Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #160: Supplements vs. Pharmaceuticals: A Critical Look

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Episode #160: Supplements vs. Pharmaceuticals: A Critical Look · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The pharmaceutical industry and the supplement industry both do that.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: They both practice reductionism, which can actually be quite dangerous because these targeted compounds like vitamin C or folate, they're isolated, and then we use them as a template to make the synthetic version and we put them in a supplement to sell for your help, your health.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the way that they actually do that oftentimes is when they're trying to isolate a single metabolite, they get a sample from the body, they add chemicals to it, you know, to try to isolate it, break it apart from its structures.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: They'll spin it down, and then they'll say that they isolated that metabolite.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So then they attempt to determine the function of that metabolite in a laboratory setting.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not actually how the body works, right?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't actually observe any of these what we call nutrients or these compounds actually in the body.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the Beyond Labels Podcast with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're both the co-authors of the book, Beyond Labels.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And what we do on this program, as you know, as you're a as you're a listener, is we are very, very responsive to our listeners.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And from time to time, we kind of build up a little log of questions, and uh then we try to devote a program to answering these kind of questions that aren't specific to maybe an episode we had or something like that, just kind of general questions.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have a couple of those.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get as far as we can today, and um, and then we'll we'll pick up where we left off another time and bundle these questions and try to deal with as many of them as we can on a podcast.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Cena, you have the first one, and I'll turn it over to you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Joel.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this first question is from Jessica.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question because she says, Joel and Cena, I really appreciate the episode regarding vitamin D supplementation.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have found myself reflecting on how the supplement industry has in many ways become just as bad as the pharmaceutical industry.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: We are quick to criticize the pharmaceutical industry for its predatory nature, but the supplementation industry seems to take advantage of people as well.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: They both seem to play on our fear, our desire to live as long as possible.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But is this a supplement really the answer?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then natural health experts talk about the power of the human body, but then they typically end their talk with promoting their latest supplement or healing protocol.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then she goes on to say, um, I'm not saying that healing can't be found in a supplement or a pharmaceutical, because I'm sure it can, but I do appreciate the perspective that we don't know very much.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what we think we know seems to change so quickly.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does that really say about our knowledge?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, uh I'm gonna start out because you know, this is um this is really near and dear to my heart because some of you may know I worked in the supplement industry.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I used to formulate supplements.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I got my first job out of college.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely agree.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a while to see this, but most of us are just chasing biochemistry in a pill form, whether that's pharmaceuticals or supplements.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say there's no judgment here.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I used to formulate supplements, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I took them.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm in a prime position to kind of pull that curtain back.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that at some point we've all trusted big pharma, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like some of us have probably taken aspirin or we've used neosporin, we've used cough syrup or an antacid or an antibiotic.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we may not trust big pharma now, but now we're kind of we're still trusting the big chemical companies because there are quite a few of these big pharma companies that actually create some of the most um widely sold supplements.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the one-a-day line, turmeric and things like that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um you so Bayer um actually made the one-a-day line, you know, one-a-day supplement.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um Centrum.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Centrum is still the number one doctor recommended and pharmacist recommended multivitamin.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the number one selling multivitamin in the world, and it's owned by Pfizer, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now it's owned by um Halion, who would that's a uh a spin-off of Pfizer.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um Emergency, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I even took Emergency when that one came out.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was like the top seller.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is the largest selling vitamin C line in the United States.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's owned by Pfizer.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They also make caltrate, which is the number one selling brand of calcium in the world.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, Nature's Way, which sounds really cool, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nature's Way, it's actually a subsidiary of Schwab Pharmaceuticals.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So they're all, you know, the they're kind of intertwined.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the pharmaceutical industry is very smart, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They saw uh a space in the marketplace that they can kind of monopolize, and they're doing that in a lot of these mainstream brands.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So most of the vitamins in these supplements are synthetic.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now there are some supplements that are made using whole foods, and you will usually see those listed on the label.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of seeing like a chemical name, you'll actually see the whole food.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, I still have um in my medicine cabinet, I have a turmeric supplement, but it is made from organic whole turmeric.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like dehydrated ground up turmeric, and it says that on the bottle.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So those are whole food supplements.