Latest / The Reverse Aging Club with Meredith Oke / 128: Dr Max Gulhane (Replay) - Why Light Is Key To Generative Health

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128: Dr Max Gulhane (Replay) - Why Light Is Key To Generative Health · The Reverse Aging Club with Meredith Oke

0:00
Dr. Max Gulhane: The key part about why people are eating so much,
0:04
you know, we talk about the hyperpalatability of
0:06
carbohydrates and sugar addictions and, and
0:10
breakdown products of linoleic acid, which all
0:13
are undoubtedly playing a role in food addiction.
0:17
But the absence of that regulated circadian
0:19
rhythm and the cues that are being sent by
0:23
artificial light exposure I look at as umbrella
0:25
kind of causes of, of things like carbohydrate
0:28
addiction, leptin resistance and insulin
0:31
resistance. So we can kind of attack the problem
0:34
later down the causal tree.
0:36
Meredith Oke: Welcome to the QVC podcast where we explore new
0:39
paradigms in health and science that have a
0:42
meaningful impact on our day to day lives. I'm
0:45
your host Meredith Oak, a curious coach and mom.
0:48
I started a journey to overcome chronic fatigue
0:51
and found myself in a whole new quantum universe.
0:56
I believe new research shouldn't stay locked away
0:59
in an ivory tower and that wisdom can be found in
1:03
many places and understood by all of us. To keep
1:07
in touch with this podcast, the QVC free
1:09
community, our episode guide and all the show
1:12
notes, please visit qbcpod.com qbcpod.com let's
1:19
get together to create the future we all want to
1:22
live in. Dr. Max Gulhan is a family physician
1:27
based in New South Wales, Australia and is the
1:31
host of the wonderful Regenerative Health
1:33
podcast. Early in his career, Dr. Gulhane
1:37
observed the failure of the pharmaceutical based
1:39
medical model to adequately address chronic
1:42
illness and prevent disease. And he began a
1:44
journey starting with diet and leading to light
1:48
to understand the best way to manage the common
1:51
complaints and illnesses he was seeing in his
1:53
practice. In this episode, Dr. Gulhane explains
1:57
why light and circadian rhythms are so important,
2:00
why we need a nature based light dark cycle as
2:04
the foundation of our health, and why most light
2:08
bulbs are the equivalent of junk food. We cover a
2:11
lot of other ground in this conversation as well.
2:14
Those are the key points. Enjoy. Welcome Dr. Max
2:19
Gulhane. It is an absolute pleasure to be doing
2:22
this podcast with you. For anyone who doesn't
2:26
know, Dr. Gulhane is the host of his own podcast
2:30
called the Regenerative Health Podcast. It's
2:36
excellent. I highly recommend anyone. If you like
2:38
this podcast, you will like his. So if you
2:40
haven't checked it out, go ahead and do that.
2:42
There's some great episodes there. So Dr.
2:46
Gulhane, tell us a little bit about your
2:48
background, what you, you know, what you did
2:52
traditionally and then how you sort of made the
2:54
pivot into this weird, weird and wonderful world
2:57
of quantum and circadian biology.
3:00
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, thank you so much, Meredith, for having me
3:02
on and really respect what you're doing with the
3:05
quantum biology collective here. So I'll give you
3:09
an idea about what I, yeah, how I got into this.
3:12
I've approached quantum health Originally my
3:16
health journey was through the dietary, dietary
3:20
stuff. The short story is that I essentially had
3:26
quite bad acne that I developed in my early,
3:31
early twenties, a bit later than everyone
3:32
normally gets skin problems. And what I found
3:36
worked really effectively for those symptoms was
3:40
a low carbohydrate and then a carnivore type
3:44
diet. And that kind of journey was precipitated
3:49
or hurried along by my encounter with the
3:54
healthcare system, with dermatologists and
3:57
general practitioners who were very readily and
4:01
very able to prescribe medications, but didn't
4:05
discuss lifestyle in any real meaningful way that
4:11
would effectively move the needle. So I guess
4:15
like a lot of the listeners that are tuning in or
4:18
listen to your podcast, it was a situation of the
4:21
patient working out how to treat themselves most
4:25
effectively and not getting that information
4:28
given to them, which I think is, I guess that's
4:32
one of the key problems that I'm hoping to try
4:34
and help with both with my podcast and events and
4:39
things like this is because it shouldn't be up to
4:42
the layperson to kind of wade through, you know,
4:46
all the dietary light circadian stuff themselves.
4:50
I feel like that that's the goal of the medical
4:54
profession is to, to actually be able to heal
4:57
people. And, and we were talking off air a little
4:59
bit about, about your health journey and it's
5:02
onerous. And luckily, you know, I had a medical
5:05
background. I was going through a science degree,
5:08
I was going through medical school. So I guess I
5:11
had the scientific and intellectual training to
5:15
kind of make, make sense of things a bit quicker,
5:18
which was, which was helpful. But the problem
5:22
kind of kind of still exists, exists as well
5:25
today is that it's not as easy as it should be
5:30
for people to access and be supported with, you
5:34
know, with best, best practice kind of lifestyle
5:36
advice. So I, yeah, along this period I went
5:40
through a couple of heavy medications for acne.
