, eat more salmon, eat more wild caught fatty fish, get walnuts, get flax seeds, get more of those. get get more healthy
more of those. get get more healthy fatty acids in your diet. Um, and then you can supplement too if you still feel like there's a deficiency there. But really focus on food first and then cover your bases with your supplements as well. That's going to lead you to the highest level of health. And just want to say thanks so much for coming on today and sharing your wisdom. Thank you. Uh I love this conversation because I think there are so many people who are maybe not aware of the phospholipid conversation around the butyric acid conversation, the bile, the importance of that for detoxification and uh there's so much wisdom what you shared. So thanks so much for coming on today. Thank you so much for having me. Well everybody, hey thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember each and every week we're diving deep into the science of principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. Also don't forget to subscribe. Also, do not forget, um, oftent times on this show, uh, it's been shadowbanned on platforms like YouTube because we're talking about a lot of very controversial things that pharmaceutical companies don't like. And you may or may not know this. Google owns YouTube, which also owns three pharmaceutical companies. And so, they don't always love us talking about natural health. And so, if you're not subscribed, oftentimes this show will not pop up in your feed. If you subscribe, it will. So, don't forget to subscribe. By the way, it's the number one thing you can do to support the show and allow me to continue to bring on incredibly amazing high-profile guests like we had today. So, thanks so much and thanks for sharing and being on mission with me to help people heal using food and lifestyle medicine. I'll see you on the next episode.
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
This conversation frames fatigue, hormones, detoxification, and aging through the condition of the cell. That can sound abstract until it becomes practical: cells respond to nutrients, inflammation protocols, stress, toxins, sleep, and metabolic demand.
The goal is not to micromanage every pathway. It is to create a better internal environment.
Cell membranes help regulate what enters, what leaves, and how signals move. The conversation highlights fats and phospholipids because membranes are built from lipid structures.
In plain language, the boundary of the cell is part of its intelligence.
Mitochondrial support is often sold as a supplement story, but it is also a rhythm story: food quality, movement, light, sleep, and recovery. These are the signals that help energy production feel steadier.
When energy becomes more stable, the day feels less like compensation.
The discussion includes binders, bile, and detoxification. These topics can move quickly into overclaiming. The safer frame is support: digestion, fiber, hydration, nutrient sufficiency, and medical guidance when symptoms are persistent.
The body has detoxification systems. The practice is to support them without turning wellness into alarm.
Cellular health is built less by intensity than by the quality of the signals around the cell.
Prioritize whole foods, adequate protein, healthy fats, fiber, and regular movement before complex supplement stacks.
Notice energy patterns across the day; they often reveal sleep, food, stress, and recovery signals.
Be cautious with detox protocols, especially if you take medication or have a medical condition.