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm not including that in this other category where I'm saying the majority of supplements are actually synthetic.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this excludes those natural supplements.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, like Jessica, I find it fascinating because a lot of us spend a lot of time and money trying to avoid things like the artificial flavors and synthetic chemicals and GMOs and colorings, but then we'll pop the supplements.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these supplements, in fact, are derived from things like petroleum, you know, or um, or cartol, car coal tar derivatives or hydrogenated sugars.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they can be processed with industrial acids like formaldehyde or acetone.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they're and they're also based on the reductionist thinking, which is um what Fernando brought up in our follow-up oxalate uh podcast was all of this is based on reductionist thinking.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: When you work in a lab, you're using reductionist thinking.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned previously, the scientific medic method is based on reductionism.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: We control variables and we try to isolate a target compound.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: The pharmaceutical industry and the supplement industry both do that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: They both practice reductionism, which can actually be quite dangerous because these targeted compounds like vitamin C or folate, they're isolated, and then we use them as a template to make the synthetic version and we put them in a supplement to sell for your help, your health.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the way that they actually do that oftentimes is when they're trying to isolate a single metabolite, they get a sample from the body, they add chemicals to it, you know, to try to isolate it, break it apart from its structures.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: They'll spin it down, and then they'll say that they isolated that metabolite.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So then they attempt to determine the function of that metabolite in the in a laboratory setting.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not actually how the body works, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't actually observe any of these what we call nutrients or these compounds actually in the body.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in the body affects everything else.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the holistic approach.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's all connected.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But we take a tiny piece out, put in a lab setting, and see how it reacts, and then we assume it's going to react the same way in the body.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even know if what we isolated from that sample is real, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So did that chemical really exist?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it some kind of chemical precipitate that was made in the process of adding the chemical the chemicals to that sample and spinning them down?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, did we create that chemical in the process of trying to isolate it?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: We actually don't even know, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: This, but this is part of what is an assumption you have to make is that the chemical that you isolated is real, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another part of the assumptions based on that that science in in its limitations has to assume is correct.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless of the process, we take these synthetic versions, concentrate them, and sell them as a supplement, but we actually don't even know if all of these supplements really do help people.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it let me back up and tell you a little bit about why.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this comes from somebody, like I said, that formulated supplements.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the way that you often do that is you isolate one vitamin, for instance, you look in the literature and you say, okay, like vitamin C prevents like scurvy, for instance, or bleeding gums.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm gonna put vitamin C in this supplement.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what how much should I be putting in this supplement?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well, I see in these studies on mice that they have a toxicity at this level.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna back it down, you know, a certain standard deviation, but then scale it up for the equivalent of what would be for a human.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna see, well, what's the daily value, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the government's daily value of your daily requirement based on the government of vitamin C?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna choose some amount that's between that daily value and that toxicity level that I have calculated based on assumptions from a mouse study, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then some compounds don't even have a daily value.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So then you're actually just guessing.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so then you actually go look what else is in the marketplace.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you want your levels to be somewhere around what everybody else has in the marketplace, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: But different enough that yours is going to then stand out.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So this is really a guessing game.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we're finding out that sometimes we're wrong.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because in science, you actually have a lot of um assumptions.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: You base a lot of the studies on assumptions and bias.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I pulled this quote just for Jessica.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is from the public library of science medicine, like hugest database, right, of the literature.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it says.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: For most or sorry, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, we're designing these studies that simply affirm an existing bias, and then we build upon that bias.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you create a supplement or a drug based on this methodology, it can actually be harmful.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I I did a meta-analysis of the literature, and this is this is basically the take home.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is we're wondering do these actually work, right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do these supplements actually work?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So some studies show that the body treats these what I'm gonna call chemical precipitates as actual foreign substances.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some studies show that if you are severely deficient in one of these uh chemical precipitates, it can provide some benefit.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Other studies show that these precipitates were ineffective and sometimes they were harmful.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes they associated them with an increased risk of disease like cancer or even death.