5:43
Some of you, your listeners might know of
5:46
roacutane, which is a isotretino and it's quite a
5:49
heavy medication. And after that I kind of just
5:53
basically stopped it because I was having some
5:55
mood side effects. And around the same time I was
6:00
experimenting things like plant based diets. And
6:02
I guess following what was supposed to be the
6:06
mainstream's endorsed approach to treating any
6:10
health condition is go plant based, had a very,
6:13
very adverse reaction to that after about eight,
6:17
nine months. And then, yeah, found low carb
6:20
through. There's a, I guess it's quite similar to
6:24
what you're doing. It's called low carb down
6:25
Under. It's accumulation of videos that, by
6:29
doctors that help people inform on these kind of
6:32
topics. So you're really a parallel of that
6:35
resource, but from a quantum point of view. And
6:38
then got onto Carnivore, which I found was
6:41
really, really, really helpful. I guess how I got
6:45
into the light stuff is that amongst the whole
6:48
intellectual, I guess you could call it a
6:50
battleground on Twitter, there's different
6:54
factions and there's different warring parties
6:57
and Dr. Jack Cruz is an outsized figure in, in
7:02
this kind of, in, in this arena. So I'm not sure
7:06
exactly how I found him, but someone must have
7:09
linked, linked him a video. And I basically went
7:14
down my own kind of rabbit hole because even
7:17
though I was, I'd experienced such benefits on
7:19
Carnivore, I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily happy
7:23
to, to say, okay, that's all there is. And I get
7:28
a feeling that some players in the health space
7:31
are content to hit a intellectual boundary of a
7:36
dietary paradigm and not progress any further.
7:40
But I don't like to do that. I always, I'm asking
7:42
why, why, why, why, why? And going deeper and
7:45
deeper and especially with, with someone like
7:47
Cruz and other people in the space, you know,
7:50
hanging such juicy intellectual carrots and
7:52
making claims that I need to investigate for
7:55
myself. So, yeah, some. Somewhere along the line
7:58
I found him and went down a whole bunch of his
8:02
interviews and the whole. For about, you know,
8:05
four or five years I'd been wearing blue light
8:07
blocking glasses because I kind of had an
8:09
intuition that it was something I should do and I
8:12
felt better when I did it. But it wasn't until
8:15
the past, probably year or year and a half that I
8:18
really launched deeper into exactly why they're
8:21
so effective and why we should be doing it. And
8:24
then this has kind of culminated and I obviously,
8:27
I started my podcast in December and then I met,
8:31
met, met someone at a conference and they
8:34
introduced me online to Dr. Cruz and I've kind
8:36
of, I've recorded my, my cruise series. There's
8:38
three podcasts in that so far. And then
8:42
subsequently interviewed Carrie Bennett and, and,
8:46
and kind of engaging and really now delving into
8:49
the quantum side of things. But, but that's,
8:52
that's where I'm at at the moment. And, and I'm
8:54
a. So I did medical school, I worked in emergency
8:59
medicine for a while and now I'm seeing my own
9:02
patients in the context of family medicine and
9:06
I've really got the opportunity to discuss about
9:08
circadian health. And I don't have one on me, but
9:11
I've actually made up a little flyer which I give
9:14
out to people and I think it's about, just got
9:17
six points on it. And I just explain about the
9:20
8020 of circadian health. Seeing the morning
9:24
sunrise, getting out throughout the day to get
9:26
some sun on the skin, creating a low light
9:29
environment, wearing blue light blockers and
9:31
ideally turning off WI fi during, during the
9:35
night. So that kind of journey and the journey of
9:38
learning about quantum biology is I guess gotten
9:42
me to the point where I'm comfortable talking
9:44
about it as an adjunct lifestyle advice to my
9:48
patients. And I guess what my job is or the way I
9:51
sit, one way I see my job is to kind of listen to
9:54
my patients, listen to their story, listen to
9:56
what is going on and I guess pick from a toolbox
10:01
of lifestyle interventions which one is going to
10:03
be the most effective to help their particular
10:05
problem based on what they can do with their
10:09
knowledge, what they're prepared to change. And I
10:12
think the quantum stuff is invaluable as part of
10:15
that.
10:16
Meredith Oke: Yes. And I think it's really interesting what you
10:19
were saying about the warring factions on Twitter
10:22
or wherever there are and that because people get
10:25
so locked into like a, into the food dogma and
10:29
you know, my background is in, is in coaching,
10:32
executive coaching and helping people sort of
10:34
change, change their behaviors. So I have spent a
10:38
lot of time reading and thinking about that and I
10:40
notice and in my experience, when something
10:44
helps, right. So if you do switch to a certain
10:46
type of diet and it does solve some of your
10:49
problems, we tend to get extremely attached to
10:52
that and to whoever introduced us to and to the
10:56
very specific criteria of that. And then we
10:59
became, we become very dogmatic about whatever it
11:02
is, the food or the lifestyle intervention. And
11:07
for me I wasn't able to do that. A, I don't like,
11:10
I'm not a super big food person. So I found doing
11:14
all these food, different types of food
11:15
interventions challenging and so I didn't want to
11:18
get attached to them. And B, it wasn't working
11:21
right. Like I the idea that like, oh, maybe I'm
11:24
just not doing the food hard enough, that's why
11:26
I'm not getting better. You know, the results
11:29
just weren't there. So what I like, what I love
11:31
about quantum biology is like there's really no
11:33
dogma like you can do, you can eat whatever you
11:36
want. You just are understanding what is
11:40
happening from a certain perspective. Right.
11:43
Aside from some of the protocols that you just
11:46
mentioned in terms of optimizing light
11:48
environments, like, there's really no dogma in
11:52
this field. It's a totally wide open.
11:56
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, yeah. And I, I interviewed recovering vegan
12:02
Giselle Besson in one of my early episodes and
12:06
she described exactly what you talk about,
12:07
Meredith, which was in within the vegan ideology
12:11
there was if people were falling sick or they're
12:13
not getting better, there was this idea that
12:15
you're not veganing hard enough. You know, you're
12:17
not doing it enough. And, and which is obviously,
12:21
you know, we've, we've strayed into the territory
12:24
of, of relig by the time, by the time you're not
12:27
veganing hard enough. And I think to a certain
12:30
degree that can be also the case in the Carnivore
12:34
point of view is that perhaps if you're having
12:38
issues, you're not doing it enough or hard
12:41
enough. What I would think or what I think now is
12:45
that there are certain problems that are light
12:48
problems and food can't solve a light problem.
12:52
And, and certain patients who are basically being
12:56
held together so they're feeling better and their
12:59
symptoms are improved on Carnivore. But you can
13:02
see that if you remove that piece of string and
13:05
that band aid, things would fall apart. So to me
13:09
that's pointing to a deeper issue and we're not
13:11
yet getting at the root cause. It's helping, but
13:14
we're not yet solving that kind of root cause
13:17
issue. But for that reason, that's why I still
13:20
support Carnivore in that for someone living at a
13:24
lower latitude, particularly here in Albury
13:27
during the winter, it's very difficult to get a
13:31
meaningful amount of sunlight throughout the day.
13:33
If it's very overcast, yes, we can get outside
13:35
and still get some solar exposure, but it still
13:39
has a place in, again, maintaining people if for
13:43
whatever other reason they can't change things
13:46
like their latitude or the place that they live.
13:51
Meredith Oke: Yes, absolutely. And then the diet and the light
13:53
work together and everyone's situation is
13:57
slightly different. But there are some
14:00
fundamental pieces and I find too, again from my
14:05
coaching perspective, people also tend to be very
14:09
all or nothing, like, oh, well, it's either food
14:11
or light or it's either this or that or I should
14:16
throw out everything I've been doing and just do,
14:19
just do light stuff. And I think we focus very
14:23
heavily on light because it, it is a missing
14:26
piece that has not been focused on. But once you
14:28
Bring that in. Like all. It's a holistic
14:31
perspective, right? Like every. Everything
14:33
matters.
14:34
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, yeah, I, I do. And what you said earlier, I
14:36
think there is a tendency within even health is
14:40
for people to basically get behind, as you said,
14:44
what worked for them and find ways of
14:47
scientifically justifying their own personal
14:50
biases. So whatever works for them, they're going
14:54
to keep kind of cheerleading. So it is, it is
14:57
difficult to try and maintain impartiality in the
15:01
face of, of your own personal lived experience,
15:04
however effective that has been. But I agree that
15:08
there is, there isn't a one size fits all.
15:11
Everyone's going to have a different percentage
15:12
response to each different intervention, whether
15:16
that's someone who really can't tolerate any
15:18
light after sunset. And some people really find
15:22
benefit from, you know, cutting out vegetables.
15:24
So everyone's going to respond differently. And
15:26
for that reason, like you said, I emphasize food.
15:30
Diet, like diet. I say that to my patients. You
15:33
know, optimal health lies somewhere in the middle
15:35
of these. And yeah, you want to be doing most of
15:40
them and most that you're able to. If you, if, if
15:42
your health is a problem and you need to get back
15:45
to that thriving point of view, that state of
15:47
being.
15:49
Meredith Oke: Yes. And I love that food diet, light diet,
15:52
because I think one of the other things is that,
15:56
you know, and we, we talk about this a lot in the
15:58
certification, right? Like if all the research
16:01
on, on margarine came out, right, and we found
16:04
out that actually margarine is really bad for
16:07
you. Everyone's like, okay, I'm going to take
16:09
margarine out of the healthy food category and
16:11
move it over to the toxic food category. Got it.
16:15
But when you say to somebody like, your light
16:18
bulbs are toxic, they're like, what are you
16:20
talking about? Right? Like, we don't even have a
16:22
framework for good light, bad light. We don't
16:25
even think about it in those terms. So I love
16:28
that that you're framing it that way for your
16:29
patients and for someone who's new, how, how
16:32
would you explain what healthy light is versus
16:38
what toxic light is or unhealthy light?
16:41
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, I was having this exact conversation with
16:43
the last patient of the day yesterday, and I
16:48
pointed up to the fluorescent bulb in my clinic
16:52
room that I try and keep off most of the day, but
16:56
when it's overcast and dark in Aubry, I have to
17:00
turn it on. I'll have my blue blockers on. But I
17:02
said to him, I said, look, that, that is the meth
17:05
of light. Like, that's, that's the
17:07
methamphetamine of light it that it's an isolated
17:11
blue wavelength, it's not balanced by red. It has
17:15
no non visible, you know, infrared or any other
17:17
type of non visible wavelength. It is, you know,
17:22
the color temperature of the midday. And when you
17:25
exposed to it at the wrong time or in general,
17:28
but particularly at the wrong time later in the
17:32
day, after dark, you are stimulating yourself
17:35
massively by that light signal. And that's going
17:39
to prevent your body from making the melatonin
17:41
hormone. It's going to promote your body's
17:44
cortisol level, all this kind of thing. So I try
17:48
and explain it that just like there's junk food,
17:52
there's also junk light. And it's, it's a, it's a
17:57
highly refined form of light. And this is a, the
17:59
way that I explain food, food products to people
18:03
is if you're eating something that's processed,
18:06
anything that's processed is, is by humans is
18:08
going to be bad for you. Whether it's processed
18:10
wheat, you know, processed seed oils, processed
18:15
coca leaf, you know, anything that humans have
18:17
refined and purified is, is suboptimal. And that,
18:22
that analogy I think maps beautifully onto light
18:26
as well. So whenever you've got that blue light
18:30
that's been presented without the other
18:34
wavelengths, you've got a problem. And it also
18:36
helps to bring up the light basically spectra. I
18:40
often do that for my patients and I show them,
18:43
look at what natural daylight look like, look how
18:46
balanced it is across all the different visible
18:48
colors and then look at led, look at or all these
18:52
different sources. And that's a great way of
18:55
communicating to patients. Well, hang on, this is
18:57
not natural. And I think we don't have to go too
19:01
complex or too deep into it to just, that's a
19:03
visual depiction of something that's obviously
19:06
not natural. So yeah, that's kind of my general
19:10
approach. For someone who's got no idea or.