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the bottom line is science doesn't know the answer.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we particularly don't know the answer in the long term.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've never studied this, right?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've never studied what happens when somebody consumes these chemical precipitates in the long term, but we still trust and comply, just like many of us used to do, myself included, with big pharma.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what's in the literature.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we see in clinic?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: We see that these chemical precipitates can compete and cause secondary deficiencies.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you can consume too much supplemental zinc and end up with a copper deficiency, and vice versa.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can consume too much vitamin A, and that will reduce your utilization of vitamin E.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, vitamin D, you know, we just did a whole podcast on that, and I talked about how vitamin D is actually a hormone.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't actually need supplement as long as you're getting enough sun exposure.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's interesting about synthetic vitamin D is that it's different, it's a different structure chemically than what's naturally produced in your skin.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the vitamin D that you make in your skin, it's sulfated, so it has sulfur on it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Synthetic vitamin D does not.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: That means if you're consuming this synthetic vitamin D, it requires the body to add the sulfate.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Our Western diets tend to already be low in sulfate.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So some studies suggest that if you're consuming large amounts of this synthetic vitamin D, it can actually lead to a secondary deficiency in sulfate.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Folate is very similar.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've all heard of folate, right?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: You need it for preventing neural tube defects.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's in uh prenatal supplements.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our brains are fortified with it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was a government mandate.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a different form, though, of folate that's used in supplements.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So folate is actually the naturally found form in food in the body.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: The synthetic version is actually called folic acid.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that synthetic version is what's used to fortify foods, and it's what's used in um supplements, and it actually is a different form.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So get this, Joel.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: It only has four less hydrogens.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it and it's a little complicated because sometimes it can have a methyl group, but for the simplicity of this argument, folate is different structurally than folic acid by generally speaking, four less hydrogens.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when you consume the synthetic folic acid is we're now discovering it can actually compete with vitamin B12 absorption, which can lead to a B12 deficiency.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your body also doesn't really recognize it as folate, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because it has four extra hydrogens on it, generally speaking.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you might be able to absorb it, but the body kind of gets confused sometimes.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't know what to do with it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It has to actually convert it to another form of folate before it can use it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that means we're starting to find out that these unused folic acid that your body couldn't convert or didn't know what to do with, it can actually build up in your blood.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that unmetabolized folic acid can actually potentially lead to things like immune dysfunction, cancer, and even possibly miscarriage.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yet grains are still required by law to be fortified with folic acid.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And our largest exposure is probably from supplements that contain this synthetic folic acid.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, so yes, uh, like Jessica has shared with us, I completely agree with us with her, many of a it's I think of it as a continuum, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of for me like this continuum of um awakening uh of different levels of awareness, where you know, okay, now I'm aware about big pharma, consequences there, so now I'm going to the supplement line, but then you become aware, kind of peel back that curtain of the supplement line and how these things are created.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they aren't this magic pill that we thought they were.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now that has led me to herbals, right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I feel most content and resonates with me mostly because herbs come from God.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I trust God's medicine more than I trust man's medicine, and supplements are still man's medicine, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, part of this is reclaiming our um kind of our authority over our own bodies again, and you know, not outsourcing to these supposed experts, but really, I guess you could say outsourcing to God, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Going toward the going toward the herbals, and I'd much rather do that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, you know, and this this whole discussion reminds me of uh the uh you know the the in the in agriculture, uh the chemical industry says urea is urea whether it comes out of the back end of the cow or from you know um Vladimir Putin's uh Russian you know urea laboratory in in Russia.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And but it's not there's one atomic weight difference, one neutron difference in the in the urea molecule uh that's man-made versus what comes out of the back end of the cow.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, nobody knows nobody knows the importance of that neutron.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, but the industry says, well, it's the same stuff.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it looks the same, it even smells the same, it's similar, and but um uh those of us who believe we're fearfully and wonderfully made uh dare to suggest, well, maybe that neutron has something about it in life that we don't know, and it's important.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's what I hear you saying here.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the the idea that that um I mean this is this is amazing that um that the synthetic vitamin D is not exactly the same as what you get when you're out in the sun, yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or that you know, folate four hydrogen atoms.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's so I I think this shows the hubris of our day that so many people just shrug it off.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, you know, it's close enough.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's close enough.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, you know, um it's it's it's uh it's not close enough.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's always unintended consequences, and I think this is one thing that in general I have felt our society is not great at analyzing is what are the potential unintended consequences.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we see this over and over.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so trueing this back to Jessica's question of what do we really know?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there is a lot that we don't know.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that there's a lack of humility and a lack of willingness to explore the unintended consequences or even explore the idea of what if we're wrong?