19:12
Meredith Oke: No background in it, that makes a lot of sense. I
19:17
like that a lot. So the light that comes out of
19:19
the sun is different at different types of times
19:22
of day, but it tends to have a full spectrum.
19:26
Whereas the light that comes out of a light bulb
19:29
is like processed light in the way that refined
19:35
sugar is processed or refined flour is processed
19:38
and it's harsh and narrow. So we don't have all
19:41
of those other frequencies balancing anything out.
19:44
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, and like to your point earlier, people just
19:48
don't have an understanding or framework of, of
19:50
this. You know, people have an inclination that
19:53
eating refined sugar is bad. You know, a Lot of
19:56
people have an inclination that eating vegetable
19:59
oils is, is not intuitively healthy for them. But
20:02
you know, every new house that's being, that gets
20:05
built in Australia and in these, in estates, they
20:08
have led down lights and they're the harshest,
20:13
whitest, harshest, widest light you can, you can
20:17
find. And you know, there's the street lights in
20:19
these places are blaring. So people are getting
20:23
light into their bedrooms. They're not having a
20:26
fully dark, dark bedroom. And then the WI fi
20:30
router, the Internet ethernet port is in the
20:34
walking closet or opposite the main bedroom. So
20:38
where people are default plugging their WI fi
20:40
routers in is going to be next to very close to
20:44
where they sleep. So the whole, not only do
20:46
people not have a framework for understanding how
20:50
harmful this light environment, this artificial
20:52
light environment is, the whole environment, the
20:55
built environment, whether that's at home or at
20:57
work, is also set up for the exact opposite of
21:02
what you and I know to be an optimal human light
21:05
environment. So there's no wonder why people are
21:11
sick, overweight, or having carbohydrate
21:14
addictions. All these problems that we know have
21:17
a deep contribution by their light environment.
21:21
It's, that's why I respect what you're doing so
21:23
much. Because we really need to give an awareness
21:27
that, that this is not normal, this is not
21:30
natural, and this is very, very meaningfully
21:32
impacting health.
21:35
Meredith Oke: Yes. So explain to us what's happening. So let's
21:41
start with, with the harmful piece and then we'll
21:44
talk about the healing piece, which would be, you
21:47
know, going out in natural sunlight, especially
21:48
in the morning. But so the harmful piece is I
21:52
come home from work at the end of the day, it's
21:54
starting to get dark out. I throw on my overhead
21:57
led, I turn on the television, I'm scrolling on
22:00
my phone, and I do that till like 11 o'clock at
22:04
night. And then I shut it all off and go to bed.
22:06
And there's still some of those super harsh
22:09
street lights coming through the cracks in the
22:11
blinds. And it's not quite dark and I can still
22:14
kind of see, but whatever, that's the way it is.
22:17
And then I wonder why I'm not sleeping well. So
22:22
if that's my sort of environment, what is that
22:26
light doing to my body? What is the effect?
22:30
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, so I think of it as you're basically not
22:34
giving your body a break, you're not allowing
22:36
your body to recover. And the reason why is
22:41
because prior to the invention of the electricity
22:44
grid, the only sources of light that we had were
22:49
candlelight, firelight after dark. And prior to
22:54
organized civilization, for the millions of years
22:58
of human evolution, we were adapted and evolved
23:02
to having periods of distinct absence of light.
23:06
So we had sun rising, we had a changing but
23:12
balanced exposure to sunlight with visible and
23:16
non, non visible spectra that that changed and
23:19
modulated throughout the day. That was in a
23:22
constant state of programming our biological
23:25
functions. And then it ended and there was
23:28
complete darkness. And during that period the
23:31
body was able to go into its, you know, nocturnal
23:34
or its sleep mode with a whole bunch of, of
23:38
hormonal actions taking place, particular of that
23:42
melatonin hormone from your pineal gland. So
23:47
that's kind of the norm. That was what allowed us
23:50
to exist and that's what we were adapted to. I
23:53
think that's the key point. What is normal, what
23:56
is natural? What does our biology need? And that
23:58
was it. It was absence of light at dark and it
24:01
was constant exposure to natural sunlight
24:05
frequencies. So with the invention of the
24:07
electric grid and then or fast forward all the
24:09
way up to today, the presence of that artificial
24:13
light at night is preventing us from accessing
24:19
that, that normal light absence period during,
24:23
during darkness that we need to recover. So when
24:27
that, when that's occurring, we're not making
24:29
melatonin, we're not, we have having cortisol
24:32
elevated, we're not recovering. And when we're
24:36
sending critically the wrong signals to our
24:40
biology about how to program the entire organism.
24:46
So that's how I think about it at a very high
24:49
level. Again it's just like people in this
24:54
society are used to eating every two hours. What
24:57
was evolutionarily normal that we would have
25:00
periods of fasting where we didn't have any food.
25:02
So that yin and Yang, the absence and the
25:04
presence, absence of food, presence of food,
25:06
absence of light, presence of food has been lost.
25:08
And now we're constantly just sipping from the
25:10
slurpee of artificial light all through the
25:14
night. And we can go into the exact mechanisms,
25:17
but that's critically the issue because you're
25:22
not allowing the body to recover and it has
25:25
deleterious effects on our ability to use glucose
25:29
to all the mitochondrial function, everything. So
25:34
that, that's I guess how I think about it at a
25:36
high level.
25:39
Meredith Oke: Lovely, thank you for that explanation. And
25:42
that's the explanation that I like to go with
25:44
that makes sense to me. Now I know that there are
25:47
people listening who are like he said, mechanism,
25:50
what is it? So let's, we will briefly, I don't
25:54
want to go go too deep into, into that side of
25:58
things. But the high level, the high level
26:01
explanation is that a lack of darkness and the
26:03
presence of artificial light is causing our
26:07
bodies to not be able to restore and repair them.
26:10
Repair the way we're supposed to when we're
26:13
sleeping. So what is the mechanism at play there?