• 19:50
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: What if we're wrong?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is this going to result in?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to give one example because I think because this one has some levity to it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought this was a good example of showing an example for Jessica uh pertaining to her question as to what do we really know?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's around um lactic acid, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're all familiar with lactate or lactic acid, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And most of us, I mean, Joel, what what are you familiar with lactic acid?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard that term before, right?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we blame it, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'd say, like, oh, lactic acid is the cause for muscle soreness, like the burning sensation you get when you exercise.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It causes muscle soreness.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a big, it's been a big thing in the exercise physiology space, uh, which was my minor and where I did my dissertation work, if is trying to delay the onset of lactic acid, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You want to you want to stop it from being produced.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we vilified it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just like we talked about before, we create good and bad.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we vilified lactic acid.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when so as a biochemist, we have these metabolic pathways that we're taught.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And these are these are the basis for all the metabolism in the body.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have like glycolysis, and like you'll have pyruvate that gets fed into the TCA or the Krebs cycle, that goes to the electron transport chain and it's turned into ATP and oxygen, right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is the backbone of aerobic metabolism or energy metabolism in the body.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is taught this.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're taught is that when you don't have enough oxygen available, then the pyruvate gets turned into lactic acid.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you do have enough oxygen available, lactic acid doesn't form, and the pyruvate goes down the stream and makes this ATP and oxygen.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So now what we're learning is that that's actually not true.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you mean what we what we thought, what we Thought that we knew isn't true.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we've all vilified lactate for a long time, and supplements were created to try to stop it from being formed, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a scientist named George Brooks out of UC Berkeley, who I've actually met.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was practic he was a professor at UC Berkeley when I was in grad school.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: He discovered something called lactate shuttles.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they they're like they sound, they shuttle lactate, like from one cell to the next or between tissues, between cells.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the current theory about lactate, and this reminds me of oxalate, because we villainize people are saying oxalate's a villain, some of them are polarizing it.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's either good or bad, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oxalate's bad, lactate is bad.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: What we're finding is that there's actually a function for lactate in the body.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And actually one of its main functions is it, and this is in the scientific literature, okay.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Quote from them it's a quote, major energy source, even during aerobic metabolism.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So even when there's enough oxygen available, the body is actually preferring to make this lactate and it gets shuttled places.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then there the cells and the tissues are using the lactate.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is like earth shattering for any of us who study this because we're like, what?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So so I read one of the studies, and it says that lactate is preferred over glucose as fuel.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is in working skeletal muscle and the heart, for instance.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the body actually prefers it.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are spending all of this money on all this research, all this time researching it, all this money in supplement development.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we got it wrong.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like the body wants to use lactic acid.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: The second function is um it's used to make glucose through gluconeogenesis.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a quote, major precursor to make glucose.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this is your body's backup.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you need to make glucose, the body will make it out of lactate.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, I was I was like, I knew it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the third function of lactate, it's a signaling molecule.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: So studies have actually shown that it has endocrine-like effects, peracrine-like effects, and autocrine-like effects.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's acting like a hormone.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So much so that they've dubbed it, you know, instead of like a hormone and lactate, they stuck that together.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's lacthormone.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the new term, lacthormone, because it acts so much like a hormone, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that crazy?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, something not too long ago, I was in grad school when we were vilifying lactic acid, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're like, oh, that's the preferred preferred fuel for the body, and it's a hormone, right?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So now what they're doing is clinical studies are actually using lactate in trying to quote unquote treat pro-inflammatory conditions like diseases.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and they're trying to give it as fuel to athletes for their body to use it so they can perform better.