26:16
Just briefly, we don't have to spend too long
26:18
here, but I know if I don't ask.
26:21
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, so. So it's the blue, the blue and green
26:24
wavelengths when they hit your retina, your eye.
26:29
And that light gets sensed by your non visual
26:34
photoreceptors, your intrinsically photosensitive
26:38
retinal ganglion cells. And there's the opsins,
26:41
like melanopsin, sense these light wavelengths
26:44
and they send signals all the way from your
26:47
retina to your hypothalamus to your
26:52
suprachiasmatic nucleus. And that affects the way
26:57
your body's, your, your body's ability to make
27:00
melatonin. So the melatonin hormones is secreted
27:04
by the pineal gland at nighttime, a couple of
27:07
hours after sunset, in, in the absence of light,
27:09
it gets secreted. So when we're exposed to these
27:12
artificial lights, we're telling the body, no,
27:15
don't make melatonin. Because again, you, you,
27:17
it's the color temperature of the daytime. It's a
27:19
daytime like signal. So you, you get that dump of
27:24
melatonin that we're supposed to make
27:26
appropriately. Plus, people haven't seen this
27:28
morning sunrise because their first light that
27:31
they've seen has been their phone when they've
27:34
woken up. So the programming, the coordination of
27:38
the circadian signaling from the beginning of the
27:41
day all the way to the point at which they lay
27:44
down is being disrupted and is being confused in
27:49
the absence of. I mean, melatonin is not the only
27:52
hormone. But there's a reason why shift workers
27:56
have increased risk of cancer. There's reasons
28:01
why vitamin D deficiency is associated with all
28:05
these cancers and ischemic heart disease and all
28:08
the rest. Because it's a proxy for sunlight
28:11
exposure, and it's a proxy for the
28:14
appropriateness of one's circadian rhythm. And
28:16
when those things are disrupted, then again, your
28:22
endogenous antioxidant system, which is governed
28:25
by melatonin, precisely, is out of whack. And
28:30
melatonin is not only secreted by the pineal
28:33
gland, this melatonin made in your mitochondria
28:36
by yourselves during the day on exposure to
28:38
infrared and UVA light. And that melatonin is
28:42
locally having an antioxidant effect. So if
28:44
people are not getting daytime sunlight and
28:50
they're also exposed to artificial light. They're
28:52
having the double whammy of lack of exposure,
28:54
lack of secretion of that local daytime melatonin
28:57
and the nighttime melatonin. So again, it's like
29:01
the antioxidant system isn't being properly
29:05
primed or properly allowed to function and you
29:08
get mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress
29:12
and all these things. So yeah, that's I guess
29:18
again focused on the action to melatonin, but
29:21
that is how I think about it particularly.
29:26
Meredith Oke: Okay, so these are all the problems that we're
29:30
causing in our system by not having a
29:33
sufficiently dark or dim light environment in the
29:35
evening and while we're sleeping. So what is
29:39
going on when we go outside in the morning,
29:42
particularly at sunrise or UVA rise that those
29:47
first few hours of the day, how is that helping
29:51
us?
29:52
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, I see it as, as a, the signal, it's like
29:57
the, it's maybe it's almost like the, the band or
30:01
the orchestra is getting the cue to all start
30:04
playing at the same time. You know, otherwise
30:07
without, without that coordinating signal, you
30:09
know, everyone's kind of still warming up,
30:11
playing odd, odd notes at the wrong time. But the
30:16
critical aspect of that morning sunlight through
30:20
visible and non visible light and later, as you
30:24
said, the UVA comes in later in the day is that
30:28
we're basically pressing play on all our bodily
30:32
processes and getting them aligned and
30:34
coordinated to start. I love how Dr. J.
30:39
Montgomery describes it. It's like that your eye
30:43
is one of the most, it's a most powerful
30:46
neuroendocrine organ. So what people I guess
30:52
would benefit from understanding is that that eye
30:56
is sensing your light environment. It's not only
30:59
forming images, it's actually sensing the light
31:05
and the different wavelengths of light. And the
31:07
morning light is critical because it's
31:10
essentially setting you up for not only to start
31:13
the day, but it's also setting you up for that,
31:16
that night's sleep later in the day. So yeah, I
31:21
talked to Kerry Bennett about this and you know,
31:23
we, we made the comment that, you know, if
31:25
cutting out seed oils is the 8020 of nutrition,
31:28
then getting morning sunlight is probably, you
31:30
know, the 6040 of, of circadian biology just
31:34
because of how important it is in, in programming
31:37
everything.
31:39
Meredith Oke: Absolutely. And I think it's really interesting
31:42
because before I sort of came to all of this from
31:46
a, from a health and healing perspective, the
31:49
only time I thought about circadian rhythm was
31:51
when I traveled through time zones and became jet
31:53
lagged. And I kind of had a vague idea that like,
31:57
yeah, circadian rhythm is like why I feel tired
32:01
in the middle of the day when I'm in a different
32:03
time zone. But I had no understanding, and even
32:08
some of the foremost experts in circadian rhythms
32:11
had no understanding of just how critical having
32:16
a regulated circadian biology is. Could you
32:20
really bring that home for us? Because I think
32:22
that that's a piece that we often miss. I've come
32:26
to the place where I feel like it's basically
32:29
impossible to be healthy if your circadian
32:32
rhythms are misaligned.
32:35
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah. And it ties back to the point we were
32:37
making earlier in the discussion, is that the
32:40
dietary stuff is important, and it will
32:44
definitely help, but it is a facet. I see dietary
32:51
interventions. And the biochemistry behind what
32:55
we do with diet is fitting into this wider. This
33:00
wider area of circadian and mitochondrial health,
33:03
which is fundamentally a problem of physics and
33:07
of biophysics. So the point is that all these
33:13
bodily functions do have a circadian regulation.
33:18
And I talked to Dr. Jack Cruz in my podcast
33:21
series about Pomse, and for the listeners, it's
33:27
essentially a gene that's expressed in a bunch of
33:31
neurons and a bunch of places in the body, but it
33:34
has all these different products that get made
33:38
when we're exposed to UV light that govern
33:43
metabolism, they govern the stress response, they
33:46
govern addiction centers. So the key. The key
33:53
part about why people are eating so much, you
33:56
know, we talk about the hyperpalatability of
33:59
carbohydrates and sugar addictions and. And the
34:03
breakdown products of linoleic acid, which all
34:05
are undoubtedly playing a role in. In food
34:08
addiction. But the absence of that regulated
34:11
circadian rhythm and the cues that are being sent
34:15
by artificial light exposure. Afternoon. A light
34:17
I look at as umbrella kind of causes of. Of
34:21
things like carbohydrate addiction, you know,
34:23
leptin resistance and insulin resistance. So we
34:28
can kind of attack the problem later down the
34:31
causal tree. And it's not to say that that, that
34:34
won't work. I mean, I. I'm. I just helped a
34:37
patient come, you know, half his insulin dose,
34:39
and we've only, you know, we. We're doing. On
34:42
the. We're doing a low carb diet. But I think
34:44
that if we could also get him regulated from a
34:47
circadian point of view, then the improvement
34:50
that we'd make would be even greater and getting
34:54
him out in the sun. So to answer the question, I
34:58
see it as the umbrella problem. The umbrella
35:01
problem is our. It's our regulated or lack of
35:05
regulated circadian rhythm. And the exposure to
35:07
all these artificial lights, whether they're
35:10
Visible like blue light or non visible like WI fi
35:14
and the rest of those types of non native emf.
35:19
Meredith Oke: Right. And so what kind of outcomes are you
35:22
seeing in your practice and with your patients
35:26
for? Let's start with people who are able to
35:30
comply with your suggested light protocols.
35:33
What's happening with those people?
35:35
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, so people, people just feel a lot more
35:38
grounded. They feel a lot better. A lot of people
35:43
have just described again, what you, what you've
35:46
said to me, which is, you know, they felt it was
35:48
kind of the missing piece in, in what they have
35:51
been doing. I mean, one of my favorite stories is
35:53
a old couple, an old lady in her 80s who, who
35:59
hadn't slept through the night in the past
36:00
probably 15 years. And I just said to her, look,
36:04
because I'm a little bit careful with the
36:05
elderly, with the low light environment because I
36:08
don't want them to fall over after dark, but I
36:11
just said, go sit on the porch and see the
36:14
sunrise every morning without any kind of glasses
36:17
on. And just sitting out there with her husband
36:20
every morning was enough to. She came back
36:23
ecstatic that she'd slept through the night and
36:25
was sleeping through the night for the first time
36:27
in over a decade. So really simple and nothing
36:32
fancy. But yeah, those type of stories are, are
36:37
very, very common. And yeah, people, people are
36:43
finding that, you know, often I'm seeing a lot of
36:47
patients who perhaps have been through
36:49
naturopaths, a couple maybe functional doctors
36:54
and you know, they're on a, they're on a list of,
36:56
of supplements and that no one's talked about
37:00
their line environment. And again, it's like,
37:03
yeah, we can add all these things in. But you
37:07
know, maybe you listeners of Red, Nassim Taleb,
37:10
he's got a concept of via Negativa, which is
37:12
first remove the bad before we add things on. And
37:17
I think removing that or improving that line
37:20
environment should be in terms of order of
37:23
operations. It takes precedent. Before we add,
37:26
you know, a list of expensive supplements.
37:30
Meredith Oke: Yeah, yeah, I really come to think that as well.
37:36
And again, when I first got into that, like I was
37:38
saying earlier, we have that all or nothing
37:40
thinking, I was like, I'm never taking a
37:42
supplement ever again. It's all about light. So
37:45
I've now sort of softened that stance and I do
37:49
think that supplementation has its place. But as
37:52
you said, after you've optimized your light
37:55
environment. Because how, like, how can a
37:58
practitioner even know what supplement would be
38:01
useful to somebody if their body is in total
38:04
circadian chaos? Right. If they're totally
38:06
dysregulated if they're not. Like if you put
38:09
someone on a melatonin supplement when the
38:12
problem could be fixed with light, like you're
38:14
not solving any problems, as you pointed out.
38:17
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, yeah. And the point I wanted to make as
38:20
well is that you know that, that the light part,
38:25
the signals like the retinal hypothalamic tract
38:28
that goes from your eye to your hypothalamus,
38:31
that projects to your pituitary gland and the
38:33
regulation of all those pituitary hormones is
38:36
influenced by, by our light environment. So it's
38:39
not just the pineal and the melatonin, but
38:42
everything along all these axes, the ovarian, the
38:45
adrenal, everything, the thyroid, all these axes
38:49
have an influence by, by light signal. And the
38:52
coordination of a lot of these hormones which
38:56
follow diurnal curves is influenced by the light
39:00
environment. And the other point, Meredith, is
39:04
that this is not like hoodoo or it's not like
39:08
this is not science that exists. If you look in
39:12
PubMed and you type in these findings, there is a
39:17
massive body of scientific literature that is
39:21
describing everything that we're talking about
39:24
and as is the case with a range of lifestyle
39:28
medicine, is that that scientific foundation is
39:32
simply not being translated or applied in a
39:37
clinical practice setting. It's not because
39:40
there's an absence of evidence of efficacy. It's
39:43
simply that the guidelines are not reflecting
39:46
what we know to be true and effective. And we say
39:52
the same thing in the dietary low carb paradigm.