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the opposite.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we can we can never we can never just let the pendulum hang straight down.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have to take whatever we, you know, whatever we think we know, the the um whatever, the the the bright, shiny knowledge object du jour, and uh and and and and run with it off to the races clear off the balance sheet.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so one one little uh question on this is so you know Linus Pauling, you know, Linus Pauling with his um IV vitamin C cancer therapy was was vilified, but he got a Nobel Prize for I think for five.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I just want you to before nobody takes any supplements, just I want you to uh I want you I want you to touch the the vitamin the the Linus Pauling vitamin C cancer because he he he I mean he definitely got results.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's not to say that there's no benefit for supplements.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just like I said, um we don't know.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So in some some people, the supplements have no effect.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: In some people, they if you're severely deficient, it seems that there is a positive effect.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in some people, there's a harmful effect.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So uh my takeaway from this was the um the people who are severely deficient, there there could, in fact, be a great benefit to taking some supplements.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, having said that, you need to be taking the right type of supplement and make sure it's a high quality supplement.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there are lots, uh there's a plethora of vitamin C supplements on the market, for instance.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the majority of vitamin C that's on the market in supplement form comes from corn.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is not people think of vitamin C and they think of oh, citric fruit, you know, like oranges, for instance.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come from those.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Rose hips.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Rose hips are a real, real high natural um plant.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're consuming the herbal, then that's one thing.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're consuming a synthetic supplement, you're not getting that, they're making it in a lab.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they predominantly use it from corn, uh, or make it from corn.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes it's from genetically modified corn, that means it could also be have been sprayed with glyphosate and so forth.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, for example, if let's say you found an organic version of a vitamin C supplement that was dried from corn.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that may work perfectly fine for you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're somebody who has a gluten sensitivity or intolerance, that's not probably gonna work for you, right?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You may actually have a reaction to that.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it may not be an obvious reaction, but it could initiate an inflammatory state that could be since um systemic.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's again, it's highly individualized.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like um all the not all supplements are created equal.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are deficient, my my take would be if so let's let's do because I don't want to give advice to anybody.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take me for an example.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: If I was severely deficient in a nutrient, knowing what I know now, the first thing that I would do is see if I can replenish that deficiency through foods, yeah, you know, like through liver or you know, like you were talking about some of these these herbs, right?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if that if I wasn't capable, let's say I couldn't stand in the kitchen to prepare the food, right?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or just didn't have access to it, then I would choose a supplement next.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I would try to get a whole food supplement, definitely an organic supplement first, like to try to go as natural as possible.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's definitely been benefits from IV uh vitamin C, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's some people who will say you should never bypass the gastrointestinal tract.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So there are are there are people on that side.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Look, for every ish, for every question, you can find evidence on both sides.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to, so I'm thinking that I'm trying to distill it down for you.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I think?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what I think.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the the fact, I mean, take the line of spauling, because that's a that's a really to me, that's a really big obvious one.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh the I mean the obvious flip side is well, was the was that the only thing that could have worked with these people?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that you know that that's the that's the next question is okay, he got results with this, but could there have been results also from another regimen?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that obviously was not tested, that was not checked, so we don't know.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so the truth is there are there are yeah, there's more unknowns than knowns.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's more unknowns than knowns, and like we talked about before, your the best experiment is an N of one.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you really tap into your intuition and see what works for you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you can even do juicing, right?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can get a juicer and do juicing, and that concentrates at least the water-soluble uh vitamins, including vitamin C if you're picking the right foods.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be a good option if you're able to stand there and physically do that in the kitchen.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's another food source, but juicing would concentrate the water-soluble vitamins.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I'd go for that first.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: For me, IVs are not of the first option because it's not as natural.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not to say that won't work, right?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people it's worked for, but like you said, they probably could have been helped doing other things, getting other things as well.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as we talked about in the oxalate example, if you're somebody who is predisposed to forming oxalates, you may have some downstream problems from getting a vitamin C infusion, right?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's best to take these things in food form if as if at all possible.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, just because a food is high in oxalates doesn't mean that's how much oxalate you're gonna get in your body.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: If it's bound up in a crystal form in the food and you eat it, it's not gonna be soluble.