39:56
And there's lots of different reasons for that,
39:59
but one could, especially a patient or other
40:02
doctors who might be listening. One could be
40:04
misled to think that this is very, very fringe,
40:07
or there's simply not the evidence to justify
40:10
what we're talking about. But it takes a very,
40:13
very cursory look at the evidence in the
40:15
literature to even. You can look up Wikipedia if
40:19
you, if you don't want to go that deep. But
40:21
everything that we've talked about is very well
40:24
researched and, and applied, kind of established.
40:28
And the application of the knowledge through
40:32
things like blue light blocking glasses and red
40:34
lights and all this kind of thing is simply the
40:37
application of that science that already exists.
40:41
So I just want to make that point to some of your
40:45
listeners who might think this is fringe. It's.
40:48
If you look yourself and not rely on a filter of
40:53
perhaps mainstream medicine, functional medicine,
40:57
all these entities that have their own reasons,
41:01
often financial, for promoting certain treatment
41:05
protocols over others, if you do your own
41:07
research, you'll find that what we've been
41:09
talking about is very well established.
41:13
Meredith Oke: That is a really, really good point. Yes. The
41:19
research just on circadian rhythm alone is. I
41:23
mean, I feel like every month some major new
41:26
paper comes out just showing just how important
41:29
it is. And last summer, the New York Times
41:31
Magazine did a huge cover story. It was like 10
41:35
pages long on circadian rhythm. And there's like
41:39
an anecdote in there where some of the research
41:42
came out that showed just how, how important it
41:45
is. And the, the head of the Circadian Research
41:48
Institute was like, what? Really? Oh, we, we were
41:52
just, we were just thinking like light and like
41:55
sort of light cycles, and they had no idea. So
41:57
it. Yes, it is. Absolutely. The evidence is all
42:00
there and that's what we talk about a lot. And
42:02
why, like, we started the certification is like.
42:05
And what you're doing with your podcast, it's
42:07
like building a bridge from the science into the
42:10
practice. Because I don't know if it ever existed
42:14
or if it, or if the bridge broke, but there does
42:16
not seem to be a pipeline of best practice into
42:21
that's going into the offices of the
42:24
practitioners, even the naturopaths. Right. Like,
42:26
it's, there's a disconnect there. And all of, all
42:31
of this. And maybe it's because the answer is so
42:33
simple, right? Like, go and watch. Sit on your
42:37
porch at sunrise with your husband. It's like, if
42:42
I feel like solving 15 years of insomnia should
42:45
be more complicated than that. Yeah, but it's not
42:48
in most cases.
42:50
Dr. Max Gulhane: And, and that point you made about the
42:53
simplicity, I do think that the degree to which
42:57
something is simple is that agree to which
42:59
someone can't make money off it. So, yeah,
43:03
getting your feet on the bare earth and watching
43:06
the morning sunrise is the cheapest intervention,
43:10
health intervention in maybe the history of the
43:13
world. And no one can make money off that. And we
43:19
see not only mainstream medicine, but as you
43:24
mentioned, functional neuropathy, that there's
43:27
expensive solutions to problems that have, you
43:31
know, that these are light problems. So perhaps
43:34
that's, that's, you know, if I was putting my
43:37
skeptical hat on, I would, I would definitely say
43:39
that it's a money issue. And no one can make
43:41
money from these simple circadian interventions.
43:45
So that's why they're less well promoted, I
43:50
guess. What. And I really like how you framed
43:53
the, the job of making this pipeline into. To the
43:56
practitioners. And yeah, I see that as critical.
44:01
And just like what you're doing, you don't
44:03
necessarily need to have an MD to kind of give
44:06
this advice. Health Coaches, anyone can give this
44:08
advice and if it's in the best interest of the
44:13
patient, then other MDs need to put aside their
44:17
egos and not feel like this is, you know,
44:21
privileged information and they're the only ones
44:23
able to give this information. If it's in the
44:25
best interest of the patient, then this needs to
44:27
be talked about by everyone. No matter what their
44:30
training background is. If they understand what,
44:33
what, how the biology works and they're giving
44:35
good advice, then that, that, that's key. The,
44:38
the other point I wanted to make is that coming
44:42
from metabolic lifestyle, a dietary kind of
44:47
paradigm originally and actively practicing as a
44:51
doctor who's reversing diabetes and lifestyle
44:54
diseases with low carb carnivore, I see it as a
44:58
personal interest of mine to integrate the
45:01
dietary and the light stuff from a metabolic
45:05
point of view. And that's why I'm so interested
45:08
in what Dr. Jack Cruz was talking about, about
45:13
COMC and protein called clip and all these
45:19
ability for blue light to promote fasting, raised
45:24
fasting glucose and fasting insulin irrespective
45:27
of food. Because I think that is a real
45:30
underserved or under talked about area, which is
45:32
the intersection of, of the light environment and
45:35
metabolism. And that, that is really, really
45:38
fascinating because so many people are insulin
45:40
resistant and metabolically unwell and have
45:43
visceral fat. So that is, yeah, that's a personal
45:47
interest of mine. And I hope to, I guess, keep
45:50
keep going on this intellectual journey and keep
45:52
talking to people from both areas and, and kind
45:56
of package this up in a way that again is most
46:01
able to give to a patient who's got diabetes,
46:04
fatty liver, visceral fat, and be like, okay,
46:07
here you go. This is how we start to heal you.
46:12
Meredith Oke: That's a wonderful idea. I love that so much and
46:17
what it brings up for me again as a coach who
46:21
works with people on the more emotional and
46:23
behavior change side, is that bringing in the
46:28
light piece and marrying the metabolic with the
46:32
circadian, I think also just gives people such a,
46:37
it's a real relief, right? Because there's so
46:40
much shame around our food habits, especially if
46:43
you have diet, you know, you have type 2 diabetes
46:45
or you're overweight, people feel so much shame
46:48
that they can't control it. And then to get the
46:51
knowledge that there are other habits in their
46:54
life that they see as completely disconnected
46:56
from this problem, like looking at their phone at
47:00
midnight on full factory settings, to know that
47:04
those things are actively working against them
47:07
and making everything worse. And it's not just a
47:09
willpower it's not just that they're totally
47:15
screwed and there's no way out. I do see that it
47:19
offers relief and hope to know that actually I've
47:22
been swimming against the current trying to
47:26
change how my body's responding to food without
47:28
changing my life.
47:30
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, definitely, yes.
47:31
Meredith Oke: So anything else Dr. Gilhane, that you'd like to
47:34
leave us with?
47:35
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, so, so I'm yeah, on, on the vein of, of I
47:39
guess marrying all this together. I'm hosting an
47:43
event in, in Albury and hopefully it'll be the
47:47
first of many. But I've got Dr. Jalal Khan who's
47:51
a circadian quantum dentist and I'll be talking.
47:56
We've got Dr. Anthony Chaffee who's on the
47:59
carnivore side. We've got some regenerative,
48:02
regenerative pharma who I work with. So we're
48:05
really kind of bringing in all aspects of, of
48:08
what I think is, is good, relevant for people's
48:11
health. And I really think that moving forward,
48:15
like collectively we don't need more drugs,
48:20
people don't need more drugs, they don't need
48:24
more supplements, they need more very high
48:30
quality, regeneratively raised ruminant meat.
48:33
They need more seafood, they need more circadian
48:37
regulation and they need less WI fi and less,
48:41
less, less drugs. So that is I guess an angle
48:46
that I'm really excited about in the future. And
48:50
I think that optimal health for everyone, for the
48:54
population, for reversing this chronic disease
48:57
epidemic, for reversing the metabolic disease
48:59
epidemic, for addressing all the fundamental
49:04
problems, rising cancer and dementia rates,
49:07
everything in my mind this is just my opinion
49:10
lies in this confluence of an optimal human
49:16
species, appropriate diet of unprocessed food
49:19
rich in animal products and a highly regulated
49:23
circadian rhythm, the absence of artificial light
49:27
at night and morning sunrise and everything like
49:31
that. And I think that regenerative farming is a
49:34
key point because that's one of the delivery
49:36
mechanisms of getting that high quality food into
49:38
people. So that's, I guess to end this
49:42
discussion. Again, it's like I'm emphasizing the
49:44
holistic aspect of this. And again it's not just
49:48
one thing, it's a whole confluence of things. And
49:51
if we can add up, you know, all these 5
49:53
percenters in terms of behavior change, then
49:56
that's the key to, to optimal health as I see it.
50:01
Meredith Oke: I love it. Okay. And we actually there are quite
50:05
a lot of quantum enthusiasts in Australia so I
50:09
want to just give some more details. When is your
50:12
event?
50:13
Dr. Max Gulhane: So it will be on August 6th in Albury here,
50:18
Aubrey. New South Wales.
50:20
Meredith Oke: Okay. And Albury is, you said sort of in between
50:24
Sydney and Melbourne, is that right? Did I get
50:27
that? Yeah.
50:27
Dr. Max Gulhane: Correct.
50:27
Meredith Oke: Okay.
50:28
Dr. Max Gulhane: So it's about, it's about a six hour drive from
50:30
Sydney and it's a three and a half hour drive
50:32
from Melbourne on the border of Queens of
50:36
Victoria and New South Wales.
50:37
Meredith Oke: Okay. And this event takes place over, over two
50:40
or three days or it's a.
50:43
Dr. Max Gulhane: It'S a single day event. There'll be about,
50:45
there's four, four speakers and. But we're
50:49
organizing a farm tour at the local Jake Wilkes
50:52
farm that will be happening day before and we'll
50:56
also be organizing an event dinner. So I'll, I
51:00
might send you the details. You can put them in
51:02
the show notes.
51:02
Meredith Oke: We will put the details to that in the show
51:04
notes. We have shared this event in our
51:07
newsletter. We'll do that again and I'll
51:09
especially make sure that all of, all of our, the
51:12
Australian QVC members are aware of it and. Yeah.
51:17
Are you going to record the speakers? Will people.
51:19
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, yeah, that's the plan. Yeah.
51:21
Meredith Oke: Great.
51:21
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah.
51:22
Meredith Oke: So we'll share those details when they come out
51:24
as well for people if they want to access the
51:27
recordings because this sounds like a, sounds
51:30
like a beautiful event. I'm so happy you're doing
51:32
it. I do think, as much as I love leveraging
51:35
technology, I do think in person meetups are, are
51:38
absolutely the key. We've got a quantum entangle
51:42
at a close up range.
51:44
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
51:48
Meredith Oke: Okay.
51:51
Dr. Max Gulhane: Yeah. And if, if anyone is wanting to follow my
51:54
podcast. Yeah. As you said earlier, it's the
51:56
Regenerative Health podcast on the podcasting
52:00
apps. And I'm also on Twitter maxcorhan md and
52:05
Instagram. Dr. Underscore. Max underscore Gulhein.
52:10
Meredith Oke: Perfect. And we will have links to all of that in
52:13
the show notes as well. So check out Dr.
52:16
Gulhane's podcast and follow him on his socials
52:21
and yeah, let's, let's keep this movement
52:24
growing. Thank you so much for your time today.
52:27
This has just been an absolute pleasure.
52:29
Dr. Max Gulhane: Thank you Meredith and thanks for everything you
52:31
do as well.
52:32
Meredith Oke: Thank you. This has been the Quantum Biology
52:37
Collective podcast to find a practitioner who
52:40
practices from this point of view. Visit our
52:43
directory@quantumbiologycollective.org if you are
52:48
a practitioner, definitely take a look at the
52:51
Applied Quantum Biology certification. A six week
52:55
study of the science of the new human health
52:57
paradigm and its practical application with your
53:01
patients and clients. We also love to feature
53:04
graduates of the program on this very podcast.
53:08
Until next time, the QVC.