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you have the microbes, let's say, to digest it and move it out of the body, you're probably not gonna get all those oxalates that are in that plant, right?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that's also highly dependent on your individual microbiome.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, see, it gets it gets very complicated very fast.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why everyone is their own experiment, right?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I I fully agree with you.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's the Gerson diet, I mean, there's which has also been sweat sweat lodge.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's right.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a huge uh and now we have everything from you know red light to yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I will I will say to even to even I would suggest um go into a to a um an extended multi-day fast and um and figure out how to forgive yourself and forgive everybody else, you know that that has tremendous um benefits as well.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I will say, just to try to help um to kind of try to help organize the thoughts here, the way I think about when somebody gets some kind of imbalance, which Western culture calls a disease, because we're mixing concepts here, so I just want to I just want to bring some clarification here.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the when you when somebody has that kind of imbalance, it's usually two-pronged.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually because of toxicity, and so you need to detox accompanied with deficiency.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's toxicity and a deficiency.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me just quickly explain.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when you talk about like the sweat lodge and the you know, infrared and the saunas and things like that, that's addressing that first component of the toxicity.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to get the toxins out of the body and sweating, fasting, you know, sauna, light therapy, those are great for that.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: The second component is the deficiency component.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this could be nutrient deficiencies, like uh Jessica was talking about with supplements, you know.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, how are you going to replenish these nutrients that are potentially missing from your from your your body?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in that group is also a deficiency of forgiveness and love, which is the other component you were talking about.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, and those those trans those transfer to both because I would say the lack of forgiveness is a toxicity, it's a toxin.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say the deficiency is our deep-rooted fear that we're not loved and accepted.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: The deficiency is love.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, so just to help people in their mind kind of break it down, these are the two categories that we think of when we're trying to prevent illness or heal, feel some kind of imbalance.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I just want to because we because we touched on both.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want anyone to get confused.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Cena, I'm I we're we're out of time, but man, I'll tell you, I think, I think that that is one of the most profound um sound bites that I've heard from you lately is is that simple toxicity deficiency.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can work with that.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: You okay, so I've got a problem here.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and when you look at it, I'll attack it from as a toxicity issue and a deficiency issue.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um to me, those two whatever, those two kind of uh pillars um, you know, form what we balance on.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and so to me, that that's a yeah, that's a you just spat out the most helpful statement I've heard from you in a little while.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was really good.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I I'm sure our listeners, uh I'm I'm I'm I'm hoping I'm not the only one that that that caught it.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to make sure our listeners don't don't miss it, uh, just how valuable that is.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Toxicity, deficiency, you know, uh it's uh it's two two sides of a you know, two sides of a balance beam.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to I'm trying to decide, is that a compliment from Joel or is he saying I'm slipping?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's been a while since I've covered this.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely a compliment.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely a compliment.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: That that in just a just just a spontaneous off-the-cuff thing, you can you can say something so profound.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's why you that's that's why you run the show.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh it's probably time.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you want to you want to finish one thought there?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, we gotta and we gotta ask our question.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was gonna say, okay, so we answered one listener question.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Next time we're gonna get to do lightning round.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So so the the quest the question for our listeners is are you irritated that we only answered one question?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know the answer.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh me.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all right, so so um, so I'll I'll propose this um question.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Have you or a you know, a family member, an acquaintance um had dramatic results from taking a supplement?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I think that's a that's a fair question.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you had a dramatic result from taking a supplement?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying, you know, something that you you can really see.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you hear these testimonials and um and and um or or or the other flip side is have you tried supplements with no effect and and not seen anything?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's um so that that that's that's the question.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important too, like if you're saying that um I saw an effect either way from this supplement, did you change anything else at the same time?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you make dietary changes at that same time?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Did you go on vacation?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Did your workload increase or did you forgive somebody?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because nothing never works in isolation.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: So bring a little context to it if you'd like, because I would love to read that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, everybody, thanks for being with us with another uh episode of Beyond Labels, and we'll look forward to visiting with you again next week.